Jonathan Kellerman - Twisted

And now he was wearing his father’s hand-me-down suit and playing at scholar.

There but for the grace…

When he got home, his father would probably be at work. Lately, Papa had been taking a second shift dipping sheets into noxious vats, wanting to earn a little extra money. Isaiah, home from his roofing job, would be sleeping, and Joel, of late a gadabout, might or might not be around.

His mother would be in the kitchen, changed from her uniform to a faded housedress and slippers. A pot of albondigas soup simmering on the stove. A rack of tamales, both savory and sweet, fresh out of the oven.

Isaac had barely eaten all day, taking care to be hungry for her food. He’d learned the hard way his freshman year, eating a late lunch on campus and arriving home with insufficient appetite. Not a word of protest from Mama as she wrapped his uneaten dinner in foil. But those sad looks…

Tonight, he’d gorge as she sat and watched him. Eventually, he’d try to get her to talk about her day. She’d claim it was boring and want to know about the exciting world he lived in. He’d resist, then finally parcel out a few details. Not the crime stuff. The numbers and polysyllables.

A few well-chosen polysyllables always impressed Mama. When he tried to simplify his language, she stopped him, told him she understood.

She didn’t have a clue what he was talking about. In any language multiple regression analysis and percentage of variance accounted for were incomprehensible except to the initiated. But he knew better than to patronize her.

Sensitive guy that he was.

One of the initiated.

Whatever that meant.

He’d dozed off and dreamed when the bus came to a quick stop. Jolted awake, he looked up in time to see the driver throw out a homeless man who’d failed to produce the fare.

Angry words and clenched fists shot through the bus’s wheezing door as the wretchedly filthy evictee stood in the gutter and howled vengeance. Isaac watched the man, bent over in shame, turned tiny by the bus’s departure.

The driver cursed and put on speed.

The cusp of violence. So much of the crime Isaac had studied began that way.

Not the June 28 murders, though. They were something different, he was sure of it. You could lie with numbers, but the numbers he’d divined weren’t lying.

Now to convince Detective Connor.

Petra.

Thinking of her by name was unsettling; it reminded him that she was a woman.

He sat lower in his seat, wanting to sink out of view. Not that any of his co-riders were the least bit interested in him. Some were regulars and surely recognized him, but no one spoke.

The geek in the borrowed suit.

Occasionally someone- a woman not unlike his mother- smiled as he boarded. But for the most part everyone wanted to rest.

The Somnolent Express.

Before being wakened, his dreams had been pleasant. Something featuring Detective Connor.

Petra.

Had he been in it? He wasn’t sure.

She had. Lithe and graceful, that efficient helmet of black hair.

The crisp features. Ivory skin, blue vein tracings at the periphery…

She wasn’t anywhere close to the contemporary female ideal: blond, busty, bubbly. She was the antithesis of all that, and Isaac respected her doubly for being herself, not giving in to crass social pressures.

A serious person. There seemed to be very little that amused her.

She always dressed in black. Her eyes were dark brown, but in a certain light, they appeared black as well. Searching eyes- working eyes- not vehicles for flirtation.

The overall impression was a young Morticia Addams, and Isaac had heard other detectives refer to her as Morticia. But also as “Barbie.” That he didn’t get.

There was plenty about Hollywood Division, about police work in general, that continued to elude him. His professors thought academia was complex, but now, after time spent with cops, it was all he could do not to burst out in laughter at departmental meetings.

Petra was no Barbie.

Just the opposite. Focused, intense.

He’d lain awake in bed more than once, imagining what her breasts looked like, only to shake himself out of that, appalled at his vulgarity.

Small, firm breasts- stop.

Still… she was a beautiful woman.

Petra stayed at her desk until well after midnight, forgetting about Isaac and his theories and anything else that didn’t relate to the Paradiso shootings.

She talked to some Hollywood gang cops and their cohorts in Ramparts. They’d heard nothing about the killings being turf-related but promised to keep checking. Then she attempted to recontact all eighteen kids she’d interviewed in the parking lot.

Twelve were home. In five cases, scared and/or indignant parents tried to block access. Petra charmed her way past all of them but the teens reiterated complete ignorance.

Among the six she didn’t reach were her two nervous ones, Bonnie Ramirez and Sandra Leon. No answer at either number, no machines.

She got on the computer, figuring to surf her way through some more missing kid sites. Her mail tag was up so she checked that first.

Departmental garbage and an e-mail from Mac Dilbeck.

p: luc and i were out in the field today nothing at our end, what about yours? there’s talk if we don’t make progress of giving it over to HOMSPEC wouldn’t that be fun. maybe we should pick your genius kids brain we could use a good brain to pick around here. m.

She e-mailed back:

nothing plus nothing equals you-know-what. going home. tomorrow i check out a couple of nervous w’s. planning to take the genius along. though if you want him you can have him. p.

But once she logged off and got her purse from her locker, the thought of an empty apartment repelled her. Filling herself a cup of detective-room coffee, she bought some insomnia.

Someone had left half a box of sweet rolls out by the machine. The pastries looked none too fresh- the custard ones were hardening around the edges. But the apple seemed passable so she brought it back to her desk along with the mocha-flavored Liquid Plumber.

Kaplan and Salas had left and no one had replaced them. She sat there alone, going through old messages and nonessential mail, filling out a long-overdue pension form and one for departmental health insurance.

What remained was Isaac’s summary.

June 28.

She separated the Hollywood cases from the others, copied down the vics’ names, got back on the computer, and logged on to the station’s stat file.

Just as Isaac claimed, all four remained open. Of the four primary D’s assigned to the case, she recognized two.

Neil Wahlgren had caught the most recent murder- Curtis Hoffey, the twenty-year-old male hustler. Jewell Blank, the runaway teen bludgeoned in Griffith Park had been assigned to Max Stokes.

Neil had transferred to one of the Valley divisions, wanting to cut down on drivetime. A while back- not too long after Hoffey. And Max Stokes had retired nearly a year ago.

Meaning both cases could have gotten short shrift.

Both Neil and Max were competent, by-the-books guys. Would they have taken the time to work whodunits hard knowing they were leaving soon?

Petra wanted to think so.

The cases were certain to have been transferred but the computer didn’t list the newly assigned detectives.

Onward to the next one. Coral Langdon, the woman who’d died with her dog up in the Hollywood Hills.

That one had been handled by Shirley Lenois. Seeing her name made Petra’s eyes ache.

When Petra had started at Hollywood, Shirley had been the only other female Homicide D. A short, stocky, fifty-two-year-old woman with a corona of yellow-gray hair, Shirley looked more like a substitute teacher than a detective. Married to a motorcycle vet in Traffic Division, she had five kids and treated Petra like the sixth, going out of her way to make things smooth for the Homicide virgin.