Jonathan Kellerman - Twisted

Petra said, “Interesting as in prime suspect?”

The old guy nodded. “There was no evidence tying him to it. Everyone said him and the vic were getting along fine. But I liked him for it.”

He put his cup down. “His reaction to his wife’s death was off. Stone-face, not a tear. When I did the notification call, I brought a pocket full of tissues, like I always did. Didn’t end up using one. Doebbler just stood there, with this flat look in his eyes. Sometimes that happens before they fall apart, I kept waiting. He just stood there staring. For a second I thought he’d gone into one of those whatchamacallit seizures. Then he says, ‘I guess you’d better come in.’ ”

“Guy’s an engineer,” said Petra.

“So what?”

“It doesn’t explain it but sometimes that type…” Remembering her days as a faculty brat. Dr. Kenneth Connor, professor of anthropology at the University of Arizona, Tucson, squiring his little daughter to academic soirees. Meeting the tenured crowd. Finding most of them regular folk with slightly higher I.Q.s, a few crashing bores. A few really reprehensible jerks.

“The type?” said Ballou.

“Engineers, physicists, mathematicians, all those megabrains. Sometimes they don’t react emotionally the way the rest of us do.”

Ballou glanced at Isaac, as if wanting confirmation straight from the source. Isaac pushed a smile onto his lips.

Ballou said, “Well, Doebbler was a kind of rocket scientist, I guess. Worked over at Pacific Dynamics, electronics stuff, some sort of computer job.”

“Anything else besides his demeanor make you suspect him?”

“She was called out of the theater. It had to be someone familiar with her schedule, who else would know where she was? And who else could’ve gotten her to leave the theater without telling her friends where she was going.”

“The husband claiming an emergency,” said Petra. “Maybe about the daughter.”

“That would’ve brought her out,” Ballou agreed. “The kid was Doebbler’s alibi. He’d been home with her all night, Marta was having a girl’s night out. I talked to the three friends she went with. No one had anything juicy to offer about Marta’s private life, but when I pressed them I could tell they didn’t like Kurt. One even said she thought he’d done it.”

That hadn’t been in the murder book.

Petra said, “That’s pretty strong.”

“She didn’t like him. No one seemed to.”

“How’d he and Marta meet?”

“Germany. She was a brain, too, studying astronomy. He was a foreign exchange student. After they got married, she dropped out and became a full-time mom.”

“That could be frustrating.”

“Sure, that’s what I thought,” said Ballou. “Maybe she tried to reduce her frustration the old-fashioned way. But if she was having an affair, I never found evidence of it.”

Petra said, “Did you talk to the daughter?”

“Poor little thing, didn’t want to pressure her.” Ballou tugged at his mustache. “She sure reacted, crying all over the place. You’d think Doebbler would’ve tried to comfort her. All he did was offer her juice.”

“Juice?”

“A glass of orange juice: ‘Here, drink, you’ll feel better.’ Like vitamin C would help with losing her mother.” Ballou emitted a dry, hoarse laugh. “I would’ve loved to make him for it… how come you’re reopening it?”

“It may be related to some others.”

“Others you suspect Doebbler did?”

“Others with some similar forensics.”

Long silence. You could hear the burbling of the fish ponds, here in the kitchen. Then a loud splash.

“Spawning season,” said Ballou. “They jump. Sometimes they jump clear out of the pond and if I don’t get there in time, I’ve got a dead fish.”

He got up, peered out the window. Sat back down. “So far, so good. You want to tell me about these others?”

“Five other brainings,” said Petra. “Yearly intervals. All on June 28.”

Ballou gawked. “You’re putting me on.”

“Wish I was.”

“Before Marta?”

“All after Marta. From what we can tell, she was the first. If it’s a series.”

“If?” said Ballou. “All on the same day? That sounds pretty convincing.”

“But the victims are all over the place in terms of sex, age, and race.” She gave him a few details.

“See what you mean. Still… so, how’d you discover this? Department finally doing something about working cold ones?”

“Mr. Gomez, here, found them.”

Ballou studied Isaac, yet again. “Did you?”

“By accident,” said Isaac.

“Bullshit. I don’t believe in accidents. My smashing into a building was no accident. It was stupidity. And your finding all this out wasn’t an accident, it was smarts.” He leaned over suddenly, clapped the kid on the shoulder. “You’re definitely going to deserve a pond one day- a big one. You’re going to afford it and you’re going to build it and I’m going to stock you with beauties.”

“I hope.”

“Forget hope. Smarts and hard work does it every time. That’s how I pulled myself out of the shit pile.” To Petra: “There’s one more thing you’ll want to know about Marta. We recovered some blood in the car that wasn’t hers.”

Petra didn’t recall that from the chart. As if reading her mind, Ballou said, “It came out later, after the autopsy report, just a speck. The tech who scraped the upholstery mislaid it and it got filed in the wrong place. By the time it got to me, I might not have been in a state to keep good records.”

He pulled out his handkerchief, blew his nose, said, “All I remember is it wasn’t hers. She was A positive and this was O negative. Kurt’s O positive, so it didn’t mean much. But maybe if she had a boyfriend.” He shrugged.

Petra said nothing.

“Yeah, yeah,” said Ballou. “It wasn’t my finest hour, but big deal. Real life ain’t The Forensic Files. ”

“Where’s the blood sample?”

“If it’s anywhere, it’s at the coroners’.”

“Okay,” she said. “Thanks.”

“Any fluids on any of your other cases?” said Ballou.

“Doesn’t say so in the M-books, but stuff doesn’t get in there.” Irritated and not afraid to show it.

Ballou got to his feet, heavily and slowly. “That’s all I can tell you, so have a nice day. Pleasant lady, Marta, from all I heard. The family’s back in Germany, they came over- mother, father, sister. Took the body back, had that shell-shocked look. I think I put their addresses and numbers in the murder book.”

“You did,” said Petra.

“Good,” said Ballou. “Sometimes I’m not sure what I did and didn’t do back then.”

As they drove away from Golden Ridge Heights, Isaac said, “Someone Marta knew. And home with his daughter isn’t much of an alibi.”

“Not much,” Petra agreed. “With the girl sleeping, he could’ve phoned Marta with some ruse, lured her, done the deed, and come back. None of her blood in the car says she was killed elsewhere and pains were taken to keep the vehicle clean.”

“Doebbler’s car.”

“Or just a neat-freak murderer. But before we jump on that, we’d need to assume the techs didn’t miss anything.”

“That happen a lot?” said Isaac.

“More than you want to know. One thing intrigues me, though: Marta was the only victim whose dead body was then moved by the killer. So maybe that does synch with someone who knew her.”

She retraced the drive through the outskirts of Palmdale and got back onto the 114.

Isaac said, “A man killing his wife and then going on to kill strangers is pretty unusual, right?”

“Can’t say that I’ve ever heard of it. More commonly, you get some slimeball serial balancing a wife or a girlfriend- raising kids, having barbecues- with a secret life.”