Jonathan Kellerman - Twisted

“Were you having transmission problems?”

“No, that’s the thing,” said Murphy. “Supposedly it was something to do with the neighborhood lines.”

“He wanted you to wake him,” said Petra. “So you were home by late afternoon?”

“No. I called at three, told Dad I’d be home late. He asked me to call again.”

“At seven.”

“Yes.”

“Did you?”

“I did and he was up.”

“How did your father sound?”

“Fine. Normal.”

“Then you went back to work?”

Murphy touched her finger to her jaw. “Actually, I’d left work early. It had been a tough afternoon, shuttling back between Dave and Bella. When I hung up with Dad, I was in my car. I took off and went to see Bella. We had dinner, went to a club, did some drinking. Neither of us was in the mood to dance. She wanted me to come home with her but I wasn’t ready for that, so she drove back to her place and I drove to Dad’s. Walked into the house and smelled food- cooked food, bacon and eggs. Which was strange. Dad never ate late. He’d have a beer or two, maybe some chip-and-dip while watching TV, but never a hot meal at that hour. If he ate heavy food too late, he had indigestion.”

Maria Murphy stopped walking. Her eyes were wet. “This is harder than I thought.”

“Sorry for bringing it all back.”

“I haven’t thought about Dad for a while. I should think about him more.” Murphy pulled a hankie out of a dress pocket, patted her eyes, blew her nose.

When they resumed walking, Petra said, “So someone had cooked.”

“ Breakfast food,” said Murphy. “Which was also weird. Dad was a very disciplined person- ex-Marine, very regimented. You ate breakfast food in the morning, sandwiches at lunch, a main meal at supper.”

“You don’t think he cooked the food.”

“Scrambled eggs?” said Maria Murphy. “Dad didn’t like scrambled eggs, he always had his eggs fried or soft-boiled.”

She burst into tears, walked faster, at a near-run.

Petra caught up. Murphy threw up her hands and ground her jaws.

“Ma-am- ”

“His brains,” Murphy blurted. “They were on the plate. Along with the eggs. Pilled on top of the eggs. Like someone had added lumpy cheese to the eggs. Gray cheese. Pink… can we please turn around, now? I need to get back to work.”

Petra waited until they were back at Kaiser to ask her if there was anything else she remembered.

“Nothing,” said Murphy. She turned to go and Petra touched her arm. Solid and sinewy. Maria Murphy tensed up. Rock-hard.

Looking at Petra’s fingers on her sleeve.

Petra let go. “Just one more question, ma’am. The date of your father’s murder, June 28. Did that have any significance to you, or to anyone in your family?”

“Why would you ask that?”

“Covering bases.”

“June 28,” said Murphy, weakly. “The only thing significant about that is Dad was murdered.” She sagged. “It’s coming up, isn’t it? The anniversary. I think I’ll go to the cemetery. I don’t go very often. I really should go more.”

Interesting woman. Going through major life-stress at the time of her father’s murder. Not getting sympathy from the old man, quite the opposite. Pulled in all directions, having to return to the old man’s house. A father with whom she’d never been close. An ex-Marine whose sensibilities she’d recently offended.

It had to have been a tense situation.

From the feel of that iron-arm, Murphy was a strong woman. More than enough strength to bring a stout piece of pipe down on an aged skull.

Murphy’s food, taken. Healthy stuff that the old man ridiculed.

Maybe the old man had humiliated her one time too many. Dumped lesbian daughter’s victuals in front of lesbian daughter and that had driven her over the edge.

Petra had seen people killed with a lot less provocation.

She pulled into the station parking lot, sat there imagining.

Murphy comes home from a self-described rough day- driving back and forth between hubbie and lover. Calls dad, allegedly to wake him from his nap, but he gives her flack. She hangs up, goes dining and clubbing, has too much to drink. Returns home, craving a one A.M. nosh, finds dad up, waiting for her.

They argue. About her alternative lifestyle.

Her rabbit chow.

Dad scoops up the nutritionally virtuous stash, tells her what he thinks about it.

Murphy was a dietician. The gesture would have been laced with extra symbolism.

An argument ensues.

He screams, she screams. She picks something up- maybe a spare pipe, who knows what. Brains the old guy, sits him at the table. Cooks up some of the high-fat crap he calls food.

Pushes his face in it. Eat that!

Then she makes up a phony cable story to distract the easily distracted Jack Hustaad.

Some melodrama. And no evidence.

And if Maria Murphy had murdered her old man, what did that say about Marta Doebbler and the other five June 28 killings?

She’d follow up on Solis, talk to Murphy’s ex-husband, the long-suffering Dave. But something told her it would be a waste of time.

Kurt Doebbler for his wife, Maria Murphy for her dad.

Meaning no connection.

No, that felt wrong. If Isaac was right, and she was moving toward confidence that he was, this was something quite different from family passion gone bad.

A woman lured from the theater. A hustler pulverized in a back alley. A little girl brutalized in the park. A sailor on leave…

Eggs and brains on the plate.

This was calculated, manipulative.

Twisted.

When she got back to the detectives’ room, the place was bustling with phone talk and keyboard clacks. Isaac was at his corner desk, writing something in longhand, one hand cradling the side of his head.

He gave her a quick wave with his free hand and returned to his work.

Give me space?

Maybe last night’s steak and beer had been too much for him. She’d offered to drive him home but he’d insisted on being dropped off blocks away.

Petra figured he was ashamed of his digs. She didn’t argue and as he trudged away, lugging his briefcase, she thought he looked like a tired old man.

Give him his space, she could use some, too. She poured coffee and flipped through her message stack. Nothing but department memos. Six new e-mail messages on her computer: four canned department announcements, something from SmallDot@il.netvision she figured for spam, and Mac Dilbeck informing her that Homicide Special would most likely take over the Paradiso case by Tuesday if nothing broke.

She was about to delete the junk mail when her phone rang.

A recorded message from the Intramural Police Football team chirped in her ear: “Big game with L.A. County Sheriffs coming up next month, all able-bodied, athletically inclined officers are urged to…”

Her finger drifted to the Enter button and she opened the spam.

Dear Petra,

This is rerouted for security purposes, can’t be answered. Everything’s okay. Hope the same, there. Miss you. L, Eric.

She smiled. I send my L, too.

She saved the message, logged off. Began looking for David Murphy.

Common name but an easy trace. The five-year-old Covina address narrowed it right down to David Colvin Murphy, now forty-two. He’d moved to Mar Vista, on the west side. Had registered a Dodge Neon three years ago, a Chevy Suburban twenty months after that.

No wants or warrants, not even a parking ticket.

She found his number in the reverse directory. A woman answered.

“David Murphy, please.”

“He’s at work. Who’s this?”