Jonathan Kellerman - Twisted

Did she just wink?

He said, “Nothing exciting.”

“Do they treat you well over there?”

“Very well.”

“Still,” she said, “it must be quite a contrast to here.” She motioned with one soft arm, taking in the book-lined stacks.

“It’s different,” he said.

Klara leaned against the table and nibbled on the eraser of her pencil. Her breasts swung, luxuriant, barely fettered.

Older women, he just loved the way they… what was wrong with him?

What was wrong was he was a sexual retardate. But for a couple of unfortunate encounters with hookers set up by Flaco Jaramillo, he was a damned virgin.

Klara said, “Are you okay, Isaac? You look kind of fatigued.”

“I’m fine.”

“If you say so.” She rolled the pencil against one hip. “Well, that’s all I’ve managed to come up with, so far.”

She aimed her gold-green eyes at the computer printout she’d laid on his work surface. Hundreds of historical events tied in with June 28. Nothing he hadn’t seen already.

Perhaps the clue was in here, among all that history, but if it was he was missing it.

“I really appreciate the time, Klara.”

“My pleasure.” She shifted even closer and his nose filled with the sweet scent of soap and water. Concern widened her eyes and smoothed out her laugh lines. “You really do look tired. Especially there.” A pale hand indicated the skin beneath his eyes. A fingertip grazed his right cheek and electric current sizzled along his thighs. He crossed his legs, hoping Klara hadn’t noticed his erection.

She smiled. Had she?

“I’m at the top of my game,” he told her. “Energy-wise.”

“Well, that’s good. It’s refreshing to hear some confidence from you. You grad students fall into two groups: slackers and slaves. You’re the latter, Isaac. You’re here all the time. Alone.”

His spot was in the remotest corner of the subbasement, surrounded by old and ancient books on botany. Since Leavey Library had opened, all the undergrads studied there. Doheny- huge, grand, restored magnificently- served grad students and faculty but everyone did their research on-line.

Once in a while someone wandered up there looking for an obscure text. Mostly he had the place to himself. So different from home, sharing that cell of a room with his brothers, the street noise…

“I enjoy the solitude,” he said.

“I know you do.” Klara pushed a wave of copper hair away from her face. Not a beautiful face, not by a long shot. More… pleasant. Clean-looking.

“My daughter, Amy, wants to be a physician. A surgeon, no less. She’s smart enough, but I tell her, ‘You’re twelve, there’s time to decide.’ She is a straight-A student, though. So maybe.”

“You must be proud of her,” said Isaac.

“I am. Proud of her brother, too.” A new kind of smile. Open, maternal. Suddenly Isaac couldn’t banish the vision of nursing at those pendulous… and then there they were, blocking his vision as she leaned down.

Presented her mouth to him.

Like stepping off a precipice, he moved in. Her tongue tasted lemony, the sweet lemon of hard candies. Had she schemed to do this? That possibility excited him further and he felt he’d burst out of his pants.

Now she was in his lap, a soft, substantive weight, arms curling around him. His hands found her back, her breasts, reached under her dress, touched smooth flesh. Smooth thighs, warm and moist lifted and she was allowing him, she wasn’t stopping him.

Then she took hold of his hand, placed it over the silky material. Butterflies jumped. Even as she pushed him down, she said, “Oh, Isaac, I’m sorry. This is wrong.”

He tried to pull away but she held his hand fast. Sandwiched the other between her legs. Looked him straight in the eye and said, “This won’t happen again.”

With a clumsy shifting of haunches, her eyes aimed at the ceiling, she rolled off her panties.

FRIDAY, JUNE 21, 3:49 P.M., DETECTIVES’ ROOM, HOLLYWOOD DIVISION

No TGIF end of week joy for Petra. She sat at her desk, wondered why Isaac hadn’t shown up today or yesterday.

She asked Barney Fleischer if he’d seen the kid.

“Wednesday,” he said. “Last night. He was here until around eight.”

“All by himself?”

“I was here,” said Barney. “Have you heard about Schoelkopf?”

“No, what?”

“Split from his wife, the third one.” The old man smiled serenely.

“It’s L.A.” said Petra.

“Always has been.”

She sat back down. Exhausted from the meeting.

Such fun, detecting.

With Omar Selden I.D.’d as the prime suspect for Paradiso, the logical step would’ve been running an immediate search for the mass killer. Instead, Petra had been ordered to clear paper, specifying how she’d come up with Lyle Leon as a witness. Then: sit tight until notified further by the Homicide Special Squad.

The call came on Thursday. Big-time meeting tomorrow at two P.M.

They’d adjourned an hour ago, at three. She and Mac Dilbeck and three golden downtown boys. The agenda, actually written on the whiteboard: “intradivisional interfacing.”

The three H-S detectives had turned out to be relaxed types, nothing but praise for the way Hollywood had come up with Selden. Petra figured it for total b.s. but smiled prettily. The confab ended up being Petra and Mac fact-sharing and the hotshots reciting everything they knew about VVO and other Westside/Valley gangs. They’d brought props- an easel, charts, statistics. The last sheet on the easel was a crater-pored blowup of Omar Selden’s soft, glaring face.

Seeing him like that, there was no other way to think of Selden but as a Seriously Bad Guy. Petra realized how close she’d been to evil and fought not to shiver.

At two fifty-eight, the head Downtown guy announced the plan, obviously preordained: The new San Fernando Valley Gang Unit would search for Omar Selden because, even if Selden was the shooter, he’d been accompanied by other bangers and the takedown required specialists. H-S would handle “formal liaisoning” with the gang squad and get back to Mac about a follow-up meeting for the entire “apprehension team.”

Don’t call us, we’ll call you.

Petra raised the issue of the missing Sandra Leon. The head Downtown guy said, “Wouldn’t you say she’s probably dead? We bring Selden in alive, maybe we’ll find out the details. That’s why it’s important to do it right.”

She left the conference room more worn-out than if she’d driven all over town looking for Omar.

Now she sat at her desk, thinking about the June brainings because there was nothing left to think about on Paradiso. The kill-date was seven days away and she and Isaac hadn’t sat down for a while.

She’d dropped the ball. But Paradiso had been the here and now, she could be forgiven.

Seven days; Lord help the next victim. Unless Isaac was wrong.

How could he be? The wound-stats were nearly identical.

That old gnawing feeling surfaced under her breastbone. Retrieving the June 28 files, she reviewed the cases yet again.

Concentrating on Marta Doebbler, lured out of the theater. Because she’d met Kurt Doebbler and he was weird.

Then: old man Solis and the phony cable guy. Coral Langdon, the dead dog. The more Petra thought about her dog-walking-killer scenario, the better it felt.

Nothing in common between the victims except a calculating, psychopathic flavor to the killings. Someone extremely clever, calculating, willing to shift his approach… chameleonlike.

Heterogeneous victims. Not a sexual thing? Or an ambisexual killer.