Jonathan Kellerman - Therapy

When Milo called soon after and asked me to pick him up at noon for the meeting with Drs. Gull and Larsen, I was glad to hear his voice.

I idled the Seville in front of the station. Milo was late to come down, and I was warned twice by uniforms not to loiter. Milo’s name meant nothing to the second cop, who threatened to ticket. I drove around the block a couple of times and found Milo waiting by the curb.

“Sorry. Sean Binchy grabbed me as I was leaving.”

He closed his eyes and put his head back. His clothes were rumpled, and I wondered when he’d last slept.

I took side streets to Ohio, aimed the Seville east, fought the snarl at Sepulveda, and continued to Overland, where I could finally outpace a skateboard.

Roxbury Park was fifteen minutes away, on Olympic, less than a mile west of Mary Lou Koppel’s office. Even closer to the Quick house on Camden Drive. I considered the constricted world that had become Gavin’s after his accident. Until he’d driven a pretty blond girl up to Mulholland Drive.

Milo opened his eyes. “I like this chauffering stuff. You ever put in for mileage, the department takes a big hit.”

“Saint Alex. What did Binchy want?”

“He found a neighbor of Koppel’s, some kid living seven houses up McConnell, who spotted a van cruising the street the night of the murder. Kid was coming home late, around 2 A.M., and the van passed him, heading north, away from Koppel’s house and toward his. He locked his doors, stayed in his car, watched it turn around and return. Going really slowly, like the driver was looking for an address. The kid waited until the taillights had disappeared for a while. He can’t say if the van parked or just drove out of sight, but it didn’t make another pass.”

“Vigilant kid,” I said.

“There was a follow-home mugging over on the other side of Motor a few weeks ago, and his parents made a big deal about being observant.”

“Two o’clock fits the coroner’s estimate. Any look at the driver?”

“Too dark. Kid thought maybe the windows were tinted.”

“How old a kid?”

“Seventeen. Binchy says he’s an honor student at Harvard-Westlake, seems solid. He’s into cars, too, was pretty sure the van was a Ford Aerostar. Black or gray or navy blue, no customization he could spot. He didn’t get a peek at the plate, that would be too much to hope for. It’s not much, but if we turn up some suspect with an Aerostar, it’ll be a nice bit of something.”

“Any progress getting access to Koppel’s files?”

“I asked three ADAs, and each told me the same thing. Without overt violent behavior or threats by a specific patient against a specific person, forget it.”

“Maybe there’s another way to learn about Gavin’s private life,” I said. “He fancied himself a budding journalist, and journalists take notes.”

“Oh, man.” He sat up, pressed the dashboard with both hands, as if protecting himself from falling forward. “That sty he called a room. All that paper piled up, maybe he wrote something down. And I never checked. Shit.”

“It was only a suggestion-”

“The night we notified Sheila Quick, she showed us the room. I felt bad for her, seeing how embarrassed she was. I never bothered to toss.” He dug his thumbs into his temples. “Oh, that was brilliant.”

“That night we notified Sheila,” I said, “it presented as a lover’s lane sex murder. No one suspected Gavin might’ve played a role in his own death. We still don’t know that he did.”

“Yeah, yeah, I appreciate the therapy, Alex, but the fact is, I should’ve tossed the damn room right away. Maybe I’m losing it… I have to write things down or they leak outta my brain. Okay, no more whining. Proactive, proactive. After Gull and Larsen, I head back to the Quick house. Mrs. Q’s gonna love my excavating her dead boy’s personal effects.” He grimaced. “Hopefully, she didn’t throw stuff out.”

“I think it’ll be a while before she has the energy to face the job.”

“The life she leads,” he said, softly. “I looked into her hubby’s background. Ol’ Jerome has earned himself one ticket for speeding and one for failure to make a complete stop. He’s not known to our Vice unit or any other I talked to, including Santa Monica and West Hollywood. So if he hired call girls for himself or Gavin, he did it carefully. I ran him through a few search engines and his name comes up once. Reunion of Vietnam vets five years ago, in Scranton, Pennsylvania.”

At Century Park East, I stopped at a red light. A few blocks later, I passed the college-sized campus that was Beverly Hills High. Then a block-long stretch of green, clean, and orderly park, with that Potemkin village rightness that characterizes Beverly Hills’s public areas.

Milo said, “Ready to be collegial? Should I tell them who you are?”

“No, keep it low-key. I’ll just listen.”

“Ever the observer. Probably a good idea. Okay, turn here on Roxbury, keep going till you get to the south side of the park, and circle around. They said they’ll be waiting in the picnic area, off the Spalding side alley on the western edge. Near where the kids and the mommies play.”

Albin Larsen and a larger, dark-haired man in a black suit sat at a wooden table just inside the green iron fencing that marked the western border of the park. One of six tables, all shaded by a grove of old Chinese elms. Beverly Hills treats its trees like show poodles, and the elms had been clipped into towering green umbrellas. The psychologists had chosen a spot just north of a sand pit, where toddlers frolicked under the watchful eyes of mothers and maids. Their backs were to the children.

I found a parking slot facing the green fence. Most of the others were taken up by SUVs and vans. The exception was a pair of Mercedes 190s, both deep gray, positioned next to each other. Same cars I’d seen in the parking lot of Koppel’s building. Same model as Jerome Quick’s.

Milo said, “His and his Benz’s.”

“They work together but drove here separately,” I said.

“Meaning?”

“Meaning let’s see.”

Larsen and Gull were unaware of our presence and we watched them for a few moments. They sat talking to each other, and eating. Not much conversation, no obvious emotion. Milo said, “Let’s go.”

When we were ten yards away both men noticed us and put down their plastic forks. Albin Larsen’s dress was consistent with what I’d seen the day Mary Lou Koppel had failed to show up at her office: another sweater-vest, this one brown, over a tan linen shirt and a green wool tie. Franco Gull’s black suit was finely woven crepe with narrow lapels. Under it he wore a collarless white silk shirt buttoned to the neck. Gold wedding ring, gold watch.

Gull was broad-shouldered and powerful-looking, with a thick neck, a boxer’s nose, and a big, rough face that managed to be handsome. His head sported a mass of wavy, iron-flecked black hair. His chin preceded the rest of him by a half inch. Tailored eyebrows arched behind gray-lensed sunglasses, and his skin was rosy.

A bit younger than Larsen- midforties. When Milo and I reached the table, he removed the shades and exposed big, dark eyes. Sad eyes, bottomed by smudgy pouches. They added a couple of years and the suggestion of thoughtfulness.

He was eating take-out Chinese out of the carton. Shrimp swimming in red sauce and fried rice and a side of dwarf spring rolls. Albin Larsen’s lunch was mixed green salad heaped in a Styrofoam bowl. Both men sipped canned iced tea.

Larsen said, “Good day,” and gave a formal little nod. Gull held out a hand. His fingers were enormous.

Both men were in the shade, but Gull’s forehead was beaded with sweat. Spicy shrimp?