Jonathan Kellerman - Therapy

“Elusive fellow,” I said.

“Let’s challenge that.”

Sonny Koppel’s stretch of Maple Drive lay between Beverly Boulevard and Civic Center Drive. Mixed-use neighborhood, the west side filled by a granite-clad behemoth that served as Mercedes Benz headquarters, a high-profile, extravagantly landscaped office complex that catered to entertainment lawyers and film agents, and construction dust from a fulminating high-rise.

Across the street were two-story apartment buildings, souvenirs of the postwar building boom. Koppel’s was one of the dingiest examples, an off-gray traditional with a cheap composite roof. Three upstairs units, three down, a scratchy lawn, struggling shrubs.

Koppel’s Buick was parked in back, squeezed into one of the half dozen slots in the open carport. We cruised and found each of Koppel’s other cars parked within two blocks, each with Beverly Hills street parking permits that were up-to-date.

An Olds, a Chevy, a Dodge. Gray, gray, dark green. Lots of dust on the first two. The Dodge had been washed recently. I idled the Seville as Milo got out and examined each vehicle. Empty.

I parked, and we headed for Koppel’s building.

Sonny Koppel answered the door palming popcorn out of a chartreuse plastic bowl. The fragrance brought to mind the theater-lobby smell of Pacifica’s building. Before Milo had his badge out, Koppel nodded as if he’d been expecting us and beckoned us in. He wore a royal blue U. sweatshirt over plaid pajama bottoms and fuzzy brown slippers.

Five-eight, 270 at least, with a melon gut and thinning reddish brown hair that frizzed above a high, glossy pate. He hadn’t shaved in a couple of days, and his stubble looked like dandruff. Saggy blue eyes, pendulous lips, short, thick limbs, beefy hands with stubby nails.

Behind him, an old nineteen-inch RCA TV blared financial news from a cable station. Koppel lowered the volume.

“My girls told me you were by,” he said, in a sleepy basso. “It’s about Mary, right? I was wondering if you’d get in touch- here, sit, sit.”

He stopped to study a stock quotation on the tube, switched off the set, cleared a massive pile of newspapers off a plaid sofa, and brought them over to a metal-legged dinette table. Four red vinyl chairs ringed the table. Hardback ledgers filled two of them. Half the table surface was taken up by more ledgers and legal pads, pens, pencils, a hand calculator, cans of Diet 7-Up, snack bags of assorted carbohydrates.

The apartment was basic: white walls, low ceilings, a front space that served as the living room-eating area, a kitchenette, the bathroom and bedrooms beyond a stucco arch. Nothing on the walls. The kitchen was cluttered but clean. A few feet from the counter, a PC setup was perched on a rolling cart. Aquarium screen saver. An air conditioner rattled.

Sonny Koppel said, “Can I offer you guys something to drink?”

“No, thanks.”

“You sure?”

“Positive.”

Koppel’s soft, bulky shoulders rose and fell. He sighed, sank into a green tweed La-Z-Boy recliner, kept the chair upright.

Milo and I took the plaid sofa.

“So,” said Koppel, “what can I do for you?”

“First off,” said Milo, “is there anything you can tell us about your ex-wife that could help us solve her murder?”

“I wish there was. Mary was a remarkable person- attractive, really smart.” Koppel ran a hand over his scalp. Instead of settling, his hair picked up static and coiled as if alive. The room was dim and he was backlit with fluorescence from the kitchen and the hair became a halo. Sad-looking, pajama-bottomed guy with an aura.

“You’re thinking,” he said, “how did someone like her ever hook up with someone like me.”

His lips curled like miniature beef roulades, approximating amusement. “When Mary and I met I didn’t look like this. Back then I was more shortstop than sumo. Actually, I was a pretty decent jock, got a baseball scholarship to the U., had Major League fantasies.”

He paused, as if inviting comment. When none followed, he said, “Then I ripped a hamstring and found out I had to actually study to get out of there.”

One hand dipped into the popcorn bowl. Koppel gathered a full scoop and transferred the kernels to his mouth.

Milo said, “You met Dr. Koppel when you were in law school?”

“I was in law school, and she was in grad school. We met at the rec center, she was swimming, and I was reading. I tried to pick her up, but she blew me off.” He touched his abdomen as if it ached. “The second time I tried, she agreed to go out for coffee, and we hit it off great. We got married a year later and divorced two years after that.”

“Problems?” said Milo.

“Everyone’s got them,” said Koppel. “What’s the cliché- we grew apart? Part of the problem was time. Between her dissertation and my classes, we never saw each other. The main problem was I screwed up. Had an affair with a woman in my class. To make it worse, a married woman, so two families got messed up. Mary let me down easy, she just wanted a clean break. Stupidest thing I ever did.”

“Cheating on her?”

“Letting her go. Then again, she probably would have broken it off, even if I had been faithful.”

“Why’s that?”

“I was kind of at loose ends back then,” said Koppel. “No goals. Only reason I went to law school was because I didn’t know what else to do. Mary was just the opposite: focused, put-together. She has”- He winced-“had a powerful persona. Charisma. I couldn’t have kept up.”

“Sounds like you’re selling yourself short,” said Milo.

Koppel looked genuinely surprised. “No, I don’t think so.”

“I’ve done some background on you, sir, and you’re one of the biggest landlords in Southern California.”

Koppel waved a thick hand. “That’s just playing Monopoly.”

“You’ve played well.”

“I’ve been lucky.” Koppel smiled. “I was lucky to be a loser.”

“A loser?”

“I nearly flunked out of law school, then I chickened out of taking the bar. Started experiencing anxiety attacks about taking it that put me in the ER a couple of times. One of those pseudo-heart attack things? By then Mary and I were having our problems, but she helped me through it. Deep-breathing exercises, having me imagine relaxing scenes. It worked and the attacks stopped and Mary expected me to take the bar. I showed up early, looked around the room, walked out, and that was it. That bothered Mary more than my cheating on her. Soon after, she filed.”

Koppel’s hand waved again, this time limply. “Couple months after that, my mother died and left me an apartment building in the Valley, so all of a sudden I was a landlord. A year later, I sold that property, used the profit and a bank loan to invest in a bigger building. I did that for a few years- flipping and trading up. Real estate was booming, and I made out okay.”

He shrugged, ate more popcorn.

Milo said, “You’re a modest man, Mr. Koppel.”

“I know what I am and what I’m not.” Koppel turned his head to the side, as if recoiling from insight. His jowls quivered. “Do you have any idea who murdered Mary?”

“No, sir. Do you?”

“Me? No, of course not.”

“She was murdered in her home,” said Milo. “No signs of forced entry.”

“You’re saying someone she knew?” said Koppel.

“Any candidates, sir?”

“I wasn’t privy to Mary’s social life.”

“How much contact did you and she have?”

“We stayed friendly, and I kept up my spousal support.”

“How much support?”

“It evolved,” said Koppel. “Immediately after the divorce, she got nothing except the furniture in our apartment because we were both starving students. When I started to earn a decent income, she called and asked for support. We agreed on a figure and over the years I’ve increased it.”