Jonathan Kellerman - Therapy

“Spent the night at Allison’s.”

“Good for you,” he said. “What’s your schedule like today?”

“Open. I might have a first name on the blond girl. Crystal or Christa.”

“How’d you find that out?”

“Kayla Bartell. It’s a bit of a story-”

“Tell me when I get there, I’m already at Sepulveda and Wilshire. The pooch still bunking with you?”

“No, he’s gone.”

“Okay, then, I’ll eat this beef jerky myself.”

He entered the house wearing a sad gray suit, mud brown shirt, gray poly tie, and chewing on the thickest rope of dehydrated meat I’d ever seen.

“What is that?” I said. “Python jerky?”

“Buffalo, low-fat, low-salt. Special deal at Trader Joe’s.” His hair was flat, and his eyes were red. We went into the kitchen.

“Tell me the story.”

I recounted my talk with Kayla.

He said, “Little klepto, huh? And you played bad cop. Nice work.”

“It was probably illegal.”

“It was a chat between two adults.” He twisted the knot of his tie. “Got any coffee left?”

“Didn’t make any.”

“No prob, I’m wired, anyway… Christa or Crystal. Why’d Kayla peg her for a stripper?”

“Because Gavin said she was a dancer,” I said.

“Well,” he said, “name a girl Crystal and what’s more likely? That she’ll get a Ph.D. in biomechanics, or end up shaking her tail for tips?” He removed his jacket and tossed it over a chair. Since he’d arrived, the air was turbulent.

“Kayla also said she looked like a doper.”

“The coroner found nothing in her system. What about the Times ?”

“They run on their own schedule,” I said. “Why’d you ask about mine?”

He took a sheet of paper from his jacket pocket and handed it to me. Typed list.

1. 1999 Ford Explorer. Bennett A. Hacker, 48, Franklin Avenue, Hollywood.

2. 1995 Lincoln sedan. Raymond R. Degussa, 41, post office box in Venice.

3. 2001 Mercedes Benz sedan, Albin Larsen, 56, Santa Monica.

4. 1995 Mercedes Benz sedan, Jerome A. Quick, 48, Beverly Hills.

“DMV data from Gavin’s list,” he said.

“Gavin copied down his father’s license number?”

“Weird, no? Could it be a brain damage thing? Do you guys have a name for it?”

“Overinclusiveness… But something else jumps out at me. Quick’s car is listed last. You’d think spotting his father’s car would have caught Gavin’s attention first.”

“Unless he listed the cars in order of arrival, and Daddy arrived last.”

“Good point,” I said. “So what are you thinking, some sort of meeting?”

He nodded. “Quick and Albin Larsen and the other two. The big question is why was Gavin surveilling Daddy? It smells to me like Daddy was up to no good, and that’s why he cleaned out Gavin’s room- getting rid of any evidence his kid mighta come up with. Then he left town- his kid’s just been murdered, and he’s off traveling again, leaving the wife alone, doing business. It smells ripe , Alex. The mistake ol’ Jerry made was not clearing out Gavin’s clothes.”

He picked up the list, refolded it, put it back in his pocket. “It’s not much. But to my mind, it changes everything. Let me tell you about the other guys on the list.”

I said, “The con cleaning the building- Kristof- said his parole officer was named Hacker.”

He sat down at the kitchen table. “I’m impressed. Yeah, he’s a PO working out of the downtown office, and Raymond Degussa’s one of his former clients. Major client, string of arrests for assault, larceny, extortion, armed robbery, dope. Degussa beat a bunch of raps, pleaded out others, did some county time, finally got tagged for fifteen years on a strong-arm robbery beef. San Quentin, time shaved for good behavior, and he seems to have behaved himself during parole, checked in with Hacker regularly, got free and clear two years ago. I called over to Q and spoke with an assistant warden who’s relatively new to the job and didn’t know Degussa. What she dug up for me was that he was a dominant con, no gang membership, but he never got victimized. They figured him for a supplier of some kind because he always had cigarettes and candy. He was also a suspect in at least two inmate murders, but there was no evidence.”

“Career bad guy,” I said. “Two suspected murders, and he got time shaved for good behavior?”

“Without evidence he did. Prison administrators have their own agenda: They’re always overcrowded, want to move guys out. And wonder of wonders, Degussa appears to be rehabilitated. Not a single brush with the law since being off parole.”

“A friendly parole officer would help that,” I said. “Successful rehabilitation. Albin Larsen would like that. Maybe Degussa was one of his pet projects. Or Mary Lou Koppel’s. What weapon was used in those prison murders?”

“A blade; in prison it’s always a blade.”

“Any impaling?”

“Nothing about that in his file.”

“Degussa went away on a strong-arm robbery,” I said. “Any weapon at all?”

“Just intimidation.”

“Did Bennett Hacker spend any time at any of those satellite offices?”

“Flora Newsome,” he said.

“She worked in parole. It seems awfully coincidental.”

“Yeah… I didn’t want to ask too much. If Hacker’s dirty, I don’t want him to know I’m snooping around. But I’ll do what I can to sniff behind the scenes.”

He drummed the table. “I’m getting that feeling- the stew is starting to simmer. But everything’s still at arm’s length- like I’m cooking in someone else’s kitchen.”

He got up, paced the room, tugged at his tie. “The way I see it, Gavin convinced himself he was gonna be some kind of investigative reporter, was nosing around in his dad’s affairs. Or, he’d noticed funny goings-on at the therapy building, first. Started doing some serious surveillance, took notes.”

“A psychologist, a parole officer, and a con,” I said. “Without Jerry Quick, it could just be some sort of treatment arrangement.”

“ Precissimoso. Jerry being there takes it in a whole other direction. Jerry’s a womanizing hustler who hires someone like Angie Paul for his front gal. He’s also Sonny Koppel’s tenant. And Sonny’s Mary Lou’s business partner in the halfway houses, the moneyman. The one who referred Jerry to Mary Lou in the first place.”

“Have you found any business dealings between Sonny and Quick?”

“Not a damn thing. And I dug deep, yesterday and early today.”

He slouched over to the fridge, returned drinking pink grapefruit juice from a carton. “Can’t find a speck of dirt on ol’ Sonny. No slumlord problems, no criminal complaints, no one in Organized Crime has ever heard of him. So far he’s coming across as exactly what he claims to be: a guy who owns a lot of properties. He was also being straight about giving away big bucks. Franchise Tax Board says Charitable Planning is on the up-and-up as a tax-exempt foundation. Sonny files his papers on time and donates at least a million every year.”

“To whom?”

“The poor, the sick, the halting. Every worthy disease, plus Save the Bay, Nourish the Trees, Coddle the Spotted Owl, whatever.”

“Saint Sonny,” I said.

“If it looks too good to be true… I don’t know what that meeting was about, but the only thing that makes sense is they’re all involved in something shady. Maybe Sonny got a hook into Jerry Quick because Quick’s always cash shy. But I still can’t figure out what use Quick would be to him. Putting that aside for the moment, what kind of scam could a bunch of shrinks pull off that would make big bucks?”