Jonathan Kellerman - Rage

“It could require some serious psychological sensitivity. ”

I took a bite of Danish. A few minutes ago it had tasted great. Now it was deep-fried dust.

“Do I have to spell it out, Alex? I’d rather you do it and I’ll watch.”

“You’re not worried my presence will disrupt?”

“The defense saw you as pro-prosecution, so maybe the Malleys will remember you fondly for the same reason.”

“No reason for them to remember me at all,” I said. “Never met them.”

“Really?”

“There was no reason to.” Funny how defensive that sounded.

“Well,” he said, “now there’s a reason.”

Milo phoned DMV for current licenses and registrations on Barnett and Lara Malley.

Nothing for her. Barnett Melton Malley had a Soledad Canyon address, out in Antelope Valley.

“The birth date fits,” he said. “One vehicle, a ten-year-old Ford pickup. Black at the time of registration.”

“Soledad’s forty, fifty miles from Van Nuys,” I said. “After what they went through, I can see them wanting to get out of the city. Rural area like that, Lara would need to drive, so why isn’t she licensed?”

“They’re not living together and she moved out of state?”

“A tragedy like that can drive people apart.”

“I can think of a giant wedge,” he said. “Kristal was snatched from under her nose. Maybe hubby blamed her.”

“Or,” I said, “she blamed herself.”

As we returned to the city, Sean Binchy called in. Van Nuys Division had no record of any call from the Daneys about Rand’s disappearance.

“No big surprise,” said Milo. “He wasn’t officially missing, so it wasn’t filed.”

“What’s the current status of your felonious friend theory?”

“Have I abandoned it completely because Barnett Malley owns a black truck? Like Daney said, plenty of pickups in the Valley. But Malley had good reason to hate Rand. I’d be an idiot to ignore him.”

“When were you planning on visiting him?”

“I was thinking tomorrow,” he said. “Late enough to avoid the morning rush but early enough not to get tied up coming back. First, I’m gonna try to find out where he works. If I get lucky and it’s somewhere closer, I’ll call you.”

He scribbled in his notepad, returned it to his pocket. “Or even luckier, some mitigating factor will emerge. Like an ironclad alibi for Malley.”

“You don’t want it to be him,” I said.

“Hey,” he said. “How about lunch? I’m thinking tandoori lamb.”

We stopped at the station first, where he cleared his messages and ran Barnett Malley through NCIC and the other criminal databases and came up empty. Same for Lara Malley.

I stayed on my feet, expecting we’d soon leave for Café Moghul. But he just sat there, eyes closed, passing the phone from one hand to the other until he called the Hall of Records downtown and asked for a clerk who owed him a favor. It took awhile to get through but once he connected, the conversation was brief. When he hung up, he looked weary.

“Lara Malley’s deceased. Seven years ago, suicide by firearm. Women are shooting themselves more, nowadays, but back then it was a little unusual, right? Pills were the ladies’ choice.”

“Not always, if the ladies were serious,” I said.

“Mommy cashes in a year after Kristal’s murder. Enough time to see life wasn’t getting any better. The Malleys ever get any therapy, Alex?”

“Don’t know.”

He began punching his computer keyboard as if it was a sparring partner, logged onto the state firearms registration file. Squinted and stared and copied something down and drew his lips back in a strange, hollow smile that made me glad I wasn’t his enemy.

“Mr. Barnett Melton Malley has amassed quite an arsenal. Thirteen shotguns, rifles, and handguns, including a couple of thirty-eights.”

“Maybe he lives alone in a secluded area. He’d have more reason than most to be vigilant.”

“Who says he lives alone?”

“Same answer,” I said. “If he started a new family, he’d want to protect it.”

“Angry, bitter guy,” he said. “Loses his entire family to violence, moves out to the boonies with a stash of firepower heavy enough to outfit a militia. Maybe he’s in a militia- one of those survivalist yahoos. Am I overreaching if I use the term ‘high risk’?”

“If he intended to murder someone, why would he register his weapons?”

“Who says he registered all of them?” He fumbled in a desk drawer, pulled out a wooden-tipped cigar, rolled it between his palms.

“The way Rand was shot,” he said. “Contact wound, left side of the head, the killer at approximately the same height. Taken by surprise like you suggested. That conjure up an image?”

“The killer was sitting to his left,” I said. “Close to him. As in the driver’s seat of a vehicle.”

He pointed the cigar at me. “That’s the channel that switched on in my head. In terms of premeditation, maybe Malley didn’t think it out. Maybe he started out wanting to talk to Rand. To confront the guy who’d ruined his life. We both know victims’ families sometimes crave that.”

I said, “Malley had eight years for that, but perhaps Rand’s release triggered old memories.”

“Malley picks him up, drops him off, drives around and finds out he’s still got unfinished business with Rand. They drive up somewhere in the hills and something goes wrong.”

“Rand wasn’t articulate. He said the wrong thing to Malley and triggered big-time rage.”

“ ‘I’m a good person,’ ” he said.

“I can see that coming out wrong.”

He bolted up, tried to pace the tiny office, took a single, attenuated step, reached my chair, and sat back down. I was an obstruction. My thoughts drifted to New York on a crisp, snowy day. Gallivanting.

I said, “If Malley came armed, on the other hand, there might’ve been premeditation.”

“He was meeting up with his daughter’s murderer. Like you said, he’d have good reason to be careful.”

“A good lawyer could make a pretty good case for self-defense.”

He tossed the cigar onto the desk. “Listen to this, we’re psychoanalyzing the poor bastard and neither of us has ever met him. For all we know, he’s a pacifist Zen Buddhist vegan transcendental meditator living out in the woods in the name of serenity.”

“With thirteen guns.”

“There is that minor sticking point,” he said. “Man, I’d love to have the techies go over that black truck of his. Love to have grounds for it- Alex, how about we scotch lunch. For some reason my appetite’s waning.”

I said, “Sure.”

He turned away and I left.

When I was ten feet up the hall I heard him call out, “Eventually, we’ll do the tandoori bit. I’ll have my people call your people.”

He phoned that evening at seven-forty.

I said, “What happened to your people?”

“On strike. Did more background on Malley. “Eight years ago he ran his own pool-cleaning service, then it stopped a year later.”

“After Lara shot herself. Maybe he dropped out.”

“Whatever the reason, given no workplace, I figure to set out at ten tomorrow morning. The grinning fool who reads the weather on TV says warm air’s coming in from Hawaii. Closest I’m gonna get to a tropical vacation. Sound good?”

“Want me to pick you up at home?”

“No, you’re doing the psychology bit but I’m the wheelman,” he said. “It’s time to be somewhat official.”

He arrived at ten-fifteen looking as official as he was ever going to be: baggy brown suit, white shirt, putty-colored tie. The desert boots. I had on my courtroom outfit: blue pin-striped three-button, blue shirt, yellow tie. Whether Barnett Malley was a vengeance-sworn gun freak or a quietly grieving victim, wardrobe wasn’t going to make a difference.