Jonathan Kellerman - Rage

“Kristal wasn’t the cowboy’s kid?”

“It wasn’t until six years after they borrowed the money that Lara got pregnant.”

“Lara got herself a different kind of fertility treatment.” His smile was vicious. “Both of them fooling around but Lara left evidence and Barnett couldn’t handle it.”

“Barnett dominated and isolated Lara,” I said. “Another reason for her to go looking for love elsewhere. Any husband would be enraged by his wife having another man’s baby, but someone like Barnett- asocial, bad temper, gun freak- would’ve been especially prone to a violent reaction. He punished Lara twice. First by eliminating the fruit of her infidelity, and when that didn’t put out the fire in his belly, he got rid of her. And if he needed encouragement, Cherish was there to egg him on.”

“Pillow talk,” he said. “ ‘I’ve got a solution, honey.’ Yeah, makes sense, doesn’t it?”

“It makes stomach-crawling sense.”

“So how did Rand figure it out?” he said.

“He must’ve recalled something from the time of the murder,” I said. “Spotting Cherish with Troy shortly before the abduction. Or seeing Cherish and Barnett together. For all we know one of them went to the mall that day to make sure everything went down smoothly. Or Barnett’s involvement was more direct. Lara said she only turned her head for a minute before Kristal disappeared. What if someone Kristal knew and trusted lured her away?”

“Come to Daddy,” he said. “Then Daddy hands her over to Troy and Rand. Jesus… and Rand came to all this spontaneously, after years of sitting behind bars?”

“ Rand knew he was behind bars because he’d been part of something terrible. Isolation and maturation got him ruminating. He began to assess his share of the guilt. To try to feel like a good person. Barnett and Cherish had no reason to worry about him because he hadn’t been in on the plot. Until he began talking to Cherish. Troy, on the other hand, was an immediate threat, and was eliminated quickly.”

“What’s the name of that seminary she went to?”

“ Fulton.”

“Any idea where it is?”

I shook my head. “According to Cherish, Troy ’s buried there. She convinced the dean to donate a plot.”

“Oh, I’ll bet she did.” He laughed and cracked his knuckles. “Cherish is a word I use to descri-ibe…”

“On the other hand,” I said.

“What?”

“It’s a great house of cards, but all we really know about Cherish is that she’s sleeping with Barnett Malley.”

His face got hard. “So we find out more. That’s what life’s all about, right? Broadening one’s horizons.”

I walked Milo to his car. “Was Kristal buried or cremated?”

“You’re thinking DNA.”

“If you ever get a sample from Barnett, it would answer the paternity question.”

“Let me tell you about DNA in the real world. We used to send stuff to the sheriff’s crime lab, but they’re backlogged till the next millennium, and they can’t get the county to pay for the latest equipment so they sometimes have to send stuff out. Department recently contracted with Orchid Cellmark in New Jersey, but it’s a priority game: sexual homicides first, then rapes, then crimes against minors. The quickest you can get something back is two to four months. And that’s after you get your requisition approved by the pencil pushers. In this case, if Kristal was buried, I’d need an exhumation order, which could take even longer than DNA analysis, especially with no consent from the surviving relative. Going that route would also mean letting Malley know he’s under suspicion.”

“Just a thought,” I said.

“On the other hand, maybe the coroner kept something from Kristal’s autopsy and I can send that to Cellmark… I’ll head over to the crypt, see if they can find something. Ciao.”

I returned to the house in order to educate myself about foster child reimbursement in L.A County, and to learn more about Fulton Seminary.

The first assignment was easy. I phoned Olivia Brickerman at home. She’s a professor in the Department of Social Work at the gracious old university across town, a battle-toughened veteran of the ground war that is California ’s social services system, the widow of a chess grandmaster, a frizzy-haired fireplug old enough to be my mother and one of the smartest people I’ve ever encountered.

She said, “You only call when you want something.”

“I’m a bad son.”

She laughed, finished with a gasp.

“You okay?” I said.

“As if you care.”

“Of course- ”

“I’m on my feet, darling. Which is a positive sign, considering. So how’s it going with Dr. Snow White?”

“Allison?”

“The ivory skin, the black hair, the soft voice, all that gorgeous? The analogy’s obvious. Am I overstepping boundaries, here?”

“Allison’s fine.”

“And Robin?”

“Robin’s in Seattle,” I said.

“Which begs the question.”

“Last time I spoke to her she was doing well, Olivia.”

“So that’s it?” she said.

I didn’t answer.

“I’m a terminal yenta, Alex. Slap my wrist. Seattle, eh? The Genius and I used to go there. Before the computers and the coffee. The Genius could row a boat pretty well, we used to go out on Lake Washington… Robin still with Voice-boy?”

“Yup.”

“Mr. Tra La La,” she said. “She brought him by a few months ago for Sunday brunch. Unlike other people who can’t find the time.”

“Allison and I took you to dinner at the Bel-Air.”

“Don’t quibble. What I’m getting to is that I didn’t care for him.”

“Robin does.”

“He’s too quiet,” she went on. “Aloof, if you ask me. Not that anyone has.”

“I’m always open to your wisdom, Olivia.”

“Ha. So what do you need to know?”

“How well does the state pay for foster care?”

“I was hoping for more of a challenge, darling. First of all, the state mandates foster care and sets up basic fees but each county distributes the funds. Counties also have the discretion to supplement the state. Traditionally, they’ve been tight with the purse strings. The rates vary but not much. Which county?”

“ L.A. ”

“The other thing you need to know is that, officially, foster parents aren’t paid. A stipulated amount is allocated per child and the custodial adult gets to disburse it.”

“Meaning foster parents are paid,” I said.

“Exactly. The basic rate varies with the age of the child. Four hundred twenty-five a month to five ninety-seven. Older kids get more.”

“I’d assume just the opposite,” I said. “Babies require more care.”

“You’d be thinking logically, darling. This is the government. No doubt some number cruncher set up a formula based on pounds of flesh.”

“What age group gets the max?”

“Over fifteen. Twelve through fourteen gets five forty-six, and so on down to the babies who get four twenty-five. Which doesn’t pay for a lot of formula and diapers. Quite often it’s family members who take the kid in and apply as kinship guardians. That what we’re talking about, here?”

“No, these are nonrelatives,” I said. “Can the basic rate be supplemented?”

“Wards with special needs get extra payments. Right now the max is a hundred seventy a month. That’s through Children’s Services, but there are other bureaucracies you can tap if you know how to play with paper. The system’s full of goodies.”

“Would kids with A.D.D. be considered special needs?”

“Absolutely. It’s a recognized disability. Is there any point in my asking you why you want to know all this?”