Jonathan Kellerman - Gone

“Just routine,” said Milo, “no reason to get- ”

Shaking his head, Peaty backed away, toward the door.

Milo said, “Here we were having a nice conversation, then I ask you how well you knew Michaela Brand and all of a sudden you don’t want to talk. That’s only gonna make me wonder.”

“It ain’t,” said Peaty, groping for the door handle. He’d left the oak panel slightly ajar and the handle was inches out of reach.

“Ain’t what?” said Milo.

“Right. Talking like I did something.” Peaty edged back, found the handle, and shoved, revealing oak floors and walls, a glimmer of stained glass. “I had a beer and went to sleep.”

“Three beers.”

No answer.

“Listen,” said Milo. “No offense intended, but it’s my job to ask questions.”

Peaty shook his head. “I eat and watch TV. That don’t mean nothing.”

He stepped into the house, started to close the door. Milo checked it with his shoe. Peaty tensed but let go. His grip on the broom handle swelled his knuckles. He shook his head and stray hairs floated free, landing on thick, rounded shoulders.

“Mr. Peaty- ”

“Leave me alone.” More whimper than demand.

“All we’re trying to do is get some basic facts. So how about we come in and- ”

Peaty’s hand grabbed the door’s edge. “Not allowed!”

“We can’t come in?”

“No! The rules!”

“Whose rules?”

“Ms. Dowd’s.”

“How about I call her? What’s her number?”

“Dunno.”

“You work for her but don’t- ”

“Dunno!”

Peaty danced backward and shoved the door hard. Milo let it slam.

We stood on the porch for a few moments. Cars drove up and down the street.

Milo said, “For all I know he’s got rope and a bloody knife in there. But no damn way to find out.”

I said nothing.

He said, “You could argue with me.”

“There is the fact that he’s weird,” I said.

“Yeah, yeah,” he said. “Guy lives on Guthrie off Robertson. You visualizing the same map I am?”

“Blocks from Michaela. Not much farther to the crime scene.”

“ And he’s weird.” He glanced back at the door. Rang the bell several times.

No response.

“Wonder what time he got to work this morning.” Another bell-push. We waited. He put his pad away. “I’d love to check this place out but I’m not even gonna think about heading round back and giving some lawyer an illegal entry angle.”

He grinned. “One day in and I’ve got trial fantasies. Okay, let’s see what we can do within the boundaries of The Law.”

We descended the porch and headed for the car.

“It’s probably no big deal,” he said. “Not getting inside. Even if Peaty is the bad guy, why would he bring evidence to work? What do you think of him probability-wise?”

“A definite maybe,” I said. “Talking about Michaela clearly made him nervous.”

“Like he had a crush on her?”

“She was a beautiful girl.”

“And way out of his league,” he said. “Working around all those starlet wannabes could be frustrating for a guy like that.”

We got into the Seville.

I said, “When Peaty shook his head, stray hairs fell out. Fellow that hirsute and unruly, you’d think he’d have left some trace on the body, or at least at the scene.”

“Maybe he had time to clean up.”

“Guess so.”

“There was some wind last night,” he said. “The body coulda been there a while before the poodle came by. For all we know, the damned dog licked up trace evidence.”

“The owner let it nose the body?”

Milo rubbed his face. “The owner claims she yanked it away the minute she saw what it was. Still…”

I started up the car.

He said, “I need to be careful not to tunnel in on anyone too quickly.”

“Makes sense.”

“Sometimes I do that.”

ADMV check revealed no vehicles currently registered to Reynold Peaty. No California driver’s license. Ever.

“Hard to transport a body without wheels,” I said.

Milo said, “Wonder how he gets to work.”

“The bus. Or a stretch limo.”

“Your attempt at humor is refreshing. If he bears further watching, I’ll check out the bus routes, see if he’s a regular.” He laughed.

I said, “What?”

“He comes across dumb and weird but think about it: He sweeps up at an acting school.”

“He was playing us?”

“The world’s a stage,” he said. “Sure be nice to have the script.”

“If he was performing, why would he put on a weird act?” I said.

“True…let’s head back.”

I drove toward the West L.A. station as he phoned the MTA and learned which buses Peaty would’ve taken from Pico-Robertson to the PlayHouse. Transfers and the need to cover several blocks on foot stretched a half-hour car trip to at least a ninety-minute journey.

I said, “Michaela’s Honda show up yet?”

“Nope…you’re thinking Peaty coulda jacked her?”

“The hoax might’ve given him ideas.”

“Life imitating art.” He punched numbers on his cell, talked briefly, hung up. “No sign of it yet. But we’re not talking conspicuous. A Civic, black no less. If the plates are off or replaced, it could take a long time to spot it.”

“If Peaty is the bad guy,” I said, “maybe he decided to drive to work this morning and ditched it within walking distance of the PlayHouse.”

“That would be pretty damned stupid.”

“Yes, it would.”

He chewed his cheek. “Mind turning around?”

We cruised the half-mile radius surrounding the acting school, peering up and down streets and alleys, driveways and parking lots. Taking more than an hour, then expanding to another half mile and spending another hundred minutes. Spotting lots of Civics, three of them black, all with plates that checked out.

On the way back to the station, Milo tried the coroner’s office and learned that Michaela’s autopsy was scheduled in four days, maybe longer if the body count stayed high. “Any way to prioritize? Yeah, yeah, I know…but if there’s anything you can do. Appreciate it, this one could get complicated.”

I sat in the spare chair of Milo’s tiny, windowless office as he tried to plug Reynold Peaty into the data banks. His computer took a long time to sputter to life, even longer for icons to fill the screen. Then they disappeared and the screen went black and he started all over again.

Fourth PC in eight months, yet another hand-me-down, this one from a prep school in Pacific Palisades. The last few donated machines had enjoyed the shelf life of raw milk. In between Clunkers Two and Three, Milo had paid for a high-priced laptop with his own money, only to see some glitch in the station’s electrical system fry his hard drive.

As the disk drives ground on, he sprang up, muttering about “advanced middle age” and “plumbing,” and left for a few minutes. Returning with two cups of coffee, he handed one to me, drank his, snatched a cheap cigarillo from his desk drawer, unwrapped it, and jammed the unlit cylinder between his incisors. Tapping his fingers as he stared at the screen, he bit down too hard, splintered the cigar, wiped tobacco shreds from his lips. Tossing the Nicaraguan pacifier, he got himself another.

Smoking’s prohibited anywhere in the building. Sometimes he lights up, anyway. Today he was too antsy to enjoy the fruits of misdemeanor. As the computer struggled to resuscitate, he sorted through his messages and I reviewed the prelim on Michaela Brand, studied the crime scene photos.

Beautiful golden face turned a familiar green-gray.