Jonathan Kellerman - Gone

A waiter came over and she ordered the cocktail on the rocks, with olives and an onion. “My version of salad.”

The waiter said, “Another beer?”

Milo said, “No, thanks.”

“You?”

The memory of Beamish’s single malt leased space in my palate. “Coke.”

The waiter frowned and left.

Milo said, “What can I do for you, Ms. Peaty?”

“I’m trying to find out what happened to Reyn.”

“How’d you hear about it?”

“I’m a colleague- used to be.”

“Las Vegas PD?”

“Twelve years,” she said. “Mostly Vice and Auto and then I did some jail duty. I’m working private security now, big company, we handle some of the casinos.”

“No shortage of work in Sin City,” said Milo.

“You guys aren’t exactly sitting around.”

The drinks arrived.

Marcia Peaty tried her martini. “Better than I remembered.”

The waiter asked if we were ready to order.

Chicken potpie, sand dabs, sand dabs.

“Another memory,” said Marcia Peaty. “Can’t get them in Vegas.”

Milo said, “Can’t get ’em too often in L.A., either. Mostly it’s rex sole.”

She looked disappointed. “Cheap substitution?”

“Nope, they’re basically the same- little flatfish with lots of bones. One lives deeper, no one can tell the difference.”

“You into fishing?”

“I’m into eating.”

“Virtually the same, huh?” said Marcia Peaty. “More like twins than cousins.”

“Cousins can be real different.”

She removed an olive from her drink. Chewed, swallowed. “How I found out about Reyn was I’d been trying to call him for days and no one answered. It’s not like I call him regularly, but one of our great-aunts died and he inherited some money- no big deal, twelve hundred bucks. When I couldn’t get hold of him, I started calling around- hospitals, jails. Finally, I learned what happened from your coroner.”

“Calling jails and the crypt,” said Milo. “That’s a specific curiosity.”

Marcia Peaty nodded. “Reyn was high-risk for problems, always had been. I didn’t have any fantasies of turning him into a solid citizen, but every so often I’d feel protective. We grew up together in Downey, he was a few years younger, I’m an only child and he was, too, so kin was in short supply. Once upon a time I thought of him as a little brother.”

I said, “High-risk brother.”

“I’m not going to sugarcoat him but he wasn’t a psychopath, just not smart. One of those people who always make bad decisions, you know? Maybe it was genetic. Our fathers were brothers. My dad worked three jobs putting himself through Cleveland Chiropractic, cracked enough backs to go from trailer trash to respectable. Reyn’s dad was an alcoholic loser, never held down a steady job, in and out of jail for penny-ante stuff. Reyn’s mom wasn’t much better.” She stopped. “Big sad story, it’s nothing you guys haven’t heard before.”

Milo said, “How’d you both end up in Nevada?”

“Reyn ran away from home when he was fifteen- more like walked out and no one cared. I’m not sure what he did for ten years, I know he tried the marines, ended up in the brig, dishonorable discharge. I moved to Vegas because my dad died and my mom liked playing the slots. When you’re an only child, you feel responsible. My husband’s from a family of five kids, big old Mormon clan, totally different world.”

Milo nodded. “Ten years. Reyn showed up when he was twenty-five.”

“At my mother’s condo. Tattooed and drunk and he’d put on about sixty pounds. She wouldn’t let him in. He didn’t argue but he kept hanging around on her street. So Mom called Cop Daughter. When I saw him, I was shocked- believe it or not, he used to be a nice-looking guy. I gave him some cash, set him up at a motel, told him to sober up and move to another city. The last part he kept.”

“ Reno.”

“Next I heard from him was two years later, needing money for bail. I can’t tell you where he was in between.”

“Bad decisions,” I said.

“He’s never been violent,” said Marcia Peaty. “Just another one of those revolving-door dudes.”

Milo said, “His peeper bust could be thought of as scary.”

“Maybe I’m rationalizing but that seemed more like drunk and disorderly. He’d never done anything like that before, hasn’t since- right?”

“People say he stared a lot. Made ’em uncomfortable.”

“Yeah, he tends- tended to space out,” said Marcia Peaty. “Like I said, he was no Einstein, couldn’t add three-digit sums. I know it sounds like I’m giving a mope a free pass but he didn’t deserve to get shot by that banger. Can you fill me in on how it happened?”

Milo gave her the barest details of the murder, leaving out the whispering phone calls and Vasquez’s claim of harassment.

She said, “One of those stupid things,” and sipped a half inch of martini. “Banger going to pay?”

“He’ll get something.”

“Meaning?”

“Defense is gonna paint your cousin as a bully.”

“Reynold was a booze-soaked loser but he never bullied an ant.”

“He have any kind of love life?”

Marcia Peaty’s hazel eyes narrowed. Speed-trap gaze. “What does that have to do with anything?”

“D.A. wants a clear picture of what he was like. I can’t find evidence of any love life, just a collection of young girl videos.”

Marcia Peaty’s knuckles whitened around her glass. “How young?”

“Barely legal.”

“Why does any of that matter?”

“Reynold worked as a janitor at an acting school. A couple of female students were murdered.”

Marcia Peaty blanched. “Uh-uh. No way. I worked Vice long enough to know a sex criminal when I see one and Reynold wasn’t- and that ain’t family denial. Trust me on this, you’d best be looking elsewhere.”

“Speaking of family, let’s talk about your other cousins.”

“I mean it,” she said. “Reyn wasn’t wired that way.”

“The other cousins,” said Milo.

“Who?”

“The Dowds. You were at Nora Dowd’s house the other day, told a neighbor you were her cousin.”

Marcia Peaty slid her glass toward her left hand. Then back to her right. Lifting the pick skewering the onion, she twirled, put it back. “That wasn’t strictly true.”

“There’s lenient truth?” said Milo.

“She’s not my cousin. Brad is.”

“He’s her brother.”

Marcia Peaty sighed. “It’s complicated.”

“We’ve got time.”

Like I said, I come from trailer trash,” said Marcia Peaty. “No shame in that, my father, Dr. James Peaty, pulled himself up, it’s even more to his credit.”

“Unlike his brother,” I said.

“Brothers plural,” she said. “And sister. Reyn’s dad, Roald, was the youngest, in and out of prison his whole life, later shot himself. Next up was Millard and between him and my dad was Bernadine. She died after being put away.”

“Put away for what?” said Milo.

“Alcohol-induced craziness. She was a good-looking woman but she used her looks in not the best way.” She pushed her plate away. “I know all this from my mother who hated Dad’s family, so she may have heaped it on a bit. But overall I think she was accurate because Dad never denied it. Mom used to hold up Bernadine as a negative example for me- don’t do what that ‘immoral wench’ did.”

“What’d Bernadine do?” said Milo.

“Left home at seventeen and went down to Oceanside with a friend, another wild girl named Amelia Stultz. The two of them worked the sailor trade and God knows what else. Bernadine got pregnant by some guy on shore leave who she never saw again. Had a baby boy.”