Jonathan Kellerman - Silent Partner

“Did Dr. Ransom ever talk about the accident?”

His eyebrows arched. “What accident is that?”

“The drowning that caused all of Shirlee’s problems.”

“Now you lost me.”

“She drowned when she was a small child. Dr. Ransom told me about it, said it was what caused Shirlee’s brain damage.”

“Well, I don’t know about that, because what she told me was something totally different- the poor girl was born that way.”

“Born blind and deaf and crippled?”

“That’s right, all of it. ‘Multiple congenital deformities.’ Lord knows I saw it often enough, staring up from Dr. Ransom’s summary.”

He shook his head. “ ‘Multiple congenital deformities.’ Poor thing started out that way, never any chance at all.”

It was close to noon. I drove to a gas station nearby and used the pay phone to call Olivia’s office. Mrs. Brickerman, I was informed, had returned from Sacramento but wasn’t expected back in the office today. I phoned her home number, let it ring ten times, and was just ready to hang up when she picked it up, breathless.

“Alex! I just got in. Literally. From the airport. Spent the morning taking a power breakfast with Senate aides and trying to get them to give us more money. What a bunch- if any of them had ever owned an idea, they sold it a long time ago. Cheap.”

“Hate to bother you,” I said, “but I was wondering if-”

“The system was back up. Yes, it is, as of this morning. And just to show you how much I love you, I used Sacramento Division’s mainframe to run your Shirlee Ransom through. Sorry, nothing. I did find a person by that name, same spelling. But on the Medi-Cal files. Date of birth 1922, not ’53.”

“Do you have an address on her?”

“No. You told me ’53, I didn’t figure you’d be interested in a senior citizen.”

“Makes sense,” I said.

“You are interested?”

“I might be… if it’s not too much of a-”

“All right, all right. Let me change out of this business suit and I’ll call the office, try and get my assistant to overcome her computerphobia. It’ll take a while. Where can I get back to you?”

“I’m calling from a pay phone.”

“Cloak and dagger nonsense? Alex, what are you up to?”

“Digging up bones.”

“Ugh. What’s your number?”

I read it off to her.

“That’s my neighborhood. Where are you calling from?”

“Gas station on Melrose near Fairfax.”

“Oh, for God’s sake, you’re two minutes away! Come over and watch me play high-tech detective.”

The Brickermans’ house was small, newly painted white, with a Spanish tile roof. Narrow beds of petunias had been planted along the driveway, which was filled with Olivia’s mammoth Chrysler New Yorker.

She’d left the door unlocked. Albert Brickerman was in the living room, in a bathrobe and slippers, staring at the chessboard. He grunted in response to my greeting. Olivia was in the kitchen, scrambling eggs, wearing a white ruffled blouse and size 18 navy skirt. Her hair was a henna’d frizz, her cheeks plump and rosy. She was in her early sixties but her skin was smooth as a girl’s. She hugged me, crushed me to an upholstered bosom.

“What do you think?” She ran her hands over the skirt.

“Very board-room.”

She laughed, turned down the fire under the eggs. “If my socialist papa could see me now. Do you believe, at my age, being dragged kicking and screaming into the whole yuppie puppie thing?”

“Just keep telling yourself you’re working within the system to change it.”

“Oh, sure.” She motioned me to the kitchen table. Spooned out eggs, set out plates of rye toast and sliced tomatoes, filled mugs with coffee. “I figure I’ve got one more year, maybe two. Then goodbye to all the nonsense and set out for some serious traveling- not that Prince Albert would ever budge, but I’ve got a friend, lost her husband last year. We plan to do Hawaii, Europe, Israel. The works.”

“Sounds great.”

“Sounds great, but you’re antsy to get into the computer.”

“Whenever it’s convenient.”

“I’ll call now. It’ll take a while for Monica to get into the system.”

She phoned her assistant, gave instructions, repeated them, hung up. “Cross your fingers. Meanwhile, let’s eat.”

Both of us were hungry and we wolfed in silence. Just as I’d started on my second serving of eggs, the phone rang.

“Okay, Monica, that’s okay. Yes. Type in SRCH, all capitals. Good. Now type capital M dash capital C capital R, then the RETURN button twice. CAL. C-A-L, also all in caps, four three five six dash zero zero nine. Good. Then capital LA dash capital W dash one dash two three six. Okay? Try again. I’ll wait… good. Now press RETURN one more time, then the HOME button… Under the seven… No, hold down the control button while you do it- over on the left side of the keyboard, CTRL. Yes, good. Now what comes on the screen? Good. Okay, now type in the following name. Ransom, as in kidnapping… what? Nothing, forget it. R-A-N-S-O-M. Comma. Shirlee. With two e’s at the end, instead of an e-y. S-H-I-R-L-E-E… Okay, good. What comes on?… Okay, keep it there, Monica. I’m going to get a pencil and you tell me the birthdate and the address.”

She began writing. I got up, read over her shoulder:

Ransom, Shirlee. DOB: 1/1/22

Rural Route 4, Willow Glen, Ca. 92399.

“Okay, thank you, Monica.”

I said, “Ask her about a Jasper Ransom.”

She looked up at me quizzically, said: “Monica, don’t clear your screen yet. Type in ADD SRCH. Wait for the blinking prompt again… Got it? Okay, now Ransom, same name as before, comma Jasper… No. J … Right. Jasper. Good… It is? Okay, give me the birthdate.”

She wrote: DOB 12/25/20. Same address .

“Thank you again, Monica. Got a lot left to do?… Then take off early. I’ll see you tomorrow.” She hung up. “Two elderly Ransoms for the price of one, darling.”

She looked at the paper again and pointed to the birthdates. “New Year’s and Christmas. Cute. What’s the chance of that? Who are these people?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “Willow Glen. Got a state map?”

“No need,” she said. “I’ve been there. It’s out in the boonies- San Bernardino County, near Yucaipa. When the kids were little I used to take them down there to pick apples.”

“Apples?”

“Apples, darling. Little red round things? Keep the doctor away? Why the surprise?”

“I didn’t know apples grew down there.”

“They used to. Then one year we went down there and there was nothing left- all the U-pick places closed down, the trees dead and dying. We’re talking boonies, Alex. Nothing’s out there. Except Miss New Year’s and Mr. Christmas.”

The San Bernardino Freeway propelled me, like a pea through a shooter, past an exurban blur of industrial parks, ticky tack housing developments and auto lots wider than some small towns. Just beyond Pomona and the County Fairgrounds, the scenery shifted to ranches, egg farms, warehouses, and freight yards. Running parallel to the south side of the freeway were railroad tracks. Cotton Bowl and Southern Pacific boxcars sat stagnant on the rails. The rear third of the train was meshed compartments crammed with gleaming little Japanese sedans. A brief burst of architectural fervor past Claremont and then everything got quiet.

I drove through empty, sun-scorched hills, past smaller farms and ranches, sloping fields of alfalfa, horses grazing sluggishly in the heat. The Yucaipa exit narrowed to a single lane that ran alongside a tractor graveyard. I slowed and cruised past a string of aluminum-sided trailers billed as “The Big Mall,” an untended taco shack, and a boarded-up shop advertising “Very Rare Antiques.”