Jonathan Kellerman - Private Eyes

Neither of us talked for a while. The mirror shot back our reflections, sullied by dishwater light. Our faces were barely discernible, distorted by the imperfections in the silvered glass and the painted face of the grinning frÄulein. I made out just enough to know that he looked awful. I didn’t look much better.

He said, “I just can’t see why the hell she’d do it.”

“Do what?”

“Drive up there- break her appointment at the clinic. She never broke rules.”

“Never?”

He turned and faced me. Unshaven, pouch-eyed. Instant old man; the mirror had been kind. “She once told me that when she was a kid in school, she used to get straight A’s. Not because she especially liked to study, but because she was afraid of the teachers getting mad at her. Afraid of not doing well. She was straitlaced as they come- even back when we were at the studio and things got pretty loose, she never relaxed her standards.”

I wondered how that kind of morality would fare after coming up against Todd Nyquist. I said, “Chickering’s pushing a suicide theory.”

“Chickering’s a goddam ass. The only thing he’s got any talent for is keeping things quiet. Which is what they pay him for.”

“What kinds of things?”

He closed his eyes, shook his head, faced the mirror again. “What do you think? People making asses of themselves. They come in here and get plastered, want to drive home and get all pissed-off and abusive when I tell Noel not to release their keys. I call Chickering. Even though this is Pasadena, he comes right down and escorts them home- he or one of his troopers, but they do it with their own cars, so no one will see anything out of the ordinary. Nothing gets written up and the ass’s car gets delivered to his driveway. If it’s somebody local. Same with nice old ladies caught shoplifting, or kids smoking dope.”

“What about outsiders?”

“They get put in jail.” Grim smile. “We’ve got great crime statistics.” He ran a finger across his lips. “That’s why we’ve got no local paper- thank God for that now. I used to think it was a real pain in the ass from an advertising point of view, but thank God for it now.”

He put both hands over his face.

Bethel came out from the kitchen carrying a plate of steak and eggs. She put it down in front of him, then quickly went back in.

After a long time he looked up. “So. How’d you enjoy the beach?”

When I didn’t reply, he said, “I told you she wouldn’t be out there. Why the hell’d you bother?”

“Detective Sturgis asked me to check.”

“Good old Detective Sturgis. We sure wasted each other’s time, didn’t we? You usually do what he asks?”

“He doesn’t usually ask.”

“Though it wasn’t exactly dirty work, right? Drive to the beach, catch some sun, check up on the client.”

“It’s a beautiful spot,” I said. “Get down there much?”

He tensed his jaw. Touched his whiskey glass. Finally said, “Used to. Few times a month. Never could get Gina to go with me.” He turned and looked at me again. Stared.

I held his gaze.

“Nothing like the sun at the beach,” he said. “Gotta keep the old tan going. Perfect host and all that- got a certain goddam standard to uphold, right?”

He lifted the glass, sipped.

I said, “The last couple of days haven’t been a day at the beach for you.”

“Yeah.” Hollow laugh. “First I thought it was nothing- Gina’d lost her way, would come right back. Then when she didn’t show up by Thursday night, I started thinking maybe she had taken a drive- wanting to be free, like Sturgis said. Once I put that in my mind, I couldn’t get it out. Couldn’t stop wondering if it was something I did- drove myself nuts wondering. So what does it turn out to be? Goddam stupid accident, Jesus H… I should have known it wasn’t us. We were getting along great, even though… it was so… so…”

He made a tortured sound, picked up the glass and heaved it at the mirror. The frÄulein’s face cracked; blades of glass tumbled out and shattered on the gooseneck spigot of the bar sink, leaving a trapezoid of white plaster. The rest of the mirror remained bolted to the wall.

No one came out of the kitchen.

He said, “ Skoal. À -goddam- santÁ. Bottoms goddam up.” Turning to me: “What are you here for anyway? See what a secret fag looks like?”

“Touching base. Trying to make some sense of what happened, myself. So I can help Melissa.”

“Made any so far? Sense?”

“Not yet.”

“You one, too?”

“What?”

“Fag. Gay- whatever they’re calling it nowadays. Like him. Sturgis. And me and…”

“No.”

“Bully for you… Good old Melissa. What was she like as a little kid?”

I told him, emphasizing the positive, careful not to break confidentiality.

“Yeah,” he said again. “That’s what I figured. I would have liked- Ah, to hell with it.”

He got up with remarkable speed. Went to the kitchen door and called out, “Noel!”

The Drucker boy came out, wearing his red busboy’s jacket over a T-shirt and jeans and holding a dish towel.

“You can go now,” said Ramp. “The doctor here says she’s sleeping. If you want to wait till she wakes up, that’s fine. I’ve got nothing for you to do here. Just do one thing first: Pack me a suitcase- clothes, stuff, just throw it in. Use the big blue case in my closet. Bring it back here- doesn’t matter what time. I’ll be here.”

“Yes, sir,” said Noel, looking uneasy.

“ Sir, ” said Ramp, turning to me. “Hear that? Respectful youth. This boy will go far. Watch out, Harvard.”

Noel winced.

Ramp said, “Tell your mom it’s safe to come out. I’m not going to eat any of this. Gonna take a nap, myself.”

The boy went back into the kitchen.

Ramp watched him. “Everything’s going to change,” he said. “Everything.”

Just as I was pulling away from the curb, Noel came out of the restaurant. He spotted me and jogged over to the Seville. He’d removed his red jacket, wore a small backpack over his T-shirt. The shirt said GREENPEACE. He mouthed, “Excuse me.”

I opened the passenger window.

He said, “Excuse me,” again, and added a “sir.”

“What’s up, Noel?”

“I was just wondering how Melissa’s doing.”

“She seems mostly to be sleeping. The full impact may not have hit her yet.”

“She’s a very…” He frowned.

I waited. He said, “It’s hard to phrase it.”

I shoved the door open. “C’mon in.”

He hesitated for a moment, pulled off the backpack, placed it on the floor, and slid in. He lifted the pack and put it on his lap. His face was hungry and hurting.

“Nice car,” he said. “Seventy-eight?”

“Nine.”

“The new ones aren’t nearly as good. Too much plastic.”

“I like it.”

He played with the straps on the backpack.

I said, “You were saying something about Melissa. Something that was hard to phrase.”

He frowned. One fingernail scraped a strap. “All I meant to say was, she’s a very special person. Unique. Just from looking at her you’d assume she was something totally different than what she actually is- I mean, I know this sounds sexist, but most of the really good-looking girls tend to be concerned about superficial things- at least that’s the way it is out here.”

“Out here in San Labrador?”

He nodded. “At least as far as what I’ve seen. I don’t know, maybe it’s California in general. Or the whole world. I’ve never really lived anywhere else since I was a little kid, so I can’t really say. That’s why I wanted to get out of here- try a different environment. Not all this party-hearty.”