Jonathan Kellerman - Obsession

I walked Blanche and fed the fish and bothered Robin at her shop a couple of times and thought about Patty Bigelow watching a man die. I phoned Tanya at noon, then at five. She assured me everything was fine and asked if I’d learned anything new.

I said no. The lie slid out of my mouth as easy as breath.

Petra called a nighttime sit-down at ten p.m. My attendance was optional. I exercised the option and drove to Hollywood.

Same conference room. Saunders and Bouleau wore gray suits, white shirts, and crisp ties undaunted by double shifts. Petra had on a black pantsuit and looked preoccupied. Milo wore a mud-colored mock turtle over navy poly slacks and desert boots. Fire in his green eyes but it was hard to figure out what that meant.

I was the last to arrive and this time, they’d started without me.

Petra said, “Welcome to show-and-tell. Dave and Kevin were just showing us what master sleuths they are.”

Bouleau said, “Just back from Grant’s great-aunt.” Pronouncing it “awnt.” “Maybelle Lemoyne. She didn’t take the news well, we actually called the paramedics but she’s okay.”

“Salt of the earth,” said Saunders. “Widow, raised seven kids of her own, churchgoing, the whole deal. Moses was her oldest sister’s son, both she and Moses’ father died a few years ago. The family has roots in Louisiana-Baton Rouge and Nawlins. Moses played football in high school, was thinking about Tulane, then the diabetes killed that.”

“Hence,” said Bouleau, “the disability checks.”

“The family house went down in Katrina,” said Saunders. “Moses’ brother and sister went to live in Texas but he came out here to make it as a deejay. He was living with his aunt part-time, got some party gigs with that broker, rented a dump single in the Valley, and drove back and forth in an old Toyota. Car’s still at the aunt’s, dead battery, hasn’t been started for months.”

Bouleau said, “Not since Moses quit the broker and started hanging with some people he told Aunt Maybelle were ‘big-time.’ He gave her check-cashing authority on the disability money, told her to keep it, he was going to make it big in the music biz. She cashed the checks, started a bank account in his name.”

“Salt of the earth,” Saunders repeated. “She says Moses was always a nice boy, went to church, obeyed his mama when she was alive. His appearance would scare people, then they’d talk to him, see he was soft.”

I recalled Grant exiting the Hummer, standing near Mary Whitbread as she waved to us. Hesitating, then lifting his own huge hand.

Bouleau said, “Maybelle’s never seen or heard of Blaise De Paine but she did I.D. Robert Fisk. He came by with Moses a couple of months ago, stayed in the car when Moses went in and got some clothes. Auntie thought that was unfriendly, especially after she waved to come in. Fisk just sat there, pretended not to notice. Auntie asked Moses why he was associating with impolite people. Moses said Robert-he used the name-was okay, just a little quiet. In terms of motive, Auntie says Moses was a law-abider who definitely would’ve freaked out after witnessing or getting involved in a murder.”

Saunders said, “Everyone thinks their kin is angelic. I’ve heard Crips’ mommies insisting no way Latif could’ve shot those five people, meanwhile we’ve got Latif at the scene with the Uzi in his hand. But this lady I believe. We got some phone numbers in New Orleans from her-Moses’ pastor, an ex-girlfriend, a teacher. Everyone says the guy looked like trouble but was a lamb chop.”

“Also,” said Bouleau, “no genius. De Paine spins him some yarn about making it big in music, he would’ve bought it.” Sitting back. “And that’s the whole deal, folks.”

Petra said, “Thanks, guys,” told them about the missing girls and Roger Bandini’s death.

Bouleau said, “So if anyone did this Bandini it was Patty. Right after De Paine and Roger did the girls.”

“That’s the working theory, assuming anyone did anyone. We don’t even have names for the girls.”

Milo said, “Ahem,” opened his attaché case, and spread three photos in the center of the table.

The largest was an eight-by-ten still from Busty Babes Vol. XI , copyright Vivacious Videos. A pair of blondes reclining poolside, naked, splayed, flaunting inflated chests. Matching gigantic hairdos and tans suggested a twin fantasy. Brandee Vixen and Rocksi Roll grinned, fondled, and tongue-dueled.

The other two pictures were color faxes of what looked to be school photos.

A brown-haired girl around sixteen, wearing a white blouse with a starched Peter Pan collar, and a strawberry blonde in long braids, dressed identically. Braces and spots of acne on the brunette. Soft blue eyes and pretty features yearned to get past all that. The other girl was freckled and pug-nosed and brown-eyed, with pixie ears, a wide-open smile, and perfect dentition.

In the white space at the bottom of both photos, a cross of thorny vines was wreathed by a gold ribbon imprinted Faith Triumphant Academy, Curney, North Dakota .

Under each picture, Milo’s handwriting:

Brenda Hochlbeier.

Renée Mittle.

He said, “Best friends according to their parents. Their classmates knew it was more than that. They came from seriously fundamentalist families, not a cult, but close. The school was all girls, skirts down to the ankles. These two started rebelling in their junior year of high school. A month before graduation, they ran away. Brenda was seventeen and a half, Renée barely seventeen. They confided in some pals that they were going to New York to be Rockettes. The pals spilled and the search concentrated on the East Coast, poor parents tramping all over, hiring P.I.’s, including a couple of “apostolic investigators” who ripped them off gloriously. Whether or not the girls did go east is unclear. So is what they did between the time they split and when they started making movies out here a year later.”

I said, “Byron Stark thought they were older but they were eighteen…they look older.”

“Hair and makeup and surgery can do that.”

“So can attitude,” said Petra, eyeing the film still. “Here they look like hardened pros. From high school to that in a year. Whoa.”

Dave Saunders said, “You got all this from their parents, Milo?”

“No, from the sheriff in Curney, guy named Doug Brenner. Second-generation lawman, his dad was in charge when the girls ran away. Doug was one year ahead of the girls in the church boys’ school, says all the kids knew it was a runaway because Brenda and Renée couldn’t be themselves in that environment.”

“You or he going to notify the families?”

“I told him to hold off until we learn more.”

Kevin Bouleau said, “The good news is your daughters were lesbian porn stars. The bad news is we don’t have a clue where they are.”

“I’d say they were in garbage bags, ten years ago,” said Saunders, flicking a corner of Brenda Hochlbeier’s photo. “Man, that is gross…you’re a little scumbag animal-parts-loving dope-dealer psycho killer like De Paine, Peter Pan, whatever you want to call him, where do you dump the body parts?”

Looking at me.

I said, “A lot of those guys want to revisit.”

Milo said, “We know he liked to revisit Mommy’s film escapades.”

Petra said, “So somewhere relatively close to home…Stark’s dad didn’t see the van being loaded until eight days after the girls were gone. Petey probably kept the bodies in the garage, along with his other toys.”

Saunders said, “Probably cut them up there.”

Petra didn’t blink. “That, too. But he couldn’t leave them there forever. Or bury them in the yard, too risky. So he and Bandini trucked them off. But where ?”