Jonathan Kellerman - Bad Love

"How 'bout you, hon?" she said to me. The dog came over, thinking- or pretending- it was meant for him.

"I can wait."

"Me, too. So let me stick this in the fridge and when you guys get back, we'll chow down."

"Sounds good." Milo gave her the bag. The dog tried to lick it and she said, "Relax, I've got a Milk-Bone for you."

Above the roofline, the sky was black and empty. Lights from the houses across the canyon seemed a continent away.

"You'll be okay?" I said.

"I'll be fine. Go." She gave me a quick kiss and a small shove.

Milo and I headed for the Fiat. The dog watched us drive away.

• • •

The sound of the gate clanking shut made me feel better about leaving her up there. Milo coasted to Benedict, shifted to first, then upward, squeezing as much speed as possible out of the little car. Shifting roughly, big hands nearly covering the top of the steering wheel. As we headed south, I said, "Anything on Gritz?"

"One possible citation- thank God it's an unusual name. Lyle Edward, male white, thirty-four years old, five six, one thirty, I forget the color of his eyes."

"Coburg said he was shorter than Hewitt."

He nodded. "Bunch of drunk and disorderlies from back when we still bothered with those, possession of narcotics, couple of shoplifting busts, nothing heavy."

"When did he come to L.A.?"

"First arrest was fourteen years ago. The computer gives him no known address, no parole officer, either. He got probation for some of his naughties, lived at county jail for the others, and paid his debt in full."

"Any mention of mental illness?"

"There wouldn't be unless he was classified as a mentally disordered sex offender or committed some other kind of violent psycho crime."

"I'll call Jean Jeffers Monday, see if I can find out if he ever got treated at the center."

"Meanwhile, we can talk to the offrampers, for what it's worth. All he is is a name, so far."

"Robin suggested we should bring them food. Increase the rapport."

He shrugged. "Why not. There's a minimarket over on Olympic."

We drove a bit more. He frowned and rubbed his face with one hand.

"Something the matter?" I said.

"Nah… just the usual. Justice got raped again- my truant scumbags. The old lady died this afternoon."

"I'm sorry. Does that make it murder?"

He pumped his gas pedal leg. "It makes it shit. She had badly clogged arteries and a big tumor growing in her colon. Autopsy said it was just a matter of time. That, her age, and the fact that the kids never actually touched her means the DA's office doesn't want to bother to prove it was an unnatural death. Once they hospitalized her, she was never well enough to get even a deathbed declaration, and without her testimony, there's not much of a case against the little bastards even for robbery. So they probably get a stern lecture and walk. Wanna make a bet by the time they start shaving, someone else'll be dead?"

He got to Sunset and joined the smooth, fast traffic flowing west from Beverly Hills. Amid the Teutonic tanks and cigarillo sports jobs, the Fiat looked like a mistake. A Mercedes cut in front of us and Milo swore viciously.

I said, "You could give him a ticket."

"Don't tempt me."

A mile later, I said, "Robin came up with a possible link between Paprock and Shipler. Both could have been in group therapy with de Bosch. Treatment for themselves, or some kind of parent's group to talk about problem kids. The killer could also have been in the group, gotten treated roughly- or thought he had- and developed a grudge."

"Group therapy…"

"Some kind of common problem- what else would draw two people from such different backgrounds to de Bosch?"

"Interesting… but if it was a parent's group, de Bosch didn't run it. He died in eighty, and Paprock's kids are six and seven years old now. So they weren't alive when he was. In fact, at the time Myra died, they were only babies. So what kind of problems could they have had?"

"Maybe it was a child-rearing program. Or some kind of chronic illness support group. And are you sure Paprock was only married once?"

"According to her file she was."

"Okay," I said. "So maybe Katarina was the therapist. Or someone else at the school- maybe the killer believes in collective guilt. Or it could have been an adult treatment group. Child therapists don't always limit themselves to kids."

"Fine. But now we're back to the same old question: what's your link?"

"Has to be the conference. The killer's gotten severely paranoid- let his rage get out of control. To him, anyone associated with de Bosch is guilty, and where better to start than a bunch of therapists paying public homage to the old man? Maybe Stoumen's hit-and-run was no accident."

"What? Major-league mass murder? The killer's going after patients and therapists?"

"I don't know- I'm just grasping."

He heard the frustration in my voice. "It's okay, keep grasping. Doesn't cost the taxpayers a dime. For all I know we're dealing with something so crazy it'll never make sense."

We rode for a while. Then he said, "De Bosch's clinic was private, expensive. How could a janitor like Shipler afford getting treatment there?"

"Sometimes private clinics treat a few hardship cases. Or maybe Shipler had good health insurance through the school system. What about Paprock? Did she have money?"

"Nothing huge, as far as I can tell. Husband worked as a car salesman."

"Can you get hold of their insurance records?"

"If they had any, and haven't been destroyed."

I thought of two motherless grade-school children and said, "How old, exactly, were Paprock's children at the time of her murder?"

"Don't remember exactly- little."

"Who raised them?"

"I assume the husband."

"Is he still in town?"

"Don't know that either, yet."

"If he is, maybe he'll be willing to talk about her, tell us if she was ever a therapy patient at de Bosch's clinic."

He hooked a finger toward the rear seat. "Got the file right there. Check out the address."

I swung around toward the darkened seat and saw a file box.

"Right on top," he said. "The brown one."

Colors were indistinguishable in the darkness, but I reached over, groped around, and came up with a folder. Opening it, I squinted.

"There's a penlight in the glove compartment."

I tried to open the compartment, but it was stuck. Milo leaned across and slammed it with his fist. The door dropped open and papers slid to the floor. I stuffed them back in and finally found the light. Its skinny beam fell on a page of crime-scene photos stapled to the right-hand page. Lots of pink and red. Writing on a wall: a closeup of "bad love" in big, red block letters that matched the blood on the floor… neat lettering… a bloody thing below.

I turned to the facing page. The name of Myra Paprock's widower was midway through the intake data.

"Ralph Martin Paprock," I said. "Valley Vista Cadillac. The home address is in North Hollywood."

"I'll run it through DMV, see if he's still around."

I said, "I need to keep looking for the other conference people to warn them."

"Sure, but if you can't tell them who and why, what does that leave? "Dear Sir or Madam, this is to inform you you might be bludgeoned, stabbed, or run over by an unidentified, revenge-crazed psycho?"

"Maybe one of them can tell me the who and why. And I know I'd have liked to have been warned. The problem is finding them. None of them are working or living where they were at the time of the conference. And the woman I thought might be Rosenblatt's wife hasn't returned any of my calls."

Another stretch of silence.

"You're wondering," he said, "if they've been visited, too."