Jonathan Kellerman - Bad Love

"It'll take a couple of days to do a thorough workover."

"From the outside, the place looked sealed up. If I hadn't seen the breakfast dishes, I would have assumed Katarina was out of town. The killer must have closed the drapes after he killed her, then tossed in peace."

"Like you said, it's a ritual, something he sets up carefully."

"So, we're not dealing with a raving psychotic. Everything that's happened is too calculated for a schizophrenic: traveling around to conventions, simulating accidents. Skewering my fish. Taping Hewitt screaming. Stalking, delaying gratification for years. This is calculated cruelty, Milo. Some kind of psychopath. Becky's notes mean we have to look at Gritz carefully. If he's Silk-Merino, his street-bum-alkie thing may be a disguise. The perfect disguise, when you think about it, Milo. The homeless are everywhere, part of the scenery. To most of us they all look alike. I remember seeing a guy at Coburg's office. He looked so similar to Hewitt it startled me. All Bancroft really remembered about his intruder, besides age, was dirt and hair."

He thought. "How many years ago did Bancroft say this guy barged in?"

"Around ten. The guy was in his twenties, so he'd be in his thirties now, which would fit Gritz. Bert Harrison's Mr. Merino fits that time frame, too. Both Merino and Bancroft's tramp were agitated. Merino talked about the conference putting him in touch with his problems. A few years later, the tramp returned to his old school, causing a scene, trying to dig up his past. So it could be the same guy, or maybe there are lots of Corrective School alumni wandering around, trying to put their lives together. Whatever the case, something happened there, Milo. Bancroft called the school's students miscreants and fire setters. He denied there'd been any major problems that he couldn't handle, but he could have been lying."

"Well," he said, "local records can be checked, and Sally'll be talking to Bancroft again, see if she can get more details."

"Good luck to her. He doesn't suffer the middle class lightly."

He smiled and lifted his glass. "That's okay. Sally doesn't suffer assholes lightly."

He drank some beer but didn't touch his food. I looked at mine. It appeared well prepared but had all the appeal of fried lint.

I said, "Myra Paprock taught school here during the late sixties to the midseventies, so that's probably the time frame we're looking at. Lyle Gritz would have been around ten or eleven. Harrison remembers Myra as being young and very dogmatic. So maybe she got heavy-handed with discipline. Something a child could perceive as bad love. Shipler could have worked there, too, as a janitor. Got involved, somehow, in whatever happened. And most of the conference speakers were on staff then, too. I've got the exact dates in my notes back home. Let's finish up here, get back to L.A., and check."

"You check," he said. "I'll be staying up here for a day or two, working with Sally and Bill Steen. Leave messages at her desk." He gave me a business card.

I said, "The killer's been accelerating his pace. One year between victims, now only a few months between Stoumen and Katarina."

"Unless there are other victims we don't know about."

"True. I still can't find Harvey Rosenblatt, and his wife hasn't returned my call. Maybe she's a widow who just doesn't want to deal with it. But I've got to keep trying. If Rosenblatt's alive, I need to warn him- need to warn Harrison, too. Let me call him right now and tell him about Katarina."

I returned to the pay phone and dialed Ojai while reading the warning label on the cigarette machine. No answer, no tape. I hoped it was because Harrison's self-preservation instincts were sharp. The little man would make an easy, crimson target.

When I returned to the table, Milo still hadn't eaten.

"Gone," I said. "Maybe hiding already. He said he had somewhere to go."

"I'll ask an Ojai cop to stop by. What about Becky Basille? How do you fit her into this? Hewitt screaming "bad love,' the killer taping Hewitt?"

"Maybe Hewitt was a Corrective School alumnus, too. Or maybe the killer indoctrinated Hewitt about bad love. If G is our guy, Becky's notes imply a close relationship of some kind between him and Hewitt. If I'm right about the killer not being psychotic, he'd have been the more put-together partner- the dominant one. Able to push Hewitt's buttons, feed Hewitt's paranoia, get him off his medication, and turn him against his therapist. Because of his hatred of therapists. Plus, he had another reason to hate Becky: Hewitt was getting attached to her."

Milo began cutting salmon with his fork. Stopped and ran his hand over his face. "I'm still looking for Mr. Gritz. Pulled his complete sheet and it's all minor league."

"He told the Calcutta folks he was going to get rich. Could there be some kind of profit motive to these murders?"

"Maybe he was just bragging. Psychopaths do that." He looked at his food and shoved his plate away. "Who'm I kidding?"

"The kid on the tape," I said. "Any record of Gritz having children?"

He shook his head.

"The chant," I said. " 'Bad love, bad love, don't give me the bad love.' Sounds like something an abused kid might say. Having a child recite it could be part of the ritual. Reliving the past, using de Bosch's own terminology. God only knows what else he's done, trying to work through his pain."

He took out his wallet, pulled out cash, and put it on the table. Tried to catch the waitress's attention, but her back was to us.

"Milo," I said, "Becky might still be a link. She could have talked to someone about Hewitt and G."

"Like who?"

"A relative, a friend. Did she have a boyfriend?"

"You're saying she broke confidentiality?"

"She was a beginner, and we already know she wasn't that careful."

"Don't know about any boyfriend," he said. "But why would she not tell Jeffers, then go and gab to a layperson?"

"Because telling Jeffers would have meant getting pulled off Hewitt's case. And she could have talked without feeling she was breaching confidentiality. Leaving out names. But she might have said something to someone that can give us a lead."

"The only member of her family I ever met was her mother, and that was just once, to listen to her cry."

"A mother can be a confidante."

He looked at me. "After that picnic with Paprock's husband, you'd be willing to do another exhumation?"

"What else do we have going?"

He pushed food around his plate. "She was a nice person- the mother. What approach would you take with her?"

"Straight and narrow. Hewitt had a friend who may be involved in other killings. Someone whose name starts with G. Did Becky ever talk about him?"

He caught the waitress's eye and waved her over. She smiled and held up a finger, finished reciting the specials to a couple across the room.

"She lives near Park LaBrea," he said. "Near the art museum. Ramona or Rowena, something like that. I think she's in the book. Though she may have unlisted it after the murder. If she did, call me at Sally's and I'll get it for you."

He looked at our untouched plates, took a toothpick from a can on the table, and poked at his incisors.

"Got your message about the sheriff," I said. "When does he plan to get to the tape?"

"Next couple of days, unless some emergency comes up. Don't know what it'll accomplish, but at least we'll feel scientific."

"Speaking of science," I said, "any estimates yet about when Katarina was killed?"

"Coroner's initial guess is anywhere from eight to twenty hours before you found her."

"Eight's more likely. The coffee dregs were still moist. If I'd gotten there a little earlier I might have-"

"Gotten hurt yourself." He leaned forward. "Forget the rescue fantasies, Alex."