Джонатан Келлерман - Crime Scene

He’d be curious, naturally. Enough to look up who was talking and what about. He had indeed viewed the conference webpage on his phone.

Browsing the speakers’ list.

Seeing Delaware’s name.

Feeling the pinch of a dormant grievance.

Witness for the plaintiff.

Calling the Claremont, getting no answer.

Putting back a few drinks.

Discovering, suddenly, the courage to go on over there and give his old adversary a piece of his mind.

I said, “What was the single narrow issue?”

“I was asked to evaluate the boy who had committed the murder and determine whether he was psychologically stable enough to participate in a study with the potential to induce a high level of stress.”

“And you said he wasn’t.”

“Psychology’s a limited science,” he said. “No one honest can pontificate about the past or the future. I said that, if it were my study, I would have excluded him. That’s all.”

“Even so, that implicates Rennert.”

“If the jury took it that way, that’s up to them. I can’t control how things get spun. Let me be very clear: I never said that a video game could make anyone kill anyone. I never said it, because I don’t believe it. I always thought the whole media-violence link is a bunch of horseshit. For one thing, it’s simplistic. It minimizes the role of personal responsibility. In my experience, it’s the individual that matters most of all. Not to mention that a lot of the studies that claim to prove a connection are poorly designed and haphazardly controlled. Back in the nineties, though, it was a sexy topic. The government liked it, you could get big grant money.”

“You don’t think there’s any way the experiment could have set the kid off.”

“I can’t answer that, Deputy.”

“Can’t or won’t.”

“Either,” Delaware said. “I don’t know what set him off. People are complicated. A doesn’t necessarily cause B. I tried to clarify that but got cut short by plaintiffs’ attorneys.”

“At that point you were no longer helping their case.”

“Like I said, I’m impartial,” he said. “I thought defense might raise it on cross-examination but they didn’t.”

“Never ask a question you don’t already know the answer to,” I said.

Delaware nodded. “They wanted me off the stand as quickly as possible. They still had to present their side, and if a jury hears the words study and murder in the same sentence two hundred times, even if that sentence is ‘The study did not cause the murder,’ they start to associate those ideas, whether they realize it or not.”

He paused. “You see the irony, of course. Here’s Rennert, year after year, paper after paper, doing his damnedest to show a causal relationship between violent media and actual violence. Then one of these kids actually does what he’s predicting, plays a game and goes out and kills someone, and his lawyers have to turn around and argue, no, it doesn’t actually work that way. Everything our client has written, his entire life’s work, all the articles, books, and speeches? Just kidding, guys.” He shook his head. “I wasn’t around to watch him take the stand, but I bet the Zhaos’ lawyers had a field day.”

He swirled the ice in his glass. “Look. I didn’t agree with Rennert’s methodology. I thought it was sloppy, not to mention based on a silly premise. And what happened to that poor girl was horrific. But that doesn’t put the knife in Rennert’s hands.”

“If he believed in his own theories, he had to feel responsible.”

Delaware nodded. “I’m sure he did. From the little I knew him, I thought his intentions were good. When he turned up at the hotel, he looked possessed. He said he forgave me but I got the sense he could’ve been talking to himself. I felt sorry for him. Still do.”

The idea of Rennert needing a sedative no longer seemed quite so far-fetched. Equally conceivable was that he’d hide that need from his daughter. “Did you have a personal relationship, outside of this case?”

“You asked me that over the phone,” he said. “No.”

“What about the boy?” I asked.

“What about him?”

“You evaluated him,” I said. “You spent time with him.”

“Under the terms of the settlement, there’s very little I can tell you. Plus he’s a minor. Or was, at the time.”

“What was wrong with him?”

He smiled faintly. Not going to answer that. “I’ll say this: the longer I practice, the less I know. It would be convenient if everyone fit into a diagnosis. Or if a diagnosis was all you needed.”

Thinking of his recent lecture — “Pediatric Forensic Evaluation” — I asked if he’d chosen the subject with the Zhao case in mind.

“No,” he said. “It is a coincidence, now that you point it out. But, no, it’s a standard talk I give. Comparatively technical, dissecting profiling and other alleged magic bullets.”

Another smile. “It’s one of my favorite topics, because people really are complicated.”

“You can see how it might get Rennert riled up.”

“I can. Though I’ve been to Berkeley before to lecture, and he’s never crashed those.”

“He might’ve, if he’d known about them,” I said. “What brings you here this time around? Another conference?”

“My girlfriend’s teaching a workshop. I’m tagging along.”

“Is she a psychologist, too?”

“She makes musical instruments.”

“Was she with you that weekend?”

“I was solo.”

“Right,” I said. “You didn’t finish saying what happened after Rennert barged in.”

“He shouted until security carted him off.”

“And then?”

“I finished my talk, ate as little rubber chicken as possible, went to bed.”

“By yourself,” I said.

He put his glass down. “Yes, Deputy. Nobody can corroborate that.”

“You didn’t speak to Rennert at any point later that night, phone or in person?”

“No. Whatever he was so worked up about, it was his issue and his alone.”

“You didn’t go to his house.”

“Absolutely not,” Delaware said. He seemed more amused than annoyed. “I have no idea where he lives.”

Easy enough to learn. But no reason to claim he — or anyone — could cause Rennert’s aorta to shred, even if he’d sneaked up behind and yelled “Boo.” Medically, the stress of their confrontation might’ve been a contributing factor. From my perspective, though, that didn’t amount to anything more than a tragic end to a tragic story.

Not an accident. Certainly not a homicide.

“How did he die?” Delaware asked.

I smiled. Not going to answer that.

He laughed. “All right. I get it.”

He checked his watch, then glanced over at the bar.

A woman — petite, extravagantly curvy, with a full head of auburn hair — waved. Like Delaware, she was dressed in black. Tight black.

He raised a hand to her and stood. “Got to go, Deputy Edison. Good luck finding whatever it is you’re looking for.”

Tatiana called the next day asking for an update.

Bad timing. I’d spoken to Delaware in the hope of finding information I could use to cushion her landing.

I had nothing for her.

RENNERT WALTER J.

SUBMIT

One click and it’d all be over.

I minimized the window, thinking: Coward.

“I’m finished with your father’s property,” I said. “If you want it back.”

“His property,” she said.

“The phone and whatnot.”

Instantly I regretted it. I could tell that she could tell that I was putting her off.

“Fine,” she said, as if I were a phone voice and we’d never met. “When do I get it?”