Jonathan Kellerman - Breakdown

“Like it matters? You’ll wanna come wherever it is.”

“That okay?”

“Okay?” he said. “Far from it. But I’m gonna say no?”

St. Denis Lane was an afterthought at the western edge of Bellagio Road, a night-blackened strip curving past fifteen-foot hedges, keep-out walls, and monumental gateposts. No streetlamps to compete with the stars. Tonight the stars were stingy.

Anyone walking would be unnoticed if they wanted to be.

The oldest, grandest section of Bel Air.

The Bel Air, quiet as a mortuary.

Blue flashers advertised the scene. The cop in the cruiser blocking the road had been told about me and waved me to a parking spot. I continued on foot past two other squad cars and a white coroner’s van. Twin gates bolted to fieldstone columns were splayed open. I stepped through and began climbing a crushed-gravel drive.

The punch line at the end of a five-hundred-foot walk was a huge, two-story Spanish Colonial house perched atop a couple of acres of lawn. The uniform stationed at the front door hadn’t been told about me and I waited as he radioed Milo. Whatever Milo said earned me a personal escort along the northern side of the house.

The property in back terminated in a dark cloud of forest, its dimensions impossible to gauge. Low-voltage lighting touched upon scalpel-cut hedges, billowing flower gardens, and decades-old citrus trees. The land was terraced gently into three levels, creating surprise as one descended. One tier down was marble statuary, a swimming pool archaic enough to feature a diving board, hexagons of barbered grass set in weathered brick. Level two was announced by a menagerie of topiary animals.

All the action was situated near a prancing topiary horse, the light here harsh from the glare of portable lamps arranged under a staked and taped canvas canopy. Gloria, a coroner’s investigator I knew from other death scenes, stood by making notes as jumpsuited techs crouched and worked. Milo was off to the side, pad and pencil out, talking to a white-haired woman.

He saw me but didn’t interrupt his interview.

I kept going, closing in on the last thing I wanted to see.

Zelda Chase lay on her back, arms bent unnaturally, mouth gaping, face compressed in terror and pain. She wore a sweatshirt and jeans I recognized from the closet at the shelter. A breeze blew and flowers sweetened the night but the air around the body reeked.

Splotches of green and brown and yellow and rust spread beneath her, some of the clots dotted with whitish clumps I took to be maggots. Then I bent and took a better look and saw that the white granules weren’t larvae, they were shreds of undigested food.

Coconut.

The Mounds bar Sherry had given to her.

Blowflies can arrive at a corpse within hours. No insect invasion implied recent death. Meaning Zelda hadn’t eaten the candy right away. Despite her mental state, she’d been able to delay gratification.

I walked over to Milo. He gave a small head shake and said, “Doctor.” The formality was a signal: I needed to act official and objective.

“Lieutenant.”

The woman with him was around seventy, tall and thin with ramrod posture and well-molded features. Up close, the white hair was actually ash blond, just above shoulder-length, cold-waved in the style of another era. She wore a dark-green silk blouse, black slacks, lighter-green flats. Eleven p.m., with a corpse in her garden, she was dressed for casual hosting.

But her expression said this was no party. “Doctor? The coroner?”

Instead of contradicting her, Milo said, “Dr. Delaware, this is Mrs. DePauw, she owns this lovely home and had the misfortune of discovering the body. We were just beginning to talk about it.”

I extended my hand, received a cursory press of manicured fingertips. “Enid DePauw, Doctor. This is quite an experience.”

“Again, so sorry, ma’am,” said Milo. “It had to be a terrible shock.”

Enid DePauw glanced at the body and winced. “That poor thing is the one to be pitied. And in answer to your question, Lieutenant, I have no idea how she got in. As you can see, I’m walled and gated.”

“With all due respect, ma’am, those walls are scalable and I didn’t notice any surveillance cameras.”

“There are none, Lieutenant. It didn’t seem necessary, all these years, we’ve never had a problem. I do have an alarm for the house and with the exception of a gardener’s boy pilfering tools, everything’s been peaceful. And that was twenty or so years ago.”

“I’m glad, ma’am, but in the future you might want to install cameras, the new ones are inexpensive and they’re easy to install.”

“I used to have a dog,” said Enid DePauw. “Teacup poodle, not much use as a sentry, but he didn’t like strangers. The alarm is first-rate, goes directly to the police. I’d hate to deface the gardens or the house with technology and whatnot. So cold and my garden’s landmark-quality. Several interesting people have resided here, including Jean Harlow.”

“I understand, ma’am. Now if you could tell me exactly what happened.”

Enid DePauw bit her lip. “All right... I’d been away at my condo in Palm Springs, returned tonight just after dark with my housekeeper. As I often do when we return from the desert, I gave the girl the night off. Compensation for having to stay late for the drive back.”

“So you were here alone when you found the body.”

“I was. I usually am, Lieutenant.”

Milo looked back at the house.

“I know,” said Enid DePauw. “It’s far too much for me now that my husband is gone. But I’ve never had any problems. And the same appeared to be true tonight. The alarm was still set when I walked into the house, nothing at all amiss. I did the usual things. Going through the mail, taking a bath — desert grit can be adhesive. What next... hmm... oh, yes, I fixed myself a nightcap and relaxed in the library. My husband’s favorite room. The funny thing is when he was alive, I never spent much time in there, but now... life turns out funny, no?”

A glimpse at the corpse caused rouged lips to quiver. “Poor thing. Is she one of those homeless people? She doesn’t have a purse. Though I didn’t see any shopping carts like they usually have. Is it out on the road?”

“No, ma’am. What happened next?”

“Sorry, I’m prattling. What happened... I finished my cocktail and thought I’d watch a bit of TV after taking a little stroll in the garden. I find garden strolls relaxing. If you’re going to ask me what time it was, I don’t know precisely, but I can tell you that immediately after... finding her, I hurried back into the house and dialed 911, so that should inform you.”

“Your call came in shortly after ten, ma’am.”

“There you go.” Another sidelong peek. “Very few teeth in her mouth. She looks as if she’s led a hard life. What do you think happened to her?”

“We don’t know yet, Mrs. DePauw.”

“Those types can hurt themselves, no? But I didn’t see any wounds. Then again, I didn’t spend much time looking, just hurried inside and reset the alarm and called you people.”

A hand settled on her left breast. Floated away, fingers bending and straightening rapidly, as if attacking a piano étude. A noise brought our attention to the body. A tech scraping brick. Another stood nearby entering data on a handheld.

Enid DePauw said, “To end up this way, she’d need to be... out of sorts? Mentally, I mean.”

Milo looked at me.

I said, “That’s a reasonable assumption.”

“Terrible when that happens,” said Enid DePauw. “People like that should be cared for, not left to wander the streets.”