Jonathan Kellerman - Breakdown

Provocative, but the time frame was off: She’d gone missing in 1949.

Zina Rutherford, on the other hand, had walked out of her West Hollywood apartment and slipped into the ether twenty-nine years ago, shortly after her thirtieth birthday.

Zelda would’ve been five. Old enough to remember.

Zina/Zelda.

I’d wondered if Jane Smith’s name change had stemmed from identification with another tormented young woman, the unfortunate Mrs. Fitzgerald. But what if it had been an attempt to get phonetically closer to her mother?

She’d listed her given name as Jane Smith, not Jane Rutherford. But that could be explained by adoption. Or a five-year-old girl taken in by a relative.

I looked for everything I could find about Zina Rutherford, which turned out to be nothing but the same sketchy summary on four sites listing unsolved disappearances. No leads, no theories, description of Rutherford as an “aspiring actress.”

I clicked every contact us icon, was rewarded with an instant quartet of out-of-service error messages.

Searching movie databases produced no credits for Rutherford, so aspiring was as far as she’d gotten. Galaxies from the “star” Zelda had claimed. Yet more delusion or pathetic wishful thinking? Or she’d made up the whole thing and had no connection to another actress, alive or dead?

One more try: Hollywood might’ve ignored Zina Rutherford but LAPD could’ve paid attention.

Milo picked up after one ring. “Just about to call you on a couple of things, guess you’re my psychic friend, here’s my credit card number.”

“What’s up?”

“No nasty flora in Enid DePauw’s garden. She wasn’t sure but she referred me to her landscape architect. Apparently, the estate’s one of the landscaper’s crowning accomplishments, ‘classical but updated emphasis’ on roses, azaleas, local sustainable fruit trees and ornamentals, blah blah blah. So herbal medicine is the probable culprit, like Bernstein figured, Zelda got her hands on the wrong batch of whatever. A couple of days and ten miles passed between her leaving the shelter and dying, plenty of opportunity to dumpster-dive for the wrong veggie.”

I said, “I suppose she could’ve scored herbal meds at the shelter.”

“That, too.”

“I’ll let Andover know. No sense someone else keeling over.”

He said, “Good deed for the day? Why not, we can all use cosmic brownie points. The other thing I wanted to tell you is I heard from a Central patrolman, older guy works the desk, used to be on the streets. He remembers Zelda, confirms she was a street person. I checked the time period. Around half a year after her show got canceled, so she slid down pretty fast. He was the arresting officer on the second bust, said there were plenty of other times he could’ve hauled her in but he felt sorry for her, being so young and so messed up. He had no idea she’d been an actress, was pretty sure she was hooking to make ends meet, though he never caught her at it. She didn’t have a particular turf, hung out in that patch of Skid Row near Little Tokyo, flops, shelters, freeway underpasses. The main thing from your perspective is he never saw a kid with her and I’m going to take that as a good sign: She knew she was falling apart and made provisions. Because some psychology savant once told me positive thinking’s good for my health. Now why’d you call me ?”

My mind reeled. I focused and told him.

He said, “Zina Rutherford, never heard about that one. If it was filed as a missing person twenty-five years ago, good luck. During the transfer from paper to computer a lot of stuff got tossed.”

“Could you look into it anyway? Positive thinking and all?”

He laughed. “Sure, now go get positive yourself.”

“Meaning?”

“Talk about role reversal,” he said. “Meaning kiss your gal. Poochie, too. Who I thought of while enjoying that second Cuban sandwich from my doggie bag. Because Mademoiselle Flatface likes veal, right? I have a distinct memory of some scaloppine noshed on the sly.”

“Save her any?”

“Hell, no. There’s nostalgia and there’s reality.”

Just as I was leaving my office, my phone pinged an incoming text.

justincabbalerial@brown.edu

inquiring: what about zelda

Unfortunately, she passed away.

no way! u her friend?

Psychologist. Can we talk? I can call you.

here’s the number.

Seconds later, I was giving the details to a soft-spoken young man.

He said, “That’s unbelievably tragic. Zelda was a beautiful person.”

“You knew her well?”

“Not really but she was one of the few people on the set who treated me like a human being. Which I didn’t deserve, I was an utter pain in the ass, never wanted to act in the first place. My parents were kid actors, neither made it beyond commercials so they tried to live through me. When the show ended I stood up for myself and began taking my studies seriously.”

“Interesting rebellion.”

He laughed. “They still have their fantasy that I’m going to be Leonardo and buy them a mansion. Unfortunately for them, I’m a theoretical physics major. Anyway, Zelda was a cool person, said nice things when I came roaring through pulling ollies — flipping my board no-hands. Basically being a show-off dick. It drove everyone else up the wall but she seemed to enjoy it. She went psychotic, huh? I suppose I can see that.”

“You noticed signs.”

“I mean she had problems. Though I never observed anything extreme. Sometimes she’d get really hyper and go off on crazy shit about God or Jesus. But that’s actors, they’re always vulnerable to nonintellectual stuff. I grew up with that, learned to tune it out and tuned Zelda out. To me, she was a hot older chick who didn’t ignore me. That’s kind of perfect when you’re fifteen.”

“Did you ever meet Ovid, her son?”

“She brought him once in a while, he’d just sit and play by himself, I really wasn’t paying attention. Why?”

“We can’t locate him.”

“Maybe he’s with his dad.”

“Who’s that?”

“The only man I ever saw her with was an older dude, he’d come onto the set, have discussions with her, seemed pretty intense.”

“Short, white-haired, kind of Asian-looking?”

“That’s him.”

“Her psychiatrist.”

“Oh really,” said Justin Levine. “I heard she had a shrink. That would explain intense discussions.”

At eight p.m. Milo called. “I keep amassing good deeds, got something for you on Zina Rutherford. Not LAPD, Sheriff’s, she lived in West Hollywood. One of the old-timers remembered the detective who worked it, guy named Otis Ott the Second, they call him Double O. I left a message for him, asking if he’d talk to you. Just got his email: ‘Yeah, why not.’ Here’s his info.”

“Big Guy, I really appreciate it.”

“That’s why I did it.”

I called Detective Otis Ott II (ret.).

“This is Dub. You the psychologist?”

“Alex Delaware.”

“Zina Rutherford, blast from the past,” said Ott. “Never heard of any daughter so there’s probably nothing I can do for you.”

“Could we talk anyway?”

“You want to take me out to lunch tomorrow?”

Third case-related meal I’d had in as many days. I said, “Where?”

“How about Spago?” He laughed. “Nah, there’s a deli, Pico near Robertson. Say, eleven-thirty? That way I’ll be ready for an early dinner.”

Otis Ott got there before me, had taken a booth that gave him a full view of the deli’s front door. Classic detective move.