Jonathan Kellerman - Breakdown

Stoeller said, “Very friendly.”

Rosa talked some more. Stoeller turned to us, any trace of insouciance gone.

“She says it’s wrong. Someone so nice to have bad luck.”

Manfred Stoeller clicked the black gate open and we drove out of the Aziz estate. Milo coasted to the end of the block and pulled over.

He said, “Eight days missing. Anyone taking bets she’s okay? So the question is where did it happen? What’s more likely, a Bel Air lurker nabbing her during a lunchtime stroll or she encountered a lowlife during her commute through a bunch of high-crime neighborhoods?”

I said, “Probability-wise, no contest.”

“What’s the ‘but’?”

“There’s logic and there’s intuition.”

“You’ve got a feeling.”

“Two dead women within yards of each other, days apart? You don’t?”

“I’m not seeing anything in common between them and Zelda was most likely an accident.”

“Bernstein came to that conclusion by process of elimination. What if someone deliberately fed her the colchicine?”

“Pretty resourceful Bel Air lurker.”

“This is the perfect environment for a lurker.” I told him about the coyote. “It was there one second, gone the next, no big deal for a human predator to slip out of sight. Ironically, the fact that it’s a high-end neighborhood full of security features makes it hospitable to squatting: huge properties, a lot of them rarely occupied. Scale a wall or slip through a security glitch and you could live undetected for a long time. If we’re talking a bad guy with survival skills, he could know something about foraging plants for all kinds of purposes.”

“Or he’s a bum with gout — scratch that, it’s a rich person’s thing, right?”

“Nope,” I said. “It used to be called the disease of kings because eating too much meat and shellfish can bring on attacks and the peasants didn’t have much of either. But anyone with a tendency can develop it. And now that I think about it, there’s nothing like chronic pain to make someone hostile.”

“A sore-toed, angry lunatic taking it out on the world, just what I need.” He drummed the dashboard. “You spotted this coyote because you were...”

“Running.”

“Ah,” he said. “A random exercise spot.”

“Fine,” I said. “You want a confession, here it is: I came back trying to get Zelda’s death and Ovid’s disappearance out of my system. That didn’t work very well and on the fourth day, I drove up to Bel Azura. The woman whose house Zelda trespassed happened to be outside. We talked and she told me something not on the police report: While Zelda was pawing the dirt, she cried out for her mother.”

“So your theory was right.”

“Right but useless. At that point, I resolved to really get past it.”

“Then I call you about Imelda and bring you back here. Hey, what are friends for? Okay, let’s get out of here.”

“Two women days apart,” I said. “Imelda worked here for months, making her an easily spotted target. And now I’m wondering if Zelda put herself in the crosshairs by wandering around for a couple of days. I checked the distance between here and Bel Azura on my odometer and it’s shorter than I’d figured, less than three miles. Meaning she could’ve easily covered it on foot. What do they sell a few blocks down on Sunset? Maps to the stars’ homes. She could’ve fixated on Bel Air because she’d convinced herself Mommy had been a Hollywood luminary, not a washout working as a call girl. Unfortunately, she attracted a predator.”

“Bad guy emerges from the bushes and offers her nasty herb tea? I can see someone in Zelda’s state falling for that but how does Imelda figure in?”

“Nothing says she did. He discovered he liked killing people and decided to repeat a couple of days later using a blitz attack.”

“Pulling her into the bushes.”

“It would explain her body not being found.”

“Moldering on one of these properties,” he said. “If he exists.”

“Maybe we’re on the wrong track,” I said. “Not a survivalist squatter, someone who’d blend right in.”

“Twisted rich guy living behind high walls. Now all I have to do is go mansion to mansion asking residents if they grow poisonous plants... I’m gonna call Lorrie Mendez and let her know I’ve got squat.”

“Confession without the benefit of pastoral guidance.”

“Take your atonement where you can, lad.”

The following afternoon, he phoned to let me know Manfred Stoeller had come through with the camera feed.

“Three months of Imelda’s employment but I got through it. Not that hard — nothing much happens there and she was a creature of habit. Coffee breaks were usually taken on the property, same for most of her brown-bag lunches. But eighteen times she did take the bag offsite, was always back within twenty-five minutes. The camera catches her heading down the drive and turning right, which makes sense, left is the dead end. Unfortunately, Stoeller was right about the restricted range. No way to know how far she went.”

“She couldn’t have gone too far and returned in twenty-five.”

“True, but it still leads nowhere. Literally and metaphorically. Lorrie agrees. She feels bad for the family but is moving on. Not a bad idea for all concerned, no?”

“Not bad at all.”

The moment he hung up, I ran to St. Denis Lane and clocked the walk from the Aziz estate to Enid DePauw’s front gate. Even slowing my pace to that of a strolling fifty-eight-year-old woman, just short of four minutes.

Leaving plenty of time to linger at the bottom of the road, noshing, or chatting with someone.

Ample opportunity to be spotted by a stalker.

To return to work, unawares.

Until the day you didn’t.

Jogging back home, I showered and changed into respectable clothes. Pocketing my consultant badge and a photo of Imelda Soriano, I drove back.

Parking near the big Tudor on the south side of the street, I rang the call button. A male voice said, “Yes?”

“Sorry to bother you, sir, but the police are investigating a missing person and I wonder if I could show you a photo. We can talk at your gate.”

“Who’s missing?”

“A woman who worked as a maid across the street.”

“Those people,” he said. “Hold on.”

Moments later, the mansion’s front door opened and a white-haired figure began a slow, tottering descent down the flower-lined driveway, aided by a pair of elbow-grip aluminum canes.

It took a while for details to come into focus. Sparse gray hair, leprechaun face, eyes buried in a network of creases. Warm day but he wore a tweed suit, a checked shirt, a green wool tie knotted huge, and high, bubble-toed hiking boots, one heel noticeably higher than the other. My guess was childhood polio compounded by age. By the time he reached me, he was breathing hard.

I said, “Sorry for the imposition, sir.”

“No problem, they say I should exercise. That place, eh? You manage to get in? I never have.”

“Yesterday, briefly.”

“Power of the constabulary. What’s it like?”

“Think of the Pentagon on growth hormones.”

He laughed. “Contemporary fortress, eh? What’s next? Radioactive moat, computerized bow-holes, and nuclear-powered crocodiles. Doesn’t surprise me, back when they were building the monstrosity they were insanely secretive. Put the walls and the gate up first, then the house. Trucks would roll in and out but the gate was never left open long enough to see what was happening other than a growing pile of ice cubes. Which unfortunately don’t melt. I suppose that type of furtiveness is necessary when you’re raping the earth.”