Jonathan Kellerman - Breakdown

The light turned green. We began descending the Glen.

I said, “Make a stop at my place.”

“Your car’s at the station.”

“I know. I want to check something. Actually, I want you to.”

“It can’t wait an extra ten minutes?”

“This time of day, could be fifteen, twenty minutes,” I said. “We’re right here, humor me.”

I explained.

He said, “That’s theoretically interesting.”

I fidgeted on the battered leather patients’ couch in my office as Milo worked my desktop.

Soon we had it: complete ownership records for the house on Bel Azura Drive.

Original date of construction: forty-three years ago. Original purchasers, a couple named MacAndrews.

Eight years after that — just after Zelda’s birth — ownership had passed to Zina Jane Smith, the down payment proffered by the G. S. Smith Family Trust of Shaker Heights, Ohio, mortgage payments to be handled by Miss Smith.

Eighteen months later: foreclosure on the grounds of non-payment, reversion to Ahmanson Savings and Loan.

In the ensuing years, the house had been bought and sold several times. Nothing that seemed tied to J. Yarmuth Loach, Esq., his firm, or Enid DePauw.

Milo’s eyes were wide. “She was making a pilgrimage to her childhood home — or what she imagined was her childhood home.” He grimaced. “Digging up the dirt.”

I said, “Digging and crying out for her mother.”

He wheeled my chair back a couple of feet and whirled so he faced me. “You think she believed Zina’s buried there? Then why didn’t she return to find out?”

“The arrest and commitment could’ve scared her off. Or her mental deterioration made it impossible to follow a sequential plan. I really don’t know and I probably never will.”

“I’m trying to imagine what it was like to be her,” he said. “Groping her way around the city, hearing things, head buzzing like a nonstop acid trip. Nothing can be done for people like that?”

“Some people respond to treatment, some don’t, some get worse. No one really understands the successes or the failures.”

Milo re-read the foreclosure documents. “A family rich enough to have a trust and they let Zina lose the place.”

I said, “Ott said it was the most disinterested family he’d ever come across. No one called or followed up except one brother who phoned once, a month after he couldn’t reach her on Thanksgiving. He made it clear that Zina had always been a problem child.”

“They got fed up carrying her financially.”

“And/or her lifestyle issues repelled them. As in a child out of wedlock, if Zelda really was her daughter. She’s never talked about a father.”

“All that plus living the La La party life, yeah, I can see noses getting bent,” he said. “We’re both from the Midwest, it’s a zillion parsecs from upper-crust Ohio to here.”

He put the papers aside. “Would the family kiss her off if they knew she had a child?”

“If it was a child they didn’t approve of? Who knows? The brother didn’t express any concern to Ott.”

“So maybe Zelda was delusional. Or she wasn’t and Zina had problems that led her to lose the kid along with her house. Psychosis can run in families, right?”

“Genetics isn’t destiny,” I said, “but it can be a factor.”

“So it’s possible Zina had serious mental issues of her own. Unstable party girl is hired for a party, freaks out, poses a threat to someone who can’t afford scandal, gets disappeared. I like it, we could sell it as a script. But I can’t see any way to prove it.”

I said, “Let’s learn about the Smiths of Shaker Heights.”

The City of Shaker Heights website offered a laid-back summary of public records policy. Personal inspection available during business hours, written requests not required for copies though a detailed description would “facilitate” the process, information provided “within a reasonable period of time.”

Those seeking data were instructed to contact the public records manager for the city department most likely to retain their particular record.

No phone numbers or email addresses listed.

Milo switched to the homepage of the Shaker Heights Police, called the Investigative Bureau, and talked to a sergeant named Anton Bach who said, “So we’re not talking suspects.”

“Just doing some background.”

“If it’s the Smiths I’m thinking about, never heard of any problems from them.”

“The trust is under G. S. Smith.”

“Hold on.”

Moments later: “Yeah, a guy here says those are the Smiths I was thinking about. G. S. stands for George Seward, he started the company back around the Civil War. My grandfather worked for them during World War Two. Smith Machine Works, parts for cranes, suspension bridges, the big stuff. They closed down when the steel industry tanked. I’m not sure any of the family is still around.”

“Would you have any specific names?”

“Hold on.”

Moments later: “My guy says no, can’t help you there. What kind of background are we talking about, Lieutenant?”

“One of their possible descendants is a homicide victim.”

“Possible?”

“That’s what I’m trying to clear up.”

“Ah, got it,” said Bach. “In terms of names, I could see if we can locate that trust.”

“That would be highly appreciated, Sergeant.”

“Andy’s fine. To be honest, I’m not sure where to go with it, never looked for a trust. Give me your number in case it takes time.”

I motioned to Milo.

“Sure, one more question from my partner, Andy. Gimme a sec.”

I said, “If the trust owned real estate, there’d be a record of that in the property tax rolls.”

Milo relayed the message. Bach said, “Hmm, good idea. I’ll put you on hold, if it goes fast, right back at you.”

Dead air.

Milo drummed my desk, pulled a pencil out of a drawer and rolled it between his fingers.

I said, “That went smoothly. Talk about connections.”

“Get me a private deal for an enormous party pad and I’ll start to feel important.”

Andy Bach clicked in. “You were right, real estate was the way to go. Trust owned a bunch of properties, sold ’em all a while back. But I found the same face page attached to some of the transactions and it’s got names on it. City’s been converting to PDF, give me your email.”

“Thanks a heap. You come to L.A., I’ll take you out for a big steak.”

“Last I was in L.A. it was years ago, with the wife and kids. Disneyland, Space Mountain, junk food, those pickles at Disneyland look like they’re made in outer space. God forbid I should have time for a quiet meal. But who knows?”

The information had arrived by the time Milo switched to his departmental email.

The sixteenth iteration of the G. S. Smith Family Trust had been set up sixty-four years ago for the benefit of the children of Oletta Elizabeth Smith and Weston Osmond Smith.

The minor children Weston Abel Smith, fourteen; James Finbar Smith, eleven; Sarah Oletta Smith, eight; Enid Lauretta Smith, six.

A separate page on the seventeenth iteration, four years after that, added another beneficiary: the newborn child of Oletta and Martin Rutherford, Agatha Zina Rutherford.

Milo said, “Enid and Zina. Finally, the gods have had enough random.”

He printed and we went into the kitchen where I made coffee and he scrounged himself a piece of cold roast beef and couple of less-than-optimal bagels that aerobicized his jaws. We’d just sat down when Robin came in with Blanche.

Hugs, kisses, Milo’s fake-grudging stoop to pet Blanche and feed her shreds of beef. She lingered near his trouser cuffs, panted a couple of times, and burped lustily before settling her head atop his shoe.