Jonathan Kellerman - Breakdown

I said, “Spare parts seem to be working well.”

“Medical science proclaims me a miracle man. A few bypassed arteries, a couple of tumors sent packing, a reconstituted disk in my neck, and thyroid hormone to keep me metabolizing. Been feeling so hale, I’m pondering Viagra. My wife’s worried I’ll go blind and grope another woman.”

The only other people in the park were two gorgeous women in yoga clothes perched on the rim of a dry fountain, luxuriating in perfect posture as their dogs socialized. Cohen admired them for a moment, before veering to the northern periphery of the lawn and walking.

Bionic man on fuel-saving mode. I slowed down to keep pace.

He said, “So you’re Sherlocking full-time? No more listening to people’s problems?”

“No, I still do that.”

“Mixing it up,” he said. “Keeps life interesting. Fine, tell me a complicated story.”

I kept Alicia, Imelda, Rod Salton, and Loach out of the narrative, described Zelda, without naming her, as a homeless trespasser who’d died in Enid DePauw’s garden, cause of death still “undetermined.”

“But you’d like to determine.” Unmoved, unimpressed. A guy who’d heard it all.

I thought of the odd question he’d posed. Is anyone else involved?

“Resolution’s always better, Mr. Cohen.”

“You’re saying it could be foul play? On the part of Enid?”

Not shocked by the question. I shrugged.

The look Cohen gave me was one I knew well. Sitting on the stand as an expert witness, as a lawyer prepared to attack.

Then he shrugged, too. “Enid I was aware of because she was married to Av and Av I knew well. There was a time you’d term us chums. Bright boy, he had a law degree but never practiced, found it more profitable to move money around. We met forty-plus years ago when he sent business to the firm I worked for before I went out on my own. They assigned me to his company and we hit it off.”

“Were you doing family law at the time?”

“That’s all I’ve ever done, Doctor.”

“The business he sent was rich people divorcing.”

“As you know, rich people create difficult situations when they get emotional. Too much incentive for mischief. What I did for Av’s clients was what today you’d call forensic accounting. My father was a bookkeeper, I knew how to add and subtract.”

I said, “Finding hidden assets.”

Cohen smiled. “You’re not the only one who likes to detect.”

“What kind of person was Av?”

“Friendly, outgoing. As I said, smart, though clever would be more accurate. Knowing what he had to know but not bothering to delve further.”

“Surface intelligence.”

“Mile wide, inch deep, like every politician I’ve met,” said Cohen. “His talent was conversation. He could talk about anything and if you got too specific for him, he’d switch to listening. Or pretending to. I liked him, terrific company, always a positive attitude. We were around the same age, played tennis whenever we could at Roxbury Park. Not golf, golf was a country-club thing and he, being of the Gentile persuasion, played at Wilshire, I at Hillcrest. Good backhand, Averell. We’d also meet on business matters, usually over dinner and too many cocktails. Back then, young Beverly Hills bucks frequented the same locales.”

He held up a finger. “I can tell you what he drank. Moscow Mules, those little copper cups. He liked his ginger beer sharp.”

One of the beauties rose from the fountain rim, bent liquidly, and leashed her dog. Cohen watched her and sighed. “It goes by fast, my friend... where was I — the watering holes. The Polo Lounge, Chasen’s, Scandia, they all closed down in the eighties and nineties. If we were feeling a little less buttoned down and didn’t mind umbrellas in our drinks, Trader Vic’s — still there, but different. Or the Luau on Rodeo — that one was owned by Lana Turner’s husband, went under even earlier. Averell was a generous tipper, took the time to schmooze with waiters and busboys. When you were with him, you got great service... what else... good-looking fellow in that Bob Cummings way.”

“What was his background?”

“Perfect for managing rich people’s money. East Coast prep school, Amherst, law at Virginia. I’m Harvard all the way through, used to kid him about being bush league. He’d make a crack about laboring under the weight of a massive foreskin.”

Cohen turned toward the remaining yoga princess. “Such perfection they achieve today. Anyway, that’s Averell. Enid came later, he married her when he was well into his forties, she must have been midthirties at least.”

“I’ve learned he had studio connections.”

“You learned?”

“He bought his house from MGM in a private sale. Did he do a lot of industry work?”

“Anyone worth their salt in Beverly Hills wanted industry work,” said Cohen. “Was Av a unique whiz with investments? Naw, just a competent stocks and bonds man, cautious strategies, conservation of wealth. If he had any corporate clients, I never heard about them. Don’t read too much into a private sale, Doctor. People had their ears to the ground because the studios were always hustling to raise quick bucks by unloading real estate they’d picked up on the cheap. Not just in the Golden Triangle, we’re talking huge acreage in Burbank they didn’t need anymore for shooting westerns, Thousand Oaks, the Antelope Valley. Private sales worked out for everyone: A seller could discount up to the amount of the brokerage fee they avoided, and if the documents were fudged to reduce property tax and put some extra cash into someone’s pocket, who’d know?”

“Still,” I said, “that’s an impressive place on St. Denis.”

“You’re showing your age, Doctor. Or rather the lack of. By today’s standards, it’s Xanadu. I’m not saying it was ever cheap but back then, if you had money — I don’t mean Buffett — Gates money, a solid six-figure income — you could acquire some serious soil because real estate didn’t take off until the midseventies. My daughter works with me so I know what she earns. She had to take a big mortgage to buy a nice but not fancy house on a south-of-Wilshire seven-thousand-foot lot. For three million dollars. I have a twenty-thousand-square-foot lot on Sierra and paid a hundred grand in 1968.”

A wisp of breeze caused red-brown strands to flutter away from his skull. “Long-term capital gain is a benefit of being a dinosaur. One of the few.”

I said, “So Averell bought the estate with his own money.”

“Did I say or imply that? What I said was it didn’t take that much for anyone with decent cash flow to get a place like that. I could’ve bought an even bigger property than he did, nine acres on Bellagio. Forget it, too much maintenance.”

We continued walking.

Cohen said, “What I heard but can’t confirm is that Enid chipped in big-time, or maybe paid for the whole caboodle. She came from big money in the Midwest. The family made tractors or something.”

“Cleveland. Machine parts.”

“So you know. So what do you expect to learn from me?”

“What do you think of Enid?”

“What do you think of her?”

“Only met her once,” I said. “Despite a dead body in her garden, she seemed pretty cool and collected.”

“You’re seriously considering she had something to do with it.”

“You consider that unlikely?”

Cohen’s hair flew up again. He made no effort to suppress it. “What haven’t you told me, Doctor? If that little précis you gave me is ‘complicated,’ my foreskin’s going to grow back.”

“This needs to stay between us.”

“I am the soul of discretion.” Cohen laughed. “You’re thinking that’s a hoot, last we spoke I spilled more beans than a drunken chuckwagon cook. I explained at the time: I wanted to die in a burst of altruism. Now that I realize I’m going to live forever, I’m back to keeping my mouth shut.”