Jonathan Kellerman: Breakdown

Every time I’d seen Julie, she’d been diffident, but this seemed beyond that. Distracted. Not wanting to be here.

“Good to see you, Julie.”

“Likewise. Guess I’d better be going.”

Robin walked her out and when she returned we went out to the garden and sat on the teak bench facing the koi pond. Within seconds, Blanche was enjoying the slumber of the just.

Robin said, “They’re getting divorced. Five kids and Bryce wants full custody.”

“What happened?”

“She cheated, he found out. Will that make a difference?”

Julie’s husband was a periodontist I’d always found icy and remote. Neither of them would win Parent of the Year but both seemed competent.

I said, “Depends on who’s judging. Long affair or one-night stand?”

“Two years long, another dentist in Bryce’s practice. Even if Bryce was the forgiving type, Julie doesn’t think she deserves forgiveness. I tried to buck her up but it just got her more upset so I kept my mouth shut.”

“Fun lunch,” I said. “Café Solar?”

“How’d you know?”

“Animal tolerance. Any coyotes show up?”

“I wish,” she said. “Anything to distract. That’s why I took Blanche, when Julie came in looking the way she did, I figured I needed someone who knows how to smile. What do psychologists call that?”

“Being smart.”

The following afternoon I pulled up to the house rented by Zelda Chase, a dirt-brown stucco box perched half a mile above the Chateau Marmont.

The hotel’s known to cater to celebrity excess. In return, it gets away with aesthetic touches like selected rooms carpeted in AstroTurf. Or maybe that’s just practicality: When the man/woman of the hour is reacting to last night’s partying, pull out a garden hose.

From the Marmont bar to Zelda’s front door was a brief stroll and I wondered if Zelda had taken advantage. The door in question was a plywood slab in need of refinishing. No lawn out front, just cracked cement. Address numerals hung askew. A VW Bug took up the narrow driveway.

Not the kind of digs that gets readers of People and Us fantasizing, but that’s the thing about Hollywood: It doesn’t really exist. Sure, A-list stars smart enough to bank their earnings can live like potentates until they die, but most of the pretty faces who “make it” enjoy careers as brief as a mayfly’s ecstasy.

The brown box was what Zelda Chase had achieved at her apex. What would happen to a seriously troubled woman when her agent stopped taking her calls?

How would her son fare?

Lou Sherman had said Ovid was five years old but the DOB in his chart put him a month from six. Would a birthday party with Mom be in the cards?

The child who answered my knock looked barely five, until you saw the clarity in his eyes. In one hand was a glass of milk.

He said, “You’re the doctor who doesn’t give shots.” Nasal voice, clear enunciation. Close your eyes and you’d guess seven or eight.

My mind camera-clicked details.

Small for his age, thin, short legs, low center of gravity. Long, dark hair draping most of his forehead and fringing skinny shoulders. Possible Latino cast to his features.

He wore a black T-shirt with the logo of a band I’d never heard of, olive-drab cargo pants, high-top Keds loosely laced. Owlish, black-framed eyeglasses were moored to his head by an orange elastic band. The eyes behind the lenses were darker than Zelda’s, almost black, wide with curiosity.

I said, “You’re Ovid.”

He laughed. “I’m Ovid.” Aping my words and my inflection with the same uncanny accuracy his mother had displayed. What else had he picked up from her?

“Alex Delaware.” I extended my hand. Fine-boned fingers grabbed it, squeezed once, let go. Five-year-old version of a corporate power shake.

He said, “No shots, really?”

“Really.”

“Cooool.” His posture was relaxed but he made no move to let me in.

“Anyway, Ovid—”

“I said what kind of doctor and she said psych — lotrist?”

“Psychologist.”

He mouthed the word but didn’t speak it. “She said she didn’t know what that means.”

“She being...”

“Karen. She works with my mom. Do you know my mom?”

“I just met her.”

“Where?”

“At her doctor’s office.”

“She was in the hospital. She’ll get better.”

I said, “Can I come in?”

He moved aside. “She’s having a sad time. Not from me. Her own sad.”

That’s the kind of thing kids are taught by sensitive adults. This kid sounded as if he meant it.

I was about to respond when shouting from the rear of the house raised my head.

“Omigod — Ovie, you can’t answer the door, I told you not to answer!”

“He’s the psy-kol-gist, Karen.”

The woman who skidded to a halt behind him was late twenties to early thirties, heavyset with a full pallid face that would’ve gotten her cast as an Irish scullery maid in one of those period PBS shows. The rest of her was twenty-first century: barely enough flat-black hair to pull back in a bristly pony, seven pierces in two ears, a tiny rhinestone above one nostril, the requisite tattoos.

“I was in the bathroom,” she gasped. “I told him just wait until I get out — Ovie!”

The boy shrugged.

I said, “Karen, Alex Delaware.”

Ovid said, “ Doctor Alex Delaware.”

Karen Gallardo said, “I promise, sir. He’s never done this before — Ovid, when I’m in charge, I need you to listen to me.”

The boy chugged milk, got some on his chin, wiped it with a bare arm.

“Now you need a napkin.”

Ovid used his arm again. “I don’t. He’s here to talk to me.”

Karen Gallardo looked at me. I nodded and she left and Ovid said, “Over here.”

He led me past a tiny entry hall into a living room that elevated the house from dump to dump with a view. Of sorts.

In places like Tuscany and Santa Fe, where architectural restraint is linked to good judgment born of tradition, houses blend smoothly into hillsides. In L.A., it’s all about asserting your individuality. The panorama outside Zelda Chase’s floor-to-ceiling western window was a haze-capped jumble of swimming pools, drought-challenged gardens, and way too much structure on far too little soil.

Still, the eyeful probably trebled the rent, despite cheap brown carpeting, goosebump ceilings, and by-the-month furniture.

Neat and clean, though, with the sparse furnishings arranged as cleverly as possible and vacuum tracks striping the carpet. A bowl of apples and pears sat at the center of a small dining table, the fruit freshly washed, condensation bubbles freckling the skin.

The handiwork of a maid? Or perhaps Karen Gallardo had been ordered by the studio to make a good impression.

If so, Ovid Chase answering the door during her bathroom break had blown that, if I was inclined to condemnation. So far I wasn’t, just wanted to learn as much as I could about the boy.

He said, “I did this,” and settled on the floor behind an elaborate construction of multicolored translucent tiles. What looked to be a postmodern version of a medieval compound, with a multi-spired castle, smaller outbuildings, proportional doorways and windows, and a horizontal stretch of tiles extending from the front that was probably intended as a bridge over an unseen moat.

The project took up the bulk of the room’s central space. Child-oriented environment? If so, this child had made good use of it.

“Nice,” I said.

Without comment, he reached for a box of unused tiles, grabbed a handful, and began adding and subtracting, pausing only to regard his work.

I said, “This really is impressive, Ovid.”