Jonathan Kellerman: Breakdown

Going to trial would take a while, but John Nguyen felt serene about his prospects. Milo said, “I’m on an optimism diet but I’ll splurge.”

I added my enthusiasm to the mix but my heart felt as if dry rocks had replaced tissue and blood. The likeliest reality was Ovid Chase had met a terrible end — despite what Chet Brett had told me, one of those living-rough horrors of the street.

Or, even worse, something cold and horrific at the hands of DePauw and Loach.

Either way, long buried where he’d never be found.

I needed to stop imagining.

I was working on that with little success when John Nguyen called and asked me to submit to an interview by an L.A. Times reporter. The four murders had captured the public’s attention and the paper wanted a “human interest follow-up.”

I said, “She the one Milo talked to?”

“Myrna Strickland. She talked to both of us.”

“He said she was annoying.”

“She’s a journalist, Alex.”

“What exactly does she want?”

“Your name came up in the court docs and she’s curious about a psychologist’s take, the whole mental health thing, oppression of the helpless. My advice is talk to her, otherwise she’ll find someone else who tells her what she wants to hear. She asked for your private number, I said I’d talk to you first. Can I give it to her?”

“Okay. What shouldn’t I tell her, John?”

“Anything beyond the basics of the case.”

“Meaning?”

“Try not to get too emo, if you know what I mean. Newspaper hacks are zombie aliens who steal our thoughts and mutate them into something they can digest.”

Myrna Strickland called me that day and said, “A phoner will be fine, Doctor.”

She was clear about her goal: I was to expound on “entitled white perpetrators versus low-income victims of color and those from the disabled community.”

I said, “What about Rod Salton?”

A beat. “The Mormon? Well, he’s a minority, too. At least, if you’re not in Utah. But I’m going to concentrate on the others.”

I stuck to the basics and she grew bored.

“That’s all, Doctor. Thanks.”

“There’s another victim no one’s talking about.”

“Like who?”

“The most vulnerable victim of all. A child.”

“There’s no child mentioned in anything I got from the D.A.”

“Zelda Chase had a son who’d be eleven if he was alive.”

A beat. “You’re saying he’s not?”

“He hasn’t been seen for several years. He’d also be an heir to the DePauw estate. So there’d be a motive to kill him.”

“Wow,” she said. “I’m putting my tape recorder back on.”

When I finished, she said, “Prince and Pauper, totally consistent with my theme.”

The story ran two days later, with “the tragedy and mystery of a throwaway child repeatedly victimized by the system” its primary focus.

The following afternoon, my service phoned with a message to call a Maureen Bolt.

Unfamiliar name, no reason stated, a 310 number. I’d just finished a session with one of the kids in the latest custody dispute, was collecting my thoughts and trying to figure out what to write down and what to leave out. Another couple of hours was spent on my report. It was early evening before I returned the call.

A melodious female voice said, “Hello.”

“This is Dr. Delaware returning Ms. Bolt’s call.”

“Hello, Alex. If I might. You don’t know me but I know about you. You worked with my husband, Lou Sherman.”

“I actually tried to reach you. The med school had you listed as Maureen Sherman.”

“I was working as a clinical social worker under my maiden name when I met Lou, by the time I retired, changing it didn’t make sense. Now here I am, contacting you. I suspect for the same reason you looked for me. Can we meet? I’m pretty much open time-wise and I’m not far from you, Studio City, just over the hill, half a mile east of Beverly Glen.”

“That is close.”

“Lou told me about your house in the Glen, said you’d described a great view. He always wanted a place with a view. We never got around to that. Would you be able to come over tomorrow?”

“I could drop by tonight.”

“No,” she said, “tomorrow would be better. Say four p.m.?”

“I’ll be there.”

“I figured you would,” she said. “Lou said you were one of the most thorough people he’d ever met.”

Ten-minute drive, a side street I’d passed thousands of times.

Miss one shred of information and you might as well be on another planet.

The neighborhood began with unobtrusive houses on pleasant, gently winding streets. The address Maureen Bolt had provided took me another mile east, into a section of older, larger structures.

My destination was a two-story whiteboard colonial with a brick motor court and green-shuttered windows. A silver Porsche 911 and a copper-colored Volvo station wagon shared the court. Behind the house rose a fifty-foot crown of Aleppo pines, evoking Enid DePauw’s forest-shrouded poison patch.

It didn’t take much to make me think of that.

The woman who stood in the doorway wore a white silk tunic patterned with pink flowers, black leggings, and silver sandals. Sixtyish, amply hipped, she had a pink-cheeked pixie face capped by steel-gray hair. Average height; in heels she’d have towered over Lou.

She had a hand out well before I got out of the Seville. Soft skin, just enough firmness to her grip.

“Thanks for coming, Alex. Nice to have a face to go with the name.”

She ushered me into a two-story foyer topped by a bronze chandelier. Down three steps was a living room set up with overstuffed furniture and cane-backed chairs, everything directed toward a fireplace with a book-topped mantel. Art consisted of a few rainy Paris street scenes, the kind of stuff relegated to the final lots of obscure auctions. Crimson-and-olive-striped drapes were drawn across the rear wall, blocking the only windows and dimming the entire house.

Funereal; that seemed an odd choice for a cheerful woman and I wondered about it as Maureen Bolt guided me up a short hallway. A couple more paintings — flowers in vases. I found myself surprised by the capital-T traditional décor.

What had I expected? Acoma pottery and a Hanukkah lamp?

She stopped at the first open door. “Here we are.”

Stepping aside, she waved me into a birch-paneled study lined with books. Another fireplace, the surround green marble, hosted a collection of Japanese vases. A writing desk sat atop a worn Persian rug, its weathered leather surface hosting a blotter and a pipe rack. Shutters were drawn. Soft light came from two floor lamps. A tufted red leather chesterfield faced a brown leather couch not unlike mine. Lou had seen patients here.

A man sat in the center of the couch and for one absurd moment I wondered if I’d been beckoned to treat someone.

He stood, looked straight at me, and tried to smile.

Maureen Bolt said, “Alex, this is Derek Sherman, Lou’s nephew. Derek, Dr. Delaware. I’ll leave you to it.”

Once she’d left and closed the door, the office felt smaller.

Derek Sherman said, “Nice to meet you, Doctor.” Brief handshake; his palm was damp.

I said, “Same here,” and studied him. His appearance had already triggered a storm of possibilities.

Forty or so, small and spare like Lou, with an unlined bronze face under dense, black, side-parted hair. Round-lens pewter eyeglasses framed wide black eyes. A stubble goatee, compulsively shaped and flecked with gray, emphasized a firm chin. His cheekbones were set high and cleanly defined. He wore a black polo shirt, tapered seersucker pants, brown deck shoes with fresh white soles. The gold watch on his right wrist looked expensive. So did the diamond wedding band on his left hand.