The Wedding Guest

by Jonathan Kellerman

  Common name spanning multiple continents. I added property manager and got hits in Brooklyn, Fort Lauderdale, and Silver Spring, Maryland. Images accompanied the last two: a thirtysomething condo superintendent in Florida, a seventysomething, yarmulke-wearing nonspecified in Maryland.

  The car in front of me moved a few inches. Before I did the same, the driver behind me leaned on the horn. I checked the rearview. Young woman, maybe a student, in a VW Bug. Bouncing in her seat and waving a phone and flipping me off.

  Another half-foot roll, then a total stop. The ranting behind me persisted.

  The car stuck in the southbound lane opposite me was a Tesla driven by a black-T-shirted, white-haired man with flabby, crepe-laced arms unimproved by a barbed-wire biceps tattoo. He looked at me and shook his head.

  Appreciating the empathy, I shrugged.

  His face darkened. “You don’t fucking get it. If you didn’t use your fucking phone, we could all fucking go home.”

  A woman in an open-air Fiat behind him raised her eyebrows and did a he’s-nuts corkscrew motion with her index finger.

  Hoping she meant him, not me, I smiled at her, rolled up my window, turned on the radio. Given the miasma of the moment, the blues seemed about right. Anything but the news.

  CHAPTER

  27

  I got home nearly forty minutes later. Robin had left me a note in her fine calligraphic hand. Left a message with Sharon I., went to Trader Joe’s, Blanche snoozing.

  Dogs’ natural routine is to sleep most of the day but they wake easily. Maybe it’s a self-protective throwback to their wolf origins a zillion years ago. Maybe they’re just curious about the baffling world people have created.

  In the service porch behind the kitchen, my dog lay curled in her crate, soft brown eyes wide open.

  We use the crate because denning’s another natural dog thing. Some pooches don’t like it but Blanche does, savoring her space the way a kid enjoys a tree house. But we don’t lock it and when I said, “Hey, gorgeous,” she yawned and smiled, nudged the grate open with her nose, and padded out. Rubbing her knobby head against my leg, she told me about her day, an oration of grunts, beeps, and snuffles.

  When she finished, I said, “Sounds like you had more fun than I did,” refilled her water bowl, gave her a liver snap that she mouthed daintily, and brewed a half pot of coffee. My cup filled, we headed for my office.

  She lay at my feet as I called Younger Peter Kramer in Florida. Disconnected number. Older, skullcapped Peter in Maryland answered in a hoarse, husky voice. “Kray-mer.”

  Fudging my qualifications, I asked if he’d ever worked in L.A.

  “Why do you want to know?”

  “It’s related to a case, here. A property manager with your name worked in Westwood—”

  “I don’t know any Westwood,” he said. “Police? I take care of buildings in Baltimore, near the race course.”

  “Pimlico.”

  “You been there.”

  I lied, “Long time ago.”

  “It’s the same dump, things happen, try to get cops to show up. California? Haven’t been out there in twenty years. Good luck.”

  I ran another Peter Kramer search using real estate management, building supervisor, dormitory, dorm, and private dorm.

  Nothing.

  Back to the name by itself, unlimited. Two and a half million hits.

  Logging off, I tried Basia Lopatinski’s number at the crypt and lucked out.

  She said, “Alex. Something new?”

  “We got an I.D. on the wedding victim.”

  “Good! Who is she?”

  I gave her the basics.

  “Studio City,” she said. “I will put this in the file. Thanks for letting me know.”

  “Anything on Michael Lotz’s tox screen and autopsy?”

  “The bloods aren’t back, yet, but he shows all the external signs of an opioid O.D. His body’s a pincushion and he’s got all sorts of Nazi-type tattoos. No decision on an autopsy, they’re having a scheduling meeting tomorrow. I’m hoping they’ll take my recommendation to cut him open. Why didn’t Milo call himself?”

  “He’s swamped so I volunteered.”

  “Nice of you,” she said. “It’s an interesting thing the two of you have. I’ve heard some other detectives are jealous.”

  “And others have nothing good to say about it.”

  She laughed. “So you know. Okay, check back with me by the end of tomorrow on the autopsy. Maybe the tox will also be back.”

  “One more thing. I was wondering if you could look up an old case. Suicide a couple of years ago in Westwood. A student at the U. named Cassandra Booker.”

  A pen scratched. “What would you like to know about her?”

  “Cause of death.”

  “This has something to do with Ms. DaCosta?”

  “Same address as the building where Lotz worked.”

  “Hold on.” A series of keyboard clicks. “Heroin and fentanyl, but a lot more fentanyl than DaCosta. Without an immediate shpritz of naloxone, this would’ve been rapidly fatal. It’s listed as undetermined not suicide. We do that for the family’s sake when an accidental O.D. is a reasonable possibility.”

  Maxine Driver had heard differently. School gossip?

  I said, “Any psychiatric data in the file?”

  “Let me see…no, sorry.”

  “Any way to ask the pathologist?”

  “That was Doctor…Fawzi. He’s not with us anymore, somewhere in the Mideast, no idea where, and there’s no guarantee he’d remember.”

  “Where did she die?”

  “Says…in her room on her bed,” said Lopatinski. “Not the bathroom like DaCosta if that’s what you’re getting at. That, the dosage, no garrote, I have to say I’m seeing more discrepancies than similarities, Alex. To either Ms. DaCosta or Mr. Lotz—no needle marks on Ms. Booker, new or old.”

  “She snorted.”

  “A lot of kids do it that way. They don’t like pain but aren’t afraid of long-term consequences. That’s the definition of youth, right, Alex?”

  * * *

  —

  I returned to the Peter Kramer search, using Los Angeles as a limiter. Still well over a hundred possibilities. Of those, only a handful of commercial sites included phone numbers, a good portion of which were inoperative or linked to clickbait or other nonsense. That’s the internet: an ocean of quantity, droplets of quality.

  The Kramers I was able to reach were baffled by my questions; a few grew irritated.

  What could Bob Pena’s assistant tell me, anyway? The facts of Cassy Booker’s death were sad but nonprobative. The poor kid had died alone on a bed in a private dorm, the victim of the same cocktail that had created a national scourge.

  Fentanyl, cheap, fast acting, turbocharged, and snortable, was the current rock star of brain poisons, and people of Cassy Booker’s age were a prime audience. Combine that with the discrepancies Basia Lopatinski had noted and there wasn’t much to work with.

  Except.

  Suzanne had been murdered at the wedding of Amanda Burdette’s brother and Cassy had lived in the same complex as Amanda and been part of the same academic program as Amanda. The girls were close in age, physically similar.

  The few leads we had pointed to Suzanne’s murder as a contract killing at the hands of Michael Lotz. But when it came to his own violent appetites, did Michael Lotz go for a whole other type of victim?

  Had Amanda been pegged as a victim, only to be saved by Lotz’s inadvertent overdose? Turning it another way, had Suzanne been slaughtered because of a relationship with Amanda?

  The Brain.

  A mean-spirited, antisocial young woman colluding with the addict in the basement to get rid of an inconvenience?

  I tossed that around for a whi
le, decided I had nothing to offer Milo that couldn’t wait until morning.

  But he couldn’t.

  CHAPTER

  28

  At nine thirty p.m., I’d just picked up my old Martin and was settling down to play. Robin was showering. While shopping for groceries, she’d gotten an away-from-the-office reply from Sharon Isbin at Juilliard.

  Blanche sat at my feet, waiting for her favorite fingerpick, “Windy and Warm.” When I placed the guitar back in its case and reached for the phone, she let out a deep sigh.

  I consoled her with a neck rub and clicked on. “Working late?”

  Milo said, “Time is an abstract concept.” Lightness in his voice. “The bad news is I can’t find any info on Suzanne DaCosta and her license is only half a year old, so I’m thinking it might be an alias. To balance that out, two big good things: First, I spotted Lotz in one of the wedding photos, I’ll show you when we get together. Second, just heard from Homeland. Garrett B. hadn’t been to Europe. Until today. Not Poland, Italy. He and La Bambina took an Alitalia flight that landed in Rome this morning. Sleepy tried getting their whereabouts from Italian immigration, don’t ask. I’m having Moe, Sean, and Alicia call every goddamn hotel in the city.”

  I said, “Accelerated schedule on the honeymoon.”

  “Right after we talk to him about Poland. Funny thing ’bout that, huh? And during that period Lotz dies. You talk to Basia, yet?”

  “She’ll know more about the autopsy after a meeting tomorrow. Lotz’s bloods aren’t back but the signs of an O.D. are obvious, including lots of track marks. He’s also got what sound like prison tattoos. My big thing is Cassy Booker died of a heroin-fentanyl overdose. Not suicide, undetermined. Basia says without a no-alternative suicide, they do that for the family.”

  “I know,” he said. “Either way, Alex, it’s not murder, just a college kid O.D.’ing on the poison du jour.”

  I said, “True, but Amanda and Cassie being enrolled in the same program and living in the same complex bugs me.”

  “Garrett and little sis are both involved in very bad stuff? Sure, why not? Get me word from Maxine that the girls actually hung out, Amanda goes on the radar. Meanwhile, it’s her suddenly rabbiting brother who interests me.”

  “Anything come up on him?”

  A beat. “I was afraid you’d ask that. If you must know, he appears annoyingly spotless. Eagle Scout, high school salutatorian, graduated with honors from UC Irvine, got hired by the numbers-crunchers he still works for. I’m gonna drop in at his folks’ place tomorrow, see if we can pry something out of them. Maybe also get a look at Pa Walton’s barn where the animal dope is stored.”

  “Calabasas,” I said. “Back to the Valley.”

  “That appears to be my current karma. I’m figuring let the traffic fade, we leave around nine. This time I’ll drive.”

  We. Assuming I’d never turn down the opportunity.

  Ace detective.

  CHAPTER

  29

  In L.A., twenty miles from city center can take you to a world apart.

  Calabasas, spilling into the Santa Monica Mountains on the western edge of the San Fernando Valley, used to be a low-key pocket of rustic, horsey serenity. That’s been altered by an influx of retired athletes and celebrities who’ve achieved fame for merely existing, along with the metastatic palaces they erect and businesses that cater to self-love and shallow notoriety.

  A few of the old-timers gripe. But real estate prices have skyrocketed and the heirs of ranchers, fruit farmers, and horse breeders are often thrilled to trade acreage for passive wealth.

  On a good day, Calabasas is a half-hour drive from my house, and this was a great day. Traffic on the 101 was sparse and rage-free, the air warm and dry and redolent of old wood and new grass, the blue of the sky so brilliant it verged on unlikely.

  Surrounding the freeway, russet and olive rolling hills aimed skyward, gilded by splashes of egg-yolk sunlight.

  Milo had picked me up five to nine, mumbling something that might’ve been “Good morning,” and handing me a photograph.

  The same crowd shot near the bar where we’d spotted Suzanne DaCosta in her red dress. Lots of small heads. Milo had used a black grease pencil to circle one of them.

  A man standing to her right, a few feet behind. Nondescript, Caucasian, middle-aged, clean-shaven, wearing a dark suit, white shirt, and dark tie.

  Mr. Blend-In. A face you’d never notice unless you knew who you were looking for.

  The same went for the trajectory of Michael Lotz’s droopy eyes. Objectively, it was impossible to peg him as watching his victim. But given what he’d done, impossible to think otherwise.

  Milo said, “That clinches it, as if it needed clinching,” gunned the unmarked’s engine, and raced toward my gate. I clicked it open just in time for him to speed through. As we sped north on the Glen, I studied the photo some more then put it aside.

  A woman, unmindful.

  Prey. Predator.

  * * *

  —

  Twenty-eight minutes later, we were exiting the freeway at Los Virgenes Road and driving through a swath of luxury car dealerships, upscale coffee bars and restaurants, plastic surgery practices, day spas, faux-western-wear boutiques, and realtors peddling gated enclaves. Also fast-food joints and gas stations; everyone needs quick fuel from time to time.

  It took several miles of climbing the southern foothills to get past that.

  First came clumps of the type of house you get near the freeway. Then the terrain unfolded and began to breathe and we were coursing past pastures and soft hills studded with ranch houses, outbuildings, and corrals.

  Milo said, “No pumpkins in sight.”

  I knew what he was talking about. “So much for the Halloween trade.”

  Some people believe Calabasas was named to commemorate a two-hundred-year-old accidental dumping of squash seeds from a Basque farmer’s horse cart. Others are convinced the name honors a Chumash Indian word describing the flight plan of geese. No one really knows the truth but like most California controversies, that doesn’t inhibit strong opinions and the shaming of dissidence.

  Currently, squash was winning out.

  We rode a ribbon of two-lane highway into the mountains for another quarter hour before reaching the Wagon Lane address of Sandra and Wilbur Burdette.

  Easy to spot because a sign on a post featured their name over large reflective numbers. No house visible, just a copse of California oaks and a sinuous dusty drive.

  The oaks, gnarled and evergreen, are survivors adapted to drought that predate anyone’s settlement by millennia. During the boom days of West Valley development, entire groves were destroyed without a blink. Nowadays, master planners transplant the trees to golf courses.

  Milo said, “Here goes,” and turned onto the snaky road. The curves kept his speed low. A second sign twenty feet in proclaimed: Wilbur A. Burdette, DVM. Ride-ins Welcome.

  I said, “No gate. Friendly folk.”

  Milo said, “At least for the next couple of minutes.”

  * * *

  —

  Four twists of asphalt later we arrived at a flat pad housing three burgundy clapboard structures, an empty corral, and a smaller fenced-in area holding miniature goats and sheep. More oaks to the left, fencing a grove of olive and citrus trees in full fruit. The tail end of the drive was lined with yucca, aloe, and ground-hugging thatches of creeping bougainvillea.

  All of that backed by two or three acres of tall grass followed by pink and gray granite mountainside.

  The front structure was a one-story house. To the right stood a cabin of the same style and composition. Abutting the corral and the pen was the largest building, low-pitched and windowless. Bringing a knowing smile to Milo’s glare-ravaged face.

  The barn.

  I
said, “You’re looking like a narc.”

  “Whatever it takes.”

  He rolled toward a carport created by screwing together steel pipes, covered by white canvas, and housing a white Ford F-150 pickup, a coffee-colored Mercedes diesel station wagon, and a white Toyota Supra.

  I kept up with Milo’s eager lope. A rubber welcome mat said Welcome!!!!

  Another staked sign to the left of the door: For patient calls, please ring in at Dr. Burdette’s office right behind the house.

  The cabin.

  Milo said, “I’ve been called beastly but let’s start with being human.”

  His bell-ring caused a dog to bark. Then another. Then, a canine chorus.

  From within came a whooshing noise. Paws scratching the other side of the door, an opera of howls, growls, yips.

  A woman called out, “Quiet, guys!”

  Immediate silence.

  The same voice said, “It’s open, come in.”

  Milo turned the knob and we faced a convocation of dogs self-arranged in height order, like schoolkids in a class photo.

  In front, two unalike brown terrier mixes looked up at us wide-eyed, quivering and breathing hard, fighting the desire to express themselves vocally. Behind them stood a slightly larger, curly-coated, bluish-gray poodlish thing with world-weary eyes and a huge drooping tongue. Occupying the next tier was what looked like a purebred white greyhound with a missing ear that did nothing to diminish its aristocratic air and a colossal black, white, and tan bearish creation with some Newfoundland in it, panting.

  Sandra Burdette stood behind the largest dog, her hand resting on its withers.

  She said, “Excellent listening, guys. Now you get treats.”

  The dogs turned in unison, precise as an honor guard, and faced her. She lowered the hand. They sat. She said, “You are so good,” and, beginning with the terriers, now nearly apoplectic from immobility, offered each eager mouth something bone-shaped and green.

  “Enjoy!”