Crime Scene

by Jonathan Kellerman

  “Eighteen times,” I said.

  Her eyes saucered. “Oh.”

  I said, “Were you able to resolve it?”

  “Not in the least. He walked away from me. I thought he’d gone, so I went back to my office. But apparently he started poking his head into the conference rooms, one by one, until he found who he was looking for.”

  “And then?”

  “There was an incident,” she said.

  “What kind of incident?”

  “Yelling, mostly.”

  “Did it get physical?”

  She shook her head. “Security asked him to leave and he did.”

  “What were they yelling about?”

  “Not they,” she said. “Him. It was completely one-sided.”

  “Sounds like a night to remember.”

  She shrugged that off. “A hundred years, Deputy. It wouldn’t make the list.”

  She typed something, then got up, adjusting the angle of her screen. “Sorry to do this, but I have to go check on the kitchen. Unless you have more questions.”

  “Thanks very much for your time.”

  “You’re welcome. Can you find your way out?”

  “I think I can manage.”

  She left me alone.

  You don’t stay in business for a hundred years by having a shitty relationship with local law enforcement. Cassandra Spitz had moved her screen just enough for me to see a page from the hotel’s electronic registry.

  The booking ran from Wednesday, September 6, through Saturday, September 9, for a total of three nights. The guest had been given room four fifteen—nonsmoking, junior suite, king bed, single occupancy—at the conference rate.

  I wrote down the name. While that probably would have sufficed for me to track him down, conveniently enough, the registry entry listed a cellphone number, so I wrote that down, too. The number had a 310 area code: Los Angeles.

  Rennert with a jones for a fellow shrink.

  To learn why, I’d have to call up this Alex Delaware dude.

  CHAPTER 12

  Dr. Alex Delaware didn’t have a personal website, but he’d merited joint full clinical professorships at USC’s Department of Psychology and med school. I found his faculty page. He specialized in children: anxiety, pain control, trauma, custody; he’d published extensively on the effects of chronic and terminal disease. He belonged to a handful of professional societies, consulted to Western Pediatric Medical Center, had won a graduate teaching award.

  More interesting, he served as a police consultant.

  At the CPA annual meeting, he’d delivered a lecture titled “Pediatric Forensic Evaluation: Separating Fact from Fiction.”

  I called his office, expecting a receptionist or voicemail.

  He picked up with a simple “Hello.”

  I introduced myself.

  “Alameda,” he said. Mellow voice, young-sounding for a guy with all that paper.

  “I have some questions for you about Walter Rennert.”

  Hoping for a reaction, getting none, I went on: “I understand you had a run-in with him recently.”

  He said, “Would you mind giving me your badge number, please?”

  I didn’t have a whole lot of standing. I complied.

  “I’m going to have a friend of mine call your office.” His voice had taken on some steel. Still mellow, still even, but assertive without being abrasive. Someone who could hold his ground with a ranting drunk.

  I said, “When do you think you’ll be getting back to me, Doctor?”

  “After my friend clears you.”

  Too mellow? Maybe he’d follow through. Maybe he wouldn’t.

  I said, “Sure, thanks.”

  —

  A SHORT WHILE later Vitti came out to see me. “I just got pinged by some lieutenant at LAPD wanting to know if you’re legit.”

  “For a case,” I said.

  “Yeah, huh.” He scratched his pate. “Anyhow, I told him you’re a bastard.”

  “Thanks, Sarge.”

  “My pleasure.”

  I phoned Delaware. “Are we okay to talk?”

  “If you can make it quick. I have a patient in a few minutes.”

  “How did you know Dr. Rennert?”

  “I didn’t,” he said. “Not personally.”

  “It sounds like he knew you.”

  “He knew who I was, but that’s as far as it went,” Delaware said. “I haven’t had any contact with him in twenty years. More.”

  “You did see him this last September eighth, though.”

  “I was giving a lecture and he interrupted me. It wasn’t a conversation.”

  As Cassandra Spitz had said. “What happened twenty years ago?”

  “I served as an expert witness at a trial involving him.”

  “The Donna Zhao case.”

  A beat. “Yes. That’s become relevant again?”

  “There were two trials, criminal and civil. Which were you a part of?”

  “Civil.”

  “Did you testify for the defense or the plaintiffs?”

  “The plaintiffs hired me,” he said. “The testimony I gave was impartial.”

  “Of course,” I said. “Can I ask what your testimony concerned?”

  Delaware said, “Much as I’d like to get into this right now, we’re going to have to stop. My patient’s here.”

  “I can try you back in an hour.”

  “No can do, Deputy. I’m swamped.”

  “Tonight, then.”

  “I have dinner plans,” he said.

  I said, “Dr. Delaware, are you aware that Walter Rennert is dead?”

  Another beat, longer.

  “I see,” he said. “Not a natural death?”

  “That’s what we’re trying to determine.”

  “I’m sorry to hear it,” he said. “When did it happen?”

  “Shortly after you two had your reunion.”

  Now he had me answering questions. This guy was subtle.

  I said, “I’m trying to get a sense of Dr. Rennert’s last few hours, and it’s looking like you were the last person to see or speak to him. I could really use your help in understanding what transpired that night.”

  “Let me…I’m free to talk tomorrow between three and three thirty.”

  “That works.”

  “Or—you know what,” he said. “As it so happens, I’m headed north again in a few days. We could meet in person, if you prefer.”

  Face-to-face almost always beats phone—body language, facial expressions, so forth. I’ve also found that, once people sit down with you, a kind of social glue sets in, and they open up more readily.

  Or: Dr. A. Delaware, master forensic psychologist, wanting to check out my nonverbals, use his shrinky Jedi mind tricks to control the situation.

  Or this was just a stall, giving himself time to come up with an unimpeachable story.

  Other than a weird feeling, though, I had no cause to suspect him of wrongdoing.

  Keep it cordial. “That’d be great, thanks.”

  This time, he was booked in the city, at a hotel on Nob Hill. We arranged to meet in the bar.

  Before we got off, he said, “I really am sorry to hear about Walter. We had our differences, but I always got the sense that he was basically a decent guy.”

  Those differences were what I wanted to know about.

  I said, “See you Thursday.”

  —

  TRAFFIC INTO SAN Francisco was compliant, and I arrived at Delaware’s hotel with a few minutes to spare, staking out a lobby sofa that afforded a view of both the bar and the elevator. A jazz quartet played some song that was no doubt famous long ago. No clue. I’m tone deaf. I’m not even sure it was jazz.

  I’d done a bit more digging on Delaware, found an undated hospital faculty headshot. Had to be an old photo. I saw a young man with pale, searching eyes, a square jaw, and a wide, straight mouth, all that symmetry topped by a loose mop of curly dark hair.

  No rea
son to update it? A little Southern California vanity?

  When he finally stepped from the elevator, I almost didn’t recognize him, because I was expecting someone who did not resemble the guy in the picture, which he did.

  Aside from some gray flecks, a slight deepening of lines, he was the same person, middle height and solidly built, wearing a black turtleneck over black slacks. He must have a great plastic surgeon.

  I watched him head for the bar. He placed his order, turned and leaned back, elbows up. Before leaving the office, I’d changed into street clothes, and as he scanned the lobby, his gaze passed over me without pausing.

  His drink arrived. Drinks, plural.

  Needing to steady his nerves?

  He put down cash and took both glasses, walking slowly to avoid spilling.

  Coming straight toward me.

  At that pace it took him a good thirty seconds to reach me, allowing me ample opportunity to wonder how he’d spotted me.

  He set the drinks on the end table and eased into an armchair.

  “I’m that obvious,” I said.

  He shrugged. “I know a lot of cops.”

  He slid me one of the glasses, tall and clear, a lime wedge spiked on the rim. “Fizzy water okay?”

  “Great. Thanks.”

  He’d kept for himself a squat tumbler, a glistening sphere of ice lolling in amber liquid. He sipped. “I assume you’re working and don’t want anything harder. If you do, though, caveat emptor.” Jostling the ice ball, he smiled. “Eighteen bucks for Chivas?”

  “How much for fizzy water?”

  “Don’t ask.” He took a second sip, observing me through pale eyes, blue fading into gray, steady and devoid of anxiety. “What can I do for you, Deputy?”

  Blameless. Or a psychopath.

  “Let’s start with the night of the conference,” I said. “In your words.”

  “I was scheduled to speak for an hour. Midway through, a man slips in at the back. I noticed he looked a bit fidgety, but no cause for alarm. People change their minds all the time, switch seminars. I kept going. He stands there a few minutes, then comes running up the aisle.”

  “At you?”

  “Scratch that,” Delaware said. “Run’s not the right word. He could hardly stand. He tripped over a chair leg and went down on the carpet.”

  The memory seemed to sadden him. “People tried to help him up, but he shook them off and planted himself in front of the lectern. ‘Delaware…’ ” Wagging a finger. “ ‘Delaware, I forgive you.’ That’s when I realized who he was. I’m amazed I did, given how long it’s been.”

  “Why would you need his forgiveness?”

  “I don’t,” he said. “That’s what I told him. ‘Please, let’s not do this right here. There’s no need.’ In his mind, though? I don’t suppose he had any love lost for me. I heard he ended up losing his job.”

  “He did.”

  “Terrible situation. For so many people.” He sipped. “Put it in context, Deputy: I testify all the time. I’ve made people angry. It’s an occupational hazard.”

  “So why was Rennert focused on you?”

  “Was he focused on me?” Delaware asked. “Or just drunk and deteriorated and seizing the opportunity because I happened to be in town?”

  That stopped me short. “I don’t know.”

  “It was a long trial,” he said. “Lots of moving parts, teams of witnesses on both sides. Including, I presume, other psychologists. Have you talked to them?”

  I said I hadn’t.

  “A child custody case, fine,” he said. “People resolve not to mess their kids up, but often they do, and it gets ugly. Personal. But with Rennert, nothing I did or said should’ve inspired any special resentment. I’m not one of those guys who gets inventive on the stand. I tell lawyers that at the outset. More often than not, they hire someone else.”

  “But not on this one.”

  “They wanted a qualified opinion on a single, narrow issue. I gave mine. I doubt I made or broke anything. And it’s not as though Rennert tried to contact me before. So I find it hard to believe he’s had it out for me all these years.”

  He smiled. “On the other hand, I could be in denial.”

  His take on Rennert’s state of mind made sense to me. The iPhone calendar had Rennert playing tennis the morning of the lecture. I pictured him leaving his club, noticing the hotel marquee. I imagined the mix of delight and dread. A psych conference, going on right now, right in his front yard.

  He’d be curious, naturally. Enough to look up who was talking and what about. He had indeed viewed the conference webpage on his phone.

  Browsing the speakers’ list.

  Seeing Delaware’s name.

  Feeling the pinch of a dormant grievance.

  Witness for the plaintiff.

  Calling the Claremont, getting no answer.

  Putting back a few drinks.

  Discovering, suddenly, the courage to go on over there and give his old adversary a piece of his mind.

  I said, “What was the single narrow issue?”

  “I was asked to evaluate the boy who had committed the murder and determine whether he was psychologically stable enough to participate in a study with the potential to induce a high level of stress.”

  “And you said he wasn’t.”

  “Psychology’s a limited science,” he said. “No one honest can pontificate about the past or the future. I said that, if it were my study, I would have excluded him. That’s all.”

  “Even so, that implicates Rennert.”

  “If the jury took it that way, that’s up to them. I can’t control how things get spun. Let me be very clear: I never said that a video game could make anyone kill anyone. I never said it, because I don’t believe it. I always thought the whole media-violence link is a bunch of horseshit. For one thing, it’s simplistic. It minimizes the role of personal responsibility. In my experience, it’s the individual that matters most of all. Not to mention that a lot of the studies that claim to prove a connection are poorly designed and haphazardly controlled. Back in the nineties, though, it was a sexy topic. The government liked it, you could get big grant money.”

  “You don’t think there’s any way the experiment could have set the kid off.”

  “I can’t answer that, Deputy.”

  “Can’t or won’t.”

  “Either,” Delaware said. “I don’t know what set him off. People are complicated. A doesn’t necessarily cause B. I tried to clarify that but got cut short by plaintiffs’ attorneys.”

  “At that point you were no longer helping their case.”

  “Like I said, I’m impartial,” he said. “I thought defense might raise it on cross-examination but they didn’t.”

  “Never ask a question you don’t already know the answer to,” I said.

  Delaware nodded. “They wanted me off the stand as quickly as possible. They still had to present their side, and if a jury hears the words study and murder in the same sentence two hundred times, even if that sentence is ‘The study did not cause the murder,’ they start to associate those ideas, whether they realize it or not.”

  He paused. “You see the irony, of course. Here’s Rennert, year after year, paper after paper, doing his damnedest to show a causal relationship between violent media and actual violence. Then one of these kids actually does what he’s predicting, plays a game and goes out and kills someone, and his lawyers have to turn around and argue, no, it doesn’t actually work that way. Everything our client has written, his entire life’s work, all the articles, books, and speeches? Just kidding, guys.” He shook his head. “I wasn’t around to watch him take the stand, but I bet the Zhaos’ lawyers had a field day.”

  He swirled the ice in his glass. “Look. I didn’t agree with Rennert’s methodology. I thought it was sloppy, not to mention based on a silly premise. And what happened to that poor girl was horrific. But that doesn’t put the knife in Rennert’s hands.”

  “If he be
lieved in his own theories, he had to feel responsible.”

  Delaware nodded. “I’m sure he did. From the little I knew him, I thought his intentions were good. When he turned up at the hotel, he looked possessed. He said he forgave me but I got the sense he could’ve been talking to himself. I felt sorry for him. Still do.”

  The idea of Rennert needing a sedative no longer seemed quite so far-fetched. Equally conceivable was that he’d hide that need from his daughter. “Did you have a personal relationship, outside of this case?”

  “You asked me that over the phone,” he said. “No.”

  “What about the boy?” I asked.

  “What about him?”

  “You evaluated him,” I said. “You spent time with him.”

  “Under the terms of the settlement, there’s very little I can tell you. Plus he’s a minor. Or was, at the time.”

  “What was wrong with him?”

  He smiled faintly. Not going to answer that. “I’ll say this: the longer I practice, the less I know. It would be convenient if everyone fit into a diagnosis. Or if a diagnosis was all you needed.”

  Thinking of his recent lecture—“Pediatric Forensic Evaluation”—I asked if he’d chosen the subject with the Zhao case in mind.

  “No,” he said. “It is a coincidence, now that you point it out. But, no, it’s a standard talk I give. Comparatively technical, dissecting profiling and other alleged magic bullets.”

  Another smile. “It’s one of my favorite topics, because people really are complicated.”

  “You can see how it might get Rennert riled up.”

  “I can. Though I’ve been to Berkeley before to lecture, and he’s never crashed those.”

  “He might’ve, if he’d known about them,” I said. “What brings you here this time around? Another conference?”

  “My girlfriend’s teaching a workshop. I’m tagging along.”

  “Is she a psychologist, too?”

  “She makes musical instruments.”

  “Was she with you that weekend?”

  “I was solo.”

  “Right,” I said. “You didn’t finish saying what happened after Rennert barged in.”

  “He shouted until security carted him off.”