“He does have his moments.” The things you talk about when your friend’s breathing turns raspy and his blood keeps seeping.
I pushed harder. He winced.
“Sorry.”
“Hey,” he said. “Nothing that can’t be replaced.” His eyes fluttered. I felt him shiver through his sleeve.
I put my arm around his shoulder, pressed tighter.
He said, “How cozy.”
We sat there. All the cops were out front except for one officer standing near the top of Tanya’s back steps.
Milo shivered again. What the hell was taking the ambulances so long?
The rear door to Tanya’s unit was shredded but the window remained in place.
Milo said, “How it happened was the bastard was crouched up there, I walked into it like a total rookie jackass, my goddamn gun’s still in the holster. Why the hell do I bother looking for trouble if I’m not ready for trouble? He opened up but I was out of range so I just caught a sprinkle. I jumped back in time to avoid the second blast and the third. Finally got hold of my trusty peashooter.”
“A sprinkle,” I said.
“It’s no big deal, pal. When I was a kid I caught some quail-shot in the butt when my brother Patrick got stupid. This feels a little heavier-duty but nothing humongous—maybe deer.”
“Okay, quiet—”
“Only a few pellets made their way to my manly biceps—”
“Great. No more talking.”
The patrolman at the top of the landing said, “Deershot? Gotta hurt like a bitch.”
Milo said, “No worse than root canal.”
The cop said, “I had that last year. Hurt like a bitch.”
“Thanks for the empathy.” To me: “Press as hard as you want. And don’t worry, okay? Everything’s copacetic. Not for him.” Laughter.
“He’s—”
“Go take a look. Do some advanced psycho-therapy.”
“I’ll stay here.”
“No, no, check it out, Alex. Maybe you can get one of those deathbed confessions.” Cracking up and leaking blood. “Tomorrow we get drunk and laugh about it.”
I sat there.
He said, “Go. Could be our last chance.”
Making sure his hand was secure on the jacket, I stood and approached the stairs.
The cop said, “Where you going, sir?”
Milo said, “I told him to.”
“Not a good idea, Lieutenant. This guy’s in no—”
“Don’t be a by-the-book lamebrain, Officer, and give the doctor a looky-loo. He’s family, won’t piss on the evidence.”
“Whose family?”
“Mine.”
The cop hesitated.
“Did you hear what I said?”
“Is that a direct order?”
“As direct as it gets. Give me any more lip and I’m coming up and bleeding all over you.”
The cop laughed uneasily and moved aside. I climbed the stairs.
Peterson Whitbread/Blaise De Paine was stretched on his back, head to one side, whitewashed in profile by the overhead bulb.
He’d shaved his head shiny, wore a two-carat diamond in his ear, a pair of chunky diamond rings on his left hand, three on his right. The gem-clogged bracelet of his Rolex Perpetual had been styled for a football tackle’s wrist and hung halfway down a narrow, pale hand.
Polished nails, blue-silver.
Slender young man, puny shoulders, bland baby-face, boy-sized wrists. Small frame diminished further by an oversized sweat suit, black and yellow and white velour, Sean John logo. Black patent-leather running shoes with curled-up toes sported a yellow cushion doodad on the side that resembled a carpenter’s bubble. Crisp soles.
New shoes for a big night out.
Lettering on the back of the sweat jacket read La Familia. Havana.
Below that: The Good Life.
Black, yellow, white. A little crushed bumblebee.
A clean black-cherry hole freckled one of his hands. Fabric puffed where bullets had entered his belly.
Eyes closed, mouth agape, no movement. Too late for any sort of confession.
Then I saw it: shallow up-and-down heaving of the bloodied torso.
The cop said, “He breathes once in a while but forget it. They shoulda called for a meat wagon.”
I stood there and watched Blaise De Paine fade away. A walnut-grip shotgun lay a foot from his right ankle. Three ejected pellet casings formed a rough triangle behind his body, inches from the shattered door.
Light behind the door, splinters on kitchen tile.
I said, “Anyone inside?”
The cop said, “The residents.”
“Girl and a boy?”
“Yup.”
“They okay?”
“She’s the one blew this loser away—you’d best be going back down now, coroner will need to certify the—”
Milo called, “You been watching too much TV, Officer.”
The cop gnawed his lower lip. “I were you, Lieutenant, I’d avoid too much exertion. Keep the metabolism as low as possible so you don’t bleed unnecessarily.”
“As opposed to all those necessary bleeds?”
“Sir—”
Milo’s obscene retort was obscured by the clank of a gurney on wheels, human voices, bright lights.
EMTs charging in with that bright-eyed, adrenalized look the good ones have.
The cop at the top of the stairs said, “Lieutenant’s right down there.”
Milo said, “Like it’s a mystery? Jee-sus.” Standing and removing his jacket and dripping blood. Shouting, “O-positive, in case anyone’s remotely interested,” as they rushed him.
I started to descend the stairs, was halted by a strange whistling noise behind me.
Blaise De Paine’s eyes had opened.
His lips quivered. Another whistle, higher-pitched, just a teapot-squeak, emerged from between his lips.
Final air seeping out.
The lips formed a smile.
Nothing intentional, he had to be way past volition.
Then his eyes shifted quickly.
Toward me.
Fixed on me.
His head from the ground. Dropped down hard.
A seizure? Some terminal neurological burst—too much intention. He repeated the movement.
Watching me?
A third rise and fall of his head.
I hurried to his side, leaned in close.
His lips moved. Formed a smile.
I kneeled down next to him.
He croaked. Made eye contact. Laughed gutturally, or something awfully close to it.
I looked into his eyes.
He reared up.
Spat blood in my face.
Died.
As I wiped my face with my jacket, movement behind the door caught my eye. Tanya, standing behind the shattered panels, gazing out through the window that had, miraculously, remained intact.
The scene came together in my head.
De Paine blasting away at Milo, hearing something behind him, wheeling, shooting low.
Getting off one last round through the door before the opening he created allowed return fire and sudden pain burned through his hand and belly and the shotgun.
I waved at Tanya.
Maybe she didn’t see me. Or she did and it didn’t matter. She remained motionless. Staring at the corpse.
Kyle Bedard materialized behind her.
The cop who’d been at the top of the stairs returned and climbed halfway up.
“How’s he—”
“Gone.”
“You need to go, sir. Right now.”
“She’s my patient—”
“I don’t care, sir.”
“I’m stepping over him,” I said, still tasting blood.
And I did.
CHAPTER
44
Eruption, then excavation.
The way I saw it, Law Enforcement ended up with the light shovels.
A key found
in the mess Blaise De Paine had left in Perry Moore’s house was traced to a rental storage bin in East Hollywood. Double unit, complete with fluorescent lighting, a sleeper sofa, and electrical hookup.
The refrigerator at the rear hummed nicely. Next to the cooler was a sealed box of heroin packets, a host of over-the-counter painkillers, and thirty-five soap-bar-sized chunks of hashish. Inside the fridge were six-packs of Jolt Cola, a nice variety of microbrewed beers, and a trash bag filled with human bones, some still dusted with desiccated flesh. The bones offered up four distinct DNA patterns, all female. Mitochondrial matches were eventually made to Brenda Hochlbeier and Renée Mittle, aka Brandee Vixen and Rocksi Roll. Those remains were sent back to Curney, North Dakota, where the girls’ families offered thanks for the chance to provide a proper Christian burial.
The other two samples remained Jane Does.
Benjamin Baranelli ran an ad in Adult Film News announcing the reconstitution of Vivacious Videos, initiated by a “re-release tribute five-CD set featuring our beloved Brandee and Rocksi.”
Robert Fisk’s public defender offered to plead his client to obstruction of justice. The D.A.’s office proclaimed its “unalterable” intention to charge Fisk with multiple first-degree murders. The compromise reached four days later had Fisk plead to two counts of voluntary manslaughter with a fifteen-year sentence. The nugget Fisk offered up was the fact that De Paine had bragged about killing “two bitches from Compton.”
Further work on the unidentified bones confirmed likely African American heritage. Attempts to identify the sources continued.
Mary Whitbread was charged with nothing. Within a week of her son’s death, her ground-floor unit on Fourth Avenue was up for lease and she’d moved to parts unknown.
Whispers around town had Mario Fortuno incriminating a horde of Hollywood notables in illegal wiretapping, with indictments to come. East Coast papers covered the rumors with greater enthusiasm than the L.A. Times.
Petra, Raul Biro, David Saunders, and Kevin Bouleau all received departmental commendations. Biro nudged up against a fast-track promotion to Detective II.
When Milo was wheeled into the Cedars E.R., Rick was there to greet him. The surgeon broke his own rule about treating relatives and dug the pellets out of Milo’s arm personally. The procedure turned out to be more complex than expected, with several small blood vessels requiring repair. Milo insisted on nothing stronger than local anesthesia. Conscious sedation made him loopy and he peppered the operating room with a barrage of obnoxious comments.
Days later, he claimed to be healed and threw away his sling, against medical advice. Rick was on call and not there to argue. I didn’t enter the debate, even after I caught Milo wincing when lifting a coffee cup.
My shovel weighed a ton.
I met with Tanya daily, sometimes for hours at a time. When called for, Kyle attended.
Getting therapy off on the right foot meant starting with a lie: Patty had never killed anyone, had merely been referring to the death of a drug-dealing friend of De Paine, at De Paine’s hand. The “terrible thing” was her guilt at not reporting the crime.
I built up Patty’s justification for keeping quiet. Others had already notified the police, with poor results; she’d felt compelled to escape so she could ensure Tanya’s safety. Years later, she’d run into De Paine and he’d smirked, threatened Tanya. Before Patty could do anything about it, she’d fallen ill, had been forced to “get her ducks in a row.”
The deathbed pronouncement, muddled by terminal disease, had been aimed at warning Tanya.
“I’m sure,” I said, “that had she lived she would’ve tried to fill in more details.”
Tanya sat there.
“She loved you so much,” I said. “It all traces back to that.”
“Yes,” she said, “I know. Thank you.”
Next topic: the fact that she’d killed a man.
The crime reconstruction confirmed the scene I’d imagined.
De Paine’s first blast at Milo had been taken from the top of the stairs. Milo, hit, had run backward into darkness, clutching his arm and groping for his service gun.
De Paine had descended several stairs, straining to locate his prey. He’d heard something behind him, or imagined he had. Wheeling, he’d shot through the door from a now-lowered vantage point, destroying wood but leaving the upper window intact.
Tanya, hearing the noise, grabbed up the nine-shot Walther semi-automatic she’d borrowed from Colonel Bedard’s gun room and, ignoring Kyle’s pleas, ran into the kitchen.
Hearing De Paine’s third blast and Milo’s return fire, she’d aimed wobbily through the shattered door and squeezed off all nine shots.
One bullet embedded in the doorjamb and was dug out by the reconstruction crew. Five others sailed clear of De Paine, hit concrete steps, and rolled, defaced, to the bottom of the stairway.
One hit De Paine in his left hand, a nonfatal flesh wound.
Two pierced his gut, demolished his spleen and liver.
Clear case of self-defense. Tanya said she was fine with what she’d done. Maybe she’d eventually believe that.
Kyle Bedard moved into the duplex on Canfield. Iona Bedard protested and was ignored. Myron Bedard remained in Europe but called twice to “make sure Kyle was okay.” When informed of his ex-wife’s resentment of “that girl,” Myron wired Kyle fifty thousand dollars and instructed him to “take your cutie on a nice vacation and don’t tell your mother where you’re going.”
Kyle banked the money and returned to work on his doctoral dissertation.
Tanya told me she loved him, but it took a bit of adjustment to have someone in her bed. Since the shooting, Kyle dozed restlessly.
“He sits up, asleep, but looking terrified, Dr. Delaware. I hug him and tell him everything’s okay and the next morning he doesn’t remember a thing. What is that, a deep-stage night terror?”
“Could be,” I said.
“If it doesn’t clear up, maybe he can come to you.”
“How’re you sleeping, Tanya?”
“Me? Great.”
Further questioning revealed she completed at least an hour of compulsive ritual before bedtime. Sometimes the routine stretched to ninety minutes.
“But that was an exception, Dr. Delaware. Mostly I clock in at sixty or just below.”
“You time yourself.”
“To get a handle on it,” she said. “Of course it’s possible that the timing itself has become part of the routine. But I can live with that—oh, by the way did I tell you I changed my mind about psychiatry? Too ambiguous, I’m thinking about E.R. medicine.”
Over the next month, her compulsive habits intensified. I concentrated on the big issues until, three weeks later, she was ready to work on the symptoms. Hypnosis and cognitive behavior therapy proved useful, but not completely. I contemplated medication. Perhaps she sensed that because she devoted half of one session to a paper she’d written on the side effects of selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors. Opining that she’d never “mess with my brain, unless I was truly psychotic.”
I said, “In the end, it’s up to you.”
“Because I’m an adult?”
I smiled.
She said, “Adulthood’s kind of a foolish concept, isn’t it? People grow up in all kinds of different ways.”
CHAPTER
45
Just about the time Milo’s arm returned to full function, a woman named Barb Smith called my service and asked for an appointment for her child. I take very few therapy cases and because of Tanya, half a dozen court consults, and my desire to spend more time with Robin, I’d instructed the service to deliver that message routinely.
Lorraine, the operator, said, “I tried, Doctor. She wouldn’t take no for an answer—called back three times.”
“Pushy?”
“No, she was actually kind of nice.”
“Meaning I should stop being a hard case and return her call.”
“You�
��re the doctor, Doctor.”
“Give me the number.”
“I’m proud of you,” said Lorraine.
One of those meaningless cellular prefixes. Barb Smith picked up on the first ring. Young voice, radio-sultry. “Thanks so much for calling, Dr. Delaware.”
I gave my little speech.
She said, “I appreciate all that, but maybe you’ll change your mind when I tell you my former married name.”
“What’s that?”
“Fortuno.”
“Oh,” I said. “Philip.”
“Felipe,” she said. “That’s his legal name but Mario won’t use it, just to needle me. You’ve met Mario.”
“Dominant.”
“Tries to be,” she said, softly. “He ordered me to call you months ago. I think Felipe’s a wonderful boy, the problem’s all in Mario’s—let’s talk about that in person. I know you get paid for your time, and I don’t want to mooch. Would it be okay if I came by myself, without Felipe? Then, if you think there’s a problem, you can see Felipe?”
“Sure. You live in Santa Barbara.”
Hesitation. “I used to.”
“Moving around,” I said.
Another pause. “This call—you don’t record anything, right?”
“Not to my knowledge.”
“Well,” she said, “that’s not always relevant—what people think they know. How about we meet halfway. Between L.A. and Santa Barbara.”
“Sure. Where?”
“Oxnard,” she said. “There’s a winery there, away from the beach, in an industrial park off Rice Avenue. Nice little café and they make a great Zinfandel, if wine’s your thing.”
“Not when I work.”
“You can always take some home. I probably will.”
I met her the next day at noon.
The winery was a two-story mock-adobe structure set on a couple acres of landscaped lawns and spotless parking lot fifteen miles above the upper reaches of Malibu. Grapes trucked in from Napa and Sonoma and the Alexander Valley, pressed and bottled in an antiseptic setting, freeway-close for shipping. Far cry from the fragrant earth of Wine Country, but the tasting room was busy, as was the ten-table restaurant near the back.
Barb Smith had reserved a corner booth. She was young and bronze—maybe thirty—with long, wavy black hair, searching brown Eurasian eyes, a wide soft mouth. A baby-blue pantsuit covered skin but couldn’t conceal curves. Brown Kate Spade bag, high-heeled sandals to match, discreet emerald earrings, delicate gold-link necklace.
Obsession Page 34
