Jonathan Kellerman - Alex 03 - Over the Edge

by Over the Edge

  His insurance policy Antrim had called the photos. A nasty collection assembled over a two-year period. Rendered feasible because he was a servant and servants were psychologically invisible. Just as his presence had been overlooked during the false notarisation of the trust fund, so had his hungry, jailyard eyes been disregarded in the heat of the rut.

  Heather dry-heaved again.

  Dwight stood and shook a finger at her.

  'You goddamn slut!' he shouted across the table. 'Goddamn lying whore!'

  The epithets jerked her upright. She pulled herself shakily

  to her feet. Eyeswild, cheeks spotted with colour, hair coming loose on one side, fingers groping at the clutch purse. Sobbing. Breathing hard, on the verge of hyperventilation.

  'Two-faced bitch,1 spat Dwight, shaking his fist at her.

  'Easy,' said Cash, with one hand on his shoulder.

  'You,' said Heather, sobbing, gulping air. 'You... have... the nerve... to preach... to me..."

  'Two-faced whore!' he roared. 'This is the thanks I get. Fucking bitch.'

  'Who are... you to... judge?' she screamed, raising her hands, the fingers curling into talons.

  He held up a snapshot. 'I kill myself for you, and this is my thanks!'

  'I don't... owe you... anything.'

  He reached across the table, picked up the decanter, and threw whiskey in her face.

  She stood there drenched, shuddering, mouth working soundlessly.

  'Enough,' said Milo.

  'Come on,' said Cash, holding Dwight back. 'Settle down.'

  'Fucking frigid whore!' screamed Dwight, flailing at her.

  She wailed and pulled something out of the purse. A shiny little revolver, not much bigger than a derringer. Silver-plated, engraved. Almost toylike. Two-handing it, she aimed it at her husband.

  Three.38 police specials were out in a flash, trained on

  her.

  'Put the gun down,' said Milo. 'Put it down.'

  'You worm,' she said to Dwight, still fighting for control.

  'Wait a second,' he said feebly, and retreated a step.

  'The nerve of you... to preach to me. You worm.' To no one in particular: 'He's a worm. A sick worm.'

  The gun wavered.

  'Put it down. Now,' said Milo.

  'Come on, Heather,' said Dwight, sweating, holding one hand against his chest in a futile effort at self-protection. 'Stop it. There's no need to-'

  'Oh.' She laughed. 'Now he's scared. Now he wants to stop it. Gutless, castrated worm.' To no one in particular: 'He's a eunuch. And a murderer, too.'

  'Please,' said Dwight.

  'What else would you call someone who found his brother.. his own brother.. strangling to death. playing a hanging game and strangling to death... strangling? Who saw that and didn't cut his own brother down? Who let him die like that? Strangling... what would you call that?'

  'I'd call that pretty low,' said Whitehead, and he put his.38 down on the table and sauntered nonchalantly between her and Dwight. Smiling, chewing.

  Milo cursed under his breath. Cash kept his gun arm rigid, put his other on top of Dwight's head, and prepared to push him to the ground.

  'Don't try to save him,' said Heather. 'I'll kill you, too.'

  Cash froze.

  'Put down your gun,' she said.

  Cash shook his head. 'Can't do that.'

  The refusal didn't seem to bother her.

  'Worm,' she snarled. 'Gets drunk and confesses to me. "I killed my brother, I killed my brother." Blubbering like a baby. "Have to make it right by taking in his son. Have to do right by Jamey." ' She raised her voice to a high-pitched scream. 'Who raised the little bastard, you? Who put up with his abuse, his evil mouth? He was your penance, but I got crucified.'

  She steadied the gun.

  'Come on, little lady.' Whitehead smiled. 'Guns aren't for pretty little ladies - '

  'Shut up,' she said, trying to peer around his bulky body.'I want the worm.'

  Whitehead laughed heartily.

  'Now, now,' he said.

  'Shut up,' she said, louder. Whitehead creased his forehead irritably. Forced a smile.

  'Now come on, honey. All that tough talk's fine for TV. but we don't want any trouble now, do we?'

  'Shut up, you idiot!'

  Whitehead's face puckered with anger. He stepped forward.

  'Now cut the crap, lady - '

  She looked at him quizzically and shot him in the mouth. Aimed the gun at Dwight but was cut down by thunder. Bullet after bullet hit her slender body, tearing it, buffeting it. Smoky holes perforated her gown, the blue chiffon reddening wetly, then blackening as she sank.

  The doors to the dining room burst open. A surge of blue. Uniforms, armed with shotguns. Horrified looks, falling faces. Milo explaining to them as he rushed over to examine Whitehead's prone form. Calling for an ambulance. The bark of static. The hum of procedure. Cash, silent, ashen, relinquishing Dwight to a pair of officers. Holstering his gun. Loosening his tie. Dwight, staring at his wife's corpse. At scarlet spatters on waxed pine panelling. A pool of blood gleaming obscenely on the table. Collapsing in a dead faint. Dragged away.

  Souza had sat through it all, silent, removed. Two pairs of hands took him by the armpits and hoisted him up. He surveyed the carnage, clucked his tongue.

  'Come on,' said one of the cops.

  'One second, young man.' The imperiousness in his voice made the policeman stop.

  'What?'

  'Where are you taking me?'

  'To jail.'

  'I know that.' Irritably. ' Which jail?'

  'County.'

  'Excellent. Before we leave, I want you to make a phone call for me. To Mr. Christopher Hauser. Of Hauser, Simpson, and Bain. The number is on a card in my wallet. Inform him that the location of our breakfast has been changed. From the California Club to the County Jail. And tell him to bring a pad and paper. It will be a working meeting. Have you got all that?'

  'Oh sure,' said the cop, rolling his eyes.

  'Then repeat it back to me. Just to be sure.'

  THREE WEEKS after Souza's arrest, Gary Yamaguchi and Slit (nee Amber Lynn Danziger) were found in Reno by a private detective agency hired by the girl's parents. They'd been living in an abandoned trailer on the outskirts of town, subsisting on handouts and her earnings as a part-time counter girl at Burger King. Upon return to L.A. she was released to her parents and Gary was taken into custody as a material witness. When Milo questioned him about the diary, he adopted the same kind of robotic indifference he'd shown me in the alley behind Voids. But a stay in the County Jail and a slide show of the Slasher victims' bodies donated by the coroner, made him somewhat more cooperative.

  'The way he tells it,' said Milo over the phone, 'Jamey called him and asked to get together about a month or so before he was committed. They met at Sunset Park, across from the Beverly Hills Hotel. It was a hot day, but Jamey was wearing a raincoat. Yamaguchi said he looked like a street nut - dirty, staggering, talking to himself. They sat

  down on a bench, and he started rambling about this book he had that was so important he could be killed for it. Then he pulled it out of his coat, shoved it in Yamaguchi's hands, and told him he was the only friend he had, that his mission was to keep the book safe. Before Yamaguchi could say anything, he ran off.

  'Yamaguchi figured the whole thing was a paranoid delusion, said he considered tossing the book in the nearest trash can. Instead - he can't say why - he took it with him, stuck it in a drawer, and forgot about it. After Jamey was committed, he wondered if there had been something to the story, but not enough to examine it. After Chancellor was murdered, he pulled it out and started reading. But he claims he found it boring and gave up after the first few pages. It was then, he says, that he decided to use it. For art. Jamey had told him about his father's suicide, and he combined it with the murder scene and stuck it in a sculpture. He seemed to think it was funny, something about death being the source of all true art.
' 'He never read the book through?'

  'If he did, he didn't catch on to the Bitter Canyon bit because he never tried to exploit it.'

  'He wouldn't,' I said. 'He fancies himself a nihilist. Takes pride in being apathetic.' Milo thought for a moment.

  'Yeah, you could be right. When I asked him if he thought the book might be important when he encased it in plastic, he gave this snotty smile and said it was an irrelevant question. When I pressed him, he said he hoped it was because the idea of someone's hanging it on his wall without knowing what he had was hilarious. Then he laid on a bunch of crap about art and bad jokes being the same thing. I asked him if that's why the Mona Lisa was smiling, but he shined me on. Weird kid, but as far as I can tell, he has no connection to any of it, so I turned him loose.'

  'Any indication of why Jamey hid the book from Chancellor?' I asked. 'Nope.' 'I was thinking,' I said, 'that they could have had a

  falling-out. Jamey wanted to use the diary to stop the construction, and when he saw that all Chancellor cared about was saving his own skin, he took it and left it for safekeeping with Gary. Because Gary was a nihilist and would never use it.'

  There was a long silence.

  'Could be,' said Milo. 'If Jamey was rational enough to put that all together.'

  'You're probably right. It was wishful thinking. He was pretty muddled by then.'

  'Not so muddled he couldn't reach out for help.'

  I said nothing.

  'Hey,' said Milo, 'that was your cue to recite something about the indomitability of the human spirit.'

  'Consider it recited.'

  'Consider it heard.'

  After he hung up, I finished my breakfast, called the service, and told them where I'd be. There were three messages, two from people wanting to sell me something and a request to phone a Superior Court judge, a man I respected. I called his chambers, and he asked me to consult on the impending divorce case of a famous film director and a famous actress. According to the director, the actress was a cocaine freak on the verge of psychosis. According to the actress, the director was venal, cruel, and a rabid paedophile. Neither really wanted their five-year-old daughter; both were determined the other wouldn't get custody. The actress had spirited the child to Zurich, and it was possible I'd be able to fly there at her expense to conduct my interviews.

  I told him it sounded like a mess of the worst kind: flaming narcissism combined with enough money to pay lawyers to keep it messy for a long time. He laughed sadly and agreed but added that he thought I'd be interested because I liked excitement. I thanked him for thinking of me and politely declined.

  At nine o'clock I went down to the garden to feed the koi. The largest of the carp, a stout gold and black kin-ki-utsuri, which Robin had named Sumo, sucked on my fingers, and I patted his glossy head before climbing back up to the house. Once inside, I straightened up, switched a few lights on, and packed a carry-on. Then I called Robin at her studio and told her I was leaving.

  'Have a good flight, sweetie. When can I expect you back?'

  'Late tonight or tomorrow morning depending on how things go.'

  'Call me and let me know. If it's tonight, I'll wait up. If not, I'll stay here late and finish the mandolin.'

  'Sure. I'll phone by six.'

  'Take care, Alex. I love you.'

  'Love you, too.'

  Throwing on a corduroy sportcoat, I picked up the carry-on, walked out to the terrace, and locked the door behind me. By ten-thirty I was pulling into Burbank Airport.

  4.79

  THE HOSPITAL sat on a promontory overlooking the ocean, swaddled in acres of jade green clover that rolled and tumbled into the Monterey mist. It was a paragon of low-profile architecture, caramel-coloured bungalows cast haphazardly around a two-storey administration building, the complex veined with stone pathways and flower beds, half shaded by the spreading branches of coast live oak. Dagger points of red tile roof intruded upon a cobalt sky so pure it bordered on the unreal. At the junction of land and sky a single twisted Monterey pine clawed at the heavens. Below its careening trunk, patches of yellow and blue lupine flowed like paint spills down a sloping green canvas. The drive down from Carmel had been a quiet one, broken only by the hiss of the ocean, the chug of the rented Mazda, and the rare, startling bellow of a lust-filled sea lion bull. I thought of the last time I'd been there, with Robin. We'd come as tourists, for a week in spring, doing the things that tourists do on the Monterey Peninsula: a visit to the aquarium, seafood dinners under the stars; window-shopping the antique stores; lazy lovemaking on a crisp, foreign bed. But now, sitting on a redwood bench near the edge of the cliff, peering through salt-eaten diamonds of chain link as the Pacific foamed like warm ale, those seven days seemed like ancient history.

  I turned, looked back toward the bungalows, and saw only strangers in the distance, sheeplike Grandma Moses people, sitting, strolling, reclining on elbows that disappeared in the clover. Talking, responding, rejecting, ignoring. Playing board games and tossing Frisbees. Staring blankly into space.

  The beach below was glossy and white, striped by the receding tide, dotted with a tortoise brigade of moundlike rocks. Between the rocks were mirrored tide pools, bubbling with the respiration of trapped creatures, moustached by dendrites of eelgrass. A pelican's horizontal reconnaissance broke the stillness. Diving suddenly, big wings rasping, the bird aimed for a mirror, shattered it, and rose triumphantly with a beakful of squirm before sailing off toward Japan.

  Fifteen minutes later a young woman in jeans and red smock brought Jamey to me. She was blonde and braided, with a round, pensive, farm girl face, and had drawn red daisies on her nurses's badge with a felt-tipped pen. She held his arm as if he were her steady boyfriend, let go reluctantly, sat him down next to me, and told me she'd be back in half an hour.

  'Bye, James. Be good.'

  'Bye, Susan. ' His voice was hoarse.

  When she was gone, I said hello.

  He turned to me and nodded. Squinted up at the sun.

  He smelled of shampoo. His hair had been cut short, and the beginnings of a moustache sprouted on his upper lip. He wore a maroon Izod shirt so new it sported box creases, grey sweat pants, and running shoes without socks. The clothes bagged on him. His ankles were thin and white.

  'Beautiful out here,' I said.

  He smiled. Touched his finger to his nose. Slowly, as if performing a test of coordination.

  Several minutes passed.

  'I like to sit right here,' he said. 'Get lost in the quiet.'

  'I can see why.'

  We watched a flock of sea gulls peck at the rocks. Breathed in nosefuls of brine. He crossed and uncrossed his legs. Put his hands in his lap and gazed out at the ocean. Two gulls got into a fight over something edible. They kicked and squawked until the weaker one backed off. The victor bounced several yards away and feasted.

  'You look good,' I said.

  'Thank you.'

  'Dr. Levi told me you're doing amazingly well.'

  He got up and gripped the chain-link fence. Said something that was drowned out by the waves. I got up and stood next to him.

  'I didn't hear you,' I said.

  He didn't respond. Just held on to the fence and swayed unsteadily.

  'I feel pretty good,' he said after a while. 'Achey.'

  'Are you in pain?'

  'A good pain. Like a... good night's sleep after a strenuous day.'

  Moment later:

  'Yesterday I took a walk.'

  I waited for more.

  'With Susan. Once... maybe twice... she had to hold me up. Generally, my legs were okay.'

  'That's great.' At first the neurologists hadn't been certain if the damage done to his nervous system would be permanent. But he'd regained function rapidly, and I'd been told this morning that optimism was called for.

  A minute of silence.

  'Susan helps me a lot. She's a... strong person.'