Survival of the Fittest

by Jonathan Kellerman

  “He implied that Nolan had serious problems that Helena doesn't want to know about.”

  “Meaning if he missed the boat it was a big one.”

  “Exactly. And he's an odd one, Milo. Works in a building with bankers and lawyers, labels himself a consultant but doesn't spell out what he does. But he's duly licensed, no checkered history, so maybe I'm being paranoid. I would like to know why Nolan went to see him. Would the department keep records?”

  “If it was something to do with the job, they sure would, but good luck getting hold of it. Especially now that he killed himself. If he put in for a stress pension or some other compensation, there'd be a record of that, but once again, things get lost when it suits the right people.”

  “That's another thing,” I said. “If he was under stress, why'd he transfer from West L.A. to Hollywood?”

  “You got me— maybe he got tired of scumbag celebrities and their battered wives.”

  “My thought was he craved action. Liked taking risks.” I told him about the break-in at Nolan's apartment, the cheap lock on the back door.

  “No big surprise,” he said. “Cops can be super-security freaks or they become danger freaks and get lax. If the public knew how many times we got victimized, the confidence level would sink even lower. If that's possible.”

  “But if Nolan craved danger, why would he buckle?”

  He grunted. “Your field, not mine. Sounds like we're both running the blind-alley marathon. I'd offer to ask around about his records, but it would be a waste of time. One person who might be able to tell you something would be his training officer.”

  “Helena already spoke to him and he was baffled by the suicide.”

  “Name?”

  “A Sergeant Baker.”

  “Wesley Baker?”

  “Don't know the first name. Helena said he's at Parker Center, now.”

  “That's Wes Baker.” His voice changed. Softer. Guarded.

  “You know him?” I said.

  “Oh, yeah . . . interesting.”

  “What is?”

  “Wes Baker training rookies again. I didn't know, but we don't have much contact with the boys in blue. . . . Listen, Alex, this isn't the best time— or place— to have this discussion. Lemme get over to Newton, check out the year-old abduction file, and if nothing else comes up, I can drop by this evening. If you'll be home.”

  “No plans not to be,” I said, realizing I'd been home for nearly an hour and hadn't gone back to see Robin. “If I go out, I'll call you.”

  “Fine. I'm heading over to the East Side now. Sayonara.”

  Robin was taking off her goggles when I walked in, and she reached for the vacuum cleaner. At the sight of the hose, Spike began barking furiously. He despises the industrial age. Canine Luddite. When he saw me he stopped, cocked his head, started to trot forward, then changed his mind and returned to attacking the vacuum canister.

  Robin laughed and said, “Stop.” She tossed a Milk-Bone in a corner and Spike went after it.

  We kissed.

  “How was your day?” she said.

  “Unproductive. Yours?”

  “Quite productive, actually.” She tossed her curls and smiled. “Don't hate me.”

  “Because you're beautiful?”

  “That, too.” She touched my cheek. “What went wrong, Alex?”

  “Nothing. Just lots of seek and very little find.”

  “That little girl's murder?”

  “That and another case. A suicide that will probably never be explained.”

  She put her arm through mine and we left the studio, Spike at our heels, breathing excitedly, Milk-Bone crumbs dotting his pendulous flews.

  “I don't envy you,” she said.

  “Don't envy what?”

  “Hunting for explanations.”

  She showered and changed into a charcoal-gray pantsuit and diamond stud earrings and said how about meat, that Argentinian place we'd tried a few months ago.

  “Baked garlic appetizers?” I said. “Not very social.”

  “It is if we both indulge.”

  “Sure, I'll eat a whole bowl. Afterward we can tango or lambada, whatever, and fume up each other's faces.”

  Suddenly she swooned into my arms. “Ah, Alessandro!”

  She set Spike up with water and snacks while I changed and left messages at Milo's West L.A. desk, his home in West Hollywood, and the number he used for his after-hours private-eye business, Blue Investigations.

  He'd begun the moonlight gig several years ago after the department took him off duty for punching out a superior who'd endangered his life and banished him to the Parker Center data-processing office in hopes of nudging him off the force. He'd managed to regain his detective position and it had been a while since he'd solicited private work, but he'd held on to the exchange.

  Symbol of freedom, I supposed. Or insecurity. For all the talk of diversity and open recruitment, the role of a gay detective was far from comfortable.

  Had that been Nolan's problem?

  Never married. But he was only twenty-seven.

  Relationships with women in the past, but, as far as Helena knew, nothing recent.

  As far as Helena knew. Which wasn't very far at all.

  I thought of Nolan's apartment. Mattress on the floor, no food in the fridge, the dingy furniture. Even accounting for the trashing, not exactly a swinging bachelor lair.

  A loner. Flirting with all sorts of philosophies, shifting from one political extreme to the other.

  Had self-denial been the latest?

  Or had he divested himself of material pleasures because he just didn't care anymore?

  Or wanted to punish himself.

  Lehmann had used the word sin but when I'd asked him about guilt he'd said he wasn't a priest.

  Somewhere along the line, had he judged Nolan?

  Had Nolan judged himself? Passed sentence and carried out the execution?

  For what?

  I pictured the young cop in Go-Ji's, surrounded by the night denizens he'd been assigned to rein in.

  Drawing out his service gun, putting it in his mouth.

  Symbolic, as so many suicides are?

  Final fellatio?

  Stripping himself bare in front of other sinners?

  Policemen committed suicide more frequently than civilians, but few did it publicly.

  “Ready?” Robin called from the door.

  “Oh yeah,” I said. “Let's tango.”

  16

  The Observer

  The psychologist.

  His presence complicated matters: attend to him or Sturgis?

  Sturgis was the professional, but so far all the big policeman had done was stay in his office all day.

  On the phone, probably.

  Predictable.

  The psychologist was a bit more adventurous. He'd gone on two outings.

  Perhaps he could be used to advantage.

  The first trip had been to that duplex on Sycamore to meet the pleasant-looking but tense-faced blond woman.

  Her tension made him think: patient? Some kind of on-the-street therapy?

  Of course, there was another possibility: a girlfriend; the guy was stepping out on the woman with the auburn hair who lived with him. A beauty, some kind of sculptress. He'd seen her carrying blocks of wood from her truck to the rear of the house.

  He watched the psychologist and the unhappy woman talk, then go inside the duplex. Liaison with one while the other one chipped away?

  The blond woman was trim and nice-looking but nothing like the sculptress. And the two times he'd seen the sculptress with the psychologist the affection had seemed genuine. Touching each other a lot, that eagerness.

  But logic had little to do with human behavior.

  Terrible things had taught him about the self-destructive element that ran through the human soul like a polluted stream.

  They stayed inside for twenty minutes, then went out to the garage. The psychologist did
n't seem to be relating to her in a romantic way, but maybe they were having a rough time.

  No, there was no hostility. She was talking and he was listening as if he cared.

  Attentive, but maintaining distance.

  Professional distance?

  So she probably was a patient.

  Or a sister. It definitely didn't look romantic.

  He copied down the license plate number on the blond woman's Mustang, waited til the two of them had driven off, then sauntered to the rear of the duplex in his electrician's uniform and let himself through the rear door by popping an absurd lock.

  Pretty clear why the woman had looked so miserable.

  Burglarized.

  He poked around in the debris, found utility bills with the name Nolan Dahl on them that matched the address. Later that night, after a cold-sandwich-and-bottled-water dinner and some praying with insufficient conviction, he turned on his computer, hacked into the Department of Motor Vehicles file, and ran the woman's license plates.

  Helena Allison Dahl, thirty years old, blond hair, blue eyes, an address in Woodland Hills.

  Ex-wife of the burglarized Nolan?

  So where was Nolan?

  Or maybe the guy was an irate husband who'd ruined his own place to get back at the wife.

  She'd call her therapist for something like that.

  One thing seemed likely: nothing to do with murder.

  Which made sense. Sturgis would be concentrating full-time on Irit, but the psychologist would have a whole other life. To him, Irit would be just another consultation.

  Tentative conclusion: Outing number 1 didn't relate to any of his concerns.

  Neither, as far as he could tell, did the second one.

  Downtown, terrible traffic all the way, and following the psychologist's green Cadillac at a discreet distance had been difficult. Another challenge was finding parking for the van near the lot the psychologist chose without losing sight of that curly head for too long.

  Getting into the limestone building, though, was easy.

  No guard, and the electrician's uniform gave him that air of belonging.

  The van, too.

  Uniforms and vans. He'd spent so much of his life in them.

  His main prop for the building was a nice little toolbox whose contents could serve as more than props. He carried it in his good hand and kept the bad one in his pocket because why attract unnecessary attention.

  He made it to the lobby just as the psychologist entered the elevator, watched the lift rise to the top floor.

  Moments later, up there himself, he examined the doorplates, trying to figure out where the guy had gone.

  Law firms, accountants, investment bankers, and one Ph.D.

  Another psychologist? The sign said only CONSULTANT.

  Roone M. Lehmann, Ph.D.

  One consultant visiting another.

  Unless the psychologist was a major investor and had come to check out his holdings.

  Unlikely. The guy lived nicely but not extravagantly. Lehmann the consultant was the best bet.

  He copied the name down for a DMV run, ducked around a corner that gave him a view of Lehmann's door, pulled out his electric meter, and unscrewed an overhead light fixture. If any of the wood-paneled doors had opened, he was ready to probe and tinker and look official.

  Nothing happened until nearly a half hour later when the psychologist stepped into the hall.

  Out of Lehmann's office. Lehmann, a big, flabby-looking white-haired guy with bushy eyebrows, watched Delaware depart with no friendliness in his eyes. Stood there looking unhappy til Delaware was on the elevator.

  Delaware seemed to surround himself with unhappy people.

  Occupational hazard?

  Finally, Lehmann went back inside.

  The meeting had lasted twenty-eight minutes.

  Brief consultation? About something relevant to him?

  He screwed the fixture back in and put the meter in the box. Under the top tray of tools was a nine-millimeter automatic, not the one from the car, but the identical model, fully loaded, wrapped in black felt. With all the gear he was lugging he was a metal detector's dream.

  So few buildings had metal detectors.

  Even government buildings.

  Last week an employee of the city's electronic-repair plant had come to work with a machine pistol and mowed down six coworkers.

  So much madness and violence but people continued to pretend otherwise.

  Crime and denial.

  He understood that.

  Back home, in the silence, he played.

  The DMV listed Roone M. Lehmann, Ph.D., fifty-six, six one, 230, as living in Santa Monica.

  The Thomas Guide map placed the address in one of the canyons that led down to Pacific Coast Highway.

  Not all that far from Irit.

  Another of life's little coincidences.

  It was 8:00 P.M. and time to switch gears.

  He phoned the West L.A. station and asked for Sturgis. A few moments later the big policeman came on the line. He hung up.

  So the guy was still staying put.

  Dedicated civil servant.

  Back to the psychologist? Probably useless, but since the girl on the playground, nothing interesting had happened and he had to keep busy.

  Keeping busy was his nature. It helped fight off the loneliness.

  He drove to Beverly Glen and parked a ways down the road from the narrow pathway that curled up to the psychologist's and the sculptress's modern white house.

  As luck would have it, eighteen minutes later the green Cadillac nosed out onto the glen and sped by him.

  He caught a blur of two good-looking, smiling faces.

  Ten minutes later he was at the front door, ringing the bell with a gloved good hand.

  From inside, a dog barked. From the sound of it a small dog. Dogs could be dangerous, but he liked them.

  He'd once had a dog that he loved, a friendly little spaniel with a black spot over one eye. A man had brutalized the animal and he'd killed the man in front of the dog. The dog recovered, though he was never quite as trusting. Three years later a bladder tumor finished him off.

  Yet another loss. . . . He examined the door lock. Dead bolt. A good brand, but a common one and he had masters for it.

  The eighth key he tried worked and he was inside.

  Nice place inside, too. High, airy ceilings, white walls, some art, good furniture, a couple of Persian rugs that looked to be quality.

  A high-pitched alarm warning buzzer sounded as the dog raced forward.

  Small and cute. Dark brindle, with ridiculous ears and a flat face that couldn't be taken seriously. Some kind of bulldog. A miniature. It charged his pants, snarling and howling and scattering spittle. Deftly, he picked it up— heavier than it looked, he needed two hands to keep it at arm's length as it struggled. Carrying it to a bathroom, he locked it in and it butted the door, over and over.

  The alarm buzzer still going.

  The keypad by the door flashing red.

  Probably less than a minute before the alarm bells kicked in, but no worry, there. Police response in Los Angeles was slow, sometimes nonexistent, and in a remote area like this, with no close neighbors to complain, there was nothing to worry about.

  Things had gotten to the point where only blood brought the police out and even then, not with much enthusiasm.

  He walked around the house, quickly but calmly, able to block out the noise, smelling lemon wax, looking for a target.

  The more he thought about it, the greater was his conviction that choosing the psychologist was the way to go. Whether or not the guy could do any direct good, he had access to Sturgis and was, thus, a conduit.

  Two birds with one shot.

  Now the bells were clanging. Very loud but it didn't bother him.

  The alarm company would be phoning soon. If no one answered, they'd call the police.

  In this case, the West L.A. station, but Sturgis, up in
the detective office, would be unaware. Some uniformed officer would take the call, jot down the details. Eventually, maybe, someone would drive by.