Private Eyes

by Jonathan Kellerman

  I touched her shoulder.

  She said, “Who am I fooling— fighting them? I’m a nothing. Who’s going to listen to me?”

  I said, “It’ll be your lawyer’s job to fight. Right now you should be concentrating on taking care of yourself.”

  After a long time she said, “I guess.”

  Another stretch of silence, then: “I’m really alone.”

  “Lots of people around here care for you, Melissa.”

  Milo was looking at the floor.

  “I’m really alone,” she said again, with an eerie wonderment. As if she’d run a maze in record time, only to find it led to an abyss.

  “I’m tired,” she said. “I think I’ll sleep.”

  “Would you like me to stay with you?”

  “I want to sleep with someone. I don’t want to be alone.”

  Milo put the can down on the table and left the room.

  I remained with Melissa, saying comforting things that didn’t seem to have much of an effect.

  Milo returned with Madeleine. The big woman was breathing hard and looked agitated, but by the time she reached Melissa’s side, her expression had turned tender. She hovered over Melissa and stroked her hair. Melissa swooned a bit, as if she’d been embraced. Madeleine leaned lower and hugged her to her bosom.

  “I sleep with you, chÉrie. Come, we go now.”

  • • •

  In the car, driving away from the house, Milo said, “Okay, I’m a child-abusing asshole.”

  “So you don’t think her falling apart was an act?”

  He braked hard at the foot of the drive and whipped his head toward me. “What the hell was that, Alex? Twisting the goddam knife?”

  His teeth were bared. The spotlight above the pine gates yellowed them.

  “No,” I said, feeling fear of him for the first time in all the years I’d known him. Feeling like a suspect. “No, I’m serious. Couldn’t she have been faking it?”

  “Yeah, right. You’re telling me you think she’s a psychopath?” Shouting now, one big hand pounding the steering wheel.

  “I don’t know what to think!” I said, matching his volume. “You keep throwing theories at me out of left field!”

  “Thought that was the idea!”

  “The idea was to help!”

  He shoved his face forward, as if it were a weapon. Glared, then sagged against the seat and ran his hands through his hair. “Shit, this is a pretty scene.”

  “Must be sleep deprivation,” I said, feeling shaky.

  “Must be . . . Change your mind about sacking out?”

  “Hell, no.”

  He laughed. “Me, neither . . . Sorry for getting on you.”

  “Sorry, too. How about we just forget it.”

  He put his hands back on the wheel and resumed driving. Slowly, with exquisite caution. Dropping speed at every intersection, even when there was no stop sign. Looking from side to side and in all the mirrors, though the streets were empty.

  At Cathcart he said, “Alex, I’m not cut out for this private stuff. Too unstructured— too many blurred boundaries. I’ve been telling myself that I’m different, but it’s bullshit. I’m straight-ahead paramilitary, like everyone else in the department. Need an us-versus-them world.”

  “Who’s us?”

  “The blue meanies. I like being mean.”

  I thought of the world he’d contended with for so many years. The one he’d be contending with again, in just a few months: being relegated to them by other policemen, no matter how many thems he put away.

  I said, “You didn’t do anything out of line. I was reacting from my gut— as her protector. It would have been negligent for you not to consider her as a suspect. It would be negligent not to continue considering her if that’s where the facts lead.”

  “The facts,” he said. “We don’t got us too many of those. . . .”

  He seemed about to say more, but the freeway on-ramp appeared and he clamped his mouth shut and gave the Porsche gas. Traffic toward downtown was light, but it created enough of a roar to substitute for conversation.

  We reached the Eternal Hope Mission shortly after ten and parked halfway down the block. The air smelled of ripening garbage and sweet wine and fresh asphalt, with a curious overlay of flowers that seemed to travel on a westerly breeze— as if the better parts of town had air-mailed a whiff of better homes and gardens.

  The front facade of the mission was swimming in artificial light. That, and the moonglow, turned the aqua plaster icy-white. Five or six shabby men were congregated near the entrance, listening or pretending to listen to two men in business clothes.

  As we got closer I saw that the talkers were in their thirties. One was tall and thin and fair with waxy-looking blond hair cut frat-boy short and an oddly dark mustache that hooked down at right angles to his mouth and resembled a fuzzy croquet wicket. He wore silver-rimmed eyeglasses, a gray summer-weight suit, and mocha-colored zip boots. The arms of the suit were a trifle too short. His wrists were huge. A note pad, identical to the ones Milo used, was in one hand, along with a soft-pack of Winstons.

  The second man was short, stocky, and dark, clean-shaven and baby-faced. He had a Ritchie Valens pompadour, narrow eyes with lips to match, wore a blue blazer and gray slacks. He was the one doing most of the talking.

  The two men stood in profile, neither of them seeing us.

  Milo walked up to the taller one and said, “Brad.”

  The man turned and stared. A few of the shabby men followed the stare. The darker man stopped talking, checked out his partner, then Milo. As if unleashed, the homeless men began to drift away. The darker man said, “Hold on, campers,” and the men stopped short, some of them muttering. The detective gave his partner an arched eyebrow.

  The man Milo had called Brad sucked in his cheeks and nodded.

  The other man said, “This way, campers,” and corralled the shabby men off to one side.

  The taller man watched them until they’d passed out of earshot, then turned back to Milo. “Sturgis. How convenient.”

  “What is?”

  “I hear you’ve been down here already today. Which makes you someone I want to talk to.”

  “That so?”

  The detective transferred his cigarettes to the other hand. “Two trips in one day— pretty dedicated. Getting paid by the hour?”

  Milo said, “What’s up?”

  “Why all the interest in McCloskey?”

  “Just what I told you when I checked in a couple of days ago.”

  “Run it by me again.”

  “The lady he burned is still gone. Real gone. Her family would still like to know if there’s a connection.”

  “What do you mean, real gone?”

  Milo told him about Morris Dam.

  The blond man remained impassive, but the hand around the cigarette pack tightened. Realizing it, he frowned and examined the pack, tugging at cellophane, using his fingertips to straighten the corners.

  “Too bad,” he said. “Family must be shook up.”

  “They’re not throwing any parties.”

  The blond man gave a curdled smile. “You already rousted him twice. Why again?”

  “First couple of times he didn’t have much to say.”

  “And you thought you might convince him.”

  “Something like that.”

  “Something like that.” The blond man looked over at the dark man, who was still lecturing to the derelicts.

  Milo said, “What gives, Brad?”

  “What gives,” repeated the blond man, touching the rim of his eyeglasses. “What gives is that maybe life just got complicated.”

  He paused, studying Milo. When Milo didn’t say anything, the blond man fished a cigarette out of the pack, put it between his lips, and talked around it. “Looks like we’ve got business together.”

  Another pause for reaction.

  From half a mile away the freeway rumbled. From half a block away came the sound
of shattering glass. Brad’s partner kept talking to the derelicts. I couldn’t make out his words but his tone was patronizing. The shabby men looked nearly asleep.

  The blond detective said, “Seems Mr. McCloskey met with an unfortunate situation.” Staring at Milo.

  Milo said, “When?”

  The detective felt around in his trousers pocket as if the answer were to be found there. He pulled out a disposable lighter, and ignited. The flame cast a two-second hobgoblin glow over his face. His skin was rough-sanded and knobby, with shaving bumps along the jawline. “Couple of hours ago,” he said, “give or take.” He squinted at me through glass and smoke, as if his releasing the information had made me someone to be reckoned with.

  “Friend of the family,” said Milo.

  The tall man kept scrutinizing me, inhaling and blowing out smoke without removing the cigarette from his mouth. He’d majored in stoicism and graduated with honors.

  Milo said, “Dr. Delaware, Detective Bradley Lewis, Central Division Homicide. Detective Lewis, Dr. Alex Delaware.”

  Lewis blew smoke rings and said, “A doctor, huh.”

  “Family doctor, as a matter of fact.”

  “Ah.”

  I tried to look doctoral.

  Milo said, “How’d it happen, Brad?”

  “What?” said Lewis. “This some kind of a bounty thing? Getting paid for bringing the good news back to the family?”

  Milo said, “It won’t bring her back, but yeah, I can’t imagine they’ll mourn.” He repeated his question.

  Lewis pondered answering it, finally said, “Back alley a few blocks south and east of here— the industrial area between San Pedro and Alameda. Auto versus pedestrian, auto winning with a first round KO.”

  “If it’s hit and run, why are you guys on it?”

  “What a sleuth,” said Lewis. “Hey— d’you ever do police work?”

  Grinning.

  Milo didn’t talk or move.

  Lewis smoked and said, “As it happens, the auto didn’t take any chances, according to the techs. Ran over him once, then backed up and did it at least twice more for good luck. We’re talking road pizza with all the toppings.”

  He turned to me, pulled the cigarette out of his mouth, and flashed a sudden, wolfish grin. “Family doctor, huh? You look like a civilized gentleman, but appearances can be deceiving sometimes, right?”

  I smiled back. His grin widened, as if we’d just shared a terrific joke.

  “Doctor,” he said, chain-lighting a second cigarette and grinding out the first on the sidewalk, “you wouldn’t by any remote chance have used your Mercedes or BMW or whatever to put poor Mr. McCloskey out of his misery, would you, sir? Quick confession and we can all go home.”

  I kept smiling and said, “Sorry to disappoint you.”

  “Darn,” said Lewis. “I hate whodunits.”

  “The car was German?” said Milo.

  Lewis kicked the cement with one boot heel and blew smoke through his nose. “What is this, Meet the Press?”

  “Any reason not to tell me, Brad?”

  “You’re a civilian, for one.”

  Milo said nothing.

  Lewis said, “Maybe even a suspect, for two.”

  “Right,” said Milo. “What is this, Brad? Fucking Murder She Wrote?”

  Turning his stare on Lewis. They were the same height but Milo outweighed Lewis by fifty pounds. Lewis stared back, smoking, stone-faced, and didn’t answer.

  Milo near-whispered a single word that sounded like “Gonzales.”

  Lewis’s gaze faltered. The cigarette in his mouth dipped, then arced upward as his jaw tightened.

  He said, “Look, Sturgis, I can’t fuck around with this. At the very least there’s a conflict of interest— like if we end up coming out to Pasadena and talking to the family about this.”

  “The family, as it stands right now,” said Milo, “is an eighteen-year-old girl who just found out her mother’s dead and doesn’t even have a body to bury ’cause it’s at the bottom of the goddam dam. Sheriff’s just waiting for it to float—”

  “All the more reason—”

  “That happens, it’ll be loads of fun for her, right, Brad? ID-ing a floater? Meanwhile, she’s been cooped up in the house for the last few days, tons of eyewitnesses, so she sure as hell didn’t run the piece-o-shit over, and she sure as hell didn’t put any contracts out on him. But if you think there’s some advantage to coming around and getting her really freaked out, be my guest. Deal with their lawyer— guy’s uncle was Hammerin’ Harmon Douse. Captain Spain always did appreciate guys taking the initiative.”

  Lewis puffed and dragged and stared at his cigarette as if it were a thing of wonder.

  “If that’s where it leads, bet your ass I’ll be there,” he said, but his voice lacked conviction.

  Milo said, “Be my guest, Brad.”

  The dark detective finished talking to the homeless men and gave a dismissing wave. They dispersed, some of them entering the mission, others drifting up the street. He came over, wiping his palms on his blazer.

  “This is the famous Milo Sturgis,” said Lewis, between rapid drags on his cigarette.

  The shorter man looked perplexed.

  Lewis said, “Heavyweight champ from West L.A.— went one round with Frisk?”

  Another second of confusion, then insight spread across the shorter man’s baby features. Revulsion followed a moment later. A pair of hard brown eyes shifted to me.

  “And this,” said Lewis, “is the family doctor— family that’s been interested in our d.b. Maybe he can look at that knee of yours, Sandy.”

  The other detective wasn’t amused. He buttoned his jacket and when he turned to Milo, he might have been regarding a floating body.

  Milo said, “Esposito, right? You used to be over at Devonshire.”

  Esposito said, “You came around here earlier and talked to the deceased. What about?”

  “Nothing. He wouldn’t talk.”

  “That’s not what I asked,” said Esposito, clipping his words. “Regarding what specifics was your intention to talk with the deceased?”

  Milo paused— weighing his words or unraveling the syntax. “His possible involvement in the death of my client’s mother.”

  Esposito didn’t appear to have heard. He managed to back his body away from Milo while pushing his head forward. “What do you got to tell us?”

  Milo said, “Ten to one it’ll come down to something stupid. Interview the residents of this resort and find out the last person McCloskey short-portioned on the hash line.”

  “Save your advice,” said Esposito, moving back farther. “I’m talking information.”

  “As in whodunit?”

  “As in.”

  Milo said, “Afraid I can’t help you with that.”

  Lewis said, “The hash-line theory doesn’t cut it, Sturgis. The residents of this resort don’t tend to have cars.”

  “They get day jobs once in a while,” said Milo. “Driving, delivering. Or maybe McCloskey just met up with someone who didn’t like his face. Wasn’t much of a face.”

  Lewis smoked and said nothing.

  Esposito said, “Brilliant.” To me: “You got something to add?”

  I shook my head.

  “What can I say?” said Milo. “You bought yourselves a whodunit, for a change.”

  Lewis smoked.

  Esposito said, “And you got nothing that would take the who out of the dunit?”

  “Your guess is as good as mine,” said Milo. Smiling. “Well, maybe not that good, but I’m sure you’ll work at improving it.”

  He began walking past the two of them, heading for the front door of the mission. I tried to follow but Lewis stepped in front of me. “Hold on, Sturgis,” he said.

  Milo looked back. His forehead was knotted.

  Lewis said, “What’s your business in there, now?”

  “Thought I’d see the priest,” said Milo. “Time for confession.”
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  “Right,” said Esposito, smirking. “Priest gonna grow a beard, listening.”

  Lewis laughed, but it sounded obligatory. “Maybe it’s not the optimal time,” he said to Milo.