Private Eyes

by Jonathan Kellerman

I shook my head. “No way. Don’t have the stomach for it.”

  His lips snapped down.

  I said, “Women. The way they’ve let you down. The custody battle with your first wife, the way her drinking caused the fire that killed your son. The first time we met you mentioned a second wife— before Ursula. I didn’t get a sense of what she was like, but something tells me she wasn’t worthy either.”

  “A nonentity,” he said. “Nothing there.”

  “Is she still alive?”

  He smiled. “Unfortunate accident. She wasn’t quite the swimmer she fancied herself to be.”

  “Water,” I said. “You’ve used it twice. Freudian theory would say it has something to do with the womb.”

  “Freudian theory is horse shit.”

  “It could be right on the mark this time, Professor. Maybe this whole thing has nothing to do with science or love or any of that other horse shit you’ve been spreading, and everything to do with the fact that you hate women— really despise them and need to control them. It implies something nasty in your own childhood— neglect or abuse or whatever. I guess what I’m saying is that I’d sure like to know what your mother was like.”

  His mouth opened, and he jammed his hand down on the button.

  Machine screams. A higher frequency than before . . .

  His voice above the whine— shouting but barely audible: “Fifteen seconds.”

  I threw myself at him. He backed away, kicking and punching, throwing the black remote at me and hitting me in the nose. Fingers white on the gray module. The stench of burning flesh and hair clogged the room.

  I tore at his hands, hit him in the belly, and he gasped and doubled. But his grip was like steel.

  I had to break his wrist before he let go.

  I put the remote in my pocket, kept my eye on him. He was stretched out on the floor, holding his wrist, crying.

  The women didn’t stop jerking for a long, long time.

  I unplugged the machines, ripped off the electrical cords, and used them to bind his arms and legs. When I was certain he was immobilized, I went to the women.

  36

  I locked Gabney in the barn, took Gina and Ursula into the house, put blankets over them, got Ursula to drink some apple juice that I found in the refrigerator. Organic. Like everything in the well-stocked fridge. Survival books on a kitchen shelf. Rifle and shotgun in a rack over the table. Swiss Army knife, case full of hypodermic needles and drug spansules. The professor had been preparing for the long haul.

  I phoned 911, then put in an emergency call to Susan LaFamiglia. She got over the horror remarkably fast, turned efficient, took down crucial details, and told me she’d handle the rest.

  It took half an hour for the paramedics to arrive, accompanied by four cars of Santa Barbara County sheriffs from the Solvang substation. During the wait I found Gabney’s records— no great feat of detection. He’d left half a dozen notebooks on the dining room table. A couple of pages were all I could bear to read.

  I spent the next couple of hours talking to grim-faced people in uniforms. Susan LaFamiglia arrived with a young man wearing an olive-green Hugo Boss suit and retro tie, had a few words with the cops, and got me out of there. Mr. Fashion turned out to be one of her associates— I never learned his name. He drove the Seville back to L.A. and Susan took me home in her Jaguar. She didn’t ask me any questions and I fell asleep, happy to be a passenger.

  • • •

  I missed my ten o’clock appointment the next morning with Melissa— but not for lack of trying. I was up at six, watching baby koi the size of threadworms wiggle their way around the pond. By nine-thirty I was at Sussex Knoll. The gates were open, but no one answered the door.

  I spotted one of the Hernandez sons who was thinning ivy near the outer wall of the estate and asked him where Gina was. Some hospital in Santa Barbara, he said. No, he didn’t know which one.

  I believed him but tried the door again anyway.

  As I drove away he gave me a sad look— or maybe it was pity, for my lack of trust.

  • • •

  I’d just nosed out onto the street when I saw the brown Chevy approaching from the south. Traveling so slowly it seemed to be standing still. I backed up and waited, and when it pulled up in the driveway, I was ready, at the driver’s window, greeting a frightened-looking Bethel Drucker.

  “Sorry,” she said, and put the car into reverse.

  “No,” I said. “Please. No one’s here but I’d like to talk to you.”

  “Nothing to talk about.”

  “Then why are you here?”

  “Don’t know,” she said. She had on a plain brown dress, costume jewelry, very little makeup. Her figure refused to be suppressed. I took no pleasure in looking at it. It would be a while before looking would be fun again. “I really don’t know,” she repeated. Her hand remained on the gearshift lever.

  “You came to pay your respects,” I said. “That’s very kind of you.”

  She looked at me as if I’d spoken in tongues. I walked around the front of the car and got in beside her.

  She started to protest, then, with an ease that bespoke a lifetime of acquiescence, her features assumed a resigned look.

  “What?” she said.

  “Do you know what happened?”

  Nod. “Noel told me.”

  “Where is Noel?”

  “Drove up there this morning. To be with them.”

  The unspoken words: as usual.

  I said, “He’s a great kid— you’ve done a wonderful job.”

  Her face quavered. “He’s so damn smart, sometimes I think he’s not mine. Lucky for me, I remember the pain— pushing him out. You wouldn’t think to look at him but he was a big one. Nine pounds. Twenty-three inches. They told me he was gonna play football. No one knew how smart he was gonna be.”

  “Is he going to Harvard?”

  “He doesn’t tell me everything he’s gonna do. Now, if you’ll ’scuse me, I’ve got to be going. The place needs cleaning.”

  “The Tankard?”

  “Only place I’ve got for the time being.”

  “Is Don planning to open it in the near future?”

  Shrug. “He doesn’t tell me his plans either. I just wanna clean it. Before the dirt builds up.”

  “Okay,” I said. “Can I just ask you one thing— something personal?”

  Her eyes filled.

  “Just a question, Bethel.”

  “Sure— what’s the difference, anyway? Talking, dancing, posing for pictures— everyone gets what they want from me.”

  “Didn’t know you were a model,” I lied.

  “Oh, yeah, sure. Ha! Sure, I was this big famous fashion model. With these.” Running her hands over her bust and laughing again. “Yeah, I was pretty fancy, just like Gina. We were two of a kind. Only the ones who looked at me weren’t ladies buying clothes.”

  “Did Joel take those pictures?”

  Pause. Her hands were small and white around the steering wheel. A cheap cameo ring encircled the ring finger.

  “Him. Others. What of it? I was in lots of pictures. I was a picture star. Even when I was pregnant and out to here— some people are sick that way, like to see pregnant women.”

  “Something for everyone,” I said.

  She turned sharply but her tone was resigned. “You’re mocking me.”

  “No,” I said wearily. “No, I’m not.”

  She studied me, touched her bosom again.

  “You saw me,” she said. “Driving off yesterday. And now you want to know why.”

  I began to talk, but she cut me off with a shake of her hand. “Maybe to you it’s dumb, getting upset over someone like him— that’s the way I felt about it, too. Real dumb. But I’m used to that. Being dumb. So what’s the difference, anyway? Maybe to you it was real real dumb— retarded— because you think he was pure trash— No, wait a second. Let me finish. He was pure shit, no kindness in him. Everything made him mad and crazy�
� he had to have his way all the time. Some of it was prob’ly the dope. He shot way too much speed. But some of it was just the way he was made. Mean. So I understand your thinking I’m dumb. But he gave me something and no one ever gave me nothing— not at that point of my life, anyway. Since then, Don came through, and I’d cry for him if something happened to him— a hell of a lot more than I cried for . . . the other one. But at that point in my life, the other one was the first one who gave me anything. Even if he didn’t mean to. Even if he did it because he couldn’t have what he really wanted, and he took it out on me. That didn’t matter— you understand? It turned out good anyway— you just said so yourself. Only damn good thing in my life. So yeah, I cried a little for him. Found myself a nice little spot and had a big boohoo. Then I remembered what pure trash he was and I stopped crying. And now you don’t see me crying no more. That answer your question?”

  I shook my head. “I wasn’t judging you, Bethel. I don’t think your being upset was wrong.”

  “Well, aren’t you the smart one. So what’s your question then?”

  “Does Noel know who his father was?”

  Long silence.

  “If he doesn’t, you gonna tell him?” she said.

  “No.”

  “Not even to protect the little missy?”

  “From what?”

  “Hitching up with a bad seed.”

  “There’s nothing bad about Noel.”

  She started crying, said, “So much for New Year’s resolutions.”

  I handed her a handkerchief, she blew noisily and said, “Thank you, sir.” A moment later: “I wouldn’t trade places with that little girl for nothin’. With any of them.”

  “Neither would I, Bethel. And I’m not asking about Noel in order to protect her.”

  “What, then?”

  “Call it curiosity. Something else I need to figure out.”

  “You’re a real curious fellow, aren’t you? Poking around in other people’s business.”

  “Forget it,” I said. “Sorry for poking.”

  “Maybe he needs protecting from her, huh?”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “All this.” Looking through the windshield at the big peach-colored house. “This kind of thing can eat you up. Noel’s head is on real good, but you never know. . . . Do you really think the two of them . . .”

  “Who knows?” I said. “They’re young, have a lot of changes ahead of them.”

  “Because I’m really not comfortable with that. You’d think I’d be the one who’d want it, but I don’t. This isn’t real— it isn’t the way real people were made to live. He’s my baby, I pushed him out with a lot of pain, and I don’t want to see him eaten up by all this.”

  “I know what you mean,” I said. “I hope Melissa gets away from it, too.”

  “Yeah. I guess it’s not been any jar a’honey for her, either.”

  “No, it hasn’t.”

  “Yeah,” she said, starting to touch her bust, but dropping her hand.

  I pushed the passenger door open. “Good luck, and thanks for your time.”

  “No,” she said. “He doesn’t know. He thinks I don’t know, either. I told him it was a one-night stand, no way to ever find out. He truly believes that. I used to . . . do things. I told him a story that didn’t make me look real good, because I had to. I had to do what I thought was right.”

  “Of course you did,” I said, and took her hand. “And it was right— the proof is in the pudding.”

  “That’s true.”

  “Bethel, I really meant what I said about Noel. And the credit you get for it.”

  She squeezed my hand and let go.

  “You sound for real. I’ll try to believe that.”

  37

  Milo came by my house at four. I was working on my monograph and led him into the study.

  “Lots of dirt on Douse,” he said, shaking his briefcase and putting it on my desk. “Not that it matters much.”

  “It might,” I said. “In terms of recovering anything he’s already looted from the estate.”

  “Yeah,” he said, “let’s hear it for private investigation. How you doing?”

  “Fine.”

  “Really?”

  “Really. How about yourself?”

  “Still on the job— Attorney LaFamiglia likes my style.”

  “A woman with taste.”

  “You sure you’re okay?”

  “I’m fine. There are baby fish down in the pond, they’re surviving and growing, and I’m in a great mood.”

  “Baby fish?”

  “Wanna see?”

  “Sure.”

  We went down to the Japanese garden. It took a while for him to see the hatchlings, but finally he did. And smiled. “Yeah. Cute. What do you feed them?”

  “Ground-up fish food.”

  “They don’t get eaten?”

  “Some do. The fast ones survive.”

  “Aha.”

  He sat down on a rock and exposed his face to the sun. “Nyquist showed up late last night at the restaurant. Talked to Don for a few minutes, then split. Looks like farewell. The van was packed up for long-term travel.”

  “You get that from your guy?”

  “Every detail. Along with your departure, down to the second. He’s a demon for particulars. If I’d been smart I’d have told him to tail you.”

  “Would he have been able to help?”

  He smiled. “Probably not. We’re talking arthritis and emphysema. But he’s got damn good handwriting.”

  He looked at the paper in my typewriter. “What’s that?”

  “My paper on the Hale School.”

  “Everything back to normal, huh? When do you see Melissa?”

  “As in therapy?”

  “As in.”

  “Soon as possible after she gets back to L.A. I called up there an hour ago. She didn’t want to leave her mother’s side. The doctor I spoke to said it should be about a week before Gina can be moved. Then there’ll be extended care.”

  “Jesus,” he said. “Melissa’s sure going to need it— seeing you. Maybe everyone involved in this should go into therapy.”

  “I did you a real favor, huh?”

  “Actually you did. When I write my memoirs this one’ll get a chapter of its own. Attorney LaFamiglia said she’d be my agent if I ever do it.”

  “Attorney LaFamiglia would probably make a good agent.”

  He smiled. “Balls-in-the-grinder time for Douse and Anger. Almost feel sorry for them. So, you eat recently? If not, I’m up for something solid.”

  “Had a big breakfast,” I said. “But there is something I could go for.”

  “What’s that?”

  I told him.

  He said, “Christ alive, don’t you ever get enough?”

  “I need to know. For everyone’s sake. If you don’t want to pursue it, I’ll grope along by myself.”

  He said, “Jesus,” then: “Okay, run everything by me again— the details.”

  I did.

  “That’s it? A phone on the floor? That’s all you’ve got?”

  “The timing’s right.”

  “Okay,” he said, “it should be easy enough to get hold of the records. The question is whether or not it was a toll call.”

  “San Labrador to Santa Monica is,” I said. “I already checked the bill.”

  “Mr. Detective,” he said. “Mr. Private Eye.”

  • • •

  The place didn’t look like what it was. Victorian house in a working-class section of Santa Monica. Two stories, big front porch with swings and rockers. Yellow clapboard sides with white and baby-blue trim. Lots of cars on the street. Several more in the driveway. Better landscaping and maintenance than the other houses on the block.

  “My, my,” I said, pointing to a car in the driveway. Black Cadillac Fleetwood, ’62.

  Milo parked the Porsche.

  We got out and inspected the big car’s front bumper. De
eply dented and freshly primered.

  “Yeah, looks right,” said Milo.

  We walked up the porch and through the front door. A bell over the lintel tinkled.