Alex 18 - Therapy

by Jonathan Kellerman

  “You and your husband?” said Milo.

  “Jerry wanted to get away for a couple days.” She spoke slowly, slurred, worked hard at forming words. I’d guessed tranquilizers, then I smelled her breath. Lots of wintergreen but not enough to mask the alcohol.

  The three of us were standing in her dining room. The space felt heavy, smothering. Where light hit the furniture it exposed a coating of dust.

  “Your husband wanted to get away,” said Milo.

  “From the stress.” Sheila Quick’s lips curled in distaste.

  I said, “You didn’t want to go?”

  “Eileen,” she said. “She thinks her house is the greatest . . . that paddle tennis court of hers. As far as she’s concerned why wouldn’t I want to go?”

  She looked to me for confirmation. I nodded.

  “Jerry,” she said. “Whatever Jerry wants, Jerry gets. You know what I think?”

  “What?”

  “I think Jerry wanted to stick me there. So he stuck me there. And went on his merry way.”

  “He didn’t stay at Eileen’s.”

  “I was supposed to be happy because Eileen has a pool and that paddle tennis court. It’s not even a full tennis court, it’s half of that.” She took hold of my sleeve. “We were going to build a pool, Gavin liked to swim.”

  She threw up her hands. “I hate chlorine. It makes me itch. Why would I be happy just ’cause there’s a pool? I wanted Jerry to bring me back. Finally, he called, and I told him to bring me back.” Woozy smile. “So, here I am.”

  “Where’s Jerry?” I said.

  “Working. Somewhere.”

  “Out of town?”

  She nodded. “As usul—usuizul . . . it’s funny.”

  “What is?”

  “Jerry hates Eileen. But wanted to stick me in her house so he could Godknowswhat . . . It wasn’t right.”

  She ticked her fingers, talked in a singsong. “Eileen has her house, I have my house.”

  “You like your privacy,” I said.

  “I don’t like her pool. It itches. I don’t play paddle tennis. She and her husband go to work, I’m left there with all the . . . all the quiet. What am I supposed to do all day? But Jerry . . . Eileen asked me last week to come over, and Jerry told her forget it. Then he changed his mind. What’s that all about? I’ll tell you what it’s about.”

  But she didn’t.

  Milo said, “Where’s Mr. Quick currently traveling?”

  “Who knows? Who knows where he goes? He’s like a bird.” She waved her hands. “Bye-bye birdie, flew the coop. I stay here. I never leave here, this is my house. Jerry doesn’t call. He doesn’t want to hear from me.”

  She squeezed my arm. “It’s in . . . consistenant. One day, she’s a stuck-up bitch who thinks her shit is perfume. Unquote. Next day he’s driving me there and going back to clean up Gavin’s room, then he’s off. Doing his thing. His thingamjig.”

  “He cleaned Gavin’s room,” said Milo.

  “He sure did! You know what I think? I think that was it.”

  “What was?”

  “He knew I’d get mad if he cleaned up Gavin’s room, so he snuck around me.”

  “He cleaned the room while you were at Eileen’s.”

  “It was a mess,” said Sheila Quick. “We have no disagreement on that, no question about it being a mess. A big. Fat. Mess. Gavin used to be neater, then he had an accident.” She let go of my sleeve, swayed, held on to a chair for balance. “Did I tell you about that?”

  I said, “Why do you think Jerry decided to clean up the mess?”

  “Ask him.” Smile. “Except you can’t. ’Cause he’s not here. He’s never here. I’m always here.”

  The cords of her neck tightened. “I didn’t want him to clean Gav’s room. I would’ve gotten mad, I loved the mess. It was Gav’s mess, what was the rush?”

  She buried her face in her hands and began sobbing. I guided her to a sofa.

  Milo went up the stairs.

  *

  He came down ten minutes later. I’d gone into the kitchen, found a coffeemaker half-filled with lukewarm coffee, warmed it in the microwave, and brought it to Sheila Quick, guessing on nondairy creamer and one packet of artificial sweetener. Dirty dishes filled the sink. The counters were grimy. Not far from the machine was a nearly empty bottle of Tanqueray gin and a tube of Binaca breath spray.

  I held the cup as she drank. Her mouth was still trembling and she dribbled and I wiped her chin.

  She glanced up at me. “You’re nice. Good-looking, too.”

  Milo strode into the living room. “Ma’am, I recall a computer in Gavin’s room.”

  “Yes, you do.”

  “Where is it?”

  “Jerry took it, said he was donating it to Beverly Vista School.”

  “What about Gavin’s papers?”

  “He boxed everything up and took it out to the garbage.”

  “Garbage was picked up when?”

  “Tomorrow.”

  He left.

  Sheila Quick said, “He’s in a hurry.”

  I said, “Jerry was really eager to clean Gavin’s room.”

  “Eager beaver. Eager, eager beaver.”

  I nodded.

  “He said we needed to face reality,” said Sheila Quick. “It must’ve been me. Crying too much, getting on his nerves crying all the time. I don’t do anything for him.”

  I thought she meant the attraction was gone, but she went on: “I don’t want to do anything for him. He comes home from work, wants his dinner, maybe I open a can. He says, ‘Let’s go out.’ I say no. Why should I want to go out? Why should I want that?”

  I said, “There’s nothing for you outside of this house.”

  “That’s right. You understand.” To no one: “He understands.”

  Milo returned, looking grim.

  She patted my shoulder, and said, “He understands.”

  “He’s a very understanding guy,” said Milo.

  Sheila Quick said, “Jerry cleaned up so I would face reality. My fucking ducking husband doesn’t get it. He shouldn’t have done it without asking me! There were things I wanted to keep.” She brightened. “Is it all out there—in the alley? In the garbage Dumpster?”

  Milo said, “I’m sorry, ma’am. Your Dumpster’s empty.”

  “Bastard,” she said. “For what he did, he should be . . . it was wrong. Who cares where he is? Who the hell cares?”

  “Has he called?”

  “He left a message last night. I was sleeping. I sleep a lot. I erased it. What’s he going to tell me? That he misses me? I know he’s with some whore. When he travels he’s always with whores. Know how I know?”

  “How, ma’am?”

  “Condoms,” she said. “I find condoms in his luggage. He has me unpack, leaves them there, wants me to know.” Sick smile. “Doesn’t bother me—makes me . . . happy.”

  “His going to prostitutes?”

  “Sure,” she said. “Better them than me.”

  *

  We got a little more coffee in her, but her voice remained thick. I wondered how long it had taken her to work the gin bottle down.

  She yawned. “I need to take a nap.”

  “Sure, ma’am,” said Milo. “Just a few more questions, please.”

  “Please?” She unraveled the towel turban and tossed it on the floor. “Okay, since you said please.”

  “Who referred you to Dr. Koppel?”

  “Dr. Silver.”

  “Your obstetrician?”

  Her eyes closed, and her head lurched forward, then froze in place.

  “I’m tired.”

  “Dr. Barry Silver?” said Milo. “Your gynecologist?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Did Dr. Silver give you the referral personally?”

  “He gave it to Jerry, Jerry called him. Jerry said he was smart—can I sleep, please?”

  “One more thing, ma’am. Gavin’s room was cleaned out, but I noticed his clothes
were still in the closet.”

  “Jerry was probably gonna take those, too, and give ’em away. Those really pretty Ralph Lauren shirts I bought Gav for Christmas. Gav loved to go shopping with me because Jerry’s so cheap. We went to all the stores. Gap, Banana Republic, Saks . . . Barneys. Sometimes we went on Rodeo Drive when they had the end-of-season sales. I got Gav a Valentino sports jacket on Rodeo, better than anything Jerry has. Jerry prolly woulda given Gav’s clothes away, but he didn’t have time.”

  Her hands balled into fists. “Jerry can fuck himself if he thinks I’ll give up Gav’s clothes.”

  *

  We helped her up the stairs and into a master bedroom turned to night by blackout drapes. Rumpled tissues and night shades and two small airline liquor bottles on the nightstand. Bourbon and Scotch. A quarter inch of water floated in a crystal highball glass.

  Milo tucked her in and she smiled up at him and licked chapped lips. “Nighty-night.”

  “One more question, ma’am. Who’s your husband’s accountant?”

  “Gene Marr. With an H.”

  “Maher?” said Milo.

  She started to answer, gave up, closed her eyes.

  By the time we were out of the room, she was snoring.

  *

  Before we exited the house, Milo brought me to Gavin’s room. The same pale blue walls, stripped. The queen bed made up with a deep blue comforter. Gavin’s bookcase held a few softcovers and magazines, and two model airplanes. The carpeting was dingy.

  The closet was filled with jackets, slacks, shirts, coats.

  “Nice wardrobe,” I said. “Jerry didn’t take the papers out to the garbage. He made sure no one would see them.”

  Milo nodded and pointed to the stairs.

  *

  As we drove away, he said, “Bastard knows why his son was killed, and he’s trying to hide it.”

  He found Quick’s business number in his notes, phoned, waited, snapped the phone shut. “Not even a machine.”

  “He travels and gives blue-nailed Angie the secretary time off.”

  “Angie of the petty but very definite criminal record. Quick’s starting to smell like something more than a grieving dad.”

  “His landlord hires troubled souls, and so does he,” I said. “Maybe compassion’s contagious. Or Sonny sent him Angela Paul, as well.”

  “Sonny the fixer? Get you a medical referral, invest your money.”

  “Maybe Quick was into him for more than back rent.”

  “His own kid, and he doesn’t say a word.”

  “Maybe it’s more than knowing,” I said. “What if he’s implicated?”

  “Wouldn’t that be pretty.”

  “What’d you find in Gavin’s pockets?”

  “Who says I found anything?”

  “Those questions about Gavin’s clothing. You didn’t need ten minutes to flip through a few books and pockets.”

  He slapped a slow three-four beat on the dashboard with one big palm. “Bastard took the computer—should I even bother calling Beverly Vista school to see if he donated it?”

  Without waiting for an answer, he made the call, hung up grinning with rage. “First they’ve heard about it. You wanna know what I think? Gavin found out about something dirty going on in that building—something to do with Koppel and Charitable Planning and Daddy. The kid fancied himself an investigative reporter and figured he’d got himself a nice little scandal. Brain-damaged, but he kept some sort of records. And his old man destroyed them. My damn fault, I shoulda gone through that room first thing.”

  “What’d you find in the closet?” I said.

  He opened to the center of his pad and showed me something sandwiched there, encased in a plastic evidence bag.

  Wrinkled sheet of paper the size of an index card. Miniature lined paper, from a pad not unlike Milo’s. Numbers written in blue ink. Cramped, smudged. A wavering column of seven-digit number-letter combinations.

  “License plate numbers?”

  “That would be my guess,” said Milo. “Stupid kid was surveilling.”

  CHAPTER

  30

  Milo said, “Drop me back at the station. Gonna run these numbers, then head over to the Hall of Records, see if I can find any other link between Jerry Quick and Sonny beyond tenancy. If I leave soon, I can make it downtown in time.”

  “Want me to take you straight there?”

  “No, this is gonna be tedious, I’ll do it alone. I also want to talk to Quick’s accountant. Luckily CPAs don’t get confidentiality. Any word from the Times on running the picture?”

  “Not yet.”

  “If your pal Biondi doesn’t come through, I’m having a chitchat with my habitually unresponsive capitan. He hates seeing my face, so maybe I can promise not to surface for another year if he goes over the heads of those losers in Community Relations and gets someone to push the media. With all the deceit on this one I don’t need a victim I can’t identify.”

  “I’ll try Ned again.”

  “Good,” he said. “Thanks. Let me know, either way.”

  *

  I phoned Coronado Island.

  Ned Biondi said, “No one called you? Jesus. I’m sorry, Doc. I thought it was worked out. Okay, let me see what’s going on, I’ll get back to you ASAP.”

  An hour later, the phone rang.

  “Mr. Delaware?” Plummy, theatrical baritone. Every syllable, foreplay.

  “Speaking.”

  “This is Jack McTell. From the Los Angeles Times. You’ve got a picture you’d like us to run.”

  “Picture of a homicide victim,” I said. “An LAPD detective would like it run, but his superiors don’t think it’s got enough of a hook for you.”

  “Well,” he said, “I certainly can’t promise anything.”

  “Should I bring it by?”

  “If you choose.”

  *

  Times headquarters was on First Street, in a massive gray stone building that studded the heart of downtown. I got stuck in freeway mucus, trolled for parking, finally scored a space in an overpriced stacked lot five blocks away.

  Three security guards patrolled the Times’s massive, echoing lobby. They let several people pass but stopped me. Two of the uniforms made a show of staring me down as the third called up to Jack McTell’s office, barked my name into the phone, hung up, and told me to wait. Ten minutes later, a young, crew-cut woman in a black sweater and jeans and hiking boots emerged from the elevator. She looked around, saw me, and headed my way.

  “You’re the person with the picture?” A Times badge said Jennifer Duff. Her left eyebrow was pierced by a tiny steel barbell.

  “This is for Mr. McTell.”

  She held out her hand, and I gave her the envelope. She took it delicately, between thumb and forefinger, as if it was tainted, turned her back, and left.

  I blew another twenty minutes waiting for the parking lot attendant to move six other cars and free the Seville. I used the time to leave Milo a message that the Times had the photo, and it was up to the editors’ good graces. By now, he was downtown, too, reading microfiche at the Hall of Records, just a couple of blocks away.

  Cars were queued up at the 101 on-ramp, so I took Olympic Boulevard west. Avoiding another jam wasn’t all of it. That route took me past Mary Lou Koppel’s office building.

  I made it to Palm Drive by three-thirty, hooked a left, and swung around into the back alley. Gull’s and Larsen’s Mercedeses were there, along with a few other late-model luxury cars. Next to the handicapped slot, a copper-colored van was stationed. A white stick-on sign on its flanks read:

  THRIFTY CARPET AND DRAPERY CLEANING

  A Pico address near La Brea. A 323 number.

  The rear glass doors had been propped open with a wooden triangle. I parked and got out.

  The corridor smelled like stale laundry. The polyester beneath my feet seeped and made little sucking sounds. At the far end of the hall, a man pushed an industrial shampooer in lazy circles.r />
  Two doors of the Charitable Planning suite were propped open the same way. Mechanical groan from inside. I had a look.

  Another man, short, stocky, Hispanic, wearing rumpled gray work clothes, guided an identical machine over the thin, blue indoor-outdoor felt that covered Charitable’s floor. His back was to me, and the din overrode my footsteps.

  To the right was a small office. A swivel chair had been lifted and placed atop a scarred steel desk. Off in the corner was a rollaway typing table that hosted an IBM Selectric. On the desktop, next to the chair, were five rubber-banded bundles of mail.

  I checked out return addresses. United Way, Campaign for Literacy, the Thanksgiving Fund, the Firefighters Ball. I flipped through all the bundles.

  Everyone wanted Sonny Koppel’s money.

  The rest of the suite was one enormous room with high, horizontal windows covered by cheap nylon drapes. Empty save for a couple of dozen folding chairs stacked against the wall. The Hispanic man flicked off the machine, straightened slowly, as if in pain, ran his hand through his hair, reached into his pocket for a cigarette, and lit up. Still with his back to me.

  He smoked, was careful to drop the ash in his cupped hands.

  I said, “Hi.”

  He turned. Surprise, but no con wariness. He looked at his cigarette. Blinked. Shrugged. “No permisa?”

  “Doesn’t bother me,” I said.

  Resigned smile. No hardness around his eyes, no sloppy tattoos. “Usted no es el patron?”

  You’re not the boss?

  “No,” I said. “Not today.”

  “Hokay.” He laughed and smoked. “Mebbe tomorrow.”

  “I’m thinking of renting the space.”

  Blank stare.

  I pointed to the wet carpet. “Nice job—muy limpia.”

  “Gracias.”

  I left wondering what he’d cleaned up.

  *

  Sonny Koppel had been truthful about Charitable Planning, but what did that mean? Perhaps parceling out partial truths was a strategic defense.

  All that B.H. square footage left vacant in case Mary Lou needed it.

  If Milo was right about Gavin hanging around, spying, writing down license numbers, what had the boy seen?

  Empty room. Two dozen folding chairs.