Jonathan Kellerman - [Alex Delaware 01]

by When the Bough Breaks (Shrunken Heads) (v5. 0) (epub)

  I looked in the basket, saw what he had discarded, and pulled it out.

  It was the shrunken head Melody had shown me the day we’d spent together at the beach. I held it in my palm and the rhinestone eyes glared back, glossy and evil. Most of the synthetic hair had come loose but a few black strands stuck out of the top of the snarling face.

  “That’s junk,” said Minassian. “It’s dirty. Throw it away.”

  I closed my hand over the child’s keepsake, more sure than ever that the hypothesis I’d developed on the plane was right. And that I had to move fast. I put the shrunken head in my pocket, smiled at Minassian, and left.

  “Hey!” he called after me. And then he muttered something that sounded like “Crazy doctors!”

  I retraced my route, got back on the freeway and headed East, driving like a demon and hoping the Highway Patrol wouldn’t spot me. I had my L.A.P.D. consultant badge in my pocket but I doubted it would help. Even police consultants aren’t supposed to weave in and out of traffic going eighty miles an hour.

  I was lucky. Traffic was light, the guardians of the asphalt were nowhere to be seen, and I made it to the Silver Lake exit just before one. Five minutes later I was walking up the steps to the Gutierrez home. The orange and yellow poppies drooped, thirsty. The porch was empty. It creaked as I stepped onto it.

  I knocked on the door. Cruz Gutierrez answered, knitting needles and bright pink yarn in her hands. She didn’t seem surprised to see me.

  “St, señor?”

  “I need your help, señora.”

  “No hablo inglés.

  “Please. I know you understand enough to help.”

  The dark, round face was impassive.

  “Señora, the life of a child is at stake.” That was optimism speaking. “Una niña. Seven years old—siete años. She’s in danger. She could be killed. Muerta—like Elena.”

  I let that sink in. Liver spotted hands tightened around the blue needles. She looked away.

  “Like the other child—the Nemeth boy. Elena’s student. He didn’t die in an accident, did he? Elena knew that. She died because of that knowledge.”

  She put her hand on the door and started to close it. I blocked it with the heel of my palm.

  “I feel for your loss, señora, but if Elena’s death is to take on meaning, it can be through preventing more killing. Through stopping the deaths of others. Please.”

  Her hands started shaking. The needles rattled like chopsticks in the grasp of a spastic. She dropped them and the ball of yarn. I bent and retrieved them.

  “Here.”

  She took them, held them to her bosom.

  “Come in, please,” she said, in English that was barely accented.

  I was too edgy to want to sit but when she motioned me to the green velvet sofa I settled in it. She sat across from me as if awaiting sentence.

  “First,” I said, “you must understand that darkening Elena’s memory is the last thing I want to do. If other lives were not at stake I wouldn’t be here at all.”

  “I understand,” she said.

  “The money—is it here?”

  She nodded, got up, left the room and came back minutes later with a cigar box.

  “Take.” She gave me the box as if it held something alive and dangerous.

  The bills were in large denominations—twenties, fifties, hundreds—neatly rolled and held together by thick rubber bands. I made a cursory count. There was at least fifty thousand dollars in the box, probably a good deal more.

  “Take it,” I said.

  “No, no. I don’t want. Black money.”

  “Just keep it here, until I come back for it. Does anyone else know about it—either of your sons?”

  “No.” She shook her head adamantly. “Rafael know he take it and buy the dope. No. Only me.”

  “How long have you had it here?”

  “Elena, she bring it over the day before she was killed.” The mother’s eyes filled with tears. “I say, what is this, where you get this. She say, can’t tell you, Mama. Jus’ keep it for me. I come back for it. She never come back.” She pulled a lace-trimmed handkerchief from up her sleeve and dabbed at her eyes.

  “Please. Take it back. Hide it again.”

  “Only a little while, señor, okay? Black money. Bad eye. Mal ojo.”

  “I’ll come back for it if that’s what you want.”

  She took the box, disappeared again, and returned shortly.

  “You’re sure Rafael didn’t know?”

  “I sure. He know, it would all be gone.”

  That made sense. Junkies weren’t known for being able to hold on to their nickels and dimes, let alone a small fortune.

  “Another question, señora. Raquel told me that Elena had in her possession certain tapes—recorded tapes. Of music, and of relaxation exercises given to her by Dr. Handler. When I went through her things I found no such tapes. Do you know anything about that?”

  “I don’ know. This is the truth.”

  “Has anyone been through those boxes before I got here?”

  “No. Only Rafael an’ Antonio, they look for books, things to read. The policía take boxes first. Nothin’ else.”

  “Where are your sons, now?”

  She stood up, suddenly agitated.

  “Don’ hurt. They good boys. They don’ know nothin’.”

  “I won’t. I just want to talk to them.”

  She looked to one side, at the wall covered with family portraits. At her three children, young, innocent and smiling; the boys with short hair, slicked and parted, and open-necked white shirts; the girl in a frilly blouse between them. At the graduation picture: Elena in mortarboard and gown, wearing a look of eagerness and confidence, ready to take on the world with her brains and her charm and her looks. At the somber-tinted photo of her long-dead husband, stiff and solemn in starched collar and gray serge suit, a workingman unaccustomed to the fuss and fiddling that went with having one’s countenance recorded for posterity.

  She looked at the pictures and her lips moved, almost imperceptively. Like a general surveying a smoldering battlefield, she conducted a silent body count.

  “Andy working,” she said, and gave me the address of a garage on Figueroa.

  “And Rafael?”

  “Rafael I don’ know. He say he go look for work.”

  She and I both knew where he was. But I’d opened enough wounds for one day, so I kept my mouth shut, except to thank her.

  I found him after a half-hour’s cruising up and down Sunset and in and out of several side streets. He was walking south on Alvarado, if you could call the stumbling, self-absorbed lurch that propelled him headfirst, feet following, a walk. He stayed close to buildings, veering toward the street when people or objects got in his way, quickly returning to the shadow of awnings. It was close to eighty but he wore a long-sleeved flannel shirt hanging loose over khakis and buttoned to the neck. On his feet were high-topped sneakers; the laces on one of them had come loose. He looked even thinner than I remembered.

  I drove slowly, staying in the right lane, out of his field of vision, and keeping pace with him. Once he passed a group of middle-aged men, merchants. They pointed at him behind his back, shook their heads and frowned. He was oblivious to them, cut off from the external world. He pointed with his face, like a setter homing in on a scent. His nose ran continuously and he wiped it with his sleeve. His eyes shifted from side to side as his body kept moving. He ran his tongue over his lips, slapped his thin thighs in a steady tattoo, pursed his lips as if in song, bobbed his head up and down. He was making a concentrated effort at looking cool but he fooled no one. Like a drunk working hard at coming across sober his mannerisms were exaggerated, unnatural and lacking spontaneity. They produced the opposite effect: He appeared to be a hungry jackal on the prowl, desperate, gnawed upon from within and hurting all over. His skin was glossy with sweat, pale and ghostly. People got out of his way as he boogied toward them.

  I sped up and
drove two blocks before pulling to the curb and parking near an alley behind a three-story building that housed a Latin grocery on the ground floor and apartments on the upper two.

  A quick look shot backward confirmed that he was still coming.

  I got out of the car and ducked into the alley, which stunk of rotting produce and urine. Empty and broken wine bottles littered the pavement. A hundred feet away was a loading dock, unattended, its steel doors closed and bolted. A dozen vehicles were illegally parked on both sides; exit from the alley was blocked by a half-ton pickup left perpendicular to the walls. Somewhere off in the distance a mariachi band played “Cielito Lindo.” A cat screeched. Horns honked out on the boulevard. A baby cried.

  I peeked my head out and retracted it. He was half a block away. I got ready for him. When he began crossing the alley I said in a stage whisper: “Hey, man. I got what you need.”

  That stopped him. He looked at me with great love, thinking he’d found salvation. It threw him off when I grabbed him by his scrawny arm and pulled him into the alley. I dragged him several feet until we’d found cover behind an old Chevy with peeling paint and two flat tires. I slammed him against the wall. His hands went up protectively. I pushed them down and pinioned both of them with one of my own. He struggled but he had no strength. It was like tussling with a toddler.

  “Whadyou want, man?”

  “Answers, Rafael. Remember me? I visited you a few days ago. With Raquel.”

  “Hey, yeah, sure,” he said, but there was only confusion in the watery hazel eyes. Snot ran down one nostril and into his mouth. He let it sit there a while before reaching up with his tongue and trying to flick it away. “Yeah, I remember, man. With Raquel, sure, man.” He looked up and down the alley.

  “You remember, then, that I’m investigating your sister’s murder.”

  “Oh, yeah, sure. Elena. Bad stuff, man.” He said it without feeling. His sister had been sliced up and all he could think of was that he needed a packet of white powder that could be transformed into his own special type of milk. I’d read dozens of tomes on addiction, but it was there, in that alley, that the true power of the needle became clear to me.

  “She had tapes, Rafael. Where are they?”

  “Hey, man, I don’ know shit about tapes.” He struggled to break loose. I slammed him against the wall again. “Oh, man, I’m hurting, just let me go fix myself up and then I talk to you about tapes. Okay, man?”

  “No. I want to know now, Rafael. Where are the tapes?”

  “I don’ know, man, I told you that!” He was whining like a three year-old, snotfaced and growing more frantic with each passing second.

  “I think you do and I want to know.”

  He bounced in my grasp, clattering like a sack of loose bones.

  “Lemme go, motherfucker!” he gasped.

  “Your sister was murdered, Rafael. Turned into hamburger. I saw pictures of what she looked like. Whoever did it to her took their time. It hurt her. And you’re willing to deal with them.”

  “I don’ know what you’re talkin’ about, man.”

  More struggling, another slam against the wall. He sagged this time, closed his eyes and for a moment I thought I’d knocked him out. But he opened them, licked his lips and gave a dry, hacking cough.

  “You were off the stuff, Rafael. Then you started shooting up again. Right after Elena’s death. Where’d you get the dough? How much did you sell her out for?”

  “I don’ know nothin’.” He shook spastically. “Lemme go. I don’ know nothin’.”

  “Your own sister,” I said. “And you sold out to her murderers for the price of a fix.”

  “Puleeze, mister. Lemme go.”

  “Not until you talk. I don’t have time to waste time with you. I want to know where those tapes are. You don’t tell me soon I’ll take you home with me, tie you up and let you go cold turkey in the corner. Imagine that—think how bad you hurt now, Rafael. Think how much worse it’s going to get.”

  He crumpled.

  “I gave them to some dude,” he stuttered.

  “For how much?”

  “Not money, man. Stuff. He gave me stuff. Enough for a week’s fixing. Good stuff. Now lemme go. I gotta appointment.”

  “Who was the guy?”

  “Just some dude. Anglo. Like you.”

  “What did he look like?”

  “I don’ know, man, I can’t think straight.”

  “The corner, Rafael. Tied up.”

  “Twenny-five, six. Short. Built good, solid. Real straight-lookin’. Light hair, over the forehead, okay?”

  He’d described Tim Kruger.

  “Why did he say he wanted the tapes?”

  “He dint say, man, I dint ask. He had good stuff, you unnerstand?”

  “Didn’t you wonder? Your sister was dead and you didn’t wonder why some stranger would give you smack for her tapes?”

  “Hey, man, I dint wonder, I don’ wonder. I don’ think. I just go flyin’. I gotta go flyin’ now. I’m hurtin’, man. Lemme go.”

  “Did your brother know about this?”

  “No! He kill me, man. You hurt me, but he kill me, you unnerstand? Don’ tell him!”

  “What was on the tapes, Rafael?”

  “I dunno. I don’ listen, man!”

  On principle I refused to believe him.

  “The corner. Tied up. Bone dry.”

  “Jus’ some kid talkin’, man, I swear that’s it. I dint hear the whole thing, but when he offered me the stuff for them I took a listen before I gave them to the dude. Some kid talkin’ to my sister. She’s listenin’ and sayin’ tell me more and he’s talkin’.”

  “About what?”

  “I don’ know man. It started to get heavy, the kid’s cryin’, Elena’s cryin’, I switched it off. I don’ wanna know.”

  “What were they crying about, Rafael?”

  “I don’ know, man, something about how somebody hurt the kid, Elena’s askin’ him if they hurt him, he’s sayin’ yes, she’s cryin’, then the kid’s cryin’, too.”

  “What else?”

  “That’s it.”

  I throttled him just hard enough to rattle his teeth.

  “You wan’ me to make somethin’ up, I can do it, man, but that’s all I know!”

  He cried out, snuffling and sucking for air.

  I held him at arm’s length, then let go. He looked at me unbelievingly, slithered against the wall, found a space between the Chevy and a rusted Dodge van. Staring at me, he wiped his nose, passed between the two cars and made a run for freedom.

  I drove to a gas station at Virgil and Sunset, filled up, and used the pay phone to call La Casa de los Niños. The receptionist with the upbeat voice answered. Slipping into a drawl I asked her for Kruger.

  “Mr. Kruger isn’t in, today, sir. He’ll be in tomorrow.”

  “Oh yeah, that’s right! He told me he’d be off the day I got in.”

  “Would you care to leave a message, sir?”

  “Heck no. I’m an old friend from school. Tim and I go way back. I just blew in on a business trip—I’m selling tool and die, Becker Machine Works, San Antonio, Texas—and I was supposed to look old Tim up. He gave me his number at home but I must have lost it. Do you have it?”

  “I’m sorry, sir, we’re not supposed to give out personal information.”

  “I can dig that. But like I say, Tim and me are tight. Why don’t you call him at home, tell him old Jeff Saxon’s on the line, ready to drop in but stuck without the address.”

  A clatter of ringing phones sounded in the background.

  “One moment, sir.”

  When she returned I asked her:

  “You call him yet, ma’am?”

  “No—I—it’s rather busy right now, Mr ….”

  “Saxon. Jeff Saxon. You call old Tim and tell him old Jeff Saxon’s in town to see him, I guarantee you he’ll be—”

  “Why don’t I just give you the number?” She recited seven digit
s, the first two of which signified a beach cities location.

  “Thank you much, I believe Tim told me he lived near the beach—that far from the airport?”

  “Mr. Kruger lives in Santa Monica. It’s about a twenty-minute ride.”

  “Hey, that’s not bad—maybe I’ll just drop in on him, kind of a surprise, what do you think?”

  “Sir, I have to—”

  “You wouldn’t happen to have the address? I tell you, it’s been one hell of a day, what with the airline losing my sample case and I’ve got two meetings tomorrow. I think I packed the address book in the suitcase, but now I can’t be sure and—”

  “Here’s the address, sir.”

  “Thank you much, ma’am. You’ve been very helpful. And you have a nice voice.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  “You free tonight?”

  “I’m sorry, sir, no.”

  “Fellow’s gotta try, right?”

  “Yes, sir. Good-bye, sir.”

  I’d been driving north for a good five minutes before I heard the buzzing. I realized, then, that the sound had been with me since I’d pulled out of the gas station. The rearview mirror revealed a motorcycle several lengths back, bouncing in the distance like a fly on a hot windshield. The driver twisted the handle accelerator and the fly grew like a monster in a Japanese horror flick.

  He was two lengths behind, and gaining. As he approached I got a look at him, jeans, boots, black leather jacket, black helmet with full-face tinted sun visor that completely masked his features.

  He rode my tail for several blocks. I changed lanes. Instead of passing, he hung back, allowing a Ford full of nuns to come between us. A half mile past Lexington the nuns turned off. I steered sharply toward the curb and came to a sudden stop in front of a Pup ’n Taco. The motorcycle sped by. I waited until he’d disappeared, told myself I was being paranoid, and got out of the Seville. I looked for him, didn’t see him, bought a Coke, got behind the wheel and reentered the boulevard.

  I’d turned east on Temple headed for the Hollywood Freeway when I heard him again. Verifying his presence in the mirror caused me to miss the on ramp, and I stayed on Temple, dipping under the bridge created by the overpass. The motorcycle stayed with me. I gave the Seville gas and ran a red light. He maintained his position, buzzing and spitting. The next intersection was filled with pedestrians and I had to stop.