Therapy (2 page)
Authors: Jonathan Kellerman
CHAPTER
1
A
few years ago a psychopath burned down my house.
The night it happened, I was out to dinner with the woman who’d designed the house and lived in it with me. We were driving up Beverly Glen when the sirens cut through the darkness, ululating, like coyote death wails.
The noise died quickly, indicating a nearby disaster, but there was no reason to assume the worst. Unless you’re the worst kind of fatalist, you think: “Something lousy happened to some poor devil.”
That night, I learned different.
Since then, the Klaxon of an ambulance or a fire truck in my neighborhood sets off something inside me—a crimp of shoulder, a catch of breath, an arrhythmic flutter of the plum-colored thing in my chest.
Pavlov was right.
I’m trained as a clinical psychologist, could do something about it but have chosen not to. Sometimes anxiety makes me feel alive.
*
When the sirens shrieked, Milo and I were having dinner at an Italian place at the top of the Glen. It was ten-thirty on a cool June night. The restaurant closes at eleven, but we were the last patrons, and the waiter was looking tired. The woman I was now seeing was teaching a night course in abnormal psychology at the U., and Milo’s partner, Rick Silverman, was busy at the Cedars-Sinai ER trying to salvage the five most seriously injured victims of a ten-car pileup on the Santa Monica Freeway.
Milo had just closed the file on a robbery-turned-to-multiple-homicide at a liquor store on Pico Boulevard. The solve had taken more persistence than brainwork. He was in a position to pick his cases, and no new ones had crossed his desk.
I’d finally finished testifying at the seemingly endless child-custody hearings waged by a famous director and his famous actress wife. I’d begun the consult with some optimism. The director had once been an actor, and both he and his ex knew how to perform. Now, three years later, two kids who’d started out in pretty good shape were basket cases living in France.
Milo and I chewed our way through focaccia and baby artichoke salad, orrechiati stuffed with spinach, veal pounded to paper. Neither of us felt like talking. A bottle of decent white wine smoothed the silence. Both of us were strangely content; life wasn’t fair, but we’d done our jobs well.
When sirens came, I kept my eyes on my plate. Milo stopped eating. The napkin he’d tucked in his shirt collar was spotted with spinach and olive oil.
“Don’t worry,” he said. “Not a fire.”
“Who’s worrying?”
He pushed hair off his forehead, picked up his fork and knife, speared, chewed, swallowed.
I said, “How can you tell?”
“That it’s not a big-red? Trust me, Alex. It’s a black-and-white. I know the frequency.”
A second cruiser wailed by. Then a third.
He pulled his tiny blue cell phone out of his pocket and punched a button. A preset number rang.
I raised my eyebrows.
“Just curious,” he said. His connection went through, and he told the phone, “This is Lieutenant Sturgis. What call just went out in the vicinity of upper Beverly Glen? Yeah, near Mulholland.” He waited, green eyes dimmed to near brown in the miserly light of the restaurant. Under the spotted napkin was a baby blue polo shirt that really didn’t work well with his pallid complexion. His acne pits were flagrant, his jowls gravid as freshly filled wineskins. Long white sideburns frizzed his big face, a pair of skunkish stripes that seemed to sprout artificially from his black hair. He’s a gay policeman and my best friend.
“That so,” he said. “Any detective assigned, yet? Okay, listen, I happen to be right near there, can make it over in ten—no make that fifteen—make it twenty minutes. Yeah, yeah, sure.”
He snapped the little phone shut. “Double homicide, two bodies in a car. Being this close, I figured I should have a look. The crime scene’s still being secured, and the techs haven’t gotten there, so we can still have dessert. How are you with cannoli?”
*
We split the check, and he offered to drive me home, but neither of us took that seriously.
“In that case,” he said, “we’ll take the Seville.”
I drove quickly. The crime scene was on the west side of the intersection between the Glen and Mulholland, up a skinny, decomposed, granite road marked PRIVATE that climbed through sycamore-crowned hillside.
A police cruiser was stationed at the mouth of the road. Staked to a tree several feet up was a FOR SALE sign bearing the logo of a Westside Realtor. Milo flashed the badge to the uniform in the car, and we drove through.
At the top of the road was a house behind high, night-blackened hedges. Two more black-and-whites kept us ten yards back. We parked and continued on foot. The sky was purplish, the air still bitter with the smolder of two early-summer brush fires, one up near Camarillo, the other past Tujunga. Both had just been vanquished. One had been set by a fireman.
Behind the hedges was stout wooden fencing. Double gates had been left open. The bodies slumped in a red Mustang convertible parked on a semicircular flagstone driveway. The house behind the drive was a vacant mansion, a big neo-Spanish thing that was probably cheerful peach in the daylight. At this hour, it was putty gray.
The driveway bordered a half acre of front yard, shaded by more sycamores—giant ones. The house looked newish and was ruined by too many weird-shaped windows, but someone had been smart enough to spare the trees.
The top was down on the little red car. I stood back and watched as Milo approached, careful to stay behind the tape. He did nothing but stare. Moments later, a pair of crime-scene techs walked onto the property lugging cases on a dolly. They talked to him briefly, then slipped under the tape.
He walked back to the Seville. “Looks like gunshot wounds to both heads, a guy and a girl, young. He’s in the driver’s seat, she’s next to him. His fly’s open, and his shirt’s half-unbuttoned. Her shirt’s clean off, tossed in the backseat along with her bra. Below the shirt she wore black leggings. They’re rolled down to her ankles, and her legs are spread.”
“Lover’s lane thing?” I said.
“Empty house,” he said. “Good neighborhood. Probably a nice view from the backyard. Seize the night and all that? Sure.”
“If they knew about the house, they could be locals.”
“He looked clean-cut, well dressed. Yeah, I’d say local is also a decent bet.”
“I wonder why the gate was left open.”
“Or maybe it wasn’t, and one of them has some connection to the house and a gate-clicker. For all we know, one of their families built the place. Crime Scene will do their thing, hopefully they’ll find IDs in the pockets. The car’s plates are being run right now.”
I said, “Any gun in sight?”
“A murder-suicide thing? Not likely.”
He rubbed his face. His hand lingered at his mouth, tugged down his lower lip and let it snap back up.
“What?” I said.
“Two head-shots plus, Alex. Someone jammed what looks to be a short spear or a crossbow bolt into the girl’s torso. Here.” He touched a spot under his breastbone. “From what I could see the damn thing went clear through her and is lodged in the seat. The impact jolted her body, she’s lying funny.”
“A spear.”
“She was skewered, Alex. A bullet to the brain wasn’t enough.”
“Overkill,” I said. “A message. Were they actually making love or were they positioned sexually?”
He flashed a frightening smile. “Now we’re veering into your territory.”
CHAPTER
2
T
he techs and the coroner gloved up and did their thing under heartless floodlights. Milo talked to the uniforms who’d arrived first on the scene, and I stood around.
He loped over to one of the big sycamores, said something to no apparent listener, and a nervous-looking Hispanic man in baggy clothes stepped from behind the trunk. The man talked with his hands and looked agitated. Milo did a lot of listening. He took out his notepad and scrawled without breaking eye contact. When he was finished, the man was allowed to leave the scene.
The spear in the girl’s chest appeared to be a homemade weapon fashioned from a slat of wrought-iron fencing. The coroner who manipulated it free said so out loud as she carried it beyond the yellow tape perimeter and laid it on an evidence sheet.
The uniforms checked the property for similar fencing, found iron around a pool, but a different diameter.
DMV came through with the car’s registration: the Mustang was one year old and registered to Jerome Allan Quick, of South Camden Drive in Beverly Hills. A wallet in the pocket of the male victim’s khakis yielded a driver’s license that confirmed him as Gavin Ryan Quick, two months past his twentieth birthday. A student ID card put him as a sophomore at the U., but the card was two years old. In another pocket, the techs retrieved a joint wrapped in a baggie and a foil-wrapped condom. Another condom, out of the foil but unrolled, was discovered on the floor of the Mustang.
Neither the girl’s black leggings or her gold silk shirt contained pockets. No purse or handbag was found in the car or anywhere else. Blond, thin, pale, pretty, she remained unidentified. Even after the spear was removed, she lay contorted, chest thrust at the night sky, neck twisted, eyes wide-open. A spidery position no living creature would have entertained.
The coroner wouldn’t commit but guessed from the arterial blood spatter that she’d been alive while being impaled.
*
Milo and I drove to Beverly Hills. Once again, he offered to drop me off; once again, I laughed. Allison would be home by now, but we weren’t living together, so there was no reason to let her know where I was. Back when Robin and I did live together, I checked in most of the time. Sometimes I was derelict. The least of my sins.
I said, “Who was the guy you interviewed?”
“Night watchman employed by the real estate company. His job is to drive around at the end of the day, check out the high-priced listings, make sure everything’s secure. The brokerage gives the key out to their agents, and agents from other outfits can come by and borrow copies. Supposedly a foolproof system, but doors don’t get locked, windows and gates are left open. That’s probably what happened here. The house was shown today by three brokers. It was the watchman’s last stop, he covers everything from San Gabriel to the beach. He’s the one who found the bodies and phoned it in.”
“But you’ll paraffin him, anyway.”
“Done. No gunshot residue. I’ll also be checking the three brokers and their clients.”
I crossed Santa Monica Boulevard, drove east, headed south on Rodeo Drive. Shops were closed, but storefronts were bright. A homeless man steered a shopping cart past Gucci.
“So you’re taking the case,” I said.
He rode half a block before answering. “Been a while since I had me a nice little whodunit, good to stay in shape.”
He’d always claimed to hate whodunits, but I said nothing. The last one had closed a while back, a cold-hearted killer executing people with artistic talent. The day after Milo filed his final report, he said, “Ready for some low-IQ bar shootings, bad guys holding the smoking gun.”
Now he said, “Yeah, yeah, I’m a glutton for punishment. Let’s get this over with.”
*
Jerome Allan Quick lived on a pretty street a block and a half south of Wilshire. This was the middle ground of Beverly Hills, meaning pleasant houses on fifth-acre lots that ran between one and two million.
The Quick residence was a two-story white traditional, open to the street. A white minivan and a gray baby Benz shared the driveway. Lights out. Everything looked peaceful. That would change soon.
Milo phoned Beverly Hills PD to let them know he’d be making a notification call, then we got out and walked to the house. His knock elicited only silence. His doorbell ring brought footsteps and a woman’s voice asking who it was.
“Police.”
Lights on in the entry illuminated the peephole in the door. The door opened, and the woman said, “Police? What’s going on?”
She was in her midforties, trim but wide in the hips, wore green velour sweats, glasses on a chain, and nothing on her feet. Ash-blond hair was texturized to faux carelessness. At least four shades of blond that I could make out in the light over the doorway, blended artfully. Her nails were painted silver. Her skin looked tired. She squinted and blinked. The house behind her was silent.
There’s no good way to do what Milo had to do. She sagged and screamed and tore at her hair and accused him of being crazy and a goddamn liar. Then her eyes bugged and her hand snapped across her mouth and a retching sound forced its way through her fingers.
I was the first to follow her into her kitchen, where she vomited into a stainless-steel sink. Milo hung near the doorway, looking miserable but still taking the time to examine the room.
As she threw up convulsively, I stood behind her but didn’t touch her. When she was finished, I got her a paper towel.
She said, “Thank you, that was very . . .”
She started to smile, then she saw me for the stranger I was and began to shake uncontrollably.
*
When we finally made it to the living room, she remained on her feet and insisted we sit. We perched on a blue brocade sofa. The room was pretty.
She stared at us. Her eyes were bloodshot. Her face had gone white.
“Can I get you coffee and cake?”
Milo said, “Don’t go to any trouble, Mrs. Quick.”
“Sheila.” She hurried back to the kitchen. Milo clenched and unclenched his hands. My eyes ached. I stared at a Picasso print of an old guitarist, a reproduction cherrywood grandfather clock, pink silk flowers in a crystal vase, family photos. Sheila Quick, a thin, gray-haired man, a dark-haired girl about twenty, and the boy in the Mustang.
She returned with two mismatched mugs of instant coffee, a jar of powdered whitener, a plate of sugar cookies. Her lips were bloodless. “I’m so sorry. Here, maybe this will make you feel better.”
Milo said, “Ma’am—”
“
Sheila.
My husband’s in Atlanta.”
“Business?”
“Jerry’s a metals dealer. He visits scrapyards and smelters and whatever.” She fooled with her hair. “Have one, please, they’re Pepperidge Farms.”
Lifting a cookie from the plate, she dropped it, tried to pick it up, crushed it to crumbs on the carpet.
“
Now
look what I did!” She threw up her hands and cried.
*
Milo was gentle, but he probed, and he and Sheila Quick fell into a routine: short questions from him, long, rambling answers from her. She seemed hypnotized by the sound of her own voice. I didn’t want to think about what it would be like when we left.
Gavin Quick was the younger of two children. A twenty-three-year-old sister named Kelly attended law school at Boston University. Gavin was a very good boy. No drugs, no bad company. His mother couldn’t think of anyone who’d want to hurt him.
“It’s really a pretty stupid question, Detective.”
“It’s just something I have to ask, ma’am.”
“Well it doesn’t apply here. No one would want to hurt Gavin, he’s been hurt enough.”
Milo waited.
She said, “He was in a terrible car crash.”
“When was this, ma’am?”
“Just under a year ago. He’s lucky he wasn’t—” Her voice choked. She lowered her head to her hands, and her back hunched and trembled.
It took a while for her to show her face. “Gavin was with a bunch of friends—college friends, he was just finishing his second year at the U., was studying economics. He was interested in business—not Jerry’s business. Finance, real estate, big things.”
“What happened?”
“What—oh the crash? Pointless, absolutely pointless, but do kids listen? They denied it, but I’m sure drinking had something to do with it.”
“They?”
“The boy who was driving—his insurance company. They wanted to reduce their liability. Obviously. A kid from Whittier, Gavin knew him from school. He was killed, so we couldn’t very well harass his parents, but the time it took the insurance company to compensate us for Gavin’s medical was—you don’t need to hear this.”
She grabbed a tissue and wiped her eyes.
“What exactly happened, Mrs. Quick?”
“What happened? Six of them piled into a stupid little Toyota and were speeding way too fast on Pacific Coast Highway. They’d been to a concert in Ventura and were heading back to L.A. The driver—the boy who died, Lance Hernandez—missed a turn and plowed right into the mountainside. He and the front-seat passenger were killed instantly. The two boys in the back next to Gavin were only injured slightly. Gav was sandwiched between them; he was the skinniest, so he got the middle spot, and there was no seat belt. The Highway Patrol told us it was lucky for him he was squished so tight between them because that prevented him from flying. As is, he was thrown forward and the front of his head hit the back of the driver’s seat. His shoulder was wrenched, and some small bones in his feet broke when they were bent back. The funny thing is, there was no blood, no bruising, just the smallest bump on his forehead. He wasn’t in a coma or anything, but they did tell us he’d suffered a severe concussion. He had a memory loss that was pretty bad for a few days, it really took weeks for his head to clear fully. Other than that, when the bump went down, there was nothing you could see from the outside. But I’m his mother, I knew he was different.”
“Different how, Mrs. Quick?”
“Quieter—does it matter? What does it have to do with this?”
“Collecting background, ma’am.”
“Well, I don’t see the point of it. First you come in here and tear my life to shreds, then you—I’m sorry, I’m just taking it out on you rather than kill myself.” Big smile. “First my baby gets thrown against a seat, now you’re telling me he was shot by some maniac—where did it happen?”
“Off of Mulholland Drive, north of Beverly Glen.”
“All the way up there? Well, I wouldn’t know what he’d be doing there.” She looked at us with newfound skepticism, as if hoping we were wrong about everything.
“He was parked in his car with a young woman.”
“A young—” Sheila Quick’s hand wadded the tissue. “Blond, good figure, pretty?”
