Authors: Jonathan Kellerman
S
tanding on Lem Dement’s private property—a black man in dark clothes and gloves, packing a gun—triggered a rush of what-ifs in Aaron’s head.
There could be motion detectors. A guard dog.
A
herd
of guard dogs.
Maybe even a bodyguard or a rent-a-cop. Or two. Though in all the time he’d watched the house, he’d never spotted any muscle coming in or out.
Unless Ax Dement counted for that.
Less threatening employees could be a problem, too. Maids, butlers, houseboys, whatever. Not spotting any of those meant little if live-in help rarely left the premises.
With a big enough property—your own private town—there’d be no reason to leave. Especially with a gofer like Stoltz as the outside guy.
Black man in the Hills.
Nothing Aaron hadn’t considered before vaulting the gate. Lord knew, he’d mulled this move in his head a million times.
Risks he’d
chosen
to disregard because two girls were dead and so was a baby and he was fed up with being hampered by rules and regs
and whatnot bullshit. By the wet-blanket voice-in-his-head that passed itself off as Common Sense.
He was an
Un
common Man, not some damned civil
servant
.
Groupthink; he’d tasted that thin soup for ten years, spit it out in favor of a gourmet broth seasoned by Personal Initiative and Free Enterprise.
Let Moe and people like Moe deal with wants, warrants, orders from downtown, cover-your-ass freeze-tag. Hurdle after hurdle imposed by a brain-dead system.
Aaron hadn’t heard from his brother since the meeting with Delaware.
Someone else who wasn’t returning his calls.
Here we go: Intrepid Masai warrior faces the the abyss.
He smiled at the self-inflation. But there was truth to it. Two girls were dead. A baby, for God’s sake, and he’d accomplished zero and Mr. Dmitri demanded results. Rules and regs were
not
going to cut it.
He’d quit the damned system because he was tired of being penned up like some pet pony.
Fearless black stallion stands tall among the dray horses. Snorts and bucks as he races for freedom.
No guard dog yet.
Not smart, Detective Fox
.
Better to be a living fool than a dead cog. His life—the life he’d made for himself—was all about tough choices and living with the consequences.
The consequences had been sweet. Three hundred K a year, the Porsche, the private haberdashery, the women—he deserved a vacation once the case was buttoned up.
Once, not if.
Black man in the Hills.
Maybe moments away from the biggest disaster of his life.
He remained still for a long time, standing to the right side of the curving drive, concealed by columnar cypress shadows. Took a step forward. Waited some more.
No stampeding rottweilers, no concealed sensors that he could spot. Those suckers were easy to hide, he’d installed more than his share of them.
Twenty more steps brought no view of the house, just rough, winding concrete beneath his feet. Same for fifty. A hundred. Tree after tree forming opaque green-black walls. The property was vast.
Still no canine growl. No alarms, no warnings canned or live. No padded rent-a-cop footsteps.
Aaron kept going, hand on his Glock. Damned drive was what— half a mile long?
Italian cypresses said it was probably one of those Tuscan villas, maybe an eight-figure teardown-buildup, Lem Dement all flush from his biblical splatter flick.
Or maybe what lay up ahead was one of the old original Italianate mansions that had studded the Hollywood Hills during the Golden Age that Aaron had read about.
He liked that notion, kept most of his head focused on the job but allowed a small corner to be decorated by fantasy.
Big-snouted chromed monsters—Duesenbergs and Packards and Rolls Phantoms—tooling up this very drive on a warm night like this one. Liveried chauffeurs, laughing passengers. Bud-vases, champagne buckets in the trunk—the boot.
Gleaming chariots cruising up silently, dropping off the likes of Harlow and Gable and Cooper and Hedy Lamarr in the porte cochere of a fifty-room wedding-cake mansion. The entire place alive with golden light and witty chatter.
Slim stylish people in gowns and evening jackets talking in that clipped, self-satisfied almost English accent, highball glasses lofted gracefully by manicured hands.
A life filled with one cocktail party after another—in the mansion’s great hall, a grand piano—Gershwin himself plinking the keys.
Billiards, brandy, cigars for the men.
Bird-chatter giggles and frothy girl-drinks for the women.
Everyone loving their life … as he trudged, ever watchful for threat, Aaron imagined the mansion’s interior. Soaring arched windows
offering heart-stopping views. The city spread in repose, a woman of leisure.
From that to Mason Book and Ax Dement in Hyundais and pickups, buying sex at the Eagle Motel. Smoking up and sniffing H in a damned state park.
Guilt and atonement. That crazy woman …
Aaron stopped, listened. Just the traffic buzz, a little louder now.
No parties tonight.
Not the type anyone enjoyed.
He completed another forty yards before the drive finally straightened and the cypresses ended and he was facing a wide, unadorned circular driveway of the same ugly concrete.
No vehicles in sight.
Nothing remotely Tuscan.
Nothing remotely Golden
Age
.
The house was one-story, free-form, a long, low knife fashioned of iron girders and glass.
Glass-on-glass, no apparent seams. Wedge-like—a spaceship, perched on the edge of a cliff, pointy snout extending well over the precipice.
Prepared to launch.
Below oblique steel struts fastening the structure to the cliff, miles of light. Free fall into oblivion. Staring at it made Aaron feel dizzy and he looked away to clear his head.
Not a trace of green anywhere around the house. A cold, deliberate structure.
Nowhere to hide once he set out across the motor court.
All that glass. Lights on in room after transparent room.
White, wide rooms, the kind of low, black leather furniture Aaron liked.
So cold; maybe it was time to reconsider his décor.
Empty.
Then it wasn’t.
♦
Mason Book, wearing a too-large black robe, face gaunt, yellow hair wild, appeared around a white wall and walked—more like hobbled— toward the front of the house—right into the wedge that hovered above empty space.
The actor stood there, staring straight ahead.
Protected by darkness, Aaron jogged forward, positioned himself ten feet from the house, with a side view of the knife-point.
He peered under the building. Just enough backyard for a bright blue infinity pool.
Still no dogs, no alarms and all those interior lights put Mason Book on full display—like one of those performance art pieces.
Book had no clue someone could be watching. Let’s hear it for false confidence. Too many years being buffered from reality.
He stumbled, barely caught his balance. His robe fell open.
Lousy skinny body. The actor sat down with apparent pain. Continued staring out at what had to be black, blank space.
Like a kid ready for takeoff.
Aaron edged closer.
Sad kid, weeping.
M
oe was driving home, talking to Liz on his cell, when Call Interruption beeped.
He said, “Can you hold for a sec, honey?”
Liz laughed. “Something tells me you won’t be dropping by after all.”
If it’s a lead, from your mouth to God’s ears
. He said, “Nah, it’s probably something stupid.”
It wasn’t.
Raymond “Ramone W” Wohr sat in yellow psych-ward pajamas in one of the therapy rooms used by the jail shrinks.
A little nicer than the usual County interview space, but not by much.
Moe and Petra gave Wohr the upholstered chair they’d jammed in a corner, pulled up the pair of plastic seats, and faced their quarry.
Wohr was one of those long-legged types who shrank when seated. A rash had broken out on his bald head. The side fringes hung greasy and limp. In less than a day, jail pallor had set in. Moe wondered if it was some sort of fear reaction, not absence of sunlight.
Or the overhead fluorescence wasn’t being kind to Ramone’s seamed, sagging, bleary-eyed, gap-toothed, addict face. The huge mustache was ragged, more gray than brown. His hands shook. A gray-blue tat ran up his neck. Crude blue band fashioned of circles and squares and X’s. Like a tie gone awry.
It was just after one a.m. and Petra’s tenth call of the evening had finally annoyed the sheriff’s jailers sufficiently for them to really dig through their paperwork.
Ramone had been booked nearly twenty-four hours ago, shoved right into the general population. News of his pedo bust had arrived before him and though Wohr’s cellmates were nonviolent types, a flurry of less-than-veiled threats from a couple of hypermuscular gangbangers in the adjoining cell had caused Wohr to whine, bitch, and moan. Finally the mope had attracted the attention of a jailer who
really
didn’t want to have to deal with
another
in-house death-stomp.
The problem was where to put Wohr. High Power and the psych ward were full up and the felony charge didn’t qualify him for trustee status. Finally, he was stashed in temporary quarters: a tiny reading room in a far corner of the jail’s inmate library, where he was tossed a blanket and told to go to sleep.
The space was vacant because furniture could be used as weaponry. Jailers doing pass-bys woke him up every few hours with flashlight glare and foot nudges. Your basic solitary confinement and Ramone W was an empty-eyed wraith by the time a psych bed emptied after an agitated bipolar rapist stroked out.
The transfer had taken place twelve hours ago, but the paperwork lagged.
“Anyway, we’ve got him,” Petra told Moe. “Meanwhile, I’ve got Vice guys looking for Delishus. Where are you?”
“Turning right around and heading for the freeway.” After hours of futile traces on bar pay phones, he ached for sleep. “I can be there in twenty.”
“I’ll meet you in front.” A beat. “This is your baby, I’m just there for backup.”
He couldn’t figure out if she’d said that out of good manners, or relief.
Raymond Wohr said, “I still don’t get why I got busted.” Not even convincing himself.
Moe said, “No one told you the charges?”
“Yeah, but…”
“You molested a minor, Ramone.”
Wohr didn’t answer.
“Pedo is serious stuff, Ramone.”
Wohr scratched an eyelid.
“You made our job easy,” said Moe. “Put on quite a show for Officer Kennedy.”
“Aw, man.” As if he was the aggrieved party.
Moe said, “Aw, man, what?”
“She said she was twenty.”
“Who did?”
“Deli-whatever she calls herself.”
“Too bad she looks ten.”
“Not to me,” said Wohr. “It’s a case of … how you see things.”
“You wear glasses, Ramone?”
“Huh?”
Moe repeated the question.
“No.”
“To you she looked twenty. To everyone else, she looks ten. She’s a minor and you got caught with your dick in her mouth.”
Wohr’s scratching hand lowered to the crook of his arm. Old tracks, but no fresh punctures. Along with the bag of weed, granules of what was sure to be cocaine had been scraped from a pocket of his jeans. Along with a pay-as-you-go cell Petra had already submitted for analysis.
Moe smiled at Wohr. Wohr sat there. Not a trace of emotion and so far the mope hadn’t even come close to asking for a lawyer. That could be a problem with these idiots: not enough anxiety.
Moe put forth a lie: “Delishus informs us the two of you have a long-standing relationship. Real long-standing, and that you know darn well how old she is.”
Liking the sound of his treachery.
Instinct
.
Wohr said, “Aw, man—sir. I didn’t mean nothing crazy. Just tryin’ to get off.”
“Basic human need.”
“Exactly, sir.”
“We understand human need, Ramone. Unfortunately, the system doesn’t. Courts are coming down real hard on child molesters. I mean, we’re talking some serious time.”
“I din’t
molest
no one. She got paid.”
“Your basic business transaction.”
“Exactly.”
“How many other look-like-twentys you generally do business with?”
Silence.
“Maybe you don’t go that far with all of them,” said Moe. “Maybe sometimes you’re happy just looking at ’em.”
One of Wohr’s droopy eyelids twitched. He stopped scratching, placed his palms on his lap.
“I guess that could be thought of as good manners, Ramone. Just peeping through windows, handling your own business, no one gets hurt.”
Silence.
“Plus, it’s free. So how come this time you paid?”
Wohr closed his eyes and hunched.
“Had a bad day, Ramone?”
“Nah.”
“Want something to drink, Ramone?”
“Nah.”
“Sure? Your lips are looking dry.”
“A Coke?” As if snagging the drink was a pipe dream. Petra was up before Moe could ask her.
During her absence, Moe scrawled useless notes in his pad. Ramone reacted by closing his eyes and pretending to doze. Beneath the guy’s eyelids, though, was a buzz of frantic activity.
Like the blowflies celebrating what had once been Alicia Eiger.
Petra returned with a tall paper cup of something brown. Wohr gulped all of it, pressed the flat of one hand under his rib cage. Belched and smiled at Petra. “’scuse me, ma’am.”
She said, “Hey, enjoy. While you can.”
Putting emphasis on the last word, Moe figured it was a prompt. He said, “Enjoy
any
little thing, you’re going away for a real long time.”
“Aw, man … I din’t do nothing bad.”
Moe shrugged, wrote some more. “What can I say, Ramone?”
Petra took the cue and starting checking her cell phone.
Being with two bored detectives made Raymond Wohr fidget. “So what you’re saying is, if I give you something, it could help me, right?”
“I didn’t hear us say anything like that, Ramone.”
“You’re here.”
“Just clearing paper, pal.” Moe continued to write.
“Sir,” said Wohr.
“Uh-huh.”
“What if I
do
give you something?”
Moe’s heart thumped. He looked up from his notes. “Like what?”
“Names, places, sir. Big deals all around Hollywood, sir. I got a good memory.”
“Drug deals?”
“Man, I’ve seen stuff. I know who. I know what. I could clear half your cases.”
Moe turned to Petra. “That’s pretty generous.”
She said, “Sure is.”
“Gimme pen and paper,” said Wohr. “Hope you got time because I’ll write you a book.”
“Sounds like a bestseller,” said Moe.
“More than we could ever hope for,” said Petra.
Both of them using a mocking tone. Wohr had instincts. “Something wrong with that?”
Moe said, “What’s wrong with that is we’re not dope cops.”
“Uh-uh, no way, I can’t give you sex stuff,” said Wohr, lying effortlessly. “Don’t know about that, not my thing.”
“Don’t want to rat out other pedos?”
“I’m not a—I don’t
know
that stuff, sir. Like you said before, it’s human need, I mind my own business.”
“Sticking mostly to peeping, huh?”
Head shake. “I’m not saying that, either. I just don’t
know
that stuff.”
“So the way you look at it,” said Moe, “it’s all victimless—a business transaction, who cares how a guy gets off.” He slapped his forehead. “Oh, yeah, judges
and juries
care. But guess what? I don’t. And neither does Detective Connor.”
Moe leaned in close, fighting to keep his nostrils open after a cloud of Wohr’s reek blew his way. The stink of jail and fear and poor personal habits.
“We’re not sex cops, either, Ramone.”
Wohr’s eyes swung wide to the left. “What are you?”
“We’re murder cops.”
Wohr’s head snapped up and back as he tried to retreat as far as possible from Moe. The way they’d tucked his chair into the corner meant he wasn’t going anywhere.
“Aw, man.”
“You keep saying that, Ramone. Like it’s some prayer, going to get you redeemed.”
Wohr lowered his head to his lap, clasped both hands behind his own neck. “No, no, that I
really
don’t do.”
Moe waited.
Wohr looked up.
“Hear that, Detective Connor?”
Petra slipped her cell into her purse. “Uh-uh, sorry, what?”
“Mr. Wohr says he
really
doesn’t do murder.”
Ramone said, “Nope, man—sir—ma’am. Someone told you that, they’re lying.”
“Who would tell us that?”
Eye-dance. “No one.”
“Why
would anyone tell us that, Ramone?”
“No reason—they wouldn’t.”
“They, meaning …”
“No one.” Wohr folded scrawny arms across his chest.
Moe turned to Petra. “Remember what they taught us about guys who like little girls? It’s all about power and control. And we know the same thing goes for murder. Especially sicko murder.” Back to Wohr: “No bigger power-trip than being in charge when the lights go out.”
Ramone’s hands shot out palms-forward. “No way, no, no, no.”
Moe sighed.
Petra’s knowing smile was perfect:
You believe this guy?
Ramone W scratched his head, then his arms, rocked a bit. “Aw, man. Gimme paper and a pen, I’ll write you a book on dope—you can trade it to the dope cops, you give ’em something, they give you something, everyone walks away happy.”
Petra said, “You’ve got an interesting view of police work.”
“Hey—ma’am, everything gets traded.”
“Guess that’s true,” said Moe. “Including human life.”
When Wohr didn’t answer, he went on: “Everything’s got a price. Every
one
. Some lives are expensive, some lives are cheap. Cheap lives get traded away easy so expensive lives can continue. Experienced individual such as yourself knows which is which.”
“Aw, man, I don’t know
nothing
about
that
, you want
that
there’s all sorts of guys right
here
who can tell you good stuff, just walk over to general pop and say tell me about
that
. Not me, sir, no way, no.”
Long speech. It took Wohr’s breath away and he sat back, trying to regain wind.
Moe said, “Expensive lives, cheap lives.” A beat. “Guess Adella Villareal’s life was pretty cheap.”
Wohr sat there. Not moving, not blinking. None of the eye-calisthenics Moe had expected.
Could I be that wrong?
“That name’s not familiar to you, Ramone?”
Wohr let out a long, raspy sigh. Now his eyes were bobbling, like floats on a trout line. Scratching hard enough to raise welts on his arms. He forced the eyes still, but the resulting stare—scared, frozen—was the biggest giveaway of all.
Yes!
Moe said, “Adella and Gabriel. Tiny little baby. A tiny life means super-cheap in your world?”
Wohr buried his face in his hands. Rocked some more.
“Cheap lives,” said Moe. “We know a lot.”
Wohr’s fingers spread, revealing runny eyes. “That was
not
me, sir.”
“That?”
“What happened.”
“What
happened?
Like we’re talking about a something, not a someone? A
what
, not a
who?
This is a mommy and a baby we’re discussing, Ramone. Human beings. They got murdered and we know who did it and we know you’re involved.”
Wohr’s eyes rounded and for a bizarre instant, terror made the old dope fiend look young, almost child-like—still vulnerable to surprise. A second later, the old weariness/wariness returned and the guy was squinting—first at Moe, then Petra. Figuring the odds.
Moe said, “You can help yourself, Ramone.”
“How much can I help myself?”
“What do you mean?”
Sly smile. “Business transaction. What’s the deal?”
“I’m not going to lie to you, friend, ’cause that would be wasting everyone’s time. And you’ve been around long enough to know reality. Anything official is up to the D.A. But we’re murder cops, the D.A. listens to us.”
“Misdemeanor,” said Wohr. “No jail time?”
“On what?”
“Delishus.”
Meaning he wasn’t worried about his involvement in murder. Or was the mope that clever?
Moe said, “Detective Connor?”
Petra said, “Theoretically, if two murders get cleared, I can’t see any problem with that.”
Moe said, “Clearing
three
murders would be even better.”
“No doubt,” said Petra.
“Three?” said Ramone. Confusion clouded the mope’s face.
Uh-oh
.
Moe made the plunge. “Caitlin Frostig.”
“Who?” Not a hint of evasiveness in the squinty eyes. Real confusion.
“Caitlin Frostig,” said Moe. “Adella’s babysitter. Pretty blond girl.”
Wohr said, “Oh, her.”
“You know her.”
“I seen her once, maybe twice. She also got killed?”
“Is that a real question, Ramone?”
“Yes, sir, yes, yes, yes, sir—I met her once. Coming to pick up Addie, like you said, Addie’s going out, that girl’s there with the baby. One, two times is all—yeah, it was two. That’s it, sir. She got dead, I don’t know about it.”