Serpentine
- Автор: Келлерман Джонатан
- Серия: Alex Delaware #36
- Год: 2021
- Язык: английский
- Год: Random House Publishing Group/Ballantine Books
- ISBN: 978-0-525-61855-3
- Жанр: Криминальные детективы
Электронная книга - «Serpentine». Краткое содержание книги:
This murder warrants an immediate call. Milo’s independence has been compromised as never before, as the department pressures him to cater to the demands of a mogul: a hard-to-fathom, megarich young woman who is obsessed with reopening the coldest of cases — the decades-old death of the mother she never knew.
The facts describe a likely loser: a mysterious woman found with a bullet in her head in a torched Cadillac that has overturned on infamously treacherous Mulholland Drive. No physical evidence, no witnesses, no apparent motive. And a slew of detectives have already worked the case and failed. But as Delaware and Sturgis begin digging, the mist begins to lift. Too many coincidences. Facts turn out to be anything but. And as they soon discover, very real threats lurking in the present.
This is Delaware/Sturgis at their best: traversing the beautiful but forbidding place known as Los Angeles and exhuming the past in order to bring a vicious killer to justice.
Then, cat-purrs.
I said, “The archive.”
“Better organized than I expected. Lev always impressed me as kind of a stoner but apparently before he went back to Harvard, he whipped everything into chronological order and the new guy hasn’t had time to screw it up. So finding the book shoulda been easy. But nothing there. Lev’s system cataloged chronologically from the time each case opened officially. Sometimes the 911 call, sometimes when the detective logged it. Ten hours before Dorothy’s coroner’s summary, a stabbing went down in Watts, and five hours after there was a fatal downtown liquor store 211. In between? Air. Just to make sure, I spent the entire damn day looking over every case five years before and after. Then I expanded to twenty years either way. Zilch. It ain’t there.”
Robin said, “Someone took the file and didn’t return it. Do people often get careless?”
“Sure,” he said. “But there’s no record of anyone checking that particular file out, so for all I know it was never cataloged in the first place.”
She said, “Because a rich guy was involved?”
“Shocking as it may be, darling, cases involving the high and mighty do have a way of veering out of lane. Take O.J. His Defense made a big deal about how he was mistreated by a racist department. Truth is, he was coddled initially because celebrity trumps race and cops are the biggest star-fuckers of all. If Des Barres had enough pull, sweeping up a bread-crumb trail wouldn’t be tough.” To me: “Anything on him from Maxine?”
“Not yet.”
“She’s usually quick, bad sign.” He played with his empty wineglass.
I said, “Be interesting to see if Arlette Des Barres’s file is there. If it’s also missing, you’ve got capital I interesting.”
“Problem is, Arlette’s file wouldn’t end up there under any circumstance. Angeles Crest jurisdiction is split between the forest service and the Sheriff’s. I have no idea where they keep their relics or if they hold on to stuff, period. Top of that, she was tagged accidental from the get-go so there’d be no real investigation.”
He tilted the glass toward the bottle. “Maybe a half pour.”
Robin obliged. “More steak, as well?”
He smiled and pecked her cheek. “No thanks, Jez.”
“Then how about we open another bottle and take it out back? Nice warm night, we can watch the fish.”
Milo looked at me. “You got yourself a girl with good values.”
We were sipping silently by the pond’s rock edge when his phone interrupted. This time I recognized the ringtone. The first four notes of Debussy’s “Clair de Lune,” over and over. Some sort of rotating classical algorithm cooked up in a Silicon Valley lab full of tone-deaf geniuses.
Robin covered one ear. “Sacrilegious, slicing it up like that.”
He said, “Sorry. Lemme snuff it.” Quick look at the screen. “Petra. Gotta take it.”
Hoisting himself from the pond bench, he walked a few feet away. Did a lot of listening and returned looking shaken.
“She just picked up a shooting on Franklin. Ellie’s boyfriend.”
I said, “Offender or victim?”
“Victim. Serious condition, in surgery at Hollywood Pres. Gotta go.”
Robin said, “Both of you?”
I said, “Don’t see what I can add.”
“The poor girl. First her mom, now her boyfriend? If anyone can use emotional support, it’s going to be her.” She squeezed my arm. “I release you for the public good. With enough wine in me, I’m ready to make the sacrifice.”
As we headed down the stairs, Milo said, “How much have you imbibed?”
“Glass and a half.”
“Three for me.” He cleared his throat. “I also had a beer before I got here. Mind driving? Time it’ll take to get there, I can clear my head.”
Chapter 15
The drive to Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center is one I can pull off in my sleep. It’s a venerable institution planted at Vermont and Fountain. Around the corner from the Western Peds campus on Sunset, where, as a newly licensed psychologist, I’d spent long days on the cancer ward.
I drove to the parking valet where Milo police-tagged my dashboard and told the attendant, “Leave it here, worth your while.”
He badged us through the lobby and we headed for the ICU. The waiting room was full of miserable-looking people, as ICU waiting rooms always are. A nurse at the desk was prepared for Milo’s badge.
“Second room to your right.”
“How’s Mr. Twohy doing?”
“You’d have to ask the doctor that.”
Second room to the right was windowless, off-white, and sterile, set up with scarred furniture. A space accustomed to bad news.
The look on Ellie Barker’s face said she’d heard plenty. She sat on a hard-pack, fake-leather sofa between Petra and Petra’s partner, Raul Biro. Brown sweats, maybe of her own design, bagged on her. Her complexion was one shade grayer than the room, her hair tied back carelessly with a red rubber band.
She saw us but didn’t move or speak. Both detectives nodded.
Petra was her usual tailored self, this suit, black crepe. I’ve never seen Raul when his dense black hair isn’t brushed back and sprayed perfectly in place and his suit’s not a masterpiece of tailoring. Despite the blood and gore he encounters routinely, he favors light shades of featherweight twill and remains spookily stain-resistant. Tonight’s one-button was cream-colored gabardine over a starched white shirt and a massively knotted raw-silk tie the color of Japanese eggplant.
Milo and I pulled up two facing chairs.
Ellie said, “Thanks for coming.”
Milo said, “Of course.”
She shifted to me. “You probably think I need help.”
Just like the first time we’d met, cool to my presence. She’d spoken of being a difficult teen and I wondered if Stan Barker’s attempts to deal with the issue before sending her away had led her to some bad therapeutic attempts.
Milo said, “We here to support you, Ellie.”
“Thanks. Sorry, don’t mean to be snippy.” She lowered her eyes to her hands.
Petra said, “Let’s step outside, guys.” Unspoken signal to Raul.
He said, “I’ll be here with you, Ms. Barker. Anything you need, let me know.”
Ellie said, “I’m okay, really.” Then she burst into tears.
Raul had a tissue already in hand. A good detective prepares.
The three of us walked up the nearest hallway, passed nurses and doctors hurrying by, finally found a quiet stretch.
Petra said, “Looks like I couldn’t avoid your case.”
Milo said, “You think this is related to Swoboda?”
“It’s not an attempted robbery and given what you’ve told me about the file going missing, I can’t exclude it. Maybe someone really doesn’t want this dug up.”
“How did it go down?”
Petra said, “Twohy got shot coming back from a run. He’s a serious runner, has been working on speed goals for next year’s marathon.”
I said, “When we met him he was aiming for eight fast miles.”
“According to Ellie he reached that goal yesterday and decided to dive right in for nine. When I ran seriously I always heard it was important to rest, but maybe he’s at a different level.”
“More like driven,” I said.
Milo said, “More like a bad decision. What was his route?”
Petra said, “Out of his neighborhood, turn east on Los Feliz Boulevard, past the park, into Atwater and beyond. He got nailed four blocks from home. Before they prepped him for surgery he was conscious and in a lot of pain, staff didn’t want me around. I got them to allow me a minute. Nothing substantive.”