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.
Chapter 23
We rolled up to my house eighty-eight tedious minutes later. Nearly an hour and a half of stop-and-go to cover twenty miles.
Milo turned off the car. “You mind making some coffee? I’m gonna be up for a while trying to figure things out.”
“No prob.”
We trudged up the stairs to the terrace and I unlocked the door.
Robin was in the living room reading Acoustic Guitar. She’d changed out of her work clothes into a black cowl-necked sweater, charcoal tights, and red flats. A collection of bangle bracelets decorated one wrist, the watch I’d given her last Christmas banded the other.
She sprang up and hugged me, gave Milo a cheek peck.
I said, “You look gorgeous. Where’re we going?”
Milo straightened from petting Blanche. “Have fun, kids.” He turned to leave.
Robin held him back by his arm. “You look worn out. You both do. I was thinking something simple, burgers, sushi, whatever. Join us, Big Guy.”
“You’re an angel but I’ve got something protruding here.” He reached around to the small of his back. “Oh, yeah, it’s a fifth wheel.”
“Poor baby. C’mon, let’s get nutrition.”
I said, “Heed her wise counsel.”
Robin said, “Exactly. He does and look how well he’s weathered the onslaught of time.”
I drove the three of us to a place at the top of the Glen. Japanese fused with Italian, which translated to crudo coexisting with sashimi, pizza dating teppanyaki, and what seemed like random pairings labeled “what the chef’s into tonight.”
The waiter said, “Hey, guys, I’m Jaron and I’ll be your server. I advise the eel. She won Chopped with it.”
Milo said, “Let’s start with a beer.”
“No worries. We’ve got a great selection of imported—”
“Miller’s fine.”
“Um... I think we have that. You, ma’am?”
Robin said, “Knob Creek Old Fashioned.”
I said, “Oban 14, neat, ice on the side.”
“That’s...”
“Single-malt scotch.”
The waiter said, “Wow, you guys know your bevs.” He read back the order, corrected the errors. Out came a handheld device. “Okay, guys. Eel will go great with all those drinks.”
Milo said, “Bumper crop on slithery things, huh?”
Robin said, “Poor little orphan elvers.”
Jaron said, “Pardon?”
Her smile, beautiful and wide, dismissed him.
The drinks were followed by a torrent of small plates, the quantity dictated by Milo, back in fine form. He tucked in immediately as Robin looked on like an approving mother.
I fiddled with my chopsticks.
She said, “You okay, honey?”
“Thinking.”
Milo said, “About what?”
The honest answer was too many suspects and no real progress.
I said, “Another scotch.”
Dessert was a pair of scorched cedar shingles each containing three scoops of ice cream decorated with a juniper sprig. On one slab, chewy Japanese mochi: green tea, red bean, sesame. The other featured gelato “infused” with “organic Buddha’s fingers citron, winter melon, and a breeze of chianti.”
More geographic meld; world peace should be so easy.
I said, “Nicely curated.”
Milo said, “What the hell does that mean?”
“Absolutely nothing.”
He used a tiny shovel-shaped spoon to slice off some red bean. Tasted. Considered. “Different texture. Pretty good. Actually, good.”
Robin said, “They make ice cream out of everything in Japan. Including raw horsemeat.”
“C’mon.”
“Really.”
“Jesus. Where’d you pick up that nugget?”
I said, “I’m guessing Misota Metaru.”
She gave me a thumbs-up.
Milo said, “Who’s that?”
I said, “Mister Metal, big-time guitar god in Tokyo. She works on his gear.”
“Guy comes all the way here to get his stuff fixed?”
Robin said, “He lives in Thousand Oaks. His real name is Mitchell Mandelbaum.”
“Huh. I’m visualizing black ninja p.j.’s on stage.”
“It varies. Last time was a set of antique Japanese armor. He looked like Darth Vader.”
“All that metal,” he said. “I’d worry about electrocution.”
“I’ve mentioned it to him,” she said. She crossed her fingers.
He said, “You lead a different life, kiddo.”
“Only vicariously. Mostly I’m in a room all day sawing and gluing.”
He regarded the spoon, mumbled “too damn small” and put it down. “Raw horsemeat.” He looked at me. “Must be our day for quadrupeds.”
I drummed a horse-hoof clop on the table.
Robin said, “What does that mean?”
I explained.
She said, “Maybe another fake accident? Interesting.”
Milo clutched his head. “That word again.”
Robin looked at me.
I said, “He’s developed an allergy to ‘interesting.’ ”
“Ah. I think you can get shots for that.”
He laughed, fiddled with the sprig, licked his lips. “No aftertaste of Trigger, so far, so good.” Eyeing what was left of the ice cream. “You guys full?”
Robin said, “All yours.”
“Why not?” he said. “All in the name of recycling.”
When he’d finished every dollop, she said, “I don’t want to give you a migraine but can I ask a question?”
“Sure.”
“You always say you start with the victim. Since the case started I’ve heard a lot about suspects but not much about her.”
“That’s ’cause there’s not much to know, kiddo, can’t even get biographical basics.”
“Mystery woman,” she said. “Hiding something?”
“She ended up in California, which is where everyone comes to reinvent, so good chance. Does it tie in to her murder? Who the hell knows? All I can work with is facts on the ground. They keep piling up but nothing’s really clarifying.”
I said, “Making it worse, Ellie has no early memories. She was a baby when the relationship with her stepdad began and a toddler when Dorothy walked out.”
Robin said, “Leaving a little kid behind to hook up with a rich guy? Not exactly a world-class woman.” Metal in her voice. Her relationship with her own mother had always been a challenge.
I said, “The older Des Barres brother said other women in the mansion tried to ingratiate themselves with him and his sibs. Dorothy didn’t bother. Just the opposite, she was aloof.”
“She sounds pretty unlikable.”
Milo said, “Worst type of victim.”
“Why?”
“Too many potential enemies.”
“Do you think she just landed in L.A. and started hunting for a sugar daddy? Or had she been involved with Des Barres before?”
“Good question,” said Milo. “They keep popping up, too.”
He drained his beer.
Robin said, “One more thing?”
“Hit me.”
“Ellie’s boyfriend getting shot. If the goal was to dissuade her, why not simply target her? And if there really was a woman on horseback bumping off the competition, she’d have to be, what — late fifties minimum, more likely sixties by now. It’s hard to see someone like that lurking in the bushes. How, for that matter, would she even know about the investigation?”
“The Des Barres sibs know about it, thanks to me, and rich folk are used to delegating. Val Des Barres’s butler has a bit of a record, so I watched him for a couple of days. So far the worst thing he’s done is glide through a boulevard stop.”
He caught the waiter’s eye and mouthed, Check.
This time I got there first with a credit card.