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.
“We learned something curious about the necklace.”
He withdrew a folded sheet of paper from his jacket.
The photo from The Azalea.
Reluctant to get into details with Ellie but willing to reveal her mother with Des Barres and two other women?
Then as he handed it past me I caught a glimpse. The copy he’d made in the station blanked out Des Barres and the other two blondes.
She studied the image. Her eyes got wet. Several tears got loose. “This is only the second photo I’ve seen of her. She’s wearing a wig... where was it taken and how’d you get it?”
“A nightspot in L.A. It was in a pamphlet about L.A. nightlife but don’t try to find another copy. I did and zilch.”
A mix of truths and lies. He’s good at that. So am I. Deceit in service of the greater good.
Ellie said, “A nightspot in Hollywood?”
“Don’t know.” What a tangled web we weave...
“The necklace,” she said. “I get it. If she left it when she came to L.A., what’s it doing in L.A.?”
“Exactly.”
“So she came and went more than once.”
“Only thing we can think of.”
“Hmm,” she said. “So maybe it wasn’t a onetime thing. Maybe they had problems from the beginning. And maybe Dad didn’t like her dangling him back and forth. So when she comes back the last time he said enough and took back the gift he gave her. The dress, too — maybe that was also a gift? Or she tossed it in his face.” Sad smile. “It is a pretty ugly dress. Listen to me. Hypothesizing.”
Milo said, “Join the club.”
“A bad relationship,” she said. “But he saved the necklace and the dress. Maybe he still missed her.”
Maybe a trophy.
“The going back and forth — does it change anything?”
Unwilling to grasp the implications of Stan Barker’s rage after repeated abandonment.
Milo said, “Not really, we’re just trying to clarify details.”
She reexamined the photo. “A party wig and a party dress but she doesn’t exactly look festive... just the opposite. Same as in the forest shot. That always struck me. How serious she was.”
That made me wonder about something. I filed it for later.
Ellie’s eyes remained on the photo. “In the forest, I assumed they already weren’t getting along. But here she is without Dad and she’s got the same expression... unless, maybe he was here? In the club? Is that possible?”
Milo said, “Did he ever mention going to L.A. with her?”
“Never. But he didn’t talk about those days. I mean it’s possible he was there, right? They had a date. Trying to patch up — though I don’t know why she’d wear a wig... whatever. He went to the bathroom or something when the photo was taken? Maybe by one of those table-hopping photographers who charged per shot?”
“Anything’s possible, Ellie.”
She tapped the photo. “This little number, bare shoulders and all that... she really was beautiful. Despite not having fun. The truth is, Daddy was a good man but he wasn’t much fun.”
She looked at Milo. “Sorry for running on with stuff that doesn’t lead anywhere.”
“Don’t be,” he said. “And thanks for being patient.”
“Do I have a choice? Sorry, that was snippy. I should be thanking you for your patience. Grateful for whatever you find. Like this. Another view of her. May I keep it?”
“All yours.”
We stood and she did the same. Circling the coffee table, she hurried to Milo, stood on her tiptoe, and kissed his cheek. A millimeter from his lips. He was caught off-guard but he smiled.
She turned to me, weighing etiquette equity — Can I kiss one and not the other — versus gut reluctance: The cop’s working for me. What’s the shrink actually doing?
I tried to get her off the hook by adding space between us and smiling.
She got it. Smiled back.
Then she danced over and kissed me, too.
As we drove away from the house, I said, “She’s pretty enamored of you.”
“Poor kid,” he said.
He cruised past the spot where Twohy had been shot without giving it a glance, waited for the non-fatal left turn on Los Feliz.
“Probably best in the long run,” he said. “Brannon bailing. Guy lacked substance, she’s vulnerable, deserves better.”
From angry conscript to protective uncle.
“I never saw much depth in him,” I said. “You’re right about vulnerability. She’s in self-protective mode, doesn’t see the possibility that Dorothy was with another man and Barker came to L.A. and killed her. Something else: When she called it ‘the forest photo,’ I wondered if it was taken in the same park where Barker tumbled. Maybe a place he and Dorothy went repeatedly so he returned there to die.”
“Suicide due to guilt?”
“That or his life just hadn’t worked out. It makes more sense than some phantom killer chasing him down years after doing Dorothy. Who’d know about the place other than him?”
“How about her L.A. boyfriend — pillow talk and all that.”
“Seventeen years later?” I said. “And what’s the motive?”
“True,” he said. “If Barker did kill her, he stayed mad rather than guilty? Exploding on Ellie and telling her Mom was a slut.”
“A strumpet.”
“ ’Scuse me. Am I making sense?”
“Rage can coexist with guilt. Or fluctuate depending on what else is going on in a person’s life.”
“Barker’s life doesn’t sound like a hoot,” he said. “No other relationships, Ellie gives him teenage shit and then leaves for college. So he goes back to the park and does a swan dive? Or maybe has one of the accidents you guys say really aren’t — getting all emotional, distracting himself, stumbling and tumbling.”
“It’s a possibility.”
“Great. Do I get my Ph.D.? Hey, look at the pace car.”
Brief lapse in four lanes of two-way traffic. He made the left, barely avoiding a thundering Corvette.
“Goddamn hot dog. Guy obviously ran a light and jumped the gun.” We coasted down the hill.
“If Barker’s our bad guy,” he said, “and inflicted capital punishment on himself, you see any link to Arlette? Or Seeger’s motorcycle crash?”
I said, “Accidents do happen.”
“Nothing with Freudian overtones?”
“If I come up with anything, you’ll be the first to know.”
We stopped at the light at Franklin, waiting behind a dozen other cars.
“A world of possibilities, no evidence,” he said. “Translation: hell.”
His pocket got musical, the cellphone beeping manically paced violin music.
He fished it out. “Sturgis.”
“Lieutenant, it’s Val Des Barres.”
“Hi, what’s up.”
“I’m sure you’re busy, don’t want to bother you. But if you do get some time in the near future, perhaps we could chat?”
“About what, ma’am?”
“I’d rather discuss it in person.”
“Okay. I can be there in twenty minutes or so.”
“Right now?” she said.
“If it’s not a problem.”
“I guess. Sure, why not. But let’s not do it at the house. I’d prefer to meet you down the road where it happened.”
Milo said, “Like I told you, we’re not sure where that is.”
“The approximate spot, then. If that’s not a problem.”
“Not at all, we’ll pick you up.”
“No need,” she said. “Call or text when you get there and I’ll come down. What are you driving?”
“A green Chevy Impala.”
“Okay, then. I hope I’m doing the right thing.”
Click.
The light turned green. Milo said, “Can I dare to hope?”