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.
“Des Barres,” said Galoway. “You’re looking into the bastard. Great.”
“Baby steps,” said Milo.
“But sorry, nothing like that. You’re thinking the bastard was a serial? Shit, wouldn’t that be something.”
“What caught my interest in the missing is Seeger worked it before he got to Homicide.”
“You’re kidding,” said Galoway. “It’s getting that smell, isn’t it? Too bad I never got time to work it properly.”
“Pressure from the boss.”
“Nuclear pressure. I’m a greenhorn, getting nowhere, the fat slob’s pissed in the first place that I applied to Homicide and got in — why’m I telling you this, you know what the job’s like. So who was the missing?”
“All I know so far is she hung with Des Barres.”
“At the house?”
“Maybe.”
“Maybe,” said Galoway. “Sorry for poking, I used to hate when I was working a tough one and someone did that to me.”
“No prob, Du. If you remember anything about anything, let me know.”
Galoway sighed. “Wish I could say that was going to happen. It’s the failures that stick with us, right? Good luck.”
Milo hung up but kept the phone in his hand. “Any other suggestions?”
I said, “Don’t imagine Hollywood missings files were preserved better than homicides, but...”
“You’re right, less than unlikely.” But he phoned the archivist, got voicemail.
Just as he began to pull away from the curb, Petra called.
He explained about the burglary at Des Barres’s house and how the decision not to file a report had mooted the issue.
She said, “He loses a bunch of bling but lets it ride? That’s different. My experience is rich folks are the most aggressive when it comes to their stuff. You’re thinking there was another reason Des Barres didn’t want any poking around at the castle.”
“Buried bodies,” said Milo. “Literally or otherwise.”
“Any way to get in there and poke around?”
“Not yet but there’s a possible hook for the long run.” He filled her in about the missing woman and P. J. Seeger’s involvement.
She said, “Two women gone. I’m picturing an unofficial graveyard out back.”
“Could be, it’s a big place.”
“Yuck. When did this other girl go missing?”
“Before Dorothy’s death. Des Barres’s second wife died a year before, maybe they’re connected.”
He told her about the woman Winifred Gaines had seen following Arlette Des Barres into the forest, our theory about an aspiring Queen Bee.
She said, “Money’s always motive number one and there was plenty of it. A murder victim and a missing in the same photo. Sounds like joining the harem was a high-risk endeavor.”
“Val Des Barres has that same feeling.” He related our meeting.
She said, “Letting the devil in. Think she knows more than what she can admit right now?”
“Could be. She didn’t have to step forward in the first place, so there’d be no reason to be evasive.”
“Still, there could be something psychological — denial, whatever. Alex there?”
I said, “Here.”
“That make sense to you? Whatever she suspects of her dad, he’s still her dad, there’s just so much she can handle?”
“Could be.”
She laughed. “That’s all I’m going to get?”
Milo said, “He’s like that. But when he does consent to elaborate, it can get interesting.”
“Still waters running deep,” she said. “Yeah, I’ve seen him do that.”
I said, “Ahem.”
“C’mon, Alex, worship from afar is the best a consultant can hope for. Milo, what about the third girl in the photo? Could she be the bad girl?”
“Maybe, she’s got great cheekbones,” said Milo.
Winking at me. The same was true of Petra and she’d heard about it plenty.
She laughed. “Excellent structure is not a personality flaw.”
“So you claim. Listen, kid, don’t want to keep bugging you but Seeger was at your shop. Any chance there are prehistoric missing files lying around?”
“I doubt it. Since the remodel, anything that shows up is random. But I’ll check.”
“Appreciate it. Want me to email the photo?”
“Can’t hurt. Unless those cheekbones are too impressive.”
“I wouldn’t worry.”
“Aw, gee,” she said. “All this workplace support.”
Three days passed with as many letdowns.
Day One, Deirdre Seeger called to let Milo know she’d taken the time to go into her garage because it contained some of the “elements of Phil’s life. Including his Harley manual and all sorts of spare parts, I have no clue what they are.”
That memory choked her up. She went on to say that she’d found no old files, no case notes, just books and magazines. “All moldy and falling apart. Phil was a big reader. American Rifleman, Shooting and Fishing, National Geographic, some old Lifes, a few of those gross detective rags, why Phil loved them I could never figure out. I guess I should do a thorough housecleaning but... what am I going to end up with? Blank space?”
“Thanks, Deirdre.”
“Sorry I couldn’t help.”
Day Two, Du Galoway called to let Milo know he’d spent a long time thinking and meditating “because that sometimes feeds my memory. But in this case, nothing. I guess I told you everything I know the first time. Sorry.”
“Thanks, Du.”
Day Three, Petra called to let Milo know she’d assigned two police scouts to look into “every conceivable nook, cranny, drawer, and storage area. No missing files, period. Sorry.”
“Thanks, kiddo.”
We were returning to his office from a walk and some decent coffee when he said, “All those apologies and no one’s running for office. And the one whose job it is to check, hasn’t.”
He phoned the archive. A slurred voice said, “Records.”
“Officer Bardem, Lieutenant Sturgis.”
“Oh. Had a cold, just got back but still feeling it, forgot to let you know.”
“Let me know what?”
“Found you some missing females from that time.”
“Great, email ’em.”
“Sure.” Sniffle. Click.
The file arrived seconds later. And kept arriving.
Page after page filled his screen. Milo saved and printed, groaned as the bin filled and overflowed.
When the printer stopped whining, the bin held a stack as thick as a phone book. He leafed through, cursed, and gave it to me.
Single-spaced list of alphabetized names.
Over a fifteen-year period, spanning twenty-five to forty years ago, 56,154 females had gone missing in L.A. County. Of those, 44,723 had been accounted for, leaving 11,431 still gone.
All those families in limbo.
Milo had no bandwidth left for empathy. “This is bullshit. By the time I get through it I’ll be on a walker. Optimistically speaking.”
Yanking open a bottom drawer, he stuffed the list atop a ream of blank paper. The drawer wouldn’t close until he pounded the stack.
“Eleven thousand opens,” he said. “City of the Lost.”
I said, “You could put her face online and try missing persons databases, the department’s social media pages. Or create your own website.”
“All those sad stories, someone’s going to happen to find me?”
“Magnetism.”
He glared, dark brows knitting. Return of the jaw-cherries.
I said, “Son, we need to work on your confidence.”
Green eyes ignited. Then he roared with laughter.