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.
I’m no pathologist but dull skin, and eyes depressed so deeply they resembled miniature lunar craters, said plenty and I was willing to bet on cause and manner of death.
Immobilized by disease, she’d spent four helpless days in bed without food, water, or attention.
Cause, dehydration.
Manner, accidental.
Milo said, “What the hell am I gonna tell Ellie?”
I said, “Nothing.”
Chapter 43
Basia Lopatinski worked heroically but it still took three weeks.
“And that,” she informed us, “is a record.”
During that time, Milo had paid a visit to Ellie and informed her that the case was going well but he had nothing definitive to report. Yet.
She didn’t object but she did call him two days later wondering if anything had changed, and four days after that. He’d managed to put her off with ambiguous optimism and a request to be patient. She hung up sounding irritated. If she’d chosen at that point to complain to Martz or Andy Bauer or one of the political contacts, it could’ve gotten complicated.
She didn’t.
No threats to Deirdre Seeger remained so she could’ve moved back to her house. But kept ignorant by Milo, she remained in Ellie Barker’s rented house and the two of them, accompanied by an equally uninformed Mel Boudreaux, filled their days with outings.
Huntington Gardens, the Arboretum, Descanso Gardens, a three-day excursion to San Diego where they took in the wild animal park and SeaWorld. Then a detour on the trip back for a night at the Disneyland Hotel and an all-day pass at the park.
VIP pass, Ellie’s money allowing them to jump lines. Deirdre revealed a lust for the Matterhorn and rode it three times.
Boudreaux: “Man, I felt like puking just watching her.”
On the twenty-first day, at eleven a.m., everything was in place and Milo phoned Ellie.
Sounding subdued, she said, “We’re at the art museum.” She lowered her voice: “Special exhibit on contemporary German paintings. Deirdre says it’s kindergarten garbage.”
He laughed. “Everyone’s a critic. When can we meet?”
“Meet as in...”
“Solving your case.”
“Oh... can Deirdre be included?”
“Not a good idea.”
“I’m kind of used to her and she’s got nowhere to go.”
“We could talk at the station,” said Milo. “Whatever suits you.”
“This really is it, Lieutenant?”
“It is.”
“Am I going to be happy?”
“You’ll know the facts.”
“That sounds ominous.”
“I wouldn’t call it that.”
“What would you call it?”
“Ellie, it’s best we sit down and talk.”
“Is it?” A beat. “Fine, let’s do it at the house. I’ll tell Mel to take Deirdre to lunch and I’ll Uber back. If that’s safe.”
“It is.”
“So this really is it.”
We were parked in front of the house on Curley Court when a dented white Celica in need of a muffler dropped Ellie off. VIP tickets for Deirdre, but no Uber Black for the woman with the credit card.
That fit with her understated approach to clothes and demeanor. Nothing wrong with that but I wondered if she held back due to feelings of unworthiness. I’ve seen that in patients with complicated childhoods. What I think of as Eternal Lent.
Sometimes they let you ease them out of it, sometimes not.
She said nothing to us and hurried to her front door. We caught up.
“Hi, Ellie.”
She mumbled something well short of a greeting. Her hands shook hard enough to rattle her keys and she missed the keyhole a couple of times before unlocking the door. Deactivating the alarm, she stood in the entry hall with a frozen look on her face.
Milo guided her by the elbow to the same living room chair she’d occupied the first time we met. Her hands continued to vibrate. She rounded her back, laced her fingers, and pressed her knees together as if warding off assault.
Milo said, “It really isn’t ominous, Ellie.”
“Let’s just get on with it, I’m ready to jump out of my skin.”
Milo placed his attaché case on the sofa between us.
Ellie said, “What’s in there, terrible police stuff?”
Milo ignored the question. “Okay, let’s get into it. The woman you’ve believed was your mother, wasn’t. DNA proves it. Her given name wasn’t Dorothy Swoboda, it was Martha Maude Hopple. Swoboda was a stolen identity, one of several used by Martha Hopple. She was a career criminal.”
Ellie’s mouth dropped open. “Oh, God. So you have no idea who my mother was.”
“We do. Her name was Benicia Cairn and she grew up near Tyler, Texas, where she met Martha Hopple. She was barely twenty, Hopple was twenty-four. The two of them left town and traveled for a couple of years before they settled in L.A. You were born during that time and we figure Hopple convinced your mom she wasn’t equipped to take care of a baby.”
“You figure,” she said.
“We can’t know for sure, Ellie, but everything we know about Benicia tells us she was a caring person.”
“Oh, really. A caring person just gives up her baby.”
Not an unexpected question. Milo didn’t need to cue me.
I said, “Martha Hopple was a manipulative psychopath and Benicia Cairn was young, impressionable, and, from what we’ve learned, extremely submissive.”
“Submissive? So what? She just allows a criminal to take me and dump me on Dad? Are you going to tell me he was a criminal, too?”
“No, he was a victim. One of the many men Martha Hopple seduced and took money from.”
And pushed off a cliff years later when she showed up unexpectedly and he wouldn’t pony up more cash.
Ellie shuddered. “She sounds like a monster.”
I said, “She was but your mother wasn’t. From everything we’ve learned, she was kind.”
“Not so kind she didn’t abandon her baby.”
“We believe she had regrets.”
“You believe.”
Milo said, “Her regrets may be the reason — and this is going to be another tough thing to hear, Ellie — Martha murdered her.”
“Murdered... the body in the car?”
We nodded.
She clutched her belly. “God, I think I’m going to be sick... why would she do that? Kill a friend. What was the point?”
“Martha had just robbed the man she was living with and wanted to disappear and assume a new identity. She used Benicia to fake her own death.”
“How can you know that?” she said. “And, wait a minute, how can you even presume to know this Benicia was my mother? You told me the body was burned up. And there was no DNA back then, anyway. You’re just guessing, aren’t you?”
“We’re not,” said Milo. “I matched your DNA to one of Benicia’s relatives. She’s your second cousin, her mom and Benicia were sisters. She still lives in Texas. You’ve got an extended family there.”
“My DNA? I never gave you a sample!”
“Remember the time I came to see you a couple of weeks ago?”
“Yes, when you told me nothing.” She set her lips grimly.
“True,” said Milo. “I was putting you off until we had proof, not just theory. While you were in the bathroom, I went into the kitchen and swiped a juice glass you’d just used. We had your sample tested at the same time we express-shipped a DNA kit to your relative — her name is Nancy. She expressed it right back to us and we zipped everything to a private lab. The results came in yesterday and they’re clear. Benicia Cairn was your mother.”