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.
She slumped. “This is insane... what about my father?”
“That’s still unknown, Ellie. To us and to your Texas family. They were never aware Benni — that was her nickname — was pregnant. It may be the reason she left with Martha Hopple, or she could’ve met a man shortly after, we just don’t know. In terms of paternity, there are ancestral geneticists who work with the big public DNA sites and sometimes they can get results. We figured this was enough information for you to take in.”
“My Texas family... my real mom...” Bitter laugh. “Guess I’m no worse off, same story, murdered. Hello, world, I’m still an orphan.”
She flashed a sick smile that crumpled. Let out a sob, beat her knees with her fists and wailed.
Out came Milo’s fresh hankie.
Ellie Barker shook her head violently, then she snatched it and pressed it to her eyes. It took a while for her to catch her breath. “This is... I don’t even know how to define it, my world is fucking spinning!”
“It’s a lot to deal with,” said Milo. “Wish there could’ve been a storybook ending. But your goal was to solve the mystery and that’s been accomplished.”
She lowered the handkerchief. Glared. “Congratulations on your big old detective success. For me it’s not exactly a celebra... oh, crap, I’m taking my messed-up life out on you and all you’ve done is exactly what I asked. And frankly, what I thought was impossible. So you did an amazing job. Even though... I’m sorry, I should be grateful. But I’m feeling totally out of control. It’s not like I had expectations of sugar plum fairies. You took on the challenge, came through, and I have no right to be anything but grateful. And I’ll get there, I promise. It’s just...”
“It’s okay,” I said. “How could you not be disoriented?”
She stared at me. Tottered to her feet, walked around the coffee table to Milo, bowed and kissed his cheek. Looking over at me, she laughed. “All this time, you haven’t gotten half a gold star from me. Sorry for that, too. It’s not your fault I had some crap shrinks.”
Dry lips brushed my cheek lightly. She returned to her chair and sat with both feet on the floor. “Should I contact her — Nancy? Does she want me to contact her?”
I said, “She sure does. A lot of what we learned came from her responding to a post on a missing persons site. She and the rest of your family’s wondered for decades what happened to Benni.”
“My family,” she said. “Alien concept.” A hand poked her breast. “Hey, Lone Star folk, here’s your mystery baby.”
A few moments passed. “Benni. Cute name... you guys aren’t lying to me, are you? About her being a good person.”
“A good person and an innocent victim,” I said.
“So the bitch ruined her,” she said with sudden savagery. “You want to know something? This is starting to make me feel better. About her. How I’ve always felt about her in the back of my head and couldn’t admit. That photo of her and Dad. The look on her face, so hard. Now I know it was worse than that, it was cruelty. It always bothered me. Feeling off about her. I figured it was resentment because she abandoned me. That’s what the other shrinks said. Now I know I had an inner sense. That my judgment’s not as messed up as I thought.”
I nodded. “Good instincts, Ellie.”
“We’re not just talking cruel,” she said. “We’re talking evil. An evil, horrible, amoral slut just like Dad told me that time... okay, enough, I don’t want to waste precious breath on her.”
She stopped. “Oh, no. Is she alive?”
Milo said, “No, and she reached a very unpleasant end.”
“Such as?”
“She was terminally ill and starved to death, alone and abandoned.”
“Well that’s pretty unpleasant,” she said. “When and where?”
“No need to get into details, Ellie. Like you said, wasted breath.”
I slid a sheet from the thin stack on the couch and handed it to her. The Azalea photo, everything cropped but an enlargement of Benni Cairn’s smiling face.
“This is her?” she said, sniffing. “She’s pretty... so young... kind of pure-looking... her eyes look soft. Yes, I can see the vulnerability... look at that smile. She thinks she’s got a future.”
Rush of tears. Another study of the image.
“I don’t see a resemblance... maybe I look like my father. You think there’s a good chance I can locate him?”
Milo said, “No way to know but if you’re interested, it’s worth a try.”
“Why not, it’s come this far,” she said. “Okay, can you get me one of those ancestral geneticists? I don’t want to make the wrong decision like I did with those slicksters who wasted my money.”
I handed her another piece of paper. “This is a referral from a pathologist at the coroner’s office who’s been extremely helpful. She’s worked with him before and says he’s first-rate.”
She said, “William Wendt, Ph.D., genetic counseling and forensic geneaology... impressive sounding... I guess I could learn something I didn’t want to know but it’s better than wondering. May I keep the photo?”
“Of course.” I passed a third sheet over. “Here’s the match between your DNA and Nancy’s.”
“Strattine... the link is maternal. What’s my real name?”
“Holcroft.”
“Eleanor Holcroft.” She smiled. “Sounds like something out of Jane Austen... I think I’ll stick with Barker, Dad was my everything... maybe I’ll use Holcroft as my middle name.”
She burst out laughing. “Maybe I’ll dye my hair blond and start talking in a Texas accent and learn to ride horses and eat a lot of barbecued brisket.”
I said, “A world of opportunities.”
“Yeah, this could get interesting.” Full smile. “Thanks so much. Both of you. As long as we’re being earth-shattering is there anything else?”
Nothing you need to know.
Milo said, “Nope, that’s it, Ellie. It’s been good working on this.”
“Really? Even though you were pushed into it?”
“Like the doctor just said, opportunities. I like learning and you’ve been a peach.”
“What a lovely thing to say.”
She stood, this time gracefully. Shook her hair loose and straightened her spine and held her head high. “You’re a peach, too — both of you are.”
She laughed. “We’re a regular fruit basket. Let me see you out.”
At the door, Milo said, “Oh, yeah, Deirdre’s safe returning to her house.”
“I’ll bear that in mind,” said Ellie Barker. “Right now we’ve got some trips scheduled. Santa Barbara, tomorrow, then we’ll keep going to San Simeon. With Mel. Even though we are safe, he’s a great driver and he’s got a beautiful singing voice.”
“Sounds like a plan.”
“A good plan,” she said. “Places I wanted to see, anyway.”
Chapter 44
We hadn’t told her about the box.
Finding it hadn’t resulted from ace detective work during the search of the house Du Galoway and Martha Dee Ensler had shared for twelve years. It filled the middle drawer of the nightstand where her medications sat.
Fifteen inches long, a foot wide, hardwood covered in genuine crocodile hide dyed green. A bilious shade slightly lighter than the bedcovers and the serpentine necklace.
Milo said, “Reptiles. No comment, too easy.”