A Cold Heart

by Jonathan Kellerman

  I pocketed the bills. “Hi.”

  “Is this a bad time?”

  “Of course not.” I held the door open, and she stepped into the place we’d designed together. I watched her wander around the living room, as if reacquainting herself with the space. When she perched on the edge of a sofa, I took a facing seat.

  “You know about Baby Boy,” she said.

  “Petra called me looking for you.”

  “I was just over at the Hollywood police station, talking to her.” She stared at the ceiling. “I’ve never been close to someone who was murdered . . . all the years you and I were together, I stayed on the periphery.”

  “You didn’t miss anything.”

  She played with an earring. “It’s disgusting— the feeling of gone-ness. It brings back my father’s death. It’s not the same, of course. I was fond of Baby, but he wasn’t family. Still, for some reason . . .”

  “Baby was a good guy.”

  “Great guy,” she said. “Who’d want to hurt him?”

  She got up and walked around some more. Straightened a picture. “I shouldn’t have barged in on you.”

  I said, “Does Petra have any leads?”

  She shook her head.

  “Any lifestyle issues? Had Baby gotten back into drugs?”

  “Not as far as I know,” she said. “The last few times when he came by he looked clean, didn’t he?”

  “Far as I could tell.” Not that I’d paid much attention to Baby Boy’s demeanor. The last time he’d dropped off some gear, music had drifted into the house from Robin’s studio, and I’d gone over to listen. Baby Boy had left the studio door open and I stood there, watching, listening, as he cradled his old Gibson acoustic like a baby, hammered some notes in a drop-D tuning, sang something low and pained and tender.

  “But what do I know?” said Robin. “Maybe he had gotten back into the bad old days. What do any of us know about anyone?” She rubbed her eyes. “I shouldn’t have come. It was inconsiderate.”

  “We’re still friends.”

  “Right,” she said. “That was the deal, walk away friends. Is that sitting right with you?”

  “How’re you doing with it?”

  “Okay.” She stood. “I’ll get going, Alex.”

  “Things to do, places to see?” I said. Why had she had come? Shoulder to cry on? Was Tim’s shoulder defective? I realized I was angry but also weirdly gratified— she’d chosen me.

  “Nothing pressing,” she said. “I don’t belong here.”

  “I like you here.” Why had I said that?

  She walked over to me, tousled my hair, kissed the top of my head. “Once upon a time we’d be dealing with this you-know-how.”

  “How?”

  She smiled. “Once upon a time, we’d be doing the two-backed beast. That’s how we always ended up dealing with stress.”

  “I can think of worse ways to cope.”

  “Definitely,” she said.

  She lowered herself onto my lap and we kissed for a long time. I touched a breast. She emitted a low, sad sound, reached for me. Stopped herself.

  “I’m so sorry,” she said, as she ran for the door.

  I got to my feet but remained in place. “Nothing to be sorry for.”

  “Lots to be sorry for,” she said.

  New adultery.

  “How’s Spike?” When in doubt, ask about the dog.

  “Fine. You’re welcome to come see him.”

  “Thanks.”

  The doorbell rang, and her head whipped around.

  “I called out for food. That Hunan place in the Village.”

  She patted her hair in place. “Good place.”

  “Spicy but not hostile.”

  She gave a terrible smile and twisted the doorknob. An Hispanic kid who looked around twelve held out a greasy bag, and I jogged to the door, took the food, reached into my pocket for money, grabbed too many bills, thrust them at him.

  “Thanks, man,” he said, and hurried down the stairs.

  I said, “Hungry?”

  “Anything but,” said Robin. As she turned to leave, I thought of a million things to say.

  What came out was: “Petra’s as good as they come. She’ll keep working at it.”

  “I know she will. Thanks for listening. Bye, Alex.”

  “Anytime,” I said.

  But that wasn’t true, anymore.

  7

  For two weeks of double shifts, most of which she neglected to file as overtime, Petra drove herself crazy, trying to track down as many members of Baby Boy’s final audience as she could, coming up only with the few names on the freebie list— most of whom hadn’t bothered to show up— and the stragglers she’d already talked to. She had a go with the Snake Pit’s absentee owner— a dentist from Long Beach— reinterviewed the custodians, the bouncers, the cocktail waitresses, Lee’s band— all pickup musicians— and the diminutive, poorly shod Jackie True. All useless.

  She even tried to contact the members of Tic 439, the band that had sparked visions of comeback in Baby Boy’s head. Here, she encountered another side of the music biz: layers of insulation, from the receptionists of record-company executives on up to the band’s manager, an unctuous-sounding stoner named Beelzebub Lawrence, who finally deigned, after Petra called him a dozen times, to speak to her over the phone. Music pounded in the background, and Lawrence spoke softly. The two-minute conversation strained Petra’s hearing and her patience.

  Yeah, Baby Boy had been brilliant.

  No, he had no idea who’d want to hurt him.

  Yeah, the guys had dug jamming with him.

  No, they hadn’t had contact with him since the recording session.

  Petra said, “He really added something to their sound, didn’t he?” She’d bought the CD, found it an execrable mix of whiny lyrics and plodding rhythm. Only Baby Boy’s guitar, sweet and sustaining, on two tracks, lent any sense of musicality to the mess.

  Beelzebub Lawrence said, “Yeah, he was cool.”

  • • •

  The coroner was finished with Baby Boy’s corpse, but no one had come forward to claim it. Even though it wasn’t her job, Petra did some genealogical research that led her to Edgar Ray Lee’s closest living relative. A great-aunt named Grenadina Bourgeouis, ancient-sounding and feeble.

  Senile, too, it soon became clear. The phone chat rattled the old woman and left Petra’s head spinning. She called Jackie True and apprised him of the situation.

  He said, “Baby wanted to be cremated.”

  “He talked about dying?”

  “Doesn’t everybody?” said True. “I’ll handle it.”

  • • •

  It was nearly 4 A.M. on a Monday, and she was mentally exhausted but too jumpy to sleep. She took a deep breath, sat back in her chair, drank cold coffee from the cup that had been sitting there for hours. Caffeine; that’ll help the old nerves, smart girl.

  The detective room was quiet, just her and a D II named Balsam pecking away at an antiquated computer. Balsam was Petra’s age but carried himself like an old man. Old man’s taste in music, too. He’d brought a boom box, but it wasn’t booming. Tuned to an easy-listening station. Some eighties hair-band song redone with strings and a harp. Petra was transported to a department-store elevator. Women’s sportswear, floor three . . .

  Her notes on Baby Boy were spread out before her, and she gathered them up, began replacing them in the folder. Making sure each page was in its right place. You couldn’t be too careful . . .

  What difference did it make? This one wasn’t going to close anytime in the near future.

  Her phone rang. “Connor.”

  “Detective?” said a male voice.

  “Yes, this is Detective Connor.”

  “Good, this is Officer Saldinger. I’m over at Western and Franklin, and we could use one of you guys.”

  “What’s the problem?” said Petra.

  “Your line of work,” said Saldinger. “Lots of blood.”r />
  8

  After Robin’s drop-in, our contact was limited to polite phone calls and forwarded mail accompanied by even more polite notes. If she needed to talk about Baby Boy or anything else of substance, she’d found another audience.

  I thought about visiting Spike. I’d adopted him, but he ended up disdaining me and competing for Robin’s attention. No custody struggle, I knew the score. Still, from time to time I missed his little bulldog face, the comical egotism, the awe-inspiring gluttony.

  Maybe soon.

  • • •

  I’d heard nothing about the murder since Petra’s first call, and weeks later, I spotted her name in the paper.

  Triple slaying in the parking lot of a dance club off Franklin Boulevard. Three A.M. ambush of a carload of Armenian gang members from Glendale, by members of a rival faction from East Hollywood. Petra and a partner I didn’t know, a detective named Eric Stahl, had arrested a fifteen-year-old shooter and a sixteen-year-old driver after “a prolonged investigation.”

  Prolonged meant the case had probably opened shortly after Baby Boy’s death.

  Petra spending her time on something she could solve?

  Maybe so, but she was driven; failure would stick in her gut.

  For the next few weeks, I concentrated on spending time with Allison, helping kids, banking some income. One consultation kept me particularly busy: a two-year-old girl accidentally shot in the leg by her four-year-old brother. Lots of family complications, no easy answers, but things finally seemed to be settling down.

  I convinced Allison to take off some time, and we spent a four-day weekend at the San Ysidro Ranch in Montecito, imbibing sun and great food. When we drove back to L.A. I convinced myself I was doing okay on all fronts.

  The day after I got back, Milo phoned, and said, “Don’t you sound chipper.”

  “Been working on chipper.”

  “Don’t overdo it,” he said. “Wouldn’t want you to forget the morose underpinnings of our relationship.”

  “God forbid,” I said. “What’s up?”

  “Something decidedly un-chipper. I’ve got a weird one, so naturally I thought of you.”

  “Weird in what way?”

  “Apparently motiveless, but we psychologically astute types know better, don’t we? An artist— a painter— murdered the night of her big opening. Last Saturday. Someone strangled her. Ligature— thin, with corrugations, probably a wound metal wire.”

  “Sexual assault?”

  “There was some posing but no evidence of assault. You have time?”

  “For you, always.”

  • • •

  He asked me to meet him for lunch at Café Moghul, an Indian restaurant on Santa Monica, a few blocks from the West L.A. station. The place turned out to be a storefront blocked by gilt-flecked, madras curtains. An unmarked Ford LTD was parked near the entrance in a Loading Only space, and cheap plastic sunglasses that I recognized as Milo’s sat atop the dashboard.

  The place was magenta-walled and hung with machined tapestries of huge-eyed, nutmeg-skinned people and spire-topped temples. An ultrasoprano voice sang plaintively. The air was a mix of curry and anise.

  A sixtyish woman in a sari greeted me. “He’s over there.” Pointing to a table along the rear wall. No need for guidance; Milo was the only customer.

  In front of him was a quart-sized glass of what looked to be iced tea and a plate of fried things in various geometric shapes. His mouth was full, and he waved and continued masticating. When I reached the table, he half rose, wiped grease from his chin, washed down the baseball-sized bolus that orangutaned his cheeks, and pumped my hand.

  “The mixed appetizers combo,” he said. “Have some. I ordered entrees for both of us— the chicken tali, comes with rice, lentils, side vegetable, the works. The vegetable’s okra. Which is usually about as appealing as snot on toast, but they do it good. Little mango chutney on the side, too.”

  “Hi,” I said.

  The shy woman brought a glass, poured me tea, and departed.

  “Iced and spiced, lots of cloves,” he said, “I took liberty there, too.”

  “How nice to be nurtured.”

  “How would I know?” He reached for a triangular pastry, muttered, “Samosa,” and gazed at me from under heavily lidded, bright green eyes. Since Robin had moved out, I’d been trying to convince him I was okay. He claimed to believe me, but his body language said he was reserving judgment.

  “No nurturance for the poor detective?” I said.

  “Don’t want it. Too tough.” He winked.

  “How’re you doing?” I said, mostly to prevent him from focusing on my mood.

  “The world’s falling apart but I’m fine.”

  “Freelancing’s still fun?”

  “I wouldn’t call it that.”

  “What would you call it?”

  “Bureaucratically sanctioned isolation. I’m not allowed to have fun.” He bared his teeth in what I knew was a smile; someone else might have taken it for hostility. I watched him toss another appetizer down his gullet and drink more tea.

  Last year, he’d run afoul of the police chief before the chief retired, managed to play some cards, and ended up with a lieutenant’s title and salary but not the desk job that came with promotion.

  Effectively banished from the robbery-homicide room, he was given his own windowless office down the hall— a converted interrogation space, figurative miles from the other detectives. His official title was “clearance officer” for unsolved homicide cases. Basically, that meant deciding which cold files to pursue and which to ignore. The good news was relative independence. The bad news was no built-in backup or departmental support.

  Now he was working a fresh case. I figured there was a back story, and he’d tell me when he was ready.

  He looked in good trim, and the clarity in his eyes suggested he’d stuck to his resolution to cut down on the booze. He’d also resolved to start walking for exercise, but the last few times I’d seen him, he’d griped about his instep.

  Today, he had on a coarse, brown, herringbone sport coat way too heavy for a California spring, a once-white wash-and-wear shirt and a green polyblend tie embroidered with blue dragons. His black hair was freshly cut in the usual style: long and shaggy on top, cropped tight at the temples. Sideburns, now snow-white, reached the bottoms of his fleshy ears. He called them his skunk stripes. The restaurant’s lighting was kind to his complexion, rendering some of the acne pits as craggy contours.

  He said, “The artist’s name was Juliet Kipper, known as Julie. Thirty-two, divorced, a painter in oils. As they say.”

  “Who says?”

  “Arty types. That’s the way they talk. A painter in oils, a sculptor in bronze, an etcher in drypoint. Paintings are ‘pictures’ or ‘images,’ one ‘makes’ art, blah blah blah. Anyway, Julie Kipper: apparently she was gifted, won a bunch of awards in college, went on for an MFA at the Rhode Island School of Design and attracted New York gallery attention soon after graduation. She sold a few canvases, seemed to be moving forward, then things tightened up, and she ran into financial problems. She moved out here seven years ago, did commercial illustration for ad agencies to earn a living. A year ago, she got serious again about fine art, found herself gallery representation, took part in a couple of group shows, did okay. Last Saturday was her first solo show since she left New York.”

  “Which gallery?”

  “Place called Light and Space. It’s a cooperative run by a bunch of artists who use it mostly to showcase their own stuff. But they also support what they call distinctive talent, and Julie Kipper was deemed as such by their review committee. I get the feeling these people don’t earn a living by their art. Most of them have day jobs. Julie had to pay for her own party— cheese and crackers and cheap wine, a jazz trio. About fifty people drifted in and out during the evening and six of the fifteen paintings were red-dotted— that means ‘sold’ in art lingo. They actually put little red dots on th
e title tag.”

  “Any of the co-op members twang your antenna?”

  “They come across as a peace-loving bunch, nothing but good words about Julie, but who knows?”

  Julie. Calling the victim by her first name early in the game. He’d bonded with this one. I said, “What happened?”

  “Someone ambushed her in the ladies’ room of the gallery. After hours. Close confines— just a sink and a toilet and a mirror. There was a bump on the back of her head— coroner says not serious enough to knock her out, but the skin was broken and traces of her blood were found on the rim of the sink. Coroner’s guess is she was thrashing and her head knocked against it.”