A Cold Heart

by Jonathan Kellerman

  Summary of the Armenian gang killing. Her name in print, as the investigator. Along with Stahl’s.

  The case had been wrapped up well before Stahl’s arrival. Someone— maybe a departmental PR doofus, or even Schoelkopf digging at Petra intentionally— had doled out cocredit.

  “Don’t worry about it,” said Petra.

  “I don’t like it,” said Stahl.

  “Don’t like what?”

  “It was your case.”

  “I don’t care, Eric.”

  “I thought I’d call the Times.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous.”

  Stahl stared at her. “Okay,” he said, finally. “I wanted to clarify.”

  “You have.”

  He returned to his tea.

  • • •

  A mile before the Hollywood station, Petra said, “So what do you think?”

  “About what?”

  “Dr. Delaware’s theory.”

  “You know him,” said Stahl. A statement, not a question.

  “If you’re asking whether he’s good, he is. I’ve worked with him and Milo before. Milo’s the best— top solve-rate in West L.A., maybe the department.”

  Stahl tapped his knee.

  “He’s gay,” said Petra.

  No answer.

  “Delaware’s smart,” she said. “Brilliant. I usually don’t have much faith in shrinks, but he’s come through.”

  “Then I like his theory,” said Stahl.

  “So what next? Check out comics stores for GrooveRat or try to find it with phone work?”

  “Both,” said Stahl. “There are two of us.”

  “Which would you prefer?”

  “Your call.”

  “State a preference, Eric.”

  “I’ll do the phone work.”

  Big surprise. Eric at his desk, avoiding real-live people.

  • • •

  She dropped him off and cruised Hollywood for alternative bookstores. Inquiries about GrooveRat produced blank stares from the clerks, but most of them looked blasted to begin with. On her fifth try, the pimply kid at the counter hooked a thumb toward a cardboard box to his left. Red ink scrawl on the flap said OLD ZINES, ONE BUCK.

  The carton smelled moldy and was crammed with paper and loose sheets— spindled and mutilated magazines.

  Petra said, “You definitely have GrooveRat in here?”

  The kid said, “Probably,” and stared off into space.

  Petra began pawing through the box, raising dust that grayed her black jacket. Most of the zines seemed to be little more than adolescent hobby junk. Several were printed on pulp. She skimmed. A world of incoherence, fluctuating from bored to breathless, mostly to do with music and movies and dirty jokes.

  Nearly at the bottom of the pile, she found a coverless copy of GrooveRat. Ten pages of poorly typed text and amateurish cartoons. The date on the masthead was the previous summer. No volume or number listings.

  Not much in the way of staff, either.

  Yuri Drummond, Editor & Publisher

  Contributing Writers: The Usual Gang of Miscreants

  The second line reminded Petra of something— ripoff of a Mad magazine line. All four of her brothers had collected Mad. Something about the usual gang of idiots . . .

  So Mr. Drummond was unoriginal, as well as pretentious. That fit with Alex’s theory.

  The bottom of the masthead listed an address for mailing subscription checks. The zine promised “irregular publication,” and charged forty dollars a year.

  Delusional, as well. Petra wondered if anyone had bitten. She supposed if idiots were willing to pay three bucks a minute for phone tarot, anything was possible.

  The address was right here in Hollywood— on Sunset east of Highland, just a short drive away.

  She scanned the table of contents. Four pieces on rock bands she’d never heard of and a write-up of a sculptor who worked in plastic-coated dog poo.

  The author of the art piece, nom-du-plumed “Mr. Peach,” really appreciated fecal art, terming it “primally satisfying and gut-wrenching (Duchamp-Dada-yuk yuk, kids.)” Petra was surer than ever that she was dealing with an adolescent mind, and that didn’t synch with the careful planning of the murders. Still, the zine cropping up in two cases bore attention.

  A careful check of the remaining pages revealed nothing on Baby Boy Lee, Juliet Kipper, or Vassily Levitch. Nothing on the Boston case Alex had found, either— Bernet, the ballerina. Petra had her doubts about that one, but you didn’t want to ignore Alex’s gut.

  She paid for the rag and headed for GrooveRat headquarters.

  • • •

  Strip mall at Gower and Sunset. A Mail Boxes N’ Stuff. Big shock.

  “Suite 248” was really Box 248, now leased to Verna Joy Hollywood Cosmetics. Petra knew that because as she waited for the woman in charge to stop fussing with a cuticle and give her the time of day, two bound stacks of mail on the counter caught her eye. Lots of interest in Verna Joy; too much for one box.

  The top envelope was pink, with a return address in Des Moines. Neat, feminine cursive writing advertised “Payment Inside.”

  The mail-drop woman finally put away her emery board, spotted Petra studying the stacks, snatched them up, and jammed them under the counter. A peroxide blonde in her sixties, she’d gone overboard with the brown eye shadow and the black liner, left the rest of her tired, splotched, drinker’s face unpainted. Emphasizing the eyes— bringing out the despair.

  Petra showed her ID and the woman’s expression shifted from irritation to outright contempt. “What do you want?”

  “A magazine named GrooveRat used to lease Box 248. How long has it been since they vacated, ma’am?”

  “Don’t know and wouldn’t tell you if I did.” The woman’s jaw jutted.

  “Why’s that, ma’am?”

  “It’s the law. Bill of Rights. You need a warrant.”

  Petra relaxed her posture, tried a soft smile. “You’re absolutely right, ma’am, but I don’t want to search the box. I’d just like to know how long it’s been since the tenant vacated.”

  “Don’t know and wouldn’t tell you if I did.” The woman’s smile was tight-lipped and triumphant.

  “Were you working here when GrooveRat occupied the box?”

  Shrug.

  “Who picked up GrooveRat’s mail?”

  Ditto.

  “Ma’am,” said Petra. “I can come back with a warrant.”

  “Then you do that,” said the woman with sudden savagery.

  “What’s the problem, ma’am?”

  “I got no problem.”

  “This could be related to a homicide investigation.”

  The smudgy eyes remained resolute. Petra fixed on them, mustered a hard stare. The woman said, “You don’t impress me.”

  “Homicide doesn’t impress you?” said Petra.

  “It’s always homicide,” said the woman. “Everything’s homicide.”

  “What?”

  The woman jabbed a finger. “This is my place, and I don’t have to talk to you.” But she followed that with: “Protect yourself, and it’s homicide. Stand up for your rights, and it’s homicide.”

  Battle of stares.

  “What’s your name, ma’am?”

  “I don’t have to tell—”

  “You sure do, or you’ll be arrested on an obstruction charge.” Petra reached for her cuffs.

  “Olive Gilwhite,” said the woman, jowls flittering.

  “Are you sure you don’t want to cooperate, Ms. Gilwhite?”

  “I’m not saying nothing.”

  Rather than deliver a grammar lesson, Petra left the mail drop and drove back to the station. Eric Stahl was at his desk phoning and taking notes. She ignored him and played with the computers, plugging in Olive Gilwhite’s name and the mail drop’s address and finally coming up with something.

  Two years ago, the proprietor of a Hollywood Mailboxes N’ Stuff, a man named Henry Gilwhite, had been b
usted for homicide.

  Petra fished in the files and found the case summary. Gilwhite, sixty-three, had shot a nineteen-year-old male trannie prostitute named Gervazio Guzman to death in back of the mail drop. Gilwhite had claimed self-defense in an attempted mugging, but his semen on Guzman’s dress told a different story. The case had been pled down to manslaughter, and Gilwhite was serving time at Lompoc. Five to ten, but at his age, that might very well mean life.

  Leaving Mrs. Gilwhite to run the store and drink herself to death.

  Protect yourself, and it’s homicide.

  Petra resolved to find some way to lean on the nasty old biddy.

  As she thought about it, Stahl got up and approached her desk.

  “What’s up, Eric?”

  “I’ve got a few possibles on Yuri Drummond.”

  “Possibles?”

  “There’s no Yuri Drumonds anywhere in the state, so I looked up all the Drummonds in our zip codes.”

  “Why limit it to Hollywood?” said Petra.

  “It’s a place to start. If Drummond’s a star-chaser, maybe he wants to live in the hub.”

  “Eric, the stars live in Bel Air and Malibu.”

  “I was speaking metaphorically,” said Stahl. He drew a three-by-five index card from his suit jacket. Still wearing his black suit coat. Every other detective was in shirtsleeves.

  Petra said, “What’d you come up with?”

  “DMV has twelve Drummonds listed, five of them females. Of the seven males, four are older than fifty. These are the three remaining.”

  The longest speech she’d ever heard from him. His flat eyes had acquired a murky glow, and the coins in his cheeks had deepened to vermilion— this one got off on tedium. He handed her the index card. Neat printing in green ink; a list.

  1. Adrian Drummond, 16. (A Los Feliz address that Petra recognized as a gated street in Laughlin Park. Rich kid? That fit, but 16 seemed young to be publishing anything, even a low-level zine.)

  2. Kevin Drummond, 24. (An apartment on North Rossmore.)

  3. Randolph Drummond, 44. (An apartment on Wilton Place.)

  “The first two have no records,” said Stahl. “Randolph Drummond has a five-year-old prior for vehicular manslaughter and DUI. Should we start with him?”

  “Bad car crash?” said Petra. “It’s not exactly serial murder.”

  “It’s antisocial,” said Stahl. Something new came into his voice— harder, more intense. His eyes had narrowed to slits.

  Petra said, “Still, my money’s on the second one— Kevin. The voice I heard was younger than forty-four, and the zine’s got an immature flavor. Of course, all this assumes any of these are our guy. For all we know our Drummond lives out in the Valley.” But even as she said that, she doubted it. The GrooveRat POB had been rented in Hollywood. Stahl’s instincts were good.

  He said, “Okay.”

  “For all we know his name’s not even Drummond,” said Petra. “Yuri’s probably fake and so why not the surname?” The incident with Olive Gilwhite had left her combative.

  Stahl didn’t answer.

  “Let’s go,” Petra said, shoving the card at him and grabbing her purse.

  “Where?”

  “On a Drummond-search.”

  19

  Kevin Drummond’s Rossmore address matched an eighty-year-old, three-story brick-faced, mock Tudor just below Melrose, where the street turned into Vine and commercial Hollywood began.

  The mansions of Hancock Park were a brief stroll south, and between that high-priced real estate and Drummond’s block, sat the Royale and the Majestic and other elegant, doorman-guarded buildings. Gorgeous old vanilla-colored dowagers, facing the green velvet links of the Wilshire Country Club, built when labor was cheap and architecture meant ornament. Petra had heard that Mae West had lived out her days in one of them, clad in satin gowns and keeping company with young men till the end. God bless her.

  But any vestiges of glamour had faded by the time you got to Drummond’s street. The bulk of the buildings were ugly boxes knocked into place during the fifties, and the remaining older structures appeared ill tended, like Drummond’s. Several bricks were missing from the facade and a warped slat of cardboard shielded a second-story window. On the ground floor, protection was provided by rusty security grates across the front door and the street-level windows. The alarm sign on the scrubby little lawn was that of a shoddy company Petra knew had been out of business for years. The hub, indeed.

  To the right of the entrance were twenty call buttons, most with the tenant IDs missing from the slots. No identification for Drummond’s second-story unit. The names that remained in place were all Hispanic or Asian.

  Petra pushed Drummond’s button. No answer. She tried again, leaned on the buzzer. Nothing.

  Unit One was the manager, G. Santos. Same result.

  She said, “Let’s try the other two.”

  • • •

  Randolph Drummond’s place on Wilton was a sixty-unit, pink-stucco monster built around a cloudy swimming pool. Drummond’s apartment was at street level, facing the traffic. No security here, not even a symbolic gate across the cutout that led to the complex, and Petra and Stahl walked right in and up to Drummond’s door.

  Petra’s knock was answered by a boomy “Hold on!” The lock turned and the door opened and a man leaning on aluminum elbow crutches said, “What can I do for you?”

  “Randolph Drummond?”

  “In the flesh. Such as it is.” Drummond’s torso canted to one side. He wore a brown v-neck sweater over a yellow shirt, spotless khakis, felt bedroom slippers. His hair was white, neatly parted, and a snowy beard bottomed a full face. Weary eyes, seamed skin, mild tan. Hemingway on disability.

  Petra would have guessed his age as closer to fifty-four than forty-four.

  Massive forearms rested on the crutches. A big man above the waist, but skimpy legs. Behind him was a bed-sitting room— the bed open and covered with a silk throw. What Petra could see appeared military-neat. The sounds of classical music— something sweet and romantic— streamed toward the detectives.

  Waste of time. Handicap aside, this was no zine guy. She said, “May we come in, sir?”

  “May I ask why?” said Drummond. Jovial smile but no give.

  “We’re investigating a homicide and looking for a man who calls himself Yuri Drummond.”

  Drummond’s smile expired. He shifted his weight on the crutches. “Homicide? Lord, why?”

  His reaction made Petra’s heart beat fast. She smiled. “Could we talk inside please, sir?”

  Drummond hesitated. “Sure, why not? Haven’t had a visitor since the last wave of do-gooders.”

  He stamped backward on his crutches and cleared space, and Petra and Stahl stepped into the apartment. Inside, the music was louder, but barely. Kept at reasonable volume— issuing from a portable stereo on the floor. One room, just as Petra had thought, outfitted with the bed and two armchairs, a cubby kitchen. A tiny bathroom could be seen behind the arch in the rear wall.

  Two plywood bookcases perpendicular to the bed were filled with hardcovers. Literary fiction and law books. Drummond had been busted for manslaughter; a jailhouse expert?

  Petra said, “Do-gooders?”

  “Disability pimps,” said Drummond. “State grants, private foundations. Your name gets on a list and you become a potential customer. Go on, make yourselves comfortable.”

  Petra and Stahl each took a chair, and Drummond lowered himself to the bed. Keeping that smile pasted on during what looked like a painful ordeal. “Now who got homicided and why would I know anything about it?”

  Petra said, “Have you heard of Yuri Drummond?”

  “Sounds Russian. Who is he?”

  “What about a magazine called GrooveRat?”

  Drummond’s chunky knuckles whitened.

  “You know it,” said Petra.

  “What interest do you have in it?”

  “Mr. Drummond, it would be better if we ask
ed the questions.”

  “Yes, I’ve heard of it.”

  “Are you the publisher?”

  “Me?” Drummond laughed. “No, I don’t think so.”