A Cold Heart

by Jonathan Kellerman

  “He has a girlfriend. Much younger— late twenties, very good-looking, name of Stephanie. She works as a legal secretary for a firm in his building. For the last few days, Kipper’s been squiring her around in public. This one’s blond, too, so Kipper’s neighbors could’ve been mistaken about his visitor being Julie. If I didn’t have the SeldomScene articles linking Julie to the others and a tentative match between the ligatures used on her and Levitch, I’d be wondering about Kipper’s considering a second try at marriage. Ex-spouses can make things messy, financially as well as emotionally. And we know from Kipper’s neighbors that he can be vindictive.”

  “Julie makes waves, he shuts her up.”

  “Yeah,” he said. “Too bad. I don’t like the guy— something about him . . .”

  He forked omelet, gulped coffee.

  “Stephanie,” I said. “You spoke to her?”

  “I heard her friend call her that when they went to the ladies’ room.”

  “You’ve been staking out the building?”

  “At the time, it seemed prudent.” He shrugged. His phone went off. “Sturgis . . . hi . . . really . . . yeah, okay, I’ve got Alex with me, might as well bring him along . . .” He read his Timex. “From where we are, forty-five minutes. Yeah. Thanks. Bye.”

  He clicked off, pocketed the phone, looked at my half-eaten toast. “That was Petra. How about taking that to go?” Pinning money under his plate, he waved to the waiter, pushed away from the table.

  “What’s up?” I said, following him out to the Promenade.

  “Dead woman,” he said. “Dead redhead.”

  • • •

  The autopsy room was spotless tile and stainless steel, silent and pleasantly cool. Petra and Milo and I stood next to a shrouded mass on a stainless table as a soft-spoken attendant named Rhonda Reese checked paperwork. Reese was thirtyish, chestnut-haired, curvy, with the open face of a tour guide.

  I’d sailed to Boyle Heights on the 10, but Interstate 5 had been jammed by the proverbial jackknifed big rig, and the backlog had turned the drive to the coroner’s office to an hour-long ordeal. During that time, Milo had dozed, and I’d thought about women. Petra met us in the lobby.

  “I’ve already checked us in,” she said. “Let’s go.”

  • • •

  Rhonda Reese drew the sheet back and folded it neatly at the foot of the table. The corpse was long and rawboned and female, waxy flesh tinted that unique green-gray. Eyes and mouth, shut. Peaceful expression, no obvious signs of violence. A scatter of pimples and fibroid lumps filled a flat expanse of chest between small, deflated breasts. Inverted, corrugated nipples, sharp hips, wide pelvis, skinny legs covered with curly, auburn down. The ankles crusted by red skin, hardened and crackled like alligator hide.

  Street ankles.

  The woman’s soles were black, as were the dirty, ragged nails on her toes and fingers. Fungus grew between the toes. An unruly rusty pubic thatch was littered with dandruff. A few white hairs sparked the thatch.

  Red hair on top, as well, but much brighter, with claret roots and overlay of purple at the tips. Long, matted hair, filthy and dense, crowned a swollen face that might’ve been pretty once upon a time.

  No needle marks.

  “Any guesses?” said Milo.

  Rhonda Reese said, “I can’t speak for Dr. Silver, but if you open her eyes you’ll see petechiae.”

  “Strangulation.” He moved closer to the body, checked the eyes, squinted. “The neck’s a little rosy, too, but no ligature marks.” He glanced at Petra, and she nodded. Not like the others.

  I said, “Gentle strangulation?”

  Petra stared at me. Milo shrugged. The term was obnoxious but well-established jargon for a murderous ploy: using a broad, soft ligature to blunt the outward evidence of strangulation. Some people choke themselves that way to achieve heightened sexual pleasure and accidentally die.

  Milo and I had worked a gentle strangulation case a few years ago. No accident, a child . . .

  He said, “When’s the autopsy, Rhonda?”

  “You’ll have to ask Dr. Silver. We’re pretty booked.”

  “Dave Silver?” said Petra.

  Reese nodded.

  “I know him,” said Petra. “Good guy, I’ll talk to him.”

  Milo eyed the body again. “When did it happen?” he asked Petra.

  “Yesterday, early A.M. Two of our uniforms found her off the boulevard, on the south side of the street. Alley behind a church that had once been a theater.”

  “That Salvadoran Pentecostal place?” said Milo. “East end?”

  “That’s the one. She was propped sitting against the wall, garbage service came by, she was blocking their truck from getting close to the Dumpster and they thought she was asleep, so they tried to wake her.” To Reese: “Tell them about her clothes.”

  “We removed layers,” said Reese. “Lots of them. Junky old clothes, really filthy.” She wrinkled her nose. “That rash on her legs, you know what it is, right? Circulation problems. She’s got tons of stuff growing on and in her. We cultured God-knows-what from her feet and nose and throat. On top of the body odor, you could smell the alcohol, the whole room reeked. Her blood work won’t be back till later today, but I’ll lay odds she’s a .3 or higher.”

  The recitation wasn’t without compassion, but the facts remained cruel.

  Milo remained expressionless as he inspected the body again. “No tracks that I can see.”

  “There aren’t any,” said Reese. “Looks like drink was her main thing, but we’ll see what the tox screen pulls up.”

  “Did you list the articles of clothing?”

  “Right here,” said Reese, turning pages of the coroner’s file. “Two pairs of woman’s panties, two pairs of men’s boxers, three T-shirts, a bra over that, blue UCLA sweatshirt.”

  “Was the C half gone on the sweatshirt?” said Milo.

  “Doesn’t say,” said Reese. “Let me go look.”

  A cardboard carton sat atop a stainless-steel counter. Reese gloved up, bent over the box, retrieved a large, paper bag that she opened.

  Wrinkling her nose again, drew out a blue sweatshirt fuzzed with dirt and leaves. “Yup, half a C.”

  Milo turned to Petra. “The old lady at Light and Space described her Dumpster diver as wearing that. The drawing she did was useless, so I figured cataracts. Guess she could see okay, after all, just a lousy artist. Is this officially your case?”

  Petra said, “No, Digmond and Battista caught it, I just happened to hear them talking about it, and I recalled what you said about a tall redhead homeless-type nosing around. No ID yet, her prints are being run as we speak.”

  Rhonda Reese said, “Can I put this back?”

  Milo said, “Sure, thanks. Where are the crime-scene snaps?”

  Petra said, “Dig and Harry have a set, and there’s a copy here.”

  “Rhonda, if it’s no trouble, we could use some dupes.”

  “I can do that,” said Reese. She left the room and returned a while later with a white envelope.

  Milo thanked her, and she said, “Good luck, Detectives.”

  He said, “Feel like solving a few 187s for us, Rhonda?”

  Reese laughed. “Sure, why not. Do I get to talk to someone alive?”

  • • •

  We reconvened in the morgue parking lot.

  Milo said, “Digmond and Battista gonna give you any space on this?”

  “They’re booked solid, would be thrilled to shunt it to me. But I want to wait and see if it actually ties in to the others. For all we know, it’s not even homicide.”

  “Petechiae?”

  “She could’ve choked or had a seizure or vomited hard. Anything that bugged her eyes hard enough would do it, and you know how prone street people are to catastrophe. If the hyoid or the thyroid cartilages are messed up, that’ll be a different story. The sweatshirt says she was at the gallery, but if she’s connected to the other victims, why the lack of agg
ression to her body? No cuts, not even a scratch. And if it is strangulation, it doesn’t match what we saw on Kipper and Levitch. That deep ligature ring— wire biting into the neck, someone really angry. Serials get more violent over time, not less, right, Alex?”

  I said, “This could be tied in with the others but result from a different motivation. This victim could mean something different to the killer.”

  “Like what?” said Milo.

  “She was behind the gallery casing the place for the killer.”

  “Advance woman?” he said. “Drummond chooses a homeless woman for an accomplice? And now he gets rid of her?”

  “He would if she became a liability. A homeless woman, alcoholic, possibly mentally ill, might’ve served a purpose for him when he wasn’t under threat. But if he knows he’s the object of investigation, he might have decided to cover his tracks.”

  “He might very well know he’s the object,” said Petra. “We’ve talked to his family and his landlady. He hasn’t been seen for days, all the evidence says he’s rabbited.”

  I said, “A broad ligature is sometimes used when the killer has some level of sympathy for the victim. Also, she’s a big woman. If she drank herself into a stupor, that would’ve made his job a lot easier, no need to confront or struggle. The way she was propped is almost respectful. Were her legs spread?”

  Milo opened the envelope, drew out color photos, shuffled through until he found a full-length body shot.

  “Legs tight together,” said Petra.

  “No sexual positioning, but it could still be a pose,” I said. “Strangulation, even with no struggle, can set off spasms. This looks too orderly to be natural.”

  The two of them studied the photo. Milo said, “Looks posed to me.”

  Petra nodded.

  I said, “There’s no intent to demean, here. Just the opposite, he’s guarding her sexuality.”

  “Kevin’s gay,” said Milo. “Maybe women aren’t sexual objects to him.”

  “Julie was posed sexually. Kevin may be leaning toward gay, but if he’s our guy, he’s still plenty confused.”

  “That makes sense,” said Petra. “Macho dad and brothers, all that emphasis on sports and being manly. It couldn’t have been easy for him.”

  She glanced at Milo, and I noticed a spark of unease in her dark eyes. Wondering if she’d offended him.

  He nodded, as if to reassure her.

  “Whatever the motive,” I said, “the killer took care to make this victim look comfortable. Relative to the other cases, it’s an indication of respect.”

  “Accomplice but not a girlfriend?” said Milo.

  Petra said, “Even if Kevin does have an interest in girls— even if he’s quirky in ways we don’t know— I can’t see a young guy associating with a diseased homeless woman. What motive would he have to hang with her?”

  “Kevin’s an isolate,” I said. “Probably sees himself an outcast from way back. On top of his sexual issues, he’s set himself up as a white knight fighting a lonely battle for art in its pure form. With that kind of alienation, I can see him gravitating toward other outsiders.”

  “Which means I should be scoping out the street people, not the bookstores.”

  Milo said, “Hanging with the homeless, offing the talented. It’s like a war against the bright side of life.”

  I said, “There’s something else I find interesting. This body showed up behind a former theater. What if that’s a sneaky little allusion to the death of the performing arts?”

  “They’re still performing there,” said Milo. “The church. Isn’t that what preaching is? Or maybe, he’s being sacrilegious.”

  Petra said, “This is veering into serious weirdness.” She gnawed her lip. “Okay, what next?”

  Milo said, “We’re ninety-nine percent sure this is the redhead CoCo Barnes saw, but let’s see if I can get a positive ID from the old lady. Main thing is find out who she is, woman like this is gonna be in the system somewhere. When do the prints come in?”

  “You know prints. Could be today or next week. I’ll talk to Dig and Harry, see if we can speed things up.”

  “Once we know who she is, we trace her movements. And maybe we don’t need to wait for prints. After Barnes told me what she saw, I did some asking around, found a shelter in your bailiwick— Dove House— where they knew of a tall redhead who dropped in from time to time. Bernadine something. They also said they figured her for someone who’d lived better once upon a time, because when her head cleared, she talked intelligently.”

  I said, “Maybe that’s the side the killer saw. He knew he needed to get her blind drunk to render her helpless.”

  Petra said, “I know Dove House, brought kids there. They’ve got a pretty good success rate.”

  Milo looked at the death shot. “No one’s perfect.”

  28

  We found CoCo Barnes spinning an amorphous pot in her garage studio. Lance the dog snored at her feet.

  It took her one glance to say, “That’s her— just like my drawing. Poor thing, what happened to her?”

  “We don’t know yet, ma’am,” said Milo.

  “But she’s dead.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Oh, boy,” said Barnes, wiping clay from her hands. “Do me a favor, we ever meet again, call me CoCo, not ‘ma’am.’ You’re making me feel paleolithic.”

  • • •

  Milo phoned Petra and reached her out in the Valley. When he asked if we could hit the shelter without her, she said fine.

  “What’s she doing?” I said.

  “Keeping an eye on Kevin’s folks’ house. Stahl’s still watching the apartment, but that’s looking pretty useless.”

  I turned the car around, noticed my gas gauge was near empty.

  “All the back-and-forth,” he said. “I’ll pay to fill it up.”

  “Spring for dinner instead.”

  “Where?”

  “Somewhere expensive.”

  “Double date?” he said.

  “Sure.” I pulled into a gas station on Lincoln.

  He jumped out, used his credit card to activate the pump, hooked up the nozzle, bounced his eyes around, ever the detective. I felt like stretching, so I wiped the windows.

  “So how’s Allison?” he said.

  “She’s in Boulder.”

  “Skiing?”

  “Psych convention.”

  “Oh . . . okay, all filled up.” He replaced the hose. “When’s she getting back?”

  “Few days. Why?”

  “We need to wait for her,” he said. “To schedule the double date.”

  • • •

  Dove House occupied a run-down, cloud-colored apartment building on Cherokee, just north of Hollywood Boulevard. No sign or identifying marks. The front door was open, and the ground-floor unit to the left was labeled OFFICE.

  The director was a young, clean-shaven black man named Daryl Witherspoon, working alone at a battered desk. Cornrows lined his skull. A silver crucifix swung as he got up and walked toward us. His gray sweats smelled freshly laundered.

  Milo showed him the picture, and he placed a palm against his cheek. “Oh, my. Poor Erna.”

  “Erna who?”

  “Ernadine,” said Witherspoon. “Ernadine Murphy.”

  “E. Murphy,” I said.

  Witherspoon regarded me curiously. “What happened to her?”

  Milo said, “I called here about a week ago, spoke to a woman who thought she knew Ms. Murphy.”

  “That was probably Diane Pirello, my assistant. Was Erna— did this happen a week ago?”

  “Last night. What can you tell us about her?”

  Witherspoon said, “Let’s sit down.”

  Milo and I perched on a thrift shop sofa that stank of tobacco. Witherspoon offered us coffee from a bubbling machine, but we declined. Footsteps sounded from above. The room was painted a bright yellow that seared the eyes. Inspirational messages taped to the plaster were the art du
jour.

  Witherspoon pulled up a chair and said, “Are you able to tell me what happened?”

  “That’s still unclear,” said Milo. “She was found in an alley just a few blocks away. Behind the Pentecostal church.”

  “The church . . . she wasn’t religious,” said Witherspoon. “That’s one thing I can tell you.”