A Cold Heart

by Jonathan Kellerman

  “Resistant?” I said.

  He nodded. “Very. Not that we lean hard on them. But we do try to get through to them. Ernie had no desire to embrace the Lord. She really wasn’t one of our regulars, just checked in from time to time when things got bad for her. We never turn anyone away unless they’re violent.”

  “Was she ever violent?”

  “No, never.”

  Milo said, “What made things go bad for her?”

  “It all came down to alcohol. She was drinking herself to death. We’ve known her off and on for the last couple of years, and lately, we could see significant deterioration.”

  “Such as?”

  “Health problems— persistent cough, skin lesions, stomach problems. One time she slept here and the next morning her sheets were splotched with blood. At first we figured it was . . . you know, the time of the month. There’s no shortage of tampons here, but some of the women forget. As it turned out, Erna was bleeding from . . .” Witherspoon flinched . . . “her rear end. Internally. We called in one of our volunteer doctors and finally convinced Erna to be examined. She said it was nothing critical, but that Ernie did have some fissures that should be looked into. She also said there were probably intestinal problems that should be looked into. We offered to send Erna to a specialist, but she left and didn’t return for months. That was her pattern. In and out. For a lot of them, we’re a depot.”

  “What about mental problems?” said Milo.

  “That goes without saying,” said Witherspoon. “For most of our people, that’s a given.”

  “What kind of specific mental problems did Ernadine Murphy have?”

  “As I said, it all came down to drink. I figured she finally went too far— organic brain syndrome they call it. Going dull. And when she’d sleep here, she’d sometimes wake up and hallucinate. Korsakoff’s syndrome, it’s a vitamin B deficiency they get.” He frowned. “Folks joke about pink elephants, but there’s nothing funny about it.”

  I said, “What was she like before she deteriorated?”

  “Hmm . . . I can’t say she was ever really . . . normal. I’m not saying she was stupid. She wasn’t. Once in a while, when we could dry her out long enough and she talked, you could see she had a good vocabulary— our sense was she’d once been educated. But when we tried to ask her about it, she’d clam up. Lately, those dry periods were few and far between. For the last year or so she was still pretty dysfunctional.”

  “Aggressive?” said Milo.

  “Just the opposite— passive, spaced-out, slurred speech, trouble focusing. Her motor skills were affected, too. She’d stumble, trip— is that what happened to her? Did she fall and hit her head?”

  “Doesn’t look like it,” said Milo.

  “Someone did this to her.”

  “We don’t know yet, sir.”

  “Oh, Lord,” said Witherspoon.

  Milo took out his pad. “Who’s the doctor who evaluated her when she bled on the sheets?”

  “We use several, all volunteers. I think this time it was Hannah Gold. She’s got an office on Highland. It was only one time, she never established a relationship with Erna. No one did. We could never reach her.”

  Witherspoon’s shoulders rose and fell. “God gives and takes away, but there’s plenty we humans do in the interim that affects the journey.”

  “What do you know about Ms. Murphy’s family history?”

  “Nothing,” said Witherspoon. “She never opened up.”

  I said, “Did she have any friends? Connect with any of the other residents?”

  “Not that I saw. To be honest, most of the other women were afraid of her. She was large, could come across threatening if you didn’t know.”

  “How so?”

  “Lurching around,” said Witherspoon. “Mumbling to herself. Seeing things.”

  “What did she see?” said Milo.

  “She never put it into words, but from the way she behaved— standing there and pointing and moving her lips— you could tell she was frightened. Was seeing something that frightened her. But she wouldn’t accept comfort.”

  “So the other women were afraid of her.”

  “Maybe I overspoke,” said Witherspoon. “More nervous than afraid. She never caused a problem. Sometimes she’d go off in a corner, get agitated, start mumbling and shaking her fist. When she did that, everyone gave her space. But she never aggressed against anyone. Sometimes she’d punch her own chest, rap her head with her knuckles. Nothing serious, but you can see how that would be scary. A woman of her size.”

  “Those lucid periods,” I said. “What made you think she was well educated?”

  “Her vocabulary,” said Witherspoon. “The way she used words. I wish I could remember a specific example but I can’t. It’s been a while since I’ve seen her.”

  “How long?” said Milo.

  “Maybe three, four months.”

  “Could you please check your records and be more specific, sir?” said Milo.

  “Sorry. The only records we keep are for the government. Tax-exempt status and all that. Shuffling government paper takes up a lot of my time, so I don’t add to my burden.”

  “A good vocabulary,” I said.

  “It was more than that— good diction. Something about the way she talked could be . . . sophisticated.”

  “During her clear periods what did she talk about?”

  Witherspoon fingered a cornrow. “Let me ask Diane.” He strode to his desk, punched a phone extension, talked in a low voice, said, “She’ll be right down.”

  • • •

  Diane Petrello was in her sixties, short and stout with clipped gray hair and big, round, tortoiseshell glasses even wider than her face. She wore a pink sweatshirt that said Compassion, a long denim skirt, and sneakers.

  When Milo told her about Erna Murphy, she said, “Oh my God,” in a soft, high voice. Tears rolled down her cheeks as he added a few details. As she sat down opposite us and wiped her eyes, Daryl Witherspoon fixed her a cup of tea.

  She warmed her hands on the cup, and said, “I hope the poor thing finally finds some peace.”

  “Tortured soul,” said Milo.

  “Oh, yes,” said Diane Petrello. “Aren’t we all?”

  He went over some of the same ground we’d covered with Witherspoon, then repeated my question about Erna Murphy’s lucid periods.

  “What she talked about,” said Petrello. “Hmm, I’d say mostly art. She could spend hours looking at pictures in art books. One time, I went out and bought some old art books for her at a thrift shop but when I brought them back, she was gone. She was like that. Restless, wouldn’t stay put. In fact, that was the last time I saw her. She never got to see the books.”

  “What kind of art did she like?” said Milo.

  “Well . . . I guess I couldn’t tell you. Pretty pictures, I suppose.”

  “Landscapes?”

  Julie Kipper’s pretty pictures.

  Diane Petrello said, “Anything pretty. It seemed to calm her down. But not always. Nothing really worked when she was all wound up.”

  “She could be pretty agitated,” said Milo.

  “But she never caused problems.”

  “She have any friends here at Dove House?”

  “Not really, no.”

  “Anyone on the outside?”

  “Not that I ever saw.”

  “She talk about any outside friends?”

  Petrello shook her head.

  Milo said, “Specifically, ma’am, I’d be interested in a young man in his early twenties. Tall, thin, dark hair, bad skin, eyeglasses.”

  Petrello looked at Witherspoon. They both shook their heads.

  Witherspoon said, “Is he the one who did this?”

  “We don’t know if anyone did anything, sir. What else can you tell us about Ms. Murphy?”

  “That’s all I can think of,” said Petrello. “She was so alone. Like so many of them. That’s the main problem, really. Aloneness. Wit
hout Divine Grace, all of us are alone.”

  • • •

  Milo asked if we could show Erna Murphy’s picture to the other residents, and Darryl Witherspoon frowned.

  Diane Petrello said, “There are only six women in residence this week.”

  “Any men?” said Milo.

  “There are eight men.”

  Witherspoon said, “It’s been a tough couple of weeks, everyone we’ve got is kind of fragile. Those pictures you showed me would be too much.”

  Milo said, “How about this: no picture, we just talk. And you come along to make sure we do it right.”

  Another glance passed between Witherspoon and Petrello. He said, “Guess so. But at the first sign of trouble, we quit, okay?”

  • • •

  Witherspoon returned to his desk as Milo and I trailed Diane Petrello up a flight of protesting stairs. The upper floors were divided into single rooms that lined a long, bright, turquoise hallway. Women were housed on the second floor, men on the third. Each room was set up with two bunk beds. Bibles on the pillow, a tiny portable closet, more religious posters.

  Half of the residents were sleepy. Erna Murphy’s name elicited only blank looks until a young, dark-haired woman named Lynnette with the face of a fashion model and old needle tracks in the crooks of her pipe-stem arms, said, “Big Red.”

  “You know her?”

  “Roomed with her a couple of times.” Lynnette’s eyes were huge and black and wounded. Her hair was long and dark and greasy. A tattooed star the size of a sheriff’s badge decorated the left side of her neck. A vein ran through the center of the body art, pulsing the blue ink. Slow pulse, steady, unperturbed. She sat on the edge of a lower bunk, Bible at one arm, bag of Fritos at the other. Her back curved like that of an old woman. The downturn of her mouth said she’d given up on personal safety. “What happened to her?”

  “I’m afraid she’s dead, ma’am.”

  Lynnette’s pulse remained sluggish. Then her eyes drooped with amusement.

  Milo said, “Something funny, ma’am.”

  Lynnette shot him a crooked grin. “Only thing funny is ‘ma’am.’ So what, someone offed her?”

  “We’re not sure.”

  “Maybe her boyfriend did it.”

  “What boyfriend would that be?”

  “Don’t know. She just told me she had one and that he was real smart.”

  “When did she tell you this?” said Milo.

  Lynnette scratched her arm. “Had to be a long time ago.” To Petrello: “Had to be not the last time I was here, maybe a few times before that?”

  “Months,” said Petrello.

  “I been traveling,” said Lynnette. “Had to be months.”

  “Traveling,” said Milo.

  Lynnette smiled. “Seeing the U.S.A. Yeah, had to be months— could be six, seven, dunno. I just remember it cause I thought it was bullshit. Cause like who’d want her? She was a skank.”

  “You didn’t like her.”

  “What was to like?” said Lynnette. “She was a whack job, would start off having a conversation with you, then space out, start walking around, talking to herself.”

  “What else did she say about this boyfriend?” said Milo.

  “Just that.”

  “Smart.”

  “Yeah.”

  “No name?”

  “Nope.”

  Milo stepped closer to the bed. Diane Petrello interposed herself between him and Lynnette, and he retreated. “If there’s anything you can tell us about the boyfriend, I’d greatly appreciate it.”

  Lynnette said, “I don’t know nothin’.” A second later: “She said he was smart, that’s it. Bragging on herself. Like, he’s smart so I’m smart. She said he was gonna come take her out of here.” She puffed her lips. “Right.”

  “Out of Dove House?”

  “Out of here. The life. The street. So maybe he did. So look what happened to her.”

  • • •

  We got back in the car. Milo said, “What do you think?”

  “Erna Murphy liked pretty art,” I said. “That would be a point of contact with someone like Kevin, the self-assigned arbiter of art. Julie Kipper’s paintings certainly qualified as pretty. Erna would’ve been attracted to them. Maybe he directed her to the show. Used her as some sort of distraction.”

  “CoCo Barnes opens the back door and maybe she forgets to lock it.” He rubbed his face. “A psychotic advance woman. Think he could’ve used Erna for more than just that? What if he had her actually do Julie? Erna was big enough to overpower someone Julie’s size, especially in the closed confines of that bathroom. A woman would also explain the lack of semen or sexual assault. And we just heard she could be lucid.”

  “Relatively lucid,” I said. “Julie’s murder was too well planned and thought out for a psychotic. Not a shred of forensic evidence was left at the scene. Erna can’t have been counted on to be that meticulous. No, I can’t see that. There’s something else going on here—’E. Murphy’ wrote a review of Vassily Levitch a year ago. The prose was florid but not confused enough to be Erna’s. Her name was expropriated. It’s a kind of identify theft.”

  “Smart boyfriend,” he said. “Lynnette was sure Erna was being delusional about that.”

  “In terms of a romantic bond, she probably was. But there was a relationship. Erna’s aesthetic interests, the fact that she’d been educated, was periodically articulate, could’ve made her appealing to someone like Kevin Drummond. A tragic figure who’d hit rock bottom, the ultimate outsider. Even her psychosis would have appealed to him. Some fools still think being crazy is glamorous. But whatever bond they had, Kevin was careful to keep her at arm’s length. His landlady never saw her around his apartment, and no one Petra’s talked to has linked the two of them.”

  “He idealizes her, then he kills her.”

  “She ceased fitting into his worldview, became a threat.”

  “Cold,” he said. “That’s one thing that does fit all of it. Coldhearted. Like Baby Boy’s song. I bought one of his CDs, been listening to it, trying to get some insights.”

  “Any success?”

  “He was one hell of a player, even a tone-deaf philistine like me can hear his soul pouring outta that guitar. But no big insights. Did you know your name’s on the album?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Tiny print, on the bottom, where he thanks everyone from Jesus Christ to Robert Johnson. Big list, Robin’s in there. He calls her ‘the beautiful guitar lady,’ thanks her for keeping his instruments happy. Then he tacks you on. Something along the lines of ‘Thanks to Dr. Alex Delaware for keeping the guitar lady happy.’ “

  “Been a while since that was true.”

  “Sorry,” he said. “I thought you’d get a kick out of it.”

  I pulled away from the curb, drove west on Hollywood Boulevard. Construction brought us to a halt. Hard-hatted crews running amok. Graft kings rejuvenating the neighborhood. Maybe one day, the shiny, sterile, franchised Hollywood the civic fathers lusted for would emerge. Right now, glitz coexisted with sleaze in an uneasy balance.

  A few miles away, north, in the hills, was the Hollywood sign, where a starlet had ended her life decades ago, and China Maranga’s body had been left to rot. I didn’t suggest driving up there, and neither did Milo. Too long ago to matter.

  We crawled to Vine Street. He said, “Erna. Another soul expropriated.”

  I said, “A user. That’s what this is all about.”

  29

  Encino. Petra digested the details of Milo’s call. The E. Murphy ID meant the redhead’s murder would end up in her basket, too.

  She phoned Eric Stahl and filled him in.

  “Okay,” he said, in that infuriating, flat voice. Nothing impresses me.

  “You going to keep watching Kevin?” she said.

  “Probably a waste of time.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “I don’t think he’ll be coming by
soon,” said Stahl. “Whatever you want.”

  “I’m still watching his parents’ house. No action yet, but I want to stick with it. Meantime, I think we should start delving into Erna Murphy’s history. If you really think Kevin’s crib is a zero, feel free to start on that.”