A Cold Heart

by Jonathan Kellerman

  He goes in with her, comes out without her. Meaning the room could be a pretty sight.

  Stahl drove across the highway, straight into the Sea Arms lot. Parked at the far end, wanting to examine the spot where the Expedition had stood.

  • • •

  Nothing but a grease stain. Stahl walked up to Unit Five, knocked on the sea blue door, got no answer, tried the knob. Locked.

  A louder knock— thunderous in the early-morning calm— brought no response, and Stahl glanced at the manager’s office. Lights out. Should he wake the manager up and get a key, or pull off a do-it-yourself? The lock was a mediocre dead bolt, and his kit was back in the car. He could always say he’d found the door open.

  He assessed his options, talking to himself in the stilted self-justification of courtroom cop-speak.

  A serial murder suspect entered with a female companion and remained at the site for . . . an hour and fifty-two minutes before departing alone. I initially attempted to gain entry by knocking, and when I received no answer after a significant lapse in time, I felt the situation demanded . . .

  The sea blue door opened.

  The blonde stood there in her red crop top and ragged, tight jeans. Zipper half-up, the faintest swell of belly above pink lace panties. Low-slung thong panties; several platinum pubic hairs strayed above the elastic.

  She blinked, staggered, looked at the spot where the Expedition had stood, then at Stahl.

  Several beats of the rolling tide caressed the morning. The air was cold and wet and smelled of driftwood.

  Stahl said, “Miss—”

  The blonde wore no makeup, was bleary-eyed, her hair stiff as a bird’s nest, the way sprayed hair got when you slept on it.

  Tear streaks striped her perfect cheekbones.

  Not as hard a face as Stahl had thought— cleansed of greasepaint, she looked younger. Vulnerable.

  “Who the hell are you?” she demanded in a voice that could’ve dissolved rust from a rain gutter.

  So much for vulnerability.

  Stahl showed her his badge and pushed his way in.

  • • •

  Despite the beach location, the Sea Arms was just another tacky motel and the room was just another moldy, by-the-day cell. Cottage-cheese ceiling, rumpled double bed with a U-pay vibrator hookup, woodite end tables, plastic lamps bolted down. A small-screen TV bolted to the wall was topped by a chart of movies by the hour, at least half of them X-rated. A mud brown carpet was marred by indelible stains.

  Stahl spotted white grains on the nightstand. A folded piece of stiff paper— the coke chute. A crumpled Kleenex stiffened by snot.

  Kyra Montego knew Stahl had seen the dope leavings, but she pretended to be oblivious.

  “I don’t understand,” she said, tight butt perched on the edge of the bed. Zipper all the way up, now. Her bra was slung over a chair, and her nipples pushed through the red top.

  She fooled with her hair, had little success organizing the wild yellow thatch.

  Stahl said, “The man you were with—”

  “It wasn’t like that,” said Montego.

  Kyra Montego. No way that was on her birth certificate.

  Stahl asked her for ID and she said, “What gives you the right? You’re implying I’m a hooker or something, and that’s bullshit— you have no right.”

  “I need to know your real name, ma’am.”

  “You need a warrant!”

  Everyone watched too much TV.

  Stahl took her purse off the dresser, found three joints in a plastic baggie and placed them on the bed next to her. A long blond hair curled atop a crushed pillow.

  “Hey,” she said.

  He removed her wallet, found her license.

  Katherine Jean Magary, address in Van Nuys, a three-digit apartment number that said she lived in a huge complex.

  “Katherine Magary’s a fine name,” he said.

  “You think?” she said. “My agent said it’s too clumsy.”

  “Film agent?”

  “I wish. I’m a dancer— yeah, the kind you think, but I’ve also done legit theater, so don’t go assuming anything about my morals.”

  “I don’t think it’s too clumsy,” said Stahl.

  She stared at him and her eyes softened— big, moist irises, deep brown, almost black. Somehow they went okay with the white-blond hair.

  “You really think?”

  “I do.” Stahl replaced the wallet in the purse. Put the joints back, too.

  Magary/Montego arched her back and flipped her hair and said, “You’re cool.”

  • • •

  He talked to her for twenty minutes, but after five, he believed her.

  She’d never seen Shull before, had drunk too much (wink, wink), Shull had seemed cute. Masculine. Funny. Kinda smart. From his clothes, she thought he had money.

  “His clothes?” said Stahl.

  “His jacket was Gucci.” Magary/Montego smiled. “I managed a peek at the label.”

  Stahl smiled back in a way that told her that had been clever and kept her talking.

  Shull had spun her a good yarn, telling her he was a professor of art and a landscape painter, had exhibited all over the world, was represented by galleries in New York and Santa Fe.

  “Landscapes.” Stahl remembered Sturgis’s description of the Kipper woman’s paintings. Sturgis had gone into detail, more than was necessary. He’d clearly liked the pictures.

  “That’s what he said.”

  “Did he name the gallery?” said Stahl.

  “Uh . . . I don’t think so.” Katherine Magary— he’d decided to think of her by her birth name— licked her lips and smiled and placed her hand on his knee. He let it sit there. No reason to alienate a witness.

  “Was it all b.s.?” she said. “What he told me?”

  “He’s not a good guy,” said Stahl.

  “Oh, boy.” Katherine sighed, knocked a fist against her blond bangs. “I’ve gotta stop doing this— getting wasted, getting picked up. Even when they’re cute.”

  “It is dangerous,” said Stahl.

  “I’ll bet you know all about that. Being a detective. You could tell me stories.”

  “Unfortunately.”

  “Yeah,” said Katherine. “It must be fascinating. Your work.”

  Stahl didn’t answer.

  “Was I in serious danger?” she said. “Being with him?”

  “I wouldn’t go with him again,” said Stahl.

  “Jesus . . . I’m sorry.”

  Apologizing to him? He said, “Living by yourself, you need to keep yourself safe.”

  “Yeah, I do . . . I’ve been stressed-out. Haven’t worked for a while.”

  “Must be tough,” said Stahl.

  “Oh boy. You learn to dance when you’re a kid, let me tell you it’s hard, it’s really hard work. An Olympic athlete wouldn’t work any harder. And then all they want is . . . you know.”

  Stahl nodded. Grimy drapes pocked with cigarette burns blocked the motel room’s sole window. Through the glass and the fabric, he could barely make out the rush of the tide.

  Slow rhythm; easy come, easy go.

  He said, “Did he treat you okay?”

  Katherine Magary didn’t answer. Stahl turned to her. She was blushing.

  “Was he weird to you, Katherine?”

  “No. That’s the point. He couldn’t . . . you know . . . he came on like a big stud and then he couldn’t . . . so instead, we— he . . . I really don’t want to incriminate myself.”

  “You won’t,” said Stahl.

  She remained silent.

  He said, “He was impotent so he concentrated on packing his nose.”

  “Like a pig. He wanted me to use, too, but I didn’t. Honest. At that point, all I wanted to do was get some sleep, but I was nervous. Because when he couldn’t, he got real jumpy— restless, pacing around. And the coke just made it worse. I finally calmed him down by giving him a massage. That’s my other skill, I’m a cert
ified massage therapist— real massage, not you-know-what. I rubbed him down real good, and he relaxed. But something about him— even when he slept he was uptight. Grinding his teeth, he had this real . . . unpleasant look on his face.”

  She squinted, jutted her lower jaw, strained.

  “Uptight,” said Stahl.

  “When I met him, he was totally mellow, loose. Real easygoing. That’s what I liked about him. I’ve had enough stress in my life, who needs bad vibes.” She shrugged. “I thought his vibes were good. Guess I’m stupid.”

  Stahl’s thigh, where her hand rested, had grown hot. He patted her fingers lightly. Removed her hand and got up.

  She said, “Where are you going?”

  Alarm in her voice. Stahl said, “Stretching.”

  He moved closer to the bed, stood by her.

  She said, “When I woke up— when you woke me up— I was freaked out to learn he was gone. How am I supposed to get back to my place?”

  Stahl said, “I’ll take you.”

  She said, “You’re really cool.” Reached for his zipper, pulled it down very slowly.

  “Nice,” she said. “Nice man.”

  Stahl let her.

  44

  I put the photocopies down. “It’s pretty obvious.”

  It was 10 P.M. and Milo had dropped by to show me the end-of-year summaries Elizabeth Martin had pulled from Shull’s faculty file. When I scanned the material, bloated paragraphs jumped out at me. Phrases bunched together like Tokyo commuters. Disorganization, pomposity, lack of grace. Shull could plot and carry out murder with cleverness and decisiveness, but when faced with the written word, his mind lost traction.

  He’d proposed a course he wanted to develop. “The Cartography of Dissonance and Upheaval: Art As Paleo-Bioenergetic Paradox.”

  I reached into my file box, found what I was looking for: the Seldom Scene review of Julie Kipper’s show penned by “FS.” There were the words: paradoxical, cartograph, and dissonance. I searched further. When FS had picked Angelique Bernet out of “la compagnie” he’d raved, “This is DANCE as in paleo-instinctuo-bioenergetic, so right, so real, so unashamedly erotic.”

  I pointed it out to Milo. “He recycles. Limited creativity. It’s got to be frustrating.”

  “So he’s a hack,” he said. “So why couldn’t he just write for the movies instead of killing people?” Muttering, he circled the matching phrases with red pen.

  “Now that we know it’s him,” I said, “I’m getting a new slant on his victim selection. Until now, I’d been thinking along purely psychological lines: capturing stars on the ascent, swallowing their identities before they became corrupted.”

  “Psychic cannibalism,” he said. “I was starting to like that. You don’t, anymore?”

  “I do. But another factor is the disconnect between Shull’s inflated sense of self and his accomplishments. The grand artiste who’s failed at music and art. He hasn’t killed any writers, so he probably still thinks of himself as a viable writer.”

  “The novel he talks about.”

  “Maybe there is a manuscript in a drawer,” I said. “The bottom line is, Shull’s a good bet for bitterness and pathological jealousy, but that’s only part of it. I think he’s being practical: Murder someone really famous, and you bring down big-time publicity and persistent scrutiny. Pulling off something that grandiose would be tempting for Shull, but at this point he’s smart enough to be deterred by the risk. So he lowers his sights, targets not-quite-celebrities like Baby Boy and Julie Kipper and Vassily Levitch. Their stories don’t make the papers.”

  “You’re saying he’ll eventually go for the big time?”

  “If he keeps succeeding. Murder’s the only thing he’s ever been good at.”

  “You’re right. With a famous victim, I’da gotten a warrant a long time ago.”

  “Still no luck?”

  “I tried the three most permissive judges I know. Went to the D.A. for backup, no dice. Everyone says the same thing: The totality is suggestive but insufficient foundation.”

  “What do they want?”

  “Short of an eyewitness, body fluids, anything physical. Detective Stahl may have helped things along. Early this morning, he watched Shull pick up a girl at a bar on Sunset, take her to a motel in Malibu, and leave the place without her. Stahl assumed the worst and abandoned the tail to check the room, but it was just a case of Shull leaving early. But while he was interviewing the girl, ol’ Eric got consent from her to look around. She was the resident, so it’s full consent. What he took with him was a cardboard coke chute, a tissue caked with snot and what’re probably blood flecks, a drinking glass the girl said Shull used, and the bedsheet. Any of that matches the little red hairs in Armand Mehrabian’s beard, we’re in business.”

  “When will you know?”

  “We put a rush on, but we’re still talking days. Still, it’s progress.”

  “Good for Stahl.”

  “Weird guy,” said Milo. “But maybe our hero.”

  “Speaking of Mehrabian’s beard,” I said, “you phrased it as Shull getting in his victim’s face. I’m wondering if he actually kissed Mehrabian.”

  “Kiss of death?”

  “The image might’ve appealed to Shull— seeing himself as a mafioso or the Angel of Death. The sexual ambiguity might also be relevant. That would tie in with his relationship with Kevin.”

  “Think Kevin’s alive?”

  “I wouldn’t take odds on it,” I said. “Whether or not he was Shull’s confederate, once I started asking about him, Shull would’ve seen him as a liability.”

  “Petra says no one can confirm seeing the two of them together, so whatever they collaborated on, it was private.”

  “One thing I’d wager: Shull financed Kevin’s magazine and got himself an outlet for his writing. Ten to one he’s been trying for years to get in print at real magazines, piled up the rejection slips.”

  “Kevin was his vanity press,” he said.

  “Shull used Kevin as a front because Kevin was young, edgy, and impressionable, and if anything went wrong with GrooveRat— as it did— Shull would be spared public embarrassment. Right after Baby Boy’s murder, Kevin called Petra, trying to get gory details. Either Shull put him up to it— aiming for psychic souvenirs— or Kevin suspected something about his teacher and was checking it out. Either way, he’d be in trouble.”

  He frowned.

  I said, “What’s next?”

  “More of the same. This is Stahl’s second day on surveillance. He called in an hour ago, and all Shull’s done so far is spend a few hours on campus, run errands, come home. He’s still there, but Stahl figures he’ll likely get going soon. He usually begins night-crawling around now.”

  “Where does he crawl?”

  “All over town. Clubs, bars, restaurants. He drives a lot, moves around constantly— which fits, these guys are always mileage freaks. Tonight, Stahl switched cars to a rental SUV, just in case. Petra’s run out of things to do, so she may join in. A two-person surveillance is always better. I showed Shull’s photo to the gallery people and Szabo and Loh. No one recognized him, why would they? He wears the uniform, black-on-black, your prototypical L.A. Guy. His name doesn’t show up on Szabo’s invite list, either, but I’ll keep looking.”

  “What kind of girl did Shull pick up?” I said.

  “Stahl didn’t say. The main thing is, he didn’t kill her. Stahl describes Shull’s general demeanor during the pickup as relaxed. He’s certain Shull’s unaware we’re looking at him. So maybe he’ll slip up, actually make a move on someone.”

  “Caught in the act,” I said.

  “Yeah, yeah,” he said. “A boy can dream.”

  • • •

  The next morning Milo phoned, and said, “Boring night. Shull just drove around. Up in the hills, then out to the beach all the way into Ventura County. He turned off on Las Posas, got on the 101 north, went another ten miles, returned, stopped at an all-night coffee
shop in Tarzana— he likes cheapie-eats places, probably thinks of himself as slumming. Then he drove home alone, went to bed.”

  “Restless,” I said. “The tension could be building up.”

  “Well,” he said, “let’s see if he blows.”