Obsession

by Jonathan Kellerman

  “Tanya said she had no relationships with men.”

  “What about women? A bisexual triangle could get nasty, there was one a few years ago in Florida, woman had her girlfriend gut-shoot her old man for insurance money.”

  “Patty told me she was asexual.”

  “You asked her about her sexuality?”

  “She brought it up during the intake.”

  “The intake was on the kid so why would Mama’s sex life be relevant?”

  I had no answer for that.

  He said, “What was the context, Alex?”

  “Letting me know she wasn’t gay. But not in a defensive way. More matter-of-fact, this is who I am. Then she asked me if I thought she was abnormal.”

  “So she was uptight about being considered gay. Meaning she probably was gay. Meaning she coulda been doing stuff Tanya didn’t know about.”

  “I guess it’s possible.”

  “People with secrets parcel out what they want other people to know, right? If we’re going to start excavating this woman’s life, Tanya could learn things she doesn’t want to. Is she psychologically ready for that?”

  “If she runs off excavating by herself, it could be worse.”

  “She’d do that?”

  “She’s a determined young woman.”

  “Obsessive? Rick said Patty had tendencies in that direction. Did the kid start imitating her and that’s why you treated her?”

  I stared at him. “Very good, Sigmund.”

  “All these years absorbing your wisdom, something was bound to rub off.”

  He opened his car door. “Get ready for a whole new world of false starts and dead ends.”

  “Your optimism is touching.”

  “Optimism is denial for chumps with no life experience.”

  “What’s pessimism?” I said.

  “Religion without God.”

  He got in the car, started up the engine.

  I said, “I just thought of something. What about Isaac Gomez? He was compiling some pretty good databases.”

  “Petra’s boy genius…yeah, maybe he’ll have some spare time. Hollywood went this whole year without a single murder. If it stays that quiet, the chatter has Stu Bishop vaulting to assistant chief.”

  “What’s Petra been doing with herself?”

  “My guess would be digging up cold cases.”

  “Patty and Tanya’s first address was in Hollywood,” I said. “Back then there were plenty of murders. Maybe Petra will want to hear about this.”

  “An unsolved she just happens to be working on? Wouldn’t that be screenplay-cute. Sure, call her. Talk to Dr. Gomez, too, if Petra’s cool with that.”

  “Will do, boss.”

  “Keep up that attitude, assistant, and you just might make the grade.”

  I took Laurel Canyon south to the city, used the red light at Crescent Heights and Sunset to call Hollywood Division and asked for Detective Connor.

  “She’s out,” said the civilian clerk.

  “Is Isaac Gomez still working there?”

  “Who?”

  “Graduate student intern,” I said. “He was doing research on—”

  “Not listed,” said the clerk.

  “Could you connect me to Detective Connor’s voice mail?”

  “Voice mail’s down.”

  “Do you have another number for her?”

  “No.”

  I drove east. At Fuller and Sunset, a group of Nordic-looking tourists risked a crosswalk sprint and nearly got pulverized by a Suburban. Naive Europeans, pretending L.A. was a real city and walking was legal. I could hear Milo laughing.

  As I neared La Brea, development continued its encroachment: big-box outlets and strip malls and chain restaurants sweeping through blocks that had once hosted by-the-hour motels and ptomaine palaces.

  Some things never change: Hookers of both primary genders and a few that couldn’t be determined were working the street with ebullience. My eyes must’ve been restless because a couple of them waved at me.

  Heading north to Hollywood Boulevard and hooking a right, I cruised past the Chinese Theatre, the Kodak Theatre, the tourist traps attempting to feed off the overflow, continued to Cherokee Avenue. Just past the hustle of the boulevard sat a couple of padlocked clubs, mean and sad the way nightspots get during the daylight. Trash was piled at the curb and birdshit pollocked the sidewalk.

  Farther north, the block had been rehabbed a bit, with relatively clean multiplex apartment buildings promising Security elbowing shabby prewar structures that offered no illusion of safety.

  The first address on Tanya’s list matched one of the old ones. A three-story, brick-colored stucco building a short walk below Franklin. Plain front, frizzy lawn, limp beds of overwatered succulents struggling to breathe. As tired-looking as the homeless guy pushing a shopping cart nowhere. He made split-second, paranoid eye contact, shook his head as if I were hopeless, and trudged on.

  A cloudy glass door cut through the center of the brick-colored building, but two ground-floor units in front had entrance from the street. Tanya remembered drunks knocking on the door, so my bet was on one of those.

  I got out and tried the handle on the glass door. Cold and unpleasantly crusty but unlocked.

  Inside, a back-to-front hallway carpeted in gray poly smelled of mold and orange-scented air freshener. Twenty-three mail slots just inside the door. Liver-colored doors lined the murky space. Lots of interviews, if it ever came to that.

  A door at the rear of the hall opened and a man stuck his head out, scratched the crook of one arm. Sixty or so, gray hair flying like dandelion fuzz, haloed by sickly light. Scrawny but potbellied, wearing a blue satin Dodger jacket over striped pajama bottoms.

  He scratched again. Worked his jaws and lowered his head. “Yeah?”

  I said, “Just leaving.”

  He stood there, watching until I made good on that promise.

  South on Highland took me through two miles of film labs, tape-dupe services, costume warehouses, prop shops. All those people who’d never be thanked on Oscar night.

  Between Melrose and Beverly a few dowager apartment buildings clung to twenties elegance. The rest didn’t even try. A turn onto Beverly took me around the southern edge of the Wilshire Country Club and into Hancock Park.

  Hudson Avenue is one of the district’s grandest streets, and the second address on Tanya’s list matched a massive, multigabled, slate-roofed, brick Tudor piled atop a sloping lawn that had been skinned as close as a putting green. Five-foot bronze urns flanking the front door hosted lemon trees studded with fruit. Double doors under a limestone arch were carved exuberantly. A black filigree gate offered a view of a long cobbled driveway. A white Mercedes convertible sat behind a green Bentley Flying Spur hand-fashioned in the fifties.

  This was where Patty and Tanya had just moved when they first came to see me. Renting space in a house. The owners of this house didn’t appear to need the extra income. Patty had been certain the move hadn’t been stressful for Tanya. Face-slapping contrast with the sad building on Cherokee made me a believer, and I wondered now about the specifics of the transition.

  I sat there and enjoyed the view. No one came out of the mansion or any of its stately neighbors. But for a couple of lusty squirrels in a sycamore tree, no movement at all. In L.A. luxury means pretending no one else inhabits the planet.

  I put in a call to Patty’s oncologist, Tziporah Ganz, left a message with her service.

  One of the squirrels scampered over to the left-hand lemon tree, got hold of a juicy one, and tugged. Before it could complete the theft, one of the double doors opened and a short, dark-haired maid in a pink uniform charged out wielding a broom. The animal faced off, then thought better of it. The maid turned to reenter the mansion and noticed me.

  Stared.

  Another hostile reception.

  I drove away.

  Address three was a quick drive: Fourth Street off La Jolla. Tanya had returned to
my office just after leaving there for Culver City.

  The house turned out to be a Spanish Revival duplex on a pleasant leafy street of matching structures. The only distinguishing feature of the building where the Bigelows had lived was a concrete pad in lieu of a lawn. The only vehicle in sight was a deep red Austin Mini with vanity plates that read PLOTGRL.

  Solidly middle-class, respectable, but a whole different planet after Hudson Avenue. Maybe Patty had wanted more room than rented mansion space afforded.

  My final stop was a solid forty-minute drive in thick traffic to a grubby stretch of Culver Boulevard just west of Sepulveda and the 405 overpass.

  The lot bore six identical gray-framed, tar-roofed boxes that ringed the crumbled remains of a plaster fountain. Two brown-skinned preschoolers played in the dirt, unattended.

  Classic L.A. bungalow court. Classic refuge of transients, has-beens, almost-weres.

  These bungalows weren’t much bigger than sheds. The property had been neglected to the point of peeling paint and curling roof shingles and sagging foundations. Traffic roared by. Pothole–axle encounters lent a syncopated conga beat to the engine concerto.

  Maybe it had been spiffier in Patty’s day, but this part of town had never been fashionable.

  Climbing the residential ladder, then down to this. Patty had come across solid and stable. Her housing pattern seemed anything but.

  Perhaps it came down to thrift. Saving up cash for a down payment on her own place. Within two years, she’d pulled it off, snagging a duplex near Beverlywood on a nurse’s salary.

  Even so, there had to be better choices than moving Tanya to another “sketchy neighborhood.”

  Then another possibility hit me: That kind of jumping around was what you saw in habitual gamblers and others whose habits roller-coastered their finances.

  Patty had achieved Westside homeownership, a trust fund, and two life insurance policies for Tanya on a nurse’s salary.

  Impressive.

  Remarkable, really. Maybe she’d been a savvy stock-market player.

  Or had acquired an additional source of revenue.

  A hospital nurse with too much money led to an obvious what-if: drug pilferage and resale. Stealthy dope dealer didn’t sync with what I knew about Patty but how well did I really know her?

  But if she had a secret criminal life, why stir up the pot with a deathbed confession and chance Tanya finding out?

  People with secrets parcel out what they want you to know.

  Until something shattered their inhibitions. Had Patty’s proclamation been the agonized product of a disease-addled mind? An illness-fueled stab at confession and expiation?

  I sat in the car and tossed that around. No way, too ugly. It just didn’t sit right.

  Sounds like you’re a bit involved in this one.

  “So what,” I said to no one.

  A muscular guy in a ski cap pulled down to his eyebrows skulked by with an unleashed, pink-nosed white pit bull. The dog stopped, circled back, pressed its snout against my passenger window, created a little pink, pulsating rosebud. No smiling for this canine. A low-pitched growl thrummed the glass.

  Ski-cap was staring, too.

  My day for warm welcomes. I pulled away slowly enough so the dog wouldn’t lose balance.

  No one thanked me.

  CHAPTER

  7

  The encounter with the pit made me appreciate Blanche. As soon as I got home, I took her down to the garden for a puppy stroll, made sure her curiosity didn’t land her in the fishpond.

  One message at my service: Dr. Tziporah Ganz.

  I called back, told her I was Tanya Bigelow’s therapist and had some questions about Patty’s mental status during her final days.

  “Tanya’s having psychological problems?” she said. Her voice was soft, slightly accented—Middle Europe.

  “No,” I said. “Just the typical adjustments, it’s a tough situation.”

  “Tragic situation. Why is Tanya concerned about dementia?”

  “She isn’t, I am. Patty charged Tanya with taking care of lots of details that could turn burdensome. I’m wondering if Patty’s intent needs to be taken literally.”

  “Details? I don’t understand.”

  “Postmortem instructions that Patty thought would benefit Tanya. Tanya goes to school full-time, holds down a part-time job, and is faced with living alone. She was devoted to her mother and right now her personality won’t allow her to deviate from Patty’s wishes. Nor would I try to convince her otherwise. But I am looking for an out in case she gets overwhelmed.”

  “The dying person reaches out for one last burst of control,” she said. “I’ve seen that. And Patty was an exacting person. Unfortunately, I can’t give you a clear answer about her mental status. Strictly speaking, there were no clinical reasons for the disease to affect her thinking—no brain lesion, no obvious neuropathy. But any severe illness and its effects—dehydration, jaundice, electrolytic imbalance—can affect cognition, and Patty was a very sick woman. If you choose to tell Tanya that Patty was impaired, I wouldn’t contradict you. However, I won’t be comfortable being quoted as a primary source.”

  “I understand.”

  “Dr. Delaware, I don’t want to tell you your business, but my experience has been that survivors don’t want to give up responsibilities even when they are burdensome.”

  “Mine as well,” I said. “In what way was Patty exacting?”

  “She attempted to control every aspect of her hospitalization. Not that I blame her.”

  “Were there compliance issues?”

  “No, because there was no treatment. Her decision.”

  “Did you agree?”

  “It’s always hard to stand back and watch someone die, but, honestly, there was nothing I could do for her. The goal became making her last days as comfortable as possible. Even there, she opted for less.”

  “Resisting the morphine drip, despite the anesthesiologist’s best efforts.”

  “The anesthesiologist is my husband,” she said. “Obviously I’m biased but there’s no one better than Joseph. And yes, Patty resisted him. Still, I’m not judging. This was a relatively young woman who learned suddenly that she was going to die.”

  “Did she ever talk about that?”

  “Infrequently and in a detached manner. As if she was describing a patient. I guess she needed to depersonalize a horrible situation. Is Tanya really doing okay? She seemed mature for her age, but that can be a problem, too.”

  “I’m keeping my eyes open. Is there anything else you can tell me?”

  “About Patty? How about this: Last year my brother ended up in the E.R. Auto accident, pretty nasty. He’s a dentist, was worried about a compression injury of one of his hands. Patty was on the night Gil came in and took care of him. Gil was sufficiently impressed enough to write a letter to Nursing Administration. He told me she was cool under pressure—absolutely unflappable, nothing got past her. When she was referred to me, I remembered her name, felt extremely sad. I wish I could’ve done more for her.”

  “You gave her what she needed,” I said.

  “That’s kind of you to say.” Small, edgy laugh. “Good luck with Tanya.”

  Petra answered her cell phone. “Detective Connor.”

  I filled her in.

  She said, “Exactly where on Cherokee did this woman live?”

  I gave her the address.

  “I think I know it. Kind of raw sienna on the outside, not exactly posh?”

  “That’s the one.”

  “I’ve made busts pretty close to there but nothing in that building specifically. Back then, Cherokee was a tough hood. According to all the old-timers who delight in telling me The Way It Was. Not the best place to raise a daughter.”

  “Having a daughter wasn’t in her plans.” I explained how Tanya had come to live with Patty.

  “Good Samaritan,” she said. “A nurse, to boot. Doesn’t sound like one of the bad guys.”
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  “I doubt she is.”

  “Deathbed confession, huh? We love those. Sorry, Alex, nothing I’ve seen in the cold files matches that. Mostly, what I’ve been doing is compensating for other people’s screwups. You read the murder books, everyone knows who the bad guy is but someone was too lazy or there just wasn’t enough to prove it. But I’ll have another look in the fridge.”

  “Thanks.”

  “A did-it-even-happen, huh? Milo came up with that all by his lonesome?”

  “He’s applying for copyright as we speak.”

  “He darn well should. Take all the credit and none of the blame—that’s one of his, too.”

  “Words he doesn’t live by,” I said. “Is Isaac still working with you?”

  “Isaac? Ah, the database. No, the boy wonder is no longer tagging along. Finished his Ph.D. in BioStatistics, starting med school in August.”

  “Double doctor,” I said. “What is he, ten years old?”

  “Just turned twenty-three, what a slacker. The obvious question is why I don’t have a copy of his CD-ROM. The answer is he offered it to me but with all the static the department’s been getting about privacy violations, he had to submit a formal application to Parker Center first.”

  “They made him apply to donate his own data?”

  “In triplicate. After which the brass showed its gratitude by ignoring him for months, kept passing the forms to various committees, then Community Relations, legal counsel, the janitors, the catering truck drivers. We still haven’t heard back. If the bosses don’t get off their collectively spreading duff, I may just find myself a personal copy by accident. It’s nuts. Here I am going through boxes and breaking fingernails and Isaac’s got years worth of mayhem on a disk. Not that you just heard any of that.”