Jonathan Kellerman - Alex 16 - The Murder Book

by The Murder Book(Lit)

  'Especially for the girl,' said Milo.

  'I didn't want to believe him,' said Hansen. 'I'd come home from Yale for ten days. The last thing I needed was this dropping in my lap. I figured it had been a dream - some sort of drug hallucination. Back when I'd known Luke he was always on something.'

  'You said he wanted help from you. What kind of help?'

  'He wanted to know what to do. I was a twenty-two-year-old kid, for Christ's sake, what position was I in to give him advice?'

  Hansen's fingers tightened around the tumbler. 'He couldn't have picked a worse time to drop it on me. People were telling me I had talent, I was finally standing up to Father. The last thing I needed was to get sucked into some... horror. It was my right not to get sucked in. And I don't know why you feel you have a right to-' 'So you just dropped it,' said Milo. 'What'd you tell Chapman?' 'No,' said Hansen. 'That's wrong. I didn't drop it. Not completely. I told Luke to go home and keep all of it to himself, and when I figured things out, I'd get back to him.' 'He listened to you?'

  Hansen nodded. 'It was what... he wanted to hear. He thanked me. After he left, I kept telling myself it had been the drugs talking. I wanted to drop it. But something happened to me that year - a painting class I'd taken. The teacher was an Austrian expatriate, a Holocaust survivor. He'd told me horror stories of all the good citizens who'd claimed to know nothing about what was going on. What liars they were. How Vienna had cheered when Hitler took power and everyone had turned a blind eye to atrocities. I remembered something he'd said: "The Austrians have convinced themselves that Hitler was German and Beethoven was Austrian." That stuck with me. I didn't want to be like that. So I went over to the library and checked out the newspapers for the time period Luke said the murder had taken place. But there was nothing. Not an article, not a single word about any girl being murdered in Bel Air. So I decided Luke had been freaking out.'

  Hansen's shoulders dropped. He allowed himself a weak smile. Trying to relax. Milo played the silence and Hansen tightened up again. 'So you're saying there really... ?' 'Did you ever call Chapman back? Like you said you would?' 'I had nothing to tell him.' 'So what'd you do next?' 'I went back to Yale.' 'Chapman ever try to reach you at Yale?' 'No.'

  'When were you in L.A. next?' 'Not for years. The next summer I was in France.' 'Avoiding L.A.?' 'No,' said Hansen. 'Looking for other things.'

  'Such as?'

  'Painting opportunities.'

  'When did you move back to L.A.?'

  'Three years ago, when Mother became ill.'

  'Where were you living before that?'

  'New York, Connecticut, Europe. I try to spend as much time as I can in Europe. Umbria, the light-'

  'What about Austria?' said Milo.

  Hansen's face lost color.

  'So you're here to take care of your mother.'

  'That's the only reason. When she passes, I'll sell the house and find myself somewhere peaceful.'

  'Meanwhile,' said Milo, 'you and your old buddies are neighbors-'

  'They're not my bud-'

  '-ever make you nervous? Your being a semipublic figure and having a bunch of murderers knowing you're back in town?'

  'I'm not semipublic,' said Hansen. 'I'm not any kind of public. I paint. Finish one canvas and start another. I never truly believed anything happened!

  'What did you think when you learned about Chapman drowning?'

  'That it was an accident or suicide.'

  'Why suicide?'

  'Because he'd seemed so upset.'

  'Suicide out of remorse?' said Milo.

  Hansen didn't answer.

  'You believed Chapman had been hallucinating, but you left town without trying to convince him there was nothing to worry about.'

  'It wasn't my - what is it you want from me?'

  'Details.'

  'About what?'

  'The murder.'

  'I don't have any more details.'

  'Why would Chapman feel remorse for something that never happened?'

  'I don't know, I'm not a mind reader! This whole thing is insane. Not a word in the papers for twenty years, and all of a sudden someone cares?'

  Milo consulted his pad. 'How'd you learn about Chapman's death?'

  'Mother included it in her weekly letter.' 'How'd you feel about it?'

  'What do you think? I felt terrible,' said Hansen. 'How else could I feel?'

  'You felt terrible, then just forgot about it.'

  Hansen rose out of his chair. Spittle whitened the corners of his lips.

  'What was I supposed to do? Go to the police and repeat some far-fetched, stoned-out story? I was twenty-two, for Christ's sake.'

  Milo flashed him a cold stare, and Hansen slumped back down. 'It's easy to judge.'

  'Let's go over the details,' said Milo. 'The girl was raped in the basement. Where'd Chapman say they killed her?'

  Hansen shot him a miserable look. 'He said there was a big property next door to the party house, an estate, no one living there. They brought her over there. He said she was unconscious. They took her into some wooded area and started talking about how they needed to make sure she didn't turn them in. That's when it got...'

  'Bloody.'

  Hansen covered his face and exhaled noisily.

  'Who's "they"?' said Milo.

  'All of them,' Hansen said through his fingers. 'The Kingers.'

  'Who exactly was there? Names.'

  'Vance and Luke, Garvey and Bob Cossack, Brad Larner. All of them.'

  'The Kingers,' said Milo. 'Guys you don't see anymore. Guys you're not worried about being your neighbors.'

  Hansen's hands dropped. 'Should I be worried?'

  'It does seem odd,' said Milo. 'For three years you've been living in L.A. but you've never run into them.'

  'It's a big city,' said Hansen. 'Big as you want it to be.'

  'You don't run in the same social circles?'

  'I don't have any social circle. I rarely leave the house. Everything's delivered - groceries, laundry. Painting and taking Mother to the doctor, that's my world.'

  I thought: Prison.

  Milo said, 'Have you followed the others' lives?'

  'I know the Cossacks are builders of some kind - you see their names on construction signs. That's it.'

  'No idea what Vance Coury's been up to?'

  'No.'

  'Brad Larner?'

  'No.'

  Milo wrote something down. 'So... your buddies took the nameless girl to the property next door and things just kind of got bloody.'

  'They weren't my buddies.'

  'Who did the actual killing?'

  'Luke didn't say.'

  'What about the rape? Who initiated that?'

  'He - my impression was they all joined in.'

  'But Chapman wasn't sure if he participated or not.'

  'Maybe he was lying. Or in denial, I don't know,' said Hansen. 'Luke wasn't cruel but - I can see him getting carried along. But without the others, he never would've done anything like that. He told me he'd felt... immobilized - as if his feet were stuck. That's the way he phrased it. "My feet were stuck, Nick. Like in quicksand." '

  'Can you see the others doing something like that on their own?'

  'I don't know... I used to think of them as clowns... maybe. All I'm saying is Luke was a big softie. A big Baby Huey type of

  guy.'

  'And the others?'

  'The others weren't soft.'

  'So,' said Milo, 'the murder started out as a way to silence the girl.'

  Hansen nodded.

  'But it progressed to something else, Nicholas. If you'd seen the body, you'd know that. It was something you wouldn't want to paint.'

  'Oh, Lord,' said Hansen.

  'Did Luke Chapman make any mention at all of who initiated the murder?'

  Hansen shook his head.

  'How about taking a guess?' said Milo. 'From what you remember about the Kingers' personalities.'

  'Vance,' said Hanse
n, without hesitation. 'He was the leader. The most aggressive. Vance was the one who picked her up. If I had to guess, I'd say Vance was the first to cut her.'

  Milo slapped his pad shut. His head shot forward. 'Who said anything about cutting, Nicholas?'

  Hansen turned white. 'You said it - you said it was ugly.' 'Chapman told you they'd cut her, didn't he?' 'Maybe - he could've.'

  Milo stood and stomped his way slowly toward Hansen on echoing tiles, came to a halt inches from Hansen's terrified face. Hansen's hands rose protectively.

  'What else are you holding back, Nicholas?' 'Nothing! I'm doing my best-' 'Do better,' said Milo.

  'I'm trying' Hansen's voice took on a whine. 'It's twenty years ago. You're making me remember things I repressed because they disgusted me. I didn't want to hear details then, and I don't want to now.'

  'Because you like pretty things,' said Milo. 'The wonderful world of art.'

  Hansen clapped his hands against his temples and looked away from Milo. Milo got down on one knee and spoke into Hansen's right ear.

  'Tell me about the cutting.'

  'That's it. He just said they started cutting her.' Hansen's shoulders rose and fell, and he began weeping.

  Milo gave him a moment of peace. Then he said, 'After they cut her, what?'

  'They burned her. They burned her with cigarettes. Luke said he could hear her skin sizzle... oh God - I really thought he was...'

  'Making it up.'

  Hansen sniffed, wiped his nose with his sleeve, let his head fall. The back of his neck was glossy and creased, like canned tallow. Milo said, 'They burned her, then what?'

  "That's all. That really is all. Luke said it was like it became a game - he had to think of it as a game in order not to freak out completely. He said he'd watched and tried to pretend she was one of those inflatable dolls and they were playing with her. He said it seemed to go on forever until someone - I think it was Vance, I can't swear to it, but probably Vance - said she was dead and they needed to get her out of there. They bundled her up in something, put her in the trunk of Vance's Jaguar, and dumped her somewhere near downtown.'

  'Pretty detailed for a hallucination,' said Milo.

  Hansen didn't respond.

  'Especially,' pressed Milo, 'for a dull guy like Chapman. You ever know him to be that imaginative?'

  Hansen remained mute.

  'Where'd they take her, Nicholas?'

  'I don't know where - why the hell wasn't it in the papers? Hansen balled a hand into a fist and raised it chest high. Making a stab at assertiveness. Milo remained crouched but somehow increased his dominance. Hansen shook his head and looked away and cried some more.

  'What'd they do afterward?'

  'Had coffee,' said Hansen. 'Some place in Hollywood. Coffee and pie. Luke said he tried eating but threw up in the bathroom.'

  'What kind of pie?'

  'I didn't ask. Why wasn't there anything in the papers?

  'What would your theory be about that, Nicholas?'

  'What do you mean?' said Hansen.

  'Given what you know about your buddies, what's your theory?'

  'I don't see what you're getting at.'

  Milo got up, stretched, rolled his neck, walked slowly to a leaded window, turned his back on Hansen. 'Think about the world you inhabit, Nicholas. You're a successful artist. You get thirty, forty thousand dollars for a painting. Who buys your stuff?'

  'Thirty thousand isn't big-time in the art world,' said Hansen. 'Not compared to-'

  'It's a lot of money for a painting,' said Milo. 'Who buys your stuff?'

  'Collectors, but I don't see what that has to-'

  'Yeah, yeah, people of taste and all that. But at forty grand a pop not just any collectors.'

  'People of means,' said Hansen.

  Milo turned suddenly, grinning. 'People with money, Nicholas.' He cleared his throat.

  Hansen's muddy eyes rounded. 'You're saying someone was bribed to keep it quiet? Something that horrible could be - then for God's sake why didn't it stay quiet? Why is it coming to light now?'

  'Give me a theory about that, too.'

  'I don't have one.'

  'Think.'

  'It's in someone's best interests to go public?' said Hansen. He sat up. 'Bigger money's come into play? Is that what you're getting at?'

  Milo returned to the sofa, sat back comfortably, flipped his pad open.

  'Bigger money,' said Hansen. 'Meaning I'm a total ass for talking to you. You caught me off guard and used me-' He brightened suddenly. 'But you screwed up. You were obligated to offer me the presence of an attorney, so anything I've told you is inadmissible-'

  'You watch too much TV, Nicholas. We're obligated to offer you a lawyer if we arrest you. Any reason we should arrest you, Nicholas?'

  'No, no, of course not-'

  Milo glanced at me. 'I suppose we could exercise the option. Obstruction of justice is a felony.' Back to Hansen: 'Charge like that, whether or not you got convicted, your life would change. But given that you've cooperated...'

  Hansen's eyes sparked. He pawed at the scant hair above his ears. 'I need to be worried, don't I?' 'About what?'

  'Them. Jesus, what have I done? I'm stuck here, can't leave, not with Mother-'

  'With or without Mother, leaving would be a bad idea, Nicholas. If you've been straight - really told us everything - we'll do our best to keep you safe.'

  'As if you give a damn.' Hansen got to his feet. 'Get out - leave me alone.'

  Milo stayed seated. 'How about a look at your painting?' 'What?'

  'I meant what I said,' said Milo. 'I do like art.'

  'My studio's private space,' said Hansen. 'Get out!'

  'Never show a fool an unfinished work?'

  Hansen tottered. Laughed hollowly. 'You're no fool. You're a user. How do you live with yourself?'

  Milo shrugged, and we headed for the door. He stopped a foot from the knob. 'By the way, the pictures on your gallery website are gorgeous. What is it the French call still-lifes - nature morte? Dead nature?'

  'Now you're trying to diminish me.'

  Milo reached for the door, and Hansen said, 'Fine, take a look. But I only have one painting in progress, and it needs work.'

  We followed him up the brass-railed staircase to a long landing carpeted in defeated green shag. Three bedrooms on one end, a single, closed door off by itself on the north wing. A breakfast tray was set on the rug. A teapot and three plastic bowls: blood-colored jello, soft-boiled egg darkened to ochre, something brown and granular and crusted.

  'Wait here,' said Hansen, 'I need to check on her.' He tiptoed to the door, cracked it open, looked inside, returned. 'Still sleeping. Okay, c'mon.'

  His studio was the southernmost bedroom, a smallish space expanded by a ceiling raised to the rafters and a skylight that let in southern sun. The hardwood floors were painted white, as was his easel. White-lacquered flat file, white paint box and brush holders, glass jars filled with turpentine and thinner. Dots of color squeezed on a white porcelain palette fluttered in the milky atmosphere like exotic butterflies.

  On the easel was an eleven-by-fourteen panel. Hansen had said his current painting needed work, but it looked finished to me. At the center of the composition was an exquisitely bellied, blue-and-white Ming vase, rendered so meticulously that I longed to touch the gloss. A jagged crack ran down the belly of the vase, and brimming over its lip were masses of flowers and vines, their brilliance accentuated - animated - by a burnt umber background that deepened to black at the edges.

  Orchids and peonies and tulips and irises and blooms I couldn't

  identify. Hot colors, luminous striations, voluptuous petals, vaginal leaves, vermiform tendrils, all interspersed with ominous clots of sphagnum. The fissure implied incipient explosion. Flowers, what could be prettier? Hansen's blooms, gorgeous and boastful and flame-vivid as they were, said something else.

  Gleam and hue fraying and wilting at the edges. From the shadows, the black, i
nexorable progress of rot.

  Conditioned air blew through a ceiling vent, flat, artificial, filtered clean, but a stink reached my nostrils: the painting gave off the moist, squalid seduction of decay. Milo wiped his brow, and said, 'You don't use a model.' Hansen said, 'It's all in my head.'