Private Eyes

by Jonathan Kellerman

  “What do you think drove him that far down?”

  “Drugs, booze, prison, guilt. Singly or in combination. Or all of the above.”

  “Boy,” he said, smiling, “you sound like a hard guy.”

  I looked out the car window at the derelicts and junkies and bag ladies. Urban zombies squandering their allotment of breath on a wet-brained haze. A very old man was sleeping on the curb, dirt-caked belly up, snoring through rotted gums. Or maybe he wasn’t old at all. “Must be the environment.”

  “Miss the green hills of San Labrador?”

  “No,” I said, realizing it as the words left my mouth. “How about something in the middle?”

  “How about.” He let out a tension-sloughing laugh. It wasn’t enough, and he ran his hand over his face. Drummed the dashboard. Opened the window and closed it and stretched his legs without attaining comfort.

  “His chest,” I said. “Think it was self-inflicted?”

  “Cross his heart and hope to die? That’s obviously what he wanted us to think. The sacrament of pain. Shit.”

  Growling with contempt, but he looked ill at ease.

  I made a stab at mind reading. “If he’s still into pain he might still be into inflicting it on others?”

  He nodded. “All the guilty talk and praying, the guy told us exactly nothing. So maybe he isn’t all that fucked up, mentally. My instinct doesn’t yell Prime Suspect, but I’d hate to be caught in an aw-shucks situation if our combined hunch quotient turns out to be low.”

  “So what’s next?”

  “First find me a phone booth. I wanna call in, see if anything’s turned up on the lady. If it hasn’t, let’s go talk to Bayliss— the probation officer.”

  “He’s retired.”

  “I know. I got his home address before I came by. Middle-class neighborhood. You should feel comfortable.”

  20

  I found a phone booth near the Children’s Museum and waited in a no-parking zone as Milo used it. He was on the line long enough for two meter maids to drive by, prepare to cite me, only to be held at bay by the LAPD cardboard. Most fun I’d had in a long time. I savored it while watching parents herd their young toward the entrance to the museum.

  Milo came back jingling change and shaking his head. “Nothing.”

  “Who’d you speak to?”

  “Highway Patrol, again. Then one of Chickering’s lackeys and Melissa.”

  “How’s she doing?” I said, pulling into traffic.

  “Still hyper. Making calls. She said one of the Gabneys phoned just a while ago— the husband. Expressing concern.”

  “The goose with the golden egg,” I said. “Planning on telling Melissa about the Cassatt?”

  “Any reason to?”

  I thought about that. “Not that I can see— no use getting her riled up about something else.”

  “I told her about McCloskey. That from what I could see we were talking brain death, but that I’d keep my eye on him. It seemed to calm her down.”

  “Placebo?”

  “Got anything stronger?”

  • • •

  I picked up the Harbor Freeway at Third, switched to the 10 west, and exited at Fairfax, heading north. Milo directed me to Crescent Heights, then farther north, just past Olympic, where I turned left on Commodore Sloat, passed a block of office buildings, then entered the Carthay Circle district, a tree-shaded enclave of small, exceedingly well-kept Spanish and mock-Tudor houses.

  Milo recited an address and I matched the numerals to a shake-roofed, brick and madder-stucco cottage set on a corner lot two blocks up. The garage was a miniature clone of the house behind a hedge-bordered cobbled drive. A twenty-year-old Mustang, white and shining, sat in the drive. Moisture pools beneath the chassis and a neatly coiled garden hose rested near the rear tire.

  The front yard was rich green lawn worthy of Dublin, edged with beds of flowers— taller plantings of camellias, azaleas, hydrangeas, agapanthus, backing impatiens, begonia, and a white fringe of alyssum. A cobbled path ran up the middle. To the left was a weeping paper-birch triplet. A high-waisted gray-haired man in khaki shirt, blue pants, and a pith helmet inspected its branches and plucked away dead leaves. A chamois cloth hung out of one rear pocket.

  We got out. Traffic from Olympic was a baritone drone. Birds sang harmony. Not a particle of trash on the streets. The man turned as we walked up the path. Sixtyish, narrow shoulders, long arms, large hands. Long, hound-dog face under the helmet. White mustache and goatee, black-framed eyeglasses. It was only when we were a few feet away that I realized he was African-featured. Skin as light as mine, dotted with freckles. Eyes golden-brown, the color of school-desk oak.

  One hand remained on the tree as he watched us. He lowered it, ground a birch cone between his fingers. The particles showered to the ground.

  “Gilbert Bayliss?” said Milo.

  “Who’s asking?”

  “My name’s Sturgis. I’m a detective— private— working on the disappearance of Mrs. Gina Ramp. Several years ago she was victimized by someone you used to handle at the Parole Department. Joel McCloskey.”

  “Good old Joel,” said Bayliss, removing his hat. His hair was a thick, nappy, salt-and-pepper cap. “Private eye, huh?”

  Milo nodded. “For the time being. On leave from LAPD.”

  “Voluntary?”

  “Not exactly.”

  Bayliss peered at Milo. “Sturgis. I know that name— know your face, too.”

  Milo didn’t move a muscle.

  Bayliss said, “I got it. You’re the one hit the other cop on TV. Something about interdepartmental intrigue— news never did make clear what it was all about. Not that I want to know. I’m out of all that.”

  “Congratulations,” said Milo.

  “Earned it. So how long they cooling you out for?”

  “Six months.”

  “Paid or unpaid?”

  “Unpaid.”

  Bayliss clucked his tongue. “So in the meantime you’re paying bills. I wasn’t allowed to do that. One thing that bothered me about the job— no room to expand opportunities. How do you like it so far?”

  “It’s a job.”

  Bayliss looked at me. “Who’s this? Another LAPD bad boy?”

  “Alex Delaware,” I said.

  “Dr. Delaware,” said Milo. “He’s a psychologist. Treating Mrs. Ramp’s daughter.”

  “Melissa Dickinson,” I said. “You talked to her about a month ago.”

  “I seem to remember something like that,” said Bayliss. “Psy chologist, huh? I wanted to be one of those once. Figured what I was doing was mostly psychology, anyway— why not get paid better? Took some classes at Cal State— got enough credits for a master’s but no time to write a thesis or take the exams, so that was that.” He peered at me more closely. “What’re you doing running around with him? Psychoanalyzing everyone?”

  “We just paid a visit to McCloskey,” I said. “Detective Sturgis thought it might be useful for me to observe him.”

  “Aha,” said Bayliss. “Good old Joel. You seriously suspect he’s been up to something?”

  “Just checking him out,” said Milo.

  “Getting paid by the hour and piling up those hours— Don’t get yourself worked up, soldier. I don’t have to talk to you if I don’t want.”

  “I realize that, Mr.—”

  “Twenty-three years I spent following routine, taking orders from people a heck of a lot stupider than me. Working toward a twenty-five-year pension so that my wife and I could go traveling. Two years short she had the bad manners to leave me. Massive stroke. Got one kid in the army, over in Germany, married a German girl, never comes home. So the last two years I’ve been making my own rules. Last six months I’ve been getting good at it. Understand?”

  Milo gave a long, slow nod.

  Bayliss smiled, put his helmet back on. “Just as long as we’ve got a meeting of the minds on that.”

  “We do,” said Milo. “If there’
s something you can tell us about McCloskey that might help us find Mrs. Ramp, I’d be much obliged.”

  “Good old Joel,” said Bayliss. He touched his goatee, stared at Milo. “You know, there were plenty of times during those twenty-five years that I wanted to punch someone. Never did it. ’Cause of the pension. The trip the wife and I were going to take. When you punched that paper-pusher, it made me smile. I was in a low mood, thinking about things that had happened and those that hadn’t. You gave me a chuckle, lasted through the evening. That’s why I remember you.” He smiled. “Funny thing, your walking up like this. Must be destiny. Come on in the house.”

  • • •

  His living room was dark, neat, furnished with heavy carved pieces not quite old or good enough to be antiques. Lots of doilies and figurines and feminine touches. On the wall above the mantel were framed black-and-white photos of big bands and jazz combos, the musicians all black, and one close-up of a young, clean-shaven, pomaded Bayliss, dressed in a white dinner jacket and formal shirt and tie, and holding a slide trombone.

  He said, “That was my first love. Trained classically— at Juilliard. But no one was hiring colored trombonists, so I settled for swing and bebop, did the rib circuit— traveled with Skootchie Bartholomew for five years. Ever hear of him?”

  I shook my head.

  He smiled. “No one did. Tell the truth, the band wasn’t that good. Shooting heroin before every gig and thinking they were playing better than they actually were. I didn’t want to live like that, so I quit, came out here, tooted for whoever would listen, did a few record things— you listen to “Magic Love’ by the Sheiks, some of that other doo-wop foolishness, that’s me in the background. Finally got a trial run with Lionel Hampton.”

  He went over and touched one of the photos. “This is me, first row. That band was all power, really heavy on the brass. Playing with ’em was like trying to ride a big brass hurricane, but I did okay— Lionel kept me on. Then the big-band market dried up and Lionel took the whole outfit to Europe and Japan. I didn’t see any point in that, went back to school, took the civil service. Haven’t played since. My wife liked the pictures. . . . I’ve got to take them down, get some real art. You want some coffee?”

  Both of us declined.

  “Sit if you want.”

  We did. Bayliss settled in a soft-looking floral chair with lace antimacassars on the arms.

  “Good old Joel,” he said. “Wouldn’t worry too much about him in terms of major felonies.”

  “Why’s that?” said Milo.

  “He’s a nothing.” Bayliss tapped his head. “Nothing there. When I read his file I expected some serious psychopath. Then this skinny little nothing walks in, all yessirs and nosirs, not an ounce of fight left in him. And I’m not talking bootlicking. Not the usual routine you get from your active psychopath— you know how they try to come across like good boys. Every joker I dealt with over twenty-five years thought he was Oscar-quality, smarter than everyone else. Just had to put on the act and no one’d see through him.”

  “That’s the truth,” said Milo. “Even though it rarely works.”

  “Yeah. Funny how they never stop to think about why they’re spending most of their lives in six-by-six cells. But old Joel was different— this was no act. The man had everything stripped out of him. Course if you just saw him, you know that.”

  “How often did he come to see you?” I said.

  “Just a few times— four or five. By the time he got to L.A., he really wasn’t on official parole. The Department requested he check in until he got settled. Covering its derriÉre, just in case. They’re really sensitive to playing it by the rules, so if something goes wrong and the victim’s family gets on Geraldo, they can produce paperwork and show they’ve done the right thing. So it was really more a formality— he could have ignored it, but he didn’t. Showed up once a week. We spent our ten minutes and that was it. Tell the truth, I wish I’d had more like him. Toward the end my caseload was sixty-three crooks, and some of them really did bear looking into.”

  Milo said, “Parole’s usually three years. How come he did six?”

  “Part of a deal. After he got out of Quentin, he asked to leave the state. The Department said okay if he could obtain structured placement and double his time. He found some sort of Indian reservation— out in Arizona, I think. Did three years there, then moved somewhere else, another state— I don’t recall exactly— and did three there.”

  “Why the move?” I said.

  “From what I recall,” he said, “the first place was funded by a grant that got canceled, so he had to move on. The second place was Catholic— I guess he figured unless the Pope canceled, he’d be okay.”

  “Why the move to L.A.?”

  “I asked him about that and he didn’t have much of an answer— not one that made sense, anyway. Something about original sin, a lot of mumbo-jumbo about salvation. Basically what I think he was getting at was that he’d sinned here— against your missing lady— so he had to be a good boy here to even the score with the Almighty. I didn’t push him on it— like I said, he wasn’t even obligated to show up. It was a formality.”

  “Any idea what he did with his time?” said Milo.

  “Far as I know he was over at that mission, full time. Cleaning toilets and washing dishes.”

  “Eternal Hope.”

  “Yeah, that’s the one. Found himself another Catholic place. From what I could tell, he never left his room, never consorted with known felons or used dope. The priest confirmed it over the phone. If I’da had sixty-three like him, my job would have been a breeze.”

  “Did he ever talk about his crime?” I said.

  “I talked to him about it— first time he came in. Read from his sentencing report, the judge calling him a monster and all that. I liked to do that with all of them at the outset. Establish some ground rules, let them know I knew who I was dealing with, eliminate a lot of nonsense. Most of them leave stir still claiming they’re innocent as Baby Jesus. You try to break through that delusion, get some insight going, if there’s gonna be any hope. Like doing psychoanalysis, right?”

  I nodded.

  “Did McCloskey develop any insight?” said Milo.

  “Didn’t need to. He came in breathing guilt, told me straight out he was worthless and didn’t deserve to live. I told him that was probably true, then read the sentencing report out loud to him. He just sat there and took it— like it was some kind of medical treatment that was for his own good. About as close to a walking dead man as I’d ever seen. After a couple of times with him I found myself actually getting sorry for him— the way you feel sorry for a dog that’s been hit by a car. And that’s something that doesn’t come easy to me. I’ve worked a long time fighting my sympathies.”

  “He ever say why he burned her?” said Milo.

  “Nope,” said Bayliss. “And I asked him about that, too. Because his file said he’d never owned up to any motive. But he didn’t have much to say— kind of mumbled and wouldn’t get into that.”

  A scratch of the goatee. Bayliss removed his glasses, wiped them with a handkerchief, and replaced them. “I tried to work on him a bit— think I phrased it to him in terms of his duty to her, how once he’d done a crime like that, she owned him. In a spiritual sense— I was trying to appeal to his religious side. Whenever they tried the religious stuff I turned it right back on them. But it didn’t work with him— he just sat there and stared at the floor. It was all I could do to keep a conversation going for the ten minutes. And he wasn’t faking it— after twenty-five years I can tell. We’re talking nothing. Total zombie.”

  “Any idea why?” I said. “What got him to that state?”

  Bayliss shrugged. “You’re the psychologist.”

  “Okay,” said Milo. “Thanks. Anything else?”

  “Nothing. What’s the story with the lady?”

  “She left her house, drove off, and hasn’t been heard from since.”

  “Le
ft when?”

  “Yesterday.”

  Bayliss frowned. “One day gone and they hire a P.I.?”

  “It’s not your typical situation,” said Milo. “She’s been housebound for a long time. Hardly left her home.”

  “How long’s a long time?”

  “Since he burned her.”

  “She’s been severely agoraphobic since then,” I said.

  “Oh. That’s too bad.” He looked as if he meant it. “Yeah, I can see why her folks would be worried.”