by J. A. Kerley
“I found not a Candace Klebbin, but a Rosa Klebbin, age eighteen. It appears she was a patient for over two years, last visit, uh …” he held his reading glasses up. “Three weeks ago.”
“Open her file,” Novarro said.
Kent worked, then looked to us. “I’ve got over a hundred pages of session notes.”
“Anything like a summary, or bottom line or whatever?” Novarro asked.
“Uh …” Kent scrolled through what appeared to be a list of headers. “Here’s something called ‘History and Etiology.’”
“Open it and read it to us, sir,” Novarro said.
“Rosa Klebbin, nee Rosa Blankenship,” Kent started, “spent her early years in a mute, semi-catatonic state, diagnosed as retarded. Her father was a nuclear engineer who ran off with another woman when Rosa was seven. Her mother gave the child up for adoption, no takers because of her supposed mental incapacity. Rosa was institutionalized for two years before workers noted food disappearing from locked kitchen stores two floors below the dormitory. Thinking a thieving employee, management had cameras discreetly placed throughout the floor, and were amazed to see eight-year-old Rosa taking the food. It seems Rosa had seen workers entering the lock and elevator codes all the way to the kitchen and memorized them.”
“Getting food,” I said. “It probably meant comfort. And a goal her limited landscape allowed her to pursue. A challenge, a puzzle.”
“But somehow creepy,” Kent said, continuing to read.
“At eleven, Klebbin was placed in a foster home where she, experimentally at first, was placed in a school for exceptional children. Rosa thrived and continued to amaze with her perceptual and intellectual prowess. There were emotional and anger issues, and Rosa went through three foster settings before being adopted by a single forty-year-old woman, Candace Klebbin, at the age of fourteen, a relationship that perplexes me, but has somehow endured, though the mother also had difficulties with Rosa and sought my help.” Kent paused.
Novarro said, “Keep going.”
“I’ve administered two IQ tests, one reading 161, the other168. Yet Rosa expresses no desire to train for a field or advance in standard fashion. Still, all seems fodder for her relentless, searching brain. Lazy? Unchallenged? I don’t have a clue. She’s currently expressing an interest in psychology, haphazardly absorbing every book she can find on the subjec—”
“Observation,” I said. “And acquisition.”
“Although I suspect this is typical: In whatever setting Rosa occupies, physical or psychic, she absorbs information relentlessly—”
“Data,” Novarro said. “Like Candace.”
“… which is of compelling interest until the next setting arrives, at which time the interest in the previous setting is abandoned.”
“Rosa plays the game,” I said. “Gathers what she needs and moves on.”
Kent had been reading ahead. “It just gets stranger,” he said.
“Don’t keep us in suspense,” Novarro said.
Kent took a breath.
“I’ve never seen a patient like Rosa Klebbin. She seems a traveler from another dimension, and perhaps a very frightening one. I’m wondering if I’m seeing a sociopath so enmeshed in experiential data that she’s able to totally disguise her true nature, assuming any shape needs to inhabit. It’s a frightening thought. And if so, what does her future hold?”
* * *
Harry Nautilus was polishing his cufflinks when his cellphone rang. He glanced at the screen. “Come on, baby,” he whispered. Then pressed Talk: “Hello Sonya.
“Hi, Harry,” Sonya Burroughs said, her voice sweet cream and honey. “I think I have the information you wanted.”
Nautilus sat at his desk, leaning forward, mentally crossing his fingers. “Damn, girl, that was fast.”
“It was finding someone to punch a few keys in Arizona, simple.”
“One of your sisters?”
“Us ladies got to stick together, Harry. There were forty-seven calls from the Maruyama in Phoenix to Japan in the last three months. Thirty-two were to one number in Osaka. You want me to fax you the readout?”
“Is that, uh, copasetic?”
“You didn’t get it from me, right?”
“Who?”
The throaty laugh again. “Think this’ll put you closer to escaping your case? Maybe drinks, dinner, like you said.”
Nautilus smiled. “I’m already building up an appetite, Sonya.”
“Call me when it’s unbearable, Harry Nautilus. Soon, I hope.”
Nautilus rang off and called Phoenix, hoping the Maruyama he’d tracked down was the one Carson was seeking.
43
Our first priority was finding Adam Kubiac, hoping A) he was alive, and B) he would able to tell us something.
The Kubiac home was in east Scottsdale, a ritzy neighborhood with large lots and pastel walls. “The garages here cost more than my house,” Novarro said as we wound toward the address. “And they’re bigger.”
We pulled into the drive of a sprawling two-story adobe and glass structure with elaborate tiered landscaping. There was a black Mercedes 500 series in the driveway. We rang the doorbell, knocked at windows. The place seemed unoccupied.
There was only one other home near the Kubiac residence, a lovely but more modest – if modesty was a term for multimillion-dollar homes in Scottsdale – dwelling, smaller, but with wilder landscaping. Unlike the Kubiac plantings, which were obviously professionally tended, the flora next door looked less attended than managed, an untamed look in tune with the Sonoran surroundings.
The door was answered by a handsome woman in her early sixties, slight and slender and with an honest tan and long salt-and-pepper hair untouched by dye. Her eyes shone with intelligence and her smile alone gestured us into the great room of mountain-facing windows and a cathedral ceiling. Her name was Darlene Landsmere, and she wore loose blue denim jeans and a Western-style shirt embroidered with yellow roses.
“Terrible thing,” she said.
“What’s terrible, Ms Landsmere?” Novarro asked.
“Eli’s death. I didn’t care for him as a person, but—”
“When exactly did he die?”
“About a month ago, I suppose. I feel so sorry for Adam.”
“Do you know how Eli Kubiac died, Ms Landsmere?” Novarro said. That was of interest as well.
“Wasn’t much detail in the newspaper or television, just that Eli was found dead in the Redstone Motel …” she let it hang.
“You’re not saying something,” I said.
A half smile, not happy nor sad, but knowing. “I was married for eighteen years to a dentist who claimed he worked all the time, but now and then I could smell things on his clothes. Perfume and other womanly potions. I hired a private eye. Turns out the bastard was doing as much drilling at the Redstone as he was in his office. I expect old Eli was the same. Probably blew out his ticker; the guy was a heart attack waiting to happen.”
“You knew Eli Kubiac well?”
“They moved here five–six years back. I’d wave, maybe wander over to the drive and talk if someone was out. At least until a couple months ago.”
“What happened?”
“I was taking a stroll through the neighborhood – it was near noon – and I hear ‘Hey Dar,’ from behind me. I turn and see old Eli at the mailbox, a big-ass grin on his face and a weird sparkle in his eyes. I was ten feet away and could smell liquor. ‘How you doing, Eli?’ I said. He wavered on his feet and grabbed his crotch and asked if I was feeling lonely. I told him I’d never get that lonely. It was sad.”
“You know the kid, Adam?”
Ms Landsmere blew out a long breath. “I always felt sorry for Adam … eyes like a lost puppy. I’d see him outside sometimes on the back patio. I don’t think I ever saw that kid when he didn’t have one of those e-whatevers in his hands, phone, tablet, computer. He’d sit there for hours and peck at them like a zombie chicken.”
“Eli Ku
biac ever talk about Adam with you?”
A shrug. “It was usually a sigh, like ‘What’ll I do with this kid?’ But last year I saw Eli out and he was all charged up, smiling. I said, ‘You’re looking merry today, Eli.’ He told me Adam had just gotten a scholarship. The man was floating in the clouds, he was so proud.” She paused. “I remember seeing Adam driving off to school that fall, his old car piled with suitcases and stuff. Then, about two months later, Adam was back on the patio and staring at e-things. And I never saw Eli grin again. At least until the day he hit on me.”
“Do you know where Adam Kubiac might be today?”
“I haven’t seen anyone over there since Eli passed. I figured Adam is staying with friends. It’s maybe not so nice a thing to say, but perhaps with Eli gone, it’s finally Adam’s time to shine.”
Novarro asked if we could use Ms Landsmere’s Wi-Fi, and the woman gave us her password and graciously went outside, saying the stones needed watering. We sat in the cool of the lovely home as Novarro tapped her tablet. After a minute she leaned back.
“I just ran a general localized search on the name Kubiac, not too common, right?” She clicked the screen with her nails. “Check this out.”
I moved close and read …
WELL-KNOW LOCAL AUTO DEALER DIES
A cleaning woman entering a room at the Redstone Motel on the eastern edge of Scottsdale was dismayed to find the body of Elijah Kubiac, 58, whose regional chain of automotive dealerships numbered as many as eight a decade ago. Police are investigating the death, but find no evidence of foul play. His appearance was a familiar one on television, Mr Kubiac often a spokesman for his dealerships. He was known for his generosity and charitable giving, and was a member of several clubs and foundations in both Scottsdale, where he made his home, and throughout Arizona. He leaves one son, Adam T. Kubiac. Services will be at …
“Brief freakin’ article,” Novarro said. “And why no follow-up stories? I remember the guy’s face from commercials some years back, big fake grin, fluffy toupee, ‘Come to my dealership and I’ll sell you a car for less than it cost to make it’ … that kind of spiel. Why nothing after this little blurb?”
“Scottsdale,” I said. “That’s where big money hangs out, right?”
“Ho’odona’t dineha. A-hao’te.”
“Which means?”
“Ritzy and glitzy and white as snow.”
The head honcho at the Scottsdale Investigative Division was a trim, neat, imperially mustached man named Diego Ibarra. He and Novarro knew one another, and I figured with so many municipalities jammed together in one valley, local law enforcement entities had to keep close contact.
“Ahhh,” Ibarra said, studying the article Novarro had copied. He looked uncomfortable. “Mister Kubiac.”
“Seems strange nothing else was ever noted, Diego. The news coverage just died. Like Kubiac.”
Ibarra sat back in his desk, sighed. “You know these type of moments, Detective Novarro. A prominent citizen passes away. There was no reason for suspicion of foul play. Publicity of additional facts serves no one but the gossip mongers.”
“There were tawdry aspects is what you’re saying.”
“He gave to the community, Detective Novarro. A big donor to civic organizations.”
“Come on, Diego,” Novarro prompted. “What really went down?”
Ibarra stood and crossed the room to a filing cabinet, reached deep, returned with a file folder. He pulled out some photos. “The Redstone has individual units clustered around a parking lot and courtyard. It’s expensive, and well known as a place where the errant spouses of Scottsdale go to, well … be errant. Maid went in to do cleaning at ten, found this …”
Novarro and I leaned close and flipped through a dozen shots. It was a familiar scene to a homicide detective: a naked body on the floor beside a bed, dried froth dribbled from the mouth and across the chest, eyes open to a cold nothingness. The room was dressed for a party, several tumbled bottles of top-shelf liquor on a dresser, another on the TV, flanked by a baggie of what I took to be weed. Several hashmarks of white powder were atop the desk.
“Coke?” I asked, holding up the photo.
“Heroin. Almost pure and laced with fentanyl. A nasty mix and given its strength and the amount of alcohol in Kubiac’s system – plus some Oxy – he simply OD’d.”
“His record … was this unexpected?”
Ibarra let out a long breath. “Mr Kubiac had loads of money and perhaps too little to do once he sold his franchises. He liked women and parties. He had been pulled over twice with women in the car – a Jag – and maybe too much to drink.”
“No bust, though. He received a warning. Or was driven home.”
“He was a big contributor to the police fund.”
I studied the photos. “There’s too much hooch here for one person.”
“A witness at the motel heard a commotion, a broken bottle around four a.m., looked out the window. She saw a woman scurrying away from the unit, almost running. The witness was an elderly lady and said the woman looked like a cheap whore, her words. We never found her.”
“Anything say robbery?”
“Kubiac had over three grand in his wallet and a Rolex on his wrist, a twenty-grand model.”
“Does kind of rule out robbery,” Novarro noted. “Lotta money.”
“Chump change to Eli Kubiac,” Ibarra said. “Rumor had it Eli was worth around twenty million bucks.”
Novarro and I shot each other a glance.
We returned to Phoenix, Novarro driving as we batted around ideas. “You think someone switched him up to death-strength heroin?” she said.
“In this case I’m believing the worst. We’ve got to find Adam Kubiac.”
“How many reasons do we have to talk to him?” Novarro said, feeding me the line.
“Twenty million,” I answered, not missing a beat.
44
We returned to HQ and the conference room, me staring out the window in thought, she googling the name Kubiac, fishing for background.
“It’s all stuff relative to the father,” she said, scrolling down the screen. “Automotive dealerships. Several still bear his name, so—”
My phone rang from the table.
“Carson, Harry.”
My heart skipped a beat. “You’ve got something?”
“Unless there are other Maruyamas out there. I’ll send it now.”
“Hang on.” I turned to Novarro. “You have a personal e-mail account?” I didn’t want Harry to send it via the PPD system, which seemed to have been compromised.
“Of course.” She called out her addy.
“Pressing send,” Harry said. “I hope we nailed it.”
“We?”
A low chuckle. “Me and the sisters. Don’t ask.”
The numbers were on Novarro’s computer screen a minute later, and she relayed the information: thirty-one calls from a Maruyama in Phoenix to a number in Osaka. Novarro tapped up the international calling sheet from her desk, first entering the US exit code, then the country code for Japan, 81. She handed me the handset.
“Your buddy got the info. You win the call.” She turned on the intercom as I put the receiver to my face and heard a clicking of distant connections.
Seven thousand miles away, a phone rang.
“Konnichiwa,” a female voice said. In my haste I’d stupidly forgotten the language barrier.
“Uh, yes,” I ventured, “is a Catherine Maruyama there?”
A pause, then heavily accented English. “Who is call?” I heard suspicion.
“Carson Ryder, I’m working with the Phoenix Police Department.”
An intake of breath. “Is trouble?”
“I need to speak with Ms Maruyama, please. There’s nothing wrong.” I kept my voice light and friendly, hoping amiability translated into Japanese.
The sound of a receiver being covered, a brief muffled exchange. A male voice came on the line.
“Hel
lo? This is Saito Maruyama. Can I help you?” Mildly accented English, the voice refined with Brit undertones.
“I’m with the Phoenix Police Department, Mr Maruyama. It’s kind of a long story but—”
“Phoenix? I was in Phoenix two months ago. What is wrong?”
“Nothing, Mr Maruyama. Like I said, it’s a long story. Is Catherine Maruyama there?”
“My daughter. She is right here.”
Maruyama was alive. I looked at Novarro, miming wiping her brow and whispering Whew.
“May I speak to Ms Maruyama, please?”
Another covering of the phone, replaced by a youthful female voice, perplexed. “This is Catherine Maruyama.”
I gave my particulars, only adding to her perplexation. Then into the darker details. “We’re investigating several murders Ms Maruyama. Dr Leslie Meridien, among them.”
A startled pause. “Oh, my god. That’s terrible.”
“You were a patient of hers, were you not?”
“For seven months. Dr Meridien was a wonderful person and helped me with some difficulties I was having at the time.” Intellect covers distance and I heard it in her voice and diction.
“May I ask if you knew Bradley Shackleton and Geraldo Trujillo?”
A pause. “They were in one of my groups.”
“Darnell Mashburn?”
Another pause. “In the same group. We didn’t meet on any schedule, just kinda whenever we were all in the same area. We’d meet at Dr Meridien’s, then maybe go to a park or coffee shop or that kind of thing. Very informal.”
“Darnell had a kind of crush on you, didn’t he?”
“He was sweet. Then, a while back, he … changed. It was sad.”
“How about Ben Novarro? Did you know him?”
A pause for recollection. “A Native American?”
“Yes.”
“I heard someone mention the name. The groups were loose and sometimes people were in a couple of them. I think he was in another one …” She paused in recollection. “There was a girl, Rosa, or something, who was briefly in a group of mine and talked about a Native American she’d met at another group session. She said he was dreamy and real smart, that’s all I remember. The girl was kinda of weird, but we all were, basically, in our own ways. It’s why we were there.”