Jonathan Kellerman_Petra Connor 01

by Billy Straight

  “Any idea how much the checks were for?”

  Patsy blushed, no doubt recalling an indiscreet peek.

  “Anything you can tell us would be really helpful,” said Petra.

  “Seven thousand.”

  “A month?”

  Nod.

  Eighty-four thousand a year. Enough to pay the rent and some bills and have some fun, but not much of a dent in Ramsey’s seven-figure income. Still, things like that chafed. Paying money to someone you resented, someone who’d humiliated you on national television.

  It spelled tension, but was far from probable cause.

  So Lisa had thought Ramsey too old for her. He’d alluded to a generational rift too. “Did Lisa and Mr. Ramsey talk on the phone?”

  “Not that I ever saw.”

  “Is there anything else you can tell me, Patsy?”

  The maid shook her head and began to cry again. The uniforms on the balcony were watching the sunset, didn’t even bother to turn. “She was nice. Sometimes it was like we were more like friends—eating dinner together up here when she wasn’t going out. I know how to cook Thai, and she liked it.”

  “Did Lisa go out a lot?”

  “Sometimes two, three times a week, sometimes not for weeks.”

  “Where’d she go?”

  “She never really said.”

  “No idea at all?”

  “Movies, I guess. Screenings. She was a film editor.”

  “Who’d she work for?”

  “Empty Nest Productions—they’re over at Argent Studios in Culver City.”

  “When she went out, who was it with?”

  “Guys, I guess, but since I’ve been here she never brought them up here.”

  “She went down to meet them?”

  Patsy nodded, and Petra said, “But you assume they were guys.”

  “She was beautiful. Had been a beauty queen.” Patsy eyed the officers out on the balcony.

  “During the two months you worked here, none of her dates ever came up?”

  “One guy came up, but I don’t know if he was a date. She worked with him. I think his name was Darrell—a black guy.”

  “How many times did he come up?”

  “Twice, I think. Maybe it was Darren.”

  “When was this?”

  Patsy thought. “Maybe a month ago.”

  “Can you describe him?”

  “Tall, light-skinned—for a black guy, I mean. Short hair, neat dresser.”

  “Facial hair?”

  “No, I don’t think so.”

  “How old?”

  “I guess around forty.”

  Another older man. Patsy had a blank look in her eyes. The irony had eluded her.

  Lisa searching for Dad?

  “What was Lisa’s work schedule?”

  “She worked all hours,” said Patsy. “Whenever they called her, she had to be ready.”

  “And Mr. Ramsey never showed up here.”

  “Not when I was here.”

  “And no phone calls.”

  “Lisa hardly spoke to anyone on the phone—she didn’t like the phone, used to disconnect it so she could have peace and quiet.”

  “Okay,” said Petra. “So your day off is Sunday?”

  “Saturday night till Monday morning. When I got here at eight, Lisa was already gone. I thought maybe she got a night call. Then the officers showed up.”

  Patsy held herself tight and began to rock; coughed; gagged on her own saliva. Petra got her a Pellegrino water from the miniature white fridge. There were three more bottles in there, and fresh grapes, three cartons of nonfat raspberry yogurt, cottage cheese. Lean Cuisine in the freezer.

  Patsy drank. When she put the bottle down, Petra said, “You’ve been very helpful. I appreciate it.”

  “Whatever . . . I still can’t believe . . .” Patsy swiped at her eyes.

  “Now I’m going to ask you something tough, but I have to. Was Lisa into drugs?”

  “No—she—not that I saw.” The Pellegrino bottle shook.

  “Patsy, the first thing I’m going to do after we finish talking is search this apartment from top to bottom. If there’s dope here, I’ll find it. Personally, I don’t care if Lisa used. I’m Homicide, not Narcotics. But drugs lead to violence, and Lisa was murdered very violently.”

  “It wasn’t like that,” said Patsy. “She wasn’t a head. She used to sniff a little, but that was it.”

  “Any other drugs besides cocaine?”

  “Just some grass.” Downward glance. Meaning maybe Lisa had shared her cannabis with Patsy? Or the maid had pilfered?

  “She hardly used anything,” Patsy insisted. “It wasn’t regular.”

  “How often?”

  “I don’t know—I never actually saw it, the coke.”

  “What about the grass?”

  “Sometimes she’d smoke a joint while watching TV.”

  “Where’d she do the coke?”

  “Always in her room. With the door closed.”

  “How often?”

  “Not often—maybe once a week. Every two weeks. The only reason I know is I’d see powder on her dressing table. And sometimes she left a razor blade out and her nose was pink and she acted different.”

  “Different, how?”

  “Up. Hyper. Nothing crazy, just a little hyper.”

  “Grumpy?”

  Silence.

  “Patsy?”

  “Sometimes it made her a little moody.” The tiny woman curled up. “But basically, she was great.”

  Petra softened her tone. “So once a week. In her room.”

  “She never did it in front of me. I’m not into anything like that.” Patsy licked her lips.

  “Any idea where she got her drugs from?”

  “No way.”

  “She never said?”

  “Never.”

  “And there were no drug transactions up here?”

  “No way, never. I assumed at the studio.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “Because it’s all over the industry. Everyone knows that.”

  “Did Lisa tell you that?”

  “No,” said Patsy. “You just hear about it. It’s on TV all the time, right?”

  “Okay,” said Petra. “I’m going to look around now. Please wait a while longer.”

  She stood and looked toward the balcony. Beyond the railing, the sky was a strange, deep sapphire blue streaked with orange, and the two cops were transfixed. Suddenly, Petra heard traffic from Doheny. It had been there all along. She’d been wrapped up in work. Interview hypnosis.

  She went into Patsy’s bedroom first. A glorified closet, really, with a single bed, small oak dresser, and matching nightstand. Clothes from Target, the Gap, Old Navy. A portable TV sat on the dresser. Two books on cosmetology and an old copy of People in the nightstand drawer.

  One bathroom, shared by both women, cramped, with black and white tiles, a black whirlpool tub. Petra learned from the medicine cabinet that Patsy K. had taken cortisone for a skin rash and that Lisa Ramsey suffered from periodic yeast infections, for which an antifungal had been prescribed. No birth control pills, though maybe they were in a drawer. The rest was all over-the-counter mundanity. She went into Lisa’s bedroom.

  Twice as big as Patsy’s, but still far from generous. All in all, a tight little apartment. Maybe Lisa had wanted the refuge of simplicity after the pink hacienda.

  The bed was queen-size, with a bright red satin throw and black linens. Black lacquer furniture, a black cross-country-ski machine tucked in the corner, perfume bottles—Gio and Poison—on the dresser. Bare walls. Very tidy, just as Patsy had said.

  She found the dope in the bottom drawer of the bedroom dresser. White granules in a glassine envelope and another packet with three small, neatly rolled joints, tucked beneath ski sweaters and pants and other winter clothes. Still no birth control pills, no diaphragm. Maybe Lisa really had wanted peace and quiet.

  She tagged and bagged the dr
ugs, called over the cops from the balcony, showed them the cocaine, and asked them to get it over to Hollywood Evidence.

  Atop the dresser was a jewelry box full of shiny things. Mostly costume pieces, along with two strings of cultured pearls. So Lisa had been wearing her best stuff last night. Hot date? Petra moved on to the lower drawers.

  They bore Victoria’s Secret lingerie—alluring but not trashy—a couple of sensible plaid flannel nightshirts, cotton and silk underwear, T-shirts and shorts, sweaters and vests, and three pairs of crisply laundered made-in-France blue jeans from Fred Segal on Melrose. The wall-length closet was full of Krizia and Versus and Armani Exchange pantsuits, dresses, and skirts and blouses, sizes 4 to 6.

  Lots of black, some white, some red, a spot of beige, one bright green jacquard wraparound that stood out like a parrot in a dead tree. Thirty pairs of shoes were lined up in three precise rows on the floor of the closet, toes out. The pumps were all Ferragamo, the casual stuff Kenneth Cole. Two pairs of white New Balance running shoes, one nearly brand-new.

  In the nightstand drawer Petra found a Citibank checkbook, a Beverly Hills branch Home Savings passbook, and, tucked into the check register, the business card of a broker at Merrill Lynch in Westwood—Morad Ghadoomian—whose name and number she copied down.

  Three thousand dollars in the checking account, twenty-three thou plus some change in the savings account, with two conspicuous monthly deposits: the seven thousand spousal support and another thirty-eight hundred—probably film-editing salary checks.

  A pair of regular monthly withdrawals, too. Twenty-two hundred—that had to be rent—and twelve hundred, which Petra guessed was Patsy K.’s salary. Variable expenditures ranged from two to four thousand a month.

  Over eleven thou in each month, five, six out, leaving a nice sum to play with for a single girl. Taxes on the salary were already withheld. Those on the spousal support would probably soak up some of the gravy, and coke and designer duds could consume a lot more. But given the fact that Lisa had managed to stash away twenty-three thousand, Petra was ready to believe her dope habit hadn’t been monstrous.

  Occasional hits at home. Maybe at work, too, supplied by pals from the industry.

  In return for what?

  Ramsey was the prime suspect, but there were plenty of blanks to fill.

  She was finished by three-thirty; took down the name of a friend in Alhambra where Patsy K. would be staying, had the uniforms watch as the maid packed up her belongings.

  The next two hours were spent going door to door on Lisa’s floor and the two stories immediately above and below, and on the side streets that flanked the building. Of the few people home, no one had seen Lisa leave Sunday night or early Monday morning, nor had they spied the black Porsche.

  Five-thirty; now she had to try the Boehlingers again.

  Why hadn’t she let Stu do it? Ms. Samaritan. He hadn’t shown much gratitude.

  The smartest thing to do was return to the Hollywood station and use a department phone for the notification call, but she just didn’t feel like seeing the office again, and drove to her apartment on Detroit Avenue, just east of Park La Brea.

  Once inside, she tossed her jacket on a chair and realized she craved a cool drink. But instead of indulging herself, she called the Boehlinger home. Evening in Cleveland now. Busy signal. She hoped someone else hadn’t reached the family first.

  Taking a can of root beer out of the fridge, she kicked off her shoes and sat drinking at the dinette table. Contemplating dinner, though she wasn’t really hungry. Her father’s voice, gently prodding, reverbed in her head. Nutrition, Pet. Got to keep those amino acids nice and rich.

  He’d raised her since infancy, had a right to mother. When she thought about his cruel, rotting death, it hurt so bad. Quickly, she chased his picture from her mind, but the resulting blank space felt horrible, too.

  Nutrition . . . force down a sandwich. Dry salami on stale ciabatta, mustard and mayo, something green—a kosher pickle, that qualified. There you go, Food Police.

  Fixing a plate but not eating, she tried the Boehlingers a third time. Still busy. Could the story have hit the news that fast?

  She switched on the TV, channel-surfed. Nothing. The radio, preset to KKGO, offered her someone’s symphony while she nibbled the stiff sandwich.

  Her own tight little apartment. Less than half the rent of Lisa’s.

  She and Nick had started out sharing a West L.A. flat, but right after the impulsive Vegas wedding, they’d leased a much bigger place. Up-and-down studio on Fountain near La Cienega, leaded windows, parquet floors, courtyard with fountain, gorgeous Spanish architecture. More than enough space for both their workspaces. Nick insisted he needed room to stretch, and claimed the master bedroom for his studio.

  They’d never furnished—lived with boxes and crates, slept on a mattress in the smaller bedroom. Petra’s easel and paints ended up downstairs in the breakfast room. Eastern exposure. She dealt with morning glare by drawing the blinds.

  Now her easel was in the living room and she still had almost no furniture. Why bother; she was seldom here except to sleep, had no visitors.

  The triplex she lived in was just south of Sixth Street, a charming old place with thick walls, high ceilings, crown moldings, waxed oak floors, moderate crime in the neighborhood. At eight hundred a month, a bargain, because the landlord, a Taiwanese immigrant named Mary Sun, was thrilled to have a cop tenant. Confided, “This city, all the blacks, very bad.”

  Museum Row was a short stroll, as were the galleries on La Brea, though Petra had yet to visit any of them.

  When she had Sundays off, she scanned the papers for auctions, flea markets, antique shows, even garage sales, when they were in good neighborhoods.

  Pickings were slim. Most people thought their garbage was treasure, and she was more of a browser than a buyer. But the few things she had bought were good.

  Lovely iron headboard, probably French, with an impossible-to-fake patina. Two birch nightstands with floral stenciling and yellow marble tops. The old woman she’d bargained with had claimed they were English, but Petra knew they were Swedish.

  A few old bottles on the ledge of the kitchen window; a bronze statue of a little boy with a small dog, also French.

  And that was about it.

  She got up and put her plate on the counter. The tile was clean but old and cracked in a few places. The kitchen at Fountain had featured a Euro range and blue granite counters.

  Cold counters.

  Nick had two ways of making love. Plan A was telling her how much he loved her, caressing her softly, sometimes too softly, but she never protested and eventually he got around to exerting the right pressure. Kissing her neck, her eyes, her fingertips as he kept up the romantic patter, how beautiful she was, how special, what a privilege it was to be inside her.

  Plan B was hoisting her up on blue granite, hiking her skirt, sliding off her panties while managing to unzip himself, placing both hands on her shoulders, and plunging in like an enemy.

  In the beginning, she’d been excited by both A and B.

  Later, she lost her taste for B.

  Later, all he wanted was B.

  Suddenly, the remains of the salami and the bread and the mustard and the mayo looked like lab supplies. Pushing the plate away, she picked up the phone.

  This time, a man with a cultured, middle-aged voice answered.

  “Dr. Boehlinger.”

  Remote but calm. So they hadn’t found out.

  Petra’s heart was racing; would telling the mother have been worse?

  “Doctor, this is Detective Connor of the Los Angeles Police De—”

  “Lisa.”

  “Sir?”

  “It’s Lisa, right?”

  “I’m afraid so, Doctor. She—”

  “Dead?”

  “Unfortunately, Doc—”

  “Dear God—goddamnit, goddamnit, that bastard, that goddamn bastard, that bastard!”

  �
�Who, Doc—”

  “Who else? Him, that piece of garbage she married. She told us if anything happened it would be him—oh God, my little girl! Oh Jesus! No, no, no!”

  “I’m sorry—”

  “I’ll kill him. Oh Jesus, no, my little girl, my poor little girl!”

  “Doctor,” she said, but he kept on. Ranting and cursing and pledging vengeance in a voice that managed, eerily, to remain cultured.

  Finally, he ran out of breath.

  “Dr. Boeh—”

  “My wife,” he said, incredulously. “She’s out tonight, goddamn Hospital Auxiliary meeting. Usually I’m the one who’s out and she’s in. I knew Lisa was worried about him, but how could it come to this!”

  Then silence.

  “Dr. Boehlinger.”

  No answer.

  “Sir? Are you all right?”

  More silence, then a very small, strangled “What?” and she knew he’d been crying, was trying to hide it.

  “What?” he said.

  “I know it’s a horrible time, Doctor, but if we could talk for a—”

  “Yes, yes, let’s talk. At least until my wife comes home—then . . . Jesus . . . what time is it—ten-forty. Just got home myself. Saving fools’ lives while my little—”

  Petra nearly recoiled from the loud, terrible laugh on the other end. Needing to reel him in, she said, “Are you a surgeon, sir?”

  “Emergency room surgeon. I run the ER at Washington U. Hospital. How did he do it?”

  “Pardon?”

  “How? Method. Did he strangle her? Usually husbands shoot or strangle their wives. Least that’s what I’ve seen—how the hell did he do it?”

  “She was stabbed, sir, but we don’t know yet who—”

  “Oh yes you do, Miss—I don’t remember your name—you certainly do know, I’m telling you, so you know. It was him. Don’t doubt it for a goddamn minute. Don’t waste your time looking anywhere else, just haul in that piece of garbage and you’ll have it solved.”

  “Sir—”

  “Don’t you understand what I’m telling you?” Boehlinger shouted. “He beat her—she called us and told us he beat her. A goddamn actor. One step above a whore! Too damn old for her, but when he hit her, that was the last straw!”