Jonathan Kellerman_Petra Connor 01

by Billy Straight

  And now the day had arrived. Ta dum!

  “Good to see you, Scott.”

  “You too.” The kid lied miserably. His mouth trembled and he sniffed. Red nose. Those eyes. Stupid little idiot.

  “How’ve you been?”

  “Great. What can I do for you, Detective?”

  Stu put his arm around Wembley’s bony shoulder. “Actually, quite a bit, Scott. Let’s find somewhere to talk.”

  He ushered Wembley to a bench and said, “I need information on Cart Ramsey. Discreet information.”

  “All I know is what’s been on the news.”

  “No rumors around the lot?”

  “Why would there be?”

  “Because no one gossips more than industry folk.”

  “Well, if there is gossip, I haven’t heard it.”

  “You’re telling me no one’s said anything about Ramsey?”

  Wembley chewed his cheeks. “Just . . . whatever everyone else is saying.”

  “Which is?”

  “He did her.”

  “Why do they say that, Scott?”

  “He beat her up, right? Maybe he wanted to get back together and she said no.”

  “That your theory or someone else’s?”

  “Everyone’s. Isn’t it yours?” said Wembley. “Otherwise, why would you be here?”

  “Does Ramsey have any sort of reputation?”

  Wembley snickered. “Not as an actor—no. I don’t know shit about him. The whole thing doesn’t interest me.”

  “Well,” said Stu. “Now it does, Scott. It interests you a lot.”

  CHAPTER

  19

  I had a pretty good time today, getting that corn and being left alone. I’ll go back to Five, make some plans.

  I head back toward the open fence, see someone waving.

  The geeky grandparents. Standing right where the road curves off.

  The old guy holds up his camera. They’re both waving, and the woman calls out, “Young man? Could you help us for a second?”

  I don’t want to attract attention by running away or acting weird, so I go over to them.

  “Hey, big fella,” says the guy. What a dork. He’s wearing a Dodgers T-shirt and shorts and socks and shoes and a light blue hat. His skin’s pink and he has a big lumpy nose, like the guys at the Sunnyside.

  His camera is huge, in a big black case full of buckles and snaps, and his wife’s got one just like it.

  “Sorry to bother you, my friend, but you seem like a nice guy,” he says, giving me a smile full of yellow teeth.

  “Thank you, sir.”

  “Polite,” she says, smiling. “Not everyone we’ve met is polite. I’m sure he can do it, honey.”

  He clears his throat and taps his camera case. “This is a Nikon camera from Japan. My wife and I were wondering if you could do us a favor and take a picture of us, so we could have one together.”

  “Sure.”

  “Thanks a lot, son.” He reaches into his shorts and takes out a dollar bill.

  “You don’t have to pay me,” I say.

  “No, dear, we insist,” says the wife, and even though her eyes are hidden behind sunglasses, something changes on her face—just for a second, her mouth turns down. Like she’s sad. Full of pity. Like she knows I need the money.

  I’m thinking, maybe if I look poor enough, she’ll give me more, and I hunch over a little but all she does is pat my hand.

  “Take it. Please.”

  I pocket the dollar.

  “All righty,” he says. “So now we’ve got a business deal.” More teeth. “Okay, hon, where’s the best spot?”

  “Right where we were, the sun’s perfect.” She points and walks up the hill a bit, stamps her foot, and touches her own camera. Why they need two cameras is a good question, but I guess some people don’t trust machines. Or their memory. They probably want to make sure they capture everything they see, maybe to show the grandkids.

  She says, “Okay!” Kind of sings it out. She’s short, skinny, wears a man’s jacket over her Dodgers T-shirt and green pants.

  He takes his camera out of his case and gives it to me and goes up next to her. It looks expensive, and I’m nervous holding it.

  “Don’t worry,” she says. “It’s simple, and you look like a smart young man.”

  I look at them through the viewfinder. They’re too far away, so I come closer.

  “It’s preset, son,” he says. “Just push the button.”

  I push. Nothing happens. I try again. Still nothing.

  “What’s the matter?” he says.

  I shrug. “I pushed it.”

  She says, “Oh no, did it jam again?”

  “Let me take a look,” he says, coming down again. I give him the camera and he turns it around. “Uh-oh. Same problem.”

  “Oh, for Pete’s sake,” she says, stomping her foot. “I told you it was a good idea to bring mine along. When we get back home, first thing I’m doing is going straight back to that dealer and tell him to fix it right this time!”

  He gives me an embarrassed smile, like he doesn’t like her bossing him around.

  She joins us, smelling of some kind of soap. He smells of onions.

  “Sorry, sweetie, this will just take a minute,” she says, opening her camera case and taking out . . . something big and black but not a camera—it’s a gun. I can’t believe it, and all of a sudden she’s jabbing it really hard into my belly button, and I can’t breathe and she’s pushing it there, like she’s trying to force it right through me, and her other hand’s around my neck squeezing hard. She didn’t look that strong, but she’s really strong, and he’s holding me, too, pinning my arms to my sides.

  They’re on both sides of me, like they’re my parents and the three of us are a family, only I can’t breathe and they’re hurting me and she’s saying, “Now, just come with us, street trash, and don’t make the wrong move or we’ll kill you, we really will.”

  Smiling again. Not pity, something else—the same look that was all over Moron’s face before he went for the tools.

  They lead me toward the open fence. They know about it too—not a secret place! I’m so stupid!

  Her face is like a mask, but he’s breathing hard, excited, his mouth’s open, his skin’s pink as a pencil eraser, the onion smell’s blowing on my face, and they’re dragging me toward Five, and he’s saying, “You’re gonna get done, kid. Like you never been done.”

  CHAPTER

  20

  Petra stayed at her desk, calling her phone company contact about Lisa’s records and being assured they’d arrive today. She began the preliminary paperwork on the court order for the extended records, phoned the coroner and the criminalists. No medical findings yet, no prints retrieved from Lisa’s clothes or body or jewelry. Maybe a glove, the tech opined. Fortified by vending-machine coffee, Petra checked all the approved police tow yards and consulted rosters of found autos. Lisa’s Porsche wasn’t listed.

  Time to go back on Schoelkopf’s scut line. She’d already talked to dozens of detectives, covering the day watch from Van Nuys to Devonshire, then West L.A. Now she started in on Pacific.

  Each time the same reaction: You’ve got to be kidding.

  Everyone knew who the bad guy was on this one. But they also understood brass-generated busywork, and after the laughter died down, she had their immediate sympathy.

  The end result: no similars. Meanwhile, Cart Ramsey got to hit golf balls, soak in the hot tub, enjoy the chrome and polish of his little car museum while his ex-wife was laid out on the coroner’s table getting her face peeled off.

  The Mercedes was probably scrubbed and steamed and vacuumed cleaner than an operating room.

  She thought about Lisa’s body, that gaping blood-filled hole in the abdomen, protruding entrails, what had been done to the young woman’s face, and wondered what it took to turn love to that.

  Could it happen anytime passions ran high, or did the guy have to be twisted? />
  Domestic bliss, domestic blood. There’d been one moment—an eye-blink instant—when she’d been capable of murder.

  Why was she thinking about the past?

  Deal with it, kid.

  She tortured herself with memories.

  A twenty-five-year-old art student pretending cool but so blindly, dumbly in love she’d have been willing to shed her skin for Nick. That rush of feeling, passion like she’d never felt before. Lovemaking till she couldn’t walk. Postcoital pillow talk, lying flank to flank, her vagina still humming.

  Nick had seemed such a good listener. It was only later she figured out it was phony. He kept quiet because he refused to give her anything of himself.

  She told him everything: growing up motherless, the irrational guilt she felt about causing her mother’s death, driving her father crazy to the point where boarding schools were the only solution, half of her adolescence spent in musty shared rooms, the other girls giggling and smoking, talking about guys, sometimes masturbating, Petra could tell by the rustle of comforters.

  Petra, the weird, silent girl from Arizona, just lying there, thinking about killing her mother.

  She’d entrusted Nick with the secret because this was true love.

  Then one night she told him a new secret: Guess what, honey? Patting her tummy.

  She’d expected surprise, maybe some initial resentment, knew he’d melt eventually because he loved her.

  His eyes froze and he turned white. The fury. Glaring at her across the dinner table with contempt she’d never imagined. The special meal she’d prepared just sitting there, his favorites—ostensibly to celebrate, but maybe deep down she’d known he wouldn’t be pleased, maybe the veal and the gnocchi, the twenty-dollar Chianti classico, had been nothing more than bribes.

  He just sat there, not moving, not talking, those thin lips she’d once thought aristocratic so bloodless, the hateful mouth of an old, nasty man.

  Nick—

  How could you, Petra!

  Nick, honey—

  You, of all people! How could you be so stupid—you know what childbirth does!

  Nick—

  Fuck you!

  If she’d had a gun then . . .

  She opened her eyes, realized for the first time that they’d been closed. Squad room noise blew back at her, the other detectives busy doing their jobs.

  What she needed to do.

  She got back on the phone, prepared to waste more time.

  But four Pacific detectives later, something did come up.

  A three-year-old unsolved cutting of a pretty blond girl on the southern tip of Venice, near the marina, handled by a D-II named Phil Sorensen, who said, “You know, when I heard about the Ramsey girl, it struck me, but ours was a German girl, Lufthansa stewardess on vacation, and our leads pointed to an Austrian boyfriend, baggage handler, returned to Europe before we could talk to him. We put wants out with the Austrian police, Interpol, all that good stuff, never found him.”

  “What made him a suspect?” said Petra.

  “The girlfriend the vic was traveling with—another stew—said he showed up unannounced at their hotel all upset because the vic—Ilse Eggermann’s her name—had left Vienna without telling him. Ilse told the friend they’d fought a lot, the boyfriend had a bad temper, roughed her up, she dumped him. The last straw was having to work in first class with a black eye. Still, when the boyfriend showed up in L.A., he was able to convince her to go out with him. They left at nine P.M. She was found at four A.M., body dumped in a parking lot near Ballona Creek. We traced the boyfriend’s flight—he’d come in on Lufthansa the previous morning, employee discount. No checked-in luggage, and he never registered at any hotels or motels here in L.A.”

  “So he intended it to be a short trip,” said Petra. “Accomplished what he wanted and split.”

  “That’s what it looked like.” Sorensen sounded like an older man. Gentle voice, slow talker, slightly hesitant. Stew, not flight attendant.

  “How was Ilse dressed when you found her?” said Petra.

  “A nice dress, dark—blue or black. Black, I think. Very pretty girl; she looked very nice. Considering.” Sorensen coughed. “No sexual assault. We didn’t need to sherlock to establish her being with the boyfriend—Karlheinz Lauch—that night. The waiter who served them dinner, Antoine’s on the pier at Redondo Beach, he remembered them, because they didn’t eat or talk much. Or tip. We figured Lauch was angling for reconciliation, it didn’t work, he got upset, drove her somewhere, killed her, and dumped her. What he drove, I don’t know, because we could never trace a rental car and he had no known associates in California.”

  Sorensen’s voice had risen a bit. Lots of details at his fingertips for a three-year-old crime. This one had stayed with him.

  “She was found at four,” said Petra. “Any idea when she was killed?”

  “The guesstimate was two, two-thirty.”

  Early morning, just like Lisa. Dumped in a parking lot. And the Ballona Creek marshlands were a county park, like Griffith. “Lots of stab wounds?”

  “Twenty-nine—clear overkill, which would also fit the boyfriend. Add the domestic-violence history, and it seemed pretty clear. Sound at all like yours?”

  “There are definite points of similarity, Detective Sorensen,” said Petra, keeping her voice steady. Looked at a certain way, it was a damn Xerox.

  “Well, you know these guys,” he said. “The woman-haters. Tend to fall into patterns.”

  “True,” she said. “Where did this Lauch handle baggage?”

  “Vienna airport, but he had family in Germany. After the crime, he didn’t return to work or to his hometown. We checked with other airlines too, but no dice. He could have changed his name or just rabbited to some other country. Would have been nice to go over there and nose around personally, but you know the chance of prying a European trip out of the budget. So we had to rely on the Austrian police and the Germans, and they weren’t all that interested, because the crime took place here.”

  “If Lauch is working baggage under another name, he’s eligible for an employee discount,” said Petra. “Maybe he’s still flying back and forth.”

  “And ended up in L.A. again and did a repeat?”

  “I sure hope not, Phil, but with what you’ve told me, it looks like we’re going to have to check him out all over again. Could you please fax me his data?”

  “Give me an hour,” said Sorensen. “Wouldn’t that be something, the guy having that kind of nerve. Of course, first you’d have to establish Lauch was here when the Ramsey girl was killed, then you’d have to connect him with her—meanwhile, you’ve got DV on the husband. Sounds like fun.”

  “Big fun. Thanks for your help, Phil.”

  “Hey,” he said, “if by some miracle it ends up helping you, it’ll help me, too. It always bothered me, not being able to close that one. She was a nice-looking girl, and he turned her into something horrible.”

  It was 1 P.M., time to start looking for Darrell/Darren the film editor, but now she wanted to wait around until Karlheinz Lauch’s data came through the fax.

  The Ilse Eggermann news was a surprise, but Sorensen was right: The points of similarity could be explained by domestic-violence patterns, the same old tragedies, all the way back to Othello.

  Or statistical fluke—seek and ye shall find something. Over a three-year-period, L.A. saw well over three thousand homicides. One similar in all that time wasn’t the stuff of the Guinness Book.

  Meanwhile, she’d reach the rest of the Pacific detectives, do follow-up on some Valley D’s she’d missed the first time around, maybe pay another telephonic condolence call to Lisa’s family in Chagrin Falls, see if Mrs. Boehlinger was available, find out when the parents were coming out to see what was left of their daughter.

  Did Mrs. B. feel as strongly about Ramsey as her husband?

  Petra sorted out her own feelings about the guy: providing an alibi right off, letting them know about Lisa’s d
rug problems, going over their heads to Schoelkopf. The subtle Don Juan stuff he’d thrown her way.

  It smelled of ego, real narcissism. Did that make him someone who’d go berserk if a woman angered or rejected him?

  Hard to say, but in her mind, Ramsey had done nothing to dispel suspicion. Despite Ilse Eggermann, the actor was clearly the main man.

  She played out a scenario in her head: Lisa, like Ilse Eggermann—like so many battered women—had somehow allowed her ex to talk her into a date. Renewal of old passions, or maybe Ramsey’d tossed her the ultimate female bait: the chance to talk things out.

  Because once upon a time there’d been chemistry between them, and chemicals didn’t disappear, they just faded. Because memories could be selective, and women kept hoping men would change.

  A date . . . where? Not at a restaurant—somewhere private. Romantic. Secluded.

  Not the Calabasas house, too risky. Even if Greg Balch was lying for his boss, someone else could have taken note—the guard, a neighbor. The maid.

  Petra remembered how squirrelly Estrella Flores had been. Definitely worth a recontact, but how to do it without alerting Ramsey? And something basic needed to be added to the list: talk to the night-shift guard at RanchHaven. A glaring omission. The hands-off policy was really mucking things up.

  So many things to do . . . she returned to her last-date melodrama. Where would Ramsey have taken Lisa?

  Did he have another home, a weekend hideaway? Didn’t actors always have weekend places?

  The beach? The mountains? Arrowhead, Big Bear? Or up north—Santa Barbara, Santa Ynez. Lots of industry folks had gotten into the ranch thing . . .

  The beach would probably be Malibu. Waves crashing, smooth sand, what could be more romantic?

  She made a note to search records for every real estate parcel Ramsey owned.

  Go with the beach, for the moment. She pictured it: Ramsey and Lisa on an overstuffed sofa in some wood-and-glass thing on the sand. The three c’s: champagne, caviar, coke. Maybe a nicely hissing fireplace. Ramsey turning on the charm.

  Lisa responding? That sexy little black dress riding up on her thighs? Chemistry . . . helped along by fish eggs, Moët & Chandon, and Medellín’s finest? Or another kind of incentive: money. Lisa had a job, but Ramsey still provided the bulk of her income.