True Detectives

by Jonathan Kellerman

  What he encountered was a short, bald, stubby-limbed, bullnecked man in his late fifties with a pie-tin face blued by stubble, sitting behind a plywood desk in a no-window hole at a factory in a Sylmar industrial park.

  Dmitri was maybe five five, at least two hundred, lots of that muscle, but also some fat. Dark brown laser-sharp eyes never stopped moving.

  Two hundred biggies, but the guy wasn’t spending it on wardrobe. Short-sleeved pale blue shirt, baggy gray pleated pants, gray New Balances. Aaron came to learn that it was Dmitri’s uniform.

  Cheap digital watch.

  Fake-o tongue-and-groove covered all four walls of the office. Same for the door, giving the place a claustrophobic feel.

  That first meeting, he’d played it safe clothes-wise, not knowing what kind of rapport he’d have to develop with the client.

  That kind of individual attention was one of the many keys to Aaron’s success.

  Variety was what he liked about the job. One day you might be meeting at Koi with a pathetically tucked, youth-chasing record producer still thinking he could pull off hip-hop. Chopsticking miso black cod and waiting as the client struggled for nonchalance, inside he’s rotting from insecurity as he fumbles to explain his reason for hiring a detective.

  Finally the confession: He needs to know, is his twenty-seven-year-old fourth wife blowing the good-looking guy someone saw her with at Fred Segal, or is Darrett really a gay hairdresser she took along as a shopping buddy?

  Situation like that, you don’t dress down to the client’s level but you don’t wear a suit. Aaron met the poor fool wearing indigo Diesel jeans, a slate-colored, retro Egyptian cotton T-shirt from VagueLine, unstructured black linen jacket, perforated black Santoni driving shoes.

  The following day, he was at a downtown law firm, corporate client talking through a six-hundred-dollar-an-hour mouthpiece, needing someone to check out the goings-on at a Temple Street construction site where tools and building materials were disappearing at an alarming rate. For that one, Aaron chose a navy pin-striped Paul Smith made-to-measure, pearl-gray Ferré shirt, maroon Sego tie, blue pocket square, brown kidskin Magli loafers.

  Enjoying the feeling of good threads because tomorrow, he’d be made up like a skuzzy, psycho homeless bum, wheeling a shopping cart past the excavation.

  For Aaron’s first meeting with Mr. Dmitri, he selected an olive Zegna Soft three-button he’d found at the outlet in Cabazon, maize button-collar shirt and brown linen tie from Barneys, bittersweet chocolate Allen-Edmonds wingtips.

  For all Mr. Dmitri noticed, Aaron could’ve pranced in wearing leotards and a codpiece.

  Guy was ready to offer him the job, knew Aaron’s rates, including the premium expense allowance, had a big fat retainer check faceup on the desk.

  Big fat retainer.

  “May I ask who referred you, sir?”

  Dmitri picked up something that resembled a Rubik’s Cube but had about twenty surfaces to it and squares embossed with Greek letters. Without glancing at the numbers, he whirled rapidly, checked out the result, put it back down.

  “Certainly, you may ask.” Foghorn voice. Dmitri’s accent turned it into Syertenly you mayyesk.

  Smiling.

  “Who referred you, sir?”

  Dmitri said, “Serinus Canaria.”

  Another foreign guy? Didn’t ring a bell. “I’m sorry, sir, but that doesn’t—”

  Dmitri said, “Common canary.”

  Aaron stared.

  “Little bird,” said Dmitri. No more smile. “You want the job or no?”

  Aaron glanced around the office for signs of some special interest in ornithology. Nothing on the hideous paneling except curling posters of Mr. Dmitri’s patented SoundMyte speaker in “new-age designer colors.”

  Aaron said, “Tell me about the job.”

  “Good answer, Mr. Fox.”

  The first assignment had been shockingly simple—pilfering from Dmitri’s shipping bay. The culprit had to be one of six clerks, and within thirty-six hours Aaron had the idiot on hidden cam slipping speakers into four backpacks, stashing one after the other into the trunk of his Camry.

  Slam-dunk, three-thousand-dollar tab. Aaron wondered why a man of Mr. Dmitri’s technical abilities had bothered to hire out.

  Testing Aaron?

  If so, he’d passed, because the second gig arrived two months later and it was anything but simple.

  One of Dmitri’s secretaries was concerned that her seventeen-year-old honor-student daughter was “fooling around” with a gangbanger named Hector George Morales.

  “Find out, Mr. Fox. I’ll take it from there.”

  “Nice of you to do that for an employee, sir.”

  “Here’s the check.”

  Morales turned out to be a serious badass, third-generation Mexican Mafia, with a five-page juvey sheet Aaron cadged out of an LAPD records clerk using a hundred-dollar bribe. Ten additional pages recounted a pattern of adult felonies. Morales was suspected of several murders but had only been convicted of a single ADW, serving half of a ten-year sentence at Chino. Thirty-three years old, the fool hung out with extremely bad guys in clear violation of his parole.

  Aaron caught him and honor-student-but-not-so-smart Valerie Santenegro on video emerging from an East L.A. motel near the county coroner’s office, reported to Mr. Dmitri, and offered to use his LAPD contacts to get Hector busted.

  “Good idea, Mr. Fox.”

  Hector got sent back up for another ten and Valerie was shipped to Dallas to live with her married sister’s family.

  Mr. Dmitri said, “Good,” and peeled off a wad of bills.

  Ten extra hundreds. “What’s this, sir?”

  “Appreciation, Mr. Fox. Go buy more fancy shirts.”

  Over the past six months, Aaron had handled two additional assignments for the Russian: industrial espionage involving a competitor that took him to Eugene, Oregon, for three weeks of serious high-tech observation, and another in-house theft at the Sylmar factory, this one involving truck drivers.

  Every suspect turned up guilty, which was no big surprise. Guy like Dmitri didn’t hire you unless he had a pretty good idea what was going on. Aaron’s business, in general, posed few whodunits, lots of prove-its.

  The fifth case was different.

  Dmitri played with his mega-Rubik’s. “You are well, Mr. Fox?”

  “Great.”

  “I’m thinking, perhaps I should call you Aaron.”

  “That would be fine, sir.”

  “You may call me Mr. Dmitri.”

  Aaron laughed.

  “Yes, it was a joke.” An edge to the Russian’s voice said, Don’t even think about getting familiar.

  “Aaron,” said Dmitri, as if testing out the sound. “From the Bible. Your parents are religious?”

  “Not really, sir.”

  “Moses’s brother.”

  “Yes, sir.” If you only knew.

  “This new one,” said Dmitri, “maybe we won’t learn the truth. One of my bookkeepers is Maitland Frostig. Master’s degree in mathematics but he prefers to work with addition and subtraction. Mr. Frostig always looks sad. More recently, he is apparently sadder. I say apparently because I don’t get involved with emotions. This year, the Christmas party, my wife said, ‘That man is extremely depressed. Like we used to be in Moscow.’ I looked at Maitland Frostig with ... new eyes and agreed. But I forgot about him.”

  Dmitri ran a hand over his shiny dome. “My wife did not forget. She is a psychiatrist. In Soviet Union they tried to make her inject dissidents with drugs. She refused and was sent to gulag. We never had children.”

  “I’m sorry, sir.”

  “Regina talks, I listen. I called in Maitland Frostig for a meeting, he says everything is okay. I tell him no it isn’t.” Small smile. “I say it with confidence because my wife is never wrong.”

  “In general, sir, that’s a good philosophy of life.”

  “You are not married.” Statement, not a que
stion. Aaron was certain Dmitri had hired someone to check him out before writing that first check. Maybe one day he’d find out who.

  “Haven’t found the right woman.”

  “Maybe,” said Dmitri said. “Anyway, I tell Maitland Frostig something is wrong and he tells me the story. He lives alone, a widower since his daughter is four. Now the daughter is twenty and she is missing. Caitlin Frostig. For fifteen months she is missing, the police do nothing.”

  “Someone that age,” said Aaron, “no sign of foul play, they’ll file it as a missing person and put it aside.”

  “I made some calls, got the file sent to Homicide detectives. Nothing.”

  “Which division?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Where was the girl last seen?”

  “Maitland’s house is in Venice.”

  “Twenty and still living at home.”

  “Yes.”

  “Venice is Pacific Division.”

  Shrug. Don’t bother me with details. “Police do nothing. My call was before I know you. Now I know you.”

  CHAPTER

  3

  Forget yesterday. What have you done for me today?

  Moe Reed—scarlet-faced, panting, biceps swelling to their full nineteen inches, put down the curl-bar and tried to catch his breath.

  His arms pounded. All of him pounded.

  Hundred forty pounds on the bar, four sets of fifteen reps each.

  No doubt some felonious scumbag in a prison yard was outlifting him at this very moment, but for one of the good guys, Moe figured he was doing okay.

  Job-wise was another story.

  Leaving the spare bedroom he’d set up as a home gym, he walked to the bathroom dripping sweat on the carpet, toweled off, stripped down, stepped into a cold shower.

  After as much of that as he felt like enduring, he cranked up the hot water and shampooed his wheat-colored crew cut. Soaped up the rest of his thick, iron-hard body and dried off.

  The soap part used to take longer. His own hands no longer aroused him. Not since Liz.

  He thought about calling her, just to hear her voice, remembered she’d just gotten back from that bone conference in Brussels, would be suffering through her usual jet lag, better to give her some time.

  By seven a.m. he was dressed in the usual blue blazer, khakis, white shirt and striped tie and black oxfords. Breakfast was hot tea, three bowls of Special K, and nonfat milk chased with a boneless chicken breast. By half past seven he was climbing into his latest heap, a rust-scarred Dodge. The drive from North Hollywood to West L.A. could be brutal and he wanted to be at his desk early, even if the detectives figured him for a hot dog who needed to prove himself.

  Forget yesterday. What have you done ...

  He’d been part of the team that closed the marsh murders, high-profile, great P.R. for the department. Success had earned him a nod from Deputy Chief Weinberg and quick approval of his transfer from Pacific to West L.A. Division.

  Since arriving at his new desk, the only attention he’d received from downtown were memos on the case he thought he was leaving behind.

  In Re: Caitlin Frostig.

  Nice girl, Caitlin. From all he’d gathered.

  For the last eight months she’d been nothing but a thorn in his butt.

  He’d made it to Pacific Homicide a year ago, not bad for twenty-eight, got assigned to a no-brainer gang shooting that he closed in seventy-four hours.

  His second case was Caitlin Frostig, already missing for half a year by the time her file got transferred from the unsolveds of an old D who dropped dead of a heart attack.

  Not a homicide case, strictly speaking. But someone with pull— Moe never found out who—wanted the case prioritized.

  He started the way you’re supposed to, with family. In Caitlin’s case that boiled down to a mumbly-nerd father who’d raised her alone since she was little but didn’t seem to know much about her beyond the obvious. The other man in her life was a boyfriend named Rory Stoltz who came across so wholesome that he set off Moe’s antennae.

  Also, nine times out of ten it’s Romeo who kills Juliet.

  This Romeo turned out to be alibied for the night Caitlin walked out of the Riptide. Moe dug into Stoltz’s background anyway, turned up nothing but All-American Lad, basically Caitlin’s male counterpart. Still living at home, waiting tables at the same place, studying hard. Both of them A students at Pepperdine, Malibu.

  Rory’s eyes got misty when he recounted meeting Caitlin in a philosophy class.

  Moe questioned him to the nth, nothing there.

  Caitlin’s dad let Moe search her room. No sign of foul play—none anywhere in the little frame house on Rialto, south side of Venice. Hip-ness encroached all around the neighborhood but Maitland Frostig hadn’t changed a doily since his wife’s death sixteen years before.

  Real quiet, real depressed guy. Moe got permission to trace Caitlin’s Discover card. No recent activity.

  No California Jane Doe DBs matched the missing girl and from what Moe could gather, she’d led an exceptionally boring life: studying hard, working at night, no social life other than Rory Stoltz. Moe rechecked Stoltz, came up empty. Turned to missing persons databases, working his way east until he’d covered the entire country. He even tried police departments in Mexico, for what that was worth.

  Last step was dealing with Canada, which was no easy feat, place was huge and the cops were cautious. Still, he managed to cover Our Northern Neighbor.

  Zilch. As Milo Sturgis would say.

  He talked to Sturgis about Caitlin, because the lieutenant had been his guru on the marsh murders.

  Be honest, Moses, Sturgis solved the marsh murders and you tailed along.

  Talk about continuing education; working with someone that seasoned was a semester at Homicide Harvard. Wanting to learn more from the lieutenant was the reason he’d requested transfer to West L.A.

  If he lost Caitlin Frostig along the way because her file bore a Pacific Division number, all the better.

  Once news of his request got out, the wisecracks from the other Pacific D’s were a pain in the butt.

  Changing your sexual orientation, Detective Reed?

  Is that eye shadow? Or just too much Ecstasy at that Boystown dance club, what’s it called, oh yeah, Do Me Bob.

  Don’t ask, don’t tell. Most of all, please don’t swell.

  Moe ignored them. When he’d started with Sturgis, to be honest, there was that initial discomfort.

  Hard to believe a big, gruff guy like that was ... who cared what people did in private, the thing was the job and Sturgis did the job.

  Some years—lots of years—the lieutenant ended up with the best close record in the department.

  Moe let the jokes sail past. If the transfer didn’t come through, staying here would be hell.

  It came through.

  The Frostig file traveled with him.

  Second day at his new desk, he left the big detective room and knocked on the doorjamb of the tiny office set well away from the big detective room.

  Sturgis was in there, unlit cigar in his mouth, big feet on his desk, reviewing what looked to be cold cases.

  “What?”

  Moe told him.

  Sturgis said, “Sounds like you’ve done everything.”

  “That’s what I thought, but any suggestions, Loo?”

  “Not from what you’ve told me.”

  “Okay, thanks.”

  “You might wanna check with Dr. Delaware.”

  “This is a psycho case?” said Moe. “You’re assuming she’s dead?”

  Sturgis stretched, played with the cigar. “Kiddo, everything’s psychological, but that doesn’t mean we need shrinks for it. Mostly, it’s a matter of connecting dots. But this kind of thing ... sometimes he comes up with an idea out of left field—didja happen to notice the coffee situation out in Times Square?”

  “Still hot,” said Moe. “I’ll get you a cup.”

  “Cr
eam, two sugars.”

  Delaware was friendly enough, but no wisdom there, either, and Moe figured this was one that wouldn’t close unless some bones turned up somewhere.

  If she was dead. Boring life like hers, maybe she’d gotten an itch for more.

  Last week, he’d made his way through the maze that was Federal Records for the second time. As far as anyone could tell, no one had commandeered Caitlin’s Social Security number, no other signs of identity theft.

  The unused credit card did make him wonder. If the girl was alive, what was she doing for dough?

  Maybe working in a small town where the locals weren’t nosy. Or she’d joined a cult. Run away with the circus.

  Met a rich guy and got swept off her feet.

  Any of that was true, she wouldn’t want to be found.

  He thought about that pretty face, the slender body, the cloud of blond hair. Six feet under or discarded with haphazard brutality in some remote gully.

  Or weighed down and dumped in deep water, psycho killer watching her fade from view ...

  Time and bacteria doing their inevitable thing.

  Death one, Moses zero.

  CHAPTER

  4

  Aaron met with Maitland Frostig at the man’s crummy little house.

  He’d already introduced himself to Frostig at work, entering Frostig’s cubicle in the accounting bay of Mr. Dmitri’s factory, letting him know he’d be taking on Caitlin’s case.

  Expecting some sort of grateful reaction, but Frostig just nodded and kept staring at his computer screen.

  Aaron glanced at the screen. Columns of numbers. Frostig’s fingers rested on the keyboard, poised to resume typing. Skinny, white-haired guy, saggy skin, sun-spotted hands. Looking a lot older than the forty-seven listed in his personnel file.

  Finally, he said, “Thank you, Mr. Fox.”

  Aaron suggested tomorrow night, eight p.m., Frostig’s residence.

  Frostig said, “Sure.” His fingers started moving. Numbers shifted.