Jonathan Kellerman - [Alex Delaware 01]

by When the Bough Breaks (Shrunken Heads) (v5. 0) (epub)

  “You must be a good investor.”

  “I get lucky from time to time.”

  She sank back in the soft leather and let out a breath. I got behind the wheel and started up the engine.

  “I’ve changed my mind,” she said. “You pay for the lunch.”

  She ate meticulously, cutting her steak into tiny pieces, spearing each morsel individually and slipping it into her mouth, and wiping her mouth with her napkin every third bite. I was willing to bet she was a tough grader.

  “She was my best friend,” she said, putting down her fork and picking up her water glass. “We grew up together in East L.A. Rafael and Andy—her brothers—played with Miguel.” At the mention of her dead brother her eyes misted then grew hard as obsidian. She pushed her plate away. She’d eaten a quarter of her food. “When we moved to Echo Park the Gutierrezes moved with us. The boys were always getting into trouble—minor mischief, pranks. Elena and I were good girls. Goody-goodies, actually. The nuns loved us.” She smiled.

  “We were as close as sisters. And like sisters there was a lot of competition between us. She was always better-looking.”

  She read the doubt in my face.

  “Really. I was a scrawny kid. I developed late. Elena was—voluptuous, soft. The boys followed her around with their tongues hanging out. Even when she was eleven and twelve. Here.” She reached into her purse and took out a snapshot. More photographic memories.

  “This is Elena and me. In high school.”

  Two girls leaned against a graffiti-filled wall. They wore Catholic school uniforms—short-sleeved white blouses, gray skirts, white socks and saddle shoes. One was tiny, thin and dark. The other a head taller, had curves the uniform couldn’t conceal and a complexion that was surprisingly fair.

  “Was she a blonde?”

  “Surprising, isn’t it? Some German rapist way back, no doubt. Later she lightened it even more, to be really all-American. She got sophisticated, changed her name to Elaine, spent lots of money on clothes, her car.” She realized she was criticizing the dead girl and quickly changed her tune. “But she was a person of substance underneath all of that. She was a truly gifted teacher—there aren’t many like that. She taught EH, you know.”

  Educationally Handicapped classes were for children who weren’t retarded but still had difficulties learning. The category could include everything from bright kids with specific perceptual problems to youngsters whose emotional conflicts got in the way of their learning to read and write. Teaching EH was tough. It could be constant frustration or a stimulating challenge, depending on a teacher’s motivation, energy and talent.

  “Elena had a real gift for drawing them out—the kids no one else could work with. She had patience. You wouldn’t have thought it to look at her. She was—flashy. She used lots of makeup, dressed to show herself off. Sometimes she looked like a party girl. But she wasn’t afraid to get down on the floor with the children, didn’t mind getting her hands dirty. She got into their heads—she dedicated herself to them. The children loved her. Look.”

  Another photograph. Elena Gutierrez surrounded by a group of smiling children. She was kneeling and the kids were climbing on her, tugging at the hem of her skirt, putting their heads in her lap. A tall, well-built young woman, pretty rather than beautiful, with an earthy, open look, the yellow hair a styled, thick shag framing an oval face, and contrasting dramatically with the Hispanic features. Except for those features she was the classic California girl. The kind who should have been lying face down in the Malibu sand, bikini top undone, smooth brown back exposed to the sun. A girl for cola commercials and custom van shows and running down to the market in halter and shorts for a six-pack. She shouldn’t have ended up as savaged, lifeless flesh in a refrigerated drawer downtown.

  Raquel Ochoa took the picture out of my hands and I thought I saw jealousy in her face.

  “She’s dead,” she said, putting it back in her purse, frowning, as if I’d committed some kind of heresy.

  “It looked like they adored her,” I said.

  “They did. Now they’ve brought in some old bag who doesn’t give a damn about teaching. Now that Elena’s—gone.”

  She started to cry, using her napkin to shield her face from my eyes. Her thin shoulders shook. She sank lower in the booth, trying to disappear, sobbing.

  I got up, moved to her side and put my arms around her. She felt as frail as a cobweb.

  “No, no. I’m all right.” But she moved closer to me, burying herself in the folds of my jacket, burrowing in for the long, cold winter.

  As I held her I realized that she felt good. She smelled good. This was a surprisingly soft, feminine person in my arms. I fantasized swooping her up, featherweight and vulnerable, carrying her to bed where I’d still her painful cries with that ultimate panacea: orgasm. A stupid fantasy because it would take more than a fuck and a hug to solve her problems. Stupid because that wasn’t what this encounter was all about. I felt an annoying heat and tension in my groin. Tumescence rearing its ugly head when least appropriate. Still, I held her until her sobbing slowed and her breathing became regular. Thinking of Robin, I finally let her go and moved back to my side.

  She avoided my eyes, took out her compact and fixed her face.

  “That was really dumb.”

  “No it wasn’t. That’s what eulogies are for.”

  She thought for a moment then managed a faint smile.

  “Yes, I suppose you’re right.” She reached across the table and placed a small hand on mine. “Thank you. I miss her so much.”

  “I understand.”

  “Do you?” She drew her hand away, suddenly cross.

  “No, I guess not. I’ve never lost anyone to whom I was that close. Will you accept a serious attempt at empathy?”

  “I’m sorry. I’ve been rude—from the moment you walked in. It’s been so hard. All of these feelings—sadness, and emptiness and anger at the monster who did it—it had to be a monster, didn’t it?”

  “Yes.”

  “Will you catch him? Will that big detective catch him?”

  “He’s a very capable guy, Raquel. In his own way, quite gifted. But he’s got little to go on.”

  “Yes. I suppose I should help you, shouldn’t I?”

  “It would be nice.”

  She found a cigarette in her purse and lit it with trembling hands. She took a deep drag and let it out.

  “What do you want to know?”

  “For starts, how about the old cliché—did she have any enemies?”

  “The clichéd answer: No. She was popular, well-liked. And besides, whoever did this to her was no acquaintance—we didn’t know anyone like that.” She shuddered, confronting her own vulnerability.

  “Did she go out with a lot of men?”

  “The same questions.” She sighed. “She dated a few guys before she met him. Then it was the two of them all the way.”

  “When did she begin seeing him?”

  “She started as a patient almost a year ago. It’s hard to know when she began sleeping with him. She didn’t talk to me about that kind of thing.”

  I could imagine sexuality being a taboo topic for the two best friends. With their upbringing there was bound to be lots of conflict. And given what I had seen of Raquel and heard about Elena it was almost certain they had gone about resolving those conflicts in different ways: one, the party girl, a man’s woman; the other, attractive but perceiving herself in pitched battle with the world. I looked across the table at the dark, serious face and knew her bed would be ringed with thorns.

  “Did she tell you they were having an affair?”

  “An affair? That sounds so light and breezy. He violated his professional ethics and she fell for it.” She puffed on her cigarette. “She giggled about it for a week or so then came out and told me what a wonderful guy he was. I put two and two together. A month later he picked her up at our place. It was out in the open.”

  “What was he like?”
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  “Like you said before—a creep. Too well-dressed—velvet jackets, tailored pants, sunlamp tan, shirt unbuttoned to show lots of chest hair—curly gray chest hair. He smiled a lot and got familiar with me. Shook my hand and held on too long. Lingered with a good-bye kiss—nothing you could pin him on.” The words were almost identical to Roy Longstreth’s.

  “Slick?”

  “Exactly. Slippery. She’d gone for that type before. I couldn’t understand it—she was such a good person, so real. I figured it had something to do with losing her dad at a young age. She had no good male role model. Does that sound plausible?”

  “Sure.” Life was never as simple as the psych texts but it made people feel good to find solutions.

  “He was a bad influence on her. When she started going with him was when she dyed her hair and changed her name and bought all those clothes. She even went out and bought a new car—one of those Datsun-Z turbos.”

  “How did she afford it?” The car cost more than most teachers made in a year.

  “If you’re thinking he paid for it, forget it. She bought it on payments. That was another thing about Elena. She had no conception of money. Just let it pass through her fingers. She always joked how she was going to have to marry a rich guy to accommodate her tastes.”

  “How often did they see each other?”

  “At first once or twice a week. By the end she might as well have moved in with him. I rarely saw her. She’d drop in to pick up a few things, invite me to go out with them.”

  “Did you?”

  She was surprised at the question.

  “Are you kidding? I couldn’t stand to be around him. And I have a life of my own. I had no need to be the odd one out.”

  A life, I suspected, of grading papers until ten and then retiring, nightgown buttoned high, with a gothic novel and a cup of hot cocoa.

  “Did they have friends, other couples with whom they associated?”

  “I have no idea. I’m trying to tell you—I kept out of it.” An edge crept into her voice and I retreated.

  “She started out as his patient. Do you have any idea why she went to a psychiatrist in the first place?”

  “She said she was depressed.”

  “You don’t think she was?”

  “It’s hard to tell with some people. When I get depressed everyone knows about it. I withdraw, don’t want anything to do with anybody. It’s like I shrink, crawl into myself. With Elena, who knows? It’s not like she had trouble eating or sleeping. She would just get a little quiet.”

  “But she said she was depressed?”

  “Not until after she told me she was seeing Handler—after I asked her why. She said she was feeling down, the work was getting to her. I tried to help but she said she needed more. I was never a big fan of psychiatrists and psychologists.” She smiled apologetically. “If you have friends and family you should be able to work it out.”

  “If that’s enough, great. Sometimes it’s like she said, Raquel. You need more.”

  She put out her cigarette.

  “Well, I suppose it’s fortunate for you that many people agree with that.”

  “I suppose so.”

  There was an awkward silence. I broke it.

  “Did he prescribe any medication for her?”

  “Not as far as I know. Just talked to her. She went to see him weekly, and then twice a week after one of her students died. Then she was obviously depressed—cried for days.”

  “When was this?”

  “Let me see, it was pretty soon after she started going to Handler, maybe after they were already dating—I don’t know. About eight months ago.”

  “How did it happen?”

  “Accident. Hit-and-run. The kid was walking along a dark road at night and a car hit him. It destroyed her. She’d been working with him for months. He was one of her miracles. Everyone thought he was mute. Elena got him to talk.” She shook her head. “A miracle. And then to have it all go down the drain like that. So meaningless.”

  “The parents must have been shattered.”

  “No. There were no parents. He was an orphan. He came from La Casa.”

  “La Casa de los Niños? In Malibu Canyon?”

  “Sure. Why the surprise? They contract with us to provide special education to some of their kids. They do it with several of the local schools. It’s part of a state-funded project or something. To mainstream children without families into the community.”

  “No surprise,” I lied. “It just seems so sad for something like that to happen to an orphan.”

  “Yes. Life is unfair.” The declaration seemed to give her satisfaction.

  She looked at her watch.

  “Anything more? I’ve got to get back.”

  “Just one. Do you recall the name of the child who died?”

  “Nemeth. Cary or Corey. Something like that.”

  “Thanks for your time. You’ve been helpful.”

  “Have I? I don’t see how. But I’m glad if it brings you closer to that monster.”

  She had a concrete vision of the murderer that Milo would have envied.

  We drove back to the school and I walked her to her car.

  “Okay,” she said.

  “Thanks again.”

  “You’re welcome. If you have more questions you can come back.” It was as forward as she was going to get—for her the equivalent of asking me over to her place. It made me sad, knowing there was nothing I could do for her.

  “I will.”

  She smiled and held out her hand. I took it, careful not to hold on for too long.

  14

  I’VE NEVER BEEN a big believer in coincidence. I suppose it’s because the notion of life being governed by the random collision of molecules in space cuts at the heart of my professional identity. After all, why spend all those years learning how to help people change when deliberate change is just an illusion? But even if I had been willing to give the Fates their due, it would have been hard to see as coincidence the fact that Cary or Corey Nemeth (deceased), a student of Elena Gutierrez (deceased), had been a resident of the same institution where Maurice Bruno (deceased) had volunteered.

  It was time to learn more about La Casa de los Niños.

  I went home and searched through the cardboard boxes I had stored in the garage since dropping out, until I found my old office Rolodex. I located Olivia Brickerman’s number at the Department of Social Services and dialed it. A social worker for thirty years, Olivia knew more about agencies than anyone in the city.

  A recording answered the phone and told me D.P.S.S.’s number had been changed. I dialed the new number and another recording told me to wait. A tape of Barry Manilow came on the line. I wondered if the city paid him royalties. Music to wait for your caseworker by.

  “D.P.S.S.”

  “Mrs. Brickerman, please.”

  “One moment, sir.” Two more minutes of Manilow. Then: “She’s no longer with this office.”

  “Can you please tell me where I can locate her?”

  “One moment.” I was informed, once again, who wrote the music that made the whole world sing. “Mrs. Brickerman is now at the Santa Monica Psychiatric Medical Group.”

  So Olivia had finally left the public domain.

  “Do you have that number?”

  “One moment, sir.”

  “Thanks anyway.” I hung up and consulted the Yellow Pages under Mental Health Services. The number belonged to an address on Broadway where Santa Monica approached Venice, not far from Robin’s studio. I called it.

  “S.M.P.M.G.”

  “Mrs. Olivia Brickerman, please.”

  “Who shall I say is calling?”

  “Dr. Delaware.”

  “One moment.” The line was silent. Apparently the utility of phone-hold Muzak hadn’t become apparent to S.M.P.M.G.

  “Alex! How are you?”

  “Fine, Olivia, and you?”

  “Wonderful, wonderful. I thought you were somewhere in
the Himalayas.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “Isn’t that where people go when they want to find themselves—somewhere cold with no oxygen and a little old man with a beard sitting on top of a mountain munching on twigs and reading People magazine?”

  “That was the sixties, Olivia. In the eighties you stay home and soak in hot water.”

  “Ha!”

  “How’s Al?”

  “His usual extroverted self. He was hunched over the board when I left this morning, muttering something about the Pakistani defense or some such naarisbkeit.”

  Her husband, Albert D. Brickerman, was the chess editor for the Times. In the five years I’d known him I hadn’t heard him utter a dozen words in a row. It was difficult to imagine what he and Olivia, Miss Sociability of 1930 through ’80, had in common. But they’d been married thirty-seven years, had raised four children, and seemed content with each other.

  “So you finally left D.P.S.S.”

  “Yes, can you believe it? Even barnacles can be dislodged!”

  “What led to such an impulsive move?”

  “I tell you, Alex, I would have stayed. Sure the system stank—what system doesn’t? But I was used to it, like a wart. I like to think I was still doing a good job—though I tell you, the stories got sadder and longer. Such misery. And with cuts in funding the people would get less and less—and madder and madder. They took it out on the caseworkers. We had a girl stabbed in the downtown office. Now there’re armed guards in every office. But what the hell, I was brought up in New York. Then my nephew, my sister’s boy, Steve, he finished medical school and decided to become a psychiatrist—can you believe that, another mental health person in the family? His father’s a surgeon and that was the safest way for him to rebel. Anyway, he’s always been very close to me and it’s been a running joke that when he goes into practice he was going to rescue Aunt Livvy from D.P.S.S. and take her into his office. And would you believe he took me up on it? Writes me a letter, tells me he’s coming out to California and joining a group, and they need a social worker for intakes and short-term counseling, would I like to do it? So here I am, with a view of the beach, working for little Stevie—of course I don’t call him that in front of other people.”