Therapy

by Jonathan Kellerman

  “Gavin talked to you about wanting to find a new girl. He told other people he’d succeeded.”

  “What other people?”

  “Let’s leave it at other people.”

  “Mr. Inscrutable Detective,” said Paxton. She brushed her knee against Milo’s. “A new girl, huh? In Gavin’s mind that could’ve meant anything. Someone he decided to pursue, whether or not she wanted it. Someone he’d seen on TV.”

  “The girl I showed you was real,” said Milo. “And she was in Gavin’s car, up on Mulholland, late at night.”

  “Okay,” she said, annoyed. “So he found someone. Everyone finds someone eventually. Look what happened to her.”

  *

  She made sure Milo picked up the tab and flounced away on backless shoes.

  “What a piece of work,” said Milo. “What a family. So what was her reason for talking to us? Dissing the Quicks?”

  “She despises them,” I said, “but that doesn’t discount her information.”

  “Gavin’s inappropriate sexual behavior? Yeah, he’s sounding nuttier by the day.”

  “If she’s right about Jerome Quick, Gavin had a role model. Gavin may have started off with a certain view of women, and the accident weakened his inhibitions further. What intrigues me is the blonde. Gavin had problems approaching women, came on way too strong. Yet an attractive young woman was willing to get intimate with him. A young woman in five-hundred-dollar shoes whom no one’s reported missing.”

  “A pro,” he said. “Got to be.”

  “Severe frustration could lead a boy to buy sex. A Beverly Hills boy might have a decent budget. Especially with a father who sanctioned it. I know she hasn’t shown up in any Vice files, but a relative rookie lucky enough not to get busted wouldn’t. If she worked on her own, there’d be no one to miss her. If she worked for someone else, they might not want to go on record.”

  “A father who sanctioned it,” he said. “Dad slips Gavin serious dough to get seriously laid?”

  “And maybe,” I said, “Dad knew where to send him.”

  *

  Jerome Quick’s metals-trading firm was a few miles east of Beverly Hills, on Wilshire near La Brea, on the third floor of a shopworn four-story building wedged between taller structures.

  A sign in the empty lobby listed several units for lease. Most of the tenants were businesses with names that told you little about what they did. Quick’s office was on the second floor, midway down a poorly lit linoleum-floored hall. A savory but discomforting odor— beef stew just past its prime— permeated the walls.

  Quick didn’t keep much of an office: A small, mostly empty reception area fronted an office marked PRIVATE. The carpeting was brown, stomped glossy, the walls cheap woodite paneling. The receptionist sat behind a cheap woodite desk. She was young and thin, pretty but hard-looking, with randomly chopped hair tinted electric blue at the tips. Her makeup was thick and grayish, her lipstick, anoxic gray-blue. Curving bright azure nails were an inch long. She wore a tight white sweater over leather-look black vinyl pants and chewed gum. In front of her was a copy of Buzz Magazine. The lack of other periodicals or chairs and her surprise at our presence said visitors were infrequent.

  The sight of Milo’s badge raised a penciled eyebrow, but the pulse in her neck was slow and steady.

  She said, “Mr. Quick’s out of town,” in a surprisingly sultry voice.

  “Where?” said Milo.

  She wiggled her shoulders. “San Diego.”

  “He travel a lot?”

  “All the time.”

  “Nice and quiet for you.”

  “Uh-huh.” The blue nails tapped the magazine. No computer or typewriter in sight.

  Milo said, “You’re not surprised the police want to talk to him.”

  She shrugged. “Sure I am.”

  “Is it the first time the police have wanted to talk to him?”

  “I’ve only been working here for a couple of months.”

  “Cops been here before?” said Milo.

  “Nope.”

  Milo showed her the photo of the blonde. She blinked hard, turned away.

  “You know her?”

  “Is she dead?”

  “Very.”

  “Don’t know her.”

  “She’s the girl who died with Gavin Quick.”

  “Oh.”

  “You do know about Gavin.”

  “Yeah. Of course.”

  “Sad,” said Milo.

  “I didn’t really know him,” she said. “Very sad.” She turned the corners of her mouth down. Trying to mean it. Her brown eyes were flat. “Who did it?”

  “That’s what we’re trying to find out, Ms. . . .”

  “Angie.”

  “Gavin come in here?”

  “Once in a while.”

  “How often, Angie?”

  “Not often.”

  Milo unbuttoned his jacket and edged closer to her desk. “How long have you been working here?”

  “Three and a half months.”

  “In three and half months, how many times did you see Gavin Quick?”

  “Hmm . . . maybe three times. Could be four, but probably three.”

  “What did Gavin do when he was here?”

  “Went in to see Jerry— Mr. Quick. Sometimes they’d go out.”

  “For lunch?”

  “I guess.”

  “Was it lunchtime?”

  “I think it was.”

  “What’d you think of Gavin, Angie?”

  “He seemed like an okay guy.”

  “No problems?”

  She licked her lips. “No.”

  “No problems at all? He was always a gentleman.”

  “What do you mean?” she said.

  “We’ve heard,” said Milo, “that Gavin could get pretty enthusiastic. Overly enthusiastic.”

  No reply.

  “Overly enthusiastic with women, Angie.”

  She placed a hand on the copy of Buzz. As if preparing to take an oath. I swear on all that is hip . . .

  “I never saw that. He was polite.”

  “Polite,” said Milo. “And by the way, what is your last name?”

  “Paul.”

  “Angie Paul.”

  “Yup.”

  “So Mr. Quick travels a lot.”

  “All the time.”

  “Must get boring, just sitting around.”

  “It’s okay.” She flexed her shoulders again.

  Milo sidled closer to the desk. The top bit into his thigh. “Angie, did Gavin ever hit on you?”

  “Why would he do that?”

  “You’re an attractive woman.”

  “Thanks,” she said, without inflection. “He was always polite.”

  “Where’s the boss off to?”

  “Somewhere in San Diego. He didn’t say.”

  “He doesn’t tell you where to find him?”

  “He calls in.”

  “Leaving you all by yourself,” said Milo.

  “I like it,” she said. “Nice and quiet.”

  *

  Before we left, Milo took down her North Hollywood address and phone number and driver’s license registration. Driving back to the station, he ran her through the data banks. Three years ago, Angela May Paul had been arrested for marijuana possession.

  “Paxton said Quick hired sluts for secretaries,” he said. “I don’t know if ol’ Angie would qualify for that, but he’s sure not tapping the executive roster. That office of his, pretty downscale, huh?”

  “Keeping the overhead low,” I said. “Eileen said he’s no tycoon.”

  “She said he was hustling . . . think Angie was telling the truth about not knowing the blonde? I thought she reacted a bit to the photo, though with that stone face it was hard to tell.”

  “She blinked hard when you showed it to her,” I said, “but it is a death shot.”

  “The blonde,” he said. “Jimmy Choo and Armani perfume. Maybe ol’ Jerry provided well for
Junior.”

  He checked his phone for messages, grunted, hung up.

  “Drs. Larsen and Gull returned my call. They’d prefer to meet me away from the office, suggested Roxbury Park, tomorrow, 1 P.M. The picnic area on the west side, they go there for lunch from time to time. You up for some grass and trees and chewing the fat with a couple of colleagues? Should I bring a picnic basket?”

  “Grass and trees sounds okay but forget the niceties.”

  CHAPTER 21

  “Alex, I’m glad I caught you.”

  It’d been months since I’d heard Robin’s voice, and it threw me. No rapid heartbeat; I was pleased about that.

  I said. “Hi, how’ve you been?”

  “Well. You?”

  “Great.”

  So civil.

  “Alex, I’m calling for a favor, but if you can’t do it, please just say so.”

  “What is it?”

  “Tim was just asked to fly to Aspen to work with Udo Pisano— the tenor. There’s a concert tomorrow, and the guy’s voice is freezing up. They want Tim there yesterday, are flying him on a chartered jet. I’ve never been to Aspen and would like to go along. We’re talking one, maybe two nights. Would you be able to babysit Spike? You know how he is with kenneling.”

  “Sure,” I said, “if Spike can handle being here.”

  A few years back, on a sweltering summer day, a little French bulldog had made his way across the murderous traffic of Sunset Boulevard and up into the Glen. He wandered onto my property, gasping, stumbling, dangerously dehydrated. I watered and fed him, searched for his owner. She turned out to be an old woman dying in a Holmby Hills manor. Her sole heir, a daughter, was allergic to dogs.

  He’d been saddled with an unwieldy pedigree moniker; I renamed him Spike and learned about kibble. He reacted to his new surroundings with élan, promptly fell in love with Robin, and began viewing me as competition.

  When Robin and I broke up, custody wasn’t an issue. She got him, his leash, his food bowls, the short hairs he shed all over the furniture, his snoring, snuffling, arrogant table manners. I was awarded an echoing house.

  I considered finding a dog of my own, had never gotten around to it. I didn’t see Spike much because I didn’t see Robin much. He’d taken ownership of the small house in Venice that she shared with Tim Plachette, and his regard for Tim seemed no higher than for me.

  Robin said, “Thanks so much, I’m sure he’ll be fine. Down deep he loves you.”

  “Must be extremely deep. When do you want to bring him over?”

  “The plane leaves from Santa Monica as soon as we’re ready, so I was thinking soon.”

  “Come on over.”

  *

  This is not your typical dog.

  His flat face implies as much frog DNA as canine heritage, his ears are oversized, upright, batlike, and they flex and pivot and fold in response to a wide range of emotions. He doesn’t take up much more space than a Pomeranian but manages to pack twenty-six pounds into that cubic area, most of it lead-bone and rippling muscle, clothed in a black brindle coat. His neck is twenty-one and three-quarter inches around, and his knobby head is three handbreadths wide. His huge brown eyes shine with confidence and he allows himself the barest, patronizing interest in the lives of others. His worldview is simple: Life is a cabaret, and it’s all about him.

  When I used to take him out alone, women flocked. “Oh, that’s the most beautiful ugly dog I’ve ever seen!” was the operative phrase.

  This afternoon, he had as much interest in leaving Robin’s side as in snarfing a bowl of lint.

  I held out a chew stick. He shot Robin a mournful gaze. She sighed and stooped. “It’ll be fine, handsome.”

  The Saran-wrapped nugget of hamburger I’d concealed in my shirt pocket perked his radar and brought him over, but once he gobbled it, he raced back and hid behind Robin’s legs. Great legs.

  She said, “Look at this, he’s guilt-tripping me.”

  “The joys of parenthood.”

  Spike nuzzled her jeans. Tight jeans above suede boots. She wore a black silk T-shirt under a tapestry vest. Her auburn curls were loose, her face was scrubbed and fresh. Those big, liquid brown eyes. The clean sweep of jaw and thin, straight nose.

  Those lips; the oversized incisors.

  I said, “Let me take him, and you go. He’ll fuss, then he’ll be fine.”

  “You’re right,” she said. She took Spike’s face in both her hands. “Listen, you rascal. Daddy will take good care of you, you know that.”

  What did she call Tim? Stepdaddy?

  Spike’s trapdoor mouth dropped open, teeth flashed, a purplish tongue flapped.

  Beseeching the heavens, he bayed.

  I swooped him into my arms, held his taut little body tight against my chest as he sniveled and writhed and hyperventilated. It was like restraining a bowling ball with legs.

  “Oh dear,” said Robin.

  I said, “Bon voyage, Rob.”

  She hesitated, headed for her truck, changed her mind, and came back. Throwing her arm around my shoulder, she kissed Spike full on the snout.

  She was kissing me on the cheek just as Allison drove up in her black Jaguar XJS.

  *

  The convertible top was down and her black hair blew like something out of a crème rinse commercial. She wore blue-tinted sunglasses and cream-colored knits with an aqua scarf. Glints punctuated her ears, neck, fingers, wrists; Allison is unafraid of adornment.

  She switched off the engine and Robin’s arm dropped. Spike tried to leap out of my arms and reacted to his failure with a heart-wrenching howl.

  “Hey, everyone,” said Allison.

  “Hi,” said Robin, smiling.

  Spike tried his I’m-strangling-do-the-Heimlich bit.

  “Well, look who’s here.” Allison patted Spike’s head, then she kissed my lips. Robin backed away a few steps.

  Spike froze; his head shifted from woman to woman.

  It can get like that, buddy.

  He moaned.

  *

  After Robin drove away, I trailed Allison up the stairs to the terrace, carrying a still-shuddering dog. When we reached the landing, she looked at me— no, at him. Touched his whiskered flews tentatively. “Look at this little guy. I forget how cute he is.”

  Spike licked her hand.

  “You are very, very cute!”

  Spike began panting heavily, and she petted him some more. He wriggled, twisted his head back and managed to make eye contact with me.

  A knowing look, rich with triumph.

  Moments later, he was lying at Allison’s feet, nibbling on his second chew stick in as many minutes, damning my approach with a jaundiced eye.

  Some guys have all the luck.

  *

  Mary Lou Koppel’s murder had shaken Allison, and that seemed to be why she’d dropped by. As I made coffee for both of us, she pressed for details.

  I told her the little I knew.

  “So it could be a patient,” she said.

  “At this point anything’s possible.”

  Her hands were tight around her mug.

  I said, “You’re upset.”

  “Not on a personal level.” She took a sip. “I have had patients— mostly husbands of patients— who made me uneasy. But that was mostly years ago, when I was taking more referrals from agencies . . . I guess Mary Lou’s death hits close to home. Thinking we know what we’re doing and maybe we get overconfident. It’s not just me. I’ve gotten calls from three other psychologists who just wanted to talk about it.”

  “People who knew Mary Lou?”

  “People who know I’m seeing you and thought they could get some inside information. Don’t worry, I was discreet.”

  “What was on their minds?”

  “Our line of work, the unpredictablity of human beings. I guess they want to convince themselves that Mary Lou was different, and that’s why it happened to her.”