Bad Love (22 page)

A tiny rectangle of abalone was clamped to a padded section of the bench. The edges were beveled and the corners were inlaid with bits of ivory and gold wire. She’d traced the shell with minuscule curlicue shapes, cut out some of them, and was in the process of excising another.

“Beautiful,” I said. “Fretboard inlay?”

“Uh-huh. Thanks.” She blew away dust and cleaned the edge of a pick with a fingernail.

“You do root canal, too?”

She laughed and hunched lower. The tools clicked as she carved out a speck of shell. “Kind of baroque for my taste, but it’s for a stockbroker who wants a showpiece for his wall.”

She worked some more, finally put the tools down, wiped her forehead, and wiggled her fingers. “Enough for one day, I’m cramping up.”

“Everything okay?” I rubbed her neck.

“Nice and quiet. How about you?”

“Not bad.”

I kissed her. The wind got stronger and drier, ruffling the cypress trees and shooting a cold stream through the open garage. Robin unclamped the abalone, and put it in her pocket. Her arms were goosebumped. I put mine around them and the two of us headed for the house. By the time we got to the door, the wind was whipping the trees and stirring the dust, causing the bulldog to blink and sniff.

“Santa Ana?” she said.

“Too cold. Probably the tail end of something arctic.”

“Brr,” she said, unlocking the door. “Leave your jacket in the car?”

I shook my head. We went inside.

“You were wearing one, weren’t you?” she said, rubbing her hands together. “That baggy brown tweed.”

Artist’s eye.

“Yup.”

“Did you lose it?”

“Not exactly.”

“Not exactly?”

“I gave it away.”

She laughed. “You what?”

“No big deal. It was fraying.”

“Who’d you give it to?”

I told her about Little Calcutta. She listened with her hands on her hips, shaking her head, and went into the kitchen to wash her hands. When she came back, her head was still moving from side to side.

“I know, I know,” I said. “It was a bleeding-heart reflex, but they really were pitiful — it was a cheap old thing, anyway.”

“You wore it the first time we went out. I never liked it.”

“You didn’t?”

“Nope. Too philosophy prof.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

She shrugged. “It wasn’t that important.”

“Snoring, poor taste in haberdashery. What else don’t you like that you haven’t informed me about?”

“Nothing. Now that you’ve ditched the coat, you’re perfect.”

She ruffled my hair, walked to the French doors, and looked out at the mountains. They were shimmering, denuded in patches, where the foliage was brushed back like blow-dried hair. The pool water was choppy, the surface gritty with leaves and dirt.

Robin loosened her hair. I hung back and kept looking at her.

Perfect female statuary, rock-still against the turbulence.

She unsnapped one overall strap, then the other, letting the baggy denim collapse around her feet, and stood there in T-shirt and panties.

Half turning, hands on hips, she looked back at me. “How ’bout giving
me
something, big boy?” she said, in a Mae West voice.

The dog grumbled. Robin cracked up. “Quiet, you! You’re wrecking my timing.”

“
Now
it feels like a home,” she said, snuggling under the covers. “Though I do prefer our little love nest, be it ever so humble. So what’d you find out today?”

My second summation of the day. I did it quickly, adding what Milo’d told me about the murders and leaving out the gross pathology. Even sanitized, it was bad, and she turned quiet.

I rubbed her lower back, allowing my hand to linger on swells and dimples. Her body loosened, but only for a moment.

“You’re sure you’ve never heard of those other two people?” she said, stilling my hand.

“I’m sure. And there doesn’t even seem to be any connection between the two of
them
. The woman was a white real estate agent, the man a black janitor. He was twenty-six years older, they lived on opposite ends of the city, were killed in different ways. Nothing in common but “bad love.’ Maybe they were patients of de Bosch.”

“They couldn’t be old patients of
yours
?”

“No way,” I said. “I’ve been through every one of my case files. To be honest, I don’t see the patient angle as too likely, period. If someone has a hangup with de Bosch, why go after the people he treated?”

“What about group therapy, Alex? Things can get rough in groups, can’t they? People lashing out at one another? Maybe someone got dumped on badly and never forgot it.”

“I guess it’s possible,” I said, sitting up. “A good therapist always tries to keep a handle on the group’s emotional climate, but things can get out of control. And sometimes there’s no way to know someone’s feeling victimized. Once, at the hospital, I had to calm down the father of a kid with a bone tumor who brought a loaded pistol onto the ward. When I finally got him to open up, it came out that he’d been boiling for weeks. But there was no warning at all — till then he’d been a really easygoing guy.”

“There you go,” she said. “So maybe some patient of de Bosch’s sat there and took it and never told anyone. Finally, years later, he decided to get even.”

“But what kind of therapy group would bring together a real estate agent from the valley and a black janitor?”

“I don’t know — maybe
they
weren’t the patients, maybe their kids were. A parents’ group for problem kids — de Bosch was basically a
child
therapist, wasn’t he?”

I nodded, trying to imagine it. “Shipler was a lot older than Paprock — I suppose she could have been a young mother and he an old father.”

We heard scratching and thumping at the door. I got up and opened it and the dog bounded in. He headed straight for Robin’s side of the bed, stood on his hind legs, put his paws on the mattress, and began snorting. She lifted him up and he rewarded her with lusty licks.

“Settle down,” she said. “Uh-oh — look, he’s getting excited.”

“Without testicles, yet. See the effect you have on men?”

“But of
course
.” She batted her lashes at me, turned back to the dog, and finally got him to lie still by kneading the folds of flesh around his jowls. He lapsed into sleep with an ease that I envied. But when I leaned over to kiss her, he opened his eyes, snuffled, and insinuated himself between us, curling atop the covers and licking his paws.

I said, “Maybe Milo can get hold of Paprock’s and Shipler’s medical histories, see if de Bosch’s name or the Corrective School appears on them. Sometimes people conceal psych treatment, but with the cost, it’s more likely there’s some kind of insurance record. I’ll ask him when I see him tonight.”

“What’s tonight?”

“We were planning on going back to the freeway, try to talk to more of the homeless people in order to get a handle on this Gritz character.”

“Is it safe going back there?”

“I’ll have Milo with me. Whether or not it’s productive remains to be seen.”

“All right,” she said uneasily. “If you want it to be productive, why don’t you stop at a market and get those people some food?”

“Good idea. You’re full of them today, aren’t you?”

“Motivation,” she said. She turned serious, reached up and held my face in both of her hands. “I want this to be over. Please take care of yourself.”

“Promise.” We managed to maintain a convoluted embrace despite the dog.

I fell asleep, smelling perfume and kibble. When I woke up my stomach was sour and my feet were sore. Inhaling and letting out the air, I sat up and cleared my eyes.

“What is it?” Robin mumbled, her back to me.

“Just thinking.”

“About what?” She rolled over and faced me.

“Someone in a therapy group, getting wounded and keeping it inside all these years.”

She touched my face.

“What the hell do
I
have to do with it?” I said. “Am I just a name on a damned brochure, or did I hurt someone without ever knowing it?”

I heard the unhealthy-sounding engine from inside the house. Milo’s Fiat, reduced to a squat little toy on the monitor.

I went outside. The wind had stopped. The car expelled a plume of smoke, then convulsed. It didn’t look as if it would survive the evening.

“Figured it would blend in where we’re going,” he said, getting out. He carried a large, white plastic bag and was wearing work clothes. The bag smelled of garlic and meat.

“More food?” I said.

“Sandwiches — Italian. Just consider me your official LAPD delivery boy.”

Robin was back in the garage, working under a funnel of fluorescence. The dog was there, too, and he charged us, heading straight for the bag.

Milo lifted it out of reach. “Sit. Stay — better yet, go away.”

The dog snorted once, turned his back on us, and sank to his haunches.

Milo said, “Well, one out of three ain’t bad.” He waved at Robin. She raised a hand and put down her tools.

“She looks right at home,” he said. “How ’bout you, Nick Danger?”

“I’m fine. Anything on Gritz in the records?”

Before he could answer, Robin came over.

“He’s brought us dinner,” I said.

“What a prince.” She kissed his cheek. “Are you hungry right now?”

“Not really,” he said, touching his gut and looking down at the ground. “Had a little appetizer while I waited.”

“Good for you,” she said. “Growing boy.”

“Growing the wrong way.”

“You’re fine, Milo. You’ve got
presence
.” She patted his shoulder. From the way her fingers were flexing I knew she was eager to get back to her bench. I was itchy, too, thinking of the freeway people. The dog continued to sulk.

“How ’bout you, hon?” she said to me. The dog came over, thinking — or pretending — it was meant for him.

“I can wait.”

“Me, too. So let me stick this in the fridge and when you guys get back, we’ll chow down.”

“Sounds good.” Milo gave her the bag. The dog tried to lick it and she said, “Relax, I’ve got a Milk-Bone for you.”

Above the roofline, the sky was black and empty. Lights from the houses across the canyon seemed a continent away.

“You’ll be okay?” I said.

“I’ll be fine. Go.” She gave me a quick kiss and a small shove.

Milo and I headed for the Fiat. The dog watched us drive away.

The sound of the gate clanking shut made me feel better about leaving her up there. Milo coasted to Benedict, shifted to first, then upward, squeezing as much speed as possible out of the little car. Shifting roughly, big hands nearly covering the top of the steering wheel. As we headed south, I said, “Anything on Gritz?”

“One possible citation — thank God it’s an unusual name. Lyle Edward, male white, thirty-four years old, five six, one thirty, I forget the color of his eyes.”

“Coburg said he was shorter than Hewitt.”

He nodded. “Bunch of drunk and disorderlies from back when we still bothered with those, possession of narcotics, couple of shoplifting busts, nothing heavy.”

“When did he come to L.A.?”

“First arrest was fourteen years ago. The computer gives him no known address, no parole officer, either. He got probation for some of his naughties, lived at county jail for the others, and paid his debt in full.”

“Any mention of mental illness?”

“There wouldn’t be unless he was classified as a mentally disordered sex offender or committed some other kind of violent psycho crime.”

“I’ll call Jean Jeffers Monday, see if I can find out if he ever got treated at the center.”

“Meanwhile, we can talk to the offrampers, for what it’s worth. All he is is a name, so far.”

“Robin suggested we should bring them food. Increase the rapport.”

He shrugged. “Why not. There’s a minimarket over on Olympic.”

We drove a bit more. He frowned and rubbed his face with one hand.

“Something the matter?” I said.

“Nah . . . just the usual. Justice got raped again — my truant scumbags. The old lady died this afternoon.”

“I’m sorry. Does that make it murder?”

He pumped his gas pedal leg. “It makes it
shit
. She had badly clogged arteries and a big tumor growing in her colon. Autopsy said it was just a matter of time. That, her age, and the fact that the kids never actually touched her means the DA’s office doesn’t want to bother to prove it was an unnatural death. Once they hospitalized her, she was never well enough to get even a deathbed declaration, and without her testimony, there’s not much of a case against the little bastards even for robbery. So they probably get a stern lecture and walk. Wanna make a bet by the time they start shaving, someone else’ll be dead?”

He got to Sunset and joined the smooth, fast traffic flowing west from Beverly Hills. Amid the Teutonic tanks and cigarillo sports jobs, the Fiat looked like a mistake. A Mercedes cut in front of us and Milo swore viciously.

I said, “You could give him a ticket.”

“Don’t tempt me.”

A mile later, I said, “Robin came up with a possible link between Paprock and Shipler. Both could have been in group therapy with de Bosch. Treatment for themselves, or some kind of parent’s group to talk about problem kids. The killer could also have been in the group, gotten treated roughly — or thought he had — and developed a grudge.”

“Group therapy . . .”

“Some kind of common problem — what else would draw two people from such different backgrounds to de Bosch?”

“Interesting . . . but if it was a parent’s group, de Bosch didn’t run it. He died in eighty, and Paprock’s kids are six and seven years old now. So they weren’t alive when he was. In fact, at the time Myra died, they were only babies. So what kind of problems could they have had?”

“Maybe it was a child-rearing program. Or some kind of chronic illness support group. And are you sure Paprock was only married once?”

“According to her file she was.”

“Okay,” I said. “So maybe
Katarina
was the therapist. Or someone else at the school — maybe the killer believes in collective guilt. Or it could have been an
adult
treatment group. Child therapists don’t always limit themselves to kids.”