Killer (3 page)

“Doesn’t sound like fun.”

“Far from it, Doctor. Far from it. So do we have an understanding?”

“Hmm,” I said.

“When can I expect—”

“Expect nothing.”

A beat. “Didn’t you hear what I told you? I
warned
you.”

“Well,” I said. “Give it your best shot. Asshole.”

Click
.

Never heard from him again.

By the time Dr. Constance Sykes sued her sister, Cherie Sykes, for guardianship of Rambla Pacifico Sykes, a minor female child, age sixteen months, I thought I’d seen it all.

But right from the start, this one was different. As a non-parent, Connie had no rights in family court, no legal avenue to seek custody. The creative solution, per her attorney, was to seek guardianship in probate court, based upon Cherie’s unfitness as a mother and the fact that Cherie’s “dumping” the baby on Connie for a three-month period was tacit admission of such on Cherie’s part.

I’d never worked a probate case, got the referral because Judge Nancy Maestro was the sister-in-law of now retired Judge Stephen Yates and he’d given her my name. The setup I had in family court would transfer easily: As an impartial probate investigator, I’d be working for the court, not the parties.

The case sounded interesting so I agreed to a meeting with Judge Maestro. I was already downtown, wrapping up a week of deposition on a multiple homicide Milo had closed last year. The trip from Deputy D.A. John Nguyen’s office on West Temple to the Mosk Courthouse on North Hill was a five-minute stroll.

I found Maestro’s court easily enough, well lit and empty, with chambers to the left rear of the bench. Entry was blocked by a broadly built bailiff in sheriff’s beige. Thick arms crossed his chest. His eyeglasses were slightly tinted—a pale bronze just dark enough to block
out sentiment. As I approached, he didn’t move. My smile did nothing to melt his impassiveness.

H. W. Nebe
on his badge. Mid- to late fifties, white-haired, a heavy, sun-seamed face that could’ve been avuncular had he chosen to un-clamp his lips.

“Dr. Delaware. I have an appointment with Judge Maestro.”

The news didn’t surprise or impress him. “I.D., please.”

Scanning my driver’s license elicited a second visual circuit. “Why don’t you take a seat, Doctor.”

The previous year a judge in criminal court had been stabbed in his office after hours. Rumors abounded about a love triangle but the case remained open and I supposed Deputy H. W. Nebe’s caution was justified.

I settled in the front row of the courtroom—where I’d be stationed if I was a defendant. Nebe took his time with a two-way radio. A muttered conversation out of earshot led him to rotate his bronze lenses toward me and curl a finger. “Okay.”

He ushered me through a door that led into a small anteroom. An inner door was marked
Chambers
in chipped black lettering.

Nebe knocked. A voice said, “Come in.”

Nebe turned to me. “Guess that means you.”

Steve Yates had scored an impressive, oak-paneled inner sanctum, exactly the kind of retreat you’d imagine for a Superior Court judge. Nancy Maestro’s chambers consisted of a twelve-by-fifteen, drop-ceilinged, white-walled space set up with paint-grade bookcases, a wood-grain desk with chipped metal legs, unaccommodating side chairs, and a laptop computer. The view was downtown grime under a sky struggling to produce blue.

She got up and shook my hand and sank back down behind the desk. A plump, pretty brunette in her early forties, she favored a broad
swath of mauve shadow above each inquisitive brown eye, dabs of peach-colored rouge on the apples of prominent cheekbones. Full lips were glossed glassy. The room smelled of White Shoulders perfume. Two black robes hung from a rack in the corner. She wore a powder-blue suit, an off-white silk scarf draped loosely across her chest, pearl earrings and necklace. Two cocktail rings, one per index finger, but no wedding band.

“Hello, Dr. Delaware. So you’re the one.”

I raised an eyebrow.

“The smart one. That’s what my brother-in-law calls you. He also calls you a few other things.”

“The aggressive one.”

“That’s a fair approximation,” said Nancy Maestro. “And maybe that makes you just what we need on this mess. We’re talking two total loony-tunes, the one I feel sorry for is the baby.”

“Rambla.”

“Rambla Pacifico. Know what that is?”

“A road in Malibu.”

“You know your geography, Dr. Alex Delaware.” She sat back, drew a couple of mini Hershey’s bars from a jar on her desk, offered me one. When I shook my head, she said, “Fine, I’ll have both.” Chewing daintily, she folded the wrappers before tossing them into an unseen trash basket. “A road in Malibu where the kid was conceived. That’s the only fact the two loonies can agree on.”

She eyed the candy jar, pushed it away. “Rambla Pacifico. Commemorating the moment. Kid’s lucky it wasn’t Schmuckler’s Bar and Grill.”

I laughed.

Judge Nancy Maestro said, “That’s the last funny thing you’ll hear me say about the case. What do you know about probate court?”

“Not much.”

“Most of what we do is uncontroversial. Clearing paper on wills
and estates, conservatorships for obviously impaired individuals. Child guardianships arise from time to time but most are uncontested: people happy to ditch their kids, schizophrenic parents, drug-addict parents who can no longer cope, criminal parents with long prison sentences, so control obviously needs to be signed over to grandparents, aunts, uncles, whatever. See what I’m getting at?”

“It’s not like family court.”

“You couldn’t pay me enough to work family, I’d rather do gang felonies than deal with the crap that gets slung when people decide to sever the knot.”

She glanced to the side. “How do you do it?”

“It’s not my entire professional life.”

“You also do therapy.”

No sense getting too specific. I nodded.

“Anyway,” she said, “let me fill you in on
Sykes Versus Sykes
. Which is really a custody case in disguise and therefore something I wish I could send straight back to family. Better yet, to the circular file. Because it’s garbage.”

“Then why accept it?”

“Because the law says I have to.” She rolled an inch forward. “Can you keep a little secret? Sure you can, you’re a therapist. I’m behaving myself because I’m banking on a promotion. What seems like a lateral transfer to Criminal Courts Division. But it’s not lateral at all because I’ll be supervising huge financial trials. Major banking and investment shenanigans. Money cases are my first love, I worked them as a prosecutor, tried the opposite side of the room for a while as a white-collar defense attorney, then I got appointed to this job. With the understanding that if I rounded out my experiential base, I’d be prioritized for serious corporate felony cases. The last thing I need is controversy—appeals or God forbid reversals. So I accepted damn
Sykes Versus Sykes
and now I’d like you to help me get through it as cleanly and quickly as possible.”

“I understand, Judge, but I need to work at my own pace—”

“And
I
understand
that
,” she said. “I’m not trying to tell you how to do your job, I’m merely explicating my own priorities: This case
will
move. Meaning I will not grant it a nanosecond more than it deserves. In that regard, objective psychological data will help me achieve my goal. Okay?”

“Okay.”

“Sure you don’t want any chocolate? It helps the endorphins.”

I smiled.

“All right, then,” she said. “
Sykes Versus Sykes
. Or as I like to call it, the Harridan versus the Loser. Sykes One—the Harridan—is Constance. A doctor, plenty of money, lives in a seven-figure house in Westwood and can afford every upscale convenience and opportunity for a child. Unfortunately for her, she didn’t birth the child in question and would now like to take a shortcut. As in swiping said child from her younger sister.”

She rotated her chair to the left, ran a finger along a sculpted eyebrow. “Which brings us to Sykes Two. Cherie. Spotty employment history, a few misdemeanors in her past, lives on whatever she can ladle out of the federal alphabet soup tureen. She co-conceived the child under a Malibu sky but won’t name the father. Lives in a ratty apartment in East Hollywood and my guess is little Rambla won’t be going to Crossroads or Buckley or Harvard-Westlake.” She frowned. “When the kid grows up, she might find herself ladling from the tureen but that’s not my concern.”

“Cherie’s got issues but nothing in her background makes her unfit.”

“If only,” said Nancy Maestro. “I mean give me some serious anger management issues—better yet, violent acting out. Give me hard-core felonies, major-drug addiction, give me
anything
that puts this child in jeopardy and I’ve got something to work with and we can all go home feeling good.”

“You think the child would be better off with Connie.”

Her eyes flashed. “I didn’t say that. Once you meet Connie, you’ll understand why I didn’t say that. I’m just looking for a clear avenue to maximize this baby’s safety and security while staying within the boundaries of the law.”

“The Harridan,” I said. “Connie’s got a difficult personality.”

Instead of answering, she fooled with the candy bowl. “You have kids, Doctor?”

“No.”

“Me, neither. Married young, divorced, grew up. Love my life as it is. Connie Sykes, on the other hand, strikes me as someone who put off personal attachments for her career and now she’s stuck living by herself and wants to create an instant family.”

“At the expense of her sister.”

“Oh, yeah. There’s that. The sibling relationship. Or lack of. Which didn’t stop Cherie from dumping the kid on Connie while she went gallivanting with some rock band.”

“For how long?”

“Eighty-eight days,” she said. “Connie’s lawyer claimed three months, Cherie’s lawyer did a day-by-day count and disputed it. All that took pages of very tedious prose. See what I’m dealing with?”

I nodded. “Did Cherie have contact with Connie or the child during that time?”

“Connie claims she got a couple of phone calls, period. Cherie claims she tried to call Connie frequently, couldn’t get through. When Cherie came for the kid, Connie didn’t want to return her. There was a scene at Connie’s work.”

“Medical office.”

“More like a lab, Connie’s a pathologist. She claimed bringing the kid there was for optimal care: Rather than pawn Rambla off on some babysitter or day care, she had her staff help her ‘nurture the baby on a regular basis.’ In any event, the showdown was Cherie pushing her way past the staff and grabbing little Rambla.”

She grimaced. “The names people stick on their prodge. Imagine if the tryst had been on Busch Drive?”

I said, “Connie got attached, Cherie broke the attachment, they’re mortal enemies.”

“That sums it up, Doc—Alex okay?”

“Preferable.”

“You nailed it, Alex. I’m sure Dr. Connie’s going through some major separation anxiety but she’s wisely avoided citing that in her suit because the court cares nothing about non-parental adults’ emotional issues. Instead, she’s contending that Cherie dumping the kid is clear proof that A., Cherie is unfit, and B., Cherie intended for Connie to keep the baby, they had an oral contract stipulating to such and it was only ‘low impulse control’ that caused Cherie to renege. Connie’s also tossing in the usual allegations about Cherie: dope, destructive lifestyle, deleterious environment. The drug part comes from the fact that two of Cherie’s busts were for marijuana but those were fourteen and twelve years ago, respectively. Her other arrest was shoplifting when she was eighteen—nineteen years ago. Like I said, give me heroin, crack, crank, HIV-positive, dirty needles, whatever. Pot and sticky fingers is b.s.”

“Cherie’s alleged character issues amount to zero in the eyes of the law.”

“And to tell the truth, she comes across like a much better candidate for motherhood than Connie.”

“Warmer?”

“Warmer, friendlier, social. Also, I’ve seen her with the kid and the kid clearly feels comfortable with her. Haven’t seen the kid with Connie because we just began and I’m not sure I want to put a sixteen-month-old through another separation from her mommy. What do you think?”

“You’re right.”

“Good. I will rely upon your expertise the next time Connie’s lawyer hounds me to give her client a chance to demonstrate maternal skills.”

“Persistent lawyer?”

“Pain-in-the-ass lawyer,” she said. “A young one named Medea Wright, works for Stark and Stark, I’m sure you know what their approach is, talk about black-hearted litigators.”

“That could be a problem,” I said.

“Why?”

I told her about my experience with Sterling Stark.

“You’re kidding,” she said. “He was suborning perjury, the old goat. You report him?”

“No, I just shined him on.”

“Too bad, you could’ve created serious problems for the bastard.”

“Not my aim.”

“Sterling Stark,” she said. “Well guess what, Alex: Good news for us, he’s dead. Keeled over a couple of years ago while walking to the court parking lot. Big funeral in Hancock Park, every judge got invited. I hear a few even showed up. Anyway, there’s no conflict of interest and you are free to deal with Ms. Medea Wright.”

“Who’s Cherie’s lawyer?”

“An independent practitioner out in the Valley named Myron Ballister.” She frowned.

“Not a heavyweight.”

“Far from it,” she said. “I’m sure he’s not billing at Stark and Stark levels. Is the playing field uneven? Sure, but Cherie’s got the law on her side and Medea’s having the time of her life filing ridiculous motions and racking up billable hours.”

“Motions you can’t just toss in the circular file.”

She took another candy. Unwrapped slowly, ate quickly. “Can’t wait to get out of this dump, go after some serious criminals. Are you on board?”

“Sure.”

“Great,” she said. “No kids, huh? That help you retain your objectivity?”

“No,” I said. “It’s just the way things are.”

She studied me. “Married?”