mind. I found myself wanting to know more about
the man who was the law in La Vista.
“He told me about his wife dying of cancer. What
happened to the daughter?”
Maimon raised, his eyebrows and stopped Strok-Lng
the Lab. The dog stirred and growled until .the
stimulation resumed.
“Suicide. Four or five years ago. She hung herself
from an old oak on the property.”
266
Jonathan Kellerman
He recalled it matter of factly,-as if the girl’s
death hadn’t been surprising. I commented bn i.t.
“It was a tragedy,” he said, “but not oneof those
cases where one’s initial reaction is stunneddisbe-lief.
Marla’d always seemed a troubled child to me.
Plain, overweight, excessively timid, ‘no friends.
Always had her nose buried in a book. Fairy tales,
the times I noticed. I never saw her smile.”
“How old was she when she died ?”
“Around fifteen.”
Had she lived she’d be the same age as Nona
Swope. The two girls had lived nearby. I asked
Maimon if there’d been any contact between them.
“I doubt it. As little girls they sometimes played
together. But not after they got older. Maria kept to
herself and Nona ran with the wild crowd. You
couldn’t find two girls more dissimilar.”
Maimon stopped stroking the dog. He rose, cleared
the table, and began washing dishes.
“Losing M ….
aria canged Ray, he sad turning off
the water and picling up a dish towel. “And the
town along with him. Before her death he’d been a
hell-raiser. Liked to drink, arm-wrestle, tell off-color
jokes. When they cut her body down from
that tree he turned inward. Wouldn’t accept solace
from anyone. At first people thought it was grief,
that he’d come out of it. But he never did.” He
wiped a bowl past the gleaming point. “Seems to
me La Vista’s been a little more somber since then.
Almost as if everyone’s waiting for Ray to give
them permission to smile.”
He’d just described mass anhedoniamthe rejection
of pleasure. I wondered if therein lay the key
to Houten’s tolerance of the ostensibly self-denying
Touch.
BLOOD TEST 267
Maimon finished drying and wiped his hands,
I got up.
“Thank you,” I said, “for your time, the tour, and
the fruit. You’ve created great beauty here.” I held
out my hand. ‘
He took it and smiled.
“Someone else created it. I’ve simply displayed
it. It’s been a pleasure talking to you, Doctor. You’re
a good listener. Will you be going to Garland’s place
now?”
“Yes. Just to look around. Can you direct me?”
“Proceed along the road the way we came. You’ll
pass half a mile of avocado. Owned by a consortium
of La Jolla doctors as a tax shelter. Then a covered
bridge over a dry bed. Once off the bridge drive
another quarter mile. The Swope place is to the
left.”
I thanked him .again. He walked me to the door.
“I passed by the place a couple of days ago;,” he
said. “There was a padlock on the gate.”
‘Tm a pretty good climber.”
“I don’t doubt it. But remember what I told you
about Garland’s being antisocial. There are coils of
barbed wire on top of the fence.”
“Any suggestions?”
He pretended to look at the dog, and said with
forced nonchalance: “There!s a toolshed next to my
back porch. Odds and ends. Rummage around, see
if you find anything helpful.”
He walked away from me and I exited the house.
The “odds and ends” were a collection of high
quality hand tools, oiled and wrapped. ‘I selected a
heavy-duty bolt cutter and a crowbar and carried
them to the Seville. I put them on the floor of the
car along with a flashlight retrieved from ‘the glove
268 Jonathan Kellerman
compartment, started up the engine, and rolled
forward.
I looked back at the brightly lit nursery. The
taste of the cherimoya lingered on my tongue. As I
drove off the property the lights ,went out.
21
I’D RECEIVED impressions of the Swopes from multiple
sources but had yet to form a coherent image
of the shattered family.
Everyone had thbught Garland Unusual–emotion-ally
inappropriate, secretive, hostile to outsiders.
But for a hermit he’d been surprisingly outgoing–Beverly