Dr. Death by Jonathan Kellerman

The closest I got to conversation was when I let him know I’d met his mother.

“Yeah? How’s she doing?”

“She’s concerned about you.”

“Go fuck yourself.”

I pressed him about novelty shop gags, phony books. Broken stethoscopes.

He said, “What in the ripe rotten fuck are you talking about?”

“You don’t know?”

“Hell no, but go ahead, talk all you want, I’m coasting now. Getting smooth.”

Then he closed his eyes, curled as fetally as the cuffs allowed, and went to sleep.

Not faking; real slumber, chest rising and falling in a slow, easy beat. The rhythmic snores of one at peace. I left Hollywood Mercy trying to classify him. Assaultive and deeply disturbed, but bright and manipulative. Combative and pigheaded, too. Eldon Mate had rejected his son unceasingly, but genetics couldn’t be denied. Zero Tollrance. He’d turned himself into a walking canvas, drifting from squat to squat, numbed his pain with dope and anticonvulsants and anger and art.

Painting his father’s portrait, over and over.

Offering his best to his father, getting rejected over and over.

As good a motive for patricide as any. And Donny had considered it, he’d definitely considered it.

Did you kill him?

Too late. As usual.

Denying he’d followed through. As did Richard. Brilliant, bloody production, and no one was willing to take credit.

Despite Donny’s slyness, I found myself believing him.

The mental impairment was real. Tegretol was powerful stuff, end-stage medication for mood disorders when lithium failed. No fun, not an addict’s choice. If Donny craved it, he’d suffered.

He’d dissected his father on canvas, but the real-life murder reeked of a mix of calculation and brutality that seemed beyond him. I tried to picture him organizing what had happened up on Mulholland. Stalking, enticing, writing a mocking note, hiding a broken stethoscope in a box. Cleaning up perfectly, sufficiently meticulous not to leave a speck of DNA.

This was a guy who got mugged and left in the gutter. Who got yelled at by an elderly landlady and fled.

My mention of the book and the scope had elicited nothing from him. His clumsy attempt to enter his father’s apartment in full view of Mrs. Krohnfeld was miles from that degree of sophistication. His entire life pattern was a series of failed attempts. I doubted he’d ever gotten past Eldon Mate’s front door.

No, someone a lot more intact than Donny Salcido Mate had planted that toy. The personality combination I’d suggested at the beginning—the same mixture suggested by Fusco.

Smarts and rage. Outwardly coherent but with a bad temper problem.

Someone like Richard.

And his son. I thought of how the boy had pulverized six figures’ worth of treasure.

It kept coming back to Eric.

Dispirited, I headed west on Beverly and considered how Eric might’ve lured Mate to Mulholland. Wanting to talk about his mother? To talk about what he’d done to his mother—for his mother. Claiming to Mate that he’d been inspired by the death doctor. The appeal to Mate’s vanity might have worked.

But if Eric had been the one in that motel room, why butcher Mate? Covering for himself? Thin. So perhaps Mate had been involved. And Eric, knowing of his father’s hatred for the death doctor, perhaps even knowing about the failed contract with Quentin Goad, had taken it upon himself to act.

Blood orgy to please the old man.

Happy Traveling, You Sick Bastard. The phrasing had an adolescent flavor to it. I could hear the sentence tumbling from Eric’s lips.

But if Eric had slaughtered Mate, why was he now striking out against his father? Had he finally come to grips with what he’d done? Turned his anger on Richard—blaming, just as the old man was wont to do?

Father and son rolling, wrestling, snorting on the floor. Tearing at each other, only to embrace. Ambivalence. Apparent reconciliation.

But if what I suspected was true, the boy was unpredictable and dangerous. Joe Safer had sensed that, asked my opinion. I’d avoided an answer, claiming I needed to focus upon Stacy, but also wanting to avoid additional complications. Now I had to wonder if Eric’s presence in the house put Stacy—and Richard—in danger.

I’d call Safer as soon as I got home. Hold back my suspicions and keep my comments general—Eric’s bad temper, the effects of stress, the need to be careful.

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