“The screams being Hewitt, what does ninety-nine percent’ mean?”
“It means the sheriff’ll get up on the stand and testify it’s highly probable to the best of his professional knowledge. Only trouble is, we need to get someone on trial first.”
“So I was right, this isn’t some homeless guy. He’d need a place to keep his equipment.”
He shrugged. “Maybe he’s got a secret den somewhere and that’s where he’s hiding out right now. I had talks about Gritz with detectives at other substations. If the scrote’s still lurking around, we’ll hook him.”
“He is,” I said. “He hasn’t completed his homework.”
I told Milo what I’d learned in New York.
He said, “Pseudo-burglary? Sounds hokey.”
“New York cops didn’t think so. It matched some previous break-ins in the neighborhood: jimmied locks, people on vacation, a glass of soda left on the bedroom nightstand. Soda from the victim’s kitchen. Sound familiar?”
“Were any of the other burglaries in the papers?”
“I don’t know.”
“If they were, all we’ve probably got is a copycat. If they weren’t, maybe our killer has a burglary sideline. Why don’t you get a hold of some four-year-old papers and find out. I’ll phone New York and see if Gritz’s name or Silk-Merino’s shows up on their blotters around the time of Rosenblatt’s fall.”
“He’s been pretty careful about keeping his nose clean so far.”
“It doesn’t have to be a major felony, Alex. Son of Sam got busted on a parking ticket. Lots of cases get solved that way, the stupid stuff.”
“Okay,” I said. “I’ll hit the library soon as it opens.”
He picked up his cup and drank. “So what’s Rosenblatt’s motive for jumping supposed to have been?”
“Guilt. Coming to grips with his secret criminal identity.”
He scowled. “What, he’s standing there, about to glom jewelry, and he suddenly gets a guilt flash? Sounds like horseshit to “The family thought so, too, but the New York police seemed convinced. They told the widow if she pressed the issue, everyone’s name would be dragged through the slime. A private investigator she hired told her the same thing, more tactfully.”
I gave him names and he jotted them down.
Looking into his coffee, he said, “You want, there’s still some in the pot.”
“No, thanks.”
Robin said, “Another fall–just like the other two.”
“Delmar Parker’s run off the mountain,” I said. “That has to be the connection. The killer was traumatized in a major way and is trying to get even. We’ve got to find out more about the accident.”
Milo said, “I still haven’t had any luck locating Delmar’s mother. And none of the Santa Barbara papers covered the crash.”
“Out of all those Corrective School alumni,” I said, “someone’s got to know.”
“Still no files, anywhere. Sally and the gang pried up Katarina’s floorboards.
And we can’t find any records, yet, of de Bosch applying for government funds.”
Over the rim of his cup, his face was heavy and beat. He ran his hand over it.
“It bothers me,” he said. “Rosenblatt–an experienced psychiatrist–meeting someone in a strange apartment like that.”
“He was experienced, but he had a soft heart. The killer could have lured him there with a cry for help.”
“That’s not exactly standard operating shrink procedure, is it? Was Rosenblatt some kind of avant-garde guy, believed in on-thescene treatment?”
“His wife said he was an orthodox analyst.”
“Those guys never leave the office, right? Need their couches and their little notebooks.”
“True, but she also said he’d been very upset by something that had happened in a session recently. Disillusioned. It’s a reasonable bet it had something to do with de Bosch. Something that shook him up enough to meet the killer out of the office. He could have believed he was going to the killer’s home–the killer could have given him a good rationale for meeting there. Like a disability that kept him homebound–maybe even bedridden. The window Rosenblatt went out of was in a bedroom.”
“Phony cripple,” he said, nodding. “Then Rosenblatt goes to the window and the bad guy jumps up, shoves him out. .. very cold. And the wife had no idea what disillusioned him enough to make a house call?”