JONATHAN KELLERMAN. A COLD HEART

“So now we’ve got a diagnosis,” he said. “But no patient.”

“Tentative diagnosis. The advisor also said Kevin felt strongly that commercial success and quality were incompatible. By itself that means little—he termed it dorm-room doctrine, and he’s right. But most college students move past dorm life and develop autonomy. Kevin doesn’t seem to have made big strides in that direction.”

“Arrested development . . . success is corrupt, so nip it in the bud. Meanwhile, no sign of him, and it’s looking more and more as if he’s rabbited. Petra says Stahl’s been on the apartment like a rash, hasn’t caught a glimpse of the guy. I’m putting a BOLO on Drummond’s Honda but without declaring him an official suspect, it’ll be prioritized at the bottom of the basket.”

“Despite the missing car, it’s possible Drummond’s holed up in his apartment,” I said. “A loner like that, some canned soup and a laser printer could sustain him for a while. Has Stahl checked?”

“He had the landlady knock. No answer, no sounds of movement on the other side of the door. Stahl thought of having her use her master key—go in on pretense of a gas leak, whatever. But he thought better of it, called Petra, she called me, and we all decided to wait. Just in case a search does pull up something serious. Kevin’s daddy is a lawyer. We ever bust the kid, he’s gonna be represented by a shark, no sense jumping the gun and risking an evidentiary mess. Just to make sure, I had a chat with an assistant D.A. who leans toward permissive about grounds for warrants. She listened to what I had, asked me if I was taking my routine to open-mike night at the Comedy Store.”

“So what’s the plan?”

“Stahl keeps watching, and Petra continues checking out Hollywood spots, clubs, alternative bookstores, to see if anyone knows Kevin. I’m going over the file on Julie Kipper to see if there’s anything I missed. I also called Fiorelle in Cambridge and suggested he scour hotel registers for Drummond. He said he’d try, but that was a lot to ask for.”

“One more thing,” I said. “I spoke to Christian Bangsley, China Maranga’s other living band mate. He says China was certain someone was stalking her.” I recounted the incident near the Hollywood sign. “It made her angry, not frightened. The night she disappeared, she was enraged at the band. Throw in drugs and her aggressive personality, and it could add up to a volatile situation.”

“With a guy like Kevin.”

“With any wrong guy. China being buried near the sign is consistent with a stalker. She had a thing for the sign, went up there regularly. Someone watched her, learned her patterns. Maybe she wasn’t picked up walking the streets. Maybe she chose that night to hike, was followed and ambushed. Bangsley said when she screamed, no one heard. Up there in the hills, the sound of a struggle would be muted.”

“What kind of thing did she have for the sign?”

“The story of that starlet flinging herself to her death appealed to her.”

“Unfulfilled dreams,” he said. “Sounds like she and Drummond would’ve had some common ground.”

“Sure,” I said. “Until they didn’t.”

25

After a futile double shift combing Hollywood for someone who recognized Kevin Drummond, Petra went to bed at 3 A.M., got up at nine, and did phone work from her apartment, lying in bed, hair pinned, still in her T-shirt and panties.

Milo had filled her in on Alex’s visit to Drummond’s college. Drummond’s professor’s description, firming up the profile.

Your basic loner; big shock.

One heck of a loner—not a single club owner or bouncer or patron or bookstore employee remembered his face.

The only people she found who responded to Drummond’s DMV photo at all, were the owner of a Laundromat within two blocks of Drummond’s apartment and the clerk at a nearby 7-Eleven who thought, yeah, maybe the guy came in there and bought stuff from time to time.

“What kind of stuff?”

“Maybe Slim Jims?” The clerk was a skinhead with a vulnerable face who reacted with the edgy eagerness of a game show contestant.

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