Jonathan Kellerman – Monster

Milo grunted.

Dollard said, “Yeah, I know what you’re thinking: good riddance to bad rubbish, you’d be happy to be on the firing squad.” He chuckled. “Cop thinking. I worked patrol in Hemet for ten years, woulda said the exact same thing before I came here.

Couple of years on the wards and now I know reality: some of them really are sick.”

He touched his mustache. “Old Chet’s no Ted Bundy. He couldn’t help himself any more than a baby crapping its diaper. Same with old Sharbno back there, pissing in the dirt.” He tapped his temple. “The wiring’s screwy, some people just turn to garbage.

And this place is the Dumpster.”

“Exactly why we’re here,” said Milo.

Dollard raised an eyebrow. “That I don’t know about. Our garbage doesn’t get taken out. I can’t see how we’re gonna be able to help you on Dr. Argent.”

He flexed his fingers again. His nails were yellow horn. “I liked Dr. Argent. Real nice lady. But she met her end out there.” He pointed randomly. “Out in the civilized world.” “Did you work with her?”

“Not steadily. We talked about cases from time to time, she’d tell me if a patient needed something. But you can tell about people. Nice lady. A little naive, but she was new.” “Naive in what way?”

“She started this group. Skills for Daily Living. Weekly discussions, supposedly helping some guys cope with the world. As if any of ’em are ever getting out.” “She ran it by herself.” “Her and a tech.” “Who’s the tech?” “Girl named Heidi Ott.” “Two women handling a group of killers?” Dollard smiled. “The state says it’s safe.” “You think different?” “I’m not paid to think.”

We neared the chain-link wall. Milo said, “Any idea why someone in the civilized world would kill Dr. Argent? Speaking as an ex-cop.”

Dollard said, “From what you told me-the way you found her in that car trunk, all cleaned up-I’d say some sociopath, right? Someone who knew damn well what he was doing, and enjoyed it. More of a 1368 than a 1026-your basic lowlife criminal trying to fake being crazy ’cause they’re under the mistaken impression it’ll be easier here than in jail. We’ve got two, three hundred of those on the fifth floor, maybe a few more, ’cause of Three Strikes. They come here ranting and drooling, smearing shit on the walls, learn quickly they can’t B.S. the docs here. Less than one percent succeed. The official eval period’s ninety days, but plenty of them ask to leave sooner.”

“Did Dr. Argent work on the fifth floor?” “Nope. Hers were all 1026’s.”

“Besides total crazies and ninety-day losers, who else do you have here?” said Milo.

“We’ve got a few mentally disordered sex offenders left,” said Dollard. “Pedophiles, that kind of trash. Maybe thirty of ’em. We used to have more but they keep changing the law- stick ’em here, nope, the prison system, oops, back here, unh-uh, prison.

Dr. Argent didn’t hang with them, either, least that I noticed.”

“So the way you see it, what happened to her couldn’t relate to her work here.”

“You got it. Even if one of her guys got out-and they didn’t-none of them could’ve killed her and stashed her in the trunk. None of them could plan that well.”

We were at the gate. Tan men standing still, like oversized chess pieces. The faraway machine continued to grind.

Dollard flicked a hand back at the yard. “I’m not saying these guys are harmless, even with all the dope we pump into them. Get these poor bastards delusional enough, they could do anything. But they don’t kill for fun-from what I’ve seen, they don’t take much pleasure from life, period. If you can even call what they’re doing living.”

He cleared his throat, swallowed the phlegm. “Makes you wonder why God would take the trouble to create such a mess.”

2.

Two CORPSES IN car trunks. Claire Argent was the second.

The first, found eight months earlier, was a twenty-five-year-old would-be actor named Richard Dada, left in the front storage compartment of his own VW Bug in the industrial zone north of Centinela and Pico-a warren of tool-and-die shops, auto detailers, spare-parts dealers. It took three days for Dada’s car to be noticed. A maintenance worker picked up the smell. The crime scene was walking distance from the West L.A. substation, but Milo drove over to the scene.

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