JONATHAN KELLERMAN. THERAPY

“No, I . . . uh . . . I don’t know nothing about nothing.” The man rolled his sweatshirt sleeve down his arm.

“Any ideas about who did kill Dr. Koppel?”

“Didn’t know her, didn’t hardly never see her.”

“Except to fix things for her.”

“No,” protested the man. “I don’t do that stuff, I call the plumbers, whatever, and they fix it. I’m just here to clean. Mostly I do Mr. Koppel’s buildings in the Valley.”

“But today, you’re on this side of the hill.”

“I go where they tell me.”

“They.”

“Mr. Koppel’s company. They got properties all over.”

“Who told you to come here, today?”

“Mr. Koppel’s secretary. One of them. Heather. I can give you the number, you can check it out.”

“Maybe I will,” said Milo. “Now, how about some ID?”

The man fished in a front pant pocket and fished out a wad of bills secured by a rubber band. He slipped off the band, thumbed through the money—grubby singles and fives—and drew out a California identification card.

“Roland Nelson Kristof,” said Milo. “This your current address, Roland?”

“Yeah.”

Milo scanned the card. “Sixth Street . . . this is right past Alvarado, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Lots of halfway houses there. That your situation?”

“Yeah.”

“So you still paroling.”

“Yeah.”

“How’d you get the job with Mr. Koppel?”

“My PO got it for me.”

“Who’s that?”

“Mr. Hacker.”

“Downtown office?”

“Yeah.”

Milo gave him back his ID. “I’m going to run you through, Roland. Because a halfway-house guy working a building where someone got murdered is something I need to check out. I find out you lied to me, I pay a visit to your crib, and you know I’m gonna discover something that busts your parole, you know I am. So if there’s something you wanna tell me, now’s the time.”

“There’s nothing,” said Kristof.

“You never had problems with women? No bad behavior in that department?”

“Never,” said Kristof. Until then his delivery had been flat, mechanical. Now a hint of outrage had crept in.

“Never,” said Milo.

“Never, not once. I been a junkie since I was fourteen. I don’t hurt no one.”

“Still on the junk though.”

“I’m getting older, it’s getting better.”

“What is?”

“The hunger,” said Kristof. “Days are getting shorter.”

“How’s your sex life, Roland?”

“Ain’t got none.” Kristof’s declaration was free of regret, almost cheerful.

“You sound happy about that.”

“Yeah, I am,” said Kristof. “You know what dope does to all that.”

“No drive,” said Milo.

“Zactly.” Kristof smiled wearily, flashing intermittent, brown teeth. “Something else not to worry about.”

*

Milo copied down his address and allowed him to resume vacuuming.

As we climbed the stairs to Pacifica-West Psychological Services and the roar of the vacuum cleaner faded, he said, “That’s one habitual con.”

I said, “Criminal burnout. Get to a certain age, and it’s too pooped to pop.”

“Wanna guess how old he is?”

“Fifty?”

“Thirty-eight.”

*

No one sat in the waiting room. Dr. Larsen’s session light was off. Dr. Gull’s shone red.

“It’s three-forty,” I said. “If he does the forty-five-minute hour, he’ll be out shortly.”

“I love your profession,” said Milo. “Imagine if surgeons could do that. Cutting out three-quarters of the appendix and billing.”

“Hey,” I said, “we use the time to chart and to reflect.”

“Or if you’re Dr. Gull, to put back all the stuff you swept off your desk when you decided to reflectively hump your patient all over it.”

“Cynical.”

“Thank you.”

At three-forty-six the door to the waiting room opened and a flushed, attractive woman in her forties backed out, still chattering to Franco Gull.

He was close behind her, holding her by the elbow. When he saw us, he dropped his hand. The woman sensed his tension, and her cheeks pinkened.

I waited for Gull to start sweating, but he recovered his composure and ushered the woman toward the door, saying, “Next week, then.”

The woman was brunette and well padded, swimming in a sea of gray cashmere. She brushed at her hair, favored us with a brittle smile, and left.

Gull said, “Again? Now what?”

Milo said, “We met your wife.”

Long silence. “I see.”

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