JONATHAN KELLERMAN. THERAPY

“Gene Marr. With an H.”

“Maher?” said Milo.

She started to answer, gave up, closed her eyes.

By the time we were out of the room, she was snoring.

*

Before we exited the house, Milo brought me to Gavin’s room. The same pale blue walls, stripped. The queen bed made up with a deep blue comforter. Gavin’s bookcase held a few softcovers and magazines, and two model airplanes. The carpeting was dingy.

The closet was filled with jackets, slacks, shirts, coats.

“Nice wardrobe,” I said. “Jerry didn’t take the papers out to the garbage. He made sure no one would see them.”

Milo nodded and pointed to the stairs.

*

As we drove away, he said, “Bastard knows why his son was killed, and he’s trying to hide it.”

He found Quick’s business number in his notes, phoned, waited, snapped the phone shut. “Not even a machine.”

“He travels and gives blue-nailed Angie the secretary time off.”

“Angie of the petty but very definite criminal record. Quick’s starting to smell like something more than a grieving dad.”

“His landlord hires troubled souls, and so does he,” I said. “Maybe compassion’s contagious. Or Sonny sent him Angela Paul, as well.”

“Sonny the fixer? Get you a medical referral, invest your money.”

“Maybe Quick was into him for more than back rent.”

“His own kid, and he doesn’t say a word.”

“Maybe it’s more than knowing,” I said. “What if he’s implicated?”

“Wouldn’t that be pretty.”

“What’d you find in Gavin’s pockets?”

“Who says I found anything?”

“Those questions about Gavin’s clothing. You didn’t need ten minutes to flip through a few books and pockets.”

He slapped a slow three-four beat on the dashboard with one big palm. “Bastard took the computer—should I even bother calling Beverly Vista school to see if he donated it?”

Without waiting for an answer, he made the call, hung up grinning with rage. “First they’ve heard about it. You wanna know what I think? Gavin found out about something dirty going on in that building—something to do with Koppel and Charitable Planning and Daddy. The kid fancied himself an investigative reporter and figured he’d got himself a nice little scandal. Brain-damaged, but he kept some sort of records. And his old man destroyed them. My damn fault, I shoulda gone through that room first thing.”

“What’d you find in the closet?” I said.

He opened to the center of his pad and showed me something sandwiched there, encased in a plastic evidence bag.

Wrinkled sheet of paper the size of an index card. Miniature lined paper, from a pad not unlike Milo’s. Numbers written in blue ink. Cramped, smudged. A wavering column of seven-digit number-letter combinations.

“License plate numbers?”

“That would be my guess,” said Milo. “Stupid kid was surveilling.”

CHAPTER

30

Milo said, “Drop me back at the station. Gonna run these numbers, then head over to the Hall of Records, see if I can find any other link between Jerry Quick and Sonny beyond tenancy. If I leave soon, I can make it downtown in time.”

“Want me to take you straight there?”

“No, this is gonna be tedious, I’ll do it alone. I also want to talk to Quick’s accountant. Luckily CPAs don’t get confidentiality. Any word from the Times on running the picture?”

“Not yet.”

“If your pal Biondi doesn’t come through, I’m having a chitchat with my habitually unresponsive capitan. He hates seeing my face, so maybe I can promise not to surface for another year if he goes over the heads of those losers in Community Relations and gets someone to push the media. With all the deceit on this one I don’t need a victim I can’t identify.”

“I’ll try Ned again.”

“Good,” he said. “Thanks. Let me know, either way.”

*

I phoned Coronado Island.

Ned Biondi said, “No one called you? Jesus. I’m sorry, Doc. I thought it was worked out. Okay, let me see what’s going on, I’ll get back to you ASAP.”

An hour later, the phone rang.

“Mr. Delaware?” Plummy, theatrical baritone. Every syllable, foreplay.

“Speaking.”

“This is Jack McTell. From the Los Angeles Times. You’ve got a picture you’d like us to run.”

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