Mystery (40 page)

Milo.

Sheriff’s Homicide Investigator Laurentzen “Larry” Palmberg.

Three uniformed sheriff’s deputies, an equal number of LAPD uniforms.

Twice that many from Beverly Hills PD, along with two B.H. detectives thrilled to be “doing something exciting.”

Seven crime scene techs. Because of all the square footage.

Dr. Clarice Jernigan, wearing a hand-tailored coroner’s windbreaker over an expensive pantsuit, even though she rarely showed up at any crime scene and there was no dead body. Because, in the event the murder weapons showed up, she wanted an unsullied chain of evidence.

Last in: Deputy D.A. John Nguyen, clutching the search warrant he knew he’d be serving and the arrest warrant he hadn’t been sure about before watching the feed from the laptop.

Because “filthy-rich folk hire media-savvy loudmouths who spin like dervishes and I need to make sure nothing stupid happens.”

“Also,” Milo confided to me, “everyone likes to see a fancy house.”

One person, wandering the mansion casually, could’ve found it.

In the living-room-sized closet of Leona Suss’s Louis XIV bedroom, a push-door behind racks of Chanel, Dior, Gucci, and Patrice Lerange opened to reveal a six-foot-tall, bird’s-eye-maple-veneered jewelry safe. Whatever treasures nested within would await discovery until a locksmith arrived.

The adjoining stainless-steel gun safe, a foot taller and double wide, had been left unlocked. Inside, oiled and boxed and beautifully maintained, were two shotguns, a rifle, and fourteen handguns, many of which bore original tags and had never been fired, including a massive, gold-plated Magnum Research Desert Eagle Mark VII.

Milo hefted that one in gloved hands. “Work of art. But probably too damn heavy for her.”

Palmberg said, “Yeah, it’s a beaut … pretending she’s our size, huh? Both my daughters were like that when I took ’em to the range. I’m guiding them to lower caliber, they want to go nuclear.”

“They still shoot?”

“Nah, too busy, they’re surgeons. One does veins, the other does bones.”

“Nice.”

“You get what you put in.”

Weight issues, apparently, didn’t apply to the Asp, squat and ugly and crude. Side-by-side barrels formed a nasty omega.

On a middle shelf, Milo found the Smith & Wesson .357 revolver later determined to be the conduit for Steven “Stefan” Muhrmann’s trip to eternity.

In a drawer at the bottom of the safe were still shots from Leona Suss’s films. A few love scenes but many more featuring death, terror, or simply the star bad girl brandishing weapons. Later photos, the most recent taken the previous year, chronicled the story of a steadily aging but still fit and agile woman who’d never lost her attraction to firepower. Some pictures captured her target shooting; in others she nestled the weapons like infants.

Those, especially, caused her to smile.

“Like they’re her kids,” said John Nguyen. “This is an interesting lady.”

“She’s got real kids,” I said. “That’ll make it more interesting.”

“What do you mean?”

“You’ll never go to trial.”

“What if I want to?”

“Doesn’t matter.”

No sign Mark Suss had ever shared his widow’s passion for firepower.

No sign, either, of the Glock she’d threatened to use on me. That turned up at the log house on Old Topanga Road, fully loaded and resting in a bedroom nightstand drawer.

The room itself was pink, a lace-trimmed set-up with a heart-shaped canopy bed. One-quarter the size of the suite in her mansion, frilly and redolent of lavender and sharply discordant from the house’s rustic charm. The door was dead-bolted but yielded easily to a battering ram. No sign anyone had slept there for years.

A screen porch set up with a propane heater had been used recently. Feminine products were stacked on a windowsill. Casual clothes hung in a cedar-lined chest. DNA recovered from the cot pushed into a corner was later found to match Tiara Grundy’s. For three weeks, she’d been living out in the country, maybe enjoying the creek out back. Maybe deluding herself the rules were anything but Leona’s.

Two smaller bedrooms at the opposite end of the house were set up as lairs for teenage boys, with rock posters, renderings of race cars, unstrung electric guitars. Alternative light sources picked up copious amounts of semen on both twin beds. Same for pine flooring, hook rugs, a nearby bathroom.

In the same nightstand drawer that held the Glock was a Patek Philippe Ladies’ Calatrava wristwatch with diamond bezel. Thirty-five grand retail. Mark Suss had gone way off budget.

Swabs from the back of the watch also matched Tiara’s nucleic acid. Not a trace of Leona’s. She’d resisted the temptation to inherit.

But she had expressed herself; the watch’s crystal face was ruined, scored to a ragged, filmy grid by some sort of sharp object. The tip of an empty ballpoint pen stamped with Markham Industries’ address and phone number was later found to match the tool marks.

Milo said, “Love is fun but hatred’s forever.”

Leona Suss hired a team of Beverly Hills attorneys who soared straight over Nguyen’s head. A deal was struck quickly and quietly: The accused would plead guilty to second-degree murder, receive fifteen years with possibility of parole after ten, and spend her time at a medium-security prison that had decent psychiatric care.

No need to confess, no airing of any motive.

Nguyen said, “Don’t say
I told you so.
”

I said, “Eventually, you’ll be happy about it.”

“Why?”

“You’ll shower and not feel dirty.”

hree days after the arrest, Robin and Milo and Rick and I went to dinner. The same family-run Italian place on Little Santa Monica.

Milo said, “Sir Alex Olivier. You poured it on heavy, amigo. Cops are idiots, huh?”

“I sacrifice for my art.”

He laughed. “Yeah, I can see the pain.”

Rick said, “Idiots? That could be one of your lines, Big Guy. When you’re in
that
mood.”

“Better believe it,” said Milo. “Anyway, thanks for figuring it out,
Dottore
. Chief says this time you’ll get some serious consulting dough. Soon as he figures out a way to make it kosher.”

“Sorry,” I said, “but I turn blue.”

“What?”

“When I’m holding my breath.”

Everyone laughed. My head was elsewhere but I was pretty sure I’d done a decent job of faking sociable.

As our glasses clinked, my cell beeped.

Robin said, “You didn’t turn it off?”

I held the phone to my ear, did a few “Uh-huhs,” clicked off, and stood and squeezed Robin’s hand. “Sorry, genuine emergency.”

“That hasn’t happened in a while.”

“All the more reason I need to respond.”

She gazed up at me. “Any idea when you’ll be through?”

“Not for a while—enjoy, guys.”

“Least it’s not another acting gig,” said Milo.

“No, this is honest labor.”

Bunny Rodriguez met me in the hospital lobby. We rode silently up to the ICU.

She said, “I didn’t want to bother you but it happened quickly. She just …”

Fighting tears.

I squeezed her hand.

“There’s nothing here for a kid,” she said. “Nothing age-appropriate, I mean. The nurses were nice enough to unlock a side room off the waiting area. My husband’s with him, at least he had the presence of mind to bring a couple of books and the drawing materials. But it’s pretty bleak.”

“What’s Chad’s understanding of what’s happening?”

“I was going to ask you that. Developmentally, I mean. How he actually feels, I can’t tell you. It was so sudden, I wasn’t paying attention to Chad. Talk about dereliction of duty.”

“Your mind was on Gretchen.”

“Even though she told me it
shouldn’t
be. Yesterday. When we were discussing Chad’s schooling up in the Bay Area and I stopped to ask her how she was feeling. She nearly took my head off. Barked that I should mind my own fucking business and follow instructions.”

“That sounds about right,” I said.

“Feisty to the end … the almost-end. One moment she was sleeping peacefully, actually looked better. The next moment the hospice nurse came in and told us her breathing had stopped, she’d gotten it restarted but it was weak, what to do next was up to me. I know Gretchen wouldn’t want to suffer but I forgot about that, it went right out the window because what I wanted to do was save my sister. As if. I hope I didn’t create a mess.”

“Have the doctors told you anything?”

“They don’t expect her to last the night.” Throwing up her free hand. “So maybe it won’t be a mess.”

The hand I held turned clammy. “You did right, Bunny.”

“Why do you say that?”

“It came from the right place.”

“Road to hell and all that? No offense, but that’s meager comfort.”

“One way or the other, it’s going to end,” I said. “She won’t suffer needlessly.”

“I want to believe you.” Gripping my biceps. “You come across believable, that probably works well for you.”

In all sorts of situations
.

We walked toward the main entry to the unit. She pointed to a closed, unmarked door.

“In there. I’d better go see Gretchen.”

Chad Stengel sat facing a wall, arms crossed, legs splayed straight out, in a too-high chair pushed into a far corner. Books and drawing pad and markers were stacked neatly in an opposite corner. A white-bearded man in a plaid shirt and cords stood near the stack.

A casual onlooker might assume the boy was being punished for something.

The man muttered, “Finally.” Then: “Dr. Delaware? Leonard Rodriguez.”

“Pleased to meet you.”

“You’ll take it from here?” Moving toward the door without waiting for an answer.

I said, “Sure.”

Rodriguez said, “You’ll be fine, Chad. The doctor’s going to help you.”

He left.

I brought a chair within five feet of Chad’s.

We sat there for a long time. Or maybe it wasn’t that long. I didn’t time it. It didn’t matter.

Eventually, he said, “She’s real sick.”

“Yes, she is.”

“She’s
real
sick.”

“Yes.”

“I don’t want to see her.”

“That’s up to you.”

“Not dead,” he said. “I want to see her good.”

I kept quiet.

“Dead is
bad
.”

“Bad and sad.”

“A lot bad,” he said. “You’re her friend? That’s what she said.”

“It’s true.”

“You’re a doctor but you’re her friend.”

“Your friend, too.”

“She’s not mad.”

“No.”

“Not at me,” he said. “Never at me.”

“Never.”

“She’s a little mad at Bunny.”

“About what?”

“I don’t know … she’s good.”

The small round face looked up at me. Clear-eyed, solemn. “Not healthy good.
Good
.”

“You’re right,” I said. “Your mom did some real good things.”

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

J
ONATHAN
K
ELLERMAN
is one of the world’s most popular authors. He has brought his expertise as a clinical psychologist to more than thirty bestselling crime novels, including the Alex Delaware series,
The Butcher’s Theater, Billy Straight, The Conspiracy Club, Twisted
, and
True Detectives
. With his wife, the novelist Faye Kellerman, he co-authored the bestsellers
Double Homicide
and
Capital Crimes
. He is the author of numerous essays, short stories, scientific articles, two children’s books, and three volumes of psychology, including
Savage Spawn: Reflections on Violent Children
, as well as the lavishly illustrated
With Strings Attached: The Art and Beauty of Vintage Guitars
. He has won the Goldwyn, Edgar, and Anthony awards and has been nominated for a Shamus Award. Jonathan and Faye Kellerman live in California, New Mexico, and New York. Their four children include the novelists Jesse Kellerman and Aliza Kellerman.

www.jonathankellerman.com