Jonathan Kellerman_Petra Connor 01 (12 page)

There’s a boy’s face on the carton, a black kid named Rudolfo Hawkins who was kidnapped five years ago. The picture is from when he was six years old, and it shows him wearing a white shirt and tie and smiling, like at a birthday party or some other special occasion.

It says he was kidnapped by his father in Compton, California, but could be in Scranton, Pennsylvania, or Detroit, Michigan. I used to look at the picture and wonder what happened to him. After five years he’s probably okay . . . at least it was his father and not some pervert.

Maybe he’s back in Compton with his mother.

I’ve thought about Mom looking for me, and can’t get it straight in my head if she is.

When I was young—five, six—she used to tell me she loved me, we were some pair, just us against the fucking world. Then her drinking and doping got more intense and she paid less and less attention to me. Once Moron moved in, I became invisible.

So would she look for me?

Even if she wanted to, would she know how, not being educated?

Moron would be a problem. He’d say something like, “Fuck, the little prick split, Sharla. He didn’t give a shit, fuck him—gimme those nachos.”

But even without Moron, I can’t get it straight how Mom would feel. Maybe she’s sad I left, maybe angry.

Or maybe she’s relieved. She never planned to have me. I guess she did the best with what she had.

I know she took good care of me in the beginning, because I’ve seen pictures of when I was a baby that she keeps in an envelope in a drawer in the kitchen and I look healthy and happy. We both do. They’re from Christmas, there’s a tree full of lights and she’s holding me up like some trophy, with a great big smile on her face. Like, Hey, look what
I
got for Christmas.

My birthday’s August tenth, so that would make me four and a half months old. I have a gross, fat face with pink cheeks and no hair. Mom is pale and skinny and she’s got me dressed up in a stupid blue sailor suit. She’s wearing the widest smile I’ve ever seen her wear, so some of her happiness must have been because of me, at least at the beginning.

Because her parents died in that car crash before I was born, what else would make her smile like that?

On the back of the photos are stickers that say
GOOD SHEPHERD SANCTUARY, MODESTO, CALIFORNIA.
I asked her about it, and she said it was a Catholic place, and even though we’re not Catholic, we lived there when I was a baby. When I tried to ask her more about it, she grabbed the pictures away and said it wasn’t important.

That night she cried for a long time and I read my Jacques Cousteau book to block out the sound.

I must have made her happy back then.

Enough of this stupid stuff, time to unroll the Place Two plastic, here we go—toothbrush and Colgate gel, free samples I got out of someone’s mailbox, no name on it, just
RESIDENT,
so it really didn’t belong to anyone. Another pair of underpants, out of a garbage can behind one of the huge houses at the foot of the park, a bunch of the ketchup and mustard and mayonnaise packets taken from restaurants. My books—

Only one book. Algebra.

Where’s the presidents book from the library? Got to be somewhere inside the plastic; I used three layers . . . no, not here. Did it fall out when I unpacked?—no . . . did I drop it nearby?

I get up, look.

Nothing.

I backtrack for a while.

No presidents book.

I must have dropped it in the dark.

Oh no. Shit. I was planning to give it back one day.

Now I am a thief.

CHAPTER

Stu dropped Petra off behind the station and drove off.

Back at her desk, she called Cleveland information for a backup work number for Dr. Boehlinger at Washington University Hospital. The home number was in the book, too. Maybe folks were more trusting in Chagrin Falls.

She dialed, got a woman’s recorded voice.

The time difference made it afternoon in Ohio. Was Mrs. Boehlinger out shopping? Some surprise Petra would have for her. She visualized Lisa’s mother shrieking, sobbing, maybe throwing up.

She remembered Ramsey’s show of grief, the nearly dry eyes. Bad actor unable to produce copious tears?

The Boehlingers’ tape machine beeped. Not the time to leave a message. She hung up and tried the hospital. Dr. Boehlinger’s office was closed, and a page produced no response.

Feeling no relief, only an ordeal postponed, she called the phone company and went through a couple of supervisors before finding a sympathetic voice. Lots of paperwork would be necessary for a full year’s worth of Lisa’s records, but the woman promised to fax over the latest bill when she found it. Petra thanked her, then she drove to Doheny Drive, ready for Lisa’s maid, Patsy Whateverhernamewas.

Sunset was clogged and she took Cahuenga south to Beverly Boulevard and got a clearer sail. As she drove, she played one of her private games, composing a mental picture of the Thai maid: young, tiny, cute, barely able to speak English. Sitting in another cream-colored room, terrified of all the cops who were playing strong and silent, not telling her a thing.

The building on Doheny was ten stories tall and shaped like a boomerang. The lobby was small, four walls of gold-streaked mirror, some plants, and mock Louis XIV chairs guarded by a nervous-looking young Iranian in a blue blazer name-tagged
A. RAMZISADEH,
kept company by a uniform. Petra showed her badge and inspected the two closed-circuit TVs on the desk. Black-and-white long view of hallways, nothing moving, the picture shifting every few seconds.

The guard shook her hand limply. “Terrible. Poor Miss Boehlinger. It would never happen here.”

Petra clucked sympathetically. “When’s the last time you saw her, sir?”

“I think yesterday—she come home from work six
P.M.
”

“Not today?”

“No, sorry.”

“How’d she leave without your seeing her?”

“Each floor has two elevator. One to the front, one to the back. The back lead down to garage.”

“Straight down to the garage?”

“Most people call down to have car brought around.”

“But Ms. Boehlinger didn’t.”

“No, she always drive herself. Go straight to the garage.”

Petra tapped one of the TV monitors. “Does the closed-circuit scan the garage?”

“Sure, look.” Ramzisadeh indicated a slowly scanning black-and-white view of parked cars. Murky spaces, glints of grille and bumper.

“There,” he said.

“Do you keep tapes?”

“No, no tapes.”

“So there’d be no way to know exactly when Ms. Boehlinger left?”

“No, Officer.”

Petra walked to the elevator and the cop tagged along. “Big help, huh?” He pushed the button. “Up at the top. Ten-seventeen.”

The door to Lisa Ramsey’s apartment was closed but unlocked, and when Petra walked in she saw the maid sitting on the edge of a couch. The physical similarity to Petra’s mental image threw her so hard she almost lost her balance. Ten points on the ESP meter.

Patricia Kasempitakpong was five-one, tops, maybe a hundred pounds, with a pretty heart-shaped face under a thick mop of long, layered ebony hair. She wore a beige cotton knit top, blue jeans, and black flats. The sofa was as overstuffed as those in Cart Ramsey’s house. But not cream—Petra’s prophecy-fest ended there.

Lisa Ramsey’s apartment was a study in color. Red and blue velvet couches with tasseled skirts, parquet floors stained black, a zebra-skin rug thrown across the wood. A real zebra rug; the animal’s head pointed toward a black glass vase filled with yellow daffodils.

From what Petra could see, the apartment was small, the kitchen just a cubby of white lacquered wood and gray tile counters. The ceilings were low and flat. Basically the place was just another L.A. box. But the tenth-floor-corner location and sliding glass doors gave it fantastic views of the west side, all the way to the ocean. Beyond the door was a skimpy balcony. No furniture; no potted palms. A cigar of smog floated above the horizon.

Two uniforms were enjoying the view, and they turned to Petra just long enough to see her flash the badge. On the wall behind Patricia Kasemwhatever was a black metal shelving unit housing black stereo equipment and a twenty-five-inch TV.

No books.

Petra hadn’t seen any in Ramsey’s place, either. Nothing like common apathy as the basis for a relationship.

The hard-edged color scheme suggested that Lisa had tired of pastels. Or maybe she’d never liked them in the first place.

Had cream and pink been
Ramsey’s
idea of tasteful? Interesting.

She smiled at Patricia, and Patricia just stared. Petra went over to her and sat down.

“Hi.”

The maid was scared, but loosened up after a while. Fluent English; American-born. (“Don’t even bother with my name; they call me Patsy K.”) She’d only worked two months for Lisa, couldn’t see how she could help.

A one-hour interview produced nothing juicy.

Lisa had never said why she’d left Ramsey, nor had the domestic-violence episode come up. She had mentioned once that he was too old for her, that marrying him had been a mistake. The maid slept in the spare bedroom, kept the place clean, ran errands. Lisa was a great boss, Lisa always paid on time, was neat and tidy herself. A “real neat person.”

Patsy K. had no trouble crying.

On the subject of spousal support, the maid said Lisa received a monthly check from a firm called Player’s Management.

“The card’s there on the fridge.” Petra retrieved it. Address on Ventura Boulevard in Studio City. Gregory Balch’s name at the bottom: financial manager. Ramsey paying through his company.

“Any idea how much the checks were for?”

Patsy blushed, no doubt recalling an indiscreet peek.

“Anything you can tell us would be really helpful,” said Petra.

“Seven thousand.”

“A month?”

Nod.

Eighty-four thousand a year. Enough to pay the rent and some bills and have some fun, but not much of a dent in Ramsey’s seven-figure income. Still, things like that chafed. Paying money to someone you resented, someone who’d humiliated you on national television.

It spelled tension, but was far from probable cause.

So Lisa had thought Ramsey too old for her. He’d alluded to a generational rift too. “Did Lisa and Mr. Ramsey talk on the phone?”

“Not that I ever saw.”

“Is there anything else you can tell me, Patsy?”

The maid shook her head and began to cry again. The uniforms on the balcony were watching the sunset, didn’t even bother to turn. “She was nice. Sometimes it was like we were more like friends—eating dinner together up here when she wasn’t going out. I know how to cook Thai, and she liked it.”

“Did Lisa go out a lot?”

“Sometimes two, three times a week, sometimes not for weeks.”

“Where’d she go?”

“She never really said.”

“No idea at all?”

“Movies, I guess. Screenings. She was a film editor.”

“Who’d she work for?”

“Empty Nest Productions—they’re over at Argent Studios in Culver City.”

“When she went out, who was it with?”

“Guys, I guess, but since I’ve been here she never brought them up here.”

“She went down to meet them?”

Patsy nodded, and Petra said, “But you assume they were guys.”

“She was beautiful. Had been a beauty queen.” Patsy eyed the officers out on the balcony.

“During the two months you worked here, none of her dates ever came up?”

“One guy came up, but I don’t know if he was a date. She worked with him. I think his name was Darrell—a black guy.”

“How many times did he come up?”

“Twice, I think. Maybe it was Darren.”

“When was this?”

Patsy thought. “Maybe a month ago.”

“Can you describe him?”

“Tall, light-skinned—for a black guy, I mean. Short hair, neat dresser.”

“Facial hair?”

“No, I don’t think so.”

“How old?”

“I guess around forty.”

Another older man. Patsy had a blank look in her eyes. The irony had eluded her.

Lisa searching for Dad?

“What was Lisa’s work schedule?”

“She worked all hours,” said Patsy. “Whenever they called her, she had to be ready.”

“And Mr. Ramsey never showed up here.”

“Not when I was here.”

“And no phone calls.”

“Lisa hardly spoke to anyone on the phone—she didn’t like the phone, used to disconnect it so she could have peace and quiet.”

“Okay,” said Petra. “So your day off is Sunday?”

“Saturday night till Monday morning. When I got here at eight, Lisa was already gone. I thought maybe she got a night call. Then the officers showed up.”

Patsy held herself tight and began to rock; coughed; gagged on her own saliva. Petra got her a Pellegrino water from the miniature white fridge. There were three more bottles in there, and fresh grapes, three cartons of nonfat raspberry yogurt, cottage cheese. Lean Cuisine in the freezer.

Patsy drank. When she put the bottle down, Petra said, “You’ve been very helpful. I appreciate it.”

“Whatever . . . I still can’t believe . . .” Patsy swiped at her eyes.

“Now I’m going to ask you something tough, but I have to. Was Lisa into drugs?”

“No—she—not that I saw.” The Pellegrino bottle shook.

“Patsy, the first thing I’m going to do after we finish talking is search this apartment from top to bottom. If there’s dope here, I’ll find it. Personally, I don’t care if Lisa used. I’m Homicide, not Narcotics. But drugs lead to violence, and Lisa was murdered very violently.”

“It wasn’t like that,” said Patsy. “She wasn’t a head. She used to sniff a little, but that was it.”

“Any other drugs besides cocaine?”

“Just some grass.” Downward glance. Meaning maybe Lisa had shared her cannabis with Patsy? Or the maid had pilfered?

“She hardly used anything,” Patsy insisted. “It wasn’t regular.”

“How often?”

“I don’t know—I never actually
saw
it, the coke.”

“What about the grass?”