Jonathan Kellerman_Petra Connor 01 (31 page)

“Through the same agency?”

“Yup.”

“Remember the name?”

“Of the agency? Some place in Beverly Hills—the Nancy Downey Agency.” He shot a cuff and looked at his watch.

“I appreciate your time, Mr. Balch.”

Before she left the office, she glanced at the wall of photos. Two young guys striking poses. Players. Next to the pictures, Balch did look old.

CHAPTER

She drove to a gas station pay phone, got the number of the Nancy Downey Agency, and called it, though it was well past business hours. No machine. Something to wake up for tomorrow.

Taking Laurel Canyon back to the city, she reviewed the interview with Balch.

Nothing dramatic, but he had provided a possible lead to Estrella Flores, and had offered evidence of friction between Lisa and Ramsey.

She went off on him all the time.

Consistent with what Kelly Sposito had said about Lisa’s sarcasm.

Impotent ex-hubby; sharp-tongued wife. Ramsey said she had a habit of shoving him. Had she finally pushed him too far?

How much did Balch know? Had he heard Ramsey leave the house during the early-morning hours? Go into the car museum and pull out the Mercedes? Or the Jeep?

How far would the lineman go to protect the quarterback?

Players. Actors. What was real, what was scripted?

Time to talk to the night guard who’d been on shift Sunday. Then she thought of something. RanchHaven. A place that big, smack in the fire zone, there’d have to be a second way out for safety. If so, was it guarded too? Or was there some way for residents to exit without tipping off the security staff?

Too many question marks. Not quizzing the guard right away had been amateurish; she felt like a blind painter.

Was it worth a ride out to Calabasas right now? She’d been going all day, and if she didn’t let go of it, she wouldn’t sleep and wouldn’t that be pretty—one groggy, impaired D mucking things up further.

Tomorrow morning her artwork would appear all over the news and leads about the boy in the park would start pouring in, most of them useless. The whole thing was a distraction. And something about the boy’s eyes bothered her—he’d already seen plenty. She didn’t even want to think about an eleven-year-old witnessing something like that.

She thought about him. Eating dinner alone in Griffith Park. Reading. Stealing books. Pathetic but charming—enough! Go home, E.T. Soak in tub, eat sandwich—oh, Jesus, she couldn’t go home. The eight o’clock appointment with Ron Banks! What had possessed her to
do that
?

She zipped across Sunset and checked her watch. Seven forty-six. Barely enough time to get to Katz’s, let alone freshen up and change.

The guy would be forced to stare across the table at a hag.

Big deal; this was no real date.

What was it, then?

She made it at three minutes to, paid for parking in a nearby lot, and walked into Katz’s corned-beef air. Greeted with a wide, false smile by a dyspeptic waitress who remembered her cop tips, she took a booth toward the back, ordered a Coke, headed for the ladies’ room to wash up.

In front of a soap-specked mirror, she fluffed her hair and disapproved of her face. Definitely haggard, every bone showing. Paler than usual, too, and something seemed to be tugging her mouth down—some cruel god sketching in the wrinkles that would soon be engraved there? At least the black pantsuit of the day was holding up okay—let’s hear it for viscose.

When she returned, the drink was there and Banks was walking through the front door. She waved him over.

He smiled and sat down. “Good to see you again.” His hands settled on the table, fingers drumming. Unfolding the paper napkin, he placed it on his lap. His hands kept moving.

“Hit much traffic coming over?” she said.

“Not bad.” He looked different. A stranger.

As opposed to? She was sitting across from a stranger—an uncomfortable stranger; look at those hands. Straining for conversation when a hot bath would have proved celestial.

The waitress brought a bowl of sour-pickle slices and Petra took one. Defining the ground rules right from the start: garlic on the breath; don’t think of getting close. That seemed to relax Banks and he reached for one, too.

“These are great,” he said. “Never been here.”

“Good place.”

“Sometimes I go to Langer’s, on Alvarado. People are getting shot over at MacArthur Park and they’re still lining up for pastrami at Langer’s.”

“Been there,” said Petra. “I’m kind of a deli freak.”

“No cholesterol worries?”

“Good genetics,” she said. “Cholesterol-wise, anyway.”

He laughed. Why did he look so different? Younger, even more boyish than at Ramsey’s house. Despite being dressed more formally—navy double-breasted suit, pale blue shirt, maroon tie. Nice. Had
he
somehow found time to spruce up?

Then she realized what the difference was. The mustache was gone. She remembered it as a smallish, blond-gray thing, no big soup-strainer like his partner’s. But its absence made a difference. No gray in his head hair; losing the ’stache took off years. He had a pleasant face—a little narrow, the nose a little off-center, but the eyes were well placed. Hazel. Long lashes. The now exposed mouth yielding, but not in a weak way. Hairless hands. Young skin. She saw him as someone who’d gone through puberty late, would preserve well.

The mouth turned up slightly at the corners—a perpetual smile that might have gotten him into trouble as a schoolboy:
Banks, stop smirking.

She realized she was staring; touched her upper lip and arched an eyebrow.

“Got rid of it last night,” he said, almost apologetic. “It was an experiment. My daughters didn’t like it, said it tickled. I shaved it off right in front of them. They thought it was hilarious.”

“How many daughters do you have?”

“Two. They’re five and six.”

Knowing he’d carry pictures, she asked if he had any.

“As a matter of fact . . .” he said, pulling several from his wallet.

Two pretty little things, both dark-haired but with fair skin, somewhat Latina-looking. Big brown eyes, long hair styled into ringlets, identical pink, frothy dresses. No obvious resemblance to Banks, though she thought she saw something in the younger one’s smile.

“Totally adorable. What are their names?”

“The older one’s Alicia and the baby’s Beatrix. We call her Bee, or Honeybee.”

A and B. Someone liked order. She handed the photos back to him, and he took a peek before slipping them behind his credit cards.

The waitress stomped over and asked if they were ready.

Petra knew what she wanted, but she picked up her menu to give him time.

The waitress’s foot tapped. “I can come back—”

“No, I think we’re okay. I’ll take the pastrami-coleslaw combo. With fries.”

“And you?”

Banks said, “Smoked turkey on a kaiser roll. Potato salad.”

“Something to drink?”

“Coffee.”

Alone again, she said, “How often do you get to be with them?”

“They live with me.”

“Oh.”

“Their mom’s Spanish—from Spain. She trains horses, teaches riding. She went back to work at a resort in Majorca and gave me custody. She visits every few months, is still trying to figure out where she’s going to live.”

“Must be tough,” said Petra.

“It is. I’m trying to tell them Mommy loves them, cares about them, but what they know is she isn’t there. It’s been really tough. I just got them into therapy; hopefully it’ll help.”

Most cops ran from anything psychiatric unless they were filing for disability. Banks’s easy admission interested her.

She watched him eat another pickle. Narrow hands; the free one continued to drum. The fingers long but sturdy. Impeccable nails.

He chewed slowly. Everything about him seemed slow and deliberate. Except the hands. All his tension filtered down to his fingertips. “She was always after me to grow a mustache. My ex. Said it was
muy macho.
” He laughed. “So after she’s gone, I do it. Guess a therapist would have something to say about
that.
Anyway, she’s still trying to find herself. Hopefully, she will soon.”

“How long’s it been?”

“Final decree was just over a year ago. I’m able to feel sorry for her now, see her as someone with serious problems, but— Oh, by the way, I talked to the Carpinteria sheriff and he said Lisa Ramsey never filed any DV complaint on Ramsey there, either. They’ve got no calls to the house, period.”

Whiplash change of subject. He knew it and blushed, and Petra groped for a way to rescue him.

The waitress solved that problem, setting down his coffee hard enough to slosh the saucer and barking, “Your food’s coming up.”

She hurried off, and Petra said, “Thanks for checking, Ron.”

“Least I could do.”

The two of them worked on their drinks. The restaurant was almost full, the usual mixture of soup-sipping old folk and Gen-X depressives showing they didn’t care about dietary fat. Behind the stocked case, countermen sliced and wrapped and cracked jokes, the briny aromas of herring and cured meat and stuffed derma yielding to sweetness as fresh rye loaves came out of the kitchen on steel trays.

Suddenly, Petra felt hungry, a little more relaxed.

“How about you?” said Banks. “Been married?”

“Divorced two and a half years ago, no kids.” Getting that out of the way before he could ask. “So you’ve got them full-time. Must be challenging.”

“My mom helps out—picks them up from school and baby-sits when I have to work late. They’re great girls, sweet, smart, into sports—Alicia does soccer, gives the boys a run. Bee’s not sure if she likes soccer or T-ball, but she’s pretty coordinated.”

Sports dad. Her father had gone that route with all five kids. Football for the boys, softball for Petra. Every Sunday, into a hideous uniform. She hated the entire experience, faked enthusiasm to please him, stuck with it for three summers. Years later he told her she’d done him a big favor quitting; he’d yearned for some free time on weekends.

Single father—was that why she’d gotten together with Banks?

He seemed so unguarded. What was he doing as a cop? She asked him how he got into law enforcement.

“My dad was a fireman—it was either that or police work,” he said. “Always wanted one of the two.”

“I don’t want to sound chauvinistic, but why the sheriff’s and not LAPD?”

He grinned. “Wanted to do real police work—seriously, back then Lulu—my ex—was talking about opening up her own equestrian school one day, we figured we’d be living somewhere unincorporated, so I applied to the sheriff. How about you?”

She gave him a very spare version of the artist-to-detective transition.

He said, “You paint? Beatrix is kind of artistic. Or at least she seems that way to me. Her mom tried to do pottery. I’ve still got the wheel at home—just sitting there, as a matter of fact. Want it?”

“No thanks, Ron.”

“You’re sure? It seems a waste.”

“I appreciate the offer, but I just paint.”

“Oh, okay. What kinds of things do you paint?”

“Anything.”

“And you actually did it professionally.”

“I wasn’t exactly Rembrandt.”

“Still, you must be good.”

She gave him a rundown of her ad agency days, her mouth running while her brain thought: How cute, each of us shifting the focus to the other. In her case, defensiveness, but Banks seemed really interested in her. Polar opposite of Nick. All the other men she’d dated since Nick—artists, then cops. Even when they talked about you, it was really just a ploy to get it back to me me me.

This one seemed different. Or was she just flattering herself?

She ended her recitation: “Like I said, no big deal.”

“Still,” he said, “it’s tough making any kind of living creatively. I had an uncle did some sculpture, could never make a dime—ah, here comes the food, whoa, look at those portions!”

He ate slowly, and that prevented Petra from wolfing. Good influence, Detective Banks.

In between bites, they chatted about work. Dry stuff: benefits, insurance, the usual gripes, comparing blue and tan bureaucracies, good-natured kidding about intramural sports competitions. Finding more common ground than differences. She noticed he wasn’t wearing his gun.

When their sandwiches were gone, they each ordered apple pie à la mode. Petra finished hers first, tried idly to pick up crumbs with the tines of her fork.

“You like to eat,” said Banks. “Thank God.”

The fork paused midair. She put it down.

He blushed again. “I—no offense—what I mean is, I think that’s great. Seriously. It sure doesn’t show—at least as far as I can—” He shook his head. “Oh, Lord, I am
not
good at this.”

She found herself laughing. “It’s okay, Ron. Yes, I do have a healthy appetite when I remember to sit down for a meal.”

He continued to shake his head, wiped his mouth with his napkin, folded it neatly, and placed it next to his plate. “Whatever I just gargled out, please take it as a compliment.”

“So taken,” said Petra. “You’re saying love of food’s a healthy thing.”

“Exactly. Too many girls these days get crazy about food. I think about that because I have daughters. My ex always bugged them, obsessed with being skinny—” He stopped himself again. “Not too cool, bringing her up every minute.”

“Hey, she was a big part of your life. It’s normal.” Implying that she’d done the same with Nick. But she hadn’t. She’d never talked about him to anyone.

“Was,” he said. “Past tense.” He raised one hand and sliced air vertically. “So . . . how’s the case coming?”

“Not too brilliantly.” She talked about it without giving him details. Liking him but not forgetting that he was non–LAPD.

He said, “Situations like that, publicity, no way you can do your job properly.”

“Ever have one like that?”

“Once in a while.” Touching his napkin, he looked away. Wary,
too?

“Once in a while?” she echoed.

“You know us country bumpkin lawmen, runnin’ down rustlers, protectin’ the pony express.”