Bad Love

"Definitely. He probably got the same kind of call Bert Harrison did and responded to it. And died because of it."

Milo said, "So why did the killer keep his appointment with Rosenblatt but not with Harrison? Why, now that I'm thinking about it, was Harrison let off the hook completely? He worked for de Bosch, he spoke at that goddamn conference, too. So how come everyone else in that boat is sunk or sinking and he's on shore drinking piÑa coladas?"

"I don't know."

"I mean, that's fu

"Maybe," I said, feeling sick. "Wouldn't that be something. There I was, sitting across the table from him- trying to protect him… he treated Mitch Lerner. He knew where Katarina lived… hard to believe. He seemed like such a sweet guy."

"Any idea where he's gone?"

I shook my head. "But he's not exactly unobtrusive with those purple clothes."

"Purple clothes?" said Robin.

"He says it's the only color he can see."

"Another weird one," said Milo. "What is it about your profession?"

"Ask the killer," I said. "He's got strong opinions on the subject."

29

We spent the night at Milo's. After he left for work, I stayed and listened to the tape another dozen times.

The chanting man sounded like an accountant tallying up a sum.

That maddening hint of familiarity, but nothing jelled.

We returned to Benedict Canyon, where Robin took the dog to the garage and I called in for messages. One from Jean Jeffers- No record of Mr. G-and a request to phone Judge Stephen Huff.

I reached him in his chambers.

"Hi, Alex. I assume you heard."

"Is there anything I should know other than what's been on the news?"

"They're pretty positive who did it, but can't prove it yet. Two Mexican gang members- they're figuring some kind of drug war."

"That's probably it," I said.

"Well, that's one way to settle a case. Any word from the grandmother?"

"Not a one."

"Better off- the kids, I mean. Away from all of this- don't you think?"

"Depends on what environment they've been placed into."

"Oh, sure. Absolutely. Well, thanks for your help. Onward toward justice."

• • •

Several more tries at the tape, then I left for the Beverly Hills library.

I scoured four- and five-year-old editions of New York dailies all morning, reading very slowly and carefully, but finding no record of any "East Side Burglar."

No great surprise: the 19th Precinct serviced a high-priced zip code, and its inhabitants probably despised getting their names anywhere in the paper other than the society pages. The people who owned the papers and broadcast the news probably lived in the 19th. The rest of the city would know exactly what they wanted it to.

Lack of coverage still didn't mean Rosenblatt's killer had committed the earlier break-ins. Local residents might be aware of the burglaries, and a local could know who was on vacation and for how long. But the idea of a 19th Precinct resident owning burglary tools and robbing from his neighbors seemed less than likely. So Mr. Silk probably had burgled before. Ritualistically.

The same attempt to use what was at hand, to master and dominate the victim.

Bad love.

Myra Evans Paprock.

Rodney Shipler.

Katarina.

Only at those three scenes had the words been left behind.

Three bloody, undisguised murders. No attempt made to present them as anything else.

Stoumen, Lerner, and Rosenblatt, on the other hand, had been dispatched as phony accidents.

Two classes of victims… two kinds of revenge?

Butchery for the laypeople, falls for the therapists.

But Katarina had been a therapist…

Then I realized that at the time of Mr. Silk's trauma- sometime before seventy-nine, probably closer to seventy-three, the year Delmar Parker had gone off the mountain- she hadn't yet graduated. In her early twenties, still a grad student.

Two patterns… part of some elaborate rage-lust fantasy that a sane mind could never hope to understand?

And where did Becky Basille fit in?

Two killers…

I remembered the clean, bustling street where Harvey Rosenblatt had landed: French restaurants, flower boxes, and limos.

How long had it taken the poor man to realize what the swift, sharp shove at the small of his back meant?

I hoped he hadn't. Hoped, against logic, that he'd felt nothing but the Icarus-pleasure of pure flight.

A fall, always a fall.

Delmar Parker. Had to be.

Avenging an abused child?

Surely if de Bosch had been abusive, someone would remember.

Why hadn't anyone spoken out after all these years?

But no big puzzle there: without proof, who would believe them? And why rake up the dirt around a dead man's grave if it meant stirring up one's own childhood demons?

Still, someone had to know what happened to the boy in the stolen truck, and why it had set off a killer.

I sat there for a long time, staring at tiny, microfilmed words.

Corrective School alumni… how to get hold of them. Then I thought of one. Someone I'd never met, a name I'd never even learned.

A problem child whose treatment had given Katarina the leash to put around my neck.

• • •

I returned the microfilm spools and rushed to the pay phones in the library's lobby, trying to figure out who to call.

Western Pediatric, the late seventies…

The hospital had undergone a massive financial and professional overhaul during the past year. So many people gone.

But one notable one had returned.

Reuben Eagle had been chief resident when I'd started as a staff psychologist. He'd taken a professorship at the U's med school, a gifted teacher, specializing in medical education. The new Western Peds board had just wooed him back as general pediatrics division head. I'd just seen his picture in the hospital newsletter: the same tortoiseshell spectacles, the light brown hair thi

His secretary said he was out on the wards and I asked her to page him. He answered a few moments later, saying, "Rube Eagle," in a soft, pleasant voice.

"Rube, it's Alex Delaware."

"Alex- wow, this is a surprise."

"How're things going?"

"Not bad, how about you?"

"Hanging in. Listen, Rube, I need a small favor. I'm trying to locate one of Henry Bork's daughters and I was wondering if you had any idea how to reach her."

"Which daughter? Henry and Mo had a bunch- three or four, I think."

"The youngest. She had learning problems, was sent to a remedial school in Santa Barbara around seventy-six or seventy-seven. She'd be around twenty-eight or twenty-nine now."

"That would have to be Meredith," he said. "Her I remember because one year Henry had the interns' party at his house and she was there- very good-looking, a real flirt. I thought she was older and ended up talking to her. Then someone warned me and I split fast."

"Warned you about her age?"

"That and her problems. Supposedly a wild kid. I remember hearing something about institutionalization. Apparently she really put Henry and Mo through it- did you know he died?"

"Yes," I said.

"Ben Wardley, too. And Milt Chenier… how come you're looking for Meredith?"

"Long story, Rube. It has to do with the school she was sent to."

"What about it?"

"Things may have happened there."

"Happened? Another mess?" He sounded more sad than surprised.

"It's possible."

"Anything I should know about?"

"Not unless you had something to do with the school- the Corrective School, founded by a psychologist named Andres de Bosch."