Victims Read online

  The apartment was small, dim, generically furnished, not dissimilar to Vita Berlin’s place.

  The woman Vita had accused of masterminding harassment was a shrunken figure with a quavering voice and the slumped-shouldered resignation of a child waiting to be slapped. Watery eyes were blue and so was her expression. Blond had mostly ceded to gray. Her haircut was short, ragged, probably a do-it-yourself. She fooled with the hem of a faded red sweatshirt. A misshapen glass pendant hanging from a thin black cord was her sole adornment. The glass was chipped at one end.

  Brushing off the seats of the folding chairs she offered us, she hustled to a cluttered kitchenette, returned with a plastic tray bearing a pitcher, two cups, a jar of instant coffee, a pair of tea bags, loose packets of sugar and sweetener.

  “Hot water,” she said. “So you guys can have coffee or tea whatever. All’s I have is decaf, sorry.”

  “Thanks, Ms. Pelleter,” said Milo, but he didn’t touch anything on the tray and neither did I.

  She said, “Oh, I forgot the cookies,” and turned back.

  Milo placed a gentle hand atop her forearm. That was enough to freeze her in place. The blue eyes turned huge.

  “Not necessary, Ms. Pelleter, but thanks again. Now please sit down so we can chat.”

  She tugged an index finger as if trying to remove a nonexistent ring. Complied. “Chat about Vita? I don’t get it, all that happened last year, it was supposed to be over.”

  “The lawsuit.”

  “Not allowed to talk about it, sorry.”

  I said, “Must’ve been an ordeal.”

  “Not for her, she got rich. The rest of us—no, no, I can’t talk about it.”

  “Her accusations were false?”

  “Totally, totally, totally. I never did anything to her.”

  “What about other people at Well-Start?”

  “I—they—Vita was the most—I’m sorry, I’m not allowed to discuss it. I’m really not.”

  I said, “From what we’ve heard, Vita had trouble getting along with everyone.”

  “Ain’t that the freakin’ truth,” said Samantha Pelleter. Blushing. “Pardon my language. But she makes me so ... frustrated.”

  “Makes you? You’re still in contact?”

  “Huh? Oh, no, no way. I haven’t seen her since. And I really can’t talk about it. The lawyers said anyone who stepped out of line was finished, it had already cost the company—” She placed a finger over her lips. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me, I keep going back to it.”

  “It upset you,” I said.

  “Yes, but I’m sorry, I can’t. I need my job, I need it bad. As is, they cut us back to twenty-five hours a week. So please. I’m sorry if you wasted your time, but I can’t.”

  I said, “How about we talk about Vita apart from the lawsuit?”

  “I don’t know anything about Vita apart from the lawsuit. What’s going on, anyway? Is she claiming something else? Not happy with what she got? That’s crazy, she’s the only one who came out ahead.”

  “Was anyone fired because of her?”

  Samantha Pelleter shook her head. “The company didn’t want more lawsuits. But none of us got bonuses.”

  “Meanwhile, Vita’s rich.”

  “Bitch,” she said. “I still don’t get what this is about.”

  I turned to Milo.

  He said, “Vita’s gotten herself in trouble.”

  “Oh,” said Samantha Pelleter. “Oh, wow.” New, improved brand of smile. She went into the kitchenette, returned with a box of Oreos, picked one out of the box, and nibbled. “You’re saying she tried to con someone else with false accusations and got caught? You want me to say she was a con? I’d love to help you guys, but I can’t.”

  “She was a big-time liar, huh?”

  “You have no idea.”

  “What else did she lie about besides the lawsuit?”

  “We have scripts, are supposed to stick to them. Did that matter to Vita? Not a chance.”

  “She improvised.”

  “Oh, boy did she. Like with a flu-type thing we’re supposed to start by having them list all their symptoms. We take our time so if it’s not serious just their talking about it will show them it’s no big deal and they’ll change their mind about wanting an appointment. If they don’t, we suggest over-the-counter meds. And drinking fluids, because let’s face it, that’s enough in most cases. If they get stubborn or call back, we ask if they’ve got a fever and if they don’t, we tell them they’re probably getting better, time will heal, but if they really need an appointment we’ve got one but it’s during working hours. After they’ve been cleared by the nurse. If they want to pursue that, we put them on the nurse’s call-back list. It’s a system, you know?”

  “Vita wasn’t satisfied with that.”

  “Vita would throw in her own stuff. Give them advice. Like try getting your mind off your problems. Concentrate on something else, stress is the cause of most symptoms, take a look at yours. Once I actually heard her tell someone to suck it up, colds were no big deal. That kind of thing.”

  I said, “How’d people react?”

  She said, “They didn’t like it. Sometimes Vita would just hang up on them before they could complain, sometimes she’d stay on the line and let them complain. Holding the phone like this.” Stretching her arm. “Away from her ear, you know. You could hear noise coming out of the phone like chirp chirp chirp. Vita just smiled and let them go on.”

  “Enjoying herself.”

  “She’s one of the meanest people I ever met.”

  “Did policyholders complain about her?”

  “I’m sure they tried but it would be tough. We never give our names out and our extensions are switched all the time so no one gets the same consultant twice.”

  “High level of customer service,” I said.

  “It’s to keep costs down,” she said. “So really sick people can get care.”

  “You saw Vita improvise. Meaning you sat near her.”

  “Right next to her. If I was smart, I’d have kept my darn mouth shut. But it bothered me, doing her own thing, so I said something to her.”

  “What’d you say?”

  “ ‘You know, Vita, you really shouldn’t leave the script.’ ” She winced.

  I said, “She didn’t take that well.”

  “Actually, she ignored me, like I wasn’t even there—talk to the hand. But a few days later she looked real mad so she must’ve found out.”

  “Found out what?”

  Pelleter looked to the side. “I was stupid. Because I cared.”

  “You talked to someone else.”

  “Not a supervisor, just one of the other consultants and they must’ve snitched because Vita got called in to a supervisor and when she got back to her cubicle she had a crazy look in her eyes, boiling mad. Nothing happened until after the first break but then all of a sudden she’s all over me, claiming I’m—a bunch of us—are bullies, we’ve never treated her like a human being, are out to persecute her.”

  “How’d you react to that?”

  “I didn’t do anything, I was so freaked out. But no, I can’t talk about it. Please. No more questions.”

  Milo leaned in close. “Samantha, I promise you nothing you say will get back to the lawyers.”

  “How can I be sure? I never really snitched on Vita but she thought I did and that’s what started the whole thing.”

  He edged within an inch of her knees. “We know how to keep a secret, Samantha.”

  “Whatever ... so what kind of con did she try this time?”

  “I know you didn’t harass her, Samantha, but did she have any particular problems with another consultant?”

  “No one likes her, what goes around comes around.”

  “Any special bad karma with someone else at work?”

  “Everyone avoided her,” she said. “But no one bullied her. No one. What’d she do that you’re so interested?”

  “Nothing.”


  “Nothing? You said she was in trouble.”

  “She is, Samantha. The worst kind of trouble.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “She’s dead, Samantha.”

  “Huh? What? How?”

  “Someone killed her.”

  “What’re you saying? That’s crazy!”

  Milo didn’t reply.

  She made a run for the kitchenette, stared at the fridge, returned, wringing her hands. “Killed? Oh my God oh my God oh my God. Killed? Really? Someone killed her? Who? When?”

  “Who we don’t know. When was the night before last, Samantha.”

  “So then why are you—oh, no, no, God no, not that, you can’t believe I’d ever—no, it wasn’t like that. I mean I don’t—didn’t like her but that? No no no no no. No uh-uh. No.”

  “We’re talking to everyone in Vita’s past.”

  “I’m not in her past! Please. I can’t stand this!”

  “Sorry to upset you, Samantha—”

  “I am upset. I’m totally upset. That you would think that? That you would—”

  “Please sit back down, Samantha, so we can clear this up quickly and be out of your way.”

  He motioned toward the chair she’d vacated. She stared, sank down. “I really can’t take any more stress. I’m like at the end of my—my freakin’ husband cheated on me with who was supposed to be my freakin’ friend. Then he left me with a pile of debt I didn’t even know about that lost me my house and screwed up my credit. Do you know what I used to have? A three-bedroom house in Tujunga, I used to have a horse I rode out in Shadow Hills. I used to have a Jeep Wagoneer. Now you’re coming here and thinking terrible things about me and if you go to the company and say those things I won’t even have my job!”

  Milo said, “No one suspects you, Samantha, this is routine. Which is why I need to ask you—even though it’s a crazy question—where were you the night before last?”

  “Where was I? I was here. I don’t go anywhere, it takes money to go anywhere. I watched TV. I used to have a fifty-inch flat-screen. Now I have a little computer screen in my bedroom, everything’s tiny, my whole freakin’ world’s tiny.”

  Covering her mouth with her hands, she wept.

  Maybe the closest to mourning Vita Berlin would merit.

  Milo fetched her water and when she stopped crying, eased the glass toward her lips while resting a big paw on her forearm.

  She drank. Wiped her eyes. “Thank you.”

  “Thank you for putting up with us, Samantha. Now please give us the names of the other people Vita claimed had harassed her.”

  I expected resistance but Samantha Pelleter’s mouth set crookedly. This smile was hard to characterize.

  “You bet,” she said. “I’ll write you out a list. Time to look out for myself, I don’t care about anyone else’s issues.”

  From a kitchenette drawer, she retrieved a scrap of paper and a pen. Writing quickly, she presented the list to Milo as if it were a school project.

  1. Cleve Dawkins

  2. Andrew Montoya

  3. Candace Baumgartner

  4. Zane Banion

  “Appreciate it, Samantha. Are any of these people unusually strong?”

  “Sure,” she said. “Zane is big and strong. He’s fat, but he used to play football. And Andrew’s into fitness. He bikes to work, says if people took care of themselves they wouldn’t get sick in the first place.”

  “What about Cleve and Candace?”

  “They’re regular.”

  “They stick to the script.”

  “We all do,” she said. “That’s the point.”

  Milo drove north on Sepulveda. “Little Miss Sealed Lips, but get her feeling threatened and she rats out her work buddies. Any alarm bells go off?”

  “As a psychologist, her fragility bothers me. As your lackey, I don’t see her as a serious suspect.”

  “Lackey? And here I was thinking sage or pundit.”

  “Well,” I said, “once upon a time there was a particularly obnoxious rooster who wouldn’t stop hassling the hens in the barnyard. Finally, the farmer was forced to take action. He castrated the rooster and turned him into a pundit.”

  He laughed. “Sage, then. Unless you’ve got a story about that.”

  “Once upon a time, there was an obnoxious rooster ...”

  “Fine form. Anyway, I agree. If anyone lacks the nerve, the physical ability, and the smarts to do what was done to Vita, it’s ol’ Samantha. But maybe one of the other jokers at Well-Start will turn out to be more interesting.”

  He called Moe Reed, passed the four names along, ordered background checks.

  Reed said, “Will do. I had no luck with the pizza box so far but Sean’s still out there. You got a call from the coroners, labs are back on Berlin.”

  “Too quick for a tox.”

  “Guess they prioritized, Loo.”

  “I’m talking scientifically, Moses.”

  “Yeah, I guess that’s true,” said Reed. “Okay, I’ll run these jokers through, get back to you if I learn anything.”

  Clicking off, Milo punched in a preset number.

  Dr. Clarice Jernigan said, “Hi, there.”

  “Labs are back so soon?”

  “Who told you that?”

  “That was the message I got.”

  “Wonderful,” said Jernigan. “New secretary, she watches too much TV, likes to throw the jargon around. No, sorry to get your hopes up, Milo. Full labs will take weeks. But I was calling about your victim’s blood alcohol and with that, you might not need the tox. She pulled a level of .26, more than thrice the legal limit. Even being the serious alcoholic her liver says she was, she’d have been pretty vulnerable. So there’d be no need to use anything else to subdue her.”

  “Drunk,” he said.

  “As the perennial black-and-white-striped mammal.”

  “Her liver,” he said. “You’ve done the autopsy?”

  “Not yet, but I was able to do a visual on a few organs, courtesy of your killer. Once we got rid of all the congealed blood. Which by my estimate was nearly all she started out with. Meaning your offender was meticulous, barely spilled a drop.”

  “Someone with medical training?”

  “I can’t exclude it but no, you wouldn’t need anything close to that level of skill.”

  “What would you need?”

  “The strength and confidence to perform two major incisions with a really sharp blade and a strong enough stomach to snip the intestines free. A butcher could do it. A deer hunter could do it. So could anyone with a warped mind and the wrong kind of knowledge. Which you can get off the Internet, if so inclined. In any event, I didn’t need to dissect the liver to know it was seriously cirrhotic. Most of the darn thing was fatty and gray, not a pretty thing to behold. But as I said, even with her being a lush, a .26 could’ve seriously affected her judgment, reaction time, coordination, and strength. A cinch to overpower. Ask Dr. Delaware next time you speak to him. He can probably give you some behavioral parameters.”

  I said, “I’m here, Clarice.”

  “Oh, hi. You concur?”

  “Completely.”

  “Great,” she said. “It’s nice when there’s peace in the valley. Milo, I’ll do my best to get the autopsy done by tomorrow. I’ll be traveling so one of my people will do the actual cutting, but I’ll keep an eye on it.”

  “Thanks.”

  “That said, don’t be expecting any profound conclusions. She died from a broken neck, was well dead before he cut her up.”

  “How long is well dead?”

  “Enough time for the blood to settle, which is minutes, not hours. I’m picturing your creep sitting there, waiting, that was a big part of his fun. What do you think, Alex?”

  “Makes sense.”

  “Oh, if my teenagers could hear this. Mommy’s not always wrong. Bye, guys.”

  CHAPTER

  10

  For three days, I heard nothing
from Milo. On the fourth morning, he came to the house, vinyl attaché in hand, wearing a black poly suit with lapels from two decades ago and a pumpkinorange tie and muttering, “Yeah, yeah, happy Halloween.” He flicked a pocket flap that buttoned. “Vintage. Live long enough, everything comes back.”

  Hard to read his emotions. He cruised past me into the kitchen, did his usual surveillance. Robin and I had been going out to dinner regularly so the fridge was light on leftovers. He made do with beer, bread, mayo, hot sauce, barbecue sauce, steak sauce, mustard, ground horseradish sauce, and three long-forgotten lamb sausages yanked from the back of the freezer that he microwaved into submission.

  After several gulps of haphazard sandwich, he took a long swig of Grolsch. “Good morning, boys and girls, can you spell futility?”

  Another long swallow of beer. “No one local uses that type of pizza box and all the alleged Well-Start bullies have alibis. None of them looked good, anyway. The female is pushing sixty, was babysitting her grandkid, the physical fitness guy was on a nighttime mountain bike ride in Griffith Park vouched for by members of his cycling club, the supposedly big strong guy is big but not strong—close to four hundred and uses a cane and an inhaler and the night of the murder he was at his grandmother’s birthday party, verified by the waiter who served his table. The last guy wears Coke-bottle glasses and weighs in at maybe a hundred twenty and he was at the E.R. with one of his kids. Some sort of allergic reaction to shrimp, the nurse and the on-call resident say neither he nor his wife ever left the kid’s side and she was hospitalized overnight.”

  He swigged, put the bottle down. “I resisted the temptation to ask if Daddy had pre-screened the kid so she could get treated. They all claimed to be blindsided by the lawsuit, refused to talk about details. I tried to reach someone at Well-Start’s corporate headquarters, big surprise, they stonewalled. I put Sean on it ’cause he’s got a high tolerance for failure and boredom and dealing with robotic turd-brains.”

  He constructed another teetering sandwich, polished it off. “Autopsy results came in early this morning. Like Clarice said, no surprises.”

  He ripped a slice of bread in half, balled it up, consumed. “Where’s Robin?”