The Wedding Guest (Alex Delaware #34) - Jonathan Kellerman Page 0,105
you’re wrong and I’ve warranted a nonexistent location.”
I fought the impulse to break in. Ah, but there is no reality. No truth. No lies…
Milo said, “If I’m wrong, nothing really lost.”
“No? All I need is some bubblehead reporter having an orgasm over judicial overreach.”
“How ’bout this, Your Honor: I find nothing, the paperwork vanishes.”
“Hmm. I don’t know…all right, but only because my family would yell at me if they find out I wimped out on a murder.”
“Thanks a ton.”
“You’ve also got to give me two separate applications.”
“No prob.”
“For you. I’m the one has to read your sparkling prose, it’s my day off and I’m just about to tee off at Brentwood.”
“I’ll keep it simple—”
“Just funnin’ with you,” said Boudreaux. “This prick did what you say, I want to help fuck him up.”
* * *
—
As he uploaded the warrant applications, I re-read Thurston Nobach’s manifesto. “In terms of the raid, sooner the better.”
He wheeled forty-five degrees from his desk and faced me. “Why?”
“This.” I held out the page.
“Yeah, yeah, more gobbledygook, no good no bad. So what?”
“No self, no consciousness, no real death. I think there’s a message here. He’s making the case for suicide and tailoring it to depressed, impressionable victims like Cassy Booker. And now Amanda, riding her bike over to his place and sticking around. She’s isolated, depressed, has trouble relating to everyone else but worships him. Nobach sniffs that out, ropes her in by appealing to her intellect, and when the time’s right, he supplies the means—a little nip of an opioid cocktail—along with pseudo-intellectual encouragement.”
“You think that’s what happened with Susie?”
“Maybe that was Nobach’s intention. He figured her for a stupid stripper but she was older and toughened by life and less compliant. That could be why Nobach terminated the relationship. Or even worse, she did. In either event, she defied him and earned a nasty death. Something was supposed to happen at that wedding—a payoff, a fake reconciliation, we may never know. The important thing now is, he’s focusing on Amanda, and what Garrett just told us—shutting out her family—says he’s edging her closer to the end.”
He rubbed his face. “What’re you saying? I don’t wait for the warrant?”
“I’m just telling you the way I see it.”
He speed-dialed Giselle Boudreaux, began explaining.
She said, “Life-threatening situation? What the hell do you need me for, call it a welfare check.”
“Thanks.”
“For what?”
* * *
—
Starting with DMV, he ran a search on Thurston Nobach. One vehicle, a silver, one-year-old BMW M5. Copying the info, he stood, slipped his gun into his hip holster. “Any psychological wisdom on which place to try first?”
I said, “Why choose?”
CHAPTER
44
Ideally, approaching a violent offender is a carefully planned scheme. But no matter how well thought-out, fraught with anxiety.
I’d demolished that by urging fast action on Thirsty Nobach’s premises. Complicated matters further by suggesting two simultaneous raids.
It churned my guts.
It made Milo serene.
As if some seldom-utilized bundle of nerve-fibers in his forebrain had been activated, he stretched, yawned, and reclined in his chair as he summoned Moe Reed, Sean Binchy, and Alicia Bogomil to the interview room where we’d talked to the newlyweds.
Three separate calls, talking to each detective in a smooth, silky tone I’d only heard when he finished a serious meal enhanced by alcohol.
Not what the kids were used to. Binchy and Bogomil paused before saying, “Okay.”
Reed said, “You all right, L.T.?”
“Peachy.”
* * *
—
He loped to the room, arms swinging, whistling an almost-tune, held the door open. “Go in, back in a sec.”
While he was gone, the D’s arrived.
I said, “He went to get something.”
They looked at the four chairs, remained on their feet.
“Got to save one for him,” said Binchy.
“He okay?” said Reed.
“Thinking mode,” I said.
“That’s always a good idea,” said Bogomil, smiling wryly.
Heads turned as Milo charged in toting a whiteboard on an easel. “Class is in session, kids. Some lecture but mostly lab. Sit.”
Three butts hit three chairs. I was fourth.
He walked up to the board. “Here’s the deal.”
Marker in hand, he summed up the evidence on Nobach and jotted down the basics. Three pairs of wide eyes.
“This just happened?” said Bogomil.
“Fresh off the griddle, Alicia. We’ve got one definite residence for the suspect and one likely—a unit in that dorm his daddy owns. Judge Boudreaux says no warrant is necessary because of overwhelming evidence Nobach intends harm to Amanda Burdette. Think of this as an emergency welfare check.”
“Because of what he wrote on his website,” said Reed.
“Because of Dr. Delaware’s educated opinion about what he wrote.