The Wedding Guest (Alex Delaware #34) - Jonathan Kellerman Page 0,97
romantic, huh?”
“What, I’m all gastrointestinal tract?”
“Darling,” she said. “You’re a prince among men but you do have a Y chromosome. Please pass the carrots.”
CHAPTER
40
Milo’s seven a.m. text asked me to be at his office half an hour before the ten o’clock with Garrett and Brearely Burdette. I arrived at nine fifteen, found him hunched at his keyboard. He waved me to sit, kept typing.
An empty box from a West Hollywood baker and the crumbs that went with it littered his desktop. Ditto for a grease-splotched take-out carton from a pizza joint near the station. A mug filled with cold coffee sat perilously close to the edge. Toss in an unsmoked panatela, smudges under his eyes, black hair worked wild by nervous fingers, sweat stains in the armpits of his shirt, and a tie knot yanked down to mid-belly, and he’d been there for a while.
“Morning,” he said. “For what that’s worth. Went over the wedding list again, no overlap with the condo list. Doesn’t eliminate anything with all those owners shielded by corporate bullshit, so I searched those to see if I could find a link to Academo. The geniuses at Google failed me.”
He nudged the mug to safety, looked inside, shook his head. “You have breakfast?”
“I’m fine.”
“You always are.”
“When did you get here?”
“Six thirty but who’s keeping tabs?” Wheeling his chair around to face me, he examined his Timex. “Forty minutes, let’s strategize.”
I said, “Nothing I say is going to teach you anything.”
“Try me.”
“Don’t scare them away.”
He nodded. “I called at eight to confirm. Garrett answered and said, ‘Of course, sir,’ but he did sound like someone with a gun to his head.”
“Any indication why he got in touch?”
“Didn’t ask. Tell you one thing, he stands me up, I’m going after him big-time. And his parents. They all know something and they’re going to give it to me.”
I said nothing.
He said, “Fine, I’m posturing. Apart from not freaking them out, what’s the strategy?”
“Don’t know that the concept’s relevant.”
“Why not?”
“Too many unknowns.”
He rolled his shoulders, then his neck, a great ape chafed by a zoo cage. “I’ll ask it this way: What if it was you doing the interviewing?”
Collecting crumbs, he sprinkled them into his wastebasket. Creating a delicate beige rain that he studied with weary but sharp eyes.
I said, “I’d treat it the same as meeting a new patient. Keep things friendly, do very little talking and a lot of listening.”
“Psychological warfare.”
“That’s not exactly how I’d put it—”
“Fine, emotional manipulation. And if he tries to leave, I chain the goddamn door.”
* * *
—
He’d returned with a cup of biohazard coffee from the big detective room downstairs when his desk phone rang.
“Really…be down in a sec.”
Knotting his tie and smoothing his hair, he said, “Ten minutes early, ol’ Garrett is eager.”
I said, “Maybe you won’t need the chain.”
We walked up the hall where a couple of interview rooms sit.
He opened the door to the first, flipped the Interview in Progress switch. “Wait here, no sense overwhelming them with a welcome party.” Winking. “Psychological sensitivity and all that.”
* * *
—
I entered to find that he’d prearranged the furniture for The Soft Approach: table positioned in the center, rather than shoved into a corner to make an interviewee feel trapped. The chairs were also socially configured: three of them placed around three sides.
Like friends dining out, rather than two against one.
No equipment was visible but this room had been retrofitted last year with invisible audio sensors and video cameras. Flip the switch, it’s a go.
I’d barely settled when Milo stepped in toting a fourth chair. Following him were Mr. and Mrs. Garrett Burdette.
The newlyweds were both adorned by subtle tans and stylish clothes. For the bride, a white silk blouse with billowing sleeves, black skinny jeans, and red crocodile stiletto pumps. I’d never seen the groom duded up but a few days in Italy had changed that: bright-blue linen shirt, white gabardine slacks, brown basket-weave loafers, no socks. An impressive dark stubble beard sparingly flecked with gray lent Garrett Burdette’s face some grit and gravitas. So did black-framed Le Corbusier eyeglasses and a gold pinkie ring set with a tiny carved cameo.
A matching stone three times the size dangled from a gold chain nesting in the hollow of Brearely Burdette’s smooth neck. Her lush, dark hair bore lighter tints than at the wedding. The hand not enhanced by a diamond ring led to an arm graced by half a dozen gold bangles.