The Wedding Guest (Alex Delaware #34) - Jonathan Kellerman Page 0,69

charging station outside for hybrids and electrics.”

“Making yourselves relevant,” I said.

“We’ve always been relevant, sir. We just need to market our brand.”

“Got it. Anything else you can tell us about Kimbee?”

“That’s her name?”

“Suzanne Kimberlee DaCosta. Her friends call her Kimbee.”

“Cute name,” said Dent. “Sweet, fits. She seemed like a sweet girl.”

We waited.

She said, “That’s it.”

Milo said, “Thanks. How’s your Hardy Boys selection?”

“What’s that?” said Stevie Dent.

* * *

—

I took Moorpark to Van Nuys, headed south, and merged onto the Glen. As we began climbing, Milo sent a long text.

When he was finished, he said, “Today’s bucket list.”

“What comes after scaling Everest with no supplemental oxygen?”

“The really challenging stuff,” he said. “Looking for Kimbee’s relatives, following up with Homeland on Garrett, then, depending on what I find, maybe another chat with Garrett when his wife’s not around. That I could use you for. How’s your schedule?”

“Late afternoon would work best.”

“Let’s see how it shakes out.” He sat back, stretched his long legs, closed his eyes.

I said, “If COD on Cassy Booker’s suicide turns out to be heroin and fentanyl, it might bear a closer look.”

“You called Lopatinski. Any reason for me to take over?”

“Only if you have a problem with me following up.”

“None whatsoever, amigo.” His eyes shut again. “While you’re talking chemistry, ask her about Lotz’s—anything on the bloods, has she been able to change their mind about the autopsy.”

“Will do. I’d also like to look into Pena’s assistant, Pete Kramer. He handled the situation with Booker before he was made redundant.”

“You think there’s a connection?”

“I think former employees can be helpful same as exes.”

“Ah, the fine art of cultivating hostility. Sure, delve.”

Then he slept.

* * *

—

I dropped him at the station, took Pico to Westwood Boulevard, where I sat in burgeoning traffic that lasted well into the Village. Students jaywalking obliviously didn’t help. Neither did random road work. Trailing the lower rim of the U.’s city-sized campus, I continued the northward trek onto Hilgard and hooked east on Sunset. Every turn slowed the mph, as if some sadistic traffic Satan were churning chrome butter, and by the time I entered the Glen, the trip was long stretches of inertia peppered by momentary spurts of forward movement.

Faster to walk the three miles to my house, but I was stuck with a combustion engine. I never use the phone while driving but this was driving like prison’s a hotel. I began the search for Peter Kramer.

Common name spanning multiple continents. I added property manager and got hits in Brooklyn, Fort Lauderdale, and Silver Spring, Maryland. Images accompanied the last two: a thirtysomething condo superintendent in Florida, a seventysomething, yarmulke-wearing nonspecified in Maryland.

The car in front of me moved a few inches. Before I did the same, the driver behind me leaned on the horn. I checked the rearview. Young woman, maybe a student, in a VW Bug. Bouncing in her seat and waving a phone and flipping me off.

Another half-foot roll, then a total stop. The ranting behind me persisted.

The car stuck in the southbound lane opposite me was a Tesla driven by a black-T-shirted, white-haired man with flabby, crepe-laced arms unimproved by a barbed-wire biceps tattoo. He looked at me and shook his head.

Appreciating the empathy, I shrugged.

His face darkened. “You don’t fucking get it. If you didn’t use your fucking phone, we could all fucking go home.”

A woman in an open-air Fiat behind him raised her eyebrows and did a he’s-nuts corkscrew motion with her index finger.

Hoping she meant him, not me, I smiled at her, rolled up my window, turned on the radio. Given the miasma of the moment, the blues seemed about right. Anything but the news.

CHAPTER

27

I got home nearly forty minutes later. Robin had left me a note in her fine calligraphic hand. Left a message with Sharon I., went to Trader Joe’s, Blanche snoozing.

Dogs’ natural routine is to sleep most of the day but they wake easily. Maybe it’s a self-protective throwback to their wolf origins a zillion years ago. Maybe they’re just curious about the baffling world people have created.

In the service porch behind the kitchen, my dog lay curled in her crate, soft brown eyes wide open.

We use the crate because denning’s another natural dog thing. Some pooches don’t like it but Blanche does, savoring her space the way a kid enjoys a tree house. But we don’t lock it and when I said, “Hey, gorgeous,” she yawned and smiled, nudged the grate open with her nose, and padded out. Rubbing