Guilt by Jonathan Kellerman Read Free Book Online

didn’t. He laughed. Said, yeah, it’s fantastic, Davey, can’t blame you. That’s when he told me the model. ’Thirty-eight SJ. And what the pipes meant, the advantage of supercharging. We stood there together, taking in that monster. It was one of those—I guess you’d call it a bonding thing. But then he warned me never to leave the house without permission or he
would
tan my hide.”
    Helmholtz smiled. “I always felt he thought I was a sissy. I guess he didn’t punish me because he assumed I was out there being a guy.”
    We continued up the block. No one else remembered Ellie Green or the Duesenberg.
    Back at the station, Milo ran her name. Nearly two dozen women came up but none whose stats fit the slim blonde who’d lived at the bone house in 1951. He repeated the process with
Greene, Gruen, Gruhn
, even
Breen
, came up empty. Same for death notices in L.A. and the neighboring counties.
    I said, “She worked as a nurse and the box came from the Swedish Hospital.”
    He looked up the defunct institution, pairing it with
Eleanor Green
and the same variants. A few historical references popped up but the only names were major benefactors and senior doctors.
    He said, “Helmholtz could be right about Lucky Bastard being a medical honcho. Maybe even someone George Del Rios or his twoM.D. kids knew and Ellie Green came to rent the house through personal referral.”
    “Rich doctor wanting a stash pad for his pretty girlfriend,” I said. “For partying or waiting out her pregnancy.”
    “Helmholtz never saw her pregnant.”
    “Helmholtz was a five-year-old, not an obstetrician. If she moved in before she started babysitting him, she could have already delivered.”
    “Rich doctor,” he said. “Insert ‘married’ between those two words and you’ve got one hell of an inconvenience. Problem is, Ellie seems to have disappeared.”
    “Like her baby,” I said.
    “Lucky Bastard making sure to clean up his trail?”
    “The baby was only found by chance. If her body was concealed just as skillfully, there’d be no official death notice.”
    “Nasty … wish I could say it felt wrong.”
    He got up, paced. “You know anyone who’d remember Swedish Hospital?”
    “I’ll ask around.”
    “Thanks.” He frowned. “As usual.”

CHAPTER
8
    M ilo’s request to find an old-timer got me shuffling the reminiscence Rolodex. The first two people I thought of turned out to be dead. My third choice was in her late eighties and still training residents at Western Pediatric Medical Center.
    Salome Greiner picked up her own phone.
    “Hi, Sal, it’s Alex Delaware.”
    “Well, well,” she said. “What favor does Alex Delaware need?”
    “Who says I need anything?”
    “You don’t write, you don’t call, you don’t even email or text or tweet.” Her cackle had the dry confidence of someone who’d outlived her enemies. “And yes, I am still alluring but I don’t see you asking me on a hot date. What do you need?”
    “I was wondering if you remembered Swedish Hospital.”
    “That place,” she said. “Yes, I remember it. Why?”
    “It’s related to a police case.”
    “You’re still doing that,” she said.
    “At times.”
    “What kind of police case?”
    I told her about the bones.
    She said, “I read about it.” Chirps in the background. “Ahh, a page, need to run, Alex. Do you have time for coffee?”
    “Where and when?”
    “Here and … let’s say an hour. The alleged emergency won’t last long, just a hysterical intern. A man, I might add. Roll that in your sexist cigar, Sigmund.”
    “I’ll be there,” I said, wondering why she didn’t just ask me to call back.
    “Meet me in the doctors’ dining room—you still have your badge, no?”
    “On my altar with all the other icons.”
    “Ha,” said Salome. “You were always quick with a retort, that’s a sign of aggressiveness, no? But no doubt you hid it from patients, good psychologist that you are.”
    Western Pediatric