Obsession by Jonathan Kellerman Read Free Book Online Page A

don’t make an attempt, I lose her as a patient. She talks a good case about handling her grief, but there’s a long way to go. If she falls I’d like to be around to catch her.”
    He played with the edge of the newspaper. “Sounds like you’re a bit involved in this one.”
    “If it’s too much of a hassle—”
    “I’m not refusing, I’m
contextualizing
. Even if I wanted to say no, there are domestic issues at stake. Rick thinks Patty was some kind of saint. ‘It’s great you’ll be free to help, Alex.’”
    “Let’s hear it for the zeitgeist,” I said.
    He threw money on the table that I returned to him.
    “Fine, you’re in a higher tax bracket.” Hoisting his bulk out of the booth.
    “When do we start?” I said.
    “We?”
    “You lead the way, I’ll be your loyal assistant.”
    “Oh, sure,” he said. “And I’ve got a life regression package to sell you.”
     
     
    I walked him to his unmarked as he studied the list of addresses.
    He copied it into his notepad. “She moved around a bit, didn’t she…so the kid’s theory is Mommy was trying to protect her from some kind of revenge?”
    “Less than a theory,” I said. “She was tossing out possibilities.”
    “Here’s one: Mommy was impaired and talked gibberish.”
    “Tanya’s not ready to see that.”
    “I asked Rick about the whole brain damage thing,” he said. “Unwilling to commit—all you doctor types are alike. Okay, let’s be organized so we don’t have to backtrack. You talk to Patty’s oncologist and see if you can nail down some medical specifics. I’ll hit the assessor’s office and find out Patty’s local residences before she took Tanya in. She from SoCal?”
    “New Mexico.”
    “Where in New Mexico?”
    “Outside Galisteo.”
    “If this terrible
thing
went down out of state, good luck.” He snorted. “Listen to me. Like it really happened.”
    “I appreciate this—”
    “I will file your gratitude under Things To Exploit At An Opportune Time. Another thing you can do is play computer games, see if Patty shows up anywhere in cyberspace. Plug in those four addresses. Anything else that strikes your fancy.”
    “Has the department database gotten any better?”
    “Last coupla times I’ve able to boot up and not blow a fuse.”
    “Given an address, can you pull up crimes on neighboring streets?”
    “Oh, sure, me and Bill Gates just did that yesterday. No, it’s a mess. Recent cases have been entered but for the most part we’re talking cardboard boxes in storage. Department’s notion of pattern-tracing is the pin board and the board changes every year. Maybe we’ll get lucky and it is something recent. ‘Close by,’ huh? That could be the same street but down the block, one street over, a quarter mile up to the cul-de-sac, turn left, toss salt over your left shoulder. For all we know, Alex, she meant something
un
geographical. Close by as in a friend.”
    “Tanya said she had no relationships with men.”
    “What about women? A bisexual triangle could get nasty, there was one a few years ago in Florida, woman had her girlfriend gut-shoot her old man for insurance money.”
    “Patty told me she was asexual.”
    “You asked her about her sexuality?”
    “She brought it up during the intake.”
    “The intake was on the kid so why would Mama’s sex life be relevant?”
    I had no answer for that.
    He said, “What was the context, Alex?”
    “Letting me know she wasn’t gay. But not in a defensive way. More matter-of-fact, this is who I am. Then she asked me if I thought she was abnormal.”
    “So she was uptight about being considered gay. Meaning she probably
was
gay. Meaning she coulda been doing stuff Tanya didn’t know about.”
    “I guess it’s possible.”
    “People with secrets parcel out what they want other people to know, right? If we’re going to start excavating this woman’s life, Tanya could learn things she doesn’t want to. Is she psychologically ready for