Jonathan Kellerman - Night Moves

Nice house. If you put aside reality.

Sunset Boulevard, Sunday at ten thirty p.m., was an easy ride, cool April air sweetening the Sevilles interior. To get here from my place in Beverly Glen, Id driven through Bel Air and Brentwood, turned south a quarter mile into Pacific Palisades, continued through tree-lined stretches of architectural revivals: Colonial, Spanish, Mediterranean, Greek, Unidentifiable.

Not a Through Street warnings at most corners; a planned community discouraging casual visitors. GPS-tutored turns led me to a street named Evada Lane, three blocks terminating at a cul-de-sac.

Built-in-the-seventies tract, the Palisades but no palisades in sight. This was flat land, geographically undistinguished, too far from the ocean for someone to smell the brine.

In the Midwest, respectably middle-class real estate. In L.A., not a single structure worth less than a million.

The house garnering all the attention sat at the tip of the dead end like a cherry on a sundae. One of the aspiring Colonials, heralded by white columns, its brick faade strobed red and blue by LAPD cruisers. The same light show played upon a black Range Rover and a gray Lexus sedan in the driveway.

All that wattage courtesy of half a dozen cop cars, circled around a white crypt van waiting to transport. The crime lab van sat nearby, lights off, unoccupied. No sign of the coroners investigators; come and gone.

Uniformed officers stood around doing nothing. Radios barked police calls, dispatchers voices impersonal as they chronicled the evenings malice and misfortune.

Soft, spring breeze; the yellow tape billowed.

Just outside the tape, a mud-colored Impala I knew to be Detective Moses Reeds current ride sat next to a white Porsche 928 in which Id been a passenger more than once. The off-duty drive shared by Lieutenant Milo Sturgis and his partner, a trauma surgeon named Richard Silverman.

Reed had arrived just over two hours ago, taken one look, and called the boss. Milo, suffering through a charity dinner for Ricks employer, the Cedars-Sinai E.R., sped over from the Beverly Hilton and called me.

Whats up? I said.

Complicated, see for yourself. Please.

He met me just outside the front door, wearing a hooded paper suit, booties, and gloves.

Yeah, I know, I look like a giant sperm. You dont have to abase yourself, techs nearly finished. He peeled off the suit, revealing a saggy black suit with lapels dating to the houses construction, a white shirt, and a silver tie that had to be Ricks.

Very GQ.

The almost-tux? he said. Damn banquet, I had to take the pants out three inches, four woulda been betterenough of my problems, lets go see a real one.

The paper garb had led me to expect horror and chaos. Milo opened the door on surprising calm.

A two-story entry floored in waxed walnut was centered by a mahogany table hosting a vase of silk roses. A bronze chandelier cast reassuring light. To the left, blandly pleasant landscape paintings filled a white wall; to the right a blue-carpeted staircase traced the ascent to a small landing.

Milo continued straight ahead, toward another wall decorated by sconces and broken by an open doorway.

A form moved into the gap. Moe Reed, young, ruddy, still wearing his paper suit but not the hood. Pink skin showed through his blond buzz cut. The suit was tight in places, power-lifter arms testing the tensile strength of wood pulp.

L.T., Doc. Stepping aside.

I followed Milo into a modestly proportioned, nicely set-up living room that ended at a bank of French doors. Through the glass were glimpses of patio furniture, grass, trees. To the left, a dining room and, beyond that, another open doorway that led to a white kitchen.

When people are murdered in their homes, its almost always in the bedroom or the kitchen. Milo kept going, crossing the living room and hooking right, toward a closed door.

He knocked.

A female voice said, Hold on.

Its me again.

Just a sec, Lieutenant.

The door opened on a paper-suited lab tech name-tagged I.Jonas. The mask was pulled down, revealing a young female face the color of cocoa. Tweezers in one hand, vial in the other, something black and wormy in the vial.

She said, Just a few secs and Ill be gone, sir, but you can come in.

Thanks, said Milo. I want Dr. Delaware to take a look.

I. Jonas looked at me. Pathologist actually came to the scene?

Milo said, Different ologist. Psych.

The tech gave me a longer once-over. Inez Jonas, Doctor. Id shake your hand but obviously. She shifted to the right, gave me a fuller view.

The room was cozy and pine-paneled. What looked to be a library/den/office combo, with a book-filled repro-Victorian case and a matching desk. The desks tooled-leather top was bare but for a green-shaded lamp and a glass jar filled with hard candies wrapped in multicolored foil. To the left of the desk was an open area. A plaid sofa and ottoman faced a sixty-inch TV.

That left plenty of floor space for the man lying on hardwood, between the couch and the screen.

Positioned faceup if hed had a face.

The devastation visited on everything above his neck suggested a shotgun attack, and I asked if that was the case.

Inez Jonas said, You bet, Doctor, tons of pellets in there. She frowned as her eyes trailed to where the mans hands shouldve been. Id already gotten there.

Dual amputation at the wrists, clean and straight-edged. Stiffness in the limbs.

I said, Still in rigor.

Milo nodded. C.I. says depending on temperature, he was probably killed within twenty-hour hours, probably less. Shes also sure the hands were cut off postmortem because there wasnt much bleeding at the stumps.