“Five minutes, back and forth,” said Patty Gull. “Just to see. I looked for his Benz, didn’t see it, drove back home, took an Ambien, and slept like a baby.”
Milo said nothing.
“Detective, if resentment was enough of a motive, I’d be killing tons of women, not just her.” She laughed, this time with genuine glee. “I’d be one of those serial killers.”
Out came the picture of the dead girl. “Know her, ma’am?”
Patty Gull’s bravado crumbled. Her mouth opened and her jaw shook. “Is she- she is, isn’t she?”
“Yes. Do you know her?”
“No, no, of course not- is she one of Franco’s- did he-”
“Right now, we don’t know who she is.”
“So why are you showing it to me- take it away, it’s horrible.”
Milo began to comply, but her hand shot out and held the photo in place.
“She looks like me. Not as pretty as I was at that age. But pretty enough, she’s a pretty girl.” She placed the photo in her lap, continued to stare.
“She
CHAPTER 24
We left Patty Gull sitting in the room she’d decorated.
Outside, Milo said, “Scary lady. Am
“She hates her husband but is sure he didn’t kill Koppel, provides what she thinks is an alibi. But her not seeing Gull’s car at Koppel’s the night of the murder says nothing. It’s a two-car garage, he could’ve moved his inside. Especially after being caught once. Or, he made sure to park several blocks away. A third possibility is he checked into the hotel and took a cab.”
“Hell,” he said, “he could’ve walked, it’s a mile and a half.” We headed for the car. “If he did call a taxi, I can find out. Gull interests you, the way he does me?”
“He’s smart enough to cover his tracks the way our boy’s been doing. And even if Patty’s exaggerating, his record with women is interesting. Also, he and Gavin didn’t get along. What if it was more than poor therapeutic rapport? What if Gavin learned something that made him a threat to Gull?”
“Sleeping with a patient,” he said. “Somehow Gavin finds out about it- hanging around the office, being obsessive. He talked about uncovering scandal, now he found one. But then why would Gull kill Koppel? They were lovers.”
“Maybe her indiscretions didn’t extend to murder. She figured out what had happened to Gavin and threatened to turn Gull in. Or the affair was no longer useful to Gull. Or both.”
“You’re talking about one cold guy.”
“Not that cold,” I said. “He sweats easily. I’m talking about a guy who experiences anxiety but still loves taking risks. Someone who sleeps with another woman four blocks from his house, gets busted, and possibly goes back for more.”
“Mary Lou threatening to turn him in… she sure wasn’t forthcoming when I spoke to her. Then again, maybe Gull hadn’t broken it off with her, yet. If he did it a few days later, he’d have two scorned women to deal with… what do you think about Patty’s seeing a resemblance in the dead girl?”
“It didn’t strike me,” I said. “I saw it as Patty having ego problems, but maybe she’s onto something.”
“Gull murdering the old lady symbolically? Right from the beginning you saw this as a symbolic deal.”
“If Gull’s our guy, it could also tie in with Flora Newsome. She was Mary Lou Koppel’s patient, so Gull would have had opportunity to see her. Combine Flora’s feelings of sexual inadequacy, Gull’s view of himself as a cocksman and the prestige of his position, and you’ve got fertile ground for an easy seduction.”
“Gull does her, then kills her. His lover’s patient, talk about taking risks.”
“By the time Flora was killed, she was dating Brian Van Dyne. Maybe Dr. Gull doesn’t take well to rejection. By a patient or a lover.”
“Evil shrink,” he said. “All that sweating. Someone that calculating, you’d think he could keep it under control.”
“It’s one thing to be cool when you’re calling the shots, be it seduction or murder,” I said. “Setting up the scene, choreographing, dominating because you’ve picked submissive partners. Being investigated by the police changes all that. All of a sudden, he’s placed in the one-down position.”
“My charm intimidates him?”
“Something like that.”
“So the best bet is come on strong with the bastard, bulldoze over him.”
“You got it,” I said. “Method acting.”
“The curtain rises,” he said. “Let’s boogie.”
We drove to Franco Gull’s office building, parked in an empty slot next to Gull’s Mercedes, and headed for the rear door. A janitor was vacuuming the ground-floor carpeting. All six doors to the Charitable Planning suite were closed, and the corridor smelled of inactivity and that same popcorn fragrance.
That same feeling of disuse, and I said so to Milo.
Milo hadn’t taken his eye off the janitor. Now, he went over to the guy. Skinny guy, midthirties, with the burnished skin of the hard-drinking homeless, a three-day stubble, lank brown hair, scared-rabbit eyes. He wore a UC Berkeley sweatshirt over baggy gray sweatpants and filthy sneakers. His fingernails were black at the edges. He kept his head down and pushed the vacuum cleaner, trying to pretend a big, hefty detective wasn’t heading his way.
Milo moved in that surprising, quick way he can muster, bending and flicking off the machine. When he straightened, he’d pushed closer, and his smile was all the man could see. “Hey.”
No answer.
“Quiet afternoon down here on the ground floor.”
The man licked his lips. Very scared rabbit. “Yeah,” he finally said.
“What’s Charitable Planning all about?”
“Beats me.” The man had a whiny, congested voice, the kind that makes everything sound evasive. His shoulders rose and fell, rose again, and remained bunched up tight around his scrawny neck. Broken blood vessels explored his nose and cheeks. His lips were cracked and dry, and tattoos snaked their way up his wrist.
Milo glanced at them, and the man tried to slide his hand back into his sleeve.
“UC Berkeley, huh?”
The man didn’t answer.
“Alma mater?”
Headshake.
“Work here long?”
“A while.”
“How long’s a while?”
“Ah… mebbe a… month, two.”
“Maybe.”
“I do a bunch of buildings for the owner.”
“Mr. Koppel.”
“Yeah.”
“Ever see anyone actually work at Charitable Planning?”
