“Okay,” he finally said. “I’ll look at your photos. When?”
“Right now,” said Milo. “If you’re ready. I’ve got stuff in the car.”
39
It ended the way it started.
“Turn on your TV, Alex.”
I’d been sitting at the dining room window, watching the sun set over the Glen. Reading Twain. Then poetry- Whitman, Robert Penn Warren, Dylan Thomas. Stuff I’d neglected for too long. Stuff with body to it. Music and lust and despair and religion.
“Is it important, Milo?”
“Quick, or you’ll miss it.”
I got up and switched on the tube.
Six o’clock news.
Tape of Lieutenant Frisk at a podium; below him, a microphone audience. Fawn-colored suit. Cream shirt, green tie.
Grinning and blathering about long-term investigations, interdepartmental task forces, multiple indictments the result of careful coordination with federal and state agencies.
Using the word
Milo stepped up to the podium.
Frisk shook his hand, handed Milo a piece of paper.
Milo took it, looked at it, gave the camera a
Frisk stood away from him. Stood back, waiting for him to leave the stage.
Milo stayed there, still smiling. Frisk looked puzzled.
Milo mugged for the camera again, turned and faced Frisk. Drew back his arm and hit Frisk, hard, in the face.
Jonathan Kellerman is one of the world's most popular authors. He has brought his expertise as a child psychologist to numerous bestselling tales of suspense (which have been translated into two dozen languages), including thirteen previous Alex Delaware novels; The Butcher's Theater, a story of serial killing in Jerusalem; and Billy Straight, featuring Hollywood homicide detective Petra Connor. His new novel, Flesh and Blood, will be published in hardcover in fall 2001. He is also the author of numerous essays, short stories, and scientific articles, two children's books, and three volumes of psychology, including Savage Spawn: Reflections on Violent Children. He and his wife, the novelist Faye Kellerman, have four children.
