Bad Love

Jeffers said, 'Of course I didn't.'

Robin shook her head.

Jeffers' red nails were so fresh they still looked wet.

She said, 'Can we please-'

Robin tied her up quickly. Then we returned to the living room. Coburg's head where I'd hit him was huge, soft, eggplant-purple. He was starting to move a bit but hadn't regained consciousness.

Robin trussed him expertly, those good, strong hands.

The dog was at my feet, panting. I got down and inspected him. He licked my hands. Licked the gun.

Superficial cuts, no sign he was suffering. Robin picked the glass out of his fur and lifted him, kissing him, cradling him like a baby.

I picked up the phone.

33

Three days later, I waited for Milo at a place named Angela's, across the street from the West L.A. stationhouse. The front was a coffee shop. In back was a cocktail lounge where detectives, lawyers, bailbondsmen, and felons drank and worked on their lung tumors.

I took a booth at the rear of the lounge, drinking coffee and trying to concentrate on the morning paper. Nothing yet on the 'bad love' murders, orders of the brass till it got sorted out. Coburg was in the hospital, and Milo had been virtually sequestered with Jean Jeffers at the county jail.

When he showed up, fifteen minutes late, a woman was with him, thirties, black. The two of them stood in the doorway of the lounge, outlined by hazy gray light.

Adeline Potthurst, the social worker I'd seen on film, Dorsey Hewitt's knife up against her throat.

She looked older and heavier. A big white purse was clutched in front of her, like a fig leaf.

Milo said something to her. She glanced over at me and replied. A bit more conversation, then they shook hands and she left.

He came over and slid into the booth. 'Remember her? She's talking to me.'

'She have anything interesting to say?'

He smiled, lit up a cigar, and added to the pollution. 'Oh, yeah.'

Before he could elaborate, a waitress arrived and took his Diet Coke order.

When she left, he said, 'Lots happening. I've got New York records placing Coburg in Manhattan during all the East Side break-ins up till the day after Rosenblatt's death: busted for shoplifting, he was arrested in Times Square two days before the first burglary, went to court the day he shoved Rosenblatt out the window, but his attorney got a continuance. Records listed his address as some dive near Times Square.'

'So he celebrated with murder.'

He nodded grimly. 'Jivin' Jean finally opened up- her attorney convinced her to sell out Coburg for a reduced plea to accessory. Names, dates, places, she's puttin' on a good show.'

'What's her connection to de Bosch?'

'She says none,' he said. 'Claims the revenge thing was all Coburg's game, she didn't really know what he was up to. She says she met him at a mental health convention- advocacy for the homeless. Struck up a conversation at the bar and found they had lots in common.'

'Social worker encounters public interest lawyer,' I said. 'A couple of idealists, huh?'

'God help us.' He loosened his tie.

'Coburg probably went to lots of conventions. With his phony law degree and his public-interest persona, he would have fit right in. Meanwhile, he's looking for de Bosch disciples. And trying to undo his past. Symbolically. All those years he spent in institutions. Now he's in the power role, hobnobbing with therapists. He was like a little kid, thinking magically. Pretending he could make it all go away.'

'We're still trying to unravel his travel schedule, place him and Jeffers together at least once: Acapulco, the week Mitchell Lerner was killed. Jeffers admits going along for the weekend- she presented a paper- but claims to know nothing about Lerner. She also admits using her position to get Coburg shrink mailing lists, but says she thought he just wanted to use them in order to advertise the law center.'

'How does she explain trussing up Robin and taking potshots at me?'

He grinned. 'What do you think?'

'The Devil made her do it.'

'You bet. As their relationship developed, Coburg began to dominate her psychologically and physically. She'd started to have some suspicions about him, but was too afraid to back away from him.'

'Does physically mean sexually?'

'She says there was some of that, but mostly she claims he used mind control, threats, and intimidation to get into her head. Kind of a mini-Manson thing: poor, vulnerable woman taken in by psychopathic Svengali. She says the night he announced he was going to get you, she didn't want any part of it. But Coburg threatened to tell her husband the two of them had been screwing for five years, and when that didn't work, he flat out said he'd kill her.'

'How does she explain being so vulnerable?'

'Because she'd been abused as a kid. She says that was what drew her to Coburg- their mutual experiences. At first, their relationship was platonic. Lunch, talking about work, Coburg helping some of her clients out of legal jams, she helping him get social services for his. Eventually, it got more personal, but still no sex. Then one day, Coburg took her to his apartment, cooked lunch, had a heart to heart and told her all the shit he'd been through as a kid. She told him she had, too, and they ended up having this big emotional scene- cathartic, she called it. Then they went to bed and the whole relationship started taking another turn.'

'Five years,' I said. 'That's when the murders began… Who does she say abused her?'

'Daddy. She's free and easy with the ugly details, but it'll be impossible to verify- both parents and her only sibling, a brother, are dead.'

'Natural causes?'

'We're looking into it.'

'Convenient,' I said. 'Everyone's a victim. I guess she could be telling the truth about being abused. First time I met her she told me violating a child's trust was the lowest, she could never work with abuse cases. Then again, she could have been toying with me- she and Coburg got off on playing games.'

'Even if it's true, it doesn't change the fact that she's a psychopathic witch. Couple of goddamn psychopaths- there's your two pathologies scenario.'

'The bond between them couldn't be that deep. It didn't take long for her to sell him out.'

'Honor among scumbags.' His drink came and he cooled his hands on the glass.

I said, 'So what about Becky? What does Jean say the link was between her and Coburg?'

'She claims to have no idea what his motive was, there.' He smiled. 'And guess what? He didn't have one, other than making Jean happy.'

'Becky was Jean's thing?'

'You bet. And that's what I'm gonna get her on. All her cooperation on the other murders isn't going to help her there, because I've got independent info on a motive: Becky and Dick Jeffers were having an affair. For six months.'

'How'd you find that out?'

'From the newly talkative Ms. Adeline Potthurst. Adeline saw Becky and Dick Jeffers together, sneaking off during a Christmas party at the center. Kissing passionately, his hand up her skirt.'

'Not very discreet.'

'Apparently Becky and Dick weren't- he used to come by to pick up Jean and end up talking to Becky, body language all over the place. The affair was semipublic knowledge at the center- I checked it out with some of the other workers and they confirm it.'

'Meaning Jean knew.'