Obsession

Oh, here’s my son.

That’s her kid? I love this city.

Milo told Petra.

She said, “Grant’s mommy was Patty’s landlord? Everywhere this woman moves has some kind of hidden meaning?”

I said, “We assumed Grant was Mary Whitbread’s son because he was the only one who got out of the car. What if he was driving someone else who decided to stay out of sight? The Hummer’s windows were tinted black, no way to know who was riding.”

Milo said, “Lester Jordan was still alive then, but not for long. Mary Whitbread was the last person we spoke to about Patty. Soon after, Jordan’s dead.”

Petra took back the sheet. “Whitbread’s son is Robert Fisk? Grant hangs with Fisk, doing the club scene, drives for him. Fisk’s mommy tells him something about Patty that gets him worried so he takes care of business… meaning the second guy in the apartment could be Grant. Though why Jordan would let him in, I don’t know. Unless Grant really wasn’t a clean-living teddy bear.”

She laughed. “Know a judge who’d sign a warrant based on that? Not that I’ve got a place to search.”

I said, “There’s another candidate for Mary’s son. Blaise De Paine, the Music Sampler. Fisk and Grant were De Paine’s sidemen. I found pictures of him on the Web. He’s fair-haired like Whitbread. Dresses flamboyantly and parties with beautiful people, which makes him a good fit for flashy wheels.”

“Let’s have a look at this sweetheart,” said Petra.

We headed to my office. I downloaded the images.

Petra said, “Looks like a kid playing dress-up…kind of a retro Sergeant Pepper thing going. Not that I’m old enough to remember…Mary Whitbread, huh? ‘Pain’ is ‘bread’ in French.”

Silence.

Milo studied Blaise De Paine’s poses. “Guy doesn’t dress, he costumes…a poseur. Which is Gallic for ‘bullshit artist.’”

“Pretentious and a thief,” I said. “Wonder what else he’s hiding.”

CHAPTER 24

Petra used her LAPD password to log onto NCIC.

The system bounced back two felons named Whitbread: Francis Arthur, male Caucasian, seventy-eight years old, paroled from a twenty-year bank-robbery sentence forty-nine months ago and living in Lawrence, Kansas. Jerry Lee, male American Indian, fifty-two, serving the second half of an eighteen-year armed-robbery stretch at North Dakota State Penitentiary.

An auto check pulled up Mary Whitbread’s license and that of Peterson Ewan Whitbread, issued four years ago, living at the same address on Fourth Street. Peterson’s DOB made him twenty-eight years old. Five seven, one thirty, blond and blue.

Four years ago, he’d worn his hair long and lank. Half-shut eyes shouted boredom. Minus mascara, the spike- do, and club duds, just another bland baby-face aiming at sullen.

Petra said, “Peterson Whitbread ain’t too hip-hop a moniker, I can see why he’d reinvent. Still bunking with Mommy at twenty-four wouldn’t be good for the image, either.”

I said, “One of Robin’s sources thinks he lives on one of the bird streets.”

“Business must be good. Which bird?”

“Don’t know.”

“Who’s the source?”

“No one reliable.” I filled them in.

Petra leaned in closer to the screen. “He’s got on mascara…looks like nail polish, too. The albino Michael Jackson.” Sitting back. “A little showy guy like this would definitely use hired help for muscle. But if he did contract Lester Jordan’s murder because of something related to Patty, the motive has to stretch back to when Patty was taking care of Jordan. That would make Bread-Head anywhere from ten to sixteen.”

Milo said, “Adolescence is just temporary psychopathy, right?”

“Sometimes permanent,” she said. “So what kind of link between a bad-boy teen and a solid-citizen nurse would be worth killing over?”

“The only thing I can see connecting a punk, a junkie, and a nurse is you-know-what.”

She said, “If Patty did get involved with a felonious punk and peddled dope, why would she rent an apartment, years later, from the punk’s mommy?”

I said, “Maybe the terrible thing happened after she moved to Fourth.”

“Then what was Jordan’s connection?”

“Just because she wasn’t Jordan’s neighbor doesn’t mean she broke off contact with him.”

“An enduring relationship? Okay, fine. But let’s not forget that Isaac found no homicides on or near Fourth during the time Patty lived there.”

“Isaac’s having second thoughts.” I switched to my mailbox and downloaded the e-mail from Bangkok.

She read the letter. “That’s the high IQ talking, he’s never satisfied. But let’s go there for a sec, assume Patty’s big iniquity went down on or near Fourth but fell short of murder. So what, she exaggerated to Tanya because she was terminal, and impaired? And how would knowledge of a noncapital crime lead to Jordan getting killed?”

I said, “Maybe what Patty meant by killing someone was she supplied him with dope that killed him.”

“Her dealing wasn’t limited to her private patient? Yeah, that would make her a bad girl.”

She and Milo looked at me.

I said, “Take it wherever it goes.”

Petra said, “Now I have to. Back to Bread-Head. This is a guy who steals music for a living and maybe peddles dope. He can’t be too worried about some juvey misstep more than a decade ago.”

“What if a murder was committed?” I said. “Something that was never reported and that’s why Isaac didn’t pick it up. Patty didn’t participate directly but she conspired in a hush-up and it ate at her for years.”

Milo said, “Before I’m willing to give her that pass, let’s see if her gun matches the slugs dug out of Leland Armbruster.”

Petra swiveled away from the screen. “Guys, this is starting to sound like a Pick One From Column A situation with nothing on the menu that looks fresh. What I need is concrete evidence of a link between the participants.”

I said, “What if the friends who brought Moses Grant into the E.R. were Whitbread/De Paine and Robert Fisk? Patty recognized De Paine from her time on Fourth. That exhumed her guilt. Shortly after that, she became ill, started to obsess about the road not taken, was driven to stir things up. For all we know, De Paine recognized Patty, too. It shook him and he laid low. Then we came around talking about the past and his anxieties reignited.”

“Mommy told him you were asking about Patty?” she said. “But how does Jordan figure in?”

“Maybe Jordan was a participant in whatever happened and she knew it. De Paine was worried he couldn’t be counted on to keep his mouth shut.”

Milo said, “All these years he kept it shut.”

“Don’t know,” I said, “but if De Paine was doing business with Jordan, it explains the crime scene. Jordan let De Paine in and De Paine unlocked the rear window and let Fisk in. Or maybe De Paine did it himself and had Fisk along for support. Jordan nodding off heavily would’ve been an easy kill.”

Petra crossed her legs, rubbed an ankle. “De Paine’s that calculating but he doesn’t take Jordan’s dope?”

Milo said, “He’s smart enough to be careful.”

“Seems to me,” she said, “taking the drugs would’ve been smart, Milo. Easy misdirect to a heroin robbery.”

I said, “But that ran the risk of leading us back to Jordan’s supplier. Who could be De Paine.”

“So how does all this fit with Patty’s housing pattern? I understand her going from Jordan’s caretaker to the old