I said, “Go deeper and deeper.”
Tanya slumped. With the tension gone, she looked like a child.
So far, so good. If I didn’t think too hard about the larger issues.
When an hour had passed, I gave her posthypnotic instructions for practice and prolonged relaxation and brought her out.
It took several tries for her eyes to stay open. “I feel…amazing…thank you. Was I hypnotized?”
“You were.”
“It didn’t feel…that strange. I wasn’t sure I could do it.”
“You’re a natural.”
Tanya yawned. Blanche followed suit. Tanya laughed, stretched, got to her feet. “Maybe one day you can hypnotize me to study better.”
“Having problems concentrating?”
“No,” she said quickly. “Not at all. I was kidding.”
“Actually,” I said, “being relaxed would help with exams.”
“Seriously?”
“Yup.”
“Okay, I’ll remember that.” She reached into her bag. “I’ll practice every day-you did say something about that, right?”
“I did.”
“It’s a little…odd. I’m looking right at you but you’re…close and distant at the same time. And I can still hear your voice in the back of my head. What else did you tell me to do?”
“Nothing else,” I said. “You’re in control, not me.”
She rummaged in her purse. “Hmm…I know I’ve got a check here…”
“When would you like to come back?”
“Can I call you?” Extracting a white envelope, she placed it on the desk. “Signed and ready to go.” Her eyes shifted to Jordan’s letter and the photo. “You can keep them, I don’t want them.”
“I’ll pass them along to Lieutenant Sturgis.”
She stiffened. “Mommy helped him with his addiction, I don’t see how that would relate to his murder.”
“I don’t, either, but he might as well keep all the data. I would like to schedule another session, Tanya.”
“You really think so?”
“If money’s an issue-”
“No, not at all, I’m doing great in that department, have kept right on budget.”
“But…”
“Dr. Delaware, I appreciate everything you’ve done-are still doing for me. I just don’t want to be too dependent.”
“I don’t see you as dependent, at all.”
“I’m here, again.”
“Tanya, how many nineteen-year-olds could do what you’re doing?”
“I’m almost
“Them?”
“Weak, self-pitying people. I can’t
“I understand. But all I see is someone smart enough to ask for help when she needs it.”
“Thank you…I really feel I’m okay, what we did today was amazingly helpful.” She shook her arms to demonstrate. “Rubber girl. I’ll practice. If I forget something, I’ll get right in touch.”
I didn’t answer.
“I promise,” she said. “Okay?”
“Okay.”
At the front door, she said, “Thanks for trusting me, Dr. Delaware. No need to walk me down.”
I watched her descend to her van. She never looked back.
Monday, the blinking light was a message from my service. Detective Sturgis had phoned.
I told Milo about Lester Jordan’s angry missive.
He said, “So the guy was an asshole, we saw that in person.”
“Maybe it clarifies things. From the note it’s clear that Patty helped him through an O.D., but there was no hint she supplied him with anything other than TLC.”
He said, “Great. Meanwhile, the hills are alive with the sound of suspects. I located a three-year-old black Hummer registered to Quick-Kut Music, address on the fourteen hundred block of Oriole Drive. I’m meeting Petra in an hour at Sunset and Doheny-near Gil Turner’s liquor store. Come fly with us, if you’re so inclined.”
The bird streets worm their way into the hills above the Strip, just east of Trousdale Estates, skinny, sinuous, haphazardly paved feats of engineering.
Mockingbird, Warbler, Thrasher, Skylark, Tanager.
Blue Jay Way, where George Harrison sat alone in a rental house, waiting for a press agent who’d made a wrong turn, staring out at a vast table of city shrouded by night and fog.
Easy to lose your way up there. Random cul-de-sacs and no-warning dead ends say someone in the city planner’s office had enjoyed playing darts. Grades are treacherous and jogging’s a life-threatening procedure due to the lack of sidewalks, Porsches and Ferraris buzzing the curb. The houses, many of them hidden behind hedges and walls, range from Palladian palaces to no-style boxes. They butt up against each other like rush-hour straphangers, teeter over the street. Squint a certain way on the bird streets and the hills seem to be trembling even when the ground is still.
The good part is heart-stopping views, some of the best in L.A., and seven- to eight-figure property values.
A twenty-eight-year-old music thief would need a serious income supplement to swing it and the obvious answer was dope. Despite that, I meant what I’d told Milo about Patty not being involved in the dope trade. Jordan’s note was personal-rage at losing an emotional safety net, not concern about being cut off from his supply.
Patty’s sin had been doing her job too well.
Yet she’d committed another iniquity, something serious enough to haunt her for years. And Lester Jordan had probably died because of it.
When I got to the liquor store, Milo stepped out of his unmarked, unfolding a map and wondering out loud if the topography of Oriole Drive allowed a decent vantage spot. Taking the padded envelope without comment, he dropped it onto the passenger seat and returned to the map.
Petra drove up in her Accord.
The two of them studied the street grid, decided to park at the bottom of Oriole and walk. Petra’s car would be the transport vehicle because it was unobtrusive.
“Not cool enough to be a local,” she said, tapping the hood, “but maybe they’ll think I’m a personal assistant.”
She drove north on Doheny Drive, used her stick shift to keep it smooth.
Milo said, “Nice gear-work, Detective Connor.”
“Had to drive better than my brothers.”
“For self-esteem?”
“Survival.”
Every second property seemed to be under construction or renovation, and the side effects abounded: dust, din, workers darting across the road, gouges in the asphalt inflicted by heavy machinery.
