Obsession by Jonathan Kellerman Page A

step down the residential ladder might’ve seemed a bit of atonement.”
    “Punishing herself,” he said. “Not caring if Tanya got punished in the process?”
    “Tanya said she didn’t care.”
    “Tanya sounds like a kid who’d say that.”
    “She does put on a good face,” I said. “But kids are flexible. The main thing would’ve been the relationship between her and her mother.”
    “And now she’s alone.”
    We walked to the car. I said, “Maybe the move here really was about saving money.”
    “Innocent till proven otherwise? Sure, why not. Now that we’ve had our useless geography lesson, what next?”
    “Maybe we should narrow the geography down. If something had happened on Fourth Street, Chatty Mary would’ve remembered, so let’s put that aside for the moment.”
    “Unless Chatty Mary didn’t want the neighborhood besmirched by tales of violence.”
    “My guess is she’d still enjoy talking about a juicy crime. I agree that the murder on June Street is unlikely to be relevant and the only unusual thing that actually happened at the mansion—if you can call it that—was Colonel Bedard dying while under Patty’s care.”
    “Not unusual—he was old.” He rubbed his face, like washing without water.
    “What?” I said.
    “If you want me to be creative, I can be.”
    “Go for it.”
    “An old guy suffering, a compassionate person—could think they were doing him a favor by helping the process along.”
    “Euthanasia?”
    “I told you it was creative.”
    “If Patty had a tendency to play God, wouldn’t Rick know?”
    “The E.R. is one thing, Alex. People come
in
to be saved. But watching some feeble old guy waste away? That could tug at the heartstrings—even a good person’s heartstrings. Nothing premeditated, she wasn’t a criminal. Something impulsive that she came to regret. Then she got sick, déjà-vued, and blurted it to Tanya. Maybe thinking about her own death got her obsessing on how she’d hastened the process for someone else. Or this whole deathbed confession thing is crap and you should concentrate on helping Tanya deal with being alone and
I
should spend my two weeks off watching TV.”
    “Deaf detectives?”
    “Jesus,” he said. “No, my concept of nirvana is TiVoing a month of Judge Judy, cooking up some microwave chili, and zoning out.”
    “Truth and justice,” I said.
    “Stupid people getting yelled at. If I were straight, I’d try to date that woman.”
    I laughed. Gazed out the car window. None of the children had returned to the fountain. “First Patty’s a dope dealer, now she’s a mercy killer.”
    “She said she killed a guy, Alex.”
    “That she did.”
    “I’ll tell you one thing,” he said. “No sense pursuing Colonel Bedard’s death. Whatever happened, the certificate’s going to say natural.”
    He tilted his head toward the bungalow court. “In terms of
this
Eden, there was bound to be plenty of street crime back then, let’s see if Isaac pulls anything up. Not that I’m any more convinced something happened than I was yesterday. But if there was no euthanasia, my next bet would be something to do with the Cherokee drug market. Especially after meeting Lester Jordan. Let me sniff around some more, pay Jordan another social call.”
    He yawned, stretched, closed his eyes. “Enough for one day. Drive.”
    “TiVo time?” I said.
    The eyes opened. “Not so fast, bucko. Expensive lunch on you.”
    “Sure,” I said. “Afterward, we can revisit Jordan.”
    “Nope, too soon. I’ll go it alone tomorrow.”
    “What do you need me to do?”
    He lowered the window and breathed in smog. “Play it by ear. Which is a nice way of saying I don’t have a damn idea.”
    I got home at three, belly full of Thai food, took Blanche for a puppy trot around the garden, freshened her water, heard about her day, toted her and her food bowl into my office.
    She ate as I had another go at Tanya’s file.
    Starting at the