“Thanks for picking up, Mr. Bolt.”
“I wasn’t going to answer but it sounded like something Dad would get a kick out of. He’s in Manhattan, of counsel to a white-shoe firm. You know what that means?”
“Working there but not a partner.”
“You’ve got it. In Dad’s case it means his best friend from law school is a senior partner and was nice enough to give Dad a desk and some pickup work.”
“Did your father ever mention the case I’m looking into?”
“How long ago was this?”
“Twenty-four years.”
John Bolt the Younger laughed. “I was eight, only thing Dad brought home from the office was donuts. Give him a buzz, you’ll probably make his day.”
New York John Bolt picked up after one ring.
“Bolt.” Raspy voice, Brooklyn accent. Former snowbird returned to his roots.
Milo introduced himself and said, “I’m calling about a case you were involved in a while back. Just talked to your son and—”
“Which son?”
“John Junior.”
“Mr. Harvard. What’d he tell you, I’m bored and senile, you’d be doing me a favor?”
Milo laughed. “He didn’t mention senile.”
“Well, he’s right about all of it,” said Bolt. “As opposed to his political views. What case?”
“The Davis Gilmore murder-suicide.”
“That one.”
Milo punched air triumphantly. “You remember it.”
“You’re lucky. Haven’t done criminal work in years, most of my cases were dinky-shit, they blur. But that one sticks out because it was so goddamn ugly. Three kids, probably totally screwed up forever, the wife claimed to know nothing about what the bastard was doing to the daughter. Maybe she was just too damn scared to speak up but we’re talking a trailer in the swamp, how the hell do you keep anything private? Anyway, why’s it relevant to you?”
“The daughter’s one of my cases,” said Milo. “Murdered a coupla weeks ago, still unsolved.”
Silence.
“Sir?”
“That,” said John Bolt, “is disgusting. For her to go through all that and then... Jesus, life is not fair. You have any idea who did her?”
“Not yet.”
“Weeks ago. So a whodunit stinker, my sympathies. Well, I’m afraid I can’t help you much, I wasn’t involved with the kids, met ’em just once and that didn’t include talking. They were shell-shocked, you know? Only reason I would’ve been involved was if I planned to put them on the stand.”
“That wasn’t part of the plan.”
“Never, no need. He, the father — don’t want to honor him with that title, he was a flat-out, mentally fucked-up, psychopathic monster — he was planning to plead out and I was happy to spare the kids a trial. I didn’t like the bullshit bail he got but nothing I could do, judge was an asshole. But I figured it wouldn’t matter with the kids gone and where the hell is a loser like that going to go? It’s not like he had a passport.”
Milo said, “We read about the judge.”
“Corrupt, stupid enough to screw a bunch of female attorneys and one of them was Gilmore’s court-appointed. Very hot-looking number, what was her name... Myra? Myrna — no, Merle... like the actress. Oberon. Merle the It Girl, totally in cahoots with Clark — the judge. Anyway, the case was going to be settled with a way-too-Mickey-Mouse sentence. If I recall correctly, something along the lines of five years. But I held out for five real years, no early release no matter how well behaved and reformed some prison shrink said the motherfucker was. He heads home, promptly shoots his wife and himself. Go know.”
“What happened to the kids?”
“Into the system, no idea,” said John Bolt.
“Foster families?”
“That would be my guess. The girl — the victim, her name I remember. Persephone. It’s mythical, some girl who got raped by her father. You name a girl that, it’s no secret what your intentions are, right? She was a quiet one, close to majority. The boys, there were two of them, were younger so I assume they were in the system for a while. Hey. Just thought of something. We had a social worker handling them, very nice gal. I didn’t appreciate her bleeding-heart bullshit when she was trying to convince me some juvenile delinquent criminal deserved compassion instead of punishment but with the Gilmore kids, I was glad she was there. What was her name... names, damn, it’s like they disappear... she was young, couple of years out of social worker school, so she’d be... late forties, maybe fifty... what the hell was her... damn, damn... okay, retrieved it from the Alzheimer file. Katherine... Kathy. Kathy Bookbinder. I used to tease her about that. Tell her you should be throwing the book, not binding it. Kathy Bookbinder, for all I know she’s still in Florida.”
She wasn’t.
Katrine J. Bookbinder, D.S.W., was now a professor of social work at Chandler University. Small selective institution in Orange, California. I’d lectured there a few years ago and said so.
Milo said, “Now you’re gonna tell me you know her.”
“Nope, but it’s an hour’s ride with decent traffic, so that’s decent karma.”
“I will take what I can get.”
His fingers pounced on his phone.
A husky voice said, “This is Kathy. It says LAPD on my screen, what’s going on? Is there something on campus?”
Milo began to explain.
She said, “Persephone? Oh no. That’s horrible. Repellent. My God, poor girl. Woman I guess. That’s evil. And here I was thinking this was going to end up a good day.”
“Sorry, Doctor.”
“No need to apologize, you’re doing your job,” said Kathy Bookbinder. “But it’s been a lifetime since I saw her and she was just a kid. What do you think I can contribute?”
“Anything you can tell me about her and her family situation would be helpful.”
“Situation,” said Kathy Bookbinder. “Talk about a euphemism. Well, it was a public case, not therapy, so yes, I can tell you what I know. But not over the phone. This is too... shocking. Too heavy. I need to compose myself. Can we meet somewhere close to here?”
“Happy to come to your office.”
“No, no, I need to get away from campus, under the best of circumstances it’s an altered reality... God, my heart’s pounding, my first thought was there was an active shooter and I was trapped.”
“Has that happened before?”
“Not yet. But we did have a student last month who was actively delusional and needed to be removed. And before that, there was a sexual predator who still hasn’t been caught.”
“Got it,” said Milo. “Again, sorry for alarming you.”
“You didn’t mean to... a margarita sounds like the right medicine, there’s a place I go, Rosita’s on Glassell Street. But the freeway could be a mess, why don’t we do it tomorrow.”
“The earlier the better, Dr. Bookbinder. I’ll cope with the freeway.”
“You’re dedicated... okay, but at the least it’ll be an hour and it could be a whole lot more. I’ll straighten up here, notify my husband, go over to Rosita’s and get settled. Call me from the road if it’s nuts.”
Chapter 43
The freeway wasn’t nuts, just slightly neurotic, turning a forty-eight-mile trip into a seventy-one-minute stop and go. During that time, Milo made two calls to Katrine Bookbinder. The first time, she was still in her office. By the second, she was at the restaurant nursing “my first dose.”
Milo said, “On our way.”
She said, “Don’t worry, not going anywhere.”
Rosita’s was a pretty place on a pretty street half a mile from the pretty Chandler campus. Great aromas, the gratifying absence of bullfighting posters, serape wall hangings, and dangling sombreros.