I said, “Was the Mother’s Day visit a drop-in or did he stay?”
“He stayed. Lenore was thrilled. Even though Peter stayed up in his room, didn’t clean up after himself, and we rarely saw him. He’d sleep during the day, go out at night, come home at all hours. Sometimes there’d be money missing from Lenore’s purse or my wallet. Friends advised us to use tough love but we didn’t want a confrontation.”
He dabbed at his eyes and cheeks. “I might’ve tried getting tough but Lenore had the softest heart in the Western Hemisphere. Plus when Peter felt social, he’d go shopping with her, they’d lunch, have a grand time. I found the situation distressing so I upped my work hours. It put a strain on my relationship with Lenore but we resolved that.”
Paul Kramer laughed. “By that I mean Peter and Lenore did their thing and I got used to it. Finally, he left, just shy of his twenty-third birthday. By leaving I mean I paid for an apartment in Hollywood and set up a trust fund that gave him enough money to live on for five years with me controlling the payouts. Lenore was dead-set against it. She’d never admit it but I think part of her enjoyed having Peter as a perpetual child. The apartment was my idea. I subverted her and essentially bribed Peter to get the hell out of here. Lenore figured it out. There were some cold nights.”
He shook his head. “She said she forgave me but I’m not sure she ever completely did. I tried to get Peter another construction job but he said he’d do his own thing and ended up working as a busboy in various restaurants. We’d see him spottily, though Lenore and he talked on the phone. Then she developed a brain tumor and our life became a nightmare for the eighteen months she hung on. Bart and Josh flew in as frequently as their situations permitted but Peter was the star. He was at his mother’s side continually, totally devoted. That was when I learned to admire him. I saw the goodness in him that I’d been blinded to because I’m a conventional man.”
I said, “After your wife’s death—”
“I fell apart and paid no attention to any of the boys, least of all Peter. I dated, got married again — we won’t discuss that, it lasted five months. Peter was close to his mother, he had to be devastated. But I wasn’t there for him and when he told me he was moving back to Florida, I wished him luck.”
He leaned forward. “I saw it as one less complication in my life.”
“Before he left, were drugs—”
“A factor in his life? Definitely. The ones I know about are marijuana, Ecstasy, quaaludes, cocaine, and alcohol. I know because Peter was open about his drug use. Basically, he’d brag and dare us to do something about it. He knew his mother was a soft touch so he — but that’s water under the bridge. And despite all that, Dr. Delaware, I never picked up anything to do with heroin. Peter had been terrified of needles since childhood. Even when getting a tattoo became the thing, he said he’d never get one. Not into pain was the phrase he used.”
Milo said, “Nowadays people snort and smoke heroin.”
“So I was told,” said Kramer, “by the coroner who did his autopsy.”
He looked down, hands knitted and twitching. “Second worst day of my life, the first was when Lenore was diagnosed. I suppose I went into denial about the heroin aspect, asked the coroner if he’d found any needle marks. He said he hadn’t but that didn’t prove anything — what you just said, people inhale. I demanded to know if Peter’s autopsy revealed any signs of long-term opiate use. I’d done some research, knew the signs: pulmonary hyperplasia, micro-hemorrhages of the brain, inflammatory heart tissue, liver disease. He admitted Peter’s body showed none of that. But his interpretation was Peter, being a novice, had snorted far too much. Still, accidental never sat right with me. And now you’re here.”
I said, “Peter was thirty-four when he died. What do you know about his life between the time he returned to Florida and then?”
“The second time, he was gone for seven years. I’d get emails two, three times a year, mostly when he needed me to wire cash. Which I did, he didn’t request much. But we were essentially out of touch.”
“Emails from where?”
“Obviously Florida — the Gulf Coast, the fishing thing. Then Texas, he’d gone back to restaurant work in Austin and later the same in San Antonio. Then it was fishing again, back to Florida, he claimed he’d been promoted to first mate or something along those lines. Whatever it was, it didn’t last long. He went down to Mexico — Cabo San Lucas. Then Panama and Costa Rica. He asked for money and informed me he was working at a zip-line outfit in some Costa Rican jungle, had discovered he wasn’t afraid of heights. How do you respond to something like that? Congratulations, you can hang from a wire? I sent him half of what he requested.”
He glanced at the piano, unlaced and fluttered his fingers. “Was I an S.O.B.? Certainly. Widowhood and a disastrous second marriage took it out of me. I wound down my practice, played more golf, tried to get back to music and found I’d lost my flair. I’d visit Barton and his wife in Boston twice a year. Every eighteen months or so I’d endure a sixteen-hour trek and see Josh and his girlfriend in Tel Aviv. I was just back from Israel when Peter showed up here. Unannounced, just like the first time. He was thirty but already had gray hair. He said he needed temporary lodgings so I took him in, we went to dinner, he talked, I listened. Apparently after Costa Rica he’d gone back to Panama City where he’d worked at a hotel. First in the dining room, then the front desk. He said he’d discovered hotel management was his passion and he’d come back to ‘develop himself.’ He also had a girlfriend he’d met there. A dancer at a club, she’d be arriving soon and they’d be living together, could I advance him on the rent? I gave him enough for six months.”
“Generous,” said Milo.
“You think so?” said Kramer. “More like go-away money.” His lips folded inward. “I was an S.O.B. in general and a rotten dad, specifically. And then he died. And now you’re digging it all up.”
I said, “You do know about his last job.”
“Assistant manager at some apartment building. It depressed him, he’d hoped for hotel work but his résumé didn’t cut it. Was his death somehow connected to that?”
Milo said, “We’re curious about the building.”
“In what way?”
“There may be things going on there.”
“It’s a dope den? Westwood Village?” said Kramer. “I guess that’s not so far-fetched. Students, the weirdos who hang around students.”
“Did Peter talk about that?”
“Not to me, Lieutenant, but I used to attend at the health center, I know what I saw.”
I said, “How much contact did you have with Peter when he worked there?”
Kramer ran a hand along the top of neat, white hair. No strands out of place but that didn’t stop him from patting. “I wish I could say we grew closer but we didn’t. I’m assuming Peter didn’t need money because he stopped contacting me. The only reason I found out about his death was he’d listed me in his phone contacts and the coroner’s investigator found me.”
Milo said, “Do you have that phone, Doctor?”
“No. I told them to dispose of all of Peter’s effects. It was hard enough cleaning out Lenore’s closet. I didn’t need to go through that again.”
I said, “Did you ever meet the girlfriend from Panama?”
“Once. I took them to dinner at Spago and she seemed very pleasant. Far better behaved than Peter, who drank too much wine and got loopy and started talking about his mother. I didn’t appreciate hearing Lenore described in a drunk’s slurry voice. The girl could tell, she managed to calm Peter down. Nice young lady. Good looking, too. Peter always had a way with the girls.”