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开 本: 32开纸 张: 胶版纸包 装: 平装是否套装: 否国际标准书号ISBN: 9780345518170
“Jonathan Kellerman’s novels are an obsession; once started it
is hard to quit.”—Orlando Sentinel
“No one does psychological suspense as well as Jonathan
Kellerman.”—Detroit Free Press
“[Jonathan] Kellerman
really knows how to keep those pages turning.”—New York Times
Book Review
A brand-new thriller from internationally bestselling Jonathan
Kellerman TRUE DETECTIVES follows Moe Reed and Aaron Fox on the
twisted trail of a missing girl, a dark, baffling whodunit that
forces the brothers to put aside their mutual animus — and to
confront the unresolved family mystery that turned them into
enemies. PIs can do things, legally, that cops can’t. And cops have
access to resources denied their private counterparts. Only by
pooling their efforts — and by consulting a man both brothers
respect, psychologist Alex Delaware, do Fox and Reed stand a chance
of peeling back the secrets in high places that explain the fate of
an outwardly innocent young woman. And, by doing so, the brothers
learn about much more than murder.
Chapter One
August 9, 1979
Alleged air-conditioning,” said Darius Fox. “What’s your take, John
Jasper? Motor pool morons set us on bake or broil?”
Jack Reed laughed and used a meaty, freckled forearm to clear sweat
from his face. Scanning the night-darkened Dumpsters and butt-sides
of shuttered, low-rent businesses that lined the alley, he sucked
on his Parliament and blew smoke out the cruiser’s window as Darius
kept the car moving forward at ten mph.
Ten years ago, to the day, the Manson Family had butchered Sharon
Tate and a whole bunch of other people. If either Fox or Reed was
aware of the anniversary, neither thought it worth mentioning.
Crazy Charlie’s crimes might as well have been on another planet;
big-ticket outrage on high-end real estate. Fox and Reed’s
Southwest Division shifts were filled with nonstop penny-ante crap
that sometimes blossomed into stomach-churning violence. Reality
that never made the papers because, as far as they could see, the
papers were works of fiction.
Fox said, “Man, it’s a steam bath.”
Reed said, “Alleged, as in this is a motor vehicle. More like a
shopping cart with a cherry on top.”
Fox had prepped for driving the way he usually did,
hand-vacuuming the driver’s portion of the bench seat, then wiping
the steering wheel down with his private bottle of Purell. Now it
was his own sweat coating the plastic. “Hand me a tissue, J.J.”
Reed complied and his partner rubbed the wheel till it squeaked.
Both men continued to study the alley as they crawled.
Nothing. Good. One half of the shift had passed.
Jack Reed said, “Alleged, as in Jimmy Carter’s a commander in
chief.”
“Now you’re getting unpleasantly political.”
“That’s a problem?” “Night like this it is.”
“Truth is truth, Darius. It was Peanut Boy helped that loony
towel-head back into Eye-Ran and look at all the crap that brought
down.”
“No debate on Farmer Bucktooth being a nitwit, John Jasper. I just
don’t want to pollute our precious time together with small things
like international affairs.”
Reed thought about that. “Fair enough.”
“I’m known for my fairness.”
Slow shift; the usual drunk and disorderlies at Mexican dance halls
on Vermont, a couple of false-alarm burglary calls, an assortment
of miscreants warned and released because none of them was worth
the paperwork.
The last call they’d fielded before embarking on alley-duty was yet
another noise complaint at a USC fraternity, already taken care of
by the campus rent-a-cops by the time Fox and Reed arrived. Rich,
confident college boys saying yessir and nossir, scooping up beer
bottles from the lawn, hurrying inside to continue the merriment.
Wink wink wink.
Reed smoked his Parliament down to a shred, pinched it cold between
his fingers, flicked the remnant out the window. He was a ruddy,
blond fireplug, five nine on a good day, two hundred muscled
pounds, thirty but looking older, with skin leathered by the sun
and a nose flattened by high school football. A hay-colored crewcut
topped his bullet skull. A naturally grainy voice was coarsened
further by two packs a day.
Three years out of the service, all his time spent running an
armory in Germany.
He said, “Tell you what alleged is, Darius: L.A. nights cooling
off. Night like this, might as well have stayed in Bull Shoals.”
“And missed the opportunity to ride with me?”
Reed grinned. “Perish the thought.”
“Damn heat,” said Fox, dabbing sweat from his straight-edge
mustache. He was a tall, rangy black man, thirty-one years old, a
former air force mechanic who’d been told by many people that he
was handsome enough to act.
Jack Reed, a small-town Arkansas boy, was comfortable with black
people in a way northerners could never be. He found L.A. scary.
Everyone pretending to love everyone else but the streets hummed
with anger.
Working with a black man-sitting side by side, eating, talking,
trusting your life to a black man-was a whole different level of
comfort for a transplanted southerner, and he was surprised how
fast he’d gotten used to riding with Darius.
Knowing what Darius was thinking without Darius having to put it
into words.
He could only imagine what his cousins would say if he bothered to
talk to them anymore, which he didn’t. All that ignorance and
stupidity was history.
He contemplated another cigarette as Darius exited the alley, drove
a block, entered a neighboring back lane. More garbage and
accordion-grated rear doors.
Same old same old; both patrolmen were bored and crazy-hot.
Darius used his forearm to wipe sweat off his chin. Shiny nails
flashed. Jack resisted the urge to kid his partner about the weekly
manicures. Night like this, no sense being tiresome.
Jack had been to Darius’s neat little bungalow in Crenshaw for
barbecues and the like, played with Darius’s little boy, made
chitchat with the woman Darius was supposed to be committed to till
death do us.
Madeleine Fox was a small-waisted, curvy, strong-featured white
girl who thought she was an artist but had no talent anyone else
could perceive. Great teeth and hair, even better body. Those big
soft . . . Jack imagined Darius getting close to her. Sliding down
the bed and putting his manicured hands on . . . Jack’s own face
and body and hands transferred to the scene.
Feeling like a shit, he shut down the movie, lit up another
Parliament.
“You okay?” said Darius.
“Yeah.”
“You got fidgety. Pumping those knees, like you do.”
“I’m fine.”
“Okay.”
“Okay, what?”
“You fidget when something’s bugging you.”
“Nothing’s bugging me.”
“Okay.”
Jack said, “All that intuition, apply for detective.”
“Big fun,” said Darius. “Sitting on my ass all day typing, no more
stimulating conversation with you? Not to mention fringe benefits?”
Jack had been riding with Darius for thirteen months, knew the
perks his partner was talking about. Comped meals,
“donations” of merchandise by grateful civilians.
Last week, both he and Darius had gotten brand-new pocket
calculators from an Arab with a store on Hoover after they’d busted
two kids trying to shoplift cassette tapes.
Darius’s favorite perk had nothing to do with tangible goods.
Police groupies. Hit the right cop bar at the right time and they
swarmed like ants on molasses. Sad girls, for the most part,
not Jack’s thing. But he didn’t judge.
Sometimes he wondered, though. Darius married to a good-looking,
downright sexy girl like Maddy, nice backyard, cute little Aaron.
Jack ever got married, he was pretty sure he’d never step out.
Sometimes he thought about Maddy, those teeth. The rest of the
package. Sometimes that brought on headaches and long, itchy
thoughts. Mostly when his crappy little single in Inglewood got
real quiet and Penthouse wasn’t gonna cut it.
Darius said, “Wind blows the heat in, then the heat just sits down
and stays until another wind finally decides to kick its ass out of
town.”
Jack said, “Tonight’s weather report is brought to you by Cal
Worthington Dodge. Now for the latest on them Dodgers.”
Darius laughed. “Nasty night like this, almost a full moon on top
of the heat, you’d think we’d be having more fun.”
“People carving each other up,” said Jack.
“People shooting each other full of holes,” said Darius.
“People stomping each other till the brains ooze out of their
cracked skulls.”
“People strangling each other till the tongues are sticking out
like limp . . . salamis.”
“For a moment I thought you were gonna say something else-hey, look
at the land-yacht.”
Pointing up the alley to a big white car idling, maybe ten yards
up, pulled to the left. Lights off but the security bulb of a
neighboring building cast an oblique band of yellow across the
vehicle’s rear end.
Darius said, “Caddy, looks pretty new. How come it’s smoking worse
than you?”
He rolled closer and each of them made out the model.
Big white Fleetwood, matching vinyl top, fake wire wheels. Tinted
windows shut tight.
Someone’s A.C. wasn’t alleged.
Darius rolled close enough to read the tags. Jack called in the
numbers.
One-year-old Caddy, registered to Arpad Avakian, address on
Edgemont Street, no wants or warrants. Darius said, “East
Hollywood Armenian. Bit of a drive to Southwest.”
Jack said, “Maybe something worth driving for.”
“Real worth driving for.”
Both of them thinking the same thing without having to say it: no
logical reason for Arpad Armenian or whoever was using his wheels
to be in this crap-dump neighborhood in a newish luxury boat unless
someone had a serious jones.
Dope or sex.
Or both.
Guy with a fresh Caddy had the potential to be a fun bust, bit of
diversion from the brain-dead locals they usually dealt with.
If Arpad was polite, they might even let him go with a warning.
Some of those Hollywood Armenians owned stereo stores and the like.
Nothi…
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