The Golem of Paris by Jonathan Kellerman, Jesse Kellerman Page B

ramp—veering back as a horn blared.
    One lane over, a middle finger waved.
    “Yeah, okay, sorry.”
    But the guy wouldn’t be placated, continuing to lean on the horn.
    Jacob glanced over. Standard-issue asshole.
    Thankfully, that was all.
    There had been a period, the first four or five months after the madness in the garden, when he felt like an emotional antenna. He looked at people and saw—there was no other word for it—auras. Purple or blue or gray, gradated and shifting with every change of heart. He could walk into a room and know at a glance who’d fought with his wife the night before; who’d gotten laid; who could not let go, who could not hold on.
    An exquisite, excruciating sympathy that would’ve made him a great therapist, but that turned freeway-driving into a terrifying ordeal. Every car became a plasma jar, lit up with the concerns of its occupants.
    He couldn’t tell anyone. They’d think he was losing it.
    He
thought he was losing it.
    At the time, he’d been sneaking four or five Vicodin a day, nursing a cache accumulated during his hospital stay. He cut back. When that didn’t help, he flushed the remaining pills down the toilet. The hallucinations persisted.
    His GP gave him a mini-mental and sent him home with a psych referral. Jacob went so far as to make an appointment, canceling the morning of. He decided to tough it out, congratulating himself on his foresight and fortitude when, with time, the symptoms faded. Now he looked back and chalked them up to stress and detox.
    Some days he even believed that.
    One lane over, the guy was lobbing F-bombs.
    Jacob fished out his badge and pressed it to the glass. The guy recoiled, yanking his steering wheel and nearly hitting another car himself.
    •   •   •
    I T TOO K SEVERAL HOURS to undo the havoc Bina had wreaked on the Marquessa Duvall file. Even after Jacob had gotten it in order, it remained incomplete: pages missing, pages waterlogged, pages nibbled by mice, pages from other cases mixed in.
    Bottle of Beam in hand, he sat on his couch to read.
    Early on the morning of December 20, 2004, a jogger completing his daily circuit noticed a human shape slumped in an alley south of Santa Monica Boulevard, between El Centro and Gower. That area, like most of Hollywood, had a large homeless population, and as the jogger explained, it was not unusual to come across people passed out, especially on a Monday, following a weekend of partying.
    What was unusual was the person’s size.
    Mr. Sproul advised that he stopped to take a closer look. When I asked why, he stated that he was concerned it was a child. Mr. Sproul called out several times but received no response. He then proceeded to approach the person. He confirmed that the person appeared to be a black male between the ages of four and seven years old. The victim was propped in a semi-upright position against the wall on the north side of the alley. The victim did not appear to be breathing. Mr. Sproul stated that although he is trained in CPR, he did not attempt to touch the victim’s body or to perform resuscitation. He advised that he could observe severe injuries to the victim inconsistent with survival. He stated, “I know a dead kid when I see one.”
    Mr. Sproul advised that he turned away from the body and took out his mobile phone to dial 911. In doing so, he discovered a second body, positioned opposite the child’s body and facing it. The second body appeared to belong to a black female in her mid- to late twenties. She showed similar injuries and did not appear to be breathing.
    Mr. Sproul advised that he did not notice the presence of the second body prior to then because it was blocked by a large trash container.
    Mr. Sproul left the immediate vicinity to dial 911.
    Marquessa Duvall, twenty-three years old.
    Her five-year-old son, Thomas White Jr.
    Jacob flipped through photos, advancing down the alley in shutter clicks.
    The area was familiar to him from his days