Earth Angel, page 23
“Could be worse if they find out you came to me,” I said. “I don’t have any abilities at all, psychic or otherwise.”
She got up and walked to me. She towered over me. Her straight hair was shoulder-length and the same nondescript shade of brown I had dyed my hair to look like. She “handed me the photocopies. “Just have a look. Tell us what you think. If it doesn’t work out, we’ll be on our way.”
I looked over at David. He came over and put his arm around me. “You want me to stay?”
I shook my head. “You better go check on the kids. I’ll call you when I’m done.”
“Wait a minute,” Lt. Trump said. “I thought the two of you worked on this together.”
“Not really,” David said. “I just held her jacket, she’s the one who belted the home run. I’d never even heard of 3:10 to Yuma, let alone knew there were two versions of the theme song.”
“I hate this shit,” McCauley groused. “Six o’Clock Killers.”
“Six o’Clock Killers?” I said.
Lt. Trump nodded. “It’s what we call these kind of criminals. The ones who leave notes or send tapes to the press.”
“They want to be stars on the six o’clock news, they want to be on Hard Copy.” Sgt McCauley took out a piece of Trident and stuck it in his mouth. “At least with your normal criminal, they just want to do whatever it is they do and get away with it. These sick fucks… sorry… these idiots just want someone to play with. Probably were the last ones picked to play ball in the neighborhood so now they’ll show the world.” He chewed his gum fiercely.
David kissed me on the cheek. “Call me as soon as you’re done, right?”
“Right.”
He hesitated. “You sure you don’t want me to stay, Grace?”
Of course I wanted him to stay, but I didn’t want him around in case they questioned me in such a way that I had to reveal who I really was. “Go,” I said. “I’ll call.”
He squeezed my hand and left. When he was gone, I sat on the bed, covering the stain, and read the three previous notes from the kidnapper. They all began the same, with the same memo-style heading: To: Santa Barbara Police Dept. From: Secret Admirer. Re: Next Kidnapping. The first one read: “Of this I never tire of saying, ‘I need cash!’ ” The second one read: “Keep this key: No one should ever be separated.” The third read: “Like the apple says: There is no gravity, the earth sucks.”
I reread the notes several times. I put them on my lap and rubbed my eyes.
“Anything?” Lt. Trump asked.
“I don’t know. I don’t know.”
“Is it a movie thing like the other notes?” Sgt. McCauley asked. “Or is he mixing it up?”
I sighed. “I really don’t know. I told you it was a fluke before. I knew one little bit of trivia and it paid off. You’d be better off with a film expert, somebody who really knows their stuff. They probably have a few over at the university.”
“Yes they do,” Lt. Trump said stiffly. “Naturally we were hoping to consult as few people as possible. The more people we talk to, the better the chance the kidnapper will find out and change his MO. Right now, you’re the best lead we have. After your tip we’ve started combing the video rental stores, see who might have rented 3:10 to Yuma. We’re checking when the last time that movie was broadcast locally, see if it was on a cable system, maybe get a list of local subscribers. Because of you, we’re at least doing something other than hoping he’ll try to kidnap me by mistake.”
“I’m sorry, this stuff is gibberish to me. I don’t recognize anything.” I shrugged for emphasis.
Lt. Trump nodded, looking disappointed. “Well, it was a long shot.” She stared at me without speaking.
I felt itchy under her gaze. I stood up and walked to the door. “If I think of anything, I’ll call,” I said.
Sgt. McCauley quickly spoke up. “Make sure you speak only to us, okay? No one else. Okay?”
“Okay.”
Lt. Trump looked over at him and said, “Ian, will you wait for me in the car?”
Sgt. McCauley unpeeled another stick of Trident and shoved it into his mouth to join the other piece. He left without saying anything.
I stood by the door, a not-so-subtle hint that I wanted her to leave. She ignored me and began strolling around the room, her hands behind her back but looking at everything of mine that was lying about. “You play guitar?”
I expected her to pick it up and play, just as David had. “A little,” I said. “You?”
“Nope. My mom had me at piano lessons three days a week for five years, I still can’t play ‘Heart and Soul.’ I don’t listen to music much, not even the oldies. Hell, I didn’t listen when I was a teen, so they don’t have any nostalgia value. My daughter walks around with Walkman headphones all day. The world’s wisdom is reduced to song lyrics.” She bent over my song book. “Paul Simon. I know him. He married that young singer.” She looked over at me and smiled. “I like gossip. Probably why I became a cop. You get all the gossip first.”
I stood by the door and watched her walk around the room. I felt as if I were watching a lion circling its prey.
She stopped at the bed, looked at the stain. “Soda water’ll get that right out.” She sat on the edge of the bed, a foot away from the stain, which gave me the creeps. “It’s hard to be a woman,” she said, “especially if you’re a cop.”
“It’s hard to be a woman.” From a Tammy Wynette song, “Stand by Your Man.” I guess she was right, all the world’s wisdom is reduced to song lyrics.
“Sgt. McCauley and I have been working the case from the beginning, along with a whole team of detectives. In a perfect world, we’d all be working together, sharing information, inching closer and closer to this nut. But the fact is, being a detective is just as competitive as the business world. You want to get ahead, you’ve got to stand out.” She crossed her legs, long and sturdy legs that could stomp a criminal unconscious. She plucked at the pantyhose at her knee. “Here’s what you don’t know. Our chief of police will be retiring in a year, which leaves his job open. That’s a job I’d like to have. But because I’m a woman, there’s not a chance in hell I’ll get it. Unless I do something that makes them look bad if they don’t give it to me. See what I’m getting at?”
“You want to catch the kidnapper because it’s a good career move?”
She smiled coldly. “Competition brings out the best in people, that’s the American way, the capitalist way. I know that must sound pretty mercenary and to you, but then I don’t have a fucking medical degree. I didn’t just collect a shitload of insurance money. I can’t afford to take off and hide out somewhere else like you can, Doctor Gottlieb.”
Well, there it was. Out in the open. I sighed, a little relieved. “So you know, so what.”
“So, giving false information to police during an investigation is a crime, Doctor. I could arrest you right now.”
“No district attorney would prosecute. Not after I voluntarily came forward with important information. Don’t bully me.”
She stood up and walked toward me. “I didn’t say anything about prosecuting. Just the arrest will be enough. Get your name and photo on the news. From what I’ve determined, your boyfriend doesn’t know who you really are. He will then.”
“You want to arrest me, do it.” I pulled open the door and let a blast of sunlight in. “You want to tell David who I am, tell him.” I gripped the door knob hard so she wouldn’t see my hand shake.
She stood in the doorway, surrounded by sunlight. “Regardless of what you think of me, Doctor, there’s still a little girl who’s missing. And more to come. Don’t punish them because you don’t like me.”
“You look tired, Lieutenant Trump. Medical researchers in Colorado discovered that hunters and others who frequently fire guns have up to eight times more lead in their systems. It’s because of the lead dust in the ammunition. The lead causes fatigue. You should think about changing over to copper- or nylon-jacketed bullets. You’ll feel better, I’m sure.” I watched her walk to her car. “No charge,” I shouted after her.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
THREE DAYS LATER THE MISSING TWELVE-YEAR-OLD GIRL WAS FOUND in a retired couple’s Montgomery Ward aluminum tool shed in a trailer park. A few hours later the police came to arrest Josh.
I was in the motel office telling the owners’ daughter that my TV remote needed a new battery. She stood behind the counter arranging the dozen old-fashioned windup alarm clocks that were handed out to people who wanted wake-up calls. She was about fifty, with a deliberate pleasant expression, and the excruciatingly polite manners of someone under constant surveillance, like a beauty pageant contestant. She wore a small, gold cross around her neck, so perhaps she thought God was watching, judging her poise, personality, bathing suit voluptuousness. She also wore a wedding ring, though I’d never seen a husband around. She had the radio on and the announcer was speaking in rapid Spanish.
“You speak Spanish?” I said, trying to be friendly.
“No, but it’s a lovely language. Those of Spanish descent have such a rich heritage.” She reached over and changed the station to some easy-listening music. “That better?”
“No, I didn’t want you to change the station.”
“That’s all right,” she smiled. “No problem.”
I sighed. Useless. “Haven’t seen your dad in a few days. Is he okay?”
“Oh, yes. He and Mother went to Oakland for a funeral. His father died.”
“His father?” The old man himself must have been in his eighties.
“Granddad was one hundred and three years old. He fought in Cuba with Teddy Roosevelt.”
I didn’t know what to say. “Who’s feeding the bird? Who’s feeding Gus?”
“Gus?” She laughed. “Dear ole Gus.” She didn’t say anything more. She went back into her living quarters and returned with a remote control unit, much more elaborate than the one in my room. She popped open the back and thumbed out the battery. She handed it to me. “Use this. You know how to put it in, or do you want me to come over and do it?”
“I can manage. Thanks.” I turned to leave and the radio deejay came on and said: “Little Zelda Cummings, the twelve-year-old girl kidnapped three days ago, has been found by police. She’s alive and in the hospital, but no further details about her are available. We’ll keep you posted as we find out more.”
I hurried back to my room to turn on the TV and get more information. As I walked in, I heard my phone ringing. I ran into the room and snatched up the receiver. “Hello?”
“Grace?” It was Rachel. She sounded more breathless than I.
“Hi, Rachel. What’s up?”
“The police are here. They have some kind of warrant. David’s out of town. Could you come over, please?”
* * *
David was in Los Angeles, filming some gang ritual he thought was too dangerous for me to go along. A thirteen-year-old boy was being “jumped in,” meaning he was joining a gang. The ceremony called for a bunch of the other gang boys to beat the new kid with punches and kicks until he was battered and bruised and had to be carried home. I tried to imagine wanting anything as much as that boy must. Had I ever? Anything at all, being a doctor, a mother? Had I even wanted Tim that much?
After Sgt. McCauley and Lt. Trump had left me that day, David came back over and we had sex again. Both of us were pretty tired from our long night deciphering the note, which made for slow, lazy lovemaking that both satisfied and exhausted me. We fell asleep watching Entertainment Tonight, even though it was only about seven o’clock. Three hours later we woke up, and David jumped out of bed and started dressing. He called home, made sure Josh and Rachel were okay. “I’ve got to get home,” he told me. “I can’t stay out all night.”
“No sleepovers, huh?”
“I like them to know I’m around. That they come first.”
I sat up in bed, tucking the sheets around my breasts. “You’re a good dad, David.”
“You make that sound like a fault.”
“I didn’t mean to.”
He shrugged, pulled on his pants. “Maybe I’m wrong. Something in your tone.”
“I’m probably jealous. I’d like to be a good dad, but all I can hope for is being a mother.”
“What’s wrong with that? Mother is good.”
“Dads are mysterious, they’re like thoroughbreds. Mothers are like plow horses. Even if a father is bad or mean, he’s usually described as troubled, a product of bad influences. A bad mother is just evil. Born evil.”
“What about a good mother?”
“You’re good until the kid’s twelve, then you’re either a bitch, stupid, or old-fashioned until the kid turns thirty, when suddenly you’re acceptable. That’s an eighteen-year sentence of abuse, more than some murderers get.”
David sat next to me on the bed, buttoning his shirt. “You’re in a mood tonight. Maybe you should come home with me.”
I shook my head.
He made a fist and laid it on his open palm. “Let’s do rock-scissors-paper. Winner decides.” When I didn’t respond, he leaned over and kissed my forehead. “Come home with me.”
“So soon after Annie stayed there? The kids will think you’re a slut.”
He stroked my hair. “The kids know how I feel about you.”
“They do? I don’t even know how you feel.”
“You’re lying.” He stepped into his sandals. “It’s how you feel that’s the big mystery.”
I pulled a pillow onto my lap and hugged it to my chest. “I don’t know how to talk about feelings right now. Feelings are like a foreign language in which you only know the swear words. Love, like, fond, care—all the obscenities I know and I don’t want to mix them up and start an international incident.”
He stood up, a stern look on his face. “You’re so full of shit sometimes.”
“Where’s the warrant?” I asked the policeman as I walked up the sidewalk to David’s house. Two cops in uniform stood outside the front door. They looked fidgety, as if they wanted to smoke.
“Who are you?” the one with the mole over his eye asked.
“I’m the family attorney. Who are you?”
He took a step toward me, his face mocking. “Officer Blair. You want my badge number, too?”
I brushed past him and hurried inside. I could hear Rachel’s voice upstairs, an angry and helpless whine. And men’s voices, contemptuously righteous. I climbed the stairs and followed the noise to Josh’s room. Sgt. McCauley was supervising a man in coveralls who knelt beside Josh’s huge safe. An open tool box with several large power drills sat between them. Lt. Trump stood by the window looking out. She must have seen me coming up the sidewalk. She didn’t turn around to look at me. Rachel argued with Sgt. McCauley about the sanctity of Josh’s property while Josh sat on his bed, back propped against the wall, reading a graphic novel called The Watchmen. I didn’t know him well enough to determine whether his indifferent expression was an act or not.
Rachel saw me and came over. We hugged briefly, for the first time. Her hair smelled of strawberry shampoo. “I appreciate your coming,” she said. “David’s not due to call in for another couple of hours. I didn’t know what to do.”
“It’s okay,” I said. I patted her shoulder, as much to thank her as to comfort her. Thank her for feeling she could count on me. Until she’d called I’d been standing at the counter of my kitchenette, skinning the membranes from grapefruit sections for a spinach-and-grapefruit salad recipe I’d torn from TV Guide. On the television, Montel Williams was being sympathetic to preoperative transsexuals who wore clumsy disguises to hide their identities from coworkers who might be watching. I hadn’t played my guitar since David had dazzled me. I hadn’t done anything. I hadn’t gotten around to calling the Jewish summer camp Rachel wanted to attend, hadn’t checked on a Mustang for Josh, the water heater for David. What was I waiting for? Instead, I’d slept a lot, watched TV, snacked on beef jerky and cupcakes. Making the salad was to be a fresh start for me, a healthy start, proof I could accomplish something. Follow through. Finish.
Now Rachel’s unexpected dependence on me gave me a strange new strength. I felt as if I could read each person’s symptoms in this room and tell them what they were dying of. I could smell their budding tumors, hear the blood slowing around constricting arteries. The power made me bold.
“Shouldn’t you wait until their legal guardian is here?” I said to Lt. Trump’s back.
“We don’t have to wait for anybody to be here.” She kept staring out the window.
“Then perhaps you wouldn’t mind showing me your warrant.”
“Which one? The one to open the safe? Or the one to arrest Josh?”
“Arrest Josh for what?”
“For what’s in the safe.” She looked over her shoulder at the two men. “How’s it coming, Billy?”
The man in coveralls shrugged. “It’s an old safe, but a good one. Same kind those rich oil barons used to keep their pornography collections in. You could blow up the whole house, this thing would still be standing.”
“How long will it take you?”
“Another fifteen minutes.”
Lt. Trump turned around and looked at me. Sunlight glared off the window behind her, which made her expression hard to read. She seemed to like to stand with the sun to her back, like a gunfighter in a showdown. She didn’t say anything, she didn’t have to. Her message was clear.
“Be right back, Rachel,” I said. “Don’t worry. I’ll take care of it.” I walked out of the room. I heard Lt. Trump follow. I didn’t wait for her but marched down the stairs, through the living room and dining room and into the kitchen. I pulled a can of Dr Pepper Lite from the refrigerator, not because I was thirsty, but because I wanted her to be aware that I wasn’t offering her one.
