A Flower in the Desert (23 page)

“What was his name?”

“Stamworth. Jim Stamworth.”

I sipped my cider. “When was he here last week?”

“Thursday night.”

“Did you tell him you'd seen Melissa?”

“No. When she was here, Mel begged me not to tell anyone that I'd seen her. She was deadly serious about it. She made me promise.” She frowned. “I'm not sure I'm doing the right thing now. Telling you.”

“I think you are. Has anyone else been asking you about Melissa?”

“I got a phone call from Los Angeles some time ago. A private detective who said he was working for Roy Alonzo. Back in August, this was. He asked me, like the others, if I'd seen or heard from her. And at the time, I hadn't.”

The Hispanic man, whoever he was, evidently hadn't learned about Deirdre Polk. Yet. “When Stamworth was here, did he mention Melissa's sister Cathryn?”

She frowned. “Cathryn? Why would he mention Cathryn?”

She apparently hadn't heard of Cathryn's death. “Were Melissa and Cathryn close?”

She frowned again. “Close? Well, they're sisters. Mel's fond of her, naturally, but in a kind of distant way. The impression I always got was that Mel likes her, loves her, but that in a way she feels sorry for her, too. Whenever she mentioned her, she called her ‘poor Cathryn,' as though Cathryn …” She shrugged. “I don't know. As though Cathryn hadn't lived up to her full potential, maybe.”

My face must have shown something because she frowned at me. “What is it?” she asked. “What's wrong?”

“Cathryn is dead.” I said. “She was killed last week.”

It took a moment to register. Then the muscles of her face went slack with shock. “Killed? Murdered? But … my God. That's horrible. That's
horrible.
Does Melissa know?”

“I don't know.”

“But
why?
Who killed her?”

“I don't know. The Los Angeles police don't know.”

“But …” Her eyes opened in alarm. “This doesn't have anything to do with Melissa, does it?”

“The police don't think so.”

“But what do
you
think?”

“I honestly don't know. I know I want to find Melissa.”

“But
murdered?
How was she killed?”

“She was strangled.” There was no reason to elaborate.

Deirdre Polk winced and her hand went protectively to her throat, fingers spread. “How awful!”

“Ms. Polk. You said before that guilt was something Melissa understood. What did you mean?”

She was looking off. She turned to me. “I'm sorry. What?”

I repeated myself.

She frowned. She removed her hand from her throat, placed it atop the arm of the rocker, closed it, opened it. She took a breath. “I meant it's something she's lived with all her life. Her father's a very domineering person. He always has been. Everything has to be done
his
way, or not at all. From what she's said, I don't think he's ever told her that he was proud of her, that he's ever once given her a sense of worth. A sense that she was valuable. As herself. As Melissa. Her mother, from what Mel said, is kind of a nonentity. Well intentioned, but basically ineffectual. No match for her father. I think Mel grew up with a feeling of guilt, a sense that she didn't quite measure up, didn't meet the expected standards.”

I said, “I apologize for asking personal questions. I need to learn as much as I can about Melissa. Your relationship with her. You were close friends?”

She smiled a small bleak smile. “Close, yes. Friends, yes. We weren't lovers.”

“I'm not trying to pry,” I said. “Well, yeah, I am trying to pry. I have to.”

She nodded. “I'm not ashamed of who I am. I'm gay. It's a part of me. It's an important part, but it doesn't define me, any more than my hair or my clothes or the kind of food I eat. Melissa isn't gay, and being straight doesn't define her. You're not one of those sad, sorry men who can't believe that a close friendship is possible between a gay woman and a straight woman?”

“I don't think so, no.” I smiled. “But some of my best friends are sad, sorry men.”

She sipped at her cider. “She told me once that she'd tried it in college. A roommate. It didn't work for her, she said.”

“When did you meet her?”

“About two years ago. Just after her divorce. I had a show down in Santa Fe, with two other women, and Mel came to the opening. We talked, and she asked me if I wanted to meet her for lunch the next day. We became friends. She liked my work, but I think she liked me mostly because I knew what I wanted to do, and I was doing it. In a way, Mel was still trying to figure out who she was. What she wanted to do. Sometimes she seemed to be playing at her life. Acting a part rather than living it.”

“When I was out in Los Angeles,” I said, “I heard a story about Melissa. According to the story, Melissa and Roy were occasionally involved in S and M parties. Would you know anything about that?'

She frowned. “Is that important?”

“At this point, I don't know what's important. All I can do is keep accumulating information every way I can. And hope that some piece of it, sooner or later, leads me to Melissa.”

She sipped at her cider. “She told me it was something that she and Roy did occasionally. Scenes. They did them out in Los Angeles, and here, in New Mexico. There's a group down in Albuquerque, apparently. The two of them went down there once or twice.”

It surprised me to learn that an S and M group existed in Albuquerque. I've never considered Albuquerque a hotbed of kinky sex. “Did she ever give you any names for anyone down in the Albuquerque group?”

“No. I never asked. It was something I wasn't particularly interested in. It all struck me as sort of … lost and unhappy.” Her smile now contained both sadness and irony. “Mel used to tease me about how straight I was. Despite being gay.”

“Okay. Let's go back a bit. She called you, you said, before she went to El Salvador. What was her mood like then?”

She frowned. “It was funny. Strange funny. I expected her to be frantic. She
had
been frantic a few weeks before, when the judge announced his decision. And she was still angry. But she seemed almost excited about going down there. She made it all sound very mysterious, as though she were on some secret mission. That's what I mean, about her playing a part. She said that while she was down there, she was going to be doing something for Juanita.”

Nineteen

J
UANITA
,”
I SAID
. “
JUANITA CARRERA
?”

Deirdre Polk nodded. “Yes. Have you met her?”

“Not yet. Have you?”

“No, but Mel's talked about her a lot. Mel'd been Juanita's sponsor, with a group called Sanctuary, and the two of them had become friends. What Mel told me was that she was going to do something for Juanita down there, in El Salvador.”

“Did she say what it might be?”

“No.” Another faint, sad smile. “Mel can be awfully stubborn when she wants to. If she doesn't want to tell you something, she won't.”

“This thing she was going to do for Juanita. Did it sound to you like she was talking about something important?”

“Important to Juanita, yes. It had to be something important. Because Mel told me, when she was here three weeks ago, that the reason she was back in Santa Fe was to see Juanita. She said there were things she had to tell her.”

“She didn't say what they were?”

“No. It had something to do with El Salvador. Something had happened down there. She wouldn't tell me what it was.”

So Rita had been right. As usual. “Why not?” I asked her.

“She said it was better that I didn't know. At first I thought she was playacting again.” She frowned, shook her head. “Maybe I'm giving you the wrong impression about Mel.” She sipped at her cider, frowned again. “All right,” she said, “she playacts from time to time. Sometimes she dramatizes herself, her life. In a lot of ways, she's still a little girl, looking for approval. But maybe most of us are still little girls and boys, still carrying around our private wounds, still looking for the approval that'll make them all better. It doesn't mean she's a trivial person. She isn't. She really
cares
about the people she was helping in Sanctuary. She really loves Juanita, and she'd do anything she can to help her. There may be all sorts of complicated psychological reasons why she feels that way. Maybe because she's been neglected all her life, maybe because she has a cold, distant father. Probably that's all true. I'm not a psychologist, I don't know. But I don't think it matters, really. She's got a good heart, a really compassionate heart, and she can be absolutely fearless when she's protecting the things and the people she cares about.”

I nodded. “You said that she wasn't playacting when she refused to tell you what had happened down in El Salvador.”

“No. No, she frightened me.” She took a breath. “I'm still frightened.”

“Before she left for El Salvador, had she spoken to you about the Underground Railroad?”

She nodded. “We talked about it on the telephone once. Just after the court ruled against her. She said she'd talked to a woman named Elizabeth Drewer. She's a lawyer in Los Angeles and she's connected to the Railroad, apparently. Mel said that Drewer had explained how the Railroad worked, and what Mel would have to do if she decided to use it.”

“Did she sound inclined to use it, back then?”

Deirdre Polk frowned. “She was torn up about it. Undecided. It was a huge step, she knew that. It was enormous. It meant giving up everything. Her house, her friends, her entire life. Running, hiding, for who knows how long. Forever, maybe. But on the other hand, if she stayed in Los Angeles, Roy would have access to Melissa. He'd have unrestricted visitation. And that idea terrified her.”

“What are your feelings about Roy Alonzo?”

She shrugged again. “I've never met him. But he needs help, obviously. You can't do something like that if you're not a deeply troubled person.”

“You've got no doubts that he abused Winona.”

She shook her head. “Melissa would never have put herself, she'd never have put Winona, through that terrible mess of a trial if she wasn't completely convinced that Roy was guilty. We talked about it, before she decided to take Roy to court. I asked her if she was absolutely positive that Roy had done it. She said that if he hadn't done it, then Winona was lying about it, for no reason at all, and that all the doctors were wrong, all the psychologists and the MDs who examined Winona, all of them.”

“Did she ever mention a woman named Shana Eberle?”

She frowned. “The name is familiar.”

“Roy Alonzo was involved with her when the sexual abuse case came up.”

She nodded. “Mel did mention her. She said the woman was famous for sleeping around with everyone in Hollywood.” She smiled another sad smile. “She said that Roy had finally gotten exactly what he deserved.”

“Was Melissa jealous of her?”

“Jealous? Why should she be?”

I shrugged. “I've heard that Melissa was a jealous woman.”

“While she and Roy were married, yes, probably. Jealousy has a lot do with with a need for approval, I think. But Roy encouraged her. Deliberately. He was a terrible womanizer, and he used to flirt with women right in front of Mel. He did it intentionally. He used to laugh about it, she said. Brag about the women he'd had. But after the divorce, after she got away from the situation, Melissa really didn't care what Roy did.” She smiled faintly. “Or who.”

“She made the shift that quickly?”

“It wasn't made quickly. She spent a year getting over the divorce. And she had some rough moments. It was her second divorce, and this time there was a child to consider. But by the time Roy got involved with Shana Eberle, Mel was over the worst of it.”

“Were there any men in her life?”

“I don't think so. She told me that her lawyer—the man who represented her in the divorce and the custody trials—she said that he had a kind of crush on her. I don't remember his name.”

“Chuck Arthur.”

“Yes. She liked him. And it pleased her, knowing that someone like him would find her attractive. He was younger, and smart, and good at what he did. But so far as I know nothing ever came of it.”

“Okay.” I said. “Does the phrase ‘
The flower in the desert lives
' mean anything to you?”

She frowned. “No. Is it supposed to?”

“I don't know. It was on some postcards Melissa sent.”

She shook her head. “I never heard her use it.”

I finished off the rest of my cider, set the glass on the end table. “All right. Thank you. I appreciate your being so open with me.”

She leaned slightly forward, over her cider mug. “Do you think you'll find her?”

“I'll find her.” I said this with more real conviction than I'd felt when I said it before. I knew now that Melissa was somewhere along the Underground Railroad. She had been here, in this house, less than three weeks ago. She had been in Santa Fe, and she had been about to leave for somewhere nearby. Sooner or later, I would find her.

I scratched the dog's head one final time, and then stood. The dog yawned, lay down at my feet, and went immediately to sleep. I had evidently made a strong impression.

Dierdre Polk set aside her mug and stood up, put her hands in her front pockets. Concern showed on her face. “This thing about Cathryn. The murder. That really frightens me.”

“It frightens me, too,” I said. “But it may have nothing to do with Melissa. The cops don't think it does, and they're usually right about these things.”

The concern was still there.