Desert Rage: A Lena Jones Mystery (14 page)

“Give me four hours, then. I’ll make so much money working today I won’t even know how to spend it.”

Thank God for greed. After singing Babette’s praises to the skies, I hung up and pulled away from the curb.

***

Fiona Etheridge, Kyle’s foster mother, was home but the twins weren’t.

“CPS turned them over to their grandmother,” Fiona explained. Her eyes were red from weeping, but her voice was steady as she led me through a clean, toy-free living room into a spotless kitchen. I missed the mess.

“Which grandmother? Paternal or maternal?” From my reading about the case, I remembered that both grandmothers had troubled backgrounds.

“Paternal, although I’m not supposed to tell you. Apparently she’s been clean since her last stint in rehab.”

“How long ago was that?”

“Six months.”

Not a decision I would have made, but Child Protective Services’ avowed mission was to “keep families together,” no matter how dangerous the practice. “How can you stand it?” I asked her.

“I can’t.” As we settled ourselves on stools around the kitchen island, she poured me a cup of coffee and absentmindedly dumped in four teaspoons of sugar and enough milk to turn the liquid pale beige.

I sipped at it and tried to keep from gagging. “Nice.”

“Liar.” She made a similar face, having fixed the same concoction for herself and found it wanting. “Oh, hell. I hardly know what I’m doing today.” Grabbing both cups, she dumped the coffee-sugar-milk concoction down the sink. “How about a Diet Coke?”

“That’ll work for me.”

After she’d fetched two cold cans from the refrigerator, we sat quietly for a while, listening to the electronic hums of an empty house until she finally broke the silence. “I did get some good news yesterday. The judge in Kyle’s case vacated his earlier non-communication order and is allowing us to visit, so Glen and I are going over there this afternoon.”

Next to finding out I’d get another copy of the Cameron case files, this was the best news I’d had all morning. “That’s great, Fiona. I’m sure it will be of immense help to him. Psychologically speaking, that is. But, ah, I came over to ask you a few questions, so if you’ll, ah, well…” Given her grief over losing the twins, I felt hesitant.

She waved away my doubt. “What do you want to know?”

“My sources tell me you didn’t approve of Kyle’s relationship with Ali.”

“Who told you that?”

“I never divulge my sources.” Especially when they’re fourteen-year-old Gothettes.

Fiona shook her head. “Well, it’s not quite true. Glen and I, we both liked Ali, and we were happy Kyle found someone he cared about and who seemed to care about him, but we didn’t want him to get hurt. Foster care kids…” It was her turn to stop and consider her words carefully. “Well, this is something you would know all about, isn’t it?” At my nod, she continued. “Foster kids tend to go one of two ways—either emotionally remote or overly attached. With Kyle it was the second. He attached himself to people immediately, which can lead to a lot of rejection. Since Glen and I got just as attached to him, it worked out well—on that front, at least—but with the Ali situation, apparently not so much.” She studied her Diet Coke. The bubbles had almost disappeared. “Considering everything that’s happened, you’ll find this hard to believe, but as far as Ali was concerned, we never saw any problems with her. It was Ali’s father we didn’t much like.”

This, coming hard on the heels of the mini-Goth’s comment that Dr. Cameron was “creepy,” made me sit up straight. “Why?”

She made a waving motion with her right hand, as if to brush something away. But there were no flies in the spotless kitchen, no motes of dust. Maybe she was just waving away the doubt in her own voice.

“We ran into him a couple of times, once at Trader Joe’s, the other time at a PTA meeting, and, what can I say? There just seemed to be something…something lacking with him. Nothing I can exactly put my finger on, but, well, something. He acted friendly enough, but…” Her face changed. “That’s it! He
acted
friendly, but really wasn’t. Remembering back, I don’t think he would have noticed if I’d fallen over and died right in front of him, which is odd, him being a doctor and all.”

“Would you describe him as remote?”

“‘Remote’ is a good word, but it was even more than that. He looked at me as if I didn’t exist, same way he looked at Glen. Maybe he was more normal at home, but the few times we tried to talk to him, no matter what we said, all he did was look right through us while yammering on and on about cars, even when it was obvious we were getting bored. It came across as rude.” She stopped and gave me a baffled look. “Don’t you think that’s rude, not to care if you’re boring someone?”

Not really. Asperger’s people were frequently misunderstood, because unlike most of us, they existed in a logic-oriented otherworld, not an emotional one. Dr. Cameron wouldn’t have been able to read the signals revealing his audience’s discomfort. The high IQ and creativity that often go along with Asperger’s folks usually allowed them to “act” an emotional involvement they didn’t always feel in social situations outside their own family and small friendship circles. Some were good actors, and some weren’t. The more I heard, the more it sounded like Dr. Cameron might have been among the bright but unlucky few who couldn’t act his way out of a paper bag. At least he’d tried.

Then again, mini-Goth said that her friends’ laughter stopped whenever Dr. Cameron entered a room. That didn’t sound like Asperger’s at all. It sounded—to use her word—creepy. The teens might have picked up on something adults couldn’t. I told Fiona her description had helped, and left it at that. Dr. Cameron was dead, and whether or not he was creepy or simply had Asperger’s was now a moot point. In the end, what really mattered was the fact that he had worked hard to create a safe, comfortable life for his wife and children.

At least until murder came to call.

The conversation had taken Fiona’s mind off her own misery about losing the twins, enough so that I was ready to broach the topic that had brought me here.

“I need to ask a favor,” I said.

“Which is?” she replied, cautiously.

“Since I’m working for Ali’s attorney, I can’t visit Kyle. I was hoping you would ask him one question for me.”

She gave me a glare. “If you think I’m going to ask Kyle if he killed that family, you can get out of my house right now!” To punctuate her words, she stood up, prepared to show me to the door.

I didn’t budge. “That’s not my question.”

“Then what is it?” She didn’t sit back down, and she didn’t stop glaring.

“Ask Kyle why he tried to kill the dog.”

Chapter Twelve

Artists aren’t early risers, but chances were good that Madeline would be up by ten, so as soon as I found a shady spot to park, I called and cancelled our dinner appointment.

“Don’t bother driving in from Florence,” I said. “Something’s come up.” I didn’t mention the fire at Desert Investigations.

“Work related?”

“What else? You know I have no personal life.”

“Lena, are you ever going to do something about that?”

Good foster mothers are like all good mothers: nosy. “Hey, how’s that new painting class coming along?”

“Nice feint, since you’d rather not answer my question. Have it your way, then. My painting class, not that you’re really interested, is doing well. A couple of my students even have talent.”

“A couple? How big is the class?”

“Seven. Four of them are painting landscapes, another is reinventing Mondrian.”

“The squares, right?”

“I taught you well, Grasshopper.”

That gave me my first genuine smile in, what, twenty-four hours? “Look, I really am sorry about tonight, and I promise to call you and reschedule as soon as…” I caught myself before saying
as soon as I get word from the fire marshal
. “Uh, as soon as I clear away some work.”

“See that you do, Hon. You know I worry about you.”

Another thing all good mothers have in common: They never stop worrying about their children, even when their children are grown and carry firearms.

“I can take care of myself,” I said.

“Said the cat to the crocodile. But fine, I won’t nag.”

“Said the nagger to the naggee.”

She was still laughing when I killed the call.

Mission accomplished, I pulled away from the cool shelter of an overhanging Aleppo pine and back into the hot sun. Such early morning heat meant Hell’s own temps for the afternoon, so getting interviews out of the way now made sense. The Jeep wasn’t retrofitted with air-conditioning, and sweat was already rolling down my face when I parked in front of the Cameron house.

When the murders occurred, the Camerons’ neighbors had been out of town, but from the signs of recent activity—a newspaper lying in the driveway at the territorial-style house, someone closing the south-facing blinds at the pseudo-Mediterranean—they were back. Not expecting much, I tried the house on the left, where I’d seen the vague shape of a man before the blinds snapped shut. The door opened before I had a chance to ring the bell.

“Well, hello, pretty lady,” growled a massive, middle-aged man wearing too-tight jeans and tee-shirt. His accent hinted at New Jersey. “What you selling? Yourself, I hope.”

Great. It was going to be one of those interviews. To forestall more wolfish behavior, I produced my P.I. card, a surefire flirtation killer. “Not selling anything today, sir, just looking for information.”

His jowl-heavy face morphed from leer to caution. “This about the Camerons?”

“Yes, sir. It is. I know you were in Wyoming at the time of…”

“No, I was in Venice, the one in Italy, not California. The Newberrys were in Wyoming. They’re into horses and cows, must own half the state up there. But you might as well come in. I never say no to blondes.”

Big Guy motioned me into an elegantly furnished home which the air-conditioning had turned into a suburb of Nome, Alaska. The mostly-white leather furniture echoed the Arctic chill, but here and there, colorful toss pillows matched the vivid reds, yellows, and blues of a painting that took up an entire wall. Unless I was wrong, it was a de Kooning.

Big Guy caught me gaping at it. “Left to me by an old pal when he passed. And the Giacometti?” He gestured toward a spindly sculpture in the corner of a skeletal woman standing on one leg. “Ditto my Aunt Grace, so I guess you could say I’ve profited from death in my time. Not that I’d do anything to bring it about, unlike some of my old buddies back in Bayonne, so you can cross me off your suspect list. Name’s Ralph, by the way. But you can call me Ralph.” A wink.

I was getting all kinds of mixed vibes from Ralph. A thin layer of Jersey geniality covered a much deeper layer of menace experience had taught me not to explore, so I decided to make the interview brief. Settling myself in a chair across from the long sofa, I asked, “How well did you know the Camerons?”

When he sat down, the sofa looked smaller by comparison. “Just to say hello to.”

“No social contact with any of them?”

“None to speak of.” He reached into his pocket and withdrew a pack of Marlboros, which explained the musty odor I’d noticed in the pristine room. “Smoke?”

“No, thanks.”

“Suit yourself.” He shook out a cigarette, tapped the end of it against his palm, then lit up. After a deep inhale, he blew a spiral of smoke into the air. “Two years now I been sayin’ I’m gonna quit, but hasn’t happened yet. Guy’s gotta have some vices, right?”

“Right. Look, what can you tell me about the Camerons?”

He took another puff, then stubbed the cigarette out in a marble ashtray. “You know, the cops asked me the same question. Why I should go over it all again with you?”

The de Kooning wasn’t the only picture in the room. On a table next to the sofa sat a beachside photograph of Ralph with a young girl who looked just like him, poor thing, but the camera had caught him smiling at her as if she was the most beautiful kid in the world. Figuring she was his daughter, I decided to take a chance.

“Because I think it’s possible Ali had nothing to do with her family’s murder.”

He thought about that for a moment, then said, “Beauty and brains.”

“Ali?”

“Nah. You.”

I waited.

He shook out another cigarette. This time he didn’t light it, just placed it between his fleshy lips and sucked. “I’ve got to stop this crap,” he finally announced, then lit the thing. “You smoke?”

I shook my head.

“Like I said, beauty and brains. Okay. Here’s what I know about the kid. Typical teen, half nasty, half nice, but she always waved and smiled when she saw me. Loved her mother, tolerated her brother, and more than a little edgy around her father, but don’t bother asking me why, because I don’t know, not being on what you’d call ‘intimate terms’ with the family. Which I consider a real shame as far as the lady of the house went. Jesus, what a woman. All natural, too, none of that cosmetic surgery crap you see so much of today. Totally wasted on that cold dick she was married to. She’da been mine, I’d of…” He took another draw at this cigarette. “I’d have shown her a better time.”

“Do you think it’s possible Dr. Cameron mistreated Ali?”

A shrug. “Hard to tell. He was always too controlled to be up front about whatever was going on with him, and there must have been something, because he was like this big blank page walking around. I’ll tell you this, though, if I’da seen as much as one mark on that woman—or the girl or even the little boy—I’da done something about it. And by ‘done something’ I don’t mean calling the cops.”

I believed him. Call Me Ralph oozed all kinds of menace.

“What kinds of friends did the Camerons have?”

“You mean, like people who wouldn’t think twice about wasting someone? Prissy-assed professional types, that’s all I ever saw go in over there. Not many of those, either. Other than the little girl’s friends, and the book club broads, they weren’t much on entertaining.”

“How do you know they were, ah, book club broads?”

“’Cause they’d arrive with AJ’s pastry boxes in one hand, a book in the other. Last I saw, they was reading something by Philip Roth, another cold dick.” At my expression, he smirked. “Roth lived next door to my Aunt Grace, who was all the time reading his books. I never could figure out why women read his crap, ’cause the prick sure as hell hates women and doesn’t exactly make a secret of it, either. And before you go getting all shocked again, yeah, I got curious over some of the stories Aunt Grace told me about him, so I tried one of his books. Couldn’t get past the dick’s mommy issues.”

“Fascinating. You say the Camerons didn’t have many visitors?”

“Yeah, what I said.”

“Did Mrs. Cameron ever, ah, entertain male guests while the husband and kids were elsewhere?”

A smirk. “Like me, for instance? I should be so lucky. But, nah, never saw any guys go in over there without some woman tagging along. At least not that I ever saw. If Alexandra’d been playing around and Cameron found out, he probably would’ve killed her long before this mess happened. He sure as hell was capable of it.”

I tried to keep the shock out of my face. “That’s a pretty strong thing to say about Dr. Cameron since he has no record of violence.”

His laugh sounded like gravel on asphalt. “That cold dick could cut somebody down and not think twice about it. Believe what you want, gorgeous, but I got a sixth sense about these things.”

“I’m sure you do,” I murmured under my breath. “How about Kyle Gibbs? You ever see him over there?”

“Kyle Gibbs? Is that the boy people are saying was the girl’s partner in crime? Yeah, I saw ’im a few times. Seemed nice enough to me, but I read what they said about him in the newspaper, about his slut mom and even more worthless dad. The kid’s probably fucked up seven ways from Sunday. Jesus, some folks got no business havin’ babies.” There was no irony in his voice as he passed this judgment.

“Anything else you can tell me about the family?”

“You got it all. Say, you wanna go out sometime?”

I gave him my standard thanks-but-no-thanks smile-and-excuse. “I’m involved,” I lied.

In return, he gave me a conspiratorial smile. “Doesn’t have to be a problem, honey. Next time you feel like stepping out on the lucky bastard, gimme a call.”

***

I felt like I needed a bath—some people have that effect on you—so as soon as I made it out the door, I decided to drive back to Desert Investigations and take a cold shower before I transcribed the interview. As soon as I climbed into my Jeep, I changed my plans. Due to the fire, there would be no cold shower in my upstairs apartment, and no transcribing of case notes on my office computer. Because of Monster Woman, I was temporarily homeless and office-less.

“Aw, hell,” I muttered, not knowing where to go.

The motel? I had charged a week in advance on my Visa, which meant I could go there, but to do what? Sleep? Pace the floor? Although the motel offered a business center, I didn’t relish typing out case notes where someone might read them over my shoulder. To turn my motel room into an even minimally-effective office, I would have to buy a new laptop and printer, but it could take a couple of days to load in the software. Then I’d have to figure out how to merge the new laptop with Jimmy’s.

Deciding to get one more interview out of the way before attempting to solve the office problem, I stepped back out of my Jeep and headed across the street to the Camerons’ other neighbor. According to the files Ali’s attorney had given me, the two-story territorial was owned by Elmont and Margaret Newberry. After only one knock, the door was opened by a sunburnt man, who in naturally faded jeans and ancient cowboy boots, looked more like a ranch hand than most ranch hands do. But his long-nosed, patrician face partially ruined the effect. I showed him my ID and explained why I was in the neighborhood.

With a courtly gesture, he invited me in. “Sorry about the mess,” he said, in an accent more Massachusetts than Arizona.

At first glance, the “mess” appeared to be two porcelain cups on the coffee table, one with lipstick on the rim. Once I sat settled myself onto a rough-out leather sofa, I did see a mouse-sized dust bunny hunkered down in the corner. The room also smelled faintly of horse and dog.

“Margie can probably tell you more than I can about the Camerons, since she was pretty close to Alexandra. Right now, though, she’s at her law office taking an emergency deposition. But seeing as how you’re already here, can I ask if you’ve heard anything yet about the funeral? We want to attend, of course.”

I explained that the funeral should happen shortly since the bodies had finally been released, and told him how to reach Dr. Teague for details. “But when you do leave town, Mr. Newberry, you might want to do something about that newspaper in your driveway. A collection of them is a dead giveaway someone’s on vacation.”

He frowned. “Again? When I called the circulation office yesterday to complain, the guy I talked to guaranteed he’d take care of it. Used to be…” He cleared his throat, then added, “Alexandra used to check on things like that for everyone. Such a lovely, sweet woman. When she knew someone was away, she would pick up newspapers and take flyers off their doors. That was before, well, you know.”

“Before the murders.”

“Yes. Before the murders. And please call me Monty.”

Like Ralph Parelli’s house across the street, this one was filled with art, but of a vastly different genre. Oils of Indians hunting buffalo hung on textured walls. A sculpture collection that featured the rugged faces of even more Indians stood scattered around the room. My favorite was the life-sized sculpture of a war-painted Comanche who brandished a lethal-looking spear. The furnishings matched the art—rough-out tan leather sofas studded with brass trim and Navajo rugs thrown randomly across a saltillo tile floor. Elmont Newberry might have originated on the Eastern seaboard, but his heart was true West.

“You sound like you were on good terms with the Camerons,” I said, avoiding the Comanche’s glower.

“We never had much to do with Arthur, but my wife was friends with Alexandra.”

I could picture Monty’s wife now. Aristocratic, tall, lean, perhaps as beautiful as Alexandra. “Were they good friends?”

“I’d say so. But Margie is pretty much into her law practice and Alexandra is—or was, sorry—your basic soccer mom, always shuttling the children back and forth to this or that game or dance or piano lesson. Every now and then, she would fly out somewhere on behalf of that charity she was involved with, I forget the name, something about kids. But she and my wife got together all the time, chatting over coffee, things like that. You know, like women do. Ah, some women, anyway.”

I hid my smile; despite his ranch garb, he’d been well house-trained. “Do you know if those chats included the sharing of personal information?”