Guilt (22 page)

Nothing from me to either of them about Dr. Jimmy Asherwood.

Kelly LeMasters said, “Okay, let’s get to the juicy one.”

“Once again, Kelly, there’s no evidence of trauma but I’m assuming
homicide, because of the dead woman who was found across the park. Also, we’ve done prelim DNA on the bones and the baby was a girl.”

Kelly LeMasters didn’t emote. “Okay, go on.”

“By the state of her dentition two or three months old.”

“That’s it? What about the woman?”

Milo said, “Does it bother you at all?”

“What?”

“A baby.”

Her jaw tightened and her arms grew rigid. “Does it bother
you
?”

“You bet.”

“Well, me, too,” she said. “So it’s settled, we both make our livings off other people’s misery but we’re still human.” She turned to me. “Guess that applies to you, too—the misery part. Tell me, did you coach him in all this psychological warfare?” She faced Milo again. “Does it
bother
me? Let’s put it this way: I’ve got one kid and it took me three miscarriages to get him, so no, I don’t get a thrill out of dead babies, don’t find them the least bit entertaining. Now what the hell else do you want to know?”

Milo said, “Sorry.”

“Screw the apology. Give me some meat to chew on.”

“We’ve identified the adult victim. Nothing in her past predisposes her to being murdered.”

“Name,” said LeMasters.

“Adriana Betts, originally from Idaho. She was religious, had no bad habits, worked as a nanny.”

“She took care of kids?”

“Yes.”

“That include babies?”

“In some cases.”

“That doesn’t sound like a connection to you?”

“Theoretically? Sure, Kelly, but we interviewed her employers and all their kids are alive and well. No one has a bad word to say about her.”

“Religious types can be hypocrites.”

“Anyone can.”

“What, you’re a Holy Roller? Despite what the church says about people like you?”

“Let’s stick with the case, Kelly.”

“I can’t see it,” said LeMasters. “Being Catholic and gay.” She laughed. “Unless you’re a parish priest.”

“You’re Catholic?”

“Once upon a time.”

“Nice to know you’ve got no biases.”

She frowned. “Where will you be taking the investigation?”

“Hard to say.”

“No, it’s not,” she said. “Everyone says you’re methodical as well as intuitive, always come up with a plan. So don’t hold back on me. What’s next?”

“Same answer, Kelly.”

She folded her arms across her chest. “I go off-record and you give me generalities?”

“That’s because generalities are all I’ve got. I could feed you stuff that would spark your prurient interest, set you off on a useless maze-run. But it wouldn’t help my case, could even hurt it if you printed fallacious crap.”

“I thought we were working on trust here.”

“We are,” he said. “Have we reached our goal?”

“Of what?”

“Mutually advantageous buddy-hood.”

“Not even close,” she said. “I promised to keep everything under wraps and you gave me squat.”

He creased his brow. “I’m going to tell you something else but you have to pledge not to use it until I say otherwise. I mean that, Kelly. It’s essential.”

“Fine, fine. What?”

“Though of apparently sound moral character, Adriana Betts may have somehow gotten mixed up with bad people.”

“What kind of bad people?”

“This isn’t fact-based,” he said, “but possibly cult members.”

“Not fact-based? Then what?”

“Inference.”

“Yours or Dr. Delaware’s?”

“Mine.”

“You inferred from the body?” she said. “Some sort of ritual mutilation? I heard she was just shot.”

“Sorry, that’s all I can say, Kelly.”

“Church-girl in the clutches of Satan worshippers? Any freakos in particular?”

“Not even close,” he said. “I’ll be looking into that world, would welcome your input on the topic.”

“I don’t know squat about cults.”

“That makes two of us, Kelly.”

Her arms relaxed. Her eyes brightened. “Are we talking another Manson thing?”

“I sure hope not.”

“This town,” said LeMasters, “is Weirdo Central. Can you narrow it down at all?”

“Wish I could, Kelly, and you need to make sure no one knows we had this talk.”

“Like I said, I protect my sources.”

“I’m not talking legally, I mean total blackout.” His turn to move closer to her. Big black eyebrows dipped. He loomed. Kelly LeMasters shrank back. He filled another few inches of her personal space. She tried to stand her ground but the primal fear of something big and aggressive caused her to step back.

“Total,” he repeated. “You screw that up, I’ll never talk to you again and neither will anyone in the department.”

He’d lowered his voice. The resultant half whisper was movie-villain ominous.

LeMasters blinked. Forced herself to smile. “You’re threatening me?”

“I’m stating a contingency, Kelly. And here’s another one, just to
show you what a nice guy I am: If you stick to your part of the deal, you’ll be the first one to know if I close the case.”

“
If
, not
when
?”

“Appreciate the vote of confidence, Kelly. Either way, you’ll scoop everyone. I promise.”

“How much lead time will I get?”

“Enough to close everyone out.”

“You can guarantee that?” she said. “What about your bosses?”

“Fuck ’em,” he growled.

His eyes were green slits.

Kelly LeMasters knew better than to argue.

We walked her back to Butler Avenue, watched her diminish to a beet-colored speck that turned east on Santa Monica and disappeared.

I said, “To paraphrase Persistent Kelly, what’s next?”

“I look into Mr. Wedd and you go about your normal life.”

“Whatever that means.”

“It means have a nice day. Relatively speaking.”

H
olly Ruche showed up six minutes late. Blanche and I greeted her at the door. She said, “I generally don’t like dogs. But I’ve been thinking of getting one. For the baby.”

Worst reason in the world. I said, “I’m happy to keep her out of the office.”

“She’s like a therapy dog?”

“Not officially but she’s got enough credits for her own Ph.D.”

She looked down at Blanche.

Blanche beamed up at her.

She said, “What’s her name?”

“Blanche.”

“She’s kind of cute … almost like she’s smiling. Okay, I guess she can be there.”

“Up to you, Holly.”

“It’s okay. Yes, it’s definitely okay, she’s well behaved.” She took in the living room. “Stylish. You’re into contemporary.”

After a psychopath burns down your first house simplicity can be a tonic
.

I smiled.

She said, “Have you been here long?”

“A while.”

“This neighborhood. Must’ve cost a fortune.”

“Let’s go to my office.”

Seated on the battered leather couch, she said, “Sorry. That crack about a fortune. No business of mine. I guess I’m just hyper about how much things cost. Especially real estate.”

“The decorating’s at a standstill?”

“Still in the talking stages.”

“You and Matt.”

She knitted her hands, gazed down. “Mostly me and me.”

“Kind of a monologue.”

She stroked her belly. She’d put on some girth and her face had grown fuller. Her hair was tied back functionally, tiny pimples paralleled her hairline. “I guess that’s part of why I’m here. He’s not available. Physically or emotionally. They go together, I guess. He works all the time.”

“Is that something new?”

Her lower lip curled. Tears seeped from under her lower lids and trickled onto her cheeks.

“I guess not,” she finally said. “I guess that’s the real problem. Nothing’s changed.”

I handed her a tissue. Kleenex should pay me a commission. “Matt’s always been work-oriented.”

“I respect that, Dr. Delaware. He’s super-responsible, that’s a big deal, right? He could be a slacker.”

“Sure.”

“He thinks it’s manly. Taking care of business. I guess it is. I
know
it is.”

I said, “It’s part of why you were attracted to him.”

“Yes—how’d you know that?”

“Educated guess.”

“Well, you’re right, that was a big part of it. It’s just—I guess you need to know more about my father. Like the fact that I didn’t have one.”

I waited.

She said, “I never knew him. I’m not sure my mother knew him.” Her fingers closed over the tissue. “This is hard to talk about … but I need to be honest, right? I mean this is the place for that.”

Her fingers relaxed. She dropped the tissue in a wastebasket. “Being pregnant has made me think about all sorts of things I told myself I’d never have to think about.”

“Your own family.”

“If you can call it that.”

“There wasn’t much in the way of family.”

“Just me and my mother and she was …”

She sat for a while. “There’s no two ways about it, Mom was loose. Morally, I mean. Not to me, to me she was just Mom, but looking back … she was a cocktail waitress—I’m not saying that was bad, she worked incredibly hard, she took care of me, put food on the table. But she also … supplemented her income. By bringing men home, when I was little I thought it was normal. Locking me in my room with cookies and candies.”

She bit her lip. “That didn’t stop me from seeing some of them. Hearing them. All kinds of men, different ages, races, it was like … she called them her friends. ‘Time for quiet time with these Oreos and Kit Kats, sweetie. I need to spend time with my friends.’ ”

I said, “At some point you realized that wasn’t typical.”

“I realized it when I started kindergarten and saw how other kids lived. My first years were kind of isolated, we lived in a trailer park. Don’t get me wrong, it was a nice trailer, Mom kept it up, planted flowers all around, there was a little birdbath where sparrows and finches would come. We were pretty close to a nice neighborhood, working class, solid people, lots of religious types. It didn’t take me long to catch on that other mothers didn’t do what mine did. I never said anything
because Mom loved me, took care of me, I always had nice clothes and good food. The same things other kids had, who was I to be ungrateful?”

More tears. “I shouldn’t have said that. Calling her loose, that was wrong, really mean.”

Another tissue interlude.

She said, “She’s gone, can’t defend herself … I just feel it’s time to be honest, you know? Confront reality. So I can understand myself.”

“Now that you’re becoming a mom.”

“I don’t want to be like her,” she said. “I mean in some ways I do, I want to be loving, to take care of my Aimee, to give her everything. That’s why I married Matt, he’s a totally great provider.”

“When I talked to you at your house you said you’d worked most of your life, had a career until recently.”

“That’s true.”

“You set out to be independent.”

“Yes. So?”

“So even though Matt’s maturity and industriousness were qualities you found attractive, you never intended to rely upon him totally.”

“I … yes, that’s true, I guess you’re right. You’re saying Mom made me tough?”

“I’m saying you’re an obviously capable, thoughtful person. Does your mother get some of the credit? Sure, but in the end you made your own decisions.”

“I guess I did … but I’m still sorry. For saying that about Mom. I miss her so much!”

She burst out weeping, took a while to compose herself. “She passed three years ago, Doctor, she suffered so much. I guess I’ve been angry at her for leaving so young, she was fifty-four. Even though that’s not rational. I was being selfish, I’m too selfish, period, I shouldn’t have
said
that.”

“Did you treat her unkindly when she was alive?”

“No, of course not. When she had to go to hospice—she had ALS,
Lou Gehrig’s disease—I was always there for her. It was terrible, she hung on for three years. I paid for whatever Medi-Cal and insurance didn’t cover. I was there all the time. Her mind was still working but nothing else was, that’s what made it so horrible. At the end, she could still move her eyes, I could see the love in them. So how could I
say
that?”

“Your life’s in flux, Holly, it’s normal for old feelings to come back. You love your mother but some of the things she did frightened and embarrassed you. You’ve never expressed how you felt about it. It’s okay.”

“You’re telling me it’s okay to say things like that? Calling her
loose
?”

“It’s a word, Holly. Your actions spoke much louder.”

Long silence. “You’re so nice. Your wife is lucky—are you married?”

I smiled.

“Sorry, sorry, I need to mind my own business.”

“It’s not that, Holly. This is about you.”

She smiled. “That’s sure different. Being the star. Though I guess I was the star to Mom. She never had any more kids. I guess one whoopsie baby was enough.”

“You know for sure you were an accident.”

“Why wouldn’t I be?”

“Your mother sounds like an organized person.”

“You’re saying she intended me?”

“Did she make any other whoopsies?”

She pulled at the tissue. Tugged at her ponytail. “I see what you mean. She always told me I was the best thing ever happened to her.”

“I’m sure you were.”

She glanced at Blanche. I gave the
okay
nod and Blanche waddled over to the couch.

Holly said, “Is she allowed up here?”

“Absolutely.”

“If you want you can come up, cutie.” Blanche leaped effortlessly
to her side, moved in close for a snuggle. Holly stroked the folds of her neck. “She’s so soft. Like a stuffed animal.”

“As cute as a toy,” I said, “and a whole lot smarter.”

“You’ve got it all, don’t you,” she said. “The house, the dog. Maybe a wife—sorry … so maybe that’s why you think I was a deliriously desired baby. Okay, I’ll go with that. My Aimee’s wanted, that’s what’s important. Let me ask you something: Do you think permissive’s the best way to go or keep up the discipline?”