North of Montana (20 page)

Then Galloway gets out of the chair restlessly. “The Director is on my ass. The press is on my ass. The district attorney calls me at home—”

“Jayne Mason’s calling here.”

“What for?”

“She wants us to do something about helicopters flying over her property.”

This causes Galloway to almost twitch himself right out of his skin.

“We’ve got to resolve this thing before it gets out of control.” He picks up a handful of yellow messages. “This morning alone I got three phone calls from Mason’s personal manager.”

“I hear she carries a lot of personal influence.”

Galloway grimaces. A thin whistle escapes through his back teeth.

“You don’t know the half of it and neither do I.”

“What’s the half you do know?”

“I was briefed on Magda Stockman by, let’s say, an official source in the Administration when we got the case. She’s one tough cookie. Came over to this country from Hungary during the revolt in 1957, got a job in Macy’s Herald Square selling lipstick, had a knack for it, went on her own, ran a snooty beauty shop up on Madison, met some famous Broadway actress and became her manager.”

“Where’s the political influence?”

Galloway mouths the cigar. “That came from ratting on her old Communist buddies to interested folks in Washington.”

“You mean she wasn’t escaping from the Communists—”

Galloway nods. “She was one of them. A party member. But more than that, an opportunist.”

“So she came to America—”

“Greener pastures.”

Now we are nodding together.

“Isn’t it great?” Galloway grins like a carnivore. “I’ve got the darling of the Republicans on my back on top of all this other crap with the Cuban thing.”

“The Bureau’s looking at hard times.”

Suddenly he has stopped listening, absorbed by an anchorwoman on the TV screen wearing a low-cut electric blue suit with a lacy camisole peeking out underneath.

“There’s a lesson to be learned,” he muses. I politely wait to hear it: “Hollywood.”

I nod soberly.

Galloway turns from the television set, his face composed.

“Maybe I should put someone else on the Mason case.”

Icy fear goes through me. “Why? I’m handling it.”

He hesitates. “I wish the hell you didn’t remind me of my fourteen-year-old daughter.”

“I’m not your fourteen-year-old daughter. And don’t worry—I won’t get pregnant.”

Galloway laughs. Or at least his tight shoulders heave up and down in a fair imitation. He’ll ride with me. For the moment.

“What else do you have cooking on this doc? What other sources can be approached and remain confidential? Neighbors who can’t stand the guy, disgruntled employees, the gardener, the mailman, a love affair, what?”

“If it’s there, I’ll find it.”

They have gone back to live coverage of the storm. A lone fireman is stranded in a flat plane of green water, holding on to a post with one hand, a walkie-talkie in the other.

“I want hard evidence by the end of next week. If he’s guilty, let’s put him away,” Galloway grunts.

“Done.”

His eyes go back to the man trapped in water up to his chest.

“Poor bastard.”

“Don’t worry. The chopper’s going to pull him out.”

But Galloway does not look convinced.

THIRTEEN

I GO BACK to my desk and have a long conversation with the Bank Dick’s Undercover Disguise, arguing that it is imperative to first complete the background check on Claudia Van Hoven to be certain she will make a sound witness. To this end, I leave an urgent message at the Boston field office for Wild Bill.

Following up on Galloway’s idea to look for someone close to the doctor who would be motivated to talk, I go through the file again and come to the printouts subpoenaed from the phone company. During a period of several months a whole lot of calls from the Eberhardt home were made to a local 454 number listed as belonging to Theodora Feign. After highlighting them with a marker it becomes graphically clear that Ms. Feign is linked to the Eberhardt household in some way: for one week alone there are twenty pink lines.

The Bank Dick’s Undercover Disguise and I are working on the same wavelength. We agree that since the calls were placed from the residence during the day they were most likely made by the wife, maybe to a girlfriend, maybe her only friend in California, someone the displaced nurse from Boston could unload on about how lonely she is over in the contemporary Mediterranean on Twentieth Street.

Theodora Feign could be the kind of source Galloway is looking for. But if I call her cold, she could easily turn around and tell bosom buddy Claire the FBI has been asking questions about her husband, thereby blowing the entire operation and busting me back to desk duty.

To be safe, I should talk to someone who has knowledge of Theodora Feign’s relationship with the Eberhardts. Who would know?

It was obvious from cruising the streets that there was a dual society north of Montana, upper-middle-class whites and working-class Hispanics living in parallel worlds. While the white women are absent you can see the housekeepers gathered on shady corners of those lush residential streets with crowds of strollers and babies, gossiping in Spanish like there’s no tomorrow, and it’s a safe bet, I explain to the Bank Dick’s Undercover Disguise, that the gossip has to do with the white women and how much they pay and how they run their households and who has an unhappy marriage and who is good friends with whom.

If Theodora Feign were close to Claire Eberhardt, there’s a good chance her housekeeper, Violeta Alvarado, would have known, and maybe Violeta talked about it with
her
good friend, the older woman in the building who was also from El Salvador and baby-sat for her kids; a
comadre
who understood and cared.

I dial Mrs. Gutiérrez’s number and say I have questions concerning my cousin. What kind of questions? she wants to know. Oh, about her life, how she came to America. Pleased that I am showing interest in my
family
, Mrs. Gutiérrez agrees to meet on Sunday.

Of course that stuff about Violeta is a lie, what I’m really after is information on her employer. Hanging up I glance smugly at the Bank Dick’s Undercover Disguise, but sense disapproval: it knows I am lying only to myself.

•  •  •

Sunday afternoon we get a break in the rain and although it is overcast and fifty degrees I grab the opportunity to put the top down on the Barracuda, bundling up in boots, a leather bomber jacket, aviator sunglasses, and a Dodgers cap turned backward. When I pull up in front of Violeta Alvarado’s apartment building, Mrs. Gutiérrez is already waiting out front with Teresa and Cristóbal.

The children barely murmur a response when I say hello. I thought they’d get a kick out of riding in the convertible but they say nothing. The wind whips their glossy black hair but their faces remain blank.

Mrs. Gutiérrez and I exchange a few words in the front seat about whether it will rain again tomorrow. As I accelerate down Sunset Boulevard she clutches a large white pocketbook to her bosom, cupping the other hand over her ear as if to stop her lacquered hairdo from blowing.

What now? Do I try my few words of Spanish to get a conversation going? Put on a Latino station? Would they enjoy that or be insulted? Finally the uneasy silence is more than I can take and I shove in an old Springsteen tape, withdrawing to my own space—my car, my Sunday, my music—for the twenty minutes it takes to get on the freeway and off again at Traveltown in Griffith Park.

The damp, smoggy air on the other side of the Hollywood Hills smells like cigar smoke and old rust. Despite the uncertain weather the parking lot is half full. We pass beneath some frail eucalyptus trees and through the gate, finding ourselves at a tiny railway station where a tiny steam-driven train has just rolled in.

“Do they want to go for a ride?” I ask Mrs. Gutiérrez.

Teresa shakes her head no. Her brother simply holds her hand. He is wearing a new Ninja Turtle sweat suit.

I notice some outdoor tables. “Are they hungry?”

“They have lunch but maybe they like to eat.”

We make an unlikely contingent, me in my leather and baseball cap, Mrs. Gutiérrez who is wearing turquoise flowered leggings and a big red sweater the size of a barrel, and the two orphans.

I buy nachos and microwaved hot dogs. We are surrounded by birthday parties, mostly Hispanic. Teresa and Cristóbal eat slowly and carefully, as if they had been taught to appreciate each bite, staring at the wrapped presents, a piñata hoisted into a tree, a portable grill laden with smoking pieces of marinated meat and long whole scallions, releasing the aroma of roasted garlic and lime. Each group seems to include ten or twenty family members, good humored and relaxed. The birthday cakes are elaborate, store bought. Teresa is watching without envy. Without any discernible emotion at all.

“Mamá!”
Cristóbal suddenly exclaims, excited, pointing.

“He think that lady look like his mother.” Mrs. Gutiérrez strokes his head.
“Pobrecito.”

A pretty young woman, who might in fact resemble a reconstruction of the decimated corpse I saw in the autopsy photos, is holding a baby while unwrapping aluminum foil from a tray of fruit. She laughs and nuzzles the baby, who grips the wavy black hair that falls to her waist.

“Does Cristóbal understand …?” I find it hard to finish.

“He know his mommy isn’t coming back.”

Cristóbal tugs at his sister’s arm. She continues to chew uninterestedly as if he were pointing out a passing bus.

“Do you remember if Violeta ever talked about a friend of Mrs. Eberhardt’s named Theodora Feign?”

“You mean Mrs. Teddy?”

“Could be.”

“Oh yes, Mrs. Claire and Mrs. Teddy were very close. And Mrs. Teddy’s housekeeper, Reyna, was also close with Violeta.”

“So the four of them got along.”

“Not so much anymore.”

“No?”

“Mrs. Teddy is very mad with Mrs. Claire.”

“Why is that?”

“I don’t know, but Violeta was sad that she didn’t get to see Reyna anymore. And the two little girls liked to play together.”

“What happened? Did Teddy and Claire have a fight?”

“Oh, yes. They don’t talk to each other anymore.”

This is good news. It means I can approach Theodora Feign with confidence. As far as I’m concerned, the afternoon is over. I get up and stretch my back, staring idly at a dense rose garden sprinkled by a few light drops of rain. Returning to Mrs. Gutiérrez I inquire politely,

“Did Dr. Eberhardt send you that check?”

“Yes, he do, and I buy new clothes for the children.” She nods proudly toward Cristobal’s bright green sweats. “Then I write to the grandmother to ask what she want to do. Maybe she come here, maybe the children will go back to El Salvador and live with her and their big brother.”

“Violeta had another child?”

“Yes, you saw him in the pictures. The baby that the grandmother is holding, that is Violeta’s oldest son. She left him to come to this country.”

“How could she leave a little baby?”

“To make a better life,” Mrs. Gutiérrez explains with an ironic lift of the eyebrows. “She work to send money home to take care of the son and the grandmother. Inside”—she taps her heart—“she miss her mommy.”

She clicks her purse open, discharging the scent of face powder, and removes a fat roll of folded tissues.

“Now the boy must be eight or nine years old. He doesn’t even know he lost his mommy yet.”

There is nothing between us but a gentle splatter of raindrops—on our hair, the bench, on a hundred fading roses.

Mrs. Gutiérrez bends her head forward and presses two tissues against the corners of her eyes. It is as if Grief himself has taken a seat between us on the cold concrete and put his mossy arms around both of our shoulders. I can feel the weight of the children’s loss. My own heart tightens with the same bereavement, the kind that bubbles up from time to time and overwhelms you in an instant. Within myself it remains mysterious, an underground spring without a source.

“It was Violeta’s dream for the family to be together.”

“Were Teresa and Cristóbal born in this country?”

“Yes,” says Mrs. Gutiérrez. “The father left.”

She sniffs and snaps the pocketbook shut.

“If they were born here, they are American citizens, wards of the U.S. government. That means the government will take care of them.”

Mrs. Gutiérrez is as immovable as the poured cement table. “That is wrong.”

“It’s not up to us. It’s the law.”

“The law is wrong.”

I take a sip of sugary lemonade. I don’t want to get into an emotional argument. I am an agent of the federal government—obviously I believe that society has the obligation and compassion to care for those of us who are lost, or damaged like Teresa, with the face of a pupilless angel carved in stone. The drizzle has passed, the burn of the sun presses through a thick layer of cloud. I can see it is painful for her just to be sitting here outside her secret places in the apartment, alone and unprotected in the dull glare of this world.