The Last Blue Plate Special (21 page)

Rathbone wasn’t in when I called but had left a message. “Background checks on Rainer personnel indicate the following,” I
was told by a clerk. “Isadora Grecchi made ward of family court in Denver, Colorado, 1958. No further details, as juvenile
files are sealed. Jeffrey Alan Pond, suspicion of rape, San Diego, 1997, charges dropped. Megan Rainer, suspicion of carrying
concealed weapon, Riverside, California, 1999, charges dropped. A ceramic plate with a blue oriental design was dusted for
fingerprints and was clean. Detective Rathbone wants to talk to you after you’ve interviewed all suspects,” the clerk concluded.

So at least three of the Rainer employees had come to the attention of legal authorities, two of them recently. Accusations
of rape and of carrying a concealed weapon. The operating room manager and Rainer’s daughter, respectively. And of course
the plate Sword left at my door had no fingerprints, I thought. He, or she, wasn’t stupid. Unless driving for hours through
mountains and deserts in order to prop a cheap plate against the door of a stranger could be construed as stupid.

Which it couldn’t. Unusual, yes. Strange and threatening. But nothing connected to this case or the people involved in it
seemed particularly harebrained. With the exception of Sword’s bad spelling, so far I felt as if I were wandering in a symbolist
play written by somebody whose native language is not English. That jarring sense that all the lines being read are awkward
translations of something that might otherwise make sense.

BB and I arrived at the Eldridge home at precisely three-thirty, reeking of salmon. Eldridge’s wife, Kara, met us at the door.

“I took the children to a neighbor’s because I was afraid something like this might make them afraid of the police,” she said.
“I think it’s so important that children understand the policeman is their friend, don’t you?”

At his post by the door BB stifled a laugh. I remembered that Jennings Rainer had said his wife regarded Kara Eldridge as
perhaps a little slow and had tried to help her navigate social situations. She did seem childlike, with wide hazel eyes under
a mop of long blonde hair parted in the middle and held at the back of her neck with a sparkly pink clip. She was wearing
no makeup and a white sweatshirt with a painted cat on the front, its left front paw on a ball of chartreuse yarn. Instead
of pants she wore navy blue culottes, which, as is invariably the case with culottes, made her look heavier than she really
was. I couldn’t pinpoint why she looked familiar to me until I realized that she resembled the girl on the library bas-relief,
forever unaware of anything but her book. That sense of oblivion.

“We aren’t police,” I explained as I took a seat at the end of a pink and green plaid couch. “I’m a social psychologist consulting
with the police on a case involving patients at the Rainer Clinic. Mr. Berryman is my bodyguard. I’d like to speak with your
husband, Thomas Eldridge, please.”

If Kara Eldridge felt any discomfort at BB’s presence, she didn’t show it.

“He’s in the garage,” she said. “Let me get you some coffee and I’ll call T.J. I made some lemon bars, too. Low-fat. The kind
you mix with applesauce instead of the cooking oil. T.J.’s very careful about what we eat. I mean, he’ll
only
eat things I make for him special except for his baloney and cheese and crackers. Has to be cheddar, extra-extra sharp. T.J.
never goes
anywhere
without his little Baggie of extra-extra sharp cheddar I cut up for him, and baloney and some crackers.”

I had no idea what to say to that, so I just smiled.

“But you don’t look like you need to worry about your weight,” she said to BB. Perfectly at ease with an apparent street savage
in her living room.

Then I remembered Rainer saying Kara had gone to a community college, just finished a two-year degree in something about computers.
San Diego’s community colleges are melting pots, drawing students from diverse ethnic populations. Kara Eldridge would have
been around plenty of people who looked just like BB there, as well as Vietnamese fishermen, Latina hair-dressers, and Iraqi
cab drivers getting degrees in hotel/motel management.

“Lemon bars sound good,” BB said, eyeing the mantel, which bore a collection of studio photos of Kara, a man with short brown
hair, and two blonde children.

In the space above, normally reserved in American homes for a single piece of art that embodies the taste of those who live
beneath it, was a small framed poster. One of those lists of aphorisms urging adults to like children. “No man stands so tall
as when he stoops to help a child” kind of thing. Around the little poster were pale rectangles of paint, their edges clearly
defined. A collection of pictures had hung there until recently, then been removed. The cardboard poster was a stopgap measure.

”Gonna check around,” BB said pointlessly, since there was no one there but me. Then he loped into the kitchen and I heard
a door opening. To the garage, I thought. Then a rumbling conversation I couldn’t hear.

“My wife will serve us in the living room. Please follow me.” Door closing, firmly.

The man who preceded BB into the room was the man in the mantel photos. Close-cropped dark hair, slight build, brown eyes
with heavy, drooping lids. The plates from which Kara served the lemon bars were plain white with an embossed leaf pattern
on the rims. The cups and saucers matched.

“I have no ideas about this business you’re here to investigate,” T. J. Eldridge said from a standing position before the
fireplace, his arm on the mantel. “But of course we support the police in any way possible. What is it we can do for you?”

“I understand you were in the Army, Mr. Eldridge,” I said, having as usual no idea what I was doing.

“Medical corpsman.” The answer was itself snappy, military.
Next?
it implied.

“How long have you and Mrs. Eldridge lived here?” This question is common on credit and loan applications and was at one time
a good indicator of stability. Now people move around so often that it’s meaningless, but I couldn’t think of anything else
to say.

“Four years. Our daughter, Ann, was six and we wanted a good school district.”

Kara’s look when he said “Ann” was strange, as if he’d forgotten their child’s name. But she quickly covered it and continued
to smile at her husband.

“Tell me what you do at Rainer,” I went on, and then pretended to listen as he detailed his schedule and responsibilities,
which largely involved assisting in surgeries, clamping, “tying off bleeds,” he said, as well as post-operative monitoring
and follow-up appointments. After five minutes I turned to Kara and said brightly, “Does Ann collect miniature tea sets?”

“Who?” Kara Eldridge answered.

“Your daughter.”

“Oh, Namey’s such a tomboy she’s more interested in action figures and soccer than tea sets,” Kara began. “Of course, T.J.
insists that the children be home-schooled, but she’s allowed to play soccer with a girl’s team at the Y. She has practice
on Thursdays, and—”

“You don’t need to know about our children,” T.J. interrupted defensively, rocking back and forth on military-style black
leather shoes equipped, I noticed, with lifts. T.J. wanted to appear taller than the five-six or so I guessed him to be in
his bare feet.

In the next ten minutes BB gazed piercingly out windows and into bookcases full of ceramic kittens as I learned the Eldridges
were members of Memorial Methodist Church, volunteered at a food bank once a month, and enjoyed hikes and rock collecting
along Carlsbad’s beaches. There was no television in the family room where we were talking, and I mentioned it.

“Oh, T.J. thinks—” Kara began, and then stopped as her husband finished the sentence.

“There’s so much junk on television,” he said. “We want the children to enjoy reading, develop their imaginations that way
instead.”

It was a noble thought, but there wasn’t a single book visible in the room, either. Not even a magazine.

“Mr. Eldridge, is there anyone connected to the Rainer Clinic who in your opinion might be capable of the terrorist acts we’re
investigating?” I asked.

“Absolutely not,” he answered, glancing at a clunky watch that dwarfed his wrist. One of those Swiss-Army-knife-type watches
that also has a compass and a stopwatch, tells you what time it is in ten world capitals as well as everywhere the U.S. has
military installations, and hides a tiny manicure kit in the case. “We have plans, so if there’s nothing else … ?”

“One more thing. Do you own a computer, Mr. Eldridge?”

“Three,” he answered proudly. “The children have one which they use for their schoolwork. Some years ago I gave Kara an old
one of mine, and she’s developed quite an interest in them, even gotten some training. Of course I have one as well. We’re
all on-line. Why?”

“So many people find them useful,” I answered vaguely. “Thank you. We’ll be going now.”

The Eldridges stood on their steps as BB and I drove away. They seemed posed, standing there as if they expected to be photographed.

“The pictures that was over the fireplace before they took ’em down?” BB began.

“Yeah?”

“They out in the garage, hung on a wall over T.J.’s computer setup. Buncha pictures of his wife. Pretty nice. Wife in the
kitchen, cookin’, mostly. Wife sayin’ prayers with the kids kneelin’ beside their beds. Wife all dressed up and smilin’ with
a corsage on her dress, look like Easter. Guess he love her, take all them pictures. Glass broke in the one with her prayin’.
Guess they took ’em down to get it fixed. Maybe he’s got some new ones. These looked like from a long time ago, kids just
little chubby babies.”

“There’s something weird about those people,” I told BB. “Like T.J. called their daughter Ann and then Kara called her Namey.
Seems like an odd nickname, doesn’t it?”

“I got a cousin called Namey,” he replied. “Her real name Naomi. She got two brothers name Joshua and Nehemia, too. Whole
family get baptized every year at Easter. They mama, my aunt, she say it wear off after a while, have to keep doin’ it. You
think that’s right?”

“Fine with me if it works for her,” I answered. “But the traditional thing is to just do it once. Isn’t it strange that a
mother and father don’t call their daughter by the same name?”

“Nah, my daddy call me Bernard when I used to see him, ’fore he got killed. Mama, she always call me Bernie. And what
strange
was the lemon bars. Taste like water and paper.”

“Must have been the applesauce,” I said, wondering for the hundredth time that day what I was doing.

J
effrey Pond came to the door of his apartment in a blinding Hawaiian shirt and navy blue sweatpants. His bare feet were still
pink from a hot shower and he smelled like Dove soap.

“I’m Dr. Blue McCarron and this is Mr. Berrryman,” I began.

“Dude,” Pond said to BB as if they were surf buddies. To me he said, “Hey,” as he gestured for us to enter. I remembered that
he was forty-one. Why was he speaking in the one-syllable code used by teenagers?

“Thank you,” I pronounced slowly, hoping to introduce the idea of two-syllable speech. Otherwise, I thought, this interview
could take all night.

BB stood by the door as usual, eyeing Pond’s overdeveloped muscles. The biceps pushing against the man’s flowered sleeves
as he picked up an upholstered chair and set it down facing the couch were the size of softballs.

“So,” he said amiably, flopping into the chair and grabbing what looked like a huge wad of Silly Putty from the coffee table,
“what’s this about?”

I watched as he crushed the Silly Putty in his right hand, making all the muscles in his forearm stand out like an anatomy
illustration.

“The police will have explained to you that someone has threatened to kill at least four women who were patients of the Rainer
Clinic,” I said. “Two of these women are dead. Can you spell the word, ‘encyclopedia,’ Mr. Pond?”

For a split second I felt shrewd. The author of the Sword letters was a rotten speller. I wished I’d done this with the others.
Jeffrey Pond switched the Silly Putty to his left hand and spelled “encyclopedia” correctly. I no longer felt shrewd.

“I think it can also be ‘p-a-e-d’ in the old spellings,” he noted. “Is this a trick?”

“No. Why are you squashing Silly Putty in your hands?”

“Bodybuilding. Got a competition coming up. Builds the forearm.”

I remembered Roxie mentioning that the killer, if male, might have a super-macho hobby. Did bodybuilding qualify? I couldn’t
quite see posing, oiled, in a thong as macho. John Wayne wouldn’t have done it, I was certain. Jeffrey Pond’s bright blue
eyes were as guileless as a puppy’s, but not unintelligent.

“You want some o.j. or something?” he asked. “I’ve got some mango-guava juice, too.”

“Thank you, but we don’t have much time. Do you have a computer, Mr. Pond?”

“Jeff,” he answered. “You can call me Jeff. And I haven’t killed anybody. Sure, I’ve got a computer. You wanna look around?
I don’t care. Come on.”

With that he launched himself out of the desk chair and led us through the small, tidy apartment. Dining area, kitchen, half
bath. Then the hall, a full bath done in tan ceramic tile still steamy and littered with body oils, and two bedrooms. The
smaller bedroom contained a double bed and matching dresser. The larger one held weight-lifting equipment and a computer on
an inexpensive student’s desk.

“Lotta bodybuilding sites on the Web,” he said. “Good place to find out about competitions. And my son downloads games when
he’s here on weekends. I’m divorced. My son visits on weekends. Steve. He’s fourteen.”

The information was presented casually, but I hadn’t asked for it. So what did that mean? Jeffrey Pond seemed to have nothing
to hide. In fact, Jeffrey Pond seemed to be dying to talk.

“You were arrested on suspicion of rape in 1997,” I mentioned as we moved back into the living room. “I am not a law enforcement
officer, but a social psychologist consulting with the police department on this investigation. And even if I were an officer,
you wouldn’t have to discuss that arrest without an attorney present.”