Too Little, Too Late (21 page)

“You mean to tell me that someone just ran over the poor woman?” Kate asked incredulously.

“He didn’t even stop! By the time I got to her, it was too late!” Karen collapsed into her grandmother’s arms, sobbing uncontrollably.

“Dear God.” Eve massaged her throbbing temple before turning to the detective. “You said before the woman had no fixed address. Do you have any idea who she was?”

Detective Koranski shook her head. “Not yet.”

“Now what?” asked Eve, looking at the detective expectantly. “My daughter told you what happened.”

“It’s not as simple as that,” the detective explained. “Their irresponsible conduct may have contributed to this woman’s death and so far, we haven’t been able to corroborate your daughter’s story—”

There was a brief knock on the door. It was opened by Eric and a man about Eric’s age, looking every inch a distinguished professional despite the fact that he was wearing formal evening clothes.

Eve stood up. “Mark, thank God you’re here!”

“Sorry, Eve,” said the other man apologetically, “I came as fast as I could.” Coming into the room, he gave her a quick hug. “How are you holding up?”

“Okay,” she replied, giving him a watery smile. “You remember my mother, don’t you Mark?”

“Of course. How are you, Kate?” Mark squeezed her arm reassuringly before turning to the detective. “I’d like a few minutes to confer with my client and her family.”

“Of course,” said Detective Koranski, giving them a tight smile before leaving the room.

Mark sat in the chair previously occupied by the detective before regarding them somberly. “I was able to take a quick look at the preliminary report when I came in,” he told them. “The police are considering pressing charges.”

“For what?”

“Reckless endangerment.”

“What?” Kate held her granddaughter’s hand tightly. “That’s ridiculous!”

“But I’m telling the truth,” cried Karen. “I tried to help that woman but somebody ran her over. Ask the others, if you don’t believe me!”

“I’m afraid that’s going to be a little difficult,” Mark told her.

“Why?” asked Eve.

“Because her friend, Josh, fled the scene and the police are still looking for him.” The look he gave her was sympathetic, as if to cushion the blow of what he was about to say next. “And Karen’s other friend was apparently under the influence of some narcotics when the police arrived. She’s been examined by a doctor to make sure she’s alright and now they’re just waiting for her to come down from whatever she’s on.”

“Laurie should be able to corroborate my daughter’s story,” Eric told him. “Surely, that should be enough for the police.”

“What about the car that hit the woman?” asked Eve impatiently.

“Karen was only able to give them a few digits from the license plate but a fairly good description of the car – probably not enough to track it down, though.” He consulted his notes. “The investigation of the crime scene and the coroner’s preliminary report indicate that Karen’s account of the hit and run appears to be consistent with the bruising on the body as well as the skid marks on the road.”

“I just want to go home,” said Karen plaintively.

“Please, Mark.” Eve looked at their attorney imploringly. “There must be something you can do.”

He stood up. “I’ll give it a shot. Why don’t you guys sit tight until I get back.” With that, he left the room, leaving the four remaining occupants to stare at the walls in silence.

Roughly seven hours after arriving at Hollywood Division, a very tired but relieved Karen Devane walked out of the police station on the arms of both her parents and grandmother, amid a frenzy of waiting paparazzi, eager to document the release of L.A.’s newest celebrat.

Liz pulled into the parking lot of the Holiday Inn on Highland around noon on Saturday to drop off the last of her tourists, two spinster sisters and a pair of newlyweds from Des Moines. Liz wasn’t sure why the young couple had even bothered taking the tour. As far as she could tell, they had spent the entire four hours lip-locked and groping each other in the back seat of her minibus. They had elicited many a disapproving grunts from her passengers, including some particularly baleful stares from one couple traveling with their teenage son. Luckily for the teenage son, the newlyweds’ make-out session had been a welcome distraction to what otherwise might have been a boring, and certainly humiliating, sightseeing excursion in the company of his parents.

The newlyweds muttered something appropriate as they alighted from Liz’s minibus before making a beeline towards the hotel, blissfully oblivious to the disapproving stares from the two spinster sisters following them at a safe distance. Liz quickly looked at her watch. She had another tour starting in less than half an hour. With any luck, she’d have just enough time to get to the designated pick up spot over on Sunset.

Putting her minibus in reverse, she pulled up short as an unfamiliar four-door came to a stop behind her, blocking her way. Two men in suits got out of the vehicle, followed closely by Otis, who had been in the back seat.

“Ote!” Liz looked at him in surprise. “What are you doing here?”

“Hey, Liz,” came his subdued response.

“I thought you were off today,” she continued, eyeing the two strangers with interest. “Who’re these guys?”

“I’m Detective Warner and this is my partner, Detective Cassidy,” replied the older of the two men, flashing Liz his badge. “L.A.P.D.”

Liz looked at Otis. “Are these guys friends of yours?”

“Not exactly.” Otis fidgeted uncomfortably. “They’re here to talk to you.”

“About what?”

“We’d like you to come down to Hollywood Division with us.”

“What for?” Liz asked. The fact that everyone looked so serious immediately put her on edge.

“Because it would be better to talk to you there than in this parking lot,” the one identified as Detective Cassidy told her.

“Either you tell me what this is about or I stay exactly where I am,” she told him stubbornly.

“This is about a hit and run that occurred late yesterday afternoon on North Pinero,” Detective Warner informed her.

“And you’re thinking I had something to do with it?” Liz asked worriedly. “I mean I was working, but I had the Beverly Hills/Bel Air run.” She looked at the older detective’s face but it remained impassive. “Otis can vouch for me and so could the forty or so passengers in my minibus yesterday.”

“Has anything been stolen from you recently?” asked Detective Cassidy suddenly.

“Stolen?” she repeated blankly.

“Or is unaccounted for,” offered his partner helpfully.

“No.” Liz shot Otis a confused look but he studiously avoided her gaze. She was losing her patience. “Look, I already told you. I didn’t have anything to do with the hit and run nor did I have anything stolen recently. Can I go now?”

“The victim of the hit and run was carrying a backpack.”

Liz’s heartbeat quickened. “A backpack?”

“Uh-huh.” Detective Warner watched Liz’s face carefully. “And inside the backpack was a prescription with your name and address on it.”

“You said there was a victim,” she managed to ask. “Who was it?”

“An unidentified woman,” his partner explained. “We were hoping you’d be able to tell us who she was.”

“
Was?
” Liz looked at them with huge, fearful eyes.

She didn’t notice as Otis came up beside her and took her hand. “Your mom died on impact, Liz. I’m so sorry.”

“
No!!!!
” Liz’s world began spinning out of control until there was nothing left but blackness.

***

There was no way the police could connect him to the car. His face had been obscured by an old baseball cap and he’d painstakingly wiped every visible surface of the car before he’d abandoned it. No, he’d certainly covered his tracks well enough and by all accounts, Maria’s death barely rated a short paragraph in the
L.A. Times
.

His hand visibly shook as he anxiously flipped through the
Los Angeles Daily News
, noting that the hit and run didn’t even rate coverage. Most of the coverage had come from that bleeding heart publication, the
Los Angeles Downtown News
, which had devoted an entire small column and the headline “Homeless Woman Victim of Hit and Run”.
Nothing to worry about
, he reassured himself. In the cesspool of crime that was Los Angeles, a hit and run involving the homeless rated about as much attention as another drive-by in East L.A.

No one would connect him to Maria’s murder. No one even cared. He thought of her innocence and his stomach churned. He remembered her face just before he’d struck her with the car and felt a sharp pain, like a knife twisting in his gut. A thin sheen of sweat broke out on his forehead and upper lip. Even if no one cared, he cared. The urge to throw up became overwhelming.
What have I done
?

His half-brother, Irving, had found the investigator’s report in his father’s safe after his father’s death. He was shocked and sickened by the fact that his stepfather, one of Hollywood’s most respected directors, was a Nazi war criminal and the girl that they’d raped had been Karl’s own daughter. Being the weak imbecile that his brother was, he pulled out of the governor’s race and tried to commit suicide but he couldn’t even manage to pull that off properly. After pressure from their mother, Irving reluctantly told his mother about Kate and the rape. It was his mother who had recognized the threat Kate and her daughter posed to the family and it was also his mother who had come up with the plan to stage the child’s death and give her a new identity. Ironically, while it was his father that had been the Nazi, his mother was far more ruthless in getting what she wanted, even if it meant blackmailing the child’s doctor into helping her carry out her plan. But the one thing his mother hadn’t counted on was falling in love with another woman’s child.
 

Despite his better judgment, Leo finally went to see this creature that had captivated his mother. He did so reluctantly, forced to deliver a shiny new bicycle with training wheels his mother wanted her to have, yet driven by a need to see firsthand his mother’s folly. He would have been lying to say he had not been curious, yet the significance of the girl’s existence had diminished for him somewhat, wrapped up as he had been with his own wife and their new life together. But for his mother, she had spoken of, yearned for and cared about no one else for the past nine years but this young girl borne of his father’s and brother’s shameful deviance.
 

The sight that had awaited him was one that would be etched on his brain for the rest of his life. Her room could have been any young girl’s room, from the rocking chair with the comforter draped over the arm to the picture of his mother in the silver frame. The only thing that set it apart from every other girl’s room was the special bed with the built-in restraints and the utter pandemonium as two orderlies tried to hold the girl down while a nurse gave her a sponge bath. The girl’s nude body has smears of dried blood all over her legs and torso and she was screaming at the top of her lungs.
 

“What happened to her?” he asked sharply.
 

“Who are you?” asked the nurse in annoyance, as the girl kicked the sponge out of her hand.
 

When he told her, her attitude immediately became respectful. “Some days, like today, we can’t get her to wear any clothes. She menstruated for the first time today and became unduly alarmed.” She waited for the orderly to pull the girl’s legs apart before retrieving the sponge and applying it to the girl’s inner thigh. “Once I get her cleaned up, I’ll give her a shot to calm her down.”
 

“You mean drug her,” he clarified.
 

The nurse never heard him as the girl managed to get one of her feet loose, sending the basin of bloodied water flying before it hit the nurse head on.
 

He went over to the bed. Removing the sponge from the nurse’s hand, he quickly took charge of the situation.
 

“Why don’t you go get changed and I’ll deal with cleaning her up.” The tone of his voice brooked no refusal. When the nurse and orderlies left the room, he turned to the girl. “Hello, Maria. It’s time you and I finally met.”
 

“
Grounded!
You’re not being fair!” Karen threw herself onto the sofa, glaring at her mother in mutiny. “You’re treating me as if I was a criminal.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.” Eve ignored her daughter’s sullen outburst. “You know why you’re being grounded. Your father and I both agree on this.”

“Great!” Karen argued bitterly. “Why is it the one time you two happen to agree on something, it’s about my punishment.”

“Don’t think of it as punishment,” Eve suggested. “Think of it as a period of reflection.”

“Not funny,” she bit back. “Just because I was hanging with Laurie, who you can’t stand, I get punished for it.” She grabbed one of the cushions and hugged it to her chest. “Well, you can’t treat me like this, you know. I’m not some little kid you can send to the corner for a time out.”

Eve rolled her eyes. “If only it were that simple.” She looked at her mother, who was sitting on one of the kitchen stools, sipping a mug of coffee. “Feel free to throw in your two cents’ worth.”

“I never should have asked Karen to stop by my house to drop off those boxes,” Kate told her daughter quietly. “I blame myself for what happened.”

“Mom, please!”

“It’s true,” Kate told them.

“Come on, Grams!” Karen threw the cushion back onto the sofa and went over to her grandmother. “You had nothing to do with what happened. If that stupid woman wouldn’t have been screwing around with your mailbox or attacked Laurie, nothing would’ve happened to her. I just wish I knew what she’d been up to.”

“Can you please drop it!” Eve slammed the refrigerator door with more force than she intended. “You heard what that detective told us. There was nothing in your grandmother’s mailbox. They looked.”

“So you’re saying I’m a liar?” asked Karen, staring at her mother intently.