slick “new politics” of an efficient Bureau. This was anarchy. I had to go back to the Kents’ and kick privileged ass. Get them to understand we had a media blackout in effect on this case.
“Don’t you like my new furniture?”
“Yeah,” said Andrew absently, “it’s nice.”
I put my arms around him. “Nicer than that dark old stuff in your father’s place.”
“You are like a little terrier,” he said. “Don’t you ever let go?”
Holding tighter, “Nope.”
I had finally sprung for a whole new deal, all at once, on sale at Plummers. I am a klutz with colors, it was the worst day of my life, but three hours later I staggered out of there having committed to a blonde wood (actually particle board) entertainment center which faced a couch and two small wicker love seats on either side of a coffee table.
The coffee table was a dark varnished rose with a dandy drawer in which I kept a Colt.32 my enlightened grandfather had given to me when I went to college, as protection against what he called “the blacks,” as if I were to single-handedly hold off a revolutionary siege at UC — Santa Barbara. When I was arranging the furniture, I stowed the gun in the drawer. Poppy would be proud. The apartment was fortified.
The matching cushions on the love seats and couch were a bold tropical pattern in deep plums and greens, which more or less went with the dark gray carpeting. I had one of those curving chrome lamps you can bend all the way down to read by and some glass vases with dried flowers, which I bought at the farmers’ market that weekend, giddy with success. The entertainment center almost had enough shelves for the hundreds of mystery and sci-fi paperbacks I was always trading and borrowing, no longer in piles along the wall.
The place looked like a grown-up lived there. A grown-up who kept tonic and limes in the refrigerator, turkey bologna, hummus, some very nice imported Colby cheese, one percent milk, OJ with calcium, always a couple of beers, usually a leftover pasta primavera or soggy salad in a box, fruit in the bin and Zen muffins in the freezer, along with a slew of frozen diet entrees. A grown-up whose most-used appliance was the blender, with an industrial-sized crock of vanilla protein powder at the ready.
And there was this man in my kitchen, wearing a black short-sleeved knit shirt that had to stretch to get around hard, polished biceps, a zipper at the neck with some logo dangling off, tight jeans with a thick belt that pushed his alleged love handles up (sleek as a bull, he was always fighting ten invisible pounds), loafers, no socks. Long, crazy hours had taught Andrew to keep a change of clothes neatly folded in a gym bag in his trunk.
He had skinned a grapefruit and set perfect pink sections, no stringy white stuff, on each plate.
“How’d you do that?”
“Sharp knife.”
“I don’t have any sharp knives.”
We were sitting at the glass dining table. Glass wasn’t such a good idea, but I liked the bamboo legs. He pulled a ring of keys out of his pocket, including a contraption that fanned out like a geometric puzzle into screwdrivers and ice picks, featuring an impressive blade.
“Surgical steel.”
He then folded each tool back with a meticulousness that reminded me of the way he ordered the pruning shears. Andrew had a talent for mechanical things.
“What’s the program?” he asked.
“Rick thinks it’s time to polygraph the parents.”
“Cool. I’m going to walk the Promenade. Canvas the merchants again.”
“I’ve assigned an agent to do that,” I told him.
“My job.”
“I think it should be one of our guys.”
He looked up from mixing salsa with the eggs. “What is this, pulling rank?”
“I just know Rick is going to want it covered.”
“Do what you need to do. I’m going to look for the transient, Willie John Black.”
“What for?”
“Take him in for a composite.”
“Good idea. If you want to know what they look like on Mars.”
“He’s been helpful to me in the past. You can’t discount everything he says. A social services guy told me they can be lucid. Their delusions are a defense.”
“Against what?”
“Whatever their personal terror might be.”
We were picking up the dishes. “Andrew, why? I need you at the Meyer-Murphys’. You know they’re going to freak about the polygraph.”
“You can handle the M&Ms,” Andrew said, “and besides”—he leaned back against the sink and drew me close—“I have to ask you something. Do I have safe passage?”
“You have safe passage.”
“It’s a favor.”
Sighing hugely, “Okay, what do you need?”
He laughed. “You sound like my lieutenant. Only he’s nicer.”
“I’m nice.”
We were nuzzling.
“Yes, you are.”
“What kind of favor?”
“I’m a little short right now, and some unexpected things came up. Do you think you could loan me nine hundred bucks?” Then before I could answer he winced self-consciously and added, “It’s for the Harley.”
He might as well have said it was for a poor starving child in India since that is how he felt about the stupid bike. He worked on it every weekend; he did the Love Ride to Lake Castaic every year.
I knew all that, and yet sometimes you see a vision of the person as he was or will become. In Andrew’s pleading eyes there begged a young boy in the shade garden of the home of his adoptive parents, a pretty place, and yet he is unsure about the ground on which he stands. Something is unstable in his world, something he cannot trust, as basic as his name. He wants this thing so desperately, whatever it is, a little toy car, so he can hold it in his fist and it will tell him who he is. Worthy. Powerful. Comforted. Strong. And loved.
Lynn Meyer-Murphy was sitting cross-legged on the kitchen floor, wearing the same track pants and sweater she had on since Day One, surrounded by pots and everything else she had taken out of the lower cabinets. Grocery bags were stuffed with mismatched plastic containers and grimy shelf paper.
“Good morning, ma’am.”
She turned and I almost flinched. Bright half-moons of scaly pink skin had popped up at the sides of her mouth like a horrible clown grin.
“Any news?”
I shook my head. “But we need to talk. I asked Special Agent Shaw to get your husband.”
Eunice Shaw was one of the most grounded people I have known. She had a light about her and spoke and moved in her own time. She was a churchgoing Baptist from Georgia, and even though her hair was straightened and rolled under, circa the civil rights movement, and even though she always wore a dress, even the bad guys wouldn’t dis Miss Eunice. She had iron poise. Because of this, she was a born negotiator and an almost religious presence for those, like the Meyer-Murphys, whose suffering had brought them to their knees.
Lynn’s fingers were massaging the inflammation. It looked itchy and mean. “Stress,” she explained. “Last time I had it this bad was my wedding day. What does that tell you?”
I smiled empathetically while rehearsing how to best inform the parents that they were now under suspicion in the disappearance of their child. Juliana had vanished too completely, with too few leads, for too long a time not to suspect foul play close to home; to consider the case a possible homicide.
“Why do I need this?” Lynn pushed a muffin tin into one of the garbage bags. “But Juliana likes popovers.” She pulled it out again. “Not that I ever make popovers.”
