Petra hadn’t spoken to Alex for a while. She’d considered calling him when Billy’s breaking-away had caused her to wonder about her skills as a… friend. Alex had been Billy’s therapist. But she hadn’t followed through. Too busy.
No, that wasn’t the real reason. Solid or not, Delaware was still a shrink and Petra was worried she couldn’t keep the sadness out of her voice and he’d pick up on it and want to do his thing. She was in no mood to be shrunk.
Now, shielded by homicide, she could make contact with impunity.
The next morning, at ten, she dialed the white house. Alex picked up and said, “Hey, Petra, what’s up?”
They exchanged small talk, Alex inquired about Billy, Petra lied and said everything was going great. Then she said, “I’m actually calling Robin. Her name came up in the date book of the victim on a case I just picked up.”
“Baby Boy Lee?”
“How’d you know?”
“Robin worked on his guitars. He’s been here a few times. Sweet guy.”
“You know him pretty well?”
“No,” said Alex. “He came by once in a while. Friendly, always smiling. But a bluesman’s smile.”
“Meaning?”
“Sad, resigned. Robin told me he’d had some hard luck. A couple of times I walked in and found him playing. Best show I’ve seen all year. He had an incredible sense of phrasing- not a lot of notes but the right ones.”
Talking like a music guy- nearly word for word, the same thing Petra had heard from the big man’s band mates.
She remembered: Alex played guitar.
“Lots of hard luck,” she said. “What else can you tell me about him?”
“That’s about it. Robin worked on his guitars for free because he was always broke. He’d always make a show of writing out an IOU and handing it to her, but to my knowledge she never collected. Any idea who did it?”
“Nope. That’s why I’m following everything up. Robin around?”
Several seconds passed. Then: “She doesn’t live here anymore, Petra. We separated a few months ago.”
“Oh.”
“Mutual decision, it’s working out,” he said. But he didn’t sound as if he meant it. “I’ll give you her number.”
Petra ’s cheeks had grown hot. Not embarrassment. Anger. Another castle crumbles.
“Sure,” she said.
“She’s got a place in Venice. Rennie Avenue, north of Rose. It’s a side-by-side duplex, the studio’s in the southern unit.”
Petra copied the address and thanked him.
“I don’t think she’s in town, Petra. She spent a good part of last year touring with the Kill Famine Tour and has been moving around.” Pause. “She met a guy.”
“I’m sorry,” Petra blurted.
“It happens,” he said. “We’d agreed to… try out our independence. Anyway, this guy, he’s a vocal coach, and he travels quite a bit, too. They’re in Vancouver. I know because she called to let me know she’s taking Spike to a vet, there. Toothache.”
Petra remembered the pooch. Cute little French bulldog. A chance to change the subject. “Ouch. Hope he feels better.”
“Me, too… anyway, they’re due back tomorrow, I think.”
“Okay, thanks.”
“Sure. Good luck on the case. Say hi to Robin for me.”
“Will do,” said Petra, itching to break the connection. “You take care now.”
“You, too.”
He hung up. Petra shut out the call and went over the details of Baby Boy’s demise for the umpteenth time. Then she left the station and got herself some lunch. Greasy hamburger at a Vine Street joint she was certain would disappoint.
4
The first time I made love to Allison Gwynn, I felt like an adulterer.
Totally irrational. Robin and I had been living apart for months. And now she was with Tim Plachette.
But when the touch, the feel, the smell of someone is imbedded in your DNA…
If Allison sensed my unease, she never said a word.
I met her shortly before my years with Robin started to unravel. I’d been helping Milo on a twenty-year-old murder. Years before, at the age of seventeen, Allison had been sexually abused by a man who figured in the case. Her college mentor was an old friend of mine, and he asked her if she’d talk to me. She thought about it and agreed.
I liked her right away- admired her courage, her honesty, her gentle manner. Her looks were too notable to miss, but back then I appreciated them as an abstraction.
Ivory skin, soft but assertive cheekbones, a wide, strong mouth, the most gorgeous, waist-length black hair I’d ever seen. Huge eyes, blue as midnight, projected a sharp curiosity. Like me, she was a psychologist. Those eyes, I figured, would serve her well.
She grew up in Beverly Hills, the only daughter of an assistant attorney general, went to Penn, continued there for a Ph.D. In her senior year, she met a Wharton whiz, fell in love, married young, and moved back to California. Within months of receiving her state license, her husband was diagnosed with a rare malignancy, and she was widowed. Eventually, she pulled herself together and built up a Santa Monica practice. Now she combined clinical work with teaching nights at the U, and volunteering at a hospice for the terminally ill.
Seated, her high waist and willowy arms and swan neck implied height, but like Robin, she was a small, delicately built woman- there I go again, comparing.
Unlike Robin, she favored expensive makeup, considered clothes-shopping a recreational activity, had no problem flashing strategic glints of diamond jewelry.
One time she confessed it was because she’d been late to enter puberty, had hated looking like a child all through high school. At thirty-seven, she appeared ten years younger.
I was the first man she’d been with in a long time.
When I called her, it had been months since we’d spoken. Surprise brightened her voice. “Oh, hi.”
I talked around the issue, finally asked her to dinner.
She said, “As in a date?”
“As in.”
“I thought there… was someone.”
“So did I,” I said.
“Oh. Is this recent?”
“This isn’t a rebound thing,” I said. “I’ve been single for a while.” Hating the awkwardness- the self-pity- of all that.
