Self-Defence

'My neighborhood?'

'Must be. I see the ocean.' He gave me a name, then an address in Paradise Cove.

'Oh.'

'Trailer park, right near the Sand Dollar.'

'Are you there now?'

'Actually, I'm at the Sand Dollar bar- is this a bad time?'

Robin sat up and mouthed, 'Patient?'

'Milo,' I told her. 'He's got someone he'd like me to meet.'

'Now?'

I nodded.

'Go,' she said. 'But definitely no phones on the island.'

***

The road down to the cove was unlit and hemmed in by hillside and sky. The guardhouse was empty and the gate was up. Beyond the Sand Dollar lot, the ocean was a tight stretch of black vinyl. The lot was nearly empty, and the restaurant's neon sign was suspended in the darkness.

I turned right and drove up a short steep road to the trailer park. The mobile homes were stuck into the sloping terrain like metal studs in leather. To the left was a small flat parking area atop a low bluff. Rick's white Porsche 928 was parked there and I pulled in next to it, under the grasping branches of a huge pittosporum tree.

The units were numbered in a system that defied logic, and it took a while to find the address Milo'd given me.

I climbed nearly to the top of the park, walking on asphalt paths lined with rock and seashell borders. Most of the trailers were dark. Blue TV light seeped from behind a few curtained windows.

The address I was looking for matched a white Happy Tourister with aluminum siding and a bolt-on carport. A barbecue sat in the port. Geranium ivy grew around the wheel wells.

Milo answered my knock. A short, solid-looking woman in her mid-sixties stood behind him. Her hair was tinted the color of ranch mink and permed, and she had a small square face and searching dark eyes. She wore a pea- green sleeveless blouse and stretch jeans. She wasn't fat but her arms were heavy. Eyeglasses hung from a chain around her neck.

Milo stood aside. The trailer's front room was a gold-stained pine kitchen with a brown linoleum floor and white Formica counters. It was sweet with the smell of baked beans.

The woman met my smile with one of her own, but it seemed obligatory.

Milo said, 'Mrs. Barnard, this is Dr. Delaware, our psychological consultant. Doctor, Mrs. Maureen Barnard.'

'Mo,' said the woman holding out a hand. We shook.

Milo said, 'Mo was married to Felix Barnard.'

The woman acknowledged the relationship with a sad look and led us into the living area. More pine, gold carpets, a quilted white sofa specked with gold, and a matching recliner. Big TV and a very small stereo. The place was immaculate.

Mo Barnard took the recliner and Milo and I shared the couch. The ceilings were very low, and Milo's bulk made the room look even smaller than it was. On the coffee table was a year's worth of Reader's Digest along with a thick bound stack of supermarket coupons and a sandpiper carved out of driftwood. Next to Mo was an octagonal pressed-wood table bearing a remote control and a cut-glass bowl of miniature candy bars: Hershey's, Mr. Goodbar, Krackel. She picked up the remote and put it in her lap, then handed the bowl to Milo.

Unwrapping a Mr. Goodbar, he said, 'As I told you, it was Dr. Delaware who got us involved in the case that led us to look into your husband's death.' To me: 'Mr. Barnard was murdered a year after Karen Best disappeared.'

Mo Barnard was looking at me.

'I'm sorry,' I said.

'Quite a shock when it happened,' she said, 'but it's been a long time. Strange to be hearing about it after all these years, but you never know, do you?'

Despite living at the beach, her skin was white and putty-soft. Her eyes had the flat, dark cast of a Grant Wood matriarch. She fingered the remote control and looked at the blank TV screen.

Milo gave me the candy bowl.

As I unwrapped a Hershey bar, he said, 'Felix's killer was never found. He was shot in a motel on La Cienega near Pico. West side of the boulevard.'

La Cienega was the border between Wilshire Division's jurisdiction and West L.A.'s. The west side of the street made it Milo's territory.

Mo Barnard sighed. Milo smiled at her, and the way she reciprocated it let me know he'd been here with her for a while.

'Strange,' she said. 'All these years. I thought he was with a whore, didn't know whether to be sad or mad. After a while, I forgot about that part of it. Now you come and tell me it could have been something else. You just never know, do you.'

'Just a possibility,' Milo reminded her.

'Yes, I know, it'll probably never be solved. But just the chance that he wasn't with a whore cheers me up a bit. He wasn't a bad guy- lots of good qualities, really.'

Milo told me, 'The motel was one of those places rented by the hour. So you can see why Mo assumed that.'

'The police assumed it,' she said. 'Even though the motel clerk said he hadn't seen any woman go in with Felix. But of course, he could've lied. Felix was once a policeman himself. Just for a short time, in Baltimore; that's where he grew up. I met him in San Bernadino. He was working for an insurance company, investigating accident claims. I was a records clerk at city hall. He got let go right after we got married, and we moved to L.A.'

'Did you work for the city here, too?' I said.

'No, I got a job doing the books for Fred Shale Real Estate, over in Pacific Palisades. I did that for thirty-one years. Felix and I lived in Santa Monica, near the Venice side. Felix's office was out here in Malibu, but this last year's the first time I've actually lived in Malibu. My sister and her husband own this place, but he's got bad lungs so they moved over to Cathedral City, near Palm Springs.'

Milo said, 'The interesting thing is, Mo feels Felix may have come into some money about a year before he was killed.'

'I'm pretty sure of it,' said Mo. 'He denied it but the signs were there. I thought he was keeping someone on the side.' Her cheeks colored. 'Truth be known, he'd done that before, more than once. But in his younger days. He was sixty-three by then- ten years older than me, but when I married him I thought he was mature.' She chuckled and said, 'Hand me a Krackel bar, will you?'

Milo did.

'What signs did you notice?' I said.

'First of all, his retiring. For years he'd talked about it, but he always complained he couldn't get enough money together- always griped about my having health benefits and a pension from San Berdoo and from Shale, and he was out on his own with nothing. Then, all of a sudden, he just walks in and announces there's enough in the kitty. I said, 'What pie dropped out of the sky, Felix?' He just smiled and patted my head and said, 'Don't you worry, Sugaroo, we're finally going to get that place in Laguna Niguel.' We were always talking about buying a condo down there, but we didn't have the money. We might have been able to afford one of those retirement communities, but Felix never saw himself as old. When he turned fifty, he bought himself a toopay and contact lenses. I guess he figured being so much older than me- I used to look like a kid, people would sometimes mistake me for his daughter- he should do something about it. The other thing he did that made me suspicious was get a new car, a cherry-red Thunderbird, the Landau model, the vinyl top. Which was their top of the line. We had a big fight over that, me wanting to know how we could afford it and him saying it was none of my business.'