ones who pay your bills piss you off? Is that the reason you won't help us?'
My sigh was involuntary.
He said, 'Okay, okay, sorry, that was out of line, it's been a… rough time. All I'm asking for is some help with Eric and Stacy. If I wasn't so close to the situation, I could deal with it myself. At least I have the insight to know my limitations, right? How many parents can you say that of?'
Footsteps sounded from above. Someone walking. Pacing. Stopping. The kids on the second floor…
I said, 'No stonewall, Richard. I'm here for Eric and Stacy. Are you in any state to answer a few questions about Joanne?'
'What about Joanne?'
'Basic history. At what hospital did she take her medical tests?'
'St. Michael's. Why?'
'I may want to look at her medical records.'
'Same question.'
'I'm still trying to understand what was wrong with her.'
'Her medical records won't tell you a damn thing,' he said. 'That's the point, the doctors didn't know. And what does Joanne's illness have to do with the current situation?'
'It may have something to do with Eric and Stacy,' I said. 'As I said, I run on information. May I have a release from you to look at her records?'
'Sure, sure, Safer can give it to you, I signed over power of attorney to him while I was indisposed. Now, how about going up to talk to my kids?'
'Please bear with me,' I said. 'After Joanne died, you called Mate, but he never called you back-'
'Did I tell you that?'
'No, Judy did when she made the referral.'
'Judy.' He swiped at his brow with the back of his hand. 'Well, Judy's correct. I did try. Not once, several times. The bastard never gave me the courtesy.'
'He didn't throw a press conference regarding Jo-anne, either.'
His eyes slitted. 'So?'
'Publicity seemed to be a motive for him-'
'You've got that right,' he said. 'He was a scum-sucking publicity hound. But don't ask me to explain what he did and didn't do. To me he was a name in the papers.'
Easy to erase?
I said, 'One other discrepancy: by the time Joanne contacted Mate, he'd already shifted from motels to vans. Yet Joanne died in a motel. Would there have been some reason for her to insist upon that? Some reason for her to travel to Lancaster-'
'She was never there,' he said.
'Never at the motel?'
'Never in Lancaster.' He laughed. Sudden, bitter, incongruous laughter. 'Not till that night. It was a thing between us. I was out there all the time, did several projects there, building shopping centers, turning shit into gold. Used to copter from the Municipal Bank Building to Palmdale, drive the rest of the way. Spent so many goddamn hours there I used to feel I was made of sand. Joanne never saw any of it. I used to ask her-beg her- to drive out, just once in a while. Join me for lunch, see what we were accomplishing. I told her the desert could be beautiful when you looked at it a certain way, we could find some good, cheap eats, go casual-goddamn Pizza Hut or something, like when we were broke and dating. No way. She always turned me down, said it was too far to drive. Too much traffic, too dry, too hot, too busy, there was always a reason.'
He laughed again. 'But she ended up there.' Turning to stare at me. For once, not a combative glare. Sad, pitiful, seeking an answer.
'Oh Jesus,' he said. An abrupt, suppressed sob made him choke. He bounced once in the sofa, as if levitated by pain and slammed back down by fate.
'Goddamn her,' he whispered. Then he lost the fight and the tears gushed. He punched air, punched his knees, attacked his own chest, his shoulder, knuckled his eyes. Hid his face from me.
'Fuckin' Lancaster!. For that she goes out there! Oh Jesus! Oh Jesus Christ!'
He lowered his head between his legs, as if about to vomit, found no comfort in that position and sprang up, running to the wall of french doors, where he turned his back on me and cried silently while facing his swimming pool and his land and the faraway ocean.
'She must've really hated me,' he said.
'Why would she hate you, Richard?'
'For not forgiving her.'
'What did she do?'
'No,' he said. 'No more of this, don't strip off my skin, just let me get through this with my skin on, okay? I won't try to tell you how to do your job, just let it be. Help my kids. Please.'
'Sure,' I said. 'Of course.'
CHAPTER 27
THE FOOTSTEPS FROM above resumed. Moments later Joe Safer knocked on the doorjamb. Richard was still staring through the glass. He turned.
Safer said, 'Everything all right?'
'Joe, I'm really bushed, think I'll lie down.' Trudging to the sofa, Richard removed his shoes, lined them up at the base of the couch, stretched out.
'Why don't you go upstairs to bed?' said Safer.
'Nah, I'll just sack out here. This is my relaxation spot.' Richard reached for a remote control, clicked on seventy inches of the Home & Garden channel. Someone wearing a plaid shirt and a massive tool belt building a redwood deck. Making it look as easy as licking an envelope, the way those types always do.
Within seconds, Richard seemed hypnotized.
'Ready for the children?' Safer asked me.
'Ready.'
I followed him up a rear staircase, arranging the file cards in my head.
Guilt, expiation. I didn't forgive her.
Joanne transgressing-probably exactly what I'd guessed: an affair.
Eric, close to his father, aligned with his father. Had Joanne's transgression led her son to despise her? Spending time with her as she destroyed herself, loving her but also hating her? Could that explain the Polaroids? Documenting her descent-her punishment-then passing the pictures to Richard…
That level of filial contempt was hard to imagine, but Eric was explosive and impulsive and he had the genes for it. Now, months later, was he coming to grips with what he'd done? Seeking his own expiation?
Richard had just admitted paying Quentin Goad to murder the death doctor.
Make it look bloody… the wrong guy to cheat on. With Richard's need for control, how could Joanne have expected anything but rejection and retribution?
Attempted murder as closure… and, if Mate hadn't helped Joanne die, a grand mistake.
If he hadn't, who had?
Do-it-yourself job? As a microbiologist, Joanne had access to lethal chemicals, the skills for self-injection. But given her physical condition I couldn't see driving to Lancaster by herself…
She hated me. Now I had a reason she'd died in the Happy Trails Motel.
So maybe Mate had been there, agreeing to revert back to rented rooms in order to respect Joanne's wishes. Same for the lack of publicity: perhaps Joanne had requested he keep it quiet. For the sake of the kids? No, that made no sense. If she'd wanted to shield Eric, why choose such a conspicuous suicide?
Why kill herself by any means?
One thing seemed clear: Mr. and Mrs. Doss had suffered through a troubled relationship. Mrs. had sinned and
