After graduation, she was even happier, though she didn’t invite anyone to the ceremony, still nervous about what Dad and her brothers would think.
A month into her probationary year, she told them, and they were all surprised, but no one put her down. By then, she was in the groove.
Everything about police work felt right. Keeping fit, cruising, roll call, shooting on the range. Even the paperwork, because one thing boarding school had taught her was good study habits and proper English, and that put her ahead of most of the buff-jocks with their pencil-chewing agony over syntax and punctuation.
Within eighteen months, she made Detective-I.
Earning the right to guard a molt.
A new car joined the others in the parking lot. Subcompact with a department emblem on the door. A woman police photographer came out lugging a professional Polaroid camera. Young, around the victim’s age, in sloppy clothes and long, too-black hair. Four pierces in one ear, two in the other, just holes, no earrings. Plain face, sunken cheeks, a spot of acne on each. Combative Generation-X eyes.
As she approached the body, Petra constructed a hypothetical identity for her: like Petra, an artistic type gone practical. At night she probably put on black duds, smoked dope, and drank stingers at Sunset Strip clubs, hanging out with failed rock musicians who took her for granted.
She opened her camera, looked down, and said, “My God, I know who this is!”
Petra said, “Who?” as she waved Stu over.
“I don’t know her name, but I know who she is. Cart Ramsey’s wife. Or maybe it’s ex-wife by now. I saw her on TV around a year ago. He hit her. It was one of those tabloid shows, showbiz expose. She made Ramsey out to be a real asshole.”
“You’re sure this is her?”
“Hundred percent,” said the woman, peeved. Her photo badge ID’d her as Susan Rose, Photog.-I. “This is her, believe me. They said she was a beauty queen and Ramsey met her at a pageant-God, look at her, what a sick fuck!” The hand holding the camera tightened and the black box swayed.
Stu came over, and Petra repeated what Susan Rose had said.
“You’re sure,” he said.
“Jesus. Yeah, very.” Susan began to shoot pictures rapidly, thrusting the camera forward as if it were a weapon. “On the show she had a black eye and bruises. Fucking bastard!”
“Who?” said Petra.
“Ramsey. He’s probably the one who did this, right?”
“Cart Ramsey,” Stu said without inflection, and Petra found herself wondering if Stu had ever worked on Ramsey’s show. What was it called? The Adjustor, some private-eye hero who solved the problems of the downtrodden.
Wouldn’t that be cute?
Susan Rose removed a cartridge and dropped it into her case. Petra told her, “Thanks, we’ll get verification. Meanwhile, do your thing.”
“It’s her, believe me,” said Susan Rose, irritably. “Can I turn her over? I already got all of the front.”
CHAPTER
5
Two hours of walking. I’m not tripping as much.
The way he stabbed her.
PLYR 1. There’s a bar on the Boulevard called Players where pimps hang out. Maybe they call themselves that because they fool around, don’t do real work.
What he did to her makes me think of something I saw in Watson, out in one of the dry fields behind the orange groves.
These two dogs were passing each other. One was white with brown spots, full of muscles, kind of like a pit bull but not exactly. The other was a big black mutt that didn’t walk well. The white dog looked calm, happy with life, had almost a smiley face. Maybe that’s why at first the black dog didn’t seem afraid of him. Then the white dog just turned without barking, jumped on the black dog, got his jaws around the black dog’s neck, twisted a couple of times, and the black dog was dead. That fast. The white dog didn’t eat the black dog or lick the blood or anything, he just kicked the dirt with his hind legs and walked away, like he’d done his job.
He knew he had the power.
I was wrong. I’m not close yet. My feet weigh a ton, and I start to feel stupid for living in the park, tell myself I’m not it’s a smart decision.
What’s the choice, something like the Melodie Anne? That’s a building on Selma, just off the Boulevard, burnt-out from a fire, with the windows boarded up. Lots of kids crash there, and late at night you can see them bringing older guys in there. Sometimes you actually see them giving the old guys blow jobs right outside in the alley, boys and girls.
I would rather kill myself than do that. Suicide is a sin, but so is living the wrong life.
I check the Casio: 4:04. I must be close. No matter how many lists I try, my head is filled with terrible pictures. Men hurting women, dogs killing dogs, planes blowing up, kids snatched from their bedrooms, drive-by shootings, blood everywhere.
I think about Mom but see Moron instead and now I’m thinking about the way he called Mom a whore all the time and she took it, just sat there.
On bad days he hit her. I used to close my eyes, grind my teeth, try to beam myself somewhere else. For a long time, I couldn’t understand why she took him in. Then I figured out she thinks she’s not worth much ’cause she’s got no education and he’s what she deserves.
She met him at the Sunnyside, which is where she finds all the losers she brings home. She wasn’t working there anymore, but she was still going there to drink and watch TV and joke with the guys shooting pool.
The other losers never stayed long and they ignored me. The first night she brought Moron home he stank up the trailer with body odor and motorcycle grease. The two of them got stoned. I was out on the sleeper couch, could smell the joints they lit up, hear them laughing, then the bed squeaking. I put my fingers in my ears and got totally under the blankets.
The next morning he came out into the front room naked, holding his shorts in one hand, flaps and folds of tattooed fat all over his body. I pretended to still be sleeping. He opened the door, grunted, put his shorts on, and went outside to pee. When he finished he said, “ Yeah, ” and cleared his throat and spit.
On the way back to Mom’s bed, he tripped and his knee came down on my back. It felt like an elephant crushing me; I couldn’t breathe. He came back, went into the kitchen, got a box of Cap’n Crunch, and scooped cereal into his mouth, spilling it all over.
I pretended to wake up. He said, “Oh man, a rug rat. Hell, Sharla, you didn’t say you had onea them. ”
Mom laughed from the bedroom. “We wasn’t talking much, was we, cowboy?”
Moron laughed too, then he held out a hand for a high five. His nails were black around the edges and his fingers were the size and color of hot dogs.
“Motor Moran, bro. Who’re you?” For such a big guy he had a high voice.
“Billy.”
“Billy what?”
“Billy Straight.”
“Ha, same as her-so you got no daddy. Little fuckin’ accident, huh?” I lowered my hand, but he grabbed it, shook it hard, hurting me, looking to see if I’d show it. I ignored him.
“This your cereal, bro?”
“Kind of.”
“Well, too fuckin’ bad.” That made him really laugh.
Mom came in and she giggled along with him. But her eyes had that sad look I’ve seen so many times
