Silent Partner

themselves out in the Hamptons. Had enhanced her knowledge, as a Forsythe student, strolling past the gated entrances of sprawling beach estates. Collecting mental images like bits of broken seashell- images that enabled her to paint me a too-vivid picture of chauffeurs and clam spouts, two little girls in a pool house.

Shirlee. Joan.

Sharon Jean.

She’d rotated the story of the drowned twin one way for Helen, another for me, lying- to those she ostensibly loved- with the ease of brushing her hair.

Pseudo-twinship. Identity problems. Two little girls eating ice cream. Mirror-image twins.

Pseudo multiple personality.

Elmo Castelmaine was certain “Shirlee” had been born crippled, which meant she couldn’t be one of the children I’d seen in the sawtooth-edged photo. But he was relying on information Sharon had provided.

Or lying himself. Not that there was any reason to doubt him, but I’d grown allergic to trust.

And what was to say the crippled woman was really a twin? A relation of any kind? She and Sharon had shared general physical traits- hair color, eye color- that I’d accepted as proof of sisterhood. Accepted what Sharon had told me about Shirlee because at the time there’d been no reason not to.

Shirlee. If that was even her name.

Shirlee, with two e’s. Sharon had made a point of the two e’s. Named after her adoptive mother.

More symbolism.

Joan.

Another mind-game.

All those years, Helen had said, I felt I understood her. Now I realize I was deluding myself. I barely knew her.

Welcome to the club, Teach.

I knew that the way Sharon had lived and died had been programmed by something that had taken place before Helen had discovered her gorging on mayonnaise.

The early years…

I drank coffee, explored blind alleys. My thoughts shifted to Darren Burkhalter, his father’s head landing on the backseat, like some bloody beachball…

The early years.

Unfinished business.

Mal had chalked up another victory: he’d get a new Mercedes, and Darren would grow up a rich kid. But all the money in the world couldn’t expunge that image from a two-year-old mind.

I thought about all the misborn, afflicted children I’d treated. Tiny bodies hurled into life’s storm with all the self-determination of dandelion husks. Something told to me by a patient came to mind, the bitter farewell comment of a once self-confident man, who’d just buried his only child:

If God exists, Doc, he fucking well has a nasty sense of humor.

Had some sick joke dominated Sharon’s formative years? If so, who was the comedian?

A small-town girl named Linda Lanier was one half of the biologic equation; who’d supplied the other twenty-three chromosomes?

Some Hollywood hanger-on or one-night-stand mattress jockey? An obstetrician with an after- hours sideline scraping away life? A billionaire?

I sat in that cafe and thought about it for a long time. And kept coming back to Leland Belding. Sharon had grown up on Magna land, lived in a Magna house. Her mother had made love to Belding- office boys knew that.

Martinis in his sun-room?

But if Belding had sired her, why had he abandoned her? Palmed her off on the Ransoms in exchange for squatting rights and paper money in an unmarked envelope.

Twenty years later, the house, the car.

Reunion?

Had he finally acknowledged her? Created an heir? But he was supposed to have died six years before that.

What of his other heir- the other little ice cream eater?

Double-abandonment? Two dirt patches?

I considered the little I knew about Belding: obsessed with machines, precision. A hermit. Cold.

Cold enough to set up the mother of his children?

Hypothetical. Ugly. I dropped my spoon. The clatter broke through the silence of the truck stop.

“You okay?” said the waitress, standing over me, coffee-pot in hand.

I looked up. “Yeah, sure, I’m fine.”

Her expression said she’d heard that one before. “More?” She hefted the pot.

“No, thanks.” I pushed money at her, stood, and left the truck stop. Had no trouble staying awake all the way to L.A.

31

I got home just after midnight, adrenaline-jolted and drunk on riddles. Milo rarely went to bed before one. I called his house. Rick picked up the phone, projecting that odd, groggy vigilance that E.R. docs acquire after years on the front lines.

“Dr. Silverman.”

“Rick, it’s Alex.”

“Alex. Oh. What time is it?”

“Twelve-ten. Sorry for waking you.”

“S’okay, no sweat.” Yawn. “Alex? What time is it, anyway?”

“Twelve-ten, Rick.”

Exhalation. “Oh. Yeah. I can see that. Confirmed by the luminescent dial.” Another yawn. “Just got in an hour ago, Alex. Double shift. Couple hours of down time before the next one kicks in. Must have dozed off.”

“Seems a reasonable response to fatigue, Rick. Go back to sleep.”

“No. Gotta shower, get some food down. Milo’s not here. Stuck on night watch.”

“Night watch? He hasn’t done that for a while.”

“Didn’t have to for a while. Seniority. Yesterday, Trapp changed the rules. Pig.”

“That’s the pits.”

“Not to worry, Alex, the big guy’ll get even. He’s been pacing a lot, got that look in his eye- half pit bull, half pit bull.”

“I know the one. Okay, I’ll try him at the station. Just in case, please leave him a message to call me.”

“Will do.”

“Goodnight, Rick.”

“Good morning, Alex.”

I phoned West L.A. Detectives. The cop who answered sounded groggier than Rick. He told me Detective Sturgis was out, had no idea when he was returning.

I got into bed and finally dozed off. I awoke at seven wondering what progress Trapp had made with the Kruse killings. When I went out on the terrace to get the papers, Milo was out there, slumped in a chaise