Now here it was, thirteen months later, a hot night in June, the air stinking of Patty didn’t know what, and the kid was back at her door, tiny as ever, wearing saggy jeans and a frayed white top, her hair curlier, more yellow than white.
Biting and gnawing exactly the same way. Holding a stuffed orca that was coming apart at the seams.
This time, she stared straight up at Patty.
A rumbling red Firebird was parked exactly where the cab had been. One of those souped-up numbers with a spoiler and fat tires and wire dealies clamping down the hood. The hood thumped like a fibrillating heart.
As Patty hurried toward the car the Firebird peeled out, Lydia ’s platinum shag barely visible through the tinted glass on the passenger side.
Patty thought her sister had waved, but she was never really sure.
The kid hadn’t moved.
When Patty got back to her, Tanya reached in a pocket and held out a note.
Cheap white paper, red letterhead from the Crazy Eight Motor Hotel, Holcomb, Nevada.
Below that, Lydia’s handwriting, way too pretty for someone with only junior high. Lydia had never put any effort into learning penmanship or anything else during those nine years but things came easy to her.
The kid started to whimper.
Patty took her hand-cold and teeny and soft-and read the note.
CHAPTER 2
“Not a whodunit,” said Milo. “A did-it-even-happen?”
I said, “You think it’s a waste of time.”
“Don’t you?”
I shrugged. We both drank.
“We’re talking terminal illness, probably went to her brain,” he said. “That’s a mere layman’s theory.”
He pulled his glass closer, churned little viscous waves with his stirrer. We were at a steak house a couple miles west of downtown, facing up to massive T-bones, salads bigger than some people’s lawns, icy Martinis.
One thirty p.m., a cool Wednesday afternoon, celebrating the end of a monthlong lust-murder trial. The defendant, a woman whose artistic pretensions led her to a killing partnership, had surprised everyone by pleading guilty.
When Milo slogged out of the courtroom, I asked him why she’d given up.
“No reason given. Maybe she’s hoping for a shot at parole.”
“Could that ever happen?”
“You’d think not, but if the zeitgeist gets mushy, who the hell knows?”
“Big words this early?” I said.
“Ethos, social ambience, take your pick. What I’m saying is for the last few years everyone’s been big on wiping out crime. Then we do our job too well and John Q. gets complacent. The
“That assumes people read the paper.”
He huffed.
I’d been subpoenaed as prosecution witness, had spent four weeks on call, three days sitting on a wooden bench in a long, gray corridor of the Criminal Court Building on Temple.
At nine thirty a.m. I’d been working a crossword puzzle when Tanya Bigelow phoned to tell me her mother had died of cancer a month ago and she wanted a session.
It had been years since I’d seen her or her mother. “I’m so sorry, Tanya. I can see you today.”
“Thank you, Dr. Delaware.” Her voice caught.
“Is there anything you want to tell me now?”
“Not really-it’s not about grief. It’s something…I’m sure you’ll think it’s strange.”
I waited. She told me some of it. “You probably think I’m obsessing.”
“Not at all,” I said. Lying in the service of therapy.
“I’m really not, Dr. Delaware. Mommy wouldn’t have-sorry, I have to run to class. Can you see me later this afternoon?”
“How about five thirty?”
“Thank you so much, Dr. Delaware. Mom always respected you.”
Milo sawed along the bone, held up a wedge of meat for inspection. The lighting made his face a gravel yard. “This look like prime to you?”
“Tastes fine,” I said. “I probably shouldn’t have told you about the call-confidentiality. But if it turns out to be anything serious, you know I’ll be back.”
The steak disappeared between his lips. His jaws worked and the acne pits on his cheeks became dancing commas. He used his free hand to push a lick of black hair off a mottled forehead. Swallowing, he said, “Sad about Patty.”
“You knew her?”
“Used to see her in the E.R. when I dropped in on Rick. Hi, how’s it going, have a nice day.”
“Did you know she was sick?”
“Only way I’d know was if Rick told me and we’ve got a new rule: No business-talk after hours.”
When cases are open, a homicide detective’s hours never end. Rick Silverman works the E.R. at Cedars for long stretches. The two of them talk about boundaries all the time but their plans die young.
I said, “So you have no idea if she was still working with Rick?”
“Same answer. Confessing some ‘terrible thing’ that she did, huh? Makes no sense, Alex. Why would the kid want to dredge stuff up about her mother?”
“When did you treat her?”
“First time was twelve years ago, she was seven.”
“Twelve on the nose, not approximately,” he said.
“Some cases you remember.”
“Tough case?”
“She did fine.”
“Super-shrink scores again.”
“Lucky,” I said.
He stared at me. Ate more steak. Put his fork down. “This ain’t prime, at most it’s choice.”
We left the restaurant and he returned downtown for a paper-clearing meeting at the D.A.’s office. I took Sixth Street to its western terminus at San Vicente, where a red light gave me time to phone the Cedars-Sinai emergency room. I asked for Dr. Richard Silverman and was still on hold when the light turned green. Hanging up, I continued north to La Cienega, then west on Gracie Allen into the sprawl of the hospital grounds.
Patty Bigelow, dead at fifty-four. She’d always seemed so sturdy.
Parking in a visitors lot, I walked toward the E.R. entrance, trying to recall the last time I’d spoken to Rick professionally since he’d sent Patty and Tanya my way.
Never.
