“That Gaylen Geer’s gone.”
“I don’t think so.”
“I’m Gay Sullivan now.”
“You’ll always be Gaylen Geer. You can’t change what you are.”
“I did.” A whisper. Gaylen broke eye contact, looked down at the carpet. She seemed ashamed.
Maggie decided to back off a little. “I promised Jasmine I wouldn’t let that man take her, ever. I need your help to keep that promise.”
“Oh my God!” Gay said.
“What?”
“Margo’s car. It’s in the lot. She’d been gone for a week. I’ve been watching Jazz. She must’ve come home last night.”
“There were groceries in the kitchen when I got here. I put them away.”
“This is scary,” Gay said.
“The killer must have grabbed her here. Then dumped her behind a bar I’d been in earlier. That doesn’t make any sense.”
“I just thought of something.”
“What?” Maggie said.
“She saw a murder.” Gay told her about Frankie Fujimori and how Margo was in the store when he was shot and about how Margo’s ex was Fujimori’s lawyer and how he was there too, hoping to catch Margo harassing the child killer, so he could get a court order against her.
“The guy sounds like a sleazeball.”
“He was. The world’s better off with him dead.”
“I was talking about the ex, Bruce Kenyon.”
“Oh. Yeah, well I guess he is too.” Then Gay told her about the long-haired cops, the albino and the Mexican, and how the girls called the albino one the Ghost. “They had Margo up at the Long Beach PD looking at pictures. She was supposed to go again, but in typical Margo fashion, she left Jazz with me and took off for a week without telling them a thing.”
“Typical Margo fashion?”
“She didn’t want to find the killer’s picture in any book, so she took off on a writer’s retreat. That’s why she left, it’s just like her. Out of sight out of mind.”
“Was she afraid of the killer?”
“Heck no. She thought he’d performed a public service. No way would she have turned him in. I wouldn’t be surprised if she’d seen the shooter’s photo in one of those mug books and passed over it.” Gay clutched her hands together in her lap. “I think the killer saw you in that store and thought you were Margo. I think he followed you to that bar, then chased you on the beach. When you got away, he came here hoping to catch you and got the real Margo instead. Then he killed her and dumped her behind that bar, God knows why. But I think that’s what happened. Frankie Fujimori’s killer got her, so she wouldn’t talk.”
“But you said she never would.”
“The killer didn’t know that.”
“Those guys in the Safeway thought they knew who I was. One said he’d seen my picture in the paper. He was slow. But the other one, the guy who looked like a ferret. He wasn’t slow and he had a gun.”
“Still want to take over her life?” Gay said.
“I promised Jasmine,” Maggie said.
“I still think it’s wrong and it’s probably not safe. I mean if the killer finds out Margo’s still around, still breathing, so to speak. He’s going to try again.”
“He’s going to try again anyway, because I saw him in the supermarket, then on the beach. If I come forward as Maggie, he’ll know I can identify him. So I think we should leave him out of the equation, at least for now.”
“Even if she would’ve died of natural causes, even if the killer wasn’t out there, it’d still be wrong,” Gay said, but not with her earlier conviction. She was wavering. “If you want to care for Jazz, then you should come forward and fight for her.”
“Do you really think they’re going to give a child to an aunt who popped out of the woodwork the day her mother was killed? I don’t think so.”
“What would you tell Jazz?” Gaylen was whispering, but Maggie saw something in her eyes. A spark.
“The truth.”
“No way could she keep it secret. She tells my daughter everything. Now you’ve got four people in on your secret and two of them are eight years old. How long till they slip and tell someone else? If you to do this, I don’t think you can tell Jazz, at least not yet.”
“So, you’ll help me?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“But you will. How well did you know her?”
“As well as anyone, I suppose, but she was a hard person to get to know. Most of what I could tell you, I’ve learned through Jazz. She practically lives at my place.”
“Then I’m going to have to tell the children.”
“Children?”
“If Jazz is going to tell your daughter anyway, she might as well hear it from me.”
“You wouldn’t tell Jazz to keep it from her?”
“I couldn’t ask her to do that. Not if they’re as close as you say.”
“You’ve got that bump on your head. You could tell them you had an accident and you’ve got some kind of amnesia that makes you forget stuff. You could say you need their help remembering. You could even tell them if they slipped up and told anyone, the police would think you’re not able to take care of Jazz and they’d take her away to live with her father. That way if they do screw up and blab, you won’t have the cops descending on you.”
“No one’s going to believe a story like that.”
“The girls will. They’re eight. It’ll be a grand secret adventure.”
“Thank you,” Maggie said.
“For what?”
“For helping me.”
“I think I’m doing it as much for me as for you. I kind of miss the old Gaylen. The last ten years have been happy, except for the bad time when I lost my husband. He was a big Irish man with a smile to die for and a heart the size of Chicago. But he was a man, you see, and he was white. I was the ultimate feminist, what would the world have thought if Gaylen Geer got married? A black guy would have been bad enough, but a white guy? Nobody would have listened to me anymore. So to avoid the humiliation, I dropped off the face of the earth. At first I hated myself. It was like I was selling out, but then one day I found out I was pregnant and a whole new world opened up.
“Were you gay?”
“Is that what you thought?”
“No, I saw a photo of you last night. Harvey Milk had his arm around you. You had that Afro.”
“Ah, Harvey. I haven’t thought about him in a long time. All he ever wanted was for everybody to get along.” She sighed. “God, he had that dopey smile. So courageous. Most people don’t know.” She sighed again. “I was just a kid, but I believed in Harvey and what he stood for.”
“So, what do you do now?”
“I work at a beauty shop up on Main Street. My sister-in-law and I run it. Own it actually. None of the customers know about me. I’m just one of the women they give a ten dollar tip to if I do a good job on their head.”
“I’ve never tipped ten dollars in my life.”
“Then you haven’t been to Huntington Heads.”
“Huntington Heads?” Maggie laughed. It felt good.
“Best head job on the Coast. That’s our motto.” Gay laughed too.
“Then you could cut my hair. And I bet you’ve got black hair dye in your medicine cabinet.” Maggie stopped
