“Girls love to draw flowers and hearts and big yellow suns with rays shooting out of them. Gender differences are so pronounced. The boys will draw guns and cars and the girls will draw puppies and kittens.”
“I have a little boy myself. Jamie loves to draw soldiers with gore dripping out of their chests.”
“Then you know what I mean. It’s all in character. I only worry when it’s out of character. Like one little girl. She’s now drawing kitties with their heads cut off. That’s a bit worrisome.”
“Who is this little girl?” I asked.
“She’s a fourth grader. I think she lives in the West Side Apartments. Her mother works at McDonalds and there’s a half-brother. He picks her up sometimes.”
“What did you say her name was?”
“I didn’t, but it’s Charlotte.”
Tina’s toes were ready for polish but her muscles still needed work. I dipped into my wide-mouthed jar of sea-salt scrub and rubbed it up and down each of her calves. After I rinsed her legs, I picked up each foot and used a file to remove the callouses on her heels.
“I bet you love putting up displays of the kids’ artwork,” I said, wondering if I could drop by and see this little girl’s drawings.
“Most of them take their art home, but we do have some work on the wall right now. It gives the children a sense of pride.”
“I’d love to see them,” I said.
“We’re always looking for volunteers. If you’re interested, you can come any time. Maybe you’d like to help out.”
“How about today?” I said.
“School gets out at three-thirty. You can come then.”
“Great.”
I rinsed Tina’s feet one last time and applied warm moisturizer from the bottle I keep in my electric warming cupboard. I massaged each of her calves. She closed her eyes and I could see her relax. People don’t realize how much tension they carry in their calves until they receive a massage like this.
I rinsed Tina’s legs in the footbath and patted them dry. After I replaced the salmon terry with a yellow one, she put both feet on the footrest again. I applied a base coat and then pink polish on each toe.
“Now for the flower.” A Vietnamese pedicurist taught me how to paint flowers. I don’t know why Vietnamese girls are so good at this. My flowers aren’t bad, but they’re not as good as Cin Dee’s.
“That’s so cute!” Tina said.
“I’m glad you like it. You’ll need to let that dry for at least forty minutes. Would you like a magazine and a cup of herbal tea?”
“Yes, please.”
“I also have ice water or a probiotic drink. There are chips and chocolate too.”
Forty minutes later, Tina was done with her tea, her Hershey’s kisses and the latest issue of Elle. She paid with cash, added a nice tip, and walked out the door looking down at her toes in her sandals. I could read the happy set of her shoulders and the lift in her step.
I picked up my cell. I knew Carl would leap at any new lead, no matter how shaky. He said he’d meet me at the school.
“Don’t wear your uniform,” I said. “We’re potential volunteers.”
“Plain clothes. Don’t worry.”
We met Tina in the school lobby. “This is my husband, Carl. He’s interested in your program, too.”
Tina smiled and beckoned us to follow her. Backpacks were stacked in one corner of the room. Kids sat with a volunteer or a teacher, bent over textbooks, pencils in their hands. “The children do their homework first,” Tina said. “Work before play.
She took us to the gym where counselors from Gymboree were setting up shop. They’d brought a trampoline, balance beams, and tumbling mats.
“The kids must love this,” Carl said.
“You mentioned there was art?” I said.
“Arts-Kids isn’t here today,” Tina said.
“But I think you said there’s a nice display of their work.”
“Over here.” Tina said.
Carl and I followed Tina to a hallway that circled the library kiva. The artwork was quite expressive. Wide sweeps of watercolor interspersed with figures—human, animal, and fantasy. Each child’s name was written in the lower right hand corner of their paper. I looked for the one we wanted. Charlotte.
It was there—a watercolor with a tiny, tiny figure in one corner. Our noses almost touched the wall, as we strained to see. It was a headless cat with drops of blood cascading from the neck. I would’ve missed it, if I hadn’t been looking for it. In the other corner, surrounded by a field of red, was the cat’s tiny head. It had ears, a triangular nose, and tears descending from each eye.
“Is this Charlotte’s picture?” I asked Tina.
“Yes. A bit disturbing for a girl. She went through a tough spell about a month ago. Emotional. Teary. Wouldn’t join in. Not much better now.”
“Is she here today?”
“No. Her attendance has been spotty.”
I glanced at Carl.
He nodded.
I blathered on as Tina showed us the rest of the program. Children were working on computers; others were gathered around a nutritionist who was talking about carrots and celery.
We said our goodbyes and I walked out of the school in a daze.
Carl and I stopped on the sidewalk.
“Thanks,” Carl said. “You’ve been an amazing help.”
“You’re welcome,” I said, looking up at him. He wiped the tears from my eyes and saw me to my car. I drove away.
Carl brought home everything he learned about Charlotte and her family.
“They moved here about a year ago from a ranch that bordered the Ute Reservation,” he said. “When they lost the ranch to the bank, the father left for parts unknown. The mother got a job at the Resort but didn’t make it through the probationary period. She’s been fired from McDonald’s, too. She drinks. Heavily.
“I convinced a judge to order the release of the half-brother’s juvenile record. There were complaints against him at the age of ten. Shooting razor arrows at livestock. Strangling chickens. As a teen he slit the throats of a whole herd of goats. The biggest trouble was on the reservation where he killed eagles for their feathers. That’s a federal crime with a fine of twenty-five thousand dollars.”
“How could they afford that?”
“They couldn’t. That’s why they had a second mortgage,” he said. “With this background, I got a warrant to search their home at the West Side Apartments. We found a bloody shirt under the boy’s bed. Rachel Arbuthnot was able to link the blood on the shirt to Heather Desmond’s llamas.
“We also found the hunting knife and the corner of the kitchen where the cat was butchered. Blood had penetrated cracks in the tile floor. Rachel said it matched the cat’s blood type and its DNA. The blood under the cat’s nails matched the half-brother’s blood. The strand of hair in the suitcase was Charlotte’s.”
“That poor little girl,” I said. “What’s going to happen to her?”
“The intake with Children and Family Services has already taken place. She’s been placed in foster care, and she’s being interviewed by therapists at the Children’s Justice Center this week.”
“She’s just Jamie’s age, Carl. Imagine being torn away from her family, even a family like that, and going to live with perfect strangers.”
Carl hugged me. “I know, but don’t worry. The professionals can handle it, Tracy. It’s for the best.”
Case 5
Floating Away
Sassy Morgan wriggled her toes inside a of tub fragrant spearmint water. Her hand popped out from under Packing for Mars and reached for her cup of spearmint tea. A timer was ticking away but only I could see it.
“How much longer?” she asked.
“About ten minutes.”
“This book is hilarious, Tracy, I don’t want to put it down.”
I checked the temperature of the water and added more hot.
“All the tests to figure out how humans
will react to floating away in outer space. An astronaut thinks he’s going to vomit in his space suit, then gawks at the blue planet below him just as urine is dumped from the space ship. ‘What a sight to behold,’ he says.” Sassy giggled. “And it’s not just the anecdotes, it’s the writing. Mary Roach is a master wordsmith. Are you going to read the book?”
“I’m not sure I have time for a book club, Sassy.”
“Not even for the wine?”
Margaret Pyle belongs to a book club—only for the wine. I shook my head.
“That’s too bad, because I’m worried about something.”
“What?” I said.
“After everyone left book club last month I got ready for bed and my sleeping pills were gone. I have insomnia so I’ve been taking Ambien and the bottle had vanished. I couldn’t find it anywhere.”
“You think someone in book club took it?”
“That’s what I’m guessing.”
“Who?”
“I have no idea. I can’t imagine why anyone would take my pills. They can all just go to the doctor and get their own.”
My mind took an inventory of the faces circled around Sassy’s living room. Meryl Thompson, Candy Fiber, Orchid Fisher, Shelley Prothero, and the elegant woman in the designer dress.
Shelley. Surely not Shelley. She had looked like death warmed over that night, but we’d tackled her problem since then. Margaret was helping her negotiate the out-of-network charges at the hospital and the chiropractor, Barry Whiteside, had been indicted for insurance fraud. Why would Shelley resort to drugs? Besides there were ten other women who could have taken the pills.
“How long have you known everyone?” I asked.
“Seems like forever. I can’t believe any of them would steal.”
“I wonder if other hostesses have had this happen.”
“Not that I know of.”
“Why don’t you ask around?”
The timer dinged.
Sassy slipped on her sandals and padded over to the sink. The whooshing sound of the rinse water filled our ears. The plastic rollers clacked as they hit the porcelain. In the styling chair, I worked on her body waves in silence. When she was dry, her luxuriant curls cascaded halfway down her back. She left a big tip. I watched her glide out the front door into the summer day.
When I returned to my salon desk, I made notations in my Client Notebook: Ambien for insomnia, stolen pills at book club, floating away.
I’d heard that phrase before—floating away. Ralph Abramowicz from the Resort used it to describe the feeling of drug-induced euphoria. Was a member of Sassy’s book club floating away?
That night, after I read Jamie a story and finished the dishes, I slipped into bed with the handsomest, sexiest policeman on the planet.
“Tell me about prescription drug abuse,” I said.
“I’d rather talk about that teddy you’re wearing.” Carl fingered the lace around my bodice with one hand and slid the other one down the soft, white silk to my thigh. His hand disappeared under the teddy. We didn’t talk much after that.
In the morning, I leaned back on the pillows as he put on his Kevlar vest. “So tell me about prescription drug abuse.”
“Why do you want to know?”
“I have a customer who thinks a guest stole Ambien from her medicine cabinet.”
“Ambien’s a powerful drug. It’s a sedative that relieves anxiety so people can sleep. It’s not as habit-forming as Valium or Xanax. Did she report the theft to the police?”
“I don’t think so. She’s not sure who did it.”
“You’d be surprised what people do to get high.” He shrugged into his blue shirt. “I think it’s the number one problem with teens and young adults.”
“Why?”
“When kids combine alcohol with pills, they can die.”
I pondered this for a minute.
Carl pulled his firearm out of the safe and snugged it into the holster around his waist. “Then there’s suicide. Men settle for a gun, but women tend to end it with an overdose, especially young women in their twenties.”
“Not a pleasant thought for a nice day,” I said.
Carl strode over to the bed and kissed me fully on the mouth. “Have no fear—no suicides or drug overdoses for me today. The chief is making sure my Saturday is full of parking tickets and motorists with car trouble.”
“Just petty crimes and head cases,” I said. “For both of us.”
He laughed, but I knew Carl was annoyed—Chief Fort Dukes continued to ignore his application for the detective opening and it was bugging him.
My first appointment Saturday was with Noela Salazar, the director of the girls’ section of the Juvenile Justice Center. You’d never peg Noela for the job. She seems too little and too kind. But under her crisp pink shirtwaist, she has nerves of steel. I imagined the things she saw all day – teenage girls in the throes of hormonal changes, street kids with volatile personalities, young souls damaged from rape.
“How goes it, Noela?” I said.
She gave me a wan smile. A slightly upturned mouth. A brief raising of the eyebrows. “Fine.”
We repaired to my workroom and I draped her with a light pink cape. She looked like a mound of pink candy with a tarnished silver button on top. I began to cut.
Typically, Noela is not chatty. She keeps to herself. But that day, after a while, she spoke. “I heard something of interest yesterday, Tracy, and I wonder what you think of it.”
I snipped the steel-and-dark hairs at the base of Noela’s neck as she continued. “There was a conference at the Capitol and the keynote speaker was a physician. He said that if you wanted to design a culture that produces anxiety and is bad for the self-image of girls, you’d make it look like the United States.”
“Wow.” I stared at Noela in the mirror.
She returned my gaze. No drama. No facial commentary. Just a steady look.
“That’s quite the indictment,” I said. “Who was this guy?”
“Someone whose clinic helps people deal with stress.”
I returned to snipping.
“So what do you think,” she said. “Is he right?”
I felt flattered. A woman like Noela Salazar, who must have seen more stressful things in the last week than I saw that month, was asking me for my opinion. I was happy to oblige. “American girls measure their self-worth too much by their appearance. I should know—I make half my living off the supreme anxiety of teens who are having bad hair days.”
This prompted more of a smile than I had ever seen—a sliver, kind of like a crescent moon before it becomes new. The smile vanished and Noela said, “We’ve been seeing more young girls from well-to-do families who have low self-images.”
“How do they end up in juvenile court?”
“Drug offenses.”
“I suppose rich kids can buy any drug they want.”
“They’re not buying them; they’re stealing them from medicine cabinets.”
For a moment, all we could hear was the sound of my scissors.
“Drugs are a coping mechanism,” Noela said. “Some girls have learning disabilities and they struggle in school or they don’t handle social situations well. They want to feel better, so they get ahold of painkillers—Vicodin, OxyContin, Percocet.”
Just like Ralph Abramowicz. He came from a fairly wealthy family, too. I revolved Noela’s chair around and checked the hair length on each side. “What’s done for these girls?”
“We have a detox center in the facility. Unfortunately, the girls go through withdrawal. They get panic attacks. They throw up. One girl had a seizure. All of them are on suicide watch.”
I made a face and glanced at Noela in the mirror. Again, her serene eyes met mine.
“The mood swings are the toughest to deal with,” she said. “I have to hand it to my staff. They deliver the best, most compassionate tough love in the world.”
At that moment a voice screeched from the front of the sal
on and seconds later Candy Fiber dashed through the door of my workroom. She was wearing clogs and the clatter drowned out Noela’s next comment.
“I’m sorry, Noela. What did you say?”
I leaned down to hear and missed it again because Candy was shouting. “Tracy, you’ll never guess what I’ve got for you!”
She plunked down a cardboard display so tall Noela could no longer see her reflection in the mirror. The headline on the display said: “I lost ninety pounds with Blubber Burner! This diet delight is a Miracle!”
A picture of an absolutely humongous woman wearing flowered trousers dominated the left side of the cardboard. A svelte woman, wearing the same flowered trousers, dominated the right side. She stretched the waistband out about a foot to show how much weight she’d lost.
I compared the faces. Since one was scowling and the other was smiling, it was hard to tell if the two Miss Blubber Burners were really the same person.
Noela laughed for the first time in all the years I’d known her. “Such a character,” she said.
I didn’t know if Noela was talking about Miss Blubber Burner or Candy Fiber, but it didn’t really matter. Both were over the top.
“Tracy,” Noela said. “I think we’re finished here, aren’t we?”
“Pretty much.” I removed the neck towel and pink cape.
“Your hair looks nice,” Candy said to Noela. “But you look a little pale. Have you ever tried a dietary supplement?” Candy smiled her most winning smile.
Noela fluttered her hand and said in a voice Candy strained to hear. “Most diet supplements do not contain the ingredients advertised on the packaging.” Then she shouldered her purse. I marveled at her self-control. I wanted to grab that purse and brain Candy.
After I saw Noela out the door, I returned to my workroom where Candy had moved Miss Blubber Burner so she could see herself in the mirror. I’ve given up on telling Candy she is rude, obnoxious, and self-centered. Nothing penetrates. She has a narcissistic self-image, and that is another problem altogether.
“What are we doing today, Candy?” I asked.
“You know those green hair streaks you had the last time I was here?”
They were chartreuse. “Yes.”
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