“Luisa. What in the world...” Roberta began.
“Are you sick, Luisa?” Angie struggled to her feet and rushed across the room. She reached out to touch Luisa’s forehead but, without speaking, Luisa pushed the hand away. Too stunned to give meaning to the gesture, Angie reached down and wrapped Luisa in a tight embrace and could just as well have been holding a corpse. She shuddered at the thought, wiped her hands on her pants legs, and backed away.
“She’s been like that since you all left. And where did you go, by the way? Why did you rush off like that?” Carole Ann pushed herself upright and stood staring down at Roberta.
“We went to see if they were dead. One of ‘em was and one was gone, so we dumped the dead one in a ditch and cleaned up the mess and put your car in the garage.”
None of them was prepared for the explosion that followed. Even Luisa roused herself. Carole Ann screamed and cursed and pounded walls and tables with her fists. They’d disturbed a crime scene. They’d tampered with evidence. They’d obstructed justice. They’d committed any number of felonies, compounding the felony that Carole Ann herself had committed. All of which could result in immediate disbarment for Carole Ann, who just happened to be an officer of the court. “I’m sitting in here like an asshole waiting for you two to return so I could call the police, and you’re out there turning the key to my cell door! How could you do something so incredibly stupid! I’m going to jail! Maybe forever! I’ll certainly never practice law again. Not in California. What in the hell were you thinking! What have you done to me?”
They watched her in silent amazement, awed by the power of her fury and uncertain how to accept such behavior from their child. Her own mother was mesmerized by the transformation. This incarnation of her daughter she’d never seen: Cold, brutal, violent. This daughter, so different even from the one who just moments ago had readily killed in defense of her. This mother now didn’t recognize her own daughter. What was the difference between the two? Grayce looked up at the raving, stalking Carole Ann and saw an absence of love. Saw a Carole Ann who was a stranger.
Then, as suddenly as it manifested, the apparition crumbled and disappeared. Whatever had been supporting the Carole Ann that was a stranger drained away and she collapsed onto the sofa, limp and weak and vulnerable.
“I don’t understand what’s happening here. I don’t understand how any of this could be happening. What have I done? What am I going to do? I don’t know what I’m going to do.” She leaned forward, her head so far between her knees that it almost touched the floor. She hung there, barely breathing, not moving.
Roberta took a step toward Carole Ann, and stopped. She reached toward her, then quickly withdrew her hand as if she expected to be burned. She opened her mouth three times before words were formed. And then, when they came, the words made no sense. They were just words, not thoughts or sentences or feelings.
Grayce reached out to her. “Ssshhh, Bert,” she said in a caressing tone, as if she were soothing an upset child. “Be quiet now, Bert.”
Roberta stopped babbling and there was an instant of pure silence before sirens split the air and pounding rattled the doorframe. Simultaneous assaults on the senses and emotions froze them. They sat motionless, the five of them, unable and unwilling to respond. The pounding intensified, accompanied this time by angry shouts.
“This is the police! Open the door!”
Carole Ann responded at the cellular, molecular level. She stood quickly and by the time she reached the door, her mind and emotions were clear. She released the two top locks and began to turn the bottom handle when the door swung in against her with such force that she was propelled backward into the hallway wall. Two uniformed officers rode the wave of force into the small space, momentarily confining Carole Ann behind the door. The two officers strode into the living room. Carole Ann slammed the front door and followed them.
“What do you want?” The unconcealed, quiet fury in her tone caused the larger of the two uniforms to turn on her, and she saw that he was accustomed to using his size to control people and circumstances. He was tall, three or four inches over six feet, and broad. He’d be called fat in a couple of years. He took a menacing step toward her.
“You shut your mouth, lady, and keep it shut until I tell you to open it.”
“I am an officer of the court, California Bar Number 000 123, and I am putting you on notice right now that your conduct violates—”
He cut her off with a snarl that almost succeeded in its intent. “I said shut up!”
Carole Ann’s eyes narrowed to nasty slits and she leaned forward, toward him. “I don’t take orders from thugs. Whether they’re wearing gang colors or blue uniforms.”
He blinked, swallowed, and backed up a step and his partner stepped into the breech. He was not as tall as his partner, and much thinner.
“We’re investigating a murder and we’d appreciate any help you people can give us.” His eyes held Carole Ann’s and she swallowed her fury.
“What murder?” she asked.
“There’s a body in the ditch out behind this house . . .” he began, but stopped at the sound of moans and gasps and weeping. They turned their attention from Carole Ann to four women huddled on the sofa. They focused their attention on Grayce.
“What happened to her?” the big, surly one growled and moved toward the sofa. Grayce winced and cowered and that sight rekindled the burning anger within Carole Ann.
“What do you care?” she snapped at him, and watched with a small degree of satisfaction as he fought to control himself.
“I got a newly dead body down the hill from this house, and I got her in here with her face bashed in and still bleeding, and I wonder if the two things are connected.”
No one moved or spoke or otherwise acknowledged having heard his words, and both officers shifted uneasily in the dense but strangely calm silence.
“Did you report this assault?”
“What would be the point of that, Officer MacDougall?” Carole Ann took a step toward him, hands clenched into fists at her sides. “I left four messages for you concerning an earlier homicide here. My mother found the body. That’s my mother over there with the bashed-in face, by the way. You never returned her calls or mine. Concerning a homicide. Why would we call you concerning a simple assault?”
Recognition registered all over his broad face, and the red flush followed the recognition. He was breathing quickly and beginning to sweat. His body strained the fabric of his uniform. He still was more muscle than fat, but the fat was gaining ground and would take control in a couple of years. The drink showed in his face and in the slowness of his mental processes. Carole Ann studied him, assessed him, measured him, and concluded that he wasn’t motivated enough to make his suspicions of them a sticking point tonight and for that she was grateful. She needed time.
She’d already decided that she wasn’t confessing to murder tonight, and certainly not to Howard MacDougall and his partner, ever. The queasiness roiling in her intestines now had less to do with the attack on her mother and her own commission of a violent crime and more to do with the fact that the police were investigating a homicide Carole Ann was certain no resident of Jacaranda Estates had reported. Not only did they know of the homicide, they knew the location of the body. And only Roberta and Angie knew where he lay.
MacDougall’s partner, P. Schindler, confirmed Carole Ann’s worst suspicions and validated her decision when he said, “It now seems that three people were assaulted here tonight, if we count your mother. Any assistance you people can—”
MacDougall cut him off with a look that would have frozen spit and removed all traces of lingering doubt and guilt from Carole Ann’s conscience. She had taken a life and she certainly would claim ownership of her crime and accept the consequences, but she would not do so behind a veil of possible criminality constructed by the Los Angeles Police Department itself. She’d surrender to the FBI if necessary, but befo
re she sacrificed her effectiveness, she intended to uncover whatever secrets Jacaranda Estates was hiding. And once again she felt the chill of isolation, the loneliness of being without a place. For how could this place be her home, her safe haven, and have secrets from her?
Her decision made, she escorted Officers MacDougall and Schindler to the door, triple-locked it behind them, and went into the kitchen and activated the sprinkler system for the backyard.
CHAPTER NINE
She listened to Jake Graham breathe into the receiver. Listened for what seemed like hours. She tried to picture him and found that she could not conjure up an image of him, of how he looked at this moment. She’d expected him to explode, to curse, to berate her, to chastise her, and she’d prepared herself for that; had been awake all night reliving the horror and preparing herself to receive his anger. She’d even prepared herself for his refusal to help and had prepared herself to beg for that help. But she was not prepared for his silence and did not understand how to accept it. So she held the telephone and listened to him breathe.
“I’m speechless,” he said finally.
“I noticed,” she replied, and waited again.
“I don’t know what to say to you, C.A.”
So she listened to him breathe for a while longer, until her own breath constricted and caused pain. “I didn’t know what else to do, Jake. I was so frightened.”
“Frightened? You were frightened?”
Something in his tone lifted Carole Ann a few notches out of her slump. “Yes, I was frightened,” she replied, a shade shy of defensively. “My mother was beaten. I heard her moan in pain. I’ve never experienced such fear. Then the police seemed to know everything when logically there’s no way they could know. And to contemplate the implications of that created a new kind of fear. And I just didn’t know what to do.”
“You just made me speechless all over again. I was sitting here picturing you the worst kind of mad. Mad enough to kill and cover it up. Now you tell me you’re scared, and that I can’t picture.” And he got quiet again, recalling the night he’d told her husband was dead, the victim of what at the time appeared to be a random street mugging. He recalled her strength that night, and he recalled the anger that grew inside her and fueled her hunt for her husband’s killers to the point that she risked her own life in the process. He recalled her year in mourning, her grief and loneliness so deep he prayed for relief for her. He’d seen this woman who’d come to be his friend display a variety of powerful emotions. He’d never seen her frightened. But he embraced her right to be, if for no other reason than he, too, shuddered to think what the behavior of the L.A. police as so far described could portend.
“Will you help me, Jake?”
“I’m already on it,” he growled, sounding like himself. “I got the stuff you sent by FedEx and I’ve got somebody looking for that Jennings character, and for any of the other guy’s ... what’s his name? ...Jamilla, for any of his survivors. Until something breaks, I want you to sit tight.”
“Jake.” She tried to slow him down, to deflect him, because she knew that he was primed and ready to roll over her and flatten her like ten miles of rural highway.
“You listen to me, C.A. I want you to stay in the house. Don’t go anywhere. And don’t let that wrecking crew out of your sight, especially that Roberta. And keep an eye on that Luisa. She sounds like she’s about to crack. Don’t let the cops near your mother and don’t you go near the cops. Don’t let anybody in and don’t you go out. Not until I tell you. In fact, don’t even answer the telephone—”
“We have to answer the phone, Jake!”
“Then screen the calls first. I don’t want you talking to the press or to the cops. Did you download your computer, or is what you sent me still in the hard drive?”
“Yeah, it is.”
“Then clean it out! And send me the disc.”
“You told me not to go anywhere,” she muttered through clenched teeth then stopped short, her breath caught in her throat.
Jake heard. “What? What is it?”
She cradled her head in her hands, then squeezed her eyes shut. “It’s in the car. In the trunk. The computer and the file. The copies of everything I sent you.”
Jake cursed for a while. “Well, we’ll have to take our chances. Leave it there for now. And stay put until I call you. You got that, C.A.?”
“I liked you better when you were quiet,” Carole Ann snapped at him.
“So does my wife,” he snapped back.
“She’s stuck with you,” Carole Ann retorted, not kindly.
“So are you,” Jake replied with similar unkindness, and ended their conversation.
The staying-put part was easy. Carole Ann was emotionally, physically, and spiritually depleted; and even had she not been, Grayce was too sick and in too much pain for Carole Ann to contemplate leaving her mother alone even for a moment. Keeping Roberta and Angelique tethered proved quite a bit more difficult once they’d all passed a night and were into the next day. They kept wanting to go get things for Grayce: Herbs and teas and fresh juices and a fruit tart from her favorite bakery and videos and magazines and books.
They finally accepted that Grayce didn’t want to do anything but sleep, so they took turns sitting by her bed watching her, providing Carole Ann with the opportunity to pump them individually for information about the history of Jacaranda Estates in general, and about Luisa in particular, Luisa being of particular concern since she had yet to make an appearance—odd behavior on a normal day, and inconceivable on this day when Grayce was lying wounded in body and spirit. And what she learned was disturbing, as much because Luisa had an abusive grandson as because that fact had been kept from her.
“No need for you to know,” Roberta told her in the tone of voice she reserved for Carole Ann the child. “Besides,” she added, peering at Carole Ann over the tops of her glasses—an interesting feat since they were full-sized trifocal lenses and not half-frame reading glasses—“something like that doesn’t just come up in casual conversation.” And the flatness of her tone warned against pursuit of the topic.
Roberta was much more forthcoming in discussing the history of Jacaranda Estates and its two founding partners, having had a warm and mutually respectful relationship with Enrique Jamilla, and a long-term friendship with Arthur Jennings and his wife. She’d been invited to the weddings of the Jennings children, and all the Jennings had attended her husband, Charlie’s, funeral. “But that was years ago,” she said with the kind of sigh that yearns for the return of some long-ago time and place. “Before they started spending more and more time out of the country.”
“Where?”
“One of the islands,” Roberta responded absently. “Not one of the more familiar ones. A-something. Starts with an A”
“Antigua?” asked Carole Ann hopefully. “Aruba?”
“No. Leave me alone about it and it’ll come to me. My brain doesn’t like being pushed. You know that.” Roberta bristled and assumed the hunched-shoulder posture that signaled her readiness to defend herself.
Carole Ann grinned and the older woman relaxed and they talked easily and wistfully about the old days, Roberta doing most of the talking, until, like a preschooler, she could sit still no longer and bounced up to “go check on Grayce.”
Carole Ann watched her go, then went into the kitchen and, after a moment’s indecision, opted to brew tea instead of coffee, wishing while the water boiled that she’d been more receptive to Al’s suggestions that she learn meditation techniques. She desperately needed for her mind to slow down and quiet, so that she could order her thoughts, and so that she could sleep; she’d been awake the entire night. She gave up on the tea, returned to the sofa, and stretched out, wanting to give in to the fatigue. But her frantic brain kept replaying the jerky images of the attack of her mother and of her attack on the attackers. And her conscience reminded her over and over that she’d killed a man. Killed him and partic
ipated in a cover-up of the crime.
And, she realized, she’d been steeling herself for Roberta’s rehashing of the event. But Roberta had said not a word, had behaved as if last night never happened. And that gave her something else to worry about: in addition to what was wrong with Luisa, what was wrong with Roberta? The woman never passed up an opportunity to worry a subject to death.
And speaking of Luisa, Goddammit, where the hell was she! Suddenly Carole Ann jumped to her feet and in an almost single motion she grabbed keys off the table, lunged to the front door, and swung it open. Nothing seemed as important just then as talking to Luisa and finding out why she wasn’t there. She was outside in a surprisingly gray and cool day before she remembered Jake’s admonition to “stay put.” Well, it was too late now. She was running, not fiat out and hard, but at a good clip, and she looked around her as her feet slapped against the cobblestones. No sign of cops. Or of anyone else. The entire complex seemed deserted. The pallor of the day added to the sense of isolation and desolation she felt inside.
She reached Luisa’s and began to frown even before she knocked on the door; and the lack of response to her hard raps, which had become pounding, confirmed that the abandoned-looking house was, indeed, empty. And not just gone-to-the-store empty but the cold, hollow emptiness of long-term absence. Carole Ann was furious. How could Luisa leave Grayce at a time like this? And without telling anyone? She kicked the door hard enough to leave an indentation in too-weathered wood.
“What the hell is wrong with her?” Carole Ann muttered curses to herself as she headed back home, running slower but keeping a steady pace and a careful eye out for cops. “Where could she be? What could make her stay away in the middle of a crisis?” She was still asking herself out-loud questions when she inserted the key into Grayce’s lock. Before she could turn it, the door jerked open and Angie snatched her inside.
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