Billy Straight: A Novel (Petra Connor)

by Jonathan Kellerman

  Stu said, “The address reminds me—just a few blocks from Chasen’s. Which they’re tearing down in order to build a shopping center.”

  “Aw gee,” said Petra. “No more celebrity dinners for us, pard.”

  “I actually got to go there once,” he said. “Handled security for a wedding reception, big entertainment lawyer’s daughter, major stars all over the place.”

  “I didn’t know you did that kind of thing.” Also.

  “Years ago. Mostly it was a drag. That time, though, at Chasen’s, was okay. They fed me. Chili, ribs, steak. Great place, class atmosphere. Reagan’s favorite restaurant . . . all right, you’ll take the Thai maid and notify the parents, I’ll try to figure out a way of discreetly asking some industry types about Ramsey, run DMV on the Mercedes, check back with the coroner and the techs before I go home. If they come up with any good forensics, I’ll let you know. So far so good?”

  “I’ll also call the phone company, pull Lisa’s records.”

  “Good idea.”

  Basic procedure.

  “Stu, if Ramsey is the guy, how can we touch him?”

  No answer.

  Petra said, “I guess what I’m saying is what’s the chance of something like this improving the quality of our lives? And how do we do our best by Lisa?”

  He fooled with his hair, straightened his rep tie.

  “Just take it step by step,” he finally said. “Do the best we can. Just like what I tell my kids about school.”

  “We’re just kids on this one?”

  “In a way.”

  CHAPTER

  11

  The monkeys are the worst screamers. It’s only 6 A.M. and they’re already complaining.

  In four hours the zoo will open. I’ve been up here when it’s full of people, heard mostly noise, but sometimes I catch words, like little kids, whining for something. “Ice scream!” “Lions!”

  When people are in the zoo, the animals get quiet, but at night they really go at it—listen to those monkeys screech—and here’s another one, deep, something heavy and tired, maybe a rhino. Like, Let me out of here! We’re stuck here ’cause of people; don’t people suck?

  If they did ever get out, the carnivores would go straight for the herbivores, the slow ones, the weak ones, killing and eating them and picking at the bones.

  About a month ago, I explored the barbed wire fence around the zoo, found a gate up on top, above Africa. A sign said ZOO PERSONNEL ONLY—GATE TO BE LOCKED AT ALL TIMES, and there was a lock on it but it was left open. I took it off, walked through, put it back, found myself in this parking lot full of little tan dune-buggy things the zoo people drive around in. Across the lot were some buildings that smelled like animal shit, with cement floors that had just been hosed down. On the other side were more thick plants and a pathway with another sign: AUTHORIZED ACCESS ONLY.

  I made like I belonged and walked right into the zoo, climbed into the big walk-in birdcage with all the people, saw the little kids whining. Then I checked out the whole zoo. I had a pretty good time that day, studying and reading the signs that teach about their natural habitats and diets and endangered species. I saw a two-headed king snake in the reptile house. No one looked at me weird. For the first time in a long time I felt relaxed and normal.

  I’d brought some of my money roll with me and bought a frozen banana and caramel corn and a Coke. I ate too fast and got a stomachache, but it didn’t matter; it was like a clear patch of blue sky had opened up in my brain.

  Maybe I’ll try to get in today.

  Maybe I shouldn’t. I need to make sure I’m not an endangered species.

  I can’t stop thinking of that woman, what the guy did to her.

  Horrible, horrible, the way he hugged her, chuck chuck. Why would anyone want to do that?

  Why would God allow it?

  My stomach starts to kill and I take five deep breaths to quiet it down.

  Walking all night my feet didn’t hurt too much, but now they do and my sneakers feel tight. I pull them off; also my socks. I must be growing; the shoes have been getting tighter for a while. They’re old, the ones I came with, and the soles have thin spots, almost worn through.

  I’ll give my feet some air, wiggle my toes before I unroll my plastic.

  Ahh . . . that feels good.

  There’s no water up in Five for bathing. Wouldn’t it be cool to get into the zoo, jump in the sea lion tank and flip around? The sea lions, freaking out, not knowing what’s going on—I have to control myself not to laugh out loud.

  I stink from piss. I hate stinking, don’t want to turn into one of those shopping-cart guys; you can smell them a block away.

  I always loved to shower, but after Moron moved in, the hot water was always gone. Not because he used it. Mom wanted to smell good for him, so she started taking half an hour in the shower, then putting on perfume spray, the works.

  Why would she want to impress him? Why would she want to be with all those losers?

  I’ve spent a lot of time wondering about that and the only thing I keep coming back to is she doesn’t like herself very much.

  I know that’s true, because when she breaks something or makes any kind of mistake, like cutting herself shaving her legs, she cusses herself out, calls herself names. I’ve heard her crying at night, drunk or stoned, calling herself names. Not so much since Moron moved in, because he threatens to smack her.

  I used to go into the bedroom and sit next to her, touch her hair, say, “What’s the matter, Mom?” But she always moved away from me and said, “Nothing, nothing,” sounding angry, so I stopped trying.

  Then one day I realized she was crying about me. About having me without planning to, trying to raise me, figuring she wasn’t much good at it.

  I was her sadness.

  I thought about that for a long time, too, decided my best bet was to learn as much as possible so I could get a good career and be able to take care of myself and her. Also, maybe if she saw I was doing okay, she wouldn’t feel like such a failure.

  The sun is up all the way, hot and orange through the trees. I’m really tired, but there’s no way I’m going to be able to sleep. Time to unroll the plastic.

  I use plastic dry cleaning bags to wrap and carry things and to protect them from rain and dirt. Each sheet is printed with a warning that babies can suffocate in them and they’re thin, easy to tear. But if you layer them three at a time, they’re really strong and excellent for protection. Mostly I find them in the trash, keep them rolled up in all five Places, under rocks, my cave, wherever.

  One good thing about Five is a tree: a huge eucalyptus tree with round, silver-blue leaves that smell like cough drops. I know it’s a eucalyptus because that time in the zoo I went to the koala house and it was full of exactly the same species and they were labeled EUCALYPTUS POLYANTHEMUS: SILVER DOLLAR GUM. The sign said koalas ate eucalyptus polyanthemus, could live off them, and I wondered what it would be like if I got stuck up in Five with nothing to eat but trees. I asked a zoo girl, and she smiled and said she didn’t know but she preferred hamburgers.

  This particular tree has a trunk so thick I can barely reach around it, and branches droop down, touch the ground, keep going. Inside, it’s like being in a silver-blue cloud, and hidden behind the branches, right next to the trunk is a big, flat gray rock. It looks heavier than it is and I can lift it and prop something underneath it to keep it partly open, the way you jack up a tire. It didn’t take long to scoop out dirt and create a hiding hole. Once the rock’s back down, it works like a trapdoor.

  Lifting it now is a little harder, because my arms are sore from carrying my Place Two stuff all night, but I use one of my shoes to prop up the rock and pull out my Five stuff wrapped in plastic: two pairs of Calvin Klein underwear that I got last month at a Los Feliz yard sale, too big, with LARRY R. inked inside the waistband; after I soaked them in the Fern Dell stream, they came out gray but clean. A spare flashlight and two AA batteries; an unopened
package of beef jerky that I took from a Pink Dot on Sunset. A half-gallon bottle of Coke and an unopened box of Honey Nut Cheerios that I bought the next day at the same market ’cause I felt bad about taking the jerky. Some old magazines I found behind someone’s house on Argyle Street—Westways, People, Reader’s Digest—and the old 1-percent-fat Knudsen milk carton that I use to keep pens and pencils, folders, rolled-up notebook paper, and other stuff in.

  There’s a boy’s face on the carton, a black kid named Rudolfo Hawkins who was kidnapped five years ago. The picture is from when he was six years old, and it shows him wearing a white shirt and tie and smiling, like at a birthday party or some other special occasion.

  It says he was kidnapped by his father in Compton, California, but could be in Scranton, Pennsylvania, or Detroit, Michigan. I used to look at the picture and wonder what happened to him. After five years he’s probably okay . . . at least it was his father and not some pervert.

  Maybe he’s back in Compton with his mother.

  I’ve thought about Mom looking for me, and can’t get it straight in my head if she is.

  When I was young—five, six—she used to tell me she loved me, we were some pair, just us against the fucking world. Then her drinking and doping got more intense and she paid less and less attention to me. Once Moron moved in, I became invisible.

  So would she look for me?

  Even if she wanted to, would she know how, not being educated?

  Moron would be a problem. He’d say something like, “Fuck, the little prick split, Sharla. He didn’t give a shit, fuck him—gimme those nachos.”

  But even without Moron, I can’t get it straight how Mom would feel. Maybe she’s sad I left, maybe angry.

  Or maybe she’s relieved. She never planned to have me. I guess she did the best with what she had.

  I know she took good care of me in the beginning, because I’ve seen pictures of when I was a baby that she keeps in an envelope in a drawer in the kitchen and I look healthy and happy. We both do. They’re from Christmas, there’s a tree full of lights and she’s holding me up like some trophy, with a great big smile on her face. Like, Hey, look what I got for Christmas.

  My birthday’s August tenth, so that would make me four and a half months old. I have a gross, fat face with pink cheeks and no hair. Mom is pale and skinny and she’s got me dressed up in a stupid blue sailor suit. She’s wearing the widest smile I’ve ever seen her wear, so some of her happiness must have been because of me, at least at the beginning.

  Because her parents died in that car crash before I was born, what else would make her smile like that?

  On the back of the photos are stickers that say GOOD SHEPHERD SANCTUARY, MODESTO, CALIFORNIA. I asked her about it, and she said it was a Catholic place, and even though we’re not Catholic, we lived there when I was a baby. When I tried to ask her more about it, she grabbed the pictures away and said it wasn’t important.

  That night she cried for a long time and I read my Jacques Cousteau book to block out the sound.

  I must have made her happy back then.

  Enough of this stupid stuff, time to unroll the Place Two plastic, here we go—toothbrush and Colgate gel, free samples I got out of someone’s mailbox, no name on it, just RESIDENT, so it really didn’t belong to anyone. Another pair of underpants, out of a garbage can behind one of the huge houses at the foot of the park, a bunch of the ketchup and mustard and mayonnaise packets taken from restaurants. My books—

  Only one book. Algebra.

  Where’s the presidents book from the library? Got to be somewhere inside the plastic; I used three layers . . . no, not here. Did it fall out when I unpacked?—no . . . did I drop it nearby?

  I get up, look.

  Nothing.

  I backtrack for a while.

  No presidents book.

  I must have dropped it in the dark.

  Oh no. Shit. I was planning to give it back one day.

  Now I am a thief.

  CHAPTER

  12

  Stu dropped Petra off behind the station and drove off.

  Back at her desk, she called Cleveland information for a backup work number for Dr. Boehlinger at Washington University Hospital. The home number was in the book, too. Maybe folks were more trusting in Chagrin Falls.

  She dialed, got a woman’s recorded voice.

  The time difference made it afternoon in Ohio. Was Mrs. Boehlinger out shopping? Some surprise Petra would have for her. She visualized Lisa’s mother shrieking, sobbing, maybe throwing up.

  She remembered Ramsey’s show of grief, the nearly dry eyes. Bad actor unable to produce copious tears?

  The Boehlingers’ tape machine beeped. Not the time to leave a message. She hung up and tried the hospital. Dr. Boehlinger’s office was closed, and a page produced no response.

  Feeling no relief, only an ordeal postponed, she called the phone company and went through a couple of supervisors before finding a sympathetic voice. Lots of paperwork would be necessary for a full year’s worth of Lisa’s records, but the woman promised to fax over the latest bill when she found it. Petra thanked her, then she drove to Doheny Drive, ready for Lisa’s maid, Patsy Whateverhernamewas.

  Sunset was clogged and she took Cahuenga south to Beverly Boulevard and got a clearer sail. As she drove, she played one of her private games, composing a mental picture of the Thai maid: young, tiny, cute, barely able to speak English. Sitting in another cream-colored room, terrified of all the cops who were playing strong and silent, not telling her a thing.

  The building on Doheny was ten stories tall and shaped like a boomerang. The lobby was small, four walls of gold-streaked mirror, some plants, and mock Louis XIV chairs guarded by a nervous-looking young Iranian in a blue blazer name-tagged A. RAMZISADEH, kept company by a uniform. Petra showed her badge and inspected the two closed-circuit TVs on the desk. Black-and-white long view of hallways, nothing moving, the picture shifting every few seconds.

  The guard shook her hand limply. “Terrible. Poor Miss Boehlinger. It would never happen here.”

  Petra clucked sympathetically. “When’s the last time you saw her, sir?”

  “I think yesterday—she come home from work six P.M.”

  “Not today?”

  “No, sorry.”

  “How’d she leave without your seeing her?”

  “Each floor has two elevator. One to the front, one to the back. The back lead down to garage.”

  “Straight down to the garage?”

  “Most people call down to have car brought around.”

  “But Ms. Boehlinger didn’t.”

  “No, she always drive herself. Go straight to the garage.”

  Petra tapped one of the TV monitors. “Does the closed-circuit scan the garage?”

  “Sure, look.” Ramzisadeh indicated a slowly scanning black-and-white view of parked cars. Murky spaces, glints of grille and bumper.

  “There,” he said.

  “Do you keep tapes?”

  “No, no tapes.”

  “So there’d be no way to know exactly when Ms. Boehlinger left?”

  “No, Officer.”

  Petra walked to the elevator and the cop tagged along. “Big help, huh?” He pushed the button. “Up at the top. Ten-seventeen.”

  The door to Lisa Ramsey’s apartment was closed but unlocked, and when Petra walked in she saw the maid sitting on the edge of a couch. The physical similarity to Petra’s mental image threw her so hard she almost lost her balance. Ten points on the ESP meter.

  Patricia Kasempitakpong was five-one, tops, maybe a hundred pounds, with a pretty heart-shaped face under a thick mop of long, layered ebony hair. She wore a beige cotton knit top, blue jeans, and black flats. The sofa was as overstuffed as those in Cart Ramsey’s house. But not cream—Petra’s prophecy-fest ended there.

  Lisa Ramsey’s apartment was a study in color. Red and blue velvet couches with tasseled skirts, parquet floors stained black, a zebra-skin rug thrown ac
ross the wood. A real zebra rug; the animal’s head pointed toward a black glass vase filled with yellow daffodils.

  From what Petra could see, the apartment was small, the kitchen just a cubby of white lacquered wood and gray tile counters. The ceilings were low and flat. Basically the place was just another L.A. box. But the tenth-floor-corner location and sliding glass doors gave it fantastic views of the west side, all the way to the ocean. Beyond the door was a skimpy balcony. No furniture; no potted palms. A cigar of smog floated above the horizon.

  Two uniforms were enjoying the view, and they turned to Petra just long enough to see her flash the badge. On the wall behind Patricia Kasemwhatever was a black metal shelving unit housing black stereo equipment and a twenty-five-inch TV.

  No books.

  Petra hadn’t seen any in Ramsey’s place, either. Nothing like common apathy as the basis for a relationship.

  The hard-edged color scheme suggested that Lisa had tired of pastels. Or maybe she’d never liked them in the first place.

  Had cream and pink been Ramsey’s idea of tasteful? Interesting.

  She smiled at Patricia, and Patricia just stared. Petra went over to her and sat down.

  “Hi.”

  The maid was scared, but loosened up after a while. Fluent English; American-born. (“Don’t even bother with my name; they call me Patsy K.”) She’d only worked two months for Lisa, couldn’t see how she could help.

  A one-hour interview produced nothing juicy.

  Lisa had never said why she’d left Ramsey, nor had the domestic-violence episode come up. She had mentioned once that he was too old for her, that marrying him had been a mistake. The maid slept in the spare bedroom, kept the place clean, ran errands. Lisa was a great boss, Lisa always paid on time, was neat and tidy herself. A “real neat person.”

  Patsy K. had no trouble crying.

  On the subject of spousal support, the maid said Lisa received a monthly check from a firm called Player’s Management.