by Meg O'Brien
Silently, I groaned, wondering how hot it really does get in Death Valley.
“Your turn, Mary Beth,” Dan said, jarring me back to the moment at hand.
I focused and realized the waiter was looking at me, pencil poised and ready to take my order.
“Filet mignon, please,” I said. I didn’t know if Dan was paying or I’d have to, but I figured what the hell. This might be my last good meal.
“I’d like it with no sign of blood on the plate,” I added. “Baked potato. Salad with blue cheese. Coffee.”
“Would you folks like to order a bottle of wine?” the waiter asked.
Lindy opened her mouth to jump right in, but I beat her to it again. She’d already indulged too much this afternoon, and the last thing I wanted was a comatose Lindy sliding under the table into a crumpled pink mess on the restaurant floor. I flicked a glance at Dan and saw by his expression that he agreed.
“I don’t know about you ladies,” he said, “but I prefer after-dinner drinks, so my appetite isn’t spoiled. Of course, Lindy, if you would really like wine now…”
I thought she might die trying not to blurt out, “Yes, hook me up to an IV!” But Lindy always had been a geisha type, doing whatever pleased the boy she was with—right on down to copying him as closely as possible, so that he’d think she was his “type.” She also had a reputation for giving boys anything they wanted, so afraid was she to say no and lose the heartthrob of the moment.
I don’t mean that to be as critical as it sounds. The truth is, I always wished I could be a bit more like Lindy. Playing the game, gathering the flies in with honey.
“You’re absolutely right, Dan,” Lindy said quickly. “Drinking with a meal just spoils it. Besides, it makes me hungry and then I eat more, and I really have to watch my waistline.” She smoothed her hands over her tiny waist, which served to accentuate her breasts.
I took my jacket off and tried to stick out my chest while laying the jacket along the back of the booth.
Nobody noticed.
“All right, then!” Dan smiled, leaning his elbows on the table and looking for all the world relaxed in a brown leather jacket, white shirt and no tie. “So, Lindy. How long are you here for?”
“I…I’m leaving tomorrow,” she said, looking at me as if she wasn’t sure if she’d said too much.
I just smiled.
“That’s too bad,” Dan said. “Don’t you like our little town?”
“Little town? Los Angeles?” she said, smiling playfully.
“I guess it tends to seem small now that I’ve been here a while,” he answered. “Are you on vacation or business?”
Lindy looked at me again, and I gave a small shrug. How much she told him was up to her.
“I’m on vacation,” she said. “I need to get back to San Francisco soon, though.”
“Well, like I said, too bad. I’d have enjoyed showing you around. Do you have a husband waiting, then? Kids?”
She didn’t answer immediately, and I thought he’d gone too far.
“I don’t—” she began.
“Dan,” I broke in, laughing, “you are the most curious man I’ve ever met. Quit with the questions, okay?”
“Sorry. You’re right.” He smiled and leaned back, resting his arms along the back of the booth so that the tips of his fingers lightly touched Lindy’s back. My jacket fell on the floor. A cute young waiter picked it up and I batted my eyelashes at him, saying, “Thanks.” He looked at me as if I had a Tourette’s tic, and backed off.
“I really am sorry, Lindy,” Dan was saying. “If you don’t want to tell me about your family, that’s perfectly understandable.”
“No, it’s all right! I don’t mind,” she said quickly. “I just…well, my husband and I are separated.”
“Oh, I’m sorry to hear that,” Dan said. Then he grinned. “Well, sort of. Since that’s the case, maybe you’ll let me show you around town after all? How about after dinner?”
Lindy blushed—actually blushed—which made her eyes bright, her face pink, and her overall look beautiful. Even her lines had disappeared, and the difference between us was monumental.
Well, didn’t you plan it that way? my inner Jiminy Cricket whispered. Listen, he’s nothing to you. A one-night stand, that’s all. And look at him, falling all over little Lindy Lou, like any other hungry male in the world.
Lindy excused herself then to go to the rest room. She asked me if I wanted to go with her, but I was more interested in talking to Dan alone.
“Okay, what is all this about?” I said when she’d gone. “She hasn’t told you a thing about herself that I couldn’t have told you as well.”
“I’m sure you’re right,” he said. “And that’s what it was all about.”
“Huh?”
“I wanted to see if she’d be open, or act like she was covering up something. Now I know.”
“Know what?”
“That she’s covering up something. In fact, I think she’s hiding a pretty big secret,” he said, buttering a huge, flaky roll. “And you know what it is, don’t you?”
I didn’t answer. There was no way I was going to break Lindy’s confidence, even with Dan.
“Okay, forget that,” he said. “The point is, she wants something from you.”
“Oh? Why do you say that?”
“You don’t think she showed up at your place after all these years by coincidence, do you?”
“No. But she was on the streets and getting desperate.”
“Mary Beth, that woman has not been on the streets. I’d stake my badge on it.”
“Okay. In a way, you’re right. She admitted she’s been staying in old, run-down motels.”
He shook his head. “Maybe. But she doesn’t have that beaten-down attitude, the hopelessness people get when they’re on the skids.”
“You didn’t see her when she first came to my house. She’s better now because she’s had food and a decent place to stay.”
“The Malibu Beach Inn? Yes, and wasn’t that a bit of a stretch, even for an old friend?”
“I wanted her safe,” I argued. “Just for today, while I was at work. Besides, how did you know she was at the Malibu Beach Inn?”
“I told you I knew where she was,” he said.
“I haven’t forgotten. My question was, how did you know? Have you been having us followed?”
He didn’t answer.
“Why?” I asked. “Why on earth would you—” I shook my head, understanding coming on like a hard slam. “Is that why you slept with me, too? To see how much I know about those murders? It is, isn’t it?”
“Would you believe me if I said the murders had nothing to do with it and liking you had everything to do with it?” he asked, reaching for my hand.
I pulled away. “Save the fake charm. It might have worked on Lindy, but that’s only because she wants to believe you really care.”
“And you don’t? Want to believe it, I mean?”
“I’m only here because you promised to tell me about the status of the, uh…bodies. So?”
“So, they won’t be available for a couple more days. I’ll let you know.”
“Why the holdup? I thought it didn’t take that long anymore.”
“Well, they’re running tox screens, and that takes a while.”
“Tox screens? For poisons?”
He shrugged.
“I thought their deaths were caused by blows to their foreheads.”
“That may have just been a final touch, so to speak. A decoy of sorts.”
“Meaning?”
“It could have been a way to make it look as if they were gay murders, when they were really about something else entirely.”
“And that’s why your buddies in blue are looking at me now? Because of my connection to each of the victims? They’re not really buying the gay-murder angle, and none of the three men had family who might have done them in, which is usually the first place you look. In fact, I was the
closest to each of them.”
I sat thinking a moment. “Listen, I didn’t do it, whether you or anyone else believes me or not. That means someone else did.”
“So,” Dan asked, “why do people murder authors?”
“Could be anything. But how about because they’re writing something the murderer doesn’t want made public? An exposé of some kind? Something horribly embarrassing that might even ruin their lives.”
I remembered, suddenly, Craig’s manuscript on the desk in his motel room. Not the one I’d thought he was writing, but some kind of Hollywood tell-all. The manuscript had fled my mind after finding Craig dead, but now I wanted another look at it. Maybe it held a clue.
“What are you thinking?” Dan asked.
“I’m not sure,” I said. “Ask me again later.”
“Okay. Tell me about Lindy’s husband, then.”
“Roger? I guess it depends on whose side of the story you want—his or mine.”
“I’ll take yours—for now,” he said.
“Gee, thanks. Well, the short version is this. I had a crush on Roger in high school. I thought he was wonderful. Now I know better.”
“What changed your opinion?”
“Let’s just say Roger is a violent man who drinks too much and doesn’t really like women, though he pretends to be a playboy.”
“Hmm.” Dan went silent a few moments. “Did he hurt you?”
I looked away. “He hurt Lindy.”
“Yeah, but he hurt you, too, right?”
I almost denied it. But then I thought, who better to ask the question that was bothering me. “If I ask you something, will you keep it confidential? It’s not anything to do with this case. It’s personal.”
He hesitated only a moment. “Okay,” he said, though his eyes were wary. “But if it turns out it’s connected to these murders—”
“It’s not. Trust me. Just tell me what the statute of limitations is on rape.”
“In California? Ten years now. It was raised from six to ten a few years ago, when—” His eyes narrowed. “Why? Is that what Roger Van Court did to you?”
“It was a long time ago,” I said, glancing toward the rest rooms. “And Lindy doesn’t know a thing about it, so please don’t ask me anything more. Just take my word for it, Roger Van Court is bad news.”
“All right,” Dan said. “I won’t ask you about it now. But I want to know about it. Soon.”
“There’s really not that much to tell,” I said. “It happened, it’s over, and it doesn’t matter anymore.”
“Like hell it doesn’t.”
His eyes were so angry, I had to look away. “Listen, all I meant to say was that it might have been Roger who broke into my house and took a shot at Lindy and me. Or maybe just at Lindy. I wouldn’t have put it past him.”
“You don’t really believe it was a burglar, then?”
“I honestly don’t know what to believe. I’ve been trying to convince myself it was a burglar for Lindy’s sake. But my deepest instinct tells me it was Roger—or at least, someone he hired to do it. I just don’t know why he’d want either of us dead. He’s already thrown Lindy out of their house. And if I’d wanted to hurt him, I could’ve done it years ago.”
Lindy came back to the table then, and I changed the subject quickly. As she slid into the booth I smiled and said, “I didn’t think to tell you this, but Dan is a detective on the LAPD. We’ve been trying to figure out who murdered my ex-husband and my authors. Right now the El Segundo PD is pointing its finger of fate at me. At least for Craig’s murder.”
“But if you didn’t do anything, they can’t have anything on you,” Lindy argued.
“Tell that,” I said, “to all the people who’ve been executed for murder and then exonerated by DNA that proved they were innocent.”
Dan cleared his throat. “I didn’t plan to mention this tonight, Mary Beth,” he said, looking down at his hands and avoiding my eyes. “But we need you to come in and give us a DNA sample.”
“Oh?” I hadn’t missed the “we” rather than “they.” So Detective Rucker was now putting himself and the LAPD on one side of the fence, and me on the other, eh?
That cast a pall over the table, at least for me. While I sat staring at my cold steak, wondering if there was some way I could choke to death on it without some buttinsky Samaritan jumping up and saving me with the Heimlich maneuver, Lindy made the best of my pink dress and her renewed golden-haired beauty by flirting with Dan.
It certainly wasn’t my night.
After dinner, I checked Lindy out of the Malibu Beach Inn and brought her home with me. I’d expected some sulking about that, but she surprised me by being willing. I didn’t think there would be another break-in and I figured that for the night, at least, we’d be safe at my house. As for tomorrow, I’d made reservations on a flight to San Francisco for both of us, leaving at eight in the morning. Now I needed to inform Lindy of this and tell her about my plan.
After getting into comfortable sweats, we sat on the couch drinking hot chocolate, and I told her what I thought we should do about her situation and getting Jade out of the house. Lindy nodded now and then, but she was half-asleep from two warm after-dinner Amarettos at the restaurant. I had to work to keep her on track.
“You aren’t going to mess this up, are you?” I asked. “You don’t seem entirely committed.”
Lindy looked down at her hands and picked at her cuticles, as if that was an important job she had to do. Finally she gave a shrug and let her hands lie in her lap.
“I guess I’m worried about what will happen if something goes wrong,” she said. “I’m not as brave as people who are homeless all the time, Mary Beth. There were some nights when I had to stay in shelters instead of hotels, to save money, and it was scary there. Especially at night. If I have to go through that again…”
I covered her hands with one of my own. “You won’t. I promise. No matter what happens with Roger, you and your baby will be all right. I’ll make sure of that.”
How I would manage it, I didn’t know, but Lindy seemed reassured. “You really think we can make this work?”
“Yes. I’m sure of it.”
She started to cry, huge tears rolling down her cheeks that she mopped at with her sleeve. “This is so kind of you, Mary Beth. You don’t owe me anything, after all these years of us not even talking to each other. I just—” She hiccupped.
“Let’s not even think about that. The most important thing is Jade. Right?”
She nodded and said tearfully, “Right.”
To stop her from crying, I said, “Tell me about her.”
“Jade?” Lindy brightened immediately. “Oh, Mary Beth! She’s the most beautiful baby in the whole world! I’ve loved every minute with her, watching her do funny things and play with toys I’ve bought her. And you know what? She’s really, really smart. Not at all like me.”
I began to say something reassuring, but she shook her head. “No, you don’t have to say anything. I know I’m not really stupid. But I played my way through school and didn’t retain a thing, even in college. Now Jade, she’s already showing signs of being different. She’s going to be real smart, Mary Beth. Oh, God, I miss her so much.”
I pictured Lindy with her baby and felt an overpowering rush of sadness for the loss of mine. I should never have asked her what her child was like, but I’d opened the floodgates now.
“I bought her one of those pretty little stardust dresses,” Lindy went on. “The kind with a full pink skirt and bits of glitter on it. You should have seen it. She really was a little princess. And you know what? I found a really beautiful dress for a dollar in a thrift store, and it’s hardly worn. It reminds me of that other one, and I can’t wait to see her in it.”
Her voice was rushed and jerky, something I remembered from years ago when she was holding something back.
“Lindy? I have to ask you a question. Don’t be upset, okay?”
She glanced at me q
uickly, on her face a look of apprehension.
“Have you really been on the streets?” I asked. “Or even in motels and shelters?”
“I told you—”
“I know. I just thought you might have been somewhere else.”
Her blue eyes widened. “Like where?”
“I don’t know. Maybe like hiding out somewhere in San Francisco?”
Her face paled. “God, no, Mary Beth! Why ever would you say that?”
“It’s just hard to imagine you on the streets, even for three weeks. And now that I know about your baby, I thought that you might have found someone after all, a friend, maybe, to stay with up there. So you’d be closer to Jade, I mean. It really doesn’t seem to make sense that you came all the way down here just to ask for my help.”
Lindy’s eyes grew hard. “I can’t believe you think I’ve been lying! It’s that cop, isn’t it? Dan. He said I was hiding something, didn’t he? And you believed him!”
I tried to remain calm, hoping it would calm her, too. These emotional ups and downs when she had too much alcohol in her system were something else I remembered about Lindy.
“It wasn’t just Dan,” I said quietly. “Lindy, I’ve known you for so long, and it doesn’t seem as if you’d let this happen to you.”
She jumped up and began to pace. “Listen, Mary Beth, I don’t think you know me as well as you think you do. Roger, either. You have no idea what he’s capable of, and you don’t have a clue how strong I am. I can take care of myself when I have to! And believe me, I’ve had to!”
“Okay,” I said softly. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have assumed—”
She stopped pacing and faced me with her hands on her hips. “See, that’s the trouble with you, Mary Beth. You assume a lot of things about people that aren’t even true. You always did.”
“I’m really sorry,” I said again. “You’re right. I shouldn’t have thought I knew you that well anymore.”