by Meg O'Brien
I felt exasperated. “I don’t understand why you’re so down on Nia all of a sudden.”
“And I don’t understand why you’re so defensive about her. Do you want to find this killer, or not?”
“Of course I do! But you’re talking about someone I’ve known for almost four years and trust implicitly. I’m even hoping to take her on as a partner. Frankly, I think it’s crazy to try to implicate her.”
“I’m not implicating her, Mary Beth. I’m just covering all bases. We have to do that.”
“Maybe you and your fellow cops do, but I don’t,” I said, picking up my cup and putting it in the sink. “Look, I’m really tired tonight. Can’t we talk about this tomorrow?”
“Sure. I’ve got someplace to go anyway.”
He shoved the knitted cap back on, shrugged into his leather jacket, and headed for the front door.
“Really?” I said. “At this hour? It’s almost midnight.”
“Yes, at this hour. I’ve got a social life too, you know. And it’s personal.”
I gave him a look that would have shriveled anyone else. Unfortunately, it didn’t seem to have shriveled anything on Detective Dan Rucker. He was smiling.
In the morning, there was still no Lindy, nor any word from her. I lay awake a while thinking about what I should do, and finally I called Dan, reaching him on his cell phone.
“I didn’t think to tell you last night,” I said, “but Lindy left the night before last.”
“I know.”
“Of course you do,” I said. “So tell me, where did she go? I’ll bet you know that, too.”
“Took a red-eye to San Francisco. Not long after we had dinner at the Dinghy. You think I scared her off?”
“I’m not sure. It might have been me who asked too many questions. Anyway, I’m worried about her. Where did she go in San Francisco?”
“Can’t help you there, I’m afraid. The San Francisco police have too much on their plate to follow someone who hasn’t been charged with a crime.”
“Great. Well, can you at least give me her address in San Francisco? The one where she lived with Roger?”
“Why? You planning to go there?”
“I might be. Why not?”
“Because I heard the El Segundo police asked you not to leave town.”
“Yeah, well, it’s not like I took an oath not to. If they don’t want me to leave town, they should arrest me. But they haven’t, have they, because they don’t have any evidence against me.”
Dan sighed. “I can’t say about the evidence. But you’re certainly right that you haven’t been arrested.”
“So I can go anywhere I damn well please.”
“Uh-huh.”
“What does that mean?”
“Uh-huh?”
“No, the tone you said it in. Like I don’t know what I’m doing.”
“I was just thinking of Lindy’s husband. If he’s the one who broke into your house the other night, what’s he going to do if you show up at his?”
“I don’t plan to be there when he’s at home.”
“Plans don’t always work out the way we think they will,” he said.
“Look, I didn’t call you up so you could grouse at me!”
“Okay. Well, good luck. Call me on my cell if you need anything.”
“Wait, don’t hang up! I need the address of Roger and Lindy’s house.”
He sighed. “Give me five minutes. I’ll call you back.”
I hung up and began to pack my overnight bag, wondering if Dan was looking up the address in these five minutes or doing something else—something I wouldn’t like.
When he called back, though, he just gave me the address and wished me luck again.
I don’t know why I felt he was leaving something out.
It’s less than two hours in the air from L.A. to San Francisco, but if you factor in the shuttle to the airport, then the check-in and security lines, the trip can take five or six hours. In the same time, you can drive there. I considered that option, but just didn’t have the energy for it.
Not that flying helped much. I was exhausted by the time I arrived in San Francisco, and wanted to just flop on a bed and sleep. I knew I was far too tense to relax, though, so I checked in at a hotel I’d been to before, and changed into sweats. Then I went up to the gym on the top floor and worked out for a while. There’s a track in a circle around the workout area, and windows all the way around overlook the city—or the “City,” as locals call it, capital C. The view, night or day, is awesome. A lot of people hit the bars in this hotel for that view. But at eight to ten dollars for a glass of wine, free access to a gym is a hell of a lot cheaper.
Besides, I could think in relative peace and quiet here. There was only one other person at the gym, a man on an elliptical trainer, several rows behind me. He was probably in his thirties, and took no interest in me whatsoever. Which was fine, as all I wanted to do was plan my next step in my head.
I could call Roger and Lindy’s house, and ask if she was there. But that would alert whoever answered that I thought she might be on her way home. And that person—a maid or butler, most likely—might tell Roger and mess up Lindy’s visit with her baby.
I finally decided just to go over there, look for Roger’s car, and if it wasn’t anywhere around, I’d knock on the door. I’d tell whoever answered that I was an old friend from out of town and just thought I’d say hi to Lindy while I was there. The plan seemed relatively foolproof, I thought, stepping off the treadmill and wiping my face and neck with a towel.
So how come I didn’t remember that nothing is ever foolproof, and that chaos was now the rule of the day?
Lindy and Roger’s house was actually a mansion. Even in Pacific Heights, flanked by other mansions, it stood out among the rest. It had tall white columns and fifteen or twenty broad steps that led up to the porch from a well-groomed green lawn. I parked my rental car in front and went up to the door. Knocking, I waited. Finally I heard a rustling inside, and the sound of muffled footsteps.
A maid, dressed in traditional black with a white apron, answered the door.
“Hi,” I said. “I’m a friend of Lindy’s, and I’m sorry I didn’t call first, but I guess her number’s unlisted. I’m just in town for a few days and thought I’d stop by and say hello.”
The maid didn’t smile, nor did she budge an inch. She was young, with curves in all the right places and platinum hair.
I remembered maids like this from old 1930s Hollywood movies. Usually those films were about a woman with a lecher for a boss. I wondered if Roger sat in a nearby chair, watching every time she bent over, hoping for a peek. Or more.
But she was talking, telling me that Lindy Van Court didn’t live there.
“She doesn’t?” I said with false surprise.
I stepped back and looked at the address number over the door. “This is 245,” I said, feigning bewilderment. “I was sure I wrote the number down right. But of course, I took it from an old address book.”
The maid gave a slight shrug. “I’m new here. There might have been someone here by that name once, but she isn’t here now.”
“Oh. Is there a Roger Van Court living here, then?”
“Uh…yes,” the maid said cautiously. “I’m not sure he’s available right now.”
“He’s home, though?” My heart sank.
“Yes, but like I said—”
“That’s okay.” I backed away. “I really just wanted to say hi to Lindy. But if she doesn’t live here anymore…”
I turned and had one foot on the top step and a hand on the porch railing when an all-too-familiar voice came from behind me.
“Well, now, if it isn’t Mary Beth Conahan,” Roger said. “What on earth are you doing here?”
I looked back to see that the maid had withdrawn into the house and Roger had taken her place. He was heavier than when I’d last seen him, filling up half the open doorway. His hair had thinned and I was reminded of
how lucky I’d been not to marry this man. Aside from being essentially evil, he hadn’t even had the sense to maintain his good looks. Evil people, I thought, can get away with a lot if they’re good-looking. Take Bundy. Ugly evil people, though? They don’t stand a chance.
In a voice as steady as I could summon, I said, “Hello, Roger. I’m in town on business, and I was hoping to see Lindy. Your maid tells me she doesn’t live here anymore, though. I don’t get it. Did you two get a divorce?”
Roger folded his arms, and his eyes took on the beady look of a desert snake. “Oh, I think you do get it, Mary Beth. You get it all too well.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I asked. “Just say it, Roger. I’m in a hurry.”
“What it means,” he answered coldly, “is that you know very well that Lindy doesn’t live here anymore, and why. I’m sure she’s told you—her good friend—all about it.”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake! I haven’t seen Lindy since high school. When would she have told me anything?”
He smiled, and it was that same blank, icy smile I remembered from when he was raping me, his face over mine and his body crushing me so hard I thought I might stop breathing and die. My stomach heaved, and I tried not to show it.
“I know she’s in L.A.,” Roger said. “And I know she was at your house.”
“What makes you think that?” I countered. “Come to think of it, someone broke into my house the other night. Was that you, Roger?”
His laughter was harsh. “Me? I hope you know I have a bit more class than to burgle houses.”
“I know all about your class,” I said. “No, you wouldn’t burgle. Rape is more your style.”
I heard an indrawn breath from inside the doorway, and wondered if the maid had been there all along, listening. Roger started to look behind him, but then stepped outside and pulled the door shut.
“You bitch,” he said in a soft tone. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Getting senile, Roger? Or have you raped so many women, you can’t remember that one of them was me?”
“I never raped you,” he said in a low voice, his face flushing. “I never came near you, and if you tell anyone that I did, I’ll sue you for slander.”
“Sue ahead, then, because I’ll tell whoever the hell I want. In fact, I’ll countersue. Or I may just have you hauled away to prison.”
“Impossible.” But he began to look uncertain. “You have no proof. You’d lose.”
“Ah, but Roger, you have no proof that you didn’t do it. I wonder who they’ll believe.”
I longed to say that I’d had a baby nine months after the rape, and that her DNA would match that of the rapist who stood before me. But I no longer had my baby, and even if I did still have her, Roger could just say that I’d “asked for it.” Or worse, that getting together was my idea, and he was drunk and didn’t know what he was doing. He’d wiggle out of it somehow.
“I refuse to talk about this idiocy any longer,” Roger said angrily, reaching for the doorknob. “I don’t know why you came here, when you know very well that Lindy is in Los Angeles. My detectives tell me she’s been staying with you.”
“Really? And did they tell you she’s left my house and I don’t know where she is? Did they tell you she’s been living on the streets ever since you threw her out?”
“Don’t tell me you actually bought that story. It’s a good one, lots of the kind of high drama Lindy enjoys. Except that it’s not true.”
I hesitated, because I myself had wondered if she’d really been on the streets, just as Dan had.
Roger smiled. “I see you’ve had your doubts. Well, good for you. Lindy’s crazy, Mary Beth. She just recently got out of a mental hospital. Following in the footsteps of her nutcase mother.”
“I don’t believe you.”
He smiled again. “Well, it’s true.”
“You almost sound as if you’d be glad if it were,” I said.
“Not glad, not sad,” Roger said. “Whatever Lindy does, and wherever she is, doesn’t concern me anymore. It’s over.” He began to open the door, to go back in.
“So that’s why you have someone following her?” I said. “Because she doesn’t concern you anymore?”
It was a shot in the dark, but a look crossed his face that I couldn’t read, though I thought it might be a touch of fear. “You are even more annoying now than when you were playing Lois Lane on the school paper,” Roger said. “You’d do well to watch your back, Mary Beth. You know what they say about curiosity killing the cat.”
I felt a chill at the threat, but held my own. “I also know what they say about shining light into dark corners. That’s what journalists are supposed to do.”
“But you didn’t become a journalist, did you?” he said contemptuously. “You’re someone who makes a living off the skills of other people.”
“And you, Roger? How do you make your money? Off the blood of homeless people?”
His face turned dark red, and his right hand raised slightly, as if he was going to strike out and hit me. I was glad to be standing outside, rather than inside his house.
“You don’t know what you’re talking about, you fool. Did you hear that from Lindy? I told you, Mary Beth, the woman is certifiably crazy. She should be back in the hospital, and if I ever get my hands on her, that’s where I’ll put her. Tell her that, when you see her again. If she keeps ranting on and on about things that aren’t true, I’ll see she’s committed. And for good, this time.”
I left Pacific Heights with my head so full of thoughts, I hardly knew where I was going. I walked downhill for a while, then onto Lombard. Finally, near Fisherman’s Wharf, I jumped on a trolley that I knew would take me somewhere near my hotel at Union Square. The trolley rocked back and forth, and I hoped it would unjumble my brain, so I could figure all this out.
Was it true, what Roger had said? Had Lindy been committed to a mental institution at some time? And why? Was she really ill, while I had assumed she was just distraught and exhausted from having been through all the things she’d told me about with Roger and Jade?
Or had all of that been a fabrication, a web comprising truths, half-truths and lies, spun from a crazy mind?
Another possibility existed, of course. Roger could have had her put away to shut her up about his sales of defective drugs, and to keep her from interfering with Jade’s treatment. Surely he wouldn’t want anyone to find her credible if she did talk about those things.
I thought back about the way Lindy had behaved since she’d shown up at my house. A little bit flighty and airheaded, even at the restaurant when we met Dan. But she’d always been that way, with the exception of the booze. Lindy seemed to drink a lot now, whereas in the past she’d been airheaded all on her own.
And she’d done things at the Malibu Beach Inn that were stupid and dangerous, like going out for food and walking on the beach instead of staying inside. No wonder Roger had been able to find out where she was. Little Lindy Lou didn’t seem to be covering her tracks very well.
Could that, for some reason, have been deliberate? Did she want him to find her?
At this point, I tended to believe Lindy, though to be honest, I wasn’t exactly sure which story of hers to trust.
Back in the hotel gym, I worked out, trying to clear my head. To begin with, Lindy was living through some kind of hell now. I wondered if she could be in a postpartum depression since having her baby. Maybe that was why Roger had institutionalized her. Not that it was the right kind of help for her, but it might have helped him—a lot.
Marie Osmond had written in her book about getting into her car and driving off into the blue during her postpartum depression. Fortunately, she snapped out of it enough to call someone for help. But Lindy? Who would she have had to help her if her personality had begun to change because of the baby blues? Certainly not Roger, who wouldn’t have had the sensitivity of a brick.
And it wouldn’t be the first time a wom
an was locked up and called nuts when all she had was a medical problem. Postpartum depression might also explain why Lindy had been so careless at the Malibu Beach Inn. At a time when she should be afraid that Roger might find her, she had cast all caution to the winds.
Well, not all. She had made an attempt to disguise herself, but more like a female villain in a black-and-white Veronica Lake movie—towel around her head, sunglasses, and all. She must have stuck out like an old Hollywood ghost, crossing Pacific Coast Highway that day.
I sighed. Nothing Lindy did had made much sense in the two days she was with me, and why I still cared, I didn’t know. Maybe I just didn’t want Roger to win—to get away with anything anymore.
Even after a half hour of working out, I was strung as tight and tangled as last year’s Christmas lights. Back in my room, I dragged out the tote bag I’d brought with me and went through my assorted goody bag for something to help me sleep. Tension Tamer tea with passion flower, hops and chamomile? Too much trouble to heat the water. Ah…kava kava. That would do it. I slugged down a nice horse-pill-size capsule and was asleep within the hour.
It didn’t stop my dreams, though. They were of Lindy holding out her arms, pleading for her baby, tears streaming down her cheeks. When I awoke, I remembered something I’d pushed out of my mind in the past six years—myself, sitting in a hospital bed and holding my arms out that same way, my eyes filled with tears. “Please, let me just see her once. Once, that’s all. Let me hold her before you take her away.”
At least Lindy could still see her baby, if only with the help of the nanny. And if she got a good lawyer she might be able to use whatever evidence she gathered against Roger and his father to get her child back.
By the time I’d had my morning workout, then breakfast in the downstairs coffee shop, I had decided to come down on the side of Lindy, unless I found out that Roger was telling the truth about her. If nothing else, I might be able to help her baby—who seemed the one true innocent in all this.
It was a little after ten in the morning when I began to watch the house in Pacific Heights from across the street, well hidden by full-branching trees. The homes on this side were nearly all Victorians, strung together in colorful rows and with several steps up to the front door. I sat on the steps of one of them that looked unoccupied and waited there, hoping Lindy would appear. If she was ever going to see her child, I hoped it might be today. But even if she didn’t show, I’d be here tomorrow and the next day, if it took all week.