"Ma'am, we are trying to catch her murderer. "
"So you say. Seventy-five percent of the women killed by their abusers are killed as they are leaving them."
"Yes, ma'am," he said as politely as possible. He hadn't called for a lecture, and he was tempted to direct her attention to other statistics. For instance, how many times these women returned to their batterers after leaving them. He'd guess on average a half a dozen per woman. Maybe he'd read that somewhere. And how many of those women got restraining orders and then broke them and made contact with their supposed enemy? His wife, Caroline, had explained the psychology of it all once, or tried to. It still didn't make any sense to him.
"My information is that Jane Ferrar was a substance abuser."
"Drugs and alcohol are against our rules. They're often a big part of the overall problem."
"I'm sure they are," he said. "I'm also looking for another woman who was a victim of the same man."
"When we get these women in a room together to talk about their experience, it's as if they were all married to the same man. The men all use identical isolation tactics, repeated attacks to the women's self-esteem, unpredictable outbursts of anger followed by physical abuse."
He held up a palm, translating the gesture into his tone of voice. "I'm not arguing with you. I'm one of the good guys."
She made no response.
"This woman's name is Stacy Lansford. As I said, she's a previous victim of our prime suspect. I'm very concerned about her. In fact, we're about to file a missing person report." He hoped the ploy would pry some bit of confirmation out of her.
Janet Moriarity didn't sound the least bit fazed by his announcement. The most she would agree to do was post a notice on the various bulletin boards, and if Stacy Lansford was around, and if she saw the notice, and if she chose to respond, he would hear from her. The notices could be delivered to the outreach office in Santa Monica and Janet Moriarity would see to their distribution from there.
St. John wasn't optimistic. Stacy Lansford had been missing in action for four years. The odds were slim that she would still be availing herself of a shelter unless she was still in the horrible back-and-forth phase before breaking free. He composed a flyer asking for information about Stacy Lansford and Jane Ferrar, explaining in candid terms that he was a homicide detective hoping to bring Jane's murderer to justice and that any information about Jane's whereabouts prior to her death would be most helpful to his investigation. He made it clear that Stacy Lansford was not a suspect and that anyone contacting him could do so with complete anonymity He included his telephone number and a photograph of Jane, made ten copies, and took them to the outreach office in Santa Monica.
* * *
Nathan arrived at Munch's work a little after three. Munch didn't see who had dropped him off. She looked up to see him swaggering her way He stopped to give a car the right of way and then spit on the cement as it passed him out the driveway. She shook her head, remembering how Deb spit all the time and how cool and tough it had seemed when they were teenagers.
"Don't do that," she said now as Nathan got within hailing distance.
"What?"
"It's crude."
"You want me to swallow it?"
"Just don't make such a point of it."
"Whatever." He squinted at the passing traffic.
"Did you get paid?"
He patted his pocket by way of answering.
"Well, let's go check out your new car. " Munch grabbed the key off the Peg-Board above the service desk and led Nathan around the side of the shop to where a white Honda Civic was parked. Nathan approached the car reverently, spreading his large hands over the hood as if to assure himself it was real.
"What do you think?"
"Totally rad."
She lifted the hood, pleased he was so happy. "Let me show you a few things. This is the dipstick for the crankcase and here's the brake fluid. Don't rely on the coolant level in the overflow bottle; once a week check the radiator, but always when it's cold." She walked him around to the trunk and showed him where the spare tire and jack were stowed, then explained how to use them.
"I've got lots of spare parts from the old engine if anything goes wrong"
"This is a new engine?" he asked.
"New used. I buy them cheap. I've been doing this for years: buying cars with mechanical problems, fixing them up, and then selling them. A few months ago I bought another Honda I thought just needed a valve job. I had already bought the car and was manually rotating the engine by turning the crankshaft pulley and then I saw something move from where I shouldn't have been able to."
"What was it?"
"The piston moving up and down. There was a big hole in the block I hadn't seen before. Now I'm fucked, uh, screwed, because the engine is history I started looking in the Recycler and I see all these ads for used Japanese engines, I mean, like, cheap. A hundred dollars on average. I found out that in Japan when the cars get thirty thousand miles on them they have to get a new engine. It's their smog law. So anyway they ship all the good used engines by the tanker over here. Cost me less to swap out the engine than it would have to do a valve job and I wound up with a better product. Of course, you don't know how well the previous owner took care of his car, but for a hundred bucks it's worth the gamble."
Nathan nodded throughout her recital. "Awesome," was his only comment.
She gave him the ownership certificate, which had already been signed off, the registration, a smog certificate, and a bill of sale for one hundred dollars.
"You're going to need to pay sales tax when you register it in your name, so I had to put something down. I've only had this car a week, so it's still in the last owner's name. I'll drive over to the DMV with you today if you want. Did you call that guy about insurance?"
"Not yet." .
"You're going to have to have liability at least before I can give you the keys."
"I'm going to do it."
"C'mon, you can use the phone in the office."
She pocketed the keys and he followed her around the front of the building. "I talked to your mom last night."
"Oh yeah?"
"I told her you were working. She said she was real proud of you."
Nathan beamed.
It always astonished Munch how a person could be the worst parent in the world and still be loved, how the parent's praise or any little nod of approval would be cherished. And the worse they were, the fewer crumbs it took to make their kids happy In fact, some of the sweetest-natured kids she knew had junkies for mommies and daddies.
"She told me how much she missed you. You should write her. "
"I'll call her tonight."
"That's awfully expensive. I hate to see you burn up all your paycheck on my phone bill."
"No, it's cool," he said. "I've got a credit card number to use."
"That's not going to happen."
"Why not?"
"It's stealing."
"No, here's the thing. It's a big company. They won't even notice."
"Not the point."
"Man," he said, looking exasperated.
"Listen, I'm going to need you to watch Asia tonight. You do that for me and you can make one quick call to your mom. Sound like a plan?"
"Sure. And, uh, Munch? Thanks for everything" l
"I'm happy to do it."
They reached the office. Nathan called the insurance company. When Asia's school bus arrived at four-thirty, the three of them drove to the Department of Motor Vehicles after first stopping at the insurance office and picking up Nathan's insurance certificate. The only problem came when the guy wanted to sign Nathan up for a year. They finally came to an agreement whereby Nathan paid for three months now and would pay the balance in May.
One day at a time, Munch thought.
Chapter 14
That night, Munch gave Rico Chac6n's number to Nathan. The two kids were sitting on the couch watching a show called Family Ties. Asia let Nath
an hold the "cartooner," which had been Munch's and Asia's word for the remote control for as long as either of them could remember. Asia absorbed the show with her jaw dropped open. Nathan seemed equally enthralled.
Munch had scrubbed her hands raw, put on makeup, and sprayed her throat with Charlie perfume. She had on boots, which she wore outside her jeans, and a sheer polka-dot blouse under her bomber jacket. When she bent down to kiss Asia good-bye, the little girl wrinkled her nose.
"You don't smell like you."
Munch was a little surprised, never thinking of herself as having a particular scent. She imagined it was most likely petroleum-based.
"You don't like my perfume?" she asked. "Doesn't it smell like flowers?"
Asia waved her hand in front of her face. "It's kinda strong."
"You're hurting my feelings," Munch said, imitating Asia's I'm-about-to-cry voice.
Asia pretended to faint into the cushions. "Somebody open a window."
"I like it," Nathan said, shoving her shoulder playfully.
"Thank you. I'm glad to see someone in this house has some manners."
Asia coughed by way of answer.
Munch squeezed Asia's toes. "I'll see you all later."
She arrived at Rico's at eight-thirty.
He answered his door barefoot, smelling of warm soap. She hoped he would kiss her right there, under his porch light, in front of God and everybody Instead he pulled her inside and shut the door. Then the kisses started. They barely spoke for the first hour.
Several more hours passed, until finally they parted—each lying spread-eagle on the bed, the bed-sheets in a hopeless tangle. She expected the mirror on the closet to be dulled by their steam.
Munch's clothes lay in a heap on the floor. Traffic on the street had quieted to the occasional car, the buses having stopped running at midnight. She glanced at the clock on his nightstand, shocked to see it was after one.
She rolled on her side and snuggled into him.
"Tell me something you're ashamed of," she said. Her hand rested on his bare chest. His heart sped up a beat, even though his breathing stopped for a moment.
"Where did that come from?" `
"You told me once you'd done things, things you weren't proud of. Tell me one."
He gripped her fingers and squeezed gently. His eyes were on the ceiling. "Okay," he said after a few seconds. "There was this one time, when I was on patrol, I did a traffic stop on this kid. He gave me his license, but I forgot to give it back to him. A week later I see the same kid, and I pull him over again. This time I give him a ticket for driving without a license. About a month goes by, maybe more. I see the same kid, only now the ticket has gone to warrant, so I arrest him."
"That's it?"
"Pretty shitty don't you think?"
"I guess." She twirled the hair that grew in the cleft of his pecs. There was a glass of now-melted ice on the nightstand. He had brought the cubes in earlier and used them to trace the outlines of her overheated body. She didn't ask him where he'd learned that
trick.
She always felt as if she was holding her breath around him. The tension was close to unbearable. There were times she almost envied his ex-wife. At least she knew where she stood with him.
"Now you," he said.
The first thing that came to mind blocked out everything else and of course it was the very thing she couldn't tell him-probably ever. When all was said and done he was an officer of the court and her confession would put him in an impossible position. She didn't want to do that to either of them. Finally she shoved that one memory aside and thought of something to share—an experience of equal value, equal depth, equal candor. "It was a work thing. I've got this nice young rich couple that comes in. She's beautiful; he just got promoted to president of the company"
"What's the company?"
"I don't know, but she has a gray-market Mercedes, and he has a Porsche." She pronounced it as a one-syllable word. It sounded too snooty the other way Pretentious. "Anyhow, her air conditioning went out. She needed a hose, and it was a dealer item. "
"Which means?"
"No after-market manufacturer. You're pretty much stuck going to Mercedes and paying their price. We double whatever our cost is when we rebill. Carlos was doing the work and he told me the cost of the part so I could call the lady and sell the job. Only he gave me the list cost, and I thought he was giving me the wholesale price. So I double it and tell the lady this astronomical amount it's going to take to fix her car.
"Her husband calls me, and I explain that those hoses are expensive, and what are you going to do. He gives me the go-ahead. I knew he would. He wasn't going to let his wife run around without air-conditioning.
"I realized the mistake while I still had time to correct it, but I never did. I keep telling myself that I'll make it up to the lady on another job."
"You can't tell her now," he said. "I don't think Lou would be very happy about giving them a refund."
"The real truth is l don't want them to know I cheated them."
"It was an honest mistake. These things happen everywhere." Case closed, his tone said.
She rolled on her back, feeling alone.
"You cold?" he asked.
Before she could respond, he took her face in both his hands and kissed her deeply His tongue was insistent, demanding, and she answered him in kind until he was the first to pull away.
"Just checking," he said.
"Still here," she managed to say
He lifted his head and looked at the clock on his nightstand. "You hungry?"
She giggled. "Starved."
"C'mon," he said, pulling her to her feet.
Rico walked across the living room naked, moonlight reflecting on his damp skin. He seemed as comfortable with his clothes off as on. She slipped on his T-shirt, rich with the scent of his sweat, and followed him to the kitchen.
She knew she'd follow him anywhere. Resolution number one thousand and eight: Get to know a guy before you screw him. Sex shouldn't be one of your screening devices to see if you like him, especially if he's as good a lover as Rico. Not that she believed he was this good with anyone else. What they had was personal chemistry like none she'd ever experienced. She saw it in his face too. The way he looked at her with the same mixture of surprise and wonder.
A woman could lose herself easily for that payoff at the end of the day—overlook things she shouldn't. Once, at a women's stag AA meeting, they all started talking about orgasms. A few of the women confessed that they didn't understand what the big deal was, and they were looked upon with sympathy Munch asked for a show of hands and discovered that a huge majority of those who had had orgasms during sex were still with the man responsible.
Passing the plate-glass window in the living room, she caught a glimpse of her hair. It was teased into twice its usual volume, curled by hours of sawing against first the pillows, then the mattress, the carpet, and finally back up on the bed again. The skin on her back and butt glowed warmly with rug rash. She imagined his knees felt the same.
Rico opened the refrigerator and pulled out a plate of roast chicken.
"I responded to an armed robbery call this one time at a chicken place on El Cajon." He tore off a chunk of white meat and offered it to her. "We got there as one of the guys was running out the back. He pulled out a gun. I pulled out mine and fired. Afterward, I went up to make sure he was dead. I pulled his mask back and saw his face. I wished I'd never done that." He stood there for a minute, lost in the memory.
Then he asked, "You ever have food poisoning?"
She thought a minute. She'd been dope-sick enough times and was told that was close. "Yeah."
"That's what I felt like for two weeks afterward. I still dream about it."
Munch walked over to the sink, ripped two paper towels off the roll on the dispenser, and handed him a one. What she really wanted to do was to step right into him, to be absorbed by him.
Rico tore off a drumstick
and bit into it.
"Is that another thing you're ashamed of?" she asked.
He looked at her and she watched that change take place, the stony expression that hardened his features when he went into cop mode.
"Not ashamed, no."
"But something you wished had never happened."
"I tell myself the guy was a punk"
"I know, you had to do it." What she really thought was that some people needed killing. He probably would agree with her, but she didn't think he'd be comfortable with her saying it first. Attitudes like that don't make for good wife material. She realized she had put on her saleswoman hat, but she was selling a product whose qualities she could merely guess at. Her only guide was to ask herself, What would Caroline St. J0hn say?
He put the chicken away without asking her if she wanted more. "C'mon, we need some sleep or we'll be dead meat tomorrow."
Head on his pillow, his arms holding her, she closed her eyes reluctantly. The minutes they spent together were precious. She had never been so unleashed in bed, nor had such a hungry innovative lover. She lived to drain him, to make him spend it all on her so he'd have nothing left for his other girlfriend, that Kathy chick. She hated to waste any part of the night with him on sleep. Now she propped herself up on an elbow so that she was facing him in the dark.
"When Nathan was little, like about four or five, we were all out partying one night."
"Nathan?"
"The kid who's staying with me."
"Oh, right, him." Rico took no pains to hide his disapproval.
"You haven't even met this kid."
"I don't have to and I don't want to."
This attitude of his, his complete confidence that he had a situation sized up and was accurate in his judgment, was at times appealing, but more often frustrating. A lot of cops she knew—well, the two anyway—seemed to have this quality. Mace St. John evaluated people quickly and definitively He was usually right, which didn't help when she found herself on the other end of the argument, trying to prove that people changed sometimes or deserved a second chance. There was an Italian expression for it: testa dura. Hard head.
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