by April Smith
I walk up the steps, past a ficus tree, toward the crystal chandelier so out of reach. I am stopped again by a cop.
“Where is it?”
“The bathroom.”
Your knees go weak but you go ahead anyway, knowing that what you will see will be awful. Randall Eberhardt made sure it would be as awful as possible.
First I see the metal gas tank rolling back and forth on the silver travertine marble floor. A plastic tube attached to the tank leads over the side of the oversize spa tub. You have to walk right up and lean over to see that the tubing leads to a hole in a plastic bag which he placed over his head. The face has turned blue from cyanosis, a small amount of vomit adheres the purple lips to the inside of the bag. The well-muscled naked body, also a bluish pallor, floats in eight inches of clear water. The gas tank rolls with an empty ringing sound on the cold marble as the body subtly shifts in the water. Lined up neatly around the outside of the tub are children’s bath toys—yellow rubber ducks and red pails with holes for pouring—all of it lit incongruously by warm afternoon sunlight streaming innocently through the bathroom window.
The crime scene guys are putting their triangular markers next to all the relevant objects: the small tank marked Nitrogen, the empty bottle of Valium—a prescription with Claire Eberhardt’s name on it—near the sink. The forensic photographer asks me to step aside so they can get the wide-angle view. I look at Randall Eberhardt’s nakedness floating in its marble sepulchre and it seems to be the effigy of all of our nakednesses—Violeta Alvarado’s, mine, Tom’s, and Maureen’s—and I am ashamed to be the one who has survived to look at it, the way I was ashamed to see my cousin in death. Then, suddenly, I am overwhelmed by an inconsolable heartbreak, as if that underground source of my own grief had split rock and geysered a thousand feet into the air.
I stumble back down the stairs and spot the new widow alone in the living room.
I sit on the sofa beside her and introduce myself as Special Agent Ana Grey.
“Have we met?”
Lying, “No.”
Her legs are crossed, ankles hooked around each other, arms holding herself entwined around the waist of her white tennis skirt.
“The police think it’s a suicide, but that isn’t true.” She snorts and kicks her twisted legs. “Randall would never kill himself.”
“What do you think happened?”
“Somebody murdered him and made it look like suicide.”
She is tearless, indignant, but looking down in that peculiar walleyed way.
“Terrible things have been happening to us. He’s been falsely accused, he’s been hounded, his professional reputation has been attacked. If somebody could do that to us for no reason, none at all, couldn’t they do this?”
“The police will complete a full investigation and an autopsy. Then you’ll know.”
She shakes her head. “They’ll cover it up.”
Her reaction is not uncommon in families where there has been a self-inflicted death. Denial. Paranoia. She can’t let go of it. Of course she can’t.
“If my husband were going to kill himself he would have used a gun.” One hand has gotten loose from her waist and is flapping side to side. “He just bought a gun because of all the robberies in the neighborhood. Doesn’t that make more sense?”
She is so encouraged by the logic of her theory that I let her believe in it for a while.
“He must have been murdered because otherwise he would have used a gun. Will the FBI get involved in that part of it?”
“I don’t think so, ma’am.”
“But he didn’t kill himself!”
Gently and firmly, “It looks a lot like he did.”
She stares at me a long time as if her ability to speak has become unplugged.
On the coffee table in front of us is a tennis racquet and white sweater and a pile of mail which she must have dropped coming in. On the cover of a catalogue from Saks Fifth Avenue is a picture of Jayne Mason’s face surrounded by yellow petals and the words “Jayne Mason Introduces Yellow Rose Cosmetics. Meet the star in person at our Beverly Hills store.”
There is the image of Jayne Mason’s perfect dewy face emerging from a pool covered with yellow blossoms.
Superimpose: Randall Eberhardt’s dead blue face inside a plastic bag … and what do you get?
“I’m very sorry for your loss.” I get up and walk out.
At the far corner of the bright street, Laura and the little Chilean grandmother are coming toward the house. Laura is riding a tricycle, the housekeeper pushing the baby in a stroller. Startled to see the police, the housekeeper puts her hand out to stop the child but she is already pedaling as fast as she can toward all the excitement, a look of anticipation on her simple face.
I too was five years old that night in Santa Monica when my father left forever. I turn around and thread my way back through the curious crowd, unlocking the door to the G-ride and wondering if, like me, Laura will teach herself to forget this day and everything that goes with it, and how long that kind of forgetting can last.
• • •
Once the freeways clear the drive out to Simi Valley only takes forty-five minutes, especially when you’re doing a steady seventy-five miles an hour. It is ten at night. The top is down on the Barracuda and I don’t care anymore.
Donnato’s house is one of a hundred in some new development, tract houses of the nineties with round windows that are supposed to make them look interesting. The only interesting thing about Simi Valley is the way it is backed up against the mountains, the very last finger-scrapes of the Los Angeles sprawl clawing its way north—you can’t get any farther from urban downtown. A lot of people still keep animals out here—horse people and breeders of Abyssinian cats who like to believe in their own freedom.
Donnato’s house looks cozy and domestic with the lights on and the garage doors closed for the night. I walk up and press the chimes. His wife opens the door. She is very attractive. A scuba instructor. Smart. Going to law school. But I don’t care.
“Hi, Rochelle. Sorry to bother you.”
“Ana! What’s the matter?”
“Small emergency. Is Mike in?”
“Sure. Can I get you anything?”
“No, but thanks.”
The air conditioning is on. The place has that plastic closed-in smell of new carpeting and new kitchen cabinets with cheap veneer.
Donnato comes downstairs quickly.
“Galloway’s calling everybody in.”
Donnato catches my eyes and holds them and sees the entreaty, and I believe his decision to go with me right then, to acquiesce to whatever crazy need has driven me out there, is the single most tender thing anyone has ever done for me.
“I’ll go up and change.” He’s wearing sweats.
“You don’t have to. It’s a stakeout in Inglewood, not a dinner-dance,” I say in a suddenly hoarse voice.
Donnato takes his gun belt from a locked box in the closet and grabs a heavy parka. His wife kisses him.
“Be careful, sweetie.”
“Always.”
We head out the door. “Nice to see you, Ana, except for the circumstances.”
I smile and wave.
We are outside. The door closes. We climb into the Barracuda.
I screech away from the curb with unnecessary violence. Donnato has shrugged into the parka and placed the gun down on the floor near his feet. He knows perfectly well there is no stakeout.
“She set the doctor up in order to sell lipstick.”
I don’t say anything else until we have driven through all the blinking red traffic lights of the dark empty town and taken the first freeway on-ramp. We’re heading west, that’s all I know.
“Jayne Mason is hospitalized at the Betty Ford Center for drug addiction. It’s all over the press. She’s got a secret multitrillion-dollar contract with a major cosmetics company but they’re getting nervous—who’s going to buy makeup from a drug addict? The deal is wor
th ten times more than anything she can make in the movies and she’s desperate for cash. Somebody’s going to take the fall for her addiction and it’s going to be Dr. Randall Eberhardt because he’s stupid and naïve and just got off the boat.”
Donnato sits there with his arms folded, a cyclone of cold wind blowing his hair straight back.
“That bitch manager is behind it.” I slam my fist on the steering wheel.
“Hard to prove.”
“I don’t care. With all the shit we’re getting from the wardrobe girl, I’m going to bust Jayne Mason, nail her on possession, Jesus Christ, who knows, maybe the family can sue for wrongful death.”
“You’re doing ninety.”
“He couldn’t take the humiliation. Offed himself with nitrogen gas. You know how? Very smart. The guy was smart. Hooks it up to a plastic bag, puts the bag over his head. He’s a doctor so he knows the buildup of carbon dioxide inside the bag would cause a panic reaction and there’s a good chance he’d pull it off in spite of himself—so he keeps on pumping nitrogen in there to displace the CO, that way he can keep on breathing until there’s no oxygen left. A little Valium to relax, a nice warm bath, death by asphyxiation.”
I pull off the freeway, fishtailing on the dusty shoulder, and brake to a stop. I don’t even shut off the engine, but jam the gearshift into park and reach for Donnato, sinking my fingers into the downy shoulders of his parka, pulling him toward me, trying to swallow his mouth.
We get out. We secure our weapons in the trunk. We are on a pitch-black road next to a pitch-black field somewhere on the outskirts of Oxnard.
We walk into the field over small dry gullies.
“What do they grow here?”
“Strawberries.”
We spread out a wool blanket from the days when I had Jake and Jasmine, two calicos, and, believe it or not, the smell of old cat piss can be terribly sad.
We can’t get close enough we can’t go deep enough we can’t connect with enough bare skin. It is freezing out there, we are naked and shivering inside our jackets, frantic in the midnight darkness as if there is no other hunger.
Donnato is above, I am crushing a handful of bleeding strawberries against his clenched teeth, he is deep inside me, holding me up under the shoulder blades so my head is hanging back and my hair is dragging in the dirt, when the helicopter passes not very far above us, slicing the air with vicious pulsing whips. I open my eyes to see the shape of its belly, I know it is a military transport because we are close to Point Mugu, but it doesn’t matter, I have passed through the realm of the rational into the amber twilight of my dreams. The roar hurts our ears and resonates inside our chest cavities and I am gripped by a primal fear, the way I was afraid of the chopper landing outside the Santa Monica police department, afraid of its raw male power which would soon overwhelm me. I wrap my legs around Donnato and scream his name into the howling abyss.
TWENTY-THREE
I WAKE UP ALONE in my bed at noon the following day, immediately seized by the same anxious fear. It was just past dawn when I pulled into the garage at the Marina and incredibly I was still obsessing about trying to make the morning swim workout at the college when my hands pulled the quilt over my head and my brain finally shut off.
Now my eyes are dry and burning and there is an awful pressure in my chest. Disoriented, I lurch into the living room and dial voice mail at the office in order to focus on what appointments I have blown for the day. There are several messages, including one from Carl Monte, a social worker calling about Teresa and Cristóbal Alvarado. With everything going on, it takes me by surprise but I call Mr. Monte’s office right back. They promise to beep him.
There is no message from Mike Donnato, but what did I expect?
I don’t know what I expected. I eat a grilled cheese sandwich and stir some cocoa powder into a glass of low-fat milk, staring dully at the billowing afternoon light outside the balcony. It has been a long time since I had sex and it is raw and sore down there, not your most romantic feeling. All I want to do is to sit in a hot bath.
I have noticed there is never any bubble bath around when you need it.
So I pull a bottle of dish detergent from underneath the kitchen sink and shoot a long stream of it into the tub, making mountains of sparkly white froth. I refill the bath with hot water three times until my skin is pink and tingly and the mirrors are all steamed up. I make a crown of foam on top of my head and put two silly mounds over my breasts like I used to do as a little girl, a bubble necklace and what the hell, a bubble beard, speculating on where Donnato is right now and if he is feeling as loose and full of wonderment as I. How will we be in the office? Will we see each other again? For the first time I can remember I have no control over what will happen next.
But that sublime balance on the razor’s edge of uncertainty lasts just a moment before I am suddenly flushed with violent panic. The memory of the dark belly of the helicopter bearing down on us in the strawberry field fills my head with terrible clamor and I almost vomit into the tub.
The phone rings and my heart convulses. Suddenly transformed to a female in a 1950s comedy (Jayne Mason could have played this role), I jump out, dripping suds, grab a towel, and spring for the phone, hoping to hear the voice of my beau.
It is Carl Monte.
“I’m a case worker at Children and Family Services,” he explains. “What is your relationship to the Alvarado children?”
“A distant cousin of their mother.”
“Do you know they are living with Mrs. Sofía Gutiérrez?”
“Yes, she’s been taking care of them since their mother was killed.”
“But she is not a blood relation?”
“No.”
“Does that make you the closest relative?”
“There are a grandmother, aunts, and uncles living in El Salvador.”
“I need to tell you that if the children continue to live in this country, they will have to be placed in foster care.”
“What happened?”
“LAPD was called because a neighbor complained about a loud television. The investigating officers found two unsupervised minors in the apartment and contacted us.”
I am dressing as we talk. “Are the kids all right?”
“They’re in good health, but we don’t consider Mrs. Gutiérrez a suitable guardian. For one thing her household income does not meet our standard. For another, it’s the law. Children can’t just live with any stranger who picks them up.”
I pull on jeans and socks. I understand the law.
“Unless you’d like to take them in yourself, Ms. Grey.”
“Me?” A shock goes through my chest. I look around the Marina apartment. “I couldn’t.”
“Then we will place Teresa and Cristóbal in an appropriate foster care setting.”
“For how long?”
“That depends. We’re always looking for a legal adoption.”
“What’re the chances?”
“There’s hope for the little one. The older girl has some emotional problems that might make her less desirable.”
“You mean they wouldn’t be adopted together?”
“Not necessarily.”
“Well, Mr. Monte, that bites the big one.”
He doesn’t miss a beat, asking calmly if I’d like to be informed where the children are placed. I say okay.
“For the moment we’ve allowed them to live with Mrs. Gutiérrez with home inspections twice a week, but she’s having a hard time understanding. She seems to hold you in high regard because you work for the FBI—”
I guffaw.
“So I was hoping you could explain this to her. Might make it easier for the children.”
Sure, I’ll talk to Mrs. Gutiérrez. Anything to avoid the office today.
• • •
They call it El Piojillo—a few square blocks around MacArthur Park that is not so much a flea market as another continent grafted between the Wilshire District and downtown L.A. Wha
t used to be a fashionable address for wealthy whites, where old people from a nearby nursing home could rest their wheelchairs in the shade of an elegant park, is now one of the most crime-infested parts of the city.
It is also a place where the size, spread, and density of the Spanish-speaking population becomes impressively clear. Streets in every direction are overflowing with crowds of Latinos threading past unlicensed vendors selling sausages, stuffed animals, cassettes of lambada music, running shoes, fruit smoothies, hot ears of corn. “Call Anywhere in the United States—25 Cents per Minute!” “Swap Meet!” in an old ornate movie theater. Video Hot, Winchell’s, Salvadoran and Guatemalan restaurants. Drug dealers. Day laborers in straw cowboy hats waiting on a pickup corner for a few hours’ work below minimum wage. On every block there is a stucco mini-mall with shoddy signage that looks as if it’s been under artillery fire, and most likely has: Carnicería Latina, Excellent Beauty Salon, Chinatown Express, Popeye Fried Chicken, Librería Cristiana. Driving straight through, I reach a residential neighborhood on the outskirts of Echo Park and sigh with relief. Here, one hopes, the homicide rate doesn’t kick in until after dark.
Mrs. Gutiérrez and the children are waiting in front of the address she gave me. It turns out to be a botánica, a storefront that sells herbs, candles, and spiritual advice, now locked with a rusted gate. We are on a small commercial street. Next door is a grocery called Tienda Alma, then a Mexican bakery and a Thai restaurant. Not incongruously, somewhere nearby a rooster is crowing.
“Today Don Roberto doesn’t open until four. He is getting his apartment fumigated.”
“Who is Roberto?”
“The spiritualist who will answer our questions.”
“I don’t have any questions, Mrs. Gutiérrez. I know what needs to be done.”
Mrs. Gutiérrez gives an impatient tch-tch. With a dark and sorrowful look, Teresa lowers her eyes. I squat down and touch her hair.