“Why go through the bother of bringing her in at all?” I asked. “What difference did it make? She came in, the judge let her right back out.”
I wanted a little justice to be done.” His face was very close to mine. “Has everyone forgotten what really happened back then? An innocent kid was killed. And for what? Peace and freedom? No. For nothing.”
“It was a long time ago,” I said. “Let it go.”
“Tell that to the Potts family. You have any idea how they must feel when Aleda shows up out of nowhere and becomes a fucking media hero? Everyone gets all misty-eyed for the good old days remember when Abbie Hoffman showed up? There’s big bucks potential in book and movie deals, ‘My Life on the Lam’? People have short memories. Aleda Weston wasn’t a fucking hero. Any more than your sister Emily was.”
“Take it easy,” I said.
“Fucking instant media heroes.” He had worked himself into a red-faced sweat, and he wasn’t ready to quit. “For twenty-two years, Aleda evaded a fugitive warrant for conspiracy to murder. She could have come in anytime and faced the charges like Emily and the others. You ever wonder why she didn’t?”
“Shit happens,” I said.
A waitress hovered nearby until Lester came up for air. She was topless, with little fried-egg breasts. She emptied the ashtray and wiped the table. Though the woman was wearing nothing except a G-string and an appendectomy scar, she got no notice from Lester.
“Need anything here?” she asked.
“Two scotch and sodas,” I said. “Easy ice.”
“Easy ice I can do.” She made a dip, wiped the table again around Lester’s untouched drink, then jiggled away.
He seemed chagrined after his outburst. I gave him a moment to collect himself. He sank back in his chair and blew out a long breath.
“Everything turns to shit, doesn’t it?” he sighed.
“For instance?”
“Everything. The way Aleda set up her surrender, we thought it would go down so smooth. I’m sorry. I’ll say it again. I’m sorry.
“No one blames you,” I said.
“I should have known better.” He shrugged; then he tapped the table beside my hand, shying away from actually touching me. “I’m glad you’re okay.”
“That’s two of us.” I smiled at him, feeling sorry for him for some reason.
“Are we clear now?” he asked. “You know, I’m not such a bad guy. And it’s not that I don’t have a lot of respect for what Emily has been doing. She came a long way from the days of ‘burn, baby, burn.’ A whole lot further than some of the others. It breaks my heart to know what happened to her. And you.”
I smiled. “You have a heart?”
“Don’t let it get around, will you?”
The waitress came back with drinks and a cash register tab. I put a twenty on the tab and she went away. I didn’t want a drink, but ordering was like paying rent for our seats.
Lester ran his damp hand over the stubble on his cheeks. When he looked at me finally, his eyes were rimmed in red—fatigue, the smoke, guilt, tears, could have been any of them.
I pushed my drink aside. “Detective Flint and I just spent the most interesting hour at the county crime lab, talking to an explosives man,” I said. “You know something about homemade bombs, don’t you?”
He shook his head, but I knew better.
“Emily’s car was nearly vaporized by the blast up at the academy,” I said. “It’s amazing what the technicians were able to reconstruct with the tiny bits they had to work with. The device was a masterwork. Beautifully simple. Four sticks of dynamite taped to the gas tank, with a sound-activated detonator. It would have taken a big sound, like the firing of a gun at close range, to set off the explosion.
“Elegant, don’t you think? The driver fires a shot and kaboom — double play, if he hits his target. The flaw was, he only got one shot. If he’d been a decent marksman, I wouldn’t be here.”
Lester managed a wry smile. “Can’t get good help these days.”
I smiled, glad he was in a better frame of mind. I had something more to talk about. I pushed my chair out a little so I could stretch my legs. I needed a long soak in a hot tub. Emily didn’t have a tub. I wondered whether Mike did. Business first, I thought, and looked up at Lester.
“Remember Jaime Orozco?” I asked.
“Sure.” He furrowed his brow, seemed suspicious.
“He told me someone in their group of activists was on the FBI payroll.”
“So?” He shrugged. “That’s the way the game is played.”
“Was Rod Peebles on your payroll?”
He chuckled. “Funny, isn’t it? Question like that starts going around about a politician, he’s in trouble. If I say yes, the liberals will kill him; say no and any good conservative will do the job.”
“Either way, then, he’s doomed. So why don’t you just tell me the truth.”
“Truth is relative,” he said.
“Fuck that,” I said.
He laughed, loud enough for the stripper to look our way. “Okay. So maybe we gave young Peebles a little federal scholarship. A little work-study.”
“You show him how to build a bomb?”
“No bombs. He gave us information, and that’s all.”
“That’s a lot,” I said. “He was a traitor to the Movement. He betrayed his friends. For what? Only money?”
“Rod was a true patriot, unlike the rest of them.”
“So was Benedict Arnold, if you were British.”
“Then call me a Brit,” he said. “Look, Maggie, it was no big thing. Rod didn’t have a fat-cat daddy to make things easy for him like the rest of them did. He didn’t have strong political convictions one way or the other. He just wanted to get through school the best way he could. So we helped each other. That’s the way the game is played.”
“He must have had some political attitude,” I said. “He’s a career politician.”
“He has a good face and he reads his lines well.”
“Is Rod still on your payroll?”
He shook his head slowly. “Doesn’t mean he isn’t on someone else’s.”
“Any ideas?”
“Lots of them. And none of them worth a damn.” He rose from his seat. “I have a plane to catch, Maggie. I’m glad we had this little talk.”
“It’s been an education,” I said.
He smiled again. “See you around, kid. Maybe out at the pool sometime, huh?”
He touched my shoulder, his hand lingering just long enough to be noticed as lingering. Then he turned away and headed for the exit.
“Did he talk to you?” Mike asked. He had been waiting out-side, as Lester had instructed.
“He talked. I’ll tell you on the way home. Lester picked a great place to meet. Did you peek inside there?”
“Not me,” Mike said innocently. “But why didn’t he get you a waitress with better tits?”
I laughed. “Take me home or lose me forever.”
In the car, I pulled off my boots. “Any word on Rod Peebles?”
“Can’t find him. You think he was the driver, don’t you?”
I nodded. “Rod Peebles, the man who wasn’t there.”
“What does that mean?”
“Something Lester said. Rod was never anything but a front man. I think he still is. Just a billboard-pretty face. If he tried to shoot me, my guess is it wasn’t his own idea.”
“Who then?”
“You’re the detective. You tell me.”
By the time we arrived back at Emily’s apartment, it was much too late to call Denver. But I hadn’t had a chance to talk to Casey all day. So I dialed anyway.
“Hello,” Linda answered, breathless as if she had run.
“It’s Maggie. Sorry about the hour. May I speak with Casey?” There was a pause. She hadn’t said a thing after hello. I began to think she had simply walked away to find someone else to deal with me. Then I heard her breathe.
“Linda?”
“Casey isn’t here,” she said.
“Oh? Where is she?”
“Skiing.”
“At this hour?”
“No.” Another long pause. That’s when I began to panic. “Scotty went to pick her up. They probably stopped for something to eat. Maybe they went to a movie.”
“Is Casey all right?” I demanded.
“Well of course,” she snapped back. “She’s with her father. You think we aren’t capable of caring for her?”
“No matter how late it is, would you please have her call me the minute she gets in? I’m still at Emily’s.”
“Certainly. Merry Christmas.” And she hung up.
Mike was coming in from the kitchen with a beer. “Everything okay?”
I nodded, but I had a horrible feeling. The morgue had been bad. Nearly getting shot down had been terrifying. This was worse. Borderline hysteria. I tried to shake the feeling off as maternal paranoia tempered by shock hangover. While my day had been a nightmare, Casey was a long way away from everything that had happened. Safe with her father. At the same time, too far away from me.
I looked at the clock. I would give her until midnight L.A. time; then I would call her back.
I looked up at Mike. “So?”
“So you should go to bed. I’d like to stay to tuck you in, but I have some ends to tie up. Mrs. Lim is on patrol. There are two new locks on the door. Think you’ll be okay?”
“I’m fine. Call me.”
As nice as Mike was to have around, I was glad to have a little time alone. To take a really long shower. To think. To wait for Casey’s call.
We embraced at the door. It was more familial than anything.
I was too distracted to give much thought to passion. He lingered over the kiss on my cheek.
“Call me,” I said again.
“Lock up and stay inside,” he said. I closed the door after him and didn’t hear his footsteps down the hall until I had turned the second bolt.
I was exhausted. I showered, skipped the painkiller, and slid into bed with Em’s extension phone half an arm’s reach away. I closed my eyes knowing I wouldn’t sleep until I had spoken to Casey.
In my mind, the blur of events began to clear, like the Sambo story in reverse, individual tigers taking form out of the yellow mass of butter. A lot of butter, and a lot of tigers.
I had been thinking all along that the catalyst was Lester Rowland, because he would not let events from the past silently slide into oblivion. He had wanted a show trial. That’s why he helped Aleda come in out of hiding on her own terms. But I was wrong. From the beginning, the party belonged to Aleda and Emily. He was left out like the fat kid at the park who gets the merry-go-round spinning, but no one will give him a hand up.
It should have been a good party. Emily had gathered in Max, Lucas, me, and Rod, and warned my parents. There were three no-shows: Jaime, Celeste, and the four o’clock appointment at the wishing well by Hop Louie’s. Still, it would have been interesting.
I may have drifted off. When the telephone rang I jolted up-right and knocked the instrument to the floor. I managed to find it in the dark.
“Casey?” I said.
“This is the GTE operator. I have a collect call for Mom from Casey. Will you accept the charges?”
“Yes.”
“Go ahead please,” I heard the operator say. There was a lot of background noise.
“Casey? Where are you?”
“Mom, promise you won’t be mad.”
“Just tell me.”
“I heard Linda yelling at Daddy this morning about how I was messing up their first Christmas together.”
“I’m sorry you heard. She was probably just blowing off steam.”
“Mom, I’m at the airport.”
“Is Dad there?”
“He doesn’t know.”
“Jesus, Casey, he must be worried sick. Tell me where you are and I’ll call Dad and have him pick you up right now.”
“I’m outside the Delta terminal. But Mom?”
“What?”
“I’m in Los Angeles.
I was awake then. “Listen to me. You go inside and wait for me by Delta check-in. You talk to no one, and you don’t move. I’ll be there in twenty minutes.”
“You’re really mad, aren’t you?”
“Yes, baby, but not at you. I’ll be right there.”
I hung up, found my clothes, and put them on while I dialed Denver.
“Linda,” I said, “Casey flew herself to L.A. I’m going to pick her up at the airport right now.
“The little brat.”
“You just better hope that Scotty’s next wife is more generous to your little bambino when she goes to visit Dad for the holidays.”
I didn’t wait for a response. I went out on the street and managed to flag down a cab outside one of the big Chinese restaurants.
“LAX, please,” I said. “Delta terminal. I’m in a hurry.”
“Everyone’s always in a hurry,” he said, but he stepped on it.
As we sped toward the freeway, I pulled out what was left of my cash. I had just about thirty-five dollars. I leaned forward in the seat.
“What’s the fare?” I asked.
The cabbie half-turned to talk. “Airport’s a flat rate, run you twenty-four dollars.”
I could get there okay, even manage a tip. Coming back was beginning to look like a problem. There were people I could call, but it would be a whole lot easier on everyone if I could make a quick turnaround. The driver seemed like a nice enough sort, a family man. I hoped we could work something out. I got his name off his permit.
“So, Kareem,” I said, “are you licensed to pick up fares at the airport?”
“Yes, ma’am, but I don’t like to do it. Too many taxis means I have to wait in line twenty, sometimes thirty minutes before they give me my fare. Most the time, I just come straight back downtown. Time is money in this business.”
“Then maybe we can help each other here. I’ll offer you thirty-five dollars for a round trip.”
“I’m not supposed to do that. It’s a flat rate, twenty-four dollars each way.”
“My daughter just called from the airport. She’s only twelve. I didn’t know she was coming in, so I’m caught a bit short of cash. Anyway, if you don’t wait to pick up a fare at the airport, you just deadhead all the way home, right? I’m asking you, who’s to know my daughter and I are with you? And you go in tonight with an extra eleven dollars for Christmas.”
He turned and grinned at me. “You sure are a hard talker, lady. You got yourself a deal.”
“You’re a prince.”
“I’m a daddy. You could have quit your speech as soon as you said it was your little girl.”
He talked almost nonstop all the way to the airport, most of it about kids and the dumb stuff they do. He was a hard talker himself. And he knew how to drive. We were in front of Delta in just under twenty minutes.
“There she is.” I pointed out Casey’s worried little face pressed against the glass inside the terminal, by the check-in stations just as I had instructed her. She was still wearing ski clothes. Kareem pulled to the white curb and I made a dash for the door.
Casey started crying as soon as she saw me. Sobbing, she gathered together her things, jet-packed skis and boots and a backpack, and ran out to meet me.
“Oh, Mom.” She had to stoop a little to wail against my shoulder because she is already taller than I am. I hugged her, skis and all, and tried to move her into the cab before a taxi dispatcher came along and busted Kareem. He got the skis wedged in catty-corner from front window to back, and Casey and I slid in next to them.
“All set?” he asked.
“Let’s go.”
I pushed Casey’s face up and wiped it with one of the leather mittens still attached to her jacket.
“How did you pull this off, Case?” I asked.
“Dad dropped me off at the slopes this morning.” She look
ed into my face and started to cry again. “I’m so sick of skiing. I hate it. But there was nothing else to do when Dad went to work. Linda didn’t want me hanging around the house all day.”
“And
“So, I went into this little village up there to get some things for Christmas. And I was paying for some stuff and I saw my airplane ticket in my wallet. I just started thinking. I saw the Denver bus, and went to the airport.”
“Your ticket is for San Francisco. They let a kid change a ticket?”
She winced. “I bought a new one.”
“With what money?”
“Dad gives me money.” She opened the front of her backpack and started pulling out wads of bills. “Everytime we do something, he gives me money. I said I wanted to take something home to you, so he asked me to pick out something from him, too. He gave me this.” She handed me a roll the diameter of a Havana cigar. I started counting fifties, quit when I realized I had more than five hundred dollars in my hand.
“Merry Christmas, from Dad,” she said.
“This is insane.”
“Dad’s having a tough time.”
“Aren’t we all?”
“How’s Aunt Emily?”
“She’s the same, Casey.” I kept out a fifty for Kareem and jammed the rest of the money back into her pack. I pulled her against me. I want to hold you for a minute before we talk about what a stupid stunt this trip was.”
“Could I just say I know it was dumb, and skip the lecture?” I laughed, so did Kareem.
“Kids,” he said, shaking his head. “Wouldn’t live without ‘em. But they sure do keep you hoppin’.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
I woke up first. Casey was sprawled over more than her share of the bed, sound asleep, with a little drool drying at the side of her mouth. She’s too old and teenagery to cuddle in bed anymore. Risking her wrath, I brushed her long hair from her face and kissed her forehead. Then I dragged myself up.
My first coherent thought was that there were only two more days until Christmas. I had promised my mother I would be home in time. Now, with Casey here, I couldn’t think of many reasons to stay in L.A. any longer.
Telling Lies Page 23