I poured two mugs of coffee from the Mr. Espresso on the kitchen counter and carried them with two muffins and the tape back to the bedroom. I turned on the TV, slipped the tape into the VCR, and sat down on the end of the bed to watch it.
Mike came out of the bathroom, all fresh and smooth-faced, smelling of baby powder. His blue boxer shorts complemented his eyes.
“What are you watching?” he asked. “Debbie Does Reseda?”
I paused the VCR. “The Pisces tape arrived.”
“Good. I want to see it.”
Mike brushed bran-muffin crumbs off the spread and reclined on the bed beside me with his chin resting on my knee. He was as close to me physically as it is possible to be, but as soon as he restarted the tape, I lost him to the image moving across the screen.
Concentration drew his face into a deep frown as he listened to Pisces run through her line. He watched the entire tape through once, then rewound it and started it again. At the point when Pisces invited me to a motel, Mike picked up the remote, pushed the slow-motion function, and went over to the TV. Pointing to a red smear on the right edge of the frame, he said, “See the Corvette here?”
“Yes.”
He fast-forwarded, hit play, and pointed as the Corvette cruised up to us a second time.
“How many passes did he make?” Mike asked.
“I don’t know. I was concentrating on her. Whenever I bring out a camera, an audience gathers. Bunch of jerks trying to get famous. You know, they wave, mouth ‘Hi, Mom.’ I don’t pay any attention to them unless they screw up my scene. So when I first noticed the car, my only worry was what he was doing to my sound levels, not what the driver was up to.”
He nodded thoughtfully. We watched the entire tape in slow motion, tracking the red car, which was for the most part a glossy blur at the edge of the frame. Now and then I had caught some of the windshield. I strained to see the driver’s face. Because the streetlights reflected against the tinted glass, the driver was nothing more than a stationary pale spot behind moving reflections.
At one point I had turned the camera full on the driver. I remembered having felt annoyed at him because the man was a pest.
Now and then in filming there is a serendipitous moment, like Mr. Zapruder’s moment in Dallas in November 1963. My moment was certainly on a lower rung, but it made my palms sweat and my heart pound. I couldn’t see it except in slow motion: at the instant the driver was in the center of my viewfinder, the car passed into the gulf of darkness between two streetlights. For a fraction of that instant, the windshield was black. Behind it I could discern features on the driver’s face.
“I think I got the bastard, Mike. Did you see that?”
“Yeah, but it goes by so fast. Will the lab be able to make a decent still from that short bit?”
“You mean the police lab?”
“Any lab.”
“If you’re asking my professional advice, I’ll tell you to take the tape to Guido. A, he’s a genius. And B, he has access to the right equipment.”
“The tape is evidence, Maggie. We have to be careful with it. I’m real damn sure that Guido can do better things with it than our guys, but I’ll still have to get authority to release it to him.”
“I haven’t been served with anything like a subpoena,” I said, trying to remember what I had done with the wrappings addressed to Mike. “Until I release the tape to you, sweetcakes, it’s still my tape. Right?”
He laughed. “I really love the way your mind works, Maggie. What do you want to do?”
“Take this to Guido, get him to dub a copy for us to play with. Then you can have the original back.”
“Not strictly kosher. But expedient.” He kissed my knee and got up. “When are you going to do it?”
“If Guido’s home, as soon as I get a shower and get dressed. His house is only fifteen minutes from here. I’ll show you how to dub.”
“The thing is,” Mike said, “it’s Sunday. I always spend Sunday with my son. I was thinking maybe the three of us could go to breakfast together. It’s about time you met him.”
“Mikey Junior?” I said, feeling my palms start to sweat again.
“It’s Michael. When you’re seventeen, it’s Michael.”
“You two go ahead with whatever you had planned, Mike,” I said. “I don’t want to interfere. Besides, I have a lot of work to do.”
“Maggie,” he said with sudden heat, “what’s the big deal? Just meet him. He’s a great kid. You’ll like him. He’ll like you.”
“Later,” I said. “Okay?”
“If you say so.” He slid a pair of Dockers off a hanger and put them on. I could see that he had something more to say. But he just sighed.
I walked over and put my arms around him. He resisted me for a moment before he put his arms around me, too.
“Mike,” I said, “we’ve been over all of this. I know I’ll love Michael; he’s your son. So, what if he and I get to be really close? And Casey develops something with the two of you? Then you and I don’t work out in the end? What happens to the kids?”
“Maggie …
“Or you and I do work out, but Michael hates me? What do you do then? Casey can’t stand her father’s new wife. We can’t expect the kids to turn their feelings on and off to suit us. They can be so easily hurt.”
“Dinner,” he said with some force, holding me away by the shoulders. “Just dinner. Could you commit to dinner?”
It was my turn to sigh. “If it’s that important to you.”
“Meet you back here around six?”
“Fine.”
He smiled. “Fine, then.”
I watched him as he walked over to his closet, pulled out a shirt. I thought he looked terrific without one. That was in large measure where the problem lay. The physical thing between us had been atomic from the beginning. But beyond that, the gap between what either of us was ready for was enormous. In some ways, my divorce was still a bleeding wound. Mike didn’t want to live alone anymore.
Mike turned around and caught me staring.
“I’ll stop by the station and see what juvenile records has come up with,” he said. “Whether she’s identified as Hillary or not, we still have to address the Amy angle. I’ll start a birth-certificate search.”
“I need a car,” I said.
“Take mine. I’ll use my official poh-leese vehicle. You have my pager number. Call me if anything comes up.”
“I will.” I walked over and zipped up his fly. “But if anything comes up with you, how will you contact me?”
He smiled wickedly. “What? You think you’re the only woman in town?”
I laughed as I turned away toward the bathroom. “Honey, after last night, you won’t pose much danger to the female population for a long, long time.”
“Says you,” he called after me.
“Damn right,” I said. I pulled off the sweatshirt and tossed it to him on my way through the bathroom door.
Mike left while I was still in the shower. I dressed quickly in jeans and a sweater, repacked my duffel, and stowed it in a corner of his closet. I called Guido, who told me he would be happy to help if I could hang loose for a couple of hours. He had a tennis date.
I hadn’t spoken with Casey since Friday night, when she had called to tell me that she had arrived in Denver safely. It was eleven o’clock Denver time when I dialed her father’s number.
Casey answered.
“Have you been to the church yet?” I asked her.
“Just got back.”
“How did it go?”
“Baby Scotty cried when the priest got his head wet.”
“Babies always cry,” I said. “Did you make a little speech, godmother?”
“Sort of. It’s so weird, Mom. Linda has me promise to look after Scotty’s moral education, but she says I’m still too young to baby-sit him. She hardly lets me touch him. Or Dad. She is such a bitch.”
“It isn’t easy to be a stepmother.”
“What?”
“When I was born, Linda was eight years old.”
“Definitely too young to baby-sit,” I said.
“It’s not funny, Mom.”
“Lighten up, Casey. You’ll only be there a few more hours.”
“Thank God.” I heard her let out a long breath. “I gotta go.
All these people are coming over for lunch and I’m supposed to help Linda. I can’t baby-sit, but I can peel carrots.”
“Go to it,” I said. “I’m back in L.A. for maybe another day or two. Lyle will pick you up at the airport tonight. Call me when you get in.”
“You staying at Guido’s?”
“No. Tell you what. I’ll call you. Now, go be helpful.”
“Bye, Mom. Say hi to Mike for me.”
Smart-ass kids can complicate your life.
On my way out to the garage, I stopped in the kitchen to pick up the rest of Lyle’s carefully boxed muffins. I had plans for them.
The CD system in Mike’s Blazer was truly state-of-the-art. I put k.d. lang’s “Big Boned Woman” on repeat, and had the tricky chorus nearly down pat by the time I got through the snarl of freeway traffic around Dodger Stadium. By L.A. standards it wasn’t a big snarl, so I made it to Lincoln Heights in fair time.
On a Sunday morning, one would expect to find most nuns on their knees counting rosary beads. I found Agnes Peter on her knees scrubbing the kitchen floor.
“We don’t cook on Sundays,” she said, stretching the kinks out of her legs. “It’s the only day the floor can dry before it gets all tracked up again. Did you wipe your feet?”
She led me out to the small backyard, where she dumped her mop bucket under a desiccated fruit tree.
“I figured you would be back as soon as you heard about our girl,” she said, wiping her hands on her jeans. “What have you learned?”
“Quite a lot, actually. I just don’t know how it all hangs together yet. Her name was Hillary. Hillary Ramsdale. I thought you’d want to know that.”
“Hillary. The name suited her.” She shielded her eyes against the bright sun behind me. “What’s the rest? I know you didn’t drive all the way over on Sunday morning just to tell me her name.”
“I want to check in on Sly,” I said. “I thought you might like to ride along.”
She gave me a wise glance. “And?”
“I’ll be going home soon. He needs a friend in town, Pete. Someone who will be a constant for him.”
“Where is his family?”
I shook my head. “From what he told his caseworker, even if we could find his family, Sly is better off without them.” Pete leaned her mop against the back wall. “Okay. I’ll go. The little bugger kind of grew on me. Like a wart on my butt.”
“You have a big heart, Pete.”
“And absolutely no sense. Lead on, before I change my mind.”
We stopped at a market for some juice to go with the muffins. I also grabbed a bunch of bananas, a pack of bubble gum, a small playground ball, a balsa glider kit, some baseball cards, and a couple of comic books. The kid was, after all, nine years old.
We found Sly sitting alone on a bench in a corner of the MacLaren Hall playground, hugging his bundle of belongings to his chest. He seemed drawn into himself, oblivious to the children running around him. He brightened when he saw us. Or when he saw the big brown grocery bag.
“How’s it hanging, Sly?” I asked. “You remember Sister Agnes Peter.”
“What do you want?” he asked.
“Nothing. Just came to see how you’re doing.”
Pete was close beside me. “This looks like a nice place, Sly. How’s the food?”
“Food?” Sly made a face. “You mean shit, don’t you?”
Shit or not, he had been able to choke down some of it. His face had filled out considerably since the first time I had seen him. His stomach looked rounder, too.
I sat down on the bench beside him and watched a group of younger kids playing foursquare. “It’s warm today.”
He turned to me. “That faggot cop get the guy in the ‘vette?”
“Not yet,” I said. He hadn’t said “fuck” once since we had been there. Something was happening.
“What’s in that bag?” he asked.
“A few things you might need,” I said.
He reached for the bag, looked through its contents, rolled the top closed, then set it between his feet.
“Anything else I can get you?” I asked.
He shook his head. “I’m pretty well set.”
Pete touched his shoulder. “I’ve never been here before. Feel like giving me a tour?”
He looked away. But he gathered his things and stood up. “Maggie,” Pete said, “I can get a ride home.”
That was the second time she had dismissed me. And the second time I obeyed her. I stood up beside the small boy. “I’ll see you, Sly,” I said.
He glanced at me and shrugged his thin shoulders. “Later.”
Sly and Pete began walking across the lawn. I watched them for a moment, silently blessing her for the generosity of her spirit. Just as I was turning away to leave, Sly broke away from Pete and came tearing back toward me.
“Hey, camera lady,” he panted.
“What is it?” I said, stooping to his eye level.
He held out to me his ragged bundle of stuff.
“Look after this, will you?” he asked. “Some of these assholes in here keep trying to take it off me. Just give it back when I get outta here, okay?”
“I promise. I’ll take good care of it.”
He aimed a grubby finger at my face. “Don’t open it.”
“Wouldn’t think of it.” I clutched the bundle against my chest. It felt softer than I had expected, and weighed almost nothing. There wasn’t much substance to the sum of Sly’s stuff.
“See ya,” he said, and ran back to Pete.
I carried the bundle back to Mike’s Blazer. I started to toss it into the rear deck. When the import of what I had been entrusted with hit me, I carried it up front and buckled it into the passenger seat beside me. Sly took the keeping of his stuff with deadly seriousness. I thought it was incumbent upon me to do the same.
CHAPTER 8
“You look different, Maggie.” The intensity of Guido’s gaze made me squirm like a prospective in-law. “What have you done to yourself?”
“Not a thing.” I handed him the videotape as I walked past him out of the bright, eucalyptus-scented day and into the dark cool of his living room. Guido still wore his tennis whites.
“There is something different.” He followed me in and shut the door. “Your hair? You cut your hair.”
“Nope. I got a good night’s sleep. Maybe that’s it.” I continued through the house with him to the studio and darkroom he had built onto the back.
“If it’s okay with you,” I said, “I’ll go ahead and run a dub.” “Go ahead. I’ll get the camera set up.”
Making a copy of the tape took no time at all. When it had run, I rewound the original, took the dub out of the recorder, and was sticking a label on it when I noticed that Guido hadn’t made much progress with his tripod and 35mm camera. He kept watching me until I felt intensely uncomfortable.
“Knock it off, Guido,” I warned.
“You lost some weight,” he said.
“Since you saw me Thursday? Not likely.” To speed things along, I took the camera from him and loaded it with black-and-white Plus-X pan film. As I screwed it onto the tripod, I said, “Maybe the difference is with you. Did you clean your glasses? Smoke something funny or put something up your nose?”
He crossed his arms over his chest like an aged professor, and studied me through narrowed eyes. “No. It’s you. But I can’t put my finger on it.”
“Will you stop?” I pushed his shoulder hard enough so that he had to uncross his arms
to keep from falling over. “Can we just get this finished? I want to drive down to Long Beach today and I have to be back in the Valley for dinner at six. So could we cut the shit, my friend, and get to work? And nothing about me is any different.”
“Whatever you say.”
He dutifully bent to the task at hand. As I had told Mike, Guido is a master. If there is a manipulation that can be made with raw film or videotape, Guido can do it. He is fun to work with, and I would have enjoyed this little project thoroughly, except that he kept watching me.
A few hours later, we had a work table covered with eight-by-ten glossies, all different angles of Pisces’ face.
Stills made from videotape always have streaks and fuzzy edges. Considering that we had been filming at night using available light, Guido had wrought several small miracles of quality and clarity. We selected the four prints that showed the girl’s most typical expressions. These I put into a stiff mailing envelope and stowed in my bag.
Guido had also made a second set of stills, close-ups of some of the people who had been in the background that night. If they were neighborhood regulars, they were potential witnesses. Again, because the camera had been trained on the girl, the background extras were generally out of the range of focus, amorphous shapes gliding through the shadows. The quality was better than I had expected it to be, though I had doubts about how useful they would prove for Mike.
A bigger disappointment for me was the enlarged print of the Corvette driver’s face. Guido’s best effort came out looking more like the moon and its craters than a human.
He studied the print under a large magnifying glass. “What I want to do, Maggie, is give this to someone I know who does computer enhancements. Maybe he can get you something better.”
“Then do it.”
I had been stacking things together to pack into my camera bag. I stopped to look at one of the rejected full-face shots of Pisces. She had high, well-defined cheekbones, a small dimple in her chin, rather prominent ears. Just for comparison purposes, I wished that I had kept a copy of one of the later sketches the Metranos had shown Mike and me at the morgue. I knew I wasn’t going to solve the ten-year-old case of Amy Elizabeth Metrano by comparing two electronically generated pictures of dubious quality. It’s just that I was awfully damned curious.
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