“Maggie,” Mike sighed. “Enough, all right? Stay out of it. Let the police do their job.”
“Mike, I’m only doing my job.” I felt stung.
“Yeah? Your job is anything you want to make it.”
“I know. That’s what I like about it.”
“Go home, Maggie.” His voice broke. “If I lost you…”
I couldn’t let him say it.
“Listen to this,” I said. “The film opens with Pisces on the street. That whole clip only lasts a few minutes, but it will run through the entire piece, intercut with footage of kids raised in privileged circumstances, like her. I think there are some beautiful insights there. I’ll slip in pictures of her murderer in full retreat, among brief interviews with the Ramsdales’ friends and neighbors about how charmed her life seemed. We’ll end with the autopsy stills. What do you think?”
“Whose autopsy? Hillary’s or yours?”
“Mike, all I am trying to do is come to some clear understanding of why this dear child ended up as she did. I’m not looking for her killer. I’m not interfering with the investigation.”
“You already said he’s following you.” Mike sounded like my father when he lectured me. “He saw you on the street with the kid. And now he sees you all over town. You couldn’t have done a better job of baiting him if you had put a hook in your mouth and tossed him the line.”
“He never got near me,” I said, defensive. “I know how to take care of myself.”
“Right. Like you’ve done such a good job so far? Maybe you should run an ad in the local paper. ‘Dear Mr. Killer, I got your ugly face on film twice now, but don’t worry about me. I’m only doing my job. Love, Miz Maggie MacGowen.’ Jesus Christ, Maggie. Get out of it.”
“I’m sorry about your car, Mike. I’m having the bills sent to me. I’ll be by later for my things.”
“What does that mean?”
“I don’t know,” I sighed. I hung up, hurting in the general region of my heart.
Before the tow truck left, I retrieved Sly’s stuff from Mike’s front seat.
For fourteen dollars, including fifty free miles a day, I got a used Toyota with eighty-five thousand miles on it. All I asked was that it be in running order. And that’s all they delivered.
Martha had told me she planned to go stay with a daughter in Scottsdale until things cooled down next door. She had a reservation on a late flight out of John Wayne Airport. I buckled Sly’s stuff into the front passenger seat of the rented car and drove back over the bridge to check on her. I was afraid for her to be alone.
“Maybe you shouldn’t be seen out here with me,” I said to Martha when we were settling into chaise lounges on her front terrace. “Seems I’m being followed by a mad slasher.”
“Seems you are, indeed,” she said, her eyes bright, excited. “The man does have an affinity for rubber, doesn’t he? Were you frightened?”
“I didn’t have time to be frightened.” I laughed, but my hand covered the thin skin of my neck.
Martha had poured me a tall glass of iced tea from a big pitcher. I took a gulp and nearly gagged. She hadn’t warned me she was serving Long Island iced tea, not Lipton’s. I managed to keep it down, but my eyes watered and my throat closed up.
“Tea go down the wrong way, dear?”
“Mmmhmm,” I mumbled.
“Such a shame about Mike’s car.” Martha crossed her thin ankles. “He wasn’t angry, was he?”
I had some breath back. “Not about the car.”
“I see.” She had that wise look on her face. “I do like Mike, Maggie. There’s no bullshit about him, is there?”
“None.”
“What are you going to do next?”
“Well.” The Ramsdale house drew me. Several times, while I talked with Martha, I felt my attention drift toward the terrace next door.
“Maggie?”
“I’d give anything for another peek inside that house. Without Mike.”
“You would get into trouble.”
“I’m sure I would.” I turned back to Martha. “Tell you what. You have some time to kill before your plane. I wonder if you’d mind telling me again what you told me yesterday about the Ramsdales, only this time on videotape.”
She patted her hair at the sides and crinkled her face into a smile. “I always wanted to be a movie star. Mother wouldn’t hear of it.”
“You’ll hardly be a star from this gig. But I’ll send along any fan mail you generate.”
“When shall we begin?”
“Soon as I haul out the gear. I’ll bring a crew around another time to do it right. But I want to make a rough cut to show the grant people where I’m headed. It might be fun.”
While I fumbled with tapes and half-charged batteries, Martha went inside to fix her makeup and change into dark slacks; she had heard the camera added ten pounds. When she came out, she waved a cigarette in a foot-long holder. Like Garbo.
“Nice touch,” I laughed.
“I thought you would appreciate it.” She draped herself on the chaise, deflated bosom thrust forward, cigarette poised aloft. All she needed was a fur boa and a palm fan. “Where do we begin?”
“I’m not quite ready,” I said, waiting for the cigarette to burn out. “Talk to me. How long are you staying at your daughter’s?”
“Only a few days, I hope. I have to take my cat to the kennel. He hates the kennel.” She looked over at the Ramsdale palazzo. “My cat put me in mind of something, Maggie.”
“What’s that?”
“Hillary’s birds. We used to trade off — she would feed my cat, I would feed her birds when she was away. What I was wondering was, where are Hillary’s birds?”
“I didn’t see any birds in the house last night. Where did she keep them?”
“In her room.”
“We only got as far as the master bedroom.”
Martha was calm. “We have to do something. She loved those birds.”
“I can call the police.”
“It would take too long. Elizabeth has been gone quite some time. Those birds must be hungry by now. Wait here.”
Martha’s legs couldn’t keep up with her torso as she rushed inside. She was leaning so far forward I was afraid she would fall on her face. But she didn’t. She came out again in a moment, waving a key this time.
“Hanna gave me a key for pet-feeding purposes and emergencies.”
“Why didn’t you tell the police about the key last night?” I asked, close on her heels. “They destroyed the front door.”
“What, tell them and spoil their fun?”
She walked straight down the side of her house and up to the Ramsdales’ back door. The front door had been boarded over and sealed by the police. Though there was no warning attached to the back, I knew better than to open the door. So I let Martha do it.
The house was as we had seen it the night before, except that it was even lovelier with bright sunlight flooding through the tall windows. Martha hardly gave anything a glance, she was so intent on getting upstairs. When we reached the top, she was out of breath and dangerously red in the face.
“Why don’t you sit down,” I said. “Point out Hillary’s room. I can check on the birds.”
She pulled in a breath, an effort. “End of the hall. Last door.”
I waded through the thick carpet. At Hillary’s door, I hesitated before I turned the knob. Casey’s room was sacred, private territory. Mothers by invitation only. In ordinary circumstances, Hillary, I was sure, would not have liked this invasion.
The bird cage sat opposite the windows on a filigreed white wrought-iron stand. It was covered. And silent.
I lifted the cover and saw them, three dead parakeets, one white, one blue, and one yellow. They had been dead for a long time. There wasn’t very much left of them except bright feathers and brown bones.
I put the cover back and went out to report to Martha.
She was gone. Thinking about the open window the day be
fore, the man with the cap that very afternoon, I panicked. “Martha!” I called, running down the hall.
There was no answer. Just as I reached the landing, I heard her. Snoring.
I turned into the master bedroom and found her fast asleep on the big canopied bed with her hearing aids beside her. Too much exertion, or too much Long Island iced tea, had done her in. I let her be, grateful for a little time alone to go back and look through Hillary’s room. The thought occurred to me that Martha was playing possum to that very end.
I left Hillary’s door open so I could hear Martha if she stirred. Then I began.
Hillary’s room was tidy, but otherwise it was a typical teenager’s dream room. The girl had fulfilled the entire alphabet of a youngster’s wish list: TV, VCR, CD, AM/FM, PC, as well as cable for MTV. Casey, overindulged by her guilt-ridden father in my opinion, didn’t have half the electronic junk Hillary had acquired.
All of her treasures, from media toys to an impressive collection of china dolls, were housed in custom-built cabinets with glass fronts. Her swimming medals and trophies were formally arranged in their own handsome case.
It was so puzzling. Everything I had heard, everything I saw, told me that Hillary had been taken seriously. Perhaps she had been spoiled. Perhaps she had been pushed to excel, as Lacy said. The important element I found was that she was treasured, adored even. The neighbors loved her. The community cared for her.
I thought about the birds moldering under the cover in the corner, and I felt prickly all over. It wasn’t normal to have left them in the house, dead.
When I was Hillary’s age, I used to hide comic books, Harold Robbins novels, and other contraband in my pillowcase. I checked Hillary’s pillowcases, her coordinated ruffled shams, the double dust ruffle, between the mattress and the box springs. Nothing there.
Her desktop was overly neat: textbooks lined up between marble bookends, fresh blotter, school-lined paper and stationery in folders, pens and pencils in a slotted tray, computer covered. Everything in place.
The drawers, however, were promising. They were crammed, as I thought they should be. Hillary had stashed away half-full tissue packs, broken swimming goggles, chewing gum and old holiday candy, used lipsticks, illicit notes from girlfriends written in goofy codes, hair ties by the handful, teenage romance paperbacks, and magazines with pictures cut out of them. The desk held exactly what it should have — her real stuff. But none of it helped me.
The books in her case ran to leather-bound classics. Hardly a spine was broken. Among them were her middle-school yearbook, The Mustang, and a gold-and-brown photo album. I took those two down and carried them over to the bed.
In her yearbook photo Hillary still had braces on her teeth. Her seventh-grade class had elected her best athlete. I managed to spot her in the Junior Scholarship Federation group shot, recognizing her from the pictures hanging on the walls of Randy’s study. Wholesome, tanned, athletic; she did not look very much like Pisces.
I put the yearbook aside and opened the album. The first picture was labeled “Hillary’s first day at school.” Her face shone with expectation. She had a ragged-looking stuffed dog under her arm, but everything she wore looked new, crisp plaid dress with a big bow under the collar, shiny oxfords and ankle socks with lace trim. Her dark hair was cut in a stylish shag that came low over her forehead and brushed her cheeks. A pretty, happy child embarking on a new adventure.
Hanna was in some of the album photos with her, and so was Randy. Someone had carefully preserved a record of family outings, holidays, other important events in their lives. Just the three of them. No friends, no relatives. They were attractive, and from appearances, they were happy. At least they smiled a lot.
The story in the album ended with a printed card from Hanna’s funeral and a pressed rosebud. There was no other album, no later photographs in the room. Nothing before kindergarten. Nothing after Hanna. I found that profoundly sad.
I slipped the kindergarten picture out of the album and tucked it into my pocket. Everything else I put away before I went into the adjoining bathroom.
Hillary had a drawer full of teenage makeup, the usual curling irons and electric curlers. In her medicine chest I found, among the half-used bottles of cologne and tubes of Clearasil, an unopened L’Oreal hair-tint kit, medium brown. Had I found hair color in my daughter’s bathroom, I would have taken a good look at her roots to see what she had done to her hair and what she was trying to cover.
When I met Hillary, her hair had been bleached white-blond. In her yearbook pictures her natural hair seemed to be a rather dark auburn. The dye kit in her bathroom was unopened. So maybe she had bleached her hair before she left home. Maybe she and Elizabeth had fought about it.
Hillary’s closet was full of trendy brand-name clothes. Casey had pouted for two days because I would not give her sixty dollars for a plain white cotton blouse that had a particular tiny label sewn onto the pocket. Hillary had three of them. And everything that coordinated with them, right down to the socks. I was grateful Casey wasn’t seeing this wardrobe; I would have taken heat for weeks.
I didn’t know exactly what I was looking for. Hillary herself, I suspect. What I found was an indulged yet typical young girl. And a medium-brown hair color kit.
I closed the closet doors and went out to check on Martha again.
I found her sitting up on the bed, fiddling with one of her hearing aids. She smiled at me, not a bit sleepy-looking. I picked up the copy of Rebecca I had left on the bed the night before.
“Where is the maid?” I asked.
“Elizabeth fired her ages ago.”
“How many ages?”
“Why, right after she married Randy and moved in. He didn’t like the idea, but she insisted she could take better care of her house than a racist expletive deleted.”
“She was like that, was she?” I chuckled.
“Indeed,” she said gravely. “Elizabeth was no Hanna.”
“When did Randy marry Elizabeth?”
“No more than a year ago. I suppose you might say Randy and Elizabeth were newlyweds.”
“Ah.” I was surprised. “I thought they had been together longer. You said they fought.”
Martha gave me one of her wise, make that wise-ass, looks. “Elizabeth entertained.”
“She had a lot of parties?”
“No, dear. During the day. When Randy was out.”
“Men?”
She shook her head. “Man.”
“Why didn’t you tell me earlier?”
“Why, you spent an entire day with Regina Szal. I was certain she had told you. How could she have left out that gem?”
“You saw him, the other man?”
“In passing.”
“Describe him.”
“He’s a bit heavy, I would say. Top-heavy. I don’t care for his type. I would describe him as oily. He must be very rich for her to prefer him to Randy, because she didn’t choose him for his looks.”
“When did this affair start?”
“I don’t know, dear. I do remember noticing him right after the honeymoon. The first time Randy left the house, the friend paid a call. A very long call. Of course, since February, he has been here almost constantly.”
Sly had said, “Her mother fucks at home and her father fucks a broad.” Accurate, it seemed. At least half of it.
CHAPTER 14
John Smith Investigations was a cubbyhole office in a handsome downtown high rise. No reception room, no receptionist, and no one waiting ahead of me. Sitting in the client chair by Smith’s desk, if I angled my head just so, I could see a tease of ocean shimmer in the single window.
“I know your findings are confidential, Mr. Smith,” I argued. “But your client is deceased. I believe that something Hillary Ramsdale told you, or perhaps gave to you, might be crucial to the investigation into her murder, and her father’s murder as well.”
Smith sighed and gazed away in search of that bit of ocean view. He
was maybe fifty, a burly, balding former cop in a good gray suit. He had a bravery commendation certificate on his wall next to a dartboard with J. Edgar Hoover’s face behind the target. There was also a framed diploma from a storefront law school. It was a cheesy law school, and a cheesy frame. I thought it could only help his credibility if he took it down. After a few minutes of conversation, I knew he was smarter than his alma mater suggested.
“I don’t know what to tell you,” he said after thinking over my proposition. “If I want to give information to anyone, it will be to the police. You’re cute as a bug, Miss MacGowen, but so was Mata Hari. How do I know who you are or what you’re up to?”
“My best local reference is a Los Angeles homicide detective,” I said. “The one I told you would be very upset if he knew I was here. I can hardly have you call him.”
He steepled his fingers and propped his fleshy chin on them. “You understand my position, don’t you?”
Smith had a tooth-sucking smugness I didn’t care for. He leaned back in his big swivel chair so he could sight down his nose at my breasts. I wondered if the printed parrots on my shirt might have eyes just there to meet his stare. I didn’t look down to see.
My mother’s Texan cleaning woman always told me sugar attracts more flies than vinegar. In that case, it was spelled sugah.
“Mr. Smith,” I cooed, “be a sport.”
He chuckled wryly, a no sale. “Sorry.”
I nodded, looking around, appraising the Spartan furnishings.
“You’re in a high-rent district,” I said.
“Address is important.”
“Uh huh. The police won’t pay you a dime for what you have.”
“And you will?” He leaned closer to me across the vinyl veneer desk. “What you’re asking me to do is highly unethical, thoroughly immoral, and probably illegal. How much do you think my eternal soul might be worth?”
“What is your standard fee?”
“Two-fifty a day plus expenses.”
“I see,” I said, leaning closer myself. “What if I hired you to continue with Hillary Ramsdale’s case?”
“What if?” he repeated.
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