“If I were your client, I would ask to see the progress you have made to date.”
“Go on.”
“That’s it,” I said, sitting back. “How many more days do you think you would need to complete the job?”
“Tell me one thing. Why is it so all-fired important for you to get into this? You’re not a relative. You hardly knew the kid.”
I raised my palms. “Who else does she have?”
“You tell me.”
The pictures in my bag were showing some wear. One more time, I took them all out, Amy and Pisces both, and spread them on the desk facing Smith. This time, I added the snap of Hillary heading off to kindergarten.
“Amy Metrano. Hillary Ramsdale. One is missing. One is dead. Why do their names keep coming up together?”
Smith sucked his teeth some more, thinking hard, studying the girls. Finally, he straightened up and looked me in the eye.
“My client relationship with Hillary legally ended when she died. Now that I have been informed about her death, I feel obligated to offer to the police anything I have that pertains.”
“So why did we go through this little exercise?” I asked, testy.
“Just hear me out,” he said. “If someone happened to be sitting in my office when I perused any such materials preparatory to forwarding them to the police…”
“What fee would that someone be prepared to pay you?”
“There is no fee for sitting in that chair, Miss MacGowen.” He opened his long desk drawer and took out a legal-size envelope. “If you will excuse me, I will now inventory certain documents. I will trust you to respect their confidential nature.”
I sat up again and watched him open the envelope. He took out two items. The first was a United States passport. The second was a yellowed newspaper clipping.
I picked up the passport, and he didn’t stop me. I read the name inside: Randall Ramsdale. The last visa stamp was two years old. A big discovery for a little girl.
Carefully, I unfolded the brittle clipping. It was an early news article about Amy Metrano’s disappearance. There was a photograph of her, and a plea for information. A copy of that same photo was on the desk in front of me, of Amy looking up with a clearer gaze than the newsprint version. It was a standard studio portrait, maybe a school picture, of a little blond girl with tight ponytails and a high forehead. Someone had taken a brown felt pen and colored in a shag hairdo.
Smith creased the clipping photo down the center, bisecting Amy’s face. Then he laid it on top of Hillary’s kindergarten picture so that the face was now half Amy, half Hillary. The two halves didn’t match exactly; they were different sizes and taken from different angles. Hillary had a small dimple in her chin that Amy did not. But the eyes and the lift at the edge of the smiles were very close.
“Who drew in the hair?” I asked.
“I could only guess. This is the way Hillary gave it to me.”
“Did she think she was Amy?”
“Hillary was a very confused little girl,” he said. “She told me when she was little she had nightmares about people calling her Amy. It bothered her enough she told her daddy. Daddy said it was an old baby name for her. Amie, French for girlfriend, ‘cuz she was his girlfriend. Kids generally buy the shit their parents sell them. So she named one of her dolls Amy and forgot about it like he told her to. Until she found the clipping. That made her keep looking. When she found her father’s passport, she got really scared.”
“That’s when she came to see you?”
“That’s it.”
“What did she expect you to do?”
“Find her daddy.”
“Meaning Randy Ramsdale?”
He nodded. “I did what I could, given what I had. Tell you the truth, I didn’t take her real serious when she walked in. Men take off after fights with their wives all the time. Pretty soon they show up again. When they do, they’re generally carrying one of two things, a big bouquet of flowers or the name of an attorney. That didn’t satisfy her. She needed to know, and she had my fee, so I went through the drill. I changed my mind about things when I found out Randy hadn’t been using his credit cards. A man with his credit history doesn’t suddenly cut up his cards. Not when he’s away from home.”
“Did you tell the police?” I asked.
“Tell them what? The Ramsdales had a fight?”
“Randy was dead,” I said.
“How were we to know?”
He was right. I shrugged off my annoyance.
“What about the clipping?” I asked.
He gave me a crooked smile. “Would you believe the Metranos still have an information hot line for Amy?”
“I know. I called it. Breaks your heart, doesn’t it?”
“I guess. I called it, too. I asked Mr. George Metrano why Randy Ramsdale would keep an old news clipping about Amy. He said a lot of people had been interested. Maybe Randy just forgot to throw it away.”
“He didn’t jump on it?”
“Yes he did. With both feet. I set up a meeting with him and the girl at my office, but he didn’t show. Called later and apologized. Said he wrote down the time wrong, or some such shit.”
“Did they ever get together?”
“Not in my presence. I assume they both had access to the telephone directory, though. They could have set up something themselves. I warned Hillary not to see him alone for any reason. I also told her she needed an attorney, pronto. That stepmother seemed to have been left with custody of all the community assets. I thought the kid needed someone to look after her interests.”
“Did she take your advice?”
“Don’t know. I saw her exactly twice. I called to make a follow-up report. I got the stepmother. She told me Hillary’s father had come and fetched her.”
“You believed her?”
The question made him very uncomfortable. I was beginning to feel like the schoolmaster grilling a naughty child. Smith very obviously was being pricked by the topic, as if he hadn’t done his homework and was being asked to recite from it.
He took in a deep breath and finally looked me in the eyes. “I didn’t believe or disbelieve. From the very first, I had been expecting Daddy to come home. I thought, as soon as the old guy got his rocks off with the new woman, he would get back to the details. Like the kid.”
“Small detail, huh?”
He shrugged. “Hillary called sometime after, left a message on my machine. She just said everything was cool, and thanks.”
“You’re sure it was Hillary?”
“At the time I was.”
“And that was it?”
“The end.”
“You have been a fount of information, Mr. Smith. I’m not sure what to do with it, but I’m sure it will help.”
“Are you?” He had gazed off toward the window again. “To tell you the truth, I’m thinking I didn’t earn the money Hillary gave me. I was looking for her daddy. But I’m thinking I should have given the Amy angle more attention. Where I let her down is, I didn’t think a kid with her background could have a problem as big as hers was. I guess I never did take her sufficiently serious.”
I gathered up the pictures again and put them away. “Just one more question.”
“Shoot.”
“When did Hillary first come to you?”
“I can tell you.” He flipped through the appointment calendar beside his telephone. “March. March fifteenth.”
“That fits.”
He thought that over for a moment. Then he looked back at the parrots on my chest.
“May I call you Maggie?”
“Most people do.”
“You’re an attractive woman, Maggie,” he said, seeming to have revived some spirits. “But more important, I think you have a fine mind. I admire a woman with brains.”
“Thanks. The point is?”
“I’d like to kick this all around some more with you. Put together everything we have, and really get down and dirty. I thought that if you didn’t ha
ve plans for dinner, we could go up to my place, order up a pizza. See what two good minds can do together.”
I stood up and hefted my bag. “I appreciate the offer, Mr. Smith. If I may call you Mr. Smith. I’m sure we could come up with something if we put our heads together. But I must decline your kind invitation. I would not want to be responsible if something happened to you.”
He stood up, too. “Don’t worry about me. I think I could go head to head with this razor-happy asshole.”
“Perhaps you could. That isn’t where the danger lies, however, Mr. Smith. If I read you correctly — and my fine mind is a real good interpreter of innuendo, subtle or otherwise — the danger would come in the form of the homicide detective who is expecting me for dinner.”
He had the grace to laugh.
CHAPTER 15
L.A. freeways don’t have a true rush hour, only times when the engorgement of cars reaches critical mass. Like constricted bowels. I headed north too late in the day to fit in stops at MacLaren Hall and Guido’s if I was going to see Mike at any reasonable hour. And getting to Mike was my first priority. As it was, the forty-mile trip took two hours and at least three years off my life.
When I opened the door of Mike’s condo I was in desperate need of strong drink, a hot bath, and some quiet before we got into anything. Mike was generally fairly easygoing, but from the tone of our last conversation, I expected him to be angry. A reflex, I guess. I was still in recovery two years after a long marriage to a human powder keg, still walking around with a lot of protective armor, according to Mike.
The living-room lights were turned down low. Ray Charles was on the CD player, loud enough to appreciate, but only just. Mike was stretched out on his back on the gray carpet wearing white sweats, a black pillow under his silver head, his eyes closed, hands resting on his stomach with a glass of white wine balanced between them.
I closed the front door as softly as I could, not wanting to disturb him. I had disliked his ex-wife’s gray-and-black decorating scheme until I saw Mike lying there in the middle of it. The tones of his hair and skin blended so perfectly with the room that I couldn’t decide whether his wife had decorated to show him off or had tried to make him invisible among the furnishings. Domestic camouflage.
I had my camera in my hand without really thinking about taking it out. More light would have been nice, but I opened the aperture all the way and took a couple of hand-held time-release shots. The texture would be interesting, I thought, if the pictures came out at all.
I was leaning over Mike for a face shot when he wrapped his fingers around my ankle and opened his eyes.
“The late Maggie MacGowen,” he said, mellow and smiling.
“Hold still,” I said.
“When you’re in the room, I can’t hold still. You move me.” His hand slid up my leg inside my jeans.
“Keep talking,” I said.
“What are you doing?”
“We have Whistler’s mother, A Study in Gray. I thought it was time for Whistler’s father.”
“My kid’s name is Flint. Does that make a difference?”
“Not to the artist.” I reached down for his glass of wine, but he held on to it.
“You want the wine? Make me an offer.”
“How about a trade?” I took Rebecca out of my bag and showed it to him.
He sat up enough to look at the title, then he dropped back down. “No deal. I read it in grade school.”
“Maybe it’s a clue. Rebecca sailed away and never came home again. Like Elizabeth Ramsdale.”
“Still no deal.” He massaged my ankle. “We located Elizabeth down in Cabo San Lucas. Arrived two days ago.”
“No lie?” I knelt on the floor next to him.
“No lie.”
“Tell me about it.” I reached for the glass again, but he held it away.
“One thing at a time here.” He slid his hand into the crook of my knee. “I believe the bidding is still open on this fine, vintage, supermarket plonk.”
I leaned over him close enough to feel his warm breath on my cheek. “I bid one kiss.”
“I’m bid one kiss. Do I hear two?”
“Nope. My offer stands at one.”
“Sold. If it’s a good one.”
I kissed him. A good — no, a magnificent — one. His fingers moved slowly up the inside of my thigh, spreading uncontrollable heat like a pot boiling over on the stove. Reduced to a quivering mass, I sat back on my heels to catch my breath, trapping his hand between my legs. His eyes were still half rolled back in his head when he passed me up his glass.
“Thank you.” My voice sounded husky, as if I had inhaled some of that heat. “What’s the next item in your catalogue?”
He raised his head into my lap. “Our next offering will cost you.”
“That’s all right.” I stroked his shiny hair and his fresh-shaved cheek. “In the currency of this auction, I’m loaded.”
“Bidding opens at one shirt with birds all over it.”
“How do I know what you’re offering is worth even one button of this fabulous shirt?”
“It’s worth it.” He tugged out my shirttail and tickled my belly with his little cookie-duster mustache. I giggled, and he grinned up at me. “In point of fact, I think I started bidding too low. Now it will cost you the shirt and the pants, too.”
“I don’t bid on closed lots,” I said. “Show me what you have.”
His hands were soft on my bare abdomen. “I found Hanna Ramsdale’s mother.”
“Alive?”
“Alive as anyone can be in Pasadena.” He pulled the shirt off over my head and bent forward to kiss the lace covering my left breast.
“Wait,” I said, pushing against his shoulders.
“No.” He grinned. “Prepayment required.”
I stripped off my pants and handed them to him. “Payment in full. Now, talk to me.”
“Maggie.” He pulled me down onto the floor on top of him. On the way, he undid my bra. “Do you really want to talk now?”
“No,” I whispered into his ear. He was hard against me. I wanted him so badly that the room around us disintegrated into a vague, warm blur and he was the only solid reality. He helped me slip off the bra.
“What I really want,” I said, “is to make mad, passionate love to you. Right here. Right now.”
“Bidding opens at one kiss.”
I paid. He delivered.
Gathering clouds obscured the moon. The canyon below Guido’s house was a velvet abyss that opened beyond the gravel shoulder of the road and swallowed Mike’s high beams.
“It’s quiet up here,” Mike said.
“If I were ever to live in L.A., it would have to be somewhere like this. Somewhere away from the city.”
In the green light from the dash, I saw the strangest look cross his face; pain, glee — I couldn’t read it.
“What did I say?” I asked, touching his hand on the wheel.
“It’s good to know you’ve given some thought to moving down.”
“Just making conversation. I said ‘If.’ “
“There are a lot of canyons around L.A. We could probably find you one a helluva lot better than this.”
I felt another sort of canyon open up under me.
“Guido’s driveway is right there on the left,” I said. “It’s easy to miss. Go slow.”
“Can’t go any slower, Maggie.” He turned up into the steep drive. “If we go any slower, we’ll stop dead.”
“I work long hours,” I said. “Sometimes I’m away from home for a couple of months at a time.”
“Guido seems happy with his nine-to-five. Casey would be real pleased to have you home more.”
“We’re fine with things as they are.”
“Land somewhere, Maggie.” He stopped in front of the garage and turned off the lights. “Casey will only be with you four more years before she goes away to college. Make the best of it.”
“What are you saying? I negle
ct her?”
“No. You’ve done a great job with her. What I want to say is, I retire in three years. It isn’t so long. Come, you and Casey, stay here with me for three years. Then I’ll go anywhere you say. I’ll live with you in a tent in the middle of the Sahara, if that’s what you want.”
I turned around in my seat to face him. “Are you proposing?”
“Don’t make it sound like a threat,” he said, laughing softly. “The last six months have been the worst years of my life. Maggie, I don’t ever want to lose you again. I know marriage scares you. As long as we’re together, I don’t care whether we’re married or not.”
“I would drive you crazy, Mike.”
He laughed. “You already do.”
“There are so many complications.” I opened my car door, misjudged how far down the ground was, and stumbled a little. “So much to think about.”
He shut his door after him. “If you want something bad enough, you can overcome the complications.”
I saw Guido spying on us from the window in his front door. When I waved, he came out onto the porch.
“Hello, children,” he said. “What’s new?”
“This and that.” Mike squeezed my hand. “What’s new with you, Guido?”
“My friend the computer nerd generated an interesting picture for us.” He led us inside. “Until I saw it, I hadn’t realized the political implications of the case.”
Guido was grinning. I knew we had to let him play his joke to the end before we could move forward. He winked at me.
“You look good, Maggie,” he said. “Even better than yesterday. You been running or something?”
“Why?”
“Well, your hair’s a little damp in the back there. Thought maybe you ran all the way over.”
“I just got out of the shower, Guido,” I said, glaring a little. “So did Mike. You want a play-by-play?”
He winked again. “Why should I care?”
“Indeed,” I said. “Can we see the picture now?”
“On the table.”
Mike lifted a file folder from the coffee table and opened it. He looked, grimaced, and passed it to me.
I looked. I sighed. “Very funny, Guido. Richard Nixon was driving the red Corvette I taped?”
Midnight Baby Page 17