J is for JUDGMENT

by Sue Grafton

  The house they were moving into looked as if it had been built in the twenties: rosy-beige stucco exterior with a tiny porch and a patchy front yard. The window trim had been done in a darker shade of rose with a tiny rim of azure. I’d been in half a dozen, houses just like it. The interior couldn’t have been much more than nine hundred square feet: two bedrooms, one bath, living room, kitchen, and a small utility room in the rear. There was a cracked concrete driveway to the right of the house, a two-car garage visible in the rear, with what looked like a bachelor apartment above.

  The movers began to unload the truck. If they noticed my presence, they gave no indication of it. I made a note of the house number and the street before I fired up my engine and returned to Dana’s. I had no compelling reason to talk to her again, but I needed her cooperation, and I was hoping to establish a rapport of some kind. I caught her just as she was turning into her drive. She parked the car in the garage, assembling some parcels before she opened the car door. The minute she spotted me, I could see the color tint her cheeks. She slammed her car door, emerged from the garage, and crossed the grass in my direction. She was wearing tight jeans, an old T-shirt, and tennis shoes, her hair held back by a blue-and-white cotton scarf that she had tied around her head. The assorted paper bags in her arms seemed to crackle with her agitation. “What are you doing back here again? I consider this harassment.”

  “Well, it’s not,” I said. “We’re trying to get a line on Wendell and you’re the logical place to start.”

  Her voice had dropped, and her eyes were glittering with rage and determination. “I will call you if I see him. In the meantime, if you don’t stay away from me, I will notify my attorney.”

  “Dana, I’m not your enemy. I’m just trying to do a job. Why don’t you help me? You’re going to have to deal with the issue sometime. Tell Michael what’s going on. Tell Brian, too. Otherwise I’m going to have to step in and tell them myself. We need your help on this.”

  Her nose suddenly reddened and a fiery triangle formed around her mouth and chin. Tears leapt into her eyes and she pressed her lips together, sealing back her rage. “Don’t tell me what to do. I can handle this myself.”

  “Look. Can we talk about this inside?” I saw her glance at the houses across the street. Without a word she turned and proceeded toward the front door, pulling keys from her shoulder bag. I followed her through the entrance and closed the front door behind us.

  “I have work to do.” She dumped her parcels and handbag on the bottom step and went up the stairs toward the second-floor bedrooms. I hesitated, watching her until she disappeared from view. She hadn’t said I couldn’t join her. I took the stairs two at a time, peering right at the landing until I located the empty master suite that Michael and his wife had apparently just vacated. There was a canister vacuum cleaner outside the door, cord neatly retracted, cleaning tools still attached. My guess was that Dana had left it there as a tangible suggestion, hoping someone would vacuum once the furniture had been moved. No one seemed to have taken her up on the offer. She was standing in the middle of the bedroom, surveying the premises, trying (I imagined) to figure out where to begin the cleanup. I eased into the doorway and leaned against the frame, trying not to disturb the fragile truce between us. She glanced over at me without any evidence of her earlier hostility.

  “Do you have children?”

  I shook my head.

  “This is what it looks like when they leave you,” she said.

  The room was drab and empty. I could see a king-size square of clean carpet where the bed had been. There were stray coat hangers on the floor, and the wastebasket was jammed with last-minute discards. Nests of accumulated hair and fuzz rimmed the wall-to- wall carpeting. There was a broom leaning against the wall, a dustpan upright beside it. There was an ashtray on the windowsill, the brim filled with old cigarette butts, an empty, crumpled pack of Marlboro Lights balanced jauntily on top. Pictures were gone. I had to guess the young married couple was still at that stage of decorating where travel or rock posters were affixed to the walls with tape. I could see the patches left behind. The curtains were down. The windowpanes were lacquered with a gray film of cigarette smoke, and I guessed the glass hadn’t been washed since the “kids” moved in. Even from a distance, Juliet didn’t strike me as the sort who scrubbed the baseboards on her hands and knees.

  That was Mom’s job, and I suspected Dana would tackle it with a vengeance once I had finally left her in peace. “Mind if I use the bathroom?” I asked.

  “Help yourself.” She grabbed the broom, attacking the comers of the room, coaxing dust away from the walls. While she exhumed the remains of Michael’s presence, I moved into the bathroom. The area rug and the towels had been removed. The door to the medicine cabinet was hanging open, the interior empty except for a sticky circle of cough medicine on the bottom shelf.

  The glass shelves above were tacky with dust. The room echoed oddly without the softening influence of a shower Curtain. I used the last scrap of toilet paper and then washed my hands without the benefit of soap, drying them on my jeans in the absence of a hand towel. Someone had even taken the bulb from the fixture.

  I moved back into the bedroom, wondering if I should help. There was no sign of a dust cloth or a sponge or any other cleaning implements. Dana was going after the dust as if the process were therapeutic.

  “How’s Brian doing? Have you seen him yet?”

  “He called me last night when he’d been through the booking process. His attorney’s been in to see him, but I’m really not sure just what they discussed. I guess there was some kind of problem when they brought him in, and they’ve put him in isolation.”

  “Really,” I said. I watched her sweep, the broom making a restful skritching sound against the carpet.

  “How’d he get into trouble, Dana? What happened to him?”

  At first I thought she didn’t intend to respond. Dust appeared in little puffs as she swept it away from the wall. Once she completed her circuit of the room, she set the broom aside and reached for a cigarette. She took a moment to light it, letting the question sit there between; us. She smiled with bitterness. “It started with truancy. Once Wendell died… well, disappeared… and the scandal hit the news, it was Brian who reacted. We used to have huge battles every morning about his going off to school. He was twelve years old and he absolutely did not want to go. He tried everything. He’d claim he had stomachaches and headaches. He’d throw temper tantrums. Cry. He’d beg to stay home, and what was I going to do? He’d say, ‘Mom, all the kids know what Daddy did. Everybody hates him and they all hate me, too.’ I kept trying to tell him what his dad did had nothing to do with him, it was completely separate and had no bearing on him at all, but I couldn’t talk him into it. He never bought it for a minute. And honestly, kids did seem to pick on him. Pretty soon he was getting into horrible fights, cutting classes, skipping school. Vandalism, petty theft. It was a nightmare.” She tapped her cigarette against the already laden ashtray, flicking a quarter inch of ash into a tiny crevice between butts.” What about Michael?”

  “He was just the opposite. Sometimes I think Michael used school as a way of blotting out the truth. Brian was oversensitive where Michael made himself numb. We talked to school counselors, teachers. I don’t know how many social workers we saw. Everybody had a theory, but nothing seemed to work. I didn’t have the money to get us any real help. Brian was so bright, and he seemed so capable. It just broke my heart. Of course, in many ways Wendell was like that, too. Anyway, I didn’t want the boys to believe he killed himself. He wouldn’t do that. We had a good marriage, and he adored them. He was very family-oriented. You can ask anyone. I was sure he’d never deliberately do anything to hurt us. I’ve always believed Carl Eckert was the one who was fiddling with the books. Maybe Wendell couldn’t face it. I’m not saying he didn’t have his weak-nesses. He wasn’t perfect, but he tried.”

  I let that one sit there, unwilling to challenge
her version of events. I could see her faltering attempt to correct the family story. The dead are always easier to characterize. You can assign them any attitude or motive without fear of contradiction.

  “I take it the boys are different in more ways than one,” I said.

  “Well, yes. Obviously, Michael is the steadier, partly .because he’s older and feels protective. He’s always been a very responsible kid, and thank goodness for that. He was the only one I could depend on after Wendell’s… after what happened to Wendell. Especially with Brian so out of control. If Michael has a fault, it’s being too earnest. He’s always trying to do the right thing, Juliet being a case in point. He didn’t have to marry her.”

  I kept myself still, making no response at all, because I realized she was giving me a critical piece of information about the situation. She assumed I was already in possession of the facts. Apparently, Juliet was pregnant when Michael married her. She went right on, talking as much to herself as to me.

  “Lord knows she wasn’t pushing for it. She wanted to have the baby, and she needed financial help, but it’s not like she insisted on making things legal. That was Michael’s idea. I’m not sure it was a good one, but they’re doing okay.”

  “Has it been hard on you to have them living here?”

  She shrugged. “For the most part, I’ve enjoyed it. Juliet gets on my nerves now and then, but mostly because she’s so damned uncooperative. She has to do it her way. She’s the expert on every subject. This at eighteen, of course. I know it comes out of her own insecurities, but it’s irritating all the same. She can’t stand my help, and she can’t tolerate suggestions. She doesn’t have a clue about motherhood. I mean, she’s crazy about the baby, but she treats him like a toy. You ought to see her when she bathes him. It’s enough to make your heart fail. She’ll leave him lying on the counter while she goes off to get his diapers. It’s a wonder he hasn’t rolled off half a dozen times.”

  “What about Brian? Does he live here as well?”

  “He and Michael shared an apartment until this latest incident. Once Brian was sentenced and started serving his time, Michael couldn’t afford to keep it. His job didn’t pay much and then with Juliet, he simply couldn’t manage. She’s insisted on staying home since the day he married her.”

  I noticed how neatly she substituted euphemisms. We were not discussing an unplanned pregnancy, a hasty wedding, and the subsequent financial muddle. Gone were the jail escape and the major shooting spree. These were episodes and incidents, inexplicable occurrences for which neither boy appeared to be responsible.

  She seemed to pick up on my thought process, quickly shifting the subject. She moved out into the hall and grabbed the vacuum, hauling it in behind her on lustily squeaking casters. My aunt always said a canister vacuum was useless compared with an upright. I wondered if this was the central metaphor in Dana’s life. She found the closest electrical outlet and pulled out enough cord to plug it in… “Maybe it’s my fault what Brian’s been through. God knows being a single parent is the hardest job I’ve ever faced. When you’re penniless at the same time, there’s no way you can win. Brian should have had the best. Instead, he’s had nothing in the way of counseling. His problems have been compounded, which is hardly his doing.”

  “Will you talk to them for me? I don’t want to interfere, but I’m going to have to talk to Brian.”

  “Why? What for? If Wendell shows up, it’s got nothing to do with him.”

  “Maybe so, maybe not. The shooting in Mexicali was allover the news. I know Wendell read the papers down in Viento Negro. It seems reasonable to imagine he’d head back in this direction.”

  “You don’t know that for a fact.”

  “No. But just suppose it’s true. Don’t you think Brian should be told what’s going on? You don’t want him doing something foolish.”

  She seemed to take that in. I could see her turning over the possibilities. She removed the upholstery attachment and clicked the rug and floor nozzle into place, adding the extension wand in preparation for vacuuming. “Hell, why not? Things couldn’t get much worse. The poor kid,” she said.

  I thought it better not to mention that I was picturing him like a piece of bait in a trap.

  In the office alcove below, the phone rang. Dana launched into a description of Brian’s misfortunes, but I found myself listening to her canned message as it came wafting up the stairs. The live message followed at the sound of the beep, one of her bridal clients with the latest complaint. “Hello, Dana. This is Ruth. Listen, hon, Bethany’s been having a little problem with this caterer you recommended? We’ve asked the woman twice for a written cost-per-person breakdown of the food and drink for the reception, and we can’t seem to get a response. We thought maybe you could give her a call and light a little fire under her for answers. I’ll be here in the morning and you can call me, okay? Thank you. I’ll talk to you then, babe. Bye now.”

  I wondered idly if Dana ever told these young brides the problems they were going to run into once the wedding was over with: boredom, weight gain, irresponsibility, friction over sex, spending, family holidays, and who picks up the socks. Maybe it was just my basic cynicism rising to the surface, but cost-per-person food and drink breakdowns seemed trivial compared to the conflicts marriage generated.

  “… a real helper, generous, cooperative. Winsome and funny. He’s got a very high IQ.” She was talking about Brian, the alleged teen killer. Only a mother could described as “winsome and funny” a kid who’d recently broken out of jail and gone on a killing rampage. She was looking at me expectantly. “I have to get on with this so 1 can reclaim my bedroom. You have any other questions before 1 get on with the vacuuming?”

  Offhand, I couldn’t think of any. “This is fine for now.” She kicked the switch and the vacuum cleaner shrilled to life, a high keening whine that drowned out any possibility of conversation. As I let myself out the front door, I could hear the droning of the motor as she hauled the suction wand across the floor.

  Chapter 11

  *

  My watch showed that it was nearly noon. I drove over to the Perdido County Jail. The Perdido County Government Center was constructed in 1978, a sprawling mass of pale concrete that houses the Criminal Justice Center, the administration building, and the Hall of Justice. I parked my car in one of the spaces provided in the vast marina of asphalt that surrounds the complex. I went into the main entrance, pushing through the glass doors that opened onto the lower lobby. I hung a right. The main jail public counter was located down a short hallway. On the same floor were the Sheriff’s Personnel Counter, Records and Licensing, and the West County Patrol Services counter, none of which interested me for the moment.

  I identified myself to the civilian clerk and, in due course, was directed to the watch commander’s office, where I introduced myself. I showed my identification, including my driver’s license and my investigator license. There was a brief delay while a second clerk picked up the phone and checked to see if the jail administrator was in. The minute I heard the guy’s name, I knew my luck had improved. I had gone to high school with Tommy Ryckman. He was two years ahead of me, but we’d misbehaved together rather desperately in the days when one could do that without risking death or disease. I wasn’t sure he’d remember me, but apparently he did. Sergeant Ryckman agreed to see me as soon as I’d received my clearance. I was directed down the hall to his small office on the right.

  As I entered his office, he unfolded himself from his swivel chair, emerging to an impressive six feet eight, his face wreathed with a grin. “Well, it’s been way too long. How the hell are you?”

  “I’m great, Tommy. How are you?”

  We shook hands across the desk and made effusive noises at each other, trading hasty summaries of the years since we’d met. He was now in his mid-thirties, clean-shaven with glossy brown hair parted on one side and slicked across. His hair was thinning slightly, and his forehead was scored as if by the tines of a fork
. He wore glasses with wire frames, and his jaw looked like it would smell of citrus after-shave. His khaki sheriff’s department uniform was starched and crisply pressed, the slacks looking like they’d been professionally tailored to fit. He had long arms and big hands, a wedding ring, of course.

  He motioned me to a chair and then eased back into his own. Even seated, he had the build of a basketball player, his grasshopper knees visible above the edge of the desk. His black shoes must have been a size 13. His accent was still shaded by a touch of the Midwest, Wisconsin perhaps, and I remembered that he’d arrived at Santa Teresa High halfway through the school year. He had a studio portrait on his desk: a wifey-looking woman and three medium-aged kids, two boys and a girl, all with glossy brown hair neatly slicked down with water, all wearing glasses with clear plastic frames. Two of the kids were of an age where they had goofy teeth.

  “You’re here with regard to Brian Jaffe.”

  “More or less,” I replied. “I’m actually more interested in the whereabouts of his father.”

  “So I understand. Lieutenant Whiteside told me what was going on.”

  “Are you familiar with the case? I’ve heard some of it, but nothing in any depth.”

  “A good buddy of mine worked with Lieutenant Brown on that case so I had him fill me in. Just about everybody down here knows that one. Lot of local citizens got sucked into CSL. Lost their shirts, most of them. Sometimes I think it was a textbook scam. My buddy’s transferred since then, but Harris Brown’s the one you want to talk to if we can’t help.”

  “I’ve been trying to get in touch with him, but I was told he retired.”

  “He did, but I’m sure he’d be willing to help any way he can. Does the kid know there’s a chance his dad’s still alive?”

  I shook my head. “I just talked to his mother and she hasn’t told him yet. I understand he was just brought back to Perdido.”