by Dianne Emley
“Quiet. Not that he’s much for talking anyway.”
“Frankie Lynde is like an elephant in the room and all these years you’ve never talked to Ken about her.”
She opened her palms as if to say, “There it is.”
Vining stood and carried the mug to the kitchen sink. “Thank you for the coffee.”
“No problem.”
Rhonda looked through the windows over the kitchen sink at a car. It slowed as it passed then circled the cul-de-sac and headed out. Vining saw it was an unmarked detective’s car. It was likely Moore.
“I guess that’s it.” She began walking to the front door as if Vining was a dinner party guest who didn’t know when to leave.
On the porch, Vining turned back as if something occurred to her as an afterthought.
“Rhonda, when’s the last time you’ve seen a dentist?”
“Dentist?”
“Dentist.”
“I don’t know. Six, seven months ago for a cleaning. What does that have to—”
“What about your husband?”
“I’m not getting—”
“Does he go to the dentist?”
“Why are you asking me this?”
“Does he go to the dentist?” Vining gave her the blank eyes she’d learned from Kissick.
“I don’t have to answer.”
“No, you don’t. But it will be easier in the long run if you just answered the question.”
Rhonda glared at her. “Ken did not have anything to do with that woman’s murder.”
“Your life will be easier if you answer the question now, Rhonda. Trust me on this.”
Rhonda exhaled noisily through her nose. She gazed beyond Vining, as if seeking divine assistance. Then she gave in. “Ken rarely goes to the dentist, but he’s lucky. Has perfect teeth. You want to call our dentist? I’ll give you his number. Go ahead and call him.”
She could be lying, but Vining didn’t think so. This woman would be an inept liar.
“Thank you for your time, Rhonda. Have a good day.”
“I hate detectives. You’re all the same. Those cold eyes. You hide behind them. I know what you’re thinking. Poor thing. Stays married to a serial cheater, but you’re not me. Judge not lest ye be judged.”
The twig wreath rustled when Rhonda slammed the door.
If Wes hadn’t left, Vining wondered if she would have turned into Rhonda Moore. Would she have turned a blind eye to Wes’s philandering and crafted a Better Homes and Gardens life around a sucking black hole? She didn’t know. A lot of years had passed since she’d encountered the young woman she used to be. She was no longer qualified to speak for her.
Judge not lest ye be judged.
Every day she was on the Job she made judgment calls about situations and people. She’d been judged. Plenty. So Rhonda, eight words: There but for the grace of God go I.
T W E N T Y - S E V E N
W HILE SITTING IN HER CAR IN FRONT OF THE MOORE HOME, VINING called Frankie’s friend and fellow LAPD officer Sharon Hernandez. She was off-duty that day but moonlighting as uniformed security part-time in downtown L.A.’s jewelry district. She could meet Vining for a few minutes. She lived in Thousand Oaks, thirty miles north of downtown L.A., but was making a stop at Frankie’s condo during her commute. They could meet there in about an hour and a half.
Vining called Kissick and updated him about Rhonda.
When he answered the phone, he had a prickly tone that she hadn’t heard in a while. “We can stop wasting time on Kendall Moore.”
“Right,” she lied.
She told him what she’d learned about John Lesley—being seen with Frankie at the luncheon, the domestic violence PRO, the nasty interaction with the PPD’s John Chase over the fix-it ticket.
“Jim, I know no one wants to pursue citizen hero John Lesley as a suspect, but we have no basis to exclude him or his wife. We’re supposed to move off because Beltran thinks Lesley’s a nice guy?”
“Nan, we’re stepping down because there’s no evidence. I don’t care about Beltran. You know me better than that. At least I hope you do.”
“Sorry, that was out of line.” She was angry because she wanted him to leap on the Lesleys, have the same gnawing feeling about them that she did. The facts supported his view. What frustrated her was that they had evidence: the dental crown, the New Balance shoe. It was useless unless she could legally link it to the Lesleys.
“Forget it,” he said.
There was a pause. “Jim.”
“Yep?”
“I know you’re under a lot of pressure, but are we having a personal issue?”
“Don’t think so.”
“Cuz everything was great last night and it’s weird today.”
“You thought last night was great?”
“I told you that. Come on. Just because I didn’t hop into bed with you.”
“Like my father used to say, live in hope, die in despair.”
She made a small noise to let him know she was smiling. “We’ll crack this case, Jim.”
“I wish I was as confident. As far as last night goes, I’m mad at myself. You’re right. We have to work together. I’ve been having doubts about whether we can. Whether it’s practical.”
That wasn’t what she wanted to hear. She tried to be reassuring. “One day at a time.”
“Sweet Jesus.”
She was about to hang up when he interjected, “Almost forgot. You’re on the news.”
“Me? Why?”
“This morning.”
“Right. The media gauntlet. I forgot. Already?”
“Slow news day, I guess.”
“I didn’t say much.”
“You were fine. They had plenty to say about you. Something to the effect that Officer Nanette Vining was critically injured in a knife attack by an unknown assailant a year ago. Her assailant is still at large, and so on.”
“Great. My fifteen minutes of fame has been extended to a half hour. Okay, I’m code seven for an hour or so. Get lunch and run a couple of errands.”
She called information for the address of Moore’s hangout. His car was the one that had started down the cul-de-sac and retreated. She took a chance on where he might be hiding out. She was confident he didn’t kill Frankie, but she wasn’t finished with him. Someone had to stick up for Frankie. She might be the only one left who would.
THE MAVERICK OCCUPIED A SIDE STREET CORNER. THE DEEP WRAP-AROUND porch was crowded with smokers sitting at resin patio tables or leaning against the porch railing. They were mostly men. The few women wore tight jeans and low-cut tops, whether they had the figure for it or not. A dozen motorcycles were angled against the curb between pickup trucks and Simi Valley PD cruisers. There were sheriff’s department vehicles, too. If the cops ate there, it meant good cheap food.
When Vining opened her car door, laughter, country and western music, and the aroma of cooking meat filtered in. The smell made Vining realize she was starving. She drew stares as she climbed the broad, wooden steps. The cops and civilians alike probably made her as law enforcement.
It was a big building, with a bar on the left and a stage and dance floor to the right where a line dancing class was under way.
She spotted Moore seated at the far side of the bar facing the door, hunched over a glass of pale beer. Only his eyes moved as he watched her approach.
The barstool beside him was empty. She didn’t wait for an invitation to sit.
“Buy you a drink, Detective?” he asked.
She told the bartender, “Root beer and a menu, please.”
The bartender set a red plastic basket of popcorn in front of them and from beneath the bar produced a menu that had a luster of grease. She opened it and closed it after a glance, ordering a cheeseburger with fries. The root beer was cold and had a slight bitter taste that Vining liked. She took another sip before setting it down and grabbing a handful of popcorn. It was a little stale, but she was hungry and ate it anyway.<
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When she looked at Moore, he bared his teeth at her and opened his mouth wide.
She got the point of his display. She despised him more than ever.
“Got all thirty-two of them. Not a single cavity, although my front teeth are capped from when I broke them playing high school football. Inherited my father’s baldness and bad heart, but I got his good teeth.”
“Shame. Because of that rotten heart, you’ll die before you’ll get a full lifetime out of your good teeth.”
“Did he leave a tooth in Frankie or something?”
Vining ignored his question and ate more popcorn. “Your wife must have called you right after she slammed the door on me.”
His snide laugh degenerated into a racking smoker’s cough.
“Rhonda said she figured you and Frankie were together a couple of years.”
“Who’s counting?”
“Long time to be somebody’s back-door woman.”
“She wasn’t a prisoner.”
Wasn’t she? Vining thought.
“Maybe the pregnancy was an accident,” she said. “I’m sure Frankie thought that after a couple of years together, you’d be more sympathetic. Did she break it to you slowly? Ken, my period’s late. Ken, I bought a home pregnancy test. Ken, the test says I’m pregnant. Ken, I did three tests and they all say I’m pregnant. Ken, you promised you’d leave your wife and we’d be together. Ken—”
He whipped his head to face her. “What’s your point?”
“She got pregnant and you dumped her.”
“Right. She got pregnant.”
The pregnancy had been speculation until then.
He exhaled a sort of laugh. “Frankie knew the rules. I never told her I would leave my wife.”
“Uh-huh. How about those nights when you and Frankie were relaxing after really good sex? There’s a little pillow talk. Those dreamy, blue-sky words that just seem to spill out at those times. She’s talking about the future…You know that master plan women always have for their lives. The Prince Charming, the house with the white picket fence, the perfect assortment of adorable kids. Even women as tough as Frankie want that pretty picture. And not wanting to break the spell, you said, ‘Yes, pumpkin, wouldn’t that be nice?’ Why the hell else do you think she stayed with you? She loved you and you loved her. You loved her, Lieutenant.”
The muscles in his cheek pulsed as he clenched his jaw.
“If you didn’t love her, you wouldn’t have come to our station to try to find out information about her murder. You wouldn’t have stood by that hillside after an all-night bender. It took her slaughter to make you realize how much you loved her. She had the abortion because you told her to. Then you decided it was time to end things with her. She had become unpredictable. Emotional. She has to hear through the grapevine that you’re seeing someone else. You didn’t even have the balls to make a clean break with her, did you? You just stopped returning her calls.”
Her voice was low but urgent. She leaned toward his ear. She wanted him to feel her warm breath on his skin. She wanted it to slip beneath the surface and live there, like a fungus.
“Then a sweet seduction falls into her lap, a sexy rich guy who’s up front about what she is to him, and she goes for it. No mixed messages there. It’s all about sex and money. Problem is, the guy has big issues. He likes to rape and torture women.”
Still staring ahead, he blinked rapidly.
“Do you want to hear what he did to her, Lieutenant? He regularly beat her up. She was covered with scratches and bruises, old and new. He’d raped her in every orifice where he could stick his cock. Her vagina and anus had third-degree tears.”
She sensed more than saw him begin to writhe. His muscles tensed throughout his body. His back bowed slightly as if his belly had absorbed a blow.
“This asshole was smart, Lieutenant. He used a condom. No semen evidence. After keeping her as his sex slave for two weeks, for some reason known only to him, he decided Frankie’s time was up. He made her shave her pubic hair, cut and scrub her fingernails, and wash her hair. Her hair was still wet when we found her. He fed her a steak dinner with salad and wine. He must have tied her up for the next part. He held her neck from behind like this…”
She pulled back her head with her fingers. “There were fingertip bruises beneath her chin.”
With an imaginary knife in her right hand, she mimed stabbing her neck and pulling the knife across.
He bolted from the stool.
She watched him leave the bar and disappear down the porch steps.
“Cheeseburger and fries, hon?”
A waitress was at her shoulder, carrying a platter of food.
“Yes. Thank you.”
The waitress set it in front of her, took bottles of ketchup and mustard from pockets on her apron and set them on the bar.
Vining smacked the ketchup bottle, slathering her fries and meat. She piled on lettuce, tomato, pickles, and a thick slice of onion, pressed down the other half of the bun, and took a big bite. It was the best meal she’d had all week.
T W E N T Y - E I G H T
L OLLY HAD WORKED ENOUGH YEARS IN OTHER PEOPLE’S HOMES TO know the rules. Rule number one, the rule that went without saying, was “Do your job.” The practical interpretation was “Do your job just well enough to keep it.” When she’d first started cleaning houses, she used to knock herself out. She soon wised up. The pay and bonuses were not any bigger and the people would still point out things to demonstrate how she wasn’t working hard enough. The books on the bookshelves are dusty. The grout behind the sink is icky. She’d learned to say “Yes, Missus,” and “Yes, Mister,” and fix the problem without argument. She’d then wait for them to bring it up again.
The next unstated rule, as important as the first, was “Never steal.” Not even a few cents of spare change. Just dust beneath it, put it in a pile, and leave it.
Rule number three was “If you break something, tell them right away and offer to pay.” They would usually be mad, but nine times out of ten would say “Forget it” and not accept her money.
The fourth and fifth rules were “Don’t be nosy” and “Don’t gossip.” Lolly had learned that the richer the people she worked for, the more secrets they had and the less they wanted anyone to know about them. Find butts of marijuana cigarettes in an ashtray—throw them away. Find sex toys in the bedroom—put them in the nightstand drawer. Find bottles of booze hidden—leave them be. Find lingerie that’s not the wife’s, whatever you do, don’t put it with the wife’s. You can earn the husband’s good graces by giving it to him and acting stupid.
She had worked for John Lesley for nearly ten years and two wives. He was the richest of all her previous employers and had the most secrets. She’d see his picture sometimes in the gossip magazines, especially when he was with the other wife, the famous model. They used to have big parties that Lolly suspected were orgies based upon the women and men in various states of undress she’d find asleep all over the house when she came to work. There would be used condoms everywhere, especially in the great room. She wouldn’t touch them even with Playtex gloves and would snatch them up with a pair of steel kitchen tongs she’d later wash in bleach. He would give her big tips when she had to clean up after one of those nights, peeling off $500 from a fat roll of bills. That made it not so bad.
Things grew quieter when Pussycat entered the picture, but in some ways more strange. He finished constructing the recording studio and gym in the basement. He’d have friends down there to play music and party. It was loud when they cranked up the amps. The door to the basement was in an alcove off the kitchen and she’d feel the bass line thumping beneath her feet. The next day, she’d descend the narrow stairs to clean up the usual mess: leftover food, plates, glasses, bottles, and of course condoms. She’d long ago given up trying not to disturb any people she found asleep. Half of them remained out cold while she ran the vacuum around them. She was glad when he’d soundproofed the basement
.
She’d helped him test it, standing in different parts of the house while he played music. Once he told her to go down there, scream and yell as loud as she could and he’d see if he could hear upstairs. She did what he asked and didn’t think anything about it. She found it curious when the hospital bed arrived, but little surprised her anymore. “Don’t be nosy.” “Don’t gossip.”
One morning she’d come to work to find a heavy bolt lock on the door that led to the basement from the kitchen.
“Mister, where is the key so I can clean?”
“You don’t need to go down there anymore, Lolly. Okay?”
“Sure, Mister John.” Fine with her. Her workload just got lighter. She found it strange that he didn’t want her to clean, especially because he was spending more time down there than ever, but she didn’t ask and he didn’t tell.
Sometimes she wouldn’t see him for days, but knew he was home because his car was in the driveway, the big Hummer that Missus didn’t like to drive. She wondered if he was living in the basement. Once he was trying to balance a tray of food and had refused her help when she’d approached, but it gave her time to peek past the door. All she could see was a second door farther down that hadn’t been there before. It also had a big key lock. Why did he need two doors? She didn’t ask and he didn’t tell.
Soon after that, he surprised her with a fifty-dollar-a-week raise.
All the years she’d worked for him, she’d gotten used to his peculiar habits, but lately, things were making her uneasy. Missus’s behavior confirmed her suspicions that something strange was going on. Missus had always been cheerful and happy. She always asked about Lolly’s family and was concerned if one of her kids was sick. Recently, she had dark circles under her eyes and her face was often red and puffy like she’d been crying. She stayed in her rooms a lot and barely ate. She’d lost a lot of weight.
Then in the newspaper and on television, Lolly had seen the pictures of the woman they thought was involved in the policewoman’s disappearance. The woman in the drawing had on a cap and heart-shaped sunglasses. Missus had sunglasses like that. After the picture came out, Lolly went looking for them in the drawer where Missus kept dozens of sunglasses. They weren’t there. She couldn’t find them anywhere.