J Is for Judgment

by Sue Grafton

  I went to bed at 10:30 and slept solidly, waking at six o' clock, half a second before my alarm was set to go off. I pushed the covers aside and reached for my sweats. After hasty ablutions, tinked down my spiral staircase and out to the street.

  There was an early morning chill, but the air was curiously muggy, residual heat held in by the lowering cloud cover overhead. The early morning light was pearly. The beach looked as fine and as supple as gray leather, wrinkled by the night winds, smoothed by the surf. My cold was rapidly fading, but I didn't dare try jogging the full three miles yet. I alternated between walking and trotting, keeping track of my lungs and the creaking protests in my legs. At that hour, I tend to keep an uneasy eye out for the unexpected. I see the occasional homeless person, sexless and anonymous, sleeping in the grass, an old woman with a shopping cart alone at a picnic table. I'm especially alert to the odd-looking men in scruffy suits, gesturing, laughing, chatting with invisible companions. I'm wary of being incorporated in those strange and fearful dramas. Who knows what part we play in other people's dreams?

  I showered, dressed, and ate a bowl of cereal while I scanned the paper. I drove into the office and spent a frustrating twenty minutes hunting for a parking space that wouldn't generate a ticket. I nearly had to break down and try the public lot, but I was saved at the last minute by a woman in a pickup who vacated a spot just across the street.

  I went through the mail from the day before. Nothing much of interest, except the notification that I'd won a million dollars. Well, either me or the two other people mentioned. In fine print, it said that Minnie and Steve were actually already collecting their millions in $40,000 installments. I got busy and tore out perforated stamps, which I licked and pasted in various squares. I studied the material, seriously worried I might win the third prize jet ski. What the hell was I going to do with that? Maybe I'd give it to Henry for his birthday. I went ahead and balanced my checkbook, just to clear the decks. While I was eliminating some of those pesky excess dollars, I picked up the receiver and tried Renata Huff's unlisted number, without results.

  Something was nagging at me, and it had nothing to do with Wendell Jaffe or Renata Huff. It was Lena Irwin's reference yesterday to the Burton Kinsey family up in Lompoc. Despite my denials, the name had set up a low hum in my memory, like the nearly inaudible buzz of power lines overhead. In many ways, my whole sense of myself was embedded in the fact of my parents' death in an automobile wreck when I was five.

  knew my father had lost control of the car when a rock tumbled down a steep hill and crashed into the windshield. I was on the backseat, flung against the front seat on impact, wedged there for hours while the fire department worked to extract me from the wreckage. I remember my mother's hopeless crying and the silence that came afterward. I remember slipping a hand around the edge of the driver's seat, slipping a finger into my father's hand, not realizing he was dead. I remember going to live with the aunt who raised me after that, my mother's sister, whose name was Virginia. I called her Gin Gin or Aunt Gin. She had told me little, if anything, about the family history before or after that event. I knew, because the fact was embedded in the tale, that my parents were on their way up to Lompoc the day they were killed, but I never thought about the reason for the trip. My aunt had never told me the nature of the journey, and I'd never asked. Given my insatiable curiosity and my natural inclination to poke my nose in where it doesn't belong, it was odd to realize how little attention I'd paid to my own past. I'd simply accepted what I was told, constructing my personal mythology on the flimsiest of facts. Why had I never pushed aside that veil?

  I thought about myself, about the kind of child I was when I was five and six, isolated, insular. After their deaths, I created a little world for myself in a cardboard box, filled with blankets and pillows, lighted by a table lamp with a sixty-watt bulb. I was very particular about what I ate. I would make sandwiches for myself, cheese and pickle, or Kraft olive pimento cheese, cut in four equal fingers, which I would arrange on a plate. I had to do everything myself, and it all had to be just so.

  Dimly, I remember my aunt hovering nearby. I wasn't aware of her worry at the time, but now when I see the image, I know she must have been deeply concerned about me. I would take my food and crawl into my container, where I would look at picture books and nibble, stare at the cardboard ceiling, hum to myself, and sleep. For four months, maybe five, I withdrew into that ecosphere of artificial warmth, that cocoon of grief. I taught myself how to read. I drew pictures, made shadow creatures with my fingers against the walls of my den. I taught myself how to tie my shoes. Perhaps I thought they'd come back for me, that mother, that father, whose faces I could project, home cinema for the orphaned, a girl child who until lately had been safely ensconced in that little family. I can still remember how cold the trailer felt whenever I crawled out. My aunt never interfered with me. When school started in the fall, I emerged like a little animal coming out of its lair. Kindergarten was fearful. I wasn't used to other children. I wasn't accustomed to noise or to regimentation. I didn't like Mrs. Bowman, the teacher, in whose eyes I could read both pity and disapproval, that judgment. I was an odd child. I was timid. I was anxious all the time. Nothing I've faced since has even come close to the horrors of grade school. I can see now how the story, whatever it was, must have followed me like a specter from level to level: penned in my record, appended to my file, from teacher to teacher, through conferences with the principal...what shall we do with her? How shall we cope with her tears and her stoniness? So bright, so fragile, stubborn, introverted, asocial, easily upset...

  When the phone rang I jumped, adrenaline washing through me like a blast of ice water. I snatched up the receiver, my heart thudding in my throat. "Kinsey Millhone Investigations."

  "Hello, Kinsey. This is Tommy down at the Perdido County Jail. Brian Jaffe's attorney just notified our office that you can talk to him if you want. He didn't sound too happy about it, but I guess Mrs. Jaffe insisted."

  "She did?" I said, unable to disguise my astonishment.

  He laughed. "Maybe she thinks you'll go to bat for him, clear up this misunderstanding about the jailbreak and the little gal who got shot to death."

  "Yeah, right," I said. "When should I come down?"

  "Any time you want."

  "What's the protocol on this? Shall I ask for you?"

  "Ask for the senior deputy. Name's Roger Tiller. He knew the Jaffe kid back when he was working truancy patrol. I thought you might like to pick his brain."

  "That's great." Before I could thank him properly, the phone clicked in my ear. I was smiling to myself as I snagged my handbag and headed for the door. The nice thing about cops – once they decide you're okay, there's nobody more generous.

  Deputy Tiller and I traversed the corridor, our foot- steps out of synch, keys jingling as he walked. The camera up in the comer was keeping track of us. He was older than I'd expected, in his late fifties and heavyset, his uniform fitting snugly on a five-foot-eight frame. I had a quick vision of him at the end of a shift, stripping off his clothes with relief, like a woman peeling off a girdle. His body probably bore the permanent marks of all the buckles and apparatus. His sandy hair was receding, and he had a sandy mustache to match, green eyes, a pug nose, the kind of face that would have seemed appropriate on a kid of twenty-two. His heavy leather belt was making creaking sounds, and I noticed that his posture and his manner changed when he got in range of an inmate. A small group of them, five, were waiting to be buzzed through a metal door with a glass window embedded with chicken wire. Latinos, in their twenties, they wore jail blues and white T-shirts, rubber sandals. In accordance with regulations, they were silent, their hands clasped behind their backs. White wristbands indicated that they were GP, general population, incarcerated because of DUIs and crimes against property.

  I said, "Sergeant Ryckman says you met Brian Jaffe when you were working truancy patrol. How long ago was that?"

  "Five years. Kid was tw
elve, ornery as hell. I remember one day I picked him up and took him back to school three different times. I can't even tell you how many meetings we scheduled with the student study team. School psychologist finally threw her hands up. I felt sorry for his mother. We all knew what she was going through. He's a bad apple. Smart, good-looking, had a mouth on him wouldn't quit." Deputy Tiller shook his head.

  "Did you ever meet his father?"

  "Yeah, I knew Wendell." He tended to talk without making eye contact, and the effect was curious.

  Since that subject seemed to go nowhere, I tried another tack. "How'd you get from truancy patrol to this?"

  "Applied for administrative position. To be eligible for promotion, everybody gets a year's tour of jail duty. It's the pits. I like the people well enough, but you spend the whole day in artificial light. Like living in a cave. All this filtered air. I'd rather be out on the streets. Little danger never hurts. Helps keep your juices up." We paused in front of a freight-size elevator.

  "I understand Brian escaped from juvenile hall. What was he in for?"

  Deputy Tiller pressed a button and made a verbal request to have the elevator take us up to level two, where inmates designated as administrative segregation or medical were housed. The elevators themselves were devoid of interior controls, which effectively prevented their being commandeered by inmates. "Burglary, exhibiting or drawing a firearm, resisting arrest. He was actually being held in Connaught, which is medium security. These days, juvenile hall's maximum security."

  "That's a switch, isn't it? I thought juvenile hall was for out-of-control minors."

  "Not anymore. Old days, those kids were known as 'status offenders.' Parents could have 'em made wards of the court. Now, juvenile hall's turned into a junior prison. Kids are hard-core criminals. Three M's. Murder, mayhem, and manslaughter, lot of gang-related stuff."

  "What about Jaffe? What's the story on him?"

  "Kid's got no soul. You'll see it in his eyes. Completely empty in there. He's got brains, but no con- science. He's a sociopath. Our best information, it was him engineered the breakout, talked the gangbangers into it because he needed someone to speak Spanish. Once they crossed the border, the plan was they'd split up. I don't know where he was headed, but the others ended up dead."

  "All three? I thought the one kid survived the shoot-out."

  "Died last night without regaining consciousness."

  "What about the girl? Who was responsible for her death?"

  "You'd have to ask Jaffe about that since he's the only one left. Real convenient for him, and believe me, he'll take advantage of it." We'd reached the interview room on level two. Tiller took out a ring of keys and turned one in the lock. He pulled the door open on the empty room where I was to meet with Brian. "I used to think these kids could be salvaged if we did our job right. Now seems like we're just lucky to keep 'em off the streets." He shook his head, and his smile was bitter. "I'm getting too old for this stuff. Time to go shuffle me some paperwork. Have a seat. Your boy'll be here in just a minute."

  The interview room was six feet by eight with no outside windows. The walls were unadorned, a semi-gloss beige. I could still smell the lingering odor of latex paint. I've heard there's a full-time crew whose sole job is to repaint. By the time they complete the work up on level four, it's time to go back to level one again start allover again. There was one small wooden table and two chairs with metal frames, the seats padded in green vinyl. The floor tiles were brown. There was nothing else in the room except the video camera mounted in one comer near the ceiling. I took the chair that faced the open door.

  When Brian entered the room, I was surprised first by his size and second by his beauty. For eighteen he was small, and his manner seemed tentative. I'd seen eyes like his before, very clear, very blue, filled with an aching innocence. My ex-husband, Daniel, had a similar characteristic, some aspect of his nature that seemed unbearably sweet. Of course, Daniel was a drug addict. Also a liar and a cheat, in full possession of his faculties, and bright enough to know the differences between right and wrong. This kid was something else. Deputy Tiller claimed he was a sociopath, but I wasn't sure about that yet. He had Michael's pretty features, but he was blond where his brother was dark. Both were lean, though Michael was the taller and he seemed more substantial.

  Brian sat down, slouching on his chair, hands held loosely between his knees. He seemed shy, but maybe that was just a trait he affected... sucking up to adults. "I talked to my mom. She said you might be in to see me."

  "Did she tell you what I wanted?"

  "Just something about my dad. She says he might be okay. Is that true?"

  "We don't really know at this point. I was hired to find out."

  "Did you know my dad? I mean, like before he disappeared ?"

  I shook my head. "I never met him. I was given some photographs and told where he'd been seen last. I did run into a guy who looked a lot like him, but then he disappeared again. I'm still hoping to track him down, but right now, I don't have any leads. Personally, I'm convinced it was him," I said.

  "That's incredible, isn't it? To think he might be alive? I can't get over it. I mean, I don't even know what that'd be like." He had a full mouth and dimples. I found it hard to imagine he could fake such ingenuousness.

  I said, "It must seem weird."

  "Hey, no lie... with all this stuff going down? I wouldn't want him to see me like this."

  I shrugged. "If he comes back to town, he'll probably be in trouble himself."

  "Yeah, that's what Mom said. She didn't seem all that happy. I guess I can't blame her after what she went through. Like, if he's been alive this whole time, it means he laid a bum deal on her."

  "You remember much about him?"

  "Not really. Michael does, my brother. Did you meet him?"

  "Briefly. At your mother's."

  "Did you see my nephew, Brendan? He's really cool. I miss him, little pea-head."

  Enough of this chitchat. I was getting restless. "Mind if I ask you about Mexicali?"

  He shifted uncomfortably. He ran a hand through his hair. "Man, that was bad. Makes me sick to think of it. I didn't have anything to do with killing anybody, I swear. It was Julio and Ricardo had the gun," he said.

  "What about the breakout? How did that come to pass?"

  "Uhm, hey, you know? Like, I don't think my attorney wants me to talk about that."

  "I just have a couple of questions... in strictest confidence. I'm trying to get a feel for what's going on here," I said. "Whatever you say goes no further."

  "I better not," he murmured.

  "Was it your idea?"

  "Heck no, not me. You probably think I'm a jerk. I was stupid to go along with it... I can see that now... but at the time I just wanted to get out. I was desperate. You ever been in juvie?"

  I shook my head. "You're lucky."

  I said, "Whose idea was it?"

  He gave me a direct look, his blue eyes as clear as a swimming pool. "It was Ernesto came up with it."

  "Were you pretty good friends?"

  "No way! I only knew 'em because we were all in the same cottage at Connaught. That guy, Julio, said he'd kill me if I didn't help. I wasn't going to do it. I mean, I didn't want to go along with it, but he was big... real big guy... and he said he'd mess me up bad."

  "He threatened you."

  "Yeah, he said him and Ricardo would turn me out."

  "Meaning sexual abuse."

  "The worst," he said.

  "Why you?"

  "Why me?"

  "Yeah. What made you so valuable to the enterprise? Why not another Hispanic if they were headed into Mexico?"

  He shrugged. "Those guys are twisted. Who knows how they think?"

  "What were you planning to do down in Mexico if you didn't speak the language?"

  "Bum around. Hide. Cross back into Texas. Mostly I just wanted to get out of California. Court system here is not exactly on my side."

  The jail
officer knocked, indicating time was up. Something about Brian's smile had already caused me to disconnect. I'm a liar by nature, a modest talent of mine, but one I cultivate. I probably know more about bullshit than half the people on the planet. If this kid was telling the truth, I didn't think he'd sound nearly so sincere.

  Chapter 14

  * * *

  On the way back to the office, I stopped off at the Hall of Records, which is located in one wing of the Santa Teresa Courthouse. The courthouse itself was reconstructed in the late 1920s after the 1925 earthquake destroyed the existing courthouse as well as a number of commercial buildings downtown. Hammered copper plates on the doors to the Hall of Records depict an allegorical history of the state of California. I pushed through the entrance doors into a large space, dissected by a counter. To the right, a small reception area was furnished by two heavy oak tables with matching leather chairs. The floors were tiled in polished dark red paving stones, the high ceilings painted with faded blue-and-gold designs. Thick beams bore the echo of the repetitive patterns. Graceful wooden columns were visible at intervals, topped with Ionic capitals, again painted in muted hues. The windows were arched, the leaded-glass panes pierced with rows of linked circles. The actual work of the department was accomplished with the aid of technology: action stations, telephones, computers, microfilm projectors. As a further concession to the present, sections of the walls had been paneled with the soundproofing equivalent of pegboard.