Bertie was starting to get frightened. She veered off into the ladies’ room and stayed there for 15 minutes, breathing slowly and mustering her courage to leave again. She peeked out the door—he was gone.
She was in the parking lot, headed toward her car when his voice found her. He was leaning against a BMW parked in a row in front of her car. He stood straight and came toward her. His voice was a hiss. “If you screw up my case, I’ll get you; I swear I’ll get you. I know where you work and I can find out where you live. You think I can’t find out where you live? I can find out in 10 minutes. That’s all it will take—10 minutes.”
He reached for her arm, squeezing it hard and making her wince. She twisted away and ran through the darkness to her car, clicking it open and throwing herself behind the wheel, thanking God that the doors locked automatically when closed.
He came up to the car, shouting, spraying spit on her window, his face only 6 inches from hers through the glass. He reached for the handle just as she fumbled the key into the ignition and started the car. She didn’t care if his hand was ripped off—for the first time since high school she laid down some rubber on the asphalt speeding out of the parking lot, looking at him in her rearview mirror.
He was still standing there, his mouth still moving in a silent shout.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Bertie’s drive home was a nightmare of fear. She accelerated down the freeway at 90 miles an hour, half-afraid, half-hoping that a cop would pull behind her with his lights flashing. She kept searching her rearview mirror for Lomax and when a BMW like his pulled onto the freeway from a ramp, she almost veered on to the shoulder in fear.
On the surface streets, she slowed down, but her tires still cried around corners and she kept checking to make sure her doors were locked at red lights. Getting out of her car at her apartment building required courage that she pulled up from somewhere in her toes. She sprinted to the entrance, took the steps two at a time, and ran at the door with the key aimed at the lock.
Inside, she slammed and relocked the door and frantically dug through her purse for her cell phone. Hands shaking, she called Shawn. No answer.
She left a message and punched the speed dial for her friend, Kate. No answer.
She called and recalled both of them for an hour, her fingers white over the phone, pacing and looking out the window. Finally, with no answer at either number, she found Detective Madison’s card in the pile of papers on her kitchen table and called him at the station. When he said hello, she started telling him about Lomax and how frightened she was. His recorded voice calmly advised her to leave a message. She did, then regretted it as soon as she hung up.
She peeked out the window again and, seeing nothing, sunk onto the couch. She was frightened, but she couldn’t convince herself to call 911. She didn’t want to make a statement to some superior-looking cop, she just wanted someone to tell her that Lomax hadn’t just threatened her and even if he had, that she was going to be all right.
She woke hours later, sitting on the sofa with her head tilted to one side and her mouth open, still clutching the now-ringing phone. She groggily answered it, only to discover the anonymous drone of a dial tone.
It rang again while she was holding it. She looked at it in confusion, and then realized it was the doorbell. With early morning light streaming through a crack in the curtains, she wasn’t as afraid, but she still carefully peered through the peephole to see who was there before opening the door to Detective Madison.
“What’s wrong?” he asked, pushing his jacket open to grasp the butt of a blue-gray gun in a leather shoulder holster. “Is someone here?” He pushed past her, eyes darting around the small room, then strode to the hallway to the bedroom and bathroom, checking around corners before disappearing inside.
Bertie was more fully awake now and despite her fear hangover and incredibly stiff neck, registered that he looked pretty damn fine doing the police thing. “There’s no one here, what’s going on? Are you all right?” His face was hard and so was his voice.
“Yes … yes, I am,” she said, still trying to shake off her grogginess. “I thought someone was following me last night. No one was, but I … “Bertie slowed down, not willing to say she’d over-reacted. Her fear had been valid; Lomax had scared the hell out of her.
Madison looked at her gravely. “Do you have coffee?” he asked.
“I don’t have any made, but I have some,” she said, turning toward the kitchen. He put his hand on her arm, and led her to the sofa. “Sit. Shut up,” he said.
Bertie sat and shut up. She was working her way out of the sleep- and fear-induced confusion and remembering the details from the night before.
She heard Madison rummaging through her cupboards and then inhaled the rich smell of coffee brewing. He came in with two mugs of steaming coffee, handing her one and settling into the chair across from her. He handed her a cup that read “Save a horse, ride a cowboy;” his was blessedly blank.
They sat there quietly drinking their coffee as color returned to Bertie’s cheeks.
“Better?” he asked. At her nod, he put his cup down and took hers, putting it down on the coffee table next to his. “Now, do you think you can tell me what happened?”
Bertie spilled her guts. She told him about going to the bar, connecting with Gardener (fudging a bit on what they’d said), then Lomax showing up and following her to her car.
“Did he touch you? Was there any contact?”
“He grabbed my arm, but I pulled loose and ran away. Then he tried to open my car door.”
“Did he threaten you?”
“He said I was in big trouble and that he could find out where I lived if I wrote anything about client, but I’d already told Gardener that I wasn’t going to. Honestly, if you could’ve seen him. He looked … he was … “
“And he didn’t follow you?”
“Not that I know of, but if you’d seen him, you’d understand that he was angry enough to do something.”
Madison sat quietly. “OK,” he said finally. “We can charge him with battery, since he grabbed you, and you can file for a restraining order, although I don’t know that there’s enough of a history of violence to make it stick.”
“Wait,” Bertie said, alarmed at the thought of restraining orders and battery charges. “I don’t know that I want to charge him with anything. He scared the hell out of me, but I think that once he realizes that threatening a member of the press isn’t in his best interests, he’ll stay away.”
Madison looked at her gravely. “I think you’re right,” he said, “but I don’t want to advise you not to do it. Are you sure?”
“Yes, I’m sure. I’m not as afraid this morning as I was last night.”
“OK, but I have to ask: Did Gardener tell you anything that would make Lomax come after you now?”
Bertie returned his look, now wary. The threat of jail hung between them. “I don’t want to go into a lot of detail, but Gardener told me about his mom and Robert Bellingham. I’m sure you already know what I heard.”
“Yeah,” Madison admitted. “Gardener the gardener was pretty open about it when we questioned him. He’s really pissed off and I can’t say I blame him. Hey, that’s not for print, if you put that in a story I’ll deny it.”
“I haven’t written any stories about the murder, and I’m not scheduled for any either.” He didn’t miss the bitter note in her voice.
“So if you’re not writing about the murder, why are you doing this? Going to bars and talking to someone who could be a murderer?”
“Because it’s my story, too, damn it!” she burst out. “That ‘damn it’ wasn’t meant for you.”
“I guess I understand,” he said slowly. “But I don’t think you should put yourself in danger on the off-chance that they’ll let you write a story instead of that little shit Fuchs.” He pronounced it Fucks.
Bertie was surprised at his tone. “Shawn likes you,” she said.
He looked e
mbarrassed. “Sorry. That wasn’t very professional, was it?”
“Why don’t you like Shawn?”
“Let’s don’t go there,” he said, evading her glance. “Look, how do you feel about breakfast? I got called out last night on another case and I think I might feel better if I got some food in my belly. Do you want to get something to eat? No work, just food.” He looked exhausted and upset. “I’d like some company.”
“Was it bad? Your call-out last night?”He leaned his head back against the couch and closed his eyes. “Yeah, it was a kid who picked some very bad people for parents. He died. Please, I’d really like to forget about it for awhile.”She gasped. “I’m so sorry. For the kid and for you. Yes, let’s get some breakfast.”
“Breakfast isn’t usually a formal meal,” he said, drily, looking at the black, strapless cocktail dress she was still wearing. “Oh, lordy,” she thought, “how bad do I look?” and hurried to the bedroom to change. She had makeup on but unfortunately it was last night’s. Mascara was smeared down to her nose, and her hair was sticking up in rat’s tails.
Ten minutes later, when she came out dressed in jeans, a plain white T-shirt, and sneaks, she found him standing in front of the wall studying her journalism awards hung there. He looked at her thoughtfully and then extended his arm. She and Detective Madison went to breakfast.
CHAPTER NINE
Bertie sacrificed the rest of her Saturday on the altar of the God of Chores. Her friend Kate called in a panic after discovering Bertie’s messages. She’d been out the evening before and hadn’t checked her machine till mid-morning. Bertie told her briefly what had happened and promised more when she returned Kate’s dress Sunday. As Saturday wore on and the expected phone call from Shawn never came, Bertie started getting angry.
Maybe he was a little shit.
She and Madison had gone to the pancake house down the street and ordered an obscene amount of food—pancakes, eggs, sausage and coffee.
He told her to call him Mad, a childhood nickname that had stuck. She didn’t ask him what his real first name was and kept hers … Bertha … to herself. They had some things in common: Married and divorced once; no kids; friends of both sexes, but no one serious; jobs that consumed a lot of their time and energy. He was 49, seven years older than her, and from L.A., she was from a small town in the Midwest.
“How did you become a journalist?” he asked. “Did you always want to be a writer?”
“Yep. My dad was a writer,” she answered. “It seemed like a fun thing to do.”
“What paper did he work for?”
“Not a newspaper, he wrote fortunes for Chinese fortune cookies.”
“Really? People write those?”
“Where did you think they came from?”
“Confucius?” “Those were the old-fashioned ones, my dad wrote fortunes for modern life.”
“Like?”
“Like: The death of a computer does not mean the death of creativity. My favorite one was:
The day-to-day crap never changes. You must learn to deal with it.”
It was a voyage of discovery, launched on a sea of boysenberry syrup. As they talked and ate, the lines on his face started to straighten out. After taking the last bite of pancake, he leaned back, sighed hugely and burped.
“I’m sorry,” he said, turning red. She just laughed.
They didn’t talk about the Bellinghams or the dead child and when they parted, she felt like she had a new friend.
That night, Bertie double-checked that her doors were locked. Intellectually, she knew Lomax wasn’t going to do anything to her, but emotionally she was still a little shaky.
Sunday morning traffic was practically nonexistent for L.A., and the drive to Kate’s was almost pleasant.
Kate Althorp owned and operated a dog obedience school and kennel called Althorp Manners, tucked away on a back street of L.A. She had a steady clientele that had grown through word-of-mouth, but she avoided celebrity clients and their pampered pups . It was a serious business; she didn’t want it mucked up with tabloid silliness.
Bertie said when she retired, she was going to rent a room there. Kate took her job seriously: The dogs were brushed and walked every day, they were fussed over and played with. Kate offered a carefully vetted college kid a part-time job helping her look after them, and checking in at night when there was a dog that didn’t feel well. Her latest, Gene, was a veterinarian-in-training.
She also left a TV on to provide a human presence for the dogs when no one was in the room. As Bertie walked in, she heard its soothing drone.
“What are the dogs watching today?” she asked Kate, who was sweeping up that morning’s pile of dog hair.
“The History Channel.” Kate and Bertie had roomed together at college, but after graduation, Kate had decided not to pursue a career in psychology, her major, instead taking a job as a keeper at one of the country’s largest zoos. She loved animals, and shoveling animal poop wasn’t much different than shoveling the emotional poop of humans, she always said.
She’d hurt her neck feeding the baby giraffes and received a settlement from the zoo. She used the money to buy the kennel and was happy at how it had worked out, even if she couldn’t look at the top of the Christmas tree.
“As long as it’s not Hitler, I consider the History Channel very soothing,” Kate said.
“What do they watch when Hitler’s on?” Bertie asked.
“It depends. Never HGTV, that’s too stimulating. They like reruns of ‘Gilligan’s Island,’ and ‘The Brady Bunch.’”
Bertie handed over Kate’s dress. Kate’s dentist boyfriend was always taking her to events where she had to dress up, like the “Molar Madness” bash Friday night. Bertie had no idea that dentists were such party animals.
Conversation over coffee in Kate’s midget-sized office centered on Bertie’s adventures.
“I can’t believe it,” Kate said, agog. “You have the best job in the world.”
“Katie! I was threatened, escorted out of a mansion by armed security guards, threatened with jail, talked to a guy two days before he was murdered—murdered! … Well, I guess it was kinda fun.”
“You’re not going to let Shawn hog all the glory, are you? You’re sticking with it, right?”
“Yep,” Bertie said, her jaw in a pugnacious jut.
“So what’s Detective Madison like?” “Divorced for a couple of years, no kids, and he looks like Harrison Ford.”
“Ooooh, not bad. Hey, let’s go look at the mansion, I want to see the ‘scene of the crime.’”
“You’re not going to see anything,” Bertie said, “the crime scene has been cleaned up for a couple of days and I bet the paps aren’t even hanging around anymore.”
But Kate was already hunting for her car keys. In a few minutes they were heading toward the door, which Kate carefully locked behind her.
On the road to the mansion in her blue Ford Echo, Kate said, “This is just like Nancy Drew.”
“Nancy Drew was a lesbian,” Bertie said.
“WHAT?” Kate jerked her head toward Bertie and the car started drifting toward the concrete abutment dividing the highway.
“Kate, LOOK OUT.”
CHAPTER TEN
Kate righted the car and said, “Calm down, Bertie, it’s OK. Your nerves are really shot, aren’t they?”
“Yeah, but that doesn’t mean I want to be the first fatality ever linked to a Nancy-Drew-is-a-lesbian theory,” Bertie said.
“I can’t believe you said Nancy Drew is a lesbian. I still have all my Nancy Drew books.”
“Think about it, Kate—her best `chum’ is a girl named George—not Betsy, not Sue-Sue, not Midge or any cutesy ‘50s names, but George. The books were a subversive attempt to affect the sexuality of future generations of young girls.”
“Um, excuse me, BERTIE, but your name could be short for Albert or Bertrand, does that make you a lesbian? I don’t think so. And besides, Nancy Drew had a boyfriend, Ned, r
emember?”
“But they never got it on, did they?”
“Neither did Nancy and George,” Kate said.
“That we know of,” Bertie said. It was an absurd conversation, but they were both enjoying it.
“You know, in all the years I’ve known you, I don’t think I ever asked why on Earth your parents named you Bertha. I bet you had to take a lot of crap in high school for that one.”
“Tell me about it. Fortunately Bertha is almost impossible to rhyme with anything, but I did get a lot of ‘Bertie, Bertie, you’re a nerdy.’ My mom named me after my rich Great-Aunt Bertha. She was hoping we’d be in her will if she could parade a little Bertha around in front of her.”
“What happened?”
“Before she ended up in a home for eccentric little old ladies, Aunt Bertha started a foundation dedicated to keeping wild ducks out of public places. She hired the best lawyers, who created an ironclad trust that we couldn’t break. My mom kinda felt bad about trying. It was Aunt Bertha’s money, after all.”
“Wild ducks in public places?” Kate asked.
“She was attacked by ducks when she was little. It’s a long story and besides, we’re here. Pull over.”
Kate tucked the car into a small pull-off across the street from the Bellingham mansion. A black Mercedes was parked at the top of the driveway. Bertie did another recount of what had happened, this time with visual aids, pointing out the door to the foyer where Bellingham was found, and the stand of trees where the scrum she’d witnessed had taken place.
After 10 minutes, Bertie was ready to leave. “Let’s go,” she said. “My rear-end’s starting to get sore. Nothing’s going to happen, things only ever happen on bad TV shows. Let’s get some lunch. No! Let’s skip lunch and go straight to dessert.”
Kate reluctantly started the car and pulled out, making a U-turn when she was sure there weren’t any cops around.
“What a bummer of a day,” Kate said. “First I find out that Nancy Drew is a lesbian, then I miss my chance to play detective.”
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