“It points to another setup,” I said. “If Cherish is dirty, Drew was telling the truth about Rand hearing noises under the window, seeing the black truck. Barnett Malley went after Rand because Rand knew something about Kristal’s murder that threatened him. Something Rand told Cherish because he trusted her.”
“She goes and rats him out to her boyfriend. What would Rand know, eight years later, that threatened Barnett?”
“The obvious answer is Barnett had something to do with his daughter’s death.”
“The boys beat and choked Kristal, no one debates it. Why would Barnett have had anything to do with that?”
“Don’t know.” The two of us sat staring at the fish that I’d put in the pond because I thought it would help me relax. Once in a while, it does.
Milo said, “Even if there is something to that, why eight years later. What are we talking about? One of those recovered memories?”
“Or a young man making sense of something that had confused him for years. Rand could have come to it long before his release, but who would he tell? The prison staff was unresponsive, they never even followed through on teaching him to read. His only confidante was Cherish. But his trust was misplaced.”
“Once he was out, he thought of someone else,” he said. “A guy with a Ph.D. who’d been fair and warmhearted and objective.”
He looked at me. “The meeting he never made. Maybe that was the point of killing him.”
* * *
We walked back up to the house, popped a couple of beers, and sat at the kitchen table.
Milo finished his bottle and put it aside. “How’s this for ugly, Alex: What if Cherish and Malley didn’t meet at the trial. They were getting it on before Kristal’s murder. She wanted to marry him, needed to get rid of the competition. As in his existing family. So she found herself a little killer for hire and started with the offspring.”
“Cherish paid Troy to murder Kristal?”
“She knew Troy from before. She’s into psychology, went looking for a cold-eyed little psychopath and found one. Troy told you he was gonna get rich. Cherish strung him along by promising to get him out early, with some pot of gold at the end of the goddamn rainbow. Instead, she got him bumped. Six months later, phase two: Lara goes down.”
“Lara was shot with Barnett’s gun,” I said.
“So either Barnett did her himself, or Cherish, being his girl, had ample opportunity to pick the thirty-eight out of the collection. My bet’s on them both being dirty. Remember how pissed Nina Balquist was about Barnett cremating Lara instead of holding a funeral? Why be in such a rush unless you had something to hide? And if Barnett abducted Rand, he’d have to know what was going on.”
“The only problem is,” I said, “it’s eight years later and Cherish and Barnett aren’t married. Why would they go through all that for the sake of an illicit affair?”
“Hey,” he said, “relationships are tough. The passion cooled, whatever.”
“Not enough to stop the motel trysts.”
“Okay, they discovered that hot-bedding it is more fun than going domestic. Or Cherish doesn’t want to give up all that county money and the income from Drew’s moonlighting. Divorce usually hurts the woman, right? Look at Weider. Cherish keeps the house, the kids, the holy-roller persona, and has her fun on the side.”
“Could be,” I said. “It sure fits with Allison’s guess about premeditation. Troy was paid and brought Rand along as backup. Rand wasn’t in on it from the beginning, but somehow he figured it out.”
He rubbed his face hard. “Still, it’s a tough one, pinning Kristal on Barnett. Here’s a guy waited years to be a father. He went so far as to borrow money for fertility treatment.”
“Nina Balquin suspects the money was never used for treatment.”
“Barnett and Lara must’ve done something, Alex. They had a kid. If Cherish is Little Miss Hitler I can see her trying to eliminate the other chimp’s baby. But Barnett doing his own kid for her?”
I heard the question but my brain was somewhere else. His mention of Nina Balquin had flashed me back to her house. The rear wall.
I said, “Oh, my.”
“What?”
“Kristal’s baby photo. Her eyes. Big and brown. Barnett’s blue-eyed and so was Lara. I remember seeing her in court, she had huge, gray-blue eyes that she was constantly wiping because she was always tearing up. Two brown-eyed parents can produce a light-eyed child but the opposite’s only remotely possible, through spontaneous mutation.”
“Kristal wasn’t the cowboy’s kid?”
“It wasn’t until six years after they borrowed the money that Lara got pregnant.”
“Lara got herself a different kind of fertility treatment.” His smile was vicious. “Both of them fooling around but Lara left evidence and Barnett couldn’t handle it.”
“Barnett dominated and isolated Lara,” I said. “Another reason for her to go looking for love elsewhere. Any husband would be enraged by his wife having another man’s baby, but someone like Barnett— asocial, bad temper, gun freak— would’ve been especially prone to a violent reaction. He punished Lara twice. First by eliminating the fruit of her infidelity, and when that didn’t put out the fire in his belly, he got rid of her. And if he needed encouragement, Cherish was there to egg him on.”
“Pillow talk,” he said. “ ‘I’ve got a solution, honey.’ Yeah, makes sense, doesn’t it?”
“It makes stomach-crawling sense.”
“So how did Rand figure it out?” he said.
“He must’ve recalled something from the time of the murder,” I said. “Spotting Cherish with Troy shortly before the abduction. Or seeing Cherish and Barnett together. For all we know one of them went to the mall that day to make sure everything went down smoothly. Or Barnett’s involvement was more direct. Lara said she only turned her head for a minute before Kristal disappeared. What if someone Kristal knew and trusted lured her away?”
“Come to Daddy,” he said. “Then Daddy hands her over to Troy and Rand. Jesus . . . and Rand came to all this spontaneously, after years of sitting behind bars?”
“Rand knew he was behind bars because he’d been part of something terrible. Isolation and maturation got him ruminating. He began to assess his share of the guilt. To try to feel like a good person. Barnett and Cherish had no reason to worry about him because he hadn’t been in on the plot. Until he began talking to Cherish. Troy, on the other hand, was an immediate threat, and was eliminated quickly.”
“What’s the name of that seminary she went to?”
“Fulton.”
“Any idea where it is?”
I shook my head. “According to Cherish, Troy’s buried there. She convinced the dean to donate a plot.”
“Oh, I’ll bet she did.” He laughed and cracked his knuckles. “Cherish is a word I use to descri-ibe . . .”
“On the other hand,” I said.
“What?”
“It’s a great house of cards, but all we really know about Cherish is that she’s sleeping with Barnett Malley.”
His face got hard. “So we find out more. That’s what life’s all about, right? Broadening one’s horizons.”
CHAPTER 28
I walked Milo to his car. “Was Kristal buried or cremated?”
“You’re thinking DNA.”
“If you ever get a sample from Barnett, it would answer the paternity question.”
“Let me tell you about DNA in the real world. We used to send stuff to the sheriff’s crime lab, but they’re backlogged till the next millennium, and they can’t get the county to pay for the latest equipment so they sometimes have to send stuff out. Department recently contracted with Orchid Cellmark in New Jersey, but it’s a priority game: sexual homicides first, then rapes, then crimes against minors. The quickest you can get something back is two to four months. And that’s after you get your requisition approved by the pencil pushers. In this case, if Kristal was buried, I’d need an exhumatio
n order, which could take even longer than DNA analysis, especially with no consent from the surviving relative. Going that route would also mean letting Malley know he’s under suspicion.”
“Just a thought,” I said.
“On the other hand, maybe the coroner kept something from Kristal’s autopsy and I can send that to Cellmark . . . I’ll head over to the crypt, see if they can find something. Ciao.”
* * *
I returned to the house in order to educate myself about foster child reimbursement in L.A County, and to learn more about Fulton Seminary.
The first assignment was easy. I phoned Olivia Brickerman at home. She’s a professor in the Department of Social Work at the gracious old university across town, a battle-toughened veteran of the ground war that is California’s social services system, the widow of a chess grandmaster, a frizzy-haired fireplug old enough to be my mother and one of the smartest people I’ve ever encountered.
She said, “You only call when you want something.”
“I’m a bad son.”
She laughed, finished with a gasp.
“You okay?” I said.
“As if you care.”
“Of course— ”
“I’m on my feet, darling. Which is a positive sign, considering. So how’s it going with Dr. Snow White?”
“Allison?”
“The ivory skin, the black hair, the soft voice, all that gorgeous? The analogy’s obvious. Am I overstepping boundaries, here?”
“Allison’s fine.”
“And Robin?”
“Robin’s in Seattle,” I said.
“Which begs the question.”
“Last time I spoke to her she was doing well, Olivia.”
“So that’s it?” she said.
I didn’t answer.
“I’m a terminal yenta, Alex. Slap my wrist. Seattle, eh? The Genius and I used to go there. Before the computers and the coffee. The Genius could row a boat pretty well, we used to go out on Lake Washington. . . . Robin still with Voice-boy?”
“Yup.”
“Mr. Tra La La,” she said. “She brought him by a few months ago for Sunday brunch. Unlike other people who can’t find the time.”
“Allison and I took you to dinner at the Bel-Air.”
“Don’t quibble. What I’m getting to is that I didn’t care for him.”
“Robin does.”
“He’s too quiet,” she went on. “Aloof, if you ask me. Not that anyone has.”
“I’m always open to your wisdom, Olivia.”
“Ha. So what do you need to know?”
“How well does the state pay for foster care?”
“I was hoping for more of a challenge, darling. First of all, the state mandates foster care and sets up basic fees but each county distributes the funds. Counties also have the discretion to supplement the state. Traditionally, they’ve been tight with the purse strings. The rates vary but not much. Which county?”
“L.A.”
“The other thing you need to know is that, officially, foster parents aren’t paid. A stipulated amount is allocated per child and the custodial adult gets to disburse it.”
“Meaning foster parents are paid,” I said.
“Exactly. The basic rate varies with the age of the child. Four hundred twenty-five a month to five ninety-seven. Older kids get more.”
“I’d assume just the opposite,” I said. “Babies require more care.”
“You’d be thinking logically, darling. This is the government. No doubt some number cruncher set up a formula based on pounds of flesh.”
“What age group gets the max?”
“Over fifteen. Twelve through fourteen gets five forty-six, and so on down to the babies who get four twenty-five. Which doesn’t pay for a lot of formula and diapers. Quite often it’s family members who take the kid in and apply as kinship guardians. That what we’re talking about, here?”
“No, these are nonrelatives,” I said. “Can the basic rate be supplemented?”
“Wards with special needs get extra payments. Right now the max is a hundred seventy a month. That’s through Children’s Services, but there are other bureaucracies you can tap if you know how to play with paper. The system’s full of goodies.”
“Would kids with A.D.D. be considered special needs?”
“Absolutely. It’s a recognized disability. Is there any point in my asking you why you want to know all this?”
“There are some people under suspicion,” I said. “Milo wants to know if they’re getting rich at the public trough.”
“Dear Milo. Has he lost weight?”
“Maybe a little.”
“Meaning no. Well, I haven’t either. You know what I say to constitutionally skinny people? Go away. Anyway, if you want you can give me names of these suspicious individuals, when I get back to the office I’ll run them through the computer.”
“Drew— probably Andrew— and Cherish Daney.” I spelled the surname and thanked her.
“Cherish as in I love you?”
“As in.”
“Except maybe she loves money too much?”
“It’s a possibility.”
“Anything else you want to tell me?”
“How many foster children can one family care for?”
“Six.”
“These people have eight.”
“Then they’re being naughty. Not that anyone’s likely to notice. There’s a shortage of what the state feels are decent homes and very few caseworkers to look into details. If nothing terrible happens, no one pays attention.”
“What comprises a decent home?” I said.
“Two parents, middle class would be great but not necessary. No felony record. Optimally, someone’s working but there’s also someone in the home to supervise.”
“The Daneys fit the bill on all accounts,” I said. “Does the state pay for homeschooling?”
“Same answer: It depends on how you fill out the forms. There’s a clothing allowance, a supplemental clothing allowance, all sorts of health care surcharges that can be tapped. What’s up, darling? Another one of those scams?”
“It’s complicated, Olivia.”
She sighed. “With you it always is.”
* * *
Fulton Seminary offered one degree, a master of divinity. According to its website, the school’s curriculum emphasized “scriptural, ministerial, and public service aspects of professional evangelical training.” Students were allowed a range of “intellectual concentrations” including Christian Leadership, Evangelical Promotion, and Program Supervision.
Several paragraphs were devoted to the school’s philosophical underpinnings: God was perfect, faith in Jesus superseded all actions, humans were depraved until saved, worship and service were essential elements of fixing a world in dire need of repair.
The campus sat on three hilly acres on Glendale’s northern rim. A fifteen-minute ride to the motel on Chevy Chase.
I scrolled through pages of photos. Small groups of clean-cut, smiling students, rolling lawns, the same glass-fronted sixties building in every shot. No mention of an on-site cemetery.
The faculty numbered seven ministers. The dean was Reverend Doctor Crandall Wascomb, D.Theol., Ph.D., LL.D. Crandall’s picture made him out to be around sixty, with a thin face above a high, smooth dome of brow, silver-white hair that covered the top of his ears, and crinkly eyes of the exact same hue as his powder blue jacket.
I called his extension. A woman’s taped voice told me Dr. Wascomb was out of the office but he really cared about what I had to say. “Please leave a detailed message of any length and repeat your name and phone number at least once. Thank you and God Bless and have a wonderful day.”
My message was short on details but I did toss in my police affiliation. There was a good chance I’d made it sound more official than it was, but Dr. Wascomb’s training prepared him for minor transgressions.
Repeating my name and number, I hung up, reflecting on hu
man depravity.
* * *
Just after nine p.m., Dr. Crandall Wascomb called while I was out with Allison. My service operator said, “Such a nice man,” then she gave me the number. Different from his office. It was nearly eleven but I phoned anyway and a soft-voiced woman picked up.
“Dr. Wascomb, please?”
“May I ask who’s calling?”
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