“Seven thou a month.”
“Not bad for a coupla defrocked mopes.”
I said, “With some of it illegal. Olivia said no one enforces the regulations but it could be a wedge if you need one. I asked her to fax over the names of all the kids they’ve fostered. Drew’s got a history of falsifying documents. Maybe he’s been naughty in other ways.”
“Good thinking. What about Hot Pants Weider? Think I should confront her?”
“Boestling and Montez both said the way she went off at me was her usual approach to conflict. All you’ve got on her is hearsay adultery and she doesn’t practice law, so any threat of disbarment would be empty.”
“I could still embarrass her.”
“After the way Boestling humiliated her I don’t imagine there’d be much self-esteem left to threaten.”
“All the more so,” he said. “Hit her when she’s down.”
“You could try it.”
“But you wouldn’t.”
“Not now,” I said. “Too little bang for the buck.”
“Then who’s my target?”
“Not who,” I said. “What. Paperwork.”
* * *
I walked him to the lot across the street from the station where he retrieved his unmarked and followed me home. Passing me up at Westwood Boulevard, he got there first.
The fax from Olivia sat in my machine. One page of names and social security numbers, birth dates, periods of foster care.
Twelve girls, between the ages of fourteen and sixteen. Eight were still living with the Daneys. One name was familiar. Quezada, Valerie. The restless, resentful girl Cherish had tutored in math. Cherish leading her through the steps, the essence of patience. Moments later, Cherish’s tears when she talked about Rand. . . .
The list covered only a twenty-five-month period. Olivia’s handwritten note at the top said, This was as far back as I could get. The geniuses’ archival system is a mess. Maybe permanently.
Milo said, “Let’s start by cross-referencing the four who no longer live with them.”
“To what?”
“Worst-case scenario, for starts.” He phoned the coroner, asked to speak with “Dave,” and said, “No, not today, but I’m sure I’ll get there eventually. And get me a better mask, next time, I’m no stranger to decomposition but . . . yeah, nothing like water damage. Listen Dave, what I need is just a record-check . . . yeah, I know, hearing my voice makes your day.”
Five minutes later we got the callback from Coroner’s Investigator David O’Reilly: None of the four names matched the crypt’s roster of unnatural deaths. Milo phoned the Hall of Records, got the runaround before hooking into county records and the roster of natural deaths.
He put the phone down. “They all seem to be alive. Our bit of good cheer for the day.”
I thought: They could’ve died outside of L.A. County. “What next?”
“Any ideas?”
“You could try to locate them, see if they’ve got anything to say about the Daneys. I’d focus on these two, who are still minors. Maybe life got better for them and they no longer need fostering. On the other hand . . .”
“I like that,” he said. “Constructive pessimism.”
* * *
Olivia gave us a contact at D.C.S. and we had the data by three p.m.
Leticia Maryanne Hollings, seventeen, was still a state ward, living with a “kinship guardian”— an aunt in Temecula. No one answered the number and Milo filed it for future reference.
Wilfreda Lee Ramos, sixteen, was no longer on the foster list. Her last known contact was a twenty-five-year-old brother, George Ramos.
Phone listing for him but no address. City of residence was “L.A., Ca.” Occupation: “Student.” The 825 number made the U. a good bet.
I tried it. Inactive. A phone call to the university registrar revealed two George Ramoses currently enrolled. One was an eighteen-year-old freshman. The other, twenty-six, was a first-year law student, and that was all I could learn.
Milo got on the line, pushed his credentials, couldn’t cadge any more out of the clerk. Same thing at the law school office.
We drove to campus, parked on the north end, walked to the school, where Milo bantered with an amiable white-haired secretary who said, “You just called. Unfortunately, the answer’s the same. Privacy regulations.”
“All we want to do is talk to Mr. Ramos, ma’am.”
“Ma’am. Just like in a cowboy movie,” she said, smiling. “I’m sure that’s true, Lieutenant, but don’t forget where we are. Can you imagine how many of these people would love to file a suit for breach of privacy?”
“Good point,” he said. “Would it help if I told you Mr. Ramos isn’t in trouble but his sister could be? I’m sure he’d like to know. Ma’am.”
“Sorry. I wish I could help.”
He relaxed his shoulders. Deliberately, slowly, the way he does when he’s struggling to stay patient. Big smile. He pushed black hair off his forehead and pressed his bulk against the counter. The secretary moved back instinctively.
“Where are the first-year students, right now?”
“They should be out of . . . jurisprudence class. Maybe out on the lawn.”
“How many are we talking about?”
“Three hundred seven.”
Milo said, “Male Hispanic. You guys doing better with your minority admissions or will that narrow it down?”
“He’s not real Hispanic-looking,” said the secretary.
Milo gazed at her. She blushed, leaned forward, whispered, “If someone was real tall, they’d be easy to spot.”
Milo smiled back. “We talking basketball, here?”
“Maybe a guard.”
* * *
Long, slow strides carried George Ramos across the lawn in an awkward but purposeful trajectory. Like a wading bird— an egret— making its way through a marsh. I put him at six-six. Pale and balding and stooped, carrying a stack of books and a laptop. Whatever hair he had left was medium brown and fine and streamed over his ears. He wore a blue V-neck sweater over a white T-shirt, pressed khakis, brown shoes. Tiny-lensed glasses perched above a beak nose. Young Ben Franklin stretched on the rack.
When we stepped in front of him, he blinked a couple of times and tried to pass us. When Milo said “Mr. Ramos?” he stopped short.
“Yes?”
Badge-flash. “Do you have a moment to talk about your sister, Wilfreda?”
Behind his glasses, Ramos’s brown eyes hardened. His knuckles bulged and whitened. “You’re serious.”
“We are, sir.”
Ramos muttered under his breath.
“Sir?”
“My sister’s dead.”
“I’m sorry, sir.”
“What in the world led you to me?”
“We’re looking into some foster children and— ”
“Lee committed suicide three months ago,” said Ramos. “That’s what everyone called her. Lee. If you knew anything about her, you’d know she hated ‘Wilfreda.’ ”
Milo kept silent.
“She was sixteen,” said Ramos.
Milo said, “I know, sir.” It’s rare for him to have to look up at anyone. He didn’t like it.
Ramos said, “What kind of parents would name someone Wilfreda?”
* * *
The three of us found a bench on the west side of the lawn.
George Ramos said, “What do you want to know?”
“Lee’s experiences in foster care.”
“What, a scandal?”
“Maybe something like that.”
“Her experiences,” said Ramos. “For Lee, foster care was a lot easier than being at home. Her father— my stepfather— is a fascist. Those preachers she lived with didn’t give her any supervision. Custom-order for someone like Lee.”
“What do you mean?” said Milo.
“Lee was rebellious in the womb, did her own thing no matter what. She got pregnant when she was in foster car
e, had an abortion. The coroner told us that after the autopsy. The preachers talked a good case but my feeling is they collected the money and let Lee run wild.”
“Which coroner told you this?”
“Santa Barbara County. Lee was living in Isla Vista, with some dopers, when she . . .” Ramos removed his glasses and rubbed his eyes.
“This was after she got out of foster care,” said Milo.
Ramos nodded. “The fascist finally allowed her to come home on condition she stick to all his rules. She was home for two days before she ran away. The fascist said she should live with the consequences of her own behavior and my mother has always been totally under his thumb. So no one went looking for Lee. We found out where she’d been staying after she died. Some crash pad in Isla Vista, ten kids living like animals.”
I said, “The fascist isn’t your father but you and Lee had the same last name.”
“We don’t. Her name’s Monahan. When he got so fed up with her that he made her a ward of the state, he burned her clothes and locked her out and told her she was no longer his daughter. She said fuck you and started calling herself Ramos.”
“Sweet guy,” said Milo.
“Real peach,” said Ramos, cracking his knuckles. “She phoned me from Isla Vista, wanted me to have her name changed legally. I told her I couldn’t do it because she was a minor and she hung up on me.”
I said, “ ‘Ramos’ is listed on state documents.”
Ramos laughed. “The state doesn’t know its ass from a crater on the moon. There’s little about the system that doesn’t need changing.”
Milo said, “That why you’re in law school?”
Ramos stared at him myopically. “That’s a joke, right?”
Milo smiled.
“Sure, I’m breaking my butt for a lifetime of mindless bureaucracy and shitty pay,” said Ramos. He laughed “When I get out I’m going corporate.”
* * *
We talked to him for another quarter hour. I ended up doing most of the talking because the topic had slid into my bailiwick.
Wilfreda Lee Monahan/Ramos had exhibited severe learning disabilities and a history of disruptive behavior as long as her brother could remember. George Ramos’s father had died when he was five and a few years later his mother married a former marine who thought raising kids was a variant of boot camp.
For Lee, adolescence had meant promiscuity, drugs, and mood swings so severe I was willing to bet they resulted from more than substance abuse. By fourteen, she’d made two suicide attempts— overdose cries for help. Cursory attempts at counseling followed, along with a flood of recrimination at home. When her father found her having sex with a boy in her bedroom, he kicked her out.
George Ramos wasn’t aware of any notable problems during her six months under the Daneys’ care, but he admitted, with downcast eyes, that he had never visited her.
Lee Ramos had left foster care a month before turning sixteen. On her birthday, at midnight, she’d stayed home while her roommates went out to party. Shortly after, she cut her wrists with a rusty box cutter, lay down on a ratty mattress, and quietly bled to death.
CHAPTER 32
Talking about his sister had left George Ramos pale and worn.
Milo apologized for intruding. Ramos said, “You’re just doing your job,” and stared at the grass.
I said, “Did you have any contact with the Daneys?”
“I called them once after Lee died. Don’t ask me why. Maybe I thought they’d care.”
“They didn’t?”
“I spoke to the wife— Charity, Chastity, something like that— ”
“Cherish.”
“That’s it,” he said. “She broke down, sobbed, got damn near hysterical. Maybe I’m cynical but I thought it was a little over the top.”
“Putting on an act?” said Milo.
“They only had Lee for a few months and obviously they didn’t do a very good job.”
“You tell her that?”
“No,” said Ramos. “I didn’t— wasn’t in a mood to talk.”
“Cherish do anything to make you think she was faking her grief?”
“No, but who knows?” said Ramos. “Who knows about anything?”
“Ever speak with her husband?”
“Nope, just her.” Ramos stood and snatched up his books and his laptop.
I said, “Did Lee ever hint around about getting pregnant?”
Ramos’s long face turned sad. “Don’t you guys get it? We didn’t talk.”
He let the books dangle, clutched his laptop to his chest, and bird-walked away. Other law students continued to stream out, some chatting in tight little groups, a few preoccupied loners forging their own trails.
Milo got up and stretched. “I just creaked.”
“Didn’t hear a thing.”
“So the Daneys take on too many wards but don’t supervise. Fits with moral laxity.”
“It does.”
“Ready to go?”
I stayed on the bench.
“Alex?”
“What if?” I said.
He sat back down.
* * *
A group of students passed us. When they were gone, he said, “What evil thoughts have seized that brain of yours?”
“George Ramos assumes Lee got pregnant on the street. It could’ve happened in-house. Literally.”
“Daney?”
“He was the only male in the house. Which, come to think of it, is a haremlike situation. All those teenage girls from troubled backgrounds. Maybe there’s a reason the Daneys ask for female wards.”
“Oh, man.”
“We know Daney’s a fraud and an adulterer, and we’ve just raised suspicions about his involvement in murder. Impregnating a minor under his care doesn’t seem out of character. He’d have been sure to terminate the pregnancy, which fits with Lee Ramos’s abortion. It could also explain her suicide. We’re talking about an extremely troubled girl whose relationship with her father was hostile. She’d be looking for a compassionate substitute. The state found her one but if he betrayed her, then had her sweep away the evidence, that would’ve been traumatic.”
“Surrogate incest.”
“Precisely the kind of violation that could have led to serious depression.”
“Slashing her arms on her birthday,” he said. “If it was suicide.”
“You’re thinking it wasn’t?”
“I’m letting my imagination run free.”
* * *
He phoned the Santa Barbara coroner, spoke to the forensic pathologist who’d conducted Lee Ramos’s autopsy, did a lot of listening, hung up shaking his head.
“Doesn’t seem to be any doubt about suicide. She locked herself in the room from the inside, put on music, the only window was painted shut. No sign of struggle, no defense wounds, just deep longitudinal gashes on her arms— serious intent. Beforehand, she polished off a pint of Southern Comfort and swallowed a bottle of Valium. If the razor hadn’t done it, the dope would’ve. The kids she lived with said she’d been really down for the last few weeks. They’d tried to get her to go party with them— it was for her birthday. Lee begged off at the last moment, said she was feeling sick.”
My eyes got tight. A girl I’d never met. “Birthday suicide,” I said. “Unable to face another year.”
Milo put his weight on the back of the bench, showed me the back of his head, folded his arms across his chest. A breeze ruffled the trees behind us. The grass responded a few seconds later.
“She always had some cash, so the roomies suspected she’d been turning tricks. Sixteen years old. It doesn’t get that way overnight, does it?”
Before I could answer, he shot to his feet, marched away slapping his notepad against his thigh. Nothing avian about his walk.
Bear on the prowl. Definitely a bear.
I followed, not sure what I was.
We returned to the car and cruised along the campus’s eastern periphery.
&nbs
p;
Rage Page 26
