Rage

by Jonathan Kellerman

  “Protecting and serving, Reverend.”

  “I see,” said Wascomb. “Will you be needing me any further? I’d be happy to pledge Fulton’s support for the children, in the short term. However— ”

  “Could you stick around a bit?” said Milo. “Show me that strongbox?”

  “It’s right on the desk, Lieutenant. I should be getting back to Mrs. Wascomb.”

  Milo’s hand alit on Wascomb’s sleeve. “Stay for a short while, Reverend.”

  Wascomb smoothed down his hair to no effect. “Of course.”

  “Appreciate it, sir. Now let’s tend to the flock.”

  The interior of the cube was twelve feet square, with a red cement floor and block walls painted a pinkish beige. Three wood-frame double bunks were set up against the sidewalls, two on the left, one on the right. A white fiberglass booth in the far right-hand corner was labeled toilet. Flower stickers decorated the door.

  A sliver of wall space hosted three double-decker dented metal lockers. An L.A. Unified School District Surplus sticker was at the bottom of one, Practice Spontaneous Acts of Kindness on another.

  The solitary window was set into the back wall, screened and bolted. The pane was wide enough to let in a funnel of diffuse, dusty light. Animal-print curtains had been parted. The view was the rear wall of the property and the black tar roofline of a neighbor’s garage.

  Beneath the windowsill sat a squat, six-drawer chest. Stuffed animals shared the top with tubes and bottles and jars of cosmetics. Off to the side, a stack of Bibles.

  Eight girls sat on the three bottom bunks, wearing pastel-colored pajamas and fluffy white socks.

  Eight pairs of teenage eyes took us in. Narrow age-range; my guess was fifteen to seventeen. Six Hispanic girls, one black, one white.

  The room smelled of hormones and chewing gum and face cream.

  Valerie Quezada sat at the front of the rear left-hand bunk. Fidgeting, rolling her shoulders, playing with the ends of her long, wavy hair. Two other girls moved restlessly. The others sat quietly.

  Crandall Wascomb said, “Morning, young ladies. These are the police and they’re very nice. This gentleman is a police lieutenant and he’s here to help you, both these gentleman want to help you . . .” He flashed us a helpless look and trailed off.

  Milo said, “Hi, there.”

  Valerie pointed a finger. “You were here already.”

  Milo cued me with a tiny movement of his head.

  I said, “Yes, we were, Valerie.”

  “You know my name.” Accusatory.

  Some of the girls tittered.

  I said, “Where’s Cherish, Valerie?”

  “Left.”

  “When did she leave?”

  “When it was dark.”

  “Around what time?”

  Her stare told me the question was absurd.

  No clock in the room, no radio, no TV. Light from the window would be the sole arbiter of time.

  The room was clean— spotless, the cement floor freshly swept. Each of the six bunk beds was set up identically with two smallish white pillows and a white top sheet folded over a pink blanket.

  Blankets tucked military-tight.

  I didn’t see Wascomb ordering the girls to make their beds. They had a routine.

  I said, “Anyone else have any idea what time Cherish left?”

  A couple of head shakes. Neatly groomed heads. The girls appeared to be well-nourished. How often did they leave the property? This room? Were meals taken in the main house, or eaten here? Did homeschooling extend to occasional outings? Maybe that’s why no one had answered the phone when I’d called a few days ago. Or . . .

  What did it do to your sense of reality to inhabit this tight, sterile space?

  “Anyone want to take a guess?” I said.

  Valerie said, “They don’t know nothing. It was me saw her leave. Only.”

  I walked closer to her. More giggles. “Did you talk to her, Valerie?”

  Silence.

  “Did she say anything at all?”

  Reluctant nod.

  “What did she say?”

  “She had to go out, someone would take care of us.”

  One of the other girls elbowed her neighbor. Valerie said, “You got a problem?”

  “I ain’t got no problem.” Quick retort, but meek voice.

  “You better not.”

  Wascomb said, “Now, let’s keep everything calm, young ladies.”

  Milo said, “What about Mr. Daney? When did he leave?”

  “Drew left before,” said Valerie.

  “Before Cherish?”

  “Yesterday. She got mad at him.”

  “Cherish did?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “What was she mad about?”

  Shrug.

  I said, “How could you tell she was mad?”

  “Her face.” Valerie looked to the other girls for confirmation. Pointed at a bespectacled girl with thin straight hair. The girl began making squeaky noises with her tongue against her teeth. Valerie’s glower failed to stop her. My smile did.

  I said, “So Cherish was mad at Drew.”

  Valerie stomped her foot. “Trish?” Pointing at a pretty, long-legged girl with boyish hair and a fine-boned face marred by acne.

  Short for “Patricia.” Lactose-sensitive. Special help with reading and penmanship.

  She didn’t answer.

  Valerie said, “You can tell she’s mad from her face. Say that.”

  Trish smiled, dreamy-eyed. Her pajamas were sky blue with white eyelet borders.

  “Say it,” demanded Valerie. “Her face.”

  Trish yawned. “She never got pissed at me.”

  “Just at Drew,” I said.

  Another girl said, “He didn’t come home last night, prolly that made her mad.”

  I said, “She didn’t like when he didn’t come home.”

  “Nope.”

  “Was that often?”

  Shrug.

  Valerie twisted a thick rope of black hair around her finger. Let it uncoil and watched it drop past her waist.

  I turned back to her. “Was it once a week? Something like that?”

  She gazed up at the mattress inches from her head. Rolled her shoulders and tapped her fingers and beat out a rhythm with one foot.

  “Valerie?”

  “Time to shower,” she said.

  “Where do you shower?”

  “The other place.”

  “The main house?”

  “The other place.”

  “The building next door.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  I tried Trish again. “Did Drew go out a lot?”

  “He was here except when he went out.” To Valerie: “Like when he went out with you-u.” Slowly spreading smile.

  Valerie’s eyes flashed.

  Trish said, “Tell him. You went out all the time. That’s why you always need to shower.”

  Valerie got up from the bunk and charged her. Trish waved her long arms uselessly. I got between them, pulled Valerie away. Soft middle but her arms were tight and her shoulders were granite lumps.

  “It’s like true,” said another girl.

  Yet another opined, “He went out with you all the time, you gotta shower.”

  Voice from a bunk across the room: “You get to sleep in the other place.”

  “You get to shower whenever you want.”

  “ ’Cause you dirty.”

  Val grunted and fought to free herself from my grasp. She was sweating and the moisture flew off her face and hit mine.

  “She freakin’ out.”

  “Like she always does.”

  Trish said, “He takes you out all the time!”

  Valerie let loose a string of obscenities.

  Wascomb shrank back.

  Trish said, “She gets up at night and walks around like a . . . like a . . . vampire thing. That’s how she saw Cherish.”

  “She wakes us up. It’s good she’s i
n the other place.”

  “Tell ’em, Monica. You sleep in the other place now, too.”

  The sole white girl, pug-faced and strawberry blond, stared at her knees.

  “Monica goes out.”

  “Monica gots to shower.”

  “Bitch!” screamed Valerie. She’d stopped struggling but shook her fist at one group of girls, then the others. Her eyes were hard, dry, determined. “Shut up!”

  “Admit it, Monica! You gots to shower!”

  “He take you out, too, Monicaaaa!”

  Monica hung her head.

  “Admit it, Monicaa!”

  Individual comments coalesced to a chant. “Admit it! Admit it! Admit it! Admit it!”

  Monica began crying.

  “Fuck youuu!” screamed Valerie.

  Wascomb said, “That kind of language really isn’t— ”

  “You the fucker,” said Trish. “You and Monica fuck him every night and then you shower.”

  “Valerie fucks! Monica fucks! Valerie fucks! Monica fucks!”

  Wascomb braced himself against the wall. His skin had turned chalky. His mouth moved, but whatever he was saying was swallowed by the noise.

  Val lunged and nearly broke free.

  Milo came over and the two of us steered her out of the cube.

  The chanting continued, then faded. Behind us, Crandall Wascomb’s voice, thin and tremulous, filtered out into the morning air. “. . . some prayer. How about Psalms? Does anyone have any favorites?”

  CHAPTER 42

  I led Valerie to a lawn chair outside. The same chair Cherish Daney had occupied the first time we’d been here. Solemn and weepy, reading a book about coping with loss.

  Her grief had seemed genuine. Now I wondered what she was really crying about.

  “I want to take a shower.”

  “Soon, Valerie.”

  “I want hot water.” She bounced her knees together, tickled one. Looked up at the sky. Scrunched her mouth. Glanced back at the block building, now silent. “It’s my fuckin’ water, I want it. The bitches can’t use it up.”

  “I’m sorry they did that, Valerie.”

  “Bitches.” She lifted a twist of hair from her shoulder, ran it across her mouth, licked.

  I said, “You know more than anyone. Do you have any idea where Drew and Cherish went?”

  “I told you.”

  “You said Drew left before and that Cherish was mad.”

  “Yeah.”

  “But where’d they go, Valerie? It’s important.”

  “Why?”

  “Cherish is mad at him. What if she went to yell at him?”

  “He’s okay,” she said. “He goes places.”

  “Like where?”

  “Places.”

  “What kinds of places?”

  “Nonprofits.”

  “He takes you to nonprofits.”

  Silence.

  I said, “You help him and the other girls are jealous.”

  “Bitches.”

  “He trusts you.”

  “I get it.”

  “Get what?”

  Silence.

  “You get it so you help him,” I said.

  “Uh-huh.”

  “What do you get?”

  Long silence.

  “Valerie? What do you— ”

  “Love.”

  “You understand love.”

  “He prolly went to a church,” she said. “I don’t know the names. I want to shower— ”

  “A church.”

  Silence.

  “Valerie, I know these questions are a pain, but they’re important. Did Cherish get mad at Drew a lot?”

  “Sometimes.”

  “About what?”

  “Not making money.” She let go of the hair, held up a fist, and glanced at the main house.

  “She felt he didn’t make enough money.”

  “Yeah.”

  “For what?”

  “She wanted a trip to Vegas.”

  “She told you that?”

  Silence.

  “Drew told you.”

  Back to hair-twisting.

  “Drew told you Cherish wanted to go to Vegas.”

  Shrug.

  I said, “Sounds like he talked to you about everything.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Did he want money?”

  She faced me. “No way. He was for the soul.”

  “The soul?”

  “God’s work,” she said, touching a breast. “He got chosen.”

  “And Cherish?”

  “She did it for the money, but tough shit, he won’t give it to her.”

  “Drew has money he won’t give her?”

  A smile spread across her lips.

  I said, “Secret money.”

  She shut her eyes.

  “Valerie?”

  “I got to take a shower.”

  * * *

  She clamped her arms across her chest, kept her eyes shut, and when I spoke she hummed. We’d been sitting in silence for several minutes when Milo came out of the cube with Crandall Wascomb. He glanced at me while walking. Escorted the old man out.

  He returned with uplifted eyebrows. “Everything okay?”

  “Valerie’s been helpful but she and I are finished for now.”

  Movement under the girl’s eyelids.

  Milo said, “Helpful?”

  “Valerie says Drew has money Cherish doesn’t know about.”

  Valerie’s eyes opened. “It’s his. You can’t have it.”

  “Never heard of finders keepers?” said Milo.

  She didn’t reply. Clamped her eyes shut.

  Noise from the front of the property opened them.

  A uniformed officer came through the gate.

  Milo said, “Now it gets noisy.”

  * * *

  The Van Nuys patrol officer was followed by his partner, then six members of the newly formed downtown crimes-against-juveniles squad arrived wearing dark blue LAPD windbreakers. Five female detectives, one man, each of them bright-eyed and hyped, ready to arrest someone. Shortly after, a Van Nuys sex crimes detective named Sam Crawford showed up looking put-upon. He conferred with the head juvey cop and left.

  The head was a stocky wire-haired brunette in her forties. Milo briefed her, she gave the word, and all but one of her squad entered the cube. A younger detective who introduced herself as Martha Vasquez took custody of Valerie, saying, “Sure, hon, you can do that,” when the girl asked to shower. Walking her to the converted garage while scanning the rest of the property.

  Milo motioned me over, introduced the brunette as Judy Weisvogel and told her who I was.

  “Psychologist,” she said. “That can come in handy.”

  Milo briefed her some more, emphasizing Drew Daney’s abuse of the girls, mentioning suspected homicides but staying spare with the details.

  Weisvogel said, “Good morning world, it’s going to get complicated. Do we have a crime scene, over there?” Indicating the main house.

  “Haven’t had time to look around yet,” said Milo. “At the very least it’s a fugitive thing.”

  “Missing perv and wife. Definitely separate cars?”

  “The girls say they left separately and both cars are gone.”

  “How much time elapsed between their respective rabbits?”

  “From what the kids say a day or so.”