Blues in the Night

by Rochelle Krich

  “You’re reading way too many suspense novels,” Connors said, but he sounded thoughtful. “What else did she tell you?”

  “Lots of stuff, most of it confusing. She said the car accident was her fault. She thought I was someone named Nina.”

  Connors nodded. “I told you she was loopy. Korwin said the aftereffects of the anesthesia can last days for some patients. And they were sedating her with Haldol.”

  “She kept talking about Robbie, saying he was angry at her because of what happened to Max. She didn’t explain who they were, and then the mom came in and ended the conversation. Aren’t you curious?”

  “I’m more interested in Lenore’s state of mind. Did she seem depressed?”

  I reviewed the visit in my mind. “She was weepy talking about the accident, but she didn’t sound suicidal.” Not that I’m an expert. “She was more disoriented than anything else, but that was two days ago.”

  “Because of the Haldol and the antidepressants. But if you’re right, and she stopped taking them . . .” He rubbed his chin. “Interesting theory, Molly. If it pans out, I’ll owe you one. So will Lomeli and Korwin and the hospital. Takes them all off the hook.”

  I didn’t answer. I was too busy reviewing in my mind the message Lenore had left, something she’d said. . . .

  “Knock, knock,” Connors said. “Anybody home?”

  I looked up at him. “She said she was afraid, Andy. On the tape, I mean. Well, she started to. My tape ran out.” I returned his skeptical gaze with my own cool one. “She said, ‘I’m af.’ What else could that mean?”

  “I’m a fool? I’m a failure? A flirt? Shit, it could be anything.” He sounded impatient.

  “What if she didn’t kill herself?”

  He sighed. “The mom said she’s suicidal. Two days ago you suggested that Lenore ran across Laurel Canyon trying to kill herself. So this time she found another way and did it right. What’s the effing problem?”

  Everything he said made sense, but for some reason I was resisting. “She kept saying this Robbie was very angry with her. She was nervous when I asked her if they had a fight.”

  “She told you a lot of stuff, none of which made sense. Nina,” he added with a smirk.

  I ignored it. “She didn’t sound depressed when she phoned. She didn’t sound confused, either.” I was reaching here. She’d said what? Ten words? I didn’t volunteer that.

  “Which only proves she was off her meds.”

  “What if she phoned me because she was afraid someone was going to kill her?” Even as I spoke, the words sounded ridiculous.

  “More likely she was afraid she was going to kill herself.” He placed his large hand on my shoulder. “Maybe she was hoping you’d come talk her out of it, and maybe you’re feeling guilty ’cause you didn’t show,” he said with a gentleness I’d never heard. “But it’s not your fault.”

  Connors is too smart. I felt my face becoming warm. “I didn’t think it was urgent, but I should have come.”

  “It wouldn’t have been a permanent fix. The mom told me why Lenore was so depressed. It’s not something you could have helped her with, Molly. She killed herself.”

  “I guess you’re right.” Writing about crime tends to make me see its shadow everywhere. “What did the mother tell you?”

  “You’d have to ask her. It’s not my story to tell.” He unfolded himself. “Try not to obsess, okay?”

  eight

  Lenore’s mother was where connors had said she’d be, in the visitors’ lounge that bridges the north and south towers. She was standing in front of the large picture windows that look out on the courtyard below, next to a short, brown-haired, bearded man in a well-cut navy suit that worked hard to camouflage his portliness. He was talking to her in quiet, soothing tones, and she was bobbing her head like one of those cute toy dogs people used to keep on their dashboards. From what I could tell, like those dogs, she didn’t seem to be taking much in.

  I heard snippets of what he said—“Call me,” “help you,” “need anything.” Her dull “Thank you, doctor” in reply. A moment later he squeezed her shoulder, and then he was duck-walking past me toward the south tower. Probably the shrink, I decided. Lomeli would be wearing a white hospital coat.

  She watched him go, eyes red-rimmed, face mascara-streaked, those penciled eyebrows clownlike now. Her entire body exuded weariness and despair. I had just decided to leave her alone with her grief when she looked up and saw me. Her face tightened as I walked over, so I knew she’d recognized me.

  “My baby’s gone,” she said tonelessly. “Dead.”

  “I heard. I’m so sorry, Mrs. Rowan.” I’ve talked to mothers who have lost their children, but never when the loss is so raw. “Is there anything I can do to help? Maybe make some phone calls for you?”

  She shook her head. “There’s not many people to call. She’s an only child, and her daddy’s been gone twenty-five years.”

  I wondered about Lenore’s ex-husband but didn’t ask. “Can I get you some coffee? Something to eat?”

  “What is it that you want?” she demanded, her eyes cold brown marbles. “A lead story?”

  I hesitated, not wanting to intensify her pain, then decided she had a right to know. “Your daughter left a message for me last night. She needed to talk to me.”

  The mother snorted. “Do I look like a fool?”

  “I can play the tape for you,” I offered for the second time today, minus the sarcasm. “It ran out before she finished talking so I can’t be sure, but I think she started to say she was afraid.”

  Betty Rowan chewed on her lip and thought that over for a minute. I didn’t rush her.

  “She was depressed bad yesterday,” the mother finally said. “Maybe she was afraid she was going to do something . . . like what she did.” Tears filled her tired, reddened eyes.

  That’s what Connors had said. It certainly made sense.

  “Did you see her?” Mrs. Rowan asked.

  I shook my head.

  “They wouldn’t let me see her. I’m her momma, and they wouldn’t let me see her, and then they took her away.”

  “Sometimes it’s for the best,” I said, mouthing one of those platitudes that had made me clench my teeth when my great-aunt Estelle died at seventy-eight, six months after she suffered a stroke that left her partially paralyzed with limited speech.

  “How did she do it?” Betty Rowan asked. “Last time she took a razor blade to her wrists. But I guess she couldn’t do that here, in the hospital.”

  “I don’t know,” I lied.

  Betty nodded. “Her psychiatrist swore she wasn’t at risk. That was him talking to me a minute ago. Did you meet him?”

  “No.”

  “He’s sweating bullets, worrying am I going to sue. So is Lomeli.” Her smile was bitter. “I have half a mind to, but suing’s not going to bring my baby back.” Her mouth worked as she fought back tears.

  “I’m so sorry,” I said again, inadequacy and guilt sitting like heavy bricks on my shoulders. “She wanted to talk to me last night. I wish I’d come to the hospital.”

  “Well,” the mother said. If I was asking for absolution, I’d come to the wrong place. “You talked to her the other day. What did she say?”

  Two days ago Betty Rowan had ordered me out of her daughter’s room, but most family members of the deceased, I’ve found, are eager to feed on crumbs of conversation, and so I would have to do.

  “She didn’t say much that made sense, probably because of the sedation,” I told her. “She thought I was Nina—?” I ended with a question mark in my voice.

  “Weldon,” the mother finished automatically, as I’d hoped she would. “Mousy thing. I don’t know what Lenore saw in her.”

  “I guess they were close.”

  “Too close.” She was frowning, and I wondered if she was jealous of their relationship. “I suppose I’ll have to call her. I have her number somewhere in my purse.”

  “Do you want me to
call her for you?” I’ll admit I’m not sure how much of my offer was prompted by curiosity, how much by my sincere desire to help.

  The woman stiffened, almost imperceptibly. “No, that’s all right. She’ll take the news worse, coming from a stranger. She was here yesterday, and Lenore was doin’ so much better.” Betty ran a hand through her hair. “What else did Lenore tell you?”

  “She said Robbie was very angry with her, that he wasn’t going to visit her. Because of Max. She said that twice. I assume Robbie is her ex-husband.” A guess, but Betty didn’t deny it.

  The woman tightened her lips. “Did she say why he was angry?”

  “No. She said that the accident was her fault, that she’d hoped for a second chance, but didn’t deserve it.”

  “She was too hard on herself.” Betty shook her head. “I told her over and over, but she didn’t believe me. I seen this coming. Dr. Korwin says no, but a mother knows.” She pressed her hand against her heart.

  “You think she tried to kill herself the other night?”

  “I guess so. I guess she did, poor baby.” The mother sighed. “She wanted out of her pain.”

  “Why was she so depressed?”

  A spark of anger kindled in her eyes, but she smothered it. “It doesn’t matter now.”

  “Mrs. Rowan, something’s been puzzling me. Why would Lenore be in a nightgown trying to cross Laurel Canyon in the middle of the night?”

  She shook her head. “I have no idea.”

  “Doesn’t that bother you?”

  “There’s a lot that bothers me, and not much I can do about it,” she said, the anger sparking again. “Did you ask Lenore?”

  “She didn’t remember being there.”

  Betty nodded. “It was the medication. She didn’t know what she was doing.”

  “But why would she go to Laurel Canyon? Does she know anyone who lives around there?”

  “It doesn’t make a difference, does it? Why she went there, what happened, whose fault it was. She’s at peace now, in God’s hands.” She glanced down the hall toward the south tower. “I’m going to talk to the detective, find out when I can see my baby.”

  Without another word she walked away. I stood there for a moment, thinking about our conversation. It occurred to me that Betty Rowan had talked to me not because she was seeking comfort from Lenore’s final words, but because she was nervous about what her daughter had revealed.

  nine

  North of Sunset, Crescent Heights Boulevard changes its name and its densely populated residential/commercial character and morphs into Laurel Canyon, a tree-and-mountain-bordered two-lane road that quickly merges into one as it snakes its way up to Mulholland, then widens again on its descent into the San Fernando Valley.

  On your right as you’re driving up, you’ll see a few apartment buildings and homes ranging from modest to grand, as well as convenience stores and an espresso bar and, for a short stretch, a side road that allows you to escape part of the rush-hour traffic I found myself in now—too many cars packed into the coils of a sluggish intestine. Also on your right, just north of Hollywood Boulevard, is the dark yellow marquee with black Grecian-style letters that marks the entrance to an area called Mount Olympus, where the streets are named for Greek and Roman gods.

  On your left is mountain wall. In some spots the wall is a bare, unadorned reddish-brown; in others it’s dressed for company, wearing a petticoat of oleander, eucalyptus, fir, the occasional palm, and other trees that stretch to the sky. There are houses, too, some street-level and rather shabby, some wedged into the mountain, most of them higher up and grander, their foundations supported by sturdy wooden beams that seem to be doing the job. Signs placed at intervals along the canyon road warn against smoking and flooding, and while I’d love to live in one of those aeries, breathing in the scent of wildflowers, taking in the spectacular views of city and valley, I worry about the heat and dry air that, every now and then, bakes the trees and brush into tinder for the fires that lick at those sturdy beams and snap them as if they were Pick-Up Sticks, leaving the parched earth and the houses sitting on them defenseless against the rush of swollen rains.

  Every so often I am tempted. The area is beautiful and enticing, and the houses I saw last year and the year before and the year before that are still standing. Like I said, though, I’m an expert worrier.

  Lookout Mountain is one of the few streets on Laurel Canyon with a traffic light. Nearing the signal, I wondered exactly where Lenore had been standing when the car had struck her, and I darted nervous looks around, as if the road still bore bloody evidence of Sunday morning’s events. There were a few stores on my right, but I doubted that they’d been open at that time.

  The light turned green. According to Connors, Lenore had been found north of Lookout, so I continued a few hundred feet, passing the famed wide stone steps and bridge of the three-and-a-half-acre former Houdini estate, all that remains of the original mansion that fire destroyed in 1959.

  At Willow Glen I turned right. I’d never been here before, and I felt hemmed in by the densely packed, two-story homes and unnerved by the cars coming toward me on the narrow, serpentine one-lane road that climbed higher and higher. I guess if you live here you get used to it, but I felt as though I’d done 180 curls on an Ab Roller. The good news, I told myself, was that there were plenty of potential witnesses. Connors or another cop had no doubt questioned the residents days ago, but experience has taught me that a great deal depends on the questions asked, and the questioner—people are often leery of becoming involved in a police investigation. And maybe Connors hadn’t talked to everyone. Maybe I’d be lucky.

  Luck had eluded me so far. After returning from the hospital, I’d spent the rest of my morning and most of the afternoon accomplishing little. I blamed it on the mild headache from fasting, a headache that lingered for a while after I dry-swallowed two Advil tablets, but I knew it was Lenore, and that I’d failed her.

  There were several pages of Weldons in the Pacific Bell directories (I have the whole set, covering the city and Valley), half a dozen with the initial N, but not one Nina. I began with the six, heard six answering machine messages—two delivered by male adults, three by females, and one by a squeaky-voiced, singsongy child whose parents obviously thought he was the cutest thing since Macaulay Culkin.

  I had fared no better trying to track down Darren Porter: There were numerous Porters, many of them with the initial D, but none of them were home except for a Doreen, to whom I apologized for calling the wrong number. People, of course, aren’t always home when you want them to be, which was why I’d braved the traffic and come here now, close to dinnertime.

  I fared no better now. None of the residents had seen Lenore in her nightgown. None had witnessed or heard the accident, even those within yoo-hoo-ing distance of Laurel Canyon. Back in my car, feeling embarrassingly winded by the climb and determined to exercise more, I continued along Willow Glen and took one hairpin turn after another until I arrived at Apollo and what seemed like the crest of Mount Olympus. In any case, it was crest enough for me.

  The street was graceful and wide, lined with Italian cypress trees standing proud as sentinels in front of predominantly white houses that reflected the muted brilliance of the setting afternoon sun. After inhaling a lungful of what I hoped was smog-free air, I crunched along the walk to the topmost house, a brand-new white stucco two-story with a white-tiled roof, mullioned windows, and multiple balconies. No landscaping yet, and no car in the driveway. No sign of occupancy, for that matter, but I rang the bell and waited a few minutes before giving up.

  The occupants of the next few houses were home, but they hadn’t seen or heard Lenore or anything related to the hit-and-run. I was disappointed but undaunted, charmed by the vista and the ever-present cypress trees and the winding streets that suddenly changed identities (Jupiter becomes Oceanus, Apollo becomes Electra), much like the mercurial and capricious gods for whom they’d been named and whose escapades
had kept me company during the summer months of my adolescence.

  Several stops later on Hermes was a house I could easily covet: clean lines, weathered redwood planks, a peaked shingled roof, huge windows uncluttered with drapes or shutters. Two cars—a black Jeep Wrangler and a red Mercedes—sat in the driveway, and a tall, dark-haired, ponytailed woman in tight jeans and a crisp white cotton sleeveless blouse opened the door after I introduced myself, the cell phone at her ear a jarring note to the rustic splendor.

  Her name was Jillian, and she was trying hard not to show her impatience. “A police detective was here a few days ago,” she told me. “I was out of town that night.”

  “What about your husband?”

  “Fiancé. He didn’t see or hear the accident.”

  “I’m wondering if he saw the woman wandering around this area,” I said, wishing I had a photo of Lenore. “She was wearing a nightgown.”

  Jillian shook her head. “He would have told me.”

  “Maybe I could ask your fiancé.”

  “Ask me what?” A man appeared in the doorway behind Jillian, then moved to her side and slipped his arm around her thin waist. He was a few inches taller than the woman and good-looking, with well-cut dark blond hair framing a broad face and friendly hazel eyes. They both looked to be in their mid-thirties.

  “She’s a reporter,” Jillian told him, handing him the card I’d given her. “She’s looking into that hit-and-run the police asked us about.”

  The fiancé tightened his lips and nodded. “Horrible thing. I hope they get the creep.” He glanced at my card, then up at me. “Molly Blume, huh? I’ll bet you get kidded about that. So you’re writing a story about her?”

  “Something like that. I was wondering if you saw the woman wandering around. She was wearing a nightgown.”

  “Wish I could help you out, but I went to sleep a little after midnight. Fell asleep during Leno—not his fault, mine.” He smiled, chagrined. “Sorry.”