by Jenna Rae
As the case progressed, Del tried to build rapport with the shooting victim. When this didn’t work, she poked at Ernie White as often and for as long as she dared, and she never got more than a smirk or a smile or a veiled innuendo to confirm what she knew was true, that Ernie White was a dangerous rapist and that Mikey Ocampo shouldn’t be convicted of attempted murder for shooting him.
At some point, White’s mother hired an attorney who got Del and Leister barred from talking to him without his lawyer present. Whenever they tried to talk to him, they were accused of badgering an innocent victim. When they tried to talk to Mikey, they were refused access to him. Mariposa Ocampo wouldn’t talk to them. They slammed themselves into one brick wall after another to no avail for the next several weeks and only occasionally swapped complaints and self-pitying rants over beer or burgers.
Del tried not to resent it when Leister backed off as he got closer to claiming his well-earned gold watch.
“It’s a rigged game,” he told Del one evening as they sat at their respective desks, hers piled with computer, phone, a half-eaten sandwich, reports and office supplies, and his bare of everything but a computer and a phone.
“I know.” Del rubbed her forehead. “But it doesn’t make this right.”
“No,” Leister agreed. “It doesn’t. But the reality is what it is. The sooner you learn that, the longer and happier you’ll live. I’ll bet you five bucks the mom ends up helping the prosecution more than the defense.”
Del knew better than to take that bet. Mariposa had refused the medical exam, wouldn’t speak with Del or Leister, wouldn’t let them have access to Mikey and of course couldn’t afford a private defense attorney. White’s lawyer, an overpriced blowhard with no conscience, tricked Mariposa into saying the kid had been playing with the gun and had accidentally shot the landlord when he came by to fix the dripping faucet in the kitchen.
“Why would she do that?”
Leister shrugged. “The guy’s a trickster, you know how they are. Got her all mixed up, that’s what they do. It’s all over now.”
Del wasn’t clear why Mariposa thought this lie would help her son. Some cynical part of her wondered if there’d been some secret exchange of money, but a cursory examination of Mariposa’s finances showed no proof of this. The lie paved the road to Mikey’s conviction. Once the mother had said White was just a conscientious property manager and that her son had shot him, it was easy enough for the prosecutor to get the kid to admit he’d shot White on purpose. Del didn’t comment when Leister crowed his bitter, cynical I-told-you-so. She just nodded.
There wasn’t even a trial. Del was on her own by then because Leister was off enjoying his well-earned retirement, fishing in the Bahamas and golfing in Arizona. She tried to help Mikey’s public defender, but he just flipped through the file for all of thirty seconds before consulting for a few minutes with Mikey’s guardian ad litem and agreeing to the DA’s deal: five years in juvenile detention.
Once the deal had been struck, Del was out of it. There was nothing more she could do for the kid. By then Mikey Ocampo was just one more person she felt she’d let down. Del had kept track of Ernie White for three or four years, but then he moved to another city and became just one of several predators she’d vowed to keep an eye on. She had a vague desire to keep tabs on Mikey but had no wish to watch him grow scarred and hard. Not seeing him let her think maybe he could beat the odds. She knew there had to be kids who came out of juvenile justice systems and went on to be productive citizens. She preferred to leave alive her hope that he would be one of them.
Now, five years after he got sent up for shooting his mom’s rapist, Mikey Ocampo was dead at her feet.
Chapter Two
“How was your day?”
“Frustrating, mostly.” Del shook her head to forestall Lola’s questions. “Yours?”
“I finally finished the stupid second book and sent it in.”
Del smiled. “Stupid?”
Lola rolled her eyes. “Hopefully I’ll feel better about it after the editor hacks it up. I don’t like anything about it right now.”
“Did you feel that way about the first one?” Del watched her maybe-girlfriend, maybe-ex-girlfriend weigh the question. Even frowning, Lola looked closer to twenty than almost forty. She had the fine-boned features of a doll and huge hazel eyes that seemed to glow in the light of early evening. Lola looked troubled, as she so often did lately. She had been agonizing over her sophomore novel for the entire year and a half Del had known her. She wished the book was the only thing troubling Lola, but she knew better. Most of the tension in Lola’s small frame came from their relationship.
Lola looked at the ceiling as if searching for an answer. “I guess not. Maybe it’s just that I didn’t actually imagine anyone reading it. It was mostly therapeutic. Now I feel like I have some responsibility. Expectations. People hoping I’ll do better than I’m really capable of and some people hoping I’ll fail. Either way, it feels like a lot of weight. Not that my writing is the center of the universe. I just don’t want to miss something important because I don’t really know what I’m doing. What if I make a mistake and let down the story?”
“Maybe you should have a little faith in yourself.”
Lola offered a wry smile. “That’s not as easy as you make it sound. But you’re right. I’m just a little self-conscious. As you know.”
“But you use the pen name. Nobody, including the lunatics, knows Lisa Miller is you. Doesn’t that help?” She watched Lola process this and smiled when Lola pursed her lips and shook her head.
“Not really.”
“Could I read it?”
“Oh.” Lola made a face. “Maybe after it’s had some work done. It’s still pretty rough.”
Del tried to keep her tone casual. “Well, if and when you’re ready to share it with me, I’d like to read it.”
Lola made a noncommittal sound and looked at her like maybe she’d rather be burned alive than hand over her manuscript. Del pondered the implications of this apparent reluctance. Was Lola really so self-conscious, or was it about their relationship?
Just the week before, their friend and neighbor Marco had asked Del how things stood between her and Lola, and she’d been unable to answer.
“Are you together or not?” Marco had stared at Del as she shrugged, his wide brown eyes studying her with a gravity that chilled her.
“I don’t know. I hope so.” She still wasn’t sure. Lola had every reason to tell her to go to hell, but she didn’t. They’d been in a strange sort of relationship limbo for weeks, and it was wearing on both of them.
She should ask Lola now, while they were talking about it, but she hesitated. What if Lola offered her mild, gentle regrets and said they were just friends? Del rubbed her forehead. It was silly. She should be able to ask a simple question and get a clear answer. But what would she say if Lola asked her the same question? Things between them had been confusing from the beginning. They’d lived together for a few months, but mostly because Lola had been afraid to stay in her own house alone after being attacked in it.
Del had thought things between them were mostly fine, but one day Lola had suddenly moved back in across the street to her own home. Del wondered if she would spend the next ten years watching Lola from across the street and wondering how to close the distance between them. Would they ever really connect again? Had they ever really connected in the first place? There were times she wondered if everything between them had been one-sided, and Lola had just been playing along out of politeness or fear. And it wasn’t only Lola’s feelings she questioned. Sometimes she wondered if part of what appealed to her about Lola was how different she was from Janet. There were moments she considered the possibility that she and Lola were doomed as a couple simply because Lola was not Janet.
“You’re not scared to be here alone anymore.” Del smiled an apology for the non sequitur. It had been several months since Lola had been back in her own house, but t
hey had never had an open conversation about that fact.
“What?” Lola scrunched her delicate features. “No. I mean, I haven’t forgotten what happened. I have nightmares. But I’m dealing with it. I should have been strong enough to deal with it back then. Maybe things would have started differently between us if I had. Now I’m trying to leave the past in the past.”
It seemed Lola was better at putting it all aside—the trauma of being stalked, of finding her mutilated pets, of being terrorized by a madman—than Del was. She looked at the kitchen and saw traces of violence on every gleaming surface. She could almost smell the blood and the fear. She’d always wondered how victims who’d been attacked in their homes went back to living their daily lives. But here Lola was, cooking dinner and writing her books and making coffee and all of the normal things. It was like nothing ever happened. Maybe that was good. Maybe that was healthy.
Lola gestured across the table at Del’s plate. “How’s the chicken? I’d never cooked it in the roaster before. Do you like it this way?”
“It’s good. Juicy.”
“Listen, can we talk about it?”
Del wished she’d turned down the last-minute invitation to dinner. “Talk about what?”
“Really?” Lola made a face.
Del shrugged an apology. Of course she knew what Lola was talking about. “Janet.”
“Yes. Janet.” Lola sat back. She ran her fingers through her short, dark hair. “Don’t you think we should?”
Del nodded again. She’d been surprised when Lola suddenly cut off her hair, going from nice, silky lengths to the sporty little pixie. It was pretty. It suited Lola’s delicate features and small build. But there was something about the haircut that made her seem different. Del wasn’t sure she wanted to examine what that was. She realized with a start that it wasn’t just Lola’s hair that was different. The shy little mouse was increasingly willing to give voice to her opinions. That was, she reminded herself, a good thing. She wanted a partner and not a shadow. Part of her attraction to Janet had always been Janet’s iron will. Why was it so much less comfortable for her to deal with Lola’s blossoming autonomy?
“I need to know where we stand,” Lola said. “Whether we’re together or not. Whether you still love Janet or not. Whether you still love me or not. You know we need to talk about it, and you’ve been putting me off for weeks. I need to know where we stand.”
“Right.” Del chewed her lower lip. Lola’s questions were perfectly reasonable, and she knew it. They were the same questions she wondered about herself. But she felt her obstinate streak pushing against her better judgment. “I told you, I don’t love Janet. Not anymore. I do love you. Isn’t that enough?”
Lola crossed her arms. “You’re saying what you think I want to hear. You’re not even thinking about it. I need you to really look at this and tell me the truth. No sugarcoating, no placating, no patronizing.”
“I’m not—”
Lola cut off her denial with a snort. “Your ex-girlfriend landed on our—excuse me, on your—doorstep out of the blue. She told us she was in mortal danger, and from the minute Janet showed up you started pulling away from me. You were clearly still in love with her. It looks like you’ve been in love with her this whole time.”
“You’re acting like this is my fault,” Del protested. “I didn’t invite her in, you did.”
Lola chopped the words with her hand. “Stop. Janet brings a serial killer to us, and we both nearly get killed, and you’re acting like none of it happened! Between Janet and Sterling, there was enough craziness—you were kidnapped, Del. I was kidnapped. Janet was like a little puppetmaster. She played with us like we were toys. You do acknowledge that, right?”
Del nodded, transfixed by Lola’s red face and darkened eyes and loud voice.
“I thought it would be good for you to see Janet in prison. I thought it would make things real for you. But I have no idea what it did to you. You won’t say a single word to me about it. How am I supposed to feel about that? How would you feel in my shoes? What am I supposed to think?”
Del chewed her lower lip. “You’re right. I know you are.”
“So talk to me.”
Del took a deep breath but couldn’t put how she felt into words. She shrugged helplessly.
“What happened when you went to see her? How do you feel about her?”
Del hugged herself. “I went to Chowchilla but she wouldn’t see me. I talked to one of the corrections officers, Nan. She met me in the parking lot after her shift. She’s a friend of a friend. Janet’s not exactly thrilled to be incarcerated. Of course. But Nan said she’s adapting.”
“You’re worried about her,” Lola asserted. “That’s understandable, no matter what happened. You care about her. I just—”
Del gave a wry grin. “You know what’s funny? I’m not actually that worried about Janet. I was at first, but according to Nan she’s fine. She’s smart and manipulative and savvy. Plus she has money. It doesn’t save her from the basics but I’m guessing it does insulate her from the worst of it. Janet is nobody’s fool. She’s probably running her own personal crime ring out of her cell by now. She’s eligible for parole in just a few years, and with a good lawyer she’ll get it. She has more than enough money to pay for a good lawyer.”
Del watched Lola decide to sidestep the bigger issues and focus on a minor detail. “How can money help her in prison?”
“A lot of female prisoners have kids and moms depending on them. They need cash and Janet can help with that. Prisoners want snacks and smokes, drugs, alcohol. It’s all available if you have money. Nan said she has weekly visitors, and they probably work for her. Maybe a financial advisor and a lawyer. Trust me, Janet’s a survivor. She knows how to work a system, and prison’s just another system.”
Lola stared at Del, her brown eyes tinged with green and a little bit of gold. Her mouth was drawn in tight, and Del really wished she knew what Lola was thinking. But Lola merely nodded at her to continue.
“I took your advice and went back home to Fresno. The trailer park we lived in is gone. My folks are gone, I don’t know where. I haven’t seen them since I was a teenager. I don’t even know if they’re alive or dead. Maybe they went back to Texas. Who knows?”
“You’re a cop. Couldn’t you find them if you wanted to?”
Del pushed her hand across her body as if to deflect the question. “I guess I’m still trying to decide if I want to. Things were a little rocky between us. I’m not sure I want the drama they would probably bring, especially after everything that’s happened. Does that make sense?”
Lola nodded slowly.
“How about you?”
Lola gave her a questioning look.
“Well, aren’t you curious about your birth parents? I thought it was interesting that you wanted me to look into reconnecting with my parents, but you’ve never really talked about finding yours.”
“Oh!” Lola sat back. “I have to think about it.”
“Okay.” Del sat back too. “Fair enough.”
“Nice job turning the tables,” Lola said, crossing her eyes and sticking out her tongue.
Del laughed and shook her head. “Listen, you’re right. I owe you a real conversation about all this. But it really has been a shitty day. I don’t wanna get into anything heavy right now.”
“You never do.” Lola rubbed her eyes. “Are you ever going to talk to me? Or are you just going to keep freezing me out until I give up?”
Del blinked and snapped her mouth shut. “You’re ambushing me,” she said. “Is it really so unreasonable to say, now isn’t a good time for a serious talk? Can’t we plan a different time to have the rest of this conversation? So I have a minute to breathe?”
“Okay. Fine.” Lola leaned forward and tried to hold Del’s gaze but Del looked away. “Maybe you could tell me why today was so frustrating.”
Del shook her head. “I’d prefer not to.”
“Well, all right t
hen, Bartleby.” Lola sat back, dropping her napkin and pushing her plate away with an ugly scrape.
“Don’t get wound up,” Del said. “I’m just in a lousy mood. People do that sometimes. Everyone can’t live in Happyland all the time.”
“I’m not asking you to live in Happyland. I’m asking you to talk to me. A lot has happened. That whole nightmare, that happened to both of us. To us together. Can’t we just talk about it? Please? It doesn’t have to be today, but—”
“Good.”
“What happened, Del?”
“Nothing.” Del stood and cleared her place, avoiding Lola’s gaze.
“You think I’m mad at you about Janet. You’re closing off from me because you don’t want to have to hear me complain about it, but I won’t. I don’t blame you. I just want to—”
“I love you, you know that, right?”
Lola seemed to sense that she was being shut down. She pressed her lips into a thin line before sighing heavily in what looked like resignation. “I love you too.”
They exchanged a perfunctory kiss and hug.
Del was shocked by the relief that washed over her as she loped across the street to her own home. Two minutes later, she picked up the phone.
“Hi, Del, what’s up?”
“I just wanted to say I’m sorry. You were nice enough to have me over and I was a jerk. I didn’t even thank you for dinner. Forgive me?”
“Always,” Lola murmured. “I’m not trying to push. I just want to connect with you again, you know?”
“I know you’re right. We should talk. I’m just not ready. Can you wait a little longer?”
“I guess. I just—we can’t keep putting things off like this.”
“Yeah.” There was a long pause.
“You don’t want to talk about it.”
