She blinked rapidly, all of a sudden holding back tears. “If they hadn’t given him that truck, we couldn’t have gone up to the mountains that day with Amy.”
I was reminded how thorough Randy was.
Leslie swiped at her nose with the cuff of her robe. “But the name wasn’t Ramsdale,” she said.
“Was it Sinclair?”
The name caught her up short. “Yes, it was. Sinclair. I hadn’t thought about that for a long time.”
“I bet it was tough for George,” I said. “Being out of work and having a big family. Feeling like a failure. That situation can make a lot of tension in the house.”
“Yes, it can,” she agreed, smiling just a little. “‘Course, I always said George was more interested in making babies than raising them. He’s just a big baby himself. I can’t tell you how losing his little girl turned that man around, let him see what was important to him. Everyone always used to tell me George would never be able to hold down a job, never amount to a hill of beans. But I knew he had it in him. Then after Amy was gone, well, he just knuckled down. He sure proved them all wrong.”
“That was a hard way to learn a lesson,” I said. “Losing a child.”
She looked around the empty room, seeming overwhelmed, depressed. Her eyes brimmed again. “I used to think getting thrown out of your house and living on the streets was the worst thing that could happen to people. But I was wrong. I would live on the streets any day to have my baby back for even one minute.”
“Detective Flint tells me results of the DNA comparison tests they did on you and the girl will take another couple of weeks.”
“I don’t need the tests to know the child in these pictures is mine. You know, there hasn’t been a day in the last ten years when every time the phone rings, or someone comes to the door, or I see a blond-headed girl go by, that I don’t think, oh, it’s Amy come back to me. Now I finally do find her, and it’s too late.”
“I’m sorry,” I said, because there was nothing else to say.
“I know,” she sighed.
“I have to go,” I said. I stood up and began gathering the album pages together. “I don’t want to be here if George comes back.”
“Why?” She was helping me.
“I don’t want to be the one to tell you.”
“Tell me what? After what I’ve been through in my life, Maggie, there’s not one thing you can say that I can’t handle.”
“I’m not so sure.”
“You’d damn well better finish what you’ve started.”
I stood there, knees knocking harder, imagining footsteps across the tile entry. “I don’t have the sort of evidence a court would ask for — police will take care of that — so you can believe me or not. That’s up to you. I told you how I got involved, trying to find out why a kid got lost. Not Amy, but the girl I knew as Hillary. This is what I believe happened.”
“I want to hear it,” she said, encouraging.
“A rich, spoiled man wanted a child for his wife; she was sick and couldn’t have one of her own. He thought a baby would be too much trouble, so he found a little girl that was already housebroken, knew about please and thank you, and was ready to start school so she wouldn’t be underfoot all day. He paid a lot for her. He dyed her blond hair brown, surgically he gave her a cute dimple in her chin. He called her his own.”
“You’re saying he bought Amy from her kidnappers?”
“How much does a Bingo Burgers franchise cost?”
Leslie didn’t answer. She also did not rise up in righteous denial. Or defense of George. All she said was, “Go on.”
“From there, it gets murky,” I said. “I don’t know everything yet, but the basic equation is: George was in debt and had a daughter, plus Randy was rich and wanted a child, equals George became solvent minus the daughter. The corollary is: George was in debt again, plus Randy was dead and he had a daughter, equals … what? That’s as far as I can go with it. You’re a businesswoman. You must be pretty good at math. That’s why I came here.”
“I think you should go,” she said.
“I think you’re right.” I picked up the pages, left the empty cover on the towel. I padded toward the door.
Leslie was still at the table in the empty room, staring at the empty album.
“Goodbye, Leslie,” I said. “Lock the door after me.”
She looked up. “I know I should hate you for saying all those things.”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I wish I could spare you.”
“One thing,” she said. “Can I have one of those pictures?”
I held them out to her. She came to me, both of us standing on the cold tile of the entry in bare feet. With tentative hands, she found the one she wanted, Hillary in a life vest in the bow of a sailboat, smiling, showing missing front teeth.
“It’s just, she looks so much like my granddaughter.”
My hands were too full to hug her, and she probably would have shunned me anyway. She held herself with the same innate dignity that had drawn me to Pisces.
Leslie’s gaze fell on the taped boxes in the living room.
“I meant what I said,” she said, “about living on the street.”
“I have a daughter,” I said. “I know you meant it.”
I drove home in the pre-rush-hour rush, big rigs and kamikaze commuters tearing up asphalt. The heater couldn’t overcome the cold air streaming in through my broken window. I shivered all the way in my wet clothes, the car full of the smell of dead things from the sea despite all the fresh air.
Mike wasn’t back yet when I got in. I spread a towel over his kitchen table and, still quaking with cold, laid out the album again.
I was in the shower, scalding water pounding my spine, when Mike came in. He opened the shower door.
“Jesus, Maggie,” he said. “What are you doing in here all naked again? Some consideration, please. I’m an old white-haired man. Night after night, twice yesterday. You’re going to kill me.”
I laughed or cried, it was hard to tell — my face was already wet. But whichever it was, the release felt good.
I looked up through runnels of shampoo-y water. “Who invited you?” I said.
He showed me the bulge in the front of his slacks. “You did,” he said.
CHAPTER 18
Sly was sitting at the end of his MacLaren Hall bunk, waiting for me. The bed was neatly made with a bright red cotton spread. The child was neatly made as well. Long, skinny white legs dangled from new-looking shorts with a primo surfer logo on the belt. The way he kicked his high-top sneakers, I couldn’t miss them. I wanted to snatch him up and squeeze him, but the proud smile still warned of spiky personal fences erected around him.
There were five other beds in the dorm room, each with a different, bright spread. Sly’s roommates were all in class, so we were alone except for the counselor keeping an eye on things from the hall.
“Looking sharp, Sly,” I said. I handed him a big Toys A Us bag and a box of goldfish crackers.
“How come you’re always bringing me stuff?” he asked.
“Because I like to. Does it bother you?”
“Doesn’t bother me.” He grinned, still the old con man. Out of the bag he took a Loktite kit for a scale-model Corvette and a set of enamel paints, with an extra jar of cherry red. He ran his fingers over the picture on the box, his eyes wide. “This is hot.”
“Yeah, it is. You told me you like ‘vettes. Sorry it had to be the snap-together kind of kit. They won’t let you have model glue in here. Hope it’s okay.”
“I’ll check it out.” He never gave away much, but I thought he was pleased, as much by the attention as by the gift. He seemed happy to see me, the way friends are happy. Gave me a warm glow.
“Where’d you get the hot clothes?” I asked.
“That faggot cop. He and his kid took me to get some stuff on Sunday.”
“Detective Flint?” Mike hadn’t bothered to mention a thing.
&nb
sp; “I guess that’s his name. The one that you…” He made an appropriately obscene gesture.
“Well, you look great. Need anything else?”
He shook his head. “I’m set. They got me going to school in here.”
“How is it?”
“Not too bad. Hilly used to teach me stuff, and I liked that better. But it’s okay here. They don’t let you watch TV in the daytime, so it’s something to do.”
“Stay with it, Sly. School is your rocket, you know.”
“Somethin’ to do.” He set the kit on the bed behind him and gave me one of his wise appraisals.
“So?” he asked.
“So, what?”
“Everyone who comes to see me wants to talk about what went down, or they want me to identify some guy. So, what is it?”
“I just came by to see how you’re hangin’. I tried to get by yesterday, but, well, things happened. Sorry I didn’t make it. I heard you had a good time last night, though, when Detective Flint came and woke you up.”
He grinned. “Yeah. I couldn’t ID that weird picture he had. I mean, for sure I never saw that dude before. But the cop, he took me out for pancakes, anyway. It was like two o’clock in the morning. Hot, I mean really hot. Like, I ain’t been out after dark since they put me in here.”
“I think you’re a night owl by nature.”
“Not no more. I mean, anymore. They get real strict about how we say shit. Like Hilly, always correcting me.”
“She corrected you because she cared for you.”
He swallowed hard. “She was hot.”
I touched his shoulder. “I told your teacher I would walk you to class. It was nice they let you sleep in this morning, Mr. Night Owl.”
Sly put his kit back into the bag with the paints and stowed it all under his bed. When he stood up, he smoothed the spread with pride.
“I’ll show you the way,” he said, still serious.
We walked out of his bungalow and across the campus, this very serious and wounded little boy and I. He was, for all of his toughness, very dear. I was sure that Hillary had been drawn by the vulnerable quality he had, as I was.
In all of our conversations, Sly had refused steadfastly to say anything to me about his family. Mike had told me the family had a rap sheet with Child Protective Services that read like Tales from the Dark Side. I didn’t need to see it. All that mattered was that Sly was retrievable, and for that, in large measure, we had Hillary to thank.
The only children playing in the hazy sunshine were preschoolers on the far side of the grounds, bouncing around in a small fenced-in play yard equipped with swings and a slide. Sly watched them with a cloudy face.
Mike had told me how disappointed Sly was when he could not recognize George Metrano as the man who had slit Hillary’s throat. That’s why the treat of pancakes in the middle of the night. Mike wanted the truth. Sly wanted the man.
The windows in the stucco classroom block were open. Voices from inside floated out across the empty asphalt yard like a haunting of children; too much energy to be peacefully interred on a warm day.
I touched Sly’s shoulder again. “We’ll get him.”
“Damn straight.”
“That man in the picture? He was Hilly’s real father. For what it’s worth, I’m glad he isn’t the one.”
“Mike said the same thing.”
I smiled. “So, you do know the faggot cop’s name.”
He turned his head away so I couldn’t see the wry grin.
I stopped with him at the entrance to the classroom block.
“Got your homework finished?”
“Under control,” he said.
“Then I’ll see you later, Sly Ronald.”
He tossed his head back in cocky acknowledgment. “Later.”
With his hands in the pockets of his new shorts, he started inside. After a few steps, he hesitated, then he came back to me.
“Where is she?” he asked.
“Hillary is still in the morgue.”
“Shouldn’t there be a funeral?”
“There will be, as soon as we get this all straightened out. Will you sit with me?”
“Yeah. Don’t forget.”
“I promise.”
He squared his skinny shoulders inside his bright shirt and walked on to his class, alone.
I didn’t mind leaving him at MacLaren. But I had a sick feeling whenever I thought about Sly after MacLaren — they could keep him only so long. What would it be? A foster home? Another institution? Back on the streets?
In the ear of my memory, all the way out to the parking lot I heard Sly howl the way Bowser had the day I brought him home from the pound to sleep on my heirloom brocade sofa. There’s a whole lot more to taking in a damaged child than an abandoned puppy. Even though I understood that, every time I saw Sly it was tougher to leave him behind.
I drove the clunker rental Toyota downtown and parked in a twelve-dollar all-day lot in the Civic Center. I didn’t have all day, and I didn’t have twelve dollars in my pocket, either. As it was, I walked down to a little deli in the Civic Center Mall under City Hall and spent my last five on a chicken salad sandwich and a diet soda. The sandwich man threw in an extra kosher dill and a couple of cookies because I smiled at him. That’s what he told me, anyway.
I carried the food in a brown bag across the street to the police administration building, Parker Center, and asked the desk officer, Rayetta Washington, to please page Detective Michael Flint, Sr., Robbery-Homicide Division, Major Crimes Section, third floor, last office on the right, second desk inside the door. And to tell him that his snitch was downstairs with new information. I gave Officer Washington a smile, too, because she looked as if she needed one. She was at least nine months pregnant under her midnight-blue maternity uniform.
Officer Washington and I were discussing hee-breathing when Mike came down to the desk. He hadn’t had much sleep, and it showed in the chiseling under his cheekbones, the shadows under his eyes.
“Maggie?” he said, surprised, pleased, and cranky all at once. “What are you doing here?”
I held up the sandwich bag. “You forgot your lunch this morning, honey, and I was afraid you’d go hungry.” I turned to Officer Washington. “You know how men get when they miss a meal. Too hard to live with.”
“That’s it?” he said. “You brought me lunch?”
I kissed his face. “And you forgot to pay me last night, buster. One deluxe blow job, that’s twenty you owe me. I need it now, because I don’t have enough money for the parking lot.”
Expression dark, he took the bag and cautiously looked inside. “It’s a sandwich.”
“What did I tell you?”
“I’m waiting to hear the rest of it.”
“What? You think I have ulterior motives?”
“Or you’re drunk.”
“Okay. I want to hear the tape of your conversation with Elizabeth.”
He sighed.
“Please.”
Officer Washington had been leaning on the counter with her chin in her hand, listening to all this. “I think you better let her, detective. You say no, I don’t want to be held responsible for what she might do.”
“Thank you, Officer,” I said. “I hope you have a lovely baby.”
Mike sighed again. “What kind of sandwich?”
“Chicken salad.”
“Washington,” he said, “do you like chicken salad?”
“Yes, sir, I do.”
He put the bag on the counter in front of her and took me by the elbow. “Upstairs. I’ll set you up in an interrogation room.”
“Bon appetit,” I said to Officer Washington.
“Later, honey,” she said, grinning. As Mike and I approached the elevator, I heard her laugh out loud.
We had the elevator to ourselves. I did what I always do when I have Mike captive in an elevator: I grabbed him and kissed the breath right out of him. He cooperated without getting creative about it.
> “Hi, baby,” I said when I released him.
“Jesus, Maggie.” He was trying without much success to stay cranky.
I straightened his tie. “You never told me you took Sly shopping.”
He waved it off. “Not a big one.”
“To Sly it was. You have unplumbed depths, Mike Flint. Every discovery I make about you, I like you more.”
“Oh yeah?”
The elevator doors opened on the third floor and I walked out ahead of him. As he fell in step beside me, I said, “The canyons are nice, but I could live at the beach, too.”
“Is this by way of a proposal?” he asked, nudging me.
“Just polite conversation. You didn’t seem very happy to see me downstairs. What’s going on?”
“Had a worry-making phone call this morning. From Long Beach PD. You know we’re cooperating on the Ramsdale case. So, they tell me the Ramsdale house was broken into last night. Neighbors didn’t hear the break-in, but there was a disturbance in the alley that got reported. You wouldn’t know anything about it, would you?”
“It was so late when you got home last night, Mike. I was going to tell you all about it, but, well, you were in the mood for something other than talk.”
“Sure, blame me. I saw the pictures on the kitchen table this morning. Is that where you got them? Did you break in?”
“Me?” I learned to act watching silent movies.
“You’d better go through it for me.” He showed me into a barren little interrogation room furnished with a scarred wooden table and four oak chairs. He looked grim. Weary and grim. “Take a seat. Take a deep breath. And get to it.”
“Well.” In the light of day, my escapade the night before seemed pretty lame. I did not want to go over it. But I did what Mike said. I pulled out one of the hard chairs and sat down. I smiled up at him. Mike, standing, hip propped against the table, hand resting on his pistol, did not smile back. Seems I had spent all of my magic at the deli.
“After you left last night,” I began, “I couldn’t sleep, so I went for a drive.”
“Never mind the embroidery work. Give me the bare bones.”
I squared my shoulders. “Is this conversation being taped?”
Midnight Baby Page 21
