Nobody's Child (The Jeri Howard Series Book 5)

by Janet Dawson

  Monte Rio wasn’t that far from Mother Earth Farms, on the Russian River northwest of Sebastopol, where I’d been that afternoon. “Have you two kept in contact all these years? Or did you reconnect sometime recently?”

  “We lost touch after the Army,” Lampert said. “I guess it was three, four years ago. Fern and I went to see a movie up at the Pacific Film Archive near the campus. Afterward Fern wanted to go to Cody’s. So we were walking along Telegraph. And I saw Rio. Couldn’t believe my eyes. But you know, part of me wasn’t surprised. When I thought about it, I figured Rio was one of those guys who would end up on the street. I tried to help him out, but he doesn’t want to be helped.”

  He looked up as his wife carried a tray of coffee things into the living room. She set them on the coffee table atop the magazines and picked up one red ceramic mug. “Fern doesn’t like him.”

  “Of course I don’t,” Fern Lampert said. “The guy’s a bum. He’s trouble.” She handed me the mug, full of black coffee. “The fact that you’re here proves it.”

  Terry Lampert got up from the rocker and doctored his own coffee with sugar and a dollop of milk. He sat down again and crossed his legs in front of him. His wife cleared off the armchair and took a seat.

  “Have you seen Rio lately?” I asked, sipping the coffee. It was quite strong and would have me buzzing the rest of the evening. “I really need to talk with him.”

  “What’s he done?” Fern Lampert asked, scowling. “I told Terry it was a bad idea to have anything to do with him, much less chauffeur him around the countryside.”

  “He hasn’t done anything.” I saw no reason to share my suspicions with her. “I’m looking for a missing person. Rio may have information about that person.”

  “Yesterday.” Lampert took a swallow of coffee. “I brought him back from Garberville.”

  Garberville, I thought, on U.S. 101 at the southern end of Humboldt County, which was reported to be the marijuana cultivation capital of Northern California. I wasn’t sure I believed Lampert when he said he didn’t know anything about Rio dealing grass.

  Lampert must have known what I was thinking. “Someone we knew from the Army lives—lived up there. The guy’s been dying of cancer for years. Agent Orange, you can damn sure bet on it.” He stopped and raised his mug to his lips.

  “I took Rio up to Garberville Thanksgiving weekend,” he continued. “Our buddy, he finally bought the farm first week in December. I was up Eureka way, I called in, made it to the funeral. Rio stuck around to help the guy’s old lady sort through his stuff. I picked him up in Garberville Monday night, made a few stops on my way back, got back here last night As far as I know, Rio’s down at People’s Park tonight. That’s where he usually sleeps.”

  Thirty-eight

  HE LOOKED MUCH AS SERENA HAD DESCRIBED HIM. Six-two, maybe even six-three, and big through the chest and shoulders, like a lot of football players I’ve seen. A dark, bearded face looked out from the hooded parka he wore, not only dark-skinned but dark in its view of the world. His eyes were like two black stones embedded in this landscape. What little hair I could see around the periphery of his face was black and curly. Glints of silver colored the black beard. Mid- to late forties, I guessed, based on what Terry Lampert had told me.

  He stood just out of a pool of light from a street lamp, near the volleyball courts in People’s Park, alone in the winter dark, smoking a cigarette. Like Denny, Rio had a blue duffel bag that probably contained his sleeping bag and a few clothes. It lay at his feet. As I approached him I smelled the sweet scent of marijuana. I stopped about six feet in front of him. His black eyes looked at me with disinterest.

  “Are you Rio?”

  He took a long toke on his joint before speaking. His voice was a low bass rumble. “Who’s asking?”

  “My name’s Jeri. I’m a private investigator.”

  This didn’t impress him. “So?”

  “I’ve been looking for you.”

  He drew in smoke and tilted his head slightly. “I heard.”

  “Don’t you want to know why?”

  “Do I?”

  “It’s about Maureen Smith.” I gazed at Rio’s face, trying to see if Maureen’s name brought forth any reaction. None that I could see. He seemed far more interested in his joint.

  “What about her?”

  “She’s dead.”

  “It happens.” He shrugged.

  “Not this way. She was murdered.”

  His eyes, already stone hard, glittered at me. “Street people get murdered all the time,” he said conversationally. “I know guys who’d slit your throat for spare change.”

  “I don’t think it happened like that. Whoever killed her took the trouble to hide her body up in the Oakland hills. It was found by accident.”

  He was quiet, as though digesting my words. “What’s it to you?” he asked finally. “I thought cops investigated murders.”

  “They are. Me, I’m looking for the little girl, Dyese.”

  “Why?”

  “Her grandmother is my client.”

  “From what I hear grandma ain’t all that interested.”

  So Maureen had told him about her rocky relationship with her mother. “I am.”

  “Why?”

  “Do you ever answer a question with something besides a question?”

  Now I thought I saw a smile curve his lips, if only for a moment. “When it suits me.”

  It began to rain, a chill curtain blurring the lights illuminating the park. He made no move to find shelter, just stood there smoking his joint down to residue. “Look,” I said, “I’d like to get out of the rain. Can I buy you something to eat?”

  He took his time responding, surveying me with something like amusement on his face. “You think I can be bought for a meal?”

  “Maybe not. But it’s worth a try. Reciprocity, and all that. Besides, I really would like to get out of the rain. Wouldn’t you?”

  “Rain’s good,” he said, raising his face upward. “Washes the earth, makes the plants grow. But you’re right. It is cold. Sure, I’ll let you buy me something to eat. You sure you want to be seen around the avenue with me?” Sarcasm sharpened his tone. “All us quote homeless people unquote are supposed to be booze-guzzling drugged-out crazies.”

  “My need for information justifies the risk.” Besides, I thought, there were enough people on Telegraph this evening to make me feel, if not safe, at least safer than I would feel alone with this guy. Better to talk to him in a café with people around. Drugged-out crazy or not, he had an edge to him that seemed as though it could turn hostile fast.

  With an easy fluid motion he picked up his duffel and ambled off in the direction of Haste Street. I caught up with him, matching my steps to his.

  “What if I killed her?” he asked when we reached the intersection of Haste and Telegraph. The light was red so he stopped at the curb, despite the fact that others around us were crossing the avenue anyway.

  “I considered the possibility,” I said, giving him a sidelong glance. “But how would you get her body up to the Oakland hills? Unless you have a car.”

  “I got nothing, except what’s on my back and in this bag.” The light changed and he stepped into the crosswalk. “And that’s the way I like it.”

  “Where have you been, the past few weeks?”

  “That’s my business.” Once we crossed the street, Rio hung a right and strode purposefully down Telegraph, headed in the direction of the U.C. campus. Then he turned abruptly and pushed through the door of a tacqueria called the Zona Rosa. “I like Mexican food,” he told me, stepping up to the counter.

  “So do I.”

  The counter clerk appeared to be a college student, and she looked intimidated by Rio’s size and presence. I wondered if she had the same wariness about homeless people as customers as did the deli clerk I’d encountered last week when I bought Denny lunch. Rio didn’t much care. He ignored her and ordered a carne asada burrito with everything, a
plate of nachos, and coffee. “Put some extra cheese on everything.”

  “Black bean quesadilla,” I said. “This is all on the same tab.”

  “Quesadilla.” Rio scratched his beard. “Sounds good. I’ll have one of those too.”

  “Two quesadillas. And I’ll have coffee.” The clerk nodded, wrote up the order, and I paid for our dinner. Rio and I carried our trays to a vacant table near the front and spread the food out on its surface. He set into the burrito as though he hadn’t eaten in a while.

  “When did you first meet Maureen?” I asked, picking up one section of my quesadilla.

  He gazed at me over the paper napkin he was using to wipe his mouth. “When she first showed up on the avenue, couple of years back. After that woman kicked her out.”

  “Which woman?” I already knew the answer. I’d pried it from Ramona Clark, but I had a feeling Rio would give me a different version.

  “The housekeeper. Snotty bitch. Lives over in North Oakland.”

  “You met her?” Mrs. Clark had left out this bit of information, I noted with interest, wondering why.

  “Oh, yeah. She’s a real piece of work.”

  “When did you meet her?”

  “That comes later in the story,” Rio said, picking at his nachos. “Let me tell it my way.”

  “Fair enough. When you first met Maureen.”

  “She was pregnant. Belly out to here, panhandling on the corner near Cody’s. She got me curious. She didn’t look like she started out poor.”

  “How could you tell?”

  “Her teeth,” Rio said, picking up a piece of quesadilla. “Maureen had good teeth, nice and straight and white. Poor people don’t have dental plans. They don’t go in for regular checkups. And they don’t floss.” He grinned, showing his own discolored teeth as he bit into the quesadilla. He chewed and swallowed, washing the mouthful down with coffee. “She looked like she needed a protector. So I volunteered.”

  “Out of the goodness of your heart?”

  “Yeah.” He shot me a hard-eyed look. “Does that surprise you?”

  “I’m just trying to decide if you’re Fagin, or Bill Sykes.”

  Now he smiled, a brief curve of his lips that didn’t migrate to his eyes. “Dickens. Appropriate to the season. Since you’ve been asking around, you’ve obviously heard a lot about me. I’m too much of a loner to be Fagin, and I’m not as mean as Sykes. But that’s another conversation. We’re here to talk about Maureen.” But he didn’t talk, not immediately. He ate for a while in silence, as though he had the marijuana munchies. “Living on the street, you’re part of the food chain. Small fry get eaten by the bigger fish. Pregnant teenagers are ripe to be eaten.”

  “Is that why you told her to go with that couple who wanted to take her to their farm? That was risky. They could have been some kind of cult weirdos, interested in eating Maureen themselves.”

  “Aditi and Viraj? I don’t think so.” He noted my surprise at his use of their names. “Oh, yeah, I know who they are. The time-warp hippies who sell organic veggies at the farmers’ market. They take in strays all the time. Cats, dogs, and people. No, I figured Maureen would be safer with them than she would be going into labor in People’s Park.”

  “What did Maureen tell you about leaving home?”

  He finished his burrito before speaking. “Her father was dead. Her mother’s an alcoholic who doesn’t give a damn about anyone but herself.”

  “That had been the situation for years. What suddenly triggered her to leave home four months before she graduated from high school?”

  Rio shrugged. “Kids who leave home are usually running away from something. You could say we’re all running away from something.”

  “You could. But let’s talk about Maureen.”

  “The mother was dating some guy, a college professor,” Rio said. “He kept putting the moves on Maureen. He sounded like a real prick. Or at least like he thought with his. But I don’t think it was that.” He picked up his coffee. “Maureen wouldn’t tell me why she left home, at least not directly. She didn’t want to talk about it I didn’t press her.”

  That jibed with what Aditi had told me. But there was something about the way Rio had phrased his response that caught my attention. “You said ‘not directly.’ Did you read anything between the lines?”

  “Yeah. It had something to do with sex. And it happened at a party.”

  I picked up my coffee, finding that it had turned cold. Maybe Maureen had done something she regretted at that party. Or maybe someone had done something to Maureen. My mind went back to my conversation earlier today with Aditi and her daughter Yasrnin, and Yasmin’s speculation that Maureen had been raped. I thought about Kara Jenner, in her apartment over on LeConte, and her reluctance to talk with me about Maureen. Kara knew more than she was saying, I was sure of it. And she was going to get another visit from me.

  “What about after she left home?” I asked Rio. “From March to the summer, when you saw her here on the avenue. She was staying with the housekeeper, the woman in North Oakland, who kicked her out.”

  “The bitch.” Rio nodded. “Yeah, the woman accused her of being a whore, a slut because Maureen was pregnant. But Maureen wasn’t like that.”

  “Who was the father of her baby?”

  “Maureen claimed she didn’t know. I think maybe she did.”

  It could have been Patrick Ennis, Ramona Clark’s nephew, based on his resemblance to Dyese and the date of the child’s birth. But if what Rio said was true, that Maureen had fallen prey to someone before she left home, Dyese could have been fathered by someone she knew from Piedmont.

  “Let’s move forward a year, this past summer. I know Maureen came back from Sebastopol. She even had an apartment and a job for a while. Then she wound up on the streets again. You must have seen her then.”

  “Yeah, I did. She came looking for me. Said she wanted to go back to Sebastopol. But she didn’t want to go broke. She asked if I could help her get some money together.”

  “Selling drugs?” He didn’t answer. “Look, I’ve heard on the street you deal a little marijuana. Some people think you use kids like Maureen as mules.”

  “The Fagin side of my personality?” He finished off the nachos and wiped his hands on a napkin. “I bet you also heard I’m pimping those kids. I guess that would be Bill Sykes. I’m doing neither. If kids are selling their bodies, they’re doing it on their own, without me as middleman. I just try to see that they don’t get killed in the process.” He sighed. “Maureen offered to sell grass for me. I told her no. She had enough problems without getting busted.”

  “Did she ever use intravenous drugs?” I asked, mindful of other ways one could contract HIV.

  “Hell, no.” Rio scowled. “I don’t use that shit. A little weed, that’s different. But I don’t touch the hard stuff. And I sure didn’t see any track marks on the girl. Believe me, I’d have noticed.”

  “Why did she offer to sell grass?”

  “The money. She said she needed money. For the kid. I gave her the money.”

  “How much?”

  “Couple hundred. That’s all I had.”

  “When was this?”

  “First, second week in October. That’s the last time I saw her.”

  The coroner guessed Maureen may have been killed in mid-October, her body found in early November, about three weeks in the ground. “Where was Dyese?” Rio shrugged. Either he didn’t know or he wasn’t saying. “I know she left the baby with the housekeeper for a while. Then she came and took Dyese away.”

  “We both took the kid,” Rio said. “I went with Maureen, and kept the bitch from calling the cops.”

  I raised my eyebrows. This was something else Ramona Clark had neglected to mention. “Why?”

  “That woman, the housekeeper, she was going behind Maureen’s back, trying to get the kid into foster care. She called Social Services. Like Maureen wasn’t a fit mother. That’s bullshit. Maureen loved that kid
. She always made sure that kid had something to eat and a warm place to sleep. Even if Maureen herself went hungry. She had to get Dyese back from that woman.”

  “When did this happen?”

  “About the same time,” he said vaguely.

  “Any idea what she did with the money?”

  He shook his head. “I think she was getting a stash so she could get her own place. She was staying with someone she knew for a while, after she gave up that apartment. That’s when the kid was with the housekeeper. Maureen kept trying to find a job, after she lost that waitress gig. Hell, there’s college kids by the hundreds here, even in the summer, willing to take all those low-pay service jobs. What chance does a girl like Maureen have? Not much work history, no fixed address, a baby to worry about.”

  I couldn’t answer his question, thinking instead of a downward spiral, no way out. “Did you ever see this friend of hers, the one she was staying with?”

  “Yeah. Both of them. Blond girl, looked like a college student. And some guy,” Rio said. “Same age. Sandy hair. He was driving one of those little cars, a green hatchback, Honda or something like that.”

  Kara Jenner, I thought And Emory Marland.

  “The guy bought some grass from me once,” Rio continued. “He’s a regular on the avenue. I see him hanging around Telegraph all the time. When he’s by himself, he’s scoping out the girls. Sometimes I see him with Blondie. When he’s with Blondie, he acts like he owns her. Keeps his hand on her arm, like he doesn’t want her to go far. Doesn’t want her talking to anyone else, male or female.”

  That sounded like Emory. On the two instances I’d seen him with Kara, I’d noticed his possessiveness toward her. Yet she insisted they were just friends from high school. It seemed there was more to it, at least as far as Emory was concerned.

  “How do you know what kind of car he drives?” I asked Rio.

  “I saw Maureen get into it a couple of times.”

  “When was this?”

  “Around Labor Day. And again, end of September, maybe early October.”