by Neil Mcmahon
Drabyak gave me another of his judicious nods. “Okay, I’m fine with all that. No offense intended, by the way—you don’t strike me as the kind of guy who’d throw his brother off a cliff. I just need to cover the turf.”
“Understood,” I said, relieved that I seemed to be off the hook, at least for now.
“So why did Nick freak out so bad? You said that phone call was what seemed to set him off. Any idea who’d call him at four o’clock in the morning?”
“I haven’t had time to think about it,” I said. “But right off the top, no, and I don’t see how it could figure in. It lasted only a few seconds—what could somebody have said in that short a time that would send him completely ballistic? Besides, everything he said was about the problem being inside his head, not coming from somewhere else.”
“Could it have been a suicide attempt?”
I hesitated, but then shook my head. “That’s also possible, but Nick’s never been suicidal. My personal take is that it doesn’t fit with his psychological makeup.”
I’d never tried to do an outright clinical assessment on Nick involving tests and such, but it was clear to me that he was somewhere in the hazy area of borderline psychotic—people who tended to be very self-centered and manipulative, thrived on a secret sense of superiority, and by and large liked themselves just fine. They might do plenty of damage to others, but their top priority was taking care of number one.
Finally Drabyak put his finger on the weak point, changing wrists on the steering wheel and shifting in his seat to face more toward me.
“One more question,” he said. “Do you think he was using drugs?”
“I’d rather not speculate on that, Detective.” He knew as well as I did that meant yes. “But Nick’s had his problems along those lines. Assuming he pulls through this, I guarantee we’ll get him a thorough clinical workup and whatever treatment is indicated.”
By now our house was coming into sight. Several more L.A. County vehicles were parked in front, patrol cars and investigation units, and the driveway was cordoned off by yellow tape with deputies standing watch. Drabyak stuck his hand out the window, flashing his badge at them, then pulled in among the other vehicles and cut the engine.
“I appreciate your cooperation, Dr. Crandall,” he said. “I won’t keep you any longer—I know you’re anxious to check in on Nick.”
“Can you tell me what happens from here?” I said. “Anything else you’re going to want me to do?”
He leaned back and hooked a wrist over the wheel again, like he was still driving.
“That depends,” he said. “Right now, I don’t see any evidence that a crime was committed. No crime, there’s usually no reason for us to pursue it. We could. Trace that phone call, start looking under rocks, find out what he’s been doing and who with. But something could come along to kick this back into gear. And let’s face it, the Crandalls being who they are—there’s going to be a lot of interest.”
Five
Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center was like a city in itself, but I’d been there a few times before and I knew my way around. I paid eleven bucks for a parking space and went in the emergency room entrance of the huge main hospital. There I spent the next couple of hours absorbing the information about Nick that came along at intervals. While I waited, I finally had time to replay the events in my mind.
What the hell had pushed him, literally, over the edge? In the past years he’d had a few episodes of slipping out of reality, but he’d never come close to losing it so wildly, and he’d never been outright violent. The memory of those awful, desperate howls and of him dancing around clutching his hair made me wince. It was like something really had invaded his head and was torturing him.
The best assumption I could make at this point was that two factors had combined—he’d gotten into some really bad dope, and/or way too much of it, and his general mental condition had deteriorated more than I’d realized.
The explanation didn’t much satisfy me. The drug part, maybe; who knew what kind of shit was out there on the streets these days? Still, I had trouble believing that an experienced user like Nick would get so sucker punched. I’d turned over the stuff from his car to the hospital, and the analysis might tell us something, but with the lab’s backlog, it would be at least a week before the results came back.
I was even less able to convince myself that his mental state had slipped so far. I kept a close eye on him that way, and while he might be slowly losing ground, I’d seen no signs of serious decline that would suggest a complete psychotic meltdown. That sort of thing typically didn’t just come out of the blue, but had a long buildup with recognizable kinds of disturbed behavior. Most important, however erratic or unpleasant he might have seemed, he was always still Nick. Last night he was somebody I’d never seen before.
Then there was that phone call. It occurred to me that he might have been having an ongoing argument with whoever it was, and even though the call lasted only a few seconds, that was long enough for him or her to say something that made Nick snap. But I had a hard time buying that, too. As I’d told Drabyak, it didn’t fit with Nick’s ranting about the terror inside his head, and it just didn’t seem plausible that a few words could drive him into such a blind fury.
While I paced, stewing, news kept trickling out of the ER, and it was generally encouraging. Nick had opened his eyes and seemed to be aware of his surroundings. Initial X-rays indicated that his spinal column was intact. Overall, he was physically stable enough to soon be moved to the ICU. But there was still the possibility of brain damage. A CT scan and other tests were in the works; the doctors thought they’d have a more comprehensive picture later today.
I decided to move on. There was no point in hanging around there in the interim, and I had other things to take care of. I’d been teaching at a community college the past couple of years, and right now we were on break, so I didn’t have to worry about canceling appointments or formal business matters. But I did have to worry about our mother; that was top priority now.
I’d called her earlier to break the news; she’d wanted to rush to the hospital, but I told her to stay home and I’d come see her soon. She was a strong, intelligent woman, but she had a brittle edge that had gotten more pronounced since my father’s death. I wanted to get a sense of how distraught she might be before she walked into this world of hushed urgency, mysterious machines, and tense visitors waiting for word about their loved ones. It seemed too likely to give graphic shape to her fears.
When I walked out of the hospital, it was midmorning. The fog had burned off; it was probably lingering on the coast and up in the canyons, but here the sky was the smog-tinged blue of a typical L.A. day. The parking garage adjoined the main UCLA campus, crowded with bright, good-looking kids eager for summer vacation. I knew that heady feeling, and ordinarily, I’d have been charmed and amused.
I maneuvered my way through the crowded city streets back onto the absolutely jammed Santa Monica Freeway, and headed west to our family home near Arroyo Seco. By now, the adrenaline that had carried me along was gone. I was down to emotional metal on metal, raw nerves and worry. There was the question of what to do with Nick in the long term. If he was seriously impaired, he might require full-time care for the rest of his life. If he recovered, there was a strong risk that he’d go back to his old ways, treatment or not—he’d already been through one rehab program and had started using again the day he got out.
Besides all that, I kept thinking about what Drabyak had implied about the risks of looking under rocks. As far as I knew, Nick’s criminal career was limited to small-time dealing. Still, if he owed somebody money or had otherwise crossed them, they might be out for payback.
My other brother and my sister would be no help with any of that. My mother would try, and she had considerable ability in some spheres, but this wasn’t one of them.
The weight was piling on.
As I drove up to my mother’s house—the Crandall
family’s principal homestead, another choice property situated on a cul-de-sac and screened by thick oleander hedges—everything looked pretty much the same as always.
Except for a pair of LAPD motorcycle cops waiting at the driveway entrance—big, stone-jawed guys with Terminator sunglasses, tailored short-sleeved shirts, and knotty biceps that brought the word steroids flashing into my mind.
I didn’t even have time to wonder what they were doing here. They both came at me fast, the one on the right blocking my way and the other pulling his bike up beside my window.
“Keep your hands where I can see them and get out of your vehicle,” he ordered.
I did.
“Put your hands on the hood and spread your feet.”
I did that, too, but he stepped up behind me and gave the insides of my ankles each a sharp kick with his boot toe. I spread them a few inches farther.
“You got a driver’s license?” he said.
“In my wallet. Left back pocket.”
He tugged it out. “How come it’s damp?”
“I was swimming earlier.”
“Really?” he said, with his tone changed from macho gruff to sardonic. “You always carry your wallet when you go for a dip, Mr.—”
“Crandall.” I finished his sentence. “This is my mother’s house. My wallet’s wet because my brother just almost drowned and I went in after him.”
That put a stop to the fun and games, and a long pause told me that he knew he’d stepped in shit and was trying to figure a way out of it. I wasn’t inclined to help.
“Okay, you can relax, but wait right here,” he said, and this time he added, “sir.”
He strode away and handed my license to his partner, who wheeled his bike around and roared off toward the house. Within two minutes, he was back, and the first cop returned my wallet with an air of stiff apology.
“Sorry about that, Dr. Crandall,” he said. “The mayor’s in there, paying his regards to your mother. We’re part of his security escort. Nobody told us you were coming, and, uh, your vehicle doesn’t exactly look like it belongs around here.”
I nodded curtly. Like Drabyak, they were just doing their job, although he was a class act compared to this smirking schoolyard-bully shit. But I kept my mouth shut. I avoided pissing matches anyway—they were usually pointless, with nothing to gain but a petty ego stroke—and the last thing I wanted right now was to create friction, especially in law enforcement circles.
I got back in the Cruiser and started toward the house. It helped that the mayor—rising political star Joaquin Sandoval—had come to call. That would give my mother a boost.
Much as I loved her, coming back to this place where I’d grown up was always a stab to my heart. It was beautiful, even stunning; the long winding drive led through the grounds to an elegant arts and crafts mansion, fronted by a large patio of hand-hewn granite pavestones with a Renaissance-era marble fountain that my great-great-granddad Tom the First had imported from Tuscany. But that was precisely the problem. Like the Malibu property, only more so, it was a monument to wealth and privilege. I couldn’t undo my childhood, but I did all I could to distance myself from those aspects of it.
The driveway ended in a parking circle, where two more watchful LAPD cops were waiting beside the mayor’s limo. My mother, Audrey, was hurrying across the patio toward me, with Sandoval, my younger sister, Erica, and an old family friend named Hap Rasmussen just behind her. I got out of my car and stepped into Audrey’s embrace.
“Oh, Tom,” she murmured. The sorrow in her voice said it all. She was close to sixty, her chestnut hair threaded with silver, although her willowy, fine-boned beauty took years off her appearance. She was obviously shaken, but she seemed steadier than I’d feared. Along with the mayor’s visit, I was glad that Hap was here. Since my father’s death, he was more and more becoming her mainstay.
“Nick’s doing okay,” I told them. “He’s conscious, and his system’s strong. They’re running tests on him now. With any luck, he’ll keep improving.”
Audrey let out a long soft breath of pent-up tension, sagging with relief against me. Erica hugged us both, Hap slapped my back, and even Sandoval gave my shoulders a manly clasp.
“What about you?” Audrey said. “It must have been awful.”
I kissed her cheek and managed to grin. “It was just like back when I was working the beach, Mama—even made me feel like a young guy again. I could use some decent coffee.”
“We’ve got plenty, dear. Come on inside.”
Everybody started toward the house, but Sandoval caught my eye and motioned me to hang back. I knew him only slightly, and only because he was careful to cultivate the acquaintance of big-money families; without doubt, this gesture of concern toward Audrey had the expectation of a campaign check attached. He’d come up in the barrios, and he was imposing, with a rough-hewn pockmarked face in glaring contrast to the pretty-boy pol look—although he had plenty of that slickness. But he also knew how to turn on a sincere, no-bullshit quality, not that I’d have wanted to depend on it.
“Tom, I’ve got to get to an appointment—I’m going to sneak out and let you and Audrey catch up,” he said. “I’m glad to hear Nick’s on the mend.”
“Thanks for coming, Your Honor. It means a lot to us.”
He glanced around. “I’m not supposed to smoke—it’s bad for the image—but I’m dying for one. Bother you?”
“My old man smoked cigars—the house was always full of it,” I said. “I know I shouldn’t admit this, but I kind of like it.”
He shook loose a Marlboro and lit it with a match cupped in one hand.
“Look, this will stay between you and me,” he said quietly. “I called the sheriff’s department as soon as I heard the news and got hold of that detective you talked to, Drabyak.” Sandoval sucked in a deep drag and kept talking through a thin stream of smoke. “I don’t see any problem making this disappear. Might be nice if you offered to cover the county and Coast Guard expenses, cut a donation check to Search and Rescue, that sort of thing.”
“I’ll take care of it ASAP.” Along with that check to his campaign coffers.
“Okay. Call me anytime.” He ground out the rest of his smoke on a rock ledge, and dropped the butt in the side pocket of his sport coat. “Don’t worry. I’ve got it lined with tinfoil,” he said, when he saw my look. “I started getting more careful after I left a spark one time and almost torched myself.”
Once burned, twice learned.
As the mayor turned to go, he paused. “By the way, nice work out there, bringing Nick back. It’s on the grapevine—cops, search-and-rescue people. You earned yourself a lot of respect.”
“It was pure luck,” I said.
Mayor Sandoval grinned. “Sure it was.”
Six
On my way into the house I got sidelined again, this time by my sister, waiting inside the door.
“Tommy, I’ve got this really weird thing I need to tell you,” she whispered. Her eyes were flitting around with a deer-in-the-headlights look.
All I could think was, Now what?
Erica, just turned thirty, was the youngest of us four siblings, with me the oldest and Nick and our other brother, Paul, in between. She’d been lucky in inheriting our mother’s looks, but she’d come up short on Audrey’s grace and canniness; she was good-natured but self-involved, in many ways like an adolescent without much on her mind beyond shopping and partying, although recently she’d gotten engaged to a guy from another wealthy family, and that seemed to be a grounding influence. He was obviously smitten by her looks and probably some quality sack time, but I wondered how much he knew about her otherwise.
Erica had her quirks, including a penchant for inappropriateness, with a case in point being the way she was dressed right now—clingy tank top, a bra that must have been made of gauze, and a very short skirt. Maybe she hadn’t known that the mayor and his police escort would be coming by here, but more likely she had. She also like
d to sunbathe in the buff around the pool, and she wasn’t always careful about it; there’d been a couple of occasions when I’d been here visiting, wandered over that way without realizing she was there, and had to spin an about-face.
“What’s going on, Rikki?” I said.
“I’m really, really sorry about Nick. I mean, you know we weren’t getting along, but I’d never want anything bad to happen to him.”
“Sure, I know that.” It was true, although to say the two of them weren’t getting along was an understatement. They’d never been close, and the rift had widened over the past years to the point where both of them acted as if the other didn’t exist.
“He called me, like, two weeks ago,” she said, still whispering. “Then I got this in the mail. The return address is bogus. I checked it.” She dug a mailer envelope out of her purse and showed me a DVD disk inside. “It’s—” Her hands fluttered like she was trying to catch the right words. “I can’t explain. Just look at it—but only like the first minute, okay? And please keep it secret.” She pushed it at me and hurried away, practically fleeing.
I frowned at it, trying to imagine what this was about. Why would Nick abruptly breach their cold war and contact her? What could make her so upset and furtive? But now wasn’t the time to worry about it. I shoved the envelope in a pocket and walked to the dining room with its rosewood banquet table and gaudy chandelier.
My mother was talking on her cell phone, and Hap was at the far end of the room on the house line; no doubt there were calls coming in from well-wishers. Audrey waved me toward the sideboard, spread with fresh pineapple and mangoes, lox and bagels, silver carafes of coffee and hot milk for café au lait. She usually lived a fairly modest lifestyle compared to her peers, but she had no hesitations about amping things up if she felt the need. I’d noticed that she tended to do it when she got anxious, which made perfect sense psychologically. A lot of people found reassurance in spending money, especially if they had plenty of it.
