Good Morning, Killer ag-2

by April Smith

  “Kind of early,” Andrew agreed.

  “But what about the two of them? Lynn and Ross?”

  “It’s an old marriage. You can smell it. Rotting meat.”

  “Oh, Andrew!”

  “What?”

  I mugged so Andrew would see me in his rearview mirror and was rewarded when the top third of his face broke into a smile.

  “You are so cynical about relationships.”

  “I’ve been there,” Andrew said into the phone wedged between shoulder and ear. “In fact, I’ve been there so often my name is permanently inscribed in the relationship crapper.”

  “Is that supposed to be inspiring?”

  “I never make promises.”

  “Really?”

  We had pulled up and parked. Our car doors slammed and we drew in our jackets against the uncertain weather. The sky was full of moving clouds like squirting inks, charcoal and mauve. It was 4 p.m. A brief white light struck the puddles platinum.

  “I thought you promised to move in with me,” I said. “Sooner or later.”

  “Wasn’t it the other way around?”

  “I don’t want to lose my lease.”

  We crossed the street. When he spoke again, his voice had dropped to that somber do-not-argue pitch. “It’s my father’s house. I can’t sell it.”

  “Isn’t that love?” I poked his ribs.

  “Isn’t what?”

  “Giving it up?”

  When I looked over he was watching me deeply, enigmatically.

  “I’m just looking for safe passage, hon.”

  “Meaning?”

  “An expression my dad used to say when he had to tell us something. ‘Give me safe passage.’ And you’d say, ‘Okay.’ And he’d say, ‘I know you’re smoking cigarettes and it ain’t gonna cut it.’” “Like, don’t get mad at me.”

  “Like, help me through this.”

  “So, Andy — is there something you need help getting through?”

  He laughed sardonically. “The fucking day.”

  The walk-through streets, a maze of lanes too tiny for cars, had become prized for their bohemian hipness. Five years ago this area was a slum, but entertainment and foreign money was moving in, building eclectic houses like the Kents’—small, but well-proportioned and impeccably postmodern, with a Xeriscape garden made of cacti and rocks.

  “What’s the point of a garden,” Andrew asked as we walked up the gravel path, “without flowers?”

  “Saves water.”

  “These people can’t pay for water?”

  Andrew was an azalea man. The shade garden behind the one-story cottage in Sunset Park was the legacy of his father, who had also been a Santa Monica police officer. Sergeant E. Prescott Berringer, originally from North Beach, San Francisco, made his own beef jerky and brewed his own beer, and so did Andrew, who maintained the backyard meticulously, a shrine. You could eat off the potting table, and you never saw so many different-sized clippers and shears oiled and sharpened and hung in their places. Sunday mornings, when we first started going out, I would try to be cheery and helpful with the weeding and whatever, but it didn’t come naturally, like tending someone else’s child. Andrew took my tools away. “That’s okay,” he’d say, “I’ll do it,” and ignore me for a couple of hours.

  One day Andrew told me he had been adopted, and I applied that like a balm to his remoteness and silences, all my discouragements and puzzlements and questions. It made the bond to his father sizzlingly poignant. There was a photo in the bedroom of Andrew (eight years old) and E. Prescott, both wearing Dodger jerseys. He said they often dressed alike. Mom was meek, and Dad, I guessed from the curly blond hair and cocksure posture, played around. The father-and-son photo hung next to a plaque Andrew received when he made detective. It read, “The Homicide Investigator’s Oath,” and listed Ten Commandments, including “Thou Shalt Not Kill.” At the time, I took all this to mean that Andrew was a person of discipline.

  A frosted glass door was opened by the mother of Stephanie Kent, the girl who Juliana was supposed to have met at the bus stop yesterday. Mrs. Kent, hearing our business, wrapped her arms around her waist, as if we had brought an icy wind.

  “You mean Juliana isn’t back?”

  “We’re optimistic that she will be.”

  “My God, what could have happened to her? Anything could have happened! I have to tell you, this is not like Juliana.”

  “No?”

  “How is Lynn doing? I haven’t talked to her since last night.”

  Andrew gave the compassionate cop shrug. “Hard times.”

  “The longer Juliana’s missing, the worse it is, isn’t it?” said Mrs. Kent knowingly. “My husband is a TV director. He’s done episodes of Law and Order and NYPD Blue.” Andrew’s mouth twitched which was like an electric shock to the pelvic giggle nerve. I had to look away not to pee my pants.

  “We understand Juliana and Stephanie were friends?”

  “She was new, we were just getting to know her. But she seemed like an awfully nice girl. That’s one of the things I am so proud of with Stephanie. The way she reaches out to other kids.”

  “Can we talk to Stephanie?” I asked.

  “She’s in her room. With the Boyfriend.”

  Mrs. Kent could not help rolling her eyes.

  “It’s very important that you not discuss Juliana’s disappearance with anyone. If there are rumors in school and it hits the media, her life could be in danger.”

  The mother wore Levi’s and a plaid shirt; agile and loose in the body. Her face was pert, small gold-rimmed glasses, red hair cut radically short like a man’s, and I thought Miss Stephanie lucky to have a cool mom, wondering if Juliana liked it better here, the artsy Craftsman feel of red maple trim mixed with severe white walls, earthenware dishes still on the table and the lingering scent of curry, as opposed to the repressed tension of her parents’ disordered home.

  “You have my word,” promised Mrs. Kent. “This is just so terrible. It could happen to any of us.”

  A hip-hop bass was coming from behind Stephanie’s closed door, which had pearly plastic whorehouse beads hanging in front of it. I knocked and there was no reply. I knocked again.

  “Give them a break, they’re getting dressed,” Andrew said.

  Finally a female voice called, “Come in!” with exaggerated brightness.

  I opened the door and poked my head through the chattering beads.

  “Ana Grey with the FBI. This is Detective Berringer, Santa Monica police.”

  Andrew said, “What up?”

  Stephanie and her friend were lying together, fully clothed, on top of her bed. They did not jump up in embarrassment or even look surprised but regarded us with a low-grade curious disdain.

  “What up wit’ you?” replied the boy, whose name was Ethan.

  “We need to talk to you about Juliana Meyer-Murphy. She didn’t come home last night. Any help you can give will be very much appreciated.”

  The girl sat up, hooking long blonde hair behind her ears. She wore skintight jeans with a snakeskin pattern and a short top that revealed a flawless abdomen with navel pierce.

  The room smelled like burning raspberries.

  “Is Juliana all right?”

  “She’s still missing.”

  “Really?”

  Stephanie sat up straighter, surprised.

  “We’re hoping she’s all right.”

  “Me, too. Definitely.”

  But Stephanie’s hands were laid along her thighs so the elbows stuck out and the thumbs pointed down. In the Comprehensive Coding System for Emotional Recognition, should we be taping this interview and running it through a computer, we would call it a backward sign, like nodding yes when saying no. It meant there was some emotional leakage in that heartfelt answer.

  “You guys are friends?”

  “We chill.” She glanced at the boy.

  “We don’t know her all that well,” he added.

  Andrew was lea
ning against the wall, arms folded. He had made himself very still.

  I sat down on the desk chair in front of a computer where instant messages were popping up like pimples. r u down for cj’s?when?you are all a bunch of fucking gangsta homosexuals!

  “You know this person?” reading the screen name. “Sexbitch?”

  “Not a clue.”

  Stephanie jumped up and pumped the keyboard, fast, to get back to her screensaver, which turned out to be a blue mushroom. Thinking better of that, she shut the thing off completely.

  There were a lava lamp and enormous plastic daisies and all sorts of furry accessories that shouldn’t have been furry, such as an orange furry phone. We let the music thump along until the tension in the room built nicely, and then I reached over and cut the sound with the touch of a button.

  “So what do you want to talk to us about?” Stephanie asked.

  Now they were both sitting apprehensively on the edge of the bed.

  “Juliana was supposed to meet you the day she disappeared. What can you tell us about that?”

  “We were going to do homework. We had a science experiment. We had to make a car out of paper.”

  Andrew, as if we hadn’t heard this already from Mr. Meyer-Murphy: “How in hell do you make a car out of paper?”

  “It’s stupid,” Stephanie replied. “The teacher gives you the answer.”

  “What about Juliana?”

  “She just never showed up.”

  “Where were you supposed to meet?”

  “At the bus stop.”

  “What did you do when she didn’t arrive?”

  “Called her cell. Got a recording, so I figured, whatever.”

  “You called her from where?”

  “A pay phone.”

  “You sure?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “You could show us which one?”

  “If I could remember.”

  Her cheeks were hot. She knew I would check it out.

  Ethan was fidgeting with a silver chain that went from his belt loop to his wallet. He began flipping the wallet open and shut.

  “What’s this?” asked Andrew, holding up a small black cone.

  “Incense.”

  “What’s wrong with incense?” demanded the boy.

  “Watch out,” I told him, “or you’ll grow up to be a lawyer.”

  “My dad already is a lawyer.”

  Andrew nodded sagely and took his time replacing the incense on the little china plate. The boy’s eyes followed.

  “What do you think happened to Juliana?” Stephanie was anxiously hooking the hair behind her ears with both hands now.

  “We’re working on some theories. Tell me what it’s like at Laurel West.”

  She shrugged. “A lot of people think it’s cold, but it’s really a good school. The teachers really care.”

  “A lot of homework?”

  They nodded in unison.

  “Lots of pressure?”

  “If you’re motivated, you’ll make it there.”

  “And you’re motivated?”

  “I want to get into a good college.”

  “What about Juliana? Was she motivated?”

  Ethan, carelessly: “She tried too hard.”

  “Like how?”

  “With the other kids.” He was suddenly uneasy. “I don’t know.”

  “She’d invite you for a sleepover,” Stephanie jumped in, “and if you couldn’t come, she’d like keep on asking. Incessantly.”

  “She could be a pest?”

  “She didn’t mean to be. She was just—”

  Andrew: “Out of it.”

  “Kind of, socially … I don’t know. I don’t want to say retarded.”

  I was becoming more and more impressed by the way Stephanie reached out.

  “We were on swim team together. She tried to be friends with the wrong people, and it just didn’t work.”

  “She was playing the violin?” said Ethan. “And the bridge just flew off.”

  They chuckled.

  “Once, she couldn’t even get the case open. I felt sorry for her.”

  Stephanie was holding something in her hands, a contraption made of lined paper and fasteners and rubber bands.

  It is not unusual for people to give themselves away unconsciously. Once I interviewed a suspect who was wearing a white gold chain he had taken from a drug dealer he had just stabbed to death.

  “What is that?” said Andrew. “Is that the car? Can I see?”

  “Sure. It had to really work.”

  Andrew twisted a paper clip, which torqued the rubber band up tight. He put the thing down, and it scurried across the red maple floor like a beetle.

  “Cool.”

  He had to retrieve it from under my chair.

  “And what does that say right there? Looks like ‘Stephanie Kent and Juliana Meyer-Murphy’ and — what else? Help me out, I don’t have my glasses.”

  He handed the car back to Stephanie.

  And forced her to read the date she had written on the wheel, a date that was two weeks before.

  “Is that the day you turned the project in? Two weeks ago? So you and Juliana weren’t working on it yesterday, were you?”

  “We had other homework.”

  “But why did you tell us, first thing, when we walked in here, that you and Juliana were getting together to make a paper car?”

  Andrew and I seemed morbid and heavy with our serious questions and oversized adultness in that fluffy room. I wanted to go home and throw on a pair of jeans.

  “Why did you say that, Stephanie?”

  Stephanie’s creamy complexion turned pink. All at once.

  “I don’t know—”

  “Don’t trip,” Ethan warned.

  I stood up. My back was stiff from wearing heels all day. “I think we’d better get your mom in on this.”

  “No. You don’t have to.”

  “When are you going to tell us the truth?”

  Stephanie said nothing, trembling lips compressed. Her fingers held the denim coverlet, trying not to trip.

  “If you’re not telling the truth about a silly car, how can we believe you’re telling the truth about something as important as what was going down with Juliana?”

  “Obstruction of justice will look real impressive on your college application,” I suggested.

  “That’s bullshit.”

  “Bullshit makes the world go round,” Andrew shrugged.

  “You can’t do that,” Ethan insisted. “We’re minors.”

  “Ask your dad.” Offering my Nextel. “Call him up.”

  “You know what, kids?” said Andrew. “This is bush. A girl is missing. You want this on your conscience the rest of your lives? Or does that not mean anything to you? Never mind. You have five seconds.”

  He looked at his watch.

  “See what I told you?” Ethan said to Stephanie in a high panicked voice. “She did not have a clue.”

  “Juliana didn’t have a clue? What did she not have a clue about?” I asked with magnificent restraint.

  This is the value of training.

  “First of all,” said Stephanie, her clear eyes filling with tears, “it’s not our fault.”

  Four

  They lied. Of course they lied. They had no intention of meeting Juliana at the bus stop after school. The plan was for Juliana to score some weed and meet them at a diner called Johnny Rockets.

  It wasn’t Stephanie or Ethan or Kristin or Brennan or Nahid’s fault that yesterday Juliana went to Crystal Dreams, a New Age store on the Promenade, and never came back. Privately, they thought it was a hoot. Only “some fool” would be so “ghetto” as to go to a public place of business and think they could just walk in and buy drugs. Like what was she going to do, go into the back room where they were smoking crack or whatever, and they’d all be so happy to see little Juliana with her piggybank full of quarters? It was “awesome” to imagine someone so “dumb” not getting ripp
ed off, anyway. Maybe that’s what happened, Stephanie suggested, through beet red sobs: someone got paranoid at Juliana’s “totally tourist” attitude.

  No way they asked her to score. They only showed up at Johnny Rockets mainly as a goof, because, as Stephanie and Ethan insisted over and over, they and their friends did not smoke marijuana. In fact they were sure Juliana hadn’t even tried it. That’s what made the whole thing “whack.” Later, we found a stash in Stephanie’s locker at Laurel West Academy.

  To me, it was beautiful. But then, I like TV shows about beauty in nature, such as those South American frogs whose dazzling vermilion skin secretes a deadly poison.

  We could now establish Juliana’s location yesterday at approximately 3:30 p.m. — and there had been a van, Stephanie and Ethan disclosed when Mrs. Kent had joined us, arms crossed stonily, in her daughter’s Day-Glo hip-hop cradle — a green van parked in a delivery zone at the north end of the Promenade. It pulled away when a Brink’s truck elbowed in. The kids had laughed when it was chased again by UPS. “Dork.” Andrew and I grabbed a noodle bowl and jetted over to the Promenade. The crowds were light for a weekday night because of the rain, which had sucked away the popcorny city stink of pigeons and cheap hamburgers and cigarette smoke, and freed some walking space where there were usually impenetrable ranks of bodies.

  The Third Street Promenade was a successful outdoor mall geared to fourteen-to-twenty-five-year-olds, anchored by a couple of big bookstores, a deli, some multiplex movie theaters. Clothing chains and street performers and carts selling dance-music CDs had replaced the aging dry goods stores and five-and-dimes from the sixties. Dinosaur fountains and artsy banners were supposed to make you feel safe.

  (I had to chuckle when a crime scene instructor, formerly a Chicago homicide detective, who was out here from Quantico to conduct a seminar in which he showed slides of beheaded babies and disemboweled and maggot-encrusted bodies, found our homeless population less than paradise. “A lot of creepy people around here,” he said.) A gate was drawn and Crystal Dreams was dark when we arrived. I’d have an agent over here at first light, but right away we checked exits and entrances, the upper stories — and the parking structure and alleys for a persistent green van.

  “It would have been three in the afternoon,” I reminded Andrew.