“Did Randy know she was using?”
“I told him. It’s much easier to slip with a partner. And she was nosy. She called me, said he sounded troubled, she wanted to help him but he wasn’t opening up to her.” Max grunted. “I think she was afraid he was going to dump her.” He finished his soup and pushed the bowl away.
“So if it wasn’t drugs, Max, what do you think Randy was involved with?”
“No clue. I know he was worried about protecting someone. If he made amends, if he told the truth about something. He was vague. I thought he was talking about protecting his kid sister, but I could be wrong.”
That would have been my guess, too, especially since Trina’s apartment had been trashed. “There was a woman at his funeral who lives down in the San Diego area. And a man named Brian. Did Randy ever mention either of them?”
Max shook his head. “I told you, he didn’t use names. Is someone meeting you here?”
“No. Why?”
“There’s someone at the counter who’s been turning around every few minutes and looking at you.”
I felt a shiver of fear and turned around. I didn’t see anyone. “Who?”
“That guy, there,” Max said, pointing. “The one wearing the hat and walking out the door.”
“What did he look like?” I asked, still looking at the door.
“Average. Medium height, brown hair. He probably thought you were someone else. Or her,” Max added. “It could’ve been a woman. I couldn’t see the face.”
The waitress brought our main courses. Max attacked his burger with gusto, but I had lost my appetite. When he was finished, I asked the waitress to box my sandwich and asked Max to walk me to my car and wait until I had locked myself inside.
thirty-two
I KEPT MY EYE ON THE REARVIEW MIRROR ALL THE WAY to my sister-in-law Gitty’s apartment on Detroit Street, where we were playing mah-jongg tonight. I didn’t think anyone was following me, but I made extra turns and doubled back a few times to make sure. I was still shaking when I ran up the stairs to the upper story and rang the bell.
I hadn’t been in the mood to play. I adore mah-jongg and value its therapeutic qualities, which helped me get through many lonely nights after Ron and I divorced, but I had too much on my mind, so many errands I should be taking care of before the wedding. My sisters had insisted that I needed the break.
“It’s your last game as a single woman,” Mindy had said.
Now, as I worried whether someone was following me and why, the thought of being with family was reassuring and I was glad they’d insisted. I looked over my shoulder, rang the bell again, and was about to ring a third time when my brother Judah opened the door. I stepped into the small entry and stood on tiptoe to give him a kiss. His trim beard tickled my cheek.
I took a step back and peered at him. “What’s up? You look strange.”
“Nothing’s up. I’m just happy for you. One more week, huh?”
“Are they throwing me a shower?” I had told everyone, no shower. I was too old, and this was my second time. I still had shower gifts from my first marriage that I’d never used.
“It’s not a shower,” he said, and grinned.
Judah doesn’t grin. At twenty-eight, he’s the oldest male sibling, but number four on the Blume totem pole. I suspect he always wanted to be the firstborn, which explains his friendly rivalry with Edie, and probably the beard, and his tendency to take himself too seriously at times, though he does it less often since he married Gitty. She has mellowed him and so has their one-year-old son, Yechiel, who is starting to talk and calls me “Ahwee.” Works for me.
I followed Judah through the large living room, still furnished only with bookcases and books, and into the kitchen, where my sisters and sister-in-law were standing, along with my mother and Bubbie G. They were all wearing long, stick-straight wigs in bright colors—red, green, turquoise, orange, purple.
“Edie got them on Hollywood for the Purim play at school next week,” Liora said. Her wig was orange. “Aren’t they fun?”
“They’re great,” I said.
“Here’s yours,” Edie said, handing me a purple one. “No layers,” she added, and a moment later Bubbie wanted to know why we were all laughing.
Gitty had set out our usual mah jongg nosh—popcorn and potato chips, trail mix, and soda. And water, crudités, and fruit, because she’s a nutritionist. Bubbie G had baked a preview batch of hamantaschen, the three-cornered cookies filled with poppy seed, prune butter, or apricot (I like the prune the best) that we eat on Purim, which was a week from this coming Saturday night. In between munching, Edie took us into the living room to practice the new dances we still hadn’t mastered though she’d given us private instruction.
“Thank goodness we’re all wearing long gowns,” Mindy said.
We reminisced and watched old family videos of when we were kids. I was a little worried about Bubbie, but she was smiling and nodding at our young voices, probably filling in from memory what she couldn’t see. We ate too much of the assorted chocolate candy Liora had bought at Munchies, and laughed so hard we were breathless and the tears streamed down our faces, and my mother wasn’t the only one who had to run to the bathroom.
It was a wonderful evening. For three hours I forgot about the man who had been watching me at the deli, and Aggie and Randy Creeley, and financial and legal repercussions—of what? And when I got home after eleven I was almost sorry to find that Connors had phoned.
“Call me at home if you want,” he said, “I’ll be up late.”
He answered on the second ring. I heard noise in the background and thought he had company, but he told me it was the TV.
“So where were you?” he said. “Out with your rabbi?”
“Mah-jongg with my sisters, and a miniparty.”
“Two more weeks, huh?”
“Actually, a week from Wednesday.”
“You ready for this?”
“I’m ready.” I don’t know much about Connors, aside from the fact that he has an ex-wife in Boston, something he let slip once. I do know he’s not much for chitchat, which meant he was procrastinating. “Did you talk to Porter?”
“Yeah, I did. You asked why Creeley moved the body. He didn’t.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Aggie wasn’t killed near the synagogue, Molly. She was killed about a hundred feet from the Dumpster. Creeley saw her somewhere between her car and the synagogue—on Livonia, probably. She got into his car— willingly or unwillingly—and he drove her to the site where he killed her. Okay?”
I was seething. “No, it’s not okay.”
“You know what I mean, Molly.”
I realized I was still wearing my purple wig. I yanked it off. “All this time Wilshire knew Aggie was abducted and killed somewhere else? That’s not a mugging, Andy. That’s not a random act. No wonder Porter didn’t want me to know.”
“Hindsight is always twenty-twenty, Molly. She could have been abducted by a stranger. Happens all the time. By the way, I checked the 619 calls. They were made from a pay phone in San Diego.”
“Is that my consolation prize?”
“Don’t shoot the messenger.” Connors sounded annoyed. “You wanted to know. A thank-you would be nice.”
“Thank you. Did you find out about Brian’s cell phone?”
“Not yet. I did learn that Doreen hasn’t been living in her apartment since Creeley died. She picked up her mail twice and told the landlord she’s moving.”
“Doesn’t that tell you she’s frightened, Andy?”
“Or that she’s had her fill of Hollywood.”
“She was in NA, but I spoke to someone who told me she’s still using.”
“Call the Times,” Connors said. “They’ll run a special edition.”
I restrained my impatience. “She wasn’t working, Andy, so how did she buy drugs?”
“I’m assuming you have a theory.”
“I think someone paid h
er to spy on Randy. His sister told me she did have a key to his apartment. Randy found Doreen snooping through his things. His journal, his laptop files. This person I spoke to told me Doreen called and tried to pry information out of him.”
“Who is this person?”
“It doesn’t matter. The point is, someone was worried that Randy was planning to make amends. I think they wanted Doreen to find out what he was writing, and to whom.”
Connors didn’t answer.
I stroked the purple hair. “Trina told me Doreen yelled at Randy about the letters, told him he was making a mistake. But Randy told her he had to do the right thing. Suppose Doreen told this person that Randy was ready to mail the letters. The guy has to kill Randy.”
“And he does that how?”
At least Connors wasn’t laughing. “He meets with Randy and gets him drunk so that he passes out. You said he had enough alcohol to open a bar, right? The guy shoots drugs into Randy’s arm. He doesn’t find the package or the laptop—he wants to see who Randy’s been writing to. So he breaks into the sister’s apartment and takes the laptop. But he needs the package. He thinks Trina knows where it is.”
“Does she?”
“I don’t know. She said she didn’t have Randy’s journal, but she does.”
“When did you last talk to her?”
“Sunday morning. I left a few messages on her cell phone. She said she’d get in touch in a day or so.”
“She didn’t tell you which hotel she was going to?”
“No.”
Connors didn’t respond. I figured he was thinking.
“I still think Creeley overdosed,” he said, “but I’ll check around. By the way, I spoke to Dr. Lasher. He doesn’t have an alibi for Wednesday night. He says he was at the hospital, but that was early in the evening.”
“Lots of people don’t have alibis, Andy.”
“Lots of people didn’t just talk to the guy who killed their daughter. Lots of people aren’t doctors with medical knowledge and syringes and access to drugs.”
I debated telling Connors that I thought someone had followed me to the deli, and wouldn’t that rule out Dr. Lasher, but he said good night and hung up.
I phoned Trina and left another message. Then I talked to Zack, who had known about the wig party all along.
“You’re not supposed to keep secrets from your fiancée,” I said. “You’re supposed to tell me everything.”
“Like you tell me everything?” he teased.
I thought about that as I filled him in about my meeting with Randy’s sponsor but didn’t mention that someone may have been following me. Not the same thing, I told myself. Because if it wasn’t true, I would be worrying Zack needlessly.
“Don’t forget about dinner tomorrow night,” he said before he hung up. “I’ll pick you up at seven-thirty.”
I washed off my makeup and put on pajamas, then entered the Crime Sheet data I’d collected today until it was after two and my contact lenses were fogging. After saving my files, I shut my computer.
The list I’d made from Randy’s phone was on my desk. I was tempted to call Brian. At worst, I told myself, he’d pick up and yell at me for waking him up in the middle of the night.
And at best . . .
I dialed the number.
“The party you called does not accept calls from blocked numbers . . . ,” a recorded voice informed me.
Maybe it was a sign. I hesitated, then pressed star 82 to unblock my phone, and punched Brian’s number again. One ring, two, three. After four rings, the answering machine picked up.
“You’ve reached the Warfields.” Brian’s voice. “Please leave a message.”
thirty-three
Tuesday, February 24. 11:54 A.M. Corner of Braddock Drive and Harter Avenue. Officers stopped a man for riding a bicycle on the sidewalk. The man said he had been arrested twice for possession of cocaine and methamphetamine. He showed signs of drug use and failed a field sobriety test. “I haven’t smoked rock since this morning,” the man said. During a search, one of the officers found a cocaine rock in the man’s pocket. “Damn, I forgot that was in there,” the man said. (Culver City)
“AS A MATTER OF FACT, I RECEIVED A LETTER THREE weeks ago,” Margaret Hobbs told me. “Randy was in my history class. A bright young man, but headed for trouble, anybody could see that. He wrote to ask forgiveness for plagiarizing two term papers. Can you imagine, after all these years?”
Margaret was in her sixties, with the beautiful silvery blue hair you see in commercials. She lived in a Venice apartment a few blocks from the boardwalk and the mystery bookstore where I had my first signing when Out of the Ashes was published two years ago. She was the fifth person from Randy’s list that I’d visited this morning, only the second I’d talked to (two hadn’t been home, one had received the letter and tossed it, unread), and she was saddened to hear of Randy’s death. So was the Santa Monica mom-and-pop grocery store owner for whom Randy had worked one summer and from whom he had now admitted stealing.
“A little late, but it’s something,” the man said, referring to the two hundred dollars Randy had included with his apology. “My wife suspected him all the time, but he had me fooled. What’s he up to now, anyway?” he asked, and sighed when I told him. “A shame.”
I had written down the addresses Randy had checked off and grouped them by location. I’d started with Santa Monica and Venice and moved east to Culver City, where Randy had grown up. During the next three hours I talked to over a dozen people whose lives Randy had touched, as in the case of a nurse who lived a block away from the Creeleys.
“He was thirteen,” she told me. “I hired him to paint a room, and he took forty dollars from my wallet. He denied it, but I knew it was him. I could’ve reported him to the police. But he was such a sweet boy, and so heart-sick about his mother. I couldn’t bring myself to do it. It’s nice that he wrote, don’t you think? And he sent forty dollars, too.”
I talked to other people who had suspected that Randy had stolen items or money but, like the nurse, were loath to report him. From one couple, Randy had asked forgiveness for introducing their son to marijuana. From another, for sideswiping their car. For some, Randy’s letter had rekindled anger, but most people were sorry to hear he’d died and smiled wistfully when they talked about him. I wondered if Randy’s life would have taken a different course if one or more of these kind, forgiving people had taken a tougher line with him. Maybe not. They had played their roles in the video of Randy’s life, and he had played his.
Everyone I talked to told me Randy had changed almost overnight after Sue Ann left. And almost everyone hinted that Alice hadn’t improved the situation.
“She’s not an easy woman,” a neighbor said. “But I have to say she tried hard to make a home for Roland and those kids.”
I had a clearer picture of the sad pattern of Randy’s path to prison, but nothing I’d learned implicated anyone else or provided a motive for Randy’s murder. I couldn’t imagine anyone seeking revenge after so many years over a minor theft or a dent in a car. The encouraging news was that Trina had told the truth about Randy’s letters, which suggested that she may have been honest about other things she’d said.
Like Jim. Since last night I’d been looking over my shoulder and in the rearview mirror, not really expecting to find someone following me. Still . . .
After my last stop in Culver City I found myself on Goldwyn Terrace. I slowed when I passed the Creeley house, but neither the Mazda nor the Ford Explorer that I’d seen last time was in the driveway. I would have liked to ask Alice about her phone call to Randy the day he died, but even if she’d been home, she probably wouldn’t have talked to me.
It was past two and I hadn’t eaten anything since the English muffin and mozzarella cheese I’d had for breakfast. I drove to a restaurant on Pico and ordered a veggie burger. From there I drove to South Pasadena. With traffic it’s over an hour’s drive, but Randy had checked off several add
resses in the area, and there had been two calls with a 626 area code on his phone.
Pasadena (Chippewa Indian for “Crown of the Valley ”) is about nine miles northeast of downtown Los Angeles and is nestled at the foot of the 10,000-plus-feet-high San Gabriel Mountains, which make a magnificent backdrop if you’re driving along the 210 freeway. Originally settled by the Tongva Indians, Pasadena was a Spanish mission before it attracted a group of Indiana residents who wanted to create the “California Colony of Indiana” and relocate there for the warm climate. It was a peaceful city (probably even more so after it became incorporated in 1886, primarily to get rid of a saloon), and for a long time it was known for its citrus groves and vineyards and as a winter resort for the wealthy.
Pasadena still has a quaint, sleepy flavor. I’ve been there several times, most recently with Zack. We walked around Old Town, caught an exhibit at the Norton Simon Museum, and toured one of its many historic homes. When I was younger my family and I camped out several times at three in the morning in the biting cold on New Year’s Day to get a good look at the magnificent floats in the Rose Parade. And now that I’m a published writer, I always drop in at Vroman’s, a local independent, to see if my book is in stock and faced out, and say hi to the people at BOOK’em Mysteries. The city has a growing Jewish population, though only a small Orthodox one, and you can get a kosher meal at nearby Cal Tech, which has a kosher kitchen, or a snack at the Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf on Fair Oaks in South Pasadena, where I stopped now for a vanilla latte.
Fair Oaks was also one of the addresses from Randy’s list. It belonged to a blond woman in her forties whose face turned a shade of eggplant when I mentioned his name.
“I don’t care how many letters he sends,” she said. “He’s scum.”
One night over ten years ago, she told me, Randy had hidden behind bushes in front of her house and leapt out as she walked up to her door. He’d taken her wallet and her peace of mind and she’d never been the same. The letter had revived the nightmares.
Grave Endings Page 22
