Burning Man

by Alan Russell

  Because Rose’s story needed a human interest angle, I decided Lisbet would fill that bill perfectly. Of course I didn’t bother to inform Lisbet of that.

  I called the University Times in the hopes that some eager beaver was up against a deadline and working on a Sunday. Sylvia Espinosa, the news editor of the paper, was that eager beaver. By the sounds of it, she was the only person working the offices. When I told her I was calling about a murder with a potential tie-in to the campus, she sounded positively ecstatic.

  “The only off-campus calls I usually get are from press agents trying to publicize some concert or speaker,” she said. “And this week’s on-campus stuff isn’t much more exciting. Our lead story is on a potential misuse of one hundred dollars in funds by the ASI—that’s our student government.”

  “That’s not exactly grand larceny.”

  “It was either that or a story on a rally attended by eight students for a history professor that was denied tenure.”

  “I can see that would make for a tough choice.”

  “Manna from heaven is a murder with a campus tie-in. Tell me about it.”

  With her appetite whetted for some banner headline, I laid out the story for her. When I finished, I learned that Sylvia was old enough to be cynical.

  “The connection with our school sounds iffy,” she said.

  “There was a positive ID regarding the CSULA sweatshirt.”

  “I’ve seen winos walking around wearing Cal State clothing, Detective Gideon, but that doesn’t mean they’re students here.”

  “The profile of our person of interest fits the average student profile at your school.”

  “It also fits me and half a million women in the LA area.”

  “As you might imagine, this is a sensitive case and I’m limited in what I can tell you, but I can say that we have several significant leads that suggest Rose’s mother is, or has been, a student at CSULA.”

  “And your eyewitness saw this woman carrying a covered basket near the Angels Flight landing?”

  Because I didn’t want the monastery connection revealed, I had intimated that the sighting had taken place at Angels Flight, without actually saying it. Cops and the media have a strange symbiotic relationship: they use us to try and get a good story, and we try to use them to get the story we want.

  “The sighting didn’t take place there, but we have a witness that offered a description of a young, heavy Hispanic woman in her late teens or early twenties. Our witness talked with this woman and said she was well spoken and didn’t have any discernible accent.”

  I could hear Sylvia scratching away. “So you have more than one witness?”

  “We’re talking to several people now that are assisting us in this case.”

  By the sounds of it, Sylvia was continuing to scribble down all of my double-talk, but I wasn’t sure if she was buying it or was even planning on using it.

  “Has your newspaper ever done a piece on the Safely Surrendered Baby Law? It’s what most people call the California Safe Haven Law.”

  “Not that I remember. What is it?”

  “It’s a law that allows any newborn to be dropped off at a hospital or a fire station with no questions asked. The mother doesn’t have to give her name or be fearful of any kind of punishment.”

  I told her about Lisbet and her work to get the law on the books. I also mentioned her tie-in with Rose, and the Garden of Angels. That was the hook Sylvia needed. Having the makings of a human interest piece, as well as a public service feature, made her much more enthusiastic about the story. We talked for fifteen minutes, and I played up the bullet points I’d written down on my notepad, trying to spin the story of Rose and her mother as I wanted it written.

  “I’d like to run this as our lead story this Friday,” Sylvia said, “but I can’t do that without pictures. I am going to need a close-up shot of Rose’s grave, and a big background shot of the Garden of Angels.”

  “That would be just the thing for the story.”

  “I know it would, which is why the story will have to wait. I have a hard enough time getting one of our staff photographers to do a shoot in downtown LA. No way will I be able to get one of them to agree to go out to the desert without at least a week’s notice.”

  I found myself saying, “What if I was able to get you some pictures? I’ll be going to the cemetery today on police business and I am pretty good with a digital camera.”

  “That sounds perfect!”

  “I can probably even e-mail them to you tonight. Will that work?”

  “That sounds great.”

  “Will I need to do the shoot in black and white?”

  “No, color is fine. Our photo editor has software that converts color shots into black and white.”

  Now that she had a new lead story for the next edition, Sylvia went back to asking me questions. After grilling me for another ten minutes, she finally seemed satisfied.

  “Friday’s issue is sounding a whole lot better,” she said. “I think I’ll make the safe haven story a sidebar to the death of Rose.”

  “I’m sure Ms. Keane will like that,” I said and then gave her Lisbet’s numbers.

  Sylvia asked for my cell number in case she had more questions. “Looks like we’ll both be working late,” she said.

  “There’s no rest for the wicked.”

  She seemed to think that was funny.

  Because of my wanting to get the story planted, I had to pay the piper and drive out to the desert. The change in my plans prompted a call to Gump and Martinez. I told them something had come up with my other homicide, and that I wouldn’t be meeting with them that morning as planned. Both men were fine with that; to their thinking I was the third wheel, and a necessary evil at that. We talked for a few minutes about the Klein murder. The case was stalled, but both detectives were following up on potential leads in the investigation, although neither sounded hopeful. I told them I would call later that afternoon.

  Moments after we finished up, the phone started ringing. “Gideon,” I said.

  “You sound busy,” Lisbet said. “Should I call back later?”

  “No, now is fine.”

  “I’m not sure if it is.”

  I didn’t like the sound of that, or the obvious strain in her voice. “What’s wrong?”

  “I’m upset and I don’t want to be, but I am. I just got off the phone with Sylvia Espinosa.”

  “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have given out your number without your permission. I just assumed...”

  “I’m not upset about you giving out my number. I am about the only person I know who doesn’t have an unlisted number. What I don’t like is being used. You sold me as part of your story.”

  “Wait a second. I gave out your name so you could talk about the Safe Haven law.”

  “And you wrapped it in Rose’s body.”

  Even to my own ears my answer sounded hard and angry: “I didn’t do that. Rose’s mother did that.”

  “Sylvia said you were driving out to the cemetery today to take pictures.”

  “That’s right. I’m working the case.”

  “Are you working it for Rose or for yourself?”

  “I’m working it to bring a murderer to justice.”

  “You played that reporter. You didn’t want a story about Rose so much as you wanted one about her mother.”

  “And what’s wrong with that?”

  “I don’t remember being deputized as part of your posse.”

  “You’re not part of my posse. You’re the Good Samaritan in an awful story, because without you Rose wouldn’t exist for most people. They would just look away. No one wants to deal with throwaway babies. That kind of death is just too ugly.”

  “And I don’t want to make it any less so.”

  “My job is to find Rose’s mother. I am sorry you don’t like that.”

  “I respect your job. I understand the need for it. I just don’t understand you getting any joy from it.” />
  “Putting bad people behind bars is one of the great perks of being a cop.”

  “Do you really think Rose’s mother is a bad person?”

  “I do.”

  “On a cold night, she covered her newborn with a warm blanket and put bootees on her daughter’s feet.”

  “And then she abandoned her to die.”

  “I used to be angry like you. The first few times I buried my children—and yes, I think of every one of them as a child of mine—I thought no punishment could be harsh enough for the monsters that abandoned them. I wanted those creatures found and sentenced to death, but not before being tortured. But then I happened to meet one of those monsters and then another, and suddenly they weren’t monsters anymore. They were mostly young women overwhelmed by a situation that they didn’t know how to deal with, and in a panic they made the worst decision of their life. I am not excusing what they did, but I have not yet heard of a mother that was in her right mind when she abandoned her baby.”

  “I don’t believe in diminished capacity. What I do believe in is jailhouse conversions brought on by defense lawyers.”

  “I can understand why cases like these hit home for you.”

  “Don’t make this about me. It’s about Rose and other newborns like her.”

  “And weren’t you a newborn like her?”

  “I didn’t die.”

  “And you haven’t forgiven.”

  “Why the hell should I?”

  “Hate is a heavy burden to carry.”

  “I hadn’t noticed.”

  “I am certain that Rose’s mother is suffering more than we can even imagine for what she did.”

  “Then she shouldn’t mind doing that suffering in prison.”

  “Having her wear a scarlet M won’t make anything better.”

  “I don’t agree. Society needs its pound of flesh.”

  “I believe Rose already paid that price.”

  “So you think her birth mother should just get away with what she did?”

  Lisbet’s voice softened. “No,” she said. “But when you find her, and I know you will, I wonder if you’ll be as certain about what justice is or isn’t as you lead her away in handcuffs. I think what you’ll find is a young woman living in a hell of her own making, a hell that she’ll have to live with until the day she dies.”

  “What I find too often are crocodile tears passing for the real thing. I am not good with the idea of supposed remorse paying for a crime. What works for me is punishment.”

  “I can understand why you would want that. I hope you can also understand why in the future I don’t want to be used to further your investigations.”

  “No problem.”

  Both of us fell silent. Wounded pride kept me from saying anything else.

  After a few seconds, and an eternity, Lisbet said, “Before I talked to Sylvia I had planned to call you to say what a wonderful time I had last night.”

  “It’s still the same number.”

  “But will anybody be home?”

  It was a good question. Had I already checked out of our relationship even before it had begun? I might have been able to smooth things over then, but I didn’t. I put the ball back in her court—or maybe it was just the gauntlet.

  “I guess you’ll have to call to find out.”

  “Good-bye, Michael.”

  “Adios,” I said.

  I did a lot of muttering during the drive out to the desert. I was in a foul mood, and my partner had to listen to me vent.

  “She doesn’t understand that it’s my job. And when you do the job right it’s not tea and crumpets. If I dangled her as bait in front of that reporter, and I’m not exactly saying that’s what happened, I did it because this is a homicide investigation.”

  I took my partner’s silence as tacit agreement.

  “I am looking for a murderer, dammit. My job is police work, not social work. I have to do whatever it takes to make an arrest.”

  What I was saying sounded right to me, but it felt wrong. My motives had been anything but pure. Lisbet had seen through my ploy.

  “Besides, shouldn’t she want to help me? I mean if something was there between the two of us—if it was real, that is—shouldn’t she want to stand by me?”

  I sighed.

  The drive east was relatively free of traffic, but the ride home promised to be a bear. Every weekend Las Vegas gets in the neighborhood of a hundred thousand visitors from LA. We would be part of Sunday’s return caravan.

  The winds were kicking up, which made my foul mood that much worse. I hate it when Ellis Haines is right. The weather pattern had Santa Ana written all over it.

  “Like my dad once told me, ‘If she’s stupid enough to leave, then you have to be smart enough to let her go.’”

  My father had said that back when my high school girlfriend broke up with me. His words hadn’t made the event any less painful then, and they didn’t help now. Someone was bowling in my gut and using my ribs as pins.

  “This too shall pass,” I said.

  Words don’t impress dogs. They’re a foreign language to them. My partner knew what lay behind the facade, and he tried to reassure me by nuzzling my neck with his muzzle. I reached back with my hand, gave him a pat, and decided not to bullshit him anymore. We rode in silence. He stayed close to me, and every so often one of us touched the other.

  With every minute that passed I knew that the divide between Lisbet and me was growing. I knew I should call her back. I thought about what I would say. But that was as far as I could bring myself to go.

  Arriving at the cemetery was almost a relief. Men don’t like to address their feelings. Emotions make us feel helpless. My job gave me something to do, a task to perform, a reason to move. I needed that.

  There was no one around, so I let Sirius walk the grounds with me. The desert winds can be fierce, and nothing stirs them like a Santa Ana condition. Swirling winds pelted my face with granules of sand and dirt. I knew it was only going to get worse.

  Camera in hand, I went and joined the waiting waifs at the Garden of Angels, but at first I couldn’t bring myself to click away. I stood for a minute, and I wasn’t sure if I wanted to pray or wanted to apologize. I felt the hurt in my throat and swallowed hard.

  Damn feelings again.

  I started taking pictures. When you look at the world through a viewfinder, it doesn’t hurt as much.

  Most of my shots were of Rose’s cross. That was why I was here. I wanted a poignant reminder of her life on the front page of the University Times. That might make them wonder about Rose’s mother and remember something. Lisbet had been right. I hadn’t wanted the readers to think about the dead baby so much as I wanted them to think about her mother. I wasn’t asking them to behold the rose so much as I wanted them to think about the thorn.

  Of course the oversized CSULA sweatshirt might just be my wild goose chase. The sweatshirt could have belonged to a sibling, or a friend, or maybe Rose’s mom had bought it at a thrift shop for a buck in order to hide her burgeoning belly.

  I kept clicking anyway. Occasionally, my lens wandered, and I found myself looking at another name on another cross. Or I focused on a gravesite with a toy car, or a doll.

  Leaning against Rose’s grave marker was a white feather, a small offering left by one of the doves. The swirling winds had driven the feather to this spot, where it looked as if it had found refuge. I wanted to believe it was a sign and took several close-up shots. I knew the feather wouldn’t be able to hold out long against the wind, so I picked it up and placed it in my pocket. Maybe I was hoping the feather would bring me peace in much the way a four-leaf clover is supposed to bring luck. Or maybe I’d contract avian flu.

  When you take something, you should give something back. Head lowered to the wind, I trudged back to the car and went through the change drawer. As luck would have it, I found a shiny, newly minted penny. Maybe it wasn’t as good as finding a penny from heaven, but it was the best I
could do.

  There was something else I needed to leave as well. I took some tape from the glove compartment and walked back to Rose’s grave. I hoped that what I planned on doing wasn’t some kind of sacrilege.

  Rose’s death had resulted in very little publicity. There had been no coverage of her funeral, and no mention anywhere of where she was buried. If Lisbet was right, Rose’s mother would care about her buried daughter. I was betting on Lisbet’s judgment more than mine. I was hoping Rose’s mother would read the newspaper article and find out where her daughter was buried. Maybe that would spur her to visit Rose’s grave.

  On the stone cross I placed the penny on the west crossbeam. The skies didn’t open and Bing Crosby didn’t sing about pennies from heaven. And then I took a step over and on its east crossbeam I taped my business card. I didn’t leave a message. The person I was leaving it for would know why it was there.

  “I am sorry,” I said.

  My business card had no place being on the cross. My only defense was that Rose had no business being dead.

  CHAPTER 18:

  SCARECROW’S CONFIDENTIAL

  The drive back from the Garden of Angels was stop and go, and by the time Sirius and I made it home, my mind was about as tired as my brake foot. During the drive I kept hoping that Lisbet would call my cell, but that never happened. I had tried to multitask during my trip and spent half an hour on a conference call with Gump and Martinez, but it was more of a gripe session than anything else. Everyone was getting increasingly frustrated with the stalled Klein case.

  “As of tomorrow Paul Klein will have been up on his cross seven nights,” said Gump, “and us there with him.”

  He was overstating the pressure associated with our working the case, but not by much. All of us had agreed to meet at headquarters early. Maybe the new day would bring us something.

  I had promised Sirius a walk when we got home, and as soon as we pulled into the driveway, it was clear he was more than ready to collect on that promise. As we set out I said, “Let’s make this short. It’s not a night fit for man or beast.”

  My partner didn’t seem to be of the same mind. His credo is pretty much the same as that of a postal carrier when it comes to his walks. Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night deters him, and although it wasn’t rainy or even particularly cold, the winds were kicking up and pushing dust and microscopic debris everywhere. Those same desert winds had also sucked the air dry, and the lack of humidity was making my skin feel like sandpaper.