“But why take the body to San Francisco?” I asked. “Why not just dump it into the river, let the sharks here take care of things?”
“It wasn’t the sharks, kiddo,” Dex replied. “It was the distance. The way I figure it, Dempsey wanted the body found so Lucid Wilson and his boys wouldn’t go off looking for him. Dempsey and Rita didn’t just want to leave a cold trail, they wanted to leave no trail. Frisco was perfect because it’s far enough away to make identification difficult. It would just give them that much more time to get away.”
“Is that why Rita was in San Francisco? When I saw her at the club with Morgana?” I asked.
“That’s what I was thinkin’.” Dex nodded. “Dempsey was probably holed up someplace—maybe even in the city—while Rita made sure the body got found and ID’d as Dempsey, in time for the two of them to get away clean.”
“But they’d probably hoped for a couple more days before the body turned up,” Mustard said. “If he’d been more decomposed, it would have been that much harder to identify him. Hell, a few weeks in the drink, no one would have been able to identify him at all.”
“He was plenty decomposed,” I said with a gulp, remembering. In an effort to calm myself, I took a tentative sip of the whiskey Dex had insisted on pouring for me. It burned going down. I could feel myself relax, though I wasn’t sure if the whiskey helped or not.
It was over. It was done. And I was glad.
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
WHEN I GOT HOME it was late, and I was so tired I just wanted a bowl of soup and my bed. Marjorie caught up with me on the stairs.
“Mrs. Jergens was here earlier,” she told me. On a certain level I wasn’t surprised.
“She’s not here now though.” I didn’t need to ask.
“No, that’s right. She’s not. She had a young man with her. He loaded her trunk and her boxes into a car, and she told me she wouldn’t be back.”
I was saddened but not entirely surprised by this, either. What she said next, however, did surprise me.
“She left this for you,” Marjorie said, reaching into the pocket of her housedress and pulling out a creamy envelope. “And she apologized, though I’m not sure for what. And she didn’t ask for the month’s rent back.” Marjorie didn’t have to tell me that she was relieved about that part. Empty rooms didn’t fill any soup pots.
I took the letter into what had, for an instant, been Brucie’s room—she’d not spent even a single night there. The room was unoccupied again, and no sign of Brucie had been left behind. Even the flowers I’d bought for her had been cleaned up, and not a single dead leaf remained.
I sat in one of the wingback chairs and looked out the window and over the city. It was full dark, but downtown Los Angeles was ablaze with lights. Marjorie had said that my mother liked to sit in this very spot and read when she was with child. What did she think about at those times? Did she think about me? I imagine she did. She would have thought about the phantom me, kicks increasing as I readied myself to come into the world.
What would my mother have said about all of this? I wondered. But I had no reference for discovery. After a while I knew I couldn’t delay any longer. I sat more deeply in the chair, preparing myself for what was to come.
Dear Miss Katherine, the letter began, a nod, I knew, to the one evening we’d shared in the house, and her mirth at the way Marjorie still addressed me. I realized that I’d never seen Brucie’s handwriting before this instant. It was tidy. Neat, but with flourishes. Like an artist might write. Like a bird trying to find her way out of her cage.
By now you’ll know a great deal. What a mess I’ve made of everything. You mustn’t think too badly of me. The lies I told were never against you, and I hoped none of them would hurt you. In fact, if I were allowed only one regret— and I have more than one, believe you me—it’s that we didn’t get to become friends. I know that if things were different, we should have done.
There are things that I could tell you, details that would make things more clear, but to be honest, I’m not sure I have clarity myself.
I’m going far away. I’m going to find someplace where they’ve never even heard of Lucid Wilson or Chummy McGee. And I’m going to be better there, Kitty. I’m going to be the me I’ve always wanted to be.
Please give my regards to Mustard. Another regret or six. But he deserves a better girl. A girl whose heart is as pure as the one he thought he saw in me.
Thank you for taking me into your home, and sorry again for all the trouble I caused.
And it was signed, simply, Brucie.
I read the note once all the way through, and then I read it again trying to find the things she hadn’t said. They weren’t there, or if they were, I couldn’t see them.
When I thought things over, I realized that if half of what I suspected was true, even though everyone had been playing everyone else, Brucie had been the puppetmaster who had, in the end, controlled all the strings. Somehow the description didn’t seem to fit the merry young woman I’d met. But there you have it. Sometimes, as they say, appearances can be deceiving.
I wondered if she’d orchestrated the death of her husband so that the way would be clear for her to manipulate Dempsey. And then, with Dempsey dealt with, she could run away with Calvin. It was even possible that Calvin was also merely a means to an end. Malleable and handsome, he would have played the part of pawn quite well.
I knew I’d probably never have the answers to all of these questions, and it made me a little sad. Brucie, the bright, beautiful smiling girl. Brucie of the big brown eyes and the seal-sleek hair. Those are the things I’d seen, but now I knew there’d been so much more.
She’d asked for my forgiveness, but I didn’t know that it was really in my power to grant it. For what it was worth, I could forgive Brucie. She’d done terrible things, but none of them had been against me. Her demons though—well, I doubted they’d forgive her anything. Because forgiveness—real forgiveness—must come from within.
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