Bad Love

23

The scene in the garage stayed with me during the drive back to L.A. Bad traffic just past Thousand Oaks had me sitting still, Katarina's mangled body filling my head. I listened to the Seville idle, thought about pain and vengeance and Robin all alone up on Benedict Canyon. Mr. Silk, whoever he was, had won a partial victory.

Things finally got moving again. I escaped 101, made it to 405 and had a clear sail to Sunset. I was heading up Benedict shortly after nine-thirty when I noticed two red dots floating ahead of me.

Brake lights. A car stopped.

It seemed to be paused right in front of the narrow road that led to my adopted home, though from this distance, I couldn't be sure. I put on speed, but before I got there, the lights dimmed and the car was gone, traveling too fast for me to catch up.

Probably nothing, but I was stumbling along the thin line between paranoia and caution and my heart was pounding. I waited. Everything stayed silent. I drove up to the white gate, slipped the cardkey in the slot, and raced up the cypress-lined driveway.

The house was lit from within, the garage shut. I approached the front door, wet with sweat, turned the key, and stepped inside, chest bursting.

Robin was stretched out on a sofa reading a design magazine. The bulldog was wedged between her legs, head nestled in her lap, trapdoor mouth open and snoring.

"Beauty and the Beast," I said, but my voice was weak.

She looked up, smiled, and held out her hand. The dog opened one eye, then let the lid drop.

"Been shopping all afternoon?" I said, taking off my jacket. "I tried calling a bunch of times."

"Uh-huh," she said. "Lots of errands… What's the matter, Alex?"

I told her what I'd found on Shoreline Drive.

"Oh, no!" She propped herself on her elbows. The dog grumbled awake, but he stayed down. "You came so close to walking in on it."

I sat down. As she squeezed my hand, I recounted what I'd found and what I'd learned from Bert Harrison and Condon Bancroft. She listened with her fingers at her mouth.

"Whoever's behind this is relentless," I said. "I want you to move somewhere else temporarily."

She sat up completely. "What?"

"Just for a while. I'm not safe to be around."

"We moved so you would be, Alex. How could anyone know you're here?"

Thinking of the brake lights, I said, "I'm sure no one does, but I just want to be careful. I spoke to Milo. You can move into his place. Just till things ease up."

"It's not necessary, Alex."

The dog was completely awake now, shifting his glance from Robin to me, his brow wrinkles deeper. The confusion and fear of a kid watching his parents fight.

"Just temporarily," I said.

"Temporarily? If this person's done everything you think he has, he waits years! So what kind of temporary are we talking about here?"

I had no answer.

She said, "No. No way, Alex, I won't leave you. To hell with him- he can't do that to us."

"Robin, she was pregnant. I saw what he did to her."

"No," she said, eyes brimming. "Please. I don't want to hear about it."

"Okay," I said.

She pitched forward as if falling and grabbed my shoulders with both hands. Pulling me closer, she held on tight, as if still off balance. Her cheek was up against mine and her breath was in my ear, hot and quick.

"It's okay," I said. "We'll work it out."

She squeezed me. "Oh, Alex, let's just move to another planet."

The dog jumped from the couch to the floor, sat down and stared at us. Whistling noises came from his compressed nostrils, but his eyes were clear and active, almost human.

"Hey, Spike," I said, reaching over. "He been good?"

"The best."

The affection in her voice made his ears go up. He trotted up to the edge of the couch and rested his flews on her knee. She caressed his head and he lifted his chin and gave her palm a long, wet tongue swipe.

"You could take him with you," I said. "You'd have constant masculine attention."

"Put it out of your mind, Alex." Her nails dug into my back. "We probably won't have him much longer, anyway. I got a call this morning from a group called French Bulldog Rescue. Very sweet lady over in Burbank- you wrote to the national club and they forwarded it to her. She's putting out feelers, says these little guys are almost never intentionally abandoned, so it's just a matter of time before the owners call to claim him."

"No one's reported him missing so far?"

"No, but don't get your hopes up. She's got a pretty good communication network, seems pretty sure she'll find his owner. She offered to come by and take him off our hands, but I said we'd care for him in the meantime."

The dog was looking up at me expectantly. I rested my hand on his head and he made a low, satisfied noise.

Robin said, "Now I know how foster parents feel." She grabbed a handful of soft chin and kissed it. Her shorts had rolled high on her thighs and she tugged them down. "Have you had dinner yet?"

"No."

"I bought stuff- chilies rellenos, enchiladas. Even got a six-pack of Corona, so we could pretend we were party animals. It's a little late now to start a whole feast, but I can put something together if you're hungry."

"Don't bother, I'll make a sandwich."

"No, let me, Alex. I need something to do with my hands. Afterward we can get in bed with the crossword and some really bad TV and who knows what else."

"Who knows?" I said, drawing her to me.

• • •

We turned off the lights around midnight. I fell away easily, but I woke up feeling as if I'd been drained of body fluids.

I endured breakfast, feeding the dog bits of scrambled egg and making conversation with Robin until the two of them went to the garage.

As soon as I was alone, I called Dr. Shirley Rosenblatt in Manhattan and got the same taped message. I repeated my pitch, told her it was more urgent than ever, and asked her to get in touch as soon as possible. When no callback had come in by the time I'd finished showering, shaving, and dressing, I phoned Jean Jeffers. She was out for the day- some kind of meeting downtown- and hadn't left word with her secretary about Lyle Gritz. Remembering her eagerness to look for him, I figured she'd come up empty.

Information had no listing for a Ramona or Rowena Basille, but there was a "Basille, R." on 618 South Hauser Street. Right near Park LaBrea.

An older woman's voice answered, "Hello."

"Mrs. Basille?"

"This is Rolanda, who're you?" Scratchy timbre, the midwestern tones I'd grown up with.

"My name's Alex Delaware. I'm a psychologist, consulting to the Los Angeles Police Department-"

"Yes?" Rise in pitch.

"Sorry to be bothering you-"

"What is it? What's happened?"

"Nothing, Mrs. Basille. I was just wondering if I could ask you a few questions."

"About Becky?"

"About someone Becky might have known."

"Who?"

"A friend of Dorsey Hewitt's."

The name made her groan. "What friend? Who? I don't understand."

"A man named Lyle Gritz-"

"What about him? What's going on?"

"Have you ever heard of him?"

"No, never. What's this got to do with Rebecca?"

"Nothing directly, Mrs. Basille, but Gritz may have been involved in some other crimes. He may also have used the names Silk or Merino."

"What kind of crimes? Murders?"

"Yes."

"I don't understand. Why's a psychologist calling- that's what you said you were, right? Psychologist, psychiatrist?"

"Psychologist."

"If there's murders involved, why aren't the police calling?"

"It's not an official investigation, yet."

Pause. "Okay, who are you, buster? Some sleazy tabloid writer? I've already been through that, and let me tell you what you can-"

"I'm not a reporter," I said. "I'm who I said I was, Mrs. Basille. If you'd like to verify it, you can call Detective Milo Sturgis at West L.A. detectives. He gave me your name-"

"Sturgis," she said.

"He handled the investigation of Becky's case."

"Which one was that- oh yeah, the big one… yeah, he tried to be nice. But where does he come off giving you my name? What are you doing, some kind of psychological study? Want to make me a guinea pig?"

"No, nothing like that-"

"What, then?"

There seemed no choice. "My involvement's a lot more personal, Mrs. Basille. I'm a potential victim."

"A vic- of who, this Gritch?"

"Gritz. Lyle Edward Gritz. Or Silk or-"

"Never heard of any of those."

"There's evidence he's been murdering psychotherapists- several of them over a five-year period."

"Oh, no."

"The latest occurred yesterday, in Santa Barbara. A woman named Katarina de Bosch."

"Yester- oh, goodness." Her voice changed- lower, softer, still perplexed. "And now you think he's out for you?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"He may have a thing against psychotherapists. He leaves a message at the crime scene. The words "bad love'-"

"That's the same thing that scum yelled out!"

"That's why we think there may be a connection. Last week, I received a tape with someone chanting "bad love.' As well as a sample of Hewitt screaming. Shortly after that, I got a crank phone call, then someone snuck onto my property and did damage."

"What are you saying? That Rebecca was part of something?"

"I really don't know, Mrs. Basille."

"But maybe that's what it was? Someone else was involved in my Becky's…"

A loud bang percussed in my ear. A few seconds later: "Dropped the phone, you still there?"

"Yes."

"So what're you saying? This Gritz could have been involved in hurting my baby?"

"I wish I could tell you, Mrs. Basille. Gritz and Hewitt were friends, so it's possible Gritz had some influence on Hewitt. But there's no evidence-"

"Bad love," she said. "No one was ever able to explain to me what it meant."

"It's a psychological term coined by Katarina de Bosch's father- Dr. Andres de Bosch."

"Debauch?"

"De Bosch. He was a psychologist who ran a remedial school up in Santa Barbara."

No reaction.

I said, "Lyle Gritz may have been a patient there. For all I know, Hewitt may have been also. Did Rebecca ever mention anything related to any of this?"

"No… God in heaven… I think I'm going to be sick."

"I'm truly sorry, Mrs.-"

"What'd you say your name was?"

"Alex Delaware."

"Give me your phone number."

I did.

"Okay," she said, "I'm calling that Sturgis right now and checking you out."

"He's in Santa Barbara. You can reach him at the police department there." I fished around, retrieved Sarah Grayson's card, and read off the number.

She hung up without comment.

Ten minutes later, my service put her through.

"He wasn't in," she said, "but I spoke to a woman cop who said you're for real. So, okay, I'm sorry for what you're going through- once you been through it you get sorry a lot for other people. Okay, what can I do for you?"

"I was just wondering if Becky ever talked about her work. Said anything that might help find Gritz and clear this up."

"Talked? Yeah, she talked. She loved her… hold on… my stomach… hold on, I thought I was okay, but now I feel like I have to throw up again- let me go do that, and then I'll call you back- no, forget that, I hate the phone. Phone rings now, my heart starts going like it's going to explode- you want to come down and see me it's okay. Let me see what you look like, I hate the phone."

"How about I come to your house?"

"Sure- no, forget it. The place is depressing. I never was a homemaker, now I don't do a darn thing. Why don't you meet me over in Hancock Park? Not the neighborhood, the actual park- know where it is?"

"Over by the tar pits."

"Yeah, meet me on the Sixth Street side, behind the museums. There's a shady area, some benches. What're you gonna wear?"

"Jeans and a white shirt."

"Fine. I'll be wearing- no, this is wrinkled, gotta change it- I'll be wearing a… green blouse. Green with a white collar. Just look for an ugly old woman with a green blouse and a crappy disposition."

• • •

The blouse was grass green. She was sitting under a thatch of mismatched trees, on a bench facing the rolling lawn that separated the County Art Museum from the dinosaur depository George Page had built with Mission Pack money. At the end of the lawn the tar pits were an oily black sump behind wrought iron pickets. Through the fence, plaster mastodons reared and glared at the traffic on Wilshire Boulevard. Tar leaked through the entire park, seeping up in random spots, and I just missed stepping in a bubbling pool as I made my way toward Rolanda Basille.

Her back was to Sixth Street, but I had a three-quarter view of her body. Around sixty-five. Her collar was a snowy Peter Pan job, her slacks olive wool, much too heavy for the weather. She had hair dyed as black as the tar, cut in a flapper bob with eyebrow-length bangs. Her face was crinkled and small. Arthritic hands curled in her lap. Red tennis shoes covered her feet, over white socks, folded over once. A big, green plastic purse hung from her shoulder. If she weighed a hundred pounds, it was after Thanksgiving dinner.

The ground was covered with dry leaves and I made noise as I approached. She kept gazing out at the lawn and didn't look back. Children were playing there, mobile dots on an emerald screen, but I wasn't sure she saw them.

The random trees had been trimmed to form a canopy, and the shadows they cast were absolute. Several other benches were scattered nearby, most of them empty. A black man slept on one, a paper bag next to his head. Two women of Rolanda Basille's approximate age sat on another, strumming guitars and singing.

I walked in front of her.

She barely looked up, then slapped the bench.

I sat down. Music drifted over from the two guitarists. Some sort of folk song, a foreign language.

"The Stepne sisters," she said, sticking out her tongue. "They're here all the time. They stink. Did you ever see a picture of my daughter?"

"Just in the paper."

"That wasn't a flattering one." She opened the big purse, searched for a while, and took out a medium-sized envelope. Withdrawing three color photographs, she handed them to me.

Professional portraits, passable quality. Rebecca Basille sitting in a white wicker chair, posed three different ways in front of a mountain-stream backdrop, wearing a powder-blue dress and pearls. Big smile. Terrific teeth. Very pretty; soft, curvy build, soft arms, a trifle heavy. The dress was low-cut and showed some cleavage. Her brown hair was shiny and long and iron-curled at the ends, her eyes full of humor and just a bit of apprehension, as if she'd been sitting for a long time and had doubts about the outcome.

"Very lovely," I said.

"She was beautiful," said Rolanda. "Inside and out."

She held out her hand and I returned the photos. After she'd replaced them in the purse, she said, "I just wanted you to see the person she was, though even these don't do it. She didn't like having her picture taken- used to be chubby when she was little. Her face was always gorgeous."

I nodded.

She said, "There was a wounded bird within five miles, Becky'd find it and bring it home. Shoeboxes and cotton balls and eyedroppers. She tried to save anything- bugs-those little gray curly things?"

"Potato bugs?"

"Those. Moths, ladybugs, whatever, she'd save 'em. When she was real little she went through this stage of not wanting anyone to cut the lawn because she thought it hurt the grass."

She tried to smile, but her lips got away from her and began trembling. She covered them with one hand.

"You see what I'm saying?" she said, finally.

"I do."

"She never changed. In school, she went straight for the outcasts- anyone who was different, or hurting- the retarded kids, harelips, you name it. Sometimes I think she was attracted to hurt."

Another forage in the purse. She found red-framed sunglasses and put them on. Given the ambient shade, they must have blacked out the world.

I said, "I can see why she went into social work."

"Exactly. I always figured she would do something like that, always told her nursing or social work would be perfect for her. But of course when you tell them, they do something else. So it took her a while to know what she wanted. She didn't want to go to college, did some waitressing, some file clerking, secretarial. My other kids were different. Real driven. Got a boy practicing orthopedic medicine in Reno, and my older girl works in a bank in St. Louis- assistant vice president."

"Was Becky the youngest?"

She nodded. "Nine years between her and Kathy, eleven between her and Carl. She was- I was forty-one when I had her, and her father was five years older than me. He walked out on us right after she was born. Left me high and dry with three kids. Sugar diabetic, and he refused to stop drinking. He started losing feeling in his feet, then the eyes started going. Finally, they began cutting pieces off of him and he decided with no toes and one arm it was time to be a swinging bachelor- crazy, huh?"

She shook her head.

"He moved to Tahoe, didn't last long after that," she said. "Becky was two when he died. We hadn't heard from him all that time, suddenly the government started sending me his veteran's benefits… You think that's what made her so vulnerable? No- what do you people call it?- father role model?"

"How was Becky vulnerable?" I said.

"Too trusting." She touched her collar, smoothed out an invisible wrinkle. "She went straight for the losers. Believed every cock-and-bull story."

"What kind of losers?"

"More wounded birds. Guys she thought she could fix. She wanted to fix the world."

Her hands began to shake and she shoved them under her purse. The Stepne sisters were singing louder. She said: "Shut up."

"Did the losers mistreat her?"

"Losers," she said, as if she hadn't heard. "The great poet with no poems to show for it, living off welfare. Bunch of musicians, so-called. Not men. Little boys. I nagged her all the time, all the dead-ends she was choosing. In the end, none of that mattered a whit, did it?"

She lifted her sunglasses and wiped an eye with one finger. Putting the shades back, she said, "You don't need to hear this, you've got your own problems."

I saw faint reflections of myself in her black lenses, distorted and tense.

"You seem like a nice young fellow, listening to me go on like this. Ever save any bugs yourself?"

"Maybe a couple of times."

She smiled. "Bet it was more than a couple. Bet you punched those holes in the top of the jars so the bugs could breathe, right? Bet your mother loved that, too, all those creepy things in the house."

I laughed.

"I'm right, aren't I? I should be a psychologist."

"It does bring back certain memories," I said.

"Sure," she said. "Out to save the world, all of you. You married?"

"No."

"A fellow like you, same attitude as my Becky, you would have been okay for her. You could have saved the world together. But to be honest, she probably wouldn't have gone for you- no offense, you're just too… put-together. That's a compliment, believe me." She patted my knee. Frowned. "I'm sorry for what you're going through. And be sure to take good care of yourself. Something happens to you, your mother's going to die, over and over. You'll be gone but she'll be left dying every day-understand?"

The hand on my knee clawed.

I nodded.

"Something happens to you, your mother's going to lie in bed and think about you, over and over and over. Wondering how much you suffered. Wondering what you were thinking when it happened to you- why it happened to her kid and not someone else's. Do you understand what I'm saying?"

"I do."

"So be careful."

"That's why I'm here," I said. "To protect myself."

She whipped off the sunglasses. Her eyes were so raw the whites looked brown. "Gritz- no, she never said a word about anyone named that. Or Silk or Merino."

"Did she ever talk about Hewitt?"

"No, not really." She seemed to be deliberating. I didn't move or speak.

The raw eyes moistened. "She mentioned him once- maybe a week or two before. Said she was treating this really crazy person and thought she was helping him. She said it respectfully- this poor, sick fellow that she really wanted to help. Schizophrenic, whatever- hearing voices. No one else had been able to help him, but she thought she could. He was starting to trust her."

She spat on the ground.

"She mentioned him by name?"

"No. She made a point of not talking about any of them by name. Big point of following the rules."

Remembering Becky's sketchy notes and lack of follow-through with Jean, I said, "A real stickler, huh?"

"That was Becky. Back when she was in grade school, her teachers always said they wished they had a classroom full of Beckys. Even with her loser boyfriends, she always stayed on the straight and narrow, not using drugs, nothing. That's why they wouldn't…"

She shook her head. Put her glasses back on and showed me the back of her head. Between thin strands of dyed hair, her neck was liver-spotted and loose-skinned.

I said, "Why they wouldn't what?"

No answer for a moment.

Then: "They wouldn't stick with her- they always left her. Can you beat that? The ones who were going to get divorced, always went back to their wives. The ones who were on the wagon, always fell off. And left her. She was ten times the human being any of them were, but they always walked out on her, can you beat that?"

"They were the unstable ones," I said.

"Exactly. Dead-end losers. What she needed was someone with high standards, but she wasn't attracted to that- only the broken ones."

"Was she in a relationship at the time she died?"

"I don't know- probably. The last time I saw her- couple of days before she stopped by to give me some laundry- I asked her how her social life was and she refused to talk about it. What that usually meant was she was involved with someone she knew I'd nag her about. I got upset with her- we didn't talk much. How was I supposed to know it was the last time and I should have enjoyed every minute I had with her?"

Her shoulders bowed and quivered.

I touched one of them and she sat up suddenly.

"Enough of this- I hate this moping around. That's why I quit that survivor's group your friend Sturgis recommended. Too much self-pity. Meanwhile, I haven't done a damn thing for you."

My head was full of assumptions and guesses. Learning of Becky's attraction to losers had firmed up the suspicions left by her notes. I smiled and said, "It's been good talking to you."

"Good talking to you, too. Do I get a bill?"

"No, the first hour's free."

"Well, look at that. Handsome, a Caddy, and a sense of humor to boot- you do pretty well, don't you? Financially."

"I do okay."

"Modesty- bet you do better than okay. That's what I wanted for Becky. Security. I told her, what are you wasting your time for, doing dirty work for the county? Finish up your degree, get some kind of license, open up an office in Beverly Hills and treat fat people or those women who starve themselves. Make some money. No crime in that, right? But she wouldn't hear of it, wanted to do important work. With people who were really needy."

She shook her head.

"Saving the bugs," she said, almost inaudibly. "She thought she was dealing with those potato thingies, but a scorpion got into the jar."