Bad Love

1

It came in a plain brown wrapper.

Padded envelope, book rate, book sized. I assumed it was an academic text I'd forgotten ordering.

It went on to the mail table, along with Monday's bills and announcements of scholarly seminars in Hawaii and St. Croix. I returned to the library and tried to figure out what I was going to do in ten minutes when Tiffani and Chondra Wallace showed up for their second session.

A year ago their mother had been murdered by their father up on a ridge in the Angeles Crest Forest.

He told it as a crime of passion and maybe he was right, in the very worst sense. I'd learned from court documents that absence of passion had never been a problem for Ruthanne and Donald Dell Wallace. She'd never been a strong-willed woman, and despite the ugliness of their divorce, she had held on to "love feelings" for Donald Dell. So no one had been surprised when he cajoled her into taking a night ride with sweet words, the promise of a lobster dinner, and good marijuana.

Shortly after parking on a shaded crest overlooking the forest, the two of them got high, made love, talked, argued, fought, raged, and finally clawed at one another. Then Donald Dell took his buck knife to the woman who still bore his name, slashed and stabbed her thirty-three times, and kicked her corpse out of his pickup, leaving behind an Indian-silver clip stuffed with cash and his membership card in the Iron Priests motorcycle club.

A docket-clearing plea bargain landed him in Folsom Prison on a five to ten for second-degree murder. There he was free to hang out in the yard with his meth-cooking Aryan Brotherhood bunkmates, take an auto mechanics course he could have taught, accrue good behavior brownie points in the chapel, and bench press until his pectorals threatened to explode.

Four months into his sentence, he was ready to see his daughters.

The law said his paternal rights had to be considered.

An L.A. family court judge named Stephen Huff- one of the better ones- asked me to evaluate. We met in his chambers on a September morning and he told me the details while drinking ginger ale and stroking his bald head. The room had beautiful old oak paneling and cheap country furniture. Pictures of his own children were all over the place.

"Just when does he plan on seeing them, Steve?"

"Up at the prison, twice a month."

"That's a plane ride."

"Friends will chip in for the fare."

"What kind of friends?"

"Some idiocy called The Donald Dell Wallace Defense Fund."

"Biker buddies?"

"Vroom vroom."

"Meaning it's probably amphetamine money."

His smile was weary and grudging. "Not the issue before us, Alex."

"What's next, Steve? Disability payments because he's stressed out being a single parent?"

"So it smells. So what else is new? Talk to the poor kids a few times, write up a report saying visitation's injurious to their psyches, and we'll bury the issue."

"For how long?"

He put down the ginger ale and watched the glass raise wet circles on his blotter. "I can kibosh it for at least a year."

"Then what?"

"If he puts in another claim, the kids can be reevaluated and we'll kibosh it again. Time's on their side, right? They'll be getting older and hopefully tougher."

"In a year they'll be ten and eleven, Steve."

He picked at his tie. "What can I tell you, Alex? I don't want to see these kids screwed up, either. I'm asking you to evaluate because you're tough-minded- for a shrink."

"Meaning someone else might recommend visitation?"

"It's possible. You should see some of the opinions your colleagues render. I had one the other day, said the fact that a mother was severely depressed was good for the kid- teach her the value of true emotions."

"Okay," I said. "But I want to do a real evaluation, not some rubber stamp. Something that may have some use for them in the future."

"Therapy? Why not? Sure, do whatever you want. You are now shrink of record. Send your bill straight to me and I'll see you get paid within fifteen working days."

"Who's paying, our leather-clad friends?"

"Don't worry, I'll make sure they pay up."

"Just as long as they don't try to deliver the check in person."

"I wouldn't worry about it, Alex. Those types shy away from insight."

• • •

The girls arrived right on time, just as they had last week, linked, like suitcases, to the arms of their grandmother.

"Well, here they are," Evelyn Rodriguez announced. She remained in the entry and pushed them forward.

"Morning," I said. "Hi, girls."

Tiffani smiled uneasily. Her older sister looked away.

"Have an easy ride?"

Evelyn shrugged, twisted her lips and untwisted them. Maintaining her grip on the girls, she backed away. The girls allowed themselves to be tugged, but unwillingly, like nonviolent protesters. Feeling the burden, Evelyn let go. Crossing her arms over her chest, she coughed and looked away from me.

Rodriguez was her fourth husband. She was Anglo, stout, bottom-heavy, an old fifty-eight, with dimpled elbows and knuckles, nicotine skin, and lips as thin and straight as a surgical incision. Talk came hard for her and I was pretty sure it was a character trait that preceded her daughter's murder.

This morning she wore a sleeveless, formless blouse- a faded mauve and powder blue floral print that reminded me of a decorative tissue box. It billowed, untucked, over black stretch jeans piped with red. Her blue tennis shoes were speckled with bleach spots. Her hair was short and wavy, corn colored above dark roots. Earring slits creased her lobes but she wore no jewelry. Behind bifocals, her eyes continued to reject mine.

She patted Chondra's head, and the girl pressed her face against a thick, soft arm. Tiffani had walked into the living room and was staring at a picture on the wall, tapping one foot fast.

Evelyn Rodriguez said, "Okay, then, I'll just wait down in the car."

"If it gets too hot, feel free to come up."

"The heat don't bother me." She raised a forearm and glanced at a too-small wristwatch. "How long we talking about this time?"

"Let's aim for an hour, give or take."

"Last time was twenty minutes."

"I'd like to try for a little longer today."

She frowned. "Okay… can I smoke down there?"

"Outside the house? Sure."

She muttered something.

"Anything you'd like to tell me?" I said.

"Me?" She freed one finger, poked a breast, and smiled. "Nah. Be good, girlies."

Stepping out on the terrace, she closed the door. Tiffani kept examining the picture. Chondra touched the doorknob and licked her lips. She had on a white Snoopy T-shirt, red shorts, and sandals with no socks. A paper-wrapped Fruit Roll-Up extended from one pocket of the shorts. Her arms and legs were pasty and chubby, her face broad and puggish, topped by white-blond hair drawn into very long, very tight pigtails. The hair gleamed, almost metallic, incongruous above the plain face. Puberty might turn her pretty. I wondered what else it might bring.

She nibbled her lower lip. My smile went unnoticed or unbelieved.

"How are you, Chondra?"

She shrugged again, kept her shoulders up, and looked at the floor. Ten months her sister's senior, she was an inch shorter and seemed less mature. During the first session, she hadn't said a word, content to sit with her hands in her lap as Tiffani talked on.

"Do anything fun this week?"

She shook her head. I placed a hand on her shoulder and she went rigid until I removed it. The reaction made me wonder about some kind of abuse. How many layers of this family would I be able to peel back?

The file on my nightstand was my preliminary research. Before-bed reading for the strong stomached.

Legal jargon, police prose, unspeakable snapshots. Perfectly typed transcripts with impeccable margins.

Ruthanne Wallace reduced to a coroner's afternoon.

Wound depths, bone rills…

Donald Dell's mug shot, wild-eyed, black-bearded, sweaty.

"And then she got mean on me- she knew I didn't handle mean but that didn't stop her, no way. And then I just- you know- lost it. It shouldn'ta happened. What can I say?"

I said, "Do you like to draw, Chondra?"

"Sometimes."

"Well, maybe we'll find something you like in the playroom."

She shrugged and looked down at the carpet.

Tiffani was fingering the frame of the picture. A George Bellows boxing print. I'd bought it, impulsively, in the company of a woman I no longer saw.

"Like the drawing?" I said.

She turned around and nodded, all cheekbones and nose and chin. Her mouth was very narrow and crowded with big, misaligned teeth that forced it open and made her look perpetually confused. Her hair was dishwater, cut institutionally short, the bangs hacked crookedly. Some kind of food stain specked her upper lip. Her nails were dirty, her eyes an unremarkable brown. Then she smiled and the look of confusion vanished. At that moment she could have modeled, sold anything.

"Yeah, it's cool."

"What do you especially like about it?"

"The fighting."

"The fighting?"

"Yeah," she said, punching air. "Action. Like WWA."

"WWA," I said. "World Wrestling?"

She pantomimed an uppercut. "Pow poom." Then she looked at her sister and scowled, as if expecting support.

Chondra didn't move.

"Pow poom," said Tiffani, advancing toward her. "Welcome to WWA fighting, I'm Crusher Creeper and this is the Red Viper in a grudge match of the century. Ding!" Bell-pull pantomime.

She laughed, nervously. Chondra chewed her lip and tried to smile.

" Aar," said Tiffani, coming closer. She pulled the imaginary cord again. "Ding. Pow poom." Hooking her hands, she lurched forward with Frankenstein-monster unsteadiness. "Die, Viper! Aaar!"

She grabbed Chondra and began tickling her arms. The older girl giggled and tickled back, clumsily. Tiffani broke free and began circling, punching air. Chondra started chewing her lip, again.

I said, "C'mon, guys," and took them to the library. Chondra sat immediately at the play table. Tiffani paced and shadowboxed, hugging the periphery of the room like a toy on a track, muttering and jabbing.

Chondra watched her, then plucked a sheet of paper off the top of a stack and picked up a crayon. I waited for her to draw, but she put the crayon down and watched her sister.

"Do you guys watch wrestling at home?" I said.

"Roddy does," said Tiffani, without breaking step.

"Roddy's your grandmother's husband?"

Nod. Jab. "He's not our grampa. He's Mexican."

"He likes wrestling?"

"Uh-huh. Pow poom."

I turned to Chondra. She hadn't moved. "Do you watch wrestling on TV, too?"

Shake of the head.

"She likes Surfriders," said Tiffani. "I do, too, sometimes. And Millionaire's Row."

Chondra bit her lip.

"Millionaire's Row," I said. "Is that the one where rich people have all sorts of problems?"

"They die," said Tiffani. "Sometimes. It's really for real." She put her arms down and stopped circling. Coming over to us, she said, "They die because money and materials are the roots of sins and when you lay down with Satan, your rest is never peaceful."

"Do the rich people on Millionaire's Row lay down with Satan?"

"Sometimes." She resumed her circuit, striking out at unseen enemies.

"How's school?" I asked Chondra.

She shook her head and looked away.

"We didn't start yet," said Tiffani.

"How come?"

"Gramma said we didn't have to."

"Do you miss seeing your friends?"

Hesitation. "Maybe."

"Can I talk to Gramma about that?"

She looked at Chondra. The older girl was peeling the paper wrapper off a crayon.

Tiffani nodded. Then: "Don't do that. They're his."

"It's okay," I said.

"You shouldn't destroy other people's stuff."

"True," I said. "But some things are meant to be used up. Like crayons. And these crayons are here for you."

"Who bought them?" said Tiffani.

"I did."

"Destroying's Satan's work," said Tiffani, spreading her arms and rotating them in wide circles.

I said, "Did you hear that in church?"

She didn't seem to hear. Punched the air. "He laid down with Satan."

"Who?"

"Wallace."

Chondra's mouth dropped open. "Stop," she said, very softly.

Tiffani came over and dropped her arm over her sister's shoulder. "It's okay. He's not our dad anymore, remember? Satan turned him into a bad spirit and he got all his sins wrapped up like one. Like a big burrito."

Chondra turned away from her.

"Come on," said Tiffani, rubbing her sister's back. "Don't worry."

"Wrapped up?" I said.

"Like one," she explained to me. "The Lord counts up all your good deeds and your sins and wraps them up. So when you die, He can look right away and know if you go up or down. He's going down. When he gets there, the angels'll look at the package and know all he done. And then he'll burn."

She shrugged. "That's the truth."

Chondra's eyes pooled with tears. She tried to remove Tiffani's arm from her shoulder, but the younger girl held fast.

"It's okay," said Tiffani. "You got to talk about the truth."

"Stop," said Chondra.

"It's okay," Tiffani insisted. "You got to talk to him." She looked at me. "So he'll write a good book for the judge and he'll never get out."

Chondra looked at me.

I said, "Actually, what I write won't change how much time he spends in jail."

"Maybe," insisted Tiffani. "If your book tells the judge how evil he is, then maybe he could put him in longer."

"Was he ever evil to you?"

No answer.

Chondra shook her head.

Tiffani said, "He hit us."

"A lot?"

"Sometimes."

"With his hand or something else?"

"His hand."

"Never a stick or a belt or something else?"

Another headshake from Chondra. Tiffani's was slower, reluctant.

"Not a lot, but sometimes," I said.

"When we were bad."

"Bad?"

"Making a mess- going near his bike- he hit Mom more. Right?" Prodding Chondra. "He did."

Chondra gave a tiny nod, grabbed the crayon, and started peeling again. Tiffani watched but didn't stop her.

"That's why we left him," she said. "He hit her all the time. And then he came after her with lust and sin in his heart and killed her- tell the judge that, you're rich, he'll listen to you!"

Chondra began crying. Tiffani patted her and said, "It's okay, we got to."

I got a tissue box. Tiffani took it from me and wiped her sister's eyes. Chondra pressed the crayon to her lips.

"Don't eat it," said Tiffani. "It's poison."

Chondra let go and the crayon flew out of her hand and landed on the floor. Tiffani retrieved it and placed it neatly alongside the box.

Chondra was licking her lips. Her eyes were closed and one soft hand was fisted.

"Actually," I said, "it's not poisonous, just wax with color in it. But it probably doesn't taste too good."

Chondra opened her eyes. I smiled and she tried to smile, producing only a small rise in one corner of her mouth.

Tiffani said, "Well, it's not food."

"No, it isn't."

She paced some more. Boxed and muttered.

I said, "Let me go over what I told you last week. You're here because your father wants you to visit him in jail. My job is to find out how you feel about that, so I can tell the judge."

"Why doesn't the judge ask us?"

"He will," I said. "He'll be talking to you, but first he wants me to-"

"Why?"

"Because that's my job- talking to kids about their feelings. Finding out how they really-"

"We don't want to see him," said Tiffani. "He's an insument of Satan."

"An-"

"An insument! He laid all down with Satan and became a sinful spirit. When he dies, he's going to burn in hell, that's for sure."

Chondra's hands flew to her face.

"Stop!" said Tiffani. She rushed over to her sister, but before she got there, Chondra stood and let out a single, deep sob. Then she ran for the door, swinging it open so hard it almost threw her off balance.

She caught it, then she was out.

Tiffani watched her go, looking tiny and helpless.

"You got to tell the truth," she said.

I said, "Absolutely. But sometimes it's hard."

She nodded. Now her eyes were wet.

She paced some more.

I said, "Your sister's older but it looks like you take care of her."

She stopped, faced me, gave a defiant stare, but seemed comforted.

"You take good care of her," I said.

Shrug.

"That must get hard sometimes."

Her eyes flickered. She put her hands on her hips and jutted her chin.

"It's okay," she said.

I smiled.

"She's my sister." She stood there, knocking her hands against her legs.

I patted her shoulder.

She sniffed, then walked away.

"You got to tell the truth," she said.

"Yes, you do."

Punch, jab. "Pow poom… I wanna go home."

• • •

Chondra was already with Evelyn, sharing the front seat of the thirty-year-old, plum-colored Chevy. The car had nearly bald blackwalls and a broken antenna. The paint job was homemade, the color nothing GM had ever conceived. One edge of the car's rear bumper had been broken and it nearly scraped the ground.

I got to the driver's window as Tiffani made her way down the steps from the landing. Evelyn Rodriguez didn't look up. A cigarette drooped from her lips. A hardpack of Winstons sat on the dashboard. The driver's half of the windshield was coated with greasy fog. Her fingers were busy tying a lanyard keychain. The rest of her was inert.

Chondra was pressed up against the passenger door, legs curled beneath her, staring at her lap.

Tiffani arrived, making her way to the passenger side while keeping her eyes on me. Opening the rear door, she dove inside.

Evelyn finally took her eyes off her work, but her fingers kept moving. The lanyard was brown and white, a diamond stitch that reminded me of rattlesnake skin.

"Well, that was quick," she said. "Close that door now, don't kill the battery."

Tiffani scooted over and slammed the door.

I said, "The girls haven't started school yet."

Evelyn Rodriguez looked at Tiffani for a second, then turned to me. "That's right."

"Do you need any help with that?"

"Help?"

"Getting them started. Is there some kind of problem?"

"Nah, we been busy- I make 'em read at home. They're okay."

"Planning to send them soon?"

"Sure, when things calm down- so what's next? They have to come again?"

"Let's try again tomorrow. Same time okay?"

"Nope," she said. "Matter of fact, it isn't. Got things to do."

"What's a good time for you, then?"

She sucked the cigarette, adjusted her glasses, and placed the lanyard on the seat. Her slash lips twitched, searching for an expression.

"There are no good times. All the good times already been rolled."

She started the car. Her lips were trembling and the cigarette bobbed. She removed it and turned the wheel sharply without shifting out of park. The car was low on steering fluid and shrieked in protest. The front tires swung outward and scraped the asphalt.

"I'd like to see them again fairly soon," I said.

"What for?"

Before I could answer, Tiffani stretched herself out along the back seat, belly down, and began kicking the door panel with both feet.

"Cut that out!" said Mrs. Rodriguez, without looking back. "What for?" she repeated. "So we can be told what to do and how to do it, as usual?"

"No, I-"

"The problem is, things are upside down. Nonsensical. Those that should be dead aren't, and those that are, shouldn't be. No amount of talking's gonna change that, so what's the difference? Upside down, completely, and now I got to be a mama all over again."

"He can write a book," said Tiffani. "So that-"

Evelyn cut her off with a look. "You don't worry yourself about things. We got to be heading back- if there's time, I'll get you an ice cream."

She yanked the gear lever down. The Chevy grumbled and bucked, then drove off, rear bumper flirting with the road.

• • •

I stood there a while, sucking up exhaust fumes, then went back up to the house, returned to the library, and charted:

"Strong resistance to eval. on part of m.g.m. T overtly angry, hostile to father, talks in terms of sin, retribution. C still not communic. Will follow."

Profound.

I went to the bedroom and retrieved Ruthanne Wallace's police file.

Big as a phone book.

"Trial transcripts," Milo had said, hefting it as he handed it over. "Sure isn't because of any hotshot detection. Your basic moron murder."

He'd pulled it from Foothill Division's CLOSED files, filling my request without question. Now I flipped pages, not knowing why I'd asked for it. Closing the folder, I took it into the library and crammed it down into a desk drawer.

Ten in the morning and I was already tired.

I went to the kitchen, loaded some coffee into the machine, and started going through the mail, discarding junk mail, signing checks, filing paper, then coming to the brown-wrapped package that I'd assumed was a book.

Slitting the padded envelope, I stuck my hand in, expecting the bulk of a hardcover. But my fingers touched nothing and I reached deeper, finally coming upon something hard and smooth. Plastic. Wedged tightly in a corner.

I shook the envelope. An audiocassette fell out and clattered onto the table.

Black, no label or markings on either side.

I examined the padded envelope. My name and address had been typed on a white sticker. No zip code. No return address either. The postmark was four days old, recorded at the Terminal Annex.

Curious, I took the tape into the living room, slipped it into the deck, and sank back onto the old leather couch.

Click. A stretch of static-fuzzed nothing started me wondering if this was some sort of practical joke.

Then a shock of noise killed that theory and made my chest tighten.

A human voice. Screaming.

Howling.

Male. Hoarse. Loud. Wet- as if gargling in pain.

Unbearable pain. A terrible incoherence that went on and on as I sat there, too surprised to move.

A throat-ripping howling interspersed with trapped-animal panting.

Heavy breathing.

Then more screams- louder. Ear-clapping expulsions that had no shape or meaning… like the soundtrack from the rancid core of a nightmare.

I pictured a torture chamber, shrieking black mouths, convulsing bodies.

The howling bore through my head. I strained to make out words amid the torrent but heard only the pain.

Louder.

I leaped up to turn down the volume on the machine. Found it already set low.

I started to turn it off, but before I could, the screaming died.

More static-quiet.

Then a new voice.

Soft. High-pitched. Nasal.

A child's voice:

Bad love. Bad love.

Don't give me the bad love.

Child's timbre- but with no childish lilt.

Unnaturally flat- robotlike.

Bad love. Bad love.

Don't give me the bad love…

Repeating it. Three times. Four.

A chant, Druidish and mournful- so oddly metallic.

Almost like a prayer.

Bad love. Bad love…

No. Too hollow for prayer- too faithless.

Idolatrous.

A prayer for the dead.

By the dead.