Bones

CHAPTER 9

I arrived on time for the meeting with Selena Bass’s mother. The civilian clerk told me, “They already started. Room D, upstairs.”

The door was unlocked. The A.C. blasted. Milo sat opposite Emily Green-Bass. His tie was knotted neatly and his face was soft. I’ve seen him practice in front of a mirror before meeting with grief-stricken relatives. Loosening his muscles. Keeping the wolf-glare out of his eyes.

Emily Green-Bass’s white hair was now long and French-braided. She wore a black mock turtle over a long gray skirt, and black suede flats. Jewelry dealer, but no baubles. Her features were laser-cut, too sharp for beautiful. A handsome woman during good times. Now she was icy statuary.

Two bulky men in their thirties sat at the side of the table. The older one wore a yellow golf shirt, brown slacks, deck shoes. Reddish blond hair was side-parted executive-style. Close-shaved, bullnecked, three-martini nose.

The younger one was darker, just as husky but with a bonier face. He wore a faded gray David Lynch Rules sweatshirt, wrinkled cargo pants, high lace-up boots. Wavy brown hair hung to his shoulders. A triangular soul patch was white-blond. A chromium chain drooped from a rear pocket, and when he turned to me it jangled.

Milo introduced me. “These are Selena’s mom and brothers, Dr. Delaware.”

Emily Green-Bass held out a long, white hand that felt as if it had just left the freezer. I encased it briefly with both of mine and her gray eyes got wet.

Polo Shirt said, “Chris Green.”

Soul Patch muttered, “Marc.”

“We were just going over Selena’s life in L.A. Marc had some contact with Selena after she moved here.”

“She visited me in Oakland,” said Marc. “Said she was doing fine. She e-mailed the same thing to Mom.”

Emily Green-Bass hadn’t taken her eyes off me. “I’m glad a psychologist is here. What happened has got to be psychotic. There hasn’t been anything extreme in Selena’s life. Not for a long time.”

Marc Green said, “There never was. It was basic adolescent crap.”

“If you say so, Marcus.” Wan smile. “It sure didn’t seem that way when I had to contend with it.”

Marc’s shoulders rose and fell. His chain jangled and he reached behind to quiet it. “I did the same crap and so did Chris. Only difference is we were better at covering up.”

Looking to his brother for confirmation.

Chris said, “Uh-huh.”

“Unfortunately for Selena,” Marc went on, “she had a compulsion to confess everything. Right?”

Chris smiled sadly. “Like a Catholic thing. Except we’re not Catholic.”

“First she’d try out the script on us,” said Marc. “ ‘I smoked a joint.’ ‘I watched an X movie on cable.’ ‘I lied about where I was to Mom.’ We’re like, don’t tell us, stupid. And for sure don’t tell Mom. So of course she did.”

Emily Green-Bass began crying.

Milo said, “Typical teenage stuff.”

Marc Green said, “This is a waste of time.”

Chris said, “She was into the whole music thing.”

“So what!”

“Chill, Marc. I want them to have all the facts-”

“The facts are she was in the wrong place, wrong time, ran into Ted Bundy’s reincarnation.”

No one spoke.

Marc Green said, “This may be news to all concerned but being into the whole music thing doesn’t make her a freak. Her basic mind-set was conventional. When she met some of the people I have to hang with, she thought they were weird.”

Milo said, “Which people are those?”

Marc said, “From work.”

“Which is where?”

“That relevant?”

His mother said, “Marcus, he’s trying to help.”

“Good for him.” To Milo: “I work wherever they pay me.”

Emily Green-Bass said, “Marc has a degree in acoustical engineering.”

“I do sound recording and amplification, mostly concerts and indie films. And as long as we’re doing the official family bio thing, Big Bro Chris works for Starbucks. That’s an obscure coffee company in Seattle.”

Chris said, “Marketing and distribution.”

I said, “When did Selena visit you, Marc?”

“A year ago and maybe six months after that. The first time, I was working on a picture and she trailed along. That’s when she told me the people I hung with were bizarre. Which was true of that particular crew, I guess. Half the dialogue was in Italian, the rest was pantomime-some sort of tribute to Pasolini but nobody actually knew Italian.”

His brother said, “And the Oscar goes to.”

“Hey, we can’t all ride the caffeine train.”

Milo said, “Selena’s second visit… ”

“Was when I asked her up for the weekend so I could introduce her to Cleo-then my lover, now my wife. We just had our first baby. Which is why I should be home. Can we move this along?”

Milo sat back and crossed his legs. “If you’ve got nothing more to tell us, feel free to go.”

Marc rubbed his soul patch, shoved hair behind his left ear. Blue and green ink washed across his neck. Cleo, amid a wreath of vines. I hoped the marriage lasted.

“What the hell,” he said. “I’m booked on a nine p.m., no sense changing it.”

Chris said, “Selena saw you twice, huh? That’s two more times than she bothered to call me back.”

“Guess she was too busy for corporate chitchat.”

Chris turned away from his brother.

Milo said, “You called her…”

“Just to see how she was doing.”

“When was the last time you spoke to her?”

“I dunno… two years ago.”

Marc said, “Obviously we’re a close-knit family.”

Emily Green-Bass said, “Chris and Marc’s father and I broke up when the boys were one and three and he hasn’t been heard from since.” Frowning at her sons as if the fault was theirs. “I met Selena’s dad a year later. Dan was good to you guys.”

No argument.

“Dan passed away when Selena was six. I raised her alone and I’m sure there are some people would say I screwed it up.”

Chris said, “You did fine, Mom.”

Marc said, “Can we stay focused on Selena?”

Silence.

“Why get distracted?” he said. “Selena was talented, but as essentially straight as they come. I’m not saying she never puffed a doobie. But even when she and Mom were doing their hostility thing, she never did anything spiteful, like hooking up with someone iffy. Just the opposite. We used to call her Sister Cee. As in celibate.”

“She’d call herself that,” said Chris.

Milo said, “What about boyfriends?”

Marc said, “Nope.”

“Mrs. Green-Bass?”

“No, I never saw anyone.”

She covered her face. Marc reached out to pat his mother’s shoulders. She drew away.

“Oh God,” she said, through her fingers, “this is so horrible.”

Marc’s lip trembled. “All I’m saying, Mom, is that Selena didn’t bring it upon herself. Shit happens, life sucks. Like stepping off a curb and some asshole comes barreling down. That just happened to me. Right after Cleo gave birth to Phaedra. I left the hospital to get some champagne, was floating on air. I step off the curb and this fucking San Francisco Examiner truck comes out of nowhere, misses me by a millimeter.”

“Marcus, don’t tell me those things! I don’t want to hear them!”

Milo said, “So no boyfriend anyone’s aware of. What about friends? People she hung with here in L.A. ”

No answer.

Emily said, “She did seem to be happy about her work. That’s what she finally e-mailed me about.”

“Teaching that rich kid,” said Marc. “She said it was a dream gig. She called to tell me because I’m into music, too. Used to play bass. Not that I was ever close to Selena’s level. I’m competent, she’s brilliant. Sat down at the piano when she was three and just played the fucking thing. By five, she was doing Gershwin by ear. Give her anything, she could play it. I watched her pick up a clarinet cold and run off a scale. She got the breathing right away.”

“Sounds like a prodigy,” said Milo.

“No one used that word, we just thought she was amazing.”

Emily Green-Bass said, “I was so busy supporting us, I was happy she had something to occupy her.”

Marc said, “One day I come in-I’m talking years ago, when Selena was eight or nine. She’s in the living room strumming my guitar. The guitar was new, a birthday present, I got pissed that she took it without my permission. Then I realize she’s actually making music on it. Never had a lesson and she’s taught herself a bunch of chords and her tone’s better than mine.”

Emily said, “When she was eleven I could see piano was something she wanted to stick with, so I got her a teacher. This was back when we lived in Ames, Iowa. Ames Band Equipment had a program for the schools. Selena outgrew the first teacher they gave her, then two others. They said I needed to find someone with serious classical training. When we moved to Long Island, I found an old woman in the city who’d been a professor in the Soviet Union. Mrs. Nemerov-Madame Nemerov, she was ancient, wore ball gowns. Selena studied with her until she was fifteen. Then one day she just quit, said she hated classical music. I told her she was wasting her God-given talent, she’d never play again. She said I was wrong. It got pretty-that was one of our biggest… disagreements. It was a tough time, Selena had totally abandoned her schoolwork, was getting D’s and F’s. She claimed she was learning more from life than any stupid school could teach her.”

Marc muttered, “No shit.”

I said, “Did she stop playing?”

“No. I was wrong. She actually played more, just not a lot of classical pieces. Though every so often she’d do a little Liszt or Chopin, whatever.” Sad smile. “The Chopin études. She liked the ones in minor keys. Or at least that’s what she said, I don’t know a thing about music. Selena got her talent from her father, he played guitar, banjo, you name it. Did that bluegrass stuff, he was originally from Arkansas. Madame Nemerov said Selena was one of the quickest sight readers she’d ever taught, had perfect pitch. In her view Selena could’ve been one of the great concert pianists, if she’d wanted to.”

Marc said, “She thought touring around and playing Beethoven for stuffed shirts would rob her life of normalcy.”

“So this was better?” said Emily. “Doing absolutely nothing until she was twenty-one, then packing up and moving to L.A. without telling me? Without any job prospects?”

Milo said, “She ran away?”

“When you’re not a minor they don’t call it that. I came home and she’d packed her bags and left a note that she was moving to ‘the coast’ and not to try to stop her. I was frantic. She phoned a few days later but wouldn’t tell me where she was. I finally pried out the fact that she was in L.A., but she refused to say where. She claimed she was supporting herself with ‘gigs.’ Whatever that meant.”

Marc said, “She got some club dates, playing backup keyboard.”

His mother stared at him. “Well, that’s news to me, Marcus.”

“Then it’s good that I’m here to inform you.”

Emily Green-Bass’s hand rose and arced toward his face. She checked herself, shuddered. “Lieutenant, the fact that Selena and I weren’t in regular contact was her choice, not mine. She shut me out completely. I have no idea what she’s been doing all these years. It’s been hellish not knowing. If I didn’t have a business to run, I’d have come out here and tracked her down. I called the police but couldn’t provide an address, so they couldn’t tell me which station to contact. And since Selena wasn’t a minor and she had left voluntarily, there was nothing anyone could do. Their big suggestion was I contact a private detective. Besides being expensive, I knew that kind of snooping would irritate Selena, so I minded my own business, kept telling myself she was all right.”

Milo said, “When did you call the department?”

“Right at the beginning. Must’ve been… four, five years ago. I kept hoping she’d ask for money, at least I’d have an inkling what she was up to.” Swiveling toward Marc. “Now you’re telling me you knew all along what she was up to.”

Marc Green squirmed. “It wasn’t a big deal.”

“To me it was.”

“She didn’t want you to know what she was doing. Figured you’d try to stop her.”

“Why would I stop her?”

Silence.

“I wouldn’t stop her,” said Emily Green-Bass. “Now, you tell us everything you know, Marcus. Everything.”

Marc tortured his hair.

“Now, Marcus!”

“It’s nothing. I’m sure-”

“Shut up and talk, Marcus!”

“Fine. She didn’t want you to know because the scene she was in really wasn’t her thing. She was just playing music.”

“What are you talking about!”

“Mom, she swore me to secrecy, I had no reason to violate-”

“Now you do,” said Milo.

“Okay, but it really boils down to nothing. Like I said, she was playing in clubs. And that led to parties.” Turning to his mother. “Some were situations she didn’t want you to find out about because she knew you’d freak out.”

“What kind of situations?”

No answer.

Emily Green-Bass grabbed her son’s wrist and put her face close to his. “Like I’m some kind of fossil, Marc? Like I’m out of touch with reality? I like rock music. Your sister’s dead! These people need to know!”

Marc licked his lips. “I’m not talking about the music, Mom. These were… specialty parties… swinger parties, okay? Freaks wanting background.”

Emily Green-Bass let go of his sleeve. “My God.”

“You wanted to know, Mom, now you know. Selena was broke, totally busted, so she checked out the classifieds in the freebie papers, found an ad for a keyboardist to play a private party. She had her Korg, her Pro Tools, all that stuff you got her for her eighteenth.”

Milo said, “All that stuff comes with a computer, right?”

“And a cord and plug,” said Marc. “Of course it comes with a computer.”

“There was no computer in her apartment.”

“Everything else was there?”

“Appeared to be.”

“That’s bizarre.”

Chris Green said, “Someone did this for a Mac?”

Marc Green said, “Or they wanted her data.”

Milo said, “What kind of data would that be, Marc?”

“I don’t know, I’m just saying.”

“Saying what?”

“Those parties… maybe she took notes or something about what she saw and someone wanted to maintain their privacy.”

“Freaks,” said Emily Green-Bass. “Oh, Lord.”

Milo said, “Tell us about the parties, Marc.”

“All Selena said was freak parties at private homes. We didn’t get into details. Tell the truth, I didn’t want to know.”

Emily said, “The whole truth, Marcus.”

“That is the whole truth.”

“You keep saying that, dammit, then you drop in new tidbits! You were always a tease, Marcus.”

Marc gritted his teeth. “What I know is Selena played music for people having open sex in private houses. What I know is she said they wanted live music while they were fucking because they were fucking exhibitionists and fucking in front of a live fucking musician was a fucking part of the fucking high.”

“Don’t be vulgar… my God, Lieutenant, what if someone got her to do… more than music?”

“She never came close to implying that, Mom. Never. She was playing music, that’s all. Got paid well, was real happy.”

Milo said, “She quote you a figure?”

“No, and I didn’t ask.” Marc swung his chain, fingered keys. “Now that we’ve micro-analyzed Selena and violated her privacy, can you guys go and do some detecting?”

Chris said, “Chill, bro.”

Marc slumped.

Milo said, “When exactly did she tell you about these parties?”

“When I saw her the second time.”

“Six months ago.”

“She knew I was the only one in the family who wouldn’t judge her. Basically, she was laughing at it. Naked old people fucking and sucking and she’s playing Air Supply. Then she got the teaching job and that was even better.”

“How’d she find that?”

“She didn’t say.”

Emily said, “Maybe one of those perverts went crazy.”

“We’ll definitely check it out, ma’am,” said Milo. “She did tell you about her job with the Vander boy.”

“She said she had a full-time job teaching a musical genius. She e-mailed me and I answered right away. I asked her to call and she did. But only once. We had one conversation. She sounded happy.” Sniffling. “I thought she’d call again. I told her I was proud of her, asked her to come home, at least for a visit. She said she’d think about it, but she never followed through.”

Milo said, “She saved a hard copy of your e-mail, ma’am. It obviously meant a lot to her.”

“Thank you.”

He turned to the brothers. “You guys have no idea how she met the Vanders?”

Chris shook his head.

Marc said, “In music, generally it’s word of mouth-oh. You’re thinking they were freaks, heard her play at one of those screwathons and hired her? Makes sense.”

“Why’s that?”

“The filthy rich do what they want.”

Emily said, “Oh, my God.”

Milo said, “Jumping to conclusions is a real bad idea. All we know about the Vanders is that they hired Selena to teach piano. But this is exactly what we need-any possible links to people in Selena’s life. So if anyone has any other ideas, please express them.”

Marc said, “The whole rich-asshole thing makes total sense. Selena meets them at a freak show and they decide to co-opt her for-”

“Didn’t you hear him?” said his brother. “It’s way premature to-”

Marc wheeled on him. “Like you’ve had something to offer? Fuck off.”

Chris’s complexion deepened to sugar-beet. “Fuck you.”

“Stop it!” said Emily Green-Bass. “I can’t stand this, it’s like everything’s rotting.”