Midnight Baby

CHAPTER 14

John Smith Investigations was a cubbyhole office in a handsome downtown high rise. No reception room, no receptionist, and no one waiting ahead of me. Sitting in the client chair by Smith’s desk, if I angled my head just so, I could see a tease of ocean shimmer in the single window.

“I know your findings are confidential, Mr. Smith,” I argued. “But your client is deceased. I believe that something Hillary Ramsdale told you, or perhaps gave to you, might be crucial to the investigation into her murder, and her father’s murder as well.”

Smith sighed and gazed away in search of that bit of ocean view. He was maybe fifty, a burly, balding former cop in a good gray suit. He had a bravery commendation certificate on his wall next to a dartboard with J. Edgar Hoover’s face behind the target. There was also a framed diploma from a storefront law school. It was a cheesy law school, and a cheesy frame. I thought it could only help his credibility if he took it down. After a few minutes of conversation, I knew he was smarter than his alma mater suggested.

“I don’t know what to tell you,” he said after thinking over my proposition. “If I want to give information to anyone, it will be to the police. You’re cute as a bug, Miss MacGowen, but so was Mata Hari. How do I know who you are or what you’re up to?”

“My best local reference is a Los Angeles homicide detective,” I said. “The one I told you would be very upset if he knew I was here. I can hardly have you call him.”

He steepled his fingers and propped his fleshy chin on them. “You understand my position, don’t you?”

Smith had a tooth-sucking smugness I didn’t care for. He leaned back in his big swivel chair so he could sight down his nose at my breasts. I wondered if the printed parrots on my shirt might have eyes just there to meet his stare. I didn’t look down to see.

My mother’s Texan cleaning woman always told me sugar attracts more flies than vinegar. In that case, it was spelled sugah.

“Mr. Smith,” I cooed, “be a sport.”

He chuckled wryly, a no sale. “Sorry.”

I nodded, looking around, appraising the Spartan furnishings.

“You’re in a high-rent district,” I said.

“Address is important.”

“Uh huh. The police won’t pay you a dime for what you have.”

“And you will?” He leaned closer to me across the vinyl veneer desk. “What you’re asking me to do is highly unethical, thoroughly immoral, and probably illegal. How much do you think my eternal soul might be worth?”

“What is your standard fee?”

“Two-fifty a day plus expenses.”

“I see,” I said, leaning closer myself. “What if I hired you to continue with Hillary Ramsdale’s case?”

“What if?” he repeated.

“If I were your client, I would ask to see the progress you have made to date.”

“Go on.”

“That’s it,” I said, sitting back. “How many more days do you think you would need to complete the job?”

“Tell me one thing. Why is it so all-fired important for you to get into this? You’re not a relative. You hardly knew the kid.”

I raised my palms. “Who else does she have?”

“You tell me.”

The pictures in my bag were showing some wear. One more time, I took them all out, Amy and Pisces both, and spread them on the desk facing Smith. This time, I added the snap of Hillary heading off to kindergarten.

“Amy Metrano. Hillary Ramsdale. One is missing. One is dead. Why do their names keep coming up together?”

Smith sucked his teeth some more, thinking hard, studying the girls. Finally, he straightened up and looked me in the eye.

“My client relationship with Hillary legally ended when she died. Now that I have been informed about her death, I feel obligated to offer to the police anything I have that pertains.”

“So why did we go through this little exercise?” I asked, testy.

“Just hear me out,” he said. “If someone happened to be sitting in my office when I perused any such materials preparatory to forwarding them to the police…”

“What fee would that someone be prepared to pay you?”

“There is no fee for sitting in that chair, Miss MacGowen.” He opened his long desk drawer and took out a legal-size envelope. “If you will excuse me, I will now inventory certain documents. I will trust you to respect their confidential nature.”

I sat up again and watched him open the envelope. He took out two items. The first was a United States passport. The second was a yellowed newspaper clipping.

I picked up the passport, and he didn’t stop me. I read the name inside: Randall Ramsdale. The last visa stamp was two years old. A big discovery for a little girl.

Carefully, I unfolded the brittle clipping. It was an early news article about Amy Metrano’s disappearance. There was a photograph of her, and a plea for information. A copy of that same photo was on the desk in front of me, of Amy looking up with a clearer gaze than the newsprint version. It was a standard studio portrait, maybe a school picture, of a little blond girl with tight ponytails and a high forehead. Someone had taken a brown felt pen and colored in a shag hairdo.

Smith creased the clipping photo down the center, bisecting Amy’s face. Then he laid it on top of Hillary’s kindergarten picture so that the face was now half Amy, half Hillary. The two halves didn’t match exactly; they were different sizes and taken from different angles. Hillary had a small dimple in her chin that Amy did not. But the eyes and the lift at the edge of the smiles were very close.

“Who drew in the hair?” I asked.

“I could only guess. This is the way Hillary gave it to me.”

“Did she think she was Amy?”

“Hillary was a very confused little girl,” he said. “She told me when she was little she had nightmares about people calling her Amy. It bothered her enough she told her daddy. Daddy said it was an old baby name for her. Amie, French for girlfriend, ‘cuz she was his girlfriend. Kids generally buy the shit their parents sell them. So she named one of her dolls Amy and forgot about it like he told her to. Until she found the clipping. That made her keep looking. When she found her father’s passport, she got really scared.”

“That’s when she came to see you?”

“That’s it.”

“What did she expect you to do?”

“Find her daddy.”

“Meaning Randy Ramsdale?”

He nodded. “I did what I could, given what I had. Tell you the truth, I didn’t take her real serious when she walked in. Men take off after fights with their wives all the time. Pretty soon they show up again. When they do, they’re generally carrying one of two things, a big bouquet of flowers or the name of an attorney. That didn’t satisfy her. She needed to know, and she had my fee, so I went through the drill. I changed my mind about things when I found out Randy hadn’t been using his credit cards. A man with his credit history doesn’t suddenly cut up his cards. Not when he’s away from home.”

“Did you tell the police?” I asked.

“Tell them what? The Ramsdales had a fight?”

“Randy was dead,” I said.

“How were we to know?”

He was right. I shrugged off my annoyance.

“What about the clipping?” I asked.

He gave me a crooked smile. “Would you believe the Metranos still have an information hot line for Amy?”

“I know. I called it. Breaks your heart, doesn’t it?”

“I guess. I called it, too. I asked Mr. George Metrano why Randy Ramsdale would keep an old news clipping about Amy. He said a lot of people had been interested. Maybe Randy just forgot to throw it away.”

“He didn’t jump on it?”

“Yes he did. With both feet. I set up a meeting with him and the girl at my office, but he didn’t show. Called later and apologized. Said he wrote down the time wrong, or some such shit.”

“Did they ever get together?”

“Not in my presence. I assume they both had access to the telephone directory, though. They could have set up something themselves. I warned Hillary not to see him alone for any reason. I also told her she needed an attorney, pronto. That stepmother seemed to have been left with custody of all the community assets. I thought the kid needed someone to look after her interests.”

“Did she take your advice?”

“Don’t know. I saw her exactly twice. I called to make a follow-up report. I got the stepmother. She told me Hillary’s father had come and fetched her.”

“You believed her?”

The question made him very uncomfortable. I was beginning to feel like the schoolmaster grilling a naughty child. Smith very obviously was being pricked by the topic, as if he hadn’t done his homework and was being asked to recite from it.

He took in a deep breath and finally looked me in the eyes. “I didn’t believe or disbelieve. From the very first, I had been expecting Daddy to come home. I thought, as soon as the old guy got his rocks off with the new woman, he would get back to the details. Like the kid.”

“Small detail, huh?”

He shrugged. “Hillary called sometime after, left a message on my machine. She just said everything was cool, and thanks.”

“You’re sure it was Hillary?”

“At the time I was.”

“And that was it?”

“The end.”

“You have been a fount of information, Mr. Smith. I’m not sure what to do with it, but I’m sure it will help.”

“Are you?” He had gazed off toward the window again. “To tell you the truth, I’m thinking I didn’t earn the money Hillary gave me. I was looking for her daddy. But I’m thinking I should have given the Amy angle more attention. Where I let her down is, I didn’t think a kid with her background could have a problem as big as hers was. I guess I never did take her sufficiently serious.”

I gathered up the pictures again and put them away. “Just one more question.”

“Shoot.”

“When did Hillary first come to you?”

“I can tell you.” He flipped through the appointment calendar beside his telephone. “March. March fifteenth.”

“That fits.”

He thought that over for a moment. Then he looked back at the parrots on my chest.

“May I call you Maggie?”

“Most people do.”

“You’re an attractive woman, Maggie,” he said, seeming to have revived some spirits. “But more important, I think you have a fine mind. I admire a woman with brains.”

“Thanks. The point is?”

“I’d like to kick this all around some more with you. Put together everything we have, and really get down and dirty. I thought that if you didn’t have plans for dinner, we could go up to my place, order up a pizza. See what two good minds can do together.”

I stood up and hefted my bag. “I appreciate the offer, Mr. Smith. If I may call you Mr. Smith. I’m sure we could come up with something if we put our heads together. But I must decline your kind invitation. I would not want to be responsible if something happened to you.”

He stood up, too. “Don’t worry about me. I think I could go head to head with this razor-happy asshole.”

“Perhaps you could. That isn’t where the danger lies, however, Mr. Smith. If I read you correctly – and my fine mind is a real good interpreter of innuendo, subtle or otherwise – the danger would come in the form of the homicide detective who is expecting me for dinner.”

He had the grace to laugh.