Midnight Baby

CHAPTER 18

Sly was sitting at the end of his MacLaren Hall bunk, waiting for me. The bed was neatly made with a bright red cotton spread. The child was neatly made as well. Long, skinny white legs dangled from new-looking shorts with a primo surfer logo on the belt. The way he kicked his high-top sneakers, I couldn’t miss them. I wanted to snatch him up and squeeze him, but the proud smile still warned of spiky personal fences erected around him.

There were five other beds in the dorm room, each with a different, bright spread. Sly’s roommates were all in class, so we were alone except for the counselor keeping an eye on things from the hall.

“Looking sharp, Sly,” I said. I handed him a big Toys A Us bag and a box of goldfish crackers.

“How come you’re always bringing me stuff?” he asked.

“Because I like to. Does it bother you?”

“Doesn’t bother me.” He grinned, still the old con man. Out of the bag he took a Loktite kit for a scale-model Corvette and a set of enamel paints, with an extra jar of cherry red. He ran his fingers over the picture on the box, his eyes wide. “This is hot.”

“Yeah, it is. You told me you like ‘vettes. Sorry it had to be the snap-together kind of kit. They won’t let you have model glue in here. Hope it’s okay.”

“I’ll check it out.” He never gave away much, but I thought he was pleased, as much by the attention as by the gift. He seemed happy to see me, the way friends are happy. Gave me a warm glow.

“Where’d you get the hot clothes?” I asked.

“That faggot cop. He and his kid took me to get some stuff on Sunday.”

“Detective Flint?” Mike hadn’t bothered to mention a thing.

“I guess that’s his name. The one that you…” He made an appropriately obscene gesture.

“Well, you look great. Need anything else?”

He shook his head. “I’m set. They got me going to school in here.”

“How is it?”

“Not too bad. Hilly used to teach me stuff, and I liked that better. But it’s okay here. They don’t let you watch TV in the daytime, so it’s something to do.”

“Stay with it, Sly. School is your rocket, you know.”

“Somethin’ to do.” He set the kit on the bed behind him and gave me one of his wise appraisals.

“So?” he asked.

“So, what?”

“Everyone who comes to see me wants to talk about what went down, or they want me to identify some guy. So, what is it?”

“I just came by to see how you’re hangin’. I tried to get by yesterday, but, well, things happened. Sorry I didn’t make it. I heard you had a good time last night, though, when Detective Flint came and woke you up.”

He grinned. “Yeah. I couldn’t ID that weird picture he had. I mean, for sure I never saw that dude before. But the cop, he took me out for pancakes, anyway. It was like two o’clock in the morning. Hot, I mean really hot. Like, I ain’t been out after dark since they put me in here.”

“I think you’re a night owl by nature.”

“Not no more. I mean, anymore. They get real strict about how we say shit. Like Hilly, always correcting me.”

“She corrected you because she cared for you.”

He swallowed hard. “She was hot.”

I touched his shoulder. “I told your teacher I would walk you to class. It was nice they let you sleep in this morning, Mr. Night Owl.”

Sly put his kit back into the bag with the paints and stowed it all under his bed. When he stood up, he smoothed the spread with pride.

“I’ll show you the way,” he said, still serious.

We walked out of his bungalow and across the campus, this very serious and wounded little boy and I. He was, for all of his toughness, very dear. I was sure that Hillary had been drawn by the vulnerable quality he had, as I was.

In all of our conversations, Sly had refused steadfastly to say anything to me about his family. Mike had told me the family had a rap sheet with Child Protective Services that read like Tales from the Dark Side. I didn’t need to see it. All that mattered was that Sly was retrievable, and for that, in large measure, we had Hillary to thank.

The only children playing in the hazy sunshine were preschoolers on the far side of the grounds, bouncing around in a small fenced-in play yard equipped with swings and a slide. Sly watched them with a cloudy face.

Mike had told me how disappointed Sly was when he could not recognize George Metrano as the man who had slit Hillary’s throat. That’s why the treat of pancakes in the middle of the night. Mike wanted the truth. Sly wanted the man.

The windows in the stucco classroom block were open. Voices from inside floated out across the empty asphalt yard like a haunting of children; too much energy to be peacefully interred on a warm day.

I touched Sly’s shoulder again. “We’ll get him.”

“Damn straight.”

“That man in the picture? He was Hilly’s real father. For what it’s worth, I’m glad he isn’t the one.”

“Mike said the same thing.”

I smiled. “So, you do know the faggot cop’s name.”

He turned his head away so I couldn’t see the wry grin.

I stopped with him at the entrance to the classroom block.

“Got your homework finished?”

“Under control,” he said.

“Then I’ll see you later, Sly Ronald.”

He tossed his head back in cocky acknowledgment. “Later.”

With his hands in the pockets of his new shorts, he started inside. After a few steps, he hesitated, then he came back to me.

“Where is she?” he asked.

“Hillary is still in the morgue.”

“Shouldn’t there be a funeral?”

“There will be, as soon as we get this all straightened out. Will you sit with me?”

“Yeah. Don’t forget.”

“I promise.”

He squared his skinny shoulders inside his bright shirt and walked on to his class, alone.

I didn’t mind leaving him at MacLaren. But I had a sick feeling whenever I thought about Sly after MacLaren – they could keep him only so long. What would it be? A foster home? Another institution? Back on the streets?

In the ear of my memory, all the way out to the parking lot I heard Sly howl the way Bowser had the day I brought him home from the pound to sleep on my heirloom brocade sofa. There’s a whole lot more to taking in a damaged child than an abandoned puppy. Even though I understood that, every time I saw Sly it was tougher to leave him behind.

I drove the clunker rental Toyota downtown and parked in a twelve-dollar all-day lot in the Civic Center. I didn’t have all day, and I didn’t have twelve dollars in my pocket, either. As it was, I walked down to a little deli in the Civic Center Mall under City Hall and spent my last five on a chicken salad sandwich and a diet soda. The sandwich man threw in an extra kosher dill and a couple of cookies because I smiled at him. That’s what he told me, anyway.

I carried the food in a brown bag across the street to the police administration building, Parker Center, and asked the desk officer, Rayetta Washington, to please page Detective Michael Flint, Sr., Robbery-Homicide Division, Major Crimes Section, third floor, last office on the right, second desk inside the door. And to tell him that his snitch was downstairs with new information. I gave Officer Washington a smile, too, because she looked as if she needed one. She was at least nine months pregnant under her midnight-blue maternity uniform.

Officer Washington and I were discussing hee-breathing when Mike came down to the desk. He hadn’t had much sleep, and it showed in the chiseling under his cheekbones, the shadows under his eyes.

“Maggie?” he said, surprised, pleased, and cranky all at once. “What are you doing here?”

I held up the sandwich bag. “You forgot your lunch this morning, honey, and I was afraid you’d go hungry.” I turned to Officer Washington. “You know how men get when they miss a meal. Too hard to live with.”

“That’s it?” he said. “You brought me lunch?”

I kissed his face. “And you forgot to pay me last night, buster. One deluxe blow job, that’s twenty you owe me. I need it now, because I don’t have enough money for the parking lot.”

Expression dark, he took the bag and cautiously looked inside. “It’s a sandwich.”

“What did I tell you?”

“I’m waiting to hear the rest of it.”

“What? You think I have ulterior motives?”

“Or you’re drunk.”

“Okay. I want to hear the tape of your conversation with Elizabeth.”

He sighed.

“Please.”

Officer Washington had been leaning on the counter with her chin in her hand, listening to all this. “I think you better let her, detective. You say no, I don’t want to be held responsible for what she might do.”

“Thank you, Officer,” I said. “I hope you have a lovely baby.”

Mike sighed again. “What kind of sandwich?”

“Chicken salad.”

“Washington,” he said, “do you like chicken salad?”

“Yes, sir, I do.”

He put the bag on the counter in front of her and took me by the elbow. “Upstairs. I’ll set you up in an interrogation room.”

“Bon appetit,” I said to Officer Washington.

“Later, honey,” she said, grinning. As Mike and I approached the elevator, I heard her laugh out loud.

We had the elevator to ourselves. I did what I always do when I have Mike captive in an elevator: I grabbed him and kissed the breath right out of him. He cooperated without getting creative about it.

“Hi, baby,” I said when I released him.

“Jesus, Maggie.” He was trying without much success to stay cranky.

I straightened his tie. “You never told me you took Sly shopping.”

He waved it off. “Not a big one.”

“To Sly it was. You have unplumbed depths, Mike Flint. Every discovery I make about you, I like you more.”

“Oh yeah?”

The elevator doors opened on the third floor and I walked out ahead of him. As he fell in step beside me, I said, “The canyons are nice, but I could live at the beach, too.”

“Is this by way of a proposal?” he asked, nudging me.

“Just polite conversation. You didn’t seem very happy to see me downstairs. What’s going on?”

“Had a worry-making phone call this morning. From Long Beach PD. You know we’re cooperating on the Ramsdale case. So, they tell me the Ramsdale house was broken into last night. Neighbors didn’t hear the break-in, but there was a disturbance in the alley that got reported. You wouldn’t know anything about it, would you?”

“It was so late when you got home last night, Mike. I was going to tell you all about it, but, well, you were in the mood for something other than talk.”

“Sure, blame me. I saw the pictures on the kitchen table this morning. Is that where you got them? Did you break in?”

“Me?” I learned to act watching silent movies.

“You’d better go through it for me.” He showed me into a barren little interrogation room furnished with a scarred wooden table and four oak chairs. He looked grim. Weary and grim. “Take a seat. Take a deep breath. And get to it.”

“Well.” In the light of day, my escapade the night before seemed pretty lame. I did not want to go over it. But I did what Mike said. I pulled out one of the hard chairs and sat down. I smiled up at him. Mike, standing, hip propped against the table, hand resting on his pistol, did not smile back. Seems I had spent all of my magic at the deli.

“After you left last night,” I began, “I couldn’t sleep, so I went for a drive.”

“Never mind the embroidery work. Give me the bare bones.”

I squared my shoulders. “Is this conversation being taped?”

“Yes.”

I gulped, and began again. “I broke a window in the Ramsdale house, went inside, took Hillary’s photo album and her yearbook. Nothing else. George Metrano was waiting outside for me. He grabbed me. I got away by diving into the canal. I encountered him a second time in the alley behind the Ramsdale house. He broke my car window with Detective Flint’s Kel-Lite. I drove, then, to the Metrano house to show Leslie Metrano the photographs I had stolen. She identified Hillary Ramsdale as her missing daughter, Amy. I went home, and for the third time yesterday, made passionate love to Detective Mike Flint, badge number one-five-nine-nine-one. That’s as bare as I can make it.”

“Are you leaving out anything I should know?”

I shook my head. “Nothing. Except, for the record, considering that he’s a white-haired old guy, Flint’s pretty amazing.”

“This is serious, Maggie.”

“I am serious.”

“Did he hurt you?”

“A couple of bumps and scrapes. That’s all.”

“You’re sure?”

I smiled. “You saw all there was of me to see, Mike.”

He was controlled, but furious. “Why the hell didn’t you tell me about it last night?”

I slumped down in the chair, the hard back snagging my bra hooks. I was just as tired as he was, and muscle-sore on top of it. I had kept myself busy all morning because every time I gave myself some free space for thinking, the possibilities of what George Metrano had in mind for me took root. I pulled the long sleeve of my shirt down over my skinned knuckles and swallowed back delayed panic, letting it wait a little longer.

“The truth?” I said. “I didn’t say anything because I was scared shitless. When you came home, all I wanted was for you to hold me and make it all go away. I didn’t want to get into a big hassle.”

“Jesus, Maggie.”

I interrupted the lecture mode before he got it booted. “I think George had been waiting there for a long time – long enough to know there was no stakeout. He didn’t break in. He didn’t assault me until he saw I wasn’t the person he was waiting for.”

“Who was he waiting for?”

“There’s only one person left from that household to have a conversation with. And that’s Elizabeth. I’m thinking he must have been lying in wait for her for a long time, because almost every time I have gone near that house, I have run across George in some way. I want to hear what the woman said to you.”

Mike straightened up, tucked in his starched shirt. “I’ll go get the tape if you promise to sit right here and stay out of trouble for the entire minute I will be gone.”

“No sweat,” I said.

“Don’t move,” he said.

“I remembered one more thing.”

“Yes?” He had his hand on the door.

“Leslie told me that just about the time Amy disappeared, George was working in Pasadena for some people named Sinclair.”

“Once you find the right thread, it all unravels in a hurry, doesn’t it?”

“To a point. Still doesn’t explain why Hillary took off. Or why they killed her.”

“No, it doesn’t.” Mike’s eyes focused off into space somewhere. After a moment, he thumped the edge of the door with his palm. “Hang tight. I’ll be back.”

When I was alone, with the door closed, I crossed my arms on the table and put my head down on them, turning to the left side because there was a bump under my hair on the right. The foul smell of the canal water seemed to rise with every deep breath I took, like stirring fetid sediment. I closed my eyes and, dizzy, coursed down again in my memory through Randy Ramsdale’s grave. I shivered with the cold and startled upright just as Mike opened the door again.

“Sorry,” he said, setting a battered tape player on the table. “Didn’t mean to scare you.”

“Too late.” I rubbed my eyes. “Let’s hear it.”

Mike punched play.

I listened through some preliminary arguing about why Elizabeth should talk to Mike at all. A terrific, accented baritone in the background on Elizabeth’s end seemed to settle her qualms about talking when he promised to keep her locked up until her dark roots grew in, unless she cooperated.

From the description of Elizabeth given to me by the women at the yacht club, I was expecting maybe poor white trash. The woman’s voice I heard was low-pitched yet full of honey, not finishing-school or highbrow, but well-modulated. Now and then, when her temper flared, she slipped into a more natural-sounding nasal whine.

Mike worked on her gently for a while, getting her own bare-bones story. According to Elizabeth, she and a friend had sailed south a week ago, just the two of them on a little vacation, she said. They had put in at Ensenada and taken on a Mexican crew of three so they could relax – the going had been more arduous than they had expected. With the crew, they had gone on to Cabo San Lucas, doing a little fishing on the way. The friend she identified as Ricco Zambotti, an actor by profession. He was still in Cabo with her, she said, watching over the boat while the federales harassed her.

When Mike informed her that her husband was dead, there was only silence on her end. I would have given anything to have seen her face at that moment. She expressed neither grief nor surprise, no sobs, no gagging with mirth. She also did not ask how, when, where.

After a respectful pause, Mike picked up the interrogation: “Mrs. Ramsdale, when did you last see or hear from your husband?”

Elizabeth’s voice: “In February.”

Mike: “You never filed a missing-persons report.”

Elizabeth: “Why should I? I didn’t want him back. He was leaving me for another woman.”

Mike: “Weren’t you worried something might have happened to him?”

Elizabeth: “I couldn’t afford to be worried. You should see the prenup I signed. If he died or divorced me, I got nothing. Nada. If he was gone, fine. I could still use the bank accounts. I wasn’t going to go looking for him.”

Mike: “You also did not report Hillary Ramsdale missing.”

Elizabeth, after a pause: “I assumed she was with her father.”

Mike: “She didn’t pack a bag.”

Elizabeth: “So what? They were a real spooky pair. Nothing they did suprised me.”

Mike: “How spooky?”

Elizabeth: “I think it’s spooky when a natural-blond kid dyes her hair dark. Means she has something to hide.”

Mike: “What did she have to hide?”

Elizabeth, cocky: “Ask her.”

Mike: “You said you inherit nothing from Randy. Does Hillary?”

Elizabeth: “Yes. Everything. She’s the million-dollar baby.”

Mike: “And if she were to die, who would get it?”

Elizabeth: “Not me. Ask Randy’s attorney.”

Mike: “I have. I just wondered whether you knew.”

Elizabeth: “I don’t want to talk to you anymore.”

Mike: “Did you argue with Hillary?”

Elizabeth: “Maybe the connection isn’t very good. I said, I don’t want to talk to you.”

Mike: “What did you tell Hillary about her father? She must have asked about him.”

Elizabeth, angry: “She asked, all right. She nagged me until I thought I would lose it.”

Mike: “Did you lose it, Elizabeth?”

Elizabeth: “No.”

Mike: “Did you know Randy was dead?”

Elizabeth: “I told you. No.”

Mike: “You haven’t asked about Hillary, Elizabeth. Do you know where she is?”

Elizabeth: “No.”

Mike: “Tell me about your last conversation with her.”

Elizabeth: “I don’t remember.”

Mike: “If Capitan Salazar is still there with you, ask him to take you on a tour of the jail. See how you like it. Because, Elizabeth? You’re going to be there until we get ready to come and get you. If I feel like walking the papers around the Justice Department, I can have you back up here in twenty-four hours. If I don’t feel like walking, you could be down there for a year, maybe two. How long does Capitan Salazar think it will take for your roots to grow out?”

Elizabeth: “You can’t hold me down here.”

Mike: “I absolutely can. Murder is an extraditable offense. You want to talk to me some more?”

Elizabeth: “I couldn’t possibly have done it. I was in Ensenada.”

Mike: “Wrong murder, Mrs. Ramsdale. We were still talking about Randy. Did you forget? You’re not supposed to know Hillary is dead. How could you know when she died?”

What followed was a string of obscenities and the sound of flying furniture, or something akin to it. Mike turned off the tape and looked down at me.

“Can you draw me a picture?” he asked.

I nodded. “Elizabeth and friend Ricco set sail from Long Beach, alone, a day or two before the murder in MacArthur Park. She puts him off somewhere down the coast. He makes his way back to L.A., kills Hillary, rejoins Elizabeth before Ensenada, where they take on a crew so they can kick back. Could work.”

“Yes, it could.”

“So,” I said, impatient, feeling ill. “You never told me you talked to Ramsdale’s attorney. Who inherits from Hillary?”

“Her mother and father. That’s the way the will reads. Her mother and father, no names.”

“Ah.” The light bulbs flickered on, dimly, in my aching head. “Once Randy was dead, all George had to do was swoop in and claim her as his long lost to gain control of the estate.”

“You can see him killing Randy?”

“If he was desperate enough,” I said. “I think it would be easier for me to kill a man than to sell off my child. He had already done that. But if he killed Randy, wouldn’t he want us to know? No body, no payoff. Eventually, he led us to the body when he sliced up Regina Szal’s raft. But he needed cash, now. Why wait so long?”

“He had to be careful no one figured out he had sold Amy in the first place. He could find himself in deep shit.”

“Still.”

“What?” he said.

“Where does Elizabeth come in? She had every reason to keep Randy alive as long as possible. Or maintain the illusion that he was alive.”

“Don’t assume they were in it together. Say she finds her husband’s body, and deep-sixes it. What’s George to do?”

“Too weird, Mike.” I had to rub my head, counteract the throbbing. “Crime according to Newton.”

“Huh?”

“You remember – every action has an equal and opposite reaction.”

“Guess I was absent from the police academy the day they did this Newton guy. What’s the point?”

“He kills, she hides it. And so on, until they have ruined each other’s programs. It scans well. I like it.”

He nodded. “Still doesn’t explain why Hillary took off.”

“Maybe it begins to. The game they were playing was deadly from the beginning.”

A knock on the door interrupted whatever Mike was going to say next.

“Come,” Mike called out.

The door opened, a face appeared. “Long Beach PD on the line, Flint. They have your suspect in custody.”