Midnight Baby

CHAPTER 19

I was persona non grata at the preliminary interrogation of George Metrano. So I was pissed. I made rude remarks to Mike about the ugly turquoiseness of the Long Beach Police Department headquarters when I dropped him off. Mike gave me his pager and told me he would buzz me when he was ready to be picked up. I said uh huh, and burned rubber when I peeled away from the curb.

My errands took about an hour. I dropped off the Toyota at the rental agency, argued halfheartedly about their extra mileage calculation, tried to explain about the broken window. The more I talked, the more the perky agent became confused. In the end I abandoned the discussion because I had known from point A that the window would come out of my pocket; my insurance deductible was higher than the repairs would be. The perky agent promised to bill me.

A guy who seemed to speak only Farsi drove me in the rental agency’s van to the tire shop where Mike’s Blazer had been towed. I gasped at the tire bill I was handed there – still below my deductible – but said nothing when I passed over my Visa. I hoped I wasn’t so close to the credit limit that it wouldn’t get approval.

After all that, I felt ballsy enough to call Leslie Metrano.

There was no answer, and neither her answering machine nor the Find Amy Foundation machine kicked on. Maybe they had been seized as evidence, I thought. While I was in the booth, I dialed John Smith’s number and left a message about George on his machine.

I drove up to Bingo Burgers. I was surprised how disappointed I felt when Leslie wasn’t there, either. The night before, I had dumped a huge load on her slender shoulders. I guess I wanted assurance that she was all right. And reassurance that whatever George had done, she had had no part in it.

I ordered a Coke and a side of fried zucchini, to go.

At loose ends, I drove down to Naples, to the scene of my own crime. Two police cars in the alley made passage tight, but I squeezed through without new bumps on Mike’s paint job. As I drove by the spot where I had parked the night before, I could see little glittery bits of shattered glass. But then, there were glittery bits all over the alley. Some of them could have been from my window, but not all of them.

I headed down to the bay and found a parking place in front of the library on Bayshore Drive. The sun had burned off most of the morning haze, leaving only a thin yellow pall of smog that accumulated at the base of the San Gabriel Mountains in the distance. The air was clear enough that I could see Catalina in sharp outline across the water.

Barefoot, I walked along the damp sand, sipping Coke, tossing bits of zucchini high into the air for diving seagulls to catch. Water lapped gently against the arc of shore, rocking the big boats that were moored on the far side of the bay. On that far side, I could see the mouth of the canal where the Ramsdales, and Martha, lived. Or had lived. Bright red and pink geraniums and vivid trailing bougainvillea contrasted with the green moss that climbed the gray cement bridges and clung to the seawall. I dug my toes into the fine sand, remembering how slimy that moss felt below the waterline.

When the zucchini was all gone, a pair of gulls hovered overhead, ever greedy for more.

George killed Randy. Ever greedy for more.

I sat down on the sand, and the gulls landed nearby, watching me, creeping closer, eyeing my hands and pecking at each other the whole time. I found a broken shell and drew two columns in the sand, one for George, one for Elizabeth.

When I saw them as competitors, pecking at each other as the gulls did, it all began to make sense in a corrupt way.

George acted. Elizabeth reacted. And Hillary, caught between them, ran away in fear for her life. I could see how her running could work to Elizabeth’s advantage. As long as she wasn’t identified.

I was thinking about Randy, about how no one seemed to give a damn about him, when the pager on my belt buzzed. The readout said two, as in code two, come with lights and sirens. I stood and brushed off the sand. The gulls walked close beside me until I slam-dunked the Coke cup and the empty zucchini bag into a trash can. When it was clear I had no riches to offer, they abandoned me.

The drive back downtown, following the shoreline, took less than ten minutes. At the police station the desk officer had me escorted through a linoleum maze to a far and dingy remove from the bright water out front.

Mike and Sergeant Mahakian came out of a side cubicle, laughing, to greet me.

Mahakian looked me over with rude scrutiny. He turned to Mike. “You win. She looks fine.”

“Why wouldn’t I? I asked, nonplussed to be the butt of something here.

Mike took my arm, squeezed my biceps. “Remind me not to tangle with you.”

“Mike,” I hissed. “What?”

“You neglected to tell me you broke George’s nose last night.”

“I knew I’d connected pretty well. I didn’t think I’d broken anything. Is he okay?”

“His eyes are nearly puffed shut and he’ll need to get wired together before he can smell the roses again. Other than that, he’s okay.”

“I’m sorry,” I said, feeling the heat rise in my face. “I only wanted to get away. I didn’t mean to maim him.”

“What did you use?” Mahakian asked.

“Mike’s flashlight.”

It was Mike’s turn to blush. “No war stories, okay?”

I shrugged. “Why did you page me?”

Mahakian moved a step closer. “I understand Metrano assaulted you last night.”

“He grabbed me.”

“Did he use a weapon of any kind?”

“Not really. He used the flashlight to break my car window.”

“Were you in the car at the time?”

“Yes, I was.”

Mahakian and Mike exchanged smiles. “Got it.”

“Now what?” I demanded.

“We want you to file charges against Metrano under the new stalking law,” Mahakian said. “We can make a case he’s been following you around. We’ll throw in assault with a deadly weapon, malicious mischief two counts – the boat and the tires – to see if we can talk the judge out of granting bail.”

“Isn’t murder enough?” I asked.

“We don’t have enough to charge him with murder, or even manslaughter,” Mahakian said. “Will you do it?”

“What if he files assault charges against me? I came out better than he did.”

“Don’t worry, Maggie.” Mike put his big arm around me. “I’ll come visit you.”

“I really don’t want to tell a judge what I was doing at the Ramsdales’ last night,” I said.

“Yeah, you might take some heat. But think of it as your social duty.”

“Let me talk to George and I’ll do it,” I said.

“No way,” Mike said with force. He walked back down the hall and closed the door of the cubicle they had come out of.

“Is he in there?” I asked.

Mike crossed his arms. “You can’t talk to him.”

“There’s your answer, Mike. No way.” I fluffed my hair away from my neck and turned on my heel. “I have things to do.”

Mike followed me a few steps. “Do you want George back out on the streets?”

“Yes.” I wheeled on him, and expressing the heat and frustration I felt, I said, “If that’s what it takes. I want to know what happened to Hillary. I have had enough goddam standard police procedure. If I have to beat the crap out of George to get it, I want his story. It will be a whole lot easier to get at him on the streets than in here with all you fucking Boy Scouts.”

“Tsk,” Mike said, embarrassed by my outburst, I think, but keeping up his us-guys-know-it-all facade for Mahakian. “And she went to Berkeley with all the other liberals. We don’t beat the crap out of suspects, Miss MacGowen.”

I didn’t say anything. I turned and marched down the hall toward the arrow that said rest rooms, looked for the door with the skirt picture on it, and burst through. In a white heat, muttering obscenities, I threw my bag on the counter and reached for a handful of paper towels. That’s when I saw her reflection in the chrome towel holder: Leslie Metrano huddled on the floor with her back against the blue tile wall. Her face was mottled with patches of flaming red and dead white.

I wetted the towels and dropped down beside her on the cold tile floor.

“What are you doing in here, Leslie?”

“I have no place else to go,” she said, raising her cheek from her knee. “The ladies’ room downstairs is full of bag ladies.”

“You waiting to see George?”

She shook her head.

“You can go home.”

“Never. Thanks to you, I know how George got the money to buy that house.”

I handed her the cool, wet towels, and she wiped her face with them, making it a uniform flame color. She wore her official Bingo slacks and a white shirt with a hand-knit sweater over it. She looked very young, and very frightened. And there was something else, some emotion that purred below the surface like a tiger stalking prey.

“Can I do anything for you?” I asked. “Get you some coffee?”

“No.” She dried her face on the sleeve of her pink sweater, smearing what was left of her blush and mascara. “I’m okay. They asked George if he wanted a public defender, but he told me to go hire him some big hotshot. I called our business lawyer, and he only reminded me we haven’t paid our bill. I thought I would sit in here for a while and think things over.”

“Do you mind if I’m here?” I asked.

She shook her head again.

“I know some attorneys. Maybe I could give one a call.” She looked up at me with clear eyes set in puffy flesh. “You told me you have a daughter.”

“Yes.”

“If she was taken from you, would you help the thief?”

“I would castrate him first.”

“My sentiments exactly.”

“How can I help you, Leslie?”

She leaned her head back against the wall and smiled up toward the ceiling. “Got a knife?”

This encounter was so surreal, two angry women sitting on the bathroom floor of the police station, with the source of their anger in an interrogation room down the hall. I opened my bag and took out a pack of gum that had been there for God knows how long, and offered it to Leslie.

“Maybe we can help each other here,” I said. “I’ll tell you what I think I know. If it gets to be too much, you say so. Okay?”

“One thing first. Did you hit George last night?”

“In self-defense.”

“Go ahead, then.”

“Okay,” I said. “It begins. Ten years ago, you were destitute. Five kids, no prospects. George was unhappy and desperate. Am I close?”

“Close enough.”

“After Amy disappeared, things began to look up. Friends helped. The community was generous. You and I know now what happened, but back then didn’t you wonder where all the money came from?”

“What if I didn’t want to question it too much? I just thought George was skimming the donations that came in. Is that so bad?”

“I’m not big on moral judgment calls,” I said. “Skip forward, now. After ten good years, you were looking destitution in the eye again. George felt that old desperation again. He went back to his earlier source, Randy Ramsdale. Maybe he asked for a loan.”

She shook her head. “George tried to blackmail him.”

“He told you that?”

“Round about daybreak this morning he did. He came home with blood pouring out of his nose, a big old black eye. Looked like a licked puppy. Tail between his legs, that’s for sure. He needed help and I made him talk to me to get it.”

“Are you going to tell me what he said?”

“Every word of it. From one mother to another.” She shifted to get comfortable, then she began.

“George told me he went to this Ramsdale guy and asked him to help out, maybe take a second mortgage on our restaurant. But Ramsdale said no, and he was real upset George had come by his house. He was arguing with George, telling him to leave, when she came home from school. When Amy came home, George said it broke his heart to see her, so pretty and grown up.

“Then he lied to me and told me he couldn’t stand for me to be apart from my little girl anymore. He was going to get her back. I know it was the money he wanted. But he said that he decided right then and there to tell Ramsdale to pay up, or he would go to the police and charge him with kidnapping, and he was taking Amy back. I’m not sure that last part wasn’t a lie, too. According to George, there was a big fight.”

“Amy was there? She heard them fight?”

“Part of it. Her daddy, Ramsdale that is, had sent her upstairs. He was trying to hush up George when Amy came back into the room where they were. She was crying this time, real upset. She went up to Ramsdale and asked him who George was, because she recognized him as the man she always saw in her nightmares. The man who chased her and called her Amy. She was real scared.”

“I bet she was,” I said, fighting back tears. Hillary had also told John Smith about her nightmares. How do you handle it when you’re a kid and your nightmare walks in and picks a fight with your father and you can’t wake up and make him go away? And then your daddy disappears?

I reached up to the towel dispenser for a dry towel and dabbed at my own face. “When did George kill Randy Ramsdale?”

“We never got to that,” she said. Then she started to laugh, self-consciously covering her face with her hands.

“What’s funny?”

“I have to apologize to you, Maggie.” She peered at me over her fingertips, tears running from her eyes again. “I let him blame you. George was sitting there on the kitchen chair telling me all about seeing my little girl, and I was holding this ice pack on his eye, wiping his bloody nose, taking care of him as usual. Well, I’d stayed up all night waiting for him, keeping busy fixing a few little things he never seemed to get around to. The toolbox was right there on the table beside me. I guess I was pretty mad before he even came home. When he said he made Amy cry, well, I just picked up that great big old hammer…”

I laughed. I could see what happened next. “It was you! You broke George’s nose.”

“Yes, ma’am, I did. Just picked up that great big old hammer and let him have it. Mashed his nose flat. He was so scared he didn’t even holler. Then I told him to get in the car, I’d take him to the hospital. But I drove him straight here, instead. His eyes were so swollen up he couldn’t see a thing.” She gave me a sidelong glance. “You going to tell on me?”

“I’m going to shake your hand.”

She gave me her hand, and we sat there with our backs against the wall, holding hands and laughing. That’s when Mike burst in.

“What the hell is going on?” he said, seeming alarmed.

I wiped my streaming eyes. “You can’t come in here, Detective Flint. Real women only.”

“Hello, Mrs. Metrano,” he said, sitting down beside me anyway. “We wondered where you had gone.”

“Where else could I go?” she said. “Except the little girls’ room. How’s George?”

“I think he’s felt better,” Mike said. “They’ve booked him and now they’re going to transport him over to St. Mary’s Hospital to get his injuries tended to.”

“What charge did you book him on?” I asked.

Mike smiled. “Avarice, with intent.”

“Did he talk?”

“Not a peep.”

I smiled at Leslie. “Well, lah dee dah. They should have beat it out of him.”

Leslie squeezed my hand. Her expression grew serious. “Maggie, I guess I’m ready now. I kept thinking how much it was going to hurt my kids, and my little grandbaby, to have George put in jail. But I know he never gave us one thought when he did all those things. A wife doesn’t have to testify against her husband. I know that. But I have a few things I want to say.”

“I’m proud of you,” I said.

“Me, too.” There was still some hesitation. But she took a deep breath and got to her feet, and gave me a hand up.

Leslie looked down at Mike, who was scrambling to his feet. “Get out your little notebook, Detective Flint. Time to tell all. Just one condition.”

“Name it,” he said.

“I want Maggie in there with me.”

I took her arm and turned to bat my eyes at Mike. “Hear that, detective? She wants me.”

He rolled his eyes. “Well, lah dee dah.”