Sunset Express

CHAPTER 5

As I tooled north back to Los Angeles I tried to keep an open mind. Just because someone looks like a liar and acts like a liar doesn't mean that he is a liar. It doesn't even mean he's a liar when his story is full of holes. Even the truth has been known to have holes. Of course, when his story doesn't make sense it becomes a little more difficult to swallow. I could see Angela Rossi's side of it, but not LeCedrick Earle's. Rossi's report said that she followed Earle to his house because he only had the single hundred-dollar bill on his person and she knew that he could plead innocent to a knowledge of its being counterfeit; she reasoned that if he had more at home as he stated, he couldn't reasonably deny knowledge and the intent to defraud, and the arrest would stick. LeCedrick Earle said that she followed him to his home where she produced a hidden amount of counterfeit money and made the arrest. He opined that she might've done this so that there would be no witnesses, yet Mrs Louise Earle had been there and Rossi apparently consummated the arrest. Rossi's version made sense and LeCedrick Earle's didn't.

Still, people sometimes do strange things for strange reasons, and I decided to see what Mrs Louise Earle had to offer. I expected that she would support her son's claims, but in the doing perhaps she would add something to give them greater credence.

I opened Truly's envelope, shook out my notes, and looked up her address. It would be polite to pull off the freeway and call again to see if she was at home, but when people know you're coming they often find reasons to leave. I decided to risk it.

Forty-five minutes later I dropped off the Harbor Freeway onto Martin Luther King Boulevard, and five minutes after that I found my way to Olympic Park.

Olympic Park is a downscale residential area just north of USC and Exposition Park and the Natural History Museum, not far from downtown L.A. The Coliseum is nearby, along with the L.A. Sports Arena, and on game nights the surrounding residential streets are jammed belly to butt with parked cars and pushcarts and hawkers selling souvenirs and iced drinks.

Louise Earle lived in a stucco bungalow on Twenty-fifth Street, four blocks south of the freeway, within walking distance of USC. The houses and the yards are small and the drives are narrow, but the properties are neat and clean, and the Earle home was painted a happy yellow with about a million multicolored flowers blooming on her porch in about a million clay pots and wooden planters. Flowers hung from the eaves and filled the porch and two large wrought-iron baker's racks. There were so many flowers on the porch that you had to walk along a narrow path to make your way to the door. It probably took her two hours a day just to water the things.

A six-year-old Buick Skylark was parked in the drive and an air conditioner was humming in a side window. I parked at the curb opposite her house, then went up the drive past the Buick and through the jungle of flowers to her door. The Buick's engine was still ticking. Recent arrival. A little metal plaque under the doorbell said WELCOME. I rang the bell.

The door opened and a thin woman in her early sixties looked at me. She was wearing a simple print dress in a flowered pattern and comfortable canvas shoes and her gray hair had been pulled into a bun. Neat. I said, 'Mrs Earle?'

She smiled at me. 'Yes?'

I gave her my card. 'Mrs Earle, my name is Elvis Cole. I'm an investigator looking into your son's arrest. May I ask you a few questions?'

She frowned, but she might've been squinting at the sun. 'Are you from the police?'

'No, ma'am. I'm private.' I told her that I was working for an attorney named Jonathan Green, and though Green did not represent LeCedrick, the events of his arrest might have a bearing on another case.

She shifted in the door, uncomfortable and unsure about what I might want. 'LeCedrick is at Terminal Island.'

'I know. I understand that you witnessed his arrest, and I have some questions about that.' Something moved in the house behind her.

'Well, I guess it would be all right.' Reluctant. She glanced back into the house, then stepped aside and opened the door. 'Why don't you come in so we don't let all the cool air out.'

I stepped in and she closed the door.

A short, slight gentleman was standing in the living room. He had wavy marcelled hair and he was wearing a brown summer-weight suit that had probably been new twenty years ago. His hair was more gray than not, and his skin was the color of fine cocoa parchment. He was holding a small bouquet of zinnias. I made him for his late sixties, but I could've been off five years either way.

Louise Earle said, 'This is my friend, Walter Lawrence. He just dropped in, and now he'll have to be leaving. Won't you, Mr Lawrence?' She said it more to Mr Lawrence than to me, and he didn't seem to like it very much.

Mr Lawrence frowned, clearly disappointed. 'I suppose I could come back later.'

Louise Earle said, 'And I suppose you could just phone later and see whether or not a person is busy before you drop around, now couldn't you?'

Mr Lawrence ground about four inches of enamel off his teeth, but he managed a grim smile anyway. He wasn't liking this one bit. 'I suppose.'

She nodded approvingly, then took the flowers. 'Now you just let me get these lovely flowers in some water and we'll speak later.' She cradled the flowers and encouraged him toward the door.

Mr Lawrence stood very straight when he walked, trying to get as much height as he could. He mumbled something to her that I couldn't hear, frowned at me as he passed, and then Louise Earle shut the door. A couple of heartbeats later the Skylark backed out of the drive. I said, 'Ah, romance.'

Louisfe Earle laughed, and the laugh made her fifteen years younger. 'May I offer you coffee, Mr Cole, or something cool to drink?'

'Coffee would be fine, Mrs Earle. Thank you.'

She took the flowers back to her kitchen, calling over her shoulder. 'Please make yourself comfortable.'

I sat on a well-worn cloth couch with a handmade slipcover and needlepoint throw pillows. An overstuffed chair made an L with the couch and the couch and the chair were angled around an inexpensive coffee table, and all of it looked across the room at a cherry wood armoire. The armoire was open and its shelves were lined with tiny vases and knickknacks and family photographs, some of which were of LeCedrick. LeCedrick as a teenager. LeCedrick as a child. LeCedrick before choosing a life of crime. He seemed like a happy child with a bright smile. Her home was neat and cared for and smelled of the flowers.

Mrs Earle appeared a few moments later with two cups of coffee, walking carefully so as not to slosh. She said, 'That business with LeCedrick was several years ago. Why are you interested in that now?'

'I'm investigating the officer who arrested him.'

'Oh, yes. I remember her.' She put the cups on the table, then offered one to me. 'Would you care for milk or sugar?'

'No, ma'am. Then you were present during the arrest?'

She nodded again. 'Oh, yes. The police came to see me about that. They came back three or four times. Those affairs people.'

'Internal Affairs?'

'Mm-hm.' She sipped at her coffee. It was so hot that swirls of steam followed the contours of her face and fogged her glasses.

'You know LeCedrick is disputing the arrest.'

'Of course, I know.'

'LeCedrick claimed at the time of his arrest, and still claims, that Officer Rossi planted counterfeit bills in order to make the arrest.'

Mrs Earle nodded, but it was noncommittal, like she was waiting to hear more.

'Is that what you told the Internal Affairs people?'

Mrs Louise Earle gave a deep sigh and the mask of noncommittal detachment melted away into eyes that were tired and pained. 'I know he says that, and I'll tell you just what I told those affairs people.'

I leaned toward her.

'You can't believe a thing that child says.'

I blinked at her.

She put down the coffee and waved toward the armoire. 'I was standing right there when LeCedrick and that officer came in. I saw every little thing that happened.' Louise Earle closed her tired eyes, as if by closing them she could see it all again, just like she'd told the affairs people. 'The officer stood right there, holding her hat and telling me about her day. I remember that she was holding her hat because I thought how polite that was, to hold her hat like that. I didn't know she'd come to arrest him.'

'She didn't go back to his room?' LeCedrick had said that Rossi had gone back to his room.

'Oh, no. She just came in and stood there, talking with me the whole time. I was certainly angry when she arrested the boy, but she was very nice about it.' Very nice about it. I could see Jonathan Green when I related this. I could see his color drain, his eyes bulge. I wondered if he would pass out and Truly and I would have to administer CPR.

'LeCedrick claims that she accompanied him to his room. He says that she had a bag under her jacket containing the counterfeit bills.'

'It was summer. What would anyone be doing with a jacket in summer?' Louise Earle shook her head, and now there was a sadness to her. She crossed her hands in her lap. 'Mr Cole, you listen to LeCedrick and you'd think he was just the most innocent thing, but that just isn't the way it is. LeCedrick will lie at the drop of a hat, and always has.'

I sighed. So much for LeCedrick Earle.

Louise Earle said, 'Make no mistake about it. I love that child and it grieves me no end he's in jail, but he's said exactly the same thing every other time he's been arrested. It's always somebody else's fault. It's always the police out to get him. Like that.'

I nodded. 'Yes, ma'am.'

'If you're lookin' for me to say that boy is innocent, I can't. If you're lookin' for me to speak against that lady officer, I can't do that, either.' She looked stern when she said it.

'No, ma'am. I'm not looking for that.'

'He wanted me to lie for him back then, and I wouldn't. He wanted me to cover for him, and make excuses, and I said no. I said, LeCedrick, you have to learn to stop makin' excuses, you have to learn to be a man.' Her voice wavered and she stopped. She picked up the coffee, sipped, then said, 'It's cost me greatly, but it's for him. Something has to shock some sense into that boy.'

'Yes, ma'am.'

'He hasn't spoken to me since the trial. He said he'd never speak to me again.'

'I'm sorry, Mrs Earle.' I didn't know what else to say. I felt awkward and ashamed that I'd come into her life and driven off Mr Lawrence and made her relive something that was clearly so painful.

'I tried to raise that boy right. I loved that boy as much as any mother could, and tried to show a good example, but he just went wrong.' Her eyes grew pink and a single tear worked its way down her cheek. 'Maybe that was where I went wrong. Maybe I held him too close and excused too little. Is it possible to love someone too much?'

I looked at her, and then I looked at the furniture and the pictures, and then back at her weary eyes and the weight they carried. 'I don't think there can ever be too much love, Mrs Earle.'

She seemed to consider that, and then she put her coffee down again. 'Has this helped you?'

'Yes, ma'am. It has.' Jonathan Green wouldn't think so, but there you go.

She stood, and it was clear that she wanted me to leave. 'If you don't mind, then, I should clip those zinnias and get them in water.'

'Yes, ma'am. I'm sorry I interrupted you and Mr Lawrence.'

The tiny smile came back, though it wasn't as strong as before. 'Yes, well, it'll take more than a little interruption to discourage that man.'

'Men are like that, Mrs Earle. We find something worthwhile, we stay with it.'

The tired eyes crinkled and suddenly the younger self was there again. 'Oh, you get on with you, now.'

She walked me to the door and I went out into the sun and got on with me.