The Murder Book

CHAPTER 25

By seven-fifteen, Milo and I were at the back of a long queue at the Southwest Airlines gate. The terminal was Ellis Island minus the overcoats- weary posture, worried eyes, language-soup.

"Thought we had our seats," he said, eyeing the front of the line.

"We have electronic tickets," I said. "Southwest's system is you wait for your seat assignment. They board in groups, give you little plastic number tags."

"Great… I'll take half a dozen bagels, a rye sliced thin, and two onion rolls."

The flight was booked full and cramped, but amiable, populated by seasoned, mostly easygoing passengers and flight attendants who fancied themselves stand-up comedians. We arrived early on a tarmac specked with snow and turned our watches ahead one hour. Sunport Airport was low-profile and blessedly quiet, done up in earth tones, turquoise, and mock adobe, and riddled with talismanic hints of a decimated Indian culture.

We picked up a Ford Escort at the Budget desk, and I drove north on Highway 25 toward Santa Fe, feeling the wind buffet the tiny car. Snow- clean white fluff- was banked up along the side of the road, but the asphalt was plowed clear and the sky was bluer and bigger than I'd ever imagined and when I opened the window to test the air, I got a faceful of pure, sweet chill.

"Nice," I said.

Milo grunted.

City sprawl, fast-food franchises, and Indian casinos gave way soon enough to long, low vistas of desert, bounded by the purplish tips of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains and that vast sky that just seemed to grow bigger.

"Gorgeous," I said.

"Hey, look at this," said Milo. "Seventy-five-mile-an-hour speed limit. Put some weight on that pedal."

As we neared Santa Fe, the highway climbed and the altitude registers increased steadily to seven thousand feet. I was speeding across the highest of deserts, no cactus or sandy desolation. The mountains were green where the snow had melted and so were the lowlands, bearded by wind-hardy, drought-tolerant piñon trees, ancient and ragged and low to the ground- Darwinian victors- and the occasional vertical statement of bare-branch aspens. Millions of trees, tipped with white, not a cloud in the sky. I wondered if Melinda Waters, Attorney-at-Law, had woken up thinking this was going to be a great day. Would we be a petty annoyance or an intrusion she'd never forget?

I took the Saint Francis exit to Cerrilos Road and continued through the southern part of Santa Fe, which seemed not much different from any other small city, with shopping centers and auto dealers and gas stations and the type of businesses that hug highways. Melinda Waters's office was listed on a street called Paseo de Peralta, and my reading of the map I'd grabbed at the rental counter put that right off Cerrilos. But the address numerals didn't check out and I followed the signs north to City Center and the Plaza and suddenly we were in a different world. Narrow, winding streets, some of them cobbled, forced me to reduce my speed as I rolled past diamond-bright, one-story adobe and Spanish colonial buildings plastered in sienna and peach and dun and gold. Pools of melting ice glistened like opals. The luxuriant trees that lined the road had managed to shrug off all but reminiscent flecks of snow, and through their branches streamed the sky's blue smile.

Different businesses filled the north side: art galleries, sculpture and glass studios, gourmet cookware emporia, purveyors of fine foods, high-fashion clothing and hand-hewn furniture, custom picture framers. Cafés and restaurants never tainted by corporate logos abounded, promising everything from Southwestern to sushi. SUVs were the steeds of choice, and sinuous, happy people in jeans and suede and boots that had never known the kiss of manure crowded the sidewalks.

We reached the central plaza, a square of tree-shaded green set up with a bandstand and surrounded by low-rise shops, drove past a covered breezeway where a couple of dozen down-parkaed Indians sat behind blankets of silver jewelry near the Palace of the Governors. Across the square was a massive blocky structure of fieldstone that seemed more European than American. More restaurants and galleries, a couple of luxury hotels, and suddenly Paseo de Peralta had disappeared.

"Very pretty," said Milo, "but you're going in circles."

At Washington Avenue, in the shadow of a salmon pink Scottish Rite temple, I spotted a white-haired couple in matched shearling jackets walking an English sheep dog that could've supplied the garment's linings, and asked directions. The man wore a plaid cap, and the woman's hair was long and braided and gray and set off by silver butterflies. She wore the kind of makeup meant to convey no makeup at all, had crinkly eyes and a ready smile. When I showed her the address she chuckled.

"You want the northern part of Paseo de Peralta- it horseshoes at the Plaza. Herb, where's this address, exactly?"

The man shared her mirth. At least I'd made someone happy. "Right there, my friend- just up the block."

Melinda Waters's law office occupied one of eight suites in a sand-colored adobe building that abutted an Italian taverna. The restaurant's chimney billowed storybook puffs of smoke and cooking smells that got my salivary glands going. Then I thought about what lay ahead, and my appetites shifted.

The units faced a large, open parking lot backed by a high berm and an opaque stand of trees, as if the property- the town itself- terminated at a forest. We parked and got out. The air was frigid and perfect.

Each office had its own entrance. A wooden post hung with shingles served as a directory. Four other lawyers, a psychotherapist, a practitioner of therapeutic massage, an antiquarian book dealer, a print gallery. How far was Ojai?

Melinda Waters's door was unlocked and her front room smelled of incense. Big rust-and-wine-colored chenille chairs with fringed pillows were arranged around a battered old, blackwood Chinese table. Atop the table were art books, magazines that worshipped style, a brass bowl full of hard candy, and straw baskets of potpourri. Would any of that ease the pain of bankruptcy and eviction?

Blocking the rear door, a round-faced Indian woman of thirty or so sat behind a weathered oak desk and pecked at a slate gray laptop. She wore a pink sweatshirt and big, dangling earrings- geometric and hard-edged and gold, more New York than New Mexico. As we approached her desk, she looked up without conveying much in the way of emotion and continued typing.

"How can I help you?"

"Is Ms. Waters in?"

"Do you have an appointment?"

"No, ma'am," said Milo, producing his card.

"L.A.," said the receptionist. "The police. You've come all that way to talk to Mel."

"Yes, ma'am."

Her eyes scanned the card. "Homicide." No surprise. No inflection at all. She reached for the phone.

Melinda Waters was five-five, curvy and chunky and busty in a tailored, moss green pantsuit turned greener by the wall of maroon-bound law books behind her. Her eyes were a lighter green edged with gray and her hair was honey blond, cut short and swept back from a well-formed face softened by full lips and the beginnings of a double chin. Big, round tortoiseshell eyeglasses were perfectly proportioned for the thin, straight nose upon which they rested. Her lips were glossed, her manicure was impressive, and the diamond ring on her finger looked to be two carats, minimum.

She barely looked at us, gave off an air of bored competence, but seemed to be working at that. The moment I saw her my heart jumped. Same face as in the Hollywood High yearbook. Milo knew it, too. His expression was pleasant, but cherry-sized lumps had formed where his jaw met his sideburns.

Melinda Waters stared at his card and waved us into two cane-backed chairs that faced her desk.

Her private office was rust-colored and small- tiny, really, with barely enough room for the bookcase and the desk and a red lacquer stand off to one side, set with a single white orchid in a blue-and-white pot. The walls perpendicular to the books were hung with watercolor landscapes- green hills above the ocean, live oaks, fields of poppies. California dreaming. The rest of the space bore family photos. Melinda Waters with a slim, tall, dark-bearded man and two mischievous-looking boys, around six and eight. Skiing, scuba diving, horseback riding, fishing. The family that plays together…

"Homicide detectives. Well, this is certainly different." Soft voice, edged with sarcasm. Under normal circumstances, she was probably the image of professionalism but a quaver at the tail end said she wasn't pretending this was routine.

"Different from what, ma'am?" said Milo.

"From what I thought I'd be doing right before lunch. Frankly, I'm confused. I'm not working on any L.A. cases at all, let alone homicide. I specialize in tenants' rights and financial-"

"Janie Ingalls," said Milo.

Melinda Waters's sigh stretched for a very long time.

She fiddled with papers and pens, closed her laptop, tamped her hair. Finally, she punched an intercom button on her phone, and said, "Hold my calls please, Inez."

Wheeling her chair back the few inches that remained between her and the law book backdrop, she said, "That's a name from a long time ago. What happened to her?"

"You don't know?"

"Well," she said, "your card says homicide, so am I safe in assuming?"

"Very safe."

Melinda Waters removed her glasses, made a fist, knuckled one eye. The glossy lips trembled. "Oh, damn. I suppose I knew it all along. But… I didn't really- damn. Poor Janie… that is so… obscene."

"Very," said Milo.

She sat up straighter, as if drawing upon a reserve of strength. Now her eyes were different- searching, analytical. "And you're here, after all this time, because…?"

"Because it remains an open case, Ms. Waters."

"Open or reopened?"

"It was never closed, officially."

"You're not saying the L.A. police have been working on this for twenty years?"

"Does that matter, ma'am?"

"No… I suppose not. I'm rambling… this is really… this takes me by total surprise. Why are you here?"

"Because you were one of the last people to see Janie Ingalls alive, but no one ever took your statement. In fact, it was only recently we learned you hadn't been a victim, yourself."

"A victim? You thought… oh, my."

"You've been hard to locate, Ms. Waters. So has your mother-"

"My mother died ten years ago," she said. "Lung cancer, back in Pennsylvania, where she was from. Before that, she had emphysema. She suffered a lot."

"Sorry to hear that."

"So was I," said Waters. She picked a gold pen from several resting in a cloisonné cup, balanced it between the index fingers of both hands. The office was a jewel box, everything arranged with care. "All this time you really thought I might be… how strange." Weak smile. "So I'm reborn, huh?"

The pen dropped and clattered to the desk. She snatched it up, placed it back in the cup.

"Ma'am, could you please tell us everything you remember about that night."

"I did try to find out where Janie was. Called her father- you've met him?"

"He's dead too, ma'am."

"How'd he die?"

"Car accident."

"Driving drunk?"

"Yes."

"No surprise there," said Waters. "What a lowlife, always plastered. He couldn't stand me, and the feeling was mutual. Probably because I knew he'd grope me if he had a chance, so I never gave him one- always made sure to meet Janie outside her building."

"He came on to you?" said Milo.

"I never gave him a chance, but his intentions were obvious- leering, undressing me mentally. Plus, I knew what he'd done to Janie."

"He abused Janie sexually?"

"Only when he was drunk," said Waters, in mocking singsong. "She never told me until shortly before she was… before I last saw her. I think what made her talk about it was she'd had a bad experience a month or so before that. She was hitching, got picked up by some deviant who took her to a hotel downtown, tied her up, had his way with her. When she first told me about it, she didn't seem very upset. Kind of blasé, really, and at first I didn't believe her because Janie was always making things up. Then she pulled up her jeans and her top and showed me the rope marks where he'd tied up her ankles and her wrists. Her neck, too. When I saw that, I said, 'Jesus, he could've strangled you.' And she just clammed up and refused to say any more about it."

"What did she tell you about the man who did this?"

"That he was young and nice-looking and drove a great car- that's why she said she went with him. But to tell the truth, she probably would've gone with anyone. A lot of the time Janie was out of it- stoned or drunk. She didn't have much in the way of inhibitions."

She removed her glasses, played with the sidepieces, glanced at the photos of her family. "Some lawyer I am, running my mouth. Before we go any further, I need your assurance that anything I tell you be kept confidential. My husband's a semipublic figure."

"What does he do?"

"Jim's an aide to the governor. Liaison to the Highway Department. I keep my maiden name for work, but anything unsavory could still be traced back to him."

"I'll do my best, ma'am."

Waters shook her head. "That's not good enough." She stood. "I'm afraid this meeting is adjourned."

Milo crossed his legs. "Ms. Waters, all we came here for are your recollections about Janie Ingalls. No assumption was made of any criminal involvement on your part-"

"You bet your boots no assumption was made." Waters jabbed a finger. "That didn't even cross my mind, for God's sake. But what happened to Janie twenty years ago isn't my problem. Safeguarding my privacy is. Please leave."

"Ms. Waters, you know as well as I do that I can't guarantee confidentiality. That's the D.A.'s authority. I'm being honest, and I'd appreciate the same from you. If you've done nothing wrong, you have nothing to worry about. And refusing to cooperate won't shield your husband. If I wanted to complicate his life, all I'd have to do is talk to my boss and he'd make a call, and…"

He showed her his palms.

Waters slapped her hands on her hips. Her stare was cold and steady. "Why are you doing this?"

"In order to find out who murdered Janie Ingalls. You're right about one thing. It was obscene. She was tortured, burned with cigarettes, mutilat-"

"No, no, no! None of that shock treatment, give me some credit."

Milo's palms pressed together. "This has become needlessly adversarial, Ms. Waters. Just tell me what you know, and I'll do my utmost to keep you out of it. That's the best I can offer. The alternative means a bit more overtime for me and a lot more complication for you."

"You have no jurisdiction in New Mexico," said Melinda Waters. "Technically, you're trespassing."

"Technically, you're still a material witness, and last time I checked New Mexico had diplomatic relations with California."

Waters looked at her family again, sat back down, put her glasses back on, mumbled, "Shit."

The three of us sat in silence for a full minute before she said, "This isn't fair. I'm not proud of the kind of kid I was back then, and I'd like to forget it."

I said, "We've all been teenagers."

"Well, I was a rotten teenager. A total screwup and a stoner, just like Janie. That's what drew us together. Bad behavior- Jesus, I don't think a day went by when we weren't getting loaded. And… other things that give me a migraine when I think about them. But I pulled myself out of it- in fact, the process started the day after Janie and I split up."

"At the party?" said Milo.

Waters grabbed for another pen, changed her mind, played with a drawer-pull- lifting the brass and letting it drop, once, twice, three times.

She said, "I've got kids of my own, now. I set limits, am probably too strict because I know what's out there. In ten years, I haven't touched anything stronger than chardonnay. I love my husband. He's going places. My practice is rewarding- I don't see why any of that should be derailed because of mistakes I made twenty years ago."

"Neither do I," said Milo. "I'm not taking notes, and none of that goes in any file. I just want to know what happened to Janie Ingalls that Friday night. And anything else you can tell me about the man who raped her downtown."

"I told you everything I know about him."

"Young and nice-looking with a nice car."

"The car could've been Janie's fantasy."

"How young?"

"She didn't say."

"Race?"

"I assume he was white, because Janie didn't say he wasn't. And she would've. She was a bit of a racist- got it from her father."

"Any other physical description?"

"No."

"A fancy car," said Milo. "What kind?"

"I think she said a Jaguar, but I can't be sure. With fur rugs- I do remember that because Janie talked about how her feet sank into the rug. But with Janie, who knows? I'm trying to tell you: She was always fantasizing."

"About what?"

"Mostly about getting loaded and partying with rock stars."

"That ever happen?"

She laughed. "Not hardly. Janie was a sad little girl from the wrong part of Hollywood."

"A young guy with a Jaguar," said Milo. "What else?"

"That's all I know," said Waters. "Really."

"Which hotel did he take her to?"

"She just said it was downtown, in an area full of bums. She also said the guy seemed to know the place- the desk clerk tossed him a key the moment he walked in. But she didn't think he was actually staying there because the room he took her to didn't look lived in. He wasn't keeping any clothes there, and the bed wasn't even covered. Just a mattress. And rope. He'd put the rope in a dresser drawer."

"She didn't try to escape when she saw that?"

Waters shook her head. "He gave her a joint on the ride over. A huge one, high-grade, maybe laced with hash, because she was really floating and that's what hash usually did to her. She told me the whole experience was like watching someone else. Even when he pushed her down on the bed and started tying her up."

"Her arms and legs and her neck."

"That's where the marks were."

"What happened next?"

Anger flashed behind Waters's eyeglass lenses. "What do you think? He did his thing with her. Used every orifice."

"She said that?"

"In cruder terms." The gray in her eyes had deepened, as if an internal light had been dampened. "She said she knew what he was doing, but didn't even feel it."

"And she was blasé about it."

"At first she was. Later- a few days later, she got loaded on Southern Comfort and started talking about it, again. Not crying. Angry. At herself. Do you know what really bugged her? Not so much what he did to her, she was out of it during the whole thing. What made her mad was that when he was finished, he didn't drive her all the way back home, just dropped her off in East Hollywood and she had to walk a couple of miles. That ticked her off. But even there, she blamed herself. Said something along the lines of, 'It must be something about me, makes people treat me like that. Even him.' I said, 'Who's him?' and she got this really furious look on her face, and said, 'Him. Bowie.' That freaked me out- first the deviant, now incest. I asked her how long that had been going on, but she clammed up again. I kept nagging her to tell me, and finally she told me to shut up or she'd tell my mother what a slut I was."

She laughed.

"Which was a viable threat. I was no poster child for wholesome living. And even though my mother was no Betty Crocker, she wasn't like Bowie, she would've cared. She would've come down on me, hard."

"Bowie didn't care," said Milo.

"Bowie was scum, total lowlife. I guess that explains why Janie would do anything to avoid going home."

I thought of the bareness of Janie's room. Said, "Did she have a crash pad, or somewhere else she stayed?"

"Nowhere permanent. She'd sleep at my house, crash once in a while in those abandoned apartments north of Hollywood Boulevard. Sometimes she'd be gone for days and wouldn't tell me where she'd been. Still, the day after the party- after Janie and I had split up, I called Bowie. I despised the ground that lowlife walked on, but even so, I wanted to know Janie was okay. That's what I was trying to tell you: I made an attempt. But no one answered."

"When did you split up?"

"Soon after we got there. I cared about Janie. We were both so screwed up, that was our bond. I guess I had a bad feeling about the party- about her just disappearing in the middle of all that commotion. I never really forgot about her. Years later, when I was in college and learned how to use a computer, I tried to find her. Then after I got to law school and had access to legal databases, I tapped into all kinds of municipal records. California and the neighboring states. Property rolls, tax files, death notices. But she was nowhere-"

She picked up Milo's card. "L.A. Homicide means she was murdered in L.A. So why wasn't an L.A. death notice ever filed?"

"Good question, ma'am."

"Oh," said Waters. She sat back. "This is more than a reopened case, isn't it? Something got really screwed up."

Milo shrugged.

"Great. Wonderful. This is going to suck me in and screw me up no matter what I do, isn't it?"

"I'll do my best to prevent that, ma'am."

"You sound almost sincere." She rubbed her forehead, took a bottle of Advil out of a desk drawer, extricated a tablet, and swallowed it dry. "What else do you want from me?"

"The party," said Milo. "How'd you and Janie hear about it, for starters."

"Just street talk, kids talking. There was always plenty of that, especially as the weekend approached. Everyone trying to figure out the best way to party hearty. So many of us hated our homes, would do anything to be away. Janie and I were a twosome, party-wise. Sometimes we'd end up at squat-raves- promoters sneaking into an abandoned building, or using an outdoors spot- some remote corner of Griffith Park, or Hansen Dam. We're talking bare minimum in terms of entertainment: some tone-deaf band playing for free, cheap munchies, lots of drugs. Mostly lots of drugs. Because the promoters were really dealers, and their main goal was bulk sales. Other times, though, it would turn out to be a real party, in someone's house. An open invitation, or even if it wasn't, there was usually no problem crashing."

She smiled. "Occasionally, we got bounced, but a girl could almost always crash and get away with it."

"The party that night was one of those," said Milo. "Someone's house."

"Someone's big house, a mansion, and the talk on the street was mucho drugs. Janie and I figured we'd check it out. To us a trip to Bel Air was like blasting off to a different planet. Janie was going on and on about partying with rich kids, maybe finding a rich boyfriend who'd give her all the dope she wanted. As I said, she loved to fantasize. The truth is we were both such losers, no wheels, no money. So we did what we always did: hitched. We didn't even have the address, guessed once we got to Bel Air, we'd figure it out. I picked Janie up at her place Friday afternoon, and we hung out on Hollywood Boulevard most of the day- playing arcade games, shoplifting cosmetics, panhandling for spare change but we didn't get much. After dark, we walked back down to Sunset where the best hitching was but the first corner we tried was near some hookers and they threatened to cut our asses, so we moved west- between La Brea and Fairfax, where all the guitar stores are. I remember that, because while we waited for a ride, we were looking at guitars in windows and saying how cool it would be if we started a girl band and got rich. No matter that neither of us had a lick of talent. Anyway, finally- we must've have been waiting there over an hour- we got picked up."

"What time?" said Milo.

"Must've been nine, ten."

"Who picked you up?"

"A college student- nerdy type, said he went to Caltech, but he was heading to the U. because he had a date with a girl there and that was really close to Bel Air. He had to tell us that, because we had no idea- I don't think either of us had ever been west of La Cienega, unless we were taking the bus straight to the beach, or, in my case, when I visited my father at the Navy base in Point Mugu. The nerd was a nice guy. Shy, probably picked us up on impulse and regretted it. Because we immediately started hassling him- turning the radio to our station, blasting it loud, teasing him- flirting. Asking him if he wanted to come to the party with us instead of some lame date with a college girl. Being real obnoxious. He got embarrassed, and that cracked us up. Also, we were hoping he might take us all the way to the party, because we still had no idea where it was. So we kept nagging him, but he said no, he liked his girlfriend. I remember Janie getting really rude about that, saying something to the effect of 'She's probably colder than ice. I can give you something she can't.' That was the wrong thing to say. He stopped the car at Stone Canyon and Sunset and ordered us out. I started to, but Janie held me back, started ragging on him to take us to the house, and that just made him angrier. Janie was like that, she could be extremely pushy, had a real talent for getting on people's nerves. The nerd started shouting and shoved Janie and we got out and she flipped him off as he drove away."

"Stone Canyon and Sunset. Close to the party."

"We didn't know that. We were ignorant. And drunk. Back on the boulevard, we'd also boosted a bottle of Southern Comfort, had guzzled our way through most of it. I hated the stuff, to me it tasted like peaches and cough syrup. But Janie loved it. It was her favorite high. She said it was what Janis Joplin had been into and she was into Janis Joplin because she had some idea that her mom had been like Janis Joplin, back in the hippie days. That she'd named Janie after Janis."

"Another fantasy," I said.

She nodded. "She needed them. Her mom abandoned her- ran away with a black guy when Janie was five or six, and Janie never saw her again. Maybe that's another reason Janie always made racist comments."

Milo said, "What'd the two of you do after you were dropped off?"

"Started walking up Stone Canyon and promptly got lost. There were no sidewalks, and the lighting was very bad. And no one was around to ask directions. All those incredible properties and not a soul in sight, none of the noises you hear in a real neighborhood. It was spooky. But we were having fun with it- an adventure. Once we saw a Bel Air Patrol car driving our way, so we hid behind some trees."

She frowned. "Complete idiocy. Thank God my boys aren't hearing this."

"How'd you find the party?"

"We walked in circles for a while, finally ended up right where we started, back at Sunset. And that's when the second car picked us up. A Cadillac, turning onto Stone Canyon. The driver was a black guy, and I was sure Janie wouldn't want to get in- with her it was always 'nigger' this, 'nigger' that. But when the guy rolled down the window and shot us this big grin, and said, 'You girls looking to party?' Janie was the first one in."

"What do you remember about the driver?"

"Early twenties, tall, thin- for some reason when I think of him I always think of Jimi Hendrix. Not that he was Hendrix's spitting image, but there was a general resemblance. He had that rangy, mellow thing going on, loose and confident. Played his music really loud and moving his head in time."

"A Cadillac," said Milo.

"And a newer one but not a pimpmobile. Big conservative sedan, well taken care of, too. Shiny, fresh-smelling- sweet-smelling. Lilacs. Like it belonged to an old woman. I remember thinking that, wondering if he'd stolen it from an old woman. Because he sure didn't match the car, dressed the way he was in this ugly denim suit with rhinestones all over it, all these gold chains."

"What color?"

"Something pale."

Milo opened his briefcase, removed Willie Burns's mug shot, handed it across the desk.

Melinda Waters's eyes got big. "That's him. He's the one who killed Janie?"

"He's someone we're looking for."

"He's still out there?"

"Maybe."

"Maybe? What does that mean?"

"It's been twenty years, and he was a heroin addict."

"You're saying he'd have a poor life expectancy," she said. "But you're still looking for him… why has Janie's murder been reopened? What's the real reason?"

"I was the original detective on the case," said Milo. "I got transferred off. Now, I've been transferred back on."

"Transferred back on by your department or you requested it yourself?" said Waters.

"Does it matter, ma'am?"

She smiled. "It's personal, isn't it? You're trying to undo your own past."

Milo smiled back, and Waters returned the mug shot. "Wilbert Burns. So now I have a name."

"He never introduced himself?"

"He called himself our new friend. I knew he was a junkie as well as a dealer. From how spacey he was- slurring his words. Driving really slow. His music was junkie music- slow jazz- this really draggy trumpet. Janie tried to change the station, but he put his hand on hers and she didn't try again."

"How'd you know he was a dealer?" said Milo.

"He showed us his wares. Carried one of those men's purses and had it on the seat next to him. When we got in, he put it in his lap and after we were driving for a while, he zipped it open, and said, 'How about a taste of something sweet, ladies?' Inside were envelopes of pills and little baggies full of white stuff- I couldn't tell you if it was coke or heroin. That stuff I stayed away from. For me it was just grass and alcohol, once in a while acid."

"What about Janie?"

"Janie had no boundaries."

"Did she sample Burns's wares?"

"Not in the car, but maybe later. Probably later. Because she and Burns got something going on right from the beginning. All three of us were in the front seat, Janie alongside Burns and me next to the door. The minute he started driving she started in- flipped her hair in his face, rested her hand on his leg, started moving it up."

"How'd Burns react to that?"

"He loved it. Said 'Ooh, baby,' stuff like that. Janie was giggling, both of them were laughing at nothing in particular."

"Despite her racism," I said.

"I couldn't believe it. I elbowed her a couple of times, as in, 'What's going on?' But she ignored me. Burns drove to the party- he knew exactly where it was, but we had to park up the road because there were so many cars there."

"Did he say anything about the party?" said Milo.

"He said he knew the people throwing it, that they were rich but cool, it was going to be the finest of the fine. Then, when we got there, he said something along the lines of, 'Maybe the president'll show up.' Because the house had huge pillars, like the White House. Janie thought that was hilarious. I was pretty put out by then, felt like Janie was shutting me out."

"What happened next?"

"We went inside the house. It was vacant and rancid-smelling and pretty much trashed, with beer cans and bottles and Lord knows what else all over the place. Kids running around everywhere, no band, just loud tapes- a bunch of different stereos set up all over the place, really cacophonous, but no one seemed to care. Everyone was blasted, kids were walking around looking dazed, bumping into each other, girls were on their knees, going down on guys right in the middle of the dance floor, there'd be couples dancing and right next to them, other couples would be screwing, getting kicked, stepped on. Burns seemed to know a lot of people, got plenty of high fives as we walked through the crowd. Then this funny-looking, kind of dumpy girl showed up out of nowhere and latched on to him."

"Funny-looking, how?"

"Short, fat, zits. Odd- spaced-out. But he immediately got all kissy-kissy with her, and I could see Janie didn't like that." Waters shook her head. "She'd known the guy all of fifteen minutes, and she was jealous."

"Janie do anything about that?"

"No, she just got this ticked-off look on her face. I could read it because I knew Janie. Burns didn't see it- or he didn't care. Threw one arm around the dumpy girl, the other around Janie, and led both of them off. That little purse of his bouncing on his shoulder."

"And you?"

"I stayed behind. Someone handed me a beer and hands started groping me. Not delicately. It was dark, and whoever was doing it started to get rough, yanking at my clothes. I broke away, started walking around, looked for a quiet room to mellow out in, but there was none. Every inch of that place was party-time. Guys kept putting their hands all over me, once in a while someone would pull me hard onto the dance floor and rather than fight it, I'd just dance for a while, then make my escape. Then the lights went out and the house got even darker and I could barely see where I was stepping. The Southern Comfort in my system wasn't helping, either. I felt nauseous, dizzy, wanted to get out of there, looked some more for Janie, couldn't find her, and got angry at her for bailing on me. Finally, I told myself forget her and the next time someone pulled me onto a dance floor, I danced for a while. And when someone offered me a pill, I swallowed it. The next thing I remember is waking up on the floor of an upstairs bathroom, hearing shouts that the cops were going to roust the party and running out of there along with everyone else- it was like a stampede. Somehow I ended up in the back of someone's truck, bouncing along Sunset."

"Whose truck?"

"A bunch of guys. Surfer types. They ended up at the beach, Santa Monica or Malibu, I couldn't tell you which. We partied some more, and I fell asleep on the sand. The next morning, I woke up and I was alone. Cold and wet and sick to my stomach. The sun was rising over the ocean and I suppose it was gorgeous but all I could think about was how lousy I felt. Then I thought about my father- stationed up at Mugu and I started crying and got it into my head that I had to go see him. It took me four hitches to get up there and when I reached the base, the sentry wouldn't let me through the gate. I started crying again. It had been a long time since I'd seen my dad. He'd remarried, and his new wife hated me. Or at least that's what my mother was always telling me. Whatever the truth was, he'd pretty much stopped calling. I bawled like a baby, and the sentry made a call and told me my dad wasn't there, he'd shipped out to Turkey three days before. I just broke down and I guess the sentry felt sorry for me because he gave me all the money in his pocket- thirty-three dollars and forty-nine cents." She smiled. "That I remember precisely."

Reaching under her glasses, she fingered the inside corners of her eyes. "Finally, someone was being nice to me. I never thanked him, never knew his name. Walked back to PCH, stuck out my thumb, caught a ride with some Mexicans heading over to Ventura to pick cabbage, just kept thumbing my way up the coast. My first stop was Santa Cruz, and I stayed there a while because it was beautiful and there was this retrohippie thing going on, plenty of free food and parks to sleep in. Eventually, I moved on to San Francisco, Crescent City, Oregon, Seattle, back down to Sacramento. The next ten years are kind of a blur. Finally, I got it together- you don't want to know the boring details."

"Like I said, we want to maintain your privacy."

Melinda Waters laughed. "Thanks for the thought."