Therapy

CHAPTER 11

I phoned Evelyn Newsome at ten the next morning. A woman with a vigilant voice answered, “Yes?” When I told her who I was, she softened.

“The police were very very nice. Is there something new?”

“I’d like to stop by to chat, Mrs. Newsome. We’ll be reviewing old ground, but-”

“A psychologist?”

“We’re taking a look at Flora’s case from all angles.”

“Oh. That’s fine, sir. I can always talk about my Flora.”

Ethel Street just south of Magnolia was a twenty-minute ride over the Glen, past Ventura Boulevard, and into the heart of Sherman Oaks. This side of the mountains was ten degrees hotter than the city and dry enough to tickle my sinuses. The marine layer had burned off, endowing the Valley with blue skies.

Evelyn Newsome’s block was lined with modest, well-kept one-story houses, most of them nailed up posthaste for returning World War II vets. Old-growth orange and apricot trees rose above redwood fences. Huge, scarred elms, top-heavy pines, and untrimmed mulberry trees shaded some of the properties. Others flaunted themselves, naked, in relentless Valley light.

Evelyn Newsome’s new home was a pea green stucco bungalow with a fresh mock-shake roof. The lawn was flat, succotash-colored stubble. Birds-of-paradise flanked the front steps. A porch swing hung still in the baking, dormant air.

A screen door covered the entrance, but the wooden door had been left open, offering full view of a dark, low living room. Evelyn Newsome’s daughter had been murdered two years ago, and her default phone voice was wary, but on some level she still trusted.

Before I could ring the bell, a big, white-haired man in his seventies appeared and unlatched the screen.

“Doctor? Walt McKitchen, Evelyn’s out in back waiting for you.” He held his shoulders high, had a florid face built around a purple cabbage nose and a tiny mouth. Despite the heat, he wore a blue-and-gray flannel shirt buttoned to the neck over triple-pleated gray wool slacks.

We shook hands. His fingers were sausages breaded with callus. When he walked me to the back of the house he limped, and I noticed that one of his shoes was bottomed by a three-inch orthopedic sole.

We passed through a tiny, neat bedroom and entered an equally small add-on den paneled in knotty pine and set up with a fuzzy green couch, prefab bookshelves full of paperbacks and a wide-screen TV. The air conditioner in the window was silent. A couple of black-and-white photos hung on the walls. Group portrait of a military battalion. A young couple, standing in front of this very house, the trees saplings, the lawn just dirt. To the man’s right was a bubble-topped thirties Plymouth. The woman held a SOLD sign.

Evelyn Newsome sat on the fuzzy couch, rotund and hunched with cold-set white hair and kind blue eyes. On the redwood burl table in front of her was a teapot swaddled in a cozy and two cups on saucers.

“Doctor,” she said, half rising. “I hope you don’t prefer coffee.” She patted the sofa cushion to her right, and I sat down. She wore a white blouse with a Peter Pan collar over maroon stretch pants. She was top-heavy, with thin legs; more sag to the material than stretch.

“This is fine, thanks, Mrs. Newsome.”

She poured. The cups were silk-screened HARRAH’S CASINO, RENO, NEVADA.

“Sugar? Lemon or milk?”

“Plain, please.”

Walt McKitchen lingered near the doorway. Evelyn Newsome said, “I’m all right, hon.”

McKitchen looked me over, saluted and left.

“We’re honeymooners,” she said, smiling. “Mr. McKitchen used to visit his wife at the board-and-care where I lived. She passed away, and we became friends.”

“Congratulations,” I said.

“Thank you. I never thought I’d get out of that place. Arthritis. Not osteo, which everyone gets when they reach an age. Mine’s rheumatoid, it’s inherited. I’ve been achy my whole life. After Flora was gone I had nothing but pain. Now I’ve got companionship and my doctor’s come up with some new medication and I’m doing just fine. So it teaches you, things can get better.” She flexed her fingers and brushed at her hair.

The tea was lukewarm and insipid, but she closed her eyes with pleasure. Placing the cup on the table, she said, “I’m hoping for some good news about my Flora.”

“We’re just starting to reexamine the case.”

She patted my hand. “I know, dear. I meant in the long run. Now, how can I help you?”

“Is there anything you can think of that’s occurred to you since the first detectives-”

“They weren’t bad,” she said. “A he and she, and he was black. They meant well. At first I had hope, then I didn’t. At least they were honest. Told me they’d gotten nowhere. The reason was my Flora was so good, no bad influences. So it had to be someone she didn’t know, and that makes it harder. At least that’s what they said.”

“You disagree?”

“Not about Flora being good, but there was something that bothered me. A while before it happened Flora had worked at a parole office. Right from the beginning, she hated it and when I asked her why she said she didn’t care for the people she had to deal with. I said, ‘then quit.’ She said, ‘Mom, it’s just temporary until I get my credential, and the pay’s good. Good jobs are hard to find.’ I mentioned that to the detectives, and they said they’d check it out, but they doubted it was important because Flora hadn’t worked there for nearly a year.”

“What did Flora say about the people she had to deal with?”

“Nothing more than that, and when I asked, she changed the subject. Didn’t want me to worry, I suppose. Flora was always protective of me. I’ve had my ups and downs, health-wise.” Her blues eyes sharpened. “Do you think there could’ve been a connection to that place? Is that why you’re here-” Her hand trembled. “The first detectives seemed sure it wasn’t important, but you know, it did bother me.”

“There’s no evidence of a connection, but it’s being looked into.”

“So you already know about it.”

“Brian Van Dyne told us.”

“Brian.” She smiled. She ran her finger over the Harrah’s logo.

“Any problems between him and Flora?”

“Brian?” She chuckled. “The two of them seemed already married. Both of them so conservative, you know? Flora liked him just fine, and he adored her.”

“Conservative in what way?” I said.

“Old for their age. Flora was always that way, she grew up fast. Then when she found Brian, I said, ‘She’s got her counterpart.’ Flora’s father was a man’s man. So is Mr. McKitchen. That’s my type, but Flora…” She shrugged. “I’m not being kind to Brian, Brian’s a nice boy. My theory is that Flora went for him because he was so different from her last boyfriend. Now that one was masculine enough, but he had other problems. But you’d know about that.”

“Why’s that?”

“The first detectives looked into him after I told them about his temper. They said he was under no suspicion whatsoever.”

There’d been no mention of a former boyfriend in the file. I said, “I haven’t reviewed every page, Mrs. Newsome. What kind of temper problems are we talking about?”

“Roy can be a nice young man, but he does fly off the handle. Flora used to say sometimes she had to walk on eggshells when Roy got in one of his moods. Not that he hurt Flora, there was never a whisper of that, he never even raised his voice. It was his quiet that bothered her- she told me he’d drop into these long, cold silences where she couldn’t reach him.”

“Moody,” I said.

She said, “I don’t believe Roy had anything to do with what happened to Flora. He has a temper, oh sure, but he and Flora parted on friendly terms, and I’ve known his family forever.” She blinked. “Truth be told, Roy’d have no reason to resent Flora. He was the one who ended it. Ended up with another woman, cheap type if you ask me. Now they’re getting divorced, and isn’t that just a great big mess.”

“You’re still in touch with Roy.”

“His folks were our neighbors back when we lived in Culver City. Roy and Flora grew up together, like brother and sister. Roy’s folks own an aquarium- one of those fish stores. Roy doesn’t likes animals, isn’t that funny? Him I haven’t seen for a while; it’s his folks I occasionally talk to. His mother told me about the divorce. I think what she was really saying was that Roy should’ve been smart and stuck with Flora.”

“What’s Roy’s full name?”

“Nichols. Roy Nichols, Jr. I told the other detectives, it should all be in the records.”

“Did Flora like animals?”

She shook her head. “She and Roy saw eye to eye on that. Neat, both of them. Everything had to be tidy. With all that, you’d’ve thought Roy would pick a cleaner job.”

“What does he do?”

“He’s a carpenter, frames up houses. I suppose it’s cleaner than plumbing.”

“Construction,” I said.

“You bet.”

I spent another quarter hour in the pine-paneled room, learned nothing more, thanked her, and left.

I reached Milo at his desk and told him about Roy Nichols.

“Bad temper, doesn’t like animals, works construction,” he said. “Something else Lorraine and Al didn’t think to include.”

“Evelyn Newsome said they talked to him and cleared him.”

“Yeah, yeah… let me run him through the county data bank just in case… I’ve got a Roy Dean Nichols with a birth date that would make him the right age… and look at this: two priors. A DUI last year and a 415 the year before that. Two months after Flora was killed.”

“Disturbing the peace can mean anything,” I said. “Given the DUI, it was probably alchohol-related.”

“I’m pulling up his DMV as we speak… here we go, an address on Harter Street. That’s Culver City, not far from Flora’s place in Palms. Are you on your way back to the alleged city? I can meet you at the station, and we’ll pay this joker a visit.”

“The Valley parole office isn’t far from Evelyn Newsome’s house. I was going to drive by, maybe go in and have a look.”

“Don’t waste your time. Flora only worked there for three days before they transferred her to a temporary branch office on Sepulveda and Venice. One of those projects funded by a federal seed grant. Small storefront offices, they opened half a dozen all over the city. Shorter distance for the cons to travel, heaven forfend we tax the poor souls. The hope was that the bad boys would be more compliant about checking in.”

“You’re talking in past tense,” I said.

“You got it. No better compliance and a few million bucks down the drain, the offices were shut down. Flora stayed on until the funds ran out, so she didn’t hate the job badly enough to quit. Didn’t make much of an impression either. Her supervisor remembers her as quiet, said she mostly filed and answered the phone. He doubts she’d get involved with a con.”

“Why?”

“He said she kept to herself and that not many cons came in.”

“Enough came in to bother her,” I said. “And Sepulveda and Venice is really close to her apartment. I’d like to know how many of the cons assigned to that office had sex-crime histories.”

“Good luck. Parole’s as bureaucratic as it comes. State office, everything’s filtered through Sacramento, and now that the satellites have closed, the records are somewhere in outer space. But if it shakes out that way, I’ll start digging. Meanwhile, Roy Nichols’s place is also close by, and he has a record that says impulse control’s a problem. And isn’t it you guys who make a big deal about psychopaths not liking animals?”

“Cruelty to animals,” I said. “Flora’s mother said Nichols is a neat-freak.”

“There you go, yet another quirk. Just the type to clean up a crime scene thoroughly. He’s worth looking into, right? See you in- what, twenty, twenty-five?”

“Zoom zoom zoom.”