“One of the bailiffs gave us the lead. Says the guy used to sit in on afternoon sessions, doodle, and write things down; always had a weird feeling about him. Asshole lives in Orange County and has a bunch of DUI’s, Peeping Toms, and a five-year-old attempted rape conviction. Santa Ana says their first interview was encouraging. I’m sitting in on the next one in half an hour.”
“So it had nothing to do with the Bogettes.”
“Not necessarily. Bailiff thinks he saw the asshole talking to some of the girls a couple of times. Shitbag denies any connection to them, but his room was full of their press clippings and a videotape of a TV interview with the head harpy—Stasha. Plus sundry other toys. That and the bailiff’s say-so is enough for us to pull those hags in for questioning and sweat them big-time. We’re asking for a pretty inclusive warrant before we come knocking. My bet is we find weapons and dope at that ranch, should be able to put ’em away for something.”
“Good luck.”
“Either way, I like this bastard for Shannon and Nicolette. Santa Ana found a hoop earring that might have been Nicolette’s, as well as receipts for three storage lockers in Long Beach. Be interesting to see what the scrote finds worth storing. Forensic’s still going over his place with their vacuum cleaners; it’ll be awhile before all the fibers are analyzed. Anyway, I wanted you to know.”
“Appreciate it. I can always use a little good news.”
“Yeah . . . something else. We finally ID’d Ms. Nova’s prints. Sorry to shatter your shrink’s intuition, but she’s not the sister.”
“What?”
“The real Jocasta Lowell was printed when she was a student at Berkeley. Busted at a demonstration. And again after her body was shipped back from Nepal, so there’s no doubt. Ken was there with her, by the way, so maybe he did push her off. But our nasty girl’s a piece of work named Julie Beth Claypool. Nude dancer, druggie, biker babe, bad-check artist. String of arrests back to when she was sixteen. Wrote poetry in stir. Ken met her in Rehab, couple of years ago. Love at first bite.”
“She pushes him around,” I said, still in shock.
“I wouldn’t doubt it. SFPD says she’s been known to go for the whips and chains.”
“The scars,” I said. “God, I missed the boat completely—using the Oedipal wedge to throw her off balance—maybe I wanted her to flinch so badly I imagined it.”
My heart was hurling itself against my chest wall. I’d broken out in a cold sweat.
“Talk about operating on false premises,” I said.
“What’d you tell her, exactly?”
“That she wanted to screw Ken the way she’d wanted to screw Daddy.”
“Well,” he said, “SFPD says she comes from a real shitty family. Suspected incest—brothers and Dad, back to when she was real little.”
“Oh, man. The same old story.”
“In this case, lucky for you.”
“Yeah . . . maybe I should buy a lottery ticket.”
Lucy said, “Are peaches okay? I’ve already got pears.”
The woman next to her said, “Put them in, honey. Those old people, the fruit’s good for them.”
They were standing at one of a series of long tables piled high with groceries, along with a dozen other people. Sorting canned goods and boxes of rice and beans and cereal. The Church of the Outstretched Hand’s hub was a run-down warehouse.
Men and women of all ages and colors, working side by side, quietly and cheerfully, putting together boxes for delivery and loading them into a couple of old pickups out in back.
There were other places like it, all over the city.
Newspapers, especially those in the cold-weather zones, love to portray L.A. as a Balkanized smog-blinded armed camp with no more substance than a sitcom and no more altruism than a politician. It’s not any closer to the truth than a lot of the other stuff in the papers.
Sherrell Best was packing along with his parishioners, distinguishable as the leader only because he had to break to take frequent phone calls.
He came over to us. “This is a wonderful person.”