“The
cowboy’s a player,” he said. “Sure, why not. MacIntyre’s crack about not
keeping tabs on his comings and goings was gratuitous bullshit. You saw the
layout there. He drives his truck through the trees and she’s not gonna notice?
Next d.b.: Hannabee. Though I’m still not convinced she’s part of it. Cherish
making it with Barnett spin that in any new way?”
“The
Daneys were providing support to Jane during the trial. Cherish might have
known where Jane slept at night.”
“The
fixer, again. Okay, for argument’s sake, Cherish is a charter member of the
Very Bad Girls Club. What does that say about the case the city’s actually
paying me to work on?”
“It
points to another setup,” I said. “If Cherish is dirty, Drew was telling the
truth about Rand hearing noises under the window, seeing the black truck.
Barnett Malley went after Rand because Rand knew something about Kristal’s
murder that threatened him. Something Rand told Cherish because he trusted
her.”
“She
goes and rats him out to her boyfriend. What would Rand know, eight years
later, that threatened Barnett?”
“The
obvious answer is Barnett had something to do with his daughter’s death.”
“The
boys beat and choked Kristal, no one debates it. Why would Barnett have had
anything to do with that?”
“Don’t
know.” The two of us sat staring at the fish that I’d put in the pond because I
thought it would help me relax. Once in a while, it does.
Milo
said, “Even if there is something to that, why eight years later. What are we
talking about? One of those recovered memories?”
“Or a
young man making sense of something that had confused him for years. Rand could
have come to it long before his release, but who would he tell? The prison
staff was unresponsive, they never even followed through on teaching him to
read. His only confidante was Cherish. But his trust was misplaced.”
“Once
he was out, he thought of someone else,” he said. “A guy with a Ph.D. who’d
been fair and warmhearted and objective.”
He
looked at me. “The meeting he never made. Maybe that was the point of killing
him.”
* * *
We
walked back up to the house, popped a couple of beers, and sat at the kitchen
table.
Milo
finished his bottle and put it aside. “How’s this for ugly, Alex: What if
Cherish and Malley didn’t meet at the trial. They were getting it on
before
Kristal’s
murder. She wanted to marry him, needed to get rid of the competition. As in
his existing family. So she found herself a little killer for hire and started
with the offspring.”
“Cherish
paid Troy to murder Kristal?”
“She
knew Troy from before. She’s into psychology, went looking for a cold-eyed
little psychopath and found one. Troy told you he was gonna get rich. Cherish
strung him along by promising to get him out early, with some pot of gold at
the end of the goddamn rainbow. Instead, she got him bumped. Six months later,
phase two: Lara goes down.”
“Lara
was shot with Barnett’s gun,” I said.
“So
either Barnett did her himself, or Cherish, being his girl, had ample
opportunity to pick the thirty-eight out of the collection. My bet’s on them
both being dirty. Remember how pissed Nina Balquist was about Barnett cremating
Lara instead of holding a funeral? Why be in such a rush unless you had
something to hide? And if Barnett abducted Rand, he’d have to know what was going
on.”
“The
only problem is,” I said, “it’s eight years later and Cherish and Barnett
aren’t married. Why would they go through all that for the sake of an illicit
affair?”
“Hey,”
he said, “relationships are tough. The passion cooled, whatever.”
“Not
enough to stop the motel trysts.”
“Okay,
they discovered that hot-bedding it is more fun than going domestic. Or Cherish
doesn’t want to give up all that county money and the income from Drew’s
moonlighting. Divorce usually hurts the woman, right? Look at Weider. Cherish
keeps the house, the kids, the holy-roller persona, and has her fun on the
side.”
“Could
be,” I said. “It sure fits with Allison’s guess about premeditation. Troy was
paid and brought Rand along as backup. Rand wasn’t in on it from the beginning,
but somehow he figured it out.”
He
rubbed his face hard. “Still, it’s a tough one, pinning Kristal on Barnett.
Here’s a guy waited years to be a father. He went so far as to borrow money for
fertility treatment.”
“Nina
Balquin suspects the money was never used for treatment.”
“Barnett
and Lara must’ve done something, Alex. They had a kid. If Cherish is Little
Miss Hitler I can see her trying to eliminate the other chimp’s baby. But
Barnett doing his own kid for her?”
I
heard the question but my brain was somewhere else. His mention of Nina Balquin
had flashed me back to her house. The rear wall.
I
said, “Oh, my.”
“What?”
“Kristal’s
baby photo. Her eyes. Big and brown. Barnett’s blue-eyed and so was Lara. I
remember seeing her in court, she had huge, gray-blue eyes that she was
constantly wiping because she was always tearing up. Two brown-eyed parents can
produce a light-eyed child but the opposite’s only remotely possible, through
spontaneous mutation.”
“Kristal
wasn’t the cowboy’s kid?”
“It wasn’t
until six years after they borrowed the money that Lara got pregnant.”
“Lara
got herself a different kind of fertility treatment.” His smile was vicious.
“Both of them fooling around but Lara left evidence and Barnett couldn’t handle
it.”
“Barnett
dominated and isolated Lara,” I said. “Another reason for her to go looking for
love elsewhere. Any husband would be enraged by his wife having another man’s
baby, but someone like Barnett— asocial, bad temper, gun freak— would’ve been
especially prone to a violent reaction. He punished Lara twice. First by
eliminating the fruit of her infidelity, and when that didn’t put out the fire
in his belly, he got rid of her. And if he needed encouragement, Cherish was
there to egg him on.”
“Pillow
talk,” he said. “ ‘I’ve got a solution, honey.’ Yeah, makes sense, doesn’t
it?”
“It
makes stomach-crawling sense.”
“So
how did Rand figure it out?” he said.
“He
must’ve recalled something from the time of the murder,” I said. “Spotting
Cherish with Troy shortly before the abduction. Or seeing Cherish and Barnett
together. For all we know one of them went to the mall that day to make sure
everything went down smoothly. Or Barnett’s involvement was more direct. Lara
said she only turned her head for a minute before Kristal disappeared. What if
someone Kristal knew and trusted lured her away?”
“Come
to Daddy,” he said. “Then Daddy hands her over to Troy and Rand.
Jesus . . . and Rand came to all this spontaneously, after years
of sitting behind bars?”
“Rand
knew he was behind bars because he’d been part of something terrible. Isolation
and maturation got him ruminating. He began to assess his share of the guilt.
To try to feel like a good person. Barnett and Cherish had no reason to worry
about him because he hadn’t been in on the plot. Until he began talking to
Cherish. Troy, on the other hand, was an immediate threat, and was eliminated
quickly.”
“What’s
the name of that seminary she went to?”
“Fulton.”
“Any
idea where it is?”
I
shook my head. “According to Cherish, Troy’s buried there. She convinced the
dean to donate a plot.”
“Oh,
I’ll bet she did.” He laughed and cracked his knuckles. “Cherish is a word I
use to descri-ibe . . .”
“On
the other hand,” I said.
“What?”
“It’s
a great house of cards, but all we really know about Cherish is that she’s
sleeping with Barnett Malley.”
His
face got hard. “So we find out more. That’s what life’s all about, right?
Broadening one’s horizons.”
I
walked Milo to his car. “Was Kristal buried or
cremated?”
“You’re
thinking DNA.”
“If
you ever get a sample from Barnett, it would answer the paternity question.”
“Let
me tell you about DNA in the real world. We used to send stuff to the sheriff’s
crime lab, but they’re backlogged till the next millennium, and they can’t get
the county to pay for the latest equipment so they sometimes have to send stuff
out. Department recently contracted with Orchid Cellmark in New Jersey, but
it’s a priority game: sexual homicides first, then rapes, then crimes against
minors. The quickest you can get something back is two to four months. And
that’s after you get your requisition approved by the pencil pushers. In this
case, if Kristal was buried, I’d need an exhumation order, which could take
even longer than DNA analysis, especially with no consent from the surviving
relative. Going that route would also mean letting Malley know he’s under
suspicion.”
“Just
a thought,” I said.
“On
the other hand, maybe the coroner kept something from Kristal’s autopsy and I
can send that to Cellmark . . . I’ll head over to the crypt, see
if they can find something. Ciao.”
* * *
I
returned to the house in order to educate myself about foster child
reimbursement in L.A County, and to learn more about Fulton Seminary.
The
first assignment was easy. I phoned Olivia Brickerman at home. She’s a
professor in the Department of Social Work at the gracious old university
across town, a battle-toughened veteran of the ground war that is California’s
social services system, the widow of a chess grandmaster, a frizzy-haired
fireplug old enough to be my mother and one of the smartest people I’ve ever
encountered.
She
said, “You only call when you want something.”
“I’m
a bad son.”
She
laughed, finished with a gasp.
“You
okay?” I said.
“As
if you care.”
“Of
course— ”
“I’m
on my feet, darling. Which is a positive sign, considering. So how’s it going
with Dr. Snow White?”
“Allison?”
“The
ivory skin, the black hair, the soft voice, all that gorgeous? The analogy’s
obvious. Am I overstepping boundaries, here?”
“Allison’s
fine.”
“And
Robin?”
“Robin’s
in Seattle,” I said.
“Which
begs the question.”
“Last
time I spoke to her she was doing well, Olivia.”
“So
that’s it?” she said.
I
didn’t answer.
“I’m
a terminal yenta, Alex. Slap my wrist. Seattle, eh? The Genius and I used to go
there. Before the computers and the coffee. The Genius could row a boat pretty
well, we used to go out on Lake Washington. . . . Robin still
with Voice-boy?”
“Yup.”
“Mr.
Tra La La,” she said. “She brought him by a few months ago for Sunday brunch.
Unlike other people who can’t find the time.”
“Allison
and I took you to dinner at the Bel-Air.”
“Don’t
quibble. What I’m getting to is that I didn’t care for him.”
“Robin
does.”
“He’s
too quiet,” she went on. “Aloof, if you ask me. Not that anyone has.”
“I’m
always open to your wisdom, Olivia.”
“Ha.
So what do you need to know?”
“How
well does the state pay for foster care?”
“I
was hoping for more of a challenge, darling. First of all, the state mandates
foster care and sets up basic fees but each county distributes the funds. Counties
also have the discretion to supplement the state. Traditionally, they’ve been
tight with the purse strings. The rates vary but not much. Which county?”
“L.A.”
“The
other thing you need to know is that, officially, foster parents aren’t paid. A
stipulated amount is allocated per child and the custodial adult gets to
disburse it.”
“Meaning
foster parents are paid,” I said.
“Exactly.
The basic rate varies with the age of the child. Four hundred twenty-five a
month to five ninety-seven. Older kids get more.”
“I’d
assume just the opposite,” I said. “Babies require more care.”
“You’d
be thinking logically, darling. This is the government. No doubt some number
cruncher set up a formula based on pounds of flesh.”
“What
age group gets the max?”
“Over
fifteen. Twelve through fourteen gets five forty-six, and so on down to the
babies who get four twenty-five. Which doesn’t pay for a lot of formula and
diapers. Quite often it’s family members who take the kid in and apply as
kinship guardians. That what we’re talking about, here?”
“No,
these are nonrelatives,” I said. “Can the basic rate be supplemented?”
“Wards
with special needs get extra payments. Right now the max is a hundred seventy a
month. That’s through Children’s Services, but there are other bureaucracies
you can tap if you know how to play with paper. The system’s full of goodies.”