Chapter 29
TWENTY-NINE
Rikki
Roberta Matlock has taken me inside, nearly dragging me because she’s as overcome with excitement as I am with shock. “I have newspapers,” she says. “We can find yearbooks. I’m just floored that little sad-faced girl grew up to be Julie Larimore.”
We go down the narrow wooden hall that leads to the staircase. A couple of customers browse. Roberta pays them no mind, lifting her long skirt as she steers her large, graceful body up the carpeted steps.
“If I don’t have anything up here, I’ll have it at home.”
The upstairs office is a conglomeration of statues and flowers, much like Roberta’s backyard.
File cabinets line every wall except the one with a window.
It’s open, and the sun fills the room with yellow light, the same color as the organdy curtains that look as if they belong in a nursery.
Roberta goes to one of the files and begins digging.
“Computers don’t keep track of the newspaper stories worth a tinker’s dam, so I’ve got my own filing system. ”
“What are you looking for?” I ask.
She turns, gives me a wild-woman stare, and for that second, I feel as if I’m back in third grade. “You’re a journalist. You want proof, don’t you?”
“You think you can find a photograph of her?” I indicate the haphazard stacks of yellow paper. “In there?”
“I didn’t say I could do it in five minutes or even a day.
It’s going to take a while. Can’t remember her last name, either, but I can remember the story.
She left after that. Went to live in a foster home in the Santa Barbara area, and he—dam, can’t remember if he finally died or if he just left after they sold the house. ”
“Calm down.” Now I’m the one with the schoolteacher voice. “I’m not sure who you’re talking about.”
“Sorry.” She sighs, for the first time looking her age. “This has me so rattled. You must think I’m an old dingbat.”
“Of course I don’t. Just take it easy. You said you didn’t know if he died or not.”
“That’s right.”
“Who’s he?”
“Why, Julie’s father,” she says, back on track again. “She tried to kill him.”
Tania Marie
Almost an hour passed, and Rikki didn’t return her call. Tania Marie’s courage passed along with the time. Why had she listened to Jay Rossi? If she told Rikki Fitzpatrick about seeing Julie Larimore, she’d have to tell the truth about herself, too.
She picked up the remote, pointed it at the open armoire containing her television. She needed to relax, channel surf, maybe watch wonderful Wolfgang Puck create some amazing dish.
She heard Marshall’s voice moments before she saw his face. Damn her luck! The bastard was ubiquitous, not to mention gorgeous, with the gray hair, the sad, wise eyes. She couldn’t get away from his image, his voice, his memory.
She’d stumbled upon some history channel showing his elder-statesman pose.
His gaze, thoughtful, yet certain, he talked about the Wright brothers, Charles Lindbergh, Amelia Earhart, Chuck Yeager, John Glenn, Sally Ride.
“The wonder of flight,” he called it, then with that trademark wiseass chuckle, “and all since 1903.”
“Fly home to your skinny wife,” she shouted at the screen. “Fly back to whoever took on my job after you got me fired.”
One click, and his image disappeared as abruptly as if it hadn’t existed in the first place.
The refrigerator beckoned.
What had she heard at the meetings? Put the healthful foods in front so that they are the easiest to reach?
She opened the stainless-steel door. All of the veggies and the Laughing Cow one-point cheese were right in front, so that she couldn’t possibly ignore them.
Could she? She even kept her mini-bagels in there, next to the tomato juice.
She could stick one in the toaster, spread it with the Laughing Cow.
As she thought about it, she opened the freezer, digging far back, past Virginia’s care packages, finding what she needed, by touch, knowing it the moment she connected with its smooth surface.
Frigging Milanos. She could taste the sweet shortbread outside, the bitter chocolate bite of filling.
Her trigger food, as they called such things at the meetings.
She’d put them in here months before, to save for a special occasion. Well, this was it.
Tania Marie washed down the package with icy cold milk. What was it about standing up that made one feel less guilty, as if the food eaten that way didn’t count? What made it count even less if you left the refrigerator door open when you did it?
Now, with every delicious crumb licked away, she felt stuffed and shamed, and not at all ready to talk to the reporter.
So, that of course, was the moment she chose to call.
“What took you so long?” She felt like sobbing again. Jay Rossi had deserted her, and now Rikki Fitzpatrick had, too.
“I was following a lead on Julie Larimore.”
“I might—” She swallowed hard, still tasting the Milanos. “I think I might have one, too.”
“I’m parked in front of your apartment,” Rikki Fitzpatrick said. “Come on out.”
Rikki
It’s late by the time I leave Tania Marie.
I’m still trying to figure out what I should do next.
I need to visit the San Diego hospital and try to confirm her story about Julie Larimore.
I need to go back to Los Olivos and talk to more people who might remember Julie and the childhood scandal that sent her away from there.
The hospital is first. I call from the car that night.
As I suspect, there’s no one to talk to me.
I’ll have to wait until Monday and go in person.
I’m still not sure I believe Tania Marie, although I know she’s convinced the person she saw was Julie Larimore.
I just need to find out, and I can’t do that until Monday.
There’s something else driving me as my car moves instinctively toward the freeway, as if it already knows something I don’t.
I need to talk to Pete. That’s crazy. I can just call him.
A sure instinct pushes me forward all the same.
He would have been my cousin’s husband. I must sit down with him face-to-face.
And I must ask the questions neither of us wants to hear.
Why now? I’ve waited this long. Why not wait a little longer until the pain of loss dulls, as it must, the way all pain does? But, no. I have to ask, and I have to ask now. I can be there in under four hours, and then, once I have my answers, I can decide where to go next.
Before seeing him, though, I have to visit someone else. I’ve put it off too long.
The Interview
What if they find out?
They can’t find out. You can’t let that happen. There’s too much at stake. Only one person knows. She recognized me at the clinic. I saw it in her face before she turned away.
And the reporter? She’s digging into your past, trying to ruin your name.
Her, too. She has to be stopped.
The doctor?
He’ll never say anything. He’s afraid for himself. They’re all afraid. I won’t go back there. I’ll be all right if everyone will just go away.
And the other women?
Leave them alone. It’s Tania Marie. She’s the one.
The cramps swallow up everything but the fear. No one must find me. No one. Just go away now, if you love me. Leave me alone in the Secret Hours. I’m hungry, and there’s so little time before dawn.
Rikki
I hadn’t expected it to get dark so fast. I make my visit, anyway, following the tenuous black ribbon of Belmont Avenue. It might be easier at night, I reason, without that verdant, sunlit reminder of everything that remains behind when someone we loves leaves this earth.
The cemetery is the brightest place on the abandoned street. Perhaps that’s why the looters and trashers loot and trash the fast-food places and tire shops, instead. They don’t want to step into the spotlight of this world. Neither do I, but I have no choice.
The ribbon gets skinnier and darker. Damn, would she want me to do this? Of course she would. She’d expect it. I try not to register the graves that stand like stark road signs. I just move, realizing I’m not sure where it is. I don’t even know where my own cousin is buried.
Then I see the car. Black. Understated. Clean as rain. Pete’s. I stop, trying to decide if I should invade his life while he’s out here, mourning. As am I.
No. I’d better drive on.
Then I hear a noise. See him approaching me. I stop, roll down my window.
“Sorry,” I say. “I just felt it was time.”
“I’ll leave you alone, then.”
Tears shine on his cheeks.
“I need to talk to you,” I say. “I wanted to stop here first.
“I didn’t think—”
“I come every night.”
Do I really want to go through with this, put both of us through more than we’re already suffering? “I’ll call you tomorrow morning. We can get together before I go back.”
“Let me buy you a drink,” he says.
“Where?”
“I don’t know. It’s Friday night all over town.”
“I’m not sure I can deal with that.”
“Me neither. Junior Pacheco’s little brother’s got a match out at the casino. I promised Junior I’d meet him there.”
Ringside Lewis, Lisa used to call him. “You love your boxing.”
“I love Junior.” His voice catches.
Junior was to be best man, and Troy, one of the groomsmen at the wedding that death called off. Lisa and Pete never missed one of Troy’s fights, even before he was a contender. Now Pete is probably going as much for Lisa, for the memory of the two of them, as he is for Junior Pacheco.
“I know. You and I can talk tomorrow.”
“Meet me there, Rikki.”
“I don’t think so.”
“Come on. You’ve gone with us before, and you liked it. We’ll be sitting with Junior.”
Pete is about as subtle as Troy Pacheco’s fists. He and Lisa had been trying to set me up with Junior for the last year.
Junior, although no more interested than I in that cozy combination, had been gracious when they announced he would be best man and I maid of honor at the wedding. Pete and Lisa had never gotten it. I don’t want to spoil the illusion now that it is the only illusion remaining.