Chapter 26
Chapter
26
A nice evening sounded like a great idea. I focused on that, placing the rifle murders in one mental box and everything else in another.
I’ve always been pretty good at compartmentalizing. A useful strategy when you’re the object of child abuse, live by the fruits of your own labor, spend years treating pediatric cancer patients, and want to segregate the horror you see at crime scenes from the rest of your life. And your lover. And your dog.
Robin, Blanche, and I enjoyed dinner and a few mindless streamed TV shows before Blanche was escorted to her crate and rewarded with a treat and we returned to the bedroom making the night even more pleasant.
I slept well initially. I usually do. But this time it only lasted until three a.m., an hour hospitable to insomnia and random thoughts. But struggling to fall back asleep wasn’t my problem. I had intentions.
Throwing on a robe, I padded out of the bedroom and walked up the hall to my office.
—
I use a filter to screen blue light from my computer monitor but whatever illumination remained kicked me fully alert.
Tap, tap, tap as I began the search for gerald boykins wife.
—
Not an elusive goal. Kiki Boykins wasn’t shy.
Blond, hazel-eyed, with Marilyn Monroe lips and hips. Ten years younger than her husband, she’d been born KarenAnne Amundsen in Palo Alto, the only child of a custodian at Stanford and a convenience store manager.
Early years as a tomboy shifted radically in the face of puberty. A few local beauty contest wins followed by a move to L.A. where she’d modeled swimsuits, lingerie, and yoga wear, then danced in music videos, attracting the attention of Jamal B.
The couple had been wed two decades ago in Las Vegas, a bond that had apparently endured free of rumor or other social blemish.
One child, Keisha, born seventeen years ago.
The devoted care Kiki Boykins gave her husband following his stroke was noted on several entertainment sites. It’s easy to be cynical when you’re dealing with that world, and money can affect coverage. But those posing as entertainment journalists mainline dirt and the Boykinses’ avoidance of even a hint of tarnish suggested earned respectability.
Kiki’s other love, after her family, was travel.
So grateful and excited to see the world God has created for all of us!!!
Pages of photographic gratitude filled her platform.
In a gondola on the Grand Canal in Venice; sitting atop an elaborately saddled elephant in Sri Lanka; pointing to the entrance of the Louvre in Paris; at the Western Wall in Jerusalem inserting a prayer message ( praying for healing for G, MSD, and everyone else ) between the crevices of ancient stones.
Who was MSD? Nothing came to mind and I plowed on.
What wasn’t given over to geography was devoted to Keisha. And that answered the question.
My sparkling diamond!
Straight A’s again!!!!! She didn’t get it from me. LOL.
I didn’t recall any mutual admiration on the girl’s pages but checked.
No mention of Kiki or Gerald.
Mom worshipping daughter, daughter totally ignoring her parents.
Adolescence 101.
I sat back and thought about Kiki’s devotion. Worship can lead to more than prayer. A mama lion springing when her cub was threatened.
Logging off, I returned to the bedroom and managed to get back in bed without evoking more than a sweet purr from Robin.
I kissed her hair and fell back asleep quickly.
—
The following morning was taken up by patients. It was twelve thirty when I checked for messages. Milo had called me at eleven.
He answered his office phone. “Nothing iffy in Mrs. Boykins’s past.”
I said, “On the surface.”
“What does that mean?”
I described Kiki Boykins’s posts.
He said, “She loves her kid. So what?”
“Her only child with a high IQ, suffering from some sort of illness that keeps her home? It was serious enough for her to offer a prayer note when she was in Israel. Maybe that’s why she went in the first place. We’re talking a vulnerable young girl who Parmenter threatened not very subtly. The other thing is, Kiki travels a lot, which could expand her opportunity to find a skilled shooter.”
Silence.
I said, “You think I’m making too much of it.”
“I’m thinking what Nguyen would say if I asked for a warrant based on someone being a good parent. Where else does Kiki do all this travel?”
I recited a few locales.
He said, “Globe-trotting like a proper rich woman. Nice spas and boutiques and she works in a meeting with some International Man of Intrigue? Forget the local hypothesis?”
“Fine,” I said, “forget double-oh seven but the threat posed by Parmenter to Keisha was still real.”
“Only child…so maybe Mama—or she and Daddy—are into crime prevention. Which is what I’ve been saying from the beginning. Have to tell you, can’t say I’d blame them, those lyrics were ugly. But it still doesn’t change the warrant situation, Alex. It was all I could do to get an okay on Boykins’s money paper and that was mostly based on his criminal record. And it’s still not yielding anything. So where the hell do I take it?”
I had no answer for that and kept silent.
He said, “I was afraid you’d say that.”