While we waited for detectives to arrive, I emailed the photos I’d taken to Jimmy’s computer, beginning with the close-ups of the deposit slip. Emergency Room patients don’t pay their doctors in cash.
WHAT CN U FND OUT BOUT THIS? I texted.
By the time the unmarked police car arrived, I had finished sending the last picture.
We’d pulled Bob Grossman and Sylvie Perrins, excellent cops and old friends of mine, but right now both looked worried. With good reason, since they were the detectives who originally processed the murder scene.
“Captain Ulrich is fit to be tied,” Bob mourned. He was a big, comfy looking man whose laid-back demeanor had fooled many a perp into dropping his guard. “Claims we did a lousy search.”
Sylvie, a thin nervy woman, twitched all over, par for the course for her. “Heads are gonna roll, probably ours. You know what she’s like.”
I did my best to soothe them, explaining that the money had been hidden in an undamaged room, which wouldn’t have been subjected to as rigorous a search. “The reason I noticed was because the bolster didn’t fit the decor.”
They gave me blank stares.
“Navy blue in a room done up in earth tones.”
Bob still looked confused, but Sylvie, who had visited my redecorated apartment upstairs from Desert Investigations, nodded. “Yeah, you’d notice that, Miss Interior Decorator. Oh, well, water under the bridge. C’mon, Bob, let’s visit the scene of our sure-as-shit demise.”
Officer Bocelli remained downstairs while I led the two detectives to the guest bedroom and pointed out the bolster, which I’d re-stuffed with the money, and tucked back into its original position. It was almost hidden again underneath more appropriately colored pillows.
“Oh, shit,” Sylvie sighed.
Bob recovered enough to quip, “No, that’s in the other bedrooms.”
They began tearing the place apart.
***
When I arrived back at the office, Jimmy was locking up for the day.
“How about an early dinner over at Malee’s, Almost Brother?” I suggested, gesturing toward the Thai restaurant across the street. The echoes of carnage at the Camerons’ house had disturbed me and I didn’t want to be alone. Not that I would ever admit it.
“Sorry. Promised my cousin Rita I’d have dinner with her. Tomorrow, maybe?”
“Whatever.”
He narrowed his eyes. “You okay? You don’t look so good.”
“Just the heat. I’ll feel better when I get upstairs. Well, see you tomorrow.”
“Lena, if you need…”
“I said I’m okay!”
He raised his hands and backed away. “Fine. You’re all right. Never better. But you know where I live and you’ve got my phone number. I should get back from Rita’s around eight, and the only thing planned for the rest of the evening is sitting in front of the tube watching Iron Chef reruns.”
“What an exciting life you lead,” I muttered, as I picked up the case file box and started up the stairs to my apartment. “See you tomorrow.”
He said something else, but I was moving too fast to hear.
Years ago I had leased the space for Desert Investigations mainly because of the apartment above, a furnished one-bedroom efficiency that made up for its lack of character by its ten-second commute. At the time, the impersonal beige-on-beige color scheme didn’t bother me. Due to a childhood spent in one foster home after another, no place felt like “home,” and I saw no reason trying to convince myself otherwise just because I was no longer forced to live where Child Protective Services deposited me.
Eventually, though, I began to see that turning an apartment into a home could be a sign of hope, not futility, so I went shopping.
Sylvie called my apartment Cowgirl Modern. The sofa and chair were crafted from bleached saguaro cactus skeletons, made sittable with thick cushions covered with Navajo designs. Kachinas danced along the living room’s long window ledge, and a bright painting by the Apache artist George Hazous thumbed its nose at the still-beige wall. In my bedroom, a spread depicting the Lone Ranger and Tonto covered my double bed, and a table lamp in the shape of a horse’s head threw off a soft, welcoming light. Only after the frenzy of redecorating was finished did I realize I’d created a bedroom identical to the one I’d had at Madeline’s, the foster mother who showed a lonely child that love could exist in this cold world.
Usually, whatever rough day I’d endured, stepping into my apartment calmed me. Not this evening. In my mind’s eye, I saw blood splatters on the wall, pooled blood on the carpet.
I saw death.
After a moment’s reflection, I put the case file on the floor, grabbed my landline, and called Madeline. When she answered, I said, “Hey, how about I drop by with some vegetarian takeout from that new Indian restaurant in Apache Junction? Haven’t seen you in almost a month!”
“Drop by?” she laughed, the cascade of warmth easing my tension. “Have you forgotten I live sixty miles away? Normally I’d love to see you, honey, but that oil painting class I was thinking about giving, well, I decided to do it, and it starts tonight. Twelve people will be arriving in less than an hour. You’re welcome to join them, though.”
“That many people signed up, all the way over in Florence?”
“Don’t dis Florence, kid. Lots of talent hidden out here in the desert. So how about it? You ready to try your hand at Painting 101?”
“I’ll pass on that.”
“There’s another class scheduled for tomorrow, so how about I drive up there Friday and treat you to an eggplant Parmesan dinner at Green’s? You’re right, it’s been almost a month, way too long for me not to see my favorite daughter.”
Favorite daughter. The expression brought a smile to my face. Before she’d been sidelined with breast cancer and eventually whipped its ass, Madeline had fostered several children. For all I knew, she still called each one of them her “favorite daughter” or “favorite son,” but hearing her say those words took the edge off my misery.
“Friday’s good, as long as nothing new blows up with this case I’m working on.”
Even through the phone I could hear her smile. “There’s always a case with you, isn’t there?”
I hoped she could hear my smile, too. “An astute observation.”
After promising I’d call if something came up, we rang off.
But as soon as her “Good-bye, honey” faded, my misery returned.
Walls smeared with dog feces and blood.
Shaking the image out of my head, I turned on the TV, but most of the channels featured brawling basketball wives, men pretending to be lost in the wild, widows hoarding used Kleenexes and rotted food, drug addicts ruining their loved ones’ lives, collapsing apartment buildings in New York, or suicide bombings in the Middle East. As I scrolled through the evening’s offerings, it got to the point where I could no longer tell which was which, real reality or made-up reality.
But nothing was as bad as MSNBC, which featured Congresswoman Juliana Thorsson denying that she had made up her mind to run for the U.S. Senate. She was being interviewed as she left some government building, minions in tow.
“I act on the will of the people,” she said, fending away a dozen microphones stuck into her face. “Nothing more, nothing less.”
The campaign posters I’d seen in her house told a different story. Like all politicians, the woman was a practiced liar.
Walls smeared with dog feces and blood.
I switched the set off. I couldn’t stay here, not feeling the way I was feeling, so I grabbed my keys and left in search of comfort food. Ten minutes later I was sitting at a deuce in the Olive Garden, surrounded by happy families or families faking happiness. Even worse, a party nearby was celebrating a young woman’s birthday, their merriment reminding me that I didn’t know my own birth date. How could I?
I had been found at the age of four—at least that’s the age the admitting physician estimated—lying beside a Phoenix street, the bullet in my head wiping out all memories of birthdays. When I emerged from my coma, I couldn’t remember who my parents were or who had shot me. The only thing left of my former four-year-old self was a burning rage that five years later found its target in the belly of the man who raped me.
Why had my parents left me to die?
Walls smeared with dog feces and blood.
My life didn’t feel right.
The murder scene didn’t feel right.
By the time the waiter arrived and began reeling off a list of specials, my appetite had disappeared, so after slapping down a ten dollar bill on the table for his trouble, I left.
Once back in my apartment and as relaxed as I ever get, I opened the case file and started reading the material the crime techs pulled off Dr. Cameron’s personal computer. I don’t know what I hoped to find, but nothing there looked even halfway suspicious. His emails contained nothing more than messages back and forth to various medical colleagues, and his search history was downright boring. No visits to porno sites, no sexplicit love letters from other women, just dozens and dozens of sites focused on collectible cars. Most of the older hits were for American classics, like the ruined Corvette and T-Bird in his garage, but the more recent searches were for new and exotic foreign cars. I found no history of sexting on his iPhone, either, just interminable calls back and forth to Good Sam.
The man had no life.
Alexandra’s laptop was a little livelier, although not by much. Emails to and from her Sigma Gamma sorority sisters tended toward the salty, but never crossed the line into vulgarity. Same with the emails to her book club. Myriad emails between her and various functionaries of a Chicago organization named Big Kids Dream Big, for which she apparently did volunteer work, as well as emails to and from dozens of friends. None sounded the least bit suspicious. Her search history wasn’t overly exciting, either, consisting mainly of searches for universities, scholarship information, child-guidance sites, and anything having to do with hand-looms and weaving. No porno. Her phone revealed no sexting, no nude selfies, absolutely nothing of a racy nature.
Same for ten-year-old Alec, who, judging from his laptop and his phone, felt no interest in anything that didn’t fall under the heading of science or sports. Like his father, he didn’t appear to have many close friends, as shown by the sparse list of names and numbers on his contact list.
Saving what promised to be the most complicated for last, I finally opened Ali’s material. While I was certain her parents normally policed her laptop, they didn’t appear to have done so recently, because some of the sites on her search history were eyebrow-raising. After having what appeared to be a long-distance, and unrequited, love affair with the trembly lead singer of Antony and the Johnsons, she had dived headlong into the Goth lifestyle. She subscribed to Goth eZines Gothic Beauty and Lady Amaranth, to which she’d posted several comments, mainly about the hopelessness of life. She’d also downloaded music from bands such as Fields of the Nephilim, Nox Arcana, Bluetengel, and Christian Death, which was dark enough to make Marilyn Manson look giggly by comparison.
And as for sexting, well, she must have kept Kyle Gibbs one happy boy.
Unfortunately, the sexting wasn’t the most disturbing material the techs found on her phone. A month before the murders, she and Kyle had exchanged texts about running away together. The plan was to take one of Ali’s parents’ cars and drive to Hollywood, where they would get jobs in the movie industry, he as a leading man, she as his leading lady. Although these weren’t uncommon teenage fantasies, given the timing, they were worrying. Then, on the week before the murders, Ali’s texts had become more and more vitriolic about her parents. The phrase WSH THEY WER DED was repeated several times.
Those messages wouldn’t play well in any courtroom.
After reading what had to be Ali’s fortieth wish for her family’s early demise, I put the information back in the file and turned on the TV. I channel-surfed for a while and paused briefly on yet another interview with Congresswoman Thorsson, heard her tell a few more lies, before I settled on Me-TV and watched reruns of old sitcoms. Perhaps they would drive away my memory of the Cameron house. Around midnight, I trudged off to the bedroom, but lay there wide awake until almost three. When sleep finally greeted me, I dreamed of a mine shaft filled with dead children.
Or maybe it was a memory.
***
Knowing what I know about the way most foster homes are run, the next morning I waited until nine o’clock to arrive at the house of Glen and Fiona Etheridge, Kyle’s foster parents.
Although the house was within walking distance of the same golf course the Camerons’ place fronted, it was in an older development that in a few years would probably be torn down to build new mini-mansions. The lot was small, and desiccated desert landscaping decorated the tiny front yard. As for the house itself, the eaves needed repair, and the stucco facing could have used a fresh coat of paint. A banged-up green Volvo emblazoned with fading political bumper stickers sat in the open garage. One tire was flat. The doorbell was ailing, too, and it was only after I pounded on the door with my fist that a woman’s voice shrieked over the noise of a vacuum that she’d be with me in a minute.
A few seconds later the vacuum shut off and the door opened.
“Jesus, lady, where’s the fire?” A frowsy brunette in her mid-forties. She looked like she’d fallen off a dump truck, but her assertive manner signaled she wasn’t the maid. Besides, no self-respecting maid would be caught dead in that filthy apron. From somewhere behind her, I heard a baby muttering.
“Mrs. Etheridge?”
Scowling, she brushed a lank lock of hair off her face with a broken-nailed hand. “If you’re selling anything, I’m not buying, and if you’re doing a marketing survey, go annoy someone else.”
I stuck my foot between the door and the jamb. “My name is Lena Jones. I’m a licensed private investigator, and I’m here to talk about Kyle.”
The scowl deepened. She looked down. Saw the foot. “You’ve got three choices. I slam the door in your face, call the cops, or get out my Glock and shoot you where you stand. Pick your poison.”
Before I could answer, the scowl relaxed into a mere frown. Then she stared hard at me, as if bringing my face into focus. “Wait a minute. Did you say your name is Lena Jones?”
“Yes, Ma’am.”
She motioned to my pictograph-covered Jeep. “Anyone see you drive up in that thing?”
“Not that I’m aware of.”
“Good.” She grabbed me by the arm and jerked me into the entrance hall so quickly I almost fell.
“You’re probably on a few new security cameras, though,” she muttered, walking away from me toward the babbling sounds. “Ever since the murders, this neighborhood’s been paranoid as a chicken on a fox farm. They’re afraid Kyle’s going to be released for a home visit and kill them all in their beds. As if. We can’t even visit him. Not yet, anyway. We’re appealing the judge’s decision but as for now, Glen and I have no legal standing. Crazy, huh? When I think about that boy sitting all alone in that juvie hellhole…Well, nothing I can do about that. Not until the judge changes his stupid mind.” She took a breath. “So, Ms. Jones, what do you want to know? Push comes to shove, I’ll deny I told you anything. You’ll back me up on that, right?”
Confused by her quick turnaround, all I could do was answer, “Uh, right.”
“Good, ’cause I’m not about to give up the others, too.”
She didn’t explain, just kept moving. We passed through a two-story great room filled with toys in various states of shabbiness and elderly furniture in need of repair. Some money once, not so much now. But still enough to buy out the stock of Toys “R” Us.
I kicked a Tickle Me Elmo out of my way before I tripped over it. “Mrs. Etheridge, do you know me from somewhere?”
Without turning her head, she continued in those short, choppy sentences of someone perpetually in a hurry. “Call me Fiona. You helped my sister once. Stacey Larchmont? Married to that sleazy dope dealer? You were a cop at the time. Damn near got yourself killed saving her stupid ass. Took a bullet for her. How’s the hip? Kept up with you ever since. So does she. Not that hard to do these days, damned Internet. No privacy anymore. We’re all doomed.” At the entrance to a large, well-lit kitchen, she stopped and turned around. “That’s what you want, isn’t it? Me to give up Kyle’s right to privacy?”
The baby’s muttering rose to a wail. No. Make that two wails.
“Twins,” she said, noting my surprise. “You never saw them. And don’t bother asking their names because I won’t tell you.”
Fostered-out twins. She didn’t have to tell me their names. I knew who the children were and why they’d been removed from their parents’ care. With luck, the parents—who didn’t deserve the title—would stay in prison until they rotted.
“We’ll talk while I feed them, okay, Ms. Jones? Not quite their mealtime, but babies aren’t clocks.”
“Sounds good to me. And call me Lena.”
At first glance, the kitchen was every woman’s dream. Big skylight shining on a cream marble floor and countertop, mahogany cabinets, a prep island as long as a ’76 Cadillac, a shiny Sub-Zero refrigerator, and a massive Viking range that could have prepared a meal for the entire crew of a marauding longboat. On closer inspection, I saw that one of the cabinet doors hung crookedly, and a large crack ran the entire length of the marble countertop.
But the toddlers she settled into matching high chairs weren’t in perfect shape, either.
Despite their obvious injuries—scars from old cigarette burns running up and down their arms—they looked happy and well cared-for. I thought back to the media coverage of their parents’ arrest and trial and guestimated that Fiona had been fostering the twins for around eight months.
Crooning something sappy from The Sound of Music, she began spooning yellow gook into the toddlers’ mouths. “So what do you want to know about Kyle?” she asked, after the boy spit the gook into her face.
Me, I would have gagged, but she just laughed, wiped it away, and thrust another spoonful into the spitter’s gaping maw. This time it stayed in.
“Fiona, do you think Kyle murdered that family?”
“Does a bear shit in a Manhattan subway?”
“Uh, no.”
“There’s your answer.”
In denial, just like Kyle’s aunt. I tried a fresh approach. “Let me see his room. If he’s as innocent as you claim, it’ll give me an idea of what he’s really like, not what the arresting officers say he’s like.”
She was silent for so long I thought she was going to deny my request, but eventually she nodded. “Upstairs, first room on the left, right next to the twins’ nursery. Won’t do you any good. Cops took everything.”
Before she could change her mind, I left her shoveling more food into the toddlers’ mouths.
Two of the stairs creaked loudly, and one of the balusters had crumpled under the weight of the heavy oak handrail. More evidence that the Etheridge household was tight for cash, probably the reason they had started fostering in the first place. Fostering pays, which is one of the reasons it sometimes attracts the less-than-kid-friendly.
Once I walked into Kyle’s room, I understood why Fiona had allowed me access. The room was almost as large as the master bedroom across the hall, and twice as crowded. No electronics, though. The police would have taken them away. Still, it was nice, for a change, to see a kid’s room that hadn’t been trashed.
Nothing but the usual boy-clutter. Shoulder pads, a catcher’s mask and mitt, an aluminum bat, hockey knee guards, and a few items I couldn’t identify. But sports played second fiddle to the supposed killer’s obsession with animals. Only one sports poster decorated the walls: a photograph of Hank Aaron hitting his seven hundredth and fifty-fifth homer. The other posters showed various young animals at play: colts, puppies, kittens, kangaroo joeys, tiger cubs, fawns…There were so many, you could hardly see the pale blue walls that perfectly matched the bedspread.
Kyle’s obsession with animals didn’t stop at posters. In a large Plexiglas cage on the top of the chest of drawers, two gerbils snuffled happily through wood shavings while a third exercised its stumpy legs on a wheel. In the corner, a forty-gallon aquarium played home to an assortment of colorful fish swimming around a tiny plastic castle. On a sunlit window seat, two fat gray kittens snuggled alongside an equally fat mixed-breed puppy.
Other than Hank Aaron, the only human presence in the room was two photographs on the nightstand. One showed Fiona with a man I took to be her husband. The other was of a still-blond Ali, her face glowing. When I opened the nightstand’s drawer, I found it bare.
The desk drawers looked the same. The police hadn’t left so much as a paper clip. There was nothing under the bed, either, nor in the chest of drawers.
As I crossed the room to check out the closet, a movement out of the corner of my eye startled me. I turned to see a minor scuffle between two of the aquarium fish—an orange and yellow something-or-other nipping at the fins of a blue something-or-other. Amused, I watched as Bluefish—who had to be twice the size of its attacker—head-butted Yellowfish, knocking him into the side of the tiny castle. Chagrined, Yellowfish swam away with Bluefish chasing him through a small forest of seaweed. I’d started to turn away when I noticed something out of place.
The fish fight had moved the castle about a quarter of an inch, revealing what looked like a white strip of plastic underneath. It was probably nothing, but I dipped my hand into the cool water, lifted the castle off its base…
And pulled out a fat plastic envelope waterproofed by generous application of duct-tape.
At the sound of footsteps on the stairs, I stuffed the envelope into my carryall. I was just drying my hand on my jeans when Fiona stepped into the room. Fortunately, she didn’t notice.
“So, you think this looks like the bedroom of a homicidal maniac?” She sounded more relaxed now that the twins had been fed.
“Not at first glance.”
“Hmph.” She stared at the two fish. They were fighting again.
Eager to turn her attention away from the aquarium, I pointed to the kittens and pup on the window seat. “Who’s taking care of Kyle’s pets now?” I asked, although I could guess the answer.
“Me, since I have so much time on my hands.” She walked over to the seat and scratched a variety of heads. Only one, the puppy, opened its eyes briefly in grateful acknowledgement. “Kyle’s rescues. Along with dozens of others. Squirrels. Snakes. A desert tortoise with a broken shell. Carried home a three-legged coyote pup, once. Turned it over to Adobe Mountain Wildlife Rescue. Always nagging me to drive him up there to visit it. Know how far that is?”
I nodded. The rescue center was on the opposite side of the county.
“Damn near thirty miles. He named it Bruce. Cute little thing. Semi-tame now. Never be returned to the wild. Too crippled up.”
For obvious reasons, it was rare for foster parents to allow their wards to adopt animals. When a child is on the move through the foster system, he or she must remain unencumbered. Only once had I been allowed to keep a pet, a yellow dog named Sandy. It hadn’t ended well.
Not for me, anyway.
“Why’d you let Kyle keep all of them?” I asked Fiona. “If he was moved to a different foster home he’d be forced to leave them behind.”
“We were having adoption papers drawn up when, well, when Ali’s family was killed.”
“You were going to adopt him?” I couldn’t keep the surprise out of my voice.
“Still will when this mess is over.”
That day sounded like a cold day in Hell to me, but I let it slide. “What does his aunt think about that?”
A variety of emotions swept across her face: anger, contempt, pity. “She knows it’s for the best. Given her criminal record, they’d never allow her to take custody. She loves him, though, so we’ve promised to let her see him. We drive him over to her trailer every week, drink crappy coffee in that greasy spoon down the street while he visits.”
I noted her use of the present tense, as if nothing had changed. “That must be a comfort to them both.”
“Hmph. I happen to believe, although I’ve never said this to Kyle, that the less he sees of what remains of his so-called family, the better. Still, love is love, no matter where you find it.”
There was nothing to say to that, so I opened the door to the closet, peered inside. Nothing. The closet was as empty as the drawers.
“They really cleaned everything out, didn’t they?”
“He had a laptop and iPod we bought for him, but the cops impounded them. Along with his cell. They hauled out cartons and cartons of stuff, all the new clothes we bought for him. Probably looking for blood stains.” She sniffed.
“Did Kyle keep a journal?”
“What teen doesn’t? The cops took it before I could do anything. I would’ve burned or buried it in the backyard before I let them get their hands on it. And I can guess your next question, so no, I never read his journal. Kids have a right to their private thoughts. Especially foster kids.”
“Then you don’t know what he wrote about.”
“Nope, although I guess Ali figured heavily, young love and all that. If you’re finished here, let’s go back downstairs before the twins make a break for it.” The rushed tone came back into her voice.
We went downstairs, where I discovered that before Fiona had come upstairs to check on me, she’d cleaned the twins up and transferred them to a large playpen filled with stuffed animals. The boy was trying to eat a teddy bear while the girl poked a turtle into his ear. Fiona picked up each in turn, giving prolonged hugs. I couldn’t tell if they appreciated it or not, because both tried to ram their toys into her eye. Maybe they were aiming for her mouth.
“What’s going to happen to them?” I asked.
“There’s a long line of people wanting…” Suddenly hoarse, she cleared her throat. “…wanting to adopt them, so they’ll be fine. Caucasian newborns and toddlers, they’re the adoption superstars. It’s the mixed-race children and older kids, teens like Kyle, who have trouble finding permanent homes. Given your own background, you ought to know that.”
Yes, I did. After entering the CPS system at the age of four, I’d dragged my garbage-bag suitcase through a dozen foster homes before I aged out of the system at eighteen. In a way, it was understandable. Not everyone felt comfortable caring for a parentless child who’d stabbed someone. Oh, well. Water and blood under the bridge.
“How ’bout some coffee?” Fiona asked, gesturing toward the kitchen. “I was up with the twins half the night, and if I don’t get a jolt of caffeine, I’m going to fall flat on my face.” Without waiting for my answer, she headed for the kitchen again.
The coffee tasted like mud, but I drank it anyway. Anything to keep her talking. Back in the living room, the twins gibberished happily to each other.
“What does Mr. Etheridge do?” I asked.
“Glen owns a print shop. Used to employ fourteen people. Down to eight. Economy, you know.” She looked around, at the damaged countertop and broken cabinet door. “We’re barely hanging on, so the money from fostering helps. Some, anyway. We wind up blowing it on the kids. Kyle and the twins aren’t the first we’ve fostered, they’re more like the…” She closed her eyes, counted silently, opened them again. “Right, right. They’re the sixteenth kids we’ve taken in. Need everything from underwear to shoes. Glasses. Hearing aids. Prosthetics. The state’s supposed to cover those expenses, but we add to it out of our own pocket. Our sofa’s so old Napoleon probably warmed his ass on it.”
I surveyed the kitchen again. Chips on the mahogany cabinets, a couple of drawers with broken pulls. Such bedlam wouldn’t be everyone’s cup of tea, especially in Scottsdale. Curious, I asked, “How does your husband feel about this?”
She laughed. “Glen wouldn’t notice if the refrigerator fell on his head unless it clipped one of the kids on the way down.”
“He likes kids, then?”
“Came from a big family. Eight brothers and sisters, he was the youngest. Me, I was one of those lonely-onlys, spent my childhood wanting a big family, so when Glen and I married, I got pregnant right off the bat. We had Drake and a year and a half later, Emilie came along. Happiest years of my life.” Her smile faded. “Both away at school now. Empty nester, that’s me.”
“Thus the foster thing.”
“Seemed like the perfect answer. Extra money, and kids running around again. You don’t know how quiet an empty house can be.”
I thought back to my apartment over Desert Investigations, the lonely nights there. But I said, “You’re right, I don’t.”
“You get used to a certain level of noise,” she continued, her hurried speech slowing, warming. “And you get used to doing things for other people, not for yourself. Hey, I know I look like hell, but I’m okay with it. The babies keep me off the streets, right? If I had my way, Drake and Emilie would still be living here and attending ASU, letting me fuss over them, but no, Drake was determined to be an aerospace engineer and just had to go to Cal Tech. Emilie’s at Julliard.”
“She’s a musician?”
“Cello.” Fiona’s wry expression didn’t hide the pride in her eyes. “You have any idea how much a decent cello costs?” Without waiting for an answer, she continued, “You’re looking at ten thousand for starters, and they go up from there. God help us if she gets a job with a symphony orchestra. We’d have to take out a second mortgage on the house. A third, I mean. Already have a second.” She brightened. “Maybe she’ll get a job with the Phoenix Symphony. Then she could move back home, save us some money.”
She looked into the living room, where the twins’ babbling had stopped. “Uh oh. When it gets quiet, that’s when you have to worry. Excuse me while I go check.”
Fiona was gone long enough for me to reflect on some of my own foster mothers. Madeline topped the list of the good ones, with Mrs. Giblin close behind. Some women seemed to be born maternal, whether they could give birth or not. Whereas others…The act of giving birth was no guarantee of decency. If it had been, the twins wouldn’t be covered with scars.
Fiona finally returned, smelling like shit. Literally. “They’ve found a new game,” she grumbled, as she wetted down a towel in the sink. “Look, can we wrap this up for now? I need to spot-clean the carpet.”
“One more question.” The one I’d purposely put off until last. “Did Kyle shoplift?”
She didn’t turn around. “What makes you ask that?”
“The Cuisinart Elite IV sitting in his aunt’s kitchen.”
Her answer was so soft I had to ask her to repeat it. “We give him an allowance,” she finally said.
“That model can run to six hundred dollars.”
She dropped the towel into the sink and turned to face me. “Oh, all right. Yes, Kyle used to shoplift, but he hasn’t done that in a long time.”
“The Cuisinart looked brand new to me.”
“Appearances can be deceiving.” She bent down and began hauling out bottles and cans of various cleaning solutions. “Not that I haven’t enjoyed our little chat, but I’ve really got to spot-clean that carpet before the stains set.” She straightened back up and blew a stray hair out of her face. “Now, if you don’t mind…”
We were at an impasse, but fortunately I was able to talk her into seeing me again tomorrow at three, the twins’ nap time. By then she would have either come up with a better cover story for Kyle’s supposedly former bad habits, or tell the truth. I hoped it would be the latter.
“You’ve given me a clear sense of Kyle,” I said, as she hustled me through the reeking living room. “Maybe tomorrow we can talk more about his relationship with Ali.”
Opening the front door, she said, “Sure, but long story short, they were a real-life Romeo and Juliet couple.” For a moment, fear flickered across her face. “And you know how that turned out.”
As the door closed behind me, I recalled how the play ended.
With a double suicide.
Not wanting to wait until I got back to Desert Investigations, I drove down to the end of the block and parked under a shady eucalyptus. After making certain she wasn’t peeking out her window, I pulled the envelope out of my pocket and slashed through the duct tape with the penknife I kept in my carryall.
Unwrapped the notes inside. Most were the usual moony teenage professions of love. Except for the last one.
It read…
I HATE MY PARENTS. I WISH SOMEBODY WOULD JUST KILL THEM. MAYBE YOU????
XOXOXO
LUV LUV LUV YOU MADLY
ALI