He paused, then asked, “Why do you want to know about people he talked to?”
“I’m trying to understand someone I know,” I said. “But maybe I won’t ever be able to do that.”
“You are in a cynical mood.”
“Sorry, yes I am. Started when I woke up thinking of a song by the Boomtown Rats called, ‘I Don’t Like Mondays.’ Do you know it?”
“Yes.” He sang a little bit of the chorus.
“Exactly. It triggered a memory. The inspiration for that song was a shooting in San Carlos — that’s in the San Diego area. A sixteen-year-old girl named Brenda Spencer decided to point a rifle at a schoolyard and embark on a sniping marathon. This was in 1979, when it wasn’t so common for shots to be fired in elementary schoolyards.”
“Definitely cynical. I do remember this story, though. She fired from inside her house toward the school for several hours, right?”
“Yes. And during that time, she killed two people and wounded nine others. When they asked her why, she said, ‘I don’t like Mondays.’ ”
“Jesus.”
“She said, ‘I don’t like Mondays. This livens up the day.’ ”
“And this song reminded you of something else?”
“Yes,” I said. “I like the song. Lots of people do. But it was written in the year of the shootings — a couple of decades ago, now. So until recently, it had been a long time since I had heard it.”
He was about to say something when the officer outside the door stepped in and said, “Ms. Kelly? You ready?”
“As I’ll ever be — thanks,” I said. “Ben, I’m going to have to ask you to wait in the other room with Frank.”
“Frank’s here?” he asked, looking around.
“Yes. Don’t worry. You’ll be able to hear everything we say,” I said, and reached behind my back.
“You’re wearing a wire?” he asked in disbelief. “I’m not sure I—”
“Please, Ben,” I said, “Frank can fill you in on everything.”
He folded his arms.
The officer’s radio crackled.
“Now or never, Mrs. Harriman,” he said.
Ben didn’t budge.
“Ben, if you trust me at all, get out of here now.”
Reluctantly, he left with the officer.
I flipped a switch, gave my name, the date, time, location and said that Nick Parrish was present.
Parrish made his “Mmmaaah” sound.
I looked outside the glass wall toward the nurses’ station. A person who was dressed exactly like a nurse but who wasn’t taking care of any patients nodded to me. In another room, the reel-to-reel was turning. In my mind, wheels that had been whirling all day kept right on spinning.
The elevator door opened.
61
WEDNESDAY, LATE AFTERNOON,
SEPTEMBER 27
Las Piernas
I wiped my palms.
She approached cautiously, tentatively. She was dressed in a business-style woman’s suit, the skirt at the most conservative length I had ever seen her wear. She carried a stylish leather handbag. I couldn’t rid myself of the notion that she looked like a child playing at being a grown-up.
There was the slightest sign of surprise on her face when she saw me, but then she came into the room. “Hello, Irene.”
“Hello, Gillian.”
“I — I’m relieved to see you here, Irene. I’m a little afraid to be in here alone with him.”
“Why come at all, then?”
“I had to.” She looked back at me. “Did they search your purse when you came in here?”
“Yes,” I said. “They’ve searched everyone.”
“Why?”
“Someone might want to harm him. At this point, they’re letting God get all the vengeance.”
“Not just God — you, too. I heard about what you did.”
I tried not to let that unnerve me.
“Maybe you’ll think I’m some kind of freak for saying this,” she went on, “but I had to see him. I had to see the man who did those things to my mother. Four years, I’ve waited.”
“But you’ve seen him before,” I said.
Her eyes widened a little.
“He was your neighbor, right?”
“Yes,” she said, creeping closer to the bed. “But that was a long time ago.” She leaned over, and looked into his eyes.
“Mmmaaah,” Parrish said. She turned white and shrank back from the bed.
“Here,” I said, putting an arm around her shoulders, “have a seat. He’s not so scary once you get used to him — although I imagine he looks very different from the last time you saw him.”
“Yes.”
“About four years ago?” I ventured.
“No — yes. I mean, no, longer than that.”
“Strange. Jason thought you saw him when he showed up to stalk your mom.”
“What?”
“You know, the night you were baby-sitting, and Parrish’s car was outside the house?”
“Jason said that? You can’t believe anything that kid says.” She shook her head. “It’s sad.”
I thought it was sad that I hadn’t believed every word Jason told me about his sister, but I said, “Oh, wait, now I remember — he said there was a car, but you went outside and couldn’t find it.”
She shrugged. “Not that I remember.”
“You know, I’ve been meaning to get in touch with you again, anyway,” I said, moving between her and the door. “I thought you might help Ben Sheridan with his dog.”
“The man who lost his leg, you mean?”
“Come on, now, Gillian, you know more about him than just that fact. You had contacted him about your mother’s case.”
“Did I? I contacted so many people. I don’t remember. You said something about helping him with his dog?” she asked uneasily. “What dog?”
“Oh, you know this dog really well — Bingle. He used to be David Niles’s dog.”
She didn’t say anything.
“I saw some interesting videotape this morning. You went out with the SAR group he worked with, right? I saw you on the tapes, talking to David, learning to work with Bingle.”
“Yes,” she said, “I thought maybe if I could learn to work with cadaver dogs, I could go out on searches for my mother.”
“Your dedication to finding her was so inspiring,” I said, and tried a small bluff. “Learning about forensic anthropology, and cadaver dogs, and even talking to Andy Stewart about how botanists can find unmarked graves.”
“Like you said, I wanted to find her.”
“Mmmaaah,” Parrish said again.
“What do you think he’s saying?” I asked.
She shook her head mutely, but those blue eyes were wide, frightened.
“They think he’ll be able to talk again in a few days,” I lied.
“They do?”
“Yes.” Bigger bluff. “A neurologist was just in here, saying he’s improving by the hour. That’s why I’m waiting here. I’ll have a question for him when he can talk.”
“You will?” Gillian asked.
“Yes. About something he said to me not long before he fell. This has been on my mind all morning, and I can’t wait for him to come around so that I can ask him about it.”
“What?”
“You remember that article Frank showed you when we visited you at your apartment?”
“Yes.”
“That’s a great apartment, over a garage. On — what street is it?”
“Loma, near Eighth,” she said, staring at Parrish again.
“I think Ben was over that way, earlier today — a search exercise with Bingle. Anyway, about that underwear story—”
“It was so funny,” she said, giggling a little.