Milo gazed at her. She blushed, leaned forward, whispered, “If someone was real tall, they’d be easy to spot.”
Milo smiled back. “We talking basketball, here?”
“Maybe a guard.”
Long, slow strides carried George Ramos across the lawn in an awkward but purposeful trajectory. Like a wading bird- an egret- making its way through a marsh. I put him at six-six. Pale and balding and stooped, carrying a stack of books and a laptop. Whatever hair he had left was medium brown and fine and streamed over his ears. He wore a blue V-neck sweater over a white T-shirt, pressed khakis, brown shoes. Tiny-lensed glasses perched above a beak nose. Young Ben Franklin stretched on the rack.
When we stepped in front of him, he blinked a couple of times and tried to pass us. When Milo said “Mr. Ramos?” he stopped short.
“Yes?”
Badge-flash. “Do you have a moment to talk about your sister, Wilfreda?”
Behind his glasses, Ramos’s brown eyes hardened. His knuckles bulged and whitened. “You’re serious.”
“We are, sir.”
Ramos muttered under his breath.
“Sir?”
“My sister’s dead.”
“I’m sorry, sir.”
“What in the world led you to me?”
“We’re looking into some foster children and- ”
“Lee committed suicide three months ago,” said Ramos. “That’s what everyone called her. Lee. If you knew anything about her, you’d know she hated ‘Wilfreda.’ ”
Milo kept silent.
“She was sixteen,” said Ramos.
Milo said, “I know, sir.” It’s rare for him to have to look up at anyone. He didn’t like it.
Ramos said, “What kind of parents would name someone Wilfreda?”
The three of us found a bench on the west side of the lawn.
George Ramos said, “What do you want to know?”
“Lee’s experiences in foster care.”
“What, a scandal?”
“Maybe something like that.”
“Her experiences,” said Ramos. “For Lee, foster care was a lot easier than being at home. Her father- my stepfather- is a fascist. Those preachers she lived with didn’t give her any supervision. Custom-order for someone like Lee.”
“What do you mean?” said Milo.
“Lee was rebellious in the womb, did her own thing no matter what. She got pregnant when she was in foster care, had an abortion. The coroner told us that after the autopsy. The preachers talked a good case but my feeling is they collected the money and let Lee run wild.”
“Which coroner told you this?”
“Santa Barbara County. Lee was living in Isla Vista, with some dopers, when she…” Ramos removed his glasses and rubbed his eyes.
“This was after she got out of foster care,” said Milo.
Ramos nodded. “The fascist finally allowed her to come home on condition she stick to all his rules. She was home for two days before she ran away. The fascist said she should live with the consequences of her own behavior and my mother has always been totally under his thumb. So no one went looking for Lee. We found out where she’d been staying after she died. Some crash pad in Isla Vista, ten kids living like animals.”
I said, “The fascist isn’t your father but you and Lee had the same last name.”
“We don’t. Her name’s Monahan. When he got so fed up with her that he made her a ward of the state, he burned her clothes and locked her out and told her she was no longer his daughter. She said fuck you and started calling herself Ramos.”
“Sweet guy,” said Milo.
“Real peach,” said Ramos, cracking his knuckles. “She phoned me from Isla Vista, wanted me to have her name changed legally. I told her I couldn’t do it because she was a minor and she hung up on me.”
I said, “ ‘Ramos’ is listed on state documents.”
Ramos laughed. “The state doesn’t know its ass from a crater on the moon. There’s little about the system that doesn’t need changing.”
Milo said, “That why you’re in law school?”
Ramos stared at him myopically. “That’s a joke, right?”
Milo smiled.
“Sure, I’m breaking my butt for a lifetime of mindless bureaucracy and shitty pay,” said Ramos. He laughed “When I get out I’m going corporate.”
We talked to him for another quarter hour. I ended up doing most of the talking because the topic had slid into my bailiwick.
Wilfreda Lee Monahan/Ramos had exhibited severe learning disabilities and a history of disruptive behavior as long as her brother could remember. George Ramos’s father had died when he was five and a few years later his mother married a former marine who thought raising kids was a variant of boot camp.
For Lee, adolescence had meant promiscuity, drugs, and mood swings so severe I was willing to bet they resulted from more than substance abuse. By fourteen, she’d made two suicide attempts- overdose cries for help. Cursory attempts at counseling followed, along with a flood of recrimination at home. When her father found her having sex with a boy in her bedroom, he kicked her out.
George Ramos wasn’t aware of any notable problems during her six months under the Daneys’ care, but he admitted, with downcast eyes, that he had never visited her.
Lee Ramos had left foster care a month before turning sixteen. On her birthday, at midnight, she’d stayed home while her roommates went out to party. Shortly after, she cut her wrists with a rusty box cutter, lay down on a ratty mattress, and quietly bled to death.
CHAPTER 32
Talking about his sister had left George Ramos pale and worn.
Milo apologized for intruding. Ramos said, “You’re just doing your job,” and stared at the grass.
I said, “Did you have any contact with the Daneys?”
“I called them once after Lee died. Don’t ask me why. Maybe I thought they’d care.”
“They didn’t?”
“I spoke to the wife- Charity, Chastity, something like that- ”
“Cherish.”
“That’s it,” he said. “She broke down, sobbed, got damn near hysterical. Maybe I’m cynical but I thought it was a little over the top.”
“Putting on an act?” said Milo.
“They only had Lee for a few months and obviously they didn’t do a very good job.”
“You tell her that?”
“No,” said Ramos. “I didn’t- wasn’t in a mood to talk.”
“Cherish do anything to make you think she was faking her grief?”
“No, but who knows?” said Ramos. “Who knows about anything?”
“Ever speak with her husband?”
“Nope, just her.” Ramos stood and snatched up his books and his laptop.
I said, “Did Lee ever hint around about getting pregnant?”
Ramos’s long face turned sad. “Don’t you guys get it? We didn’t talk.”
He let the books dangle, clutched his laptop to his chest, and bird-walked away. Other law students continued to stream out, some chatting in tight little groups, a few preoccupied loners forging their own trails.
Milo got up and stretched. “I just creaked.”
“Didn’t hear a thing.”
“So the Daneys take on too many wards but don’t supervise. Fits with moral laxity.”
“It does.”
“Ready to go?”
I stayed on the bench.
“Alex?”
“What if?” I said.
He sat back down.
A group of students passed us. When they were gone, he said, “What evil thoughts have seized that brain of yours?”
“George Ramos assumes Lee got pregnant on the street. It could’ve happened in-house. Literally.”
“Daney?”
“He was the only male in the house. Which, come to think of it, is a haremlike situation. All those teenage girls from troubled backgrounds. Maybe there’s a reason the Daneys ask for female wards.”