Kamala was a big-bodied, unpretty girl, with brown tightly curled hair and a truly beautiful complexion. Rayborn thought she wouldn’t mind having skin like that but the upkeep didn’t interest her. Plus she had a ding in her forehead from a coffee table when she was three, and another one up by her hairline from falling off a fence when she was six. They weren’t so bad but if she tried to make them over they just looked worse in her opinion.
Kamala couldn’t shake hands because her nail polish was drying. Merci said she’d rather not come in — they’d better get going.
“I’m kind of nervous,” said the girl, moving her hands in front of her like she was playing an accordion.
“It’s a snap.”
“Last time I was hypnotized was at Magic Mountain and I thought I was Michael Jackson? The weird part was he hypnotized us to not remember any of it, so I didn’t? My mom had to tell me what an idiot I made out of myself.”
“No song and dance today, unless you feel compelled. Don’t think about it. Pretend we’re going to the beach or something. I want your brain fresh and uncluttered for Joan. Come on, let’s go.”
The medical towers were next to a big-screen theater. There were plenty of parking places and Merci steered the Chevy to take up two spots under a magnolia tree.
Dr. Joan Cash welcomed them into her consultation room — a hug for Merci and a handshake for Kamala. Merci had known Joan since college at Fullerton and considered her a friend. She was a petite redhead with a spray of freckles across her nose and cheeks. Five years ago Merci had recommended her to the department for contract work, and the arrangement had been good for both parties: Joan got an occasional job and the county got a good psychiatrist.
Joan introduced Kamala to the sketch artist, Danielle Ruger. Merci had used her before and thought she was the best she’d ever seen. Merci shook Danielle’s small, soft hand and smiled. It was nice to be doing work in a room with no men in it.
Merci thought very briefly of Phil Kemp’s endless and asinine comments, his touches and gestures and jokes. It wasn’t like she hadn’t warned him a million times. It was simply that he wouldn’t listen and she’d gotten tired of putting up with him. Tired of him getting away with it. It said right in the rules you couldn’t do that. Now two other deputies — women she barely knew — had come forward with similar complaints. Had she started some ugly movement? Which was worse, putting up with Kemp or standing up to him? Merci willed away those thoughts because they were counterproductive and troubling. It was good to be here, where none of that mattered.
The doctor explained the procedure. Merci and Danielle would stay in the waiting room while Kamala was put into a deep hypnotic state. Then they would be allowed back in and Merci could take part in the conversation, make notes or tape-record it. Danielle would say nothing: more than two interlocutors might confuse Kamala, or even break down the hypnosis. Kamala would be brought out feeling relaxed and remembering what was said and done while she was under. It would take twenty to thirty minutes at the most.
Merci sat in the waiting room, made brief small talk with Danielle, then read through the last entries in the notebook where she kept a running log of her investigations. A lot of her initial-contact work was recorded in the little floppy books with the blue covers, and when she had a few minutes of down time she’d review, ruminate and brainstorm, hoping to chip something loose, see something she hadn’t seen before, or see it in a new way. She liked that the notebook was not department issue, but rather a personal item she chose. She had twenty-six of them at home, filled with her writing. She always carried one in a right-side pocket — coat, shirt, even pants, it didn’t matter — a companion to the Heckler & Koch so heavily invested on her left.
She took a minute to make notes on her conversation with Hess in the impound yard, following them with a sentence that she underlined: Stubborn old guy and dying of cancer. She looked at it and lined through it with the black pen, deciding that it wasn’t up to her if he was dying or not, and it probably wasn’t good policy to assume so.
She’d heard through the grapevine that he was doing chemo and radiation and that one of his lungs had been cut out. The last thing the old cop needed was his partner treating him like he was good as dead. Plus, Brighton had put him there to watch her as well as help her. Any fool could see that. Hess was Brighton’s eyes and ears, so why aggravate them any more than you had to?
Joan appeared in the doorway and waved them in. “She’s down good and deep.”
Merci followed her into the consultation room. The lights had been turned down and the blinds angled to admit little sun. There was a desk in one corner, bookshelves on two walls. In the middle of the room was a couch with three recliner chairs facing it across a coffee table. Kamala Petersen sat in the middle chair, tilted back like a man getting a shave, her hands crossed peacefully over her stomach, nails perfect, eyes closed. With her flawless makeup and attitude of repose she could be the newly dead, Merci thought.
“Kamala, Merci and Danielle are back with us now,” said Joan Cash.
“Hi, guys,” said Kamala, her voice faint but clear.
“Kamala and I were talking about waves just now. It didn’t take us long to find out we both love waves. Long, gentle never-ending Pacific waves. We’ve both bodysurfed.”
“They scare the daylight out of me,” said Merci.
“I think they’re groovy,” said the makeup artist.
“They can be very relaxing to contemplate,” said Joan. “Ah, Merci... would you like to talk about a week ago? Last Tuesday night? That would be August third. Kamala, I’ll be right here but you can go ahead and talk to Merci just like you were talking to me. Okay?”
“Sure.”
Merci took out her notebook and pen. “Kamala, you told me last Friday that you worked at the Laguna Hills Mall the week before. Why did you call me?”
“I saw on TV that a woman had disappeared from the mall? She disappeared the same night I was working there. It really like bothered me. And I remembered that I’d seen a...a... rememberable man the night she vanished. And that was why I called you.”
Merci looked at Joan, who mouthed to her: go slow...
“So you saw this man Tuesday night of last week. Tell me why you thought of him when you learned that Janet Kane had disappeared.”
A few seconds passed before Kamala spoke. “He was kind of... strange looking. I would use the word startling. He was standing in the parking lot when I left. It was dark but I saw him in my headlights. He was looking at his car in a very interesting way. Now, I saw him only for maybe two seconds or three? As long as it takes to see someone in your lights? And then again for maybe two seconds right when my car went by him. And he made an impression on me. But I forgot all that until I heard about the woman.”
“What time did you see him?”
“It was about nine.”
“All right. Now, you said this man was strange looking. You said he was startling. Describe him to me now, in as much detail as you can.”
Kamala exhaled. “Blond hair, long. Golden. Goldilocks. Dark eyes. Mustache. Neither tall nor short. Average build. He was wearing a full-length coat, like a duster. A light one, cotton, probably. Like a cowboy would wear.”
Merci pictured the long-haired, long-coated man. A long beat. “Age.”
“Twenties, maybe early thirties. And his eyes, when I got up closer? Because I could see them in the headlights? They looked wet and sad. He looked like a model. I mean a male model, not a female. He looked like a model that was my first impression. I notice faces. And it seemed strange to me that I could notice this much about him when I was driving past him. But I think things happen for a reason, and so I noticed him for a reason.”