I said, “Besides being ‘spacey,’ did she ever show signs of other mental problems?”
“That I couldn’t tell you,” said Dinwiddie. “Like I said, I haven’t seen her in a long time. I was just talking theoretically.”
Milo said, “When you saw her walking around the neighborhood, was this at night or during the day?”
“Day. I’m only talking a couple of times. I’d be on my way to make a delivery and she’d be making her way down the street, kind of a loose shuffle, staring down at the sidewalk. That’s what I meant by spacey.”
“Anything else you can tell us about the family that might relate to the shooting?”
Dinwiddie thought. “Not really, Detective. They were never real social. Marched to their own drummer, but basically they were decent people. You can tell a person’s character when you check their groceries. When he was alive, my dad had a system for classifying folks- Grumblers, Skinflints, Nitpickers, Tomato Squeezers.” A sheepish smile spread under the mustache. “Kind of an us-them thing. Happens in every profession, right? Don’t let on to my customers or I’d be out of business.”
Milo smiled and ran his finger across his lips.
Dinwiddie said, “It’s funny. When I was younger I used to hear my dad come home and grouse, and think he was being intolerant, just didn’t understand people. I majored in sociology in college, had all sorts of theories and explanations for why he’d become so misanthropic, how what he really needed was more intrinsic satisfaction in his work. Now here I am, doing the same job he did, and I find myself using the same labels.”
I said, “Which of your dad’s labels would you apply to the Burdens?”
“None, really. They were easy to deal with, never complained, always paid their bills right away with cash. Mr. Burden always had a generous tip ready, though he wasn’t much for conversation. He always seemed busy with something, doing his own thing.”
“Another spacey one?” said Milo.
“Not like Holly. With him, you always felt he was lost in thought. Thinking about something important. With Holly, it just seemed- I don’t know- stuporous. As if she were withdrawing from reality. But if this is making her sound like some dangerous psychotic, that’s not what I mean at all. She’d be the last person I’d expect to do anything violent. On the contrary, she was timid, a real mouse.”
Milo said, “When did her mother die?”
Dinwiddie touched his mustache, then tapped a fingertip absently to his tongue. “Let’s see. I think Holly was four or five, so that would make it about fifteen years ago.”
“What’d she die of?”
“Some sort of stomach condition, I think. Tumors or ulcers or something- I’m not sure. Only reason I remember it being the stomach is she used to buy a lot of antacids, really stocked up on them. Whatever it was, it wasn’t supposed to be fatal, but she went in for surgery and didn’t come out. Howard was pretty freaked out- all of us were. It was the first time anyone in the class had lost a parent. We were in high school- sophomores. Howard had never been much of a joiner, but after his mom died he really pulled away, dropped out of Chess Club and Debate Club, gained a whole lot of weight. He kept on getting good grades- that was like breathing for him- but he cut himself off from everything else.”
I said, “How did Holly react?”
“I can’t say I remember anything specific. But she was just a little kid, so I’d expect she was devastated.”
“So you can’t say if her spaciness was due to her mother’s death?”
“No-” He stopped, smiled. “Hey, this sounds more like psychoanalysis than police work. I didn’t know you guys did this kind of thing.”
Milo hooked a thumb at me. “This gentleman’s a noted psychologist. Dr. Alex Delaware. He’s working with the kids at Hale. We’re trying to get a picture of what happened.”
“Psychologist, huh?” Dinwiddie said. “I saw a psychologist being interviewed about the kids on TV. Heavyset fellow, big white beard.”
“Change of plans,” said Milo. “Dr. Delaware’s the one.”
Dinwiddie looked at me. “How are they? The kids.”
“Doing as well as can be expected.”
“That’s real good to hear. I send my own kids to private school.” Guilty look. Shake of the head. “Never thought I’d be doing that.”
“Why’s that?”
Another tug at his tie knot. “Truth be told,” he said, “I used to be pretty much of a radical.” Embarrassed grin. “For Ocean Heights, anyway. Which means I voted Democrat and tried to convince my dad to boycott table grapes in order to help the farm workers. That was back when the last thing I wanted to do was run a grocery. My actual goal was to do what you do, Doctor. Therapy. Or social work. Something along those lines. I wanted to work with people. Dad thought that was soft work- the ultimate put-down. Said eventually I’d come back to the real world. I set out to prove him wrong, did volunteer work- with crippled kids, Job Corps Inductees, adoption agencies. Became a Big Brother for a kid out in East L.A. Then Dad dropped dead of a heart attack, left no insurance, just this place, and Mom was in no position to run it, so I stepped in. One semester short of my B.A. It was supposed to be temporary. I never got out.”
His brow creased and his eyes drooped lower. I remembered his comment about Howard Burden, the wistful look: He actually stuck with what he loved…
“Anyway,” he said, “that’s about all I can tell you about the Burdens. What happened over at Hale was a real tragedy. Lord only knows Mr. Burden didn’t need any more. But hopefully time will heal.” He looked to me for confirmation.
I said, “Hopefully.”
“Maybe,” he said, “people will even learn something from all of this. I don’t know.”
He picked up his calculator, tapped the buttons.
“One more thing, Mr. Dinwiddie,” said Milo. “There’s a young man who works or used to work for you, making deliveries. Isaac or Jacob?”
Dinwiddie’s thick shoulders tightened and his breath caught. He let it out a moment later, slowly, deliberately. “Isaac. Ike Novato. What about him?”
“Novato,” said Milo. “He’s a Hispanic? We were told he was black.”
“Black. A light-complected black. What’s that… what’s he got to do with any of this?”
“We were told he was friendly with Holly Burden.”
“Friendly?” The shoulders hunched higher and shrugged.
Milo said, “He still work for you?”
The grocer glared at us. “Hardly.”
“Know where we can find him?”
“It would be difficult to find him anywhere, Detective. He’s dead, cremated. I scattered the ashes myself. Off the pier at Malibu.”
Dinwiddie’s gaze was angry, unyielding. Finally he looked away, down at his desk, picked up an order blank, gave it an uncomprehending look and put it aside.
“Funny you shouldn’t know,” he said. “That I should be telling you. Though I guess not, considering the size of this city, all the homicides you get. Well, he was one of them, gentlemen. Last September. Shot to death, supposedly in a drug burn, somewhere down in South Central.”
“Supposedly?” said Milo. “You have doubts?”
Dinwiddie hesitated before answering. “I guess anything’s possible, but I seriously doubt it.”
“Why’s that?”
“He was a straight arrow- just wasn’t the dope type. I know cops think all civilians are naïve, but I did enough volunteer work with juvenile offenders to be a pretty good judge. I tried to tell that to the police but they never bothered to come down here and talk to me about him face to face. I only found out about the murder because when he hadn’t showed up for work for two days running, I called his landlady and she told me what had happened, said the police had been by, told her it was a dope thing. I got the name of the detective on the case from her. I called him, told him I was Ike’s employer, volunteered to come down to the station and give information. His attitude wasn’t exactly enthusiastic. A couple of weeks later he called me back, asked me if I wanted to come down and identify the body. ‘A formality’- his words- so that he could clear it. It was obvious that to him this was just a routine ghetto shooting- another case number. What really surprised me when I got there was that the detective himself was black. He hadn’t sounded black over the phone. Smith. Maurice Smith. Southeast Division. Know him?”