"What was she like?" I asked.
"She was sweet" She shook her head slowly with the last word. "You know how some people just have that heart? And quiet. Had a laugh that'd catch you by surprise. She made some choices that, well…" The tissue rose halfway to her face, but then her knuckles whitened and she lowered it. She would not cry. "She didn't know how long the future can be. How long it can be."
I said, carefully, "The father-"
Her lips tensed. "I never knew who the father was." She shook her head, quickly this time, as if fighting off a bad taste. "She never breathed a word. Not even to me." But her face couldn't hide the truth. I knew she was lying, and she knew I knew.
The soap actors had pulled apart, the woman resisting in that no-means-yes way, and then, like a horrible joke, there was Bilton. His sweater-and-khakis spot, the business-casual commander in chief surrounded by his progeny on the spotless Oval Office rug. Mr. Morals, a sharp contrast to his twice-married challenger.
Lydia dug in her armrest pouch for the remote. I watched Bilton's well-shaven face. "Senator Caruthers says he doesn't 'understand family values.' Do you really want someone in the White House who's proud to make that claim?" Dignified cursive across the screen announced, Paid for by Andrew Bilton for President.
Lydia finally fought the remote free and shut off the TV. We sat in the awkward silence for a moment, and then she said, bitterly, "Janie deserved more from this life. And Gracie. She would have been loved. She was a person, too, and she would have had a family." Lydia stared at the dark TV with disgust. Her eyes finally lifted to me. "You said you were with the press?"
My throat was husky with emotion. I said, "Yeah, I'm with the press."
She rose and smoothed her dress in the back with a practiced sweep of her flat hand. "Please write about her kindly. There was some innuendo around her when she died."
I said, "I'm going to do everything I can for her."
Chapter 43
One more name on the rumpled piece of paper. Tris Landreth, the witness to the dumping of the bodies. The most recent address Steve had found under her name, from a cell-phone account, belonged to a run-down house in Van Nuys. The bell was broken, so I knocked, and a moment later a heavyset woman in a plush bathrobe tugged the screen open.
I said, "Tris Landreth?"
She scowled, waved a hand at me dismissively. "I look like some Tris to you, son?"
"I'm sorry. I'm just-"
"She cleared out the guesthouse six months back in the middla the night. Give us no notice. And it ain't like she paid no security deposit we could cash in on neither."
"Six months ago."
"Yeah. And now everything 'Tris Tris Tris' again alia sudden. She a quiet lady. Why all these folks be up in here after her?"
My pulse quickened. "Other people were asking for her?"
"The Five-0 is who, son. Shit, worse. The secret-handshake guys. You know the ones."
"When?"
"Last week. Dunno. Wednesday, Thursday. Shit, I ain't no calendar."
I struggled to keep my head clear. "Did she pack up her stuff? When she left?"
"What little she had, yeah. She was here almost a year, but she never really moved in, know what I'm sayin'? Had a suitcase for a dresser. Like she was just waitin' to pick up and go again." A gruff voice called out from the back of the house, and she yelled back, "I be there in a minute, baby," and trudged off.
I stood at the door a few minutes before realizing she wasn't coming back.
I crossed the dead lawn and sat on the curb for a while, watching the kids play soccer in the street and the low-riders cruise by, vibrating with bass. Whatever Tris Landreth knew, I needed to know, too. Just waitin' to pick up and go. She'd been living a life I was all too familiar with. I thought about how isolated I'd felt up in Ketchikan, that soul-numbing loneliness that came from being cut off from those I loved, the semiannual cards I used to send through the remailing service to Callie, the freezing sleepless nights I spent waiting to hear if those cards had bounced back, if my mom had moved or gotten sick or died. I wondered, given that Tris Landreth had been too nervous to unpack her bags for a year, what had been keeping her in the area.
The liquor store at the corner had a pay phone in the back. I called the cell I'd given Induma, and it rang and rang before she picked up. I'd left early this morning to avoid awkwardness, and with her voice came a pang of embarrassment. And something heavier. Longing.
I said, "Sorry about last night."
"You've got nothing to apologize for."
"Then I can impose on you for another favor?"
"That's what friends are for."
"Rub it in."
She laughed.
I said, "Tris Landreth. The witness? She split."
"And you want me to use the databases to locate her."
"Steve already checked the databases. I need you to find out if she has any sick kids or elderly parents in the area."
When we got off, I bought a Coke, went outside, and sat on the curb for another while. A young Hispanic couple was leaning against a truck in the parking lot and making out. Dark bands of eye shadow stood out on her closed lids, and his hands were at her face. Effortless. I thought about how cold those floorboards had felt beneath my bare feet last night when Induma had told me that life doesn't wait.
The pay phone inside rang.
The shopkeeper gave me an odd look as I jogged back.
Induma said, "No sick kids and no elderly parents, but looks like Landreth was raised by an aunt who's not doing too hot. The aunt lives in Northridge."
I had a pen at the ready. "You got an address?"
I entered the well-kept complex and knocked on the appropriate door. After a lengthy wait and prolonged shuffling, an ancient woman answered. The apartment smelled of talcum powder and cats.
"Hi," I said. "I'm looking for Harriet Landreth. It's about her niece, Tris."
"Tris," she repeated, with impressive derision. She was severely hunched and had to crane her head to look up at me.
"Are you Harriet?"
"No, I'm Glenda, her older sister. I'm taking care of her."
"Has Tris visited lately?"
"Tris? Visited lately?"
I might as well have asked if Peter O'Toole had swung by for a gimlet.
She regarded me warily. "What is this?"
"I'm trying to find her. It's really important."
"Well, Tris hasn't bothered coming around here. Harriet raised that girl like a daughter. When no one else wanted to, I might add. And now my sister's sick, and do you think Tris bothers to come around? Not in months. And barely once a year before that."
"Maybe there's an explanation for why she can't come."
"If there is, Tris'11 have it ready. It's always something. Always someone after her. Bill collector. Some ex."
"You never know people's reasons for doing stuff, I guess," I said. "Maybe she's scared of something." I didn't know why I felt so vehement about defending her, and then of course I did.
"It doesn't matter," Glenda was saying.
"Everyone's got reasons for everything. She left us. She left us holding the bag. I'm not interested in how she'll justify it this time around."
I pictured Callie's face, hard with resentment: You haven't shown up for a damn thing in seventeen years. "You're right," I said. "It must feel pretty crappy from your end."
Glenda's face seemed to draw into itself, the wrinkles moving but not really moving at all.
"Maybe I could talk to Harriet?" I asked. "Just for a minute?"
"I'll see how she's feeling."
The door closed in my face.
A moment later the door opened again. Glenda was already shuffling back in. America s Funniest Home Videos played softly on the TV. A cat was leaping around a ball of yarn, accompanied by wacky circus music. The apartment smelled worse inside, something lingering under all that talcum powder. She headed down a shag-carpeted hall, calling over her shoulder, "I just gave her artificial tears, so she should be okay to look at you."