She put the knife down, went to the phone, and punched numbers.
“Holly? It’s Robin Castagna. Hi. Yes, it has been. Fine, great. And with you? Good. How’s Joaquin, he must be what—fourteen . . . you’re kidding! Listen, Holly, I don’t know if you can help me, but . . .”
After she hung up, she said, “She’ll meet you tomorrow at nineA.M. Cafe Alligator.”
“Thanks.”
“It’s the least I can do.”
Later, during dinner, she pushed food around her plate and her wineglass went untouched.
“What’s the matter?” I said.
“I don’t know. All the things you’ve been involved in, and this one seems to be getting to me.”
“There is a special cruelty to it. Someone that bright and talented, cut off like that.”
“Maybe that’s it. Or maybe I’m just sick and tired of women being killed because they’re women.”
She reached across the table, grabbed my hand, and squeezed it hard.
“It wears on you, Alex. Looking over your shoulder, being told it’s your responsibility to be vigilant. I know men are the usual victims of violence but they’re almost always the victimizers. I guess nowadays everyone’s at risk. The world dividing up into predators and prey—what’s happening? Are we returning to the jungle?”
“I’m not sure we ever got out,” I said. “I worry about you all the time. Especially when you’re out at night alone. I never say anything because I figure you can handle yourself and I don’t think you want to hear it.”
She picked up her wineglass, studied it, drank.
“I didn’t tell Holly what you were up to, just that you were my guy, a psychologist, wanted to learn about the center. She’s a sixties type, might have gotten scared away by the word “police.’
”
“I’ll deal with it.” I touched her hand. “I like being your guy.”
“I like it, too.”
Looking down at her untouched food, she said, “I’ll refrigerate this, maybe you’ll want a late snack.”
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I started to clear. She put a hand on my shoulder.
“If you’re up for it, why don’t we take Spike for a walk in the canyon. It’s still light out.”
Cafe Alligator was a storefront in an old building on Broadway, central Santa Monica, ten blocks from the beach. The bricks had been painted swamp-green and a stoned-looking saurian coiled above a black sign that saidESPENSIVE ESPRESSO. CHEAP EATS.
Inside were walls of the same algae tint, four tables covered with yellow oilcloth, a pastry case/takeout counter backed by shelves of coffee and tea for sale. A fat man with a bullet-skull roasted beans with the intensity of a concert pianist. Low-volume reggae music came from ceiling speakers.
Last night I’d played Holly Bondurant’s last LP,Polychrome. Fifteen-year-old album but I recognized her right away.
In the jacket photo, her hair had been strawberry blond, waist-length, half-concealing a beautiful Celtic face. Now it was short and blond-gray, and she’d put on thirty pounds. But her face was still smooth and youthful.
She wore a red velvet maxidress, black vest, lace-up boots, onyx necklace. A floppy black-velvet hat rested on an empty chair.
“Alex?” She smiled, stayed seated, gave me her hand, and looked at a half-filled coffee mug.
“Pardon my starting without you but I need my fix. Care for a cup?”
“Please.”
She waved at the fat man. He filled a cup and brought it over. “Anything else, Holly?”
“Something to eat, Alex? Great muffins.”
“A muffin’s fine.”
“What’s good today, Jake?”
“Cranberry,” said the fat man, almost grudgingly. “Orange-raisin and chocolate-chocolate-chip aren’t bad, either.”
“Bring an assortment, please.” She faced me. “It was nice hearing from Robin, too, after all these years. She used to work on all my instruments.”
Her voice was melodious and her eyes crinkled when she smiled. She talked with every muscle
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of her face—that animated manner you see in actresses and others who live off public adulation.
“She told me.”
“She’s still doing luthiery, right?”
“Very actively.”
Jake brought my coffee and the pastry basket and slunk back to his beans.
She picked up a cranberry muffin and nibbled. “You’re a psychologist.”
I nodded.
“The center can always use mental-health people. Times are rough financially and we get fewer and fewer volunteers. It’s good of you to inquire.”
“Actually,” I said, “that’s not what I came to talk to you about.”
“Oh?” She put the muffin down.
“Sometimes I consult to the police. Right now I’m working on a murder case. Hope Devane.”
She moved back. Her eyes lacked the capacity to harden, but there was injury in them—trust betrayed.
“The police,” she said.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “There was no intention to mislead. But the case remains unsolved and I’ve been asked to learn anything I can about her. We know she volunteered at the center.”
She said nothing. Jake picked up the tension from across the room and stopped grinding.
“Did you ever meet her?” I said.
She studied the muffin’s golden-brown surface. Turned it over. Smiled at Jake and he resumed his work.
“What do you know about the center?” she said.
“Not much.”
“It was established so poor women could have access to basic health care: prenatal counseling, nutrition, breast exams and Pap smears, family planning. It used to be part of the University med school rotation but that ended a long time ago and we had to depend upon volunteers. I did a few concerts for them, helped them get stuff.”
“Supplies?”
“Supplies, donations. They still think of me as someone with connections. Sometimes I can actually accomplish something. Last week I heard of an agent who’s redoing his office and
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managed to get some of his old furniture.”
She looked at the pastry case.
Jake said, “Copacetic?”
She smiled again and turned back to me. “I met Hope a couple of times, but she really wasn’t involved. Though we thought she’d be. The first time I saw her was at last year’s fund-raiser. We had a variety show at the Aero Theater and a buffet afterward at Le Surph. She bought a five-hundred-dollar ticket that entitled her to a whole table but she said she had no one to bring so we put her on the dais. Because of her credentials. She sounded like someone we could have used. And she impressed a lot of people, with her intelligence and her personality—very dynamic. Shortly after, someone sponsored her for the board and we voted her in. But she never ended up contributing much.”
She finger-combed her hair and drummed the table.
“I guess what I’m saying is what happened to her was a horror but she had very little to do with the center and I’m worried about getting bad PR.”
“No reason you should get any,” I said. “It’s just background stuff, trying to understand her.
Why didn’t she contribute more?”
She took a long time to answer. “She wasn’t . . . how can I say this . . . at the fund-raiser she had ideas. Talked about bringing in other psychologists, grad students from the University, developing a volunteer mental-health program. Her qualifications were fantastic and the person who sponsored her said she was dynamite. She showed up for the next board meeting, came around for a few weeks, counseled a few patients. Then she just stopped. Her book was out and I guess she was too busy. None of the programs got activated.”
She ate more muffin, chewing slowly, without pleasure.
“So she got too busy,” I said.
“Look,” she said, “I don’t enjoy judging other people. Especially someone who’s dead.”
“Was the person who sponsored her Dr. Cruvic?”
“You know Mike?”
“I met him once.”
“Yes, it was him. Which was another reason she had credibility. He’s been one of our most active board members. Really gives his time.”
“So he and Hope knew each other before the fund-raiser?”
“Sure. He brought her . . . Robin said you’re a guitarist.”
“I play a little.”
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“She said you were very good.”
“She’s biased.”
She wiped her lips with her napkin. “I don’t play much anymore. After I gave birth, nothing but my son seemed important. . . . These questions about Mike Cruvic. Do the police suspecthim of something?”
“No,” I said. “There are no suspects at all. Is there something I should know about him?”
“He’s been good to the center,” she said, but her tone was flat.
“And he brought her to the fund-raiser.”
“Are you asking if they had something going?” she said.
“Did they?”
“I wouldn’t know. And what’s the difference? Hope was murdered because of her views, wasn’t she?”
“Is that the assumption at the center?”
“That’s my assumption. Why else? She spoke out and was silenced.”
She stared at me.
“You really do suspect Mike, don’t you?”
“No,” I said. “But anyone with a relationship to Hope is being checked out.”
“Checked out. Sounds like CIA stuff.”
“Basic police stuff. I understand about Cruvic’s value to the center, but if there’s something I should know . . .”
She shook her head. “Their relationship . . . I feel like such a traitor . . . but what happened to her . . .” She closed her eyes, took several shallow breaths, as if practicing yoga. Opened them and let her fingers graze the muffin, then picked up her hat and traced the edge of the brim.
“I’m telling you this because it feels like the right thing to do. But it also feels wrong.”
I nodded.
She breathed a few more times. “One time, after the board meeting, I saw them. It was late at night, I was measuring rooms for furniture, thought everyone else had gone home. But when I walked out to the parking lot, Mike’s car was still there, way at the far end. It’s easy to spot—he drives a Bentley. He and Hope were standing next to it, talking. Her car was next to his—a little red thing. They weren’t doing anything physical but they were standing close to each other. Very close. Facing each other. As if ready to kiss or they’d already kissed. They heard me and they both turned very quickly. Then she hurried to her car and drove away. Mike stayed there for a
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second, one leg bent. Almost as if he wanted me to see he was relaxed. Then he waved and got into the Bentley.”
She winced. “Not worth much, is it? And please, if you question Mike, or anyone else, don’t mention my name. Okay?”
“Okay,” I said. “After Hope stopped coming round, was there resentment of Mike because he sponsored her?”
“If there was I didn’t hear it. As I said, Mike’s our most reliable volunteer M.D.”
“How often does he see patients there?”
“I don’t get involved in scheduling but I do know he’s been coming for years.”
“Doing obstetrics-gynecology?”
She tensed. “I assume.”
“Abortions?”
“I said I don’t know.” Her voice had risen. “And if he does them, so what?”
“Because abortion sometimes inspires violence.”
“But Mike wasn’t murdered, Hope was. I really don’t want to get into any more of this.” She stood. “I really don’t.”
“Fair enough. Sorry to upset you.”
“It’s all right,” she said. “But please. I beg you. Don’t draw us into the abortion thing. We’ve avoided problems, so far, but all we need is for this to hit the press.”
“Promise,” I said.
She laughed. “Boy, you really got me into a fix. When you called I thought you wanted to volunteer so I spoke to the director on your behalf, set up an appointment for you in a half hour.
Now I’ve got to call and tell her.”
“I’d still like to talk to her.”
“And I can’t stop you, can I?”
“I’m not the enemy, Holly.”
She looked down on me. “Hold on.”
She walked to the back of the restaurant, veered right, and disappeared. Jake finished with the beans and concentrated on glaring at me, til Holly came back.
“She’s not happy, but she’ll see you very briefly. Marge Showalsky. But don’t expect to learn
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much about Hope.”
“Thanks,” I said. “And sorry.”
“Forget it,” she said. “I’m sure you’re not the enemy. Robin’s too smart for that.”
The stretch of Olympic that housed the Women’s Health Center was one of those clumsy L.A.
mixes: factories, junkyards, storage barns, a trendy prep school pretending it was somewhere else by erecting a border of potted ficus.
The clinic was a single story of charmless brown brick next to a parking lot rimmed with iron posts and heavy chains. The front door was locked. I rang the bell and gave my name. A moment later I was clicked in.
Three women sat in the waiting room and none of them looked up. At the rear were swinging wooden doors with small windows. The walls were covered with posters on AIDS awareness, breast examination, nutrition, support groups for trauma. A TV in the corner was tuned to the Discovery Channel. Animals chasing each other.
One door opened and a heavy, bespectacled woman around sixty held it ajar and stuck her head out. She had short, gray, curly hair and a round, pink face that wasn’t jolly. Her eyeglasses were steel-rimmed and square. She wore a dark green sweater, blue jeans, and sneakers.
“Dr. Delaware? I’m Marge,” she boomed. “I’m tied up, gimme a minute.”
As the door closed, the women in the waiting room looked up.
Closest to me was a black girl around eighteen, with huge, wounded eyes, meticulous cornrows, and tightly clenched lips. She wore the uniform of a fast-food outlet and clutched a Danielle Steel paperback in both hands. Across from her were what looked to be a mother and daughter: both blond, daughter fifteen or sixteen, Mom an old forty, with black roots, pouchy eyes, sunken body and spirit.
Maybe Daughter had something to do with that. She looked me straight in the eye and winked, then licked her lips.
She had an unusually narrow face, off-center nose, low-set ears, and a slightly webbed neck. Her hair color looked natural except for the hot-pink highlights at the tips. She wore it long and teased huge and flipped back. Her Daisy Duke cutoffs barely covered her skinny haunches, and a black halter top exposed spaghetti arms, a flat, white midriff, and minimal shoulders. Three earrings in one ear, four in the other. An iron nose ring, the skin around the puncture still inflamed. High black boots reached midway up her calves. Black hoop earrings were the size of drink coasters.