Breakdown, p.9
Breakdown, page 9
“In Santa Monica, the woman in charge remembers—”
“Mounds,” she said. “Coconut.”
She’d used heroin and junkies crave sugar. But during this lockup, no withdrawal symptoms had surfaced. Ativan could be partly responsible for that but it couldn’t have masked a serious addiction.
Was craving candy a sense memory?
Or she just liked the damn stuff.
She pressed her arms to her sides, stared at the ceiling. The window above her was a pleasant blue rectangle. Pretty day in L.A. I doubted she’d noticed.
“It’s time for you to leave, Zelda.”
She remained inert and mute. But when I began to repeat myself, she raised herself to her elbows, sat up and straightened her spine and positioned herself with the grace of a dancer. Swinging her feet over the bed, she rose to her feet. Moving in stages, each segment slow and deliberate.
Reverse origami, a woman unfolding sequentially.
Without a word, she walked past me toward the door, barefoot.
I got in front of her and held out her shoes. She began to take them but let go and they dropped to the floor. Before I could pick them up, she’d stepped into them with surprising agility and resumed her trudge.
We stepped into the outer room. Kevin Bracht called out, “Good luck, Zelda.”
She continued past him, unresponsive. He began clearing his desk.
—
Zelda trudged steadily. I kept my steps small, the way you do with a baby learning to walk.
The cubicle area was empty. No opportunity for a “teachable moment.”
Here’s one of our inpatients. We ensure that their needs are met in a clinically responsible manner…
Not that this patient would’ve been much of an endorsement, plodding empty-eyed, totally unmindful of her surroundings.
When curiosity goes, a lot else has already vanished.
—
The rush of noise on Wilshire jarred me but did nothing to Zelda. I guided her toward the Seville and when I seated her in the front, she bent like modeling clay. As I belted her in, she remained still.
Once she was secure, I waited to see if she’d grow anxious but she didn’t and I got behind the wheel and eased into westbound traffic.
When I drive, I listen to music, switching between an MP3, old-school CDs, even Paleolithic cassettes courtesy the tape deck the car came with in 1979. My preferences fluctuate but I can’t tell you what criteria I use. Sometimes I put the MP3 on random shuffle and serve up a bouillabaisse of Sonny Rollins, Bach, Miles Davis, Santo and Johnny, Vaughan Williams, Patsy Cline, Satie, Gershwin, you name it. Along with sprinkles of street-corner doo-wop and any breed of great guitar music.
No telling how Zelda would react to music but I chanced it, choosing something melodic and soothing: re-press of an old French recording of Ida Presti, possibly the greatest guitarist who ever lived, and her husband Alexandre Lagoya, pairing on Debussy’s “Clair de Lune.”
It’s a few minutes of gorgeous that rarely fails to settle me. I felt my blood vessels expand, heard my heartbeat slow.
Zelda remained unmoving and unmoved. Existing somewhere else.
Soon, she began to slump, ceding control to the seat belt, head bobbing like a dashboard toy. When I rolled over a rough patch of asphalt, her body flopped passively. Had Mike Nehru’s generous feeding of Ativan suppressed her that efficiently? Or was this typical behavior when she wasn’t sneaking into other people’s backyards and scaring the hell out of them?
That kind of extreme fluctuation would fit a variant of bipolar disorder, but it didn’t rule out schizophrenia. Or a combination of the two, as Lou had suggested.
Or some undiagnosed affliction no psychiatrist could classify beyond the ravages of a brain gone haywire.
Whatever the details, no way could she care for a child. Had she been sane enough to realize that and relinquished custody?
Or…
The music ended. Not an eyeblink from Zelda.
I said, “So you like Mounds.”
She said, “Mother.”
“What about Mother?”
She yawned and closed her eyes. By the time I reached La Cienega, her mouth had gated open and she was snoring. By Doheny Drive, the shuffle beneath her eyelids was unmistakable. REM sleep. The dream phase.
What does a madwoman dream about?
In this woman’s case, something pleasant. She smiled all the way to Santa Monica.
CHAPTER
12
As I pulled up to BrightMornings, Zelda woke up, saw the sunlit sky, and said, “Good night.”
Sherry Andover was ready for us, clicking the gate open and telling me where to park. Zelda remained pliable as I drew her out.
“Hi, there, Ms. Chase. Welcome back.”
Without a word, Zelda trudged toward the building. Andover sprinted ahead and unlocked the door to Room Six.
The space was no larger than the cell Zelda had just left and was painted an eerily similar yellow. Two windows, both safety-grilled. Clean bathroom equipped with the basics of hygiene, nightstand, closet, one nature print on the wall—grouse in the heather. A change of clothes was folded neatly on the bed pillow. Other garments, including a pair of new sneakers, were visible in the open closet.
The outer surface of the door could be key-locked but no way to secure it from the inside. No guarantee of privacy but freedom easily obtainable.
Zelda lay down on the bed and closed her eyes. Within seconds, her eyelids were ruffling again.
Sherry Andover said, “Glad to see you settle in easily, Ms. C.,” and we left.
—
On the way back to the Seville, I told her about Zelda’s request for candy.
She said, “You’re thinking junkie-jones?”
I said, “She’s had two days with no withdrawal symptoms. I suppose some of that could be the Ativan, but I doubt it could mask everything.”
“That’s been our experience, too. It calms them down but if they’ve got a serious habit they’re still throwing up and feeling miserable. I’ll keep an eye out.”
As I got back in the car, she said, “In terms of the candy, we try to keep the food reasonably healthy so the only sweets on hand are a big bag of those little Hershey’s Bars some nice person donated to us last Halloween and they’re probably stale. I’ll try to pick up some Mounds on my way home or tomorrow morning. Why not keep the populace happy?”
“Beyond the call, Sherry.”
“Look who’s talking.” She smiled. “I like coconut, probably steal a few. If she works out I’ll get her a roomie but I figured start as if she’s a newbie, even though she’s been here before. From what I just saw, she’s not big in the memory department.”
Amnesia could be another effect of the benzodiazepine in her blood. Of psychosis, as well. I said so.
“I don’t get into the pharm stuff,” she said. “I contacted the outpatient clinic, might be able to get a volunteer to take her the first couple of times. After that, she’s on her own.”
I thanked her again and started up the engine.
She said, “Candy and Mommy. Guess they’re the same to a baby…that’s kind of what people like her become, no? She mentions the kid, I’ll let you know. Ovid, huh? Naming him after a love poet. That took some imagination.”
“Once upon a time,” I said, “she was able to imagine.”
—
I spent the rest of the afternoon calling private schools, finally lost my ability to bullshit convincingly, walked to the kitchen and poured coffee. Caffeine was the last thing I needed and I ended up jumpy and wondering how to bleed it off. Then I remembered what Lou had told me about Zelda’s name change and began a new search.
No shortage of Jane Chases but none that matched Zelda. Then I realized I had no idea if she’d altered her family name, too, and put the issue aside.
Time to resume being a useful member of society. I scrounged up the fixings for a passable one-dish dinner: lamb shoulder, vegetables, Israeli couscous, everything sprinkled liberally with cumin and cardamom and chili powder. By the time Robin and Blanche came in from the studio, the pot was sizzling and the table was set.
Robin said, “You read my mind, just like they taught you in school. I’ve got sawdust all over, let me wash up. You’re a very nice man.”
—
No calls that night from Sherry Andover or Milo. From anyone except sociopaths trying to sell me term insurance, home security, and lawn care. I chose to interpret that as encouraging.
By eleven the following morning I’d taken on a new custody case in Superior Court, an evaluation on hold until the two children in question returned from Hong Kong. Meanwhile, the judge would email me background info, with my billable hours commencing upon receipt.
Just as I printed the file, my service put through a call from BrightMornings.
“Dr. Delaware? This is Carlos, I volunteer for Sherry at the shelter. Have you recently seen your patient, Zelda Chase? She left and hasn’t returned.”
“When?”
“Our gate camera has her pushing the button this morning at five-eighteen. Clients are free to come and go but Sherry decided to drive around looking for her because apparently Zelda has a history of wandering and trespassing and she figured she’d know where to find her. But she didn’t locate her and then she had to leave for meetings and she doesn’t talk on the phone while driving, so she asked me to call you.”
“Could I have Sherry’s mobile number, anyway?”
“She really won’t answer, Doctor. A fender-bender and three tickets.”
“I’ll leave a message.”
“Suit yourself, Doctor.”
I instructed my service to put Andover through immediately. An hour and twenty minutes later, they did just that.
She said, “Not a rousing success. No warning signs, she was starting to look a little more alert, took the initiative to shower, changed into fresh clothes. Grooming’s always a good sign but I guess not in this case.”
“Carlos said your camera picked her up leaving. What was her emotional state?”
“Can’t say, the images we get are distant and blurry, sometimes you can’t even identify who it is. I recognized her because of the clothes, I put them in the closet myself. That’s when I went to check her room. She even made up the bed.”
“Which way did she head?”
“The lens angle doesn’t capture that, just that they’ve triggered the gate and split.”
“Thanks for taking the time to search for her.”
“I figured if she was a creature of habit, finding her would be easy. Tough luck, but who knows? She wandered out, she could wander in. Wish it would’ve turned out smoother but at least I got her a Mounds bar. Left it right on her nightstand and she took it with her.”
—
I phoned Milo and told him.
He said, “That didn’t last long.”
“I don’t suppose Central Division could be asked to keep an eye out for her.”
“I could get them to say they will but it won’t mean much. She have any money for bus-fare?”
“No.”
“You think she’d walk all the way from Santa Monica to downtown?”
“Psychotics can cover long distances and she was busted twice downtown.”
“Let’s say they do find her wandering around Skid Row. Then what?”
“I don’t know.”
“Love your honesty,” he said. “Okay, I’ll put in a call but maybe she’s got homing instincts and you should start somewhere else. Like the last place she invaded—that house in Bel Air? Not a hop-skip from Santa Monica but a helluva lot closer than Central.”
“Good point,” I said. “What’s the address?”
“Not kosher, amigo. Let’s keep the investigatory process procedurally appropriate.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning see you in forty, and I’ll drive. You’re rescuing me from a shit-pile of paperwork.”
CHAPTER
13
There’s Bel Air, then there’s Bel Air.
The verdant, gently sloping streets a couple of miles below my house contain some of the grandest estates in the world. That’s the Bel Air populated by celebrities, heirs, and amassers of fortunes. The Bel Air where open-air buses crammed with squinting tourists snail up and down leafy lanes as smooth liars clutching hand mikes ladle out a broth of vicious gossip and unhappy endings.
You may not be able to live here, folks, but you’ll love hearing about all those rich bastards humiliated.
Above all that is a Bel Air that crawls along Mulholland Drive and transitions to the San Fernando Valley, an area exploited during the seventies and eighties by developers eager to cash in on the zip code.
Upper Bel Air costs a fortune but much of it looks like a suburban tract.
No tour buses in sight as Milo hooked west of Mulholland and we were met with the choice of two ungated developments.
To the left, Bel Aurora, to the right, La Belle Aire.
He checked the address in his pad, swung right, continued for half a mile. Both of us looking for an empty-eyed woman wearing brand-new sneakers.
We’d passed similar neighborhoods along the way, stingily treed streets filled with ranch houses and white boxes set on narrow lots. The lack of shade could be painful: Pivot the wrong way and your eyeballs bleached instantly. Portable basketball hoops in driveways promised youthful exuberance but no kids were in sight.
No one at all; post-nuclear silence is the badge of a fine L.A. neighborhood.
The property Zelda had invaded was on Bel Azura Drive, one of the ranches, positioned on the south side of the street where the views were less dramatic. An older gray BMW sedan sat next to an oil stain. Drapes drawn.
We drove on, reached a cul-de-sac a few blocks up, and returned for a second look.
Milo said, “That bolt in the gate is new. Without it, not much security, I can see why she’d choose it.”
He drove away.
—
We started by guessing the route Zelda might’ve taken from BrightMornings to Bel Air: Pico to Lincoln, Lincoln north to Wilshire, Wilshire east to the same campus entrance that had led me to Ravenswood Hospital, then, rather than continuing through the U.’s sprawl, a turn on Hilgard and north to Sunset.
After that, it was anyone’s guess.
The first few miles of the journey gave Milo the opportunity to query homeless people, roach-coach proprietors, gas station attendants, Santa Monica PD cop-teams. Anyone in a position to notice comings and goings. No success. The beach city teemed with homeless; even a woman as disabled as Zelda would blend in.
He’d come equipped with a wad of cash to loosen civilian tongues—what he calls “my data retrieval trust fund.” For as long as I’ve known him, he’s been dipping into his own pocket, not bothering to put in for reimbursement because “that would be like begging my old man for the keys to the car when he was ornery, which was always.”
He repeated the line this morning.
I said, “Fine, but let me pay.”
“And lose my status as a venture capitalist? I’d rather walk on glass.”
Moot point, anyway. Nothing to pay for; no one had seen Zelda.
—
Back at the station, he said, “What now?”
“Time to move on.”
“Glad to hear you say that. Your IQ is better spent on real stuff. Like helping me.”
“With what?”
“Nothing at the moment but I prefer my consultants undistracted.”
I said, “Sure. But if you could ask Central…”
“Already done. Now go home and take your OCD meds.”
“I was thinking Chivas.”
“Whatever works.”
—
Two days passed before he phoned at ten-twenty p.m. Robin had gone to bed. The kids from the new custody case might be flying in next week from Hong Kong and I was reviewing their pediatric and school records.
“She’s been found, Alex.”
“Great—”
“Not great. God, I hate doing this with anyone, let alone you.”
I felt the blood rush from my head. “How?”
“Don’t have details, I just got to the scene.”
“Where’s that?”
“Like it matters? You’ll wanna come wherever it is.”
“That okay?”
“Okay?” he said. “Far from it. But I’m gonna say no?”
CHAPTER
14
St. Denis Lane was an afterthought at the western edge of Bellagio Road, a night-blackened strip curving past fifteen-foot hedges, keep-out walls, and monumental gateposts. No streetlamps to compete with the stars. Tonight the stars were stingy.
Anyone walking would be unnoticed if they wanted to be.
The oldest, grandest section of Bel Air.
The Bel Air, quiet as a mortuary.
—
Blue flashers advertised the scene. The cop in the cruiser blocking the road had been told about me and waved me to a parking spot. I continued on foot past two other squad cars and a white coroner’s van. Twin gates bolted to fieldstone columns were splayed open. I stepped through and began climbing a crushed-gravel drive.
The punch line at the end of a five-hundred-foot walk was a huge, two-story Spanish Colonial house perched atop a couple of acres of lawn. The uniform stationed at the front door hadn’t been told about me and I waited as he radioed Milo. Whatever Milo said earned me a personal escort along the northern side of the house.
The property in back terminated in a dark cloud of forest, its dimensions impossible to gauge. Low-voltage lighting touched upon scalpel-cut hedges, billowing flower gardens, and decades-old citrus trees. The land was terraced gently into three levels, creating surprise as one descended. One tier down was marble statuary, a swimming pool archaic enough to feature a diving board, hexagons of barbered grass set in weathered brick. Level two was announced by a menagerie of topiary animals.
All the action was situated near a prancing topiary horse, the light here harsh from the glare of portable lamps arranged under a staked and taped canvas canopy. Gloria, a coroner’s investigator I knew from other death scenes, stood by making notes as jumpsuited techs crouched and worked. Milo was off to the side, pad and pencil out, talking to a white-haired woman.
“Mounds,” she said. “Coconut.”
She’d used heroin and junkies crave sugar. But during this lockup, no withdrawal symptoms had surfaced. Ativan could be partly responsible for that but it couldn’t have masked a serious addiction.
Was craving candy a sense memory?
Or she just liked the damn stuff.
She pressed her arms to her sides, stared at the ceiling. The window above her was a pleasant blue rectangle. Pretty day in L.A. I doubted she’d noticed.
“It’s time for you to leave, Zelda.”
She remained inert and mute. But when I began to repeat myself, she raised herself to her elbows, sat up and straightened her spine and positioned herself with the grace of a dancer. Swinging her feet over the bed, she rose to her feet. Moving in stages, each segment slow and deliberate.
Reverse origami, a woman unfolding sequentially.
Without a word, she walked past me toward the door, barefoot.
I got in front of her and held out her shoes. She began to take them but let go and they dropped to the floor. Before I could pick them up, she’d stepped into them with surprising agility and resumed her trudge.
We stepped into the outer room. Kevin Bracht called out, “Good luck, Zelda.”
She continued past him, unresponsive. He began clearing his desk.
—
Zelda trudged steadily. I kept my steps small, the way you do with a baby learning to walk.
The cubicle area was empty. No opportunity for a “teachable moment.”
Here’s one of our inpatients. We ensure that their needs are met in a clinically responsible manner…
Not that this patient would’ve been much of an endorsement, plodding empty-eyed, totally unmindful of her surroundings.
When curiosity goes, a lot else has already vanished.
—
The rush of noise on Wilshire jarred me but did nothing to Zelda. I guided her toward the Seville and when I seated her in the front, she bent like modeling clay. As I belted her in, she remained still.
Once she was secure, I waited to see if she’d grow anxious but she didn’t and I got behind the wheel and eased into westbound traffic.
When I drive, I listen to music, switching between an MP3, old-school CDs, even Paleolithic cassettes courtesy the tape deck the car came with in 1979. My preferences fluctuate but I can’t tell you what criteria I use. Sometimes I put the MP3 on random shuffle and serve up a bouillabaisse of Sonny Rollins, Bach, Miles Davis, Santo and Johnny, Vaughan Williams, Patsy Cline, Satie, Gershwin, you name it. Along with sprinkles of street-corner doo-wop and any breed of great guitar music.
No telling how Zelda would react to music but I chanced it, choosing something melodic and soothing: re-press of an old French recording of Ida Presti, possibly the greatest guitarist who ever lived, and her husband Alexandre Lagoya, pairing on Debussy’s “Clair de Lune.”
It’s a few minutes of gorgeous that rarely fails to settle me. I felt my blood vessels expand, heard my heartbeat slow.
Zelda remained unmoving and unmoved. Existing somewhere else.
Soon, she began to slump, ceding control to the seat belt, head bobbing like a dashboard toy. When I rolled over a rough patch of asphalt, her body flopped passively. Had Mike Nehru’s generous feeding of Ativan suppressed her that efficiently? Or was this typical behavior when she wasn’t sneaking into other people’s backyards and scaring the hell out of them?
That kind of extreme fluctuation would fit a variant of bipolar disorder, but it didn’t rule out schizophrenia. Or a combination of the two, as Lou had suggested.
Or some undiagnosed affliction no psychiatrist could classify beyond the ravages of a brain gone haywire.
Whatever the details, no way could she care for a child. Had she been sane enough to realize that and relinquished custody?
Or…
The music ended. Not an eyeblink from Zelda.
I said, “So you like Mounds.”
She said, “Mother.”
“What about Mother?”
She yawned and closed her eyes. By the time I reached La Cienega, her mouth had gated open and she was snoring. By Doheny Drive, the shuffle beneath her eyelids was unmistakable. REM sleep. The dream phase.
What does a madwoman dream about?
In this woman’s case, something pleasant. She smiled all the way to Santa Monica.
CHAPTER
12
As I pulled up to BrightMornings, Zelda woke up, saw the sunlit sky, and said, “Good night.”
Sherry Andover was ready for us, clicking the gate open and telling me where to park. Zelda remained pliable as I drew her out.
“Hi, there, Ms. Chase. Welcome back.”
Without a word, Zelda trudged toward the building. Andover sprinted ahead and unlocked the door to Room Six.
The space was no larger than the cell Zelda had just left and was painted an eerily similar yellow. Two windows, both safety-grilled. Clean bathroom equipped with the basics of hygiene, nightstand, closet, one nature print on the wall—grouse in the heather. A change of clothes was folded neatly on the bed pillow. Other garments, including a pair of new sneakers, were visible in the open closet.
The outer surface of the door could be key-locked but no way to secure it from the inside. No guarantee of privacy but freedom easily obtainable.
Zelda lay down on the bed and closed her eyes. Within seconds, her eyelids were ruffling again.
Sherry Andover said, “Glad to see you settle in easily, Ms. C.,” and we left.
—
On the way back to the Seville, I told her about Zelda’s request for candy.
She said, “You’re thinking junkie-jones?”
I said, “She’s had two days with no withdrawal symptoms. I suppose some of that could be the Ativan, but I doubt it could mask everything.”
“That’s been our experience, too. It calms them down but if they’ve got a serious habit they’re still throwing up and feeling miserable. I’ll keep an eye out.”
As I got back in the car, she said, “In terms of the candy, we try to keep the food reasonably healthy so the only sweets on hand are a big bag of those little Hershey’s Bars some nice person donated to us last Halloween and they’re probably stale. I’ll try to pick up some Mounds on my way home or tomorrow morning. Why not keep the populace happy?”
“Beyond the call, Sherry.”
“Look who’s talking.” She smiled. “I like coconut, probably steal a few. If she works out I’ll get her a roomie but I figured start as if she’s a newbie, even though she’s been here before. From what I just saw, she’s not big in the memory department.”
Amnesia could be another effect of the benzodiazepine in her blood. Of psychosis, as well. I said so.
“I don’t get into the pharm stuff,” she said. “I contacted the outpatient clinic, might be able to get a volunteer to take her the first couple of times. After that, she’s on her own.”
I thanked her again and started up the engine.
She said, “Candy and Mommy. Guess they’re the same to a baby…that’s kind of what people like her become, no? She mentions the kid, I’ll let you know. Ovid, huh? Naming him after a love poet. That took some imagination.”
“Once upon a time,” I said, “she was able to imagine.”
—
I spent the rest of the afternoon calling private schools, finally lost my ability to bullshit convincingly, walked to the kitchen and poured coffee. Caffeine was the last thing I needed and I ended up jumpy and wondering how to bleed it off. Then I remembered what Lou had told me about Zelda’s name change and began a new search.
No shortage of Jane Chases but none that matched Zelda. Then I realized I had no idea if she’d altered her family name, too, and put the issue aside.
Time to resume being a useful member of society. I scrounged up the fixings for a passable one-dish dinner: lamb shoulder, vegetables, Israeli couscous, everything sprinkled liberally with cumin and cardamom and chili powder. By the time Robin and Blanche came in from the studio, the pot was sizzling and the table was set.
Robin said, “You read my mind, just like they taught you in school. I’ve got sawdust all over, let me wash up. You’re a very nice man.”
—
No calls that night from Sherry Andover or Milo. From anyone except sociopaths trying to sell me term insurance, home security, and lawn care. I chose to interpret that as encouraging.
By eleven the following morning I’d taken on a new custody case in Superior Court, an evaluation on hold until the two children in question returned from Hong Kong. Meanwhile, the judge would email me background info, with my billable hours commencing upon receipt.
Just as I printed the file, my service put through a call from BrightMornings.
“Dr. Delaware? This is Carlos, I volunteer for Sherry at the shelter. Have you recently seen your patient, Zelda Chase? She left and hasn’t returned.”
“When?”
“Our gate camera has her pushing the button this morning at five-eighteen. Clients are free to come and go but Sherry decided to drive around looking for her because apparently Zelda has a history of wandering and trespassing and she figured she’d know where to find her. But she didn’t locate her and then she had to leave for meetings and she doesn’t talk on the phone while driving, so she asked me to call you.”
“Could I have Sherry’s mobile number, anyway?”
“She really won’t answer, Doctor. A fender-bender and three tickets.”
“I’ll leave a message.”
“Suit yourself, Doctor.”
I instructed my service to put Andover through immediately. An hour and twenty minutes later, they did just that.
She said, “Not a rousing success. No warning signs, she was starting to look a little more alert, took the initiative to shower, changed into fresh clothes. Grooming’s always a good sign but I guess not in this case.”
“Carlos said your camera picked her up leaving. What was her emotional state?”
“Can’t say, the images we get are distant and blurry, sometimes you can’t even identify who it is. I recognized her because of the clothes, I put them in the closet myself. That’s when I went to check her room. She even made up the bed.”
“Which way did she head?”
“The lens angle doesn’t capture that, just that they’ve triggered the gate and split.”
“Thanks for taking the time to search for her.”
“I figured if she was a creature of habit, finding her would be easy. Tough luck, but who knows? She wandered out, she could wander in. Wish it would’ve turned out smoother but at least I got her a Mounds bar. Left it right on her nightstand and she took it with her.”
—
I phoned Milo and told him.
He said, “That didn’t last long.”
“I don’t suppose Central Division could be asked to keep an eye out for her.”
“I could get them to say they will but it won’t mean much. She have any money for bus-fare?”
“No.”
“You think she’d walk all the way from Santa Monica to downtown?”
“Psychotics can cover long distances and she was busted twice downtown.”
“Let’s say they do find her wandering around Skid Row. Then what?”
“I don’t know.”
“Love your honesty,” he said. “Okay, I’ll put in a call but maybe she’s got homing instincts and you should start somewhere else. Like the last place she invaded—that house in Bel Air? Not a hop-skip from Santa Monica but a helluva lot closer than Central.”
“Good point,” I said. “What’s the address?”
“Not kosher, amigo. Let’s keep the investigatory process procedurally appropriate.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning see you in forty, and I’ll drive. You’re rescuing me from a shit-pile of paperwork.”
CHAPTER
13
There’s Bel Air, then there’s Bel Air.
The verdant, gently sloping streets a couple of miles below my house contain some of the grandest estates in the world. That’s the Bel Air populated by celebrities, heirs, and amassers of fortunes. The Bel Air where open-air buses crammed with squinting tourists snail up and down leafy lanes as smooth liars clutching hand mikes ladle out a broth of vicious gossip and unhappy endings.
You may not be able to live here, folks, but you’ll love hearing about all those rich bastards humiliated.
Above all that is a Bel Air that crawls along Mulholland Drive and transitions to the San Fernando Valley, an area exploited during the seventies and eighties by developers eager to cash in on the zip code.
Upper Bel Air costs a fortune but much of it looks like a suburban tract.
No tour buses in sight as Milo hooked west of Mulholland and we were met with the choice of two ungated developments.
To the left, Bel Aurora, to the right, La Belle Aire.
He checked the address in his pad, swung right, continued for half a mile. Both of us looking for an empty-eyed woman wearing brand-new sneakers.
We’d passed similar neighborhoods along the way, stingily treed streets filled with ranch houses and white boxes set on narrow lots. The lack of shade could be painful: Pivot the wrong way and your eyeballs bleached instantly. Portable basketball hoops in driveways promised youthful exuberance but no kids were in sight.
No one at all; post-nuclear silence is the badge of a fine L.A. neighborhood.
The property Zelda had invaded was on Bel Azura Drive, one of the ranches, positioned on the south side of the street where the views were less dramatic. An older gray BMW sedan sat next to an oil stain. Drapes drawn.
We drove on, reached a cul-de-sac a few blocks up, and returned for a second look.
Milo said, “That bolt in the gate is new. Without it, not much security, I can see why she’d choose it.”
He drove away.
—
We started by guessing the route Zelda might’ve taken from BrightMornings to Bel Air: Pico to Lincoln, Lincoln north to Wilshire, Wilshire east to the same campus entrance that had led me to Ravenswood Hospital, then, rather than continuing through the U.’s sprawl, a turn on Hilgard and north to Sunset.
After that, it was anyone’s guess.
The first few miles of the journey gave Milo the opportunity to query homeless people, roach-coach proprietors, gas station attendants, Santa Monica PD cop-teams. Anyone in a position to notice comings and goings. No success. The beach city teemed with homeless; even a woman as disabled as Zelda would blend in.
He’d come equipped with a wad of cash to loosen civilian tongues—what he calls “my data retrieval trust fund.” For as long as I’ve known him, he’s been dipping into his own pocket, not bothering to put in for reimbursement because “that would be like begging my old man for the keys to the car when he was ornery, which was always.”
He repeated the line this morning.
I said, “Fine, but let me pay.”
“And lose my status as a venture capitalist? I’d rather walk on glass.”
Moot point, anyway. Nothing to pay for; no one had seen Zelda.
—
Back at the station, he said, “What now?”
“Time to move on.”
“Glad to hear you say that. Your IQ is better spent on real stuff. Like helping me.”
“With what?”
“Nothing at the moment but I prefer my consultants undistracted.”
I said, “Sure. But if you could ask Central…”
“Already done. Now go home and take your OCD meds.”
“I was thinking Chivas.”
“Whatever works.”
—
Two days passed before he phoned at ten-twenty p.m. Robin had gone to bed. The kids from the new custody case might be flying in next week from Hong Kong and I was reviewing their pediatric and school records.
“She’s been found, Alex.”
“Great—”
“Not great. God, I hate doing this with anyone, let alone you.”
I felt the blood rush from my head. “How?”
“Don’t have details, I just got to the scene.”
“Where’s that?”
“Like it matters? You’ll wanna come wherever it is.”
“That okay?”
“Okay?” he said. “Far from it. But I’m gonna say no?”
CHAPTER
14
St. Denis Lane was an afterthought at the western edge of Bellagio Road, a night-blackened strip curving past fifteen-foot hedges, keep-out walls, and monumental gateposts. No streetlamps to compete with the stars. Tonight the stars were stingy.
Anyone walking would be unnoticed if they wanted to be.
The oldest, grandest section of Bel Air.
The Bel Air, quiet as a mortuary.
—
Blue flashers advertised the scene. The cop in the cruiser blocking the road had been told about me and waved me to a parking spot. I continued on foot past two other squad cars and a white coroner’s van. Twin gates bolted to fieldstone columns were splayed open. I stepped through and began climbing a crushed-gravel drive.
The punch line at the end of a five-hundred-foot walk was a huge, two-story Spanish Colonial house perched atop a couple of acres of lawn. The uniform stationed at the front door hadn’t been told about me and I waited as he radioed Milo. Whatever Milo said earned me a personal escort along the northern side of the house.
The property in back terminated in a dark cloud of forest, its dimensions impossible to gauge. Low-voltage lighting touched upon scalpel-cut hedges, billowing flower gardens, and decades-old citrus trees. The land was terraced gently into three levels, creating surprise as one descended. One tier down was marble statuary, a swimming pool archaic enough to feature a diving board, hexagons of barbered grass set in weathered brick. Level two was announced by a menagerie of topiary animals.
All the action was situated near a prancing topiary horse, the light here harsh from the glare of portable lamps arranged under a staked and taped canvas canopy. Gloria, a coroner’s investigator I knew from other death scenes, stood by making notes as jumpsuited techs crouched and worked. Milo was off to the side, pad and pencil out, talking to a white-haired woman.
