Sisters of the Road (8 page)

“What’s her background? What are her parents like?”

Beth put her feet up on the desk. They sat there like huge pink bunnies amidst the thicket of papers. “She’s got a mother in Seattle who remarried a few years ago. I gather that was the start of the trouble. A twelve-year-old with all the problems that age has anyway—she had the feeling she lost her mother to this guy. I’ve met both of them. The mother is one of those sweet, helpless women who can be pushed around so easily—and the stepfather is just the guy to do it. Authoritarian, short-sighted, a little stupid. He wanted Trish out of the house and he’s not going to take her back. And then there’s the stepbrother.”

Beth lit another Carlton and dragged at it futilely, trying to get enough tobacco in her lungs to make it worthwhile. The noise outside her office seemed to increase. I heard pushing and shoving and then an adult male voice, “Knock it off. Right now.”

“Did she tell you about him? This Wayne?”

“Wayne! But she said he was her boyfriend, not her stepbrother. She said they were in love.”

“Yeah, I know that’s what she’d like to believe. I never met him, only heard about him, but he sounds like he’s really something: good-looking, very controlling, possessive, one of those
guys
.”

She didn’t say the word with disgust, more with a bitter self-knowledge of the attraction of such men. It sounded like a past attraction.

“I might have had more luck with Trish if it hadn’t been for him. A lot of the girls on the street aren’t really into prostitution in a big way. They come downtown, running from their parents, looking for drugs and company—and after a few days, when they’re hungry and cold and out of cash, one of their new friends tells them where it’s at, how easy it is to get into the car with one of the men cruising by. You suck or jerk him off while he drives around the block and there’s your twenty bucks. No big deal. It’s not usually until the girl’s first arrest that she takes on the whore label and starts feeling like that’s what she is. And a lot of the girls we can still help at that point, if they get out of the scene in time.

“But someone like Trish, who was turned out by her stepbrother and really had to work the streets, well, the chances are slim she’s going to leave the life on her own. It’s become too much of what she is, and too easy to go back.”

“Then Wayne is her pimp?” June was right.

“Oh, he’d be the last one to call himself a pimp. All the same, that’s what he is. And not just with Trish. My suspicion is that Rosalie and a couple of other girls are—were—working for him too.”

“But doesn’t her mother
know
, doesn’t she care?”

“She might, if she weren’t married to such a jerk. I tried a couple of family counseling sessions. They were a disaster. The stepfather interrupted the mom every time she opened her mouth. And Trish didn’t say a word.”

“I’d like to talk to the parents if I could.”

“Sure… but don’t expect much.” Beth flipped through a Rolodex file and carefully wrote out their address. It was in Lake City, near Carole’s. About as far away from Broadmoor as you could get.

“How come you haven’t asked me why I’m doing all this, why I’m looking for Trish?”

If I had to ask you that I wouldn’t be here. I understand about wanting to help…” She paused and lit another Carlton. “I had some… trouble too… when I was younger. And I guess, if somebody had come looking for me when I was fifteen… somebody who seemed like she cared… my life might have been a little different. I don’t know, but I wish you luck.”

“Thanks.”

We shook hands and she held mine for a minute longer. “Just one thing. You’re taking on a lot if you get involved with Trish and her family. You can’t just walk into a person like Trish’s life and walk out again. Too many people have done that already. Once she trusts you, if she ever does, you’ve got a responsibility.”

“I’ll try to remember that,” I said. But I don’t think I really understood what she was saying—then.

I
T WASN’T EASY, BUT
I managed to convince June that the circumstances warranted me taking the next afternoon off from work.

“I just can’t believe she left my apartment of her own free will. Her note said she’d see me later.”

“That’s as good as good-bye to some people. Can’t you just accept that the girl’s flown the coop—what do you want to get involved with her parents for anyways? Okay, okay,” she said, giving in. “It’s fine with me. I’ll tell Carole you took sick—
if
she ever comes back from lunch.”

“Thanks, June… just one more thing?”

She looked at me suspiciously. “What’s that?”

“Can I use your car?”

“Only if you promise to bring it back without blood all over the seat. I have enough trouble keeping it clean with just the girls and their little candy wrappers.”

Before I drove out to Lake City I took the precaution of going home and changing into some other clothes. A clean pair of jeans, a Shetland sweater, a tweed jacket and hoop earrings, all of which I’d inherited from Penny when she went punk. I put some papers in a briefcase and, on impulse,
Jane Eyre.
I also discovered a clipboard in a desk drawer and scribbled a few things on it.

You look like a social worker, I told the mirror, but that was okay—I was hoping to pass myself off as a government researcher. It was the best way I could think of to ask some questions.

Assuming they were the kind of people who would answer them.

Lake City Way is a long ugly street that could have come out of a kit labeled “Anywhere, U.S.A.” Block after block of car dealerships, gas stations and fast food restaurants: Kentucky Fried Chicken, Taco Bell, McDonald’s—they were all here, in duplicate and triplicate. No wonder Trish didn’t like vegetables. If she’d grown up around here she’d probably never even seen one. I turned off at a street above 135th and found the house easily. Nothing special—a low, yellow three-bedroom set back among firs and with a border of clipped rose bushes along the driveway. I parked and went cautiously up the walk, noticing house plants and lace curtains in the windows.

I expected to find Trish’s mother, Melanie Hemmings, at home, but it was a man who finally came to the door. He was short with a powerfully built torso and a spreading belly, a beer belly to judge from the Bud in his hand. Not bad looking, in spite of his receding hairline and blond-red beard stubble, but with a hard, unsatisfied look around his mouth. He must be Rob Hemmings, the stepfather.

He didn’t say anything, so I started right in, trying to sound as detached and professional as possible.

“I’m looking for Mrs. Hemmings. The Rainbow Center gave me her name and address for a study I’m conducting. Nancy Todd here. National Institute for Research on Delinquent Youth. Is she in?”

“Work,” he said briefly and stared at me. I was regretting wearing levis. Brown polyester pants would have been much better. I smiled brightly and waved my clipboard.

“Perhaps
you
would be able to answer a few questions?”

“National Institute for—yeah, come on in. I got nothing better to do this afternoon. It’s about Patti, am I right?”

“Ah, Patricia Hemmings, yes, that’s who I’m interested in. Sometimes goes by the name Trish?”

“Maybe she does,” he said, allowing me to step past him into the hall. “Wouldn’t know. Hemmings isn’t her last name though. She kept her father’s, Margolin.”

I pretended to consult my clipboard. “Yes, that’s right. You’re Robert Hemmings? The girl’s stepfather?”

“Rob,” he said. “Take your jacket?”

“Thanks but no, this should be brief.” I followed him into the living room, where male and female elements warred. On the sofa back and arms, crocheted doilies; over the fireplace a pair of moose antlers; in the magazine rack,
Good Housekeeping
and
Sports Illustrated.
On the teak coffee table, cute little coasters, and next to them, making rings on the wood, beer cans. The television was turned up loudly on a soap. “No, Billy, I won’t let you take the blame. I’ll tell you the name of the child’s
real
father!” Duh-dum sounded the music, piano and a somber violin. Rob turned it off.

“Construction’s a little slow this time of year,” he said.

“You’re a carpenter?”

“Welder. Worked on some of those big buildings down in Seattle.” He said it as if it were another city. “Got a back problem right now,” he added, easing himself slowly into a vinyl recliner. “Like a beer?”

“Ah, no thanks.” Now what? He didn’t seem like such a bad guy. I felt a little guilty.

He took a gulp from his can. “Good thing Melanie kept her job at the Bon. Course I’ve got disability and workman’s comp, but it doesn’t go very far.”

I murmured something sympathetic and wrote down, “Bon Marché Dept. Store” on my clipboard.

“So it’s about Patti, is it? Well, I’ll tell you, we don’t have much to do with her now, haven’t for a long time.”

“How long has she been away from home?”

“She’s always been a troublemaker,” snorted Rob. “Said to her mother when we first got together, that girl is going to cause you a mess of problems if you don’t watch out. But Melanie wouldn’t listen. She’d been raising the girl alone, couldn’t see the girl’s attitude.”

I pretended to write something down. “Stubborn?” I suggested.

The girl needed straightening out and fast. I tried, but I was too late. Girl should have been straightened out a long time ago. She got in with a bad group of kids, hell, you’re studying juvenile delinquents—some of them was real delinquents. Drinking, motorcycles, cutting school….”

“She must have been pretty young, twelve or thirteen, when she started to get influenced…?”

“Old enough to get whipped for it—but Melanie wouldn’t let me touch her. Not even when we found out she was messing around. That’s when this all started.”

“You know she’s been a… a…”

“Whore? The whole damned neighborhood knew it. Picked up one night down in Seattle—she was still living here then and we were the ones responsible for her. We had to go down to the detention center and get her. I wanted to smack it out of her good and hard, but Melanie was just crying and crying. I told Patti, this happens again and you’re on your own. Two weeks later they got her again. They said she had V.D. I told Melanie, we’re not going to go get her and if she ever sets foot in this house again, I’m leaving.”

Rob had worked himself up to a righteous anger. His face and ears were red enough to light a fire.

“You have a son as well, don’t you?” I asked, as dispassionately as I could.

“If Melanie was here she’d tell you he had something to do with Patti going bad, but that’s a goddamned lie. Patti’s a whore and she’s always been a whore and no goddamned social worker is going to put her back in this house—not when there’s an innocent little baby on the way.”

I was so angry that the words didn’t quite sink in. “Trish is pregnant?”

“Melanie is—seven months.” He was still fuming about his son though. “I don’t pretend to think the boy’s perfect. His mom and me was divorced when he was just a baby and she’s raised him all screwed up—taking him to Mexico with her and her artsy friends, putting him in private schools and all. And then trying to dump him on me when she got married again. No wonder Wayne don’t know how to hold a job. But he’s a good kid all the same. I won’t hear nothing said against him. He only tried to help Patti—but she wouldn’t listen to him either.”

“Well, thank you,” I said and got up. I suddenly couldn’t bear to listen to any more, even though I was sure Rob would be able to regale me for hours with details of Trish’s troublemaking. He certainly seemed to hate her—and I suddenly wondered if Rob could have been obsessed with Trish in another way? Obsessed enough with her as a whore to follow her, to kill her friend, to kill her?

“What’d you say the name of your institute was? So I can tell Melanie. Something about juvenile delinquents, am I right?”

“That’s right,” I said. “And you’ve been
very
helpful. No, I can find my own way out. Thanks so much.”

I heard the television roar alive as I left. “Betty, I’m telling you that it doesn’t make any difference. I’ll always love you, always and forever.”

I
MADE A FEW PHONE CALLS
to various personnel departments and discovered that Melanie Hemmings worked at the Bon Marché in the nearby Northgate shopping mall. Hosiery.

I found her straightening striped and patterned kneesocks on tiny hangers. I went over and fingered a couple on sale. Maybe this was all happening in order that I could enlarge my wardrobe. I never went into department stores if I could help it.

“Can I help you?” she asked, with a timid but friendly smile. Like Trish she had a triangular face and widely spaced eyes. She was petite and dark-haired; under a burgundy smock her pregnancy was very apparent.

“I’m Nancy Todd, with the National Institute for Research on Delinquent Youth…” I realized my voice sounded tentative and added firmly, “I’ve just talked to your husband and wanted to ask you a few questions about your daughter.”

Melanie shook her head. Her dark brown hair was thick and cut in a bob with bangs. “I haven’t seen her for months, almost a year,” she said distantly. “My husband… well… he… we just don’t want to see her, that’s all.”

I nodded and kept my voice neutral. “When did the trouble begin?”

Her hand went to her abdomen and she looked around for escape. If we’d been at her house she would have politely shown me the door.

“She was such a good girl,” Melanie finally said, helplessly. “But something changed a few years ago. I didn’t recognize her anymore.”

“Do you think it had something to do with your marriage?”

She defended him immediately. “Oh no. Rob wanted to be a father to her… He just believes in discipline.”

“Did he—punish her?”

Some memory seemed to hurt Melanie; it showed in her eyes. “I told him I thought it wasn’t the right way. I never hit her when she was growing up. And she was such a wonderful little girl, it was just her and me for six years, we always got along. But she put up such a fight when I married Rob. He’s a good man, he didn’t know much about kids, that was all…” Her hand went anxiously to her belly again. “They just got off on the wrong foot. He has a quick temper sometimes, that’s all. He doesn’t like being talked back to.”