Flesh and Blood (47 page)

"What about Anita?"

"So far, she doesn't appear to be dirty," he said. "When I saw her she looked worse than Dugger—some kind of intestinal problems; she actually threw up four times during a one-hour interview. She seems genuinely shocked by what her husband and Cheryl were up to—we're talking emotionally shattered. Even my jaded detective ears ain't ringing. As I was leaving the mafioso doc was putting her on tranqs. . . . What else— Oh, yeah, Charming Lyle the Model Father finally showed up. Looks like he really was hunting. Rangers picked him up for shooting a doe out of season, caught him skinning it by the side of his truck. Big-time fine, and they sent him back home, bitching all the way. Asshole actually called me up again yesterday, wanting to know if I'd learned anything about Lauren's will."

"What'd you tell him?"

"Well," he said. "I controlled myself, didn't allow myself free expression of pent-up emotions."

He ambled to the fridge, stuck his head in, emerged empty-handed, walked over to the window and played with a houseplant.

"What I told him is Lauren died poor. Which is the truth, right?"

38

BY THE THIRD day Robin still hadn't called, and I tried to drag myself out of inertial sludge into a walking depression.

Finding Agnes Yeager was easy.

Olivia Brickerman, LCSW, a friend and former mentor at Western Pediatrics, now a professor of social work at the gracious old school crosstown, had full command of the Medi-Cal and private insurance data banks, and it took thirty seconds for her to pull up the name.

"The age of privacy," she said. "Always wear clean underwear. Yeager, Agnes Mavis, DOB fifty-one years ago. . . . Looks like she did some time at County Gen. . . . From the billing codes, endocrinology, cardiology, some lung workups ... a psych consult—short-term consult, four sessions. After that she was transferred to the rehab unit at Casa de los Amigos for a month, then discharged to an aftercare facility in San Bernardino—SweetHaven. Sounds like something from a kiddie book. That's the last thing I've got. Last billing was thirteen months ago." She read off the convalescent home's phone number. "So how's Gorgeous Robin?"

"Terrific."

"And you?"

"The same."

"Yeah?"

"What, I don't sound terrific?"

"The doctor gets defensive," she said, cheerfully. "You're forgetting, boychik, that before I became a big-shot academic I did what you do. And right now my third ear is telling me you're not smiling."

"Okay, now I am," I said. Actually forcing my lips into position. "How's that?"

"Meat but no motion, boychik—you're sure you're okay?"

"I'm terrific. How about you?"

"Changing the subject. Don't you think I deserve a more subtle form of resistance— I'm fantastic, Alex. Menopause is everything they claim and more. But my fine spirits should be obvious. Unlike other people I don't have that schleppy tone permeating my voice."

"Lack of sleep, that's all."

"Lack of sleep and Agnes Mavis Yeager?"

"No," I said. "It's complicated."

"With you it tends to be. We should have lunch, it's been a long time. You can tell me stories and I'll pretend to be your mother."

"It's a deal, Liv."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah. Meanwhile, I won't eat on the chance that if you do call my mouth won't be full."

A phone call to SweetHaven Convalescent Home leavened by a few lies got me the information that Agnes Yeager had moved out three months ago. Forwarding address: the Four Seasons Hotel, on Doheny. The personnel office there confirmed that Ms. Yeager was cleaning rooms on the eight A.M. to three P.M. shift.

Working again, so she'd mended, physically.

Returning to L.A., so maybe she hadn't given up.

At 2:15 P.M. I drove to the Four Seasons, handed the doorman a ten, and asked him to keep the Seville up front. I'd just had the car washed and waxed, and he smiled as he nosed it between a Bentley Arnage and a Ferrari Testarossa.

The lobby teemed with grim, skinny things in all-black, and I pushed past them and used the house phone to call Housekeeping. Once I got a supervisor on the line, I talked quickly and ambiguously, said it was important that I speak to Mrs. Yeager, old friend, some kind of family issue.

"Is this an emergency, sir?"

"Hard to say. I just need a few minutes."

"Hold on."

Several minutes later a weak, sibilant voice came on. "Yes?"

"Mrs. Yeager, my name is Alex Delaware. I'm a psychologist who works with the police and I've been looking into Shawna's case— I've just begun, nothing to report, I'm afraid. But I was wondering if we could talk."

"A psychologist? What, some kind of research?"

"No, ma'am. I consult to the police, am trying to find some answers— I know it's been a long time—"

"I like psychologists. One of them helped me. I was sick—they thought it was . . . Where are you, sir?"

"Down in the lobby."

"Here? Oh. Well, I'm off in a few minutes, I'll meet you out on Burton Way, near the employee exit."

She was there by the time I walked around the corner, a small, thin, gray-haired woman wearing a charwoman's pink uniform. Her hair was cropped and coarse, and her eyeglasses were steel-rimmed rectangles. Freshly applied scarlet lipstick screamed from chapped lips, and her cheeks had been rouged. High-waisted and flat-chested, she looked ten years older than fifty-one.

"Thank you so much for doing this, Dr.— Was it Delavalle?"

"Delaware. I'm afraid I can't promise you—"

"I'm past promises. I'm parked a few blocks down, do you mind walking?"

"Not at all."

"It's a nice day anyway," she said. "At least weather-wise."

We headed east on Burton, and she thanked me again for reopening Shawna's case. I tried to offer a disclaimer, but she wasn't hearing it. Went on about how it was about time, the police had never really investigated fully. "And that detective they assigned—Riley. Didn't do a darn thing. Not that I want to speak ill of the dead."

"He died?" I said.

"You didn't know? Just over two months ago. Retired to the desert and spent all his time playing golf and just keeled over on the golf course. I know because I used to call him—not too often, because frankly I didn't have much faith in him. But he was ... a link to Shawna. He wasn't a bad man, Riley. Just not. . . energetic. He did give me his home number when he retired. Last time I phoned him, his poor wife told me, and I ended up comforting her. So you see, I'm not hoping for miracles, but at least I have an open mind. 'Cause in my opinion, Riley and the rest of them never did. I'm not saying they deliberately set out not to care, but I feel, to this day, that they just thought finding Shawna was hopeless and never really tried."

No anger. A speech she'd recited often.

"What do you think they could've done?"

"Publicize more. I tried the newspapers, but they weren't interested. You have to be rich and famous to get attention. Or get killed by someone rich and famous."

"Sometimes it's like that in L.A.," I said.

"Probably everywhere, but all I know is L.A., 'cause that's where my Shawna died—you see, I'm not denying that anymore. I got past that. The last time I spoke to him, Leo Riley tried to tell me not to hope for the best. It was kinda funny the way he got all nervous and stuttery, like he was telling me something I didn't know. But I'd gotten there a long time ago. No way could my Shawna be missing this long without telling me and not be ... gone. All I want, now, is to know what happened. Know where she is, give her a decent Christian burial. The psychologist I talked to—Dr. Yoshimura—she said everyone made a big deal about closure but closure was foolishness made up by people who write books—it didn't exist, how could you ever heal something like that?"

She tapped her chest. "It leaves a big hole that can never be filled, but you try to learn what you can, and if you succeed maybe you coat it around the edges a little. She was terrific. Yoshimura. I did counseling with her 'cause one day I collapsed—everything went black and I fell down. Everyone thought I had a heart attack, they put me through every test known to modern mankind, found out I did have high cholesterol but my heart was still okay. In the end they said it was nerves. Anxiety. Dr. Yoshimura taught me how to relax. I became a vegetarian, stopped smoking. I could accept relaxing from Dr. Yoshimura because she wasn't telling me to get some closure the way everyone else was. That was the thing about Mr. Riley. He was real relaxed except when it came to talking about real things. Like the fact that he hadn't learned a thing about Shawna— He'd pretend to listen, but I knew he wasn't. I called him even after he retired because I figured it was rent he should be paying. And now he's gone. . . . Here, I'm parked on Swall."

We turned up a tree-lined block full of luxury apartment condominiums, and she led me to an old Nissan Sentra, once red, now faded to dusty rose. The car's trunk was littered with leaves.

"Two-hour limit," she said, pointing to a parking sign, "but usually they don't check. Sometimes I park in the employee lot under the hotel, but sometimes it's full. And I don't like those subterranean things. Spooky."

She unlocked the car. "Do you mind sitting in here? All my Shawna things are in here."

I got into the front passenger seat, and she opened the trunk and closed it and came back with a foot-square box marked KITCHENWARE and tied with a yellow ribbon that she loosened.

"I know I shouldn't keep it in the car," she said, "but I like to have it close by. Sometimes I get a sandwich and come out here and go through it. Dr. Yoshimura said that was fine."

Looking to me for confirmation. I nodded.

She pulled a small, pink satin album from the carton and handed it to me. "This is Shawna when she was little."

Thirty pages of snapshots, from infancy to sixth grade. Mostly solos of a beautiful, golden-haired girl. From early on Shawna Yeager had possessed a flair for the optimal pose.

Agnes Yeager was present in a handful of shots, dark-haired, plain. A few others—early, faded photos—featured a very tall, fair-haired man with a movie-idol face marred by protuberant jug ears. In the snaps where he and Agnes were together, both parents smoked. Shawna surrounded by loving smiles and haze.

"Shawna's dad?" I said.

"My Bob. He was a long-distance trucker, worked for himself, then Vons markets. He was killed by a drunk driver when Shawna was four. Not even driving. Walking from the men's room to his rig at a truck stop in Indio. Shawna didn't remember him—even when he was alive he wasn't home much. But he was a loving man and a virile man. Not much for expressing his feelings, but never a cross word. And he did love Shawna—she got her looks from him, color-wise and size-wise. He was six foot four and a half, a big basketball star in high school. Shawna ended up five-nine. I'm five-two and a quarter."

As I studied Bob Yeager's face, something struck me. I kept it to myself, returned the album, only to receive another, larger, blue-bound.

"This is her pageant stuff," said Agnes. "Local newspaper stories, each time she won. I never pushed her into none of it. The first time she saw the Miss America pageant on TV she said, 'Mommy, dat what I want.' She was four."

I paged through the clippings, endured smile after smile.

Agnes Yeager said, "I know none of this will help you, but maybe this—the stories this kid reporter for the college paper did. He was really interested in Shawna, wrote up a lot of stories—"

"Adam Green."

"You talked to him."

"I have."

"Did he tell you his suspicions about Shawna?"

"Suspicions?"

"That she'd taken off her clothes and posed for dirty pictures— He didn't actually come out and say it. He thought he was being subtle, but from the questions he was asking, I could tell that's where he was leading. So of course I got mad and managed to end the conversation and didn't take any more of his calls. Later, I wondered if that had been a mistake. 'Cause that boy was the only one who seemed to have any interest in what happened to Shawna. And even though I got offended ..."

"Do you think there's a chance Shawna might've posed?"

Her shoulders rose and fell. "I wish I could say no way. But time passes and your head clears— The truth is Shawna loved her looks. Loved her body. One day she came home with an old mirror she'd picked up at some junk shop and hung it in her bedroom—a huge mirror. She was fourteen. I didn't argue—everyone also says choose your battles. Besides, you didn't want to go up against Shawna. She was headstrong. The truth is, if she could've hung four walls of mirrors, she would've. Probably my fault, a day didn't go by when I wasn't telling her how gorgeous she was. And if 7 wasn't, other people were."

"Did she have any boyfriends back home?"

"The usual. Boys coming and going, she'd dump them like the trash. One of them—this stringbean named Mark, a basketball player like her dad—seemed a little more serious, and I asked her if they were boyfriend and girlfriend and she laughed and said, 'No, Mom.' You know, in that tone they get? 'No, Mom. He's just my boy, comma, friend.'"

"Mark was her age?" I said.

"No, he was a senior, and she was a freshman, the older boys always went for her, and it was mutual—she liked them mature, looking old for their age. And tall, real tall. Why do you ask about Mark?"

"Just trying to get a feel for her state of mind."

"You're thinking 'cause she lost her dad she was looking for a dad, right? Someone older and tall. Maybe some older guy asked her to pose and she did it because she was vulnerable."

I stared at her.

She said, "I've had plenty of time to think. So am I right?"

"That did cross my mind."

"Crossed mine, too. And Dr. Yoshimura's. She and I went all through that, her helping to analyze everything. But as far as Shawna having any much older boyfriends back home, I don't think so. Mostly she didn't have time for dating, was really concentrating on her pageants and getting into college— That's one thing about Shawna, she was always a serious student. I never had to tell her to study. And if she didn't get an A it was a world tragedy, she'd be arguing with the teacher." Weak smile. "And sometimes she got her way—let me show you. Those report cards are on the bottom."