Grave Endings (25 page)

With Ron, it's always about appearances, although in this instance I couldn't blame him. “Let me know her name and I'll have a place card for her.”

After he left, I took two Advil tablets and checked my answering machine. My mother had called, and Edie. I had shut off my cell phone so that Zack and I wouldn't be interrupted during dinner. I turned it on now and learned that Charlie had left a message.

“You can call me till eleven,” she'd said.

It was five after eleven now, but I placed the call. “Her name is Iris,” Charlie told me. “The woman at Rachel's Tent who left suddenly? I phoned a friend who I met at the agency, and she remembered. It was really bugging me.”

“Would your friend be willing to talk to me?” I asked.

“I'm not sure. She doesn't like to talk about her past, and—”

“And what?” I prompted.

“She never said, but I think she had a bad experience while she was at Rachel's Tent. Not with the agency. She loved the agency. We all did.” Charlie sounded eager to get that point across. “Anyway, I'll ask her and get back to you.”

Drugs? I wondered.

Still thinking about Charlie's friend, I sat at my desk and wrote notes about what I'd accomplished today. I had found Randy's mother. I had learned about his scam. I wondered if one of those discoveries was connected to the SUV that had tried to run me off the road tonight. Or maybe it
was
road rage, or something else.

I went online and tried to find a Diana Warfield in San Diego, but there was no listing. I wasn't surprised. People who disguise themselves to attend funerals and are terrified that someone is following them have unlisted phone numbers. And maybe Diana's last name wasn't Warfield.

The clippings were on my desk. I looked at them again and focused on the one with the crime digest.

An ATM robbery, a police shooting, a body found in a grave, a drug bust, a gang shooting, a domestic violence arrest. Different types of crimes that had taken place in different parts of the city. Something in the digest had been important enough to make Randy hold on to it. I had thought that it was the drug bust that had resulted in a third strike for the offender, but maybe not.

I turned on my computer and went online. Then I accessed the L.A.
Times
archives and typed in variations of key words related to each of the crimes mentioned in the digest.

An hour later I went to bed, tired but no wiser.

thirty-eight

Wednesday, February 25. 10:45 A.M. 5900 block of
Green Valley Circle. A Los Angeles man told police
that he got a hotel room for his daughter whom he
had just met three months earlier. The woman told the
man that she had left her pager in the car and wanted
the keys to go out and get it. Three hours went by and
the woman still hadn't returned. The man, 55, reported that the woman took his 2003 Cadillac Escalade without his permission.
(Culver City)

“OF ALL THE POLICE STATIONS IN ALL THE TOWNS IN ALL the world, she walks into mine,” Connors said.

“Enjoy.” I tossed a box of Krispy Kremes on his desk.

Connors glanced at the box. “Is this a bribe?”

“Half a bribe, and it's not even from me. My landlord bought them for our coffee date this morning and insisted I take the rest.” Isaac doesn't keep kosher, but he makes sure to buy kosher goodies when he invites me to his place.

“Two-timing the rabbi a week before the wedding?” Connors smiled.

“If you recall, my landlord is seventy-eight, although he
is
kind of cute. Do you have a few minutes, Andy?”

“
Few
is the operative word. I have a court appearance at one, which is why I'm wearing a suit, and the D.A. wants to meet with me before that. I'm going to get coffee to go with the doughnuts. Want some?”

I'd had two cups with Isaac, so I declined. While Connors was gone I pulled over a chair and eyed the labels on the spines of the “blue books” on his desk. One of them said ROLAND CREELEY.

Connors returned and settled himself in his chair. “I take it this has to do with Randy Creeley.” He selected a doughnut from the box and took a bite.

“I'm not sure.” I told him about the incident with the SUV, watched his expression turn grave. “I'd like to think it was road rage, Andy. It doesn't thrill me to know that someone is after me. But it's a little coincidental, don't you think?”

“I think you're lucky to be alive,” he said quietly. “What were you doing in Pasadena?”

“Checking out some people Randy sent letters to. Trina gave me a list.”

Connors eyed me over the rim of his cup. “You didn't mention a list when you were here Monday.”

“I figured I'd check things out first.” Not quite the truth, but not a lie, either. “In case it turned out to be nothing, I didn't want you to waste your time.”

“Thoughtful of you,” he said, his tone droll. “So what did you find out?”

“Randy was running a scam at Rachel's Tent.” I explained about the red threads. “Bramer must have been nervous when he found out Randy was planning to send letters to everyone he'd scammed. Suppose he wanted to shut Randy up, permanently?”

“What makes you think Bramer knew Randy's intentions?”

“There was a check next to Bramer's name on Randy's list. Everyone else I talked to whose name was checked had received a letter. Plus Randy made two phone calls to Rachel's Tent on the morning of the day he died.”

Connors chewed on the doughnut and took a few sips of coffee. “It's interesting, Molly, but we don't know what was in the letter, or why Randy called Bramer that morning. We don't even know
who
Randy called.”

“A lot of the clients might have sued the agency if they found out they'd been scammed, Andy. Bramer could have lost his job.”

“What about the woman who told you Randy confessed about the fake thread? Is she planning to sue?”

“No, but she feels indebted to Rachel's Tent. She says the agency saved her life.” I hoped Charlie's friend was willing to talk to me. I was curious to find out about her “bad experience” at Rachel's Tent.

“My guess is that most of the clients would feel the same way,” Connors said. “They'd be angry with Creeley, not Bramer. Also, for all Bramer knew, Randy had already mailed his letters, so killing him would be pointless.”

“How would Randy have the names and addresses of all the people who bought or received threads from the agency?”

“He had the address of the woman in Pasadena.”

“Because she stayed in touch with him. Randy told a friend he wanted to make amends for something he'd done, but if he did, he'd be making someone else financially and legally liable.”

“Which friend?”

“I can't tell you.” I'd given Max my word. And Connors had Randy's phone. He could track Max down just as I had. “Who else would Randy phone at Rachel's Tent if not Bramer?”

Connors wiped his mouth. “So what do you want from me?”

“Can you find out what kind of car Bramer drives?”

“You think
Bramer
was driving the SUV?”

“It's one possibility.”

“So is road rage. You honked at the driver a couple of times, Molly. You braked on and off. Drivers have gone ballistic over less.”

“I asked Bramer a lot of questions about Randy. They made him uncomfortable. I also talked about Randy to one of the therapists and to Horton. I'm sure Horton must have told Bramer, and the therapist may have, too.”

“So Bramer spent the day following you around?”

“The other night, I thought someone was following me.” I told him about the person in the deli. “I didn't think anyone was following me yesterday, but that doesn't mean someone wasn't.” I nodded in the direction of the “blue book.” “I see you haven't closed Randy's case.”

Connors scowled at me. “Did you look at that?” he said in a tone that would have made me squirm if I had.

“No. Not that I wasn't tempted.”

He held my gaze for a few seconds, probably trying to see if I was telling the truth. “You said Bramer is one possibility. Who else?”

“Randy's mother. She lives in San Marino. She wasn't thrilled that I found her. In fact, she denied that she's his mother, but I know she is. Maybe she didn't want her new husband to find out about her old life.”

“Interesting.” Connors's tone was noncommittal. “What about Dr. Lasher? Maybe
he
followed you.”

“I'm glad you think this is funny. I could have died last night.”

“I'm being serious, Molly.”

I stared at him. “That's ridiculous. Dr. Lasher wouldn't try to run me off the road. In fact, this whole incident with the SUV proves that he's
not
involved with Randy's death. He would never hurt me.”

“Maybe he was trying to scare you, Molly.”

“Why would he do that?”

“To shift suspicion from himself by making you think exactly what you
are
thinking, that he'd never hurt you, so someone else obviously killed Randy. He figured you'd tell me what happened, which you just did, and have me thinking the same thing.”

“For your information, Dr. Lasher drives a green Infiniti.”

“There was a navy SUV in the driveway when I went to talk to him the other day. Maybe it was
Mrs.
Lasher.”

“She doesn't drive freeways,” I said, but I had to admit the excuse sounded lame.

Connors shrugged. “They know where you live, right? One of them could have followed you from your house and stayed on your tail all the way to Pasadena.”

“Why would Dr. or Mrs. Lasher wait until I was headed home to scare me?”

“You could ask the same thing about Bramer. Because it was dark, and there was less of a likelihood that the driver or car would be identified. You couldn't even tell if it was a man or a woman.”

I tried reading his eyes but couldn't tell what he was thinking. “You don't really believe that the Lashers are involved, do you?”

“It makes more sense than Bramer. I know it's hard for you to be objective, Molly, but if we're talking motive, they just found out that Randy killed their daughter.”

“Just because Dr. Lasher doesn't have an alibi—”

“It's more than that, Molly, but I can't go into it.”

I clenched my hands. “I'm the one who told you that Randy and Dr. Lasher spoke. I didn't have to do that.”

“Yes, you did.” Connors nodded. “It was the right thing to do.”

“What else do you have, Andy? You owe me.”

“I can't tell you, Molly. Sorry.” He checked his watch. “I have to go. Thanks for the doughnuts.”

I opened my purse and handed him a photocopy of the newspaper crime digest.

“Trina left this with me, along with clippings Randy kept about Aggie's murder. I figure if he kept them, they were important. I checked the Web but couldn't find anything about any of those crimes. Maybe you can.”

“What am I, your personal detective?” He scanned the photocopy and dropped it on his desk. “Next time bring a whole box, and Starbucks coffee.”

I left my Acura at the body shop my family uses, on La Brea south of Olympic. I had given the name of the shop to my insurance company early in the morning when I notified them about the accident, and they had promised to send someone late this afternoon or tomorrow to appraise the damages, which the body shop owner estimated would run to over two thousand dollars. After I had filled out the necessary paperwork, one of the mechanics gave me a ride to a car rental agency closer to Beverly, where I rented a Ford Taurus.

I had made an appointment with Mindy's chiropractor. My neck didn't ache as much as it had this morning, but maybe that was the Advil. I kept the appointment with the chiropractor, who gave me an adjustment and ultrasound therapy and told me he could tell from my muscles that I was under a great deal of stress.

“Try to relax,” he told me.

A half hour later I was following his advice in a steamy tub when my cell phone rang. It was a 626 area code. Charlie, I thought.

But it was Serena Richardson, aka Sue Ann Creeley.

thirty-nine

WE AGREED TO MEET AT TWO-THIRTY AT A COFFEE SHOP on Third near La Cienega. I arrived a few minutes early, but she was already sitting at one of the small tables, elegant again in a pale gray cashmere sweater and darker gray slacks. We made eye contact and exchanged quick, uncomfortable smiles that we repeated a minute later after I paid for my coffee and sat down across from her. Her face was composed, but the back-and-forth swinging of her right leg betrayed her nervousness.

“I appreciate your coming here to talk with me, Mrs. Richardson.”

“Please call me Serena. May I call you Molly?”

I nodded, surprised that she wanted to be on a firstname basis. Yesterday she'd slammed the door in my face.

“I was unprepared to talk about Randy yesterday, Molly,” she said, as though reading my thoughts. “I'm not eager to talk about him now, especially to a reporter. I'm still coming to terms with the fact that he's dead.”

“I'm sure this is difficult for you.”

“Quite honestly, I resent having my privacy invaded. I came because I'm hoping I can persuade you not to make this whole thing public. Have you told my ex-husband?”

I shook my head and heard her puff of relief. I wondered again whether she was the driver of the SUV that had tried to force me into the rails. First the stick, then the carrot?

“How did you know you had the right address?” she asked. “Or were you just guessing?”

“Your son looks just like Randy. And I had an old photo of you.” I took the photo from my purse and placed it in front of her.

“This was one of my favorites,” she said as though she was admiring a work of art in a gallery. “I remember when it was taken.”

She ran her fingers across the jagged seam. She must have felt some emotion when she looked at the face of the child to whom she had given birth, a child who now lay in a grave. She must have speculated, as I had, about the anger that had pushed someone to mutilate her likeness. But her face was a mask.

She slid the photo toward me. “Whatever I tell you is off the record and strictly confidential. Agreed?”

“I won't print anything you tell me unless I have your permission. I can't promise that I won't discuss what you tell me with the police.”

She nodded. “Randy was in trouble again?”

As of this morning, there had still been nothing in the media linking him with Aggie, and I doubted that Randy had confided anything to the woman who had given birth to him and disappeared from his life.

“They think he killed my best friend. I've been trying to find out why.”

Her brown eyes widened in shock. “I never thought Randy was capable of killing anyone,” she said after a moment. “But I can't say I knew him. When was this?” She took a sip of her tea.

“Almost six years ago.”

“And you think I'm to blame, because I abandoned him.” The cup rattled as she set it down. “Randy had choices. It wasn't as though I left him on the street.” Her voice was prickly with anger and defensiveness.

I wasn't interested in validating her self-justification. “Trina says Randy found you over six years ago. I'm surprised he never told his father.”

“I convinced him not to.”

She busied herself with a packet of sweetener. I thought about the Porsche and the projection TV.

“You paid him to keep quiet.”

I could tell from the anger that pinched her lips that I was right, but I didn't know if the anger was directed at me or at Randy.

“We made an arrangement.”

“How much did you pay him?”

“I don't see how this is your concern.” She was definitely angry now. “Five hundred dollars a month. I can afford it, and it was a small price to pay for anonymity.”

Not
so
small. Six thousand dollars a year, forever. And what if she'd grown tired of paying, or explaining the withdrawals to her husband?

“Is that why you didn't attend his funeral?” I asked.

“I couldn't risk being seen by Roland or other people who might have recognized me. I didn't need a service to grieve for Randy. I did that in private.”

She didn't seem to be grieving now. “But you must have been angry at Randy.”

“Randy and I were fine. Four months ago he returned my last check and told me he didn't want any more money. Recently he sent a letter asking forgiveness. He said he would repay me, but it would take time. When we spoke a few weeks ago, I told him to consider the money a gift. That was the last time I talked to him.”

No tears or other visible sign of emotion, but she sounded sad, and her fingers were making crumbs of the blueberry muffin on her plate.

“When was the last time you saw him?”

“Several months ago. We met for coffee not far from where he lived.”

“And before that?”

“Almost six years ago.” Her face turned pink. “It was a difficult situation, Molly. Randy understood that.”

Did he? “So you walked out on him twice,” I said, deciding to risk her anger.

“I did everyone a favor,” she said coolly. “I thought about leaving for a long time before I did it. I felt suffocated. Every day another part of me died. Every day I told myself the same thing: Tomorrow you can leave, if you want to. Roland will manage. And he has, hasn't he? He married a solid, sensible woman who took excellent care of his children.”

His
children, not
my
children, or
ours.
“What made you pick that day?”

“The roaster. I had scrubbed it for twenty minutes, but there was a ring that wouldn't come off. So I filled it and let it soak. I was helping Randy with his homework and heard Trina scream. She'd pulled the roaster off the counter. There was water and bits of gravy and onions all over the floor and over Trina. She was hysterical. I slapped her and started shrieking at her and couldn't stop. And then I saw their faces. They were staring at me as if I were a madwoman. They were cowering, terrified at what I would do next. I mopped up the water and changed Trina's clothes. I finished helping Randy with his homework. And the next morning I had a neighbor babysit while I went to the bank and closed my account. I packed a bag, and when Randy came home from school, I told him I was going on a trip and his daddy would be home soon, and everything would be all right.”

From listening to my sisters, I know that there have been days when the frustrations of motherhood have taxed their nerves and depleted their strength. But to leave your family? To walk out and never look back?

“All those years,” I said, “weren't you curious to see your family? Didn't you have any regrets?”

“Randy asked that, too. I thought about writing to Roland, sending birthday cards. I decided it would be better if I stayed out of their lives. But regrets?” She shook her head. “The first night I almost turned back. I was lonely and scared. I had no idea where I was going. I missed the kids. I missed having Roland next to me in bed. But every night became easier, because I knew I'd done the right thing. I should never have married Roland. I should never have had those children.”

I had agreed to a limited confidentiality, and I like to think I'm a good listener, but I was surprised by Sue Ann's candor. People often feel relieved to share their untold stories and end up revealing more than they had intended, but Sue Ann struck me as a controlled woman. I assumed she was trying to create an intimacy between us so that I would find it harder to turn down her request.

“Why
did
you have children?” I asked.

“It's the American dream, isn't it?” She took a sip of tea. “You get married, you buy a house, you have children. You live happily ever after. Roland is a good man, Molly. When he proposed, I told him I liked him but didn't love him. He said he had enough love for both of us. And for a while, it
was
enough.” She sounded wistful. “And the kids . . . I was fine with one child, but Roland thought Randy should have a sibling, and he was so good to me, always trying to make me happy. So we had Trina.”

After leaving Los Angeles, Sue Ann had traveled to Chicago and then Houston, where she decided to stay. When the divorce was finalized, she changed her name officially to Serena Henderson. She bought an expensive wardrobe and rented an apartment in an exclusive neighborhood, where word spread about the well-to-do widow.

“It was the role of my life,” she told me with some irony. “I bet everything I had on it.”

Her bet paid off. At a benefit months later for a charity to which she had made a generous contribution, she met Cornell Richardson, a wealthy investment banker. She married him. And when Richardson's widowed mother died a year after that, and he wanted to move back to his childhood home in San Marino, Sue Ann was nervous but told herself San Marino was leagues away from Culver City. She made friends, became involved with different charities. She had a child, and there was a nanny to help care for him.

And then one morning six years ago Randy knocked on her door.

“He thought I had drowned in a boating accident,” Sue Ann said. “But his stepmother told him I was alive. Somehow he got the money to hire a detective to find me.”

Horton, I thought.

“He had papers, he had proof. I didn't want the neighbors to hear my sorry past. My son was in school, Cornell was at his office. So I invited Randy inside.”

Her leg was swinging faster now. “Over the years I had fantasized about what it would be like to see him. He was a beautiful child, and he had grown into a beautiful young man. Looking at him took my breath away.” She paused. “He was seething. He refused to sit. He paced in my living room, picking up vases and bowls, asking me how much everything cost. I thought he was going to smash them. Then he stood in front of me and told me how much he hated me. He said I ruined his life, that I was a selfish bitch and he wished I
had
drowned.”

She spoke as though she was narrating someone else's story—cool, detached. I wondered if that was a protective defense she'd built up over the years, or whether she was as unfeeling as she sounded.

“Randy expected a Hollywood ending,” Sue Ann said. “He was waiting for me to cry and beg his forgiveness and tell him I wanted to make up for lost time.” She sighed. “You can't go back, Molly. I had a son and husband to protect.”

And a life based on lies. Cornell Richardson probably wouldn't have been eager to hear that the lovely widow he married had deserted a husband and two children, or that one of those children was an ex-convict.

“I tried explaining that to Randy,” Sue Ann said. “I told him it would be better for everyone if he didn't come to the house again. We could still have a relationship. I would phone him and arrange to meet him in Los Angeles from time to time. He said he wasn't a bastard son I could hide. He said he wouldn't leave until he met my husband and son. He said he would tell Roland.”

“That's when you offered him money?”

This time she flushed. “He said he deserved compensation. I suppose he did. I gave him five thousand dollars and agreed to pay him five hundred a month.”

The price of motherly love, I thought.

“So that's my story, Molly. You may think I'm a terrible person who deserves to be exposed. Maybe that's true. I can't stop you from telling Roland that you've found me. But you'll be ruining many lives, Molly, not just mine. Before you do anything, I hope you'll think about my son and husband, and Roland and Alice and Trina. Nobody will benefit, Molly. No one will thank you. Trust me.”

She was probably right. Something she'd said earlier had been nagging at me. Now I remembered. “You said Alice was solid and sensible. Did Randy tell you that?”

Sue Ann didn't answer right away. “I drove to the house once after we moved to San Marino. I parked across the street and watched Trina playing on the front lawn. She was a toddler when I left, and I didn't recognize her. I wanted a closer look.” She had formed a small mountain out of the muffin crumbs. “I got out of the car and crossed the street. I was trying to get up the nerve to talk to Trina when Alice came out of the house. She wanted to know who I was, why I was watching her child. She had seen me through the front window. I was flustered. I told her I used to live in the neighborhood. I didn't know what else to say. But she recognized me, probably from photos.”

I had a squirrelly feeling in my stomach. “How can you be sure?”

“She told me. She was furious. She said I had abandoned my family and had no right to come back into their lives. She said Roland had worked hard to rebuild his life, and that my showing up was the height of selfishness. I never went back.” Sue Ann took her spoon and flattened the mound of crumbs.

“Did you ever tell Randy about your visit?”

Sue Ann nodded. “A few weeks ago, after I received his letter. Alice was right, you know. I should never have gone back.”