Night Night, Sleep Tight (13 page)

Chapter 24

M
issing something?” Deirdre reached across the kitchen table for her mother’s hand and dropped two of the beads she’d found among the ashes on the floor of her father’s garage office into Gloria’s upturned palm. “Three guesses where I found them.”

Her mother’s eyes snapped open, but she didn’t say anything.

“You weren’t late because you had car trouble. You were here yesterday. It was you I saw up there in the window before the fire, wasn’t it?”

Gloria pursed her lips and rubbed her fingers together. “Along the road to truth, there are only two mistakes you can make. Not starting. And not going all the way.”

Serenity could be so irritating. “Did you set the fire?”

Gloria reared back as if she’d been slapped. “Of course I did not set the goddamn fire. Do you think I’d have been up in your father’s office if I had?”

That, at least, made some sense. “Then what were you doing up there? And why didn’t you come in? You could have at least—” What? Shown up? Said hello? Been there for Deirdre and Henry?

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I—” Gloria moved to embrace her.

“Sorry?” Deirdre sobbed and pushed her away. “You never think of anyone but yourself.”

Her mother held up her hands and backed off. “Okay. Fair enough. You have every right to be angry. Let me try to explain. I got back yesterday.” She swallowed. “And actually I did call. I called because I wanted to be sure you and Henry weren’t going to be here when I arrived.”

Deirdre felt her jaw drop. “Because?”

“Because . . .” Tension drained from her mother’s face. “Deirdre, I knew you’d be going through your father’s papers. I was trying to protect you and your brother from what you might find.”

“I don’t need protecting. And Henry certainly doesn’t. And why now? How long’s it been since I’ve seen you? Months? And then only because I drove to Twentynine Palms.” Her mother flinched, but Deirdre kept going. “Besides, if you were trying to protect us, that train left the station a good long time ago.”

“Deirdre, Deirdre. Don’t.” Her mother gave her a long, mournful look. “Holding on to anger is like holding on to a hot coal.”

“Spare me the bumper stickers. Why were you up in his office?”

“Deirdre, your father never meant to hurt you.”

“What were you looking for? His creepy snapshots?”

Gloria blinked. “Snapshots?”

“You didn’t know? He was bringing young women, some of them just teenagers, up to his office and taking their pictures. And I can only imagine what else.”

“Teenagers?” Creases deepened between her mother’s eyes. “I don’t believe it.”

“The photographs got destroyed in the fire, but I saved one of them.” Deirdre went into the laundry room and got the Polaroid she’d left on the shelf. She slammed it down on the kitchen table.

Her mother recoiled. “Oh my.” She stared at the photograph for a moment, then across at Deirdre. “Joelen Nichol.”

“She’s the only one I recognized.” Deirdre turned the picture over to show her the asterisks written on the back. “He even rated them. See?”

“And you think your father would . . . with your best friend? You can’t seriously believe that.” Gloria took the picture from Deirdre and held Joelen’s face under the light. “She was a beautiful girl, wasn’t she? And I don’t doubt that she was”—she paused for a moment—“precocious, in some respects. Frankly, I wasn’t thrilled that you and she were such close friends. But I had no idea that anything like this was going on.” She put the picture down on the table and looked hard at Deirdre. “I don’t know everything that your father was getting up to. I didn’t want to know because I was leaving him, and it would have been just one more thing to be furious about, and I knew enough already. It would have been like drinking poison and wanting
him
to die.” Realizing what she’d said, Gloria shook her head. “I don’t mean that literally, of course. I’d never have wanted him to . . . I mean . . . I just meant that metaphorically. But here’s the thing. Joelen was still a teenager when this picture was taken. And whatever else Arthur may have been, he was not a pedophile.”

Chapter 25

I
’m back.” At the sound of Henry’s voice, Gloria shot up from the kitchen table. The dogs tumbled into the room and swarmed at her feet. She reached over to the counter for two pieces of raw soy bacon. They’d barely hit the floor before the dogs had scarfed them up.

“Is the insurance adjuster done out there?” Gloria asked Henry.

“She’s done with the garage downstairs. Other than the bikes and the car, there wasn’t a whole lot more to claim. Now she’s upstairs, working on the office.” Henry helped himself to a piece of fake bacon. Sniffed. Took a bite. Chewed. Pulled a face. “What
is
this?”

“It’s healthy,” Deirdre said. “Mom brought it.”

“It’s weird,” he said, snagging a second piece.

“When your brother was a toddler, he ate carpet backing,” Gloria said. “A real connoisseur of kapok.”

“Ah! So
that’s
what this tastes like,” Henry said, popping the last piece into his mouth. “Sondra says they won’t be able to begin processing the claim without a copy of the official incident report. One of us has to go to City Hall and request it. Even with that, the bureaucracy can take weeks to spit out the report . . .
unless
it’s goosed along by someone on the inside.” Henry eyed Deirdre. “Know anyone who might be able to help?”

“I do not
know
”—Deirdre drew quote marks in the air—“Tyler Corrigan.”

“Tyler?” Gloria said. “The boy who lived across the street?”

“Used to show off for Deirdre,” Henry said. “He was kind of a prick.”

“He was a nice boy,” her mother said. “Delivered our newspaper for a while.”

“He’s the city’s lead arson investigator,” Henry said, “and Sondra says he’s the one who signs off on cases.”

“So now we’re a case?” Deirdre said. Henry’s fixation on Tyler was starting to annoy her. “How is
Sondra
doing?”

“She’s up there,” Henry said, “literally picking the place apart. Talking into a cassette recorder and making an inventory of everything that got damaged, from the carpet to the toilet paper dispenser. It’s like watching an autopsy. Slow. Painstaking. Messy.”

“I’ll bet,” Deirdre said, sniffing at her own fingers. She didn’t know if that was the soy bacon or barbecued prayer beads that she smelled.

“She’s got rubber gloves and baggies that go over her boots. The smell and the heat got to me right away, but she’s oblivious. Girl knows how to travel—she’s got water in her backpack and a very long straw.” Henry poured himself a cup of coffee and sat at the table. “So what were you two talking about?”

“Those photographs that were stuck in the Players Directories that Dad wanted you to throw away? There’s only one that didn’t get incinerated.” Deirdre turned it over so he could see Joelen’s face.

For a few moments, the only sounds in the room were Baby’s claws clicking across the floor and a chuffing as she sniffed, ever hopeful, at the floor where bacon had landed. Deirdre waited until she couldn’t any longer. “Recognize her?”

Henry raised his eyebrows and smirked, allowing that he did.

Deirdre turned the picture over to show him the asterisks. “Mom says Dad didn’t write those.”

Henry picked up the snapshot. “Really?” He and Gloria exchanged a look.

“What?” Deirdre said.

“
What
what?” Henry said.

“Don’t give me that. I’m not blind. What’s up with you two?”

Gloria said, “Henry, your sister thinks your father was responsible for that.” She pointed to the photograph.

“And the others like it,” Deirdre said.

“He was responsible.” Henry stared impassively at Gloria. “A regular trailblazer.”

“Henry—” Gloria started.

“And what do you know about it?” Henry said, cutting her off. “You were on
the path
.”
The path
was the term that their mother used for her cleansing journey to what she called self-awakening. It had started long before she left Arthur, and even though Deirdre knew Gloria had needed to do something to preserve her own sanity, like Henry she resented the way Gloria had spun herself a protective cocoon.

Gloria reared back. “And look what you were on your way to, Henry.” She spread her arms and looked around. “Still living with your father in a house that’s literally falling down around you.”

“It wasn’t my fault that I got thrown out of school. My roommate—”

“Right. He’s the one who made you stop going to classes. Did he make you give up music and wreck your car, too?”

“Oh, remind me again, how much did you pay for that car?”

Deirdre knew from experience that they were just getting warmed up. “Stop it!” she said, standing so fast that her chair tipped over backward. She snatched the photograph from Henry, nabbed her crutch, walked her plate to the sink, and dropped it in with a clatter. Across the room, her messenger bag hung from a hook by the back door. She grabbed it. It was still damp and weighed almost nothing. All that was in it was her keys and wallet. She slipped the photograph in, too, and headed for the door.

“Where are you going?” Gloria asked.

“Out.”

“Go to City Hall, why don’t you,” Henry said, “and file the request for the form we need.”

The last thing Deirdre felt like doing at that moment was agreeing with Henry, but it was actually a good suggestion. She paused, the door open. “What’s it called?”

“An incident report,” Henry said. “And remember to charm Tyler, won’t you?”

Deirdre stepped outside and slammed the door behind her. She clumped down the back steps, out the driveway, and into the street to her car. She’d started the engine when she realized a ticket was stuck to her windshield. She got out and snagged it.
Overnight parking
was checked. There was an envelope for remitting her twenty-five-dollar fine.
Damn.
She got back into the car, jammed the ticket in her glove compartment, and took off.

Charm Tyler.
She glanced at her reflection in her rearview mirror. Eyes wild. Skin blotchy. Hair a rat’s nest. On top of that, her outfit—those ridiculous boots and her father’s shirt—made her look as if she were on her way to a Halloween party. She needed to pull herself together if she was going to get anywhere in the charm department.

I
t had been many years since Deirdre had shopped for clothes or gotten her hair cut in Beverly Hills. She parked in the lot behind the stores on Little Santa Monica near Beverly Drive and fed some coins into the meter. Across the street was the park where she used to stand and wave at trains that rode through. If she was lucky, someone hanging out of the last car, a real red caboose, would wave back at her. That was even better than getting a semi on the freeway to toot its air horn at you.

Walking along Little Santa Monica, feeling as if she were throwing a dart at a map, she stopped in front of Latour’s Hair Salon. A small
W
A
L
K
-
I
N
S
W
E
L
COME
sign was in the window. She pushed open the heavy wood door and stepped inside.

A spectrally thin young woman in a black turtleneck and fringed leather vest stood at the front desk, talking on the phone. Her gaze flickered over Deirdre and then away. It was the same dismissive look the clerk at Jax had given her when she was in high school and ventured into the elegant store where the popular girls at school bought their straight skirts and shells and matching Geistex sweaters. Back then, Deirdre had turned tail and fled. Didn’t matter that she had saved up enough from babysitting to pay for any of their outfits.

Now she held her ground. Behind the counter, stations on facing walls were half-full of customers and the air was laden with the sewer-gas smell of perms.

Finally the receptionist got off the phone. She gave Deirdre a brittle smile. “Do you have an appointment?”

“Do I need one? I’d like to get my hair cut.” Quite deliberately Deirdre laid her crutch on the desk.

The woman looked startled for a moment, then turned and buried her nose in an appointment ledger. “Cut? Blow-dry?”

“Please.”

An hour later, Deirdre emerged from the salon, her hair cut short and layered, just framing her face, the bangs poufy and saucily blown to the side. She caught glimpses of her new self reflected in store windows as she continued to Rodeo Drive. For so many years she’d cursed her curls and now they were in style. The chambray shirt and boots, on the other hand, had to go.

She entered a new shopping complex with a glass atrium. She couldn’t remember what had been at that address when she was growing up—maybe Uncle Bernie’s, the toy store with a lemonade tree in the back. Now it was home to Gucci, Giorgio, and Chanel. They made Jax look like J.J. Newberry.

Farther down the street Deirdre passed boutique after boutique. Finally she entered a dancewear store and bought a dark purple scoop-necked leotard, black leggings, and a flowy white silk shirt that grazed her knees. She passed on the slouchy pink leg warmers the Jennifer Beals–look-alike salesgirl tried to foist on her.

Next door, among Indian bedspreads, Moroccan leather handbags, and feathered earrings, she found a suede belt with a brightly enameled buckle and a long Indian scarf in reds and pinks. A few doors down was a consignment shop with a
GOING OUT OF BUSINESS, LOST OU
R
L
E
A
S
E
sign. There Deirdre found a whole row of what looked like brand-new Keds. She bought two pairs in white—she always had to buy two pairs of shoes because one foot was now two sizes smaller than the other.

She ducked into the consignment shop’s makeshift dressing room—sheets hung from a clothesline in a back corner of the store—and stripped off her clothes, then assembled her new outfit. She fluffed her newly shorn hair with her fingers, cocked her hip, and examined her reflection in the mirror.
Locked and loaded.

She was ready to find Tyler Corrigan.