Allison (A Kane Novel) (44 page)

After retrieving Trav’s Bronco from the parking space I had rented when he first lent me his car, I headed toward Pacific Palisades.  I was fairly certain that Mike would be home packing for his trip.  Instead of calling, I decided to confront him and have things out, face-to-face.  I wasn’t certain what I was going to say, but I knew it was something I had to do.

On the drive to Pacific Palisades, I kept searching my mind for some reason that would explain Mike’s betrayal.  In another part of my mind, the rational part, I knew there was none, nor could there be.  Mike had been the only person besides my father who’d known I had retraced Mr. French’s mountain bike ride.  Mike had also deduced that evidence of child abuse had been discovered at autopsy, or at least he had strongly suspected it—a supposition that I had unwisely done little to dissuade.  Now Brent knew these things, too.  Brent said that Mike had told him, and Brent had no reason to lie.  No, Mike had broken his promise of silence to me.  Of that I was certain.  There could be no excuse.  With an angry flush, I remembered our time together in his bedroom, wondering what else he had revealed to friends like Brent.

Night had fallen by the time I reached Pacific Palisades.  After turning right on Galloway, I proceeded up the narrow, tree-lined street.  I slowed as I neared Mike’s house, surprised to see him standing out front.  Illuminated in the glow of a corner streetlight, he was talking to a tall, willowy blond girl wearing skintight shorts and a skimpy halter top.

I caught them momentarily in my headlights as I approached.  The tawny-haired girl squinted briefly into the glare, then bent to finish tying shut the hatchback of her car—a late-model Honda with a bicycle hanging out of the rear.  Then she turned to Mike and said something.  Mike smiled.  Smiling back, she put her arms around his neck and kissed him.  Filled with a hollow pang of hurt and shame, I continued up Galloway without stopping.

I didn’t look back.

On my return to Westwood, I stared numbly out the windshield, determined not to cry.  It had been a bad day all around, but crying wouldn’t help.  Trying to look at the bright side, I told myself that things couldn’t get any worse.  I had definitely hit bottom.  But as I made my way back to my empty dorm room at UCLA, a nagging doubt kept rising in my mind . . . telling me I was wrong.

Things could
always
get worse.    

30

On the following Saturday, after my customary cross-campus jog and several hours toiling on my manuscript, I saved my work and turned off my computer.  Grateful for a break, I stood, stretched, grabbed my jacket, and started for the door.  My appointment for the bone-marrow harvest was scheduled for 10 AM that morning, but the transplant team wanted me present an hour early for preoperative procedures.  As I made my way down the hall, my stomach rumbled.  Because my marrow would be taken under general anesthesia, I’d had nothing to eat or drink since the previous evening.  Not that I had been hungry.

Following my preanesthesia assessment at the hospital earlier that week, I had worried constantly that something was going to happen to me—a fatal accident on the freeway while driving to work, for instance—leaving Mom without a marrow donor and no functioning immune system of her own.  It was with relief that I realized the time for the marrow harvest had finally arrived.

The procedure I was about to undergo, as explained by Dr. Miller, hadn’t sounded particularly complicated.  I would be put to sleep and a series of needle punctures made into my posterior iliac crests—the fan-shaped bony structures forming the back of my pelvis.  Approximately one quart of marrow would be taken from the hollow portion of my bones, after which I would be left with little more aftereffect than a very sore butt.  The plastic pouch of harvested marrow, which Dr. Miller had described as looking much like blood, would be filtered to remove fat and particles of bone, then given intravenously to Mom.  Simple.

But I knew it wouldn’t be simple for Mom.  My mother’s ordeal at St. John’s had been bad.  This would be worse.

When I reached the landing at the bottom of the stairs, a telephone in the hallway began ringing.  By convention, whoever in the dorm was closest at the time answered it.  I hesitated, then ducked into a narrow alcove and lifted the receiver.  “Hello?”

“Allison?”

It was Mike.

Without thinking, I started to hang up.  He had been trying to call me daily since leaving for Colorado.  I hadn’t answered, nor had I listened to any of his messages.  Suddenly I wanted to know what he had to say.  “Hello, Mike.”

“You’re sure a hard one to get hold of,” Mike said.  “When I couldn’t reach you at home or work, I finally decided to try the dorm and see whether anyone knew what had happened to you.”

“I’ve been busy.”

“I can imagine.  Your big French interview is coming up, right?”

I didn’t reply.

“How’s you mother doing?”

“Not well.”

“I’m sorry to hear that, Ali.  Hang in there.  She’ll get better.”

Again I didn’t reply.

“I’ve missed you,” Mike pushed on.  “I’ve been really busy here at Telluride, but I did manage to watch Brent’s autopsy piece on the news,” he continued, struggling to carry the conversation.  “I was surprised that you didn’t do the spot yourself, as it was your information regarding the autopsy and the sexual abuse issue.  Was that a network decision?”

My hand tightened on the receiver.  I couldn’t believe Mike was being so cavalier about his betrayal.  Didn’t he think I knew?  “Are you trying to make some kind of joke?” I demanded.

“Joke?  What are you talking about?”

“You tell me.”

“If this is about your spilling the beans to Brent about my shooting your reservoir footage—”

I cut him off.  “That’s a laugh.  I
wasn’t the one who spilled the beans—or whatever lame cliché you want to use to describe what you did.”

“What
I
did?  I don’t understand.”

“Sure you do,” I snapped.  “I’m hanging up now, Mike.  I don’t think we have anything more to say to each other.”

“Ali . . .”

“On second thought, I do have one more thing to say.  Don’t call me anymore.”

“Wait,” Mike pleaded.  “I thought we had something going between us.”

“You mean between me and all your other women.”

“
Now
what are you talking about?”

“You want me to spell it out?  Fine,” I said.  “I thought we had something between us, too—at least until I saw you with your blond girlfriend the other night.  I know I don’t have any claims on you, Mike.  We haven’t made any commitment to each other.  On the other hand, your being with me on Sunday like we were and then with someone else on Monday isn’t the sort of relationship I want.”

“That
was
you.  I thought I recognized your car.  Listen, Ali—”

“Whatever you have to say, I don’t want to hear it.”

“Sarah’s an old girlfriend,” Mike protested.  “She came by to pick up her bike.”

“Sure she did.”

“It’s true.”

“The truth seems to be something you have trouble with,” I said coldly, incredulous that after breaking his promise of silence regarding the French case, he actually expected me to believe him.  “I judge people by what they
do
, not by what they say.”

“You’re not going to let me explain, are you?”

“No.”

“All right,” said Mike, his tone frosting as well.  “In that case, I’ll tell you something
you
have trouble with.  Trust.  You walk around in that protective shell of yours, so afraid of being hurt that you won’t give anyone a chance—let alone the benefit of the doubt.  Well, eventually you’ll realize you have to trust someone.”

“I do trust
some
people,” I fired back.  “But I choose them carefully, and you’re no longer on the list.  As for your amateur psychology, save it for someone who cares.”  With that, I slammed down the receiver and banged out the front door, ignoring curious glances from several girls coming up the steps.

31

Spurred by the growing media furor generated by Brent’s autopsy story, the Frenches’ publicist called CBS early the following week, requesting that the date for the interview with Jordan’s parents be moved up.  The network readily agreed, rescheduling the interview for the coming Thursday.  It was widely rumored in the media that Mr. and Mrs. French, under threat of a grand jury subpoena, were likely to submit to a formal police interrogation as well.  In light of that, I concluded that in addition to defusing the negative spin that Brent’s autopsy piece had put on the case, the Frenches were attempting to garner national sympathy by preemptively going on-air with the viewing public first—another masterful example of playing the press.

The rest of the week dragged by, my early-morning hours spent toiling on my novel, my time at work devoted to last-minute preparation for the upcoming French interview, my evenings visiting my mother at the hospital.

Following the bone-marrow transplant, Mom had developed what Dr. Miller described as a neutropenic fever of unknown origin, a condition requiring IV treatment with broad-spectrum antibiotics and an antifungal medication.  Along with intravenous feeding and daily doses of morphine, Mom was also receiving steroids and a drug called cyclosporin to combat graft-versus-host disease.  Able to do nothing but watch as my mother grew weaker by the day, I kept as busy as possible, filling my waking hours with activity and dreading my dismal, sleepless nights.  By Thursday morning, the day of the French interview, I was exhausted.

As scheduled, the Frenches arrived at the newsroom at precisely 10 AM.  An hour later, after a review of procedural ground rules, the meeting with Jordan’s parents got underway.

Despite showing the strain of past months, Mr. and Mrs. French held up well under initial questioning—painting themselves as wronged not only by police, but by an overly aggressive media as well.  They described how, nerve-wracked by the journalistic attention they’d received, they had been forced to flee their home and live in hiding, shuttling from hotel to hotel, staying with friends, and shunning places they were known to frequent.  But somehow, no matter where they’d hidden, they had always been found.  In the end, according to Mr. French, they had simply accepted the impossibility of dodging the press and returned to their estate, becoming virtual prisoners in their own home.

Although I realized that I didn’t deserve to be participating in the interview, I was determined to do my best.  The trouble was, although I had written more than my share of hard-hitting questions, almost all had been given to Brent in what was clearly a news version of the “good-cop, bad-cop” interrogation strategy—my subservient role in the proceedings adding to the humiliation of knowing I wouldn’t have even been there had it not been for my father’s involvement in the case.  That, and the Frenches’ self-serving demands.

As the interview progressed, to my profound embarrassment, it became obvious to everyone that I had been cast as a sympathetic kid-sister, with Brent playing the more skeptical, seasoned correspondent, exerting a balancing influence.  It was Brent, for instance, who broached the subject of why the Frenches had refused to cooperate with authorities by giving blood and hair samples, or by submitting to a formal police interrogation.  Jordan’s parents maintained that their refusal to cooperate with police investigators stemmed from the LAPD’s clear intention of treating them as murder suspects, rather than seeking the real killer or killers of their daughter.  In Mr. French’s words, “The police came to our house convinced that we’d done it.  They had a murdered child on their hands, and their knee-jerk reaction was to go after the parents.  They didn’t want to find out what actually happened.  They just wanted to hang us.”

Following up with a more friendly topic approved for me by network, I brought up similar examples of alleged misuse of power by authorities—instances including the McMartin childcare case and others in which lives had been ruined by what many considered a witch-hunt mentality on the part of investigators.  Implied in my examples were the cautionary lessons to be learned.  Naturally, Jordan’s parents had wholeheartedly agreed.

Brent rebutted by asking Mr. French about his previous knowledge of the reservoir location, also bringing up the sexual-abuse aspects of Jordan’s autopsy.  On both issues Mr. French delivered a well-articulated response, pointing out that many people knew of the reservoir location, and that other explanations existed for the supposed child-abuse evidence discovered by the coroner.  Mrs. French added that Jordan’s doctor had unequivocally stated that during the numerous times he had seen Jordan over the years,
never
had he found any evidence whatsoever of sexual molestation.

Next I brought up the private polygraph exams that the parents had passed.  Brent queried them regarding the LAPD contention that it was unlikely Jordan could have been abducted from her home without someone having heard a scuffle.  I introduced a psychological profile of the killer that the Frenches had procured from an ex-member of the FBI’s Investigative Support Unit in Virginia, stressing that the behavioral analysis had failed to match Jordan’s parents in any respect.  Brent questioned why no follow-up to the ransom note was ever received.  And so on, back and forth.  Although my father’s being the lead investigator on the case was never mentioned, it hung in the air, shadowing the entire proceeding.

Toward the end, in a telling moment that summed up the overall tenor of the interview, I posed the only tough question I had been allowed.  Point-blank, I asked Jordan’s parents whether they had killed their daughter.  It was a question that brought Mrs. French to tears.

“No, no, no,” she replied, taking her husband’s hand.  “How could we do that?  Think about it.  The police would have everyone believe that we bludgeoned our daughter to death and then dumped her body in a reservoir.  Next we wrote a phony ransom note, phoned the police to report her missing, and sat around waiting for the authorities to arrive.  How could we do that?  I mean, how could
any
parent do that?  What sort of people do you think we are?  We loved our daughter,” she added quietly.  “We would never have done anything to harm her.  Never.”