Die a Little (17 page)

We are driving to our godparents' for dinner. Alice is in bed, the middle of a new round of daily migraines. It makes it easier. It lets me puzzle things out without the distractions of her sidelong gaze.

"What do you mean," I say.

"Lately, she feels like you don't want to spend time with her. That you're distant," he says, eyes on the road, voice soft and coaxing.

The day before, when I ran into her in the teachers' lounge, she stopped me, one spiky hand on my shoulder. "I hear you helped Lois out."

"Yes."

"Thanks. Thanks for that."

Her face was as static and flat as a photograph. I felt a quiver dancing at the base of my spine.

"For what? I'm sure you would have done the same," I replied, and as I said it I realized it was filled with meaning for her.

"Oh, yes. But she's my burden, not yours. And thanks for not telling Bill."

In a flash, anger came over me. I wanted to say, How dare you?

"That's not why I didn't tell him," I said, voice brittle. "Not for you."

Struck, she flashed a brilliant smile. "I know, Lora, honey. But thanks. You're such a good sister to me."

As I sit with Bill now, however, all I say is: "I don't know where she gets the idea that I'm distant." Bill smiles faintly. "I told her that she shouldn't have set you up so well if she didn't want to lose you to a boyfriend." He turns to me briefly, stopping the car at the traffic light. When he looks at me, the smile, barely perceptible, fades.

I am not smiling.

"He's not my boyfriend," I say, gesturing to the changed light.

"Well, if he's not your boyfriend, what is he."

He hits the gas pedal.

Die a Little -- 107 --

"Really, Lora. If he's not your boyfriend, what is he." It isn't a question; there is no rise at the end of the sentence.

"I see her all day at work and then on the weekends and sometimes on Wednesday nights for bridge," I point out. "How can you see that as neglect."

"It's just she feels you don't confide in her like you did. Girl talk, I guess."

"We never did that," I say, resting my head on the heel of my hand and looking out the window. "She's my sister-in-law."

"Your sister, really. The most family we have."

"I know. Okay." It is like saying, Point taken. But it is no commitment. No commitment.

"She doesn't have many friends, and you were her friend."

"Let's get some flowers on the way." I point to a store.

I can't tell him--not with what I've seen, not even with this feeling of sickly dread vibrating in me.

There are things Bill can't hear. Things about her. He just can't. All I can do is find out everything I can, know everything there is to know, all she's laid her fine white hands on. It is the only way.

Die a Little -- 108 --

[?]*[?]

Looking back, I see that it was all such happenstance.

Maybe if I hadn't seen it, I would eventually have let go of the things I had seen and learned in those past few months. If I hadn't been waiting so long for Alice to show up for our ride home, I might never have picked up the newspaper's metropolitan section, sitting harmlessly on the coffee table in the teachers' lounge. And I might so easily have missed the first article, which struck me only as very sad and somehow closer than it might have a year or two ago.

Kansas Honeymooners Find Body in Canyon LAPD Work to ID. Jane Doe, Dead Three Days (
HOLLYWOOD
)--A pair of newlyweds on vacation from Wichita, Kansas, were in for a grim welcome from the City of Angels Saturday when they discovered the body of a dead woman in Bronson Canyon.

Fred and Lorraine Twitchett, married less than a week ago, were on a morning stroll by the Hollywood Reservoir when they noticed what Mr. Twitchett described as "something satiny" in the brush. Closer inspection revealed it to be a torn green dress. A few yards from the dress, they came upon the corpse of a young woman wrapped in what they described as a silver shawl and naked from the waist down, except for shoes and stockings.

The woman, estimated to be between the ages of 25 and 35, was shot in the face and apparently dealt a blow to the back of the head. About five feet one and 100 pounds, the woman had dark, shoulder-length hair. Detectives will search dental records and fingerprints to determine her identity.

The corpse also had several scars of different sizes on her arms and legs that are believed to have been pre-mortem, some weeks or more old. Several appeared to be cigarette burns, others looked to be caused by use of intravenous needles.

Police urge the public to contact them with any knowledge of a missing woman matching this general description, possibly mistreated by a husband or boyfriend, and with a possible history of narcotics use.

Die a Little -- 109 --

The next day, however, I find myself looking through the newspaper to see if there is any further information. If I hadn't seen the second article, I don't even know if I would have thought any more about it --after all, there were thousands of Hollywood girls fitting that forlorn description. But there it is on page two.

(
HOLLYWOOD
)--Police have identified the Jane Doe found in Bronson Canyon just above Hollywood two days ago. A fingerprint check identified the body as that of Linda Tattersal, 27 years old, most recently of Rosecourt.

Detectives matched the victim's fingerprints through police records showing three past arrests for shoplifting, public drunkenness, and solicitation, and one conviction, last February, for resisting arrest at a roadhouse in El Segundo.

Ms. Tattersal was a member of the Screen Actors Guild from June 1953 until four months ago, when her membership was revoked for nonpayment of dues. Her last known address was at Locust Arms Apartments on Rosecourt Boulevard in Rosecourt.

"She was a nice girl," said a neighbor in the building, who did not wish to be identified. "But she kept bad company."

There it is, building through paragraph one, through paragraph two, and then, my heart in my throat by the time I reach the name Locust Arms. In a flash, I see the dark tangle of pepper trees swaying out front like a warning.

I spent only ten minutes there, months ago, and yet I suddenly can see myself walking with Alice along its cracked pavement. The door of Lois's room hanging partly open and her quavery singing voice calling us closer, beckoning us in.

Alice didn't even blink. Alice had been there many times. Alice, it struck me, had lived in dozens of places like this all her life, and for her, it was like going home.

I spread my hand over the article in the paper. I push my fingertips into the smudgy print. I wonder what I would do. I don't know anything for certain, after all.

Could Linda be Lois? Surely, Lois wasn't the only wayward girl lost in the Locust Arms, the only girl who seemed doomed to end up in Bronson Canyon or some other desolate place.

I try calling the Locust Arms, but no one will speak to me.

--Our tenants like to keep to themselves.

Or

--I don't know who you're talking about, honey.

Or

--Try Missing Persons, lady.

Die a Little -- 110 --

The next morning, I drive by the courtyard. I can't get out of the car. I stare at the row of wan doors. I wait for signs of life.

I realize I should be talking to Alice. If the girl in the paper isn't Lois, Alice could assure me that she'd just seen her friend, just got off the phone with her not the night before. Talked together confidentially just that day about the sad fate of the girl who lived across the courtyard in, say, Number 8.

That afternoon, having promised Bill, I find myself helping Alice bake cakes for the Rotary Club bake sale. As she frantically prepares three cakes for the sale and one for dessert that night, I take a seat at the kitchen table and begin peeling apples.

"Oh, Lora, I feel like we haven't talked in weeks. And first with the Beauvaises and ... Well, we both get so caught up with the rest of our lives," she says. Then, smiling, "You with your big romance -- "

She must see me bristle at the characterization because she quickly adds, "--your busy life, and we haven't made time enough lately. I want to hear everything that's been going on."

"How's Lois?" I ask it. I ask it abruptly, like a shot to the heart.

Alice stops for just a split second, almost unnoticeably, but I see it.

She stops for a hairsbreadth of a second in folding the cake batter.

"Oh, you know Lois."

"I do," I say, watching. Then I wait, still watching, until she has to say more. She sees I will keep waiting.

"Funny you should ask." Alice shakes her head like a vaguely disapproving older sister. "I guess she's gone off on another one of her tears. From what I hear, she's headed off to San Francisco without so much as a forwarding address." Her voice, the words she chooses, seem unreal, like dialogue from a movie.

"She told you she was going to San Francisco?"

"No, not even that. A friend of hers told me. I wonder if I should put a little nutmeg in this. Do you think Bill would like that, or would it be too strong."

"Gee, Alice, I don't know. So who told you?"

"This girl who used to work at the studio." She puts the nutmeg back in the spice cabinet unopened. Then turns to me and smiles.

"Oh, how did you happen upon her?"

"We ran into each other at the Apple Pan."

I look at her. Look at her and can't figure out a thing.

"With Bill," she adds. "We went to get a quick sandwich, and she was leaving as we were arriving." just daring me to ask still more.

"What's her name?"

"I can see you're a cop's sister." She laughs, the sound like an unbearable silver bell. "Ina. Her name's Ina. Now do your sister-in-law a favor and hold that pan for me while I pour."

Die a Little -- 111 --

I hold the cake pan steadily, watching her coolly, watching her watch me, wondering what I know or what I think I know. She empties the batter with great precision, twisting the bowl, shaking it just right to dispense everything evenly. Not a drop is left when she finishes. It is all very simple for her, and for every shake of my hands, hers become steadier still. I have nothing on her.

The next day, I stop by Bill's office with a surprise box of gingerbread and the excuse of needing to renew my driver's license nearby.

"So I heard you ran into an old friend of Alice's."

He turns and looks at me.

"She told me you ran into a friend of hers."

"She's got old friends everywhere," Bill says, wiping his fork off with a napkin. I can see him thinking, but I'm not sure about what.

"Hmm. But this one you ran into together."

"Yeah?"

"Ina. Her name's Ina."

"Ina?"

"At the Apple Pan."

"Right. That's right. Ina," he says. I can't read him--can't read Bill, whom I always, forever could read. But I think I detect a whiff of confusion.

"So I guess she told you that Lois Slattery took off for San Francisco."

"I don't know." Bill swipes a large forkful into his mouth. "They were talking while I was paying the bill. They went to the ladies'

room together."

"Did you know Lois had left town?"

"I don't really keep tabs on Lois Slattery," he says, shaking his head. "I leave that to her probation officer,"

He hooks an arm around me. "Just between you and me, I'm kind of glad she's not around, needing Alice to take care of her all the time."

"Was Alice giving her money?" I blurt out.

"Money? No, I don't think so. No." He wipes his hands with his napkin.

His brow furrows ever so slightly, and my heart rises in my chest.

I struggle with the urge to put my arms around him and comfort him as I see cracks appearing all around him, spreading. He does see them spreading, doesn't he? How can he not?

Die a Little -- 112 --

[?]*[?]

Two days after seeing the second newspaper article, I determine to carry out an idea that I've formulated all night long, lying in bed, unable to sleep, hoping against all reason that Lois will call, her voice sizzling in my ear.

Was it all about Joe Avalon? Was he the center of this ugly story?

He was in my brother's home, maybe in his bed. Edie Beauvais gone.

And now, maybe Lois, too. Of course, Alice was the one everyone had in common. Everyone.

Remembering now, at parties, Alice and Edie huddled in a corner, smoking conspiratorially, giggling and flashing glances, legs swinging, rocking as they shared an ottoman, so close they were like one grinning, dangerous thing. Alice in common.

And there was mostly this: a D.A.'s investigator with a wife caught in the middle of something so lurid? However peripheral her role, it wouldn't matter. In the papers, in City Hall, it wouldn't matter. Years of hard work shot through.

As I leave my apartment that evening, I put on an old hat with a veil that hangs over my face, cobweb thick. When I arrive at the police station, I remind myself that this is not Bill's precinct, is a world away. No one will recognize me, I tell myself. Nevertheless, the dove gray veil hangs low and I try not to make eye contact with anyone as I walk into the dingy, sticky-walled station house.

I ask to speak with the detective assigned to the Linda Tattersal case, and the squinty-eyed deputy at the desk gives me a long look.

"That'd be Detective Cudahy, Miss. Can I tell him what it's about?"

His finger is poised on a button on the control board.