Garden of Stones (29 page)

There was something here that didn’t fit, and Patty didn’t want to let him go before she found it.

“Did you move to Portland right after the war?” she asked, trying to keep her tone light and conversational.

Jessie’s expression fell for a fraction of a second. “No. My dad took a job in Chicago. We left Manzanar in the spring of 1944. We were lucky, we got out a lot sooner than other people did. I finished up high school there, went to Northwestern, got my degree in business. I worked in Chicago for a long time. I only moved a few years ago, got a job offer I couldn’t turn down.”

“Oh.” Patty couldn’t think of anything else to ask, to keep him talking. “Well, I would be happy to give my mom a message, if you want.”

“Yeah, maybe I can catch up with her next time I’m in town. Have a drink or something.” Still, he didn’t move toward the door. “Patty...”

“Yes?”

“Just...” He cleared his throat. “Your mom is a very special lady.”

“Thank you,” Patty said, flustered. “I mean, you’re right, she is. Mr. Kadonada...sometimes, I feel like there’s this whole side of her that I don’t even know. She doesn’t talk about the past much.”

A pained expression passed over his face. “Don’t judge her for that. Please, Patty. The war changed all of us. None of us came out of it whole. But that doesn’t change the way she feels about you, it doesn’t limit how much she loves you.”

“How can you know?” Patty didn’t mean for her words to come out as harshly as they did. “You don’t know her anymore. You don’t know who she is now.”

Jessie shook his head. “No, I suppose I don’t. But I know who she
was
. Your mom was...well, she was perfect. Graceful, and funny, and beautiful, and kind. She got me through—if it hadn’t been for her, I don’t know if I could have survived.”

They were both silent for a moment, and then Jessie put his hand on the door.

“Thank you,” he said formally.

“I would be glad to give my mother a message for you.”

“It’s not necessary. I’ll call soon.”

As Lucy closed the door behind him, she felt as though she had failed to ask the right questions. If Jessie Kadonada knew something about Forrest, about his death and Lucy’s involvement, he’d kept it well hidden.

Patty paused in the short hall leading to the kitchen and looked back on her mother’s living room: the plastic-covered furniture, the carpet that bore the even track marks of its thrice-weekly vacuuming, the drapes and lampshades and potted plants. Lucy’s life was solitary and careful and orderly and so empty it echoed. But once, it had been different. Once, it had been marked with beauty and passion and bravery. Somewhere, deep inside Lucy, that girl still lived, her sacrifices making it possible for Patty to thrive. And that was worth honoring, wasn’t it? Worth defending?

* * *

Jay called moments after Jessie left. He’d gone straight to a client’s office from the airport, and had only just now picked up his messages. Patty gave him the condensed version of events, leaving out Jessie’s visit, and Jay called his attorney friend immediately and set something up. With any luck, they’d have Lucy home tonight.

It was obvious that Jay had a lot of questions—it wasn’t every day, Patty supposed, that a man’s future mother-in-law was taken in for questioning for a murder—but he’d merely told Patty that he loved her, that everything would be all right and that he would see her over at the police station with the attorney at four-thirty.

Patty sat down and tried to figure out what to do next. When Torre and Officer Grieg had left earlier, they were weighed down with most of Lucy’s taxidermy tools. The implements were sealed in plastic bags, but Patty still recognized the knives, the clamp and the hide stretcher. Could they really think Lucy might have used them to murder Forrest?

Grieg had also taken some of Lucy’s clothes, including a blouse that had been in her laundry basket. Was it the one she had been wearing the other day, when Forrest was killed? As hard as she tried to remember, Patty couldn’t.

It felt as though the cops were building a case against her mother one piece at a time. Between their insinuations and Lucy’s revelations about her mother, Patty was feeling doubt beginning to take hold. Even if each step the police took was a false one, even if Lucy was innocent of everything but keeping her past a secret, they could still make her look guilty.

Patty had to find a way to stop them.

An idea had been forming in her mind ever since she’d seen the photos of a much younger Benny Van Dorn partying in the cramped motor pool office all those years ago. Sometimes a person could leave the past behind, as Lucy had done for so many years. But sometimes, outside factors made that more difficult. Such as, for instance, if a person held an elected office.

Patty made a quick call to the number listed in the phone book for the district headquarters and used the working-on-an-article ruse again. Benny Van Dorn’s assistant seemed happy to tell Patty that he would be in the office that afternoon, and that he would be able to spare her a few minutes for her article about the Ocean Avenue development.

She made a quick trip to Kinkos to copy some pages from Forrest’s photo albums, and at a few minutes before three, she was ushered into Van Dorn’s office.

Patty fixed what she hoped was a confident smile on her face. “Supervisor Van Dorn?”

He looked up from his desk and took off his glasses, then stood with some effort and came around to greet her. He was several inches over six feet, swollen and florid, his jowls disappearing into a too-tight collar. He smiled and extended his hand. Patty shook it; the flesh was warm and tight, as though all the blood had rushed to his extremities.

“Hi. Janice Stapleton, the
Chron
. I’m not supposed to say this, but I live in Ingleside and I voted for you.” She laughed coyly. “I was hoping you could spare me a few minutes for a piece we’re doing on Ocean Avenue. I spoke to your assistant about it?”

Patty allowed her hair to fall forward, the ends resting above her cleavage, more of which was exposed than she would ever ordinarily allow. She’d left two buttons of her blouse unfastened and spent a little extra time on her makeup.

“Of course, of course, sweetheart,” Van Dorn said, letting his gaze rove freely to her breasts.

Was it really so easy? Patty, who had never consciously flirted in her life, who still got flustered whenever Jay snuck a caress in a crowded elevator or under a restaurant tablecloth, flicked her hair over her shoulder. “I appreciate you taking the time to talk.”

“Well, here, sit, get comfortable.”

Patty took the seat he offered, and he closed the office door. He went around the desk and lowered himself back into his own chair, grunting from exertion.

Now that they were ensured privacy, Patty didn’t bother with the fake smile. She pulled the copies of Forrest’s photo album out of the envelope and spread them in front of Van Dorn.

There he was, thirty-five years ago—with his hand between a young woman’s knees as she sat next to him on a couch. Here was a shot of him and Rickenbocker, toasting with highball glasses while a young Jessie Kadonada stood like a ghost in the background. Half a dozen more, with Van Dorn featured in each, drinking and laughing and exploring the flesh of young women and, in one case, with his arm slung around Jessie’s shoulders.

“Reg Forrest is dead,” Patty said. She spoke quickly, knowing she had very little time. “The police are questioning my mother. My grandmother was Miyako Takeda.” She tapped her index finger on the photograph of her mother sitting on Rickenbocker’s lap. “My mother is Lucy Takeda. I believe you knew her.”

Van Dorn’s convivial grin vanished and his brow wrinkled with confusion and irritation. “Hey. What the hell is this?”

“I want the investigation stopped. I believe there is some question as to whether Forrest’s death was a suicide. I want you to make that official.”

“It was your mother who offed him?” Van Dorn demanded. “I should have guessed.”

“No.”
Patty stabbed her finger on Rickenbocker’s image. “She’s innocent. I don’t know who killed him, and it doesn’t matter. I just want her left alone.”

Van Dorn raised an eyebrow. “You sure about that?” he said. “What I hear, they have a couple people ready to swear she was there that morning.”

So he’d been following the case.

“I know you and the police scratch each other’s backs,” she said quietly. “You may have to call in a few favors, but I’m guessing you’ll be willing to do that.”

Van Dorn laughed. “Why’s that? ’Cause you’ve got a few shots of me at parties with pretty girls? You think every man in the district isn’t going to take one look at those and wish
he’d
been there?”

Patty pointed to Jessie’s frightened, pale face in the photo of Van Dorn and Rickenbocker. “Jessie Kadonada was abused by Reg Forrest.
Raped
. Repeatedly.”

Van Dorn’s face reddened, his soft jowls quivering. “So? What does that have to do with me?”

“Well, for one thing, you were there. You knew it was going on. You didn’t do anything about it.”

“So you say,” Van Dorn said, starting to get up again. With considerable effort, he pushed back his chair and gripped the desk, struggling to lift his mass.

“And for another,” Patty continued, “you abused him too. You took advantage of a position of power to indulge your perverted desire to have sex with children.”

“I certainly did not!” Van Dorn was so taken aback that he sat back down. “I never touched that boy.”

Here it was—the moment for Patty’s great gamble, the lie that could change the rest of her and her mother’s lives. “Jessie Kadonada is willing to say you did.”

The color seemed to drain from Van Dorn’s face. “I don’t believe you.”

Patty shrugged. “Believe what you want. I talked to him just today. He’s very successful now, a sales manager up in Portland.” Now that she’d gotten started, the embellishment was easy. She justified it by reminding herself that she was protecting Jessie as well as her mother. Regardless of the truth, both of them had reason to hate Forrest, and either of them could have killed him.

Or maybe Forrest really had done it himself. Patty wondered what it must have been like to live with himself all those years, knowing what he had done. Forrest had once dreamed of being in the movies; instead he’d ended up in a broken-down apartment, spending his life in a stinking basement, alone. Was he haunted by Jessie Kadonada’s face? Did he see him crying in his dreams?

How tempting would it be to end those memories once and for all?

“You slant-eyed, devious little cunt,” Van Dorn muttered. “You know your grandmother couldn’t wait to open her legs for George, don’t you? She was hot for him like a bitch in heat.”

“That’s a lie.”

“And your mother, she would have been next. She came looking for it, you know. She came around one night when we were partying. Gave George a taste of her sugar. Couldn’t wait to have what her mama had.”

“You’re wrong,” Patty muttered, but it came out in a whisper. She stood, her legs trembling, and picked up her purse, digging her fingers into the leather to steady them. “You can keep those copies. I have the originals. If the case isn’t closed by tomorrow at noon, I’m taking them to the papers. Oh, and by the way, I’m not really a journalist, but I think the
Chronicle
might be interested in what I have to say anyway.”

“That’s not a lot of time,” Van Dorn said, making no move to pick up the photographs.

“Then it’s a good thing you’re such a powerful man.”

34

Lone Pine
September 1943

Lucy and Mary left Lone Pine in early autumn, when the pregnancy could no longer be easily hidden with loose clothing. Lucy took only what fit in a single suitcase, just as when she left Manzanar. She wished she had brought one of the tiny trophies she’d worked on with Garvey—a little canyon wren mounted on a piece of driftwood ornamented with a tiny porcelain blossom, or a pair of white-bellied pocket mice whose paws were joined to suggest a waltz. But Mary had planned their departure in secret. No one knew about the baby but the two of them, and Mary packed their bags and wrote a letter to Garvey while Lucy slept. After she woke Lucy before dawn to announce that Sharon was waiting in the drive, ready to drive them to Bakersfield in the High Boy, she insisted on standing watch while Lucy dressed, never letting her out of her sight. And when Lucy cried for the first hour of the three-hour drive, Mary ignored her tears and stared out the window. Sharon kept her mouth shut and an inscrutable expression on her face.

Mary—she had insisted Lucy start calling her by her first name—knew of a place in San Francisco where unwed mothers could wait out their pregnancies. “Don’t be getting ideas,” Mary added before the truck had even disappeared down the street. “If I find out you’ve been in touch with Garvey, I’ll call the lawyer so fast neither one of you will know what hit you. I’ll tell him Garvey’s not right in the head.”

“That’s what you wanted from the start,” Lucy spat. Mary had trapped her, and she could see no way out. “A way to make him look bad so you could have the motel and all the money.”

“Not all of it.” Mary smiled, that old familiar cat-with-the-canary smile that Lucy had learned to fear more than her temper. “He’ll always have a place to live. Mother would have wanted that. We’ll provide for him.”

“You
know
that’s what hurts him the most,” Lucy said, unable to stop herself, even though she knew she was only adding fuel to the fire. “Having to depend on anyone else.”

“Of course I know that.”

“But—he’s your
brother
. How could you
do
this?”

In the distance, the whistle of the approaching train played its long, lonesome note. Travelers gathered under the station’s arches along with people coming to greet their loved ones or say their farewells, the excitement of reunion mixing with the melancholy of separation. For Lucy, there would be neither—no one to miss her, no one to cherish her return.