The Last Blue Plate Special (4 page)

“Detective Rathbone.” He identified himself as if his surname had been a lifelong burden. Then he held up a badge in a leather
wallet and lit a cigarette. Unfiltered. “Dr. McCarron, did you phone police headquarters earlier today with some information
about the deaths of Senator Mary Harriet Grossinger and Assemblywoman Dixie Ross?”

“Yes. I said these deaths could not have happened by chance. You drove all the way out here to confirm a statement you have
on tape? And my calculations, as I said to your desk clerk, are based on the assumption that Ross also died of cerebral hemorrhage.
We won’t know whether that’s true or not until Monday, after the autopsy.”

“Oh, we know it’s true. The autopsy was performed this morning.” He pushed his Ray•Bans to rest across the top of his bristly
hair, then pulled them to rest on his nose again. I suspected the gesture meant something coplike, maybe even threatening,
but since I wasn’t sure, it seemed merely indecisive.

“What we’d like to know,” he went on, trying for a knowledgeable sneer, “is how
you
knew it was true before anybody else did.” Here his tanned brow grew furrows as he gazed at the cigarette between his fingers.
“I’m afraid I’ll have to ask you to come down into San Diego, to headquarters, answer a few questions. We’ve already got your
ex-con friend, Berryman. Says he doesn’t know anything. They never do.”

“You’ve got BB?” Rox and I said in unison.

“Yup.” Bad John Wayne imitation.

“He was at a fundraiser where Ross was expected yesterday evening, except she died before she got there. Apparently he got
some kind of job at this fundraiser through some guy who calls himself a psychiatrist. Somebody named Bushy he met in prison.
And you were at this fundraiser, McCarron. Since you seem to know more than anyone about what happened to Dixie Ross, we’d
like to talk to you. Another detective is out looking for this so-called Dr. Bushy. We need to get to the bottom of this,
fast. So why don’t you just turn around and head down to San Diego. I’ll meet you at—”

“Wait a minute, Rathbone,” I began. “There’s more to this than an autopsy. You guys wouldn’t be running around harassing innocent
citizens on a Saturday if—”

“And I’m Dr. Roxanne Bouchie,” Rox snarled from beneath Brontë, who also was snarling, showing teeth. “That’s Boo-she, not
Bushy. It sounds as though you’re detaining Mr. Berryman illegally, and you have no business detaining Dr. McCarron or me.
You’re out of your jurisdiction here and you know it, so stop grandstanding. This is San Diego County Sheriff’s Department’s
turf, not the city police department’s. What’s going on?”

“You’re this bogus shrink Berryman met in prison?” Rathbone said, nodding over what was trying to be a snide grin. “Sure.
Except Berryman was at Donovan. No women prisoners out there last time I checked.”

Rox was grinding her teeth. I could see jaw muscles working in the left side of her face.

“I’m the staff psychiatrist at Donovan Prison,” she said in a tone I don’t ever want directed at me. A tone that could turn
ordinary cottage cheese to a tub of cinders. “What, exactly, do you want of Dr. McCarron and me?”

To his credit the detective scuffed a black leather shoe against the bleached-out ground before answering. I had a sense that
his tough-guy act was a skin he’s shed some time ago and now barely remembered.

“I’m sorry,” he said finally, taking off his shades to look straight at Roxie. “Can you confirm your identity and vouch for
Berry-man and McCarron here?”

Rox sighed, a long sigh full of history. Then she took her wallet from her purse and showed Rathbone a lot of identification
proving, among other things, that she outranked him and made a lot more money, too.

“Mr. Berryman was employed to organize the political fundraiser for Kate Van Der Elst, who was a friend of the deceased, Dixie
Ross,” she said in the petrified cottage cheese voice. “He is an ex-con and also African-American, but that doesn’t mean he
had anything to do with whatever it is you’re investigating. I’ll vouch for him. Dr. McCarron scarcely needs my endorsement.
You may not have noticed, but she’s white.”

The detective appeared to be making a difficult decision as he stared at a clump of dried-out locoweed growing beside the
road. A tea decocted from the leaves and stems of this plant, not to mention its particularly nasty flowers, affects the central
nervous system and brain. Locoweed can cause madness, even death, in large mammals such as sheep, horses, and SDPD detectives.

“Eat that plant!” I whispered, glaring at Rathbone, who didn’t hear me.

“Look,” he said, reaching into his car and retrieving a manila folder, “I’m going to show you what’s going on. Then I’d really
appreciate it if both of you would tell me what you think. We got this three weeks ago in the mail. Nobody took it seriously
at the time. Now everybody does. I’m afraid we’ve got a situation on our hands.”

Rox took the envelope, propped it on Brontë’s back, and opened it. Inside was a photocopy of a typed letter. Around two sentences
of text its author had glued about fifty article headlines clipped from newspapers. All were about Dixie Ross or Mary Harriet
Grossinger.

“Ross Opposes Landfill Project” or “Grossinger Calls for Further Discussion on Term Limits.” Typical political headers.

The message read simply, “These woman trying to be men and have to dye. There not the only one.”

It was signed with the typed words, “The Sword of Heaven.”

“Uh-oh,” Roxie said softly. “There goes dinner.”

As Rathbone followed us in his car to my motel, I couldn’t help wondering about the presumed relationship between women in
nontraditional lines of work and hair coloring. It was clear to me that, if nothing else, the letter’s author was a lousy
speller.

T
he ‘Sword of Heaven’ reference is probably from the Bible,” Roxie said as Rathbone stood around in my bare dirt driveway trying
to decide whether to help carry groceries in or remain coplike. Roxie handed him the two heaviest bags. “Of course anyone
could assume that,” she went on. “What is it you want us to do with this letter, analyze it? And did I mention we charge a
fee?”

“Fee?”

“Consulting. You want to know something about whoever wrote this, right?”

Rathbone nodded, his clean-shaven jaw hidden behind the edge of a brown grocery bag that looked yellow in the late afternoon
glare.

“Well, we can probably tell you a few things, but we’d prefer to do so professionally.”

“The department uses consultants all the time,” he said, standing to the side of the door so that Roxie and I could enter
first. One of those moments. With both arms full of groceries, he couldn’t hold the new screen door I’d installed after ramming
my truck through the old motel office door only months ago. Roxie had to go back outside to hold it open for him, after which
they headed for the kitchen while I closed the bottom half of the custom steel-core Dutch interior door but left the top half
open against the interior wall. I love Dutch doors. And when both halves are closed, this one can stop just about anything
shot from a conventional weapon. You can’t be too careful.

“But can the San Diego Police Department afford us?” Rox asked after mentioning an hourly fee nearly twice what we charge
for polls and jury selections and interrogation protocols.

“I guess so,” Rathbone answered, looking around. “You two live in a motel? Can’t imagine you get much business out here. Just
a dirt road in the middle of nowhere. Suppose you could book conferences for hermits or something, right? Pa-hahm.”

His laugh reminded me of the sound potatoes make in the microwave when you forget to punch holes in them with a fork and the
steam inside bursts through the skin. That muffled popping. I didn’t want to explain my unusual choice of living arrangements
to a detective right then. But his failure to go into shock at Roxie’s proposed fee for our services was alluring. We’d make
a bundle if Rathbone recommended us as consultants to the SDPD. Besides, I was curious about the deaths of two women I’d already
demonstrated couldn’t have died naturally when and where and for the reasons they presumably did.

“This is my place,” I told him. “My dog and I live here alone. Dr. Bouchie lives in San Diego.”

“You live out here by yourself? Some kind of hermit,” he answered, nodding thoughtfully at my kitchen floor. “This Pergo?”

The reference was to my floor covering, a laminate manufactured in Sweden. He’d captured my attention.

“Yeah. Travertine Stone. I thought it picked up the mood of the place, the way it sort of repeats that creamy yellow band
in the sandstone boulders outside the kitchen window.”

Rathbone considered the view and then the floor again. His hands hanging at his sides were cluttered with freckles and veins
that stood out in tree limb patterns.

“My wife, Annie, she’s got a bug about getting this flooring for the kitchen and the hallway, keeps showing me samples. I
kind of like Rustic Oak. Did you see that one?”

“Too dark for here,” I answered. “But I liked it.”

“Annie’s pushing for a lighter one, too. Planked Natural Pine.”

“I
almost
went with that one, but then the stone look just seemed—”

“I don’t believe this,” Roxie muttered to a cluster of cherry tomatoes she was rinsing in the sink. “This isn’t happening.
Two complete strangers are not standing around in a desert bonding over a vinyl floor.”

“It’s not vinyl,” Rathbone and I said in unison, bonding over a laminate floor. It was clear that we were probably going to
get along. An interest in floor covering can do that.

“You might as well stay for dinner,” Roxie told the detective, smiling and shaking her head. Rox’s braids were done in turquoise
that week, and Rathbone cocked his head at their pleasant rattling.

“My sister-in-law, Annie’s younger sister, keeps trying to do her hair like that,” Rathbone said with interest. “I don’t think
it works if you’re not black. She’s a lawyer up in the Bay Area. International law. Travels a lot. And sure, that’d be fine.
I need to call Annie and tell her I won’t be home. Mind if I use your phone?”

“Only if you call and make sure they’re not holding our friend BB,” I told him. “Can you do that first?”

“You mean Berryman? Sure.”

I showed Rathbone to the phone in my office/living room and flipped on the TV to muffle his conversation. We Midwesterners
are nothing if not sensitive to the privacy of others.

Back in the kitchen I fed Brontë and skewered turkey meat-balls with the cherry tomatoes, mushrooms, and bits of red onion
and pineapple until Rathbone yelled, “Berryman’s free, but look at this!”

Rox and I rounded the wall separating my miniature kitchen from where he was and followed his rapt gaze to the TV. A woman
announcer in a red silk Bijou jacket was wrapping up a story about the cancellation of a religious revival apparently scheduled
for the next day, Sunday. On the right side of the split screen was a photo of what looked like a Christmas tree angel wearing
too much makeup. On second glance it appeared to be a woman with sparkling blonde curls in a pale green choir robe. The photo
had been shot through a heavy scrim and looked fuzzy.

“A spokesman for the Reverend Ruby Emerald urges her followers to organize prayer gardens for the charismatic revivalist.
Ticketholders for tomorrow’s sold-out event are assured that refunds will be available at the box office as well as all Ticket-store
locations in the event of a cancellation tomorrow. Now here’s Martin McGuire with a look at the weather….”

“What?” Roxie asked. “Look at what?”

Rathbone was scowling and jabbing a freckled finger at the TV.

“Just a feeling,” he muttered. “This revival preacher has a sold-out show for close to fifteen thousand at forty bucks a person
and she winds up in a hospital the night before? We’re talking some big money in the toilet if the thing is canceled. I’ve
just got a feeling about this. Mind if I use the phone again? Wanna check something out.”

Rox and I listened as he talked to another detective at San Diego’s police headquarters.

“She was taken from her home to the hospital in an ambulance? Good. See if you can talk up the paramedics, find out what was
wrong with her. I think there’s something fishy here. Call me back.”

We were sitting by the pool watching Rathbone, who told us his first name was Wesley but that he preferred being called Wes,
finish his fifth turkey kabob when the phone rang. Abandoning all pretense of courtesy, we all jumped up and dashed inside
at once, Rathbone only at the last second deferring to my right to answer my own phone.

“Just a moment, he’s right here,” I said, and handed him the cordless.

“Paramedics said headache,” he repeated. “She had a killer headache, a lot of pain, sweating like a pig, shaking all over.”

“What about blood pressure?” Roxie asked, her brown eyes interested, professional now. I realized I was watching a cop and
a doctor at work in my living room, only there was no crime, no patient. It seemed strange, as if we were characters in a
play that made no sense and nobody was watching it, anyway.

“Um, high,” Rathbone repeated after asking. “One-ninety-something over one-twenty-something. Mean anything?”

“Could mean she’d just run for twenty minutes up a steep incline while drinking strong coffee and smoking,” Rox answered.
“Or any of a thousand other things. Drugs, allergic reactions, anything. The levels are dangerous, though. Very dangerous.”

“Did the ambulance guys think she was druggy?” Rathbone said into my phone, the light from a floor lamp painting one side
of his face in pale yellow glare and leaving the other in shadow. I thought about the photo I’d seen at the Aphid Gallery
the night before, one side of a simple rectangular building exploding in light while the other side was buried in darkness.

“She denied any drug use,” he said moments later. “Paramedics said it was probably a stress headache, said they’d seen it
before in rock stars and people like that, performers. They get jumpy before a big show, get these headaches. At the hospital
they’ll just give her some tranquilizers, calm her down. The paramedics said she’ll probably be okay by tomorrow.”