I laughed.
"I'm right, aren't I? I should be a psychologist."
"It does bring back certain memories," I said.
"Sure," she said. "Out to save the world, all of you. You married?"
"No."
"A fellow like you, same attitude as my Becky, you would have been okay for her. You could have saved the world together. But to be honest, she probably wouldn't have gone for you- no offense, you're just too… put-together. That's a compliment, believe me." She patted my knee. Frowned. "I'm sorry for what you're going through. And be sure to take good care of yourself. Something happens to you, your mother's going to die, over and over. You'll be gone but she'll be left dying every day-understand?"
The hand on my knee clawed.
I nodded.
"Something happens to you, your mother's going to lie in bed and think about you, over and over and over. Wondering how much you suffered. Wondering what you were thinking when it happened to you- why it happened to her kid and not someone else's. Do you understand what I'm saying?"
"I do."
"So be careful."
"That's why I'm here," I said. "To protect myself."
She whipped off the sunglasses. Her eyes were so raw the whites looked brown. "Gritz- no, she never said a word about anyone named that. Or Silk or Merino."
"Did she ever talk about Hewitt?"
"No, not really." She seemed to be deliberating. I didn't move or speak.
The raw eyes moistened. "She mentioned him once- maybe a week or two before. Said she was treating this really crazy person and thought she was helping him. She said it respectfully- this poor, sick fellow that she really wanted to help. Schizophrenic, whatever- hearing voices. No one else had been able to help him, but she thought she could. He was starting to trust her."
She spat on the ground.
"She mentioned him by name?"
"No. She made a point of not talking about any of them by name. Big point of following the rules."
Remembering Becky's sketchy notes and lack of follow-through with Jean, I said, "A real stickler, huh?"
"That was Becky. Back when she was in grade school, her teachers always said they wished they had a classroom full of Beckys. Even with her loser boyfriends, she always stayed on the straight and narrow, not using drugs, nothing. That's why they wouldn't…"
She shook her head. Put her glasses back on and showed me the back of her head. Between thin strands of dyed hair, her neck was liver-spotted and loose-skinned.
I said, "Why they wouldn't what?"
No answer for a moment.
Then: "They wouldn't stick with her- they always left her. Can you beat that? The ones who were going to get divorced, always went back to their wives. The ones who were on the wagon, always fell off. And left her. She was ten times the human being any of them were, but they always walked out on her, can you beat that?"
"They were the unstable ones," I said.
"Exactly. Dead-end losers. What she needed was someone with high standards, but she wasn't attracted to that- only the broken ones."
"Was she in a relationship at the time she died?"
"I don't know- probably. The last time I saw her- couple of days before she stopped by to give me some laundry- I asked her how her social life was and she refused to talk about it. What that usually meant was she was involved with someone she knew I'd nag her about. I got upset with her- we didn't talk much. How was I supposed to know it was the last time and I should have enjoyed every minute I had with her?"
Her shoulders bowed and quivered.
I touched one of them and she sat up suddenly.
"Enough of this- I hate this moping around. That's why I quit that survivor's group your friend Sturgis recommended. Too much self-pity. Meanwhile, I haven't done a damn thing for you."
My head was full of assumptions and guesses. Learning of Becky's attraction to losers had firmed up the suspicions left by her notes. I smiled and said, "It's been good talking to you."
"Good talking to you, too. Do I get a bill?"
"No, the first hour's free."
"Well, look at that. Handsome, a Caddy, and a sense of humor to boot- you do pretty well, don't you? Financially."
"I do okay."
"Modesty- bet you do better than okay. That's what I wanted for Becky. Security. I told her, what are you wasting your time for, doing dirty work for the county? Finish up your degree, get some kind of license, open up an office in Beverly Hills and treat fat people or those women who starve themselves. Make some money. No crime in that, right? But she wouldn't hear of it, wanted to do important work. With people who were really needy."
She shook her head.
"Saving the bugs," she said, almost inaudibly. "She thought she was dealing with those potato thingies, but a scorpion got into the jar."
24
Her description of Becky as a stickler for the rules didn't fit with Jean Jeffers' recollections. A mother's vision could be overly rosy, but she'd been frank about Becky's chronic attraction to losers.
Had Becky finally been attracted to the ultimate loser? How loose had things gotten between her and Hewitt?
And what twisted dynamic bound the two of them to G?
Bad love.
Blaming the victim bothered me, but revenge seemed to be the fuel that powered the killer's engine, and I had to wonder if Becky had been a target of something other than random psychosis.
I drove home straining to make sense of it. No strange vehicles within a hundred yards of the gate, and last night's anxiety seemed silly. Robin was working, looking preoccupied and content, and the dog was chewing a nylon bone.
"Milo just called from Santa Barbara," she said. "The number's on the kitchen counter."
I went into the house, found an 805 exchange that wasn't Sally Grayson's, and punched it. A voice answered, "Records."
"Dr. Delaware returning Detective Sturgis's call."
"One minute."
I waited five.
"Sturgis."
"Hi. Just got through talking to Becky's mother. Becky never mentioned anyone by name, but she did talk about helping a poor unfortunate psychotic who could very well have been Hewitt."
"No mention of Gritz?"
"Nor of Silk or Merino. One thing that was interesting, though: she said Becky liked to mend broken wings and had a penchant for losers- guys who involved her in dead-end relationships. If you think of Hewitt as the ultimate loser, it supports what we suspected about things getting unprofessional between them. Having said all that, I don't know that it leads us anywhere."
"Well, we're not doing much better here. No school records at Katarina's house, so either she never kept them or the killer made off with them. We do have confirmation that Myra Evans was Myra Paprock, but it's a no-go on Rodney Shipler. His tax records show him working for the L.A. Unified School District for thirty years- right after he got out of the Army. Never up here- and I verified it with the S.B. district. No connection at all to the de Bosch school."
"What about summer vacations?" I said. "School personnel sometimes take part-time jobs during the off-season."
"Summers he worked in L.A."
"How long was he in the Army?"
"Fifteen years- staff sergeant, most of it over in the Philippines. Honorable discharge, no blots on his record."
"He made somebody mad."
"It doesn't look like it was someone at the school. In fact, we can't find any records of anything fishy happening out at the school. No fires or felonies or anything anybody would want to avenge, Alex. Just a few complaints about noise from Bancroft and one vehicular accident that did occur when Myra Evans was teaching there- May of seventy-three- but it was clearly an accident. One of the students stole a school truck and took a joyride. Made it up to the Riviera district and spun off a mountain road. He died, Santa Barbara PD investigated, found no foul play."