“Fuck.”
“Mommy, is he going to die?”
“I don’t think so, sweetie.”
“I don’t want him to die!”
“He’s going to be fine, okay? Daddy’s tough, he’ll pull through. And he’s totally in the best place if something goes wrong, okay?”
“Something already has gone wrong!”
“There’s no better place for him to be. They’re going to figure out what’s wrong and they’re going to fix it. Okay?” She drew a hand over Rafaela’s hair. “Let me go see what I can find out. Want me to, babe? Want me to go talk to someone?”
“Yes! Yes! Please, Mommy! Please!”
The poor thing was in a state.
As Larissa stood, her daughter said, “He really wants to see you, I know he does. And he said for you not to tell Tristen. He said he didn’t want to deal with Tristen.”
—
Richie “Snoop” Raskin was a virile, dapper, imposing figure — what they used to call a “gent.” Pop culture had bestowed upon detectives a colorful rep as snappy dressers, men’s men who weren’t afraid of a little bling, but Dusty never saw anything quite like this: the cologne that reeked of fathers and forest gods, the wedding ring that was the broadest gold band on the thickest finger she’d ever seen, the old-school Brioni suit (courtesy, so he informed, of the ancient haberdasher Sy Devore), the vintage “Los Angeles Railway” cuff links fastening crisp, blindingly white sleeves… The old, swinging dick veritably hydroplaned into the room on buttery John Lobbs, a soigné king of forensic flatfoots and Hollywood fixers gone by. That he was host emeritus of an Emmy-winning cold-case series called The Spirit Room only further burnished his legend and general legerdemain. He’d been a confidant of Sinatra (of course he had), having met the Chairman in Vegas when he was just nineteen; it was Frank who’d christened him “Snoop.” (Of course he did.) Their relationship forged his career and forever changed his life.
“I acquired the name long before Mr. Calvin Broadus Jr. was born,” he said, referring to his more famous namesake, Snoop Doggy Dogg. “Though Mr. Dogg does defer, when we’re together sociably — I call him Snoopy and he calls me Snoop. He’s actually a client of mine. Good people. Hardworking, honest, very savvy. Smokes a bit too much of the funny stuff but to each his own. I’ve helped him out of a few jams,” he winked.
Marking time, she reminisced about her own run-ins with Sinatra and a few other folks they shared in common. Dusty was glad she’d asked her wife to sit in, not just for support but because she didn’t want the rift between them to widen, not if she could help it.
He could tell she was anxious — through Livia, he already knew the actress was convinced that her baby had been the victim of foul play. As if sensing her dread at wading in, the detective gently informed that, for now, he had all the facts he needed. Instead of homing in on “the case,” he spoke with discerning intelligence about her filmography, with a hobbyist’s emphasis on the obscure. Apparently, he used to frequent weekend screenings at Liz Taylor’s (another client). “Liz told me, ‘Keep your eye on that girl. She’s the one to watch.’”
Dusty was moved by that.
Livia’s instincts were spot-on: he was the man for the job. Dusty felt a rush of hope, like an end-stage cancer victim being told that surgery and chemo wouldn’t be necessary to effect a complete cure — just a change in diet.
“Do you know Joni?” he asked. “Joni Mitchell?”
“Yes! Not super well — I haven’t seen her in… a long time.”
“She’s had some hard times lately but she’s still with us. A tough old bird. Brilliant.”
“I know. I feel so awful for her. It was an… aneurysm?” He nodded. “Love her, love Joni. I could listen to her for hours. Not sing — I mean, that too! — but talk. She’s an amazing talker. So brilliant! Knows everything about everything.”
“I think she knows a little too much,” he said mischievously. “And she likes to let you know that she does. And that you know too little.”
“We had a period where we kind of hung out, before she got that weird disease.”
“Morgellons,” said Snoop, with amused disdain. “I have a whole opinion about that — some other time! The reason that I asked — if you knew her — is because there are similarities.”
“Similarities?”
“You know she gave a daughter up when she was twenty.”
“I did know that.”
“You lost Aurora at about three months?”
“Yes.”
(It was interesting to hear a stranger say the name and the detail.)
“Well, that’s about the age Kilauren was when Joni put her up for adoption.”
“Really! That, I didn’t know.”
“And it’s curious: I think she was exactly your age when Joni decided to see if she could find her little girl.”
“Wow,” said Allegra. “How weird!”
“The minute the search went public, gals started coming out of the woodwork to say, ‘You’re my mother!’ ‘Hi, Mom!’ We had to put everyone through a fairly rigorous screening process.”
“I can imagine.”
The conversation rambled — shared friends and timeworn anecdotes from his end — before he circled back to Aurora, in regard to his fee. It had been a long while since anyone spoke directly to her about payment of services. Again, very old-school, and she loved it.
Before Snoop left, Dusty wanted to know how he became a cold-case maven. As it happened, he was a pioneer in the field, long before it was a cultural and living-room staple. Initially, the work had called to him because “like Elvis, I had a twin who died at birth. Not to get too psychological about it, but I think part of me is always looking—for that other part, that other me. The thing that will make me whole.”
Standing at the door on the way out, he doffed his hat and said something so crazy that after he left she had to ask Allegra if she’d heard him right.
“Did he say dig up the yard?”
“I think so,” Allegra said grimly.
“What exactly did you hear him say?”
“He said — I thought he said not to worry — that he’d find her—‘we’ll find her… even if we have to dig up that yard.’”
—
They used to smoke weed, hop in Joni’s red Mercedes 280SL, and drive through traffic just to blow people’s minds. She could really make Dusty laugh. It embarrassed and surprised her that she didn’t know more about the singer’s whole adoption deal. It was a famous story that she hadn’t followed too closely, which in itself was deeply telling. Because after all, Joni was looking—and Dusty wasn’t. Probably struck too close to home. Why would she have been interested in the journey of an artist and a peer who had the guts to do what she herself wasn’t yet capable of?
They lay in bed, watching a YouTube interview from a while ago. (Allegra’d been Google bingeing; Patti Smith had given up her baby girl around the same time Joni did. WTF!) Joni wanted to clear the air because she was tired of people saying she’d put her kid up for adoption because of her career. Looking elegant and patrician — matrician? mortician? — probably in her early sixties at the taping, she defended herself by explaining how she was young and poor, and the father of her child had left three months after the girl was born. It was freezing cold and she had no prospects; she knew she couldn’t make a home for her daughter, let alone a life. The presentation was so plausible and forthright, she was so articulate and made such sense, but, still, Dusty was uncomfortable. Why couldn’t Joni have just said she wasn’t ready to be a mom? Wouldn’t that have been cleaner? Where was the sin? What was wrong with saying you weren’t ready? Because if you were, you could overcome anything… couldn’t you? Joni told the interviewer that it was a different time, a different, harsher time, but what did that even mean? A time when mothers gave up their daughters en masse? She hated and loved Joni, forgave and condemned… because wasn’t not searching for Aurora the very same as having voluntarily given her up? If only she’d taken the singer’s sensible, guilt-free path! She’d have been spared so much.