"Sounds like you respected her from the beginning."
"I'd like to think so. You sound just like Dr. H. Trying to tell me something good about myself… anyway, that's the story with my Aimee. I like that name for her, chose it for her. Her family gave her the old name and they treated her like dirt so she deserved a new beginning. Aimee means friend in French and I've always wanted to go to France, and that's what she's been to me, my only real friend. Outside of Dr. H."
He managed to place his hands on the wheels of the chair, rolled back an inch, and smiled. As if the merest movement was pleasure. "I'm going to die soon, and it's nice knowing Dr. Harrison will be here to take care of my Aimee."
"He will."
The smile dissipated. "Course, he's old…"
"Have you and he made plans?"
"It hasn't come to that, yet," said Bill. "We better do it soon… I've chewed your ear off, and you don't want to know about my personal problems. You're here to find out what happened to the Ingalls girl."
"Yes," I said.
"Poor Janie," he said. "I can see her face as clear as day, right here." Tapping a mirrored lens. "Didn't know her, but I'd seen her around, thumbing on Sunset. She and this friend she was always with, this good-looking blonde. I figured the two of them were hooking, because the only girls still thumbing were hookers and runaways looking to be hookers. Turns out they were just careless girls. The night I found them, I was driving to the party, ready to do some heavy business, saw them standing around on Sunset all confused. Not on the Strip, Bel Air, cross the street from the U. They were just a walk from the party but had no idea. So I gave 'em a lift. I still think about that. What if I hadn't?"
"You brought them to the party, then what?"
He smiled. "Move it right along? Yeah, I brought 'em, tried to get ' em high. Janie smoked some weed, dropped some pills, drank, the blonde one just drank. We hung around together a little, it was a lunatic scene, rich kids and crashers, everyone high and horny, doing their thing in that big, old, empty house. Then Aimee showed up. Attaching to me like she always did. She was there in the first place because I'd agreed to watch her. The parents were off in India, or some place. Had just bought a bigger house, and the boys decided to give themselves a little good-bye bash. Anyway, Janie and her friend- I think her name was Melissa, something like that- were getting into the scene."
"Melinda Waters," I said.
He cocked his head, like a guard dog on alert. "So you know plenty."
"I don't know how it happened."
"How it happened is Janie got noticed. By one of the brothers' buddies, a mean kid. You know his name, too?"
"Vance Coury."
"That's the one," he said. "Sweet piece of work, he wasn't any older than the others, but he had this seasoned bad guy's way about him. He noticed Janie, and that's the reason she died. Because he'd had her, before, wanted her again."
"Had her how?" I said.
"He picked her up when she was thumbing. Took her to some hotel his old man owned downtown, tied her up, did her, whatever. He bragged about it."
"To you?"
"To all of us. The brothers were with him, coupla other buddies, too. They'd come over to me to score, when Coury spotted Janie. She was off dancing, by herself, tank top half-off, pretty much in dreamland. Coury spots her and gives out this big grin, this big wolfy grin, and says, 'Look at that, the slut.' And the other boys check out Janie and nod, cause they know who she is, heard the story before, but Coury tells it again, anyway. How easy it was, like it was some safari and he'd bagged big game. Then he tells me not only did he do the slut but so did his old man. And the other guys crack up and tell me their daddies did her, too. Seems Janie's own dad was a lowlife scum who'd been selling her since she was twelve."
Fighting revulsion, I said, "The other guys' daddies. Do you remember which ones?"
"The brothers, for sure- Garvey and Bobo's old man, and this other creep, this nasty nerd named Brad something-or-other. He piped up and said his daddy'd had her, too. Laughing about it. Proud."
"Brad Larner."
"Never knew his last name. Skinny, pale nerd. Mean mouth."
"Any other buddies in the group, that night?"
"One other, this big doofus, this surfer type… Luke. Luke the Nuke, was my name for him cause he always looked bombed, would eat anything I sold him."
"Luke Chapman," I said. "Had his father had sex with Janie?"
He thought. "I don't recall his saying so… no, I don't think so, 'cause when the others were going on about it, he looked a little uneasy."
Multigenerational rape. Michael Larner's assault on Allison Gwynn had been more than a passing fancy. Garvey Cossack Sr. had harbored similar tastes and I was willing to bet Slumlord Coury played in that league, too.
Like father, like…
Bowie Ingalls had primed his only child by abusing her, then trafficking in her flesh. I thought about Milo's description of Janie's nearly empty room. A place she didn't- wouldn't think of as home.
Ingalls had been evil and calculating but stupid. Showing up at the meeting with his blackmail targets, drunk and overconfident.
I said, "What happened when they finished bragging?"
"Coury made some crack about, 'Honor thy father.' Went after Janie- just grabbed her and threw her over his shoulder. The others followed."
"She resist?"
"Not much. Like I said, she was pretty much out of it. I took Aimee and got out of there. Not because I was a good man. But all that talk about ganging up on a girl, taking sloppy seconds from their daddies made me feel… uncomfortable. Also, Aimee had to go to the bathroom, had been pulling at my arm for a while, complaining she needed to go. But finding a bathroom wasn't so easy in that place, every toilet was being used for getting high or having sex or throwing up or doing what a toilet's for. So, I took her out of the house, over to the backyard, all the way in back, to the bushes and trees, told her to go in there, I'd keep watch."
He shrugged. The movement caused him pain, and he winced. "I know it sounds crude, but we'd done that before, Aimee and me. I'd be driving her somewhere far from the city- we used to like to go up into the mountains, out in the San Gabriels or over in the West Valley near Thousand Oaks, or up on Mullholland Highway or Rambla Pacifica, top of Malibu. Anywhere we could find empty space and just enjoy the quiet. And no matter how many times I'd tell her to go to the bathroom before we set out, wouldn't you believe she'd have to go where there was no facilities?"
Big smile. "Like a kid. So I was used to leading her into the bushes and keeping watch and that's what I did out in the backyard and when we were heading back to the house, we heard voices over the wall- her brother's voice, Garvey, whooping and laughing. Then the others. They were outside, too, going to the next-door property. I knew that because they'd taken me there, it was this huge place, acres, this estate, the owner was some rich European who was never there and most of the time the house was empty. They used to go there to party because no one would bother them. They had a way of getting in, this side gate, up toward the back with a bolt that was easy to wiggle loose and once you were back there you were so far from the house no one could spot you."
"Party spot."
"I partied with them, there," he said. "Like I said, I was the candy man. Anyway, Aimee wanted to tag along and go over there, like she always did- anything those boys did, she thought was cool. No matter how they treated her, she'd want to be with them. I tried to talk her out of it, brought her back inside the party house and sat down and tried to groove on some music. 'Cause while Aimee was in the bushes, I'd shot up, was feeling mellow. But when I opened my eyes, she was gone, and I knew where she'd gone and I was responsible for her so I went after her. And found her. Looking. From behind some trees, into a clearing. She was shaking really bad, teeth chattering, and when I saw what she was looking at, I dug why."