“What the hell, lady! I’m not responsible.”
She stopped struggling. “Oh yes you are. God, are you ever.”
“Now how do you figure that?”
She tugged her wrists, and he freed them. She went to the closet, got her clothes, and turned to the curtain.
“You’re not going to run out the back, are you?”
She was thinking of Carla and trying not to cry and she kept going.
He followed her. He examined the toilet before allowing her to enter.
When she came out, he was using the desk phone. “Local call,” he said.
She released the automatic snap-lock on the door, and went out to the parking lot. She saw the other cop leaning against a dark, four-door sedan, the only car there besides her Fiat. She walked over, and he nodded, and she opened the door and got in back.
He was a short, powerfully built man, older than the other, and he got in front and turned to her, smiling. “Hey, honey, you’re pretty. You gonna help us?”
She looked out the side window, away from him.
Which was when his attitude changed radically. He lunged over the seat, grabbed her arm, and jerked her toward him. “I’m speaking to you, cunt!”
She kept her face turned away.
And the other detective was there, looking in at them. “Marv, it’s the deceased’s sister.”
“So the dead whore’s got a live whore for a sister. So when I speak to her I expect an answer.” He shook her savagely.
“And when I speak to you,” Admer said, opening the driver’s door, “I expect you to remember who’s the lieutenant and who’s the sergeant.”
“Shit,” the short detective muttered, but he flung her arm away and turned in his seat.
Admer got behind the wheel.
Diana didn’t cry. Not until she had to identify her baby sister at the morgue.
THREE: Saturday, July 29, p.m.
Frank Berdon slept as late as Lila and his mother would allow him to, which was a little past noon and better than usual for recent weekends.
The two women had “discussions,” as Lila called them. Though his mother was partially deaf and partially senile at seventy years of age and how Lila could discuss anything with her was beyond him. He certainly couldn’t do anything with his mother but nod at her constant instructions, lectures, diatribes which no one could interrupt. Except Lila. Her powerful soprano got through even those dulled ears to that dull brain.
And through to him in the master bedroom. The stucco California cottage south of Sunset, a few blocks east of La Cienega, was small, and there was no place to hide but under the covers.
He tried it, and Lila opened the door. “She’s impossible! It gets worse every day!”
He stuck his head out. “I know.”
“You know,” she mocked. She was a big woman (a “whale” as Martin, his young clerk, called certain large, unattractive women) with reddish hair worn short and fluffed, making her face look even larger. That hair was rapidly flecking with gray, and the large face picking up wrinkles. She was forty-one, five years older than he, also far better educated and from a better family, a wealthier family, a family that considered her marriage beneath her, as she reminded him often enough.
“How can you know,” she asked, “when you’re either at the store or under the covers?”
He sat up, chuckling, though she wasn’t joking, had practically no sense of humor.
“What are you cackling about?” she snapped.
He looked at her then, none too kindly. “I was laughing.”
“Ah, the grammarian wants to indulge in semantics.” She put her hands on her broad hips, ready to engage in combat. “What were you laughing about?”
“Just glad it’s the weekend,” he muttered, and went into the bathroom. He took his time showering and shaving. Only when he heard Lila leave did he come to the bedroom to dress.
She returned as he was finishing, and asked what he wanted for breakfast.
He said he felt like eating out at the IHOP.
“I’ve eaten,” she said. “And I’m not driving you.”
I’ll drive myself, dear.”
“After ruining your car’s transmission you want to ruin mine? No thanks.”
“I’ll walk to Schwab’s,” he said. “I can use the exercise.”
She was silent a moment, and when she spoke her voice had changed. “Frank, have you considered what can be done about your mother?”
He made himself look puzzled, but his heart began to thump.
“I mean a nursing home.”
“That’s ridiculous.” He moved toward the door.
“I understand how you feel. I felt the same way when they put Edith into Clairmont.” Edith was her mother. “But it was necessary.”
“Because Edith was wandering away from home,” he said, “forgetting who her children and grandchildren were, losing control of her . . . her natural functions.” His heart hammered. He knew from the way her eyes flickered that she was going to tell him something awful.
“Your mother has been fouling her bed the past two weeks.”
“That’s a lie!”
“Frank! You forget yourself! I do not lie!”
“Then you’re mistaken!”
She began to speak, and he whirled on her. “Shut up! I won’t hear any more! Fucking whale!”
She stepped back, and he realized his fist was drawn up before her mouth.
“Frank,” she said weakly, and burst into tears.
He dropped his hand. “I’m sorry.”
“You called me . . .” She wept. “You never used to say such things. And I hid what your mother did . . . other things too . . . I wanted to spare you as long as possible.” She sank to the bed, big body shaking, hands over her face.
He sat down beside her, his heartbeat quieting. The more she wept, the calmer he grew. Until he was able to draw her hands from her face and kiss her cheek and tell her he appreciated her above anyone on earth and couldn’t do without her.
She dried her eyes.
“We’ll talk of it again,” he said, “later on. Just give me a little time.”
“All right. But she wandered away last Wednesday and I had to call the police. Luckily she was only—”
He rose. “Later on,” he said firmly. And still firmly, “I’m going to take your car.”
She looked up then, gaze hardening. But he met that gaze, and she nodded.
He went to the kitchen, to the counter-top bowl where she kept her car keys. His mother was sitting at the table, so small, so very fragile-looking lately. He turned his eyes from her.
She said, “Well, Frankie, how did you like your father’s singing in the shower last night?”
He was shocked into brittle laughter.
“His favorite,” she said. “ ‘Red Sails in the Sunset.’ ”
“C’mon now, Mom. You know Dad’s gone. Six years . . .”
“He