Try Darkness (14 page)
My throat clenched as I backed up. I bumped into the counter.
I made the sliding door in about three steps, got out, didn’t bother to close it. Jumped the three stairs. Landed like a tree sloth and found I was looking right into the kitchenette window of number 27. An old face stared at me.
Naturally I ran.
I did not pass Go. I did not collect two hundred dollars. I did not look back or slow down. When I jumped the rocks on the side of the hill I fell and rolled the distance to the shoulder of PCH. Rocks, sticks, and grit bit every part of me. When I got up I was bleeding.
That was not good. Not good for me, not good for the Taurus.
But we were both better off than Avisha.
WHEN I GOT
back to St. Monica’s I parked the Taurus and went to Father Bob’s trailer. He let me in and I told him what happened. He started cleaning me up.
“You have to report this,” Father Bob said.
“No, I don’t,” I said.
“There’s a dead woman.”
“She’s not going anywhere. She’ll be found. I’m not going to help them out. Because they’ll be asking me questions. They’re going to be asking me questions anyway, and I’ve got to think up a good lie.”
“You can’t lie!”
“Why not?”
Father Bob stopped what he was doing and faced me. “Are you honestly asking me that question?”
“What’s got your collar in a knot?”
“You cannot lie. It is categorical.”
“Come on, Father. You don’t think there’s lies in the church?”
“If there are, they are sin. A sin one place does not justify sin in another. It is an affront to the very nature of God.”
I stood up, knocking my chair over. “Tell God he’s got some affronts going on, too. What does he expect from us?”
“Ty, don’t.”
“He hasn’t been doing such a great job lately, so I don’t want to hear from him or you about life, okay? Can we agree on that much?”
Father Bob’s face reflected more hurt than disapproval. Which only made things worse.
“Thanks for the cleanup,” I said, and left. I walked past my trailer and up the hill. In back of St. Monica’s it was all undeveloped land. I thought about walking out into it as far as I could.
Almost did.
I cursed out loud. Cursed Father Bob for the way he could get his teeth in me.
Then I walked back to the grounds and got my phone and called the Malibu/Lost Hills sheriff’s station. I told them where they could find the body. I told them who I was and that I’d come down tomorrow and tell them exactly what happened.
Then I called Detective Brosia, got his voice mail, and spilled the story to him, too.
When I finally clicked off I looked up at the sky and said, “Satisfied?”
THE NEXT DAY
was Friday. I drove to the Malibu/Lost Hills sheriff’s station on Agoura Road. They were expecting me. I got directed to a small, spare county nondesign conference room and sat for about fifteen minutes.
Finally a middle-aged deputy sheriff entered and introduced himself as Sergeant Mike Browne. He had a yellow pad and pen with him. He sat down opposite me.
“We found the body,” Browne said. “Just as you told us we would. Now we need to figure out why you knew and why you decided to tell us about it.”
“Because I found her. I thought you should know. I wasn’t going to tell you at first.”
“Why not?”
“Because it wouldn’t look very good, would it?”
“What changed your mind?”
“A friend.”
“A friend?”
“He’s got scruples. He scruped me. So I’m telling you. Here’s the whole thing. I had a client who was murdered sometime Monday night. The LAPD detective in charge of that is Brosia, at Central Division, if you want to check with him.”
Browne wrote it down.
“She has a daughter, six years old. From the daughter I learned they’d stayed with someone named Avisha, about a year ago, near the ocean. She remembered some things, and based on that a friend and I drove the girl down here and she spotted the mobile home park. She remembered it. I found out Avisha lived there. But one of your stalwart deputies ran me off.”
Browne nodded but said nothing.
“So I came back at night. I wanted to try to find her without anybody getting in my face. It was dark at her place but the sliding door was open. I went in. I found her body and I left. I called you later.”
“Why’d you wait?”
“I was nervous about it.”
“What time was it when you found her?” Browne said.
“Probably eight-thirty or so. I remember parking about eight-fifteen, eight-twenty.”
“Where were you before that?”
“I was eating. Then I was driving.”
“Where did you eat?”
“Is that important?”
“It might be.”
“Arby’s,” I said.
“Did you talk with anyone?”
“The girl who took the order. I sat at a table by myself.”
“Did you make any calls or get any?”
I shook my head.
“There’s another thing,” I said. “A guy named Fly Charles is a neighbor of Avisha’s. I talked to him.”
“Fly Charles?”
“Remember Detritus and the Electric Yaks?”
Browne shook his head.
“Before our time,” I said. “They had one hit years ago. He was their bass player. He told me Avisha had a boyfriend named James. You may want to follow up on that.”
Browne scribbled some more, then said, “This isn’t the first time you’ve been around a murder.”
“And charges against me were dropped because they found the real murderer. I helped them. I’m helping now.”
“I hope you’re not planning on leaving the country anytime soon.”
“Nope.”
“I’ll probably need to talk to you again.”
“Of course.” I gave him my phone number and my address as St. Monica’s.
“That’s a monastery, right?”
“Yes,” I said. “You like fruitcake?”
“No.”
“Too bad. I can get you as much as you want.”
SISTER MARY WAS
at prayer when I got back. I waited in the courtyard, sitting on a bench and looking at the statue of the woman the place was named for. St. Monica had her head cocked and was looking up.
A brass plate on the base of the statue told how St. Monica agonized and prayed for seventeen years for her son, Augustine. She was told by a bishop that “the child of those tears shall never perish.”
There was nothing in there about Augustine saying, “Thanks, Mom.”
But there was this inscription:
Exemplary Mother of the great Augustine, you perseveringly pursued your wayward son not with wild threats but with prayerful cries to heaven. Intercede for all mothers in our day so that they may learn to draw their children to God. Teach them how to remain close to their children, even the prodigal sons and daughters who have sadly gone astray. Amen
Astray. Now that I could relate to.
I caught some movement out of the corner of my eye and turned. Sister Hildegarde was closing the door to the office, walking with a man in a suit toward the parking lot.
The man in the suit had perfect black hair, neat and trim and moussed. I couldn’t see his face, but he walked like a lawyer. He walked like somebody with billable hours.
They went out to the parking lot and the guy got in a black Mercedes and drove off. Sister Hildegarde came back, saw me sitting in the courtyard.
She headed my way.
When Sister Hildegarde heads your way, look out. A tsetse fly going for a cow does not move with such single-mindedness.
“Mr. Buchanan,” she buzzed.
“How you doing?” I said.
“Can I help you?” she said.
“Help me what?”
“Find a place to move into?”
“And don’t let the church door hit me on the way out?”
“It’s not that,” she said.
I stood up. “Did you know, Sister, that there is one private lawyer for every two hundred fifty Californians?”
“Why is—”
“But only one legal aid attorney for every eight thousand, three hundred and sixty-one low-income Californians?”
“Is that true?”
“You bet it’s true. If you bet. What I’m saying is, there are people who are getting the living snot beat out of them because they can’t afford a lawyer, and you, Sister Hildegarde, are in a position to help them. I am that helper.”
She said nothing.
“And I’m certainly here to help you with any legal matters that may arise. And I won’t charge you, unlike that lawyer you were just talking to.”
Sister Hildegarde reacted like she’d been stung. “How could you know that?”
“We sense these things,” I said. “We’re all part of the same circle of hell.”
“Thank you for your interest, Mr. Buchanan.”
“You’re not going to tell me who he was?”
“I don’t know that it is any of your affair, if I may put it that way.”
“Good way to put it. I was just asking. Maybe I can do the same work for a fraction of the cost. With the money you save, you could help out some of those old sisters.”
Stiffening, Sister Hildegarde said, “You’ve been talking to Sister Mary again.”
“Is she a bad influence on me?”
“That is an opinion I shall keep to myself.”
“What have you got against her?”
Sister Hildegarde’s eyes got a cold steel look. “I don’t like the implication of that question.”
“I just thought, you’re all on the same team, right? But there’s some underlying tension going on and maybe that’s why I’m here.”
“Excuse me?”
“Maybe God sent me to negotiate a settlement.”
With a heavy sigh, the head sister said, “I don’t expect you to understand all the dynamics of an order like ours, of life in community, of the many facets it entails. I think it would be best if you would refrain from interjecting yourself into our processes and concerns.”
“In other words, you want me to butt out.”
“I wouldn’t put it that way . . . ”
“But it’s shorter and sweeter.”
“Yes,” she said. “It certainly is.”
I nodded stiffly. Sister Hildegarde nodded stiffly. I went back to the statue, which was still looking up.
Stiffly.
SISTER MARY CAME
out to the courtyard, with Kylie in tow. She’d had the girl drawing pictures in the mess hall—what I called the mess hall—and now was out for a walk.
Several of the other sisters were on their way to various places on the grounds. A few wore habits, but most did not.
“How you guys doing?” I said.
“It’s been a while since I’ve been called a guy,” Sister Mary said.
“Generically speaking,” I said. “A human race kind of thing.”
Kylie said, “We’re having s’mores tonight.”
“S’mores?” I said. “What is this, camp?”
“I thought it would be fun,” Sister Mary said.
“I’ll be there. I’m a s’more guy from way back.” I patted Kylie on the head. “Kylie, would you mind if I spoke to Sister Mary alone for a second?”
“Okay,” Kylie said. “Can I go look at the rose garden?”
Sister Mary said, “Sure.” And Kylie skipped off.
That was nice to see. “How’s she doing?”
“Children are amazingly resilient,” Sister Mary said. “She cried last night. I held her until she stopped.”
“You’re really important to her,” I said.
“So are you.”
That brought an unexpected knot to my throat, so I sat Sister Mary on the bench. “I found Avisha,” I said. “Dead.”
“What?”
“Execution style.”
“Why, do you think?”
“Will you hop online and check an escort service named L.A. Night Silk?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Escort service.”
“You mean . . .”
“Yeah.”
“You want me to do what with that?”
“Find me a hooker,” I said.
Pink starbursts popped onto her cheeks.
“I want to talk to somebody from the service, that’s all. They won’t unless I make it look like an actual transaction.”
“Let me get this straight,” she said. “You want me to use the abbey’s computer to search for a prostitute?”
“Escort.”
“And what if Sister Hildegarde should happen to walk in and see what I’m doing?”
“Wouldn’t you just love to see her face?”
Sister Mary broke into a smile. “You are tempting me to sin, Mr. Buchanan.” She paused. “I’ll get right on it.”
WHILE SHE DID
I drove to the Van Nuys courthouse for an afternoon meeting with Mitch Roberts.
The DA’s branch office is on the second floor of the old court building on Sylmar. The reception area had a framed photo of the current DA, smiling down on all as if nothing was wrong. As if the city was a well-oiled machine and he the conductor, the fireman, the suited superhero of the justice set.
But under his watch were about a thousand deputies, each with their own personalities, quirks, agendas, axes, and ambitions.
According to the American Bar Association’s model rules of ethics, a prosecutor’s supposed to be a “minister” of justice, not simply an advocate. His job is not just to convict but, in the words of that great legal philosopher Spike Lee, to do the right thing.
But the L.A. office of the DA is a pressure cooker. The people on the street want to see convictions. They don’t give a rip about justice. They just want their neighborhood cleaned up. Unless it’s their son or daughter or cousin on trial, of course.
So the DDAs do the cleanup. Most of the time it’s really dirt they’re after, but every now and then . . .
“This doesn’t have to be a long-drawn-out thing,” Roberts said after I’d been shown to his office. “We’ll drop the special circs. He can plead and get straight life. That’s the best he can do. If he goes to trial, he faces death or L WOP.”
L WOP means
life without parole.
“Such a deal,” I said. “But considering the man may actually be innocent, why would that be something we’d even think about?”
“You honestly want to take this to trial?”
“Your case is weak.”
“Tell me again how many capital cases you’ve done?”
“You keep bringing that up, like you don’t want me to try this case. I like trying cases. I like juries. They are the great equalizers.”