Shirlee. If that was even her name.

Shirlee, with two e’s. Sharon had made a point of the two e’s. Named after her adoptive mother.

More symbolism.

Joan.

Another mind-game.

All those years, Helen had said, I felt I understood her. Now I realize I was deluding myself. I barely knew her.

Welcome to the club, Teach.

I knew that the way Sharon had lived and died had been programmed by something that had taken place before Helen had discovered her gorging on mayonnaise.

The early years…

I drank coffee, explored blind alleys. My thoughts shifted to Darren Burkhalter, his father’s head landing on the backseat, like some bloody beachball…

The early years.

Unfinished business.

Mal had chalked up another victory: he’d get a new Mercedes, and Darren would grow up a rich kid. But all the money in the world couldn’t expunge that image from a two-year-old mind.

I thought about all the misborn, afflicted children I’d treated. Tiny bodies hurled into life’s storm with all the self-determination of dandelion husks. Something told to me by a patient came to mind, the bitter farewell comment of a once self-confident man, who’d just buried his only child:

If God exists, Doc, he fucking well has a nasty sense of humor.

Had some sick joke dominated Sharon’s formative years? If so, who was the comedian?

A small-town girl named Linda Lanier was one half of the biologic equation; who’d supplied the other twenty-three chromosomes?

Some Hollywood hanger-on or one-night-stand mattress jockey? An obstetrician with an after-hours sideline scraping away life? A billionaire?

I sat in that café and thought about it for a long time. And kept coming back to Leland Belding. Sharon had grown up on Magna land, lived in a Magna house. Her mother had made love to Belding-office boys knew that.

Martinis in his sun-room?

But if Belding had sired her, why had he abandoned her? Palmed her off on the Ransoms in exchange for squatting rights and paper money in an unmarked envelope.

Twenty years later, the house, the car.

Reunion?

Had he finally acknowledged her? Created an heir? But he was supposed to have died six years before that.

What of his other heir- the other little ice cream eater?

Double-abandonment? Two dirt patches?

I considered the little I knew about Belding: obsessed with machines, precision. A hermit. Cold.

Cold enough to set up the mother of his children?

Hypothetical. Ugly. I dropped my spoon. The clatter broke through the silence of the truck stop.

“You okay?” said the waitress, standing over me, coffee-pot in hand.

I looked up. “Yeah, sure, I’m fine.”

Her expression said she’d heard that one before. “More?” She hefted the pot.

“No, thanks.” I pushed money at her, stood, and left the truck stop. Had no trouble staying awake all the way to L.A.

31

I got home just after midnight, adrenaline-jolted and drunk on riddles. Milo rarely went to bed before one. I called his house. Rick picked up the phone, projecting that odd, groggy vigilance that E.R. docs acquire after years on the front lines.

“Dr. Silverman.”

“Rick, it’s Alex.”

“Alex. Oh. What time is it?”

“Twelve-ten. Sorry for waking you.”

“S’okay, no sweat.” Yawn. “Alex? What time is it, anyway?”

“Twelve-ten, Rick.”

Exhalation. “Oh. Yeah. I can see that. Confirmed by the luminescent dial.” Another yawn. “Just got in an hour ago, Alex. Double shift. Couple hours of down time before the next one kicks in. Must have dozed off.”

“Seems a reasonable response to fatigue, Rick. Go back to sleep.”

“No. Gotta shower, get some food down. Milo’s not here. Stuck on night watch.”

“Night watch? He hasn’t done that for a while.”

“Didn’t have to for a while. Seniority. Yesterday, Trapp changed the rules. Pig.”

“That’s the pits.”

“Not to worry, Alex, the big guy’ll get even. He’s been pacing a lot, got that look in his eye- half pit bull, half pit bull.”

“I know the one. Okay, I’ll try him at the station. Just in case, please leave him a message to call me.”

“Will do.”

“Goodnight, Rick.”

“Good morning, Alex.”

I phoned West L.A. Detectives. The cop who answered sounded groggier than Rick. He told me Detective Sturgis was out, had no idea when he was returning.

I got into bed and finally dozed off. I awoke at seven wondering what progress Trapp had made with the Kruse killings. When I went out on the terrace to get the papers, Milo was out there, slumped in a chaise longue, reading the sports section.

I said, “How ’bout them Dodgers, big fella.” The voice was someone else’s, hoarse and thick.

He lowered the paper, looked at me, then out over the glen. “What army camped in your mouth?”

I shrugged.

He inhaled deeply, still taking in the view. “Ah, the good life. I fed your fish- could swear that big black-and-gold one’s growing teeth.”

“I’ve been training him on shark chum. How’s life on the night watch?”

“Peachy.” He stood and stretched. “Who told you?”

“Rick. I called you last night, woke him up. Sounds like Trapp’s back on the warpath.”

He grunted. We went into the house. He fixed himself a bowl of Cheerios and milk, stood at the counter and spooned the cereal down nonstop before pausing to catch his breath.

“Hand me a napkin. Yeah, it’s a regular funfest working the twilight zone. Paperwork on the cases that the guys from P.M. conveniently neglect to finish processing, lots of DUI’s and overdoses. Toward the end of shift, most of the calls are bullshit, everyone talking and moving real slow- bad guys and good guys. Like the whole damned city’s on Quaaludes. I caught two DB’s, both of which turned out to be accidentals. But at least I get to check out some heterosexual corpses.” He smiled. “We all rot the same.”

He went to the refrigerator, took out a container of orange juice, poured a glass for me and kept the carton for himself.

I said, “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

“Show-and-tell time. I was driving back home, listening to the scanner, when something interesting popped up on Beverly Hills’ frequency- burglary call on North Crescent Drive.”

He recited the address.

“The Fontaines’ house,” I said.

“Green Mansions, itself. I detoured to get a look-see. Guess who the detective turned out to be? Our old buddy Dickie Cash- guess he hasn’t sold his screenplay yet. I spun him some yarn about it maybe being related to a hot-prowl homicide out in Brentwood, and got the basic details: Break-in occurred sometime during the early morning hours. Sophisticated job- there was a high-tech security system but the right wires were cut and the alarm company never picked up a tweet. Only reason anyone caught on was that a neighbor spotted an open door out to the rear alley early this morning- our little friend playing Chames Bond, no doubt. Cash let me inside the house. Real good taste, those two- master bedroom has a mural of big, pink, drooling lips. The inventory of missing items is fairly typical for that neighborhood- some porcelain and silver, couple of wide-screen TVs, stereo equipment. But plenty of really expensive stuff left behind: three more TVs, jewelry, furs, better silver, all easy to fence. Not much of a haul after all that wire-cutting. Dickie was intrigued but not inclined to do much about it in view of absentee victims, the fact that they weren’t courteous enough to leave a forwarding with his department.”

“What about the basement museum?”

He ran his hand over his face. “Dickie doesn’t know about any museum, and guilty as it made me feel, I didn’t educate him. He did show me the elevator but there was no key or the access code to operate it- not listed with the alarm company either. But if they ever do get down there, ten to one the place will look like Pompeii after the big lava party.”