As I got back into my car, I realized that I hadn\u2019t eaten all day.\u00a0 I figured I would have a bite to eat, and then just sack out at Ralph and Fanny\u2019s.\u00a0 It really didn\u2019t make any sense for me to cross town to my apartment, particularly if I had to head back into Cutter City tomorrow.\u00a0 I was utterly exhausted, but at the same time experiencing the excitement of a breaking case, something that had not happened for a long time.\u00a0 Cheating spouses were my bread and butter, and typically involved long, tedious stints of surveillance, punctuated by a few revealing photos.\u00a0 Then there was the tearful meeting with aggrieved spouses, confirming what they already knew, otherwise they wouldn\u2019t have hired me in the first place.\u00a0 Runaways or skip traces could be more interesting, but mostly involved computer work, and if the runaway turned out up out of town, all I had to do was call the local authorities.\u00a0 But this case was the liveliest I had in a long time.\u00a0 I remember when my father got a hold of a breaking case \u2013 the pacing around, the endless cups of coffee, the sleepless nights, but most of all the excitement in being the only one to understand all of the pieces.\u00a0 Sometimes the pieces would fall together on their own, and sometimes Dad was the master manipulator.\u00a0 Occasionally, I would feel a little uncomfortable about Dad\u2019s excitement, after all he was enjoying the misery of others, but now I understood it all.\u00a0 I loved this case and all its moving parts.\u00a0 I think that I was in command of more pieces of information of the intersection between the Todd’s, Murphy’s and Knox’s.\u00a0 Well perhaps each of the individuals had more information than I did, but I don\u2019t think that any of them \u2013 Sam, Simba, Henry \u2013 realized that I knew as much as I did, and that was a source of power.\u00a0\u00a0 I just had to make sure to use it carefully \u2013 using information to get information was one of Dad\u2019s tips.<\/p>\n
As I drove along the coast back towards Santa Teresa, I let an ambulance with a flashing light pass me, and I followed along, enjoying the traffic vacuum behind it.\u00a0 The ambulance slowed as we approached the Great Days facility and then turned in.\u00a0 Responding to some sixth sense, I followed it into the driveway.\u00a0 Whenever I saw or heard an ambulance, I thought of the lives that were in that moment inevitably changed forever, with an ambulance providing a distinct line between before and after.\u00a0 That was certainly the case when I was dropped off from school and saw an ambulance in front of our apartment. \u00a0As I walked up the steps, it never occurred to me that I would be touched personally, perhaps that nice old Mrs. Moody down the hall who occasionally baby sat in a pinch, or maybe one of those wild Myers twins who were always getting into trouble.\u00a0 I was totally unprepared for the flung open door in our apartment and the scene of energetic but failed resuscitation.\u00a0 Blood soaked tissues, rumpled up towels, and a couple of bare syringes were scattered on the floor.\u00a0 And then of course there was my crumpled up father, who took me in his arms and could only say, \u201cShe\u2019s gone.\u201d\u00a0 Ralph and Fanny arrived shortly afterward.\u00a0 I didn\u2019t see my father again for a couple of days, and then my new life started.\u00a0 Perhaps at a nursing home the transition was not so traumatic, was maybe anticipated or even welcomed.\u00a0 But I felt sure that an ambulance would always be a dividing line.<\/p>\n
The attendants got out of the ambulance at a leisurely pace, and there seemed to be no commotion among residents and staff, so I assumed that the ambulance was making a routine run for a deceased resident.\u00a0 But then I noticed a man slumped down in a bench alongside the entrance, and as I walked closer I recognized the sharp outlines of his profile.\u00a0 I sat down next to him and said, \u201cGoddard, is Chloe alright?\u201d<\/p>\n
He looked at me with weary eyes, \u201cChloe died about an hour or so ago.\u00a0 A stroke or something.\u00a0 Maybe a heart attack, they don\u2019t really know, but they just said that it was quick and not painful, so that\u2019s all that really matters.\u00a0 Dessa was actually here visiting when it happened, and I hope that Chloe somehow knew that.\u00a0 But why are you here?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cGoddard, it was just a hunch when I saw the ambulance pulling into Great Day.\u00a0 Can\u2019t say why, but I am glad I\u2019ve found you.\u00a0 Where\u2019s your sister?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWell, she went back to Henry\u2019s to let him know. \u00a0Plus he is the guardian. \u00a0 Turns out he has to make a decision about whether to embalm or cremate. \u00a0 Nobody is answering any telephones, actually I am not even sure that Henry has a telephone, and we didn\u2019t want to contact Simba just yet.\u00a0 So anyway, they told me to stay here to sign papers and stuff, but then this place said that I am not allowed since I am not on some list.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cGoddard, what do you mean by they.\u00a0 Is your sister with Sylvia?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cSylvia, you know about Sylvia?\u00a0 I just can\u2019t keep everything straight, who knows what about what.\u00a0 There is a lot of shit coming down right now.\u201d<\/p>\n
Goddard had turned his back to me and I knew that now was not the time to pry further and if I waited quietly, I felt sure that the information would just flow to me.\u00a0 \u201cGoddard, do you have a car?\u00a0 I was on my way to your Uncle\u2019s house.\u00a0 In fact, that\u2019s where your mother is staying tonight.\u00a0 There\u2019s a lot of shit coming down on them now and I was going back to check up on both Henry and your mother.\u00a0 I can give you a ride if you like.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWell I can\u2019t imagine seeing my mother right now, but I hate to think of Dessa walking into that unprepared, so sure, I’ll take the ride, but I’m not sure how I can help anyone at this point.\u00a0\u00a0 Can\u2019t help Chloe, don\u2019t want to see my mother, scared of my father, I\u2019m just along for a very strange and terrifying ride.\u201d<\/p>\n
I motioned Goddard toward the car, and as I got into the front, he got into the back and looked out the side window.\u00a0 As I started up the car, we both saw the a black, zippered body wheeled out of Great Days and slid into the ambulance.\u00a0 Goddard murmured, \u00a0\u201cI guess they’re just taking her to the morgue.\u00a0\u00a0 I don\u2019t have the authority to send her to a funeral home, so she is just going into cold storage for the moment.\u00a0 The one thing that Dessa asks me to do, and I’m no help.\u201d<\/p>\n
I didn\u2019t attempt any conversation as we drove along the coast toward the Murphy house.\u00a0 I punched in the code, the gate swung open, and as we drove up, I was surprised to see an empty driveway; there was only one light on in the back of the house.\u00a0 Goddard quietly said, \u201cDoesn\u2019t look like anybody is home.\u00a0 Why don\u2019t you check it out, I’ll wait here in the car.\u201d<\/p>\n
There was no answer to my knocking, but the door was unlocked, so I stepped into the foyer. \u00a0I called Dessa and Simba\u2019s names, but still no answer, so I walked back towards the light, which turned out to be the kitchen.\u00a0 The doors of the kitchen opened out onto a back patio, and the smell of a cigar wafted through the kitchen.\u00a0 Henry was sitting by himself, with a drink in his hand and a bottle of scotch on the patio table.<\/p>\n
\u201cHenry are you alright?\u00a0 It\u2019s Liza Blue,\u201d and then I paused since I wasn\u2019t sure how to self identify myself.\u00a0 I didn\u2019t want to call myself a detective, since that might set him off on his proclamations of innocence, and family mediator also sounded wrong, so I finally decided to sound like the family friend who helped out with carpooling, \u201cIt\u2019s Liza Blue, Simba\u2019s friend who drove you to the lawyer today.\u201d\u00a0 \u00a0I was actually stopping by to see Simba, but I also thought that Dessa might have stopped by.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s strange to me how you always seem to know more about my family than I do.\u00a0 Yes, Dessa did stop by, but just briefly, and yes she told me about Chloe, so you don\u2019t have to pretend that you don\u2019t know.\u00a0 Chloe\u2019s gone, and even though I have been waiting for this day for many years, and now the house is finally all mine and I actually saved this cigar for this very occasion, I can\u2019t feel very happy. \u00a0I don\u2019t know why, maybe it\u2019s an end of an era thing, and now I will have to figure out what I want to do besides being angry at my sister and waiting for my step mother to die.\u00a0 So for the moment I\u2019m just going to sit here and drink.\u00a0 Do you want some?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHenry, I am very sorry to hear about Chloe.\u00a0 I did meet her once, and even though she was in her own world, she was a very lovely and dignified woman.\u201d\u00a0 My real agenda was Simba, but I didn\u2019t want to brush over a death so quickly, so I framed my next question carefully.\u00a0 \u201cIs Simba alright?\u00a0 I know that she had a wonderful visit with Chloe just the other day, and it must be very sad to lose her again so quickly.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cSimba, I can\u2019t tell you if she knows or not.\u00a0 She left in the car hours ago, I think she went back up the canyon to talk to Sam.\u00a0 She certainly had some bee up her ass, and I must say I didn\u2019t discourage her.\u00a0 Gave her a few more details you know.\u00a0 Told her that Sam was a pimp.\u00a0 I saw him in action you know, not a pretty sight.\u00a0 She was the one that found this bottle of scotch.\u00a0 I wouldn\u2019t want you to think that I drank this all on my own.\u00a0 She said that she wanted to know the truth, and what the hell I gave it to her, or at least some of it.\u201d\u00a0 Henry chuckled softly and took another swig.\u00a0 \u201cI hate to see the scene up there in the canyon. She was really fired up.\u201d<\/p>\n
I was appalled at Henry\u2019s manipulations, and if I had the luxury of time to be a family mediator again, I would have tried to help him understand that he had made a volatile situation worse and that he was not acting in the best interests of his sister.\u00a0 Henry the impotent victim had just morphed into Henry the vindictive brother trying to redress a decades long injustice.\u00a0 Maybe that was the point and maybe the cigar symbolized victory of another sort.\u00a0 \u201cHenry, where did Dessa go, and was there another woman with her?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cOh, Dessa, I sent her up the canyon also.\u00a0 Might have been another woman.\u00a0 Oh yes and by the way, Dessa was driving my car.\u00a0 Dessa is a nice girl and all, but I felt that it was my duty to call and let that Detective Grimes guy know, wanted to get him off my back.\u00a0 He might be heading up the canyon also.\u00a0 Should be an interesting meeting up there don\u2019t you think?\u201d\u00a0 As he turned the light from the kitchen caught his face and I could see his grin, wide enough to reveal his rotten teeth.<\/p>\n
\u201cHenry, I hope that you know what you have done.\u00a0 Right now, I think that you are potentially as cruel as Sam.\u00a0 You think you like playing in the big leagues, but beware of unintended consequences and collateral damage.\u00a0 You said that I seem to know more about your family than you do.\u00a0 Well here is something else I know.\u00a0 The other woman in the car with Dessa, well that was Sylvia Davis, yes the Sylvia that was your \u201cspecial friend\u201d in Cutter City so many years ago.\u00a0 Yes, I know about her and much more, and now you have sent the whole bunch of them up into the canyon, while you sit and smugly sip your scotch here on the porch.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cSylvia, that was Sylvia?\u00a0 What would she be doing with Dessa?\u00a0 My Sylvia with Dessa?\u201d\u00a0 The glass of scotch fell to the ground and smashed, followed by the whole bottle.<\/p>\n
I turned and quickly left the house, anxious to get up the canyon as quickly as I could.\u00a0 When I got to the driveway my car was gone.\u00a0 Henry had followed me out the front door, walking unsteadily.\u00a0 \u201cHa, your car has gone missing also.\u00a0 My driveway is turned into the black hole for cars.\u00a0 Perhaps I can offer you something in the way of a scooter for your transportation needs?\u201d<\/p>\n
I pushed him aside and started walking down the driveway.\u00a0 Gratefully, I saw him totter back into his house, his very own house at long last.\u00a0 Well good luck to him.\u00a0 I tried to remind myself of another of my father\u2019s tips \u2013 you don’t have to like the people you are trying to help.\u00a0 Remember they are paying you, and they have their own agenda, and friendship is probably not on it. \u00a0This morning, I had signed on to Team Henry, but now I could care less. But of course there was the tiny little detail that Henry was my client. \u00a0After all Jimmy Earle had asked me to do some additional investigating.\u00a0 So maybe I could switch my allegiance to Simba, I was still on a retainer with her, but I also suspected that, depending on the outcome of the case, I might never get paid by anyone.\u00a0 Maybe I should just call Grimes and get a ride with him up the canyon and be an interested bystander.\u00a0 I tried to steady myself and by the time I got to the end of the driveway, I realized that there was no way that I could walk away from a breaking case.\u00a0 Detectives lived for a messy case like this.\u00a0 So what if Henry turned out to be devious manipulator, so what if Simba had gone rogue, and so what if Goddard, once so promising, had now stolen my car.\u00a0 This was my case and I needed to see it through to the end.<\/p>\nFollow Liza Blue on: As I got back into my car, I realized that I hadn\u2019t eaten all day.\u00a0 I figured I would have a bite to eat, and then just sack out at Ralph and Fanny\u2019s.\u00a0 It really didn\u2019t make any sense for … Continue reading ![\"Facebook\"](\"https:\/\/www.fanagrams.com\/blog\/wp-content\/plugins\/social-media-feather\/synved-social\/image\/social\/regular\/48x48\/facebook.png\" "\\"Follow")
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