Wendy Hornsby - Bad Intent

“Of Ralph and the chickens? Sure. He was just fooling around, but the pictures look bad.”

“Hang on to them.” He bent down to kiss my cheek, a goodbye sort of kiss. “We might need them.”

“Where are you going?” I asked.

“The lieutenant wants to go over some things with me. The department is putting out its own reinvestigation of the case, looking to see if we did anything wrong the first time.” His voice was even, but his hands were clenched into tight fists. I knew he was angry. Offended. “Police commission’s all hot, calling for my midnight-blue blood. I tell you this, if I get offered up for the sacrifice, I’m taking out more than a few with me. I’ve been with the city long enough to know how this game is played.”

“Ralph called me a baby,” I said, still hanging on to his belt. “Ralph was right. I should have cooled off before I phoned him.”

Mike pried my hand away. “I have to go.”

“Count to ten, Mike.” I turned on the bedside light and got up to my knees on the bed to be more on a level with him. “Stay here a little while longer. Count to ten a few more times.”

“I can’t. It won’t hurt to have an edge when I talk to certain people. I’ll call you.”

I listened to him walk away, his footsteps muffled by the dull gray carpet. He wasn’t going to tell me anything he didn’t have to. That’s the way he is. I hate being kept in the dark. That’s the way I am, and the reason I’ve done okay in my work. There was no way I wasn’t going to go snoop around, not when I had resources, Etta prime among them. When I heard the back door close, I got up, found my shoes, and went down the hall.

Casey and Michael were in the living room with MTV blaring. They were an attractive pair, Casey on the floor with her long auburn hair swaying as she did her stretches, Michael on the couch with a biology book open in front of him. It occurred to me that if Mike had gone out the front way he would have had to stop and speak with them. Maybe seeing them would have put things back into perspective a bit, settled him down in the way they always ground me.

Michael is a more handsome version of Mike, just as Mike is better looking than Oscar. A refinement by generations. Michael’s Italian mother gave him thick, dark hair that he wore shoulder length, to the chagrin of his traditional father. When Michael pierced his left earlobe, Mike stopped mentioning the length of his hair.

My bag was on the end table where I had dropped it. I picked it up and fished for my keys. “I have to go out for a few hours. Will you two lock up? Casey, you need to be up by seven for school orientation tomorrow. What time are you going to bed?”

“Ten, I guess.” She stretched backward so far that she was looking at me upside down. “Who’s driving me?”

“I am,” I said. “I’m staying for the parents’ meeting. Maybe we can find someone you’ll be able to carpool with. I’m really leery about sending you so far on the bus.”

“I’ll be okay.” Like a swan, she rolled her torso up straight again. “Jeez, Mom, I’ve been taking buses since I was a kid. You let me take the BART to Berkeley all by myself before I was ten.”

“Sure,” I said. “I put you on the train at one end and your grandfather was waiting for you at the other end with a stop watch in one hand and a telephone in the other. This is different. For one thing, this is Los Angeles, not San Francisco. For another, a city bus ride is hardly the same as a BART trip or a Saturday movie outing with a bunch friends. You’ll be going all the way to Pasadena and back every day. You may have to transfer. The afternoons you have body conditioning, it will be dark before you get home. I don’t like the bus, Casey.”

She gave me a very wise, teenagery eye roll. “Like, you’re going to drive back and forth to Pasadena twice a day? I’m sure.”

“I miss Lyle,” I said, feeling overwhelmed.

“Me, too. But where would we put him?”

“Good question.” I did miss Lyle. He had been our neighbor until the big earthquake a few years back leveled his house. We had taken him in because it seemed the sensible thing to do until he could rebuild. But Lyle had stuck. I don’t know exactly how it had happened; it just seemed so natural. He became indispensable, the housewife who took care of the domestic details like meals and carpools in exchange for a room and our utter devotion. Lyle was still in our house, watching over the tenants. I wondered whether he might reconsider moving to Southern California.

I went over and kissed the top of Casey’s head. Without much confidence, I said, “We’ll work it out. Don’t stay up too late.”

On my way past Michael I gave his shoulder a pat that felt awkward to me.

“Maggie?” Michael caught my hand. When he closed his book and set it aside, I sat down on the arm of the sofa next to him. “I can help out. Casey’s school is just down the freeway from mine. Most of my classes are in the morning, but I’ll be spending a lot of time in the library. I won’t mind staying around late to pick her up.”

“Thank you,” I said. “In other circumstances I would give you the speech about how this is the best time of your life and you should take advantage of your new freedom, be your own gatekeeper. As it is, I appreciate the offer. Sometime this week we’ll sit down and try to work out a schedule we can all live with.”

“No problem.” He smiled his father’s wry smile. “I’m looking forward to it. I’ve never had a sister to torture before.” Casey turned to him. “Sister? Since when?”

“You may be as close as I ever get. Have to make the most of it.”

I could see she was flattered by the attention, though she tried to cover her pleasure with an air of disdain.

“I already have a brother,” she said. “A half-brother. He isn’t potty trained, either.”

I left them happily swapping insults.

When Mike and I decided to move in together, I ran through dozens of possible scenarios for the way Casey and Michael would get along. The range began with Bambi meets Thumper and ended with Godzilla meets King Kong, the colorized version. We were less than a week into this experiment and everyone was still on company behavior. Once the rigors of our daily routines had worn the veneer away, I knew things would change. Could be for better, or for worse. In the meantime there was peace, for which I was grateful.

The night air was soft and warm, scented with dry eucalyptus and freshly watered lawn. It was oddly quiet, only the mechanical hum of air conditioners, the pool filter, traffic on Ventura Boulevard in the distance for company. All the neighbors seemed to have shut themselves up inside, staying cool.

Below the moonless sky, the lighted pool looked like a beautiful shimmering blue window. There would be no one to see me, I thought, if I just dove through the glassy surface of the water and swam myself to utter exhaustion. I was sorely tempted.

Instead, I got back into my car and drove down to the big Ralph’s market on the boulevard. I bought a coconut cake and a six-pack of Dr. Pepper. I figured that a drop-in guest at Etta’s who came bearing dessert was more likely to be let inside than a mere intruder. If Etta Harkness had a telephone, this entire excursion would have been unnecessary.

I had to talk to Etta. In the first place, she needed to be warned that there could be a media melee coming to her doorstep. In the second, I had to know what she knew about Mike and Charles Conklin, because Mike wouldn’t tell me any more than he had to.

When a wife finds out about a mistress, she has an overwhelming need to go take a look at the bitch. That’s how I felt. Mike was keeping secrets, and I needed to go feel the bedsheets, check for wet spots.