James Conway - In Cold Blonde

“If she hadn’t knocked over a lamp when she passed out, we wouldn’t have found her until morning,” Cliff said. “But when I heard the crash I went upstairs to check on her.”

“We put her into therapy immediately, that’s when we found out she was bi-polar. They put her on drugs, lithium to stabilize her moods and an antipsychotic, but whenever she was feeling good, she’d stop taking her meds, then she’d get depressed and try to kill herself again. It was more than we could handle, frankly, so the doctors recommended putting her in a full-time facility. The Riverview Institute in Riverside. You know it?”

“No.”

“A wonderful hospital.”

“Wonderfully expensive,” Cliff said. “And, if it was so wonderful, why’d they have to keep her for so many years?”

“She could get violent,” Betty said to Syd. “When she got depressed she’d act out and sometimes attack the attendants or other patients. And every time she’d come home the old resentments about our taking the settlement would come up and well…” Betty trailed off, suddenly holding something back.

“Go ahead, tell her,” Cliff said. “If Alice is killing people, a little arson won’t matter.”

“Three years ago she came home. Everything was fine at first, Cliff even got Alice a job at one of the Knott’s Berry Farm gift shops.”

“I maintain all the rides,” Cliff said.

“I even began to daydream about Alice going back to school. She wasn’t too old for college, so maybe some of those childhood dreams could still come true. Then Cliff did something really stupid.”

“Damn it, Betty, don’t say it like that. The car broke down, what was I supposed to do?”

“He bought a new car, a luxury car, a Lexus with all the trimmings.”

“I was smart with that settlement money,” Cliff said defensively. “I didn’t blow it; I invested, carefully. Good thing, too, because Alice’s medical expenses are ridiculously expensive. Anyway, my old Dodge was shot; I had hundreds of thousands of dollars in the bank, so why not buy a nice car?”

“Because it was rubbing Alice’s face in your betrayal.”

“She went with me to pick it out,” he said practically throwing the words at Betty. Then, to Syd, “You have to understand that Alice’s moods swing wildly. When we went to buy the car, she really enjoyed it. Hell, she even picked out the color, Amber Pearl.”

“But at breakfast the next morning she had that look in her eyes — like someone else was inside her head — and she said we paid for the car with blood money.”

“I’m sure she was off meds,” Cliff said. “Though she swore she took them. She caused trouble at work too, yelling at customers and she got into an argument with her boss.”

“She seemed calmer at dinner,” Betty said. “But looking back I realized she was too calm. She had a plan.”

“That night she doused the inside of the Lexus with lighter fluid and set it on fire,” Cliff said. The car was a complete loss, we barely saved the garage and she almost burnt down the house.”

“The police were going to prosecute her for arson,” Betty said. “But when we explained she was bi-polar and promised to send Alice back to the Institute for treatment, they dropped the charges.” Betty reached out and took her husband’s hand. A gesture that shocked Syd considering the way these two sniped at each other. “When we brought Alice back to Riverview, she told us she never wanted to see us again. That we were dead to her.”

“The doctors told us it might be a good idea for us to not see her for a while,” Cliff said. “Being around us was a catalyst for her resentment and rage and we’d become a psychotic trigger.”

“We’ve only seen her a of couple of times in the last three years.” Betty said. “She’ll call every so often and we get reports from the Institute. And the last report was very encouraging. Over the years they’ve tried a wide range of drugs and therapies, but just a few months ago they seem to finally find one that stabilized her.”

“What was it?” Syd asked.

“The craziest idea I ever heard,” Cliff said.

“It was an experiment. The doctors ran it by us first; I had my doubts, but they said it was very successful in a European trial, and we’d tried everything else so…”

“They lied to her,” Cliff said. “Told her she had cancer and only a few months to live.”

“The idea was to focus her,” Betty said. “Give her a reason to apply herself. The risk, of course, was that she’d just give up, but Dr. Samuels ‘sensed a stubborn spirit inside Alice,’ his words; and felt that with a deadline on her life she might finally focus. If she did, they’d eventually tell her she beat the cancer, another reinforcer he called it, and she might finally be on her way to a productive life. And it seemed to be working. Dr. Samuels said it was almost like a light went off. She checked out of the Institute two months ago, she rented an apartment and got a job at the Best Buy in Hollywood. And she let us buy her a car so she could get around. She seemed to be doing so well the doctors said we could visit. So we drove up to Hollywood about a month ago and surprised her.”

“Crappy apartment,” Cliff said. “I wanted to get her something nicer but she said she was happy.”

“The cancer-scare therapy seemed to really be working so we hoped that maybe this time…” Betty trailed off at the obvious reality of the situation. Alice’s focus wasn’t on getting a job and straightening out her life, it was on seeking revenge.

“What kind of car did you get her?”

“A white Prius,” Betty said. “She really cares about the environment.”

The irony of someone who cuts off men’s cocks caring about global warming wasn’t lost on Syd. “You know the license number?”

“Sorry, no.”

“Do you know Alice’s address and phone number?”

Betty frowned. “I don’t remember her apartment address, do you, honey?”

He thought about it. “No, I think I threw it away when we got home. It was near a famous corner, though. Just a couple blocks south of Hollywood and Vine. It was on Vine, though, I remember that.”

“How about a phone number?”

Betty looked embarrassed. “She wouldn’t give it to us. She said she would call us if she wanted to talk to us.”

Syd knew they could canvas the buildings south of Hollywood Boulevard but that would take time. Syd’s best bet would be to figure out who Alice’s next victim might be and get to him as soon as possible.

Syd asked, “How many boys raped Alice that night?”

“Three,” Betty said. “Adam, of course. Colin Wood, it was his father who offered the settlement and the third boy was…” Betty shook her head, unable to remember. “Cliff, do you remember?”

He thought about it and then shook his head. “No, sorry, I don’t.”

Syd reached inside her backpack and pulled out the list of names she’d culled from Wood and Devlin’s phone books. She handed it to Betty. “Do any of these names seem familiar?”

Betty went over the list. “A number of them, but I don’t know which of them might have been the third boy.”

She passed the list to Cliff who glanced at it, then shook his head. “Sorry.” He started to hand it back to Syd then stopped. “Wait a minute,” he pulled the list back. “This name here, Blake Hunter, I remember the name Blake. I had an Uncle Blake, and I remember thinking about that when we heard the name eleven years ago.”

“So, Blake Hunter was the third boy,” Syd asked, excited. “You’re sure?”

“No. I’m not sure. I remember the name Blake is all. If there was more than one Blake, I’d have no idea which one it was.”