April Smith - Good Morning, Killer

He had skinned a grapefruit and set perfect pink sections, no stringy white stuff, on each plate.

“How’d you do that?”

“Sharp knife.”

“I don’t have any sharp knives.”

We were sitting at the glass dining table. Glass wasn’t such a good idea, but I liked the bamboo legs. He pulled a ring of keys out of his pocket, including a contraption that fanned out like a geometric puzzle into screwdrivers and ice picks, featuring an impressive blade.

“Surgical steel.”

He then folded each tool back with a meticulousness that reminded me of the way he ordered the pruning shears. Andrew had a talent for mechanical things.

“What’s the program?” he asked.

“Rick thinks it’s time to polygraph the parents.”

“Cool. I’m going to walk the Promenade. Canvas the merchants again.”

“I’ve assigned an agent to do that,” I told him.

“My job.”

“I think it should be one of our guys.”

He looked up from mixing salsa with the eggs. “What is this, pulling rank?”

“I just know Rick is going to want it covered.”

“Do what you need to do. I’m going to look for the transient, Willie John Black.”

“What for?”

“Take him in for a composite.”

“Good idea. If you want to know what they look like on Mars.”

“He’s been helpful to me in the past. You can’t discount everything he says. A social services guy told me they can be lucid. Their delusions are a defense.”

“Against what?”

“Whatever their personal terror might be.”

We were picking up the dishes. “Andrew, why? I need you at the Meyer-Murphys’. You know they’re going to freak about the polygraph.”

“You can handle the M&Ms,” Andrew said, “and besides”—he leaned back against the sink and drew me close—“I have to ask you something. Do I have safe passage?”

“You have safe passage.”

“It’s a favor.”

Sighing hugely, “Okay, what do you need?”

He laughed. “You sound like my lieutenant. Only he’s nicer.”

“I’m nice.”

We were nuzzling.

“Yes, you are.”

“What kind of favor?”

“I’m a little short right now, and some unexpected things came up. Do you think you could loan me nine hundred bucks?” Then before I could answer he winced self-consciously and added, “It’s for the Harley.”

He might as well have said it was for a poor starving child in India since that is how he felt about the stupid bike. He worked on it every weekend; he did the Love Ride to Lake Castaic every year.

I knew all that, and yet sometimes you see a vision of the person as he was or will become. In Andrew’s pleading eyes there begged a young boy in the shade garden of the home of his adoptive parents, a pretty place, and yet he is unsure about the ground on which he stands. Something is unstable in his world, something he cannot trust, as basic as his name. He wants this thing so desperately, whatever it is, a little toy car, so he can hold it in his fist and it will tell him who he is. Worthy. Powerful. Comforted. Strong. And loved. Oh give it to him. I know how it feels to ask.

Lynn Meyer-Murphy was sitting cross-legged on the kitchen floor, wearing the same track pants and sweater she had on since Day One, surrounded by pots and everything else she had taken out of the lower cabinets. Grocery bags were stuffed with mismatched plastic containers and grimy shelf paper.

“Good morning, ma’am.”

She turned and I almost flinched. Bright half-moons of scaly pink skin had popped up at the sides of her mouth like a horrible clown grin.

“Any news?”

I shook my head. “But we need to talk. I asked Special Agent Shaw to get your husband.”

Eunice Shaw was one of the most grounded people I have known. She had a light about her and spoke and moved in her own time. She was a churchgoing Baptist from Georgia, and even though her hair was straightened and rolled under, circa the civil rights movement, and even though she always wore a dress, even the bad guys wouldn’t dis Miss Eunice. She had iron poise. Because of this, she was a born negotiator and an almost religious presence for those, like the Meyer-Murphys, whose suffering had brought them to their knees.

Lynn’s fingers were massaging the inflammation. It looked itchy and mean. “Stress,” she explained. “Last time I had it this bad was my wedding day. What does that tell you?”

I smiled empathetically while rehearsing how to best inform the parents that they were now under suspicion in the disappearance of their child. Juliana had vanished too completely, with too few leads, for too long a time not to suspect foul play close to home; to consider the case a possible homicide.

“Why do I need this?” Lynn pushed a muffin tin into one of the garbage bags. “But Juliana likes popovers.” She pulled it out again. “Not that I ever make popovers.”

She sat there with the muffin tin on her lap.

Eunice appeared in the doorway with Ross Murphy. He looked like an eighty-year-old man who just had open-heart surgery.

“Did you get that bastard David Yi?”

“I told you, Mr. Yi is no longer a suspect.”

“He has friends,” Ross insisted. “ Friends in prison, have you ever heard of that? It’s that bastard Yi. He calls again, you better not let me on the phone!”

An eighty-year-old man waving small weak fists. All puffed up because he was helpless.

I took a breath. “Folks, my supervisor has asked me to bring you in for a polygraph today.” When they looked blank I added, “A lie detector test.”

“Us?”

Eunice left the room to answer her Nextel.

“Standard operating procedure for anyone who might have come in contact with Juliana in the days before she went missing.”

“Bullshit,” said Ross, “and I resent the implication.”

“Oh Ross,” snapped his wife, “it’s the real world.”

“Don’t I know it. Doesn’t get realer than this. We’re her parents, ” he exploded. “We love her! Okay, yes, people chop up their children and put them in concrete. Did we? No. Are we dying here? What the hell do you think?” Lynn was staring at the muffin tin.

“I know you’ve been through it. But we have to ask the tough questions and there is no question we will not ask, and nobody who will not be scrutinized.”

“We have no problemo taking your test,” Ross hissed, “because we have nothing to hide, but what really pisses me off is the fact that I gave you the guy. David Yi. Why doesn’t anyone listen to me?” “You’re a broken record,” murmured his wife in a monotone.

“Hold it,” I said. “Everybody take a deep breath.”

Lynn had covered her ears with her hands. They were trembling. Then, in slow motion, she keeled over.

“Lynn?”

Sitting cross-legged, she had folded forward until her forehead pressed the floor, as if assuming some kind of yoga position.

Her husband said, “Are you all right?”

“No test.”

“What?”

“No reason,” she mumbled.

I had to get down on my hands and knees to hear. We looked like two mental patients with ears to the ground, listening for Indian hoofbeats.

“Can you speak a little more clearly?”

Her nose was squashed against the oak flooring. “I should have told you before. I’m sorry I was not forthcoming, but I tried to believe it wasn’t true. I didn’t want it to be true, but now I’m so afraid because Juliana’s still not home.” “What the hell are you talking about?” Ross cried impatiently. He was bent over in a squat, hands on kneecaps, head cocked toward his wife.

“Eunice!” I wanted a witness. “Take it easy, Mrs. Meyer-Murphy—”