I was having lunch with Roxi at the Electric Lotus.
She made me promise not to talk about any corpses, cemeteries or grave robbers. So instead I told her a little about my first therapy session, leaving out the hug. Roxi approved of anything that would help me move forward. Why she stuck it out with me, I'm still not sure. Certainly not for the laughs and giggles. One thing about shy people, we're great listeners, and when I was done recounting my early afternoon session, Roxi launched into a long story about a pitch-meeting she was going to have with Paramount Studios. I listened and nodded in all the right places, but all I could think about was the interior of the coffin, and the compressed cushion where I was certain someone had been knocking.
Perhaps even knocking long and hard.
The house was immaculate.
It was a mini-mansion, as I would describe it, with Doric columns out front and marble floors in the entry way and a winding staircase that led to the second floor. The older lady who greeted me for our appointment did not smile at me. When people don't smile at me, I get more nervous. Words are harder to find and the sweat breaks out all over. Sometimes stammering ensues, too.
James Bond I'm not.
"Have a seat, Mr. Spinoza," said the woman. "Would you like something to drink?"
I said I was fine.
"Excuse me?" she asked.
"No, thank you," I said in a strangled whisper.
She frowned and sat across from me and I fought my nerves and pressed forward. I had a job to do, after all. It was my mantra. In fact that mantra - I have a job to do - had gotten me through many personal harrowing experiences. Harrowing, that is, for me.
I have a job to do, I thought again and again.
I raised my voice. "As you know, I'm here to talk about your daughter."
She merely nodded. Her name was Elizabeth Perkins, and she was the mother of Evelyn Drake, whose body was presently missing. The family, I knew, was wealthy. How and why they were wealthy, I didn't know. Perhaps old Hollywood money. An investor or a producer or something. Anyway, Mrs. Perkins was wearing white slacks and a red blouse that highlighted her trim figure. She was probably in her sixties. Her scowling face made her look older.
"Has anyone contacted you about your daughter's... missing remains?" I asked.
"Other than the police, no. Only Detective Hammer and now you." Her jawline tightened. "May I ask your interest in this case, Mr. Spinoza?"
"I'm working with the boy, her biological son."
She made no indication that she heard me. No nod. No frown. Nothing. She said, "I was under the impression that the boy is a runaway."
"He ran away from an abusive situation and is now in a better situation."
I was all too aware that she was his biological grandmother. That fact did not seem to please her. "Better situation, how?"
"He's living with an aunt and uncle."
She made a noncommittal noise in the back of her throat. I pressed forward, so uncomfortable I could barely think straight. "Has anyone unofficial contacted you, Mrs. Perkins?"
"Unofficial in what way?"
I took a deep breath, calmed myself. I have a job to do. I have a job to do. "Has anyone tried to blackmail you with your daughter's remains?"
"I don't understand the question."
Breathe, breathe. "Has anyone demanded money for the return of your daughter's body?"
She raised her hand to her face and looked away and the tears sprang from her eyes. The change was so sudden that I sat there, surprised. I shouldn't have been surprised. I had just asked a mother, who's daughter had been murdered a few years earlier, if a body snatcher had tried to ransom her daughter's remains.
Jesus.
A sick world. A sick question. A question I had to ask.
She was shaking her head and her steely facade had crumbled completely. She kept shaking her head even while I sat there, uncomfortable, regretting my decision to come, but needing answers, nonetheless.
"No," she finally said. "I've heard from no one. Do people really do that?"
"It's possible. It happened to Charlie Chaplin's family."
She wept harder and covered her face and I heard movement from upstairs, although I saw no one at the time. I asked her if she had ever been contacted by the cemetery. If there had ever been any indication of a grave plot mix-up. The questions were difficult and painful for both of us, and all the while I kept hearing creaking above me. Someone was pacing up there, listening.
Mrs. Perkins was beyond speech. She just kept shaking her head at each question and finally I decided to leave. I apologized for causing her pain and left my card on the coffee table.
And as I turned to leave, I involuntarily gasped. From upstairs a young woman was looking down at me. Peering over the bannister from around a corner that led, I assumed, to a hallway. The woman had a strong resemblance to Evelyn Drake, but she was younger by many years. Her sister, I thought. Or perhaps a cousin. I blinked, and she blinked, and then she turned away, disappearing into the shadows.
I let myself out.
