Dead to Me (15 page)

I flipped through the stack of letters. Most were postmarked from San Antonio, but a few were local, a few had return addresses I recognized, and one bore a chilling inscription that made my
eyes go wide:
Open If I Am Dead or Missing
.

In the whole pile, there were only a handful of notes from Millie.

“Here,” I said, handing them to her. She took them, then went back to flipping through Irma’s address book, tearing out whole chunks of pages as she went. She stuffed these
into the bag with the photograph.

The rest of the letters I stacked to the side for myself. If Millie asked what I was doing, I planned to tell her I was only tidying up. But she was too busy rooting through Irma’s makeup
to notice.

“So, where’s Jerry Shaffer?” she asked, testing out a half-used tube of lipstick she’d found in one drawer. “I’m surprised you didn’t bring him along.
Or vice versa. You can’t possibly be old enough to drive.”

“I’m old enough,” I said, even though I didn’t actually know how to drive.

Once she’d finished sifting through the vanity, Millie moved on to the nightstand, which seemed to contain nothing but pill bottles, all murky brown and green glass with tan paper labels
and names like secobarbital and Nembutal. I’d seen similar ones in my mother’s bedside table. Millie tossed these on the bed, too, but I noticed that she slipped one or two into her
bag.

“He said it might be better if I came alone,” I said. “And that you hated his guts.”

She snorted. “I’m surprised he’d send you up here by yourself. Or maybe I’m not all that surprised. What is it they say about bullies? That they’re really just
cowards themselves?”

“You think Jerry’s a bully?”

“A bully and a creep. Always following us around in that beat-up Plymouth. Every time I see it, I think he’s probably got a body in the trunk.”

That seemed a little melodramatic to me. “He knows you’re in danger. Maybe he’s watching because he doesn’t want you to get hurt.”

“Well, isn’t that nice of him,” Millie said with a sneer. “I’ve caught him more than once, hunched down in the front seat with his hat pulled down, watching us like
some kind of pervert. And that was
before
I was in danger.”

Up until today, I realized, everything I knew about Jerry had pretty much come from Jerry. What if he’d been lying to me all along? What if he wasn’t my sister’s friend and
employer, but her stalker? That would explain why he knew so much about her. And why he seemed to know so many girls who were young enough to be his daughters. I felt nauseated by the thought.

“Were he and Annie friends?” I asked.

Millie sat down on the bed. She extended a finger and started to push the row of pill bottles across the mattress. They clinked together as she rolled them almost to the edge of the bed, then
back toward her again.

“Jerry doesn’t have friends. He has a cabinet full of broken dolls like your sister. And he acts like he wants to fix them, but the truth of it is, Alice, I think he likes them
broken.”

I felt a hitch in my breath, and reached for the sealed envelope, the one inscribed
Open If I Am Dead or Missing
. The paper was a luxurious cream-colored cardstock, the curious
inscription in ink so glossy it still looked wet. I ran my fingers over the soft paper and wondered who had written it. I wondered what Jerry was looking for, why he wanted to get into this
apartment so badly. He was supposed to be here right now, not me. If he were the one rummaging through Irma’s vanity and bedside table, what would he take?

“I’ve decided I’m done with Los Angeles,” Millie said, lifting up the mattress and peeking under the box spring. “I’m buying a ticket to Las Vegas and getting
out of this place. No more flirting with directors twice your age for a part that has two lines. No more slugging it out against a hundred girls who all think they’re the next Lana Turner.
I’m sick of fighting for scraps.”

Irma’s sleigh bed was a heavy oaken thing that looked like it had come out of the last century, and Millie was trying to move it. Between each word of her rant, she gritted her teeth and
gave the frame a shove until spots of red appeared on her cheeks beneath the veil. I went around to the other side of the bed to help her push.

“It doesn’t matter how young and pretty you are, because everybody’s young and pretty. It doesn’t matter how much talent you have, because the job doesn’t require
any. And what’s it all for? Nothing. I’ve been working my ass off in this business since I was sixteen, and I don’t have a thing to show for it. It’s a job only an idiot
could want.”

When we’d moved the bed about two feet, Millie got down on her hands and knees and ran her fingers over the floorboards. Finally, she found the one she was looking for and popped it loose.
Her hands disappeared beneath the floor, then came up a moment later holding a lock box. She produced a key from around her neck, opened the box, and leafed through its contents, careful to hold
the lid so I couldn’t see what was inside.

“And besides, it’s just getting too dangerous around here.” She produced a thick wad of cash from the lock box and grinned. “Never mind Las Vegas. I’m going to
Paris.”

She slammed the box shut and put it back under Irma’s bed.

“Help me move this,” she said, and together, we tugged at the bed frame until the headboard was flush with the wall.

The only piece of furniture in the bedroom that remained untouched was the wardrobe. Millie flung it open and began to sort through the items that hung there. She was selective—a few
dresses, a good wool coat, a pretty silk scarf. She tossed these things onto the bed and left the rest.

“Millie,” I said. She half looked over her shoulder without stopping what she was doing. “Do you know anything about a girl Annie was protecting? She might have been there the
night Irma was murdered.”

Millie shook her head. “I never heard of any girl.”

She didn’t even bother trying to sound like she wasn’t lying. It annoyed me, especially since I’d just helped her drag a hundred-year-old bed across the floor.

“But you know Rex, don’t you?” I asked. When she didn’t answer, I added, “I know you do. I saw the picture.”

Millie spun around, and in two steps had crossed the room and pinned me against the wall with a sharp elbow. A cruel smile played across her lips, and when she spoke, it was scarcely louder than
a whisper.

“Have you ever kissed a boy, Alice?”

When I didn’t answer, stunned as I was, she dug her elbow into my collarbone.

“I
said
, have you ever kissed a boy?”

This time I nodded.

Flecks of spit hit my cheek as she spoke. “Did you kiss him or did he kiss you?”

There had been several boys, several kisses, but when Millie asked me, it seemed as though there had only been one, that the kisses and the boys all melted together, and I could no longer tell
them apart.

“He kissed me,” I said.

“Did you like it?”

At a movie theater, behind the changing room at the country club pool, in basements at parties, but always in the dark, always in a corner, always secret.

“I don’t know. I guess I didn’t really mind.”

“But that’s not the same as liking it, now, is it?” There was that smile again, like a slice of bitter melon.

“No,” I said.

“And did he try anything else after that?”

Sometimes they did. And then it was always a matter of weighing out which you wanted less—to make a scene or to let him touch you. At least, that was always the way it was with the boys
I’d known.

I nodded.

“And what did you do then, Alice?”

“I pushed him away.”

Or at least, sometimes I did.

“Maybe you and I aren’t so different,” Millie hissed into my ear. “You’ll let a boy you don’t like kiss you. Maybe you don’t want to, but you’ll
say you didn’t really mind. Maybe that’s what I do, too. So don’t stand there asking questions like you think you’re better than me.”

She pinched my cheek between her fingers, hard enough to leave a mark.

And then she let go, as though nothing had happened, smiled brightly, and went back to emptying out Irma’s wardrobe. I clutched my smarting cheek.

When she was through, she closed the wardrobe doors and gathered up the bundle of clothes and the canvas bag that held the money, the photograph, and the letters.

She strode out of the room without even looking at me. Quickly, I gathered up my own pile of stolen goods, stuffing the letters into my purse before following her. She was taking another pass
through the apartment, poking through kitchen cabinets and underneath cushions.

Satisfied at last, she went to the door, took a final look back, and said, “That about does it, I think.”

“Millie,” I said.

She stood in the doorway, her back to me. Slowly, she turned around, a wry, icy look on her face. “Is there something else you wanted?”

“You haven’t told me anything.”

She arched an eyebrow. “I think I’ve told you enough to make you think twice about showing those letters in your purse to Jerry Shaffer.”

“What do you mean?”

“Her name is Gabrielle,” Millie said. “That’s who your sister was protecting, who she was willing to go to the
police
for. That’s who saw Conrad Donahue
murder a woman in cold blood. That’s who everyone’s looking for now. So, how much do you think Annie trusted Jerry Shaffer if she wouldn’t even tell him
her
name
?”

Millie reached into her purse and pulled out a matchbook. Inside, she scrawled a number and pressed it into my hand.

“I want to help you, Alice. Really, I do. Call me at this number tonight at ten. We can talk more freely then. Right now, I’d prefer to put a bit more distance between myself and
your friend Jerry before I tell you anything else in confidence. What you do with the information after that is up to you. I just don’t want any part of it.”

“What am I supposed to do?” I asked.

“That’s up to you, gumdrop. But if I was you, I’d be careful.”

She stepped into the dark hallway and turned the key to her own apartment door.

I went back inside Irma’s and cleaned up as best as I could. I put the letters from home back in the vanity, folded the clothes in the drawers Millie had rummaged through, and returned
them to the bureau. I went to the nightstand and took the picture of Irma and Annie. Maybe it wasn’t the smartest thing in the world to take, but I understood Millie’s impulse to clean
any sign of herself out of that place. Besides, I wanted it.

I took all the pill bottles and syringes and put them into a bag by themselves, planning to throw all of it into the first trash can I found. I told myself that what I was doing was a kindness
to Irma’s memory, even if it was too late to save her. But the truth was, I wasn’t ready to leave the apartment.

To hear Jerry tell it, he cared about Annie and her friends. He wanted to protect them and help them in any way he could. But then I thought about the things that Millie had said. Cyrus,
too—I was almost sure he’d been lying back at the restaurant. Annie’s friends didn’t trust Jerry, and it was beginning to look like maybe Annie didn’t, either.

Jerry told me that Annie was supposed to meet him the night she was attacked, that she was supposed to bring Gabrielle with her so the three of them could all go to the police together. With
what I knew now, though, that story didn’t add up. Annie wouldn’t have let Jerry near Gabrielle if she didn’t trust him completely.

Maybe that was why Annie hadn’t shown up for her meeting with Jerry—she’d never intended to. Or maybe there never had been any meeting in the first place.

Either way, it didn’t explain what my sister had been doing in MacArthur Park the night she was attacked, and it didn’t make me feel any better about facing Jerry Shaffer.

When the apartment was clean and I couldn’t stall any longer, I made my way down the stairwell and into the sunny courtyard, where I found Jerry slouched against the trunk of the jacaranda
tree. My head spun with uncertainty, and suddenly I wanted nothing so much as to put a few dozen blocks between myself and the private detective.

“I’m going home,” I said, thrusting the bag of narcotics into his arms.

“Wait,” he said, shuffling to his feet. “What happened up there, Alice? What’s wrong? Did Millie give you a rough time?”

I shook my head, but when I opened my mouth to explain, no words came out, and a sick feeling passed through me.
Why does everyone you try to help end up getting hurt?

I turned my back to him and started walking down the sidewalk.

“Alice, I’m sorry,” he said, following after me. “Let me give you a ride home. Let’s get you out of here, get you a bite to eat, and you can tell me all about
it.”

I shook my head again, and this time, I managed to squeak out a few syllables.

“I’d rather walk,” I said.

W
hen I saw my mother through the kitchen window, I almost turned around and went back to Millie’s place. She was sitting at the table,
a martini glass folded into her hands, her face a perfect, inscrutable mask. I sighed and opened the back door.