Grave Endings (7 page)

twelve

Wednesday, February 18. 10:32 A.M. Corner of Washington Boulevard and Kensington Road. Officers
stopped a man riding a bicycle that turned out to be
stolen, and wearing a backpack with $1,500 in burglary tools. The rider admitted he'd been arrested on
burglary charges three times and used rock cocaine.
The owner of the bicycle was contacted. He arrived
and identified the bicycle. While the officers were talking to him, the suspect slipped into the driver's seat of
the patrol car and drove off. The suspect has a tattoo
of the word “Venice” on his stomach.
(Culver City)

ROLAND CREELEY LIVED ON GOLDWYN TERRACE NORTH of Washington Boulevard in Culver City, which is south of Beverly Hills and sandwiched between Ladera Heights and Palms. I'm only moderately familiar with the area— even less so with Ladera Heights or Palms. I
do
collect
Crime Sheet
data from the Culver City Police Department (it's not part of LAPD), and Zack and I have been pricing furniture and sighing over art we can't afford while browsing in some of the stores that took up residence years ago in the landmark Helms Bakery Building on Venice Boulevard when the official bread maker for the 1932 Olympics permanently shut its ovens.

With a Post-it on which I'd noted Creeley's address affixed to the center of my steering wheel, I drove south on La Cienega. Traffic was sluggish. It took me almost twenty minutes to drive to Washington Boulevard, another ten while I passed numerous car dealerships and Ince Boulevard, named for Thomas H. Ince, the pioneer filmmaker who moved his studio here from its beach location at the urging of Henry Culver, the area's developer, who had watched Ince film a silent Western on La Ballona Creek.

A few minutes later I parked in front of Roland Creeley's residence, a small, yellow clapboard bungalow within viewing distance of Washington Boulevard and the Grecian columns on either side of the old main gate that marks the entrance to what remains of Ince's former studio, now part of Sony Pictures. (Before that it was Goldwyn Studios, MGM, DeMille Studios, RKO, Selznick International, and Desilu. After Ince's sudden death, the studio had changed hands and names more often than Elizabeth Taylor.) I wondered if living in such close proximity to the studio had influenced young Randy and given him the acting bug.

“I can see where you'd think that,” Creeley said when I asked him. “I grew up here, saw them filming
The Wizard of Oz
when I was a kid, and
Ben-Hur,
and lots of other movies that say ‘filmed in Hollywood' on the credits but were made right here,” he added with a touch of resentment. “Anyway, it didn't give
me
any ideas. No, it was his mother. Sue Ann took him from one agent to another when he was in diapers, told him he was special, that he was going to be a star.”

We were in a small, overfurnished, and overheated living room painted Wedgwood blue. Creeley and his wife, wearing black sweatshirts and gray slacks, sat hip to hip on a rose-colored velvet sofa opposite a matching armchair that practically swallowed me.

Alice Creeley was a solidly built woman with a thick neck and a broad face that looked even broader because she'd slicked back her graying hair against her skull. I don't mean to be uncharitable, but she was an unpretty woman, especially in contrast to the woman she'd replaced, and to her husband, who was clearly the author of his son's good looks. Roland senior had the same defined cheekbones and squared chin, and though the years had lined his face and silvered his still-thick hair, he was a man you'd look at twice.

He had the same deep brown eyes, too. Today they were somber and dull. I had seen the same vacant look in the eyes of the Lashers when they were sitting shiva for Aggie.

“Sue Ann was the actress,” Alice said, the nostrils on her wide, flat nose flaring. “She sure played Roland for a fool.”

“I thought she was happy,” Creeley said with more sadness than anger. “I'm a carpenter by trade. I worked on the studio lots, building sets, doing odd jobs. There was always food on the table, and money for extras. Then one day I came home and she was gone. She left a roast in the oven and a note on the fridge saying she didn't want to be a mother anymore, didn't want to be a wife.”

He said this with surprise, as though he had just come across the note, and it was in a foreign language or some code he was still puzzling out. There had probably been signs he'd overlooked, nuances, body language. I had overlooked signs, too, had felt that same shock when I'd learned Ron was cheating on me, had felt foolish afterwards.

“She left her little one crying and told Randy he was in charge,” Alice said, indignation making her voice quaver like a violin. “He was nine years old. She cleaned out one whole bank account, too.”

“To be fair, it was money she'd saved,” Creeley said. “And she told Randy to go next door if he needed help.”

“Sue Ann's parents didn't know where she went?” I asked Creeley, hoping to head off a diatribe from Alice, who had opened her mouth to say something.

“No, ma'am. Which isn't surprising. The Jaspers— that's her folks—gave her a hard time about leaving Minneapolis to come out here and be an actress. Whenever she talked to them, which wasn't often, they faulted everything she did.”

“Don't go blaming them,” Alice said. “They didn't make her walk out that door.”

“I know that.”

“That's what she did, walked out whenever things didn't go her way.”

The tension in the room crackled. “What about her friends?” I asked Creeley.

“She didn't have many. And she didn't say anything to them about wanting out. Sue Ann was kind of closed. I figured she'd be back, you know?” he said with that same bewilderment. “I figured she'd run out of money and realize she'd made a mistake. She sent a postcard from Chicago and another one from Houston a month later. That was the last I heard from her. Well, except through the lawyer she hired to handle the divorce. He wouldn't tell me where she was. A year later Alice and I married, and after a while Trina, that's Randy's sister, didn't even ask for Sue Ann. But Randy—”

“He never gave me a chance,” Alice said, those nostrils flaring again. I expected smoke to come out any moment. “He turned Trina against me, too.”

“Trina loves you, honey.” Creeley placed his large hand over his wife's.

“I tried my best.”

“No one could've done more,” Creeley said, and I knew they'd been down this particular road many times, had worn ruts that would never be filled. “Randy was pining for Sue Ann,” he told me. “They had this bond.”

“A bond of green,” Alice said. “She only loved him because he was beautiful. He was her ticket to fame and fortune.”

I disliked Alice. Maybe it was the spite that came out like pellets from a PEZ dispenser, or the small dark eyes that looked hard as onyx. Living with this tough, unbending woman couldn't have been easy for Randy.

“He
was
beautiful.” Creeley's sigh tugged at my heart. “Everybody said so. He had buckets of personality. He was bright, too, so he didn't need coaching. The casting people loved him. But then he got too old for commercials, and there are lots of kids and only so many movies with big parts for them.”

“Like the kid from
Sixth Sense,
” Alice said. “He's doing other stuff. But the one who talked about how much a brain weighs in
Jerry Maguire
? I haven't seen him in anything lately, have you?” she asked her husband.

“No, I haven't.” His voice was taut with controlled impatience. “Every time Randy lost out on a role, Sue Ann'd shut herself in her room and wouldn't talk to anyone for days,” he told me. “And then one day she left.”

“She knew Randy wasn't going to be a star,” Alice said. “She figured she'd cut her losses and start over.”

I tried to imagine young Randy, a child burdened with having to win each role to hold on to his mother's approval; a child who blamed himself for every failure that drove her into one of the temporary abandonments that foreshadowed a permanent one. He'd probably blamed himself for that, too. I felt stifled by his past, by this house, by the heat that was beginning to make me feel queasy.

“I think she loved the kids,” Creeley said, braving the Dragon. “She just couldn't handle things. I see that now.”

“You bring children into this world, you take care of them.” Alice folded her arms beneath her breasts. “I can't believe you're soft on her.”

“I'm not soft on her. I'm saying we don't know why she left. Anyway.” Creeley shifted and left a space between him and his wife. “Randy started having trouble in school. His grades dropped. He was picking fights with kids, cheating on tests, playing hooky.”

“She messed him up good,” Alice said, her venom at a woman long out of her life making me wonder if she was the one who had ripped the photo I'd seen of Randy and his mother. “Randy kept pushing Roland to find her. That's why we did what we did.” She nodded at her husband. Go ahead, your turn.

“I told the kids Sue Ann died in a boating accident and they never found her body,” he said, not meeting my eyes. “We hadn't heard from her for over three years. Not a phone call, not a birthday card.
Nothing.
I figured maybe she
was
dead,” he added with defensiveness that reddened his complexion.

“She might as well have been, for all the interest she showed her kids,” Alice said.

“Did you ever hear from her?” I asked Creeley, wishing Alice would shut up. I suspected her husband shared my feelings.

He shook his head. “I hoped Randy would let go. I hoped he'd be the young man I knew he could be. But a year later he got into trouble with the police. Small stuff at first, and then . . . But I guess you know all that.”

“The police think he killed a woman around six years ago,” I said, forcing myself to sound casual about the event that changed my life and gives me nightmares. And what had it done to Aggie's parents, who had lost their only child?

Creeley bowed his head and sighed deeply. “It grieves me to think Randy came to that, that he took someone's life.”

I'd hoped for denial, outrage, anything to bolster my own wavering doubts. “You don't sound surprised.”

“Nothing about Randy surprises
me,
” Alice said.

Anger flashed in Creeley's eyes. “I loved that boy. But I can't say I was proud of him. No, ma'am. I tried to teach him right from wrong, but he took what he wanted and lied his way through life. He was good at it, too. Then he got caught. I thought, Good. He'll learn a hard lesson. But a couple of years later he was back in prison.”

“You reap what you sow,” Alice said.

Creeley's cheek pulsed. “I'm not saying he didn't deserve to do time. But he didn't deserve to die like that. He was off drugs. He found God and peace. He asked my forgiveness a few weeks ago for the things he'd done wrong. He asked your forgiveness, too, Alice.”

“Words are cheap,” she said. “He was playing you like he played you so many times before I can't even count them.”

I was liking Alice less and less, but I'd been thinking the same thing. “What about his girlfriend, Doreen,” I said. “Where did he meet her?”

“One of his twelve-step meetings, or church?” Creeley looked at Alice. She shrugged, and for once didn't have an answer. “He talked about bringing her by so we could meet her, but he never did. A couple of days before he died I asked him how things were going. ‘I'm doing fine, I'm clean,' he said. He sounded hopeful.”

Alice huffed. “He told his parole officer the same thing, and that was a fat lie. He went to those Narcotics Anonymous meetings and lied to everybody there, too.”

Creeley pursed his lips. “I know when he's lying, Alice. Someone killed him and made it look like he overdosed. I know that like I know my own name.”

Alice rolled her eyes.

“Go ahead,” he told her, his voice flinty with anger. “Roll your eyes. The police don't believe me, either.”

I scooted to the edge of my chair. “Why would someone kill your son, Mr. Creeley?”

“Could be someone he wronged. I'm sure there's a long list. Or maybe it had something to do with that woman the police say he killed.”

My heart skipped a beat. “She was killed almost six years ago, in July. I know that's a long time ago, but can you recall if Randy seemed upset then?”

“July, six years ago . . . ,” he repeated. “That was about a year after Randy got out of prison. The couple of times we did see him, he was looking for a fight. I don't know why.”

“Ask Trina,” Alice said. “He told Trina
everything,
” she added with a childish whine.

I would be seeing Trina in less than two hours and I planned to do exactly that. “You didn't see him often?”

Creeley shook his head.

“Because I told him what he didn't want to hear,” Alice said. “Because nobody wants an ex-con liar and drug addict hanging around their daughter.”

“Let him be, goddammit!” Creeley seemed startled by his own outburst. He took a deep breath. “The boy's dead, Alice. Let him be.”

Alice turned her head aside, but not before I could see the red that had worked up her thick neck and that Creeley would undoubtedly pay for after I left.

She pushed herself off the sofa. “I have things to take care of,” she said in a wounded voice.

I would have bet money that Creeley would apologize and beg her to stay, but he said, “All right then,” and ignored the hurt, angry look she tossed him before she stomped out of the room.

I pitied Alice Creeley. Sue Ann had walked out, but Alice was the other woman, scrabbling to maintain her position in this family, holding tight to the reins of her marriage, forever competing with the beautiful wife her husband couldn't bring himself to hate and their beautiful son. I wondered if she lay awake nights, worrying that Sue Ann would walk back into their lives.