Grave on Grand Avenue (9 page)

“I don’t understand this, Lita. Not one bit. How did this
apparent stranger know that I was a cop? And why don’t I know anything about him?”

Lita bites her bottom lip. Any evidence of relaxation from an exotic island getaway has been wiped out by this news. “You can’t tell your father any of this. It’ll crush him.”

My grandmother gets up to make some tea, and I don’t
hurry her. I know I’m not going to like what she’s about to say, but I’m also curious as hell to find out.

She makes some of her South African bush tea. She makes it superstrong so it’s practically bloodred. I don’t really care for it that much, but I’m not going to refuse a mugful of it right now.

She holds her own steaming mug close to her face and I notice how freckled and wrinkled her hands are. Lita talks and lives like a much younger woman, younger even than my parents, so moments like this that show her age really catch me off guard.

She moistens her lips and begins. Her voice shakes uncharacteristically. She’s stored this up for a long time. “He was so charming. Tall, dark and handsome with a handlebar mustache.”

Handsome? My, how things have changed.

“I met him in a bar in North Hollywood. And he had this car, this beautiful car. He always had a thing for cars.”

Like the Skylark,
I think.

“It was just one of those magical, magical evenings. It was in the summertime. I remember because I was wearing a cotton sundress that was tight around the waist. He kept complimenting me about it. He was a gentleman, at least at first. Opened doors for me, all that. I was only twenty, so those things made a big impact.” She takes a slow sip from her mug. “I wasn’t a loose type of girl. I was a virgin before I met him. Can you believe it?”

I pray that Lita’s not going to go into the details of her sex life. I’m still trying to erase from my mind the thought of that pelican-shaped birthmark Fernandes mentioned.

“He was in a respectable profession. Involved in the entertainment industry.”

“What did he do?”

“He was a gaffer, you know, lighting electrician. He was originally from San Diego. Son of a Portuguese fisherman. Came up to Hollywood to escape that hard life on the sea. He was always good with his hands.” Lita swallows. “My mother encouraged our relationship. She was impressed by him. Impressed by the car.”

Lita doesn’t talk a lot about her parents. I don’t know anything about her father, but I know that she was raised by her single mother, just like she raised my dad alone. “She thought we’d get married. Those days, a girl had to be married by twenty-one or so, or she was viewed as an old maid, day-old leftovers. It was the early sixties, remember. Everything was going fine. But Puddy had this friend Ronnie. A bad influence, I’ll tell you. He was the one who got Puddy in trouble.”

“Ronnie what?” I say, too eagerly. This must be the guy connected to the Old Lady Bandit.

“Oh, I can’t remember his last name. He was a makeup man, horror movies and TV shows. Talented, but Ronnie was into cards, always in debt. Puddy even loaned him some until he couldn’t do it anymore. Then I heard that Ronnie went to the mob.”

“You mean in Vegas?”

“No, we had our own Mafia over here in Los Angeles, believe it or not. Your LAPD chief back in the fifties, Parker, dismantled most of its power. But it still was around to some degree in the sixties. Enough for Ronnie to get into trouble.”

I immediately think of Parker Center, the old police headquarters where Aunt Cheryl used to work, though her office now is in a different building, all glass and sunny.

“I told Puddy to stay away from Ronnie. But he wouldn’t listen to me. We began to fight. A lot. He pushed me down one time. He apologized afterward, but I never forgot.”

I can’t imagine anyone doing that to Lita. It makes me so angry that I wish Puddy were here so I could smack him.

“One day, Puddy comes to my house. He says he’s been called away to some job out of state. Someplace where it will be hard for him to call. But he’ll be back.”

Lita rests her freckled hand on her forehead for a moment. “Then I found out that I was pregnant. I was desperate. I didn’t know what to do. So I went to his apartment in Burbank. His place was all cleared out. The landlord told me that Puddy had been in the middle of packing when he was arrested.”

She lifts her head. “I tried to find out what I could from the police. Looked through old newspapers. Finally I found a news story that said Puddy had been arrested as an accessory to a robbery in West Los Angeles. He was sentenced to seven years in prison.”

So my fear was right. My grandfather was a jailbird.

“My mother was devastated. She made up stories about him to all our family friends. But when I finally had your father, I didn’t include Puddy’s name on the birth certificate. So your dad became a Rush like me instead of a Fernandes.”

“Was that his real name? Puddy?”

“No, it was Pascoal, a real Portuguese name.” Lita put her mug down. “It was rocky living with my mother. We
fought all the time. But because of her being around, I was able to get my teaching credential while raising your dad. Even able to have somewhat of a social life—my mother always wanted me to get married.

“When my mother died—all too young—I started to tell people the truth, at least that I didn’t know where Puddy was. I told your father that his father had been just an indiscretion of mine, but that I was so thankful for that relationship because it gave me him. I told him nothing about Puddy’s arrest.”

All the missing puzzle pieces to Dad’s life seem to be coming together. For all these years, I thought that I was used to not knowing. But now, hearing this all from Lita, I saw that keeping those secrets hidden hadn’t helped me personally—although maybe they had benefited me professionally. Since I knew nothing of this at the time, there’d been no reason to write up Fernandes’s record in my LAPD application.

“In some ways, I think your father is like my mother. He always wants to accentuate the positive and all that. He’s my sunshine.”

“And Fernandes? You never saw him again?”

Lita shakes her head. “No. He did leave the Skylark for me. For us all.”

“And you didn’t know whether he was dead or alive.”

“Well, I was curious. Then with all this Internet stuff in the 1990s . . .”

“You looked him up.”

“Besides the robbery conviction, there was nothing. No record of Pascoal or Puddy Fernandes owning property.
Giving donations. Working anywhere. It’s like he just disappeared.”

“He told me that he worked on container ships. Was a crewman his whole life.”

“Oh, he hated the ocean. And the water. That was his father’s life. He was even allergic to seafood,” Lita said, then mused, “Maybe he had no other options.”

I nodded. I’m sure having a prison record hadn’t helped his work prospects.

“I debated to tell you when you graduated high school. And then you were in college and before I knew it, you had graduated and were on your way to join the LAPD. Having a felon for a grandfather wouldn’t help you, I figured. I didn’t want you to have to answer for that. Puddy’s run-in with the law was nothing to do with you.”

“You know, Fernandes came to see me because he claims to know who is committing the Old Lady Bandit robberies.”

“Don’t believe him. Stay away from him. He can’t be trusted.”

“Well, that’s what I told him. That I couldn’t help him out.”

“Good girl,
querida
.”

We remain quiet for a few minutes as we watch Shippo play with a piece of loose string, probably from Lita’s throw rug. This whole thing with the Old Lady Bandit is pretty serious. A conviction for first-degree murder with special circumstances could possibly mean the death penalty. Suddenly, I feel exhausted. This has been a lot to take in, and I need time to process how it will impact me personally. I’m a lot like Grandma Toma in that way. And this is sure a lot of new and a whole lot of personal. I look at my phone for the time. “I better get going.”

“A date?” Color has returned to Lita’s face.

“Some errands. And then dinner at my parents’ tonight.”

“Oh no, don’t go. Make some excuse. Say that you got the flu.”

“Why?”

“You shouldn’t tell your parents about all this. Let some time pass.”

“I’m not planning to, at least not tonight.”

“
Querida
, you are just a pitiful liar. You’ll spill about your grandfather.”

“I’ll just avoid talking about the car.”

Lita shakes her pinkish orange locks. “No, no. I’m going with you.”

*   *   *

“Lita, we weren’t expecting you; you must be jet-lagged,” my mother comments as we both enter my parents’ house. Mom’s face says it all:
And we’d rather not have you here.
But Lita doesn’t have the Japanese “let me read your mind” gene. No, Lita is, in fact, quite oblivious to anyone’s feelings except her own. And she loudly advocates for those feelings, which can be pretty cute or very annoying, depending on what kind of mood you are in. I’m still a bit shell-shocked, so I’m depending on Lita to keep the conversation going.

“I slept on the plane. And Puerto Rico is practically within the U.S., anyway.”

She heads to the kitchen, and as her back is turned from us, Mom jabs me in the ribs and we pantomime a conversation.

Ow!
I mouth.

Did you know that she was coming?
she silently gestures.

No
. I lie without saying a word.

“Oh, it smells just lovely in here.” Lita takes a deep breath and opens the door of the hot oven to take a look. “What is that, chicken parmesan?”

“No, chicken marsala. Please, don’t release the heat, Estel.” Mom pushes the oven shut and darts me a dirty look.

“Here, I picked these up at the farmers’ market in Pasadena.” I place a bag of Asian pears on top of the kitchen island. The gift appeases Mom for a moment, until I see her eyes scan Lita’s empty hands.

Grandma Toma then appears in the doorway. She’s been living with my parents ever since she left some curry boiling on the stove while she was out, triggering the fire alarm and leading firefighters to break through her front door. “Hello, Ellie,” she says and I give her a quick hug. She then looks at Lita. “I didn’t know that you were coming.” Grandma Toma can be a bit no-nonsense, while Lita gets great joy from nonsense.

“Oh, it’s just been too long.” Lita, who’s about a foot taller, squeezes Grandma Toma toward her. Grandma Toma’s face is smashed against Lita’s ample chest, enveloped in flowy material, and she makes fish lips in her struggle to breathe. Finally released, Grandma Toma escapes to the opposite side of the kitchen.

Mom opens a cupboard and starts to take out some dishes. I assist by taking down some wineglasses from a high shelf of the china cabinet. I am going to need some wine to get through tonight.

“So, any leads about the car?” Mom immediately asks.

“Have you done something new with the kitchen?” Lita
interrupts. “I don’t remember this being right here.” She slaps the surface of the island.

“Ah, that’s been there since we remodeled. Fifteen years ago.”

“Oh, really? I guess I never noticed.”

I pick out one of the red wines on display on the kitchen counter. They’re all Two-Buck-Chucks that Mom purchased from Trader Joe’s.

“Do you know how the Skylark was stolen?” Mom’s not going to give up so easily.

“Wine, anyone?” I ask, taking out my parents’ high-tech corkscrew from a drawer.

“Oh, yes,
querida
, for me,” Lita says.

My younger brother, Noah, slides into the kitchen in his socks. “And yes, for me, too.” He’s only sixteen years old.

“I don’t think so,” I say. Noah is on a very short leash and needs to be restrained fairly often. Earlier this year he got busted by my mother, who is scarier than any DEA officer, for his adventures in pot smoking and growing. Perhaps he inherited some outlaw gene from Puddy? I quickly uncork the bottle and pour two very full glasses of wine for both Lita and me.

“My, my, my! All my favorite women together in one room,” Dad exclaims as he walks into the kitchen. He’s obviously just come home because he’s still wearing his trademark blue Windbreaker, his personal work uniform. He gives both Lita and me hugs, and I offer him some of the two-dollar wine. He takes off his Windbreaker and hangs it in the hall closet, part of his Mr. Rogers–esque routine (except he never wears cardigans).

“Okay, what’s going on?” Mom places her fists on her hips.

“We’re just drinking some wine,” I say and then drain a glassful. I know what’s coming next.

“Every time I bring up the Skylark, you both change the subject.”

“Oh, yes?” Lita says, practically batting her eyelashes. Lita operates on only two modes—flirty and nonflirty. Flirty is definitely not going to work on my mother.

“I want to know what’s going on and I want to know now,” my mother, the Grand Inquisitor, declares.

Grandma Toma’s eyes brighten. Usually she’s off watching her beloved college basketball in her room (my old room), which has the only TV set in the house. (Instead of watching television, my parents constantly listen to public radio, which drives my brother crazy.) But March Madness has ended and apparently Rush Madness has just started. Grandma Toma takes a front-row seat at the kitchen table.

“Is this about Grandpa?” Noah breaks in.

All of us—Mom, Dad, Lita and I—turn to my younger brother. “What?” we say in unison.

Noah sits on a barstool in front of the kitchen island, crunching on a pear.

“I met him at Lita’s house when I was watering her plants. He told me not to say anything until Lita got back. Something about him wanting to surprise you. Oh, by the way, Lita, you owe me twenty bucks for keeping your plants alive.”

A part of me wants to close my eyes so I can avoid witnessing what is to come, but a bigger part of me needs to watch it all happen.

“What. Is. Going. On?” Dad thunders. He usually has a
goofy grin on his face, his slightly crooked front teeth always visible. His mouth right now is a straight line. I can tell that he’s pissed as hell.