Unpaid Dues (13 page)

"I'm only trying to get what's coming to my son.
They're being real assholes about it. I already gave them copies of
Walter's death certificate and tax returns."

"How'd you get those?"

"Walter's mama sent them to me."

"What else do you need?"

"
They want more paperwork that documents Walter
was the father. I showed them a few cards Walter sent when I was
first pregnant, and he wrote a song about it. But that wasn't enough.
Now they want me to get all these affidavits from people who knew us
then to swear that Walter was the daddy."

"
How many do you have?"

"I'm still working on it, you know, trying to
track people down. It's not easy "

"Especially from bum-fuck Amsterdam," Munch
muttered.

"
What?"

"How about Thor? Heard from him lately?"

"Jane's Thor?"

"
Yeah, only he's not Jane's anymore. She's been
killed. Beaten to death and dumped in a storm channel."

"
Damn."

"
That's what I thought too."

"Shit, I haven't heard from Jane in a long time.
She called me a few years ago. She was holed up in some women's
shelter in Santa Monica. I told her to come on up to the country but
she thought word might get back to Thor somehow and he'd get her."

"He'd go all the way to Oregon?"

"She seemed to think so. I never heard a woman
so scared."

"It appears she had good reason."

"
Yeah, and don't you go looking for him. You're
doing good. You don't want to mess that up."

It was like having an anorexic tell you to clean your
plate. Deb seemed to have forgotten that their relationship had
shifted. Munch was the one leading the straight life with a real job.
She knew very well what was at stake.

"
What was the name of the place where Jane holed
up?"

"Gimme Shelter,. something like that," Deb
said, yawning loudly again. "Or Helter Skelter."

"The Helter Skelter Shelter?" Munch asked,
laughing. "I don't think so."

"Hell, I don't know." Deb laughed herself
into a coughing jag.

"All right, thanks."

"
Say; Munch?"

Across transatlantic lines, Munch heard a match
strike and Deb inhale.

"
Yeah?"

"Take good care of my boy."

"
I'll do whatever I can."

After Munch hung up with Deb, she went to her purse
and pulled out her wallet. She wrote Roxanne a check for a hundred
dollars and stuck it in an envelope, wondering if she was being a
hypocrite after all her talk about tough love and teaching the boy
accountability for his actions.

She called her sponsor next, dialing Ruby's number
from memory

"Aren't you involved with some abused-women
shelters?"

"Why?"

"Is there one on the Westside that sounds like
Gimme Shelter?"

"
There's a facility in Santa Monica called
Shelter from the Storm."

"That must be it." Munch wrote down the
name.

"What's this about?"

"Remember my friend Jane, the one I told you got
murdered?"

"
Yes."

"I think she maybe stayed at Shelter from the
Storm for a while. I need to get in there, ask a few questions, see
what I can find out."

"The location is a closely guarded secret. Those
women are running for their lives."

Munch heard the front door open and Nathan's voice in
the living room.

"
I won't tell anyone," Munch said into the
phone, then added, "I'm helping Mace St. John."

"
I'm glad."

"So can we do it?"

"Let me call ahead."

Munch left Nathan and Asia eating pizza and watching
television. Ruby met her at a Mexican restaurant on Pico, near the
college. Munch offered to drive to the shelter. The truth was, she
hated going anywhere in someone else's car. Ruby directed her to a
large warehouse-type building near the college.

The sign on the door read SACKEE'S SEED. There was a
driveway that led to a large roll-up door that was closed. Ruby rang
the bell.

"
Can I help you?" a woman's voice scratched
through the intercom.

"
It's Ruby" The door buzzed.

The outer office had a tall counter desk. The woman
seated behind it had a phone at her disposal. A television monitor
connected to what had obviously been a concealed camera pointed at
the outside entrance; After Munch and Ruby entered, the door behind
them closed with a heavy thunk.

Ruby escorted Munch through another door that opened
onto a large compound of two-story buildings. Munch could see
children playing in a gymnasium as she and Ruby walked through a rose
garden full of meandering paths, birdbaths, and sculptures.

A few women sat on the benches, wrapped in thick
coats to ward off the evening chill, their faces and spirits in
varying states of repair.

"
The kids aren't allowed in this garden,"
Ruby said, speaking in low tones. "Sometimes the moms need a
break."

Ruby took her through what she explained was the
schoolhouse. Several children were doing their homework,
concentrating over maps of California, painstakingly labeling
mountain ranges and bodies of water. Munch reached out to stroke the
head of a little boy who looked Asia's age, but he shied away from
her touch.

"Those are the living quarters," Ruby
explained, pointing to what looked like motel rooms. "They're
double suites connected by bathrooms. We had to install industrial
fixtures to keep up with the wear and tear of traffic."

"Where is everybody?"

"Let's try the cafeteria." They walked to
another building with steaming vents and a large Dumpster parked
outside. Ruby pushed the doors open and they were greeted by the
clatter of banging pots and running water. Six women were cleaning up
after the evening meal. They stopped and stared at Ruby and Munch;
then someone said, "They' re okay," and work resumed.

Munch pulled the picture of Jane out of her pocket
and showed it around. The first few women she approached glanced at
it quickly shook their heads no, and turned their backs to her.
Finally one woman asked in a suspicious tone, "Who's this?"

"Friend of mine. I was hoping someone here
remembered her."

"I know her," a skittish little bleached
blonde said. Her head twitched as she spoke, as if she were fighting
the urge to flinch. "She's good people."

"You know her from here?"

"
Uh-huh. She makes dresses for the kids' dolls.
Really fancy ones. I can show you if you want."

"
Please."

"
Okay Yeah, sure. This way"

Munch and Ruby followed the woman to one of the
housing buildings.

"
I'm Tammy; by the way but if you call here to
talk to me, you'll have to ask for Lizzie. That's my code name."

"I'm Munch, this is Ruby"

Tammy made a queer bobbing bow with her head.

"
Pleased to meet you." She giggled
inappropriately then opened the door to what must have been her room.
Toys were scattered across the floor. The bed was unmade. A suitcase
sat on the floor, half unpacked. "She's good at fixing them
too." Tammy reached into the suitcase and retrieved a plastic
doll in a red velvet dress. The dress was trimmed with white lace,
but one of the sleeves was missing. With a sheepish grin Tammy showed
them a naked doll whose arm had been torn from the socket.

"Uh-oh," Munch said.

"My son did that. Janie said she'd make it good
as new. "

Munch couldn't help but raise an eyebrow.

"
He's a good boy He just gets overexcited
sometimes."

"How old is he?"

"Seven. And I know what you're thinking. He's
old enough to learn to control himself. That's what my husband used
to say before he disciplined him."

Munch spoke in her warmest tones. "I wasn't
judging your· son or you. " Although the husband sounded like
an asshole.

"
Kids are like anyone else," Ruby said.
"There's no such thing as too much love. Just you being here
tells me you're on the right track."

Tammy looked at her shoes. "Thanks. You didn't
have to say that. " But it was clear she was pleased.

"
When's the last time you saw Jane?" Munch
asked.

"A few weeks ago. She's supposed to come around
for group, but she missed it. You know where she is?"

"She died. I'm sorry " Munch watched Tammy
closely to see how she reacted to the news. Tammy's eyes immediately
filled with tears.

"
What?"

"
She got killed sometime around Valentine's Day"

"Oh no." Tammy sank to the floor and
covered her mouth with her hand. "How?"

"
She was beaten to death."

"
That's how she always expected to go."

"
I know. When I knew her, she seemed to be
waiting for it. The cops are trying to retrace her last few days.
They haven't had much success. Do you know where she lived?"

"I do. I've got it in my book."
 

Chapter 13

Friday morning, when St. John and Cassiletti pulled
into the Texaco station, Munch was hammering a wheel bearing race
into the hub of a Lincoln Town Car. A big-gutted man in an
ill-fitting suit sipped coffee from a king-sized freeway mug and
looked on. She was fifteen minutes away from finishing the job, and
the driver (she suspected he wasn't the owner) was impatient. She
would have insisted he leave the car to have the work done, but the
lube bays were conspicuously vacant, and she had no good excuse for
why the guy couldn't wait and watch other than that she found his
company annoying.

Lou walked out of the office to shake St. John's
hand. "Munch, your fan club's here."

She looked up, exasperated, her hands full of thick
wheel bearing grease. Couldn't he see that she was working as fast as
she could? She still had to pack the new bearings, rehang the hub,
brakes, and tires. Then  there was the ever-important test
drive, and the equally important task of writing and collecting the
bill.

"I only have two hands here." A lock of
hair that had worked loose from her braid fell over her right eye.
She pushed it back with a clean section of sleeve on the top of her
right arm. "It's going to be a minute"

"This will only take a second." St. John
pulled back his coat to reveal the shield clipped to his belt and
said to the big guy hovering over Munch, "Sir, if you wouldn't
mind stepping away?"

Munch grinned. "Stay as long as you like."

St. John crouched so that he was eye to eye with her.
She caught a whiff of his cologne over the pervasive odors of
petroleum and asbestos dust.

"
You find out anything?" he asked.

"I talked to a friend," she said, keeping
her voice to a conspiratorial whisper so that he was forced to lean
in closer. "She said the last she heard from Jane, she was in a
shelter for battered women."

"Which one?"

"
Some place called Shelter from the Storm. I
went there last night and met someone who knew Jane. She gave me
Jane's address and phone number. It's in my pocket."

There was an awkward moment while they both looked at
her shirt pocket and then at the gooey grease coating Munch's
fingers. She had a sudden impulse to point her breast at him and see
what he did. Cassiletti would probably faint.

"I'll wait," St. John said.

Munch finished with the messy part of the job, wiped
her hands clean, and then fished out the phone number herself.

Another time, she thought, another place, another
lfe.

Certainly not in a world where a nice lady such as
Caroline St. John could get hurt.

"Did you find Thor?" she asked.

"I'm getting closer all the time"

"
You might want to
think about shooting first."

* * *

Before driving over to Jane Ferrar's apartment, St.
John wrote and got approval for two search warrants—one to the
telephone company for a list of all calls made to and from Jane's
number in the last month, and another to search her apartment for any
clues to the circumstances of her murder. The search warrant would be
necessary if Jane hadn't lived alone. As it was, the building manager
unlocked Jane Ferrar's apartment without asking to see anything
besides St. John's badge.

The living room, single bedroom, even the kitchen and
bathroom of the small apartment in El Segundo were full of dolls. All
types in the living room there were Cabbage Patch Kids, Betsy Wetsys,
Chatty Cathys, numerous Barbies and Skippers. Even a few Kens staged
in nonthreatening poses—arms down, faces blank. She obviously did
her repairwork here. A card table held various doll heads, arms,
legs, shoes, and clothes. The bedroom was devoted to less commercial,
more collectible brands (as he deduced from the brass nameplates):
Madame Alexanders, Ellenbees, Storybook. The dolls were decked out in
elaborate costumes and frilly dresses and displayed on shelves, some
under domes of glass. The bedroom closet was devoted to miniature
wardrobes, divided evenly between winter clothing and summer dresses.
There were several framed ribbons on the wall, including a
first-place award from the 1983 Orange County Fair for "Best
Formal" Next to the medallion and attached blue ribbon was a
newspaper clipping showing a smiling Jane. The caption identified her
as Marie Dobson. No wonder he had been unable to turn up any trace of
her. Jane Ferrar had gone underground, but not far
enough.