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She began to shut the door, but I did the old salesman’s trick and shoved my foot in there. A very painful move.
“Move your foot.”
“Tell me what happened to your marriage. Why did you and your husband get divorced?”
“None of your business.”
“Is that not your husband’s baby?”
“Fuck you,” she said, as she pulled the door back and slammed it again. This time, I snatched my nearly broken foot back. The door shut. I stood there a moment, then limped to my car.
****
Unfortunately, when someone is in prison they can’t receive phone calls, only make them. So I couldn’t call Larry Wilkes and ask, “What the fuck?”
I found a McDonald’s in Lakewood and had a couple of egg and sausage biscuits in the Jeep. After burning my tongue on their coffee, I tried to figure out what to do next.
The easiest thing to do would be to go see Candy Van Dyke. She lived in Naples, a beachside community with canals similar to Venice. My guess was they were developed by the same developer. It was a wealthy neighborhood, east of Long Beach and about twenty minutes away from Lakewood.
The thing was, I really wanted to talk to Paul Michaels. Though I didn’t know where he lived, I did know where his parents lived. Of course, I should do some work for Lydia, which meant Candy Van Dyke. Or…
I pulled out the printouts Karen had given me. I looked up Andy Showalter’s last address. It was on Arlington in Downey. I decided that’s where I’d be going next. It wasn’t that far away. Checking myThomas Guide, I got onto Lakewood Boulevard and stayed on it for about ten minutes. Traffic was relatively light, since there were about four nearby freeways if you fancied sitting in traffic.
The Showalters had lived on Arlington Avenue a few houses down from Dennis the Menace Park, which was shoved up against the 5 freeway. The house was built on a narrow lot, which necessitated building the garage in front of the house rather than on the side. It made the house look ninety percent garage, and it may well have been. I walked up the driveway and found the front door. Over the address it said, THE NORTHS. Obviously, the Showalters didn’t live here anymore. I could have turned and walked away but decided it might be worth it to see if the Norths had any idea what happened to the former owners. I rang the bell.
After a long time—I almost left—a woman opened the door and stared at me through the screen door. She was in her late fifties and had dyed her hair a very pale blonde. She wore a lot of makeup, especially for ten in the morning. A cigarette hung from her lower lip.
“You’re late,” she said.
I decided not to ask who exactly she’d been expecting.
“My name is Dom Reilly. I work for an attorney in Long Beach. We’re looking for the family of Andy Showalter. You wouldn’t happen—”
“Oh. I thought you were the plumber,” she said, her disappointment was as thick as the sludge in her pipes.
“Do you know where the Showalters—”
“Andy was my son.”
“Oh, I see. So… um, North? You’ve remarried?”
“No. We put that name up during Larry Wilkes trial so people would stop coming by the house and bothering us.”
“I see. I hope I’m not bothering you.”
“You are,” she said. She just stood there looking at me, deciding. An ash fell off her cigarette onto her chest. She brushed it off quickly, then looked up and added, “But I suppose it’s time.”
She walked away from the screen door. I opened it and followed. The house smelled of over-cooked bacon and burnt toast. The living room was to my left. A large, yellow sectional wrapped in plastic filled the room. She’d gone through a swinging door into what I hoped was the kitchen. I had no great desire to squeak my way through a glass of water on that sofa.
Peeking my head through the swinging door, I saw that it was indeed the kitchen. Standing in front of a coffee maker which held a brewed pot of coffee, Mrs. Showalter poured herself a cup. Then she walked over to the table and sat down. Tentatively, as though approaching a wild animal, I walked into the kitchen and sat down across from her.
“It’s time for what?”
Ignoring me, she asked, “Why do you want to know about my son?”
“You seem to already know the answer to that.”
“My son was twenty-seven when he killed himself. Larry Wilkes’ trial was the biggest thing that ever happened to him.”
