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The phone was ringing off the hook. When she saw me, Karen put the latest call on hold, set the receiver down, and frowned at me.
“What’s going on?” I asked.
“Edwin planted a story in theL.A. Timesabout the three alleged rapists getting out of prison.
“Ah.” I nodded sympathetically. It came out this morning?”
She nodded. Then she hit the hold button, and said, “I’m sorry, Lydia’s not available at the moment. I suggest you call Edwin Karpinski’s office.”
Then she clicked off.
To me she said, “I have something on Bernard Carrier. He’s in a home called Cardinal Convalescent. He’s been there for more than a decade. I haven’t been able to establish what happened to him, but he’s in a ‘post-traumatic confusional state’.”
“How did you find that out?”
“I called and pretended to be with Medicare. I said I needed more information for billing purposes.” She picked up the ringing phone, and said, “Hold please.”
“Good job.”
“Mr. Carrier is barely able to speak and has trouble identifying people. Even people he’s known a long time.”
“Yes, his wife said he thought she was his granddaughter.”
With a frown she asked, “You’ve met his wife?”
“Last night. She called me.”
“She called you?”
“I left my number at the high school.”
She raised an eyebrow, and asked, “Downey High where Bernard Carrier worked until nineteen seventy-eight when he married Samantha Blanchard age seventeen?”
“Yup. That high school.”
“I feel like I wasted my time.”
“Oh, no. You’re confirming everything Sammy said to me.”
“Is this your pet project?” Lydia asked coming around the corner.
“It is.”
“Any progress?”
I nodded. “Pete Michaels attempted to blackmail his tennis coach and was killed because of it.”
“So we’re certain Larry Wilkes is innocent,” she said, sounding unhappy about it.
“We are.Iam.”
“Did you get a confession?”
“Bernie Carrier has a traumatic brain injury.”
“Post-traumatic confusional state,” Karen added.
“So that’s a no.”
