The 3rd Woman

Chapter 9

‘This is all about the sister, right?’

‘Give me a break, Barbara.’ They were at police HQ, round the back by the fire escape – the only area now allowed to smokers, a category that included Barbara Miller, and reliably the best place to catch her.

‘I don’t mind, Jeff. Just admit it. You want me to give you details of a sensitive police investigation so that you can share them with the sister of the deceased who you just so happen to have a hard-on for.’

Detective Jeff Howe smiled in appalled disbelief. ‘You’re unbelievable, Barbara, you really are. Just help me out here. The family is distraught.’

‘I don’t blame them, honey. That’s quite a scene they found in there.’

Jeff eyed her carefully. Though three years younger than him, she had always acted the older. An African-American who had come up the hard way, she spoke with a shrug in her voice as if she had seen it all before. No armed robbery, no drugs bust and only the rarest homicide ever struck her as a surprise. A father who stayed with his kids, a man who didn’t whack his woman around the head when drunk or high, now that was a novelty.

‘What’s that supposed to mean, Barbara?

She let out a jet of smoke. ‘Pretty girl on her back. Nothing taken, nothing broken. That’s what I mean.’

‘For Christ’s sake, we’re not back on this, are we? She had heavy bruises on her neck and on her temples. The lock was damaged because someone had forced their way in.’

‘Because? Because? That new partner of yours rotting your brain, sweetheart? You need to go back to detective school, my friend, if you’re coming out with that shit. We can say the lock was damaged. We can say that suggests someone forced their way in. We don’t get to because just because we want to. No way.’

‘All right. So why don’t you tell me what explains those marks on the door frame?’

‘Could be anything, you know that as well as I do. Could be a domestic. Could be an ex-boyfriend, trying to bust his way back in. Could even …’ She didn’t complete the sentence.

‘Could even what, Barbara?’

‘She could even have done it herself. On her way in.’

‘What, Abigail?’

‘Say she was wasted from wherever she’d just been, all right? Maybe she couldn’t find her key, pushes at the door a little bit, gives it a shove.’

‘You think she was high before she even got home?’

‘Look, I don’t know, Jefferson. That’s my point. We don’t know what happened here. You especially. Which is exactly how it should be. This is not your case, remember.’

‘OK. Just tell me, do you accept this is a homicide?’

‘Yes, I do.’

‘OK. So why are you still hinting this is some kind of sex thing? We know for a fact there was no penetration, no sign of sexual contact at all.’

‘OK. But that just makes the “forced entry” scenario a little harder to explain, don’t you think? How many cases d’you know where a stranger busts into the apartment of some gorgeous girl and doesn’t lay a finger on her? Not many, right? Look, all I’m saying is I’m not sure you know what some of these white girls get up to. I thought, since your divorce and all, you might be out there a bit more, if you know what I mean. But let me enlighten you. There’s a whole scene, darling. What’s that word for them everyone keeps using? Baimufei?’

‘Baifumei. But Abigail wasn’t like that. She wasn’t some pampered rich girl. She taught elementary school. They grew up in Beverlywood.’

‘Yeah and Zong Qinghou grew up on a salt farm.’

‘Meaning?’

‘Meaning, people change.’

Jeff kicked at a loose cigarette butt and then pulled himself up to full height, to signal a change in direction. ‘All right. We’re not going to agree. It doesn’t matter what I say anyway, because, as you say, this is not my investigation.’

‘See. It’s not true we don’t agree. We agree on that.’

‘OK, OK. Forget me. Take me out of it. A young woman is dead here. She left a family behind who have no idea how it happened. We owe it to them to find out who did this.’

‘That’s my job, sweetheart. You don’t need to tell me that. Besides, I’m getting all the pressure I need already.’

‘How do you mean?’

‘Sutcliffe says this is a “priority”.’

‘And where’s he getting that from, do you think?’

‘I don’t need to think. I know. He told me.’ She used the index finger of her smoking hand to point upward.

‘The Chief of Police?’

‘Uh-huh.’ She took one last, extra-long drag on the cigarette.

‘What’d he say?’

‘Just that Jarrett wants results. Doesn’t want to let this case fester.’

Jeff looked through the chicken-wire fence that cordoned off this unofficial yard. The question formulated itself in his mind, though he did not say it aloud: Why would he care? ‘So what have you got to go on?’

‘Come now, Jefferson love. I told you: we can’t talk about this one.’

‘I know, I know. What I meant was – and then I’ll leave you alone, I promise – perhaps I can help. Maybe there’s some open cases I can look at, make a connection. Remember Menendez?’

‘Oh no you don’t, Jeff.’ Her expression suddenly hardened. ‘Don’t you dare start doing that.’

‘I just mean, there may be some useful—’

‘I’m serious, Jeff. Don’t go wading into what you don’t understand. This case is being handled in a particular way which, trust me, you really don’t want to mess up.’

He fixed his gaze on Barbara. ‘What kind of “particular way”?’

‘Don’t try that. I’ve already said way too much. Especially to you.’

‘Especially to me? Why would you not—’

‘I’ll give you a clue. Hard-on.’

‘Madison?’

‘Madison Webb of the LA Times. Yes.’

‘She’s the sister of the victim.’

‘Who also happens to be a reporter and the object of the most notorious infatuation in the history of the LAPD. Everyone knows you want to get up close and personal with that girl, Jeff. The dogs on the street know that. So do me a favour. Butt out.’ She forced her features to relax, to project nonchalance. ‘Besides, we don’t need your help, thank you very much. Steve and I can handle this one all by our pretty little selves. Don’t think he doesn’t want to kick your ass.’

‘Who, Steve?’

‘You’re not the only one with ambition around here, honey.’

‘Of course,’ said Jeff, nodding his comprehension. The new man always needs to prove himself, to get a win.

‘Gotta show that he’s just as good as you. I want that too, I don’t mind telling you. Don’t want people thinking, she can’t solve a case unless she got that skinny white boy with her.’ She gave him a punch on the shoulder, her first friendly gesture.

‘All right.’ Jeff attempted a smile. But he could see that, for all the banter, the panic in his former partner’s eyes had not gone. For the first time since he had known her, he knew Barbara Miller was hiding something.

Chapter 10

She was driving south on the 5 when she realized she didn’t know what day it was. She had been in such a blur since that phone call, she had lost track of time. For most insomniacs that sensation, at least, was not so unusual. When you have no nights, it can be hard to keep a grip on the days.

But in LA, as she had learned through direct experience, it could be costly. Get caught driving on, say, a Thursday in a No Thursday vehicle and you’d get more than a lecture about smog and pollution from the Highway Patrol. They could revoke your licence on the spot. You had the right to appeal, but while you did you were off the road. Appealing was all but pointless anyway. There was no case you could make, short of a life-and-death medical emergency – and even then the court would ask why you didn’t get a taxi or hitch a ride. Keeping the smog out of southern California was a state priority. Everyone mocked it, but the slogan that launched the scheme was now engraved into the Californian collective memory. School kids could sing the jingle even now: Everyone can drive sometime when no one drives always.

She had to work her way back to getting kicked out of the sweatshop, reconstructing the sequence event by dreadful event, before she realized with relief that today was still Monday. It was late afternoon and, as it happened, smoggy. The driving restrictions had succeeded in making people mad but not, it seemed, much else. For days on end, the city would still be wreathed in thick white cloud. At dawn, it could look like a morning mist. Except it would refuse to disperse or burn off as the sun came up. Instead it would linger, squatting there in the bowl of the city, refusing to budge, sometimes so dense you could stand on one side of the road unable to see what was on the other. Some blamed the slashing of the old clean air standards, shredded years ago in the name of maintaining America’s competitiveness. The US authorities said the responsibility lay with ‘Asia’, insisting that the smog came in on springtime winds from the east. On the street, less fastidiously, people blamed China.

It didn’t smell, but it played havoc on your lungs. These days even Maddy had a smog mask, though she kept it tucked away in the glove compartment.

The phone rang, its sound quickly transferred to the speakers. She glanced down to check the caller ID, but the phone was in her bag. She took a second, weighing the chance of dodging a call from a sympathetic friend against the risk of missing Jeff or one of his police colleagues bringing new information, before deciding the latter was too great. She pressed the button.

‘Hi there, is that Madison?’ The voice young, chirpy. Valley.

‘Who’s calling?’ Maddy said, wary and driving slower now, peering through the oncoming smog, the headlights on even in the afternoon.

‘Hi, I’m from the Los Angeles Times? We haven’t met?’

‘Hi.’

‘I just want to say how sorry we all are about your loss? Everyone here sends condolences?’

‘OK.’

‘We’re just trying to put together something about Abigail for Metro …’

A surge of irritation passed through Maddy, the first cause being that ‘Abigail’. Don’t you dare speak about her as if you knew her, as if she were your friend.

‘… you know, just some details, maybe an anecdote about what she was like.’

It took a second or two for Maddy to process what she had just heard. Then she said, ‘Are you seriously trying to interview me about my sister? Is that why you’re calling?’

‘Well, it’s not … I wouldn’t call it an interview, just maybe something you’d like to …’ The reporter at the other end of the line suddenly sounded very young.

‘Who put you up to this?’

‘Put me up to … I’m sorry, I don’t understand?’

‘Who told you to call me?’

There was another pause and then: ‘The news editor. Howard? He thought it’d be OK to call you? I’m really sorry, is this a bad time?’

‘You’re damn right it’s a bad time. And you can tell Howard Burke that next time he wants to know about my family he can damn well have the balls to call me himself.’

‘I’m sorry, I just …’

Maddy could hear the nervousness in the woman’s voice. Suddenly she felt a jolt of familiarity. It used to be her on the end of that phone. She had done it a dozen or more times, especially when she first started out on the police beat. Calling the victim’s family, perhaps the most gruesome part of the job, harder even than seeing the body – and Howard had made her do it. After the first or second time, he hadn’t needed to ask. It became routine. She was more adept at it than this one; she knew not to sound perky, not to sound like a girl who had just spotted a bargain at the mall. She had a bereavement voice, which breathed sincerity. But now, sitting alone in her car, on a smog-bound, jammed freeway, she was not sure that put her on any kind of higher moral plane. In fact she knew it didn’t. She was just better at it.

She apologized to the woman and promised to text her a line or two later.

Forty minutes later and she was at the house – or as near to it as she could get. There was no room to park: both sides of the road were filled. She checked the note she made, to be sure she was in the right place. But there was no mistake.

There was a small crowd by the front door which, as she got nearer, she could see was an overspill from inside. She slowed down, making an instant assessment of the people there: poor, but dressed in their most formal clothes. It was the mud she spotted on two pairs of dark leather shoes that settled it. Rosario Padilla had died nearly three weeks ago. In homicide cases it often took that long to release the body from the morgue and return it to the family. These people must have just come from the funeral.

She nudged and excused-me’d her way in, working herself up the steps onto the porch and through the screen-door into the house. Once in, she heard the hush. Someone was making a speech. She stood behind a knot of middle-aged Latinas, all nodding as they listened. Before them, next to a mantelpiece covered in family photographs, was a man she guessed was her own age. Dark and in a suit that seemed too small for him, he was speaking with great intensity.

‘And her faith was important to her. My aunts will tell you, Rosario was the one who actually wanted to go to church.’ The women in front of Maddy turned to smile at one another at that. ‘I hope that faith is a comfort to her now. Because I’ll be honest with you, and I didn’t want to say this there, at the cemetery. But I’m finding it hard to believe right now.’ His voice choked, a show of weakness that made him shake his head. An older man placed his hand on his shoulder.

Maddy had seen plenty of moments like this: a father comforting the brother of the deceased, the extended family wiping away their own tears. It was familiar to her, yet it struck her with new force. Soon she would not be watching this scene, from the back. She would be there, at the front: she, Quincy and her mother, the mourners. Quincy would doubtless demand one of them do what this man was doing right now: deliver a eulogy at the wake, offering a few words about the life of Abigail. She realized her eyes were stinging, but the tears did not come.

He stopped speaking now, held in a long, silent embrace by his father. The mother was hugging the aunts who were hugging her back. The rest were shuffling on the spot, uncertain where to put themselves, waiting for a moment to speak to the family.

Maddy held back, examining more of the photographs on the walls, trying to work out how each of those she could see here related to each other. Eventually she found herself next to the brother. She extended a hand.

He took it, showing her a puzzled brow. ‘Are you one of Rosario’s friends?’

‘No, I’m not. Though I wish I was. She sounds like a great person.’

‘She was.’

‘I’m here because I lost my sister too.’

‘OK. Um, I’m sorry.’

‘It just happened actually. In quite similar circumstances to Rosar—’ She stopped herself. ‘To your sister. Is there somewhere we can talk?’

He led her first into the kitchen, but that was packed even more tightly than the living room. The hallways were jammed too. Finally, he ushered her out back, into a tiny concrete yard. There was no option but to stand close together, their faces near. He introduced himself as Mario Padilla. She said her name was Madison Webb.

‘Hold on a second, I know that name.’ He checked his phone, scrolling down, as if looking for something.

‘Is there something wrong?’

‘Here we are. I knew I’d seen that name. You’re a reporter, right?’

Her answer sounded like an admission of guilt. ‘Right.’

‘You wrote that thing about the sweatshops. I saw that. That was good. Those guys need to be exposed.’

‘Thank you.’

‘But I’m confused. According to this,’ he held up the phone, ‘your sister died last night.’

‘Yes.’

‘And you’re here? At my house? Shouldn’t you be with your family or something?’ Seeing Maddy’s face fall, he rowed back. ‘I’m sorry, I don’t mean to judge you. But this is hard. You need to give yourself time.’

She wanted to say that there was no time, that the golden hour had already passed, that that had been his mistake: he had waited till it was too late and now he was hurtling down the dead-end of a lawsuit against the coroner. She even felt an unfamiliar urge to tell him that there was no family to speak of, just Quincy and a mother who … But she would say none of these things. Instead all she managed was, ‘I know I do. But I also want to know what happened.’

‘And you think talking to me might help?’

‘It might. I know you think the coroner got it wrong, that your sister did not kill … did not die by accident.’

‘There’s no way. A heroin overdose? Rosie? That’s just crazy.’

‘How can you be so sure?’

‘Because Rosie lived in this house, same as me. I saw her come home every evening and leave for work in the morning.’

‘What work did she do?’

‘Catering company. In accounts. Good job, but didn’t pay so great. I told that to the police. Smack costs. It’s expensive. If they think she was some kind of addict, how do they think she was paying for it?’

‘What did they say?’

‘They didn’t give me a straight answer, because there is no straight answer except “We got it wrong, she wasn’t on drugs.” Tried to tell me addicts get very good at deceiving people, even their loved ones.’

‘Especially their loved ones.’

‘That’s right! That’s exactly what they said! They say that to you too?’

‘Not this time. But I’ve heard it often.’ When he gave her a quizzical look she explained as concisely as she could, as if it were a mere aside, that she used to cover crime. Then, ‘And you don’t buy it?’

‘Course I don’t. We know our own family, I bet you’re the same as me. You can’t keep nothing secret in a family.’

There was so much Maddy could say to that, but she wouldn’t have known where to start. Instead she said, ‘Was there anything else that didn’t fit? In your lawsuit against the coroner, what’s the case you’re going to make?’

‘We’ve got letters from doctors and all that, saying she was healthy. She’d had an exam like a month before: no sign of any of that shit. So we’re going to say that. But the main thing is the arm.’

‘The arm?’

‘Rosario was found with a needle hole in her right arm.’ He tapped the crook of his right elbow to show where. ‘Now, I’ve never injected myself with anything. But I’m guessing this is how you do it, right?’ He mimed the action of pushing the plunger of a syringe into his arm.

‘Right,’ Maddy said, with a glimmer of what was coming next.

‘I’m using my left hand. That’s the only way I can do it. I can’t be doing this,’ and now he mimed administering an injection into his right arm with his right hand, his wrist forced into an impossible contortion. ‘If the hole is in the right arm, then it has to be done with the left hand. Ain’t no other way.’

‘OK.’

‘But why would you do that? It’s much easier for me to inject into my left arm.’ He mimed that, to show her how much easier. ‘That’s what anybody would do.’

‘Unless they were left-handed.’

‘Exactly. Unless they were left-handed. Which Rosario was not. Same as me, same as everyone except my dad. We’re all right-handed.’

‘And you said this to the police?’

‘Course. But they gave me the same bullshit. “Addicts will inject wherever they can inject.”’

Maddy nodded, taking in what she had heard. ‘So a healthy woman, with no history of drug use, is found dead with a single needle mark in her right arm and a massive dose of heroin in her system.’

‘That’s it.’ He looked back into the house, at the crowd filling the corridor. ‘Same with you?’

‘Same with me. Although, as it happens, my sister was left-handed. So theoretically …’

‘And is that what the police are saying to you? They saying she did that to herself?’

‘Not quite. And where was your sister found?’ This was the more polite version of the question she really wanted to ask: in what state was your sister found?

‘That’s what’s so crazy about this. She was in the hallway. Just there.’ He pointed towards the front door. ‘Just kind of stretched out. On her back. Arms at her side.’

‘And this was late at night?’

‘Nearly one in the morning. More than two weeks ago. She’d been out.’ Madison remembered the police estimate of Abigail’s time of death: shortly after one am. Abigail too had been out.

‘And do you have any idea why she would be in the hall?’

‘No I don’t. Even if you think my sister was some kind of junkie, which she was not, she’s waited this whole time to get home. Why wouldn’t she wait the extra two or three seconds it would take to get to her room? Or even the bathroom? The only reason it’d be out here, is someone followed her home, followed her into the house, did this thing to her – and that someone didn’t want to get caught.’

Maddy paused, looked back towards the front door, as if taking in what Mario had just said. ‘And did she look as if she had been … hurt in any way?’

‘That’s it, you see. Police said there was “no sign of a struggle”. Couple of scratches here and there, but they said she could have got those anywhere.’

Maddy girded herself for what she was about to ask. ‘Did the police suspect anything else had happened to your sister?’ She let the question hang in the air, the weight on the words ‘anything else’.

His head sunk onto his chest. ‘No. I’m grateful for that. No.’ He looked up, his eyes conveying a question.

‘No,’ Maddy replied. ‘Nothing like that either … All right,’ she said finally. ‘Thank you for telling me all this. It sounds like we’ve suffered something very similar.’