Bannerman's Law by John R. Maxim

Would somebody harm you? If they knew you could speak ?”
    She hesitated. ”I don't know .”
    “ Are you afraid of the Dunvilles? If you are, why don't you leave ?”
    She smiled, sadly. She shook her head.
    “ There are hundreds of places ,” Barbara tol d her. “ You'd be with people your age. You could tal k to them all you want .”
    The glaze returned. It hovered. It did not settle. ”I went on a picnic this morning ,” she said, sitting back in her chair.
    Barbara waited.
    “ Not here. At Malibu. Just girls. Me, Marion and Col leen Moore .” She pointed to another old photograph. An actress with bangs.
    Barbara looked but said nothing.
    “ We gossiped, and laughed, and ate everything we're not allowed .” Nellie smiled at the memory. “ We had horses there. We rode them, bareback, through the waves .”
    “ You went ... in your mind ?”
    The actress shook her head. She touched her fingers to the back of her hand. ”I can still feel the salt .”
    Barbara understood. A little. “ You're saying . . . you were really there .”
    “ Yes .”
    “ You can do that? Go off, be young again, anytime you like ?”
    She nodded slowly. “ You learn. But everything has to be just so. It only works from this chair. And from my bench .” She reached for her sherry and sipped from it. The light flooded back into her eyes. “ Of course ,” she said, smiling, “ it helps to be crackers .”
    Barbara laughed aloud. She clamped a hand over her mouth as the old woman, still smiling, shushed her. She picked up her own glass and, with it, saluted Nellie Da m eon.
    “ Nellie? Why did you say that I'm in more trouble than I know ?”
    he smile faded. “ Is Barbara your real name ?”
    “ It is now .”
    “ Will you tell me who you were before ?”
    ”I want to. But it's better if I don't .”
    “ You don't seem . . .” She stopped ^ herself.
    ”A bad person? I hope not. I like to think not .”
    Nellie wet her lips, deciding whether to speak. “ Some never leave ,” she said at last.
    Barbara stared. “ Why would that be ?”
    “ They break rules .”
    Tuesday morning. Los Angeles.
    “ Get off here ,” Ca rl a Benedict pointed. “ Go east on Slauson .”
    They were traveling southbound on the Harbor Free way. Minutes earlier, they had passed the University of Southern California campu s on their right, then the Los Angeles Coliseum.
    Molly Fa rr ell followed her directions, turning at last onto Alameda Street in the section called Huntington Park. There was nothing pa r kl i ke about it, she thought. Not a good neighborhood at all. Seedy apartment buildings, most of them two or three stories, gratings over store fronts, the residents mostly black or Hispanic.
    Carla pointed toward a row of apartments, wood frame, white, probably built just after World War n , in need of paint. Molly pulled up at the curb. Carla took a long breath, held it, then stepped from the car.
    Lisa's apartment was on the far end , second floor, reached by an outside stairway. Two keys opened the two locks of the door. The hinges squeaked. Molly had half- expected some sort of police notice to be taped to it, seal ing the apartment while the investigation proceeded, but there was nothing. She would have assumed that the police had been there, and a few reporters as well. Apparently they had not.
    The apartment consisted of one good-size living room, a small bedroom, and a tiny bath. The living room had a kitchen at one end. Someone, long before Lisa, had removed the partition between kitchen and living room to give it a loft effect. Sparse furnishings made it seem larger than it was. It had a pullout couch. Ca rl a had probably slept on it when she visited. There were framed posters on the walls, one Italian, one French, and a number of artifacts that were obviously European, probably sent by Carla over the years. Carla moved through the room, slowly, touching things.
    Molly said nothing, reluctant to intrude, as she watched Carla' s