he’d be dealing with
moral parameters
?
He’d ended up with much more than booze.
Roger, the engineer. If the name was false, the same could apply to the occupation. Ditto a flight from Texas.
Was anything he told her true? Who’d been played?
But she remembered his shock at seeing her in her office, no one could act that well. So the part about having a problem was likely valid. And the fact that he’d been spurred by the Jane X article clarified the problem: a criminally dangerous murderous relative.
Moral parameters…not a blast from the past, something ongoing. A tortured, internal debate about whether or not to go public.
And now he was dead.
Just to make sure he hadn’t learned about her some other way, Grace did something she found abhorrent: Googled herself. All that came up were academic citations, not a single image, lending credence to at least part of Andrew’s story.
She thought about the geography of his last living day.
Drinks in B.H., therapy in West Hollywood.
Death downtown. For as long as Grace could recall, the district underwent development that seemed to end up overly optimistic. Despite Staples Center, converted lofts, yuppie condos, and bars, huge swaths of downtown L.A. remained bleak and dangerous as soon as rush hour ended and the streets were commandeered by armies of homeless schizophrenics, criminal illegals, addicts, dealers, and the like.
Had Andrew, new to the city, simply wandered into the wrong area and come up against a psychotic obeying a command hallucination?
Pitiful, dingy way to die.
Or did his murder indeed relate to his moral quest, best intentions and all?
An eddy of curiosity whipped up in Grace’s gut, displacing some of her anxiety.
If Henke made good on that one-hour prediction, fifty-one minutes remained before Grace met her first homicide detective.
Meanwhile…a bracing walk around the neighborhood would kill some time but she felt oddly disinclined to move. She tried catching up on journal articles but couldn’t focus.
Andrew Toner.
Something about the name bothered her but she couldn’t figure out what until her eyes drifted to her date book. The notation she’d made regarding his appointment, followed by the phone number he’d given her exchange.
A. Toner. Viewed as a collection of letters, the answer was obvious.
Atoner.
A man seeking expiation.
What Detective Elaine Henke would consider a clue.
Grace decided not to mention it to Henke. She’d come across weirdly over-involved, turn herself into a person of greater interest.
Atoner.
What was your sin, Andrew? Or have you taken on someone else’s iniquity?
Given what we did in the parking lot, do I really want to know?
Ignorance could truly be bliss. But she called the number he’d left, anyway.
Not in service.
B y the time Grace’s meager belongings were packed in Wayne the caseworker’s car, the sun was sinking and graying the Valley, making everything look heavy, almost liquid.
He started up the engine and looked back at her. “You okay?”
Grace nodded.
“Can’t hear you, kid.”
“M’okay.”
When Grace got moved from foster to foster, the trip was usually short—bounces from one small nondescript house to another. This time Wayne got on the freeway and drove for a long time.
Grace hoped that didn’t mean a big change, some sort of special place. All she wanted was people feeding her and leaving her alone so she could think and read and imagine.
She was still hoping for all that when Wayne got off the freeway and she read the exit sign and a pain started high up in her belly. It had been a long time but the sign shone through the enveloping darkness and she remembered: The few times Dodie or Ardis had taken her out of the single-wide, this was the way they’d come back home.
She cracked her window, let in dust and heat and diesel fuel. The sun was gone now but you could still see things and they pricked her memory, too: The fringy tops of those wrinkled
moral parameters
?
He’d ended up with much more than booze.
Roger, the engineer. If the name was false, the same could apply to the occupation. Ditto a flight from Texas.
Was anything he told her true? Who’d been played?
But she remembered his shock at seeing her in her office, no one could act that well. So the part about having a problem was likely valid. And the fact that he’d been spurred by the Jane X article clarified the problem: a criminally dangerous murderous relative.
Moral parameters…not a blast from the past, something ongoing. A tortured, internal debate about whether or not to go public.
And now he was dead.
Just to make sure he hadn’t learned about her some other way, Grace did something she found abhorrent: Googled herself. All that came up were academic citations, not a single image, lending credence to at least part of Andrew’s story.
She thought about the geography of his last living day.
Drinks in B.H., therapy in West Hollywood.
Death downtown. For as long as Grace could recall, the district underwent development that seemed to end up overly optimistic. Despite Staples Center, converted lofts, yuppie condos, and bars, huge swaths of downtown L.A. remained bleak and dangerous as soon as rush hour ended and the streets were commandeered by armies of homeless schizophrenics, criminal illegals, addicts, dealers, and the like.
Had Andrew, new to the city, simply wandered into the wrong area and come up against a psychotic obeying a command hallucination?
Pitiful, dingy way to die.
Or did his murder indeed relate to his moral quest, best intentions and all?
An eddy of curiosity whipped up in Grace’s gut, displacing some of her anxiety.
If Henke made good on that one-hour prediction, fifty-one minutes remained before Grace met her first homicide detective.
Meanwhile…a bracing walk around the neighborhood would kill some time but she felt oddly disinclined to move. She tried catching up on journal articles but couldn’t focus.
Andrew Toner.
Something about the name bothered her but she couldn’t figure out what until her eyes drifted to her date book. The notation she’d made regarding his appointment, followed by the phone number he’d given her exchange.
A. Toner. Viewed as a collection of letters, the answer was obvious.
Atoner.
A man seeking expiation.
What Detective Elaine Henke would consider a clue.
Grace decided not to mention it to Henke. She’d come across weirdly over-involved, turn herself into a person of greater interest.
Atoner.
What was your sin, Andrew? Or have you taken on someone else’s iniquity?
Given what we did in the parking lot, do I really want to know?
Ignorance could truly be bliss. But she called the number he’d left, anyway.
Not in service.
B y the time Grace’s meager belongings were packed in Wayne the caseworker’s car, the sun was sinking and graying the Valley, making everything look heavy, almost liquid.
He started up the engine and looked back at her. “You okay?”
Grace nodded.
“Can’t hear you, kid.”
“M’okay.”
When Grace got moved from foster to foster, the trip was usually short—bounces from one small nondescript house to another. This time Wayne got on the freeway and drove for a long time.
Grace hoped that didn’t mean a big change, some sort of special place. All she wanted was people feeding her and leaving her alone so she could think and read and imagine.
She was still hoping for all that when Wayne got off the freeway and she read the exit sign and a pain started high up in her belly. It had been a long time but the sign shone through the enveloping darkness and she remembered: The few times Dodie or Ardis had taken her out of the single-wide, this was the way they’d come back home.
She cracked her window, let in dust and heat and diesel fuel. The sun was gone now but you could still see things and they pricked her memory, too: The fringy tops of those wrinkled
Similar Books
