Breakdown, p.6
Breakdown, page 6
“Isn’t that your job?”
I walked past her.
“That’s it?” she called out.
“What more could there be?” I said.
“If you know of other patients who’d fit well with our program, you should tell them.”
—
I sat in the Seville, phoned the U.’s medical center, and asked for Dr. Nehru. The operator said, “We have three. Which one?”
“Psychiatry.”
“Hold, please.” Gypsy guitar music came on. “That’s Dr. Mohan Nehru. Would you like the number?”
I got Psychiatry Department voicemail, returned to the main exchange, and asked a new operator to page Nehru.
“If you’re a patient, there’s a message line—”
“I’m a colleague. Dr. Alex Delaware. It’s about a mutual patient.”
“Hold, please…yes, you’re on our list…Alexander…oh, you’re crosstown but…okay, looks like you’ve still got privileges here, one moment.”
Two nuevo flamenco instrumentals later: “He’s listed as here today but he’s not answering his page.”
“What specific service is he on?”
“We don’t have that level of information.”
—
The drive to Westwood was on my way home. I turned onto campus at the main southern entrance and made a left at the medical office complex. The health center spans both sides of the street. Bustling, today, like the mini-city it was.
Ravenswood Psychiatric Hospital was one of the newest, prettiest buildings in the complex, a six-story art-piece in limestone and copper endowed by and named after an industrialist whose child died from complications of anorexia. I parked using my faculty permit, clipped on my Western Peds badge, took the elevator to the fifth floor, and pushed the red button on the locked door of Adult Inpatient Psychiatric Services.
The med center has nearly a thousand beds, eighty of which are allotted to Ravenswood. Of those, twenty are pediatric, ten are for Alzheimer’s patients who agree to be researched in return for hope, and thirty-five are devoted to the U.’s rehab program for adolescent eating disorders, a service that brings in huge money.
That leaves fifteen beds for general psychiatric care, divided into an eight-bed voluntary ward for patients not much different from the rehabbers next door, and seven beds for 5150 commitments.
No surprise that Zelda had arrived when the place was full. LACBAR didn’t amount to much but if it hadn’t existed, she’d probably have been sent crosstown to a county-run human zoo with its own issues.
So maybe things had worked out for the best.
If I could do my best to find her somewhere to live tomorrow.
Get her settled and more coherent and willing to tell me where her son was.
Five years ago, she’d been a troubled but devoted mother. Shortly after that she’d lost her career and gone who-knew-where. One positive: Lou Sherman had stuck with her, maybe even after she’d lost her insurance. Not transferring her until he knew he was seriously ill.
But he hadn’t called me…
No one had shown up at the locked door so I pressed again. Several moments passed before a young nurse studied me through Lexan panels and buzzed herself out.
“Can I help you?”
“I’m looking for Dr. Nehru.”
She scanned my badge. “Mike’s in the cafeteria, Doctor.”
“Thanks. Were you on last night?”
“I wasn’t. Why?”
“I just saw a patient who arrived here as a 5150 and got sent to a place over in mid-city. Dr. Nehru authorized it and I’m trying to get hold of the chart, see if he can offer any clinical advice.”
“There’s a hospital in mid-city?”
“Not exactly,” I said. “It’s a community mental health center with a limited inpatient facility.”
“Oh. Well, Mike’s eating lunch.”
—
The cafeteria was crowded with hordes of white-coated and scrub-suited people hoping for nutrition. Plenty of Indian males, at least two dozen.
Step one: Concentrate on doctors.
Step two: Focus on younger men, given Mohan “Mike” Nehru’s status as a resident.
That left five possibilities. I got myself a cup of coffee and began walking by each of them, trying not to be obtrusive as I read their badges.
M. M. Nehru, M.D., was my second target, a smooth-faced, clean-shaven man around thirty, sitting by himself, eating a huge burrito and sipping from a can of Coke as he played with his phone.
I settled across from him. He took a while to realize I was there. Just like Doyle-Maslow with her movie. Cyber-play does that, everyone on digital delay.
Finally, he looked up and I told him why I was there. He scanned my badge. “Sure, I remember her. The one we referred out. How’s she doing?”
“She’s mostly sleeping. Do you have time to chat?”
“Sure.” He pushed his burrito away.
“Don’t let me interrupt your meal.”
“I’m finished and it’s pretty much crap, anyway. So you’re with that administrator—Kirsten, whoever? The one with the big-time NIMH funds?”
“Not exactly.” I explained my original connection to Zelda Chase via Lou Sherman, how I’d ended up at LACBAR.
He said, “So she worked on you, too. I knew Dr. Sherman, had him in med school, good teacher. When I saw his name in the chart I said, ‘Too bad he’s not around anymore.’ He died, right?”
“Two years ago.”
“Yeah. I think I heard that.”
“Any way for me to see his notes?”
“We can go upstairs and get a copy but don’t expect too much. Basically, he transferred her with no treatment notes except for the meds regimen he had her on.”
“What’s that?”
“He started her on Haldol, upped the dosage a couple of times, then switched after a year to Ativan, so that’s what I went with. I gave her a serious dose before sending her off, figuring she’d probably habituated and would need it to stay calm during transport.”
He looked at me. “That work out okay?”
“No problems on the trip and she’s sleeping peacefully.”
“Okay, good, so what’s your plan?”
“Don’t have one,” I said. “She’ll be discharged tomorrow and so far she’s done nothing to justify another 5150.”
“So she gets kicked to the curb. Same old story.”
“Why was she committed in the first place?”
“Good question,” said Mike Nehru. “It’s not like she was waving a gun at anyone. What the cops said is she created a disturbance in someone’s backyard and when they came to get her she freaked out and the cops felt threatened, quote unquote—pretty wimpy, no? Like one of those spoiled-ass college students, everything’s a trigger. They said they wouldn’t press criminal charges if we cooled her off so I figured I was doing her a favor and we did have a bed, which isn’t always the case.”
He drank soda. “What’s the place like where she is now?”
I described LACBAR.
Mike Nehru said, “What a bullshit artist. She made it sound as if they were well established.”
“She’s self-serving but the room isn’t bad for what it is and there’s a full-time nurse assigned to her who knows what he’s doing.”
“So it worked out,” said Nehru. “But if she asks me again I’ll tell her where to shove it.”
“Nothing like an anatomy lesson.”
He grinned. Turned serious. “So after three p.m. tomorrow, she’s gone and unprotected. Wish I could say I’m surprised. I’m in my last year, thinking of getting an MBA or an MPH and working as a consultant, maybe doing some public policy work.”
I said, “Better the hammer than the nail?”
“Better something that actually has efficacy.” He tried another bite of burrito, grimaced and pushed it farther away. A couple of other residents passed by, bleary-eyed; Nehru’s eyes were getting there. “I didn’t become a physician to be a jailer but let’s face it, some people need protection from themselves. The night Ms. Chase came in was hectic, patients I’d already admitted were acting out, and then what’s-her-name comes to me and says she’s got a solution and shows me all these letters from NIMH. The facilities really are okay?”
“For a couple of days under proper supervision.”
“One patient in a skeleton facility. Weird,” said Mike Nehru. “So should we go get that chart?”
—
As he searched his office computer, I said, “When Dr. Sherman began seeing Zelda, he wasn’t clear about her diagnosis. Did his notes clarify that?”
“Nope, but given the meds I figured he was concentrating on anxiety rather than bipolar…okay, here it is, let me print.”
A single sheet slid out of his printer. Zelda’s name, no phone number, just an address long outdated, plus the fact that she had an eight-year-old child once evaluated by me. The final sentence a legalistic-sounding statement that he could no longer assume medical responsibility for the patient and hoped she’d follow through on his advice to enter treatment with someone at the U. Including resumption of her medication. Haldol replaced by Ativan.
Resumption meant she’d stopped, probably against his advice. His mention of the first drug made me wonder if he thought she might need it again.
Sometimes Haldol’s the drug of choice when extreme confusion looms.
No sign she’d ever followed through on his advice. The only reason she’d ended up at the U. was proximity to Bel Air.
Mike Nehru said, “That address, Sunset Boulevard, Beverly Hills. Those houses are huge and she sure doesn’t look like she’s got dough.”
I said, “The Beverly Hills Hotel. She was living in a bungalow there.”
“You’re kidding. So once upon a time she was rich. Amazing, I thought it was a misprint because she came across homeless.”
“She probably is now. How was she identified?”
“The cops I.D.’d her by her fingerprints and gave us her name. Once we had it, we looked through our records and found the report.”
“Her son’s mentioned. Did she say anything about him?”
“Nope, she just screamed at being restrained. Like they all do. Then I got the Ativan in her and she quieted down. But some of the others didn’t. It was some night.”
CHAPTER
8
Back home, I beelined for my office, found my notes on Ovid, got the name of his preschool and his teacher—Jeanette Robaire—and called.
She still worked there and I was lucky to catch her on break. She had no idea who I was but her voice took on warmth when I said I’d been Ovid Chase’s psychologist.
“Ovid. Sure I remember him—the bright ones stay with you. Why would you call me now?”
“I’m looking for him.” I gave her the basics, describing Zelda as having emotional problems I couldn’t go into.
She said, “Problems. I guess that doesn’t shock me, Dr. Delaware. She only came to the school a few times but when I saw her I got the feeling she was trying to be…okay. But it didn’t quite work—if that makes sense?”
“Working too hard at it.”
“And ending up nervous. As if she wasn’t quite sure she’d pulled it off. Someone said she was an actress.”
“She was.”
“Well, her performance with me wasn’t convincing. Not that there was anything threatening about her, just the opposite. Fragile. A beautiful fragile woman. Are you saying they took Ovid away from her? If that’s the case, why would you be looking for him?”
“I don’t know what happened to him other than he’s not with Zelda. And she’s in no condition to tell me.”
“Oh,” said Jeanette Robaire. “That sounds like more than just emotional problems.”
“Shortly after I saw Ovid, Zelda lost her job. Did she keep him in your school for the rest of the year?”
“I’m pretty sure she did. But I can’t tell you what happened when he left us and went to first grade. That’s the thing with my job. You lose contact.”
“Do you feed to any specific schools?”
“Not really. We get kids from all over and they spread out. Private and public. If they have younger sibs who enroll with us, we sometimes get progress reports from parents. Zelda’s problems, are you worried they could’ve led to abuse?”
“There’s no sign of that.”
“No sign,” said Jeanette Robaire. “I wish you just would’ve said, ‘No way.’ ”
—
Next try: HGK Babysitting and Child Care. No phone listing, nothing on the Internet. That was L.A.: no shelf life.
Phoning scores of schools and lying was an unpleasant prospect with no likelihood of paying off. Time to turn to a higher power.
—
Milo was away from his desk at West L.A. substation. I reached him at his cell.
“Hey, Alex.”
“I need your help.”
“That’s a switch. What about?”
“Can we get together?”
“That level of help, huh? I’m free in a couple of hours. My office okay?”
“Perfect.”
No questions asked.
Friend in need.
—
Milo’s situation at LAPD is one of those blips that slides off the screen to everyone’s benefit.
Years ago, he’d cut a deal with a police chief nearing retirement, a smooth, political man with plastic ethics. The barter was simple: Milo’s discretion in exchange for promotion to lieutenant. The rank usually means desk work. Milo got the higher salary and pension allotment and a mandate to keep working murders.
A new chief, autocratic and reflexively hostile, tolerated the arrangement as long as Milo’s solve rate remained nearly perfect.
Different situation from anyone else’s, but it’s always been different for my friend.
Back in his rookie days, homosexual officers were “nonexistent” in the department and Milo’s colleagues were busting heads at gay bars. Self-preservation mandated keeping your private life private and he buttoned himself up in psychosocial exile.
When social norms budged a bit, he kept up the low profile but stopped pretending and soon enough everyone knew. That period was the toughest—the sneers and stares and avoidance, the occasional overt ugliness.
Nowadays, the department has rules against discrimination of any sort and gay officers are on the job. Milo still keeps to himself and I believe it would be that way if he were straight.
Part of the deal with the corrupt chief was getting “creative” work space. The other detectives at West L.A. work out of a big room with lockers and coffee machines, a clamorous environment that bustles with work ethic and frustration and gallows humor.
Milo operates from a windowless former supply closet, a cramped domain behind an unmarked door, set at the end of a utility corridor near interview rooms where people sweat and deny and confess.
Meager square footage for a man who takes up plenty. He’s six two or three, depending on posture, with a gourmand gut and the bulk of a lineman gone sedentary.
Stretch too exuberantly and his knuckles brush the walls.
I’d go nuts working there. He loves it.
—
When I arrived, his door was wide open and he was at his computer, hunting-and-pecking like a studious rhino. Stacks of paper covered his desk, continued onto the floor and the spare chair. Without turning, he swiped at the chair, snowed the linoleum with paper.
I sat down. “New case?”
His fingers stopped moving. “Nah, professional development seminar. Aka knee-deep in cow-slop.” He resumed typing. Paused again. “Since eight a.m., I’ve been at a management seminar for department honchos, of which I am apparently one.”
“Congratulations.”
“Oh, yeah, I’m touched. And I blame the effect your colleagues have had on society.”
“Pyschobabble?”
“Hours of interpersonal whoopy doo and sensitivity blah blah blah. They even sent a social worker to tell us we were good human beings despite our aggressive tendencies. When she broke us up into small groups, I split. But I still have to finish this—open-screen test—to prove I was there.” He frowned. “Would you say empathy’s always necessary for effective management?”
I said, “Hmm.”
“No hmming or I’ll make you do it.”
“If there’s no ‘it depends’ option, I’d go with ‘true.’ ”
He jabbed a key. “Next: Is diversity enriching and facilitative due to cultural changes that have impacted law enforcement in the twenty-first century? Or has it always been advantageous for a well-functioning organization?”
“On that one, I won’t budge from ‘maybe.’ ”
He laughed, hunched lower, began pounding the keys progressively harder. Soon he was causing the board to jump and rattle and there was nothing for me to do but sit there and wait him out.
He looked as he usually does, black hair slicked but rebellious, white sideburns shaggy and mal-trimmed (“let’s hear it for skunk stripes”), the left side a quarter inch longer than the right.
Sadistic fluorescent bulbs called out every crease, pucker, and pock littering the steppes of his heavy face. Today’s fashion statement was a short-sleeved once-white shirt, a blue-and-orange tie that had never known a silkworm, defeated khaki cargo pants, and the usual desert boots, this pair the same muddled gray as the clouds outside the window of Zelda Chase’s cell.
They’re fashionable now. I didn’t have the heart to tell him.
A shiny olive sport coat lay crumpled on the floor. I folded it over my lap and sat there. If either of us exhaled hard, we’d collide.
Clearing the screen, he popped a wheelie with his desk chair, swiveled hard and faced me. Spotting the folded jacket, he said, “Personal valet, I dig it. You also do windows?”
“Help me out and I might.”
Oddly bright green eyes studied me as if we’d just met. When he does that, it’s unsettling, but I’ve gotten used to it.
He said, “Tell me about it.”
He listened without interruption, said, “An actress? Never heard of her…okay, this shouldn’t be too hard.”
Returning to the keyboard, he pulled up a database off-limits to anyone but law enforcement and twelve-year-old hackers. As he typed, he hummed.
I walked past her.
“That’s it?” she called out.
“What more could there be?” I said.
“If you know of other patients who’d fit well with our program, you should tell them.”
—
I sat in the Seville, phoned the U.’s medical center, and asked for Dr. Nehru. The operator said, “We have three. Which one?”
“Psychiatry.”
“Hold, please.” Gypsy guitar music came on. “That’s Dr. Mohan Nehru. Would you like the number?”
I got Psychiatry Department voicemail, returned to the main exchange, and asked a new operator to page Nehru.
“If you’re a patient, there’s a message line—”
“I’m a colleague. Dr. Alex Delaware. It’s about a mutual patient.”
“Hold, please…yes, you’re on our list…Alexander…oh, you’re crosstown but…okay, looks like you’ve still got privileges here, one moment.”
Two nuevo flamenco instrumentals later: “He’s listed as here today but he’s not answering his page.”
“What specific service is he on?”
“We don’t have that level of information.”
—
The drive to Westwood was on my way home. I turned onto campus at the main southern entrance and made a left at the medical office complex. The health center spans both sides of the street. Bustling, today, like the mini-city it was.
Ravenswood Psychiatric Hospital was one of the newest, prettiest buildings in the complex, a six-story art-piece in limestone and copper endowed by and named after an industrialist whose child died from complications of anorexia. I parked using my faculty permit, clipped on my Western Peds badge, took the elevator to the fifth floor, and pushed the red button on the locked door of Adult Inpatient Psychiatric Services.
The med center has nearly a thousand beds, eighty of which are allotted to Ravenswood. Of those, twenty are pediatric, ten are for Alzheimer’s patients who agree to be researched in return for hope, and thirty-five are devoted to the U.’s rehab program for adolescent eating disorders, a service that brings in huge money.
That leaves fifteen beds for general psychiatric care, divided into an eight-bed voluntary ward for patients not much different from the rehabbers next door, and seven beds for 5150 commitments.
No surprise that Zelda had arrived when the place was full. LACBAR didn’t amount to much but if it hadn’t existed, she’d probably have been sent crosstown to a county-run human zoo with its own issues.
So maybe things had worked out for the best.
If I could do my best to find her somewhere to live tomorrow.
Get her settled and more coherent and willing to tell me where her son was.
Five years ago, she’d been a troubled but devoted mother. Shortly after that she’d lost her career and gone who-knew-where. One positive: Lou Sherman had stuck with her, maybe even after she’d lost her insurance. Not transferring her until he knew he was seriously ill.
But he hadn’t called me…
No one had shown up at the locked door so I pressed again. Several moments passed before a young nurse studied me through Lexan panels and buzzed herself out.
“Can I help you?”
“I’m looking for Dr. Nehru.”
She scanned my badge. “Mike’s in the cafeteria, Doctor.”
“Thanks. Were you on last night?”
“I wasn’t. Why?”
“I just saw a patient who arrived here as a 5150 and got sent to a place over in mid-city. Dr. Nehru authorized it and I’m trying to get hold of the chart, see if he can offer any clinical advice.”
“There’s a hospital in mid-city?”
“Not exactly,” I said. “It’s a community mental health center with a limited inpatient facility.”
“Oh. Well, Mike’s eating lunch.”
—
The cafeteria was crowded with hordes of white-coated and scrub-suited people hoping for nutrition. Plenty of Indian males, at least two dozen.
Step one: Concentrate on doctors.
Step two: Focus on younger men, given Mohan “Mike” Nehru’s status as a resident.
That left five possibilities. I got myself a cup of coffee and began walking by each of them, trying not to be obtrusive as I read their badges.
M. M. Nehru, M.D., was my second target, a smooth-faced, clean-shaven man around thirty, sitting by himself, eating a huge burrito and sipping from a can of Coke as he played with his phone.
I settled across from him. He took a while to realize I was there. Just like Doyle-Maslow with her movie. Cyber-play does that, everyone on digital delay.
Finally, he looked up and I told him why I was there. He scanned my badge. “Sure, I remember her. The one we referred out. How’s she doing?”
“She’s mostly sleeping. Do you have time to chat?”
“Sure.” He pushed his burrito away.
“Don’t let me interrupt your meal.”
“I’m finished and it’s pretty much crap, anyway. So you’re with that administrator—Kirsten, whoever? The one with the big-time NIMH funds?”
“Not exactly.” I explained my original connection to Zelda Chase via Lou Sherman, how I’d ended up at LACBAR.
He said, “So she worked on you, too. I knew Dr. Sherman, had him in med school, good teacher. When I saw his name in the chart I said, ‘Too bad he’s not around anymore.’ He died, right?”
“Two years ago.”
“Yeah. I think I heard that.”
“Any way for me to see his notes?”
“We can go upstairs and get a copy but don’t expect too much. Basically, he transferred her with no treatment notes except for the meds regimen he had her on.”
“What’s that?”
“He started her on Haldol, upped the dosage a couple of times, then switched after a year to Ativan, so that’s what I went with. I gave her a serious dose before sending her off, figuring she’d probably habituated and would need it to stay calm during transport.”
He looked at me. “That work out okay?”
“No problems on the trip and she’s sleeping peacefully.”
“Okay, good, so what’s your plan?”
“Don’t have one,” I said. “She’ll be discharged tomorrow and so far she’s done nothing to justify another 5150.”
“So she gets kicked to the curb. Same old story.”
“Why was she committed in the first place?”
“Good question,” said Mike Nehru. “It’s not like she was waving a gun at anyone. What the cops said is she created a disturbance in someone’s backyard and when they came to get her she freaked out and the cops felt threatened, quote unquote—pretty wimpy, no? Like one of those spoiled-ass college students, everything’s a trigger. They said they wouldn’t press criminal charges if we cooled her off so I figured I was doing her a favor and we did have a bed, which isn’t always the case.”
He drank soda. “What’s the place like where she is now?”
I described LACBAR.
Mike Nehru said, “What a bullshit artist. She made it sound as if they were well established.”
“She’s self-serving but the room isn’t bad for what it is and there’s a full-time nurse assigned to her who knows what he’s doing.”
“So it worked out,” said Nehru. “But if she asks me again I’ll tell her where to shove it.”
“Nothing like an anatomy lesson.”
He grinned. Turned serious. “So after three p.m. tomorrow, she’s gone and unprotected. Wish I could say I’m surprised. I’m in my last year, thinking of getting an MBA or an MPH and working as a consultant, maybe doing some public policy work.”
I said, “Better the hammer than the nail?”
“Better something that actually has efficacy.” He tried another bite of burrito, grimaced and pushed it farther away. A couple of other residents passed by, bleary-eyed; Nehru’s eyes were getting there. “I didn’t become a physician to be a jailer but let’s face it, some people need protection from themselves. The night Ms. Chase came in was hectic, patients I’d already admitted were acting out, and then what’s-her-name comes to me and says she’s got a solution and shows me all these letters from NIMH. The facilities really are okay?”
“For a couple of days under proper supervision.”
“One patient in a skeleton facility. Weird,” said Mike Nehru. “So should we go get that chart?”
—
As he searched his office computer, I said, “When Dr. Sherman began seeing Zelda, he wasn’t clear about her diagnosis. Did his notes clarify that?”
“Nope, but given the meds I figured he was concentrating on anxiety rather than bipolar…okay, here it is, let me print.”
A single sheet slid out of his printer. Zelda’s name, no phone number, just an address long outdated, plus the fact that she had an eight-year-old child once evaluated by me. The final sentence a legalistic-sounding statement that he could no longer assume medical responsibility for the patient and hoped she’d follow through on his advice to enter treatment with someone at the U. Including resumption of her medication. Haldol replaced by Ativan.
Resumption meant she’d stopped, probably against his advice. His mention of the first drug made me wonder if he thought she might need it again.
Sometimes Haldol’s the drug of choice when extreme confusion looms.
No sign she’d ever followed through on his advice. The only reason she’d ended up at the U. was proximity to Bel Air.
Mike Nehru said, “That address, Sunset Boulevard, Beverly Hills. Those houses are huge and she sure doesn’t look like she’s got dough.”
I said, “The Beverly Hills Hotel. She was living in a bungalow there.”
“You’re kidding. So once upon a time she was rich. Amazing, I thought it was a misprint because she came across homeless.”
“She probably is now. How was she identified?”
“The cops I.D.’d her by her fingerprints and gave us her name. Once we had it, we looked through our records and found the report.”
“Her son’s mentioned. Did she say anything about him?”
“Nope, she just screamed at being restrained. Like they all do. Then I got the Ativan in her and she quieted down. But some of the others didn’t. It was some night.”
CHAPTER
8
Back home, I beelined for my office, found my notes on Ovid, got the name of his preschool and his teacher—Jeanette Robaire—and called.
She still worked there and I was lucky to catch her on break. She had no idea who I was but her voice took on warmth when I said I’d been Ovid Chase’s psychologist.
“Ovid. Sure I remember him—the bright ones stay with you. Why would you call me now?”
“I’m looking for him.” I gave her the basics, describing Zelda as having emotional problems I couldn’t go into.
She said, “Problems. I guess that doesn’t shock me, Dr. Delaware. She only came to the school a few times but when I saw her I got the feeling she was trying to be…okay. But it didn’t quite work—if that makes sense?”
“Working too hard at it.”
“And ending up nervous. As if she wasn’t quite sure she’d pulled it off. Someone said she was an actress.”
“She was.”
“Well, her performance with me wasn’t convincing. Not that there was anything threatening about her, just the opposite. Fragile. A beautiful fragile woman. Are you saying they took Ovid away from her? If that’s the case, why would you be looking for him?”
“I don’t know what happened to him other than he’s not with Zelda. And she’s in no condition to tell me.”
“Oh,” said Jeanette Robaire. “That sounds like more than just emotional problems.”
“Shortly after I saw Ovid, Zelda lost her job. Did she keep him in your school for the rest of the year?”
“I’m pretty sure she did. But I can’t tell you what happened when he left us and went to first grade. That’s the thing with my job. You lose contact.”
“Do you feed to any specific schools?”
“Not really. We get kids from all over and they spread out. Private and public. If they have younger sibs who enroll with us, we sometimes get progress reports from parents. Zelda’s problems, are you worried they could’ve led to abuse?”
“There’s no sign of that.”
“No sign,” said Jeanette Robaire. “I wish you just would’ve said, ‘No way.’ ”
—
Next try: HGK Babysitting and Child Care. No phone listing, nothing on the Internet. That was L.A.: no shelf life.
Phoning scores of schools and lying was an unpleasant prospect with no likelihood of paying off. Time to turn to a higher power.
—
Milo was away from his desk at West L.A. substation. I reached him at his cell.
“Hey, Alex.”
“I need your help.”
“That’s a switch. What about?”
“Can we get together?”
“That level of help, huh? I’m free in a couple of hours. My office okay?”
“Perfect.”
No questions asked.
Friend in need.
—
Milo’s situation at LAPD is one of those blips that slides off the screen to everyone’s benefit.
Years ago, he’d cut a deal with a police chief nearing retirement, a smooth, political man with plastic ethics. The barter was simple: Milo’s discretion in exchange for promotion to lieutenant. The rank usually means desk work. Milo got the higher salary and pension allotment and a mandate to keep working murders.
A new chief, autocratic and reflexively hostile, tolerated the arrangement as long as Milo’s solve rate remained nearly perfect.
Different situation from anyone else’s, but it’s always been different for my friend.
Back in his rookie days, homosexual officers were “nonexistent” in the department and Milo’s colleagues were busting heads at gay bars. Self-preservation mandated keeping your private life private and he buttoned himself up in psychosocial exile.
When social norms budged a bit, he kept up the low profile but stopped pretending and soon enough everyone knew. That period was the toughest—the sneers and stares and avoidance, the occasional overt ugliness.
Nowadays, the department has rules against discrimination of any sort and gay officers are on the job. Milo still keeps to himself and I believe it would be that way if he were straight.
Part of the deal with the corrupt chief was getting “creative” work space. The other detectives at West L.A. work out of a big room with lockers and coffee machines, a clamorous environment that bustles with work ethic and frustration and gallows humor.
Milo operates from a windowless former supply closet, a cramped domain behind an unmarked door, set at the end of a utility corridor near interview rooms where people sweat and deny and confess.
Meager square footage for a man who takes up plenty. He’s six two or three, depending on posture, with a gourmand gut and the bulk of a lineman gone sedentary.
Stretch too exuberantly and his knuckles brush the walls.
I’d go nuts working there. He loves it.
—
When I arrived, his door was wide open and he was at his computer, hunting-and-pecking like a studious rhino. Stacks of paper covered his desk, continued onto the floor and the spare chair. Without turning, he swiped at the chair, snowed the linoleum with paper.
I sat down. “New case?”
His fingers stopped moving. “Nah, professional development seminar. Aka knee-deep in cow-slop.” He resumed typing. Paused again. “Since eight a.m., I’ve been at a management seminar for department honchos, of which I am apparently one.”
“Congratulations.”
“Oh, yeah, I’m touched. And I blame the effect your colleagues have had on society.”
“Pyschobabble?”
“Hours of interpersonal whoopy doo and sensitivity blah blah blah. They even sent a social worker to tell us we were good human beings despite our aggressive tendencies. When she broke us up into small groups, I split. But I still have to finish this—open-screen test—to prove I was there.” He frowned. “Would you say empathy’s always necessary for effective management?”
I said, “Hmm.”
“No hmming or I’ll make you do it.”
“If there’s no ‘it depends’ option, I’d go with ‘true.’ ”
He jabbed a key. “Next: Is diversity enriching and facilitative due to cultural changes that have impacted law enforcement in the twenty-first century? Or has it always been advantageous for a well-functioning organization?”
“On that one, I won’t budge from ‘maybe.’ ”
He laughed, hunched lower, began pounding the keys progressively harder. Soon he was causing the board to jump and rattle and there was nothing for me to do but sit there and wait him out.
He looked as he usually does, black hair slicked but rebellious, white sideburns shaggy and mal-trimmed (“let’s hear it for skunk stripes”), the left side a quarter inch longer than the right.
Sadistic fluorescent bulbs called out every crease, pucker, and pock littering the steppes of his heavy face. Today’s fashion statement was a short-sleeved once-white shirt, a blue-and-orange tie that had never known a silkworm, defeated khaki cargo pants, and the usual desert boots, this pair the same muddled gray as the clouds outside the window of Zelda Chase’s cell.
They’re fashionable now. I didn’t have the heart to tell him.
A shiny olive sport coat lay crumpled on the floor. I folded it over my lap and sat there. If either of us exhaled hard, we’d collide.
Clearing the screen, he popped a wheelie with his desk chair, swiveled hard and faced me. Spotting the folded jacket, he said, “Personal valet, I dig it. You also do windows?”
“Help me out and I might.”
Oddly bright green eyes studied me as if we’d just met. When he does that, it’s unsettling, but I’ve gotten used to it.
He said, “Tell me about it.”
He listened without interruption, said, “An actress? Never heard of her…okay, this shouldn’t be too hard.”
Returning to the keyboard, he pulled up a database off-limits to anyone but law enforcement and twelve-year-old hackers. As he typed, he hummed.
