Lemus laid out the neighborhood version of events. Jack listened and jotted notes like he hadn’t heard it a dozen times already that day. When Lemus finished, Jack said, “This Miss Greene must have been a horrible person.”
Lemus ran his fingers through the hair on his temples. He’d clearly used henna in it to hide the gray, but the henna was fading and the gray was resurfacing. “Not horrible, no.”
“But she was prostituting herself in this, what looks to be a nice, family neighborhood.”
“Well.” Lemus used his thumbnail to clean the paint from underneath his forefingernail. He looked down at his hands as he spoke. “She wasn’t a prostitute. She just had a lot of men over to her place.”
“And she had loud sex with them? Could you hear it throughout the neighborhood?”
“No.”
“Could you hear it at all?”
“No.”
“But it must have been every night, then?”
Lemus raised his eyes into a stare directed out his back windows. Jack gazed back there, also, caught sight of a jacaranda in full, purple bloom. He turned back to Lemus. Lemus took a few seconds to put his thoughts together. “Now that you mention it, I hadn’t seen men coming or going for several months before her death. Maybe six, seven months.” He picked at dry paint on his pants. “In fact, the more I think about it, the more I think that she only had men over a lot when she first moved in. There was a month or two there when she really cut loose. And after that, it would come in waves. She’d have a wild weekend, going nonstop, then nothing for weeks or months.”
“Do you remember when that was? When she first moved in?”
“It was right around the time I had a show over at El Alisal Gallery. I guess that would be sometime around February or March of ’43. Does that sound right?”
It sounded right. It would’ve been just about the time the Air Force had declared Jack dead. Right when Wilma was widowed. Jack flipped through his notes as if that information needed to be written down. “I think so,” he said.
Lemus kept staring at the jacaranda blooms, kept digging at paint. He was clearly working toward something in his mind. Jack gave him the time to think. This was something Jack’s father had never done during investigations. The old man would charge in, looking to bust heads. Manners and patience were never part of his game. You’d tell him what he wanted to hear or he’d crack you in the jaw. The problem with that, Jack realized as a young man and saw again and again when he worked with cops like that on the force, is that people only tell you what they think you want to hear. Jack could tell himself what he wanted to hear. He was investigating this business to learn what he needed to hear. So he let Lemus gaze and think.
Finally, Lemus came out with it. “I know I should have done something that night. I should have gone into the street and seen what the screaming was about. I should have tried to help.” Lemus squeezed his eyes tight and constricted his face, building a dam against whatever emotions were trying to flood his face. He held this for a few seconds. He took a deep breath.
Jack dug a handkerchief from his back pocket—a plain white cotton number—and passed it to Lemus. Lemus waved it off.
“You know she had a twin?” he asked.
“Yeah?” Jack stuffed his handkerchief back into his pocket.
“Birdy or something. I met her at one or two of Wilma’s parties. Sharp kid. Looked just like Wilma. She came around after Wilma died. Haunted the neighborhood for a week or two, asking questions, knocking on doors just like you’re doing. No one would talk to her.”
Jack scooted forward in his seat. This was new. None of the other neighbors mentioned Gertie. “Why not?” he asked.
“Best not to get involved, especially when people are getting killed.”
Jack shrugged. Part of him understood. If only he’d felt that way three years ago.… He tucked it away. “Why are you telling me about the twin now?”
“Just to let you know someone put a bullet in her for asking too many questions.”
“What?”
“I heard the bullet hit her cigarette tin, get deflected up, and then lodge in her collarbone. Who knows? I got the story from the local knitting circle. They’ve been known to stretch the truth.” Lemus stood and motioned back toward the front door. “Anyway, it doesn’t take a whole lot of gunshots before people start to learn what to say and what not to say.”
Jack nodded. As he shifted his weight to stand, he realized that his hand was inside his jacket and his fingers were grazing the grip of the Springfield again.
WILMA, 1943
WHEN THE CAR started its descent down the Conejo grade, Wilma caught her first glimpse of Camarillo. It gave her a feeling of sunshine and optimism, despite all the evidence to the contrary. Flat stretches of lush farmland spread across the valley floor to the ocean. Patches of green dotted the golden hillsides as if they’d been painted there in watercolor. It all seemed so crisp and clear and clean, even the little town at the foothill with its white mission-style church next to a humble, rounded steeple. Islands on the horizon cut sharp brown lines into the expansive blue. Wilma had been trying to keep her mouth shut for this whole ride, but the view from this downhill road loosened her up. “It’s beautiful,” she said.
One of the white coats in the front seat turned to speak to her. “Sure. You’ll love it here.”
“Nothing like a vacation in the bughouse,” Wilma said.
The other white coat, the one who was driving, said, “You better believe it, sister. This place is fantastic.”
White Coat One backed him up. “Especially if you like horses. Do you like horses?”
“Who doesn’t like horses?” Wilma asked.
White Coat One pointed to the hills off to the left of the car. “Look at those mountain trails. You’ll get to go horseback riding on all of them.”
It seemed farfetched, but there were trails. Wilma could see those. There were even a few people on horses on the trails. “Really?” she asked.
“Like my partner said, you’re going to love it,” White Coat Two added.
White Coat One turned in his seat to face Wilma. “If you don’t like horseback riding, we have hiking excursions. Not on the same trails as the horseback riders use. We don’t want you stepping in anything untoward.”
“Lord, no,” White Coat Two said.
“And the hills are full of daisies. The girls at the asylum love to pick them after lunch, then lounge in the grass, making daisy chains.”
“You’re pulling my leg,” Wilma said.
“Do you like water sports?” White Coat Two asked.
“Like what?”
“Canoeing,”
