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  “What do I do now?” I raised my hands in frustration.

  “I think I know who you’re talking about. Is your uncle the man with the sack over his head?”

  “Yes, that’s Uncle Charlie. His face and scalp were badly burned in a fire.”

  “Oh, my. Well, I’m afraid your uncle did make quite a commotion. One of the nurses told me about it.” The older lady beckoned me with an arthritic finger. “Perhaps I can help. Come closer, I don’t want to shout.”

  I stepped up to the counter. “He needs me. I’m the only family he’s got.”

  “I understand. And that’s why I’m going to break the rules, dear, and tell you what I know. Your uncle was transferred to an awful place. It’s called the Rose Garden Retirement Home. And believe me, it’s anything but a rose garden.” She shook her head. “It’s for indigent people with dementia, you know? I’ve heard bad things happen to patients there, and then they get”—she raised a finger for emphasis—“swept under the rug.”

  I broke out in a sweat. “The Rose Garden? Do you know where it is?”

  “Somewhere in Noleta. You know, that area adjacent to Santa Barbara, where the residents refused to become part of Goleta?” She nodded. “I’m telling you this because I’m on the side of your uncle. We silver panthers need to stick up for one another. Now, don’t waste a minute more, dear. You young people think you have all the time in the world.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  The Rose Garden Retirement Home was located on a small cul-de-sac not fifty yards from 101. The street was separated from the freeway by a towering concrete block wall. I pulled up in its shade, switched off the engine, and studied Charlie’s new digs.

  The facility appeared to consist of four run-down sixties tract houses surrounded by a sagging chain-link fence. The lawns were baked brown, and only a few shrubs struggled for survival in the adobe soil.

  The gate, also of chain-link, was propped open with a tire. I got out of the vehicle and walked through. The house closest to the front had a sign taped to a window: DELIVERIES HERE.

  The door was blistered and warped from the sun. I heard a television yapping away inside, and several voices. When I knocked on the door, the voices stopped.

  A large woman with steel-gray hair hanging down to her shoulders opened the door and looked at me. She was tall, maybe six feet, and her shoulders were broad. “Yes?” she demanded.

  I looked past the woman into a small living room. Three other people, two women and a man, sat facing a bulky old television set. A fourth person, a woman in a wheelchair, was pushed up with her face to a wall. Except for the woman in the wheelchair, they all appeared to be caregivers—so to speak.

  “Yes?” the woman repeated.

  “I’m here to visit my uncle. He was recently transferred from Cottage. Charles Corrigan.” I smiled sweetly, with a smile that had endeared me to hardened criminals.

  “Come back during visiting hours. Thursday, two to four.”

  “Oh.” I put on my most disappointed face. “I’ve got to drive back to Bakersfield tonight. I work, you know? I can’t come during the week.”

  “Sorry.” She shrugged. “I don’t make the rules.”

  The occupants of the room turned back to the TV, and someone amped up the volume.

  I glanced over at the woman in the wheelchair. She had managed to twist her head around and was looking directly at me. Her mouth opened and her lips moved when our eyes met, but because of the TV, I couldn’t hear what she was saying.

  “I understand you don’t make the rules,” I said to the boss lady. “And of course your employer expects you to follow them. But … maybe you’ll accept a donation? For the Rose Garden, of course.”

  “A donation?” The woman both tightened her mouth and smiled at the same time. The result was not pretty. “What did you have in mind?’

  I didn’t think twenty would swing it. “Oh, around forty.”

  “You’ll have to give us a minute to—you know, clean him up for visitors.”

  I knew, all right. “Sure, no problem. I’ll run around the corner to the bank, be right back.”

  “Christ, what a hellhole,” I growled to Dex when I got back in the car. “Poor old Charlie.”

  In three minutes I was at the B of A, two minutes more and I’d withdrawn the cash. Another three minutes and I was back.

  The door opened before I could knock, and the bulky gray-haired woman stepped out and shut it behind her. “He’s over in S.” She put out a hand.

  Was she capable of stiffing me? Of course, but I didn’t think she’d try it. That would cause trouble, and trouble she didn’t want. I handed over two twenties.

  “Follow me.” We walked around the corner of the house, heading for the back of the property. Apparently Charlie hadn’t even been placed in one of the ratty tract houses. I prepared myself for the worst, which was just as well. I pretty much got it.

  “S” must have stood for shed, or maybe shack. A small run-down structure roofed in tar paper and walled in green asbestos siding cowered in the far corner of the lot.

  I opened my mouth to tell the woman what I thought of her—then used my brains and shut up.

  The guy I’d seen earlier in the TV room exited the shack and scurried past us. He met the woman’s gaze and nodded. The cleanup man.

  One thing was for certain: Charles Corrigan was checking out of the Rose Garden, today.

  “We had to put him back here,” the woman was saying. “He was freaking out all the patients, what with that creepy face of his.”

  “But Uncle Charlie wears a mask.”

  “He wouldn’t keep it on, would he? Kept ripping it off, even when we put mitts on him.” She pulled back the old screen door and unlocked a newer solid door. Then she pushed it open.

  An elderly man in a filthy hospital gown lay flat on his back on an old army surplus cot. His face was turned to the wall.

  “Charlie!“

  “Jaymie? That you?” He covered his face with his hands. “Jaymie, don’t you look.”

  “I’ll be leaving you two. Like I said, I don’t make the rules. Fifteen minutes is all that’s allowed.” The woman stepped back. “Talk some sense into him while you’re at it, will you? Tell him we’ll let him back in one of the houses if he’ll promise to behave himself and keep that damn sack on his head.”

  I closed the door after her. Then I stood there for a moment, facing the shut plywood panel.

  “Hi, Charlie.” I fought to keep my voice steady. “I—”

  “My mask, Jaymie. I hid it under the mattress. Stay right there, I’ll just get it.”

  I continued to wait with my back to my friend.

  “All right now, it’s on. I hide it, ya see. I show ’em what’s left of me to keep ’em away, the bastards. This face is good for somethin’ after all.”

  “Charlie, why didn’t you call me! What in God’s name are you doing here?”

  “Livin out my golden years.”

  It hurt, but I laughed. “Look, we have to get you out of here right away. I’ve got the Camino out in front. Can you walk?”

  “Walk? I could run a four-minute mile if it’d get me outta this dump.” Charlie sat up and maneuvered himself to the edge of the bed. With one hand, he tried to close the back of his hospital gown. “But I ain’t walkin’ nowhere with my butt hangin’ out, not with you.”

  “Forget your scrawny butt, Charlie. I’m not leaving you here.”

  “Ya know, Jaymie, I’m thinking. I ain’t the only one trapped in this hole.”

  That stopped me. I thought of the woman in the wheelchair pushed up against the wall. “No, you’re not. Maybe there’s another way.” I pulled my phone from my pocket. This time I didn’t debate with myself, just made the call.

  “Hey, Jaymie.”

  Mike’s voice had never sounded so good. “Listen, Charlie and I need a knight in shining armor. Come with your badge, and bring a good camera.”

  When I’d finished explaining th
e situation and given Mike the address, I slipped my phone back in my pocket and walked over to the bed. Charlie reached out and took my hand.

  “Good for you. You called in the cavalry.” His voice was raspy and weak. “Nothin’ wrong with getting some help.”

  “It’s not over yet, Charlie. You look like you need to go back to the hospital.”

  “I’m not lettin’ another sawbones near me. One of the bastards sent me here.”

  “We’ll have a talk with that doc. Maybe give him a chance to explain himself.” I squeezed my friend’s leathery hand. “If we don’t like what we hear, I promise, he’s toast.”

  * * *

  I saw the anger rise up in Mike as his eyes adjusted to the gloom. He hid it well, but I knew he would keep it fresh, and use it.

  “Why you sneaky old codger.” Mike walked up to the bed and squeezed Charlie’s shoulder. “You’d do goddamn anything to get a pretty girl alone with you and a bed.”

  “Ya caught me, pal.” Charlie coughed hard, then tried to get up.

  “No, don’t move. Stay there for a minute while I take your picture,” Mike said. “We want to nail these fuckers.”

  I was fighting back tears. The tears weren’t for Charlie, though I felt bad for him. I think maybe I was crying for myself. Seeing Mike there—I hated to admit it, but I was relieved.

  “I’m with ya, Mike,” Charlie wheezed. “Listen, let’s make it a good un. Look in that chest over there, top drawer. You’ll find the rubber strips they use at night, to tie me to the bed.”

  * * *

  The drama was over, at least for Charlie. Within an hour he was back in Cottage, propped up against a tall stack of pillows. A tube fed antibiotics into his skinny arm.

  “Stay for a while, will you, Jaymie girl? Might as well confess, I got a god-awful fear of this place. Ever since I spent six months of my life in this torture chamber, getting my burned bits cut out.”

  I sat down in the bedside chair. “Sure. What shall we talk about?”

  Charlie turned his head on the pillows. His eyes were bright through the holes in the sack. “Let’s talk about you. ’Cause I get the feeling something’s come up.”

  How the hell could he tell? “It’s nothing, Charlie. Nothing that can’t wait.”

  “Listen, I might not be here the next time you come lookin’ for me. Better spit it out.”

  “Charlie, that’s nonsense. The doctor said you’ll be on the mend real soon.”

  “Ha, gotcha. I meant I might be down in Ensenada. There’s a señorita I got a hankering to see. Now start talkin’.”

  I watched a clear fluid seep along Charlie’s drip line. “It’s about Brodie. I found out something.”

  My friend nodded and waited.

  “That night in the jail? The cops hauled him out of his cell. When they brought him back, he was out cold.”

  “Goddamn sonofabitches.”

  I looked out the window. The mountains behind the city shimmered like mirages in the dry heated air. “Brodie didn’t hang himself. It was the cops who did it. And it wasn’t just the jailers who were there that night. There were other cops, too—and Wheeler, the chief.”

  “Jesus.” Charlie gave a low whistle and struggled to sit up. “What hornet’s nest did that boy get hisself into? He found out something he shouldn’t of, that’s for damn sure.”

  “Yeah. And I have to figure out what it was. Have to.”

  “I can see how you’d feel that way. Don’t suppose I can convince you to back off?”

  “Hah.” I barked out a laugh.

  Charlie fell back on the pillows. Neither of us spoke for a time.

  “Tell me somethin’, Jaymie. Aren’t you working on a big case? The aquarium murders, I heard.”

  “That’s right. I think a man’s been falsely accused.”

  “What’s new in the world?” Charlie stopped to cough. The rasping led to a series of gasps that seemed to go on forever. “You figure it out yet?”

  “I’m getting there. But now the case doesn’t seem all that important to me. I have to find out what happened to Brodie, and why. If I don’t, nobody will.”

  “True enough. But maybe what happened to Brodie can wait. This fellow who’s falsely accused, his family and whatnot—I bet they’re depending on you.”

  I looked at Charlie in surprise. “I’ve never heard you give advice before. Why now?”

  “Why now? ’Cause I almost took a trip south of the border, that’s why. Makes ya kinda impatient. I’m going to say something, Jaymie, just in case I’m south of the border the next time you come around.” Charlie tugged the sack down over his scarred neck.

  “We only got what’s right now, right in front of us. We ain’t got the future and we ain’t got the past, not really. Your brother can wait, but this fellow in jail? Maybe he can’t.”

  I rubbed my temples with my thumbs. “I never figured you for a Zen master. But I understand what you’re saying.”

  “Course you do. ’Cause I’m tellin’ you somethin’ you already know.” Another bout of gasping and coughing ensued.

  “I’m an old dog, Jaymie. In dog years, hell, I’m about five hundred years old. I forgot a helluva lot in that time, but I learned a few things, too. And one or two of ’em stuck.”

  Suddenly, I had a thought. “How old are you, Charlie? Are you about the right age to remember what happened in 1970, out at the university?”

  “I’m about the right age to forget it.” Charlie managed a cackle. “What do you want to know?”

  “I want to know about the Bank of America fire.”

  “Oh, I ain’t forgot that. One night the kids out in Isla Vista marched on the bank. We’re talkin’ about Santa Barbara now, not Berkeley, so they were making it into a party as usual, taking along wine bottles and such. The cops thought the wine bottles were Molotovs, which they wasn’t. So they jumped on the kids, beat ’em up. That got the kids riled up. Some of ’em went off and made Molotovs after all.”

  “Were you living in Isla Vista at the time?”

  “Nope, I was staying up in the hills, working on a big avocado ranch. But I was down in IV quite a bit. Annie was a student. See, Annie was younger’n me, around twenty-two. It was crazy times, Jaymie. Like they say, drugs, sex, rock ’n’ roll. Not that Annie did any of that. No, she was just a real sweet girl.”

  I lifted my messenger bag to my knees, opened it, and took out one of the photocopies BJ had given me, the one showing Rod Steinbach and his friends. “Recognize any of these characters, Charlie?”

  “Can’t say I do. But I recognize the type. Drugs, sex, rock ’n’ roll, all mixed in with savin’ the world.”

  I slipped the photo back in my bag. “About the bank burning. Any arrests?”

  “At least a hundred of ’em. Let ’em out the next day.” Charlie flexed his left arm and winced. “Damn needle’s buggin’ me. I got a mind to rip the thing out.”

  “You said you’d behave.”

  “S’pose I did.” He sighed and relaxed into the pillows. “About them protests. You know what happened a couple nights after the bank burned, right?”

  “After? No, I don’t.”

  “Boy was killed. Burned to death.”

  I lowered my bag to the floor. “I didn’t know that. Tell me about it.”

  “Well. Those kids they let out of jail? Hoppin’ mad. Needed somethin’ to take it out on. It being IV and all, they turned on the rental agencies, you know? Winged bricks through windows, that kinda thing. But then, middle of the night, somebody threw Molotovs into one of the agencies. Burned it down to the ground.”

  “And someone was trapped inside.”

  “A student, if I remember right. He didn’t die right away. They got him to the hospital…” His gravelly voice ground to a halt.

  I realized that what had happened to the student had pretty much happened to Charlie, and to his beloved Annie, some ten or twelve years ago. Annie had died, mercifully, in the fire ignited by a camp stove th
at had engulfed their tent.

  “Charlie, I’m sorry.”

  The sound of two women chatting out in the hall drifted in through the open doorway. I wanted to drop the whole subject, but I couldn’t, not yet.

  “You don’t happen to remember the boy’s name, do you?”

  “No recollection.”

  “Did they ever find out who did it?”

  “Don’t think so. They had a list of suspects, if I remember right, but no evidence and no witnesses. Far as I know, they never caught the bastard.” Charlie’s eyelids flickered.

  “Get some rest now, Unc.” I walked around to the other side of the bed, picked up his untethered right hand, and gave it a squeeze.

  “A local boy,” Charlie murmured.

  “What?” I bent close. His words were muffled.

  “The boy that died. UC student, but I think he grew up around here.”

  “That’s something to go on.” I kissed his rough scar-bound hand, and laid it down on the white sheet. “See you soon, Charlie.”

  “Jaymie, wait. Somethin’ else I thought of to tell you.”

  “Still here.”

  “Slow dancing.”

  I wasn’t sure I’d heard him right. “I thought you said—slow dancing.”

  “That’s right. Annie and me, we used to love to slow dance, you know? Some song or other’d come on the radio, didn’t matter where we was, we’d stand up and dance … you know how to slow dance, Jaymie?”

  “I’m not a great dancer, but sure. Sure I do.”

  “You pull your partner in close, give em a hug. Then let ’em take a half-step away. Dance ’em loose. Easy does it, round and round. And that’s what you gotta do with the dead, Jaymie, the ones you love that died.”

  I held very still. “If I let Brodie go, I’m afraid I’ll forget him. I couldn’t bear that.”

  “You’ll never forget him, not ever.” Charlie reached over and covered my hand with his own.

  “You can’t hold him too tight, sweetheart. Don’t you see? The dead are the same as the living that way.”

  * * *

  I was climbing into the El Camino when my cell rang.

  “Miss Zarlin? You don’t know me. But I’d like to meet with you.” The masculine voice was pleasant enough, but unsure.