Unwilling Accomplice - Barbara Seranella Page 9

  "So when you ask, ’How does Stroganoff sound?’ you’re not really asking so much as telling me what we’re having," Asia said.

  "I was hoping you’d approve. Jill, do you like Stroganoff?"

  "Sure, sounds great."

  "Should we take a vote?" Munch watched Asia’s face in the rear-view mirror.

  "That won’t be necessary Mother," Asia said.

  Munch laughed. She loved it when Asia used her bigger words, even if it was for sarcasm. She wasn’t raising a Stepford kid.

  After they got home, Asia took Jill to her room and Munch brought Asia’s knapsack into the kitchen. She unpacked it on the table looking for forgotten food, dirty laundry, and obvious garbage. Near the bottom she found what she first thought was trash. She straightened the torn and crumpled paper and read it. It was a permission slip for a field trip to Long Beach Harbor in November.

  "Asia," she called into the other room.

  Asia emerged. "What?"

  "What’s this?"

  "Just some trip thing."

  "Don’t you want to go? It sounds fun."

  "Boring," Asia said, using her new expression. Munch wondered whom they had to thank for that.

  "You’re too young to be bored. Says here you get to go on a boat,"

  "I’ll probably get seasick."

  "You don’t know that. You should try new things."

  "Why?"

  Munch smiled. It was exactly the same question she had asked her sponsor, Ruby, when she was first sober and Ruby had been urging her to attend AA dances and picnics. Ruby had said Munch needed to learn how to socialize without dope and with her clothes on. Munch still remembered her first sober Fourth of July picnic. It was an AA and NA event with many of her newfound friends in the fellowship. They’d spent the day at a park in Reseda, ending with fireworks. It had been wonderful to realize that she was clearheaded as she walked to her car and that the following day she would be able to remember everything.

  "If you don’t try new things/’ Munch told her daughter, "how do you know what you’ll like?"

  "I already know what I like," Asia said. "Bring me some tape."

  Asia slouched from the room with her eyes rolled to the top of her head and her shoulders slumped.

  "Don’t drag your feet," Munch said. "It’s annoying."

  "You’re annoying," Asia mumbled.

  "What?"

  "Nothing."

  Munch stared after her daughter, trying to remember the exact point that this recent phase had begun. It couldn’t be the dog. Jasper was equally devoted to both of them. Maybe some problem at school. Munch realized that Asia’s life was filling up with experiences that she couldn’t relay to her mother. Sometimes it was because Asia didn't feel it was Munch’s business, and that was okay up to a point. But other times Asia kept bothersome things to herself because she either didn't understand them or didn't know how to verbalize them. None of that meant she had to go through them alone. Munch made a mental note to talk to Asia’s teacher, Chrissy Hopp, the next day. She must try to get to the bottom of this latest phase of

  troubling behavior.

  "Jill."

  "What?" the girl answered from the bedroom.

  "Come out here for a minute. Have a seat. I want to talk to you."

  Jill settled herself primly on the kitchen chair and folded her hands in her lap. Munch had once helped Rico prep for an exam on interrogation techniques. Part of that test was the ability to read body language. According to social scientists, over half of communication between people was nonverbal. Hands clasped together in front of the body meant that the subject was holding back significant information or was in great fear and trying to protect.

  "How are you doing?" The interrogator was also taught to be courteous and to build rapport with his or her subject.

  "Good."

  Munch chopped up the mushrooms, garlic, onion, and beef.

  "Anything you want to talk about? Any questions I can answer for you?"

  "Not really. " Jill’s hands remained firmly clasped.

  Munch put the beef and vegetables into the frying pan. The mixture sizzled and released a plume of savory steam.

  "Smells good," Jill said.

  Munch rinsed and dried her hands, then squatted in front of the girl, at eye level. "I’ll take you to school in the morning and pick you up afterward. I want you to wait for me in the office, not out front."

  "Okay."

  "And if somebody else comes by and says I told them to pick you up, you ask them for our code word."

  Jill looked intrigued. "What’s our code word?"

  "You pick it."

  "Ahh, banana."

  "Okay, banana it is. Don’t tell anyone else. It’s our secret word." Munch patted Jill’s knee, stood, and pointed an admonishing finger toward the girl. "And don’t go with anyone who doesn’t know it. Okay?"

  Jill nodded. "Okay."

  Munch opened a can of cream of mushroom soup and dumped it over the cooking meat and vegetables. "When’s the last time you saw your sister?"

  "She had a big fight with my mom so I shut my door. That was Sunday night. I didn’t see her before I went to school Monday morning."

  "What was the fight about?"

  "You’ll have to ask my mother."

  Munch wasn’t sure if this meant Jill didn’t know or that she wasn’t going to tell her mother’s business. She suspected that Jill was probably a master at keeping her family’s secrets.

  Munch stayed silent.

  Jill leaned forward, as if to share a confidence. "Charlotte’s kind of a freak."

  "Why do you say that?"

  "She takes her temperature about a hundred times a day and she’s always yelling at me, telling me what to do. Bossy."

  Jill extended the syllables for emphasis. "I tell her I already have a mother."

  "Are you worried about her?"

  "Sure." Her lips said sure but everything else shouted, "Heigh-ho, the wicked witch is dead."

  "Try not to worry. I’m sure we’ll find her soon."

  "Can we watch a movie?" Jill asked.

  "What movie?"

  "I brought my tapes from home."

  "Do you have any homework?"

  "A little. I usually do it on the bus."

  "Do it now and maybe after dinner we’ll check out your movie."

  Jill returned to Asia’s room. Munch followed after a second and listened from the hallway.

  "She said we had to do our homework first," Jill reported to Asia.

  "Told you," Asia said.

  Munch returned to the kitchen and smiled to herself as she stirred the Stroganoff mixture and turned down the fire. Then she went into her room and called Rico at home.

  Chapter 9

  Are you still mad?" Rico asked.

  Munch checked her feelings. "No." She was, however, retaining the right to make him suffer at a future date. And since he was so into arresting first and asking questions later, there was no way she was going to tell him about Charlotte’s shoplifting booty.

  "Lisa Slokum was being belligerent," he said, "cussing us out and then not answering questions."

  "I know Lisa operates in a separate universe. Society’s rules don’t apply to her unless she wants them to. So fuck her. What I’m worried about is what’s happening to Charlotte right now and that’s what we have to focus on."

  "We are."

  "I took a call at her house. Some guy who thought he was talking to Lisa asked her if she had it."

  "What was the 'it'?"

  "He wouldn’t say. "

  "Dope?"

  "I don’t think so. Dopers tend to use code. Something like 'Did the ship come in?' or 'Do you have any dresses?'"

  "’Dresses’?" he asked.

  She laughed at the memory, then explained, "When I was hanging out with bikers, I had to use smack on the sly. One of the other biker chicks who chipped with me had an old man who worked for the phone company and could listen in on the line at w
ill. So this woman and I devised a code. When she was looking for heroin, she would call me and ask if I had any dresses."

  "Did you ever wear dresses then?"

  "Why do you think they call it dope?" That got a laugh out of him. She felt the pull of attraction again, their common ground. She wondered what he was wearing.

  "So how did you leave it with this guy?" Rico asked. "He said he heard Charlotte was sick and I mentioned that she needed insulin. I also told him that Lisa was in jail and that any business he had with her he could do with me."

  "Did you give him your name?"

  "No. He hung up on me, but he didn’t sound like the kind of guy who is going to go away easily."

  "What kind of guy is that?"

  "The bad kind."

  Asia and Jill’s laughter reached Munch from the bedroom.

  Homework had gotten very amusing since she was in elementary school. "Lisa has call forwarding on her phone."

  "And?"

  "I activated it so that calls to her house will ring here."

  "Why’d you do that?" he asked.

  "So I wouldn’t have to sit in her skanky house, for one."

  "You really want to play cops-and-robbers again?"

  "Is this where you lecture me and tell me not to get involved?"

  "Hell no."

  She could feel his smile and decided he was wearing 501 Levi’s with the button fly and no shirt.

  "What’s next?" she asked.

  "We’ll see who Lisa calls from custody and put a unit at the house. I’ll touch base with my sergeant and tell him how we’re handling this."

  "All right. I’ll be waiting for your call."

  "Munch?"

  "Yeah?"

  "It feels really good to hear you say that."

  Munch decided this was an excellent place to end the conversation, so she hung up.

  Next, Munch called Mace St. John and brought him up to speed on the case. He wasn’t thrilled with her involvement, but she expected that.

  "Do you think you can turn me on to a psychiatrist?" she asked.

  "For yourself?"

  She laughed. "No, I know what my problems are. It’s about Charlotte. I’m trying to get a handle on her mental state. I found some weird stuff in her room and I was wondering what a shrink would make of it."

  "What sort of stuff?"

  "Four thermometers, for starters. Her sister says she takes her temperature every few minutes. And something about the way she keeps her things seems to go way beyond normal teenage rebellion."

  "That does sound weird," St. john admitted.

  "I don’t want something for nothing. I’ll pay the guy for his time. How much do they charge?"

  "I’ll put you in touch with Hy Miller. He does some consultation for the department and he’s married to my ex-wife. He’ll talk to you pro bono."

  White-collar professionals, Munch knew, needed Latin words to label their good deeds. "I’d truly appreciate that. I’m really worried about my niece."

  "I’ll call him right now," St. John said.

  Munch checked the time. "You’ve got his number at home?"

  "Yeah, I’ll call him first and pave the way. He knows a little bit about you. I first used him on the Ballona Butcher case."

  The Ballona Butcher was a serial murderer plaguing Los Angeles when Munch had first met St. John. In fact, it was her inadvertent connection to that case that had got St. John so interested in her in the first place.

  "You’re all cool with each other?" she asked.

  "Sure, why not?"

  "Very evolved." She didn't hate any of her exes, but that didn't mean she wanted contact with them. She wouldn’t mind hearing how they were doing as long as she didn't have to talk to them. People put entirely too much weight on talking. Sometimes a person needed to shut up and move on.

  She waited ten minutes and then called Dr. Miller at the number St. John had given her.

  "Yes," he answered, "I was expecting your call. How can I help you?"

  "Thank you for taking the time. I was hoping you could help me understand my niece. She’s fifteen and missing."

  "Did she run away?"

  "I wish that were the case. I believe she’s being held somewhere against her will. Something she was involved with or something she stole might have gotten her in trouble. She also might be a little"—Munch searched for the pop-psych word of the moment—"disturbed."

  "Tell me about her. "

  Munch described the items she’d found in Charlotte’s secret hiding place, the condition of her room and work space at the school, the tract of worn carpet, also the blender, the unused birth control pills, the thermometers, and what Jill had said. "I also have reason to believe she took my dog’s tags when we met briefly on Saturday. Do you think she’s a kleptomaniac or something?"

  "Kleptomania is a rare and often misunderstood disorder," he said. "lt falls in the compulsive-obsessive category. It’s an anxiety disorder. The patient gets stuck in a panic loop; the triggers are increased in times of stress. What you’ve described—the hoarding, her obsession with symmetry evidence of rituals—all falls under known criteria for diagnosis. In the case of kleptomania, the person is driven by an impulse to steal. The objects stolen are not needed for personal use or for their monetary worth."

  "Then why?"

  "Some symbolic value. All disorders have their own logic to them. You’ve heard of people who claim to have radios implanted in their molars? Perhaps by the CIA or even aliens from outer space?"

  "Yeah."

  "These people are hearing voices in their heads and have come up with some means to explain them, hence the receivers in their teeth. We have a woman in therapy who is convinced her family is trying to poison her. She’s seen them. Her claims were dismissed as delusional until last week when we learned that her mother and sister were putting her medication in her food. So you see,.she had a real basis for her conclusions. We just couldn’t see it."

  "What do you make of my niece’s string of 1ogic?"

  "She might take her temperature constantly because she feels with absolute certainty that if she doesn’t, those around her will get sick. It’s a horrible existence governed by obsessions, rituals, and worries. Also, a deep-seated belief that her lack of action will bring horrible calamity to others. What’s her home life like? The family unit."

  "Terrible." Munch told him about the sisters having different fathers (both dead with no great loss to humanity), a step-father who had disappeared, the mother’s chronic flakiness.

  "Both kids get straight A's in school."

  "Amazing, isn’t it?" he said. "The resiliency of the human spirit."

  "Tell me about it. I haven't had any contact with the kids since they were little. Charlotte saved my life when she was seven."

  "How so?"

  "I was eight months sober and on slippery ground, wondering if I hadn’t been a little hasty in jumping on this total abstinence thing. What I really was, was lonely. I hadn’t seen the kids since I had gotten clean and was explaining to them how I didn’t drink or use anymore. Charlotte chewed over the information for a few minutes and then said, ’Does this mean we won’t have to wake you up in the bathtub anymore?’ I’m telling you, it was like she was speaking with the voice of an angel."

  "You’re still sober?"

  "Yes, and clean."

  "From what sort of drugs?"

  "All kinds, but heroin was my main poison." God, it seemed as if she were telling the world lately.

  "Congratulations."

  Munch wondered if she had been fishing for that response. Unconsciously or not, she realized she had let the conversation be about her when she was supposed to be learning more about her niece. "I had help."

  "I’m sure, but still. I don’t know if Mace mentioned it, but I work two days a week at Metro Hospital in Norwalk."

  Munch had heard of the state-run facility. They took on the dregs of the dregs.

  "Would you be willing, when you h
ave some time, to come speak to the women in one of our jail wards?" he asked.

  "l’d love to."

  "We have two units that might benefit. One is for our women who are too mentally ill to stand trial. The other is for women already sentenced but who are too sick to serve time in a normal jail. Many of these cases are drug abusers."

  Munch wondered if she’d see anyone she knew. Jasper trotted past her on his way to the dog door, head down, tail straight back. A man with a mission.

  Dr. Miller cleared his throat. A therapist once told Munch that people often did that when they had something to say and were having difficulty getting it out. Literally the words were stuck in their throat. "We are a state facility and I’m afraid our budget is small."

  "I wouldn’t take any money for it anyway" she said.

  "That’s wonderful. I’ll tell the staff. l’m sure they’ll be very excited. I’m sorry let’s get back to the reason you called."

  Yeah, Munch thought, why don’t we? "Do you think my niece, after hearing what I’ve told you, would be attracted to a father figure?"

  "Almost certainly the sister as well. Keep in mind that the compulsive-obsessive personality is guided by emotional forces they have no control over. In their acts, they are making up for something that is missing, trying to keep away the pain and depression"

  "Aren’t we all."

  "Indeed, and if she does suffer from an impulse-control disorder, she most likely will have additional manifestations such as trichotillomania, bulimia nervosa, pathological gambling, pyromania—although this is more prevalent in males .... "

  "What was the first one?" Munch heard scratching, followed by a deep bark at the back door, and wondered why Iasper wasn’t coming back in the same way he’d gone out.

  "Trichotillomania. It’s the recurrent pulling of one’s own hair that often results in noticeable hair loss."

  Munch thought of Charlotte’s odd fashion choices, her partially shaved head, the drawn-on eyebrows. "Even eyebrows?" she asked.

  "Yes, eyebrows, eyelashes, scalp."

  "What’s the treatment?" She figured it was like alcoholism, incurable but not hopeless.

  "Therapy education, family support. There’s a lot of progress being made with SSRI drugs, serotonin reuptake inhibitors, such as Prozac. If we can get a patient on the correct medication, it relieves their anxiety and gives them some room to make choices."