Blood Ties Read Free Page A

fish?”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œWhy did you steal tuna fish?”
    Her question seemed to perplex Rita—not the question itself but why anyone would need to ask.
    â€œYou can go a long time on a can of tuna fish,” she said.
    *   *   *
    A little investigating cleared up the mystery of why the nutritional value of tuna fish might be important. While Rita was enjoying her first dinner at the Juvenile Detention Center, Ellen drove over to the address Rita had listed as home. It was a down-at-heel apartment building in the Mission District, and Ellen had to phone the owner, whose number was conveniently listed in the entranceway above the mailboxes, before she could get into Number 105.
    There were the usual signs of recent human habitation—dishes in the kitchen sink, a sweater lying across the back of a chair in the only bedroom, et cetera—but the clothes closet contained only what one assumed was Rita’s meager wardrobe and the bathroom had been pretty well cleaned out. There was an empty box of Playtex tampons in the wastepaper basket, but no other sign that the apartment was inhabited by a woman old enough to be Rita’s mother, and evidence of any male presence was completely absent.
    The refrigerator and the kitchen cabinets were almost empty of food, which explained why Rita had been stealing tuna fish.
    At thirteen years old she had been left to fend for herself. What choice did she have except to steal?
    â€œMom took off,” was the way Rita explained things, the next morning. She didn’t seem to regard it as anything like an unusual occurrence, so perhaps it had happened before.
    â€œWhen did she do that?”
    â€œEight or nine days ago. I’m not sure. It was a Friday.”
    â€œWhere did she go?”
    The only answer was a shrug.
    â€œWhat about your father?”
    But Rita just looked at her blankly, then said, “Mom had a lot of men friends.”
    In the end Ellen talked the gourmet-food-store manager into dropping the charges, and Rita was classified as an abandoned child. She was put into foster care.
    Nothing was ever again heard of her mother.
    Thereafter, Ellen kept a loose watch on little Rita, and it turned out to be a sensible precaution. At its worst, foster care was little more than a racket, and Rita’s first such home was pretty bad. Ellen got her out of that, and her second placement seemed to be a little better. At least, Rita wasn’t complaining.
    There was some trouble along the way, usually with boys or what passed among adolescents for recreational drugs. And then, the previous year, Rita simply disappeared.
    *   *   *
    And now she had turned up again, dead for probably a little less than twenty-four hours, crouched naked in a bathtub at the Marriot Hotel with a wide smear of dried blood trailing down the inside of her left leg from her anus.
    Her face was turned to the right, as if the killer had twisted her head around, perhaps for the pleasure of watching her death agony. Ellen had recognized her at once.
    It was too much. Ellen simply stood up and walked out of the room. When Sam followed her, he found her sitting on the corner of one of the twin beds, sobbing.
    â€œAre you all right?” he asked.
    It was a fair length of time before Ellen was able to answer him.
    â€œNo, I’m not all right,” she said, her voice ragged. “I knew that girl from juvie.” Her shoulders hunched in a despairing shrug. “Sam, if ever there was a kid who didn’t get the breaks, it was her.”
    Sam gave her about two minutes to settle down, and then he shook his head.
    â€œWe all get cases like that,” he said, wistfully. “I remember once…” And then his voice trailed off, as if whatever memory he was on the point of relating had suddenly engulfed him.
    When he spoke again, his voice was almost grim.
    â€œEllie, very few people deserve to get murdered, but