Grave Endings Read Free Page A

be. It’s just a fancy word shrinks use, and ex-girlfriends who like to talk a thing to death.”
    I wasn’t in the mood for Psychology 101 à la Porter, who probably has a host of exes and is no Dr. Phil. I wished Hernandez were here. Picking up my purse, I stood. “Thanks for your time. If you change your mind—”
    â€œSo what exactly do you want to know about Creeley?”
    The change of heart surprised me. Either Porter was taking pity on me, or he figured I’d be back to nag him. Probably the latter. I sat down again. “Anything you can tell me. What he looked like, his background.”
    Porter opened a manila folder that he removed from the bottom of a stack and held it up so that I couldn’t take a peek. “White male, five-eleven, one hundred eighty-two pounds. Brown eyes, blond hair—with a little help from Miss Clairol, is my guess.” He flipped a page. “High school education. No steady job except for a few years, unless you count his street activity.”
    â€œWas he working around the time Aggie was murdered?”
    â€œYeah.”
    â€œDoing what?” I prodded when Porter didn’t say.
    â€œNothing that would get him into
Forbes.
He wasn’t making his mark on society, Blume. He was making
society
his mark.”
    I smiled to show I appreciated the witticism. “Can I see his mug shot?”
    Porter shook his head. “He was good-looking, if that’s what you want to know.
Too
good-looking, according to his daddy. That was Randy’s downfall—that plus his dream of becoming the next Brad Pitt.”
    â€œThat’s in the rap sheet?”
    â€œThat’s what Roland Creeley senior said when we told him the good news.”
    â€œWhat about the mother?”
    Porter raised his hand and waved good-bye. “Walked out when Randy was nine. Left hubby to take care of Randy and his sister. The sister wasn’t even two when Mom skipped. Different lyrics, same old sad refrain. ‘My momma done left meee.’ ”
    Porter has probably earned the right to be cynical, but I felt a flicker of unwelcome sympathy for the boy whose mother had abandoned him and his family. That’s the danger in finding out a person’s history.
    â€œYoung Randy started early,” Porter said. “Petty theft when he was thirteen. He got probation for that. He was in and out of the system for years. Vandalism, truancy, DUI. Not an impressive report card. Then our hero graduated to felonies.”
    â€œHe was convicted?”
    â€œTwice. He did a home robbery at sixteen and spent a year in a juvenile facility.”
    â€œAnd the second time?”
    Porter glanced at the sheet. “Eleven years ago. He did four years at Chino—double what he would’ve served if he didn’t have that first strike.”
    So Randy had been released seven years ago, less than a year before Aggie was killed. “Nothing since then?”
    â€œThat we know of—until he murdered your friend.” Porter shut the folder. “He probably improved his skills. He had to, if he didn’t want to spend the rest of his life as a guest of the state.”
    I nodded. California’s three-strikes law mandates twenty-five years to life in prison for a third felony conviction. “What was the second strike?”
    â€œA street mugging.”
    â€œJust like with Aggie,” I said, and was treated to another one of Porter’s shrugs. “Did he use a knife?”
    He’d used a knife on Aggie. The weapon was never found, but my imagination, which has forced details on me that detectives had withheld and that I hadn’t really wanted to know (how many times she was stabbed, the location and nature of the wounds, the ultimate cause of death), shows me a long, slender blade and a wood handle, both darkened with her blood.
    â€œHe was unarmed,” Porter said. “Otherwise, the judge probably would’ve