We were in Echo Park, sitting on a park bench before a man-made lake. Years ago, the lake had been filled with lotus plants - more lotus plants than I had ever seen. But the plants had slowly died off and now they were gone and it saddened the heart.
There was a stigma about the park. Some thought it was dangerous, and maybe it was, at times. But for the most part, it was a little piece of green and blue in a city of concrete and graffiti. Joggers mixed with bums mixed with lovers mixed with God-only-knew-what-their story was. A melting pot of physical fitness, homelessness and drugs.
And one curious private investigator and a very lost sixteen-year-old boy.
We were sitting side by side, although his backpack was tucked between us. The evening sky was mostly clear, with only a small patch of something gauzy and amorphous high above. The trees around us rustled in the breeze. The breeze carried the smell of pond decay. Across the street, boys played basketball at a park. Most were shirtless, and most were covered in tattoos. As I watched, a fight nearly broke out, but only a few choice words seemed to be the extent of it.
His name was David and he was shy. I was shy, too, and the two didn't combine for a lot of random chit-chat. We had said our greetings and were now sitting quietly on the bench.
I finally started things off. "Hot day."
"Yeah."
"The nights aren't any better."
He nodded.
"How long have you been in L.A.?" I asked.
"A few months now."
"Where did you live before?"
"San Francisco."
I nodded. Funny how life was often serendipitous. My last major case had taken me to San Francisco.
"What brought you down here?"
"My birth mom."
"Who are you staying with?"
"My aunt and uncle."
"Who were you living with before coming down?"
He looked away. "My father."
"Your adopted father?"
"Yes."
"What about your adopted mother?"
"She died when I was four."
"Do you like your adopted father?"
"No."
"Why?"
"You ask a lot of questions," he said.
"I get paid to ask a lot of questions."
"But I'm only paying you two tacos."
"Payment is payment."
David looked at me, squinting against the last of the sun that was hovering somewhere over my right shoulder. David had a smattering of freckles over his nose and cheekbones. I predicted in two years the freckles would be gone. My son had freckles, too.
Shit. I took in a lot of air. When I had some control over myself, I said, "Why don't you like your father?"
"Because he's lazy and says shitty things."
"Did he ever hit you?"
"No."
"But he was psychologically abusive."
David nodded. "Yeah, that."
"How was he lazy?"
He shrugged. "He never worked. We usually lived with his girlfriends, until they kicked us out. He made me start working at fourteen, at a girlfriend's cookie shop. Then he took most of the money I made."
"He put you to work and then took your money?"
"Basically."
"What do you think about that?"
"I hate him."
I asked him some more questions and I did my best to piece together his often stunted, one-word answers. The kid had known at a young age that he was adopted. His father, apparently, liked to throw his adoption in his face. No doubt to be cruel. Apparently his father had not taken his wife's death too well. In the years after, the man had spent much of his time drinking and man-whoring.
David, at about age fifteen, began looking for his birth mother, until he quickly discovered that he couldn't request birth parent records in the state of California until he, the adoptee, was twenty-one. But the kid was dogged and industrious, and soon he had the help of a sympathetic superior court judge, who happened to be the mother of a close friend. The judge stepped in and was able to convince the Department of Social Services to release David's birth mother's records. She cited extenuating, extraordinary circumstances, the only reason the state would release such information.
David didn't know what the extenuating, extraordinary circumstance were, but I suspected the judge had simply pulled a few strings.
Now with her help, he was able to track down his mother all the way to Los Angeles, only to discover that she had been slain two years earlier. A mother who had left behind two children and a vast fortune. Those two children were being raised by grandparents; the father, of course, was currently awaiting execution at San Quentin.
The superior court judge next got hold of the will. In the will, Evelyn Drake, his birth mother, in an extreme act of generosity, had set up a significant trust fund for him, should he ever come looking for her.
David, who was already making arrangements to live with his adopted mother's sister here in southern California, was set to inherit a good deal of money.
But state law insists on a DNA test. So one was set, and when it came time to administer the test; meaning, extracting DNA from his mother's corpse, the body had been discovered missing.
Which is where I came in.
"That's a helluva story, kid," I said.
He looked away, nodded.
A shapely rollerblader came blading by. She was followed immediately by a stumbling bum, either drunk or high. The bum was followed, in turn, by a limping golden retriever. The retriever stayed close to the bum and I was briefly touched by the creature's loyalty. I suspected the dog was the only thing keeping the man alive through sheer love, devotion and protection.
There were tears in David's eyes. It's bad enough losing one mother, but this kid had lost two.
The bum curled up in the fetal position on the grass near the lake, using his arm as a pillow. The golden retriever curled up next to him, ever watchful, keeping his drunken owner safe. A woman nearby immediately got up from the grass and left, shoving one of those e-reader thingies into her purse.
"I don't really care about the money," said David.
I nodded. The dog lay its fuzzy muzzle across the back of the unconscious man, who was now snoring loudly.
"I just want to know what happened to her," he said.
I nodded again, and watched the dog close its eyes, although its ears remained ever alert.