Free Life Sentences by Alice Blanchard

the northeastern corner of the minimall .
"If you say so."
    "Nothing is what it seems in
L.A.," he told her.
    "Thanks." She paid the fare
and got out, then entered the nondescript building through a gray metal
door and gave her name at the front desk.
    Inside the police station, the
HVAC system was antiquated and Rorschach water marks dotted the sagging
box-beam ceiling. The desk sergeant told her to take a seat in the cramped
waiting area, and she realized how jet-lagged she was as she sank into a
maroon sofa and instantly closed her eyes, her eyelids scraping together
like sandpaper.
    After a few minutes, footsteps
echoed down the hallway's black-and-white-checkered linoleum, and a
man wearing brown slacks, a brown sports coat and a sea-blue tie extended
his hand. "Jack Makowski," he said. He had a confident grip and
looked like an aging surfer with his graying, collar-length hair and
sun-weathered skin. Daisy decided he was the kind of man who, once he
threw that switch, could be radiant. "Let's go into my office where
we can talk," he said.
    She followed him down the hallway
toward a cluttered office with an old-fashioned clock on the wall and a
metal desk buried under a New York City skyline of paperwork. Tacked to
the bulletin board were dozens of Wanted posters-brutal, heartless
faces gazing down at her. Detective Makowski cleared a space for her
on one of the cluttered chairs, then settled in behind his desk.
"So," he said, "tell me about your sister."
    "We think she went off her
meds," Daisy said, her hands collapsed in her lap. "She might've
run away and-"
    His old-fashioned phone jangled.
"Excuse me," he said, picking up. "Yeah? Okay. No, I'm with
her now. Yup. Bye." He hung up, then stared at her absently. "Where
was I?"
    "My sister," she said,
heart pounding in her ears. "I was telling you about my sister."
    He gave a curt nod. "We have
three unsolved missing-persons cases in De Campo Beach, Ms. Hubbard.
The first victim disappeared over a year ago. The second was reported
missing just last week, and your sister makes it number three."
    She reacted with confusion.
"You think they're related?"
    "We found bloodstains in
her apartment. Now, please don't jump to any conclusions just yet. We
don't know whose ABO it is. Could be menstrual blood, could be somebody
cut their hand, could be from a previous tenant. These are minor bloodstains
I'm talking about."
    She heard a whooshing sound inside
her ears as the far corners of the room grew fuzzy.
    "What's your sister's blood
type?" he asked.
    "O positive."
    He glanced down at the file folder
that lay open on his desk. "Same blood type we found inside her apartment.
So you think she stopped taking her medication?"
    "I don't know. She quit therapy
six months ago. There was nobody monitoring her."
    He nodded. "We found drug paraphernalia
in her apartment, along with some pot and cocaine residue."
    "Schizophrenics have a tendency
to self-medicate," she explained. "Sometimes they'll stop taking
their prescription drugs and compensate by doing illegal
drugs."
    He eyed her curiously.
"You're a scientist?"
    She nodded. She'd given him a brief
autobiographical sketch over the phone. "I specialize in neurogenetics . I'm trying to cure inherited fatal
brain disorders."
    His eyes widened. "That's
pretty admirable."
    "Yeah, well… I've been told I
have no life."
    He nodded knowingly. "I lost
three marriages to the job."
    "We're a pathetic pair."
    He gave her what she considered
to be his first genuine smile.
    She smiled back.
    "Does your sister own a cell
phone?" he asked.
    Daisy shook her head. "She
worries about the 'radiation' affecting her brain."
    "Okay. No pager, then?"
    "No."
    "And you say she's run away before?"
    "It happens once or twice a
year."
    "Uh-huh. What usually provokes
it?"
    "She and Lily… my mother… will
have a fight, then she'll run away and hole up in some homeless shelter
or church or something. Anna's very into the drama of it all."
    "So you think she