Once Bitten

by Willis, Clare

  “Do you remember those pieces you did for the Plump n’ Tasty Chicken account?”

  “Amish chickens driving horse-drawn wagons? How could I forget? It was actually Les who did those.”

  “Do you know where they are right now?”

  “Lucy had them, last I saw. We went over them on Friday.”

  “She must have taken them home with her over the weekend. Damn, I really need them. Can I access them on the server?”

  “The concept was to have a really old-fashioned, Norman Rockwell feel, so they were hand-drawn. I’m sure there are copies, but I don’t know where they are offhand, and Les went home sick.” Web sounded very apologetic. “But…”

  “What?” I asked.

  “I live near Lucy and a couple of months ago I took care of her plants when she went out of town on a business trip. She keeps a spare key in the front yard under a little plaster gnome. I guess I could go over there after work.”

  “I’ll do it.”

  “Really?”

  “You know, Web, no one has looked inside her house. Don’t you think someone should?”

  “Yeah, I guess you’re right.”

  “And I really need those drawings.”

  Lucy lived in the Richmond District, almost at Ocean Beach. She was as far away as possible from HFB while still being in the city, so I took the bus home to pick up my car. As I drove toward the ocean the temperature gauge dropped block by block. It had been 78 degrees downtown and it was 62 degrees here, with enough mist in the air to require windshield wipers. Although there was still an hour left of daylight on this October day, the fog had rolled in and created artificial twilight. Puffs of fog kept wafting past, as if a giant were smoking a cigar. I opened the window and sucked in deep breaths of the cold, wet air. For the first time all day my head felt clear and my stomach was calm.

  The Ocean House, where Eric wanted me to meet him, was only a few blocks away from here. I still hadn’t consciously decided whether I was going to meet him or not, but he hadn’t been far from my thoughts at any time during the day. I had pondered what Steve said about the date rape drug, Rohypnol. It was very easy to say Eric wasn’t the type, but I didn’t really know what type he was, did I? I couldn’t discount the idea, considering the symptoms I’d had, but why would he have drugged me? So he could rape me? That didn’t make a lot of sense, since I went with him willingly and probably would have had sex with him if I hadn’t lost consciousness, given the reckless abandon I was feeling while I was with him.

  There were, of course, other implications to the malaise I was experiencing, but those implications were ridiculous, impossible. The only thing I could concede was that perhaps there was a drug I’d never heard of that mimicked the effects of…that made one lose one’s appetite and want to avoid the sun. But maybe I was getting the flu, and that was why I was feeling so terrible. October was the traditional start of flu season.

  All my convoluted reasoning, all my contorted logic, was leading me nowhere. I had to admit that I was not capable of thinking clearly about the man, since I wanted so desperately to see him again. Luckily I had reached Lucy’s house, so I could turn my mind to other things for a while. She lived on Seal Rock Drive, which is as far west as you can go in San Francisco without falling into the ocean. The fog here smelled of salt and seaweed, and I could hear the barking of the seals on the distant promontory that gave the street its name.

  The house was a 1950s beige stucco box with a front window flanked by black shutters. All the houses on the block matched, but Lucy had done some nice things to hers. The shutters and an ornamental iron balcony under the window gave the house a pre-Katrina New Orleans flair. Clipped hedges bordered a front lawn about eight feet square, but the vegetation was struggling in the marine environment. The fog was so ubiquitous here that most of the houses were coated with a film of green mold, like they’d been sitting in a fish tank.

  The front door was reached through a tunnel entry so overgrown with ferns and spider plants that I thought if Lucy ever came in that way she’d have to use a machete. I was pushing the plants around, looking for the gnome, when someone tapped me on the shoulder. I literally jumped with surprise and let out a little shriek.

  “Excuse me, are you a friend of Lucy’s?”

  I turned around to find the gnome’s twin sister, an old woman about four-and-a-half feet tall, dressed in a bright green sweat suit. She had circles of pink blush on her wrinkled cheeks and a halo of dyed red hair. She was holding a newspaper, still in its plastic bag.

  “I’m Ida, Lucy’s next-door neighbor. I’ve been picking up her newspapers for her. You have to remember to cancel your newspaper when you go on vacation, or it’s a dead giveaway to thieves. I’ve told her that before.”

  “Okay, thanks, Ida, I’ll take it for her.” I took the newspaper.

  “The rest of them are by the front door. When is Lucy coming back, by the way?”

  This elderly lady didn’t need to be worried needlessly. “I think within the next few days, Ida. I’ll tell her you were asking about her.”

  “Okay,” she said over her shoulder as she left, “don’t forget the newspapers. They’re a dead giveaway to thieves.”

  Another minute of searching revealed the gnome, replete with stocking cap and insouciant expression.

  As I put the key in the lock I had a revelation. I wasn’t coming over just to get the Plump n’ Tasty Chicken graphics. I was hoping to solve the mystery of Lucy’s disappearance. I wanted to find a clue, something that would happily explain a sudden exit, like a winning lottery ticket, a note from a boyfriend none of us knew about, or an offer of a new job in New Zealand. Then I could be free from the guilt I felt at being fast-tracked at work.

  I opened the door and put the key on an old roll-top desk next to the front door. To my right was the living room, and to the left were two doors I assumed to be bedrooms. The bathroom was in front of me. I turned right.

  The living room was very modern—taupe walls, Eames chairs, a boxy sofa, two pieces of abstract art in black and white, and a flat screen TV mounted over the fireplace. Lucy obviously made more money than I, a lot more, if she owned this house rather than rented. Everything was in strict, Lucy-like order, except that the Sunday paper was spread out on the coffee table, with two used coffee cups on top of it. I checked the newspapers in my hand. Four of them, Monday through Thursday. Presumably Lucy had left sometime on Sunday. I put the newspapers on the table and shivered. It was cold in the house, even colder than outside.

  There was a sour smell in the kitchen. A few Cheerios sat in a bowl of milk that had turned rancid. I opened a few of the cupboards, feeling strange, but doing it anyway. They contained shiny black dishes, all square, including the bowls. Then I noticed Lucy’s BlackBerry sitting on the counter, and my stomach lurched. Lucy never went anywhere without her CrackBerry. I picked it up and, with only a tiny measure of guilt, listened to her messages. She had three saved messages and fourteen new ones.

  The date on the first saved message was October 4, 10:12 A.M. “Hi Lucy, this is Henley at the salon, reminding you that you have an eleven o’clock appointment on October 6th with Sasha, for a full leg wax.”

  The next message was from a voice I recognized, breathy and low-pitched. “Hi Lucy, this is Moravia. I know you were planning to come to the club tomorrow, but I think it might be better if you didn’t. Sully and I would like to talk to you first. Please call me as soon as you get this.” That message came in on Thursday at 7:45 P.M., almost exactly a week ago.

  The next message had come in on Saturday, October 6, at 9:15 A.M.

  “Lucy, it’s Les. Are you there? Pick up the phone, please! We need to talk, I need to talk to you, please call me. I love you.”

  Whoa! There was a revelation. Les and Lucy, in love? I hadn’t seen a hint of it at work. I listened to the message again, noting the desperation in Les’s voice. A hint of jealousy arose out of some unexamined region of my brain. I imagined Les’s sinewy
back, covered in tattoos, his face contorted in wild abandon, while Lucy checked her BlackBerry behind his head.

  The new messages were from various people at HFB wondering where Lucy was, starting with Dick at 10 o’clock on Monday morning. Among the others who called were Kimberley, Web, Theresa, and Mary from Human Resources.

  I heard a noise at the front door and went into the living room, still holding the BlackBerry. Someone was putting a key in the lock. Thinking it was Lucy, I raced to open the door. There stood Les, as if my imagining had somehow magically summoned him. He quickly stuck the key in his pocket.

  “What are you doing here?” I asked him, in what I’m sure was not a polite voice. “I thought you were sick.”

  “I heard you were coming, and it didn’t seem like you should be here by yourself, so I thought I should come and make sure you were all right.”

  It was Les who wasn’t acting all right. He was nervous, bouncing on the balls of his feet. He looked pale and his eyes were bloodshot.

  “So Web told you I was coming down here. Can you help me find them, then?”

  “Find what?” Les seemed to be having trouble concentrating.

  “The Plump n’ Tasty graphics, remember?”

  “I don’t know where those are.”

  “I’ll go look myself. Her office is probably back here.” If Les wanted to pretend he’d never been here before who was I to stop him?

  I went to the rear of the house while Les went toward the kitchen. The first door revealed Lucy’s office, dominated by an L-shaped oak desk. The top of the desk had nothing on it but a mouse pad and an electrical cord, presumably for Lucy’s laptop. The file drawer in the desk appeared to contain only personal business. A row of fluorescent file folders were neatly labeled with titles such as “Insurance: Auto,” “Insurance: Health,” and “Tax Related.”

  I started to go back to the kitchen to tell Les I couldn’t find the drawings, when I heard sounds in the adjacent room. What was Les doing in her bedroom? I crossed the hall and opened the bedroom door. The small room was almost entirely filled by an oak four-poster bed. Lucy was lying on top of the pale blue bedspread, dressed in a full-length white silk nightgown. Her pale body gleamed like a firefly on a summer night.

  Chapter 7

  I didn’t have to touch her to know she was dead. Her skin was bluish-gray and appeared to have thickened and solidified over her bones, like a thin layer of candle wax had been dripped over her. Her facial angles, pleasantly round in life, had sharpened, and her head looked like a skull with skin on it. But her body was relaxed, her hands lying loosely at her sides. A slight smile rested on Lucy’s lips, as if she were having a pleasant dream. A window was open and it was quite cold in the room, but there was still an odor of putrefaction. I put my hand up to my face and stifled the urge to gag and scream at the same time.

  Les was on his knees at the side of the bed, his head in his hands, making a noise that was half groaning, half crying. I put my hand on his shoulder. Like I’d given him an electric shock, Les jumped to his feet. He gave me one quick look and then ran over to Lucy’s closet. He pulled the door open and started rummaging around in Lucy’s clothes.

  “Les, what are you doing?” I stammered.

  He responded by pulling out several shirts and making a bundle of them. One was a distinctive red and orange tie-dye T-shirt I’d seen Les wearing at work.

  “What are you going to do with those? You’re not supposed to take anything out of here.”

  Les didn’t seem to hear me. He went over to the wastebasket by the bed and looked in. He lifted the bedskirt and checked under the bed. He took a Kleenex and used it to open Lucy’s bedside table. He pulled out a handful of condoms and put them in his back pocket. Then he used the Kleenex to rub the surface of the nightstand.

  “Les, are you crazy? This is a crime scene. We should be calling 911!”

  Les grabbed me by the arm and dragged me into the living room. He sat me rather roughly on the couch. When I looked at his face he had tears in his eyes. Then I realized I was in tears myself.

  “Angie, you’ve got to believe me, I know how this looks. But I didn’t kill Lucy, I didn’t even know she was dead. I just came over to get some of my stuff.”

  “But, I didn’t even know you were friends with Lucy!” I felt like I was going to faint. I lowered my head and Les’s voice was filtered through my knees.

  “We were dating, sort of. Lucy didn’t want anyone at work to know about it.”

  I lifted my head. “All right, but that doesn’t explain why you’re trying to take evidence away.”

  “I was over here on Friday night. We had a fight and she threw me out.”

  “What were you fighting about?”

  “She was into this vampire stuff. Blood drinking and a bunch of other freaky shit. She tried to get me into it but I said no. I told her it was dangerous, but she just laughed.”

  Les rubbed his nose with the back of his hand. “That night, she told me she’d met someone else and she wanted to break up. She said he was a ‘real vampire,’ not like the posers she’d been with before. Naturally I was upset. I might have said some things I shouldn’t have. When she didn’t come back to work I thought it was because of me. She said she never wanted to see me again.” He looked at me imploringly.

  “Did you think that maybe something like this could have happened?” I waved my hand toward the bedroom.

  “Yes, of course!” Les was shouting. “But what could I do? If she was into supernatural shit, what was I going to do to stop it?”

  I was taking deep breaths to stay calm. I looked up at Les. He looked genuinely distraught, but everything he was telling me could have been a lie to cover for his own crime.

  I made my voice very calm. “Les, we need to call the police.”

  Les jumped toward me and grabbed my hand. I forced myself not to snatch it away. I didn’t want to do anything to upset him further.

  “Angie, you’ve got to let me get out of here. I swear I didn’t have anything to do with this. But if the police find out I was here I’m not going to be able to explain things. I know how it works. They’ll find a way to pin it on me, even though I didn’t do it.”

  “It’s not going to happen like that.”

  “No one but you knows we were dating, so if I just take my stuff and go home they won’t waste their time talking to me. Please, Angie, let me go.”

  “Les, I have to call the police.”

  Les let go of my hand and clenched his fists. For a moment I thought he was going to hit me.

  “Please, just let me put this stuff in the car and then we’ll call.” Les didn’t wait for my answer but instead grabbed the bundle of clothes he’d taken out of Lucy’s room and ran for the front door. Moments later I heard the sound of an engine. When I looked out the front window I saw a car speeding away.

  I went outside and called 911. Ghosts made of mist and fog swirled around me while I waited for the cops to come.

  Within minutes the paramedics and the police arrived. The paramedics left after certifying what I already knew about Lucy’s condition. The police dispersed a small crowd of neighbors who had gathered, and then asked me to sit in a squad car until the homicide inspectors arrived. I watched them wrap yellow tape around the front entrance. Eventually two men approached. They were the first I’d seen wearing civilian clothes, so I assumed they were the homicide guys. I stepped out of the car to greet them.

  They were the classic odd couple. One was a handsome Hispanic man in his mid-thirties dressed in a nicely tailored suit, probably not Armani, but a mighty good knock-off. His immoveable, black Ken doll hair reminded me of Steve’s. The white man standing beside him had been handsome in his youth, but had let time slip by him with a vengeance. He appeared to be in his mid-sixties, with thinning red hair tinged gray, sunken blue eyes, and the jowls of a bulldog. The tarnished gold buttons of a ratty blue sport coat strained over his formidable belly.

  Bulldog shook m
y hand with what felt like a baseball mitt. “I’m Inspector Sansome of the San Francisco Police Department and this is Inspector Trujillo. We’d like to ask you some questions.”

  At that moment one of the uniformed officers came up to the Inspectors. Trujillo said a few words to him and left me with Sansome, who said, “Perhaps you’d be more comfortable in the squad car?” I nodded.

  Inspector Sansome unbuttoned his coat before sliding into the back seat. Suddenly I was wondering if I should have called a lawyer. Being questioned in the back seat of a cop car had triggered some latent guilt complex. But Sansome smiled at me encouragingly, then gazed out the window.

  “Mighty foggy out here. I don’t know how people stand it. Me, I prefer the hottest weather I can get. Live in the Mission District myself, and when I retire I plan to go to the desert, Arizona. I know this must be very upsetting for you, Ma’am, but we need to get some basic information. Your full name, please.”

  “Angela Margaret McCaffrey.”

  Sansome smiled. “A good Irish name. Did you grow up in San Francisco?”

  “Yes. I was named after Angel Island.”

  People are usually amused when I tell them that I am named for Angel Island, a small, green, undeveloped rock in the Bay between San Francisco and Marin. Accessible only by ferry, it was first an immigration and quarantine station for Asian immigrants. After World War II the Parks Department took it over and people began coming for picnics and hikes. My parents grew up in the Irish working-class neighborhood of Noe Valley, where big families were packed into railroad car Victorian houses with two bedrooms and one bathroom. My mother was one of five children and my father one of seven, so when they were courting as teenagers there weren’t many places for them to go to be alone. They would take the ferry to Angel Island and be gone for hours, “walking.”

  My mother found out she was pregnant a week before her graduation from Mission High School. I don’t know if theirs could be called a shotgun wedding, but being the good Catholics that they were, there probably weren’t a lot of other viable options. Mom and Dad graduated from high school and went straight into full adulthood, with my sister Thea coming eleven months after me (Irish twins, as siblings like us were called in the neighborhood). So I was named after the place that gave my parents what were probably the only moments of carefree happiness in their lives. Sansome, with his faded blue eyes and a ring of copper hair around his otherwise bald head, looked like he would probably understand this story, maybe even have lived a similar one.