by Marcus Sakey
FEMALE VOICE (O.S.)
What did you do?
The sound is coming from the other room. Daniel starts in that direction.
A door slams.
Daniel begins to run.
He leaves the kitchen, breaks into the living room.
FEMALE VOICE (O.S.)
What did you do?
Daniel runs faster. He bolts out the side of the living room.
He is back in the kitchen.
DANIEL
Laney?
He runs the other way, into the hall, gets to the front door, rips it open, steps through. He is back in the kitchen.
Daniel runs again. The house is a nightmare maze. Doors that never existed open onto impossible hallways.
A voice begins to sing. It’s a woman’s voice, but strange, stretched out somehow.
FEMALE VOICE (O.S.)
Hawrk the herald ang-gels siing
(the voice stops, changes to a laughing tone.)
You know, with their heads thrown back and mouths all wide—
(singing again)
Glo-ree to, the new bowrn king.
(talking)
Remember?
Daniel continues to run, faster and faster. His hands leave blood smudges on everything he touches.
FEMALE VOICE(O.S.) Remember?
DANIEL
Laney, I didn’t do anything, I didn’t, I know I didn’t! Help me, please, help— Daniel slows as the familiar door approaches. FEMALE VOICE(O.S.)
(no sign she’s heard)
And then they dance.
(she sings a soundtrack)
da-na-na-nanana-na-nah, da-na-na-nah . . . da-na-na-nanana-na-nah, da-dada, dadada. . . .
Daniel opens the door, steps through . . . FEMALE VOICE(O.S.)
Bah-dah-dah-dah! Doink-iddie doink-iddie, doink-iddie, Bah-dah-dah-dah! Doink-iddie doink-iddie—
He is back in the kitchen.
DANIEL
I’m trying! Help me!
The woman’s voice dissolves into beautiful, bubbly laughter.
Daniel sinks to the floor.
DANIEL
You have to help me.
(fading)
I need help.
(staring at bloody hands)
Please.
5
Something smacked his feet, and Daniel jerked awake, heart thudding and stomach a tight, hard ball, a blinding white light in his eyes. He raised a hand, squinted through his fingertips. “What—”
“Get up.” The voice stern. Used to being obeyed. A breaker slammed into the beach, the impact tremor riding through his back. Daniel scrambled for thought, for context. Where was he? What was going on?
Last night. He’d read those articles, those foul, vile articles. The woman he loved gone, gone forever, and the whole world sure that he had done it, that he was the kind of man who murdered his wife. He’d left the café and stalked the streets. Hating everything and everyone. Hating Los Angeles most of all. He’d finally made it, only to realize he didn’t want to be here. It was glitter and vigor up front, all to leave you unprepared for how deep the sorrow ran when things went wrong. A driving city with lousy parking. Yoga during the day, cocaine at night. You can live the dream life with your dream girl, but you don’t get to remember it, and when the bill comes, it’s a fucking doozy.
He’d finally found a liquor store, where a Sikh sold him bourbon. Perfect.
Then walking, drinking, more walking. Finally coming onto the beach in Venice. The bottle mostly gone. The surf rolling steady, like it had all the time in the world. Like nothing was worthy of notice. He’d lain down, the world spinning below him, the universe whirling above, and remembered, just before falling asleep, the sensation that instead of looking up he was looking down, that he was clinging to the earth above a terrible and endless night—
“I said get up.” The last word punctuated with another kick at his feet.
“Hey, man, easy.” Daniel sat up, rubbed at his eyes. “I just fell asleep is all.” Thinking, a cop, a cop, a cop. He kept his face tilted down, hoping the guy hadn’t really studied him, that his new look was disguise enough. The flashlight had reduced the world to inches.
“No sleeping on the beach.” The light trailed down to the brown paper bag of bourbon. “No drinking, either.”
Part of him wanted to panic, to run wild, but to his surprise, his mind was calmly putting things together. Not cornered, not caught. The man wasn’t looking for him. He was just rousting a drunk. Still, if he asked for ID, or wanted to give him a ticket . . .
“I’m sorry, Officer. I’m not a bum or anything. I just . . . me and my girl.” He hesitated, found emotion easy to summon. “I lost her.” Almost choked the words out. “I lost her.”
The flashlight hovered on him for a long moment. Daniel could almost hear the cop thinking, taking in the clothing, the expensive haircut. Calculating the hassle of running in a regular civilian with a broken heart and a buzz, the civilian whining and crying and maybe even puking.
“Just move along, all right? You can’t stay here.”
Daniel nodded. “Sure. Sorry.” He brushed sand off the messenger bag and struggled to his feet.
“And take that with you.” The beam dodged to the bottle. Daniel bent to pick it up, then started away before the cop had a chance to change his mind. The flashlight sent his shadow sprawling ahead. Sand slipped beneath his feet. The sky was the burgundy wine of very early morning. Yet another night of barely sleeping, and a hangover to boot. He shivered. That dream. The blood on his hands, and that strange singing voice.
No wonder you’re conjuring up judges in your dreams. You killed your wife. You drove her off that cliff, and when you saw what you’d done, you couldn’t deal. So you ran. You got in your car and fled the monster you had become. You drove for two straight days, propped up on booze and pills, the world a blur of gas stations and highways, and when you got to the beach where you’d married Laney, it still wasn’t far enough. So you tried one last route. A cold, brutal swim into oblivion.
No.
No? Because you don’t believe it? Or because you don’t want to believe it?
His stomach rolled, thick and sour. His mouth was a desert, his head a vise. He staggered up the sidewalk, the sky growing lighter with every step. Venice slumbered behind shackled doors. Laney had always loved it here, loved the contradictions. Million-dollar homes on the boardwalk, needles on the beach. He remembered a long-ago afternoon, the two of them lying in the heat of an August day. She’d smelled of sunscreen and sweat. They’d lounged and talked about the future, about someday leaving the business. About having children and going to soccer games and hosting cookouts. Afterward they’d gone home to make slow heat-stoned love as breezes tossed the curtains.
Before. Back when she was alive, when he hadn’t—
Wait.
He dropped the bottle in a trash can, took a seat on a nearby bench. Slapped at his cheeks, ran his hands through his hair, the gel in it gritty with sand. A panel truck with pictures of dancing tortillas rolled by. He took a breath, deep, and held it.
This didn’t make sense.
He was the first to admit that his memory was suspect. But it had been coming back, and increasingly rapidly. Whatever had happened to his mind, it seemed to be temporary. Brought on by exhaustion and substances and shock and physical strain, it was passing. Not as fast he might like, but steadily. That memory of the beach, for example, it was real. He could remember her crawling on top of him, her hair making a sun-stained cave of their faces. She had smiled at him, and said that she liked it like this, just the two of them in the whole world, and when he’d pointed out that they were on a crowded beach, she’d said, “I don’t see anyone else.”
That was real. That had happened.
And the pictures in their house. The two of them in love, the two of them getting married, the two of them playing at Halloween and Christmas, the two of them skiing. No pictures of anyone else, just the two of
them.
He took the lemon skin lotion from his bag, spun the top off, inhaled deeply.
Hell, when he had been lost completely, when he couldn’t remember his own name, she had smiled at him from the television and guided him home. They had been happy. Successful. And blessed with the kind of love that made rom-coms into box office smashes.
The tabloids had it wrong. He’d always hated them. Hated that they not only aired dirty laundry, but they hung the clean stuff and tried to tell you it was filthy. All those lurid hints of fights and affairs, implications half-excused by the use of the word “allegedly.” Laney had always had more patience for them than he had, and thank god, since she was the one they liked to write about. Sexy actresses trumped writers every time; he’d seen ten thousand magazines talking about Angelina, but had yet to see Joss Whedon on the cover of the Star.
But it wasn’t just tabloids you read. It was CNN too, and a dozen others.
Besides, there was the guilt. The guilt he’d felt since the moment he’d awakened. The guilt that played out in dreams, that had chased him on his ride back west, nipping at his soul in every quiet moment.
It could be nothing. Maybe it was just loss, and sadness, and a feeling that he hadn’t been able to protect her. But maybe not.
Daniel sighed, rubbed at his eyes. Everything was fluid. Everything was possible.
He needed more answers. And the only way he could think of to get them was one hell of a risk.
“I
think I’m going to write a book,” Peter McShane said, gesturing with half a bagel. “Practical tips for aspiring bad guys.”
Detective Roger Waters raised an eyebrow, flipped a page in the folder. “Chicken Soup for the Criminal’s Soul?”
“Chapter One. When committing a crime, remember to plan your escape. While Jet Skis and hang gliders offer some amusement, the discerning bad guy opts for a car. When choosing a car for your escape, or ‘getaway vehicle,’ ” McShane said, making air quotes, “you are advised not to use your parents’ Audi. Should you fail to observe this basic precaution, you waive the right to look surprised when we show up at your home.”
Waters laughed. “You serious?”
“Yep. The white boys snatched that girl out of Torrance, took her to a burnout, had her chained to the pipes? Used Mommy’s car. Boo-ya, two masterminds down.” Specks of bagel fell on his shirt. “How about you? Anything on Luscious Laney? Still like the husband?”
“Yup.” Waters tossed the folder on his desk, leaned back with his fingers laced behind his head. “You know the T-shirt at their house?”
“The bloody one.”
“Got the preliminary lab work back. A-positive, same as my victim. Husband is B-pos. It’s not his. We won’t know DNA until the lab gets around to it next decade, but now in addition to a runner with a half-million-dollar motive, I’ve got a man’s shirt, same size as my suspect, found in his closet, covered in blood that matches the victim’s type.”
“So, how’s it play? They have a fight, he stabs her—”
“Shoots her. Husband has three guns. But she manages to get away in her sporty VW—”
“Except he chases her down, runs her off the PCH.”
“And you know the best thing? He’s back in town.”
“You’re kidding.”
“Nope. According to his credit cards, Hayes made it all the way to Maine. So I sent a telex, not expecting anything, but some kid from the Washington County Sheriffs spotted the car, tried to arrest him. Botched it. Asshole fired on my suspect too, you believe that?” Down the hall, the lieutenant was guiding a well-dressed woman into his office. She tried to smile, but didn’t quite pull it off, too much concern on her face. A missing child, maybe. Parents usually had that panicked expression. “Hayes flees. And yesterday a neighbor spots him climbing the fence to his house in Malibu.”
“No shit?”
“No shit. We rolled up, but he was gone by the time we got there.”
“Why climb the fence?”
“How should I know.” Waters picked up a pen, spun it between his fingers. A phone rang, and he heard someone answer LosAngelesSheriffsMajorCrimesMetroDetail. “Gets weirder. Other day, LAPD gets a call from a woman named Sophie Zeigler. Someone broke in, came at her in the shower, held her at gunpoint. You know what he’s asking? Where my suspect is. And Sophie Zeigler? She’s Hayes’s attorney.”
“He lawyered up?”
“No, she’s a Hollywood player, negotiations, that sort of thing. But who’s the guy that broke in?”
McShane finished the bagel, wiped his hands. “Accomplice.”
“That’s what I’m thinking. The husband hired this guy to help, then welched on paying before he skipped town.”
“Ah, the humanity.” McShane stood up. “What a piece of work is man. How noble in . . . something or other.”
“You might want to polish that up for the final draft of your book.”
The other cop gave him the finger, and Waters grinned, turned back to his desk. Opened the folder, flipped to the photos of her car. Familiar by now, but still, Christ, what a mess. The Volkswagen upside down, half-submerged, the surf smacking against it in ropes of spray. The top opened like a can of soup. All the glass broken out, the sides crumpled. The next photo was of the barricade, the metal scarred with paint from where the Bug had hit, the bent section stretching outward as if pointing the way to the sea. Then the cliff itself, a hundred feet if it was ten, and steep. A ribbon of ripped up earth and torn vegetation marked the car’s route—
“Detective?”
Waters looked up. A patrolwoman in sheriff’s beige, tie tucked neatly. “Yes?”
“Got a call for you. Another Daniel Hayes.”
Waters sighed. He’d been talking to four, five a day, all calling to confess to killing Laney Thayer. Some of them were pretty entertaining, spinning soft-core fantasies they’d obviously put some time into. None of them had passed the bullshit test. He glanced at his watch. “All right.”
She nodded, rounded the corner of the cubicles. He heard her say, “Just one moment,” and then his phone rang. He collected the photos, rapped them against the edge of the desk, then picked up the handset and tucked it between his shoulder and chin. “This is Waters.”
“Hi. Umm. This is.” A pause, then, “This is Daniel Hayes.” Waters slid the pictures back into the folder. “Uh-huh?” “You’re handling the . . . Laney? Her investigation?”
“That’s right.” He set the folder in his inbox, opened a drawer, swept pens and Post-its inside.
“Was that you at my house yesterday?”
The world snapped into focus. Waters sat up straight, looked around. Was this a cop prank?
“That was you, wasn’t it? On the intercom?”
Waters switched the phone to his other ear, said, “Yes, that was me, Mr. Hayes. Why did you run away?”
“I didn’t have anything to do with it.” There was a ragged indrawn breath, the sound of a man trying for conviction, and in the next sentence he had it. “I did not kill my wife.”
Waters was wishing this was a movie, that he could signal for someone to trace the call. “I believe you, Daniel.”
“You do?”
“Yeah, I do.” Waters pitched his voice earnest. “I’ve spoken to a lot of people. Your friends and coworkers. Daniel, they all say that you and Laney were very much in love.”
There was a choked sound. “If you believe that, then why are you chasing me?”
“Daniel, you have to understand my position. I believe you. But my bosses? They’re riding me. In a case like this, the husband is the first person we look at. So when you disappeared on us, you didn’t leave us any choice.”
“How do you even know that someone else—”
“Come on. Don’t insult my intelligence. We found skid marks for miles before that barricade.”
“Maybe she was driving fast—”
“The marks weren’t just hers, Daniel. She was running from
someone. You say it wasn’t you, I believe you.” He projected calm, kept his speech slow and even. “I know that there must be an explanation. But I need your help to find it. For both our sakes.” He held a beat. “Come talk to me, Daniel. Let’s figure this thing out together.”
There was a long pause, then a chuckle. “You said my name four, five times. That’s, what, a technique to establish a bond? Make me believe we’re friends?”
Heat bloomed across Waters’s forehead. He rocked a pen back and forth between his index and middle finger, whapping alternate ends against the desk. “You’re right. That’s what I was doing. But you do need to come in.”
“Why?”
“Because you’re in trouble. You’ve got a lot to answer for. You left the state just after your wife was murdered. You fled deputies in Maine, then led them on a high-speed chase. You ran from us at your house.”
“Those skid marks. You can tell what kind of car it was from them, right?”
“We can tell a lot from them.”
“So what kind was it?”
Waters leaned back, wondered what the guy was playing at. “We can’t get a make and model from tire marks.”
“You said—”
“But it was a truck. An SUV.”
“I drive a BMW, an M5. Not an SUV.”
Then I guess you’re innocent. “You see? That’s exactly the kind of thing that will help us clear you.” There was a long pause. Waters forced himself not to speak, just sat there thinking, Come on, fish, bite.
“If I come in, you’ll arrest me.”
“I’m not going to lie to you. That’s possible. But if you don’t come in, it’s a guarantee. Don’t you get it? You’re the bad guy now. Even if you didn’t have anything to do with her death.” He switched tacks. “Besides. If you didn’t do it, then someone else did.”
“Maybe she just lost control.” A little desperate.
“No chance. Someone was chasing her, someone who wanted to kill her. You want to see photos of the skid marks? Want to look at the barricade, the way it’s torn up? Want to touch the air bag sample we cut out, her blood on it?” He let it sink in, then continued a little softer. “Now, if someone had done that to my wife, I would do anything, anything, to get them. Get her the justice she deserves. You do want whoever did this caught, don’t you?