Light spilled out from the sliding glass door of Elise’s bedroom.
Neal ran toward it.
Open.
I was last one in, he thought.
Elise had picked up the towel she’d left in the lounge and stepped into her bedroom, and Neal had followed her through the sliding door.
He couldn’t remember locking it.
Did I lock it? he wondered. Did I even shut it?
Must be how he got in.
Fuck!
Doesn’t matter now, Neal told himself.
And charged through the open door.
Elise’s bedroom looked almost the same as when he’d last seen it. The big blue towel was gone, that’s all. She’d thrown it onto her bed, but someone had taken it away.
On the other side of the room, the door to the master bathroom was ajar.
Light showed through the crack.
Neal jumped onto the bed and ran across it, the mattress bouncy under his feet. At the other side, he leaped down. He ran at the bathroom door.
‘Hey!’ he yelled. No answer.
He kicked the door open. It slammed the wall behind it, bounced and swung back.
In the moments it was wide open, Neal glimpsed a small heap of shiny blue cloth on the floor. Elise’s pajamas?
He didn’t see her, though.
Or the attacker.
So he kneed the door wide open, gently so it wouldn’t fly back.
This was much larger than the guest bathroom. Over to the right, it had a long counter with twin sinks, cupboards underneath. A mirror ran the length of the wall. Down at the far end was a toilet.
From where Neal stood, just inside the doorway, he couldn’t see the tub.
But there seemed to be a large, recessed area to the left, just beyond the small heap of Elise’s pajamas.
He walked toward it.
They aren’t here, he thought. I’m wasting time.
What about her pajamas?
Then he saw Elise.
Saw her reflection in the mirror to his right.
It wrenched out a moan.
He told himself that maybe it wasn’t as bad as it looked. Mirrors distort things.
He turned his face away from the mirror and hurried on and stepped over Elise’s pajamas and found her. Not a reflection. Not a distortion.
The bath was a sunken tub, rectangular and tiled like a miniature swimming pool, a ledge around it.
She sat on the ledge at the far side, her feet in the tub.
Her arms were stretched out to her right and left, her wrists bound with tape to chrome fixtures that appeared to be handholds. The way she leaned forward, the fixtures seemed to be bearing most of her weight. Her head hung down so Neal couldn’t see her face.
There was no water in the tub.
Its tile bottom was puddled and spattered with blood.
The towel from the bed lay in a heap near her feet. It looked sodden. It wasn’t very blue anymore.
Neal stepped down into the tub.
He had to see her face.
Maybe it isn’t Elise, he thought. Maybe it’s a trick to make me think she’s dead, and this is some other woman.
This can’t be her, he told himself. Not this slaughtered, mutilated ruin.
‘No,’ Neal muttered. ‘No, no. Huh-uh.’
The tiles were slippery.
He crouched in front of her and looked up at her face. Coils of hair clung to her bloody forehead. Her eyes were wide open, bulging. A thick bar of pink soap was jammed into her mouth.
He looked away quickly and stood up.
He suddenly went dizzy. His vision darkened. Blinking, he saw electric blue auras. He heard ringing in his ears.
God, I’m gonna faint!
He staggered backward and sat on the edge of the tub. Bending at the waist, he lowered his head. He gazed down between his knees. Down at the tile steps.
As his head cleared, he noticed there was no blood on the steps.
He looked to his left. No blood, anywhere, on the bathroom floor.
Maybe that’s what the guy did with the towel, he thought. Used it to clean up after himself, then tossed it into the tub.
Neal kept his head turned away so he wouldn’t see Elise again, and climbed backward up the steps. He turned and backed away from the tub.
Leaving bloody shoeprints.
They’re gonna think I did this.
The crime scene investigators would find his shoeprints in Elise’s blood, his fingerprints all over the place . . . his hair in the drain of the guest bathroom’s tub, even traces of his blood on the tissues he’d used for drying his abrasions after the shower.
Other evidence, too.
The task of cleaning up after himself to make all the traces disappear seemed overwhelming. And even if he spent hours, he couldn’t possibly eliminate every print, stain, hair . . .
Forget it, he thought.
‘Who cares?’ he muttered.
He felt sick, confused, tired, scared.
Where’s the bastard who killed her? That’s what I want to know. Gotta get my hands on him. He has to be around here someplace.
Van isn’t going anywhere.
He wondered if the cops would be arriving soon.
Only if someone reported my shots, he thought.
If Elise had been right about the neighbors, the cops should’ve gotten a dozen calls by now.
So where are they?
He suddenly felt an odd sensation of having drifted into an alien land – an unreal, twisted copy of Los Angeles where nothing quite worked out the way it should.
A place where madmen don’t die when you shoot them.
A place where damsels in distress can’t really be saved, after all.
A place where magic bracelets let you inhabit people but won’t allow you to help them.
A place where no cops come.
He wondered if he should call the police, himself.
Maybe they could surround the place and catch the killer.
They’ll think I did it.
Where is he? Neal wondered. Turning around, he found himself standing above Elise’s pajamas. He gazed at them.
My card.
He crouched. Keeping his head up and the pistol ready in his right hand, he used his left hand to separate the pajama shirt from the pants. He turned the shirt until he found its pocket.
As he dug his fingers into the pocket, he remembered Elise slipping the Alka-Seltzer packet in – the feel of the stiff foil against her nipple.
Where’s that nipple now?
In the bastard’s belly?
The thoughts made Neal want to scream and crash his head against a wall.
None of this happened! Not really.
Then what was that in the tub?
I’m asleep and dreaming . . .
Neal knew he was awake.
His fingers were delving inside an empty pocket.
My card!
His first thought was that the killer had taken it. Then he realized it might’ve simply fallen out of Elise’s pocket during the struggles, or when the man stripped her.
He picked up her pajamas and checked the floor.
No card.
Worry about it later, he told himself. The killer’s still around here, someplace.
Probably.
He let the pajamas drift from his fingers. As he stood up, he scanned the bathroom floor.
No sign of his card.
If the cops find it . . . Least of my worries. What if HE has it?
He’ll know where to find me.
‘Good!’ Neal blurted.
The sound of his voice shocked him. He didn’t dare speak again.
But he thought, Come and get me.
Twelve
Neal searched the house.
He worked his way carefully from room to room, looking for the killer.
And looking for his business card.
He felt oddly calm.
The worst had already happened.
He sort of hoped the police wouldn’t show up and catch him here, but he didn’t actually care that much, one way or the other. If they showed up, they might shoot him. L.A.P.D. cops weren’t trigger-happy cowboys, though. That was movie crap. He’d be fine if he put his gun down.
They would almost certainly arrest him, but so what?
He could live with that.
He would prefer to avoid the mess, but it didn’t seem like much of a big deal.
Elise dead, that was a big deal.
So was finding her killer.
Empty my pistol into his face.
As Neal searched, he found small amounts of blood on the carpet of Elise’s bedroom, and in the hallway. Not much. A few drops and smears here and there.
But he found a pattern of spots on the rug just inside the doorway of the guest bathroom.
The rat-fuck’s blood.
This was where he’d waited before jumping her.
At least I didn’t just imagine hitting him, Neal thought.
There was hardly more blood, however, than might come from a small cut on the finger.
He bandaged himself, Neal realized.
Probably bled like a stuck pig when I nailed him. Probably out cold. Woke up after we left. By then, a lot of the bleeding must’ve already stopped. He made it back to his van, crawled in and patched himself.
Bastard carries a toolbox, why not a first-aid kit, too?
More likely, he put together makeshift bandages from whatever odds and ends he could find in his van. He was bound to have something. An old shirt, a towel, a sheet. Elise had mentioned a mattress; there might’ve been a pillow case, a blanket.
One way or another, he’d stopped most of the bleeding.
Not all of it, though.
If only I’d been a better shot!
Should’ve killed him.
Should’ve finished him off. Stuck my gun in his mouth when he was down on the ground in the trees, and blown his fucking head off.
Elise wouldn’t be dead now.
Whirling away from the bathroom door, he shouted, ‘Where are you!’
No answer came.
He finished searching the house.
He didn’t find the killer.
He had no luck finding the business card, either.
The bastard’s got it, all right.
Neal left the house without entering Elise’s bathroom again. He knew that he wouldn’t be able to stand another look at her.
He also left without making any attempt to clean up after himself.
If the cops came after him, so be it.
Outside, he checked around the pool. Then he went to the front of the house.
After seeing that the van and his own car were still parked in the driveway, he walked completely around the outside of the house, listening and watching, hoping the killer might leap out at him.
But nothing happened.
At the driveway again, he opened the driver’s door of the van. No light came on. He climbed in. Kneeling on the seat, he peered into the back. He couldn’t see much. A few dim shapes, that’s all: the gray rectangle of the mattress, several scattered objects too small for anyone to hide behind.
The killer wasn’t there.
Must’ve taken off on foot, Neal thought.
Unless he’s still somewhere in the house.
Might be anywhere, Neal told himself. Not here in the van, though.
Quickly, he switched the pistol to his left hand, leaned to the right and popped open the glove compartment. Its light came on.
Empty.
As empty as Elise’s pocket when he’d felt inside for his card.
The registration papers should’ve been in the glove compartment – with the killer’s name and address.
Van’s probably stolen, anyway.
Neal imagined the killer returning, climbing in and driving it away in spite of the two flat tires. He could see it moving down the street, lopsided. He could hear the loud thumping of the flats.
So he leaped out. Crouching in the V of the open door, he reached under the dashboard. He found wires, grabbed them and jerked them loose.
At the front of the van, he smashed both headlights with the butt of his pistol.
At the rear, he smashed the tail lights.
He considered shooting the other two tires, but decided it would be pointless. If the guy could drive away with two flats, why not with four?
Besides, any more shooting and the cops probably would show up.
Yeah, right. There aren’t any cops, remember?
Everything is topsy-turvy, all fucked up.
Don’t count on it.
Let them come, he thought.
And stepped to the front of the van.
He put a line of four shots across the grill, the gun jumping with each blast. In the quiet that followed, his ears rang and the car hissed. He heard the tinkly sound of a rolling brass shell. Then came the sounds of coolant splashing onto the driveway.
Bastard’s not going far in this van.
Neal thought about his brass. Firing at the grill had sent four casings spitting out the side of his pistol. The cops were sure to find them.
So what? he thought. I’ve left so much else behind. Doesn’t matter anymore.
As he walked to his car, he hoped the killer might be hiding inside.
He looked through the windows, gun ready.
Nobody there.
Nobody anywhere as he backed out of the driveway and drove slowly down Greenhaven with his headlights off.
Before turning onto San Vicente, he put them on.
He checked his rearview mirror many times during the long drive back to his apartment.
Nobody seemed to be following him.
He spotted a total of five police cars. A couple seemed to be on routine patrol, one raced by at a high speed, one had a biker pulled over, and another was stopped in the parking lot of McDonalds. Each sighting gave Neal a horrible rush of terror.
He realized he’d been kidding himself: he did care about getting arrested and charged with the murder of Elise. Just imagining it, he got a sickish feeling in his stomach.
They could never make it stick, he told himself.
But they would sure have plenty of evidence putting him at the scene of the crime. He’d be arrested, for sure. Thrown in jail. And maybe indicted, maybe put on trial.
If it went that far, he might spend months in county jail. Even a year or more. He would probably be acquitted, eventually, but maybe not. Maybe found guilty.
It was torture murder, a ‘special circumstances’ crime. He could get the death penalty.
Death by lethal injection.
It’ll never come to that, he told himself. Too much reasonable doubt. They probably wouldn’t even prosecute him.
But anything might happen. He might be tried and found guilty.
Tonight had taught him many things.
Its biggest lesson: the worst does happen.
As Neal parked in his own space behind the apartment building, he took a deep breath, sighed, and muttered, ‘Made it.’
Then he sat for a while in his car, trying to calm down.
Trying to stop shaking.
Monday morning was gray with the approach of dawn when Neal finally climbed out of his car. He stuffed the pistol into his pocket and walked to the rear gate. Elise’s gold bracelet felt heavy on his wrist.
Maybe I can use it to find the bastard.
Too tired.
Anyway, hell find me. Knows right where to look, if he has the card.
Let him come.
Neal shut the gate carefully so it wouldn’t clank and wake people up.
The only lights came from above the doors of several apartments that surrounded the courtyard. And from the curtained window of his own living room on the second floor. He had left a lamp on, figuring to be back from the video store in a few minutes. It had been on all night. Every other window facing the courtyard was dark.
&nb
sp; As Neal climbed the outside stairs, he looked at the swimming pool. It occupied the center of the courtyard. The reflections of a few lights streaked its surface.
It looked very calm and peaceful.
He thought about Elise’s pool.
Imagined her naked on the high-dive, leaping, twirling, flipping, maybe touching her toes in midair before knifing down through the darkness and into the cool water.
She’ll never get to dive again.
His throat tightened.
How could this happen?
He followed the balcony to the door of his apartment. He unlocked the door, entered, shut it and closed the dead-bolt.
Then he removed the pistol from his pocket.
Keeping it ready, he started to walk through his rooms.
He told himself there was no reason to worry. The killer couldn’t be hiding here; no transportation.
That I know of, he reminded himself.
But who knows? The guy might’ve had a spare car waiting for him nearby, just in case. Or maybe he stole a car from one of Elise’s neighbors.
Or took Elise’s car?
While searching her house, Neal had checked inside the garage. A two-car garage. A white Mercedes had been there. He’d supposed, at the time, that it was the only vehicle she owned.
What if there was another? he asked himself. The killer might’ve taken it before I showed up. Or he might’ve waited, hiding, and stolen the Mercedes after I left.
Wasn’t the van blocking the driveway, though?
Not completely, Neal thought. Probably enough space for a car to slip by.
The bastard might be anywhere.
Not here, though. Not in Neal’s small living room, eating area, or kitchen. He had already checked those places, but now he found himself afraid to enter the bathroom and turn on its light.
He’s not in there, Neal told himself.
It’s not him I’m afraid of.
Who will it be? he wondered.
Marta?
Naked and bloody, ripped and chewed, bound with her arms outstretched as if asking for a last embrace?
‘She’s at work,’ Neal muttered. ‘Nobody’s in here. Nobody.’
Gritting his teeth, holding his breath, he stepped into the bathroom and flicked the light switch.
Body Rides Page 10