Keeper of the Keys

by Perri O'shaughnessy

  “It went on for years. He used to eat dinner with us. My wife liked him. He seemed like a nice enough kid. But we had issues. Tommy was-nice didn’t make him a good match. He had no direction. No drive. He wanted to be an actor. He would have made a good truck driver, if he had lived. You know he drowned himself?”

  “Not the details.” Ray could no longer read his expression, but he heard Hubbel breathe deeply.

  “You know, I smoked for thirty years. I miss it every day, even though I know it was making my lungs black and tarry. It was right about then, when I was trying to quit, that I had a little talk with Tom. I couldn’t stand how much I missed smoking. I thought about it every minute, night and day, until my wife sent me packing to the park. That’s when I got the habit of coming here every day,” he said. He laughed humorlessly. “I’m not excusing myself, I was mean as hell for a while. That’s just how it was.”

  “He met you here, at the park?”

  Hubbel nodded. “It was earlier. A really hot afternoon in the summer. Smog like today. Anyway, he and Leigh had had a dustup. A bad one. He looked miserable. He’d been crying, I don’t know.”

  “Puffy eyes?”

  “Yeah. She had met you. He was afraid he was going to lose her.”

  Ray looked around the park at the pools of light the lamps created, at the extended families still eating barbecue, laughing, some shouting slightly drunkenly. Life at its best, in a way. The best part of Los Angeles, a homey warmth here in this suburban park named for William Penn, the peacemaker. “What did you tell him?”

  “It seemed like my chance to get rid of him once and for all. First, I talked to her. Then I told him-” Hubbel smoothed the leg of his corduroy shorts. “Don’t come around my daughter anymore. Told him he was finished.”

  “And?”

  “She had another man lined up. A better man. She had told him, too, but Tom was crushed. I saw that and I ignored it. You know, I never told my wife any of this. To this day, she doesn’t know what I said to that guy. I don’t know which of you Leigh would have ended up with. She still loved him, I think. I pushed her very hard.”

  Ray tried to see Hubbel’s eyes, but could not make them out. The dog made satisfied dreaming sounds, the equivalent of a cat purring.

  “Yeah, I told him to fuck off. I told him all about you, Ray. How much she loved you. How you were gonna be a big man. A rich professional. The man could see I was moving him out and Leigh had done the same. All for you, Ray. We believed in you.”

  “He died that night,” Ray guessed.

  “He folded. Gave up.” Hubbel patted his pocket as if seeking phantom cigarettes.

  “Leigh must have felt like she killed him,” Ray said. “You should have told her about this a long time ago. You could have taken some of the burden off her, done something for her I couldn’t.”

  “We all better take some responsibility now,” Hubbel said. “I’ll keep pushing law enforcement, but I won’t push ’em down your throat anymore. I can’t say I’m sure you hurt her. I just don’t know. They need to widen the search. You work with them, Ray. You promise me. I’ll let you know if I think of anything else.”

  Ray shook his hand. It turned into a bear hug. It felt like they were clinging to each other, because they couldn’t cling to Leigh.

  26

  K at hovered above the stream, looking down at the black water. So she hadn’t followed them.

  Ray flicked a flashlight onto her face.

  “Turn that off.”

  “What’s that in your hand?”

  “A chicken drumstick from the Colonel I picked up en route.”

  “Got any more?”

  “In the Echo.” They walked back toward the parking lot, down the pathway past the shrill, tired children on the monkey bars, past the flushed faces of the men at the barbecues, and climbed into Kat’s car, which smelled like a restaurant, rolling down the windows to the cool of evening. Ray felt ravenous. He seized a piece of chicken and began to eat.

  Kat gave him thirty seconds. Then, “What did he tell you?”

  “Two important things,” Ray said, wiping his mouth with a napkin. “I want to know exactly what happened between you and your brother the last day of his life. Can you stand to go through it with me?”

  She frowned. “Why?”

  “It has to do with Leigh. Our marriage. Our problems. Why she left.”

  “It was more than six years ago. What could it have to do with your marriage?”

  Ray said half to himself, “It must get worse over time. You don’t forget. It grows inside you.”

  “What?”

  “Guilt. It’s a poison, like doubt.”

  “You’re tellin’ me,” Kat said, her voice shaky.

  He put a gentle hand on her arm. “I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t think it was important.”

  She started off slowly. “They had an argument. Tom called me, and I finally agreed to meet him for lunch, even though things were really busy at work and I didn’t really have the time to waste. We went to a Tastee-Freez on Pacific Coast Highway.” She paused.

  “The day he died?”

  “Right. He told me Leigh had broken up with him. Well, you know, I saw it coming. Leigh told me she was getting discontented. She had someone new. That would be you, Ray. People our age, in our late twenties, broke up every day. Women complained in the coffee rooms about their ne’er-do-well boyfriends. They had so many issues. And I, well, at that point I had no boyfriend at all. I was working so hard, trying to find my own way. It just didn’t seem to matter so much. Tom had a hundred girlfriends before Leigh.”

  “But nobody after her.” For a moment or two, they both stared into the dark trees.

  “He wanted to talk. He had to go over each detail over and over and it didn’t seem to matter what I said, it didn’t help him. I had been invited to go to a party at a coworker’s who lived in a big fancy house in Hollywood. I rarely got invited to do anything social, particularly anything that involved wearing something new and cute, so I was resentful.”

  “But he insisted you stay.”

  “He said I was the only person he could tell it all to, because I knew Leigh so well. Really, a lot of it was, What did she say about me? How does she really feel? Do you think I could get her back? Those kind of questions. Over and over. He said I owed him because of the time he covered for me when I rolled through the ground-floor window drunk and when the folks asked about it, he told them I had the flu. I owed him for the many times he saved my ass. And that was true.”

  “But.”

  “He said, Forget the damn party. Come with me to the beach. I didn’t want to go. I wanted to go to a party, and I was just-just-thinking of myself and my own concerns, okay? I didn’t want to get involved in this shit between him and Leigh.

  “He said it had to be the beach. And I’m afraid of the beach at night. Strange people come out and they’re messed up and they want to get friendly. And I’d be stuck with my younger brother crying over Leigh and no way to get away if it got to be too much. And I was upset because I felt like Tom was hurting my friendship with Leigh. I was very torn between the two of them. Too much complication!”

  One of those summertime squalls had come up, and rain spattered the windshield. Any local understood this traumatic event might last maximum fifteen minutes. Kat didn’t even turn on her wipers. Ray wolfed down French fries while Kat went on soberly, “He said to me, ‘Oh, promise you’ll never tell anyone what I’m about to say!’ He asked me, ‘What would you do if I decided to kill myself?’”

  Ray said nothing.

  “You know what I said?”

  She made fists with her hands, covered her mouth, and rocked back and forth. The words choked out of her. “I said, ‘Try to forget you as quick as I can.’”

  Ray said, “You were young.”

  “I was c-cruel and selfish. I’ll never forget the look he gave me. His eyes. Oh, God.”

  “How did he die, Kat?”

 
“He dropped me back at work and he drove back to his apartment in Newport. He drank some and wrote notes.” She recited, “‘Don’t blame yourself, Kitty-kat, for me caving in to sentimentality and tomfoolery. ’You see, he was joking around, even when he was letting go of his precious, precious life. He complimented me on my jacket that day, too, before things got so heavy.”

  “Oh, Kat. Don’t cry.”

  “He left the notes under a vase of irises he had in his kitchen. He must have been pretty drunk. His handwriting was worse than ever. Then there was Leigh’s note. He quoted Yvor Winters, the poet. You know him?”

  “No.”

  “The note started off quoting or paraphrasing him: ‘Death. Nothing is simpler. One is dead.’ Then he talked about loving Leigh, and how right everyone was, what a loser he was not to be able to hold on to the person he loved more than his own life. He said she tilted him cosmically, and he would never be the same, and he could not go on without her.”

  “Did Leigh see the note?”

  “Of course. I’m sure it’s branded on her soul.”

  “She said that he died. I knew it was suicide but she refused to discuss it.”

  “He must have waited until it was good and dark, and then gone back out to the beach. And he swam out, and out until he was too tired to swim back in. I often imagine it at night, so dark, cold water, phosphorescence maybe out past the breakers…”

  Ray gave her a handkerchief. She cried into it then blew her nose.

  “Tom’s body washed ashore on the rocks at the tip of the peninsula. At the party, I panicked, and when I couldn’t reach him by phone I went to his house. When I couldn’t find him there, and saw those notes, I called the police. Beach Rescue started looking for him. Our darling Tommy. My darling brother.”

  Ray’s right hand patted her knee. “A lot of things sent him out there,” Ray said. “Not just you.”

  “Oh, it was me, all right. I put him over the edge. I could have talked him out of it if I’d stayed with him, not been so cruel. Ray? Y’see, I have never told anyone about being at the beach earlier with Tommy. I couldn’t stand to tell anyone. You’re the very first person to hear this in six years. I don’t even know why I’m doing it, but-anyway, I turned a lot of my misery on Leigh, tried to blame her instead. She was so hangdog, but I couldn’t explain. I just couldn’t. I let her think it was all her fault. That’s why I couldn’t talk to her all this time. Because I’m a liar and a phony.”

  They sat in silence. After a minute Ray said, “There’s somebody else who talked to Tommy that afternoon. And he has been just like you, just like Leigh. Hugging his sins to himself, thinking he’s a monster.”

  “What?”

  Ray explained what Jim Hubbel had told him, adding, “He gave your brother facts. Facts register with guys. He made it seem as if it really was hopeless, and he was cutting about it.”

  “Are you trying to tell me that”-she leaned back against the car’s headrest-“he thinks he’s totally responsible?”

  “Didn’t you? Didn’t Leigh? Now, you have to take this in. Your brother made the decision, not you. He talked to a lot of people. God knows what Leigh said to him. Maybe other friends. He put it all together. You didn’t cause his death. Hell, I could take some of the blame myself. I was in love with Leigh, and I wanted the breakup, too.”

  “I sure helped.”

  “Maybe it’s time to forgive yourself.”

  “I didn’t take good care of him, you know? I guess I didn’t know how. Oh, I hate never being able to clear things up with Leigh!”

  “Maybe you’ll get your chance.”

  “Huh?”

  “Talk to Leigh about it. The other thing Jim said was that Leigh stayed at least once at the Blue Sky Motel in Palm Springs. I told him about Idyllwild and he told me about the place.”

  “ Palm Springs! You think-you think-”

  “Shall we go back to the police?”

  “I say we go to Palm Springs. I think Leigh’s dad is going to reflect on your conversation and follow up with the police.”

  Ray nodded. “I agree. But I can’t go tonight. I have to check on my mother.”

  “But-”

  “I have to. We’ll both get a few hours of sleep and pack a bag this time. It’s only a few more hours, Kat.”

  “I won’t sleep at all,” she said. “But, yeah, I’ll leave a message at the office tonight. And I need to stop by and make sure my sister is okay. I’ll gas up the Echo on my way back to Hermosa. Let’s take the Echo.”

  “Why?”

  “Because your expensive little toy only has two seats. If we’re lucky, we’ll need three. I’ll pick you up before the traffic starts. Five a.m.”

  “Thatta girl,” Ray said. “If you’re driving, I’ll come in from Topanga to your place. Five a.m. is fine.” They looked at each other.

  “It’s all about taking better care of each other,” Kat said. “Your mother, my sister. If we find Leigh, let’s take better care of her, too.”

  “We could call,” Ray said. Kat clapped her forehead and grabbed her cell phone. She had the Palm Springs number in another minute and had to punch out the number three times, her hand was shaking so much. When the clerk answered, she said, “Uh, may I please speak to Miss Hubbel?”

  “Who?”

  “Hubbel. Leigh Hubbel.”

  “Nobody here by that name.”

  “Tall, blonde girl. Please. This is important.” But she had made a misstep saying that. The clerk’s tone became suspicious. “I’m sorry, we don’t give out information that way.”

  “But-please-”

  “No one by that name is registered here.” The line went dead. Miserably, Kat told Ray what he had said. “What if he tells her some strange woman was looking for her? Maybe she’ll leave! I’ll call back and ask him to leave her a message-”

  “Leave who a message?” Ray said. “Anybody tallish and blondish around the place? Let’s just get there and find out one way or another ourselves.”

  Kat meditated for half an hour on the bedroom rug. She felt unhurried afterward, prepared to accept whatever they found. She packed lightly, not a problem since she had very little clean.

  In the kitchen, the phone message light blinked. She finally noticed it on the way to the fridge to try to find some old salad she had just remembered.

  Zak!

  “Hiya. Friday. We said Friday. Where are you, Kat? I waited. If you’re like this before we even get to know each other-don’t call me, baby. I won’t be home.” She picked up the phone and dialed his number. Voicemail.

  Bad timing was how it felt, as if she had somehow skated right past Zak on the boardwalk of life. “I just can’t find the time right now for us, Zak. I’m sorry.”

  27

  R ay arrived in the predawn, well-stubbled. He prowled her premises while she hit the bathroom, opening drawers, taking in the view from her deck, analyzing her architecturally. “You have to get some lamps,” he said. “These overheads are disgusting. And the popcorn ceiling has to go.”

  “Quit that,” she said as she came out.

  Ray, at the moment immersed in studying the contents of her bookshelves, said, “You don’t like me figuring you out.”

  “These things aren’t me.”

  “You’re the one who told me about how much you can learn from looking at people’s homes. I spy with my little eye your dark side. No porn DVDs for this lady; no, you’ve got a much more embarrassing secret. You’re a reader.” He plucked a book from the shelf. “Hemingway?”

  She smiled, caught in her own game. “Okay, Ray. I’ll tell you about that guy and why I have this book of short stories. He stole everything that made him special from Gertrude Stein. You think that deceptively simple little style of his was original?”

  “I could get into that with you another time.” He put it back, then took out another. “Woolf?”

  “Boring but so beautiful.”

  He placed the book back exactly where it had
been, then turned to her. “I thought-men and bars.”

  “Them, too, sure, sometimes. After all, men’re not all as patronizing as you.”

  “Is that what I am? Patronizing?”

  Kat smiled. “Earnest and clueless, that’s how you mostly are. But you seem to be trying, I’ll give you that.”

  Kat wheeled her small suitcase to the front door while Ray stood at the window, admiring her tiny view of the Pacific. “You sit here at night and see the sun set. Here,” he said, going through the sliding door and finding the spot on the balcony where he could best view the ocean. “You watch the day end.”

  “Yep, that’s what I do,” she said. “Now enough with the getting-to-know-Kat number. I’m ready.”

  He carried her bag down the stairs. Kat took a quick sip of coffee from her thermos and stifled a laugh, looking at her living room one last time before she went into the hall and locked up, seeing it from a stranger’s point of view. The place wasn’t trendy or enthusiastic or glam. It was stuffed with things, messy, and comfortable.

  She fluffed her hair. There was a there there, that was the main thing.

  They were almost to the San Bernardino Valley by the time the sun came up over the mountains. Kat stole a glance at Ray in his sunglasses, while she braked and maneuvered through a snake pit of semis, and wondered again what he expected to find. Paranoid scenario: he already knew they would not find Leigh, but his show of cooperation would keep Kat from suspecting him of hurting her.

  It all could be a show. But she had been forgetting to keep her guard up, had even started to like him and hope for him as well as for herself. Tighten up, she told herself sternly.

  At eight-thirty they found the motel on the edge of the ritzy desert oasis of Palm Springs. Yes, Kat thought, a person on the run might say, I made it, and pull into the first motel with a Vacancy sign.

  For here it was, the Blue Sky. The motel sprawled along a busy road, one story, adobe-colored, with Spanish arches and a tile roof, a fountain in front. The water was a nice touch, gurgling, faking an oasis.