House of Smoke

by JF Freedman

The repercussive explosion from the automatic is deafening in her small apartment. The bullet enters his face in the middle of his right cheekbone, driving him back with such force he splits the headboard in half.

  Later, when the coroner’s crew is cleaning up, they can’t find any of his brain tissue inside his cranial cavity. It’s all over the back wall of her bedroom, along with the rest of his head.

  The women sit in their circle. The mood is somber. It’s Kate’s farewell night in the group. Outside, it’s raining, the first hard rain of the season.

  She begins. “I got the past out of my present. That part of it, anyway. It’s a great feeling, because now I can really believe I have a future. You can’t hold onto things, whether they scare you or give you comfort, you have to be with them and then let them go. Whether it’s your job, your kids, anything. Everything.”

  Everyone in the room is attentive to her. There’s no fidgeting around, loud sipping of coffee, spacing out. They all know what she’s gone through—it was impossible not to, the details (those Kate orchestrated and managed to control, which were the most important ones) were all over the television and newspapers. It was the biggest scandal to hit Santa Barbara in years. And she had been the catalyst, the one who had broken it open.

  “Whatever I’ve hidden,” she goes on, “I don’t apologize for. In my heart I know I did exactly the right thing under the circumstances. I’d do it the same way again, that’s how I know.” She pauses, thinking back. “The most important thing is, I committed to a course of action, and I followed through on it. Right or wrong—flag that, there is no right or wrong in affairs such as these, that’s judgmental, God give me the strength never to be judgmental again—I did what I had to do.” She takes a deep breath. “And I did it for me. What was right for me. What I had to do. For me.”

  Everyone in the basement room sits in stunned silence.

  “I thought my job was stressful,” Maxine, the group leader, says at last. Her comment isn’t meant as a joke, and nobody laughs.

  “You got some cojones, girl,” Conchita says admiringly. “You are a woman!”

  Other voices sound out in praise, commendation, support.

  Mildred Willard, the Sparks family friend who brought Kate into the case, sits silently, watchful.

  Earlier, in the parking lot, the two women talked briefly. Mildred was profusely apologetic about ever getting Kate involved in such a sordid mess, especially when she already had enough troubles of her own. Kate reassured the older woman that there was no fault or blame attached; how could anyone have known what a snake pit this would become? Their friendship was intact, Kate promised Mildred. Their bond was not of the outside world but of their shared experiences here.

  They hugged, hard. It was a good feeling for both of them. A cleansing.

  “So,” Kate concludes, “I’m rid of my demons. Some of them, anyway. The scariest ones. I’m not afraid anymore,” she tells the women. “Of anything.”

  “God bless you,” one of the other women says. “I hope I get to that place someday.”

  “You will,” Kate assures her. She looks to Maxine for confirmation.

  “We all will,” Maxine states. “There is no question of that.”

  “That’s why I’m not afraid of leaving the womb here,” Kate tells the women sitting in the tight circle with her—her sisters in pain.

  “Because I’m not a victim anymore.”

  23

  PEACE

  IT’S BEEN A WETTER-THAN-AVERAGE winter, which means a fertile spring. Kate trudges up the hill towards her secret place, hacking away at the dense undergrowth with her machete. She hasn’t set foot on this property since her near-fatal beating.

  The double killings caused a monumental uproar, much greater than the brouhaha over the killing-suicide during Fiesta weekend. It dominated the front pages of the newspapers for weeks; nobody talked about anything else, from the small neighborhoods on the westside to the multi-million-dollar-mansions in Montecito and all points in between.

  Despite intense grilling by the police, Miranda and Laura stuck to the story Kate scripted for them: they had arrived at their ranch house to find Dorothy already dead, the assailant running away across the open fields and disappearing, heading in the direction of the highway.

  As sensational as the murder of Dorothy Sparks was, it took second billing to the shooting that took place that same day in the apartment of Kate Blanchard, a licensed private detective, who had shot and killed a county deputy sheriff, a man she knew well and who was, according to everyone who knew both of them, her friend. Herrera had become obsessed with her, stalking her for months, and had come to see her on a ruse he’d made up about a case she was working on. Against her better judgment she had allowed him to bluff his way into her apartment, at which point he had attempted to rape her, then tried to kill her in the fear that she would expose him. Her killing him, she claimed, was purely in self-defense.

  The two incidents converged when both Miranda and Laura Sparks identified the dead officer, Lieutenant Juan Herrera, as the man they had seen fleeing from their ranch house. They were adamant that he was the man—there was no equivocation on either of their parts.

  Everything came to light after that: Dorothy Sparks’s involvement in the drug trade, Juan Herrera’s complicity with her in the murder of Frank Bascomb, their hiring of the men who had tried to murder Kate, and the coup de grace, the police lab matching up the shell discharged from Herrera’s police automatic with bullets recovered from the bodies of the two corpses in Orange County.

  After a short but extensive investigation no charges were filed against anyone. Juan Herrera was posthumously charged with the murder of Dorothy Sparks, and his death at Kate’s hands was accepted as an act of self-defense by a woman who had already almost been killed under his and Dorothy Sparks’s direction.

  All the cases were formally closed, and it is the fervent hope of all involved that they will never be revisited again. Those who know otherwise than the official facts—Kate, Miranda, and Laura, and the women in Kate’s group, who know about her and Juan but not about the rest—have taken vows of silence, which for their own personal reasons will never be broken.

  One month later there was an item on the bottom fold of section B, the local news section of the News-Press. The Sparks family had decided to retire from public life. They canceled their plans to establish the oceanography school and declined Rainier Oil’s generous bequest. At the same time, because of severe financial constraints, they were selling their beachfront property to Rainier, enabling the oil conglomerate to site its onshore drilling platforms on the location.

  Shortly after the first of the year, Miranda Sparks filed for divorce from Frederick Sparks, citing irreconcilable differences. Her alimony request was modest; generous enough for her to live on comfortably, but not extravagantly. She moved out of town shortly after. She regained her maiden name—Tayman—and is presently thought to be living in New York, but that is not certain. She has, for all intents and purposes, dropped completely out of sight.

  Frederick Sparks is in the process of liquidating the remainder of the family’s holdings. He and Laura are presently living in Paris, where they plan to take up permanent residency. Frederick will pursue fine art full-time, and Laura is attempting to start an English-language magazine that will cater to expatriates of her generation. She has never been told the story of her true parentage.

  Carl X. Flaherty, one of Southern California’s most legendary private detectives, passed away in February. He was eighty-three years old. He had been in ill health for some years and died peacefully in his sleep. His funeral was private; only Kate and a few members of the nursing-home staff were in attendance. He was cremated, his ashes scattered into the Pacific.

  Kate reaches the swimming pool. The entire area is overgrown with weeds and vines, the pool cluttered thick with dead leaves and broken-off tree branches from the winter’s storms. It will take weeks to hack enough away so that
she can restore it to the way it was.

  That’s okay. She has time. As much as she wants.

  She’s put her business on hold. She finished up the few cases she had pending, closed up her office, turned off the telephone. In a few weeks she’ll start taking courses at the local branch of Antioch University, with an eye towards getting a B.A. After that, maybe law school. There are other ways you can be part of the legal system and help people than being a detective. More calming, positive ways, that don’t require putting your life on the line.

  She sees her kids every month, religiously, sometimes making the round trip every other week. Pretty soon Wanda will graduate high school, move on to college: Stanford—she got in on a scholarship.

  In a few more months Kate’ll petition the court to regain custody of them. Sophia wants to live with her now.

  She and Cecil still see each other, it’s going well, they both want it to happen, they need to get to know each other better. The deep stuff. She hopes it’ll work out—she really cares for him, and she feels ready to be with a man now, in a healthy, honest way. She knows if she keeps on getting her own shit together she’ll be able to get it together with a partner.

  The sun is high, midday apex. It’s warm, the first day it’s been truly warm this spring. She hauls armfuls of vegetal flotsam out of the pool, enough to clear the drain of scum so that the water starts flowing sluggishly. Then she strips naked.

  The water isn’t as cold as she expected. The thick cover of vegetation acted like a heat blanket over the winter, retaining energy.

  She dips a toe in; it’s bearable.

  She eases in at the shallow end, taking a moment to acclimate. Then she pushes off from the wall, taking slow strokes, half-crawl, half-breast-stroke, swimming and pushing gunk out of her way at the same time. As she swims she feels her muscles responding, the nice tight soreness that comes after a long layoff. She reaches the far wall, turns, and starts in the opposite direction.

  Overhead, a red hawk, seeing the action below, wheels and plunges for a closer look, then soars up again when it realizes the motion is not anything it can prey upon. Up and up it climbs, until it disappears over the ridge to the north; while down below, in her own private world, the naked woman swims back and forth, swimming until she is exhausted and must climb out, gasping for breath, washed clean, to lie under the heat of the warming sun.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  LYNN MCLAREN, PI, CALIFORNIA License #PI13155, helped me understand the philosophy and techniques of a modern detective in Santa Barbara, particularly those of a woman detective.

  Richard Monk, JD, assisted in local knowledge, especially in the areas of Santa Barbara history and politics.

  Jaime Raney, JD, analyzed the manuscript from a professional woman’s point of view.

  Each of these friends spent several hours reading the manuscript on my behalf, and to each I am grateful.

  The Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Office, Jail Division, assisted in the workings of their jail. Descriptions of departmental procedure described in this book are fictitious and are not meant to reflect on the actual workings of the department, or of any sheriff’s department personnel.

  Shauna Clarke of Mobil Oil gave freely of her time, advice, and expertise, and I am grateful to her for helping to present the oil industry’s point of view.

  Creig Dolge of the Citizen’s Planning Association of Santa Barbara County gave me excellent advice and editorial help in presenting the point of view of the segment of the community that is opposed to oil development in the Santa Barbara region.

  David Sherman of Far West Gun & Supply assisted me in my weapons research.

  Al Silverman and Bob Lescher were, as usual, supportive, enthusiastic, and encouraging.

  My wife, Rendy Freedman, read the manuscript countless times, offered her advice and constructive criticism, and was supportive of the work and of what I was trying to say. As a family therapist, she was of particular help in the passages dealing with women’s groups, battered women, and family problems and solutions.

  About the Author

  J. F. Freedman is the New York Times bestselling author of Against the Wind, The Disappearance, House of Smoke, and In My Dark Dreams, among other titles. He is also an award-winning film and television director, writer, and producer. He lives in California.

  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this ebook onscreen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 1996 by J. F. Freedman

  Cover design by Angela Goddard

  978-1-4804-2412-8

  This edition published in 2013 by Open Road Integrated Media

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