Norman put his foot on the brake as soon as he saw the starry reflection of another car’s red rear lights in front of him. But it was too late. He heard the dull thump of his car hitting the fender in front of him.
“Ahhhh!” he gasped as he felt a sudden chill ripple through his genitals. His cola—ice, and all—had spilled into his lap.
He’d hit an old Plymouth Duster. The driver, a young guy with a pug nose, stormed over to Norman’s window and was giving him the hairy eyeball, but Norman was too busy to notice as he tried to wipe his pants at least semidry with what was left of his napkin.
“You going to get out or what?” Pig Boy snapped.
Norman rolled his window down a bit. “Yeah, give me a minute here,” he said. “I had a little accident.”
“No kidding.”
“I mean I spilled my drink.”
“Drive much?”
“What?”
“Nothing.”
Norman kept mopping until he realized he was just spreading little white pills all over his pants. He got out of the car and walked over to Pig Boy’s Duster, where he saw that rubber had hit rubber. Cool. Very cool.
“I don’t see any problem,” Norman said nonchalantly.
“Yeah, well, I’m not so sure. It looks like you made that dent right there to me,” Pig Boy said, pointing to a rusty area above his fender.
“No way,” Norman said. He couldn’t believe the guy’s chutzpah. “That’s been there for years. You think I’m an idiot? Besides, I don’t have any insurance, so this is irrelevant.”
“That’s illegal.”
He didn’t need Pig Boy to tell him that. What he needed was to get to Fifth Avenue. Fast. He’d have to make up something to get the guy off his back. “No, actually, under the law you have a choice. I chose not to get any.”
Pig Boy was frowning and shaking his head, but given that he didn’t seem to know enough to object, Norman decided to leave as quickly as possible. If he waited around much longer, he figured he could lose his teeth. And his job.
“I’m a reporter and I’m on deadline right now,” he called over his shoulder. “Gotta go.”
He truly did mean to get some insurance. He just couldn’t afford to buy it on his teeny salary. They’d promoted him to reporter, but it was in name only until he could prove he could do the job better than the applicants whose resumes were stacked up in the Metro editor’s office.
When he got to the crime scene, all the TV vans had already left, but a couple of traffic cops were still hanging around, drinking coffee and talking.
“What’s going on with the decapitated woman we heard about on the scanner?” Norman asked.
“Who are you with?” one of them asked.
“Sun-Dispatch,” Norman said as nonchalantly as he could manage.
The officer nodded. “We’ve got a bus driver in custody for vehicular manslaughter. He was drinking and didn’t see the eight-four-year-old lady crossing Broadway with a cane—in the crosswalk, no less. He hit her with the bus and knocked her down, then backed over her somehow. But don’t quote me. Just say, ‘authorities said,’ okay?”
“Sure, no problem,” Norman said.
Big Ed had said he needed attribution. That should be enough, right? It was just be enough for a brief, but it was a great story. Piece of cake. Norman figured the dayside reporters could fill in more details when they followed up the next day. The driver would undoubtedly lose his job, and the city bus agency would probably get sued for negligently hiring a guy with a serious drinking problem. The situation seemed ripe for a multi-million-dollar personal injury lawsuit by the woman’s family.
“It’s not even safe to walk across the street anymore,” an old man said as he surveyed the scene from his motorized wheelchair nearby. “I should’ve stayed in Idaho. Can’t get hit by a bus in a potato field, if you know what I mean.”
Norman nodded. “Sure do,” he said, copying the man’s quote into his notebook. “Can I get your name?”
Chapter 7
Alison
With the streetlight out, the full moon cast an unearthly glow over the cars parked on the street outside Alison Winslow’s second-floor apartment. Alison was curled up on the cushioned seat in the bay window, running her fingers through her kinky golden hair, trying to get the knots out. A bicyclist rode past with a white light strapped to each leg and a dog trailing behind, dragging its chain leash like a ghost in a low-budget horror movie.
Alison crossed her legs at the ankle and rested her socked feet on the coffee table Grandma Abigail had loaned her. She was leaning back into the corner of the window seat, trying to get comfortable, when it hit her. What was she doing, sitting there in the dark? It only exacerbated the emptiness inside her, making her one with the black night. She uncrossed her legs and reached over to pull open a drawer, where she retrieved a box of wooden matches she’d picked up at the little Italian restaurant she and Tania had gone to Friday night. Striking the first one produced a scraping sound but no spark. She had better luck with the second and managed to light three of the bayberry candles before the flame got so close to her finger that she had to drop the stick. The third one finished the job, lighting the other two candles in the half circle she’d placed around her on the table, as the aromatherapy instructions advised.
The goal was to counteract the agitation that dusk brought down on her, along with the restlessness and anxiety that frequently came with it. She’d tried many remedies over the years and was always open to something new, even if it sounded hokey. The bad energy was tough to deal with because she often didn’t understand the cause. Aromatherapy was the latest alternative to a glass of Chardonnay, a hot bath, rubbing her own shoulders, a chunk of chocolate, obsessively checking Facebook and her emails, turning on the TV, watching a video, or any and all combinations. Anything, really, to distract herself from herself, to find a way to fill the gaping hole in her gut and make her feel whole. It wasn’t a real hole; more of a deep emotional chasm. Escape was what she sought. Escape, of any sort, was the only solution she knew.
She’d thought it would be different in San Diego—a new city, a new apartment, working toward a new career, a geographical cure. She’d saved and saved for this beauty school, then was lucky enough to get a scholarship to close the gap. But after only six weeks of leaving LA, she still found herself haunted by the same feelings of sadness and loneliness, the same paralysis, and the same fear that she would always feel this way.
Starting classes had certainly helped, and meeting Tania there was a healthy bonus. She had hope again, felt she was on the right track toward happiness. Finally. She dreamed of owning her own hair salon one day, earning enough money to dress like Tania—in diamond earrings, cashmere sweaters, silk shirts, leather jackets, and Italian suede pumps.
Alison went into the bathroom and turned on the vanity lights. At twenty-nine, she was afraid that turning thirty would make her hair go white. Overnight. Thirty seemed so old. The way she was going, she might never find a guy who wanted to marry her, or vice versa. She opened the mirrored cabinet to try her new lipstick, thinking it might brighten her mood, when a tube of toothpaste fell into the sink and landed in a nest of her hair. She’d just removed a handful from the drain the day before. Did she have some rare disease that made her hair fall out? No one would trust a bald female stylist.
Relax, she told herself. It’s probably just the stress of starting a new life.
One thing she didn’t miss about LA was Grandma Abigail mocking her hair obsession. She said it made Alison seem trivial, shallow. Didn’t she have better things to worry about? Alison tried to tell her that it was near impossible to avoid vanity and obsession having grown up so close to Hollywood, but she’d made an effort to widen her interests nonetheless. She’d bought a membership to the Museum of Contemporary Art and started listening to live music with coworkers from the Nordstrom perfume counter. She also rented dozens of videos, even foreign ones, spending more than she cared to a
dmit. She read quite a bit, too, mostly murder mysteries and detective novels, but she worked in some of the classics and a bit of contemporary fiction as well. A good love story with a happy ending usually cheered her up.
She was feeling especially restless for a Sunday night. What she needed, she decided, was a combination approach. She carried the bayberry candles into the bathroom on a tray and set them around the bathtub, turned on the hot water and dumped some lavender bath oil into the gushing stream. It smelled like she imagined paradise would. Then she went into the living room and put on the Billie Holiday CD that Tania had loaned her. She really liked Billie’s voice. It was so mournful, yet it lifted her spirits. Go figure.
That Tania. Alison wondered why she hadn’t called the night before, at least to say she couldn’t go out like they’d planned. They’d met only a month earlier, but Alison thought they were headed toward a promising friendship. Why did people have to be such flakes?
Tania was so much prettier, more confident, more everything than Alison, even though she was five years younger. She said she didn’t see herself as being all that, but she knew people saw her that way. Over dinner, she told Alison she’d come to the beauty school to learn how to make other women more beautiful. She said her father had promised to help her launch a chain of designer hair salons like Vidal Sassoon’s, where most of the beauticians were European or at least acted like it. When Alison explained that her own goals weren’t as lofty, Tania encouraged her to set her sights higher.
Dropping her jeans and black ribbed turtleneck to the floor, Alison tested the water. Too hot. She let the cold water run for a bit, tested the bath again and, satisfied, she stepped in, one foot at a time. She twisted and pulled her hair into a knot, then sat back against the clam-shaped bath cushion she’d attached to the wall. She cupped her hands, pushing and pulling the water to make waves that caressed her stomach and breasts as she went over the events of Friday night.
She and Tania got dressed up, ate dinner at the Italian place, then walked to the Pumphouse, a dark bar near the beach that featured local blues bands. It wasn’t long before Tania was dancing with this guy, Seth, and he brought his friend, Keith, over to share their table.
Alison was immediately attracted to Keith, whose sandy blond hair was just long enough to fall over his brown eyes. Seth wasn’t her type. He was tall, well built, and had nicely styled brown hair, but his dark eyes seemed almost black and reflected an arrogance that rubbed Alison the wrong way.
While Tania and Seth were entwined on the dance floor, swaying just a little, they looked like everyone around them had disappeared. Alison tried to engage Keith in conversation, but he was so quiet and she was so shy, they barely spoke to each other. He seemed distracted by something or someone near the women’s bathroom. A few minutes after Seth and Tania finished dancing to a slow song and returned to the table, a woman named Clover stopped by. Alison had seen her and Tania whispering the other day after class at the beauty school.
“Hi, you guys,” Clover said, standing behind Keith, with her hands on his shoulders. Her eyes flitted back and forth between Tania and Seth, who sat across the table from her.
Seth glanced at her just long enough to say, “What’s up?” then dismissively looked away.
Clover emanated sexuality, the adventurous kind, like anything goes. But it was obvious she came from money, so she didn’t seem cheap. Alison had felt jealous when she saw Clover and Tania talking at school. Tania also seemed to be a favorite of the school’s director, who never had a hair out of place, and was always touching Tania. It was almost like Tania was wearing pheromone perfume. It made no difference whether it was men or women. They never seemed to get enough of her.
Alison felt insecure around the beautiful women at the beauty school. She didn’t want to get pushed aside if Tania felt she could get sexier guys with Clover than with her, but she couldn’t really do anything about it, except be herself. Alison couldn’t help but admire Clover’s Scandinavian features, her lithe figure with those high, firm breasts, and the shapely arms of a weight-trainer. Her long strawberry blond hair hung down her back, silky and straight. Clover pressed her breasts into the back of Keith’s head and, judging by the expression on his face, it made him uncomfortable, because he chirped. Alison glanced at Seth for some kind of explanation, but he seemed oblivious. What was that noise Keith made?
As Clover headed for the bathroom Seth shook his head and shrugged at Tania, who looked away. Alison couldn’t read her friend’s expression. Was it embarrassment? Jealousy? She couldn’t tell. She wondered if Keith was hung up on Clover, because he certainly didn’t seem interested in Alison. A few minutes after Clover left, Keith exchanged nods with Seth and headed out the front door. Alison tried to call goodnight to him over the music, but he either didn’t hear or didn’t much care. Seth got up a few minutes later, whispered something into Tania’s ear that made her smile, winked at Alison and left.
“They want to go out with us tomorrow night,” Tania yelled at her over the music. She fingered the long thin strap of her black, sequined purse as if she were eager to leave, but Alison had just ordered a dirty martini with three olives and she wasn’t going anywhere.
“Both of us?”
Tania came around the table next to her so she didn’t have to shout. “Yeah. I wrote my number on a napkin and gave it to him. He said he’d call me. Don’t you think he’s gorgeous?”
“Tania, are you sure Seth said that they want both of us to come? Keith barely said two words to me all night.”
“Yes. I’m sure Keith liked you. He’s just shy. Why else would Seth say we should all do something tomorrow night?”
“I don’t know. Keith was totally ignoring me.”
“Don’t worry about it, Ali,” Tania said, putting her hand on Alison’s shoulder. “It’ll work out just fine. I’m going to go call a cab. I’ll talk to you tomorrow, okay?”
She liked the nickname Tania had given her. She thought it made her sound exotic.
Alison sipped her martini for a while, watched two couples grope each other on the dance floor, and felt out of place. She had to get out of there. But she must have stood up too fast because her head started spinning, so she plopped back down. After a couple minutes, she got up again, this time slowly, and made it out of the bar. She was enjoying the fresh air, even though it was a little chilly, when a Yellow cab pulled up.
“Are you Tania?” the driver asked.
“No,” Alison replied. “She left a while ago.”
“Well, she called for a cab,” he said, irritably. “You need a ride?”
Chapter 8
Goode
After losing his private diary-reading spot, Goode went outside to the apartment balcony to finish writing his list of contacts that could be useful to the investigation. A woman named Alison had come up several times in the last few entries, so he cross-checked the addresses in Tania’s cell phone and found an Alison Winslow, 55 Jewell St. #216, in PB. He had a feeling she wasn’t Ms. X because he doubted Tania would use two different names for the same person. But he planned to keep his eyes open just in case. For all he knew, Tania could’ve been worried someone would read her diary, so she might have had her own rules for identifying people.
Goode told Stone he planned to interview Alison after he checked out Jake’s story to make sure he really lived where he said he did and that he in fact drove a Saab originally registered to his mother. In general, Goode just wanted to get a better feel for the guy. He’d been a little distracted when he took Jake’s statement.
Stone told Goode to focus first on following up leads from the diary, but suggested he review Jake’s story again later to look for any holes or discrepancies. The sergeant called in to run a quick criminal check on Alison before Goode went over there, and she came up clean. Slausson had already checked on Tania and the only thing that turned up was a shoplifting arrest when she was nineteen, though no charges were ever filed.
“Daddy must ha
ve gotten her a good lawyer,” Stone said, suggesting that Goode call Tania’s mother, Helen Marcus, to check in and get any new information now he’d gotten confirmation that LAPD had finished the in-person notification.
Goode had gotten a text that she’d called looking for him while he was in the bathroom, but he wanted to wait to return her call until he’d firmed up the game plan with Stone. When he called her from his van, the poor woman sounded drunk, but she confirmed his hunch that Alison was the right place to start.
He was cruising along Mission Boulevard when he looked in his rearview mirror and saw a red convertible with its nose to his fender.
That driver is just asking to raise his insurance premium. Probably downed too many brews watching the Chargers game this afternoon and didn’t give them a chance to wear off before getting behind the wheel.
Goode pushed his foot harder on the gas. He didn’t have time to waste dealing with a rear-ender, especially one involving a drunk driver. Alison Winslow might know something.
Alison’s three-story complex appeared to have been built around the same time as Tania Marcus’, as did most of the apartment buildings in PB, a densely populated but laid-back beach community full of students and some of San Diego’s more progressive people. Some of the pastel-colored houses looked more like cottages, packed along wide streets with jeweled names such as Diamond, Garnet and Chalcedony. Framed by a couple of trees and well-trimmed bushes, they often had a dog roaming about the yard. The only thing that bothered Goode about PB was the excessive number of stop signs. They were great for preventing hot-rod surfer types from speeding on residential streets, but they made getting somewhere fast an impossibility. And Goode always seemed to be in a hurry.
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