Naked Addiction

by Caitlin Rother

  Fletcher’s job was to find the kid who threw the party that night, and see if Seth’s and Keith’s alibi held up. Even if it did, he and Slausson were going to trail Seth and/or Keith for a while, watching where they went and who they talked to. Normally another unit would do the surveillance, but since all the teams were so backed up, they had to take on this duty themselves. If they had time, they were going to follow Jake around for a bit, too, to make sure he was in fact going to UCSD, and not doing anything he shouldn’t be.

  They all agreed that if any one of them hit a lead that took precedence, they would reshuffle duties. Goode was eagerly awaiting the toxicology results, and an answer from the crime lab on the white powder and its quality, which could help him determine its source. He was impatient for the DNA test results, too, but he knew those could take a while, even with a super-rush priority.

  The couches, tables and carpet in the waiting area at Dobson & Gray looked so clean and polished, he wondered if they had just redecorated.

  “Hi, I’m here to see Gary Bentwood,” Goode said to the receptionist.

  “Do you have an appointment?” she asked in a bored tone, twirling her hair between her fingers.

  “No,” he said. “Tell him that Detective Ken Goode is here to see him.”

  The receptionist pushed a button on her console. “Mr. Bentwood,” she said into the speaker, pushing the button again—twice. “Are you there?”

  There was a long pause before a deep voice answered. “Just a sec, Babs. I’m right in the middle of something.”

  Goode heard a buzzing sound from the corner of the room. He looked up and spotted a camera mounted on the wall near the ceiling. It slowly turned until it pointed straight at him. He didn’t like being watched, but he smiled and waved. A few more minutes passed before the deep voice spoke again.

  “Okay, Babs, what’s up?”

  “There’s a police officer here to see you,” she said.

  Another long pause. “Send him in,” the voice said with forced enthusiasm.

  Babs opened the door into the main office and gestured for Goode to go inside. “It’s all the way to the end and to the left,” she said. “Now don’t get lost, or I’ll have to come find you.”

  Following her directions, he entered a spacious office with a pale seafoam carpet. A man with graying temples sat in a cushy leather chair behind a massive cherrywood desk, trying to appear relaxed.

  “Hello,” Goode said. “I’m Detective Ken Goode. San Diego PD.”

  “Nice to meet you,” Gary said unconvincingly. “Did you say San Diego police?”

  “Yes, I did. Why?”

  “Oh, nothing.”

  Goode could tell he was lying already. The antique desk clock read 4:27. It reminded Goode of the receptionist: Tall, brassy, with a white face and long thin numbers. He spotted the TV monitor that showed the reception area. So, the freak had been watching him.

  “Might I ask why you need a security camera in the reception area of an advertising agency?” he asked, unable to keep the sarcasm out of his voice.

  Gary shrugged with embarrassment. “Oh, that, yes. Well, uh, the other partners and I worked out this system to warn us that someone we might not want to see is here. You know, freelancers, ad executives and hungry copywriters who’ve lost their jobs through alcohol or substance abuse or worse, a lack of talent,” he said. “When I saw you out there, I thought, you know he’s a little on the lean side, but he’s damn good-looking. He’s probably an actor who wants to be in a commercial. Then Babs said you were a police officer and I didn’t know what to think.”

  Goode let the silence hang in the air for a moment, knowing that Gary would fill it. He was curious to see just how.

  “Ever thought about being in commercials?” Gary blurted out. “I could hook you up with one of our casting agents. Big bucks in commercials, you know. Big bucks.”

  Gary seems a little too ebullient. Guilty, in fact. But then, everyone seems guilty to me right at the moment.

  Goode pretended to ponder the commercial idea for a moment. “No, thanks,” he said. “I like what I’m doing. Long hours, lots of stress, and very little sleep.”

  Goode noticed bruises on Gary’s wrists, as if he’d been handcuffed. He flashed on the marks on Tania’s neck. He already knew that Gary was into kinky sex, but was he sick enough to tie her up after she was already dead and have sex with her?

  “So what can I do for you, detective?” Gary asked, yanking his shirtsleeves down self-consciously.

  Goode pulled out a photo and laid it on the desk. “Know this young woman, Mr. Bentwood?”

  It was the shot of Tania with the dog on the beach, flashing her white teeth. Goode imagined Gary’s mind racing, trying to get his story straight: Ah, yes, that sweet little thing from the beginning of the summer. She was a nice girl, but didn’t like the spanking thing. She was over eighteen, right? Yes, of course, she was. I was trying to be a mentor to the girl. The agency was very impressed with her and didn’t want to lose her. I was trying to convince her to continue working at Dobson & Gray before she started that beauty college. That’s why I took her to dinner and. . .

  “Uh, yeah, I think her name was Toni, Teresa, something like that,” Gary said. “She started working here after graduating from UCLA as an intern, then we promoted her. She was a smart girl. I heard she moved to San Diego, to learn parasailing or something. Couldn’t understand why she’d leave us like that.”

  Good try. “Her name was Tania Marcus and she went to San Diego for beauty–business school, actually,” he said. “Did you have any contact with her after she left?”

  “No,” Gary said. “I never really knew her very well.”

  “That’s funny,” Goode said, pausing. “She mentioned you quite intimately in her diary.”

  Gary’s face turned white. He loosened his tie. “What’s this all about anyway?” he said, his voice rising.

  “She’s dead,” Goode said. “Murdered.”

  “You’re kidding,” Gary said, his voice dropping.

  “No, I’m not. So let’s quit playing games here. Why don’t you tell me what happened between the two of you. And where you were Saturday night. I know you slept together, because she described it pretty graphically in her journal. She said you liked to get a little rough.”

  “That’s ridiculous. I never hurt her. I never hurt anyone that didn’t want it. Besides, what would I want with such a young girl? I’m forty-five years old.” Gary looked like he was having trouble swallowing. Goode enjoyed watching him squirm.

  “And I was at dinner with a business associate on Saturday night… What exactly did Tania say in her diary?” he asked timidly.

  Goode raised his eyebrows as if to say, Cut the crap. This guy was too much.

  “Okay, okay,” Gary said. “We dated a few times, but I broke it off with her after I met someone else.” He grabbed a glass of diet soda and took a gulp. “Someone closer to my own age. She’s an assistant creative director, works here in the office. Gave me this, in fact,” he said, tapping his gold pen on the clock.

  “You’re married, though, right?”

  “Yes, but we’re, ah, separated.”

  “Uh-huh. How many times were you and Tania together?” Goode asked.

  “I don’t know, two, three times,” he said as Goode glared at him. “Okay, five or six times… No more than ten.”

  “Ever visit her in San Diego?”

  “No, I told you, I broke it off and then she went to San Diego. I haven’t seen or heard from her in at least a couple of months.” Gary’s eyes opened wide and his mouth dropped open. “I’m not a suspect, am I?”

  Goode looked at him with a deep, searching gaze, hoping to pull out a confession if there was one to be had. But it didn’t look likely.

  “At this point, Mr. Bentwood, I wouldn’t rule you out, especially given those marks on your wrists.”

  “All right, all right,” Gary sputtered. “So I knew her pretty well. Liked
her a lot, actually, lost my head a little, but she dropped me. She was looking for something, someone, I don’t know. I tried to give it to her, but it obviously wasn’t what she wanted. But I certainly didn’t kill her if that’s what you think.”

  Goode actually believed him. He was just a pathetic kinky man approaching middle age, which in LA, was nothing to be proud of. Goode decided to push a little harder.

  “So, you were angry when she broke it off?”

  “Angry? No, let’s just say my ego was hurt. I would never do anything to hurt her, she’s…she was a nice girl.”

  Gary pulled a DVD off the shelf behind him. “Here,” he said, thrusting it at Goode. “She had a way about her, if you know what I mean. We used her in one of our beer commercials. Watch it and you’ll see for yourself. She was a nice girl, but a naughty one.”

  Goode knew exactly what he meant. He had his hand on the door when he decided he couldn’t resist leaving the kinky sex man with a little anguish. “Don’t leave town, my friend,” Goode said.

  Gary nodded obediently. “Listen,” he said, conspiratorially. “I meant what I said about those commercials. You’ve got the look.”

  Chapter 17

  Seth

  Seth Kennedy lay on his towel in the sand, his head facing the ocean. Detective Ken Goode had dragged him down to the station that morning to give a saliva sample, and Seth felt so annoyed by the experience that he had to take the rest of the day off. Lifting his ear from the towel, he pushed the sand aside to make a bigger hole for his face. He couldn’t seem to get enough air.

  The waves were coming in six- to eight-foot sets, powerful enough to send the teenage girls shrieking every time a breaker crashed on the shore. The sun felt so hot he thought it might burn a hole through his skin.

  Jolene, a Texan divorcee who called him whenever she came to town on business, leaned over and pushed her finger into his shoulder. “Seth, hon, you’re starting to burn,” she cooed, reaching for her sunscreen. She squeezed a few blobs onto his back and rubbed it in, her long nails jabbing into him.

  “Owww.”

  “Sweetheart, you are tighter than a virgin. You have got to quit workin’ so many hours.”

  Jolene looked good even after raising two children, but Seth wished she’d let her daughter wear the red thong bikini. It was hard for a millionaire to do, but she’d made herself look cheap. He’d become bored with her the last time she visited, but she’d rekindled his interest a couple of weeks ago when she’d Fed-Ex-ed him a Rolex watch. He hadn’t wanted to be alone with his thoughts today, but he was starting to regret bringing her to the beach. The noise of her gold bracelets clinking together was really irritating him, though not as much as that kid’s rap music nearby.

  “Take off those bracelets, will you, baby?” he said, raising himself up on to his elbows. “I need some quiet time today. In fact, why don’t we move over to those rocks?”

  “Sure, hon, I’m sorry,” she said, pulling off the bracelets and smiling at him with perfect teeth. He’d never known a smoker with teeth that white.

  Just after they resettled next to some rocks about twenty-five feet away, a breeze picked up, sending over a waft of Jolene’s perfume, melded with her coconut oil. It was enough to make anyone nauseated. A month earlier, Seth would’ve been fine spending the day with Jolene, but this wasn’t working out so well. He’d figured the police might label him a suspect in Tania’s murder and now that they had, his life was going to be a living hell. He’d have to leave the country if it went much further. He’d never make it in prison with his looks.

  His aunt Denise, his father’s brother’s wife, was always telling him how good he had it. As the CEO of a software company, it was her job to tell men what to do. She was the only one in the family who’d ever called him on his shit. In fact, she’d taken him aside the previous weekend during a cocktail party at his parents’ house on Mount Soledad. They were standing on the deck, overlooking the homes that blanketed the coastline below and the palm trees that stood guard at measured distances along the beach.

  “Seth, you know I care about you—I’ve known you since you were riding a tricycle for Christ’s sake,” she said, cradling her glass of dry Rosé with a worried expression on her face. “Sure, you can make a lot of money in real estate, just like your Uncle Richard, but that won’t help you become a decent human being. It comes from growing up with money, I guess. How many other kids at your high school got a Porsche after graduation and then went to Stanford because their father went there? It’s too bad you’re so damned good-looking. You’ll probably never have to work for anything a day in your life.”

  Denise took a sip and continued. “My advice is to start thinking about someone besides yourself for a change. Go serve a meal at the homeless shelter. You’ve got to do something before it’s too late and you become as much of an asshole as your father. I will, of course, deny having said that. He bought us our house, after all.”

  Denise was right. Things did come easily to him. Especially the rich, older women like Jolene, the tanned and firm ones, the ones with enough cash for his Armani suits and the weekend trips to Cancun. Jolene mounted his lower back and continued the massage. Maybe it hadn’t been such a bad idea to bring her along after all. He wondered if he could convince her to buy another cottage in Bird Rock as a rental property.

  “That feels great,” he said. “You’ve got the touch.”

  Married women with husbands were the best, because they weren’t looking for anything permanent. Plus, with homebuyers like Jolene, he got fat commissions as well.

  Jolene was a friend of his mother’s. She used to live in La Jolla until she met her second husband at a party and moved to Texas, where he was a big oil tycoon. She divorced him a few years later and took half his money. Many millions. Seth had met Jolene at one of his parents’ cocktail parties last year. His mother made sure to introduce them.

  “What are you, my pimp?” Seth whispered into her ear after the introduction.

  But it turned out to be a good idea. Seth ended up at the beach with Jolene the next day, making a sale in the process.

  His mother kept quite busy while his father cut open people’s chests, inserted devices to keep their hearts beating, and kept the Kennedys in the lifestyle to which they were accustomed. She helped raise money for charities and political candidates with conservative Republican platforms, and was always attending some meeting to organize a gala, lavish party or fundraising luncheon.

  His parents still lived in the house where he grew up, a two-story mansion with neighbors like Ted Geisel, the author who wrote books under the name of Dr. Seuss. He’d died, but his widow, Audrey, still lived there. Seth was at his parents’ house the previous weekend when the ground shook for a few moments and then stopped. His mother, her legs dangling in the hot tub, was munching on a chocolate-covered strawberry the size of a child’s fist. She clutched onto his arm with her free hand until the shaking subsided.

  “God, I hope we never have a real earthquake,” she said, laughing. “This house could slide right down the hill.”

  Seth loved his mother and her dry wit. And women loved a man who loved his mother. His thoughts were interrupted as Jolene climbed off him and stood up. He felt the breeze on his sweaty lower back where she’d been sitting.

  “I’m going to go for a walk down the beach. You want to come, hon?” she asked.

  Seth rolled over and turned toward her. “No, thanks. You go ahead. I’ve got a lot on my mind right now.”

  Seth closed his eyes again. Detective Goode’s face, with that cocky little smile of his, for one. He blinked away the image. He was determined not to think any more about the man. An image of Clover undressing down to a black bra and panties replaced it, her strawberry blond hair hanging bluntly across the middle of her back. Funny how the mind worked. Clover was beautiful in a California-girl kind of way, with smooth skin and a tight figure. Too bad she was so nutty, always crying and telling him he was going to le
ave her. They both knew it was true, but didn’t she know that saying it out loud would only made it happen sooner? He wondered how far away he had to push her, how badly he had to treat her, before she would push back. He wished he felt strongly enough about her to treat her better. But she only did it for him sexually, not as a girlfriend thing.

  Part of it was that something in Clover asked to be victimized. In bed, they often played games. But even when she was on top, he was in charge. He’d decided he had to stop seeing her one weekend when the pros stopped outweighing the cons. The cocaine, champagne, and sex were flowing. It was 2 A.M. on a Saturday night and, as usual, Clover had done everything he’d asked her to do and a few things he hadn’t. Then, she launched into him for making a complimentary reference to Tracy, an old girlfriend, and stalked out of the room. When she returned, she was gripping an ice pick. It was like a bad movie.

  “Take it back,” she said.

  “What?”

  “That comment you made about Tracy,” she said, with a weird, demented look on her face. He was angry at first, but then he began to feel the tiniest bit of respect for her. Problem was, he couldn’t really tell if she was kidding about using the ice pick or not. He decided not to indulge her tantrum.

  “You finished?” he asked, calmly.

  To him, they were playing the game they’d always played, the one that put them both on the edge. She had to know that game would end someday. She settled down and they did some more coke. He made an offhand comment about another old girlfriend and she threatened to set fire to his swimsuit calendar. She grabbed the champagne bottle and stormed into the bathroom, where he heard glass breaking in the bathtub. When he came in, she was sitting on the side of the tub, her hands covered with blood. Shards of glass had scattered everywhere, all over the bathmat, under the sink and in the tub. Reflecting the light from the ceiling, the bigger pieces poked up, out of the drain, like daggers.