‘One of my students got herself badly cut up,’ said Jim. He raised his arms to show Lieutenant Harris all the dried blood on his shirt, like a dark red map of the Balkans. ‘Maria Lopez, seventeen years old. We don’t know how it happened, but the paramedics are trying to make her comfortable before they take her off to the hospital.’
Lieutenant Harris peered inside the ambulance. ‘Is it life-threatening?’
‘I don’t know. I hope not. But she has lacerations all over and she’s pretty seriously bruised.’
‘So how did she get that way?’
‘Search me,’ said Jim. ‘She excused herself to go to the restroom. She took so long that I sent one of the other girls to go look for her. She wasn’t there. But a couple of minutes later she came bursting in through the door totally naked and covered in blood.’
Lieutenant Harris looked around the grounds, his lips tightly compressed, as if he were searching for some kind of a sign. A burning bush, maybe, or an angel holding up a sacred text. When he turned back, he said, ‘Does anything normal ever happen in your class, Mr Rook? Every time we get called out here to West Grove, it always involves you, and it’s always something spooky.’
Dr Ehrlichman gave a sharp, disapproving cough. ‘I’m sure there’s a perfectly rational explanation for this, Lieutenant. It’s my first guess that Ms Lopez was attacked at random by some intruder from outside the campus.’
The sun was bouncing brightly off the top of Dr Ehrlichman’s bald head. These days he wore rimless spectacles and he had shaved off his droopy moustache, because a woman friend had told him after too many vodkatinis that he looked as if he had bought it in a joke store. As far as Jim was concerned, he now looked like a six-month-old baby that was just about to burst into tears.
‘We don’t yet know if she was – ah – sexually interfered with,’ Dr Ehrlichman added. ‘No doubt we’ll discover that when the doctors have been able to examine her.’
Nurse Okeke looked unimpressed. ‘Myself, Dr Ehrlichman, I am not at all certain that Maria was attacked by any intruder.’
Nurse Okeke was Ibo, from Nigeria. She was nearly six foot tall and every move she made had a complicated elegance. Her skin was intensely black, almost blue-black, and she had a haughty, sculptured face, with high cheekbones and hooded eyes. She wore a pale blue button-through overall and a pale blue cotton headscarf, folded with intimidating neatness.
‘Oh, you don’t think so?’ Dr Ehrlichman retorted. ‘Frankly, I don’t see who else could have been responsible. Even the most unruly of our students isn’t capable of doing anything like this. This is the work of some whackjob. Some psychopath.’
‘You misunderstand me, Dr Ehrlichman,’ said Nurse Okeke. ‘I was not suggesting for a moment that any of our students did it. In fact I was not suggesting that anybody did it. To me, Maria’s injuries look more consistent with some kind of accident with farming machinery. I saw similar lacerations and bruises in West Africa, when people fell in front of harvesters, or corn-threshers.’
Lieutenant Harris dabbed the back of his neck with his Kleenex, and then blew his nose on it. ‘With respect, Nurse Okeke, there probably isn’t a harvester or a corn-thresher within fifty miles of here.’
‘We have lawnmowers here on campus,’ said Nurse Okeke. ‘The blades of a lawn-mower could account for such trauma.’
‘Maybe so,’ said Dr Ehrlichman. ‘But our lawnmowers don’t happen to be in use today, do they? And even if they had been, and the unfortunate Ms Lopez had somehow managed to get herself tangled up in one of them, I am quite certain that the groundsperson involved would have raised the alarm immediately.’
‘Have you informed her next-of-kin?’ asked Lieutenant Harris, trying to change the subject. He didn’t like speculation, or theories, or hunches. This was real life, not Murder, She Wrote.
Jim said, ‘Maria’s mother works for Sunbright. It’s a domestic cleaning company in Burbank. I managed to get in touch with her boss and he’s agreed to pick her up and drive her to Cedars-Sinai, so that we can meet her there.’
A black Taurus came up the college driveway and parked at an angle alongside Lieutenant Harris’s Crown Victoria. Two detectives got out – a middle-aged Chinese American in a loud plaid coat, and a young woman with curly blonde hair and a turquoise suit that was half a size too tight for her.
‘Ah – Wong, Madison,’ said Lieutenant Harris. ‘Good of you to join us.’
‘We got here as soon as we could, Lieutenant,’ said Detective Wong. ‘A cattle truck turned over on the Ventura Freeway, and there was prime rib all over.’
‘This man and his excuses,’ said Lieutenant Harris. ‘What was it the last time? That freak storm, with hailstones as big as baseballs? Or was it that high-wire walker at Century City who got struck by lightning and fell on your car?’
‘That was true, Lieutenant, the high-wire walker,’ Detective Wong protested. ‘It was all over the TV news.’
One of the paramedics came over, snapping off her blue latex gloves. ‘OK,’ she said, ‘Maria has suffered considerable blood loss but we have her on a drip and she’s stabilized now. We’re taking her directly to the ER.’
‘Thank you,’ said Jim. He felt a sudden surge of helplessness. This was Maria’s first day in Special Class Two, and he could hardly be expected to have discovered much about her. But he had seen from her bruises that she had some kind of a problem and even though he hadn’t had the chance to find out what it was, he still felt responsible for her.
The ambulance sped off with its siren scribbling. Jim said, ‘You don’t need me here any longer, do you, Lieutenant? I need to go to the hospital and talk to Maria’s mom.’
‘Jim,’ said Dr Ehrlichman, firmly, lifting his hand. ‘I’d rather you didn’t.’
‘Excuse me?’
‘There are legal implications here, Jim. It’s quite possible that the college could be held liable for what happened here today.’
‘We don’t know what happened here today! Maria left the classroom looking a little logie, then she came back all bloody. I sure as hell didn’t have anything to do with it.’
‘All the same, Jim. One expression of sympathy – that’s all it takes.’
‘What do you mean, “one expression of sympathy”? Maria was almost killed, and I’m not allowed to be sympathetic?’
‘Jim, if you say “sorry” to Maria’s mother, it might sound comforting and heartfelt in the emergency room, but think what it’s going to sound like in the Los Angeles Superior Court, seven months from now? I’ve been there, Jim. I’ve done it myself, and it cost the college a whole bundle of money in damages. No matter how badly you feel, and I know you feel badly, it’s better to keep it to yourself, OK?’
Jim knew that Dr Ehrlichman was right. But he had a feeling that something was seriously out of whack. It was like an electric storm approaching. The air seemed to be congealing, and the trees sounded restless. However Maria had been injured, he was sure that she wasn’t going to be the last of his students to get hurt. He didn’t exactly know why, but he was highly sensitive to supernatural disturbances, and he could feel his hands tingling and a crawling sensation down his back. This morning’s resurrection of Tibbles hadn’t exactly put his mind at ease, either.
Lieutenant Harris and his two detectives went over to talk to the uniformed officers. Jim guessed that he might as well go home. He could call Cedars-Sinai later this evening to find out how Maria was getting on.
He was approaching the steps to the main entrance when Kim came across to him.
‘Mr Rook?’
‘Yes, Kim, what is it?’
‘You should not worry about Maria, Mr Rook. She survive this time.’
Jim stopped. ‘What do you mean by “this time”, Kim?’
‘I mean she survive for now.’
‘When I saw you two earlier, under the tree, what were you talking about? It seemed to me that Maria was upset.’
‘Maria have trouble at home, Mr Rook. She
beg me not to tell anybody.’
‘What kind of trouble?’
‘I cannot say. She make me promise.’
‘Kim, you saw the state of her. She was chopped up like a hamburger. If you know anything at all that can help us to protect her, then you need to tell me what it is.’
‘She survive this time, Mr Rook.’
‘So you think it might happen again?’
Kim said nothing, but stared at Jim unblinking, as if he hadn’t heard him.
‘Kim – do you have any idea what happened to her?’ Jim persisted.
‘It has not happen yet. No need to worry.’
‘You’re talking in riddles again, Kim. If you know how Maria got herself hurt, then we really have to know. Did somebody attack her? The nurse seems to think she was injured by a lawnmower, or maybe some kind of farm machinery.’
‘Maria have great trouble with her stepfather, Mr Rook. He is dangerous man. I should not tell you this because she make me promise.’
‘What are you telling me? That her stepfather cut her up like that?’
‘No, Mr Rook. Nobody cut her up. Not yet.’
Just then, Lieutenant Harris came over. ‘Hard to make any sense of this. The crime scene guys tell me that she left blood spatters and bloody footprints only a quarter of the way along the corridor. They start about thirty feet short of your classroom door. How do you think she got as far as that without making a single mark?’
‘I can’t say that I noticed that,’ said Jim. ‘I was too concerned with trying to get everybody out of the building without treading all over the evidence.’
‘But even if somebody was carrying her along the corridor, there would have been drops of blood on the floor.’
‘Maybe somebody was carrying her wrapped up in a blanket, or a coat or something,’ Jim suggested.
Lieutenant Harris pulled a face. ‘Still doesn’t make any sense.’
‘Let’s hope she can tell us when she comes round.’
‘If she comes round.’
‘Kim here seems to be convinced that she’s going to be fine,’ said Jim.
Lieutenant Harris looked around and frowned. ‘Kim? Who’s Kim?’
Jim turned. Kim had been standing right next to him, on the steps, but now he was more than seventy-five yards away, underneath the shadow of the cedar tree, with his classmates. Jim hadn’t even seen him turn around and walk off. And how had he managed to get so far away, in only a few seconds? He was talking to Tamara and Arthur as if they were in mid-conversation.
Lieutenant Harris said, ‘If you think of anything that might be helpful, Mr Rook, you will get in touch with Detective Wong, won’t you? I think that you and he will probably get along. He’s a great believer in the occult. He says that his grandmother talks to ghosts on a regular basis. Apparently they give her pretty reliable tips for Santa Anita.’
‘Sure, yes,’ said Jim, abstractedly. He paused for a moment longer, still staring at Kim. How the hell had he gotten over to that tree so fast? Jim felt as if fifteen seconds had been edited out of his life, and that somehow he had missed Kim saying goodbye and walking away. But how could he?
He continued up the steps to the main entrance. As he opened the door, though, he felt a chill across his shoulders. He turned around and looked up at the sky. Clouds were sliding across the sun as fast as a speeded-up movie, and the trees and the bushes were increasingly agitated, although there seemed to be hardly any wind blowing.
Nurse Okeke was coming up the steps toward him. ‘Mr Rook?’ she asked him. ‘Is something wrong?’
‘Yes, Nurse. I believe that there is.’
Nurse Okeke raised one immaculately plucked eyebrow. ‘Can I ask you what it is? You’re looking troubled, if you don’t mind my saying so.’
Jim said, ‘I think you’re right, Nurse Okeke. That’s what’s wrong. I don’t believe that Maria was attacked by any intruder, either. Maria got herself mangled by some piece of machinery. But the question is what, and how, and why – and even more important, when?’
Before he went home he stopped off at the Cat’n’Fiddle English Pub on Hollywood Boulevard. It was dark in the Cat’n’Fiddle, with stained-glass windows and dim Tiffany lamps. Out on the patio a jazz trio was playing ‘Won’t You Come Home, Bill Bailey’ and he knew that he ought to go home and see Tibbles but actually he wanted his life to go on hold for an hour or two, and nothing else to happen, so that he could try to catch up with what had happened so far.
He sat up at the bar and ordered a bottle of Fat Tire Amber Ale, which he drank much too quickly, so that he couldn’t stop burping. He ordered another, but this time he sipped it more slowly. He crunched a few giant pretzels, too, to see if they would help, but they kept surging up in the back of his throat, so that he had to swallow them twice.
A tawny-blonde girl in a very short miniskirt climbed on to the barstool next to him and said, in a cheerful British accent, ‘You look sad, mate!’
‘Sad?’ said Jim. ‘No, I’m not sad. I’m just trying to make sense of the world.’
‘How about a shag? That should cheer you up.’
Jim looked at her. She had a chubby oval face and double false eyelashes and dark circles under her eyes, even though she couldn’t have been much older than Maria Lopez, or any of the other girls in his class. Her miniskirt was covered with glittery purple sequins, and she wore purple stilettos with worn-down heels.
‘A shag?’ Jim asked her. ‘What’s that? Today’s special?’
The girl gave a throaty little laugh. ‘It’s a screw, silly.’
‘Oh, I get it. I thought you were offering me some weird British meal like bangers ’n’ mash. Or maybe a carpet, or a seabird, or an ounce of tobacco. They’re all different kinds of shag.’
‘You’re nuts, you are. But you can still have a shag if you want one.’
‘No, no thanks all the same. A little early in the day for me.’
‘What do you mean? It’s never too early to cheer yourself up. What time is it?’
‘Seven twenty-five.’
‘What – seven twenty-five in the morning?’
‘Seven twenty-five in the evening. Do you know what day it is?’
The girl stared at him for a long time and then she shook her head. ‘No. Surprise me.’
‘Don’t you think it matters, what day it is?’
‘I don’t know. No. Every bloody day’s the bloody same, as far as I’m concerned.’
He stared at her so intently that she gave him a quick, defensive smile. ‘Something wrong, mate?’ she asked him.
‘No, nothing,’ said Jim. ‘Well, nothing that you need to worry about, anyhow. But you’re right. Every bloody day is the bloody same. Yesterday, today, tomorrow. All the bloody same.’
He left his last bottle of Fat Tire only three-quarters finished, and handed the bartender fifteen dollars.
‘Keep the change,’ he told him.
‘Oh . . . Mr Generous rides again,’ the bartender clucked at him.
The tawny-haired girl looked at the bartender and shrugged. ‘Nutter,’ she said, but Jim didn’t hear her because he was already halfway to the door.
When he stepped out into the parking lot, Jim looked up and the sky was a strange purplish color, with clouds flying past much faster than they should have been. Even though he could feel only the lightest of breezes, the yuccas along Hollywood Boulevard were shaking as violently as cheerleaders’ pom-poms.
He drove back to Briarcliff Road and parked at a steep angle next to Summer’s yellow Beetle. Dry leaves were scurrying around and around in front of the steps, as if they were chasing each other. He climbed up to his apartment and opened the door. It was gloomy and airless inside and there was still a lingering fishy odor from Tibbles’ shrimp dinner. He switched on the lamps and the air-conditioning.
‘Tibbles?’ he called out. ‘You there, boy?’ Tibbles always trotted out to greet him when he arrived home but this evening there was no sign of him.
‘Tibbles?’ He went through to the kitchen, and as he did so he was sure that he heard his bedroom door closing. Not slammed – not caught by the wind – just closing, very quietly, ker-lick. He stood in the middle of the kitchen listening. The air-conditioning was rattling intermittently, as it always did when it started up, but he was sure that he could hear somebody moving around.
He went across to his bedroom door and opened it. He sniffed. He could smell shower gel – his own Armani shower gel that Heidi had given him for Christmas last year before they had split up. Not only that, his bed was a mess, with his red Zuni throw dragged back at a forty-five-degree angle and his pillows all twisted as if he had been wrestling with them. But this morning he had taken the time to make his bed really neatly, with double-folded hospital-type corners and everything.
He looked across at his closet. It had mirrored doors, and he could see himself standing on the opposite side of the room with a frown on his face. He went around the end of the bed and took hold of both door handles.
‘O-kay!’ he shouted, and flung the closet doors wide open. He didn’t know what he had expected to find in there – a strange man who had spent the day tossing and turning in his bed and then had the brass cojones to take a shower in his bathroom, with his shower-gel? But there was nobody inside, only his clothes hanging up, apart from some crumpled old T-shirts on the closet floor which he never wore any more and a paint-spattered pair of Levis which had dropped on top of them.
‘Tibbles?’ he repeated. ‘You there, Tibbles?’
Jim came out of the bedroom and as he did so he heard the front door close. Again, it wasn’t slammed, and it didn’t sound as if the wind had caught it. But he had already closed it behind him when he had come home, hadn’t he? It sounded more like somebody had taken advantage of his being in the bedroom so that they could make a stealthy exit.
He hurried to the front door and pulled it open. He thought he could hear footsteps pattering down the stairs, but when he went to the railing and looked down to the landing below his, there was nobody there. The streetlights were going on, all over Hollywood, and this evening they were twinkling like heliographs because the trees and the bushes were thrashing around so much.
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