by James, David
“Sometimes, but mostly he used the vortices.”
My bullshit sensors went into alarm mode whenever I heard the word vortex. People raved about the vortices in Sedona, Arizona, but all I ever felt was perspiration. It’s hot there in the summer.
“And what are the vortices?” I asked.
“There,” she said, pointing out to the desert at nothing in particular. “We have over fifteen vortices on our holy grounds. The Labyrinth is running over 1.5 million cycles per second.”
Even Regina was confused. “Excuse me?”
“Energy from the earth. Natural energy. Most people use them for divine guidance, healing, or inspiration.”
Regina was clearly doubtful and the look clearly showed on her face. Fortunately, she was standing off to the side of the manager, so Mrs. Ohm-Ra didn’t see this, nor did she see Regina smack her head with her hand, as if trying to jog her head back into reality.
“I have one more question.”
“Yes?”
“Who do you think could have killed Doc?”
“You mean, who helped him pass from this life?”
“If you want to put it that way. I’d prefer to say someone poisoned him.”
“I can’t answer that,” Ohm-Ra replied. “We try to avoid all forms of negation here. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a busload of guests arriving in an hour from Ojai, California, . . . I must get ready to greet them.”
Interview over. I looked at Regina, who was still incredulous.
“What the fuck just happened here?”
I shrugged my shoulders. “I guess we should go look at the vortices.”
“If we have to,” was Regina’s reply.
Regina and I made our way onto the holy ground until we eventually came upon a circle of stones in the ground about 100 feet in diameter. I expected to see some fiery plasma suspended in space, sucking rocks and dirt into its gaping maw, like something from The Matrix or a Star Trek movie. But no, it was just a circle of stones. Even stranger, there were ten people walking inside the circles, some silent, some quietly chanting, some waving their arms around slowly, some wafting their arms up and down, as if blown by an invisible ether wind.
“This is fucked up,” Regina commented none too quietly.
“Do you feel anything?” I asked.
“Yeah, hungry. Let’s go get something to eat.”
We had lunch at the Purple Lizard sandwich shop in downtown Joshua Tree. When I say downtown, I mean the collection of about twenty stores, restaurants, and unicycle and rock-climbing gear shops that make up Joshua Tree. As I munched my way through my Blue Job burger (bleu cheese on a hamburger . . . in case you had other ideas), I looked around at the collection of backpackers and eco-hippies that populated the place. It seemed so strange, thinking that in the midst of so much white trash lives this island of progressive culture. The draw, of course, is Joshua Tree National Park. Some come for the rocks to climb, some to meditate, some to bike. It’s kind of wild, really. Like the billboard across the street, depicting a fire-ravaged drag queen lying dejected on the embers of a scorched landscape. The tagline read: FIRES ARE A DRAG. BE CAREFUL WITH FIRE IN THE PARK. I kid you not. This was on a huge billboard.
Regina and I finished our sandwiches, then headed off for a few New Age stores. We turned up nothing at Get Your Rocks Off, a psychic store specializing in crystals. Zippo at Kabala Valhalla. But our luck started to turn at New Age Concepts. The store owner, Bonnie, highly recommended a visit to Pappy and Harriet’s. Turning north onto Pioneertown Road, we drove up through a brutal landscape dotted with yuccas and Joshua trees, passed a coyote out for an early-evening stroll, and up to Pioneertown for a drink at Pappy and Harriet’s Palace, a saloon and self-described best honkey-tonk west of the Mississippi, for a drink before heading down to Palm Springs again.
We chatted up the bartender, Lisa, and hit pay dirt.
“Yeah, he used to come in here quite a bit,” Lisa laughed. “I was so sorry to hear that Doc was killed. I’ll bet that really shook up his girlfriend.”
“She was murdered too. Just a few days ago.”
Lisa looked at me wide-eyed. “Murdered? Oh my God! I don’t believe it. Wow . . .” She let out a long sigh. “I guess you just never know, do you?”
“So he came in here with his girlfriend?” Regina inquired.
“Yeah, for a while it was almost once a week. He’d go out back with the woman he was dating.”
“Where in the back?” Regina asked, pointing toward a corner of the bar.
“Not in the bar . . . outside . . . in the back . . . our backyard, if that’s what you want to call it. Like he didn’t want anyone to see them together.”
It was my turn to jump in. “Why would you say that, Lisa?”
“Because when he came in by himself, he’d always sit right here in this room and watch whoever was playing pool.”
Regina and I looked at each other as if we’d both discovered something important. But what?
I took a chance. “That’s odd. I would’ve thought he’d sit out front and center with Monica. I mean, she is . . . was . . . kind of a bimbo, but she was attractive in her own way. A man who looked like Doc would want to show off someone like Monica.”
Lisa looked puzzled. “A bimbo. I wouldn’t call Doc’s girlfriend a bimbo. She seemed very plain to me. Painfully plain, if you asked me.”
Now I was puzzled. “Are we talking about the same person here?”
“Yeah, Doc’s girlfriend . . . Monica, that’s what you said her name was.”
“He never introduced her?”
“No, never. That’s another reason I felt like he was hiding Monica.”
I turned to Regina, who was looking rather muddled. “Maybe Doc was embarrassed that Monica was such a bimbo.”
Lisa, who was busy washing the jelly jars Pappy and Harriet’s used for beer mugs, paused her dunk-and-dry routine.
“Maybe I’ve got a different definition of bimbo, but this girlfriend was no bimbo. Maybe you’re thinking of another girlfriend.”
“He never had one before Monica,” Regina added.
“Oh.”
“Well, I don’t care what you say about Monica, she was no bimbo. This woman was in her fifties, just a little heavyset . . .”
“Stop right there, Lisa,” I said. “Heavyset? I don’t think Monica even tipped the scales at over one hundred five, maybe one hundred ten.”
“Oh no. This woman had to weigh about, say, one hundred fifty, one hundred sixty.”
“Holy shit,” Regina whistled.
“Lisa, what color was her hair?”
“Dark. Brown I’d say.”
“Not blond?”
“She could have colored it. But, no, this woman’s hair was brown.”
“Bingo,” I said, grabbing Regina’s arm. “Wait a minute, Lisa. I’ve got a picture of someone I want you to look at. It’s on a business card, so it’s kinda small, but I want you to look at it.”
I pulled out Mary Dodge’s business card and handed it to Lisa, who studied it for a few seconds before handing it back to me.
“Definitely not her . . . that woman looks like an Orange County bitch, if you ask me.”
I put the card back into my purse dejectedly. “I know it was a long shot. I couldn’t see Mary Dodge with Doc. But I had to ask.”
“Who’s the chick with the bouncy hair on the business card?” Lisa asked.
“Mary Dodge. She’s a very successful real-estate agent in Palm Springs.”
“Well,” Lisa started, “she looks like she could kill. That smile doesn’t fool me one bit.”
Regina was starting to put the pieces together. So was I.
“So it looks like Doc had a girlfriend before Monica,” Regina surmised.
“Regina, why would he be so concerned with hiding her? He wasn’t ashamed of Monica from what I’ve heard.”
“Maybe he had two girlfriends at the same time, so he had to keep a low profile when he was out in public with M
adame X.”
I turned to Lisa again. “Lisa, do you remember when was the last time Doc was here with his girlfriend?”
“About nine months ago. Maybe eight.”
“Regina, wasn’t that about the time people said Doc hooked up with Monica?”
“Amanda, I think you uncovered something there. Wait a minute. Holy shit! We might have a disgruntled girlfriend here. Doc is seeing this woman that he’s ashamed of; then he dumps her for a bimbo! Madame X then decides to get revenge and she kills first Doc, then Monica. Maybe this whole mess has nothing to do with saving the hills or Martin Sultan!”
“I think we’re on to something here, Regina. But what I don’t understand is why Doc went to such lengths to hide her.”
Regina’s face lit up like the Christmas tree at Rockefeller Center. “I’ve got it. He was protecting his career!” Regina exclaimed, using her fingers to put air quotation marks as she said the word career.
“His career? His only source of income was his eco protests.”
“And what would be the worst kind of person to date when you were making your living at trying to save the Chino Cone?”
I said the words slowly, “A Realtor.”
“Right. He was dating someone in Palm Springs who sold properties. He had to keep that a secret. If word got out, it would ruin him.”
“Okay, Regina, let’s assume this is all true. Then who could it be? Lisa here said it was definitely not Mary Dodge. It could be anyone. I’ve got it! Maybe it was Mary Dodge and she disguised herself when she came up here. That seems kinda far-fetched. But Mary is the type to stop at nothing to sell land up in the Chino Cone.”
“Oh, right. You’ve got a point there. What do you say we head down to the valley? I think we’ve found out all we can find here.”
“Sounds like a good idea. And I think a call to Alex is in order. Then Ken.”
We both got into my car and started the long ride down to Palm Springs.
Just then, my cell phone rang.
“Hello, Amanda Thorne.”
“Amanda? It’s Anne . . . Anne Clexton. I called your office, but they said you were up in the high desert today. I didn’t know you had listings up there.”
“Oh, Regina and I went up to do some investigating. What can I do for you?”
“I just thought about something concerning Mary Dodge . . . it seems like such a small thing . . .” Anne said, then cut out. She came back on for a second. “It’s not really important, but I’d like to talk to you about it tomorrow . . . no rush . . . but it might be important. . .” she said, cutting out a final time. We were coming down out the hills and reception was spotty.
I hit the Redial button, but no answer. Damn those hills. When we got to the bottom of the hills and came out onto the plains of Desert Hot Springs, my cell phone rang again.
“Anne?”
“No . . . it’s Alex. What have you and Regina been up to? How did your trip up to Joshua Tree go?”
“Alex, Regina and I solved it!”
“Solved it? The murder . . . murders?”
“Yes . . . well, not exactly, but we’re close. Doc had a girlfriend nobody knew about. We think Doc dumped her for Monica Birdsong, setting the jealous girlfriend into action.”
“Wonderful! Who is it?”
“Well, we don’t know that yet. But at least we know it’s a woman. Well, maybe. It is Palm Springs, after all—gender-bender central.”
“Wonderful,” came the reply. “We’ve narrowed our search down to fifty percent of the population.”
“Oh, come on, Alex, be reasonable. At least we’re getting somewhere. Oh, and Anne Clexton called me just before you and said she remembered something about Mary Dodge. I think our suspicions were right from the beginning.” There was a bunch of static on the line. “Alex, could you call Ken and tell him that there was another girlfriend. I’m still having shitty reception even though we’ve just come out of the hills.”
“Amanda, I think that . . .” and the phone went dead. The cell phone display told me what I already knew: Call dropped. My phone dropped another bomb: low battery. Damn.
We arrived back at The Curse and I pulled into the driveway.
“Regina,” I said, hoping that she didn’t want to invite me over for cocktails. “Thank you so much for helping me today. I think we’re really close to solving this thing. I can’t thank you enough,” I said, kissing her on her forehead. “I am exhausted . . . it must be that high-altitude, clean air,” I stated, even though Joshua Tree was only about 3,000 feet higher than Palm Springs.
Regina made no fuss. She looked tired as well. She stood on her tiptoes and gave me a kiss on the cheek.
“Good night, honey. And for fuck’s sake, lock your doors from now on.”
I winked at her. “You bet. I’m going for a swim, then a shower, then straight to bed. No more Avon ladies with flame throwers. This case is about over . . . thanks to you.”
I made my way home. Edwin was out of town again, trying to get his brother out of jail again. I fed Knucklehead, who went ape shit when I got home (but then again, when didn’t he?), got out of my clothes and into a long, white, terrycloth bathrobe, and went out to the pool. I swam around for a while, taunting Knucklehead to get in the pool, but as usual, he hemmed and hawed about getting into the water. Feeling sorry for him, I got out and sat in one of the outrageously expensive outdoor chairs I had gathered around a table, then lit up a cigar. I developed a taste for them, like most things in life, from Alex. It wasn’t just the sex scenes involving cigars that made me take them up. I think it was the rebellion. Even in 2005, most women didn’t smoke cigars, or if they did, they smoked the little feminine ones “for ladies.” Fuck that. I lit up an Ashton Half Corona and sat puffing great clouds of smoke into the starry skies. Not bad, I thought. I’m divorced, but still here. Alex is working with me again. Good. Houses are selling like hotcakes. Ken seems crazy about me. Life is good.
CHAPTER 22
Play a Little Tune for Me, Bernard Herrmann
I drifted and dreamed for some time until my cigar was down to the bitter end. I stubbed out my stogie and went inside to take a hot shower and to wash off the chlorine. Oh shit! I forgot to plug in my cell phone; the battery was probably dead. I found the charger and plugged the phone in. Life was good.
I was about the enter the bathroom in the master suite, when I heard Knucklehead barking and whining at the dining-room door. He got so excited that I was home, he forgot to go out and pee, so I ended up leaving the door open so he could go out into the backyard, sniff around, and let loose a stream of pee that rivaled the Colorado after a heavy spring thaw. No wonder nothing wanted to grow in my backyard.
I went into the master bath, dropped my robe on the toilet seat, and stepped into the shower, pulling the curtain closed—my Keith Haring shower curtain, signed by the artist months before he died. I opened a new package of Kiehl’s cleansing bar (soap to you) and turned on the water. The water cascaded down on me like a million little rainstorms, washing away the worries, the cares, the feeling that I was some kind of gigantic loser.
From above the roar of the shower, I could hear Knucklehead barking. Probably a bat or a sun spider he had seen. He barked at anything. Just then, I felt a breeze flow through the shower, which was strange. I closed the door before I got in the tub. I turned to see a figure advancing toward the shower curtain, chef’s knife in hand, raised high, ready to strike. The figure threw back the shower curtain and I was confronted by none other than . . . than . . .
“Anne Clexton!”
Anne didn’t waste time. She smiled at me with a psychopathic grin, then started to slash at me with the knife, but years of training in Isshinryu karate taught me what to do. With my left hand, I tore the shower curtain down from its hooks and wound it around my hand, making a defensive weapon to absorb the blows. Then, with my right hand, I grabbed her at the wrist and twisted to the right as I flipped my entire body around, the leverage twisting the
fuck out of her wrist. Anne held on to the knife for dear life and tried slashing at me again and again. I pointed my fingers in the classic karate spear position and hit her in the windpipe hard. She stood for what seemed like an eternity, then wobbled backward slowly. It was time to deliver the pièce de résistance. I turned to see Alex’s gift to me while honeymooning in Paris: a 10-inch ceramic figurine of a man with an enormous cock that dispensed—what else—cream rinse through his penis when you pumped his head. It was vulgar in the extreme, but I kept it as a memento of his sense of humor, which, like mine, was severely twisted. I grabbed the figurine by the cock and swung it fast, bringing it down on Anne’s skull with a sickening crack. She stared at me with eyes lolling around like a shook-up doll, then tottered backward and collapsed.
A second later, another figure burst though the door. Not Mary Dodge, but Alex, followed a minute later by Ken. Even though I had been naked in front of these men before, I covered myself up with the shower curtain, which, to my chagrin, was slashed in several places.
“Goddamn bitch. She’s going to pay for this. This was signed by Keith himself.”
Alex looked down at the shattered figurine, its cock clearly detached from his body.
“To make a joke here would be superfluous.”
He was right.
CHAPTER 23
A Million Little Pieces
Ken went down to the station with Anne while more police department investigators took a thousand pictures, drew a hundred diagrams, and dropped a dozen pieces of evidence into dozens of labeled plastic bags. I could see the trial now.
“If it please the court, I would like to enter into evidence this ceramic cock, used to subdue the defendant, Anne Clexton.”
“A ceramic cock, counselor?” the judge would ask.
“Yes, sir, it was used to dispense hair conditioner for the witness, Amanda Thorne.”
“Very well, counselor. The court clerk will label the cock Item A.”
Maybe I could ask for the Witness Protection Program to spare me the embarrassment.
Alex and I stayed up all night. Me, I was too wound up to sleep, and Alex just wanted to be there since Ken couldn’t.