“She was. Momo kept her from going over the deep end many times.”
“I went by the Pullmans’ house and her mother didn’t say a thing about the death. Not that she should have, necessarily. I’d only met her once.”
“Once is enough.”
“Yeah, I was there for Father’s Day and it became a bit of a scene.”
“Nothing surprising.”
“Anyway, her mother said she hadn’t seen Sarah either.”
“Given what happened, that’d be the last place she’d go.”
“What do you mean?”
Natalie’s lips pinched together and she looked down.
Chris’s worry rose. “What happened?”
“She never told you.” It was a statement.
“Told me what?”
Natalie looked up, almost staring at her. Something was going on, and maybe it had to do with where Sarah was now.
“Please,” Chris said.
“When Sarah was about eleven years old,” Natalie said slowly, “she was kidnapped.”
“What?!”
“It was some executive ransom thing. Her father was a fat cat, strutting his money around the city, and these guys followed her to school and took her.”
“Oh, my God.”
“Her father at first doubted that it was a real kidnapping. When her sweater was sent to them after a week or so, he finally coughed up the money.”
“Was she hurt?”
“They kept her tied up and beat the crap out of her. Thank God they didn’t rape her. But the entire time, she thought she was going to die. They caught the guys and she had to go to court for the trial. That was just as hard for her because she said she blocked out a lot of the kidnapping. But the worst thing was that her father still didn’t seem that concerned. He treated it all like a business deal, and when it was done, he went back to his normal life. So after all that, she kind of disconnected. I don’t think she’s ever trusted much of anything since then.”
Chris couldn’t imagine how it would feel to have your parents do nothing to save you while you sat in fear for a week. She pictured Sarah, alone and scared for her life, and her entire body broke out in chills.
“We met about eight years after that,” Natalie said. “She was a wild one, I tell you. She didn’t care about anything. But I think she was kind of lost. I mean, she would try this and then try that. She always seemed to be searching for who she was.”
Suddenly, something Sarah said came back to her. The last night they’d talked, she’d told Chris that she was a faceless person. She also said, the one thing she couldn’t quite remember was the thing she couldn’t forget. Chris ached to get to her. She had to be in a bad state, and though Chris’s own idiotic words had made it worse, she still needed to find her.
Natalie picked up a pen and rolled it idly in her fingers. “Sarah has joked about having PTSD, but she does have it. That whole experience comes back to her often. I can tell, because when it happens, she goes off and does something irrational.”
“Do you have any idea where she might be?”
Natalie shook her head. “When she called me, she wasn’t in a good place. I tried to get her to come over, but she wouldn’t. She’s prone to disappearing when she’s feeling fucked up, but all I could do was tell her I loved her and to call me soon.”
“I just want to find her.”
“She’ll come back, Chris. She just needs time.”
Chris wasn’t so sure. “I’m just worried that her grandmother’s death was pretty traumatic for her.”
“You’re right,” Natalie said. “She’s never lost a family member before, especially not someone as close to her as Momo.”
Natalie took the pen and wrote on a scrap of paper, then handed it to her. “This is my cell number. Call me if you find her. And give me yours.”
Chris told her and Natalie wrote it down.
When Chris got up, she said, “Thank you for trusting me enough to tell me.”
Natalie looked at her again, and Chris then understood that all the assessment came from the need to protect her friend. Chris liked that a lot.
Natalie picked up some paper, ready to get back to work. “I can see that you care for her a lot. She needs that.”
*
Back in her car, Chris tried to collect her thoughts. It seemed noteworthy that Natalie hadn’t been able to reach her either. Sure, Sarah was under a lot of stress, but wouldn’t she at least talk to her best friend? The mother certainly hadn’t helped with any information. She’d known about Momo’s death when they’d spoke, but apparently she wasn’t going to impart that bit of information. As significant as Sarah’s grandmother’s death was, maybe Mrs. Pullman just didn’t approve of Chris. It was also possible that the Pullmans weren’t naturally forthright people.
What the hell was going on? Chris then wondered if the better question was, what the hell had happened to Sarah between Momo’s death and now?
She wasn’t locked up in her room, refusing to answer the phone for anyone. Her car was gone, but she could be anywhere. The thought of Sarah driving when she was so distressed scared her. She knew from her job that people in shock never paid attention when they got behind the wheel. She’d seen too many…
She started her car. It was a ridiculous endeavor, but Chris pulled out into traffic and headed downtown.
*
She walked up to the front desk and waited for the man behind it to look up.
“Hello, Officer,” he said. “How may I help you?”
“May I speak to the deputy coroner, please?”
The man dialed a number and Chris stepped away. There was one main dull and drab hallway that was not only sterile from some overly potent disinfectant, but also barren from a lack of artwork or colorful patterned carpet. The doors she could see looked tired and heavy from age as well as the melancholy of Lord knows how many stories of people’s lives and their ends.
Soon a tall gentleman in a lab coat over his Levi’s came walking down the hall. He held out his hand to her. “Officer.”
“Good evening. I’ve come by on a personal task. I was hoping you could tell me if any deceased females have been brought in during the past few days. Caucasian, mid-thirties, light-brown, shoulder-length hair, a purple tattoo of Chinese characters on the left shoulder?”
“No one that fits that description.”
“Okay.” Her relief was immense and she smiled nervously. “Thank you.” She shook his hand. “I’m sorry for the interruption.”
The deputy coroner waved his hand through the air. “No worries. I hope you find her.”
“No offense, but I’m glad she’s not with you.”
He laughed and the echo sounded almost surreal. “None taken.”
*
She couldn’t do anything else but go home. The haze of uncertainty and fear clouded her vision and muffled the traffic noises as she drove slowly down Sunset Boulevard. It surprised her when she ended up in her own driveway. She hadn’t remembered any other cars on the road and wasn’t even sure if she’d signaled at any turns.
You weren’t there for her, she said silently. She had good reason not to call you, even after her grandmother died.
Chris plucked a vodka bottle from the kitchen counter and spun the cap until it flew off, clinking annoyingly on the floor. She took a swig, ignoring the splashes dripping down her throat.
“Good job, Bergstrom,” she said. “You’re just now realizing that your black-and-white control issues might not be the best way to live your life, but now it’s too late because the woman you truly want to change for is gone.”
She took another swig and coughed. She looked at the bottle and glared.
“Fuck!” she yelled, and took another long swallow.
Her father had berated her on the phone about things he had no business talking about. How much more perfect did she need to be to gain his approval? She’d spent her whole life scooping out a hole in the sand, hoping to impress h
im, but no matter how hard or fast she dug, she never gained any headway because the soft sand at the sides would just fall inward, filling it again.
When was she going to break away from his reign over her? She’d always believed that one day, he’d give her a proud nod, pat her on the back, and say, “Good job, Chris.” But if it wasn’t going to come after graduating from college, or getting through the police academy, or even ten years on the force, it would never come at all.
The vodka warmed her hands. A slow rolling fog began its descent from her head, moving over her shoulders and toward her belly. She waited for the sensation she knew would engulf her, that pleasant feeling when her father’s disappointment would fade and fade until it ceased to hurt her.
She thought about Sarah, smiling her wicked smile by the blackberries. And she could almost taste their first kiss. That incredible woman had suffered so much pain as a child, and the least of it were the cuts from her kidnapper’s bindings.
The vodka bottle grew heavy, as if it had expanded in her hand. She looked at it again.
“And this is the way you deal with your shit,” she said. “Nice.”
She stood and forced her now-rubbery legs to the sink. Fishing out the trash can underneath, she dropped the bottle in, tied up the bag, and carried it outside.
The cool breeze greeted her and she looked up at the sky. Maybe there wouldn’t be any more fires in Los Angeles for the season. That would leave only one to take care of, and that one wouldn’t be contained until she saw Sarah. As a matter of fact, if Sarah would consider being with her again, those flames would ignite again like nothing she’d ever felt before.
*
Chris drove west, down Santa Monica Boulevard, hoping to God this would be her last call. If she got lucky, but most Friday nights she didn’t, she wouldn’t have a drawn-out situation where she’d have to put in overtime. But then again, what did she have to go home to?
The night before had been a frustrating study in tossing and turning. She wondered if counting each position she tried to relax in would have been as good as counting sheep. And who the fuck came up with the sheep thing, anyway? She was out of ideas for getting in touch with Sarah. The limbo she’d grown into was beating the crap out of her. She had no way to reach her, no action items, and no control.
If Sarah was trying to send a sign that she was done with her, maybe all this nothingness, this radio silence, was it. Perhaps she should just let it go.
But letting go would be agony. Chris rubbed her chest. If she really had to do that, the pain would probably cripple her.
Twenty minutes before her shift was supposed to be over, Chris arrived on scene and went inside a restaurant to talk to a complainant. She found him waiting just inside the front door.
“What’s the problem?” Chris said.
“That man,” the nicely dressed Asian man said as he jerked his thumb over his shoulder, “is crazy. He just walked in off the street and started rambling. He’s making a scene and scaring my customers.”
She looked around the restaurant, and, in fact, most of the diners were more interested in what was going on in the back of the room than they were in their food. The man wore an untucked plaid shirt, dirty tan trousers, and athletic shoes that someone else had probably thrown away.
“I’ll be back to get more information from you,” she said, and walked toward the man.
He was apparently talking to no one but gestured as if he were. “Do you know I have a monopoly over the coffee industry? That’s the problem, the complaint, right? And no one else knows what to eat. I eat eggs. Do you eat eggs? Is that the big problem?”
She’d seen many people like this. The code was 5150, which allowed peace officers, among other qualified people, to confine a person currently having a mental disorder, making them a danger to themselves or others or, in this case, if they appeared gravely disabled. His speech pattern indicated to Chris that he was probably schizophrenic.
“Sir, I’m Officer Bergstrom and I’d like to talk to you. Would you like to go outside?”
“I do nothing and that’s what I do. Nothing,” the man said. His face jerked to one side as if he’d bitten his tongue. “They put little needles in my scalp and they have this special equipment they touch me with. When they pulled the needles, I had a thought. Jesus knows what it is.”
Chris kept her voice calm and pointed her open hand toward the front door. “Let’s go outside, okay?”
Wiping both arms at the same time, he said, “Outside. There are scales outside. Wet scales. All over. Do you understand what wet scales do? That’s the problem.”
“What’s your name?”
He shuddered once and then reached up and twisted his hair. “Bill. I’m doing it. I’m lost, aren’t I?”
“Bill, come on, let’s go outside.”
“I can’t. This is a sanctuary. The sanctuary of Jesus.”
“I have a protector out there. It’s my protector dog, Abel.”
He dangled his right hand at his hip and shook it back and forth. “Does Abel know Jesus?”
“Yes, he does.”
Though his face remained emotionless and seemingly uncomprehending, Bill began walking slowly and Chris followed him out.
She took him over to her car and Abel barked. Bill jumped but began laughing. “He’s protecting me!”
“He is,” Chris said as she spoke quietly into her radio, calling for the dispatcher to send the psychological evaluation team.
“What’s his name?”
“Abel.” The man wasn’t showing any signs of aggression so all she had to do was keep him there, and calm, until the PET team arrived.
“Dogs can hear the signals under Earth.”
“What signals are those?”
“Magnetic messages that are transferred by protons in the dirt. They’re the same protons that are in your brain. Dogs pick them up. Over my head, the needles stick in and try to extract protons. Dogs are immune.”
“So, you like Abel?”
“Yes.”
“What’s your last name, Bill?”
“Hollywood has rotting lettuce under its streets. It decays and the smell goes into the ozone. Sidewalks leak. That’s the problem.”
“This sidewalk is safe, Bill.”
“Maybe. Maybe.” He began shaking his right hand again.
Abel wouldn’t stop barking, but Bill didn’t seem to mind.
“Where do you live, Bill?”
He kept looking into her car but moved his arm back, pointing to either the building or the sidewalk. “Here.”
If he wasn’t talking about rotting lettuce again, he was probably letting her know he was homeless.
A nondescript ambulance showed up and pulled over in front of Chris’s car. She briefed them, and as they began to work with him, she went back into the restaurant and got the owner’s name and details of the call. She stuffed her pad of paper into her front pocket and came back out as they were putting Bill on the gurney in the back of the ambulance.
She leaned into the back. “You take care, Bill.”
“Your dog knows. He has the same protons as a werewolf. You watch him tonight.”
“I will,” Chris said, and started to turn away.
“It’s a full moon tonight. That’s the problem, it’s the complaint, isn’t it?”
Chris stopped suddenly, her feet frozen to the ground. She turned back around to look at Bill. His face twitched as he started talking to the mental-health-care technician. The driver closed the ambulance door.
Abruptly, Chris rushed back to her car, put it in gear, and flicked on the siren and light bar. She made a tight U-turn in the middle of the boulevard and sped off.
She raced home to drop off her car and kennel Abel. Then she rushed to change her clothes and grab a few things, and jumped into her other car.
*
There had to be a closer street, she thought, as she reached the end of Beachwood Boulevard, high up in the hills. She sat at the en
d of the residential street where it turned into a dirt road leading to a stable where tourists could rent horses. She turned around and zigzagged her way around the curvy neighborhood roads until she came upon Mulholland Way.
This was a better place. She drove a ways past the last house, up two short S-curves, to a part of the road that was too steep on both sides for any home construction and, effectively, devoid of traffic. She patted her pocket to confirm she had her cell phone and flashlight and got out of the car.
She walked back down the dark road to the last house and looked up. A couple of streetlamps lighted the bottom of the hill, but then the vegetation disappeared into blackness. A small interruption in the bushes looked like a trail, and she began her ascent.
In almost complete blackness, her climb was slow going. The full moon was bright but offered little light for topography that was not only completely unfamiliar but far from hospitable. It was a complete crapshoot, but she had to go. The trail was incredibly steep, and she held her hands out because she knew she might fall. She slipped a few times in the loose dirt and felt prickly thorns rake her hands.
After ten minutes or so, the bushes seemed to fall away and a crunching sound came from under her feet. She turned her flashlight on, covering the light with her hand, to avoid drawing attention to herself. A fire had been through at some point and burned away a lot of the brush.
She continued up, losing ground a couple of times as rocks flipped out from under her feet, clacking and banging as they rolled down the hill. Her hands stung from the thorns, and now, the brush that had evaded the fire sliced her arms. She stopped and flicked the flashlight on again. The trail was gone. She didn’t risk shining the light above her to see where she needed to go, so she kept climbing, damning herself for not wearing long sleeves.
Sweat trickled down her face and dampened her shirt. Her thighs and calves protested the onslaught of mild aching that would be a lot worse the next day, but she was already more than half the way up.
For the next fifteen minutes, a succession of five steps up only to slide four back down frustrated her. She couldn’t see much and wasn’t even sure, other than up, if she was going in the right direction.
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