by Thomas Perry
They waited for a long time without speaking or moving. Finally Ann Donnelly was more uncomfortable than afraid. She wanted to lie down on the bed of leaves where she was sitting, but the darkness was deep enough to let her imagine snakes and poisonous spiders. Just as her imaginary spiders had become scorpions, Jack touched her arm and whispered, “I don’t think they’re coming for us.”
“No?”
“No. We need cops, but calling them from here probably won’t help. They’d take hours to find us. Let’s walk out to the highway and call.”
“Okay. Should I take my suitcase?”
“No. If we make it out, we can get our stuff when they tow the car.”
They began to walk. Till led her farther down the creek bed to a place where it was dry and wide and the slopes were gradual, and then up onto the empty field. She said, “You were right. They seem to have left.”
“Yes. It’s kind of a mixed outcome. I was hoping that what I did to our rental car would happen to their car, too.”
“I’ll bet you’re wondering how you get involved in things like this.”
“I don’t wonder. I know why I do.”
“Why?”
He didn’t answer because he had his telephone to his ear. “Yes. My name is Jack Till. A few minutes ago, two people in a car ran me off Highway G15. They fired a few shots at me and hit my rental car. They were in a green Toyota, late model, one of the bigger ones, probably a Camry or an Avalon.”
He listened for a moment. “My friend and I are stranded, but we’re not hurt. I can’t give you the exact location, but it’s a big field of weeds on the east side of the road about halfway between Soledad and King City. We’re walking back from a dry arroyo where our car got stuck. We’ll be near the road in a few minutes watching for a police car. Can you ask them to run their warning lights for us? I want to be sure the car I flag down isn’t the one that was chasing me. Thanks.”
Till disconnected and kept walking. “The cops will be coming along the road pretty soon. Probably by the time we can walk there.” He thought about what Ann Donnelly had asked—why he got involved in things like this. He had told her the truth. He did know exactly why, and it was a secret he had been living with and lying about for so long that the secret was a part of him. He never thought about it anymore except when something reminded him.
Till had graduated from UCLA at twenty-two with a major in history and no job, found temporary work as a clerk in a liquor store during the day, and waited tables in the evenings. A week after his roommates had moved on, Till found his own apartment in Hollywood, where rents were cheaper in the older buildings.
Two young cops named Johnny and José would visit the liquor store about once a week. The store was on their regular rounds because there were some street characters in the neighborhood who acted as snitches for them, and snitches didn’t like to be seen outdoors chatting with a pair of cops. Sometimes while they were waiting, Johnny and José would talk to Till. Late that fall, one of them said to him, “You’re a smart kid, Jack. You should be a cop.” He had laughed and said, “Not me, man. I’m a lover, not a fighter.”
He remembered the words later because that was the night when the girl picked him out. He was in the Cobra Club, standing in a fluid crowd of people who were gradually making their way to the bar when she had simply appeared at his shoulder. He glanced down and noticed her long, dark hair, and then found that her brown eyes were already fixed on him. He had the presence of mind to smile and dispel the discomfort.
She smiled, too. “Hi,” she said. “Do we know each other?”
“No. I wish we did, though. Can I buy you a drink?”
“Sure. White wine.” The meeting had been that quick and simple, as they always were when two people wanted to meet. She had stood with him and they had talked while they waited their turn at the bar. She said she had never been to this club before, but liked it, and he told her that he had heard of it a year ago but had never gotten around to a visit. Three times other men emerged from the crowd to ask her to dance, but she had turned a dimmer version of her smile on them and said, “No, thank you.” He had wondered if he was supposed to get rid of them for her, but he couldn’t see what that could accomplish other than a bar brawl that would scare her off.
He bought their drinks and they made an attempt to dance on the crowded floor, and then moved farther from the music until they could hear each other. He said he was Jack Till, and she said she was Nicole. He knew they were going to leave together and so did she, so he wondered why she didn’t want him to know her last name.
At one-thirty, she asked him to follow her home in his car. He was parked very close to the Cobra Club. When he had arrived after work at eleven-thirty, another car had just been pulling out of a prime space, so he had pulled in. He drove her to her car, and they kissed before she got out. He watched her step to her car, a little red Honda Civic, and felt astonished at his good fortune. She was extremely appealing, and they seemed to have formed an instant attraction. He was already aware that women often made their final decisions about men within a few seconds, but still wondered at her interest in him. As he drove east on Hollywood Boulevard, then north to follow her into the curving streets into the hills, he had misgivings. She was too pretty for him. Why had she picked him out among all of those men?
Had she made a bet with a girlfriend that she could pick up a guy before the girlfriend could? No. Men did that kind of thing, not women. Had she seen someone in the club she wanted to avoid? Maybe one of those guys who had hit on her while she was at the bar with him?
When Nicole arrived at her apartment building, pulled into the driveway, and waited for the barred gate to rise and let her drive down under the building to park in her assigned space, Till stopped his car at the curb across the street and watched. He half-expected her to go upstairs on the inner staircase and lock her door. Instead, she walked across the street and stood beside his car until he got out, then took his hand and said, “I didn’t see you behind me. I was afraid I lost you on one of those turns.”
“No, but if you were hoping you had, there won’t be any hard feelings.”
“I invited you.”
“But you might have changed your mind on the way.”
“You’re going to have to stop that.”
“What?”
“Asking me if I really mean the opposite of what I say.”
“Sorry.”
Jack followed Nicole into the building, up the carpeted steps and through her door. Her apartment was newer, cleaner and larger than his. She had a real living room with matching furniture and pictures on the wall like respectable adults had, and not an ill-assorted collection of garage-sale castoffs and dubious bargains like the furnishings in Till’s studio. A few minutes later, he discovered that she also had matching sheets and pillowcases that didn’t clash with the bedspread. After that he didn’t see much of the decor because he was devoting all of his attention to her. It was very late when she said, “Jack, I’m afraid you’ve got to go home now. I need to sleep before work.”
He memorized her telephone number and address, then read her full name off her mailbox on his way out: Nicole Kelleher. He got into his car and began to drive. As he retraced the route back out of the hills toward Hollywood, he was surprised to see that there was another car behind him taking the same turns.
He ignored the car at first, but then he began to wonder if Nicole was trying to catch him because he had forgotten something. He pulled over to the curb, left his motor running and his lights on, and looked into the rearview mirror to watch the other car overtake him. It didn’t. The car simply pulled to the curb a half block away and turned off its lights. Jack pulled away from the curb and the car followed. He felt the hairs on the back of his neck rising. As an experiment, he took a turn to the left, away from the predictable route into Hollywood. The second car followed.
Jack made more turns, trying to see what the other car looked like under lighted streetl
amps at intersections. He determined that it was a year-old BMW, and there was only one person in it. It was after four o’clock in the morning, and it was clear that the car’s presence wasn’t a coincidence. In his experience, nobody who could afford a BMW needed to rob Jack Till, but he wasn’t willing to bet his life on it. He watched the driver’s behavior, and gradually limited the possibilities to one: The driver was trying to follow him home. Till made a few turns, crossed Hollywood Boulevard to the south, and kept going. He began to form a picture in his mind of the right place to stop, and then searched for it as he drove.
Finally, after fifteen minutes of driving, he turned abruptly into a dark street, then into a driveway that led into a loading dock at the back of some kind of business. The other car went past the driveway, and Till could see the driver staring after him. The driver was a white male about his age, wearing a yellow hooded windbreaker. Till quickly backed out of the driveway, but instead of turning around and going the other way, he drove after the BMW.
The BMW stopped abruptly in the middle of the street. When Till pulled forward to pass, the BMW moved in the same direction to block him. Till tried going to the right, but the BMW pulled to the right and cut him off. The door of the BMW flew open and the driver emerged, running toward Till. Till’s headlights revealed that the man had something in his right hand, but there was no time to see what it was. The man swung his arm and hit Till’s side window. It shattered, the glass flying against Till’s chest and into his lap.
The man raised his arm for a second swing, and Till pushed his door open as hard as he could into the man, his whole body behind it as he emerged from the car. He heard the man grunt and saw him stagger backward. Till could see that what the man was holding was a claw hammer, like the ones carpenters used. Till said, “What the hell are you doing? I don’t even know you.”
“Well, I know you, asshole!” The man’s face was contorted with rage, his teeth bared and his eyes squinted in hatred. “You were with Nicole.”
“What’s it got to do with you? Are you an old boyfriend or something?”
The man lunged toward him, taking a wide swing with the hammer. Till dodged it, and the man’s swing of the heavy hammer brought his arm across his body so he was momentarily off balance and defenseless. Till delivered a hard punch to the middle of his face, into his nose and upper teeth, that rocked him back and made him fall to the pavement. Till said, “Leave the hammer on the ground and we’ll talk.”
The man rose and sprang at Till again, but Till dodged and hit him as he went past. The punch connected with the added force of the man’s momentum, and Till felt it all the way to his shoulder. He relaxed for a moment because he was sure the fight was over, but this time the man’s recovery was a genuine surprise. The man should have gone down, but he pivoted and swung the hammer again, and this time he didn’t miss.
The hammer hit Till’s side, just below his rib cage. The hammer’s head had turned in the man’s hand, so the injury was more painful than damaging. Till instantly spun to face the man, and as his body reacted to protect itself, it took his mind with it. Till was wild with hurt and anger as he charged the man. He hit him just as he was trying to get a better grip on the hammer, and knocked it to the pavement. As the man reached for it, Till punched him four or five times in a combination, driving him back out of reach of the hammer. Till kept coming, knocked him down, threw himself on him, and hit him three more times. Each of his punches drove the man’s head into the pavement. He stared down at the man and waited for the next move, the next trick, his right arm drawn back to hit him again.
But this time the man didn’t move. His eyes were closed. His mouth was now bloody, his nose broken and out of line. His face had acquired a flat, loose look, as though the muscles weren’t under his control anymore. He seemed to be unconscious. Till stood up and took a step backward, waiting for the man’s next move: a kick to trip him and bring him down, another weapon, a sudden tackle. There was no movement. Till gave the man’s leg a kick. There was no reaction, no twitch of an eyelid. The man’s head was cocked to the side a little. Fine. Let the son of a bitch be knocked out, Till thought. He can wake up in a few minutes and think about what a fool he is.
Till picked up the hammer, got into his car, turned around, and drove back the way he had come. As he prepared to make the first turn to the west toward Hollywood, he looked into the rearview mirror. The man lay on the pavement just as Till had left him, his car parked in the middle of the street above him.
Till turned and drove away.
A few hours later, when Till’s alarm woke him for his job at the liquor store, he turned on the television. The reporter was saying, “Sometime in the early hours of the morning, Steven Winslow of La Canada was beaten to death in a quiet neighborhood near the center of the city. Police say the body of Winslow, who was twenty-six years old, was found at seven A.M. in the two-hundred block of Pilcher Avenue. He appears to have been killed in an attempted robbery of some kind, possibly a carjacking. The street was apparently chosen because it is in an industrial block where businesses had been closed for hours, and is partially obscured by the soundstages of a small movie studio. No one reported hearing the victim’s cries. Police are asking that anyone who has any information about the crime, or who saw Mr. Winslow at any time last evening, call the Rampart Station.”
Till remembered the moment when he had straddled Steven Winslow, his fist raised, waiting for any movement. He had, at that moment, been ready to kill him—he had thrown off all compunction. He realized now that Winslow probably had already been dead, but that hardly mattered.
He called in sick to the liquor store and watched television as long as there were reports, then went out to buy the afternoon edition of the papers. He read about the crime and waited for the police to come and knock on his door. There was no question what was going to happen then. His car window was shattered. His hands were scraped, and his right knuckle had a deep cut where he had hit Winslow’s teeth. He had snatched the hammer off the street before he had left, and it was still on the floor of his car. When the police began to ask questions, they would learn that he had picked up Winslow’s girlfriend at a club, and spent the night at her apartment. They would look at the crime scene again and realize that Winslow had died in a fight. Who else would he have been fighting with, and what else would he have been fighting about? Nicole would tell them what had happened between them and who he was.
He waited all day for the police to come. The next day he went to work, and when he came home he read in the Times that Winslow’s fiancée, Nicole Kelleher, twenty-one, had been interviewed. She said she could not imagine why such a tragedy had occurred, because Winslow was one of those people who had never had any enemies: “Everyone just loved Steve.” She and Winslow had been planning to be married in about a year, but had not yet set a date. They had dated exclusively for nearly three years, but had been engaged for only four weeks.
Even while Till was consumed with guilt and regret for what he had done, part of his mind was mulling over the evening with Nicole and remembering the sensation that something was wrong. When he looked at the photograph of the girl in the newspaper and read her statements to the reporters, he realized what it was.
She must have known that Steven was spying on her. Till wasn’t sure what had been going through her mind at the time, but he knew she had been aware he was watching and she had staged their liaison. Now that he thought about it, she had behaved as though she was trying to make sure Steven kept watching and following.
All kinds of small observations that had puzzled Till now made sense, beginning with her choice of him at the Cobra Club. Till had not been the sort of man this girl would pick. She was bait for the ex-prom-kings and the boys home from Princeton for the summer. At twenty-two, Till was tall and lean, with a face that had already taken a few punches. He made no sense as her partner in a summer one-night stand. But he was a perfect choice as an adversary for somebody like Steven.
She had definitely wanted to be seen. She had approached Till in the middle of the dance floor of the club, and stood right there under the lights talking to him for a long time, even though she kept attracting other men and turning them down. When Till and Nicole had left together, she had made a point of getting into his car with him right in front of the club, and having him drive her the short distance to where her car was parked instead of walking her there. She had kissed him before she got out of the car, and he remembered that she had opened the door so the dome light went on while she was still kissing him.
She had asked him to follow her car to her apartment. She had driven slowly and waited at traffic signals to make it easy for him to follow and, he knew now, for Steven to follow. She had parked in her space and then come back out, standing in the center of the street with him as though she wanted to be seen. He remembered her looking down the street, almost furtively. She had probably been verifying that Steven’s car had arrived, and was parked there with its lights off.
Nicole Kelleher and Steven Winslow had changed his life. What had made Till feel that he had to perform some kind of public service was killing Steven Winslow. What had made him know he should be a detective was Nicole Kelleher.
Years later, after he had made Homicide, he took a look at the murder book that the detectives of the time had made for the death of Steven Winslow. He opened the single looseleaf notebook and found that there was nothing much in it—no interviews with eyewitnesses, no motive, no suspects, not even a reliable time of death. The cause of death had been blunt trauma to the back of the head. Jack Till was surprised to learn that the blood found at the scene had all belonged to Steven Winslow, because he remembered his own bleeding hands. It was clear that the technicians had taken samples at a number of places at the scene, and had simply missed whatever drops had belonged to Till. Since those days, the search for DNA evidence at crime scenes had grown feverish, but at the time the blood had merely been sampled and typed.