California Girl

by T. Jefferson Parker

  “Just checking, Howard.”

  “Ugly things,” Howard said softly. “I don’t want to be associated with her. I’ll admit that. Neither does David, I’m sure. Even though…I liked her. I really did.”

  Nick sat back, looked around the office. Then at the locker room beyond the windows.

  “What did you make of her and Roger Stoltz?”

  Langton gave him a gloomy look. “He set her up with a place. Gave her money. Janelle said they were friends.”

  “Ever see them together?”

  “No,” said Langton. “She wasn’t open about that relationship. I mean, David and Barbara knew—I think they may have introduced her to Stoltz in the first place. We knew Stoltz was a financial supporter of Janelle.”

  “He paid for that Newport Beach apartment.” Nick remembered the excitement in Andy’s voice a few hours ago. Five-thirty in the morning but Andy couldn’t wait another minute to call. Lynette and her gun. Janelle’s letters. Stoltz.

  Howard Langton nodded but didn’t meet Nick’s eye.

  “Do you know Cory Bonnett?” asked Nick.

  “Bonnett? No.”

  “Big guy. Long blond hair. Drugs and money, lives in Laguna.”

  Langton shook his head. “Laguna’s full of guys like that.”

  Nick looked out to the battered lockers. The old wall clock that still ran slow. The “Fear Ye Who Enter Here” placard that went on to boast of the Tustin Tiller defense. They called themselves the Harpies.

  “This looks like a good thing you have here,” said Nick. “You play for the team, then a few years later you coach it.”

  “It’s what I always wanted to do,” said Langton. “Now I’m thirty-three years old.”

  Nick heard a door slam. Howard took a puff and ground out the cigarette. Stashed the ashtray and butt back in the desk drawer. Came up with a can, shot a half circle of room deodorant into the air and waved it with one hand. Not Orange Sunshine. A serviceman rolled past a dolly loaded with white towels, bundled and tied.

  “Now that I think about it,” said Howard, “there’s no reason for you to call Linda.”

  Nick had seen this coming. Too much Linda this and Linda that and he was pretty sure he had the reason. “Why’s that?”

  Langton looked down at the desk. “Linda didn’t talk to Janelle. I did. About the dinner, I mean.”

  “How come?”

  “Guess, Nick.”

  “Because you were hoping to go without your wife.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Because you wanted to be alone with Janelle.”

  Langton shrugged again. “I don’t have to respond to that,” he said.

  Nick picked up his notepad, drew a large question mark on the open page. Flipped the cover down and slipped it into his pocket.

  “You’re not calling all the plays anymore, Howard. You’re a schoolteacher and a coach. So the next time I ask you a question, tell me the truth.”

  “Sorry, Nick. It’s been difficult.”

  “When was the last time you saw her?”

  “She came nightclubbing up in Hollywood last month with me and some friends. Did the Whiskey and the Rainbow.”

  “But I don’t need to talk to Linda about that.”

  “I told her it was an offensive coordinator’s convention in Long Beach,” said Langton.

  “What did you do that night? I’m talking about October the first. That’s the night Janelle was killed. Think about it if you have to because I want the truth the first time.”

  Langton stood. “Home. All night. If you don’t believe it, call my wife.”

  AT ELEVEN that morning Nick met Sharon Santos at Prentice Park in Santa Ana. It was a quiet little park down off First Street, not a place they’d see anyone they knew. They stood in front of the golden eagle cage, Sharon’s hair up in a scarf and her eyes hidden by dark glasses.

  Nick told her they’d have to break it off. She said she understood but would miss him. Said don’t change your mind about this because I can’t go off and on like a faucet.

  Nick wanted to thank her for everything but it seemed like a lousy thing to say. Wanted to say he was sorry but that was worse.

  He tried to kiss her goodbye but she turned away and walked back toward her car.

  JUST BEFORE lunch Nick stopped off at Representative Roger Stoltz’s office in Tustin. It was less than a mile from the SunBlesst orange packinghouse. Nick knew from yesterday’s paper that the congressman was in Washington. But Nick wanted his business card to be in Stoltz’s secretary’s hand when she called him on the phone to say that homicide detective Nick Becker had come to see him.

  “May I tell him what this is about?” she asked.

  “Janelle Vonn,” said Nick.

  “Oh. Would you like to make an appointment? He’ll be in this office Friday afternoon, day after tomorrow.”

  “Let’s do that.”

  She swung open an appointment calendar, ran her pencil to the eighteenth.

  Nick’s eyes went straight to the box for Tuesday, October first. Couldn’t make out the writing.

  “How’s four o’clock, Mr. Becker?”

  NICK SAT with Terry Neemal while the former Wolfman ate his lunch. Green bean gravy and red gelatin caught in the big mustache. Neemal avoided looking at Nick for a long time. Then he fixed Nick with tan blankness.

  “What if I did it?”

  Nick shrugged.

  “What if I confessed?”

  “Well, then you could either ask for a trial or waive your right,” said Nick. “If you waived the judge would sentence you. You’d probably get life. Maybe they’d commit you again. Talk to me, Terry.”

  “Would I be a big story?”

  “For the trial or sentencing, yeah. Then everybody would forget about you.”

  “Seems reasonable.”

  “You don’t confess for attention, Terry.”

  “Who said anything about that?”

  “You did. Between the lines.”

  Neemal turned his face back to the tray and didn’t look up again for a long minute or two. “Your brother says God will forgive me if I just ask.”

  “Forgive you for what?”

  “Whatever I’ve done,” said Neemal. “Anything.”

  “That’s a good deal for you, then, Terry.”

  “He’s a fucked-up guy.”

  “David or God?”

  Neemal laughed. Tan eyes and teeth gleaming like a wet savanna, thought Nick.

  “Your brother.”

  “Oh yeah?”

  Neemal nodded. “He’s close to God because he prays all the time. But you have to prove to me that that’s good. You get too close to some things, it’s bad. Fire. God.”

  “Maybe being far away is worse.”

  “God used to talk to me a lot,” said Neemal. “Directly to me. I knew His voice. Told me to do things. Told me to walk across Arizona and I did. On the highways, I mean. Not the desert. That’s a shitty way to live, God telling you what to do all the time. You’re better off far away. Where you can have your own thoughts. Your brother listens to God too much. Got to stand on your own two feet.”

  “Maybe there’s some truth to that.”

  “I masturbated on her. Whatever you found on her, that was mine.”

  Nick said nothing for a beat. He lit two smokes, handed one to Neemal.

  “Tell me about that,” said Nick.

  “I just did.”

  Nick studied him. “It pisses me off when you hold out on me.”

  Neemal nodded without looking at Nick. He explained that his sexual desires overwhelmed him. Hadn’t happened since he was young. Had to do with the fires he set. Hoped Nick would forgive him for not bringing it up right away.

  Nick listened. Remembered the half-burned pile of newspaper in the slanting packinghouse light. The smell of it. “You want to get something off your conscience?”

  “I’m going to hold for right now.”

  “We’re not playing blackja
ck. What happened to the saw blade?”

  “No idea. I’m good for now. I’m done talking for now, Nick. Let me finish this Jell-O in privacy, will you?”

  “Terry.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “If you dick with me I can’t help you.”

  “I understand.”

  “You’d better.”

  BACK AT HIS DESK Nick returned a call from Laguna Beach PD detective Don Rae. Rae said they still hadn’t seen Bonnett, and one of his snitches was telling him Bonnett had split for Ensenada, down in Baja. Bonnett had a place down there. Rae had a friend on the Ensenada PD who was going to check it out. But another snitch said Bonnett was still around, looking to “punish” whoever killed his friend Janelle. Rae told Nick to be careful with Bonnett—the gun, the knife, and the temper.

  “Big guy,” said Rae. “Just be careful.”

  “Is his Cessna at Orange County?”

  “No. And no flight plan filed, either.”

  Nick thanked him and hung up. Wondered if he could handle a twenty-two-year-old six-foot-four-inch 245-pound ex-athlete bent on shooting, stabbing, or kicking the shit out of him. Nick had eight more years of wear and tear. He was four inches shorter. Got dizzy sometimes from the Vonns and that stupid rumble, what, fourteen years ago? And he was only twenty pounds over his high school playing weight of 175, which still left him fifty pounds short if it came to a fight. Some of it was flab, too, with the booze and lousy food and long hours. At least he’d pretty much quit the smokes. Getting old stank. And it still pissed him off that Bonnett’s IQ was the same as his own. Like Bonnett had stolen it or something. Dumb to think that way, he knew. It didn’t make sense.

  Nick took a few minutes to compare Howard Langton’s fingerprints with the partial print on the packinghouse lock. Langton’s ten-set was on file with the California Department of Justice, along with those of every credentialed schoolteacher in the state.

  Nothing close enough to work with. Nick examined all ten prints but nothing popped.

  He called Linda Langton. Said he was just making sure he had the facts right, checking some things that Howard had told him about the night Janelle was murdered. He lobbed her a few easy ones, then got to the only one that mattered.

  She told him that her husband had been home all night. Why wouldn’t he be? They had dinner and watched TV. Jerry Lewis and Red Skelton. Later a James Garner movie.

  Her voice sounded hostile but she offered nothing at all about a canceled dinner date with Janelle Vonn.

  Lobdell called a minute later, said he’d stopped off in Laguna to talk to Price Herald. Herald said he was at home with friends the night Janelle got it. The friends said the same thing. Scared but telling the truth, said Lobdell. All of them more worried about the Boom Boom Bungalow murder. Lobdell doubted that the sour old queen had raped, murdered, and mutilated a nineteen-year-old girl.

  So did Nick. “How’s Kevin?”

  “The doctor said he looked fine. Took some blood. On the way home I pulled the car over. Came down real hard on Kevin. I told him I didn’t want him moping and sleeping all day on the weekends and looking at me like I’m dog puke. Cussing out his teachers and his mom. I told him if he doesn’t shape up he’s out of my house the day he turns eighteen. Get a job. Or he can do what I did. Join the service.”

  “There’s a war going on.”

  “He knows that. I’m trying to get him to straighten up and fly right. Trying to motivate him. Shirley started crying, then telling me I was being completely unreasonable. Telling me I just make things worse.”

  Nick thought about that scene. Glad he missed it.

  “Nick, enjoy those kids of yours while they’re young. They hit thirteen and everything changes. They don’t love you anymore. Don’t even like you. Makes you wonder where they went. You miss them and they’re right there in front of you.”

  23

  NICK AND LOBDELL walked into Mystic Arts World in Laguna that evening around five. The flyers around town had said that Dr. Timothy Leary would give a brief talk on “Coming Together in the Psychedelic Age.”

  The store was larger than it looked from the street. Two entrances and three long sections, and a meditation room in the back. Wild paintings on the walls. Drug paraphernalia, candles, incense and incense holders, brass gewgaws made in China and Turkey and India, odd percussion instruments, sandals and tie-dyed clothing, books on mysticism, psychopharmacology, Oriental religion, tantric and meditational texts, ancient Persian erotica, health foods, an endless selection of Turkish tobacco and clove cigarettes, eight-track tapes of “mystical” music, some of which—a sitar, Nick was pretty sure—boinged and plinked from speakers mounted to the walls on either side of a poster that said “Om Sweet Om.”

  “It’s like a Sears for heads,” said Nick.

  “I got my sofa from Sears. Don’t squirt any air freshener on yourself, Nicky.”

  Nick inhaled the marvelously competing smells: clove and cinnamon, bay leaves and herbal teas, oils for the skin, genitals, hair. He picked up a comic book by R. Crumb. The characters looked harmlessly deranged. Then a book called the I Ching, not an autobiography of a person named Ching but a collection of oddly pithy sayings:

  Thus the superior man

  Takes thought of misfortune

  And arms himself against it in advance.

  Then a copy of The Egyptian Book of the Dead. Nick fanned through the mysterious hieroglyphics and read a translation:

  I am pure, I am divine, I am might, I have a soul, I have become powerful,

  I am glorious, I have brought to you perfume [and] incense [and] natron.

  Ronnie Joe Fowler took one look at them and said, “Hey, everybody, the pigs are here.”

  “Yeah, we came to talk about your rape charges in Oregon,” said Lobdell.

  “Plenty of charges but no crime,” said Fowler. Stocky and strong. Black hair to his shoulders. “Dismissed for lack of evidence.”

  “We came for the program,” said Nick.

  “Pigs aren’t welcome,” said Fowler.

  A man in a loose white shirt and pants stepped in front of Fowler. Offered his hand to Nick. “And why not? It’s all God’s flesh. Hello, gentlemen, I’m Tim.”

  Leary was tanned and handsome. Taller and older than Nick had expected. Sun-bleached hair, broad face. An engaging twinkle in his eyes.

  Nick shook Leary’s hand but Lobdell turned down the offer.

  “We want to turn on, tune in, and drop out,” said Lobdell.

  Leary looked at him and laughed. White teeth. Merry eyes. “That’s entirely up to you. You know, my yippie friends in the cities have changed that to ‘turn on, tune in, and kick ass.’”

  “I’m not raising my son to turn on,” said Lobdell. “What kind of advice is that to give young people?”

  “We don’t give advice to children or anybody else,” said Fowler. “We want people to think for themselves.”

  “You’re welcome to stay for the program,” said Leary. “In spite of Ronnie’s bad manners. Right, Ron?”

  “Sure. Maybe they’ll learn something.”

  “We’d like to learn something about Janelle Vonn,” said Nick.

  “I don’t know shit about her,” said Fowler.

  “I remember her very clearly,” said Leary. “She had a beauty like my wife, Rosemary. Janelle was so vibrant and alive. She was a piece of God walking on earth. Her energies were shaped like this—”

  Leary raised both arms into a V, hands open and fingers spread. “See? It’s a bodily representation of the hexagram for peace, or tai. Receptive above, moving down. Creative below, moving up. It’s the very first hexagram in the I Ching and I recognized it in Janelle immediately.”

  “We found some of your LSD in her car,” said Nick.

  “My LSD?”

  “The Orange Sunshine air freshener.”

  “Now, I’ve heard of such a thing,” said Leary. “But I’ve never actually seen one.”

  “Maybe you’
ll talk to us after the show tonight,” said Lobdell.

  “I’ll do anything I can to help you.”

  “The pigs will stab you in the back, man,” said Fowler. “Don’t forget your pig friends in Texas.”

  Lobdell looked down at Fowler. Nick felt the violence quotient spike inside Mystic Arts World. Unlike Jonas Dessinger, who was too naive to recognize danger, Ronnie Joe Fowler read it loud and clear.

  “I’m cool,” he said, hands out and palms up, backing past a rack of Afghani clothing.

  “We want to talk to you, too,” said Nick.

  “Hey, I’m cool, man. I ain’t going nowhere.” Fowler turned and headed for the back room.

  “Pardon me, gentlemen,” said Leary. “I have some consciousness to expand.”

  THE MEDITATION ROOM was big enough for forty standing people and it was almost full. Nick and Lobdell stayed in the back, their coats and ties freakish amid the robes and jeans and tie-dyes and batik prints and muslin. There was a narrow table at the front of the room. A brass holder and a smoking stick of incense sat on one end of it. Leary sat near the other.

  “Shoulda worn my sandals,” said Lobdell. “Cost Shirley eight and a half books of Green Stamps.”

  Nick said nothing. He was studying the painting on the wall behind the table, a huge canvas shaped like a diamond with the evolution of life portrayed. It went from amoebas to God in an explosion of color and detail that challenged Nick’s eyes. He didn’t know anything about painting a picture, but it seemed like this must have taken a few thousand hours.

  “Thing makes me dizzy,” said Lobdell.

  “I kind of like it,” said Nick.

  “Too much Orange Sunshine for you.”

  A small woman with big hair looked at Nick and smiled. “Far out,” she said. “Even the cops are droppin’. I dropped last Monday and didn’t come down till Wednesday.”

  “Sure you’re not still floating around up there?” asked Lobdell.

  “No, I’m back to earth. It’s always nice to come home.”