Cole Perriman's Terminal Games

by Wim Coleman

  “Wanna jam?” Nolan asked.

  “Not particularly,” Clayton said.

  Damn, he really is in a grouchy mood.

  “Think maybe we should do it anyway?” Nolan suggested gently.

  “Yeah, I guess so,” Clayton said.

  Partial transcript of brainstorming session between Lieutenant Nolan Grobowski and Detective Clayton Saunders of the L.A.P.D.; taped 2:30 p.m., Wednesday, February 2:

  Q: What did Gauld and Judson have in common?

  A: They both belonged to Insomnimania.

  Q: And?

  A: They weren’t exactly poor.

  Q: And?

  A: Auggie staged replays of both of their killings on Insomnimania.

  Q: How were Gauld and Judson different?

  A: Gauld was a girl, Judson was a boy.

  Q: Try again. How were they different?

  A: Gauld was upwardly mobile, Judson was looking down from the top.

  Q: Were they killed by the same guy?

  A: Maybe.

  Q: A serial killer, then?

  A: Probably not.

  Q: Why not?

  A: No favorite MO, no ritual, no sexual component.

  Q: How could it be the same guy but not serial?

  A: Who knows?

  Q: Make something up.

  A: If one guy kills only two people, it’s just consecutive. Three or more makes it serial.

  Q: What kind of crap is that?

  A: You said make something up.

  Q: What about Braxton?

  A: Don’t talk about Braxton.

  Q: Okay. Were Gauld and Judson mob hits, maybe?

  A: Too unprofessional.

  Q: How?

  A: Judson died sloppy; Gauld died slow.

  Q: So what’s the motive?

  A: Who the fuck knows?

  Q: Who’s Auggie’s user?

  A: Who the fuck knows?

  Q: Did Auggie’s user do the murders?

  A: Who the fuck knows?

  Q: Why do you keep saying who the fuck knows?

  A: Who the fuck knows?

  Q: Do we know anything we didn’t know yesterday?

  A: Fuck, no.

  “Turn it off,” Clayton groaned. “I’m getting a migraine case of déjà vu.”

  Nolan clicked off the machine. Their jam sessions had started sounding pretty much alike during the last few days.

  “I’ll get you an aspirin,” he said.

  “Naw, shoot me with one of those tranquilizer darts—the kind they use on elephants.”

  “We’ll get a break,” Nolan said with a shrug. “We’ve just got to wait till Auggie shows up on the screen.”

  “Suppose he never shows up?”

  “He will.”

  Clayton waved his fist at Nolan. “You show one more sign of cheerfulness and/or optimism and I’ll break your face.”

  “Whoa. Do I detect a trace of hostility?”

  “I own hostility.”

  “You gotta watch it, buddy. You’re gonna have some kind of aneurysm right here and now and fall off the desk and bust your head wide open, and you’ll cost the department a fortune in employee comp, and they’ll take it out on me because it happened in my area, for which reason I’d really appreciate it if you got down off my desk.”

  Clayton didn’t move.

  “I’m tired Nol,” Clayton said. “I’m just plain tired.”

  He looks tired. I must look tired, too. Why don’t I feel tired?

  “So what next?” Nolan asked.

  “I’ve got to go to Orange County. I just talked on the phone to one of the guys at the DNA lab there. They’ve got the tissue sample from under Gauld’s nails and the blood from her rug. Said they’d process it tomorrow. They said the same damn thing the day before yesterday. They think because they’ve got nothing to match it against, there’s no hurry. Gotta go light a fire under some asses or the thing’ll never get done. What are you going to do?”

  “I’m still talking to Marianne Hedison,” Nolan said.

  “What the hell for?” Clayton asked sharply. “She’s not a viable suspect.”

  Nolan was startled.

  Suspect?

  When did he ever consider her a suspect?

  Oh, yeah. Back when this whole thing started. Ages ago.

  Nolan almost broke into another shit-eating grin. Should he tell Clayton the truth—that he’d spent several fun-filled hours last night poking around Insomnimania with Marianne Hedison? Should he tell him that he’d already invited her over to his house tonight for more of the same, and dinner besides? Should he tell him that they’d really hit it off—as friends, at least?

  Why the hell not? If she’s not a viable suspect, it’s not exactly a breach of ethics. Besides, Clayton could use a good guffaw at my expense.

  “Listen, Clay, I’ve got something to tell you that’ll give you a real laugh. Y’see—“

  “Not now, Nol,” Clayton said, climbing down off the desk. “Orange County calls. Besides, if you make me laugh, it’ll spoil a perfect record for today. Save it for when I want to be human. Later.”

  Before Nolan could say another word, Clayton had slipped off his desk and was traipsing crankily away through the noisy detective bay area.

  *

  Marianne was lurking through the depths of the Blue Whale, searching the huge marine mammal’s postmodern bowels for nineties interior motifs. It was now almost evening, and this was the last stop in a busy day touring L.A.’s showrooms.

  The Blue Whale was the nickname of L.A.’s Pacific Design Center. The name was intended derisively at first, because of the furor the building’s vast, blue glass exterior had initially created. But as people grew accustomed, and then attached, to the land-bound leviathan, the name took on affectionate overtones. Marianne herself rather liked the place.

  During the conference, several meetings had been held here, but Marianne hadn’t come over from the hotel to attend them. Now she was wandering slowly through the commodious hallways, browsing her way from showroom to showroom, noting the arrangements of furniture, fabrics, and accessories, with particular attention to ideas for the Abernathy project.

  After she had returned from Iowa, Marianne sent the preliminary rendering in to the office. She had provided the Abernathys with a computerized walk-through of the space, suggesting placement for furniture the family already owned and still wanted to use. She had also suggested colors and sketched in ideas for new pieces. But some of those new pieces were still to be designated as specific rugs, furniture, and artwork. Once she located what she thought would be appropriate, Marianne would add those details to the rendering—making everything ready for the client’s approval.

  “Nothing ostentatious,” Reba Abernathy had said whenever Marianne asked for her ideas. That was all. She apparently had no imagination of her own. And when Marianne had asked Reba’s husband, Lloyd, for his thoughts, he sang the same tune …

  “Nothing ostentatious.”

  Then he added emphatically—

  “Money’s no object.”

  Marianne’s lips turned up in a smile at the memory. Lloyd Abernathy had said it without the slightest trace of irony or self parody.

  Nothing ostentatious—money’s no object.

  Marianne liked to think of that kind of remark as “found satire”—the sort of thing no TV comedy writer would dare put in the mouth of a character for fear of seeming too ludicrous, but that real people blithely said from time to time in happy obliviousness to their own absurdity.

  “Expensive frugality” had actually been one of the themes of the conference—a term used by one of the speakers, only half in just. The eighties had been g
audy and ornate and downright vulgar—the golden age of conspicuous consumption. Now the wealthy looked back on those days with shame. They were anxious to appear more frugal—and indeed, would spare no expense to do so.

  The showroom exhibit facing her now was a perfect example, with a couple of thirties black-and-white lawn chairs, plain linen curtains, a marble fireplace, a leather-upholstered Victorian sofa, and a needlepoint rug. On the far wall hung a medium-sized collage by an unknown but undoubtedly up-and-coming artist. A small cubist sculpture sat unheralded on a table.

  No noisy Schnabels in this place.

  Nothing else in the room was noisy, for that matter. Rectangles and straight lines dominated the room, giving it an almost Shaker-style simplicity. But the underlying neutral carpet was of very high quality, and a second sofa was covered in a custom-designed hand-woven fabric. Marianne guessed it would cost about half a million dollars to put it all together.

  Right in Abernathy’s price range.

  Marianne wished she could lift the room out of the Blue Whale with a crane and deposit it in the Abernathy’s Santa Barbara home, making everybody perfectly happy.

  Then she wondered what Nolan, with his weathered but comfortable household, would think of this side of her. She realized that he knew very little about her—certainly not that she was in the business of offering decorative absolution to today’s conscience-stricken rich.

  And why did she care so much what he thought?

  *

  Several hours later, Marianne went back to her hotel and showered and changed. She arrived at Nolan’s house at about seven-fifteen. He greeted her at the front door, clad in an apron and wiping his hands on a kitchen towel.

  “Come in!” he exclaimed. “You’re a bit early.”

  “I’m sorry. I overestimated the traffic for once.”

  “No, don’t apologize. Everything’s all ready. Come in and sit down.”

  Nolan took her jacket and escorted her into the living room. A roaring fire crackled pleasantly in the fireplace. The overhead light was off. A floor lamp and a table lamp were the only illumination other than the fire.

  “I’ve got to get back to the kitchen, so make yourself at home,” Nolan said. “I hope you like lasagna.”

  “Who doesn’t?”

  “Would you like a drink?”

  “Bourbon would be nice.”

  “With water?”

  “No, just on the rocks.”

  “A drinker after my own heart. Coming right up.”

  Nolan disappeared into the kitchen, and Marianne sat down in a comfortable armchair. He soon reappeared with her drink, and they filled each other in on how their respective days had gone. Nolan said the Auggie case was stranded, and Marianne sketchily described her tour of showrooms. She even took a bit of a risk and told him all about the design world’s new craze for “expensive frugality,” which he seemed to find highly amusing.

  Then Nolan ushered her into his dining room, where the table was neatly arranged with two dinner settings. He served red wine, salad, and a handsome plate of savory lasagna. As they ate, the conversation focused on Marianne. She told Nolan a little about her Quaker childhood, her parents’ early deaths, her days as a bohemian artist, her marriage to Evan, her divorce, and her move to Santa Barbara.

  Nolan was quietly attentive all the while she talked, but she couldn’t tell what he thought of her story—particularly her sojourn among seedier counterculture types, her limited experiments with drugs, and her marriage to a philandering, megalomaniac artist. Did any of this jar his middle-class values? It was really rather hard to tell.

  He’s awfully quiet this evening.

  Marianne remembered how boisterous they both had been last night. They had joked, teased, and laughed with terrific gusto. But tonight, everything was much more muted—and more cautious.

  Why was that?

  A word crossed Marianne’s mind.

  Expectation.

  Yes, that was it. Last evening had been spontaneous, fun for its own sake. This evening seemed more like a date, with all its unresolved uncertainties and anxieties. Marianne felt her heart jump and her throat tighten slightly at the realization. How did she expect the evening to end? How did she want it to end? Until this moment, it had not occurred to her to wonder.

  She had no answers. She knew she was drawn to Nolan. She felt that she had not been this close to an actual living person for a long time. He made more sounds, displayed more textures, exuded more subtle smells, and just generally seemed more physically present than anyone else she knew. She couldn’t help but like it.

  A living, breathing, sweating, laughing man.

  They finished eating, and Nolan began clearing the table.

  “A brandy, maybe?” he asked.

  “That would be nice,” Marianne replied, a little tersely.

  While Nolan was stacking up the plates, the phone rang.

  “I’ll take that in the kitchen,” Nolan said.

  He got out of his chair and lumbered quietly out of the room, carrying all the plates and utensils with him. Marianne heard him pick up the phone.

  “Hello?” Nolan said. “Oh, hi, darlin’. It’s good to hear your voice. What’s going on?”

  A girlfriend? If so, Nolan wasn’t going to any lengths to conceal his affection. There was no furtive quality to his voice, no murmur of, “Please call back later, this isn’t a really good time.”

  If it is a girlfriend, I sure know where I stand.

  Nolan’s voice echoed softly but resonantly through the house. His words became inaudible for a moment or two, but then Marianne heard him say soothingly, “Oh, honey, you worried the same way last semester about that other midterm, don’tcha remember?”

  One of his kids. Calling from school.

  Trying to get out of earshot, Marianne got up and walked into the living room, looking at all the photos glimmering in the firelight. There were more than she had remembered from her first short visit—studio images and snapshots of men, women, children, dogs, and cats. Here was a couple at a high school prom, elsewhere the same couple getting married.

  That’s Nolan. She tried to reconcile the craggy man she knew with the youthful, bright-faced groom.

  Marianne became entranced by the faces. It wasn’t just a stale and static portrait gallery. It was a living world filled with a multitude of people—a vast array of different families contained in one. The pictures represented a kind of immortality—not just for Nolan’s lost wife, but for the babies, the kids, the teenagers his children had once been. There were actually dozens of different children here, and Nolan had taken care to preserve each and every one of them against time. He had held on to them through the years—not in a selfish, clinging way, but lovingly, protectively.

  Marianne felt a deep pang. She wished she’d kept something of Renee—photographs, videotapes, anything. And she wished she’d kept more of her parents, too, much more than a single small box of yellowed photographs.

  I’ve taken too little care of this. It’s my loss.

  A few more words wafted in from the kitchen. It sounded like Nolan was sharing a few bits of knowledge with his studious youngster. Marianne gravitated farther away from the kitchen toward the bookshelves. Some of the books were texts in psychology, law, forensics, and criminal justice. There was also an array of popular paperback novels and numerous classics of one kind or another. Marianne’s eyes did not light on a single book with an unbroken binding. They all appeared to have been read and reread.

  On an adjoining shelf were the phonograph records. They were all vinyl. Nolan had not yet entered the age of CDs. Marianne’s eyes started at the upper-left-hand corner of the collection and began making their way across the titles, which included jazz, rhythm and blues, and classical—mixed together in dogged alphabet
ical order.

  The large range of titles wasn’t so unusual. Many of Marianne’s friends had similarly varied collections. But they always made a point of departmentalizing their music—keeping the classical away from the jazz and the jazz away from the rock-and-roll as if out of fear of musical interbreeding. Her friends placed records in these separate, monolithic, and highly visible categories to advertise their erudition, to wear eclecticism on their sleeves. Nolan’s indiscriminate arrangement of records could only belong to someone who liked all kinds of music, pure and simple—and didn’t care what anyone thought about him for it.

  “Want to hear something?’

  Marianne turned with a start. Nolan was standing right behind her, holding two after-dinner brandies.

  “I was just looking,” she said. “It’s a nice collection.”

  Nolan grinned. “You’re surprised a cop’s got taste?” he asked.

  “Not at all,” she said. “These days, I’m surprised when anybody’s got taste.”

  Nolan laughed. “Go on,” he said. “Pick out something you want to hear.”

  “No. You pick something.”

  Nolan went straight to the “Js,” took out an old vinyl record of Scott Joplin rags performed by André Previn and Itzhak Perlman, and put it on the turntable. Marianne and Nolan took their brandies and sat down in two large chairs that were pulled up near the fire.

  “Was that one of your kids on the phone?” Marianne asked.

  “Yeah. Molly. A junior at Berkeley. Going for a psych degree, I guess—that is, if she doesn’t change majors again. She’s got a big midterm coming up.”

  “She’s afraid she might do badly?”

  Nolan chuckled. “Afraid she might pull an A-minus is more like it,” he said. “Hell, I don’t guess either she or Jack ever got anything lower than a B all the time they were in school.” He sipped quietly on his brandy, then added, “They take after their mother that way.”