Beginnings: A Kate Martinelli novella

by King, Laurie R.

  “Totally understandable. And if she’s busy, I’ll just leave you a note to give her, next time she’s in. Though it’s a pity to miss the chance. Not sure when I’ll be back.”

  I moved my attention to the next painting, larger and more expensive, and the woman went off to phone the artist known as Athena.

  The artist answered the call. I listened to the gallery worker explain, but when she tried to hand me the phone, I gave her one of my cards instead—one without the SFPD logo—and let her read the number into the phone. I didn’t really want my business to enter the town’s shopkeeper gossip.

  When she’d hung up, I thanked her, told her I’d think about that river painting, and walked out.

  The phone rang before I hit the next street.

  Ten minutes later, I was driving up into the hills.

  And less than an hour after reaching town, I was shaking hands with the key to my sister’s past.

  * *

  My first impression was that I’d found the wrong person. My second was, She chose the wrong myth.

  Her gray-blond hair was matted into long, finger-thick Medusa-dreads, studded here and there with varicolored beads. They must have weighed ten pounds when dry, and God knows how she managed to keep her balance when it was wet. With all that on top and a pair of purple-rimmed glasses beneath, it was hard to tell what she looked like. I had the impression of a tall, slim, tan woman a little younger than me, with a very strong grip.

  “You’re Patty’s older sister—I remember you!”

  “You’ve changed a bit since your yearbook photo,” I replied.

  She had a great laugh, as she stood back to welcome me in. “Is that how you found me? From the yearbook?”

  “It was a roundabout process, but you know small towns, there’s always someone who knows someone. Wow, what a great view.”

  Her rambling wooden house was perched on top of a hill with trees up close and a vineyard below. The vineyard, the view, and an offer of coffee took us past the first stages, and when we were settled at the table in the corner of her homey kitchen, I handed her my card—the real card, complete with gold star.

  “You’re a cop,” she said.

  I have heard all kinds of nuance to that simple phrase over the years. Alarm, mistrust, loathing, incredulity—but to my relief, her reaction was mild, little more than curiosity.

  “I am, yes. Which would have amazed my sister.”

  “That was so sad, about her. The way she just… was gone. Patty was a fabulous person, fun and rude and full of life. It was tough, losing her. Well, I don’t have to tell you that. But I should have said it at the funeral. I was so afraid I’d burst into tears, I didn’t even say hi.”

  “You were there, at her funeral? I’m glad—though looking back, it’s just a blur.”

  “I can imagine.”

  “I do remember a bunch of her friends there, mostly girls. But hey—I always wondered, I had the impression that Patty had a guy she was pretty serious about. Was he there, do you think?”

  The way her eyes bounced away to intently study the window told me that I’d hit gold in the first five minutes. Not that she replied right away.

  “Oh, I don’t know, was there…? She didn’t always tell me things, you know… Oh—I meant to put out some cookies.”

  She was a lousy liar, but I let her go off to the kitchen, then change the conversation when she got back.

  But in the end, kids and art and Diamond Lake and how great Santa Cruz was ran dry. I gently brought her back to the point.

  “Athena, I really do need to know about her boyfriend.”

  “Oh, honey, this was thirty years ago. What does it matter?”

  I was not about to tell her why it mattered. On the other hand, I had to give her something that would pry it out of her. And unlike Athena, I am not a bad liar. I made an act out of hesitation, took a breath, and raised my eyes to hers. “Because I didn’t ask, thirty years ago. Because I turned my back on Patty’s death and let it go, and now I find it’s been festering away all this time—that I didn’t care enough to ask. I have a daughter, just about her age. She’s meeting boys, and she’s getting stung.

  “I’m fifty-two now. It’s about time I asked myself whether or not Patty committed suicide because I wasn’t there for her.”

  “I’ve never believed that Patty killed herself.”

  “But there was talk, right?”

  “Small town, there’s always talk.”

  “She died the end of January. I’d come home for Christmas, but we hadn’t really been close for a year or two. However, you and she were, weren’t you?” I was afraid she was going to ask how I knew, and force me to admit to a guess based on a yearbook grin. But she didn’t ask.

  “Yeah, we were close, for the first couple years. But at the end of our Junior year, she started hanging out with another crowd, and didn’t have as much time for me.”

  “I’d heard that she was going around with—not a rough crowd, since this is Diamond Lake we’re talking about, but maybe a little edgier.”

  “The rough crowd was where she came from. These were the rich kids.”

  “North-town?”

  “That bunch, yes. I mean, I lived at the edges of north-town, but I’d never hung out with them. I thought they were playing games with her—you know, pick up the outsider and string her along until she makes a spectacular fool of herself.”

  “The viciousness of students,” I commented.

  “Laughing at her behind her back. Anyway, I let her know that I wasn’t going to join her, so she drew back a little.”

  “There was a boy,” I said. “Kid with dark hair and a leather jacket. Might’ve had tattoos.”

  She shook her head, dreads spilling all around. “I knew there was somebody, but all she’d do is drop hints.”

  “You remember any of those hints?”

  “This was thirty years ago—how would I remember that?”

  “You’re pretty clear with the other things.”

  “Sorry,” she said. “I know he was from north-town, so he’d have been good looking and had money. And she acted like he was older. But I’m pretty sure he was still in school, so that would’ve meant he was a Senior. Other than that, she kept it vague and teasy. Sort of Romeo and Juliet, you know? She’d have told me eventually, but…”

  “Yeah. Well, that’s a help anyway, and if you—”

  “I also think he may have been some kind of outsider. Someone we hadn’t grown up with, like most of the boys. Cause I remember thinking that had to be a big part of his appeal.”

  I laughed. “You’re right about that, it’s hard to find much mystery in a kid you went through elementary sch—”

  I froze, as the piece slid into place. Outsider. North-town. A senior.

  No. No!

  And yet…

  XV

  I don’t actually remember thanking the dread-headed artist or leaving Santa Cruz. I’m not even sure how I got home, although I must have driven—and without hitting anything, since my undamaged car was out in front the next day.

  The first thing I knew, Lee’s voice broke the silence in my office. “Kate, it’s three in the morning—what on earth are you printing at this hour?”

  I pulled off my reading glasses and dropped them onto Officer Belmonte’s notes, the ones made before the case was tidied away as an accident. He had comments on trapped feet and outstretched arms, and noted the odd position of the prints raised along the steering wheel. He’d kept records of where the swept-up glass had come from (in case they found that another car was involved—even in 1983, forensics could identify types of glass.) His evidence box also included the logbook he’d started, recording officers on the scene and the plates of passing cars. Or rather: the passing car.

  After the initial flurry of activity around the accident site—when the paramedics had left and the on-call officer and first responder Henry Belmonte went back to their beds—the DLPD had left a patrolman at the s
cene. His job was to keep anyone from moving things around before the photographer returned by daylight. Having done that sort of job in my rookie years, I imagined that he’d been at least half asleep when the other car came down Pipeline Road.

  The logbook recorded it as 4:12 AM. It came from the direction of the quarry. It was forced to stop, there being a patrol car across the road—and though the logbook didn’t say, the officer would have parked on the town side of the accident.

  Officer Columbo (whose name no doubt brought him grief, over the years) saw the approaching headlights and got out of the cruiser, walking across the broken window-glass to talk to the driver. Officer Columbo was in his first year on the force. Officer Columbo knew the kid who was driving, having been friends with his older brother all through childhood. And Officer Columbo knew that the kid’s story—he’d fallen asleep out at the quarry, while waiting for some buddies to show up with beer—had the ring of truth, since he’d hung out at the quarry himself when he was that age, smoking and drinking beer.

  And Officer Columbo nearly ended his career then and there, by letting his friend’s brother drive across an active crime scene to go home.

  That Columbo dutifully recorded the boy’s name, license, and contact info would not have saved him from an almighty lecture from his Chief, and I imagined there was a reprimand buried in his file from that night.

  The boy’s name led me to an adult record, including prison time for involvement in a robbery—he having been hired to drive the non-getaway car. Failures behind the wheel had been a theme in his life, up to and including its end in a drunk-driving accident so spectacular, it might have ended up on the wall of Al’s forensics guy.

  His death had taken me a couple of hours to dig out, and left me at three a.m. with another dead end, a lot more questions, and a sense that I now knew what I was looking for, when it came to the shape of the puzzle’s final piece.

  I rubbed at my bleary eyes, and asked my wife a question. “Can I tell you a story? And ask you if it makes sense?”

  “Sense to me as a person? Or as a psychotherapist?”

  “Both, I guess. But mostly your professional take on it.”

  “All right. But I need a cup of tea.”

  “Coffee?” I suggested to her back, but when she returned, she was carrying two cups, and neither of them contained a trace of caffeine.

  She settled into the room’s comfortable chair and prepared to listen.

  * *

  The car is driving stupidly fast along Pipeline Road. The boy behind the wheel is preoccupied, aggressive, taunting his passenger on a wave of hormones and booze. In the past quarter hour, the girl in the passenger seat has gone from warm anticipation to cold terror—of him, of what the change in him means, of what lies at the end of the road.

  He’s talking crazy, and she wants out.

  …Or maybe they had a fight and now he’s simmering away in silence, this big, male person she thought she knew. The one she couldn’t believe had picked her out for attention, who’d made jokes and admired her and made her feel good about herself. Whose parents were rich and so strict, he’d asked her to keep their relationship secret, just for a while…

  Whether he’s shouting or silent doesn’t matter. What does matter is that she’s afraid of him—more afraid of him, and of where he’s taking her, than of what she’s about to do.

  He doesn’t notice her left hand creeping down to where the latch emerges from the fold of the seat. Doesn’t notice the faint click of its release, or the slow retraction of the strap across her body. The headlights, on high, show that break in the trees where the farmer’s tractor goes, a gap that they’ll be past in a few seconds—but which, if they steered into, would let the car smash through the flimsy gate and into the field beyond.

  All she’d have to do then is get her door open and run. He’d come after her, sure, and yes, he was fast, but so was she and it would take him a while to get out and come around the car, and as soon as she got away from the headlights, he wouldn’t see which way she’d gone, not if she was really quiet.

  Anyway, he wouldn’t hang around for long, would he? He’d be too worried about getting the car she’d borrowed for him back onto the road and away. He’d want to get home before morning, so his parents wouldn’t notice he was gone.

  So, a split second before the gap in the trees begins, she wraps her hand around the nylon strap and lunges forward to pull at the wheel.

  But he’s too fast, and too strong. He yanks the wheel back and hits the brakes. As the car begins to lose traction, his right arm swings out and the world explodes—twice. The first time is when his forearm smashes against her face, and she cries out. The second time, before she even feels the pain… the world ends.

  For the driver, the noise of the crash is overwhelming, the force stunning. He half-lies against the strap of his seat belt for long seconds… then comes to, pulling himself upright on the wheel. He looks through the windshield, confused: one headlight is out. The other points crazily up into the branches over the road.

  The road—that fucking bitch! God, he hurts! Gingerly, he reaches up to turn on the dome light, and there she is, leaning up against what used to be the window and is now a slab of tree bark. Is that what they hit? There’s no expression on her face, her eyes staring at nothing. Is she dead?

  He takes hold of her wrist. Nothing. Jesus, he’s going to be in shit now. Stupid bitch, all her fault, worse than her—

  Wait. His hand goes back to the light, plunging the car interior into darkness. Think. Nobody knows he’s here—nobody who would talk. It wasn’t him who borrowed the car. Maybe…

  His vision creeps back, the headlight giving him the dim outlines of the car. Maybe it was all her fault—or maybe it was only her fault.

  His fingerprints had to be all over—but what would this look like without them?

  Almost without instruction from his brain, his left hand reaches down for the rag he’d used earlier to clear the fog off the shitty windshield. Any place he’d touched: steering wheel, radio, brakes, gear shift, and seat-belt. Don’t forget the dome light switch.

  But now the fucking door won’t open. In a panic, he bashes his fists against the window until it gives way, shooting glass out across the road.

  He uses the rag to swipe the pieces out of the tracks, then climbs out, wincing at the strained muscles and aching shoulder, using the rag again to take the prints off the door and handles.

  He can be gone before anyone comes along.

  But studying the girl’s hand, limp on the seat beside her, gives him an idea. These were small-town cops, sure, but what if they notice that somebody wiped off the fingerprints? Even Barney Miller might wonder about that.

  He leans inside and reaches for her left wrist again—jumping as she seems to lean toward him. But it was only her body following her arm, so he holds her hand and presses her fingers against the wheel, the gear knob, anything he can reach.

  The right hand is a problem—it’s caught on something. He looks at her, lying face-down and bleeding all over the seat of her friend’s car, and really doesn’t like the idea of climbing inside to get her hand out of the belt. It felt creepy—and anyway, he’d get blood on his jeans. Like that wouldn’t be suspicious.

  And really, so what? So the little bitch only left fingerprints on part of the car. They’d never notice.

  So he makes a last swipe with the rag around the door and tosses it away.

  He’d never intended to kill the bitch, only to use her as payback. Two years ago, the little bitch’s snob of a sister had freaked out and nearly killed him with that piece of pipe. All he’d planned to do was feel her up a little, have a laugh with the guys—but instead, she’d gone nuts and sent his whole fucking life down the drain.

  A year and a half later—a year and a half of headaches and no sports and tanking grades—he’d noticed the younger sister and come up with an idea.

  Well, he’d noticed the sister a while before, but
every time he’d looked at her, it would make his head hurt.

  He’d finally worked up his nerve.

  …Or maybe, over Christmas, he happened to spot the older sister walking through town like she owned the place, and it pissed him off.

  Either way, before the New Year, he’d made his play for the girl, and she fell right into his hand.

  In two weeks, he was screwing her.

  Ten days after that, he gave her some bullshit story about his car, so it would stay in his driveway tonight for the world to see. He told her to borrow a car from someone at the party she was going to, and pick him up at a quarter to twelve. They’d go for a moonlight drive down Pipeline Road. It’d be romantic.

  Until she saw that his guys were there, too.

  * *

  His friends had waited all night. They could see something had happened, what with the sirens and the lights. All but one of them decided to get out of there before the cops came looking, and set off home across the fields. But the kid whose car they had come in was more or less trapped there. It wasn’t until four in the morning that he decided to try driving out, and met Officer Columbo.

  Patty’s killer also walked away, and got away. Twice now, these damned Martinelli females had nearly been the end of him. The thing was, he wasn’t stupid. And he might be reckless, but he did feel fear. That night he was filled with rage and hormones and the anticipation of sweet revenge—but in the aftermath, he had enough self-control to look at the danger face-on, and learn from it.

  What he learned was: Don’t Go There. Take care with the temptations of revenge, when it means you’re flirting with a charge of kidnaping and murder.

  It was a lesson he took to heart. He was never again picked up by the police. He finished school, went on to college, used family money for a software startup that grew into mega-millions based largely on its CEO’s looks, charm, and reputation for successful risk-taking. There were rumors about him, but what hugely successful businessman didn’t carry a shadow?

  Mark Fields had learned his lesson that night, driving too fast along Pipeline Road.