Combustion

by Martin J. Smith

  “Bikini bull-riding, eh?” Starke said.

  “Sweet. Skip those overpriced new joints like the Bellagio or Aria. When in Vegas, go ‘boner’ fide Vegas, if you ask me. Two-buck shrimp cocktails and margaritas. Fifty-buck rooms. Free porn 24­­­­-7. That’s Vegas, baby.” Delgado looked at his watch. “So we done here?”

  Back at the car, Starke rolled down the Vic’s windows to let it cool down before climbing in. Something about Delgado’s story wasn’t quite right. He could confirm, or refute, the alibi with a few more phone calls. At least he’d nailed down his story—a productive morning so far, and still not even eleven.

  He had two more stops to make before getting back on the crowded freeway. First, he wanted to visit the new LAPD. headquarters. A friend of his dad’s in the personnel department owed him a favor. And as long as he was downtown, he figured he might as well stop by the county clerk’s office, where the civil court records were kept.

  Kerrigan had said she’d never met a woman without secrets. He might be fighting for his job, and wondered if maybe she had a few of her own.

  18

  Shelby had been online all morning, and for hours the night before. She’d again added LoveSick’s username to Gwen_23’s friend list, hoping he’d log on and approach her, but so far, nothing. Now she was biding her time checking the newsfeed on her Facebook page, remembering back to the moment seven months before when it all began.

  She’d been escaping anonymously into this electronic universe for a while by then, always late at night, when Chloe was asleep and Paul was either gone or passed out drunk. Especially then. Computers were a mystery to him, just another reason for her husband to suspect her, control her, rage at her. He didn’t have a clue about her online life, but he clearly found it threatening in ways that secretly thrilled her. But it was just easier when he was gone or asleep. At least then he couldn’t hit her.

  She’d been a lurker, at first, presenting herself as a generic, genderless avatar called XYZ. She learned to navigate the virtual world without drawing attention to herself, a silent witness to the flirtations, flame wars, couplings, and uncouplings of her fellow travelers. But after she created a new persona, LonelyMrs, and chose a somewhat more noticeable avatar, her online life began to change. She met the usual creeps and users, but also other women with secrets much like her own. After a while, she felt comfortable enough to confide in them, and found companionship and solace among those with stories like hers. Connections were easy to make, easy to break. Once in a while, she’d start a conversation with another woman who seemed to be leading a parallel life, and it always helped to know she wasn’t the only one living a lie with someone like Paul.

  Sometimes, she connected with men. She could play that game, too. Most were scammers, just hoping for a good fuck, real or virtual. But not all of them.

  She’d connected with LoveSick by accident. He’d misdirected a message to her. She’d replied to point out the error, in case the message was important. He’d thanked her, made a joke, and a conversation began. Eventually, he invited her to join him in a private chat room. Going along reminded her of the incomparable thrill of following a college date back to his dorm room for the first time. She wasn’t sure where it was going, but liked the idea of not knowing. She’d let herself fantasize for the first time in years.

  They began regularly slipping into the world’s private rooms, just the two of them, to talk. During one late-night conversation, he’d let slip the reason he’d chosen LoveSick as his screen name: can’t seem 2 stay on the horse, and falling off hurts 2 much. you?

  Her little-white-lie response surprised them both: Probably the same, with the scars to prove it. Show you mine if you show me yours?

  That upped the ante.

  It was like he already knew her, had known her for years, a lifetime. They’d chat online for hours, sometimes until after 3:00 a.m., until her wrists ached from typing. About everything. About nothing. Food. Wine. Sports. Parents. God. He shared her faith that life could be good again. He understood how women thought, and why men grew angry with age. He said he had no kids, but listened tirelessly to her bragging about Chloe. For once, Shelby knew, she’d begun a relationship based on something other than her looks; he never once asked for a photo, nor did he offer one. i see u in my mind, he once wrote, and for now that’s enough. just not ready for anything real.

  So they’d kept talking. And talking. The more comfortable she got, the more she told him about her life. Not all at once. A hint here. A detail there. The town where she lived. The name of her parish priest, whose memorable homilies she sometimes related during their late-night talks. Chloe’s private school. Her developer husband. His drinking. The violence. The endless charade of her public life. Her profound love for Chloe. He said he understood the bond between women who share a secret.

  Then one night eight weeks ago he confessed he was falling in love with her. impossible for us, I know, he wrote. i know ur committed to ur marriage, even after what he’s done to u.

  Only then did she realize that she, too, had fallen in love with him, or at least the idea of him. She’d told him so. But she also realized how little he’d really told her about himself, even while seeming to tell so much. She knew what he thought about everything, how he’d react in any given situation. But she couldn’t think of a single specific detail of his life. She should have known then that something was off. Within days, empathy transformed into intimacy. Her confessor quickly became her fantasy lover. He was wicked good with words, and she found herself urging him to narrate their online lovemaking each night as she slipped her hand inside the waistband of her panties. When she described her fantasies to him, she imagined him, wherever he was, bringing himself to the same joyful release she came to expect every time she logged on.

  In time, she’d let herself imagine, let him imagine, a day when Paul was not part of the equation. A day when the accumulated pain and secret shame of her life simply vanished, and she could start life over in a parallel universe where there was no Paul, there was only him, and her, and Chloe, and a chance for real happiness for the three of them. For Shelby, that was the most seductive fantasy of all.

  All we need is a magic wand, she remembered writing, and the pain would disappear.

  say the word, he’d answered, if that’s what u want.

  More than anything.

  Shelby shuddered at the recollection. To a jury, she thought, that would sound like a plan.

  Then, with the sudden ping of her buddy list notification, there he was.

  LoveSick: been a while, lonelymrs.

  Shelby bolted upright in her chair. He hadn’t even bothered to change his username. And how had he recognized her as Gwen_23, and with her entirely new avatar? She pulled in closer to the computer, aware that, if the whole thing unraveled, he wouldn’t hesitate to use her own words against her. Shelby put her hands to the keyboard.

  Gwen_23: I’m terrified.

  She hated herself for admitting that. But there it was. They were her first words to him since the killing, when she’d signed off: You’ve got no idea what you just did, you stupid, stupid fuck.

  LoveSick: u should be terrified. they’re after u.

  He had always been talkative. In his clipped response, she felt his rage at what he must have seen as a betrayal. She tried a different tack.

  Gwen_23: How did you know this was me?

  LoveSick: i know everything about u. so long.

  Gwen_23: Wait. Don’t. Shelby was typing fast. We need to talk.

  LoveSick: u get what u want from me, then… nothing? u vanish from the net? after everything we said, everything we did… your life got better. what abt mine?

  Gwen_23: My life is shit.

  LoveSick: ur life was shit before. that’s what u told me. that’s why u wanted out. now you’re out. deal with it. and keep ur mouth shut. just hope nobody gets close or u’ll really know what shit is—u stupid, stupid fuck.

  God damn, Shelby thought
. God damn.

  Gwen_23: What does that mean?

  Shelby waited through a long electronic silence, and eventually shot a panicked look at the computer’s clock—12:40. Chloe would be home soon from her half day at school. She’d completely forgotten. Before she turned away from the screen, LoveSick posted his reply: shouldn’t that daughter of yours be getting home about now?

  19

  “Don’t screw me on this.” Dan Damian handed Starke the thick file folder filled with the photocopies he’d been making for the past fifteen minutes. “It’s my ass if you do. You know that.”

  Starke nodded at his father’s old friend. “We’re square now, Danny. I really appreciate this.”

  “Nothing in the file but promotions, commendations, and awards. Not what you’d call dirt. So what’s she to you?”

  “My new boss.” Starke winked. “It just pays to know who you’re dealing with, that’s all. So hard to suck up when you don’t know the details.”

  Damian, head of the LAPD’s records division, grinned. “She ain’t bad-looking, either. Not many official department photos I’d call smokin’ hot.”

  Starke winced. “Hadn’t noticed. You’d have to meet her to understand.”

  “I hear you. Got two exes like that.”

  Starke flipped open the file then closed it again, a reflex to pass an awkward silence. Damian leaned back in his creaky desk chair and sipped from a bright red coffee mug imprinted with the warning: “Just back the fuck off until this cup is empty.”

  “How’s your dad?”

  “Same.”

  “Fucking nightmare, is what that is. So sorry. But I know how proud he’d be of you.”

  “Appreciate that.”

  What else was there to say? Starke tucked the file under his arm and reached across the desk. Damian’s grip was firm and sincere, but he held Starke’s hand a beat too long. Starke knew what was coming next.

  “Can I ask you something, Ronnie?”

  “Anything, Dan.”

  “Rosaleen. You ever figure out what happened there? No note or anything?”

  Starke shook his head. “Dealing with it the best I can, Danny. Every day hurts a little less.”

  “Hope you’re doing OK.”

  Starke nodded, and Damian let it drop. But he thanked him for asking.

  In the car, he set the copied contents of Donna Kerrigan’s LAPD personnel file on the passenger-side seat, on top of a folder containing copies of what he’d seen at the clerk’s office an hour before—the paperwork from Kerrigan’s divorce case. The Vic was an oven after forty minutes in the sun, but he opened all four windows and started to read.

  Dan had put her LAPD photo on top. Starke wasn’t sure he was capable of ever seeing Kerrigan as “smokin’ hot,” but Damian was right about everything else in her LAPD file. She’d been a rising star from the moment she got out of the Los Angeles Police Academy. Her rank advanced steadily during her seventeen years on the force, from patrol cop to desk sergeant to lieutenant. She’d been commended for bravery twice, and the letters accompanying those awards were effusive about her cool in the face of danger. The Times had done a feature story about her behind-the-scenes role negotiating the release of a hostage during a SWAT action five years before. She’d even served a psyche-busting stint in the Internal Affairs Division, one of the requirements for a top department job, and was cited for her extraordinary professionalism during her tenure at IAD. Kerrigan’s path seemed clear, her LAPD future seemingly unlimited.

  But she’d walked away a year ago, right after the split with her husband. She’d left it all behind to start over, running a small, understaffed department in a distant if growing suburb struggling with resources. Why?

  Starke opened the other file, a collection of eye-glazing legal motions, lists of communal property, house-sale paperwork, and negotiation transcripts spanning the year it took Kerrigan and her ex to dissolve their nine-year union. They’d finalized the deal just two months ago. Guy’s name was Richard Holywell, electronics manufacturer, now living in Santa Monica. They’d had a nice place in Echo Park, a crushing mortgage just like everybody else in town, a little equity, some savings, a decent collection of midcentury furniture and “late-century antiques,” whatever that meant. No surprises, really. He could have been reading about any one of a million other walking wounded on the vast trading floor of love and loss in the LA basin. Starke flipped more quickly through the docs, looking for one in particular: The original filing. Divorces happen for all kind of reasons. Starke knew that. But he wanted to know more about the flesh-and-blood woman behind the professional juggernaut that was Donna Kerrigan. It was fast becoming a matter of self-preservation.

  Whoa.

  Abuse? Intimacy issues? Infidelity?

  The words seemed to leap from the page. Starke read more closely. As they got down to nut-cutting time on the property division, she’d claimed “emotional and physical abuse” during the entire nine years they were together. He’d countered with “an unwillingness to become intimate,” and her “possible infidelity with a person or persons unknown.” He also alluded to an incident in which she discharged a department-issued gun inside their home during an argument. The bullet grazed his shoulder. “Mr. Holywell sought medical help, but declined to press charges,” his attorney wrote, “though that could change.”

  Kerrigan’s ex was playing hardball.

  Starke flipped through the remaining documents. In the end, neither Kerrigan nor her former husband offered evidence or details to support the various accusations. Maybe there was something to them, or maybe it was just the lawyers talking, pressing any advantage they could find or imagine. If true, though, the gun incident was the trump card. If they’d decided to split, and if Kerrigan had been convicted of felony assault, California’s fifty-fifty community property laws would go out the window. She’d have been lucky to get the clothes from her closet. Even a public accusation would have derailed her law enforcement career. That was leverage.

  He closed the divorce file. If Starke’s new boss was railroading him out of a job, was there anything in either folder he’d be willing to use to fight back? He tried to imagine doing so, but decided he couldn’t. He even felt bad about prying. Just a little.

  20

  The hiker stopped at the mouth of Esmeralda Canyon and looked up into the hills, sipping cool water from her Nalgene bottle. Breathtaking, she thought, even though she’d walked the canyon many times before. She pulled a small digital camera from the side pocket of her daypack and raised it to frame the scene.

  An ancient California oak rose in stark relief about thirty yards ahead of her. It was the only thing other than rock outcroppings that stood more than three feet high in the lower part of the canyon, which ran like a wide scar down the foothills of Mt. San Gorgonio. Day hikers like her who trekked the three miles from Los Colmas often used the tree as a stopping place, taking refuge from the harsh summer sun to rehydrate or eat a sack lunch. Much wine had been drunk beneath the oak. She’d made love once in its shade.

  Every year, after the winter rains, the springtime canyon was carpeted by lush wild grasses and sprays of orange and red wildflowers, which gave refuge to countless rodents, rabbits, and rattlesnakes. That was when it was most spectacular. But she preferred it now, in October, when the oak was surrounded in every direction by high wheaty groundcover and crisp chaparral that had been drying in the sun since the last spring rain, to a color the water conservation naggers called “California Golden.” By this time of year, and especially this year, the canyon looked like it had been covered by a giant, rumpled rug. The mighty oak stood at its center.

  It was a beautiful tinderbox.

  She raised her camera and zoomed in and out until the golden canyon perfectly framed the tree, but she never pressed the shutter button. She knew only that she regained consciousness on her back with a disorienting ringing in her ears.

  She later read other hikers’ accounts of the lightning strike on h
er social networks. The bolt that obliterated the 170-year-old oak came from a clear, cloudless sky shortly after noon when the air temperature was ninety-eight degrees, the humidity two percent, and a steady westerly wind was gusting to fifteen miles an hour. The tree exploded in a flash, cleaving nearly in two as the strike scorched its way down the trunk. The biggest branch, measuring forty feet from end to end, was ablaze before it hit the ground. Embers from its impact bounced and rolled away into the potent kindling around the tree.

  The relentless wind fanned those embers into tiny flames.

  21

  Starke didn’t call ahead. He wanted to catch Shelby Dwyer off guard at home. Traffic from LA had been light. It was only 3:40, and he had no other interviews scheduled. He rang the buzzer at the end of her driveway gate.

  “Please go away.” Sounded like the daughter.

  “It’s Detective Starke, Los Colmas Police,” he said.

  Another voice answered: “Ron?”

  “Shelby, it’s me. Can I come in?”

  “Are the reporters gone?” she asked.

  Starke looked around. “Guess so.”

  The gate rolled silently to the side, then closed behind Starke’s car as he drove onto the property. He parked in one of the spaces to the right of the house, next to Shelby’s Jag, a convertible bullet, so he wouldn’t block the circular drive. Shelby didn’t come out to greet him. She took forever, in fact, to answer the door after he rang the bell. When she did, it was only after staring a long time through the peephole. When she finally unlocked the heavy door and peered out through the narrow opening, her eyes were red, her face blotchy.

  “Nobody followed you in?” she said.

  “Sorry to drop by like this, but I had some questions as we move forward.”

  “Can it wait until after the funeral tomorrow, Ron? Bad day.”