Tell No Lie, We Watched Her Die

by Richard Sanders

  I passed a few utility doors until I found the one I wanted: Electrical. The lock was one of the Hadcock 2000 series. I took a pick set out of my belt, slipped the prongs inside the keyhole and let my fingers do the talking. Forty seconds later the door opened.

  Inside. Close the door. Fumble in the dark for the miniature flashlight on my belt. Its light showed dozens of circuit boxes, all neatly labeled. I settled for the one that said Alarms. Big box, lotta wiring. But every circuit was identified. Very efficient, very accommodating.

  I found V, VI, VII, pulled a pair of jeweler’s cutting pliers off my belt. Corridor VII was connected by three wires, a patriotic red, white and blue.

  I snipped the red, waited to hear a tampering alarm. Nothing went off. I cut the white and the blue. Nothing. No guards scrambling down the tunnel with their guns drawn.

  I stepped out and quietly shut the door. The corridor was silent.

  It stayed that way as I kept moving. Just ahead was the brass-grilled door that lead into the house. I slowly grabbed the knob and pulled it open. No alarms, completely disabled. The only thing I could hear was my heart pounding in my head.

  I was inside the wide hallway, a library-study and a couple of guest bedrooms lining the wall that didn’t touch the mountain. All their doors were closed.

  A sound was coming from the library-study. Maybe a voice. I moved closer, went to reach for the knob. No, not a voice. Voices, muffled voices from inside. At least three people. I took out the Glock, took a deep breath and put my hand around the knob.

  Then I heard something I didn’t expect. Music. A swell of dramatic, portentous music, a signal of danger, building in the lower registers and then suddenly rising to an ominous crescendo.

  >>>>>>

  NOTHING PERSONAL

  He was watching a movie. Pirates of the Caribbean. The first one, The Curse of the Black Pearl. Or actually he wasn’t watching it. Robby was sitting at his desktop, casual in shorts and a purple silk T, trying to type something out on the keyboard while Johnny Depp, Orlando Bloom and Kiera Knightly went through some kind of tense confrontation on the screen behind him.

  Robby turned, looked at me, the Glock, and slowly shook his head. “You’re a confident son of a bitch, aren’t you?”

  “When circumstances dictate.”

  Back to hunting and pecking. “I’ve already talked to you.”

  “We’re not finished. Far from it.”

  Nice room. Leather furniture, recessed lighting, its own bathroom. A piece of sculpture, a slab of white granite carved in a graceful face-down half moon, was hanging on the wall. In the yard just outside was a rock formation with the same curve as the sculpture, giving the impression that both were made by the same hand.

  “You seem pretty angry,” he said.

  “I am pretty angry.”

  “Well you don’t have to be that angry.”

  “You’re telling me how angry I should be? I’m angry.”

  “Take my word for it, you’re coming off very angry. Even kinda crazy.”

  He was sitting in a rolling armchair. I yanked the chair and all 6-4 of him away from the desk. I pulled him into the middle of the room, away from anything he could touch to alert the guards.

  I raised the Glock to his eyes. “This’ll put you out forever.”

  He ran his fingers through his Kennedy hair. “What’s with you? You think you’re better than me?”

  “Probably worse, but it’s not about me. It’s been you all along, hasn’t it? It’s always been you.”

  “I need the video. I really, really need it.”

  “It’s been you, right? The warehouse, the parking garage, Santa Monica?”

  Robby lifted his shoulders and sighed for all of America. “I hired people. I hired people to get it. I have the resources, I have the connections.” He turned both hands palms up—that’s the way it works.

  “Since Amsterdam? Since Arnoud Shuyler?”

  “Sorry for the trouble. It was nothing personal.”

  Listen to him. “Why do you need the video?”

  “This is really depressing.”

  “Why do you need it!”

  “Because I need it! Because my fucking life depends on it!”

  I pressed the Glock right against his forehead. I could feel the sensation of the steel sprawl across his face, run down his neck and spread to his heart.

  “Why?”

  He searched his mind for something to say. All he could find were yellow sagebrush flowers and beaded Paiute baskets.

  “It’s me,” he said. “It’s me in the video. With Amanda.”

  I took the gun away from his head. “You were gonna have your lawyer lie? You were gonna have your wife swear it wasn’t your birthmark?”

  “It wasn’t a lie. It was just a little less than the truth.”

  “How so?”

  “I had it removed. I had the birthmark removed. When I was in prison. Nothing else to do in there. It’s just something, you know, I was always a little sensitive about.”

  God, stop me from murdering this man.

  “So you want the video.”

  “I need the video.”

  “So nobody will know you killed her?”

  “I didn’t. I did not do that. I was there, yes I was, but don’t, you know, on the basis of that, don’t jump to any of these audacious, grandiose L.C. Martin conclusions.”

  “Why the fuck not?”

  “Cause Amanda, I liked her, I absolutely liked her, but it was just a thing. That’s all it was.”

  “A thing.”

  “That’s it—nothing serious. Her life, you know, her life was an upside-down turmoil. Just thinking about it is nerve wracking.”

  “That’s a real tragedy.”

  “I don’t know what it is, but it was fucked up. Much as I liked her, I couldn’t get deep into a situation like that. It was just a thing.”

  “You have no fucking feelings.”

  “You’re wrong. I’ve got too many feelings, that’s my problem.”

  “Meaning?”

  Robby sat in the chair, wondering what he was supposed to be feeling at this moment.

  “I have an alibi,” he said in a voice as quiet as I’d ever heard out of him. “I have an alibi for later that night. For the time she died.”

  “What is it?”

  “I guess… I guess this is the ironic part of it. Considering.”

  “I’m running way out of patience.”

  “I was with someone else that night. I was with my other girlfriend when Amanda died.”

  “Jesus, you’re unbelievable. Who was she?”

  “Her name’s Lisa Kohler. She lives here. In town.”

  “She’ll vouch for you?”

  Robby nodded. “We were together that night. We were together when the news came out. I remember.”

  “Will she remember?”

  “She remembers.”

  “And you know this how?”

  “We’re still together. We’ve been together all this time. We have two kids together.”

  “You really get around, don’t you?”

  “That’s why I want the video. I’m trying to protect her. Her and myself.”

  “From?”

  “Who do you think? From Ken. From my father-in-law. He finds out about Lisa and the kids, he’ll kick me out faster than light. Or he’ll do worse. If he and my wife find out about Lisa, I’ll lose everything. That’s why I need the video. So I don’t have to produce an alibi. So I don’t have to tell anyone about Lisa.”

  He had tears in his eyes. Probably very rare for someone like Robby Walsh to cry.

  Proof, once more, that God believes in ironic retribution.

  I almost believed him.

  “So you were with this Lisa Kohler that night.”

  “I was. You can ask.”

  “But you could’ve hired the job out.”

  “No. I could never hurt Amanda. I could never hurt someone I felt that way about. I do
n’t think I could ever do that.”

  “Don’t get so morose. You’ve got a track record for hiring scum.”

  “To scare people, yeah. To scare you into giving the video up. But someone like Amanda, no.”

  “How about someone like Pear Wicinski? Why her?”

  His eyes took a strange twist. “Who? You mean the old bodyguard? The old wrestler?’

  “The same.”

  “That was meant for you the other day. Squeeze some pressure on you. I didn’t mean for her to be part of it.”

  “I mean this morning. You had her killed this morning.”

  “I what?” He nearly jumped out of the chair. “What? When? Where?”

  “Huntington Park. You had her shot.”

  “No. I would never do that.” His eyes were red with tears, strain and confusion. “I liked her, I liked Pear. I remember her from those days. I liked all her old stories. I would never kill someone I liked.”

  Amazing turn of logic there. And I believed it.

  I believed him.

  >>>>>>>>>>>>

  CHAPTER 7

  DEATH WATCH

  JUST BEFORE THE WORLD ENDS

  I spent the night in Reno, setting out the next morning to find Lisa Kohler and confirm Robby’s alibi. She lived in a condo development near the Firecreek Crossing Mall, and it was not a romantic vision. Lisa was a bitter, heavyset woman with a bubble butt and mascara so thick it seemed to be squeezing the eyeballs out of her head. Yes, Robby had told her I might be coming around, he’d called. Of course, he couldn’t come here and tell her to her face. No, that didn’t go with the goddamn territory, and frankly she was sick of it. She was tired of the way things were after five fucking years, seeing him only here and there, waiting for him while he did his federal time and still he spends most of the time with that bitch-wife Leah Hagler Walsh? Is this a way to live?

  I caught a glimpse of two young children in the kitchen, trying to cobble peanut butter and jelly sandwiches together for breakfast.

  But she did back Robby’s story.

  “The fact of the matter is, I was with him all that night. No confabulation. I’ll swear to it in court if I have to.”

  “And when the news broke, Amanda Eston was dead, you were still with him?”

  Lisa produced something between a laugh and a snort. “She was lucky.”

  “Lucky?”

  “Some people think life is this wonderful thing. I don’t, not really. Tell you the truth, life isn’t particularly to my liking.”

  Have to say, Lisa was not my type, but to each his or her own.

  I can just imagine what Robby’s wife was like.

  >>>>>>

  I kept watching the video. On the flight back, all that day, I kept going over the same minute and 18 seconds of tape. I kept thinking about what Pear said when she’d called. I’ve been looking at this awful thing again, the video. I think I see something. I hadn’t noticed it or hadn’t seen it before, but I’m seeing it now. I think I’ve found something.

  I kept replaying the voicemail I’d found on her phone, the old man telling her, I know what you’ve seen. I know all about what you’ve seen.

  And what the hell was that?

  All I could see were the same dim blurs, the same grainy shadows. All I could see was Amanda, her mermaid tattoo, her Blistexed lips, her brown mole just above the left side of her mouth. All I could see was the torso of the man I knew now was Robby Walsh, his wine-colored birthmark disappearing in her mouth. All I could see were the smudged patches of darkness that felt like a prophecy of the moment of death.

  You stare at 1:18 minutes of video long enough, you get dizzy and disoriented. But I couldn’t stop looking.

  Something was hidden on the screen, some message was transmitting from that night. Another code, but one I couldn’t decipher. A message so spectral and smoky it didn’t even leave a shadow.

  There’d been a veiled sun in the sky all that day, a sultry, yellowish-gray light that never changed. This is probably the way things will look just before the world ends.

  Pear’s words: I hadn’t noticed it or hadn’t seen it before, but I’m seeing it now. Why hadn’t she noticed it before? Because it wasn’t obvious. And why wasn’t it obvious?

  Because both of us had been looking in the foreground and not the background? Lots of things can get lost because we only target the figure and not the setting. Because our eyes tend to pass over the background.

  But what was in the background here? Just the TV, rippling with videoed static lines, and an out of focus bunch of jewelry left on the counter next to it. How many secrets could be found in the TV? Probably not many, not in a KTTV newscast that had been seen by thousands of people the night it aired. But the jewelry?

  I made a frame grab off the tape and began zooming it up. At 20% I could start to make out the outlines of necklaces and bracelets, clumps of what might’ve been earrings and rings. At 30% I could see something else in the middle of the pile. Something larger than the rest, something with an octagonal shape.

  That meant something. Something about an octagon was tagged in my brain.

  I remembered eating lunch at Reggie’s on Robertson, remembered L.C. Martin’s Gucci suit, his diamond-studded cufflinks, and just beneath the sleeve of his Hilditch & Key shirt, an octagonally shaped watch.

  I brought the image up to 40%, the point where the resolution was just about to break up and completely go. But I could see it—L.C.’s rare, expensive, impossible-to-get Fleischer-Koch octagonally faced watch.

  I remembered something else from that lunch. I remembered L.C. telling me he hadn’t seen Amanda for three or four days before she died.

  So what was his rare, expensive, impossible-to-get Fleischer-Koch watch doing in her bedroom that night?

  >>>>>>

  And as I kept asking myself that question, another idea came to me. I played the voicemail again, the old man telling Pear, I know what you’ve seen. I know all about what you’ve seen.

  It was a long day, night was setting in. I was wired and picking up all kinds of bizarre frequencies. But I still couldn’t stop.

  I went to a movie rental site and downloaded a copy of Days of Reckoning. This was the film where Amanda tries to return to her father after a long separation, and in the course of getting back together she imagines the man in all stages of his former life.

  Her father was played by an actor her own age, a slightly talented, all but forgotten name from a reality series, L.C. Martin. Most people regarded his casting as a demented joke, but he gave a tremendous performance, aging from a wiseass teen to a withered senior with a grasp and understanding that won him an Oscar nomination as Best Supporting Actor.

  This is where he’d met Amanda, making Days of Reckoning. They were married the day the movie wrapped, right on the set, in the place where he’d delivered the best film work he’d ever done, the best he’d ever do.

  I fastforwarded the movie, jumping to the scene where Amanda first shows up at her old house. L.C. comes to the door, recognizes her after a moment and isn’t happy about it. She starts to tell him why she’s suddenly showing up after all this time. He holds up a hand, stops her.

  L.C.: Don’t bother explaining. I know.

  Amanda: How can you know?

  L.C.: You still think I’m stupid? I know why you’re here. I know all about why you’re here.

  I went back to the voicemail. Same pitch, same timbre, same breathing patterns, same trembling crack in the old man’s voice.

  It was his best performance.

  >>>>>>

  NIGHT OF RECKONING

  At Real Story we track traffic on our site with a heat map, a piece of graphic software that lets you see in real time what photos, videos, headlines and stories are getting the most hits. The hot spot on my own personal heat map was 58 Chenille Lane, Beverly Glen. L.C.’s home. My friend Kumiko Davis had given me the address what seemed like a long time ago.

  The house was a Mid-Century modern,
one of those Frank Lloyd Wright-like structures located down a long slope of land, its low sling roof supported by big slabs of wood and stone and big rectangles of glass. Welcome to the Atomic Age. There were no lights on inside, but a Mercedes SL was parked in the driveway.

  I moved through the border of pines in the front and slid along the walls. Just like last night I was dressed all in black, complete with the utility belt. Big slice of moon in the clear sky, plus Venus, the evening/morning star.

  All the factors were converging.

  The lock: a Camtone Biaxial. Picking wasn’t easy. It took me six minutes and many tries. I opened the door, stepped inside, shut it and immediately looked for the keypad, needing to disarm it before the alarm went off.

  Thing was, security hadn’t been activated. The system was already off. No one had set the alarm, either out of perverse negligence…