She rubbed his head ever so lightly with her chubby little fingers.
“Good?” he asked.
“Good,” she said, giggling. Ellie was flirting with Detective Ramirez. Ramirez looked up at me and smiled. Is this the first time I’d seen his teeth? Without me being afraid of getting bit?
“I wanted to let you know,” Detective Ramirez said, looking at me. “We’re going to trial next week. On, you know”—he hesitated—“the hit-and-run.”
“Mr. Del Toro didn’t do it,” I said. Ramirez stood and wiped imaginary creases from the front of his pants. He was buying time.
“Please,” I said, grabbing his hand. “You believe in me now, and I’m telling you. That guy is innocent.”
“I’m sorry, Hannah.” He turned, waving at Ellie as he left. He walked like an English bulldog, side to side.
I shook my head, and found myself wondering if he’d ever ask me to dinner. I liked the way my name sounded, coming out of his mouth. I squeezed my hands around the stack of files. My workload had just doubled.
I had dropped Ellie off at school, and was meeting Jay and Aimee for coffee at the Pirates before medium hours. Ramirez’s files were in my Whole Foods “Yes, This Is My Bag” bag. I took out the pile and placed them on the table in front of me.
I sipped my vanilla soy latte and opened up the first file.
A little girl. Pigtails. Freckles. 1978.
Oh my God. I closed my eyes, just briefly. Immediately, I saw a man’s hands. Rough. Carpenter? Someone who’d been working on the roof. I put that one aside, for now. I needed a moment.
Next one. A grandmother, killed in her bed. No sign of forced entry. I looked at the date. August 2, 1987.
Okay, this one, I could handle. I closed my eyes, then opened them again. The woman was sitting across from me.
“My grandson,” she said, her voice low and sad. “He’d been doing drugs. He was stealing from me. He’s dead now, too.”
I nodded. I heard dogs barking. I looked up and saw Chloe tying her dog menagerie to the lone newspaper vending machine outside the coffee joint. Waving a copy of the Santa Monica Mirror, she rushed inside and sat across from me. She was breathing hard and her eyes were spinning.
“Chloe, do you have rabies?” I asked.
“Bakasana … I want to talk to Bakasana,” Chloe said, as Jay and Aimee walked in, Aimee waddling and Jay prancing like a Lipizzaner stallion.
“Bakasana?” I asked, acting dumb. “What do you mean?”
“Angel killed him,” Chloe said. “I know it. She came back last night and tried to snatch my Jack Russell mix, Mulabunda.”
“Angel?” Aimee asked. “That weird dog?”
“Angel isn’t a dog,” Chloe whispered, slapping the newspaper against the table.
“What do you think she is?” Jay asked, although he already knew the answer. “A unicorn?”
“She’s a coyote,” Chloe said. “Look at this. Look at the picture. I had a coyote living in my home, eating my gluten-free food.” She pointed to the newspaper. On the front page was a picture of a coyote, wandering 16th Street, a small animal in its jaws. The byline read: COYOTE TERRORIZES NORTH OF MONTANA.
“And your dogs, apparently,” Aimee said, looking at the photograph. She read the first few lines of the article. “… female coyote responsible for latest spate of pet killings in exclusive North of Montana neighborhood … Oliver, Beckett, zoe, Miles … Keats.” Aimee looked up. “Someone named their dog Keats? Really?”
“That’s her. That’s the hemp collar I bought online,” Chloe said. “It’s from a Peruvian transgender co-op, took me forever to find it.”
“So … Bakasana’s a dog chew …,” Jay said, glancing at the article.
“Chloe, I saw Bakasana … in a vision,” I confessed, putting my hand on hers. “The good news is, he looked happy. For a Pomeranian.”
“Chloe, is Angel loose?” Aimee asked.
“Well, she’s had a couple litters, I think,” Chloe said. Jay and I looked at each other, suppressing an urge to laugh. “I have to stop Angel’s killing spree, and I’m going to take care of this. My way.”
“Meditation and thistle tea?” Jay asked.
“How can you guys joke about this when I’m hurting?” Chloe said.
“Nobody likes Pomeranians, Chloe,” Aimee said. “They never have. It’s all a lie.”
“Whatever. I’m going to find that bitch,” Chloe said. She stood up, and shook the newspaper. “In the name of every Fluffy, Scooter, Lucky, Keats, and Bakasana, I’m putting an end to her reign of terror.”
She strode out, untied her dog from the vending machine, and rushed down the street.
“Wow,” Jay said, “she’s very Joan of Arc this morning. Or should I say, Joan of Bark.”
I thought for a moment. Something nagged at me.
“Guys,” I said, setting my latte down, “does Chloe still have that gun?”
We ran up 17th after Chloe. At her house, we were surprised to find Billy, dressed in tight yoga shorts and a Spiritual Gangsta tank top, answering the door. An Om meditation tape played loudly in the background.
“Billy, didn’t you join the Marines?” I asked, surprised.
“Well, those mini-shorts are very all that you can be,” Jay said.
“I tried,” Billy said. “Boot camp is hard. I was competing against eighteen-year-olds. Plus, I couldn’t use my smartphone. I got an honorable discharge, though.” He looked shorter when not dressed to invest. I hadn’t seen him in months. “I’m sorry about your husband, Hannah,” Billy said. “I don’t think I ever got the chance to say that. I liked John a lot.”
John thought Billy was a blowhard. Billy thought John was a sandal-wearing omelet maker. Either times had changed drastically or death brings out the dishonest in people. I let it go.
“Thank you, Billy,” I said. “Is Chloe home? We’re looking for her. It’s important.”
“She dropped off the dogs a few minutes ago,” he said. “I don’t know where she went. Try the co-op. Or wait, Whole Foods?”
Whole Foods was the Santa Monica fallback location. If you were searching for a spouse, boyfriend, dog, child, Jimmy Hoffa, the first place you look was the deli counter at Whole Foods.
“Billy,” I said, “did she take that shotgun with her?”
He looked at me, alarmed. “Let me check.” Billy left the room, then walked back a minute later. “It’s not here,” he said. “Hannah—is Chloe okay?”
“Fuming in silence tires me out, especially in my condition,” Aimee said. “Your wife is crying out for help. You left her alone with I don’t know how many kids and dogs, and what about this yogini girlfriend?”
“Tatiana?” Billy said. “She wasn’t my girlfriend.”
“Tatianas are always girlfriends,” Aimee said. “Have you ever heard of a wife named Tatiana?”
“Whatever it was … it’s over,” Billy said. “I love my wife. My kids. And my practice. Namaste.”
“Billy,” I said, “this isn’t about you. Chloe needs our help. Now.”
“I’ll use my Marine training,” he said. “We’ll find her. Let me get my gear on.” He hurried to get dressed.
“I hear you rolling your eyes, Jay,” I said, as I watched Billy bolt the stairs in his teeny-tiny shorts.
Marine training only works on water, apparently; it was for shit on land. We spent hours driving from 26th to Ocean, from San Vicente to Montana, and back again. We didn’t bother with SoMo. Angel knew her neighborhoods: NoMo meant steak from The Farms, and a higher ratio of pets to clueless owner.
Chloe wasn’t answering her phone. As we sat at the curb on Alta and 20th, I remembered my conversation with the coyote lady, months ago.
“Coyotes hang out in abandoned houses and empty lots,” I said.
“There’s a ton of those in NoMo,” Jay said.
He was right. Older homes were being bought up like gold bars and demolished overnight, so fast that you couldn’t remember i
f they’d really been there, or if they were part of a dream.
“There’s an abandoned lot down the street from our house,” Billy said.
* * *
We reached the empty double lot just as the fog rolled in.
“Remember John Carpenter?” Jay asked. “This fog is creeping me out.”
“Is that the dude who sang background on ‘We’ve Only Just Begun’?” Billy asked. “That was our wedding song.”
The fog surrounded the palm trees, choking them as they swayed, tentative in the gray. A chill set in. A house on one side of the lot, a single-story wood-frame, had a FOR SALE sign planted in its front yard. Dee Dee Pickler’s Photoshopped face smiled out from the clapboard as it rocked on its hinges. The retouching on her pic was so extreme, she looked like Carrot Top. We peered through the wire fencing surrounding the huge lot. A really rich person, not just vanilla rich, was going to build here; double lots were rare and coveted.
“See anything?” I asked Jay. Aimee came up behind us.
Just then, I saw movement in the corner, behind the single California Oak that had been left behind. The tree had a mournful cant, as though saying, “What happened? Where’s my home? Where are those kids who used to climb me?” and … “When are they coming for me next?”
I spotted Chloe beside the tree, on her knees. A shotgun lay in the weeds in front of her.
Billy saw her, too.
“Chloe!” he said, making a run for the fence, attempting to hop over. And another. And … one more.
“Chloe!” I called. Jay and Aimee shouted, “Chloe!”
Jay knitted his hands together to give Billy a boost over the fence. I went next. “Stay here,” I said, turning to Aimee, “you’re being sane for two.” I hopped the fence (pulling a muscle I didn’t even know I had) and stumbled over to Chloe and Billy.
Under the brush, Angel was nursing her pups in a makeshift den. Chloe put her hand out to ward me off.
“She has pups,” I said, hushed. “They’re still called pups, right?”
“Coyote infants?” Jay said, jogging up from behind me. “I can’t look it up, I’m Google-handicapped. No service in Santa Monica.”
“I couldn’t do it,” Chloe whispered.
Jay and I knelt down beside her.
“Oh, my Lanvin tennis shoes,” Jay lamented. “I’m not an empty lot person.”
“Of course you couldn’t do it, Chloe,” I said. “You’re not like the rest of us. You can’t just randomly shoot things.”
“Don’t get too close,” Chloe said, her eyes never wavering from Angel. “She doesn’t want anyone else near her.”
As if on cue, Angel growled.
“She trusts me,” Chloe said. “Someone trusts me. My friends don’t trust me. My kids don’t trust me. My husband thinks I’m an idiot.”
“Chloe, baby,” Billy said, “don’t say that.”
“Don’t you baby me,” Chloe said. “How did my life come to this? Everything was so perfect. I had erected a careful construct of cooler-than-thou domestic bliss, from our half-Asian children who were supposed to be highly gifted and musically inclined, to my sniveling liberalism and your snarling conservatism. And then, I’d take pictures and blog about it and eventually appear on Good Morning America.”
“This all sounds like torture,” Jay said.
“Billy, our kids aren’t even smart, let’s face it.”
“They’re smart enough.”
“They don’t play piano or violin. They’re tone-deaf.”
“But they are photogenic,” I said. “And who always has the best Christmas cards? Who?”
“Hand me the gun, Chloe,” Billy said.
Gaping NoMos were starting to gather outside the fence. They were the usual suspects: dog people, stroller people, dog-and-stroller people, bicyclists, serious bicyclists, skateboarders (these are adults), runners, joggers, walkers, serious walkers … all of them enjoying an after-dinner Pinkberry.
“I don’t even know you anymore, Billy. And I’m not sure I even like you,” Chloe said, sighing. “I wish I could just start my life all over.”
Billy stepped toward Chloe, and Angel growled. Billy backed up.
“Honey, you do like me,” he told her. “You like me despite everything, and I like you despite everything. We’re stuck with each other. It’s a life sentence. Besides, we can’t afford a divorce. That option closed in 2008. So please, hand me the gun. Carefully.”
“Promise you won’t run off and join another militant group.”
“Not even the Boy Scouts. Now, come on, baby, let’s go home before someone actually gets shot.”
Chloe handed me the shotgun, and fell into Billy’s arms.
Now, you know how guns go off accidentally in movies, in nightclubs (if you’re a professional athlete), or anywhere in Florida, and you wonder how people could possibly be that stupid?
Well, judge not lest ye be judged.
As I took the shotgun from Chloe, the damn thing kicked and went off, blasting a hole into the side of the empty old house next door. I screamed, dropping the weapon. I didn’t hear anything else until after everyone around me stopped screaming. Only then did I hear it.
Someone else was screaming, from inside the house.
“Oh my God,” I said, “I just killed someone.”
The Turk ran out of the old house, tripping over his pants, which were around his ankles, and clasping his shirt to his chest. The Turk’s chest hair skipped his bald head and continued down his back. His ample stomach, adorned with a bunny trail, hung over his shorts.
“Bear sighting!” Jay shouted.
There was more screaming, then Dee Dee emerged from the house, her hands clutching her ass.
“Call a doctor,” she yelled, “and a plastic surgeon! This is going to leave a scar!”
From out of the crowd, a woman who gave every appearance of being the Turk’s wife grabbed him, yelling at him in a foreign language that required no translation.
“I’m still getting commission!” Dee Dee bellowed. “I’ve got a signed contract!”
“Dee Dee,” I said, “an ambulance is on its way. Are you okay?”
“My butt is bleeding,” Dee Dee said, as she looked over at me. “I just got shot in the ass. Why haven’t you returned my calls?” Ever the businesswoman. I had to give her respect, however grudgingly.
“Dee Dee, here, let me help you,” I said, taking my sweater off. “Calm down and press this against your bottom.”
“I can’t calm down, I’m in pain,” Dee Dee said. “You want to upgrade?”
Meanwhile, the Turk’s wife slapped him across the face, and was dragging him off by his ear.
I hooked my arm around Dee Dee and was holding her up when a middle-aged woman appeared at Dee Dee’s side, hovering just above the ground. She looked like Dee Dee but with original parts.
“Tell this bitch I know what she did at my funeral,” the apparition said.
“Oh, no,” I said. “What happened?”
Dee Dee looked at me, confused. “What do you mean what happened?” she asked. “I just took a bullet in the ass.”
“My own sister tries to give my husband a blow job at my funeral!” the apparition complained. “Tell her Janie says hello. Then tell her to go fuck herself.” She turned to Dee Dee, who was staring at me. “You’ll always be the fat little sister—all the lipo in the world won’t fix your personality! I hope you get nose herpes!”
“Dee Dee,” I said. “Janie says hello …”
“Janie who, for God’s sake?”
“Janie, your sister.” Dee Dee’s eyes widened as a police car drove up, sirens blasting. Detective Ramirez got out of the car and rushed over.
“Are you the only cop in this city?” I asked. “This is getting ridiculous.”
Ramirez flipped off his Ray-Bans and grumbled. “Can’t you stay out of trouble?”
“It was an accident,” I said, as the paramedics placed Dee Dee facedown on a stretcher. “Ho
ld on,” I said.
I turned back to Dee Dee, and bent down close to her. “Like I said, your sister, Janie, says hello,” I said. “And she hopes you get nose herpes.”
Dee Dee screamed as the paramedics maneuvered her into the ambulance. I watched it drive away.
Finding your friend before she commits coyote-cide? Fifty bucks.
Watching your friend’s marriage being saved? A thousand dollars.
Hitting Dee Dee Pickler in the ass with a shotgun pellet? Priceless.
I put my hands up for Detective Ramirez.
“Go ahead,” I said, “cuff me. I could use a vacation.”
“If you served mai tais, Santa Monica jail would be the Kahala Hilton, Detective,” Jay said. “Cuff me. I’m ready and curious. I was holding the gun.”
Aimee stepped forward. “I don’t need you to take the fall for me, Jay.” She looked at Ramirez and swung her hair around. “I’m guilty, Detective. Guilty as hell.”
She was milking it. This was Aimee’s Glenn Close moment. Screw David Mamet.
“Oh, great,” Ramirez said. “This is cute. Your friends are really cute.”
“They kind of are, aren’t they?” I said.
“It’s my gun, Detective,” Chloe said. “I’m responsible.”
“Honey, no,” Billy said. “Detective Ramirez, my name is Billy, Marine Corps Infantry. Well, I would have been, except for the climbing wall.” He shook Detective Ramirez’s hand. “Sir, this gun belongs to me. I’m the guilty party. And I’m a former banker, I probably deserve some jail time, anyway. If you’ll have me.”
Detective Ramirez contemplated our motley crew. He gazed at me with those dark, piercing eyes. I don’t know why, but I heard a Julio Iglesias song in my head—and you know how it is, once Iglesias happens, it’s impossible to get rid of. There’s no cure for Iglesias.
“No more guns,” he said. “You people shouldn’t be anywhere near guns. May I ask what happened?”
“Well,” Chloe said. “See, I adopt dogs.”
“She adopted a coyote,” I said.
“Which ate her Pomeranian,” Jay said.
“Ate her what?” Ramirez asked.
“The coyote just had pups,” Chloe said. “You want one?”
Detective Ramirez widened his eyes. “White people really are crazy.”
The After Wife Page 29