He didn’t get it. Connie didn’t need the money, and she’d told him he didn’t need to be involved. So what was going on here?
He wasn’t going to let himself be dragged down like this. No way. He was going to do something about it.
* * *
Friends don’t fail friends! Peter mimicked. What kind of bullshit thing was that to say? The phrase stabbed right down through the center of his body, like a gigantic icicle breaking off from the eaves of a barn and harpooning a snowbank.
Peter couldn’t let the conversation go, not as he showered and got ready to go to work, not as he sat through an endless staff meeting, not as he endured the training session on the new accounting software. The more he thought about it, the angrier he got.
Where did Scott get off, being so superior? Fuck his rich family and good looks that made girls cream whenever he smiled at them. Scott had never had to struggle for a thing. He wasn’t saddled with student loans or his mother’s nursing care. Fuck his charm and his blond hair and how everyone brightened when they recognized him. Fuck the way he always called, expecting Peter to be free for a game of pickup or racquetball or to see a Dodger game or to have breakfast, like Peter should be grateful. Fuck his monologues about his sexual conquests—great gals, every one of them—dumped as soon as they started to have feelings for him, all of them letting him get away with it because he chatted them up and never let them say how they felt.
Fuck his sob story when Laura dumped him. He even had Peter feeling sorry for him. Fuck him!
Scott always said to him, “You’re the best friend a guy could have,” so Peter tried to be that friend, but then he overheard Scott say the same thing to the Mexican who washed his car. That was what friendship meant to him? Putting a little extra shine on his dashboard for a five-dollar tip? Fuck that!
Peter realized he’d stopped believing Scott’s stories. Maybe Laura wasn’t visiting her sick mother. Maybe Scott had done something to her, Laura, a goddess, who once came to Peter asking for financial advice, begging him not to tell Scott about her affairs, but needing, she said, his expertise. And this Swiss bank account Scott wanted, he was probably trying to steal from her.
Peter had let Scott use him, and both of them knew it. Then Scott had the gall to tell Peter he’d failed him as a friend?
Peter couldn’t let it rest. He hated this anxious, sullied feeling. He wasn’t the type of guy to say fuck you and walk away. It might be the end of their friendship, but he had to talk to Scott. Maybe Scott never really was his friend, but Peter felt he owed it to them both to tell Scott how badly he treated people.
Peter decided after he met his last client for the day he would drive to Scott’s house and have it out with him.
* * *
When Reggie called Peter Flynn and said he was a cop, he heard a sharp intake of air and what sounded like a knee jerking against a pencil drawer.
“How can I help you, sir?” asked Peter carefully, sounding like a cadet who’d pulled a caper and wasn’t sure if he had to own up.
Reggie asked Peter how well he knew Scott, if he knew Laura Finnegan, had he noticed a change in Scott since her disappearance, did he know a Vivian Costanza. Peter’s answers were noncommittal, indicating he did know about the restraining order and Scott’s apparent obsession. He said he found Scott slightly more irritable lately. He did not know a Vivian Costanza.
“Anything else you can tell me about him?”
Peter hesitated, then said, “Yes, there’s one thing.”
“What’s that?”
“He asked me to see if I could get him a bank account in Switzerland, a numbered account.”
“When was that?”
“About two weeks ago.”
“Did you get him one?”
“No. I looked into it, but it’s pretty complicated. It’s more of a favor than I wanted to do for him. Not that it’s illegal—not at all—but it could expose me to a certain amount of scrutiny if he were to come under financial investigation.”
“You suspect he might?”
“No. But I’d rather err on the side of caution.”
Several things occurred to Reggie: that Scott was illegally coming into a load of money; that Scott was planning to leave the country; and that both of these things had to do with the disappearances of Laura and Vivian. Then it occurred to him to ask, “Did you ever give Laura financial advice of any kind?”
There was a long pause on the other end. “Not that I remember.”
Reggie knew Peter was lying. Not that I remember, is not no. “Come on, Peter. You both worked in finance. You’re telling me when the three of you got together, you never talked shop? Never talked investments?”
“I can’t recall anything like that.” Peter’s voice tightened, rising in pitch.
Why was he lying? Maybe he was in on it with Laura? Maybe all three of them? Shit!
“I don’t believe it. You’re telling me that when the three of you went on sailing trips, you didn’t share stock tips, talk about the NASDAQ, compare real estate prices?”
“Sailing? We never sailed. We did go flying together.”
“Flying? Scott has an airplane?”
“No. No, of course not. He rents out of the Santa Monica airport.”
Reggie nearly slammed down the phone. Why in hell hadn’t he thought of that before? Shit!
* * *
As Reggie turned from Sunset on to the San Diego Freeway, he checked his cell-phone messages. One from Detective Mike Morrison. One from Velma Perkins. The freeway was at a complete standstill. He called Velma first.
“The FBI picked up Li’l Richie in Houston. They’re holding him for us.”
“Fantastic. Do the paperwork, and we’ll send you and Sanchez down to pick him up.”
“God, I could use the break. We’ll interview his brother while we’re down there.” “You’ve done a great job, Velma. You deserve a few days in the sun.”
All of the cars in front of Reggie had their blinkers on to change lanes: No one was moving. He dialed Malibu/Lost Hills.
“I got DNA results back from the arms,” said Morrison. “I took that and the test from Stacy Savage to an expert witness we use over at UCLA. He said he’d want to run it by a colleague, but he was positive both were from the same person.”
Reggie felt flattened. The arms weren’t Laura’s. But they had to be! But they weren’t. Did Scott kill this Stacy girl? Did he kill Vivian? Where was Laura?
The whole fucking case was unraveling.
The traffic crawled. Fuck it! Reggie put on his siren and used the shoulder. He headed west, exited on Bundy, then south to the Santa Monica Airport.
* * *
Connie supposed he was looking after her interests. That’s what lawyers are paid to do, right? Still, she didn’t feel good about it. She didn’t feel good about stealing Laura Finnegan’s Charles Schwab statement from Scott’s apartment. She didn’t want to get involved with the disappearance of a woman she’d never met, a woman whom everyone spoke of with such reverence. She imagined a woman of luminous beauty who never doubted herself, who passed serenely through life like a silk scarf on a wide, placid river. Even Scott’s sister Samantha couldn’t find anything bad to say about her.
But if Connie didn’t want to get involved, why did she swipe Laura’s portfolio statement? She had to admit it was jealousy; she wanted to know about the woman who had such a hold on Scott, wanted to know her secrets, like a little girl rooting through a big sister’s drawers. Her pettiness made her feel ashamed.
After she read the statement—noting Laura’s considerable wealth; and the date, well after Laura’s disappearance; and the address, Culver City, not Marina del Rey, where Laura had lived; and the joint account between Laura and Scott, which had increased by fifty thousand dollars in the last month, funds taken from Laura’s other accounts—she knew she had to give it to the police.
First she called her lawyer, Marty Adler, for an appointment.
Ad
ler was a petite balding fellow with a bit of a gut who rhapsodizes to her about his bicycle rides to Topanga Canyon (a mere four miles on a flat bike path) as if this mildly athletic feat would somehow make him irresistible. He fawned over her and called her his Olympian, and whenever they had an appointment, his secretary and paralegal were always out to lunch and his partner was in court. He made her uncomfortable. Yet he’d guided her through the morass of commercial endorsements, interviews, and job offers that had followed the Olympics, and he was instrumental in building her successful business out of little more than modest celebrity. She had much to be grateful to him for, but she hated the way he squeezed her hand, as if something might flow from her into him, magically transforming him into a seven-foot basketball player.
Adler shared an office suite with his partner, Seth Aaronson, on the fourteenth floor in the Occidental Petroleum Building in Westwood. Aaronson had conventional mahogany-and-maroon-carpet taste, but Adler’s office looked like the bedroom of an adolescent boy: posters of sports heroes, pendants, Plexiglas-encased baseballs, signed photos, and enormous two-toned jerseys. Those jerseys always made Connie take a step back, wondering why in the world anyone would want someone else’s sweaty shirt hanging on the wall.
Sitting behind an enormous desk in front of a picture window that looked out on the Santa Monica Mountains, Adler resembled a child playing grown-up.
After their ritual of hand squeezing, Connie gave the bank statements to him and told him some of the background. He seemed very interested in the joint account. When he asked Connie to define her relationship with Scott, he blushed. She then told him that she was pregnant.
“Connie, Connie, Connie. Do you know how expensive it is to rear a child nowadays?” he asked, tapping his index finger on the desk for emphasis. “Unless you plan to carry your infant around in a sling to visit your clients, you’re going to need full-time child care. Do you have any idea how costly that is? Even if you pay for all the child’s expenses and devote yourself completely, Scott will still have legal rights. Unless you get the court to terminate his parental rights, he can sue for custody at any time until the child is eighteen.”
Connie hadn’t thought about that.
“I don’t have to tell you that rearing a child on your own is an enormous responsibility. It’s too much for one person. Have you thought about the constraints on your personal life? Have you asked yourself whether it’s fair to bring up a child without a father?”
Connie was suddenly furious. Why wasn’t he being supportive? Why wasn’t he happy for her? “Are you suggesting I get an abortion?”
Adler seemed to realize that his emotions were getting the better of him; his face stiffened, and he took a deep breath. “That, of course, is your own decision.”
“I’m keeping the baby,” she said firmly.
He looked at her a long time, like he was running through the outcomes of several scenarios. It was then that he suggested she consider suing for paternity.
Later in the week, after he had researched Scott’s family, Adler called Connie and insisted on a paternity suit; not only was Scott’s family wealthy, he said, but Richard Wyman would no doubt negotiate a settlement to keep his own name out of the papers. If Connie was willing to sue for paternity, Adler said, he’d front the legal fees.
Why did she agree? It went against her better instincts. Because, she admitted, she had a weak character. She’d spent her life mindlessly obeying her mostly male coaches. Now she did what her lawyer and accountant told her to do.
Adler instructed her not to see Scott in any capacity. If Scott called, she was to say she couldn’t speak to him and refer him to her lawyer. So why did she agree to see him at her house? He sounded calm and reasonable on the phone. Charming, as always. What harm could come from it?
She liked Scott. She couldn’t bear his being angry with her. She knew it wasn’t love, but what was it? He drew her to him, pulling her like a magnet. Behind his eyes, which locked in on her, behind his tanned chest and strong arms, there was a nebulous purple-black thing that summoned something out of her, like an oil well pumping black fluid up out of the ocean, something from another lifetime, secrets she didn’t know she had. His call was irresistible. Was it her soul he summoned? When his heavy muscular shoulders lay on top of her, she felt an urgent need to open and sacrifice herself, to let herself be absorbed into him.
It wasn’t love, but she’d never felt this way before. Was it passion? She knew it was dangerous. Yet she wanted it. She thought that maybe if she saw him again, he would say something that would break the spell.
She had a few hours before he was expected. She pulled on a wetsuit top, brushed her hair back in a ponytail, and climbed down the rocks under her deck to where she stored her kayaks. She hoisted the yellow one onto her hip and carried it down to the water’s edge. She hooked in her seat and slid together her paddle; she waited for a break between the waves and shoved off into the water.
She needed the water. It centered her, calmed her. This dark thing that had been unleashed in her connected her to the water in a new way, as if she could feel the ocean floor while she floated above. She grew stronger as she paddled, the undulating power of the ocean flowing into her body.
Here in the water she was safe. Poseidon would let no harm come to his child. The water protected her.
* * *
Reggie parked by one of the old airport administration buildings, now rented to Santa Monica College for extension classes, and walked back to the hangars. A young man in a blue jumpsuit was working on the engine of a two-person Ultra Lite; he turned out to be an instructor at Justin Aviation, which also rented small aircraft. The flight instructor recognized the name Scott Goodsell. He led Reggie back to his office and pulled up his booking sheet on his computer.
“The last time he rented was on April thirteenth. He took out a single-engine Cessna 172N.”
“What’s the baggage allowance on that?”
“A hundred and twenty pounds.”
Reggie inhaled sharply. Big enough for a body.
“Looks like he flew it for about two hours.” The flight instructor tapped the keys at his keyboard. “The airport manager can tell you exactly when he took off and landed. It says here he’s reserved the plane again for tonight at eight.”
Reggie jolted. Vivian was in the morgue. Was he leaving town? Or was he going to kill again? “Is the plane he last rented here?”
“Sure. It’s right over there.” The man led Reggie to a small white plane in the corner of the hangar.
“Could you open the cargo hold?” asked Reggie. He shined a flashlight over the carpeted interior. There was a long brown streak, sixteen inches long, two inches wide. “That looks like dried blood to me.”
The flight instructor’s eyes opened wide.
Reggie whipped out his cell phone and called SID, asking for someone who could give him an on-site blood type.
An hour later, after the SID technician confirmed the smear was blood, which tested A positive, Reggie radioed for a patrol unit to Montana and Fourteenth to pick up Scott Goodsell.
* * *
Don’t panic, Scott told himself. If the police had something on you, they would’ve arrested you already rather than beating around the bush with innuendo.
He had just hung up from a conversation with his mother. She was in one of her wicked-stepmother moods. “Why do the police have Oma’s ring? I want an answer now, and don’t try to lie to me.”
So what the cop said had been true. There was only one explanation, but it made Scott shaky and sick inside.
It’s not too late, he thought. He’d take care of Connie, then fly out of here, down to Mexico. He’d take a commercial plane out of Cancún to Barbados, then to Amsterdam. There he’d wait for Laura. She’d clear it up for him. Then they’d be together forever.
She said she’d wait for him that night he’d become some kind of crazy butcher, her face all weepy as she pulled him inside her apartment.
A body, female, lay face up on the floor, close to the sliding glass doors to the balcony, eyes open. Her neck was at an unnatural angle. Did he know her? No. She was a small woman, dark hair, young, not more than twenty.
When Scott glanced at Laura, she broke down in tears. She hugged herself, pulling her knees together, her back bent, her bare arms trembling. It was self-defense, she said through her sobs. The woman had been harassing Laura, demanding that she leave her boyfriend alone.
“What boyfriend?” Scott asked, blocking a flash of rage.
“I only dated him once. We didn’t sleep together.”
“Calm down, Laura,” he said, trying to calm himself, to silence the buzzing in his ears. “What are you talking about?”
“A friend from work set us up. I thought I should try dating again . . . because we weren’t . . . It doesn’t matter, Scott. His name is Kevin. We went out once. I wasn’t going to see him again, but his girlfriend started calling me every night. She was hysterical. She screamed that I ruined her life, that Kevin broke it off with her, that they had planned to get married. I stopped answering the phone. Then she came over.”
“This evening?”
“Yes. About ten o’clock. I let her in so she could talk it out, but she threw a glass at me. Then she started hitting me and coming at me with these long nails and scratching me. So I . . . I kicked her.” Laura broke down again.
Scott had never seen Laura like this. It tore him apart.
“I did a chest kick, just to knock the wind out of her, like I learned in class, but she’s so short that I hit her chin with my heel. There was this crack . . . Oh, Scott . . . It was horrible, and she fell just like that.”
The irony struck him. She’d learned martial arts to defend herself against him, and now she needed his help to take care of someone she’d killed with a high kick.
Good Morning, Darkness Page 25