by Hal Ackerman
“Stein. What is going on?”
His mind was already ten miles away at the top of Topanga Canyon. The photograph of the one known occupant of the demolished house shown on the TV screen had been unmistakable. Despite its having been taken several years ago, and despite the altered appearance caused by the young man’s wire-rim glasses and beard, there was not the slightest doubt that the missing occupant of the demolished house was Brian Goodpasture.
SIX
A long ribbon of headlights skirted the shoreline from its cinched waist at Santa Monica to its sexy outcropping of hip at Malibu. Stein wove through traffic on Pacific Coast Highway like he was running back a kickoff. He saw that he was doing seventy and willed himself to back off the pedal and breathe. The TV news report had said there had been no casualties. Was that the word they used? Casualties? No, that was too military. Injuries. Yes they must have said injuries. There were no injuries. That was good.
The news report surmised that the explosion had been caused by a clogged gas line to a barbecue. That “some bright [or not so bright] citizen” had kicked dirt over the intake valve while carelessly leaving the gas line open, thereby creating a critical mass that would have required only the slightest spark to combust. Stein knew that was crap. In the twenty minutes he had spent with Goodpasture, he knew that Brian was not a man to make careless mistakes. And anyone who had read Stein’s bible on cannabis horticulture, as Goodpasture had bragged that he had done, would grok that the barbecue grill was not there to roast weenies. He didn’t know what he could accomplish now that whatever had happened had already happened. He did know he might have prevented what happened had he listened to Nicholette Bradley when she said that Goodpasture was in danger.
He banked right off PCH into Topanga Canyon. For decades this had been a Serengeti of lost souls, a game preserve for old hippies, old bikers, old druggies, old acoustic string players. But lately, a new breed of lawyers and music executives had begun to change the ecology. They were the ones who stayed home from Woodstock and now made enough money to say they had been there. From the hot-tubbed patios of their new big houses that drove the natives back into the hills like coyotes, they gave their friends (one of whom was black) he black power salute, reminisced, delusional, about riding shotgun with Angela Davis at the Marin Country courthouse, leading street demonstrations in favor of The Chicago 7, for Bobby Seale and Bobby Kennedy, McCarthy and King.
The turn-off to Eden Rock Road was completely blocked off by police. Fire engines and TV news trucks orbited in tight rings around them. Lights were flashing all over the place and orange cones closed off the road. Stein drove past the cutoff with assumed disinterest, then parked on the side of the road under a clump of eucalyptus trees. The trudge back uphill had him puffing after very few steps. He would have to take himself in hand, he thought. Longevity was not in his bloodline.
Tucked away at the shank end of the media wall, behind all the sleek vans with their microwave towers, Stein found the converted dump truck that bore the hand-painted logo of NOOZ. COM. Molly Marbery was a complete one-woman crew. Barely five-feet tall and ninety pounds, she was strong as a roadie and lugged whatever equipment she needed on her hip. She was bright and tough, an actual investigative journalist. Of course she’d been off TV for ten years since committing the sin of turning forty.
“Stein?” she said, deliberately very out loud, “is that you lurking under the partial cover of overhanging foliage?”
“Luckily, I wasn’t trying to go unnoticed. How ya doing, Mol?”
Molly Marberry and Stein had passed cordially through each other’s lives one pretty summer’s evening a year or two back. “I like the new hairstyle,” he said as he sauntered toward her. “Is it called a pixie cut?”
“Only you would remember when things were called pixie cuts.”
“You’re still cute as a button.”
“Last time we spoke, you were going to find out exactly how cute a button was, and get back to me later that day. Shall I check my service?”
“I guess I owe you a call.”
“Worry not. I cancelled that debt long ago.”
“What’s going on up there?” he asked as if he had just noticed.
“Log on, sign in, and find out with the rest of my followers.”
“No residual privileges?”
“Middle of the road sex only gets you so far.” She loaded the last of her gear onto the truck and offered him a bone. “It looks like a domestic accident.”
“Anybody hurt?”
“Your interest goes suspiciously beyond curiosity, Stein. What the hell are you doing here?”
“Just trying to earn a day’s pay.”
She considered the possibility of that for half a second. “No you’re not.”
She cranked the diesel engine and ground the gears manually into first, stuck her head out the window. “Call me.”
“Really?”
“No.”
She slid into second and was gone.
It was pointless to try to get any closer to the scene without credentials. He scuffled back to where he had left his car and tried to put together what he knew, which was very little: There had been an explosion, possibly accidental. No injuries were reported so he had to deduce that Goodpasture had not been home at the time of the blast. Nor, obviously, had he returned. If it had been an accident, he or someone he knew would have to have seen the news by now. He surely would have come home to survey the damage. But he had not. And that was why Stein’s heart was racing.
He did not have to be there to know this was not just an innocent accident, that Nicholette’s fears had been founded. Just how valuable was that stolen crop of his? Could the thieves have wanted something more? Had they come here to get it? Had Goodpasture resisted, been taken? Or was it a signal to the absent horticulturalist that they-whoever they were-meant business?
The darker thought kept beating at his brain to be let in. It was what Penelope Kim had said about her fictional detective, about his daughter being his kryptonite. He realized that Goodpasture had a kryptonite, too. If somebody had come here wanting something from Goodpasture, and if that person wanted leverage over him, there was one obvious and beautiful place to exert that leverage. Stein took Nicholette’s card from the shirt pocket where Michael Esposito had so recently reinserted it. There, in her perfect handwriting that looked like typescript, Nicholette had written her address under Brian’s. It was right here in the canyon.
The fog became denser as he followed Old Topanga up above the two-thousand-foot level. It was far less developed up here. There were still bats and owls and every few years a bobcat. There was still an old lean-to perched haphazardly across the stream. And the smell of the air was the way God had intended it.
Stein arrived at a cul de sac that was barely longer than a driveway, called Lilac Elevation. Wisps of fog hung like a lace mantle over the swaying elm trees that framed the only house. It was all French doors and windows, a magical, windchimey, gingerbread cottage. An unpaved semicircular driveway led toward the garage on the side of the house that faced out into the canyon, but Stein decided to park on the street. He turned the car around to face back downhill. He didn’t exactly know why. Perhaps to delay going inside.
It was quiet. No stereo. No TVs. Just the breeze and the night birds twittering across the distance. He walked briskly up the inclined drive to the front door. He knocked lightly and called out Nicholette’s name, unsure whether he’d be seen as a savior or an intruder. He waited for a reply and then knocked again. The door was unlocked. He opened it just wide enough to lean through, and called out her name a second time and added, “It’s Stein.”
Ambient light entering through a skylight made the room seem like a fantastical forest. Potted palm fronds reached to the top of the twelve-foot ceiling. Stein experienced the sensation of running water, heard and felt more than seen. A stream to feed the plants, he reckoned. But no, he saw it running across the hardwood floor in a rivulet
onto the porch step, between his feet. He opened the door wider.
His heart quickened as he saw the moonlight reflecting off a long stream of water running the entire length of the hall. Light came from a room beyond the vestibule. He walked silently toward its source. The sound of dripping water became more distinct. He passed through the living room and into the dining room. The kitchen was framed in its archway. He spoke her name again, an announcement of his presence, a request for permission to proceed. There was no reply.
The hallway turned and opened through an archway into a circular room that looked like a gazebo. This was her bedroom. It was slightly elevated, open on three full sides to a sylvan glade. Though it was lighted only by the moon and stars, Stein could see that he was not the first stranger to enter Nicholette’s boudoir tonight. Cushions were uprooted from their place. Clothes were laid out on the floor and all the emptied hangers in the walk-in cedar closet were pushed to one side. Her shoes were out of their boxes, arranged ten deep in five long, neat rows. The floorboards of the closet had been pried up.
The flow of water was not coming from the bathroom as he had thought, but toward it. He followed the water back through the main room and toward the back side of the house. The kitchen was airy and open, designed in Tuscan farmhouse style. Frying pans and utensils hung from ceiling hooks. Broad hardwood counters ran along both sides of the double sink. The floor was red Italian tile.
Nicholette’s tall, naked body was arched backward against the sink. Her skin was bathed in moonlight. Her feet were bound together by rope at the ankles. Her wrists were pulled back above her head and tied to the cornice that framed the window. Her neck was thrown back in an air of Dionysian ecstasy, so that at first glance she could have been dancing or crucified.
The faucet of a beautifully carved brass tube rose elegantly like a swan’s neck from the sink and then down into Nicholette’s beautiful mouth. Water flowed from the tap in a slow steady stream; just slow enough so that one could keep swallowing. For a while. The porcelain sink underneath her head was filled with water. Her hair was splayed out in the water behind her. One eye was open and one closed. Stein wrapped a handkerchief around his fingers and turned off the faucet. Water continued to gurgle down her chin from those exhausted red lips.
The faucet was embedded so deeply down her throat that in order to extract it Stein had to lower her neck down into the sink so that her face was several inches below the water level. He stood her up straight. Her spine was still supple. Rigor had not yet begun. Her skin felt almost alive. He cut her arms loose from their bindings. Her ear was alongside his lips. He apologized to her from the depths of his soul and promised that he would find whoever had done this to her and make them pay. Freed of its tresses, her body fell against him in a swoon. Her arms draped around his neck in a belated gesture of gratitude.
SEVEN
By the time stein emerged from Nicholette’s the fog had lifted and the sky was bright enough for wise men to read the stars. But Stein felt neither wise nor bright. He had already made a dozen amateur mistakes obvious to anyone who had watched even a single episode of a television crime show. He had moved the body. He knew that he shouldn’t have cut her down but he could not bear to leave her in that tortuous position. Partly for her but yes, more for himself. Her body was a finger pointing at him, indicting his cowardice, his hypocrisy. “ Give ’till it feels good.” What a joke. He heard John Lennon’s voice in his head. Instant karma’s gonna get you. Gonna knock you right on your head. You better get yourself together. Pretty soon you’re gonna be dead. What in the world you thinking of… Laughing in the face of love. What on earth you tryin to do? It’s up to you.
He wanted to die or to turn the clock back six hours and say yes to Nicholette instead of being the sticky, smarmy piece of condescending crap he had been. After he cut her down he had held her at the waist with the small of her back braced against the sink. This could not have happened long ago. Her skin was pliant to the touch. The possibility entered his mind that the killer might still be in the house or crouching under the grape arbor, watching him. Nicholette’s weight shifted against his chest, and for one ecstatic instant Stein thought he had brought her back to life by wishing. But it was only the settling of all those gallons of water in her stomach. He seated her gently on the floor and went in search of a blanket or a robe.
He repaired her rampaged bedroom, gathered up scarves, blouses, dresses, shoes, strewn undergarments and carefully folded and replaced them in her drawers. He recognized a familiar scent bearing from under the vanity table underneath her mirror. Her scent. He avoided looking at his reflection. He did not want witnesses. Inside the drawer was a long, bounteous, full-length wig, mesh skullcap woven inside it. He wondered why Nicholette would need such a thing with that amazing head of hair she owned. He replaced the hairpiece into the drawer and closed it. Her portfolio of modeling pictures had been tossed contemptuously aside. He sat on the floor alongside her day bed and opened the book ofenlarged 11?14 color and black-and-white photographs across his lap. He understood in a moment why Penelope Kim had chided him for not knowing Nicholette’s face. She had been on dozens, maybe hundreds, of magazine covers. There was something different about her in every picture, and yet they were all her.
A tan manila envelope was tucked into the back flap of her portfolio with the names “NIKKI amp; ALEX” written in grease pencil. The envelope was imprinted with the photographer’s logo-a camera lens with its aperture open like a flower petal. His name was in the center, David Hart. The envelope contained a cluster of proof sheets and prints stamped “TEST”. Two models were cavorting on the beach, kicking sand at each other and splashing in the waves. “Nikki” was Nicholette. “Alex” was a dark-eyed waif with her head shorn like Sinead O’Connor.
There was a note pad on her night table. The top page was blank but he could see the subtle imprint of messages written on previous pages. He tore the first few pages off and rubbed the top page lightly with the side of a pencil. He held it up to the table lamp and was able to make out impressions written in Nicholette’s calligraphic hand. But too many levels of intersecting words had left their mark for him to make out anything. A metaphor of the information age where the profusion of data creates the illusion of wisdom to the misinformed. He folded the paper carefully between two blank sheets and placed it in his pocket. He returned to Nicholette’s body and draped a red and white kimono over her shoulders.
His second colossal mistake was using the telephone. How stupid would he have to be to call his own home? But in the overwhelming presence of death, he had an irresistible urge to make sure Angie was all right. Of course, yes he knew he should have had a cell phone. It was absurd that he didn’t. Angie had chided him. Penelope Kim had chided him. Once again, it was all vanity. He liked his image of the low-tech throwback in the high-tech world. Eschewing air conditioning and microwaves and driving a car with crank windows.
Angie and Hillary would be back from The Nutcracker by now and no doubt miffed at his absence. Hillary would want to get going, but he knew she wouldn’t leave Angie at Stein’s alone. It had something to do with setting an exemplary standard of responsible behavior. With each passing minute she had to wait Stein could hear Hillary cataloging to Angie her father’s deficiencies of character. But he knew he could not risk calling. The number would imprint on Nicholette’s phone log and when the police made their routine investigation there would be questions. Not to mention the prospect of trying to explain to Hillary what he was doing at a murder scene in the middle of the night.
He was struck with the brilliant idea to call Lila. He’d tell her to call his house on her cell phone and say that they’d stopped somewhere for a birthday drink and had a flat or engine trouble and that he’d be home soon. He couldn’t think of one at this very moment, but he was confident he could concoct for Lila a vaguely plausible reason for her number to have been called. He held the receiver carefully in his handkerchief and used a pencil eraser to ta
p the numbers on the keypad. Lila’s phone rang four times and then her voicemail picked up.
He debated for a moment leaving a message and decided not to. He pressed the eraser against the disconnect button and contemplated his next move. There was nothing more he could do here. He knew that the perpetrators had come in search of something that they had not found. (Yes, plural. It seemed incontrovertible that this had been the work of two.) Surely it had to do with the full crop Goodpasture’s orchids. In all the news reports around the explosion, there had been no mention of a stash of marijuana being discovered. If they had not found what they were looking for at Goodpasture’s, their Plan B was evidently to extract the information from Nicholette by force: Where the stash was or the stasher. Her death told Stein that she had been more loyal and stubborn than smart.
Stein knew he needed to return to Goodpasture’s. But he could not leave Nicholette’s exquisite corpse here to rot. He carefully lifted the receiver in his handkerchief again and tapped in 9-1-1. When the operator answered, Stein gave her minimal information: the address he was calling from and the circumstances of the crime. He did not identify himself when asked to, nor did he stay on the line as requested. He depressed the disconnect key with the eraser. In the very next moment, while the key was still being held down and while the receiver was clutched in his hand, the telephone rang. Stein stared down at the instrument in horror as if he were holding a live hand grenade.
It rang again. His anxiety caused the pencil eraser to slip off the disconnect button, in effect completing the connection, answering the call. Stein’s breath caught in his throat. His first instinct was to hang it up and run like hell. But what if it was Goodpasture calling Nicholette after hearing all of her phone messages? He would be alarmed at the hang-up. He’d call again. Getting no answer he could drive over here, just in time for the police to find him and arrest him as the prime suspect. Stein could not do that to him. He needed to break the news to the young man himself. He owed him at least that much.