Dead and Not So Buried

by James L. Conway

  “Actually, it’s the answer to the question: why doesn’t the human skull make an effective bottle opener?”

  “The Mondavi connection, no doubt. Why am I thinking today didn’t go so well?”

  “Looking at your half-packed suitcase, I’m wondering if today is also my last day as a husband.”

  “No,” she said, with a rare smile. “I’ve got a three-day FBI seminar at Quantico. I hit the friendly skies first thing in the morning.”

  “FBI seminar? Guess I didn’t fuck up your career as much as you feared.”

  “No? I wasn’t on the first manifest. But every other homicide detective in the division was. So I raised holy hell until they added me.” She stopped packing and looked at me, started to say something, stopped herself.

  “Go ahead, say it,” I said.

  “Okay, Gideon, you asked for it: you not only fucked up your career and my career, you totally fucked up your life. Somehow you’ve gone from a good cop to a careless vigilante to a wine soaked PI.

  What’s the next floor on your descent into hell—standing at freeway entry ramps holding a cardboard sign that says, ‘Will snoop for food?’ ”

  So much for dodging the issues. Then Stacy’s eyes went from me to the door. “Who the hell’re you?”

  I turned to find an embarrassed Lisa. I wasn’t sure how long she’d been standing there, but from her look of pity, I knew it had been long enough to hear Stacy’s attack.

  “That’s Lisa,” I said, “my client.”

  “He wasn’t drinking,” Lisa said, coming to my defense. “He got hit with a wine bottle trying to help me.”

  “Help you what, survive a wine-tasting party gone bad?”

  “She’s being stalked.”

  Stacy looked at Lisa but pointed at me. “And he’s the best protection you could find?”

  Lisa was intimidated by Stacy, but still managed to say, “Gideon’s doing a wonderful job.”

  “Of course he is,” Stacy said, condescendingly.

  “I don’t think Lisa should go home until I’ve caught her stalker. I told her she could stay here tonight.”

  Stacy looked at Lisa, softened her tone. “You really being stalked?”

  A scared nod of the head.

  Stacy did an emotional one-eighty. Her face suddenly softened as she put a comforting arm around a surprised Lisa.

  “Well, don’t worry, you’re safe here. Gideon, bring her things into the guest room.”

  You see, Stacy wasn’t always a heartless bitch. But as they walked down the hallway, I heard Stacy tell her, “Gideon wasn’t always a total loser. He was a great cop until he lost his mind.”

  “You have an interesting wife.”

  “I might use a different adjective to describe her—a lot of adjectives, now that I think about it—but ‘interesting’ isn’t one of them.”

  “She’s the first woman I ever met with a tattoo of a hand grenade on her ankle.”

  Lisa and I were walking across the Universal Studios lot, just passing the commissary on our way to the Rock Hudson building. Lisa had already been hired for her next movie, Heaven Sent, a romantic comedy about a statue of the goddess Athena coming to life and falling in love with a recently widowed NFL Quarterback. We’d spent the day doing movie related stuff—wardrobe fittings, make-up tests, and publicity shots. I’d been by her side through it all, keeping a wary eye out for our stalker. So far, so good. The casting session was our last stop. There were five actors auditioning for the role of the Quarterback. Lisa was going to read with them for the producer and director.

  “She showed you her tattoo? You guys must’ve really bonded.”

  “Not really. She’s a little cynical for me.”

  “She gave you her ‘mankind is spiraling toward oblivion’ speech.”

  “Right after she told me the only lasting solution to crime in the streets is summary execution by the arresting officer. She was kidding, right?”

  No way, I thought. “Of course,” I said.

  As we neared the stucco bungalow, I saw a handful of hunky actors pacing back and forth, script pages in hand, silently rehearsing.

  “I usually hate auditions,” Lisa mused. “I get so stressed out my hands shake like that poor Katie Hepburn’s.”

  “But not this time.”

  “This time I’ve already got the job, so I’m actually looking forward to it.”

  That’s when it happened. One of the actors suddenly lunged toward Lisa. She screamed. I spun, stepped in front of the man.

  He was big, bigger than I remembered the stalker being. But I’d only seen him for an instant. And his hair was short. But he could’ve cut his hair after our little run-in. Better safe than sorry.

  I put my hands on his well-developed shoulders and said: “That’s close enough.”

  “Fuck you, bozo,” he growled, trying to shove me out of the way.

  Not smart. First of all, my head still hurt from the wine bottle last night. And you already know about my well-documented funk, so I was looking forward to releasing a little aggression.

  I threw a right cross, but he surprised me, easily slipping the punch, ducking to his left. I wondered how he’d done that, until he set his hands—right hand lead, his left hand cocked.

  He was a southpaw.

  No problem, I thought, remembering what Thumbs Nickerson, my Golden Gloves coach, taught me as a kid. Fight the mirror. Right hand, left hook. One, two. I stepped inside, throwing a right jab. As the guy instinctively raised his right hand to block it he exposed the right side of his face. I drove a thundering left hook into jaw. He staggered, stunned, and I moved in for the kill. A quick shot to the kidney bent him over, an uppercut mashed his nose, a right hook loosened his teeth, and a left cross sent him on his ass.

  I was moving in for a little more therapy when Lisa grabbed me by the arm and howled, “Gideon, stop!”

  I barely heard her. Blood was pounding in my ears, adrenaline coursing through my veins. That primordial bloodlust simmering just below the surface of every man had been unleashed, and it was going to take more than a few puny ‘Gideon stops’ to slow me down.

  I grabbed the son of a bitch by the shirt, hauled him to his feet and cocked my right for another punch. Suddenly two sets of arms wrapped themselves around me, pulling me off the actor. I turned to find that the arms belonged to two security guards.

  “What’s going on here?” the one with sergeant stripes asked.

  I pulled free from their grip and pointed a finger in the actor’s face. “He’s been stalking my client!”

  “I haven’t been stalking anybody. Lisa’s my friend!”

  Me, to Lisa: “He is?”

  Lisa, to him: “You are?”

  Security guard, to him: “Well, are you?”

  Him, to us: “Yes!” Now, to Lisa: “Roy Cooper. Remember, Lisa, Georgia State, your freshman year ...”

  The confused cloud across Lisa’s face suddenly cleared. Recognition, then something else flitted, across those green eyes; it was quick, and you had to be looking to catch it, but it was unmistakable: humiliation. Then that beautiful face seemed to regain control. Surprise took center stage and introduced embarrassment. “My God, Roy Cooper, of course.” To me: “Gideon, this is Roy. We studied theater together in college. Even went out once or twice. Isn’t that right, Roy?”

  “If I knew you’d turn out this beautiful, we’d still be going out.”

  “Aren’t you sweet? You see, Gideon? Roy’s no stalker.”

  Just because they’d studied Shakespeare and painted scenery as undergraduates didn’t mean Roy hadn’t grown up to be a nut case, so I asked him, “Where were you last night between nine and midnight?”

  “None of your fucking business.”

  “Now, Roy,” Lisa purred in that sweet southern drawl of hers, “let’s not get all cave man. Once you convince Gideon you’re as innocent as a baby lamb these nice security guards will let you both go, and we can get on with the audition. You ar
e here to audition for Heaven Sent, aren’t you?”

  “Yeah,” he said, sourly. He hated to back down, give me anything, but he realized it couldn’t hurt to get on Lisa’s good side before the audition. “I was in Vancouver yesterday, working on Supernatural. We shot until just after midnight. I flew back on the United Shuttle this morning.”

  Lisa looked at me. “Sounds innocent enough.”

  It did. I’d been a cop long enough to know the truth when I heard it. And now that I’d had a good, long look at him, Roy Cooper was much taller than the Stalker—at least six foot two or three. Still, I wasn’t ready to give him anything. “I’ll check it out.”

  Lisa turned to the security guards. “There, you see? We’re all friends again. So if you gentlemen don’t have an objection, I’d love to get back to work and find out which one of these deliciously handsome men is going to be my leading man.”

  Breaking up the fight was probably the high point of the year for these rent-a-cops, so I think they would’ve liked to milk the moment a little longer, but the horse was dead and not worth beating. “All right,” Sergeant stripes said, “as long as nobody wants to file a report.”

  We both shook our heads.

  “Excellent,” Lisa said, thrilled. “Let the auditions begin!”

  “He nailed it,” the director said. “It’s like the part was written for him.”

  “Ditto,” the producer said, “I knew it the minute he walked in the door.”

  “Home run,” the writer said, “Roy Cooper is the Quarterback.”

  I sat in the back of the conference room. The five hopefuls had read with Lisa, and I had to admit it, even though Roy was a bit battered and bruised from our fight, he had done the best job. There was a certain arrogance to the guy, a cockiness that came through every line. It gave him the kind of blind self- confidence endemic to so many jocks.

  The producer turned to Lisa. “And you know the guy. It couldn’t be more perfect! Think of the PR opportunities: ‘College sweethearts reunited on the silver screen!’ If you two actually hooked up again, we’re talking cover-story heaven.” He clasped his hands in front of him in prayer. “It’s moments like this that convince me there really is a God.”

  “Me, too,” Lisa said. “So let me make myself absolutely clear. I will not work with Mr. Roy Cooper. If you want to cast him, that’s okay with me.

  Just release me from my contract and I’ll be on my way.”

  “Wait, hold on,” a panicked director said. “We’d much rather have you than Roy Cooper, or any actor for that matter. You are the star of this picture. We won’t cast anybody you don’t want to work with.”

  “None of the other guys had the chops,” the producer said.

  “Then we’ll keep looking,” the director said. “Right, Lisa?”

  “As rain.” Lisa started for the door. I followed.

  “Just one question,” the producer said. “Why? What do you have against Roy?”

  She tossed him a coy smile. “A girl’s got to have her secrets ...”

  She started crying over her beer—her third Amstel Light. We were in my living room, watching the NBC Nightly News, when a sob wracked her body. A sob so full of suffering it broke my heart. In fact, I was surprised by the intensity of my own distress. I wanted more than anything to make her feel better. I wanted to take her in my arms, put her head on my shoulder, and tell her that I’d protect her. Tell her that nobody or nothing would ever hurt her again.

  What a sap! I’ve heard thousands of women cry over the years. It comes with the territory, if you know what I mean, and your soul kind of crusts over when it comes to the weeping part of a case.

  But the sight of Lisa crying tore at my guts. I knew why. I was falling for her. It didn’t take Freud or Jung or Jonathan Kellerman, for that matter, to figure out what was happening here.

  My wife, Stacy, represented everything I’d been, all the bullshit that had finally driven me over the edge.

  My client, Lisa, represented all the innocence and good that the future might hold. Not to mention irresistible looks and a killer body. Although I wasn’t ready to make a pass at her, I did want to do something to ease her pain. I zapped off the TV, grabbed a handful of Kleenex and sat next to her on the couch. Handing them over, I asked, “Want to talk about it?”

  “No.”

  A respectful beat, then, “It happened in college, right? Whatever he did to you.”

  A nod of the head.

  “You thought screwing him out of the job would make you feel better?”

  “Yes.”

  “It didn’t, did it?”

  She laughed through her tears. “No, it did make me feel better. But it also brought up a lot of old feelings I thought I’d put behind me a long time ago.”

  “Pain never goes away, it just hides. I lost both my parents when I was a kid. Cried for months, then slowly got over it. Years later, I was driving my black and white past Griffith Park and I saw this family—father, mother, and ten-year-old son. The father had a picnic basket, the mother carried a blanket, and the kid had a Frisbee. They were all laughing, having a great time. Right out of Norman Rockwell. Well, it rang a wakeup bell somewhere in my subconscious, and suddenly I was crying. My partner thought I was nuts, but something about that tableau awakened the beast, and grief came crawling out of the cave.”

  “How did they die, your parents?”

  “They were shot in a robbery.”

  “You poor baby.” She sobbed again.

  I took her in my arms, put her head on my shoulder and stroked the back of her head. “It’s okay. Let it out. Let it all out.”

  And she did. She cried for five full minutes—a deep, soul rattling expulsion of emotion and tears. All I could think of was how good she felt in my arms.

  Finally the tears stopped, her breathing slowed, steadied; then: “He swept me off my feet my freshman year. He was a junior, and I was this naïve little virgin from itty bitty Braswell, Georgia. We met at the first rehearsal for Othello. He was Iago. I had one of those slave labor jobs freshmen get—a wardrobe mistress or some such thing.

  “I was in the back of the theater watching the run-through, when he suddenly saw me sitting there. He stared at me for a few seconds then stopped the performance, jumped off the stage, and ran up to me. ‘What’s your name?’ Lisa Ann Montgomery,’ I said. ‘Well, Lisa Ann, you are the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen and I’m going to marry you.’ I practically swooned right then and there. He took me to dinner, filled me with white wine and compliments, took me dancing at the Starlight, kissed me while Nora Jones sang some sweet song, and walked me across campus, hand in hand, under a full moon. He told me I was his soul mate, that fate had steered our destinies so that we would find ourselves in the same place at the same time.

  “Back to his frat house, more wine, more slow dancing. I could feel his breath on my neck, his tongue in my ear, his thing rubbing against my thing. I was hot. I felt dizzy, drunk, disoriented. Suddenly I was convinced he was my soul mate, that fate had been working overtime and it would be rude at the very least not to consummate this monumental event. Next thing I knew I was in his bedroom, he was pulling off my clothes and ... that, as they say, was that.

  “The next morning I called Mama to tell her I’d met the most wonderful man and was going to marry him. Then I called Susie McConnell, my best friend who got sent to Smith by her rich banker daddy, and told her. Then I called my sister Lizzy. I was so happy I felt like calling complete strangers and telling them. Only one problem, Roy didn’t call me.

  “When I went to rehearsal that night he didn’t even look at me. I tried to find him afterwards; he was gone. I called the frat house, and they said he wasn’t there. The next day he didn’t call me, either, and ignored me at rehearsal again. He tried to slip out a back door afterwards but I grabbed him. I was so upset, I started crying right off. ‘Roy, I’m sorry,’ I say, ‘what’s the matter? What’ve I done?’ God, can you believe it, I actually th
ought I’d done something wrong! Well, he said, ‘Look, babe, it was just a fling. A night of fun. Don’t go reading anything more into it.’ ‘But you said we were soul mates,’ I blubbered like a fool. ‘You wanted to marry me!’ He was so stupefied by my naïveté that he was speechless; then I guess the only thing he could think to say was the cold, hard truth. ‘Look, Lisa, I just wanted to get laid, so I said whatever it took. Nothing personal.’ ”

  Her eyes were spurting tears again. “He fucked with my mind, stuck his cock in me, broke my heart and told me it’s nothing personal!” I handed her the last tissue in the box and she stemmed the tide. “Anyway, I was so humiliated I couldn’t tell Mama, Suzie or Lizzy the truth. So I carried out this imaginary romance with Roy, giving them all the loving details by phone. After three months I told them we were having trouble, and a week later I told them we’d broken up. To this day they don’t know what really happened.”

  “Maybe you can tell them now that you’ve gotten your revenge.”

  “No. I’m more ashamed of lying to them for so long than I am about that scum bucket dumping me. I think I’ll just let sleeping lies lay. Okay,” she said, finishing her beer. “Now it’s your turn.”

  “For what?”

  “True confessions. How’d you lose your virginity?”

  “I can’t tell you that.”

  “You’ve already told me you planted evidence in a murder investigation. That’s a felony, if I’ve got my John Grisham right, so what harm could a little sexual tell-all do?”

  “My first time wasn’t pretty.”

  “And mine was?”

  She had me there, so ... “Her name was Della Lovett. I’d had a crush on her since the seventh grade but she’d always had a boyfriend. The one time she was free I was dating this girl, and we didn’t hook up.

  “The summer before senior year in high school she was dating a friend of mine, Bobby Wolper. And lo and behold, she got pregnant. Bobby did the ‘proper’ thing and married her. Della stayed in school, but Bobby dropped out and got a job working at the Texaco. They moved into a tiny studio apartment and tried to act like husband and wife. Only they weren’t in love, and by this time Bobby was so pissed at Della for ruining his life that he’d started to hate her. He stayed out late and ignored her when he finally did get home.