by Thomas Perry
But the paintings told her that the owner of the house had real money. Whether paintings like these had been bought or inherited didn’t make much difference, but they made her eager to get past them and see what was in the master suite.
Since the master suite was sure to be the largest, and most likely to be near the rear of the house where the view would be gardens and not streets, she chose the left hallway. There was a skylight above the hallway that threw a dim, eerie light on the paintings hung along the walls. These were a departure from the ones on the landing. They were all women in French classical pastoral scenes. There were plump curly-headed blondes with blushing cheeks, small breasts, and buttocks like mares’ consorting with lascivious cherubs and fauns, bathing in streams, or drying in the sun, their clothes cast aside on rocks or low limbs. Either the paintings were awful or the early morning light did not do them justice, but to Elle all that mattered was that they were expensive.
She reached the door at the end of the short hall. It was an odd door for a private residence. The door was about four feet wide and the hardware made it look like a hotel room. There was a large steel plate that was gilded to look like brass and a six-inch handle instead of a knob. She wondered if the door guarded something other than a bedroom.
She tried the handle and it moved without resistance. She pushed the door open and her muscles clenched. A woman who had not trained herself never to scream when startled might have screamed at that moment. What she saw on the California king bed in front of her was a strange tableau.
There were three people—a man and two women—all naked. They had been engaged in an act that involved the man kneeling behind one woman, who was straddling another woman lying faceup. All three had been shot in the forehead, had collapsed and died where they were, probably instantly, because otherwise they would be lying she was not sure how, but not like this. They looked as though they had all fallen at once in a pile.
At first she’d feared that they were all alive and about to shriek in horror and rage at her intrusion and maybe try to harm her. But then she’d seen that the glistening places on their bodies weren’t healthy sweat; they were blood spatter and leakage.
Elle took a step backward toward the doorway behind her. She couldn’t help keeping her eyes on the three people, gripped by a lingering fear that they weren’t really dead and were about to leap off the bed to catch her if she looked away. But as she reached the doorway, she saw something she hadn’t noticed at first. There was a camera.
It was set up on a tripod in the bedroom about ten feet from the bed, near the wall. Her eyes had not noticed it at first because it had been over there amid the background of paintings and furniture. Had these people been recording the event? And if the camera had been on during the threesome, wouldn’t it still be running? She took one last step through the doorway and stopped. She was out of sight of the camera now. She had to think.
Maybe the camera hadn’t even been turned on. If a camera was in plain sight, then everyone involved would have had to consent, at least tacitly, to being recorded. She stared at the three on the bed. The two women each had a big diamond ring and a plain band on the left hand. Would they have taken the chance that their husbands would see the recording? The man’s left hand had no ring.
The blood had soaked into the bed from the three head wounds, and the red mist of the impacts had sprayed the three, the headboard of the bed, and the wall above it. The shooter must have come in the same way Elle had, since there was no other entrance, and fired the three shots so rapidly that the victims could not disengage. That could happen only if their terror at the first shot caused temporary paralysis in the other two who were still alive. She’d seen this happen to people in violent situations. They seemed to lose their ability to decide what their limbs should do, so their limbs did nothing.
There was a horrible smell to bloody death, a coppery smell and what seemed to be a scent of instant rotting too. It occurred to her that this might have happened a while ago. The blood on the white sheets was mostly bright red like paint, but it had gone thick and syrupy and dark where it pooled.
Elle felt shocked and horrified by this carnage. They had obviously been caught, earning somebody’s rage. She supposed she would have thoughts later about the story of betrayal and selfishness that got them here, but not yet. Looking at them gave her a feeling of sadness and waste—three human beings who had been alive a while ago but weren’t anymore. And they were beautiful specimens in full maturity: two females about thirty to thirty-five, and a male a bit older, forty-five at most.
The male was thin, with long sinewy arms and legs. His was the sort of body she thought of when somebody was said to look like a rock star. His hair wasn’t at all like a rock star’s. It was too short and expensively barbered. She had a feeling that this house was his and that he was not the man either of the women was married to.
She was aware that now was her only time to make a decision. One thing she knew was that it was terribly important not to be on whatever recording was in that camera. Whatever she was going to do had to be done now.
She still wore her latex gloves and baseball cap. She reached for the painting on the wall beside her, another fat, flushed eighteenth-century Frenchwoman at a spring. She lifted it in front of her and stepped into the room again, looking down at the floor all the way to the tripod where the camera was mounted. When she got behind the camera she set the painting down. She could see a tiny indicator light on the back that she assumed meant it was running. She unscrewed the knurled wheel at the bottom of the camera, aimed it away from her, turned the switch off, and put the camera in her fanny pack.
She picked up the painting and hung it back on the wall as she hurried to the hallway and the pull-down steps to the attic. She climbed up to the attic, tugged the steps up after her, and closed the trapdoor. She heel-and-toe-walked to the dormer, climbed out the window, stepped down the roof to its edge, lay down, and slid onto the awning. She moved to the edge, placed her feet above the lid of the black trash can, and dropped.
She remembered to wheel the trash can back to where she’d found it before she went out to the road to resume her run. Her rented Mercedes was some distance away, but her mind was fully occupied in going over everything that had happened. She felt guilty for stealing the camera. The police really should have it. She was withholding evidence that might help them solve the three murders, but she would have to think about that later.
When she reached her house in Van Nuys, she drove the rental car into the second space in her garage and closed the door so it couldn’t be seen. She went inside, opened her laptop computer, and looked up the operating instructions for the camera. When she had read them and was sure she knew how to operate it and not endanger the recording, she started it.
2
Elle was not looking forward to watching whatever was on the camera’s memory card. It wasn’t that she was prudish or overly sensitive about what went on in bedrooms. She was between boyfriends at the moment, but she had not been completely companionless in the recent past. There had been an incident just two weeks ago.
Denny Wilkins, a gym rat she had met in a bar the previous week, had seen her leaving the same bar that night and asked if she’d like a drink.
“I just left a bar, Denny,” she said. “You saw me come out. You don’t know that means I’ve had all the drinks I want?”
“How about getting some food?” he said. “Drinking can make you hungry, and eating helps you sober up. And there are a couple of good late-night places I know.”
“That’s sweet, but I watch my weight, and not eating a fourth meal at night is an easy way to keep weight down.” What she’d said was true. Being a thief required a body that fitted in narrow places and was light enough to go over walls or climb trellises.
“Damn,” he said. “What do I have to do to spend time with you tonight? Do you like movies?”
She said, “As a rule, if you want to take a woman out, you sh
ould call her a few days ahead and invite her. You’re a good guy. I’d have a drink with you, or even dinner, which is a bigger commitment for both of us. Just give me a call sometime.”
“I don’t have your number.”
“Would you like my number?”
“Sure. Yes, please.”
She plucked the phone out of his pocket, maybe a bit too quickly and easily to hide the fact that she was a thief, and typed her name and number in his contact list, then put the phone back. “See? I’m not blowing you off. I’m just busy tonight.”
“Doing what?”
“I’ve got to go pick up some stuff.”
“Where?”
“At a guy’s house.”
“Can I come with you?”
She thought for a second. She had picked out the house a few days earlier on Google Street View. It was big and tempting. When she had cased it, she had decided the owner was away. Denny was nice. She had asked him the night when she’d met him if his blue eyes were tinted contacts, and he had replied that he’d never needed glasses. He was the perfect lookout. And he was in L.A. gym-rat shape, like all of those guys she saw running with no shirts on outside cross-training places. He could probably lift a piano.
She said, “If you want to, but it’s going to be boring.”
“It’ll give us time to talk.”
She clicked open the door to her passenger seat, he got in, and they drove off. He told her about his life before he’d come to L.A.—tales of a kind mother and catty sisters—and his life since he’d come west. That part was mostly “What is this strange place?” All of it she’d heard before from other newly arrived young men. She knew this one would do fine in time, so her sympathy wasn’t strongly engaged. She listened for anything that might indicate he was interesting and actually caught several glimmers of potential. He read nonfiction books, he thought about them, and he was looking hard for an honest job. He was a bit lost and lonely for female company, but from her point of view that was not a bad thing.
She drove past the house, parked two hundred feet away, and told him to wait in the car. “If somebody comes and heads for the driveway or the door, text me.”
“Okay.”
“It doesn’t matter who it is—male or female, alone or in a group.”
“I understand.”
Elle walked up the driveway and around to the back of the house, found a louvered window in the laundry room off the kitchen, bent the aluminum frame with her pocketknife, and slid out six of the slats. She loved louvered windows.
Once she was inside, she only had to worry about stepping through an electric eye’s beam on her way to the master bedroom suite. The house was one of the worst new designs. The interior of the first floor was as vast as a barn. It consisted of a marble floor that led a visitor toward the back of the house between open spaces. It reminded Elle of the giant furniture warehouses that she’d visited, where one space would be furnished with a bar, some barstools, and a café table; the next with a couch, two easy chairs, and a fake television as though it were a living room; and the next with appliances and counters as though it were a kitchen, but with no walls between any of them. She hurried up the narrow stairs to the second floor.
In the master bedroom she found two big closets, but one held only things like golf clubs, tennis rackets, men’s outer clothing, and shoes. There were no dressers.
In the second closet she found the main trove of male clothing. There was an island with a number of very shallow drawers. There was a lock like a desk lock on the top drawer, so she popped it open and found that the other drawers unlocked also. The top drawer held sunglasses—a selection of different brands, styles, and lens colors. The next drawer held condoms, lotions, and lubricants and a set of small vibrators. The third held seven pistols, with some ammunition and loaded magazines for them. There were three small .380s, two full-size variations on the M1911 .45 pistol, a .357 Magnum revolver, and an old-style .38 police special. Another drawer held a collection of men’s watches, all very expensive. There was nothing belonging to a woman in the closet—no jewelry, clothes, or shoes.
Elle found a man’s leather messenger bag hanging on a coat hook on the wall, so she filled it with watches and guns. She left the closet and prepared to explore the bedroom, but she felt her phone vibrate. She looked at the screen.
“Your friend is home.”
She heard the sound of a Porsche engine gearing down and then silence. She began to run.
Over the years she had learned to retreat the way she had entered. It diminished the chance for surprises. She sprinted through the big house and found that the open-floor plan helped her increase her speed. When she reached the laundry room she stood on the dryer, gripped the frame of the louvered window, got both legs up and over, turned, and dropped to the pavement.
As soon as her feet hit, she saw the man jump from the back steps into her path. He held a pistol in his right hand and he was raising it as though to shoot her. She wondered whether she could reach into the messenger bag and pluck a gun out in time to change her fate, but her eye caught a quick movement behind the man, and there was Denny in the driveway too. Denny’s left forearm hooked around under the man’s chin and his right hand wrenched the pistol out of the man’s grip and tossed it somewhere behind him into the shrubbery. The forearm tightened, and Denny’s right hand grasped his wrist. After about ten seconds, Denny stepped backward and draped the man’s limp body on the pavement.
Elle stepped close, looking down at the man. “Oh my god. Is he dead?”
“Of course not. I just choked him out. Hey, did you just come out of a window?”
“It’s a long story. He’s a close friend of my cousin, and I promised I’d pick up this stuff from him today at the latest, but I couldn’t get here until night, and he must have gone out and then thought I was a prowler. The whole gun thing is really out of hand, don’t you think? He could have killed me. I really don’t want to talk to him right now. He’s lucky I don’t call the police on him.”
She clutched Denny’s arm and tugged him in the direction of the car, but it was like tugging a statue. Then he got the idea and went with her. She got in the car and started the engine. As soon as Denny’s bottom touched the seat, she drove. Denny let the acceleration shut his door, found his seat belt, and buckled it.
“Are you sure he’s alive?” she said.
“Yes.”
“Where did you learn to do that?”
“I was on the wrestling team in college. It’s one of the things you’re not allowed to do.”
“I’m not surprised.” She thought about what had just happened and about Denny. She said, “Where’s your apartment?”
He told her, and she drove there. She hid the messenger bag in the car trunk in the wheel well, locked everything, and went inside with him and up the stairs.
Later, when she was telling her friend Sharon the story, this was where she stopped.
“What happened?” said Sharon.
“What do you think happened?” Elle said. “He knowingly faced an armed man and disabled him with his bare hands to save my life. None but the brave deserve the fair.”
“You did him? Right then and there?”
“You’re quarreling with the time and place?”
“No. The circumstances. I’m slut-shaming you.”
“He is a clean, decent, attractive man who hit on me over a week earlier and had been bugging me to go out with him that evening. He deserved something for saving me. I knew what he wanted more than anything, so I made his wish come true, like the good fairy.”
“The really good fairy,” Sharon said. “So now what?”
Elle sighed and shook her head. “When he was in the bathroom later I took my phone number off his phone.”
“That’s more like you. I’m surprised you slept with him, though.”
“Let’s just say it wasn’t torture. And did I forget to tell you he saved my life? If my life weren’t worth that much to me,
then I wouldn’t deserve to have it. Life is precious.”
Elle watched the recording of the activities in the house where she had stolen the camera this morning, speeding through about twenty minutes focused on a series of paintings. There was a male voice that droned on about each one. The voice would say the name of the artist, the title of the painting, and the year and then add some anecdotal tidbit. There would be a pause for a still shot. Then the camera would be lifted on its tripod to the next painting and the process repeated.
This continued until there was a ringing sound, like a doorbell. The man appeared in the frame, lifted the camera on its tripod again, carried it with some dizzying moves to a place across the room. She could see him leaving the room, then hear his footsteps descending the stairs quickly. This was followed by a motionless shot of the empty master bedroom for about a half hour. The bed was neatly made, with hospital corners and blindingly clean white sheets and pillowcases. There was a tall wooden dresser that matched the bed and was about as wide. The paintings she had seen were all hanging on the wall on the far side of the bedroom, past the bed.
She had noticed that the paintings on the walls inside the bedroom were different from the ones in the hallway. These were mostly late nineteenth-century oils of sailboats under bright white clouds and blue skies, scudding along on the ocean off what looked like New England. They went well with the plain antique furniture in the room, particularly the unpadded straight-backed chairs along the wall below them.
Above them was a big old-fashioned Southern California window that opened on hinges and had white shutters. It looked out on a sunny garden with a stone wall covered by red, orange, and magenta bougainvillea vines. From Elle’s perspective the planting was smart, because while bougainvilleas were revered for their radiant colors, burglars knew they had long, spiky thorns. Elle remembered that she’d seen an identical window on the other side of the room behind the camera and more paintings like the ones that had been recorded. Elle waited awhile, watching the unchanging recording, and then sped up the playback.
