“All right, listen up,” I told Baby. “We’ve got to get our story straight.”
Chapter 42
Jacob Kanular put down his sandpaper and blew the sawdust off the surface of the jewelry box. He had begun teaching woodworking at the community college five years earlier, when Beaty started kindergarten—his days had felt empty without her crashing and bashing playfully around the house. A lot of the young men and women he taught were underprivileged high school dropouts or juvie regulars, but he’d run a tight ship from day one. He’d refused to let anyone go at the end of class if the workshop wasn’t up to scratch. For a couple of weeks, this had resulted in a lot of complaining. Slowly, however, it had made for disciplined and organized students who put tools on racks and brushed off machines, swept the floor until it was bare. He stood now in one of his immaculate classrooms, working at an otherwise spotless bench.
The box he was making for Beaty had a big knot right in the center of its lid. A lot of people who worked with wood would have called the placement unsightly. But Jacob liked knots. This one was a dark circle coiling in on itself, narrowing to an unseen eternity. His old teacher—a guy in Alaska whose body he had eventually fed into an industrial mulcher—had taught him that knots formed when the trunk of a tree thickened and enclosed the base of its branches, expanding over any lower branches that had dropped off, sometimes because they had been starved of sun. To Jacob, the scarred lumps inside the stretching, yawning, living tree were representations of the beauty in imperfect, lost, fallen, unrealized things. Many a branch that eventually formed a knot had begun to grow in a certain way and was interrupted, killed, banished to darkness. While others grew, these branches were sacrificed.
He knew Neina was there long before a less dangerous man would have. He’d heard her footsteps among the dozens of others moving about as classes broke for lunch outside his empty room. A lifetime of hunting men had given him that ability, and while the ability had lain dormant for many years, Derek Benstein’s death had gotten the old machine running again. He smelled her too as she entered the doorway. The scent of hospital soap, trying to combat days spent at a darkened bedside.
She tried to sweep the box off the counter as she came in, but he slammed a hand down on its lid before she could. When her gesture failed, she took aim at his face, smacking Jacob hard. He bore the blow silently and stiffly, though the predator inside him ruffled like a disturbed bird of prey.
“She showed brain activity,” Neina said. “And you weren’t there.”
Jacob smoothed the box with his hands. He took up the sandpaper and turned the object on its side, rubbing down the front of the lid.
“What was it?” he asked.
“A small electrical pulse in the amygdala,” Neina said. “The…the primal control center of the brain. Less than a second. But they got it. It was there.”
“If her amygdala’s working and not much else, she’ll wake up a vegetable,” Jacob said.
That got to her. Neina threw herself at him, raged against his chest. He grabbed hold of her until she stopped.
“What the fuck is wrong with you?” she screamed.
He couldn’t even begin to explain. Something had always been wrong, he supposed. There was a door in his mind, and behind it, nightmarish things lived. He’d discovered the door as a teenager, when his mother and brother were crushed between two semitrailers in a car accident. From then on, he’d begun opening the door and tossing hurtful and violent and disturbing things behind it, until he realized as an adult that those things hadn’t disappeared. They had grown and twisted together and spawned new things.
Whenever he opened the door and let the things out, he could commit deadly acts, like pushing a man he respected and loved into a wood mulcher or ignoring his child in her hospital bed.
“I know what you’re doing,” Neina said.
“You couldn’t possibly know,” he said.
“Oh, you’d be surprised,” she said. She was standing apart from him now, brushing off her bare arms as though his touch had made her dirty. She didn’t say any more, but he could sense the rest of it. You’d be surprised what a woman can tolerate, ignore, deny. She straightened. “They asked me today if you’re beating me.”
He said nothing.
“One of the social worker types. She was very discreet,” Neina said. “She gave me a card with a number to call. Told me to hide it. Other people can see it in you now. They can see that you’re dangerous. You think perfect strangers can see it and I can’t?”
“It’s nothing for you to worry about,” he said. “Go back and sit with Beaty. I’ll be done soon.”
“This isn’t what I want,” Neina said. “I want my family back together.”
He knew she was crying, but he wouldn’t look. Jacob began sanding the box again.
Chapter 43
By the time the SWAT team had evacuated the school and handed the parking lot crime scene over to the local police, it was sunset outside the Stanford-West Academy. Baby sat on the curb with her chin in her hands, her phone for once forgotten in the handbag at her feet. Neither Ashton nor Miss Go Fuck Yourself had been among the crowds that eventually came around to gawk.
I’d offered a range of explanations about the Buick Skylark’s explosion to the officers who’d approached me as the hours passed. I’d feigned flat-out confusion. I’d claimed the car was possessed by an angry demon, or by the ghost of my deranged father. My words initially managed to shut down further explorations by the authorities of what had happened. The men and women who dealt with the scene seemed simply relieved that there had been no one seriously injured.
While I waited for another round of questioning, I stood in the corner of the lot and watched a forensic photographer unload equipment from his car. Sometimes it’s the people on the sidelines, those quiet, unobtrusive workers, who offer the most assistance when working an investigation—the photographers, crime-scene sketch artists, cleanup crews, and junior officers who work crowd control. I had learned from many years of experience looking for witnesses and new angles on my cases that these people were far more useful than the higher ranking, more “important” people involved in solving a crime.
I approached as the photographer was clipping a lens to the front of the camera hanging around his neck.
“Ma’am.” He smiled, showing bright white teeth. “How many dead?”
“None,” I said.
“Oh.” He seemed a little disheartened.
“It’s my car that exploded.” I pointed. “So I’m having a terrible day. How do you like the idea of doing a favor for a woman who could use some cheering up?”
“Depends on what it is.” The guy smirked.
“You must know some other crime-scene photographers in town, right?”
“Sure.” He shrugged. “Couple of guys I know who work up north.”
“Do you know who worked the shooting in Trousdale Estates last night? The teenager?”
“Maybe.” He shrugged again. “Why?”
“I’m just interested in those pictures.”
“You a journalist?” he asked.
“Maybe.” I mimicked his shrug. I reached into my pocket and pulled out my wallet. I’d taken some cash from the three-million-dollar bundle of trouble now hidden in my father’s bathroom. I fanned them discreetly for the photographer. “Does it matter?”
“Nope,” the photographer said. He had the money and my business card smuggled inside his chest pocket in a flash. This was someone used to making the maneuver. “I’ll get in touch.”
I headed back to the smoking wreck of my car. I knew I was in trouble when a new officer approached. He strode toward me across the lot in what was the most formfitting police uniform of the day, a pitch-black outfit that hugged his enormous muscular frame. It was obvious that Los Angeles police officers had a thing about appearances. I’d seen a number of them check their reflections in the cars around me while they guarded the wreck of my vehicle.
Officer Summerly’s name badge gleamed in the setting sun, making me squint as he stood squarely in front of me. This didn’t seem like a man who was going to be as easy to manipulate as the crime-scene photographer. He was not going to be easily brushed off with strange tales about the explosion like his fellow officers had been.
“Okay.” Summerly took off his cap and wiped sweat from his temples with a stark black handkerchief he had taken from his trouser pocket. “Let me hear it.”
“Ejector seat,” I said.
“Excuse me?”
“The car is a retired stunt car,” I lied, looking at the smoking wreck. “Or it was. The car was mechanically altered in preparation for a small film that was supposed to be shot in Watkins, Colorado, in 1993. The Adventures of Leopardo Smith. You ever hear of it?”
“Wha—No.” Summerly shook his head like he had water in his ears.
“Leopardo was a spy. The ejector seat was a security measure, for if he was ever cornered by villains in his car,” I said. “There was a whole scene scheduled where a henchman would attack him from the back seat, and he’d shoot to safety. I bought the car off the lot when the film’s funding was withdrawn. I guess after all these years the mechanism exploded. Maybe the heat here in Los Angeles set off the…the ignition plugs, or whatever.” I shrugged helplessly.
Summerly scratched his blond, neatly shorn hair. He put his cap back on and breathed in deeply.
“Lady,” he said. “That’s the most incredible thing I’ve ever heard.”
“I know, right?” I laughed. “Lucky no one was injured.”
“No, I don’t mean incredible like amazing.” Summerly put a hand up. “I mean incredible like in-credible. You say that’s a stunt car? It had an ejector seat that accidentally exploded? You expect me to believe that?”
Summerly waited. I didn’t respond. He turned and pointed to the officers milling around behind him.
“See that officer over there? Name badge says Hammond?”
“I see her,” I said.
“She says you told her you ran over a can of gasoline.”
“It’s possible I said that.” I nodded.
“That officer over there by the tree says you told him your car was possessed by a malevolent spirit.” Summerly pointed.
“Mmm-hmm.” I nodded again. Baby was listening carefully from the curbside.
“That officer tells me you stated to him that you’d accidentally filled the steering fluid valve with plant fertilizer,” Summerly said.
“Yes,” I said.
“And for me”—he gave a frustrated laugh, tapped his chest—“you come up with this…this ejector seat tale?”
“I saved the best for last,” I said.
“What really happened here, Miss…” He jutted his chin at me.
“Bird. Rhonda.”
“Bird.” He clicked the top of a shiny black pen, slipped a notebook from his chest pocket. He set the pen to the page. “From the beginning.”
“No comment,” I said.
Summerly lifted his eyes from the notebook. I noticed that they were the color of dark chocolate.
“Are you kidding me?”
“No,” I said, putting my hands in the pockets of my tattered jeans. “I have no comment for you. I don’t have to make a statement on what happened here today. I wasn’t even legally obliged to give you my name. But I did, because I’m nice.”
“Oh, God.” Summerly sighed. His whole body deflated slightly. “A lawyer.”
“That’s right.”
“Your car exploded in a school parking lot, Miss Bird,” Summerly said. “You have to tell us what happened.”
“No, I don’t,” I said.
“Yes, you—”
“Are you going to charge me with a crime?”
“Hell yeah, I am.” He laughed again. He took a pair of gleaming handcuffs off his belt.
Chapter 44
Summerly brandished the cuffs in one hand. “Unless you tell me who blew up your car, then, yes, I’ll charge you. This is…uh. Well, it’s public endangerment, at least. Child endangerment. It’s probably a misuse of explosives. It’s lying to police.”
“I haven’t lied to the police.”
“All of your stories are conflicting!”
“Well, how do you know I don’t believe they’re all true at the same time?” I shrugged. “I might be crazy. Traumatized. Concussed. You would have to prove my intent to purposefully deceive you in a court of law to make that charge stick, Officer Summerly.”
Summerly opened his mouth and closed it again, glancing around the parking lot as though looking for help. He shook his head and laughed again. I liked the sound of his laughter. It was heavy and husky and strong.
“You’ve caused a lot of damage here to other vehicles, to that building over there,” he said.
“An accident on private property,” I said. “Not a criminal act. My compensation of the Stanford-West Academy for the damages I may’ve caused is between me and them.”
“Miss Bird, when I examine this car—”
“You don’t get to examine my car,” I said.
“What?” Summerly squinted.
“I don’t give you permission. And under the search and seizure laws of this state—”
“You can’t be serious. It’s a piece of evidence.”
“Only if there’s a crime,” I said. “So I’ll ask you again. Are you going to charge me with a crime?”
Officer Summerly’s eyes wandered over my face. I could see his mind whirling, trying to find an out. I’d cornered him. He took a step closer and lowered his voice, beckoned me into a two-man huddle. I went willingly.
“You know what I think happened here?” he asked.
“Please tell me.” I smiled.
“A couple of months ago,” he murmured, “Danny Trejo and Benicio Del Toro, I think it was, were in this action movie where they played Mexican cartel guys. Their signature move was to rig explosives under the driver’s seat in people’s cars. I saw the movie. Good movie.”
I waited, listening. I could smell Summerly’s sweat after a long day spent rounding up the bad and the ugly in Los Angeles.
“Bombs in cars haven’t ever been a cartel thing in real life,” Summerly said. “The IRA used to do it, across the pond. And the Italian mob used to do it back in the sixties. But ever since that movie came out, there’s been a rash of copycat car bombings all over the southwest, as far east as Arkansas.”
“Okay.” I shrugged. “So what’s that got to do with me?”
“Are you tied up with a cartel, Miss Bird?”
“No comment.” I smiled.
Summerly backed up. He took off his hat again and fanned his face.
“Look, Miss Bird, it has been a long, hot shift,” he said. “My last stop was a dog stuck in a crawl space under an industrial oven in a bakery. I’m dirty, sweaty, hot, and tired. I just want to go home.”
“So go home,” I said. “There’s no crime here. Your presence is no longer required.”
Summerly gave up. He took a card from the back of the notebook and slapped it into my palm. DAVID SUMMERLY.
“When you’re ready to talk, call that number.”
Baby appeared beside me as Summerly departed. She caught me checking out the officer’s ass as he walked away.
Chapter 45
“You were into that guy,” Baby said as our Uber turned off onto the Pacific Coast Highway toward Manhattan Beach.
“Oh, please.” I snorted. “I’m a lawyer. Any mystique or allure men in uniform might’ve had for me wore off many years ago.”
“Not that guy in uniform,” she said.
“Don’t be such a smart-ass.”
“What? He was into you too, I think,” she said. “I feel like I know him from somewhere, but I don’t know where. Anyway, he seemed nice. And he’s a good size for you. You’d need a big guy. He was built like a tank. I clock you two.”
“I’m going to ignore your incredibly rude c
omments about his physical size in comparison to mine, as though that means anything at all about our romantic compatibility,” I said, “and instead ask what you mean by ‘I clock you two’?”
“Like, I think it’s a good idea, you two being together,” she mused. “Clocking something means you like it. I don’t know where it comes from. Maybe it’s like ‘It’s time for that to happen.’ You could say ‘I clock this handbag’ and mean ‘It’s time for me to own this handbag, bitch!’”
“‘I clock this,’” I said. “I like it. I’m going to start using it.”
“Don’t.”
“Why not?”
“You’re too old,” she said. “And by the time you say it to anyone, it’ll be over. People won’t be saying it anymore, and you’ll be even more lame.”
I massaged my brow, trying to recover from being called fat, old, and lame within a single minute.
“Oh, my God.” Baby sat bolt upright in her seat as we turned onto the street where my father’s house sat in the row of luxury homes before the water. “There are people in the house. There are people in the house!”
Chapter 46
There were indeed people in the house. Inside and outside. In the upper window I could see a woman in a green uniform vacuuming. Three men were hauling trash toward the curb, where a neat row of twelve other garbage bags stood by the road.
“Oh, my God.” Baby leaped from the car before it had even stopped rolling. “Who are they? What’s happening?”
I got out of the car and chased her down. I put a hand on Baby’s shoulder. “Relax. I hired a crew to come in and clean the house. The place was a bomb site.”
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