by Beverly Long
“Have you been back to the ocean since...?”
“No. What’s the point?”
“Kind of fun to walk in the sand, look for some shells, see a pretty sunset?”
She turned to look at him. “Why, Detective McKittridge, you sound almost poetic.”
“Trust me on this, poetry never comes out of this mouth. And since we’re going to be in close quarters for a few days, why don’t you just call me A.L.?”
“What’s the A.L. stand for?”
“I’d have to know you a lot better to share that,” he said.
She laughed and tossed her hair back. “Atticus Luther. Axel Lane. Ahmad Loo.”
“Knock yourself out,” he said easily. It felt good to walk down a country road with a pretty woman who was smiling.
“Archibald Lee. Angus Lars.” Now she was practically skipping. “Am I close?”
“Not even warm.”
“Arthur Lamont. Wait, wait. I’ve got more.”
* * *
Tess guessed names for a good half hour before finally giving up. Then she and A.L. made lunch. It was quick and easy, just grilled ham and cheese sandwiches with canned vegetable soup, but it felt good to share a meal with someone.
A.L. McKittridge was easy to be around, but she expected he could be a tough son of a bitch if the situation warranted. Good. That’s the person you wanted in your corner when a serial killer was making his way in your direction.
She did not even recall signing the Gizer Hotel petition. And now, she was maybe going to die because of it.
Of course, A.L. said they would protect her. But what if they couldn’t?
“If something goes wrong in all this,” she said, taking her dirty dishes to the sink, “you need to promise me that you’ll be the one to tell Marnee. You have a daughter. You know how to talk to them.”
“It’s not going to go wrong.”
“Last night you said that the killer might go for Marnee if he couldn’t get to me. The police need to protect her.”
“We can do that. Not me or Rena. We’ll be protecting you. But we have available resources through the state. We’ll need to give her some reasonable explanation to get her cooperation. We can figure that out over the next couple of days. I think it might be best, however, if she doesn’t know the full story. Once it’s over, you can tell her what you want.” He carried his own dishes to the sink and turned on the faucet. “I can do these.”
“Fine.” She hated doing dishes. Hated it when she’d had two working arms and hated it even more now that she had to do everything with one hand. She watched him fill one side of the sink with soapy water and the other with clear rinse water. “I made a bucket list this morning,” she said. “While you were watching television.”
“I hope it’s a long one, because you’re going to have a whole lot of time to cross things off.”
“Want to know what’s on it?” She hadn’t intended to share it with him. Might have censored it if she had. But now, it just felt right.
“Okay,” he said.
She went to the living room and picked up the spiral notebook. Opened it. “I had a whole bunch of things and then crossed a lot of them out.”
“Because?”
“Because I guess I’ve learned that time is short.” She laughed nervously. “I mean, even if there wasn’t a serial killer, you know?”
He nodded.
“So here goes. Number 1: Take a hot-air-balloon ride. Number 2: Learn how to make beef bourguignon. Number 3: Go to a World Series baseball game. Number 4: Have sex in Paris.” That made her cheeks hot, but she kept going. “Number 5: Hike in all the national parks. Number 6: Find someone to love. Number 7: Find someone who loves me.”
It was very quiet in the room, and she regretted the impulse to share. But sharing made the list real. Real made it possible. Possible led to probable.
“I think that’s a really good list,” he said finally.
The early afternoon sun was shining in the kitchen window, making his dark hair shine. His even darker eyes were thoughtful.
“I want to hear your list,” she said.
He shook his head.
“That’s fair,” she argued.
“I don’t have a bucket list.”
“Make one. I did.”
He shook his head again. She could tell that he wasn’t going to be moved. “Fine,” she said, irritated.
He held up a hand. “I will say that a few of the things that are on your list would also make mine.”
“Which ones?”
He shook his head.
“I hate when you do that,” she said.
“Is it better if I nod but say no?”
“Maybe. Just tell me just one thing,” she said.
“Okay. Hot-air-balloon ride. I think that would be cool.”
“Yes! Let’s do it.” Instinctively, she threw up her arms, sending her stump waving rather wildly in the air. She yanked both arms down, close to her sides. But he hadn’t seemed to notice. He was still looking at her, a rather insolent look on his face.
“Now?” he said.
“Why not?” He could probably give her a hundred reasons, but she wasn’t interested in any of them. “In a couple days, I have to return to Baywood and wait for a serial killer to come to my house. I deserve a hot-air-balloon ride. Get your phone. There has to be one somewhere around here. This is a tourist area. They always have those kinds of things in places like this.”
“You’re kind of pushy,” he said. She could tell he was teasing.
“Now you know how I learned to surf as an adult. I don’t like to be told no.”
“I guess not.” He picked up his phone. Did a search. Held the phone out in her direction so that she could see the results.
“I was right,” she said triumphantly. “That one is less than an hour from here,” she said. She clicked on the link. “There’s a sunset one tonight. I’m going to call and see if there’s still space.” When he didn’t yank his phone back right away, she clicked on the number.
“Wait,” he said, reaching for the phone.
She felt her heart plunge.
“They’ll likely want a credit card to hold a reservation.” He pulled his billfold out of his back pocket. “Use mine.”
“It’s my idea,” she said. “I’ll pay—”
“No,” he said. “No transactions linked to you. We don’t know who might be looking for you, what connections they might have. Don’t use your real name, either.”
“What if I have to show identification?”
“I’ll tell them that you’re my wife and that you forgot your purse at home. If push comes to shove, we’ll give them an extra hundred bucks and that problem should solve itself.”
“You’re really willing to do this,” she said, not quite believing it.
“Yeah,” he said.
She didn’t wait. She made the call and got a reservation for two. Gave her name as Mandy McKittridge, thinking it had a nice alliterative beat to it. Ended the call and handed him back his phone. “If we leave here by midafternoon, we can make the drive and have dinner somewhere before the balloon takes off.”
He nodded. “I’ve got a few calls that I need to make. I’ll use the bedroom where Rena slept.”
It dawned on her as she watched him walk away that maybe he’d agreed because he knew that there was a good chance that she wasn’t coming out of this alive. Like a pity date. It was a sobering thought.
But she pushed it aside. She didn’t care why. It was on her bucket list, and she was going to get to put a line through it. And she was going to have dinner and a sunset balloon ride with a man she found attractive. One who did not seem repulsed by her stump.
It wasn’t number six or seven on the list, but for now, it was good enough.
* * *<
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A.L. made sure the bedroom door was tightly closed and then dialed. Rena answered on the second ring.
“Hey,” she said. “Everything okay?”
“Well, you know, it’s Monday. We had breakfast, watched some of those idiotic morning shows, and she made her bucket list. We took a walk, had some lunch.” He considered his next words. He’d have preferred radio silence but knew it was important that he be forthcoming to his partner about any plans that involved Tess Lyons. “We’re going on a hot-air-balloon ride tonight.”
Well, he got what he wanted, because there was absolutely no sound on the other end. He waited. “Are you still there, Morgan?” he asked finally.
“I am. Yes. Just processing that last statement, and quite frankly, at times things get all jumbled up in my head and then I have to untangle the wires. Takes a minute.”
“I had forgotten how fucking funny you are,” he said. He rubbed the bridge of his nose.
“Whose idea was it?” she asked.
“It was on her bucket list. And I told her that if I had a bucket list, which I don’t and never will, it might also make my list. One thing led to another, and we’ve got reservations for a sunset flight with a company near Hayward.”
“I think it’s a good idea,” she said.
He waited for the punch line. “And?” he prompted.
“There’s no ‘and.’ She’s been hit with a left hook to the jaw and a right to the stomach. I think she might need something else to think about.”
“We’ll be careful,” he said.
“I could take that one of two ways,” she said.
He’d walked into that one. “Careful as in nobody is going to know she was there.”
“That’s what I thought you meant.”
“What are your plans for the day?” A.L. asked.
“I’ll cover the task force meeting and bring them up to speed. Then I’m going to go talk to Matt Connell again. See what I can pull out of his brain about the Gizer Hotel. And I’m going to follow up with the analyst from the state. See if he’s making progress on the information I forwarded from Boyd Wonder and also send him the email from Diane Crate. I’m going to ask him to cross-reference the volunteers with the residents and the applicants.”
“Call me if you have anything,” he said.
“I will. Otherwise, I’ll check in tomorrow. Have fun tonight.”
He hung up without answering.
* * *
It had been raining off and on since the previous afternoon and the sky continued to look ominous when Rena got to Matt Connell’s house. He was not on the porch, and she hoped that she wouldn’t be disturbing the octogenarian in the middle of a nap. Grabbing her umbrella, she ran to his front door and knocked.
Thirty seconds later, Matt swung the door open, a dishtowel in his hands. “Detective Morgan,” he said, proving again that he was pretty damn sharp. “Must be important for you to come out on a day like this.”
He opened the door wider for her. She slipped off her wet shoes so that she wouldn’t track on his floor. “Thank you for seeing me.”
“Only a fool keeps his door closed to a pretty lady,” he said. “I’m making cookies. There’s a batch in the oven.”
And they smelled marvelous. She could not remember the last time she’d made cookies. Maybe Christmas, two years ago. He motioned for her to take a seat on his couch. He had not moved all his books and papers back, so there was space.
“I just have a couple questions,” she said. “You’ve got a lot of knowledge of the Gizer Hotel. I’m wondering if there is anything that you’re aware of, that perhaps occurred within the last fifty years, that was significant?”
“Significant?” he repeated.
“Newsworthy. Attention grabbing.”
“Well, of course, many of the really significant events happened before that time. Even the movie that was shot there was more than fifty years ago. I would say that every time the place opened or closed, it was newsworthy, and there was a lot of that going on during that time period. And I believe sometime in the early to mid-’70s, I don’t quite remember the year, there was quite a splash in the news after a man was killed there.”
“Killed, huh?” In Baywood, that would have certainly gotten people’s attention.
“I seem to recall that it was a particularly gruesome event. Domestic in nature. A woman killed her husband. I was teaching then, and I remember having discussions in the teachers’ lounge that the man probably had it coming. I didn’t know him and didn’t have either of the children in my classes, but a couple of my coworkers did. They were confident that he was abusing the kids, but the wife had always denied it. After the murder, it came out that he was indeed a bad character.”
“Do you remember a name?” Rena asked.
“I’m sorry, I don’t.”
“That’s okay. Do you happen to know a Marie Wallace or a Marie Devine? Same person. She’s a volunteer for Baywood Historic Preservation.”
Matt shook his head. “I don’t believe I do. I’ve met quite a few of their volunteers over the years, but neither of those names are ringing a bell.”
“No problem,” she said.
A timer dinged in the kitchen. “That will be the first batch,” he said. “Please say you’ve got time for a cookie and a cup of tea. I have so little company these days.”
“Of course,” she said. “It would be my pleasure.”
Forty-five minutes later, Matt walked Rena to her car. The rain had stopped, but there were big puddles that she tried to avoid. She’d had three cookies, two cups of tea, and now knew more about WWII than she’d ever expected to know. She suspected that Matt had been a hell of a teacher. He could still draw in an audience, even if it was an audience of one.
“If you enjoyed our discussion,” he said, “you really should come to the presentation at Baywood Historic Preservation on Thursday. I promise, it’ll be fascinating. You’ll never look at your hometown in the same way again.”
“I’ll do my best,” she said, knowing that it would be next to impossible. But maybe the next time he spoke somewhere. And maybe she’d even invite him to the next holiday function at the Morgans’. Gabe’s mom would love having another person to feed, and Rena hated to think of Matt being alone.
She got in her car, started it and waved to Matt. Thinking of the Morgan family dinners made her think of Danny and the awful few seconds in his pantry. It was going to break her heart if things were awkward between the two of them. They needed to clear the air. Now.
It wasn’t going to feel right until she’d fixed this.
She picked up her phone and sent a text to Danny. Are you home?
The reply came almost instantly. Yes.
Can we talk? she asked.
Of course.
Is there someone who can watch the boys so that we can meet at the Love Cup? Any other time she’d simply have driven to his house but that no longer seemed like a good idea.
Mom has them. Be there in ten minutes.
Okay. She put her phone down and started her car. All the way over, she thought about how it would go. He’d apologize. She’d say no big deal. He’d say that he wanted to make sure they could still be friends. She’d tell him that was exactly what she wanted, exactly why she’d had to see him tonight.
She beat him there. The coffee shop was empty save one other couple. She ordered a plain coffee. When he got there five minutes later, he did the same.
“Hey,” she said when he sat at her small table.
“Hey, yourself,” he said, stepping back. “Did you get caught in the rain earlier?”
She ran her hands through her hair. “A little. Do I look like it?”
He smiled. “You always look beautiful to me.”
Oh, boy. “Why are the kids at your mom’s?”
“We
had lunch there, and they wanted to spend the night. There’s no school tomorrow. Some kind of teachers’ institute.”
She took a sip of coffee and burned her tongue. “I wanted to talk about what happened on Saturday,” she said. “I left pretty quickly. We didn’t get a chance to talk it through.”
She stopped. This was his chance. Jump in. Tell me that it was all a big mistake, that we’re going to be okay.
But he said nothing. He was leaning forward, his forearms on the table, his hands clasped. His head was down.
“Danny?” she said.
He looked up. “Rena, I don’t know what you want me to say.”
“Maybe ‘I had too much to drink,’ or... Jesus, I don’t know, maybe ‘My body was taken over by aliens.’”
Now he made eye contact. “I’m attracted to you, Rena. I’ve always been attracted to you. And I thought... I thought you cared for me.”
“Of course I care for you. But I’m married to your brother.” This was not going well. Not at all.
“You think I don’t know that, Rena?” Now Danny stood. “But you deserve better. And if you’re asking me if I’m sorry that I kissed you, well, I’m not. I’m sorry that you’re bothered by it. I don’t want you upset. Ever.”
“The boys said you were dating,” she blurted.
“I don’t want to be alone,” he said. “But when I was with those women, all I could think about was you. Listen, I know this is a mess. But life is short. That’s what Lindy’s death taught me. And I don’t want to waste what’s left of mine.”
Her whole body felt cold. She stood. “Do not ever tell Gabe what you just told me. I mean it, Danny. Never. And we never talk about this again.”
“Rena,” he said.
“No. No more. I’m leaving.”
He didn’t try to stop her. But still, she ran to her car, got in and took off, going too fast. She forced herself to slow down. To take a few deep breaths.
By habit, she made the turn toward her house. And, ten minutes later, opened her garage door and pulled in. Turned off the car and sat in the dark garage. Gabe’s car was there.
