“Yes, but not here. Crosstown.”
“Better football team Crosstown,” he said. He removed his hat and scratched his head, gave a broad smile. “You here spying for the other side?”
I smiled back. “Just looking for Dr. Kruse.”
“Well, if you see him, tell him to get in touch, or tomorrow we’ll be somewhere else. Only got a half-day’s work for a two-man crew. Boss won’t want to commit.”
“I’ll do that, Mr….”
“Rodriguez. Gil Rodriguez.” He picked up a piece of scrap wood from the floor and used a stubby pencil to scratch his name and number on it. “I free-lance, too—dry wall, painting, plastering. Can fix anything that don’t have a computer in it. And if you got any football tickets you want to sell, I’ll be happy to take them off your hands.”
Traffic on Sunset was thick. The Stone Canyon entry to Bel Air was barricaded by roadwork, making things even worse, and the sun was sinking over the Palisades when I got to Kruse’s house. Same time of day as the first time I’d been there, but no teal sky; this one was baby-blue innocence melting to sea clouds.
After what Rodriguez had told me, I’d expected an empty driveway. But three cars were parked in front of the house: the customized white Mercedes with the PPK PHD plates I’d seen at the party, a restored blue Jaguar E-type with SSK plates and an old Toyota the color of split-pea soup. I walked past them, knocked on the front door, waited, knocked again, louder, then used the bell.
I could hear the chimes; anyone inside had to hear them too. But no one answered. Then I looked down and noticed the pile of mail on the front steps, wet and warped. Saw the wrought-iron mail slot stuffed with magazines and correspondence.
I rang again, looked around. To one side was the semienclosed courtyard, planted with perennials and climbing bougainvillea. It ended in a round-topped gate of weathered wooden planks.
I went to the gate, pushed it. It opened. I stepped through and walked toward the back of the property, along the south side of the house, passed under a wooden arbor, and found myself in a large backyard—gentle roll of lawn, borders of tall trees, freeform flower beds, rock pool with spa, backed by a waterfall that fell in a glassy sheet.
I heard a click. The yard was bathed in soft, colorful light and the pool glowed sapphire. Timers.
No light shone from inside the house, but a rose-colored bulb wired to a birch tree highlighted a patio with a shade-cloth awning and a floor of Mexican tile. Several groupings of stylish teak furniture. Suntan lotion on a table, crumpled bath towels on some of the chairs, looking as if they’d been there for a while. I sniffed mildew. Then something stronger. A swim interrupted …
One of the French doors was open. Wide enough for the stench to stream out. Wide enough to enter.
I put my handkerchief over my nose and mouth, stuck my head in far enough to see a rose-colored nightmare. Using the handkerchief, I fumbled for a light switch, found one.
Two bodies, sprawled across a desert of Berber carpet, barely recognizable as human but for the clothing that covered what remained of their torsos.
I gagged, looked away, saw high, beamed ceilings, over-stuffed furniture. Tasteful. Good decorator.
Then back down again to the horror …
I stared at the carpet. Tried to lose myself in the damn thing. Good weave. Immaculate. Except for the blackening stains …
One of the bodies wore a pink-flowered maillot bathing suit. The other, a once-white pair of Speedo shorts and a peacock-blue Hawaiian shirt patterned with red orchids.
The bright cloth stood out against glutinous, brownish green flesh. Faces replaced by lumps of oily, cratered meat. Meat thatched with hair—blond hair. On both. The hair on the bikinied corpse lighter, much longer. Tipped with brown crust.
I gagged again, pressed the handkerchief over my mouth and nose, held my breath, felt myself strangling, and backed away from the corpses.
Outside again, back onto the patio.
But even as I backed away my eye was drawn through the French doors, to the end of the room, up a flight of tiled stairs.
Rear staircase. Curving iron bannister.
On the top stair another decaying heap.
Pink housedress. What looked like dark hair. More putrefaction, more black stain, oozing down the steps like some malignant Slinky toy.
I turned and ran, past the pool, across springy grass to a bed of night-lit flowers, all unearthly blues and mauves. Bent low and smelled their perfume.
Sweet. Too sweet. My gut churned. I tried to vomit but couldn’t.
I ran along the side of the house, back to the courtyard, across the front lawn.
Empty road, silent road. All that horror, but no one to share it with.
I got back in the Seville, sat in the car smelling death. Tasting it.
Finally, though the stink remained with me, I felt able to drive and headed south down Mandeville, then east on Sunset. Wanting a time machine, anything that could turn back the clock.
Turn it way back …
But willing to settle for a strong cigar, a telephone, and a friendly voice.
Chapter
19
I found a pharmacy and a phone booth in Brentwood. Milo picked up on the first ring, listened to what I had to say, and said, “I knew there was a reason I came home early.”
Twenty minutes later he came driving up to Mandeville and Sunset and followed me back to the murder house.
“Stay right there,” he said, and I waited in the Seville, drawing on a cheap panatela, while he went around to the back. A while later he reappeared, wiping his forehead. He got into the passenger seat, took a cigar out of my shirt pocket, and lit up.
He blew a few smoke rings, then began taking my statement, coolly professional. After leading me through my discovery of the bodies, he put down his pad and asked, “Why’d you come up here, Alex?”
I told him about the porn loops, D.J. Rasmussen’s fatal accident, the resurfacing of Leland Belding’s name.
“Kruse’s hand runs through most of it.”
“Not much hand left,” he said. “Bodies been there for a while.” He put the note pad away. “Any working guesses about whodunit?”
“Rasmussen was an explosive type,” I said. “Killed his father. For the last few days he’d been talking about being a sinner, doing something terrible. This could have been it.”
“Why would he snuff Kruse?”
“I don’t know. Maybe he blamed Kruse for Sharon’s death—he was pathologically attached to her, sexually involved.”
Milo thought for a while. “What’d you touch in there?”
“The light switch—but I used a handkerchief.”
“What else?”
“The gate … I think that’s it.”
“Think harder.”
“That’s all I can think of.”
“Let’s retrace your steps.”
When we were through, he said, “Go home, Alex.”
“That’s it?”
Glance at his Timex. “Crime scene boys should be here any minute. Go on. Disappear before the party begins.”
“Milo—”
“Go on, Alex. Let me do the damned job.”
I drove away, still tasting decay through the bite of tobacco.
Everything Sharon had touched was turning to death.
Ever the mind-prober, I found myself wondering what had made her that way. What kind of early trauma. Then something hit me: the way she’d acted that terrible night I’d found her with the twin photo. Thrashing, screaming, collapsing, and ending up in a fetal curl. So similar to Darren Burkhalter’s behavior in my office. The reactions to the horror in his life that I’d captured on videotape, then played for a roomful of attorneys without noticing the connection.
Early childhood trauma.
Long ago, she’d explained it to me. Followed it up with a display of tender, loving kindness. Looking back, a well-staged display. Another act?
It was the summer of ’81, a hotel in Newpo
rt Beach, swarming with psychologist conventioneers. A cocktail lounge overlooking the harbor—tinted picture windows, red-flocked walls, chairs on rollers. Dark and empty and smelling of last night’s party.
I’d sat at the bar gazing out at the water, watching dagger-sharp yachts etch the surface of a blown-glass marina. Nursing a beer and eating a dry club sandwich while lending half an ear to the bartender’s gripes.
He was a short, potbellied Hispanic with quick hands and a coppery Indian face. I watched him clean glasses like a machine.
“Worst I’ve ever seen, without a doubt, yessir. Now, your salesmen—insurance, computers, whatever—your salesmen are serious drinkers. Your pilots too.”
“Comforting thought,” I said.
“Yeah, your salesmen and your pilots. But you psycho guys? Forget it. Even the teachers we had last winter were better and they weren’t any great shakes. Look at this place. Dead.”
Twisting open a bottle of baby onions, he drained the juice and poured the pearly balls into a tray. “How many of you guys at this shebang, anyway?”
“Few thousand.”
“Few thousand.” He shook his head. “Look at this place. What is it, you all too busy analyzing other people, not allowed to have fun?”
“Maybe,” I said, reflecting on how dull the convention had been. But conventions always were. The only reason I’d attended this one was because I’d been asked to deliver a paper on childhood stress.
The paper having now been read, the inevitable picayune questions fielded, I was grabbing a bit of solitude before heading back to L.A. and a night shift on the adolescent ward.
“Maybe you guys should study yourselves, pal. Analyze why you don’t like to have fun.”
“Good idea.” I put some money down on the bar and said, “Have one on me.”
He stared at the bills. “Sure, thanks.” Lighting a cigarette, he poured himself a beer and leaned forward.
“Anyway, I’m for live and let live. Someone don’t want to have fun, okay. But at least come in and order something, know what I mean? Hell, don’t drink it—analyze it. But order and leave a tip. Leave something for the working man.”
“To the working man,” I said and raised my glass. I put it down empty.
“Refill, Doc? On the house.”
“I’ll take a Coke.”
“Figures. One rum and Coke coming up, hold the rum, hold the fun.”
He put the drink on the bar and was about to say something else when the door to the lounge opened and let in lobby noise. His eyes shifted to the back of the room and he said, “My, my.”
I looked over my shoulder and saw a woman in white. Long-legged, shapely, a cloud of black hair. Standing near the cigarette machine, head moving from side to side, as if scouting foreign territory.
Familiar. I turned to get a better look.
Sharon. Definitely Sharon. In a tailored linen suit, matching purse and shoes.
She saw me, waved as if we’d had an appointment.
“Alex!”
All at once she was at my side. Soap and water, fresh grass …
She sat down on the stool next to mine, crossed her legs, and pulled her skirt down over her knees.
The bartender winked at me. “Drink, ma’am?”
“Seven-Up, please.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
After he handed her the drink and moved down, she said, “You look great, Alex. I like the beard.”
“Saves time in the morning.”
“Well, I think it’s handsome.” She sipped, toyed with her stirrer. “I keep hearing good things about you, Alex. Early tenure, all those publications. I’ve read quite a few of your articles. Learned a lot from them.”
“Glad to hear it.”
Silence.
“I finally graduated,” she said. “Last month.”
“Congratulations, Doctor.”
“Thanks. It took me longer than I thought it would. But I got involved in clinical work and didn’t apply myself to writing the dissertation as diligently as I should have.”
We sat in silence. A few feet away, the bartender was whistling “La Bamba” and tinkering with the ice crusher.
“It’s good to see you,” she said.
I didn’t answer.
She touched my sleeve. I stared at her fingers until she removed them.
“I wanted to see you,” she said.
“What about?”
“I wanted to explain—”
“There’s no need to explain anything, Sharon. Ancient history.”
“Not to me.”
“Difference of opinion.”
She moved closer, said, “I know I blew it,” in a choked whisper. “Believe me, I know it. But that doesn’t change the fact that after all these years, you’re still with me. Good memories, special memories. Positive energy.”
“Selective perception,” I said.
“No.” She inched closer, touched my sleeve again. “We did have some wonderful times, Alex. I’ll never let go of that.”
I said nothing.
“Alex, the way we … it ended. I was horrible. You had to think I was psychotic—what happened was psychotic. If you only knew how many times I’ve wanted to call you, to explain—”
“Then why didn’t you?”
“Because I’m a coward. I run away from things. It’s my style—you saw that the first time we met, in practicum.” Her shoulders drooped: “Some things never change.”
“Forget it. Like I said, ancient history.”
“What we had was special, Alex, and I allowed it to be destroyed.”
Her voice stayed soft but got tighter. The bartender glanced over. My expression sent his eyes back to his work.
“Allowed it?” I said. “That sounds pretty passive.”
She recoiled as if I’d spit in her face. “All right,” she said. “I destroyed it. I was crazy. It was a crazy time in my life—don’t think I haven’t regretted it a thousand times.”
She tugged at her earlobe. Her hands were smooth and white. “Alex, meeting you here today was no accident. I never attend conventions, had no intention of going to this one. But when I got the brochure in the mail I happened to notice your name on the program and wanted suddenly to see you again. I attended your lecture, stood at the back of the room. The way you spoke—your humanity. I thought I might have a chance.”
“A chance for what?”
“To be friends, bury the hard feelings.”
“Consider them buried. Mission accomplished.”
She leaned forward so that our lips were almost touching, clutched my shoulder, whispered, “Please, Alex, don’t be vindictive. Let me show you.”
There were tears in her eyes.
“Show me what?” I said.
“A different side of me. Something I’ve never shown anyone.”
We walked to the front of the hotel, waited for the parking valets.
“Separate cars,” she said, smiling. “So you can escape any time you want.”
The address she gave me was on the south side of Glendale, the down side of town, filled with used-car lots, splintering, by-the-day rooming houses, thrift shops, and greasy spoons. Half a mile north on Brand, the Glendale Galleria was under construction—a polished brick tribute to gentrification—but down here, boutique was still a French word.
She arrived before me, was sitting in the little red Alfa in front of a one-story brown stucco building. The place had a jaillike quality—narrow, silvered windows bolted and barred, the front door a slab of brushed steel, no landscaping other than a single thirsty liquidambar tree which cast spindly shadows on the tar-paper roof.
She met me at the door, thanked me for coming, then pushed the buzzer in the center of the steel door. Several moments later it was opened by a stocky, coal-black man with short hair and a corkscrew chin beard. He wore a diamond stud in one ear, a light-blue uniform jacket over a black T-shirt and jeans. When he saw Sharon he flashed a gold-jacketed smile.
“Afternoon, Elmo. This is Dr. Delaware, a friend of mine.”
“Pleased to meet you, sir.” To Sharon: “She’s all prettied up and ready for you.”
“That’s great, Elmo.”
He stood aside and we entered a waiting room floored with oxblood linoleum and furnished with orange plastic chairs and green tables. To one side was an office labeled RECEPTION and windowed with a square of yellowed Lucite. We walked past it and up to another steel door, marked NO ENTRY. Elmo selected a key from a heavy ring and sprung the latch.
We stepped into brightness and pandemonium: a long, high room with steel-shuttered windows and a fluorescent ceiling that radiated a cold, flat imitation daylight. The walls were covered with sheets of emerald-green vinyl; the air was hot and rancid.
And everywhere, movement. A random ballet.
Scores of bodies, twitching, rocking, stumbling, brutalized by Nature and the luck of the draw. Limbs frozen or trapped in endless, athetoid spasm. Slack, drooling mouths. Hunched backs, shattered spines, nubbed and missing limbs. Contortions and grimaces born of ravaged chromosomes and derailed neural pathways and made all the more cruel by the fact that these patients were young—teenagers and young adults who’d never know the pleasures of youth’s false immortality.
Some of them clutched walkers and measured their progress in millimeters. Others, contracted stiff as plaster statues, bucked and fought the confines of wheelchairs. The saddest among them slumped, flaccid as invertebrates, in high-sided wagons and metal carts that resembled oversized baby strollers.
We made our way past a sea of glazed eyes as inert as plastic buttons. Past witless faces gazing up from the leather sanctuary of protective headgear, an audience of blank faces unperturbed by the merest flicker of consciousness.
A gallery of deformity—a cruel display of all that could go wrong with the box that humans come in.
In a corner of the room a rabbit-eared console TV blasted a game show at top volume, the shrieks of contestants competing with the wordless jabber and inchoate howls of the patients. The only ones watching were half a dozen blue-jacketed attendants. They ignored us as we passed.
But the patients noticed. As if magnetized, they swarmed toward Sharon, began flocking around her, wheeling and hobbling. Soon we were surrounded. The attendants didn’t budge.
Four Classic Alex Delaware Thrillers 4-Book Bundle Page 20
