Striking Back

by Mark Nykanen

  “And?”

  “They were wondering, let me tell you. But they had some cop on you, and he followed you all over L.A. In the middle of the night.” Her voice rising in suspense. “So guess what?”

  “I’m all out of guesses, Blanche.”

  “That cop’s your alibi.”

  “He is?”

  “Doesn’t get much better than that. They’re figuring you were on the Harbor Freeway about the time the body started to cool.”

  “You’re not putting me on?”

  “No way. You’re home free. Now can I come over, do a one-on-one with you?”

  “Don’t you ever sleep?”

  “Sleep when you’re dead.”

  Gwyn shook her head. “Sorry, Blanche, I don’t want to talk to you about it.”

  “You already did! I got my notes.”

  “Then take pictures of your notes.”

  “I will, and I’ll put your picture up there, too. Be the next best thing.”

  “That’s me, ‘the next best thing.’”

  “Hey, you’re pretty. You look great on the tube, even when you’re bitchy. Really pretty. You hearing me?”

  She coming on to me?

  “No dice.”

  “You’re going to talk to me with a camera sooner or later, and you know why?”

  Gwyn let the question ride away, but Blanche roped it right back in. “’Cause I know what it’s like. I know this story better than anyone but you. We got that in common. I can tell ’cause you got the look. Know what I mean?”

  “Haven’t the foggiest.”

  “You’re haunted. It’s like you got an empty house inside you. Rooms you don’t want to go into. I know, I got those rooms, too.”

  “Blanche, you’re starting to creep me out, so I’m going to end this call now. Thanks for the info. Say hello to Transylvania for me. Bye.”

  “You do. You got ’em, empty rooms–” were the last words Gwyn heard as she hung up.

  The lure of Early L.A. was strong, just to see if Blanche had been telling the truth. Gwyn couldn’t imagine the Times could have rushed the story into the home edition. She hurried down to the lobby for the paper, and by the time she’d made it back upstairs and settled on her couch, she saw that she’d been right. Nothing about the men‘s group murders had made the front section. Her tribulations had been trumped by a rare, first-stage smog alert. Good news in a plain brown wrapper.

  In a final effort to keep Blanche’s cable show from violating her condo, she switched on KNZ all-news radio where she heard little more than traffic reports, certainly no huggable headlines from Cassie Cannon proclaiming the innocence of Gwyn Sanders.

  She finally succumbed and put on the cable queen. Blanche looked like she’d pulled a series of all-nighters. Her brittle hair didn’t budge as she sat at a blue anchor desk shaped like a shooting star, holding up her cell phone, shaking it like a maraca, and shouting at the camera about her “exclusive phoner” with “the number one suspect in the men’s group murders.”

  Blanche reported that she had a “bombshell of a break, the biggest in the case.” She leaned into the camera and said, “Sanders didn’t do it. She’s innocent.” Blanche explained that Gwyn had been under police surveillance at the time the latest victim—Frank Owens—had been murdered.

  She ranted about the L.A. case for another minute before telling viewers that Gwyn and her mother were to meet with the sheriff in Big Bear this afternoon.

  Gwyn eased over to the kitchen, put on the kettle, and started grinding coffee beans. Amazing, she thought, what you can get away with on the margins of mainstream media, but within a year or two the margins always seem to become the norm. By the time she’d silenced the grinder, Blanche had swept viewers through the goriest details of John Appleton’s death, and Gwyn switched her off, preferring the snack-size portions of her public humiliation usually available on KNZ.

  As if in reward, Cassie Cannon came on to say that an L.A.P.D. spokesman had just confirmed that Gwyn Sanders was no longer the leading suspect in the case.

  Gwyn stared out at the gray sea, relieved that Trenton and Warren wouldn’t badger her anymore. But the breathing space provided by this understanding closed up quickly, because she also realized that from the start they’d been hammering her even harder over the killing of John Appleton, trying to use the violent past as a pry bar to the grisly present. It now appeared that her stepfather’s death would become the sole focus of the criminal investigation of her. Hitting her where it hurt the most, where the wounds hadn’t healed and the scars might speak too clearly.

  And it left the men’s group murderer still at large. She fixed her coffee, then fled to the bathroom for a quick shower. As she dried off, she tried to distract herself from her fears by thinking about what she should wear for the cameras that were likely to greet her in Big Bear. Comely, that’s how she wanted to appear. Think Martha Stewart walking out of prison, she told herself, picking out tan chinos and a blue button down cotton top.

  Not much she could do about the black eye, but she sat at the vanity and finessed it with careful touches of makeup.

  After pulling out of the garage, she looked around for an unmarked car. Its absence, more than Blanche’s rants or Cassie Cannon’s breathless report, made it clear that Gwyn was no longer a suspect. But as she drove away, it also told her she wasn’t under the watchful eye of the L.A.P.D., and someone had carved a freaky poem into her painting. The last few lines lit up her frayed nerves as she braked for traffic:

  “Who will be next?

  you might well ask.

  Will your own death

  be the final task?”

  The cunning threat felt like a death sentence ticking away on a clock she couldn’t see. But she could feel the pressure, the teeming pulse of the crimes, a killer with a huge shadow heart, like the one Hark had talked about on the day they’d met.

  She saw suspects everywhere, from that cable queen with her “empty rooms,” to Barr, who’d slipped away. Or Dexter X or Ortiz. Sean or Kaj. Jesse, for sure.

  What about Lupe?

  The question arose of its own accord, shocking Gwyn as much as hearing it would have shocked Lupe. Gwyn shook her head, disgusted by what her fears were doing to her. Doubting Lupe felt as deep a betrayal as suspecting Hark at this point.

  Delagopolis’ assistant, a Greek woman in her early twenties with the richest, thickest, most luxurious black hair Gwyn had ever seen, ushered her into his huge office. Mommsa and Pants were drinking coffee on a brass tack leather couch.

  Gwyn mustered the grace to greet them.

  Her mother walked over with her hands extended, smiling demurely—Gwyn hadn’t known she could pull off demure—and said, “It’s on the radio and everything. You didn’t kill them. That’s so great, honey.”

  Even for this family, Gwyn thought her mother’s greeting sounded bizarre.

  Delagopolis’ pretty assistant brought her coffee with a splash of cream. Perfect. She must take notes or, Gwyn thought, we’re spending entirely too much time with her boss.

  Delagopolis walked in, all two-hundred fifty tan pounds of him, and announced they needed to think about leaving. “But given the intense media interest, we should issue a statement through my office. I’ve taken the liberty of writing one up, and I’d like to get your approval so I can make sure it’s ready before we take off.”

  He handed copies to Gwyn, Mommsa, and . . . Pants? Gwyn stared in open disbelief. Since when does he get to chime in on family business? Can he even read?

  She lowered her eyes to the copy, not the first and probably not the last press release to come out of the office Delagopolis regarding the family Appleton. She’d read lots of them. Delagopolis was a genius at spin, and this statement was as good as all the others he’d issued.

  “It should now be clear to all representatives of the media, as it has been to its more responsible and insightful members, that Gwyn Sanders has been as much a victim of this terror as the men
and their partners whom she’s devoted her life to helping. We hope that the concerned law enforcement agencies will now focus their efforts on apprehending this merciless killer and dispense with their time-consuming and distracting extraneous investigations.”

  Extraneous investigations.

  She liked that. Would have liked it even better if it would have stopped the Big Bear sheriff from re-opening the John Appleton case. But this was Georgie D’s opening salvo at law enforcement in the high country, and more such missiles would likely follow.

  The release continued with a bit of boilerplate—“categorically deny . . . ” “absurd charges . . . ”—and concluded with a quote from Delagopolis that sounded great, but said essentially nothing.

  “Good job, George. Thanks,” Gwyn said.

  Mommsa cleared her throat. “George,” she said coolly, “far be it from me to try to profit personally in any way, shape or form from the notoriety of my own daughter, but because we have ties that are so well known in this city, I do think it’s only fair that you make every reasonable effort to include my name in this press release. To this end, I would add that, ‘The renowned artist, Joanna Appleton, sincerely regrets that her own name has been tarnished by investigators intent on dragging her through the same mud they’ve used to sully her daughter’s reputation.’ You could also say something nice about my upcoming opening.”

  Gwyn saw Delagopolis staring out the window, and thought she could read his thoughts. Is six-hundred dollars an hour really enough to put up with this shit?

  “Joanna.” He said it in a voice so full of reason it signaled bald panic. “We don’t want to go that route. It would be a mistake, considering whom we’re meeting with today, to start bringing up your highly regarded name before we have to. We might be able to put everything to rest in the next few hours.”

  “I don’t see why you’re so worried about my ‘highly regarded name,’ and I don’t see any drawback to a little publicity.”

  “I’m concerned about your good name because there are real concerns up in Big Bear. This isn’t just a war of words, it’s a real criminal case with real-life ramifications.”

  “She wants her name in this thing, put her name in it.” Pants sounded like a living, breathing mobster for the first time.

  Gwyn froze in mid-sip, wondering where the feckless contractor she’d met in Santa Barbara had gone. Pants coming off like his real name, the one with lots of syllables. Then she got it. The gig’s up. Thanks to his unmasking by Trenton and Warren, Pants was free to be his true self: a goon.

  Mommsa patted his leg. “He’s got a very good sense of p-r about these things.” She sat back, as if all would be as she wished.

  “Mommsa,” Gwyn tried, “what George is saying is that this is a time to strike a conciliatory note. Damage control. Okay?”

  “Easy for you to say, dear, your name’s in headlines every day. And it’s on the radio, TV. But what about me? And I’ve got a show coming up. Maybe I should be a murder suspect for a while. Take my turn.”

  “Joanna, you are a murder suspect,” Delagopolis said.

  “Not for a long time now,” she sniffed.

  “Wait,” Pants said. “You’re saying she’s a murder suspect?”

  Delagopolis looked at him, nodded warily.

  “Then you,” he pointed roughly at Mommsa, “got to shut up. It’s the way you play the game. You shoot off your trap as much as you want, but once they name you, you shut up.”

  Mommsa looked like she’d smack him, but didn’t, and Pants, it pained Gwyn to see, had had the last word.

  “Here are copies of the statements you made to the sheriff’s office back then.” Delagopolis handed Mommsa and Gwyn stapled pages. “You’ve got to review them on the way up there.”

  As they left, Georgie D handed the release to his assistant. “Go ahead and send it out to the usual suspects. Anyone else calls, give it to them, too.”

  As Delagopolis wedged the Benz onto the 10, he joked, “If anybody pulls up alongside us and tries to shoot, duck.”

  “The hell with that,” Pants said, pulling out a handgun that looked a foot long. “I protect mine.” He wrapped his arm around Mommsa, who didn’t look nearly as startled as Gwyn thought she should.

  “You got a license for that thing?” Delagopolis asked uneasily.

  “Yeah, I got a license. Right here.” Pants peeled his left cheek off the expensive leather seat and made a show of pointing the gun barrel at his butt.

  Classy, Mommsa. Real classy.

  This exchange was followed by the most uneasy silence Gwyn had registered in some time. Delagopolis’ fingers tap-tap-tapped the steering wheel nervously as he edged into the carpool lane and set the cruise control at seventy.

  Gwyn reviewed the statement she’d made to the sheriff’s department twenty-three years ago, and then watched the suburbs thin as they headed east.

  She’d now ridden in five of Delagopolis’ cars, stretching back over two decades. The Benz was by far the quietest. Too quiet. She could hear Pants’ hand on Mommsa’s hose, the scratchy sound of his calluses catching on the nylon. Worse than a nail on a blackboard. Argh.

  “Could we have some music?” she said.

  Delagopolis switched on the sound system. Mantovani, Some Enchanted Evening. So sweet Gwyn felt like she ought to have a tooth drilled.

  “That’s really nice. Very romantic,” Pants said.

  “Glad I can be of service,” Delagopolis said without a trace of irony.

  “Do you have anything a little more . . . contemporary?” Gwyn asked Delagopolis.

  He smiled, shook his head. She listened. She suffered.

  “I want to go over something with all of you,” he said several miles later, turning down Moon River.

  “We’re listening,” Mommsa said.

  “It’s very important that you not say anything that’s not completely consistent with what you said in those statements. So if he asks you something, and you’re not sure what you said in your statement, simply say, ‘I can’t remember,’ or ‘I’m not sure.’ I’ll be right there to back you up. Or if I sense you’re heading off in the wrong direction—”

  “Like the truth,” Mommsa said dryly.

  “—I’ll jump in. And Pants . . . ” Delagopolis glanced in the rear view again to make sure he had his attention, “. . . not a word. Don’t say a thing.”

  “It’s for your own good, sweetheart.” Mommsa gave him a quick kiss on the cheek.

  Gwyn looked back long enough to see Pants pretend to zip his mouth shut.

  Delagopolis turned up the sound: Love is a Many Splendored Thing.

  Not always.

  Within an hour they were speeding past prickly-pear cactus and starting the long climb up to Big Bear. The scenery was vaguely familiar, cactus morphing to pines as they gained elevation, boulders to mountains. But Gwyn was more surprised by how little she recalled. She must have made this trip a thousand times as a child, and all but one of those drives had faded from memory. It wasn’t a ride up to Big Bear that had come to mind, but one back down the mountain. A bright sunny day like this one. A/C on in John Appleton’s “Caddy,” as he’d called it. But without John Appleton. The day they were done with him forever.

  Or so they’d told themselves at the time.

  It’s like he was reaching out from the grave, those bony hands and arms grabbing them once more.

  They arrived in Big Bear early enough to get lunch. The commercial strip looked about the same as it always had, which is to say faux western and genuinely tacky. Delagopolis asked if there were any restaurants they’d recommend.

  “George, it’s been two decades,” Gwyn said. “I think the places where we use to eat, those people are probably dead by now.”

  “Them, too?” Delagopolis said with a huge laugh.

  Mommsa said she remembered a German bistro. “It had the stools by the window.”

  And the lederhosen. And the oompah music. And the owner always staring at
her chest and playing his friggin’ accordion. Yup, Gwyn remembered. You forget all kinds of important stuff in life but you remember crap like that. Go figure. Or even the joke she’d told the old creep when she was a snotty fourteen year-old:

  “What’s the definition of a gentleman?”

  He’d shook his crusty old head, ogled her girlish little breasts through his dandruff-dusted glasses, and said “A gentleman?” in his thick accent. “I don’t know. Vy don’t you tell me.”

  “A man who knows how to play the accordion –”

  “Vell, of course,” he interrupted.

  “And doesn’t.”

  “Could we go a little light?” she asked the group. “Somewhere with a salad?”

  “I like those German type foods,” Pants said.

  Gwyn found him entirely too assertive today, and noticed that he’d stuck the gun in his pants before getting out of the car. It made him look like he had the world’s longest erection, which might have been the point.

  “Great, you go chow down on some bratwurst with Mommsa, and I’ll go troll for a salad.”

  “She always disrespecting you like that?” Gwyn heard him say as she walked away.

  Delagopolis hurried up alongside her. “Mind if I join you? I don’t think I can take any Weiner Schnitzel.”

  “I’m afraid he’ll burp and shoot off his balls.”

  Delagopolis laughed, squeezed her shoulder. “You’re all right, you know that, Gwyn?”

  “You say so.”

  “I get all kinds, right? I’m a criminal defense lawyer. But I can honestly say I’ve never represented anyone like Pants.”

  “You mean a total bottom-feeder?”

  “You said it, not I. How about here? Look, fresh flowers in the window.” Delagopolis explained that if the restaurant could afford them during the slowest time of the year—Big Bear being chiefly a ski area—it couldn’t be all bad.

  So much for assumptions, no matter how well reasoned. The lettuce was as wilted as funeral flowers, the tomatoes as tasty and shiny as floor wax. By the time they finished eating, the only thing to recommend the place was the absence of lederhosen, accordions, and a crusty old fart to stare at her chest.