Striking Back

by Mark Nykanen

  Gwyn also wanted to know if the cops had arrested Barr. He was out of that church basement fast enough. Had his scars bought him a get out of jail card? And how old was he really? Poly sci major at USC? There were ways to check out the academic claims without getting bogged down with university administrators. As a UCLA undergrad she’d taken a couple of political science courses herself, so why not toss a few basic political questions at him? Keep it simple, pass or fail.

  Detective Trenton had called him a creep, indicated before last night’s group that he’d been trapped in a fire of his own making. What else did the detectives know about Barr Onstott that they weren’t telling her? None of it added up. A judge had rushed him into her group two weeks after it had started, and he turned out to be a world class liar, which, granted, didn’t make him unique among batterers.

  And what about that little freak, Jesse? Locking the door, racing up to her, saying “She’s all mine.” Those carnivorous eyes. His threat to Frank Owens had been as public as a lynching. Of course, he wouldn’t have been the first moron to announce his plans for a crime and then commit it. The prisons were filled with bulbs so dim they couldn’t light up a mirror in a compact.

  And while you’re on the subject of creepiness, Gwyn advised herself, don’t overlook Blanche Gable. Before Gwyn had met the cable queen, she’d figured her bar for strangeness had been set well out of reach by all the mondo bizarro men she’d worked with, but that creature with the weird hair had lifted it to dizzying heights.

  Blanche had aired a series on battered wives, right? Perfectly reasonable, in and of itself. But now that Gwyn was sitting back and reviewing more recent developments, the picture of Blanche that was beginning to form appeared very peculiar. Back in Pomona, after alluding, once again, to having been a battered wife—“I been there . . . beat up”—which was sad, Blanche had hissed that she didn’t care if all the guys in the group were killed, which was insane.

  Then there was this morning’s call when Blanche had taken such delight in the grisliest details of Frank Owen’s death, and then ranted about her “empty rooms.” Insisting that Gwyn had them, too.

  The cable queen definitely warranted a hard look—much more so than Mommsa.

  Much as she loved her, Gwyn knew her motive for trying to figure out who was slaughtering the men in her group wasn’t strictly out of concern for her mother. Mommsa had been at the house when John Appleton died, and if the detectives nailed her for the men’s group murders, they’d also compromise the only person Gwyn could claim as a witness to her stepfather’s timely demise. For the cops, this made Mommsa an even greater prize. If they pinned the men’s group murders on her, then her daughter would probably go down in Big Bear.

  Before Gwyn could review any of the other obvious suspects, the doorbell chimed. Must be Hark.

  As she breezed past Mommsa’s masks hanging so prominently on the living room wall, her thoughts returned to Barr Onstott, and she saw how she could get some answers about him. She’d use the man’s own tactics. What was good for the goose was good for the gander. Speaking of the male of the species, Hark looked great.

  She kissed him and felt his passion, but that’s all she felt. None of her own. Here they were, lips and tongues a tangle, and she felt nothing, absolutely nothing moving inside her. Where had that juicy rolling motion in her belly gone?

  Hark must have sensed it. “You okay?” He handed her flowers that he’d been holding behind his back.

  “I’m fine. Thanks, these are so pretty.” Purple gladiolas. “Let me put them in a vase.”

  Her own appearance, she realized, was far less alluring than the flowers. She’d thrown on a pair of washed-out blue drawstring shorts and a top so baggy it could have qualified as “spousal abuse drag.” Take-’em-for-granted clothing, she recognized, now that it was too late to alter the evening’s first impression.

  After she set the flowers on her dining room table, Hark slipped his arms around her from behind and kissed her neck. He might as well have nuzzled the vase for all she felt.

  “I guess I’m really not fine. And I hate to say this, but I’m not in the mood.” She slipped out of his arms to retrieve two long-stemmed glasses. “I’ve got a really nice cabernet. Care to partake?”

  He nodded. “The way you’re feeling is understandable, don’t you think?”

  “Rationally, I know that’s true, but I sure wish it weren’t.” She handed him the wine. “Let’s sit out here,” she said, leading him to the balcony where the faint rush of the surf reached them, and the odors, so noticeable an hour ago, had faded.

  “I need to get back in the waves,” she said as they sat on the deck chairs and he filled their glasses. She joined him in a sip.

  “I’d say in your case surfing would be my first prescription for mental health.”

  “Maybe I can work in an early session tomorrow.”

  “Am I invited?”

  “Of course. Do you have your board with you?”

  He didn’t, but she had a nine-footer he could use.

  “I’m interested in your mind as well as your body,” he said after they’d settled the surfing question.

  The right line; it made her smile, and the smile made her feel open. “I’m shell-shocked, I really am. I no sooner meet you then I find out about this guy killing the men in my group. It’s not like I feel terrible about the ones who have died, either, because I honestly don’t. I’ve cried plenty over kids getting killed in some stupid drive-by shooting, but not these guys. Each of them was a horrible human being.”

  “From everything I’ve heard, that sounds spot-on.”

  “But even though they were the worst of the worst, I don’t want any more of them to die.”

  “That’s reasonable.”

  “This crap in Big Bear’s a whole different story, though. It feels like more than I can take.”

  “That’s because Big Bear’s all about you. The murders down here aren’t so personal.”

  “What about the poem he carved in my painting?”

  “Good point. I’d forgotten about that.”

  “But you know what? You’re basically right. The poem freaked me out, but not like Big Bear’s doing.”

  “Can you tell me what really happened up there?”

  She shook her head. “It’s not just me, so I can’t.”

  “Your mother?”

  “I really can’t say anything.”

  “What about John Appleton? Can you tell me anything about him?”

  “You already know him?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Those questions you mentioned in your lecture, the ones from the Violence Index about how a psychopath humiliates his victims and forces family members to watch. That totally captured him.”

  Hark took her hand. “I’m so sorry you had to go through that.”

  She thanked him in a voice so soft it barely rose above the distant surf.

  He stood behind her and began to massage her neck and shoulders, working wordlessly.

  She let her head fall limp under the skillful force of his strong hands. They explored the recesses of her neck to the base of her skull, and then down along the ridge lines of her trapezius to her shoulders. He leaned her forward and slipped his hands up under her top to work the knots along her thoracic spine. A few moments later he said he was going to shut off the lights.

  A thick, ocean-misted darkness enveloped her. Without a word he raised her top over her head. She sat in her shorts and bra with the moist air coating her skin, feeling him kneading her spine down to where the straps hooked together. He worked them free in one smooth movement, and drew them off her shoulders. The silky fabric peeled from her breasts, and she felt the first impossible stirrings of sex. His fingers brushed her nipples as he lifted her bra aside, and she was pleasantly surprised to hear herself sigh. His hands returned to her spine, and she luxuriated in the marvelous path he made down her back. Her breasts, untouched but for that fleeting, glancing mome
nt, had never felt so aroused; and when she could stand their tease no longer she reached back, took his hands, and brought them up to her, holding them to direct their exquisite pressure.

  At the very moment she let her head fall all the way back to kiss him, a brilliant light flashed up on the balcony. Her left breast burned bright as a bulb, and she heard Blanche say heatedly to her cameraman, “Roll-roll.”

  Hark shielded her and they blundered their way off the balcony as Blanche shouted, “A one-on-one, that’s all I’m asking. Come on, you’re making me crazy.”

  Gwyn sputtered profanities in the dark condo and rushed to her bedroom to grab some clothing. When she returned a couple of minutes later, Hark had closed the blinds and turned on the lights.

  “I want her arrested,” Gwyn said.

  “I doubt they’d do that.”

  “That woman’s a nightmare, an absolute . . . ” she was still sputtering “. . . nightmare. You think she got anything?”

  “I doubt it. It sounded like her cameraman had just switched on his light.”

  She collapsed on the couch. “Maybe you’d better leave. I didn’t sleep last night, and I’m starting to feel so tired I can barely stand up. Whatever fun I had in me just jumped off that balcony.”

  He kneeled, took her face in his hands, and kissed her. “Don’t send me on my way. Let’s go to bed and get some sleep. I could use it, too. I don’t want to leave you, and I don’t think you really want me to.”

  “I don’t,” she admitted, still held by his hands.

  “Let’s just go to bed then.”

  But sleep came more easily to Hark than her. She slipped out from the covers haunted by the fear that the cable queen was still hanging out on the beach below the condo. Not a minute later, she crawled like a commando out on the balcony to see if she could spot Blanche, but it was impossible to tell in the dark.

  Gwyn listened intently for any sounds coming from the sand. Nothing. Slightly reassured, she slipped back into bed as a gentle ocean breeze rustled the curtains.

  Her thoughts returned to the plan she’d come up with for Barr Onstott, the one that struck her just before greeting Hark at the door. With Barr’s scarred face firmly in mind, she closed her eyes and tried to sleep.

  Remarkably, she slept well and didn’t awake until Hark stirred about 6:30. The two of them downed a quick cup of coffee, toast, and grabbed her boards. Soon they were paddling out in the coastal haze toward middling waves; but she enjoyed low-stress sessions, and Hark appeared to have a good time on every wave he rode.

  An hour and a half later, after hanging ten for the first time in weeks on a perfectly formed three-footer, she and Hark hurried back to her condo. He threw on his clothes and gave her a good-bye kiss that she felt all the way down to her toes.

  She showered, and as she dried off, noticed her smile before she noticed her shiner. While still combing out her hair, she took her phone out to the balcony and called Lupe to see if they could get together.

  “I’m coming up to see mi mamá mañana. That okay?”

  “That’ll be great, but let me ask you something right now. You got a minute?” Gwyn asked her.

  “For you? Anytime.”

  “During the fight, Barr jumped in front of you. He said something, I saw his lips move, but I couldn’t make it out. Did you hear him?”

  “Yeah, he said, ‘I got your back.’ At first when I saw him I thought, ‘Not him, too,’ but he said that right away, and he was like tiger man.”

  “So who the hell is he?” Gwyn told Lupe about her doubts.

  “My guess? He’s a bad boy. He’s not some kid from college. I know those rich kids from USC, they don’t go jumping into a fight like he did.”

  “Well, he’s supposedly from Idaho and on a scholarship” Gwyn said.

  “Whoever he is, he’s mixed it up before.”

  “I’m going to find out exactly who he is. I’ve about had it.” Gwyn put her comb on the small balcony table and shook out her hair.

  “How you gonna do that?”

  “Trenton and Warren watched me, right? I’m gonna watch Barr.” At that moment Gwyn’s eyes filled with the disquieting sight of three adolescent girls strolling onto the beach in thong bikinis. Where are their mothers?

  “You think he’s the one?”

  “Excuse me?” She forced her attention back to the phone—and away from the three cuties trolling for trouble.

  “Do you think that guy Barr’s the one?”

  “I don’t think Mommsa’s doing it, and—”

  “Yeah, I saw that in the paper this morning. That’s crazy.”

  “It’s in the paper?” Oh my God.

  “Yeah, front page, right at the top . . . ”

  Lupe paused, and Gwyn could tell she was holding back.

  “What else? Come on, Lupe, just tell me.”

  “They had lots of pictures of you, your mama. They even got a picture of you two together when you were a little kid. It’s really cute,” she added uncertainly.

  “How’d they get that?” But Gwyn feared she knew the answer already—from Mommsa, the heat-seeking publicity missile.

  “I don’t know. I thought maybe you give it to them.’

  “No way. They have anything about Jesse?”

  “Little bit, not much,” Lupe said.

  “Look, I’ll let you go. Tomorrow then. Why don’t you come over here?”

  “I’ll be there. Be about three? Gonna take Mamí to lunch, then I’ll come over.”

  Gwyn hurried down to the lobby and picked up her copy of the Times. Sure enough, front page, top fold, just like Lupe had said. Pictures of Mommsa and her, and one of them taken together on their property up in Big Bear when she was about eight. Shaded by pines, but both of them still squinting. Then she spotted the root cellar in the background, and this gave her a real chill.

  She looked at the cutline. “Courtesy of Joanna Appleton.” Another fear confirmed. Did Mommsa really see this as good publicity?

  That woman’s out of control.

  She called Delagopolis to tell him about the pictures. For six-hundred dollars an hour, he could have the honor of calling her mother, but his well-tressed assistant said he’d already seen them and had talked to Mommsa.

  Okay, Georgie D’s on the ball.

  Gwyn nibbled on strawberries while she pulled out everything she had on Barr Onstott. It was time to review the entire file.

  Question number one: How did he really get burned?

  Number two: Can you name me two or three prominent political scientists? Past or present? Should be a no-brainer for a recent poly-sci major.

  Number three: What was his real name? It sure wasn’t Barr Onstott, not unless he’d just moved to L.A., and that wouldn’t jibe with the rest of his supposed bio. She couldn’t find a single Barr Onstott in the entire region. She Googled him till her fingers all but bled. She went through every phone directory, too. Bart Onstott? A few. Bill Onstott? Ditto. Burt, Beau, Bernie, even a Bing, but no Barr.

  Number four: Why’d he come creeping around her studio? She wasn’t buying that crap about how he was scared and wanted to know what was going on after Kruber was killed. It had been hard enough to believe then, harder now after seeing how he’d handled himself during that brawl.

  She reminded herself to call Trenton and Warren. It was definitely time to find out what Warren had meant when he’d called Onstott a creep and said his burns were his own fault. And what about that scalpel by her painting, the one with the poem scratched into it? Did they find any prints on the handle, or on anything else in her studio?

  She dug out Warren’s card and left a message.

  Twenty minutes later he called back, wanting to know what he could do for her.

  “Give me some answers,” she said.

  “We’d like some, too.”

  “You’re starting to get yours. You know I’m not the killer.” She settled back out on the balcony, watching the sun burn off the last of the morni
ng mist and cloud cover.

  “That’s a problem.”

  “How’s that a problem?”

  “That you’re not the solution.” Warren laughed, and she pictured him immediately recomposing his fastidious self, adjusting his glasses, straightening his tie.

  “There’s always my mother.” She couldn’t resist the rejoinder.

  No response.

  “Okay, look, I didn’t call you to plead her innocence, although she didn’t do it. I’m calling because I want to meet you face-to-face. You and your partner.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I have questions maybe you can answer, and information you might find interesting.”

  “You’re not going to harangue us about your mother, right?”

  “Promise.” Warning herself as well to put aside her anger over having been coerced into continuing the group. Delagopolis had a younger associate looking into the viability of a civil suit over that debacle. No need to get into it with Warren.

  “We can meet with you tomorrow,” Warren said. “We’ve got to be over in Brentwood in the morning, so what about noon at the Starbucks on San Vicente?”

  “Sounds like a plan.”

  Within an hour she’d driven out to Chavez Ravine. When she parked she could see the broad shoulders of Dodger Stadium stretching out in the near distance. More striking to her, however, was the building that had drawn her here. A half a block away, Los Arcos Apartments stood six stories tall. Not swanky, and not in the most affluent part of town, but a respectable looking place.

  As she lowered her window and cut the engine, she heard a cheer rise in the distance and realized it must be a game day. She didn’t follow the team, and wondered if Barr were a fan, if he could see any of the action from his apartment.

  Another cheer, much louder, rose from the crowd. The clamor built until the stadium sounded like a great bellowing beast; and as she listened to the roar she also began to hear the intermittent beeps and claxons of the monster stadium screen, imagined it emblazoned with the ecstatic faces of fans hugging and screaming, cute couples kissing, the quintessential jubilance of southern California.