Striking Back

by Mark Nykanen

  She wondered if Barr ever went to the ballpark, if he could be as brazen about his appearance in public as he had been with her and the guys in the group. But no matter how comfortable he might appear, she knew the camera operators would never put him up on the giant screen.

  The bright sun and heat made it a challenge to stay awake while she watched the building, but when Barr stepped out of the lobby, she also felt a gratifying jolt of discovery. She straightened, alert in an instant, as he limped down the street toward her in his unmistakable hat.

  As he drew within four cars of her, she considered sliding down under the dash, but he never so much as glanced in the direction of the CR-V before stepping into the street to open the door of a meticulously restored white Chevy Nova. Mid-sixties, she guessed. Long before her time. And long before his, too, if he’d been honest about his age. When he pulled out, she followed him, but only after two cars had provided a buffer.

  She managed to avoid landing directly behind him all the way out to Hollywood. He turned into a parking garage, and if she followed him she’d end up on his bumper, so she risked losing him by circling the block. Driving as aggressively as she dared, she jumped lanes twice and ran a yellow light, pulling back around to the parking garage as he crossed the street.

  She double-parked as Barr limped up to The Actors’ Studio of Hollywood, a venerable institution that had been in this location for more than four decades and graduated the likes of River Phoenix, Sal Mineo, Sean Penn, and Winona Ryder. Without pause, he pushed the smoked glass door open and disappeared inside.

  Gwyn stared in disbelief. Her incredulity might have immobilized her, but a blitz of angry car horns whipped her back into awareness. Another spin around the block snagged her a spot on the street with a partially blocked view of the school entrance.

  She sat for the next hour until she finally had to pee so badly she rushed into a Chinese restaurant and used the facilities, praying Barr wouldn’t leave during her three-minute absence. As she raced for the front door without stopping for takeout, the proprietress shouted angrily at her in Mandarin. No translation necessary.

  Gwyn didn’t know whether he’d left until forty minutes later when he stepped from the dark entrance and walked back across the street to the parking garage. It took her a second to make sense of this, and then she saw that he was no longer limping.

  Now that’s really weird.

  But the questions raised by his sudden loss of a limp and his interest in an acting school were only compounded by the shock that arose after she followed him to his next destination.

  Still keeping a couple of cars between them, she trailed Barr all the way to Highway 1 in Santa Monica, and then gripped the wheel, astonished, as he claimed a parking spot with a clear view of her condo. There he remained, much as she had in her own car only a few hours ago, watching and waiting behind the wheel.

  Chapter 11

  Gwyn slipped into a loading zone on the Coast Highway about five-hundred feet past Barr’s Nova, dropping out of the long line of traffic that had sped past him after he’d pulled over. As much as she’d been able to tell with a glance, he’d been preoccupied parking his mint condition white Chevy and hadn’t noticed her.

  She turned around in her seat and craned her neck to look past the parked cars that stretched all the way back to him. No question, he was treating himself to a great view of her condo across the road. The impulse to march back and demand to know just what he thought he was doing became so strong that she cut the engine, yanked the emergency brake lever and threw open the door.

  Let’s get it over with, Mr. Barr Onstott, right here, right now, right out in the open. Who the hell are you, and what are you doing staring at my condo?

  She’d take him by surprise. But her frustration and fury couldn’t keep her fear at bay. Even as her door hung open to passing traffic, she reminded herself that if her suspicions were correct, Barr Onstott had slaughtered four violent men. Who was to say he wouldn’t try to force her at gunpoint into his car when she had only the meek allies of daylight and public exposure.

  She closed the door in defeat and hit the electronic lock, then spent a few fruitless minutes checking the rear view mirror before accepting that going home could prove a murderous mistake.

  When a cluster of cars blocked his view, she raced back on to Highway 1. With her eyes on the rear view as much as the road ahead, she left phone messages for Detectives Warren and Trenton. No hero her. She no longer knew where they’d placed her on their carousel of criminals, but Barr Onstott had just grabbed the brass ring and she figured they ought to know. When she became convinced that she’d left Barr behind, she experienced the first intimations of the freedom that comes from the quick-fix of flight.

  Having finally settled the worst of her jitters, she also left a message for Hark that she’d like to see him. Then she worked her way north on surface streets to Pacific Palisades, knowing he might not be home for hours yet, but counting on his quaint little burg to provide a soothing antidote to her disturbing day.

  The town perched above the ocean only twenty miles west of downtown Los Angeles, but as she glided along the freshly painted macadam of its main street she felt as if she’d entered the cozy confines of a Norman Rockwell painting.

  She parked, and lured by the smell of espresso, headed into Jeepers Creepers, a coffee house with a faux Victorian façade. As soon as the young woman behind the counter served up her frothy latte, she buzzed Warren again.

  He surprised her by answering, “Yes, Gwyn, we got your message.”

  “What are you doing about it?” she said as she claimed a small table.

  “We’re on Highway 1 right now, but he’s not here. Are you sure you saw him?”

  “Yes, I’m sure I saw him.” She told him precisely where Barr had parked.

  “Well, that’s where we are, but there’s no white Nova or Barr Onstott in the neighborhood.”

  This thoroughly creeped her out, and she lifted her eyes to the coffee house entrance. Is he out there? “Can you go find him, please? Ask him what he was doing staring at my condo?”

  “This is part of a larger investigation, Gwyn, so yes, we’ll talk to him at some point. We’ve already talked to him, and when it’s appropriate we’ll talk to him again.”

  She hated being patronized, especially when she was petrified. “You think it might be appropriate now, since he’s stalking me?”

  “Sitting outside your condo on a public street does not, in this case, constitute stalking, sorry to say.”

  “What do you make of it then?”

  “Assuming your report is accurate . . . ”

  Assuming my report is accurate?

  “. . . I’d say we learned something today that might be useful, and we’re doing all we can to find out a whole lot more.”

  “Where does that leave me? It’s not like I’m feeling real good about staying at my place.”

  “Where are you now?”

  “I’d rather not say.” With those few words bursting out as they did, she realized she didn’t trust the detectives. It was as if all her misgivings about them had coalesced in the brief time it took to respond.

  “What are you saying, Gwyn?”

  “I’m not sure,” she confessed. “But if I need you, I’ll call.”

  “Are we still on for tomorrow?”

  “Yes, at the Starbucks on San Vicente. And if you find out anything about Onstott, I want you to tell me. I deserve at least that much.”

  “See you then,” Warren said.

  She glanced at the entrance again, then mustered the nerve to call Onstott’s home phone on the off chance he wasn’t waiting to grab her here in Pacific Palisades. His answering machine clicked on, and she listened to a voice as dull as the inside of a pipe, strangely hollow in tone.

  As she left her office number, Barr picked up. Her senses came alive at the same moment that she filled with relief knowing that he wasn’t hiding around the corner.

 
; “I’d like to meet with you,” she managed in sprightly tones as she turned from the coffee house clatter.

  “The group’s over.”

  “You’re right, the group is over, and I’m sorry that we couldn’t continue, but under the circumstances—”

  He interrupted her with a laugh, the first she’d heard from him. Nothing staged about it, this was hilarity in all its bleached-bone bluntness. “Yeah, those were pretty bad ‘circumstances.’ Hey, let’s just call it what it was, a fucking riot. And don’t tell me to watch my language, the group’s over.”

  “I’m sorry about the . . . fight. Did you get arrested?”

  A pause that lasted two full seconds, which felt like two full minutes to Gwyn.

  “Let’s just say I got as far as the sidewalk, and then the Pomona PD grabbed me and gave me a full escort to jail, where they stuck my goddamn fingers on that fucking inkpad and burned my skin so bad with those chemicals that I thought I’d pass out from the pain. Then they tried it again, because they didn’t believe me when I said my prints had been burned off. The night court judge took pity on me and released me. I hope like hell when those charges come up you guys will tell them that I helped you out in there.”

  “We will, no question about it, but I’m wondering if you’d meet with me?”

  “Meet with you? Now?”

  “No, not now,” she said. How about tomorrow?”

  “Where?”

  “The Starbucks in Brentwood. It’s on San Vicente.”

  “That’s a drive.”

  “How about it?”

  “You really going to tell them that I helped you out?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “What time?”

  “How about 12:30?”

  “Okay, I’ll be there.”

  Great, so we’ll have quite a convocation, she thought after she hung up. Trenton and Warren, and then Mr. Barr Onstott will make his entrance. She’d meet him yet in daylight in a public space, but with two homicide detectives by her side. It couldn’t get much safer than that, could it?

  She felt safe here too, now that she knew he wasn’t hiding around the corner. Relieved, she headed out the door of Jeepers Creepers with the idea of treating herself to dinner at a Peruvian restaurant she’d read about in L.A. Weekly; but three steps along Hark called back to say that he’d be home shortly, and an even more appealing evening came to mind.

  By ten of twelve the following morning she was parked near the Starbucks in Brentwood. Even after all these years, it was still a familiar sight from the OJ coverage. Nicole Brown Simpson had hung out there.

  Trenton was sitting by himself when she walked in. He’d wedged his broad belly between a wall and a table that didn’t appear much larger than his two massive mitts, which encircled a black enamel mug only a shade darker than the detective’s own skin.

  As she made her way through a maze of screenwriters tapping away on their laptops, Detective Warren exited the washroom, his manner no warmer than his damp handshake. She ordered a latte and joined them.

  Trenton hadn’t said so much as hello, and appeared wholly content to let his partner take the lead. Warren asked if she’d seen Onstott or talked to him since they’d spoken yesterday.

  “No,” she lied and explained she’d stayed with a friend for her safety.

  “So how is the good doctor?” Trenton asked.

  “Are you guessing or are you stalking me again?”

  “Guessing,” Trenton admitted.

  “He’s fine.” She checked her watch: 12:10. Twenty minutes and counting. “I’d sure like to know what Onstott was doing outside my condo.”

  “You’re sure it was him?”

  “Detective Warren,” she rested her latte on the table, “do you think I could possibly mistake him for someone else? I mean, am I missing something here, or are there two guys who look like him walking around?”

  Warren shifted uncomfortably.

  “Does he own a white Nova?” she asked. “It looked like it was from the sixties, but really nice.”

  Both detectives nodded.

  “There you go, you’ve got my answer. Now my question is, what are you going to do about it?”

  “We’re definitely including your report in our investigation.”

  “And we plan on talking to him again soon,” Trenton added.

  You don’t know the half of it.

  “Glad to hear it, but what about protecting me from him? I’m afraid to even go near my place.”

  “Are you requesting a police presence there?”

  “Yes. Of course I am. If you guys could go 24/7 on me for over a week, you can sure get a patrolman at half your salary to keep an eye on my place.”

  “We’ll consider your request,” Warren said, “and let you know.”

  “When?”

  He sipped his coffee. “Later today. Can we still reach you on your cell?”

  “That’d be fine.”

  “What else do you have for us?”

  Gwyn looked at them dumbfounded. “What do I have for you? What did I just give you? You got a guy in my group stalking me. How’s that for starters?” She noticed her voice rising, drawing the attention of the screenwriters who were now staring openly at her. She forced herself to calm down. “Did you know he’s going to The Actors Studio of Hollywood?”

  The two detectives glanced at each other. “No,” Warren said, “we didn’t know that. Are you sure?”

  “I followed him there yesterday. I saw him go in, stay an hour and forty minutes, and come out. That was right before he drove out to my place.”

  “Wait a second,” Trenton put his coffee down. “You were following him? I thought you were scared of him. What gives?”

  “What gives? I’ll tell you what gives.” The screenwriters were staring again. Down with your voice, she warned herself. “I’m not sitting around while you guys pin this on my mother, not when Barr Onstott is nothing but lies. He lied to me about being burned in the Chatsworth quake, which I know is no bulletin for you, but it sure was for me, and I think he’s lying about everything else he told me, including going to USC. I don’t even think he’s twenty-three.”

  12:25, she noticed on a wall clock above Warren’s head. Trenton’s eyes followed hers.

  “You want to know something else?” she said. “That limp of his? Totally fake. He limped into that acting school, and he walked out like a man on a mission. No limp. He could move as well as either one of you. Which didn’t totally shock me when I thought about what he did during that fight in Pomona. Which, by the way, thanks, guys, keeping that group going was a great idea.”

  “You agreed, no haranguing,” Warren said.

  “About my mother. Come on, who’s Barr Onstott?”

  She couldn’t have timed that line better if she’d been cued by the entire membership of the Directors Guild of America, because right at that moment the door opened and Barr walked in. His eyes landed on Gwyn, then on the detectives. They were the only part of him still moving, but not for long.

  The words, “Oh, shit,” formed clearly on his thin lips. He remained in the open doorway, a subject of intense scrutiny from everyone in the place.

  The detectives looked up and stared, but neither man reacted to the shock filling Barr’s face. Then Trenton slapped the table hard enough to knock over his mug.

  Gwyn pushed back her chair to keep the coffee from spilling on her lap, and turned back to Barr as he raced from the door. She leaped up and shouted at Trenton and Warren, “Aren’t you going to stop him?”

  “You sandbagged us, Sanders,” said Trenton.

  “Sandbagged you? I want answers. You’re supposed to protect and serve, so protect and serve.”

  Neither man moved.

  Gwyn offered a furious profanity and darted through the maze of tables, knocked over a chair and saw a nearby screenwriter hug his laptop to his chest, betting all the while that the detectives would get off their rumps. She barreled toward the entrance, eyein
g Barr about halfway down the street hurrying past palms as evenly placed as light posts.

  But he couldn’t run fast, and within seconds she was gaining on him. She spotted him looking back over his shoulder.

  You’re chasing a killer.

  She didn’t know what she was chasing anymore, but she’d gotten two detectives here, she assured herself with a look back over her shoulder. They weren’t there. For a second, surely no longer, Gwyn considered retreat, but the risks didn’t feel that great. She had her daylight, public exposure, and two detectives back there . . . somewhere.

  Barr had ducked between two parked cars, but she picked up his trail as he scurried to the driver’s door of the white one in front. The Nova. She could make it out clearly now from four cars back. He already had the damn thing unlocked and threw himself onto the driver’s seat. A second later a puff of smoke rose from the tailpipe and his brake lights flashed. He’d turned the wheels so he could pull away, but the next car up kept him from peeling out.

  She never weighed the risks when she ran into the street and veered toward the front of his car, pounding the driver’s window as she raced past. Out of breath and holding herself up with her hands on her thighs, she hunkered right in front of the grill.

  He sounded the horn for three or four seconds.

  “Not a chance,” she muttered as the chrome bumper rolled steadily toward her. He appeared ready to knock her out of the way. Still breathing hard, she thrust out her arms straight from her sides, though for what earthly reason even she couldn’t have said.

  He gunned the engine, as if he were about to run right over her.

  She stood there, openly daring him to hit her. He did. The bumper smacked against her shins. Not hard enough to knock her down, but he backed her up a foot.

  Emboldened, he did it again.

  She was about to hurl herself on the hood when Trenton yelled, “Stop, Onstott. Do it again and you’re under arrest.”

  Gwyn stared at Trenton in disbelief. He gets to do it again before you arrest him? Twice isn’t good enough?