The Breakers

by Marcia Muller

  I nodded, watching Ollie drive off. “Must be kind of hard on you.”

  “It’s what a buddy does. Besides, Ol’s pretty self-sufficient if nothing sets him off.”

  “What sets him off?”

  “The usual PTSD stuff—sudden loud noises, flashbacks.”

  “How does he react?”

  “Freezes up, mostly. Freaks out now and then—I give him tranquilizers when that happens.”

  “But he’s able to work regularly?”

  “More or less. Disability pays most of the bills. They’re enough for him to get by, but they should be higher. Ol fought and almost died for this country, and what does it give him? Or me or any of us? Only enough to get by!”

  I agreed with him.

  Al stood. “I gotta go, Ms. McCone. Ol’ll be waiting.”

  I remained seated on the steps for a while after he’d gone. I knew something about PTSD, because I’d read up on it and talked to a couple of physicians, hoping it might have some connection to what was wrong with my half brother Darcy, and wondering if it had contributed to my brother Joey’s overdose. No connection had appeared, so I’d finally given up.

  Primarily, PTSD involves a trigger—a traumatic event that causes the person who experienced it to relive the experience or avoid situations that are reminders of it. The disease may appear from one month after the event to an indefinite number of years later. If exposed to such memories, the individual can have many responses: physical pain, flashbacks, or nightmares; depression or anxiety; paranoia; fear of objects connected with the trauma. Irritability, lack of concentration, and sleeplessness are also symptoms. To say nothing of risky behavior (“I can climb the Golden Gate Bridge”); avoidance (“I don’t need nobody”); repression (“I can’t remember”); emotional numbing (“Can’t feel a thing for that asshole”); and hyperarousal (“I’m so nervous I can’t sit still”).

  Okay, how had Ollie scored on my personal—albeit inexpert—PTSD test?

  Traumatic event: Combat in Afghanistan. Reliving the experience in flashback.

  Physical pain: Ollie didn’t show evidence of it, but you couldn’t always observe that.

  Sleeplessness: Probably.

  Nightmares: Again, probably.

  Depression: Not that I could tell, but who can see into another person’s emotional state?

  Irritability: Ollie was an even-tempered man, as far as I knew.

  Lack of concentration: Yes.

  Risky behavior: Maybe crossing against the red light when traffic was coming, but otherwise he didn’t seem like a daredevil.

  Avoidance: Ollie was gregarious, and friendly enough except when he was drinking; then women gave him “the red ass.”

  Emotional numbing: Not the man who was so concerned for Chelle.

  Hyperarousal: Hardly.

  Ollie’s score on my amateur PTSD test was ambiguous. As with any disease or psychological syndrome, not everyone fit all the symptoms. And not everyone who fit some of them had the malady. Lord knows we all have our quirks. I should know—I’ve developed a lion’s share of them.

  7:41 p.m.

  Mick called as I was driving to Danny’s Inferno. He’d been unable to find any direct or indirect connection to the San Luis area for Chelle or any of the other principals in the case, now or from seven years ago. He’d keep digging.

  “A couple of other things,” he said then. “Some guy named Rosie—a man, no less—phoned to say that his truck was found wrecked in the Santa Cruz Mountains. It’s a total loss, but he’s talked his insurance agent into full replacement cost, so he’s happy.”

  “He have any idea how the truck got there?”

  “It had been hot-wired, so the cops figured it was stolen. Then they got a report that it had been used in a convenience store robbery in San Jose—two guys, both black.”

  That seemed to end any possible connection between the delivery truck and Zack’s murder. He’d used the truck to make his rounds for Rosie, then gone to lunch or whatever, and come out to find the truck gone. But why hadn’t he notified the police or Rosie? Well, there was probably some simple explanation. Maybe he’d parked it in a tow-away zone, mistakenly figured it had been towed, and hadn’t told Rosie because he was trying to scrape together enough money to pay the city ransom. And been murdered before he could.

  Mick went on, “Also, that PI Eric Lopez you use in Sacramento told me he’s located the girl who phoned you pretending to be Chelle. Her name’s Anna Teel. She’s a waitress at the Capitol City Café, and a friend of hers asked her to make the call to you.”

  “And the friend is?”

  “Woman named Li Huang. Another waitress, works for—”

  “I know who she works for. Cap’n Bobby.”

  7:59 p.m.

  I slammed into Cap’n Bobby’s and went straight to the end of the bar where Li Huang sat sucking on a plastic straw and staring at a sitcom on TV. There was nobody else in the place, fortunately, except for O’Hair. When Huang saw the expression on my face, her facial muscles tightened and she turned on her stool as if to leave.

  I was too quick for her. I grabbed her by the faux fur collar of her black spandex vest and spun her around. Pulled her up until her face was nearly level with mine, taking a perverse pleasure in the fear that clouded her eyes.

  “Hey, ladies!” O’Hair started to roll toward us.

  I stopped him by holding up my free hand like a traffic cop. “This is between Ms. Huang and me, Bobby.”

  She took the distraction as an opportunity to escape. I yanked her back.

  “You,” I said, “are a contemptible human being!”

  “I didn’t do anything!”

  “You promised your friend Anna Teel two hundred dollars if she called me pretending to be Chelle Curley and tried to get me to give her five thousand dollars. That’s extortion.”

  Cap’n Bobby was shocked. “Why, Li? Why’d you do a crazy thing like that?”

  She tried to squirm out of her jacket, but I twisted it by the hood and held her close.

  “Why?” I repeated.

  “It was just…opportunity.”

  “Explain that.”

  “Chelle is missing, and I heard you telling Bobby how close the two of you are, and I thought…”

  “Thought you could make a quick, easy score.”

  “I needed the money. Bills, and my rent’s overdue…”

  “I ought to have you arrested and prosecuted for attempted extortion. You and your friend both. Maybe I will,” I added, though I knew I wouldn’t. The attempt had failed and I had enough things to take up my time without filing a police report that would require yet another court appearance. “I’ll have to think about it.”

  Cap’n Bobby, his face crimson, pointed his chair toward the back of the restaurant. “See me in my office, Li,” he said.

  I let go of her, and she grasped the bar stool she’d been sitting on, hanging her head so her hair covered her face. “Now look what you did to me; I’m going to lose my job!”

  No sense of responsibility there. And no sense either. Scammers are all around us—and they’re all stupid.

  8:39 p.m.

  Danny’s Inferno was crowded, but I spotted Pamela Redfin serving customers in a booth at the rear. She waved when she saw me pushing through the tightly packed bodies.

  “So what brings you here tonight?” she asked when she finished serving. “News about Chelle?”

  “No. More questions for you and your father.”

  She glanced around at the crowd. “Danny and I will have to visit with you in shifts,” she said. “Most nights are busy, but not like this. We had to bring in a part-time helper. Are you drinking white wine?”

  She went to get it for me. A couple left another booth while she was gone, and I claimed it quickly before anyone else did. When Pamela returned, she said as she set the glass down, “So what do you want to know?”

  “I’ll try to be brief. I may have already asked you this, but when was the la
st time you saw Zack Kaplan?”

  “Hmmm. Last weekend, maybe.” She sighed. “I saw on the news about his murder. Awful.”

  “Do you know of any reason why someone would want to kill him?”

  “No. Zack got along with everybody, at least in here.”

  “Has anyone been around asking about him recently?”

  “No one I know of besides you. You don’t think one of our customers could have sliced him up that way—?”

  “No, I’m just trying to cover all the possibilities.”

  “Well…” People at a nearby table began clamoring for refills. “I better get hopping. I’ll send Danny over first chance he gets.”

  I sipped wine while I waited for her father and listened idly to the chattering voices around me.

  “…I can’t imagine what goes on in that pinhead of hers, but…”

  “…and the diamond in the engagement ring was as tiny as his dick…”

  “…I’m not saying sexual harassment is right, but that was just the way things were in the eighties…”

  Danny Redfin joined me. He was decked out in his usual devil’s attire, plus a peaked cap whose shadow gave his eyebrows an appropriate Satanic cast. He resembled Satan too: his eyes were red and fiery with both anger and grief. “So Pammy says you’ve got more questions. About Zack Kaplan, I suppose. God, I hope they catch the crazy son of a bitch who butchered him.”

  “Whoever it is won’t get away with it.”

  “Better not.” He exhaled loudly and sat down. “Zack was a little flaky, but I liked him. Now and then him and me, and Al and Ollie, spent some free time together away from here.”

  “Doing what?”

  “Bowling, watching sports on TV, hanging out. Guy stuff.”

  “When was the last time you saw him?”

  “I think about a week ago. I could ask the others. In my business I see so many people that the times and days when they come in kind of blend together.”

  “Do you know of anybody who held a grudge against him?”

  “Zack? Hell no!”

  “Did he ever talk about the Breakers?”

  “Not much. Strange damn place, I don’t understand why he chose to live there.”

  “Inertia, he told me. Staying was easier than moving.”

  “Zack could be kind of an inert guy.”

  “Did he ever mention a wall montage there?”

  “Oh, yeah. All the serial killers. Did you know Chelle was actually living in that unit?”

  “Yes.”

  “Another thing I don’t understand. There’s a lot I don’t understand, I guess.”

  “Do you know anybody who lived in the San Luis Obispo area seven years ago?”

  “San Luis? No. Why?”

  I didn’t have to give him an answer because just then Pamela called him back to the bar. That was all right with me. All the noise in there was giving me a headache, and I had no more questions to ask him anyway.

  10:21 p.m.

  Hy drove into the garage as I was watching a particularly bad TV movie without paying much attention to it. When he entered the house, he sat down next to me on the sofa, moving my legs onto his lap. “What’s that?” he asked, motioning at the TV.

  “It’s called Help Me! Help Me! And it needs all the help it can get.” I thumbed the remote off. “How was your dinner?”

  “Looks like we’ve gotten a new client. Silicon Valley start-up. Small account, but they’re going places. I’ll give you my notes tomorrow. Anything new on Chelle?”

  “Nothing. I did meet with someone who used to live at the Breakers—Bruno Storch, an amateur true-crime writer.” I held out Storch’s Where Are They Now?, open to the chapter on the Carver killings. “You know anything about that case?”

  He glanced through the chapter. “Nothing more than you’ve told me and what’s in here. San Luis is a long way from here, and seven years a long time.”

  “I skimmed the book, but it didn’t give me much insight. Mainly vague speculation and information that was documented elsewhere. It’s as if Storch were fictionalizing a character whose head he can’t possibly get into.”

  “Or maybe trying to disguise the fact that he knows or suspects the Carver’s identity. Or is him.”

  “I had the research department run background on Storch; he was where he claims he was during the critical time frames. And as for knowing who the killer is, why would anyone shelter the identity and whereabouts of someone who committed these kinds of atrocities?”

  “You and I wouldn’t, but that’s us. What about Zack Kaplan? Any connection turn up between him and the San Luis area or the Carver?”

  “None that Mick has been able to come up with, or that anybody I talked to knows about.”

  “You think Zack took the clipping from the wall?”

  “More likely it was whoever killed him. What Zack was excited about Saturday night was the ‘right to disappear’ note. It could be he saw who delivered it and instead of waiting for me, chased after the man. I told you he was enthusiastic about detecting.”

  “And got himself butchered for it.”

  “Yes.”

  “You’re sure Chelle wrote that note?”

  “It must’ve been her. Her handwriting is pretty distinctive.”

  “Which brings us back to the critical question: Is she still alive?”

  “I refuse to believe she’s dead. She has to be alive, wherever she is.”

  “What about her parents and their disappearance in Costa Rica?”

  I shook my head. “That’s still a mystery. Julia called me when she first arrived down there and then—silence.”

  “People disappearing like this. I don’t like it, McCone.”

  “Me either,” I said. “Not one damn bit.”

  Sometime in the dark hours…

  I woke to an unearthly silence. There were none of the usual urban sounds.

  No late buses or automobiles went past. No one talked on the street. Our electric clock had stopped. I slipped out of bed, threw my robe on, and went to one of the front rooms that had a view of the Marina Green; not a light there either. No lights on the Marin Hills and, most surprising, no lights on the Golden Gate Bridge. It was a massive power outage.

  As I stared at the bridge, its lights flickered and went out again. They flickered once more, then blossomed, and the span was restored to its normal luminous intensity. Emergency generator at work.

  I hurried downstairs and went out onto the front steps. The air was warm, windy, and very smoky. Lingering fumes from the wildfires in Marin, blowing our way. The flames couldn’t jump the Bay, but were licking a wide path of destruction along the waterfront over there.

  Fire—my biggest fear, and here I was, physically safe but psychically confronting it again.

  Hy came up behind me, put his hands on my shoulders. There was no reason to speak; the scene before us said it all. After a while we went into the house. I am in no way religious, but after we went back to bed I said a prayer for those who were losing their homes and livelihoods—maybe even their very lives. I suspected Hy said one too.

  FRIDAY, AUGUST 12

  10:33 a.m.

  The electricity had been restored, but the air was still smoke laden, and there were advisories on TV against going outside if you didn’t have to. I scrounged up a packet of face masks from the garage that a contractor who had been removing asbestos had left behind. If we had to go out, we’d use them.

  All day I’d be getting phone calls from friends and relatives asking if we were all right. I tried to reach Julia in Costa Rica, but the call went to her voice mail. The Curleys’ cell wasn’t operative.

  I heard from Mick then, letting me know both he and Derek would be working from their respective homes today, and that he’d be e-mailing me background information on the San Luis area victims of the Carver. The e-mail came a few minutes later.

  Ronald Brower, 27, had been working as a bartender to save for his tuition at Cal Poly, wh
ere he was majoring in psychology. He was a local, living at home with his divorced mother, a nurse. No siblings and no father in the picture. He had a girlfriend, Dana Stutz, who could contribute little to the investigation.

  Kirk D’Angelo, 33, a software salesman for Micro, Ltd. in Seattle, had been staying at the Days Inn. He’d had dinner at one of the food trucks, then gone for a walk on the pier where he, a gregarious type, had talked with several people. He never returned to his motel, and his body washed up near the municipal pier the next day.

  Ward Jamison, 29, a married accountant with two small children, had been working late and was walking through his building’s parking lot in a hurry. He’d promised his wife he’d arrive on time at home in Grover Beach for the cake-and-champagne celebration of her father’s 60th birthday. He’d been killed in the lot where his car was parked.

  Christopher Wickens, 37, a photographer for the local newspaper, was the most well known of the victims. He’d roamed San Luis and the nearby towns with his Leica, snapping both hard news and human interest shots. He was genial and cheerful, openly gay and living with a partner, Clive Canfield, in the hills above town. After he’d been missing for three days, a pair of campers found his body near an old winery in the Santa Lucia Mountains.

  David Kristof, 19, was another student at Cal Poly, majoring in history. His parents in the LA suburb of Newport Beach had wanted him to attend USC, but in the end his preference for a change of scene had prevailed. On the night of his death he was seen at various bars and clubs with an ever-changing group of friends, but no one remembered where they’d parted company. His body was discovered in a city park at dawn the next day by joggers.

  The police reports had noted no commonalities among the victims. They hadn’t known each other, hadn’t resided near each other, hadn’t had mutual friends or—in the case of the students—shared classes. Random killings, was the assumption. There was more in the reports, much more, dealing with the victims’ families, living situations, likes and dislikes, amusements, hobbies, and friends. More than I could absorb at this time.