A Killing in the Valley

by JF Freedman

  She fished a cold Evian out of a tub that was slushy with ice, unscrewed the top, and drank half of it down in one swallow. Her mind was racing from what Tina had told her.

  Outside, at the edge of the property, a couple of boys were sharing a joint. One was the boy Tina had pointed out, the boy who had been with her and Maria.

  Sophia could feel her heart starting to race as she watched him. He was teetering a bit, holding on to a plastic lawn chair for support. He and the other boy talked for a moment longer; then the one who wasn’t “Bill” came back inside. Her quarry sat down heavily in the lawn chair.

  Sophia waited until she was sure no one was going to join him. Then she fished a cold beer out of the cooler, twisted the top off, and went outside.

  He was sprawled out, arms and legs akimbo. He looked more green behind the gills than stoned. Sophia dropped into the chair next to him. “You look like you could use a cold one, sailor,” she said jauntily. She held the beer out to him.

  He looked at her. “Do I know you?”

  She smiled. “I don’t know. Do you?” Then she laughed. “I’m Sophia. I’m a friend of Rory’s.”

  He took the beer. “Thanks,” he told her. He took a small sip. “Shit,” he muttered. “Too much of a good thing is not always a good thing.”

  “You’re young,” she said cheerfully. “You’ll recover.” He hadn’t told her who he was, so she outright asked him. “What’s your name? Billy, is it?”

  He stared at her slit-eyed. “You must be thinking of Billy Hall. But he doesn’t look like me. I’m Jeremy.”

  “Which Jeremy?” she asked.

  “Musgrove. Is there another Jeremy here?” He turned, as if someone else with his name would suddenly pop up behind him.

  “Nice to meet you, Jeremy.” She looked around. “This is a neat house. Do you live here?”

  “Here?” He shook his head, then winced. “No. I live on the Mesa.”

  She glanced at her watch. It was late, after midnight. She had gotten what she needed, for now.

  “Listen, Billy. I mean Jeremy. I’ve got to go. It was nice talking to you.”

  He looked over at her. It felt to her like he was checking her out. “Already?” he asked. There was a distinctive slur in his voice.

  “’Fraid so.” She fished in her purse for a pen and a scrap of paper. “If you want to call me, I wouldn’t mind,” she told him.

  He smiled, a goofy, spacey smile. “Okay, fine.”

  She wrote her cell number and first name down and handed him the paper. He folded it and fumbled it into his back pocket.

  “You’re not going to lose it, are you?” she teased him. “I don’t give my number out to just anyone.”

  “I believe you,” he protested. He was attracted to her, she could feel it. It was a nice feeling, even if her motive for coming onto him wasn’t clean. “Why don’t you give me your number, in case you lose mine.”

  He nodded, as if that was a sage piece of advice. She handed him the pen and her notepad, and he scribbled his name and number on it. She looked at it to make sure it was legible. “Jeremy Musgrove. 555-0073.”

  “Check.” He smiled again.

  She put the paper in her purse. “Don’t forget to call me.” She shook a teasing finger in his face. “You’re not a guy who says he will, but then he doesn’t, are you?”

  “No,” he protested. He was cute, she thought. And not full of himself. A date with him wouldn’t be so hard to take. “I’ll call you tomorrow…” He caught himself. “In a couple of days.”

  “Hope so.” She stood up. “Nice to meet you, Jeremy. And I’ll see you again.”

  “You will,” he promised. “For sure.”

  25

  KATE HAD LUNCH WITH DENNIS Cahill. He took her to the University Club. The food was passable and he could compare notes and exchange gossip with his friends, other middle-aged professionals. They both had Cobb salads and iced tea.

  “Ten years ago, almost everyone would have a glass of chardonnay or a Bloody Mary with lunch,” Dennis commented as he looked around the room. “Now they don’t even open the bar at lunch anymore, except on Friday. Half the population is overweight, the other half is obsessively healthy. It’s like politics. There’s no middle ground anymore.”

  Dennis was Kate’s closest gay (as opposed to lesbian) friend in Santa Barbara. He was one of the city’s established estate lawyers. Like some other gays and lesbians she knew, Dennis came late to discovering his true sexual identity. He was married for twenty years before he finally came out, in his late forties. He had an ex-wife and two grown children, and after an awkward and hurtful interlude (his wife had been completely blindsided), he was on friendly terms with them again. He and his partner, a chiropractor named Wolfgang, even had Thanksgiving dinner with them (his wife had remarried, for which he was thankful). He considered himself blessed that he could have good relationships with his old life as well as his new one.

  Between bites of salad, Kate explained her predicament.

  “The thing that’s killing us is Steven’s disappearance for five hours on the afternoon the girl was last seen, which is the time frame when she was probably killed. His lack of cooperation is almost perverse, Dennis. It’s as if he’s hiding something.”

  “Like a sexual encounter,” Dennis said, divining her intention.

  “Yes.”

  Dennis put his fork down. “You think it could have been with a man?”

  “Yes,” she said again.

  He picked at a piece of lettuce that was stuck in his teeth. “Have you asked him about this?”

  “No. Luke’s going to.” She paused. “I expect the answer will be ‘no.’”

  He nodded, thinking. “You won’t know until you do. But you’re probably right. If he hasn’t admitted it by now, given his dire circumstances, he isn’t going to.”

  “That’s what I’m afraid of,” she admitted.

  He forked up another mouthful and masticated slowly. “What makes you think this fellow is gay, anyway? Is he effeminate? Not that that’s a true indicator. Some straight men are naturally fey.” He winked. “And some gay men are as straight-looking as they come.”

  “No. It’s not about his looks. He’s very masculine. Very sexy to women. If he isn’t all straight I’d think he would be bi. There’s an androgynous appeal to him.”

  “Like Mick Jagger, when he was young.”

  “Yes,” she answered. “Except he’s very athletic. He’s built like a young god. He has a real swagger, too.”

  “He sounds very…inviting,” Dennis said with a smile. “A bit of rough trade, as the English say.”

  “But he’s also very nice,” Kate said. She didn’t want to mischaracterize Steven, especially negatively. “Everyone who knows him says only good things about him.”

  Dennis sat back and looked at her carefully. “If this young man doesn’t say he’s gay, or that he has been attracted to men, why are you pursuing this?” he asked.

  “Because we need something to explain his extreme reticence,” she said. She hesitated. “And because I met a friend of his from where he lives who is definitely gay, and the unspoken seemed to be that there had been a sexual relationship.”

  “The unspoken,” Dennis intoned gravely. “Of all the languages in the world, the most difficult to understand, and the easiest to misinterpret.”

  “Yes, I know. I don’t like reading tea leaves. I prefer hard facts. But his trial date is approaching, and we’re getting desperate.”

  Dennis nodded sympathetically. “From what I’ve read and heard, I can appreciate why.” He put his fork down. “What do you want from me, Kate?” he asked her.

  “To talk to your friends in the gay community and find out if any of them know him,” she answered candidly. “Especially, if anyone saw him or was with him on that day.”

  Dennis looked at her questioningly. “This fellow is a generation removed from me,” he reminded her. “Have you gone to the local gay clubs
and bars and asked around? That might be more fruitful, pardon the dreadful pun.”

  “I’m going to,” she said. “I wanted to touch base with you first. To make sure I don’t fuck up my approach.”

  “You can’t worry about that,” he advised her. “You can only do your job. Breaking eggs is part of what you do, sometimes.”

  “I know, and I don’t mind,” she answered. “But in this circumstance, I don’t want to open a Pandora’s box that wasn’t there in the first place.”

  Dennis finished his iced tea and held up the glass so the waiter could see that he wanted it refreshed. “Here’s my advice, for what it’s worth. Ask your client directly. If there is anything to your supposition, and he is willing to deal with it openly, then plunge ahead. Otherwise, drop it.”

  She was taken aback by his bluntness. “Just drop it?”

  He nodded solemnly. “Yes. Because unless your client is cooperative, you can’t win.”

  The waiter returned with a new glass of iced tea. Dennis took a long swallow. “I think you’re on the wrong track,” he told her. “But let’s say there’s something to it. Something he wants to keep secret, even in the face of the worst consequence possible. How in the world will you pry open that nut?”

  “Find out who he was with, and persuade whoever it was to admit to it,” she answered doggedly.

  He shook his head. “That isn’t going to happen. You’ll be banging your head against a stone wall.”

  “I have a hard head,” she replied. “I’ve banged up against a lot of walls with this head.”

  He smiled. “None this hard. If your client did have a sexual encounter with a man, that man would know about the situation, unless he was a transient, in which case you’re really up the creek. But if it was somebody from here and he hasn’t come forward, it means that for some reason—some good reason, given the importance of this—he can’t. If he hasn’t by now, he won’t.”

  “Because he himself is closeted.”

  Dennis nodded. “He’s married, he’s socially prominent, he’s a politician, a film star, something that will ruin him if he is openly gay. You remember Michael Huffington, don’t you? Arianna’s ex-husband?”

  Michael Huffington was a former congressman from Santa Barbara county. A wealthy carpetbagger (his money was Texas oil), he had almost won a U.S. Senate seat in the mid-nineties through the sheer power of his wealth. His former wife, Arianna, had mutated over the past few years from right-wing provocateur to left-wing populist gadfly and bête noire of the establishment.

  “Yes. I voted for Feinstein,” Kate said.

  “As I assume you know, Huffington was a closeted gay man who came out after he lost the election. Probably the most liberating thing he ever did. But if he had come out before, he would have lost his base. Well, think of how that might apply to your situation.”

  She nodded. “I hear you.”

  “There’s another issue,” he went on, “which goes to the heart of this. If your client is gay—which I doubt, but let’s say for the sake of argument that he is—and he hasn’t admitted it, then even if he’d had a sexual partner who would normally corroborate the relationship, the partner won’t do it. You don’t out people who want to keep their sexuality private. It’s unethical, and immoral. That’s the kind of garbage The National Enquirer might spew, but not any decent man or woman I know.”

  Kate sat back, properly chastised. “I understand.”

  “Luke should put the question to this fellow directly, and if he denies it, that’s it,” Dennis said. “If you want to go to some of the gay bars and ask around, I’ll give a list. But even if you got positive feedback, you’d have to be very careful,” he warned her. “Some bottom-feeder might want to exploit the situation, and that would make matters even worse.”

  Sophia wasn’t ready for her mother to know she had a date with a boy who could be a crucial witness in the Maria Estrada murder case, so she met Jeremy in front of the movie complex at Paseo Nuevo. The last place anyone saw Maria alive, she thought with irony. The “anyone” who might be this boy who was taking her to dinner and a movie, and who obviously liked her. He hadn’t waited the socially cool three days to ask her out—he had called the next day.

  They shared a salad and a pizza at Pascucci’s around the corner, then bought tickets for a movie. It was a decent-enough comedy, but within fifteen minutes they had moved to the back row so they could make out. Jeremy was a good kisser, and he didn’t push for anything more than feeling her breasts over her top.

  After the movie ended, they bought ice cream cones at the hole-in-the-wall Ben & Jerry’s. Sophia could see that Jeremy didn’t know what to do next. She was too young for them to go to a bar, and he didn’t seem to know what else they could do.

  They sat on one of the wooden benches in the mall. “Is there something you want to say?” Sophia asked.

  “Would you…” He stopped.

  “Would I what?” she prompted. Come on, she thought. I’m the kid in high school. You’re the experienced college guy.

  “…Like to come over to my place?” he mumbled.

  This was going better than she could have hoped for. “The one on the Mesa?” she teased him.

  “I only have one.”

  She sized him up (rather, she gave him the impression that she was sizing him up. She was already way ahead of him). “Okay,” she said easily.

  “You would?” He spoke as if he’d expected the answer to be “no.”

  “You’ll have to bring me back here at a decent hour, my mom doesn’t like me being out too late on a school night.”

  “No problem,” he said quickly.

  “Are we going to be alone?” she asked. “What about your roommates?” She didn’t want to walk into a nest of horny college boys. She needed alone time with him, to work on him.

  “We’ll be alone,” he told her. He didn’t say anything about his roommates.

  She finished her ice cream cone and licked the stickiness from her fingers. “Here are the ground rules. I’m not going to have sex with you,” she told him firmly. “I’m not going to let you do anything more than what we did in the movies.” She grinned. “But we can do as much of that as you want.”

  “That’s okay,” he said. “That’s fine.”

  He’s so eager, she thought. Like a puppy in a kennel. Pick me, pick me. She took his hand. “Come on, then,” she said friskily. “Show me the famous Musgrove etchings.”

  Sophia was expecting the usual stucco apartment or small tract house with a bunch of students crammed in like a can of sardines. Instead, Jeremy lived in an upscale two-bedroom condo with a view of the ocean.

  “Do you want something to drink?” he asked, as he closed the front door behind them.

  “Okay,” she answered, looking around in bewilderment. What gives here, she wondered?

  “White wine okay? Or don’t you drink?”

  “I’ll have a glass of wine, thanks,” she answered.

  These guys live better than me and Mom, she thought with surprise and a touch of envy as she checked out the place. The furnishings, while not inspired, were more expensive than normal student stuff. They looked like someone had gone to Restoration Hardware and the Pottery Barn and ordered whatever was needed. There were a few obligatory posters of rock groups and cult movies, but there were also some interesting, offbeat prints. There was also a large-screen high definition television in the corner of the living room, and a shelf stacked with tapes and DVDs.

  Somebody who lives here has money, she thought. Could it be him, she wondered, as he got a bottle of white wine out of the refrigerator and screwed out the cork. Not that it would matter. She wasn’t here for romance. Which was too bad—so far, he had been a nice guy.

  He handed her a glass, and clinked his to it. “Cheers,” he said.

  “Cheers. Thank you.”

  She sipped her wine. It was good, better than the four-dollar Trader Joe’s stuff her mother kept in the house. He definitely
has taste.

  “Where are the rest of your roommates?” she asked. She knew they would be in heavy make-out mode in a matter of minutes, and she didn’t want someone coming in and finding her in an embarrassing situation.

  He grimaced. “There aren’t any.”

  She looked at him dubiously. “You live here by yourself?”

  “It’s a long story. I’ll explain later.” He took her hand. “You wanted to see my art collection. The best pieces are in the bedroom.”

  They lay on his bed, kissing feverishly. His hands roamed her back, her sides, his fingers caressing her breasts and nipples over her top and bra. But nothing more, as he had promised.

  Sophia could feel his erection through his khakis as he ground against her leg. Most girls, she knew, would give the poor suffering bastard a blow job to put him out of his misery. At least a hand job. But she wasn’t going to. She had set the rules and she was going to stick to them. She would go slow and steady and let nature take its course, if it was meant to. Plus she had her mission, the real reason she was here.

  She wished she didn’t have to use him. Later, if it turned out he wasn’t involved in the murder, she could see him in a normal boy-girl way. He wouldn’t even have to know he’d been used.

  The condo’s balcony had a nice view of the ocean and the Channel Islands. They lounged in deck chairs, their feet propped up on the railing. Jeremy was drinking Corona from the bottle. Sophia, wanting to keep her head straight, sipped a lemon Snapple.

  “Want to smoke?” he asked her. He pulled a tightly rolled joint and a disposable lighter from his shirt pocket.

  “No, but you go ahead,” she told him. “Don’t get too fucked up, you have to take me back to my car.”

  “I’ll just take a couple of hits.” He lit the joint and inhaled, holding the smoke, then letting it drift out of the sides of his mouth. No coughing, no gasping. An experienced doper. He took a swallow of beer to lubricate his throat.

  Sophia looked out at the beach below them, the lights of the harbor, and the moonlight on the ocean. This was how she would like to live. Her mother made decent money, but they couldn’t afford a place like this. Jeremy’s family must be rich to pay for a condo this nice for a kid who was still in college.