“People must’ve known he was a dealer, so it was probably a natural mistake.”
“Sturdivant swore up and down he hadn’t sold the acid to those kids,” Ochoa said. “Maybe he was actually telling the truth.”
“It’s what I’ve been thinking,” I said. “I mean, I suppose it’s possible that Sturdivant sold three tabs and Axel sold the other—after all, they were buddies and everything. And to tell you the truth, I kind of hope that was the case. Otherwise…”
“Otherwise,” Ochoa said, “the only person we can directly connect to the drugs is Axel, and he’s dead.”
“Exactly,” I said. “Jesus, it would be nice if somebody in the coroner’s office could figure out just what the hell happened to him.”
“Right now, all they know is that Robinette fell into the pool, where a witness”—Ochoa’s eyes rotated toward me—“sees him floating dead. Eventually, his wet clothes drag him down to the bottom of the pool, where he gets sucked into the outflow pipe and goes shooting out into the lake. The cops are looking for a body, and they have the Benson engineers check the pipe, but of course by then it’s all clear. They send down some divers, but it’s damn deep and dark, and they don’t find anything, so they figure somebody fished it out of the pool and buried it someplace. But after a while, the body gets dislodged from whatever it was snagged on, and between that and the decomposition gases, he pops up to the top. End of story.”
“Except,” I said, “that they have no idea how he got into the pool in the first place.”
“From what my source tells me,” Ochoa said, “all the damage they found on the body was postmortem, from getting banged around on the trip through the pipe. They didn’t find any evidence that anybody beat on him or anything.”
“So maybe it really was an accident,” Mad said. “Could be he was there waiting to show Bernier how they doctored the water with goddamn Jell-O, and he fell into the pool in the dark. Couldn’t see to climb up the safety ladder, and three minutes later, poof—the guy’s a goner.”
“Okay,” I said, “so how did they do it?”
Mad stopped tilting the beer pitcher in midpour. “Do what?”
“How did they doctor the water?”
“What difference does it make?”
“And come to think of it, how did Axel get into the Deep Lake building in the first place?”
Mad shrugged. “Probably had somebody on the inside, don’t you think? I mean, somebody had to give him the key, or at least open the place for him, right?”
“Yeah,” I said, “but presumably the cops’ve looked into that, and if they’d nailed somebody, whoever it was would’ve been canned in a minute. You heard anything about one of those guys getting fired?” Mad shook his head. “Me neither.”
“Okay,” Ochoa said, “so the question is, how does a lowlife like Axel Robinette get his hands on a key? It’s not like he had the money to bribe anybody.”
“True,” Mad said, “but we’re not just talking about him. We’re talking about all the goddamn Mohawk Warriors, whoever they are.”
“Yeah,” I said. “But the night he died, it was Robinette who got in there. And think about why he was there—to show some reporter how they did their trick with the intake pool. Do you really think if some halfway-sane person in the group had the key, they would’ve given it to him for that?”
Mad finally finished pouring his beer. “Hey, the guy was no prince. Maybe he lied about why he needed it. What difference does it make?”
“Yeah, but—”
Ochoa held up a hand. “There’s something else,” he said. “Another detail I got from this chick in the coroner’s office that I, um… hadn’t really wanted to mention.” There was a funky tone in his voice, though I had no idea why. “Er…okay. If he was really there to show Alex how they filled up the pool with Jell-O mix, how come he didn’t have any on him?”
“Good question,” I said, “and maybe the answer is obvious, which is that it got washed down the outflow pipe along with him.”
“Maybe,” he said, “but anyway, they never found any trace of it. But, well…they did find something else. Something in his pockets which might, um… indicate what his plans were.”
“Which is?”
“A whole lot of, well…condoms.”
It took a second for his meaning to sink in, and when it did, I thought I might toss my Beer Nuts.
“Are you telling me that Axel’s whole point in meeting me at Deep Lake in the middle of the night was that he thought he was going to get lucky?” Ochoa nodded. Surprisingly enough, he didn’t seem to be enjoying this as much as I would’ve expected. “God, I… yuck.” I took a slug of red wine to try to get the nasty taste out of my mouth. “That little prick did consider himself quite a goddamn ladies’ man. Far as I could tell, the only person who ever agreed with him was—holy shit.”
“What?” Mad said. “Yo, Bernier, are you okay?”
“I’m fine. I just…I think maybe I know where Axel got the key.”
“And…?”
“There was this girl he had wrapped around his finger,” I said. “And her last name just happens to be Benson.”
I WAS SITTING AT OCHOA’S TERMINAL the next morning, subtly gloating about my Norma Jean scoop while ostensibly helping him with a follow-up to the Axel story, when the photo editor appeared at my shoulder.
“Hey, Alex,” Wendell said, “do you know where Melissa’s at?”
“Er…no. Why?”
“She’s late. Way late.”
“Well, she’s not much of a morning person….”
“Like I don’t know it. Late’s no big deal, but it’s not like her to screw up an assignment.”
I stood up to face him. Since he’s as short as I am, we were nose to nose—though his Gene Wilder hairdo gave him an extra three inches on me. “What did she miss?”
“She was supposed to shoot an enterprise thing at the high school—metal-shop kids made a car. Page-three stand-alone for tomorrow.”
“And she didn’t show up?” He shook his head. “Maybe she got the time wrong or something. Did you try her on her cell?”
“Cell, home phone, yeah. No answer. So I was wondering if she said anything to you this morning about—”
“Uh…I didn’t actually stay at home last night. Shakespeare and I were at Cody’s.”
“Oh.”
“Look, she probably just slept through her alarm again. I’ll go home and get her, okay?”
He thanked me, mumbled something about how such positive karma always gets repaid by the universe, and went back to the darkroom. I told the newsroom secretary what I was up to, then went down the back stairs and wiggled my car out of the lot.
The drive home took all of three minutes. I unlocked the front door and yelled for Melissa; there was no answer.
Two steps later, I was yelling for help.
CHAPTER25
The place had been trashed; there was no other word for it. Every single thing that Melissa and I owned appeared to have been rifled, manhandled, busted up, and/or thrown on the floor. The house didn’t look like it’d been hit by thieves. It looked like it’d been raided by goddamn Visigoths.
I hollered for Melissa again, but there was still no answer. I was halfway up the stairs when I was struck by the painfully obvious: Whoever had blitzkrieged the house might very well still be there.
I froze on the step, trying to calm my breathing so I could actually hear something. I thought I caught a sound from upstairs—but what the hell should I do? Go running out the front door and call the cops? Try and hide under the upturned couch?
There were definitely steps coming toward me, light and way too fast for me to get away. I braced myself for God-knows-what—at which point Melissa’s cat came flying down the stairs and started rubbing against my ankles.
I tried to shoo the cat away, but he wouldn’t go, just kept snuggling and yowling at me. Did this mean the coast was clear? Probably—at least I hoped so. I we
nt upstairs and headed straight for Melissa’s bedroom.
I found her lying on the bed, looking as close to dead as a live person could get. Her breathing was so shallow, in fact, that at first I was afraid it was too late. But then I felt her neck and found a pulse, which sent me scrambling for the phone at her bedside. But there was no dial tone; the line had been ripped out of the wall.
I ran down the hall, hoping like hell that the cordless in my room was working. It was. I dialed 911 and tried to sound coherent as I asked for an ambulance.
When the operator asked what kind of medical emergency it was, I said that a woman had been attacked and beaten. But to tell you the truth, those two words didn’t come anywhere near describing what Melissa had gone through.
Her face was black and blue, with blood caked around her nose and mouth. Both eyes were swollen shut, and what looked like cigarette burns dotted one arm. Except for the scrap of bedsheet across her stomach, she was naked; I’d tell you how many bruises were on her body, but I lost count.
I stood there staring at her, wanting to do something comforting but afraid to touch her. But she must’ve sensed that somebody was there, because her eyelids started to flutter and she made a low moaning sound.
“Melissa?” I said. “It’s me, Alex, okay? You’re gonna be all right, sweetie. There’s an ambulance coming.”
She half opened one eye, focusing not on me but on the cat, who’d leaped onto the bed and started yowling again. I grabbed him before he could crawl on her, and she lifted a hand weakly in his direction.
“Zoo…,” she mumbled, sounding only marginally coherent. “Z-Zeus…He’s… h-hungry….”
Her eyes fluttered shut just as the cat jumped back on the bed. I picked him up again and—vaguely relieved to have an excuse to go downstairs—went into the kitchen. I was still hunting for his kibble when I heard the sirens.
The guys from Sand’s Ambulance came in first, hustling up the stairs with their red plastic cases. They’d barely gotten into the bedroom when a pair of uniformed cops ran in behind them, and I’d barely started to tell them what I’d found, when Brian Cody came rushing up the stairs too.
He’d heard the call on the police radio and—hearing the address and whatever the cop code is for an assault—was terrified that something had happened to me. He took in the state of the house and the condition of my roommate, and all at once, he looked angry enough to put a fist through the wall.
We followed the ambulance to the hospital in his unmarked cop car, and on the way I called the newsroom on my cell to tell them what was going on. He sat with me in the waiting room while Melissa was being treated in the E.R., and after what felt like a week, a gray-haired lady doctor came out and told us she was being admitted upstairs.
“Did you do a rape kit?” Cody asked her, and when she seemed inclined not to answer, he flashed his badge.
The woman nodded. “There were no fluids present, but considering the shape she was in, we did one anyway.”
“Is she going to be okay?” I asked. “When can I see her?”
“She’ll be all right,” the doctor said. “She has a broken jaw, but there don’t appear to be any serious internal injuries. We need to keep an eye on her spleen, but…it’s quite a miracle, actually.”
“When can I see her?”
“And who are you?”
“Her roommate.”
The doctor didn’t seem impressed. “She can have visitors tomorrow at the earliest. She needs to rest now.”
Cody seemed to be calming down, but slowly. “But she’s awake?”
“Barely.”
“We need to get her statement,” he said. “I’ll be in and out in five minutes, I swear.”
I expected her to argue with him, but she just said, “You’ll have to wait until she’s upstairs.”
“All right,” Cody said. “Thank you.”
Half an hour later, I was still waiting—only I was on a bench outside the hospital, while Cody was interviewing Melissa. True to his word to the doctor, he was gone less than ten minutes. And though I would’ve bet there was no way he could possibly have looked any angrier, I was wrong.
“What did she say?” I asked. He shook his head. “Come on, Cody, tell me.”
He didn’t answer, just kept shaking his head. After a minute he sat down on the bench next to me and started rubbing his temples. When he finally took his hand away, I could swear there were tears in his eyes.
“Jesus, Cody, what the hell is going on? What did she tell you?” More head shaking. Finally, he reached into the pocket of his suit jacket and pulled out a crumpled pack of cigarettes. “Since when did you start smoking again?”
When he spoke, his voice sounded gritty and raw.
“Emergency stash,” he said.
“Then, for God’s sake, give me one.”
He lit a pair of misshapen Marlboros and handed one over. We sat there smoking for a while, in flagrant violation of the sign outside the hospital entrance.
“You have to tell me,” I said.
“I know,” he said. “But I don’t want to.”
“At least tell me how she sounded.”
“Messed up,” he said, then cracked a humorless smile. “Can you blame her?”
“Did she say what happened?”
“Did you try and call her family?”
“I told you, she doesn’t have any. Both her parents are dead. And stop changing the subject.”
He took another long drag on the limp cigarette, followed by an even longer pause.
“She was asleep,” he said. “When she woke up, there were two guys in her room. Big guys wearing ski masks. She said they kept asking her for something, but she’s not sure what it was. When she didn’t give them the answer they wanted, they started beating on her. One of them held her down while the other one hit her. She said she was knocked out for part of it, which is why everything’s so hazy. But she… she had a damn good memory of them saying, ‘Where is it? Where is it?’ and putting out cigarettes on her arm.”
“Oh, my God,” I said.
“Yeah,” he said.
“Hold on. There’s something you haven’t told me. I can tell just by looking at you.” He bit his lip, but he didn’t try to deny it. “Come on, Cody. What is it?”
“It’s…something else she remembered.”
“Which is?”
“What the two guys called her.”
“And what did they call her?”
“ ‘Alex.’ ”
“WHAT?”
“Now can you understand why I didn’t want to tell you?”
I practically leaped off the bench. “They thought she was me?”
“Alex, honey—”
“They beat the shit out of Melissa—they fucking tortured her—because they thought she was me? Oh, my God.…” Cody stood up and tried to touch me, but I shook him off. “Son of a…How could …How can I ever …”
“Baby, it’s not your fault—”
“What did she say? I mean, what did she say exactly?”
He reached into his pocket and pulled out his little black notebook. “She said they told her”—he flipped to a page—“… They said, ‘We know you took it, bitch, and we want it back.’ Do you have any idea what they might have—”
“Oh, my God. Oh, no…” My knees felt in actual danger of buckling, but I managed to make it back to the bench before I keeled over. “It’s all my fault. It’s all my goddamn fault.…”
“What is it?”
“It’s the list. They wanted the fucking list.”
“What list?”
“Monday night, Mad and I got all liquored up and broke into the Melting Rock office looking for some kind of proof that they were making payoffs. We found this binder filled with lists of initials and amounts of money, and…we took it.” He started to say something, but I waved him off. “I know it was stupid. But we were just really drunk, and neither one of us was thinking straight.”
“And you t
hink that’s what those bastards were after?”
“It has to be.”
“But how would they know it was you? Did anybody see you break in?”
“I don’t think so, but…I’ve been asking lots of questions about the Melting Rock finances, and I broke that big story about the cops being told not to make drug busts at the festival. I guess… when somebody noticed it was missing, it would’ve been easy for them to put two and two together.”
“Where’s this binder now?”
“Mad has it.”
Cody stood up. “Then let’s go find him.”
“Why?”
“If somebody wants to get it back this badly,” he said, “then there must be something seriously incriminating in there.”
In the car I told him everything we knew, or thought we knew—the details about Rosemary Hamill, Mohawk Associates, and the connection to Deep Lake Cooling. When we pulled into the newspaper parking lot, I stopped him before he got out of the car.
“Tell me straight, Cody. Did they… did they rape her?”
“It doesn’t look like it.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“The doctor said there was no specific physical evidence, and Melissa said she had no memory of a sexual assault.”
“Then why can’t you just say no?”
“Because of the way they found her, without any clothes on…”
“Oh.”
I went to open the car door, but this time Cody stopped me. “Were you ever going to tell me?”
“Tell you what?”
“About that notebook.”
“You mean, was I going to tell my boyfriend the cop that my best friend and I got stinking drunk, broke into a record store, and stole a piece of evidence?”
“Yeah.”
“No.”
“I see,” he said, and got out of the car.
Cody, Mad, and I parted company fifteen minutes later, with the former in possession of the blue binder that’d nearly gotten Melissa killed. And though I was clearly in the doghouse, the cop in question told me that I was damn well spending the night with him, for my own personal safety. Considering the condition of both my house and my roommate, I was in no mood to argue with him.
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