A Death in California

by Barthel, Joan;

  Taylor sounded surprised himself. “Gee, I guess I am.” There was a long pause. “I just don’t know what to do,” he said finally. “I just really don’t know what to do. I don’t know if I can trust you. If I leave you alive, you might become vindictive later.”

  “You can trust me,” Hope said eagerly. “And I would not become vindictive. It’s against my religion to become vindictive.”

  “Well, I just don’t know,” Taylor mused. “I just don’t know if I can trust you.”

  “Look, if hating you would bring Bill back,” Hope said, “then I would hate you like you have never been hated before. But I can’t bring Bill back, so there’s no point in me hating you and being vindictive.”

  She sensed he was interested in that reasoning, so she talked on. She was still terrified, more terrified than she had thought a person could be without dying from the fear, but she remembered hearing once that if you are afraid of something, the best way to overcome your fear is to bring that something out into the open, talk about it, learn about it. A person who is afraid of snakes should study snakes and observe them and become interested in them. So Hope talked to Taylor nonstop, and she tried to get him to talk about himself. He told her that when he was nineteen he had killed someone and gone off to Europe but that the organization—he never said “Mafia”—had held it over his head afterward and forced him to do jobs for them, and he was getting a little weary of killing people and was finding it hard to keep his motivation up. “I want to get out of the killing business,” he said. “I can’t keep doing this forever. I’m getting pretty old, and all it takes is someone just a little bit younger, a little bit faster.” Still, he said, he liked the sexual aspect of killing. “Having a gun go off is like coming ten times,” he said, and Hope’s heart sank. She quickly steered the conversation back to the philosophy of killing.

  “Look, I don’t believe anyone should ever kill anyone else,” Hope said earnestly. “So you and I are definitely at odds on that, but as for the fact that you kill outside the law, or outside what is socially acceptable, while other people kill because it’s socially acceptable—to me that doesn’t make one bit of difference. I don’t think you should kill someone because they live in another country or because they have a different kind of skin. I don’t think you should kill someone because they’re afraid and they’re running. I don’t think you should kill for a lot of the reasons that people are killing each other every day. If you were killing socially correctly, you could be a hero, but you’re just killing socially incorrectly, which to me makes you no worse than the other person. You’re no worse than some soldier who shoots a woman. You’re no worse than a cop who shoots a kid in the back. In fact, you’re probably better. You’re better than Lieutenant Calley. The really evil people are the people who know me and yet sent you to kill me.”

  Taylor seemed pleased.

  “Oh, yes, I have no particular hatred for you,” Hope pressed on. “I have no desire to attack you or to get revenge on you or anything like that. I’m opposed to you, but I’m also opposed to half the men in America who have gone out and killed someone for no reason. I’m even opposed to the people who shoot animals. And now if you have to kill me, I understand your position and I am asking you to please understand my position too and let me do something to see that my children are taken care of, then you can shoot me. But first let me call my mother.”

  “No, you cannot call your mother,” Taylor said.

  “You can hold a gun to my head the whole time I’m talking,” Hope suggested, “and when I have made sure that my mother will get the children and keep them safe, then you can shoot me.”

  “No,” Taylor said.

  “Well, then, just let me make out a will asking that my children be kept together as a group and go to live with a family I know, rather than being separated, and then you can shoot me.”

  “How would your family get the will?” Taylor asked.

  “You could mail it for me,” Hope said. “I will trust you to mail the will if you will trust me to let me get up and write it.”

  Taylor didn’t reply. Hope tried another tack.

  “Or I could just write a note about the children, and in the note I will say I’m responsible for killing Bill, and then you don’t even have to shoot me, I will shoot myself with your gun.”

  “Hope, you couldn’t handle this gun,” Taylor said patiently. “Why, you wouldn’t even be able to keep it in your hand. It would knock you over. It would blow you halfway across the room. No, that would not work.”

  Hope was temporarily out of ideas. Before she could speak again, Taylor spoke in a low voice.

  “Yes, you are a good person,” he said, “although most people are not even halfway decent, and I want to help you and your children. Now I have to think about this.” Hope lay without stirring, almost without breathing, as he paced up and down alongside the bed.

  “This was a stupid mistake and I wish to hell Bill was still alive,” Taylor said. “I have a code of ethics, and I do not feel it is okay to kill a young mother with young children, especially when they have very little money. Maybe what I ought to do now is kill your husband and then you could collect his Social Security.”

  Hope was too stunned to speak.

  “I could burn down the house with the body in it so that it couldn’t be identified. Or with both bodies.”

  He left the room again but came back in a minute or two.

  “If only I could trust you,” he said. She heard the gun being set down on the dresser again, a heavy thunking sound, then he climbed on top of her, wrapped his arms and legs around her and put his head on her shoulder. He went to sleep. With his crushing weight and the pain inside her body and in her head, Hope blacked out.

  When she awoke, she could see beyond his shoulder the clock on the dresser: six o’clock. She heard a car drive past the house. Jim Webb is leaving, she thought. There goes Jim Webb. She stirred, very, very slowly, trying to slip out from under him as he slept. But he opened his eyes instantly, wide awake and alert. “What are you doing?”

  “I have to go to the bathroom,” Hope said.

  He nuzzled his face against hers. “Kiss first.”

  Hope swerved her head as far as she could turn it. “I haven’t brushed my teeth.”

  He laughed a little and pushed himself up, off the bed. He stood at the side of the bed. “You can get up. But just remember, I can shoot you just as easily when you’re running as when you’re lying down, so don’t get any big ideas about running anywhere.”

  He had taken off his sweater and he seemed to enjoy her dismay as he walked naked around the room in the faint light. Hope eased out of bed and stood up shakily, feeling harsh, cramping pains in the lower part of her body. He followed her into the bathroom and sat in the doorway, on the floor, while she used the toilet.

  “I don’t want to see Bill’s body,” Hope whispered. “Would you please close the door to the hall so I can’t see Bill’s body.”

  “Sure,” Taylor said amiably. He got up, closed the door, and walked back into the bathroom where Hope stood at the sink.

  “Let’s wash those hands,” he said briskly. He turned on the warm water and held her hands, caked with dried blood, under the tap, washing them gently, as one would wash the hands of a toddler who’d been making mudpies.

  Back in the bedroom, Hope sat on the edge of the bed. “I have to get out of this house or I’ll go out of my mind,” she said. Taylor shook his head. “No, we can’t leave the house until it appears to be a normal hour. Around noon.” He rubbed his hand along her cheek gently. “I’ll make breakfast. You’re too thin, and I want you to gain some weight. I am going to take very good care of you. I love you.”

  The draperies were still closed, shutting out the winter sunrise, but the room grew brighter as the morning wore on, a crazy collage of conversation and threats. Hope kept insisting she couldn’t eat. Taylor showered, making Hope sit naked on the bathroom floor. In the shower, he hummed
and whistled. He showed her his scars, most particularly a slash across his stomach and a lump on his ribs that he said was a bullet. He left the gun on the bathroom windowsill, the window she had leaned from on Saturday afternoon when she heard the car drive up and Taylor and Bill talking. It seemed a lifetime ago. She knew that he knew she wouldn’t try to grab the gun—he was right, she couldn’t handle it—nor would she try to run. To get out of the house she’d have to go through the living room, where Bill was. She knew she couldn’t do that, and even if she could, where would she go? Where would she hide in these mountainous acres? She had heard the Webbs leave; even if only Jim Webb had gone, what good would it do to run to Teresa and the children? Taylor would kill them all, and she would be responsible. She was already responsible for Bill’s death; Taylor had said so. The thought made her feel crazy, so she tried to concentrate on Taylor instead, to get along with him and somehow get back home, to the children.

  Taylor shaved, still humming happily, then styled his long wavy hair with a hot comb. From the middle of his neck down, where the turtleneck sweater ended, his body was very white, very pale.

  Back in the bedroom, he dressed in plaid pants and boots and a white shirt. He pointed to a small bloodspot on the shirt and frowned. “Oh, dear, nasty.”

  Chatting and humming, he bustled in and out of the room, still trying to persuade her to eat. She refused to eat, but she tried to talk normally, to play the game as though nothing had happened, as though they were ordinary people waking up on a Sunday morning in the country.

  Taylor said there was a problem: Bill’s body. “You could help me put the body and the sofa into the trunk of the car, and we could drive up to the lake and dump them both,” he suggested.

  Hope stared at him. “I am trying to cooperate with you,” she said, unsteadily, “but I can’t look at Bill. If I have to see Bill, I know I’ll just start screaming. I won’t be responsible for what I might do.”

  “Okay,” he said cheerfully. “We’ll think of something else.”

  He talked, again, of burning down the house. He said perhaps they could take the body back to Los Angeles and put it in Bill’s apartment, then he would kill Tom Masters and bring that body back up to the ranch and plant Tom’s fingerprints all around the house. He thought, though, that Hope would tell the police. Over and over she swore she would not. “Well, if you ever do tell on me,” he warned her, “everyone will have your picture, and you wouldn’t live very long anyway.”

  “Goddamn it,” Hope said, “what kind of a life is that going to be? Even if you don’t kill me, how can I live, not knowing when somebody else is going to step up behind me and shoot me? Maybe the next man who gets this contract won’t be so touchy about killing somebody with little kids.”

  “Don’t worry,” he said, patting her hand. “I’ll fix it.”

  “You said you were being paid thirty-six hundred dollars to kill us,” Hope said. “If I give you thirty-six hundred dollars, will you let me go?”

  “How much money do you have?” he asked. “Where’s your purse?” He took her handbag from the dresser and went through it. When he found her checkbook, he looked in it and laughed. “I don’t steal from poor people,” he said.

  “There’s more in Bill’s account,” Hope said. “There’s at least six hundred dollars. Bill was saving to buy me a dress I wanted.”

  Taylor was very interested. “What kind of a dress, exactly?”

  “A white lace dress, kind of an antique dress.”

  Taylor nodded. He held up a set of keys. “This looks like a burglar alarm key.”

  “Yes,” Hope said.

  He laughed. “That might stop petty thieves, but it wouldn’t stop anybody who knew what he was doing,” he assured her.

  “Look, I know I don’t have much money,” Hope said, “but I’m worth a lot of money, my parents are worth a lot of money. Maybe you could hold me for ransom.”

  “Stop worrying,” Taylor said. “I told you I would fix it.” He walked to the window, drew back a corner of the curtain, and looked out. “In a little while we’ll go for a walk,” he said.

  Hope clenched her fists. “I cannot go out through the living room with Bill’s body there,” she insisted. “I just can’t do that.”

  “Oh, I understand,” Taylor said. He left the room, and in a few minutes Hope heard an awful sound, a heavy, dragging sound. She felt sick; her stomach heaved as the dragging sound seemed to go on and on. Then Taylor returned, still cheerful. “All fixed,” he said brightly. “And I covered the sofa so you won’t see any blood. I’ve been wiping off my fingerprints, see?” He stretched his hands close to her face, holding a rag.

  “Now you stay there,” he said. “I’m going out again to tidy up the place. Wash the dinner dishes, sweep up. Can’t leave the house in a mess. Tsk, tsk. Isn’t nice. Isn’t polite.”

  “Oh, my God,” Hope muttered. “Leave it. Leave it. My parents will hire somebody to clean up, for God’s sake.”

  But he went out again, leaving the hall door open. She could hear him moving around, handling dishes in the kitchen.

  “Now let’s get you dressed,” he said when he came back. She didn’t see any of her clothes from the night before, but he brought her a pair of underpants, red cord pants, and a shirt from her bag. “Just step in, now,” he said gently, as he eased the underpants up her legs, stroking her skin. She stood up, and he zipped the pants and buttoned her shirt, leaning forward. “Kiss, kiss.” She turned away again. “I haven’t brushed my teeth.” He laughed and reached for a hairbrush, then he brushed her hair carefully, pulling it back from her face. “Now let’s go for a walk.”

  Hope kept her eyes down as she walked through the living room and through the kitchen. On the tile floor of the kitchen she saw a trail of something chalky white, like scouring cleanser. They walked through the kitchen and through the storage room, out the back door, into the sunshine.

  Hope stared at the orange trees, deep green, brilliant with fruit. The Bermuda grass was spongy beneath her feet. She stared at the sky. She stared across the fence at the meadow where the horses were grazing. She stared as though she could not believe what she saw. I’m alive. I’m alive.

  But by the time they reached the curve in the driveway, near the foreman’s house, she felt sick. Her legs were about to give way. “I can’t go any farther,” she said. “I just don’t have the strength.”

  “Okay,” Taylor said cheerfully. “I can see there’s no one around, so we’ll go back and get the car and drive around for a while.” They walked back to the house, but at the back door, Hope stopped. “I can’t go in there,” she declared.

  “Just step inside the door,” Taylor coaxed. She stepped into the storage room and leaned against the washing machine as he went on into the kitchen. “Would you like a beer?” he asked.

  “No,” Hope said, “but I’d like a soda.”

  He brought a beer and a lemon soda into the storage room and they stood together, drinking. He wiped off the beer can with the lining of his jacket before he threw the can away.

  He held Hope’s hand gently, as a lover would, as he led her to the car. He put her in the front seat, next to him. Then he drove up the road, past the ranch foreman’s house, past the lower lake and the upper lake, till the road ended in a grassy meadow studded with wildflowers just coming into bloom. As he guided her out of the car onto the grass, she began to shake violently, hardly able to breathe. This is it, she thought. He’s going to kill me up here. A crazy thought flashed across her mind. At least this is a nice place to die.

  “Aren’t the flowers beautiful!” Taylor exclaimed. “Isn’t it a beautiful day!” Hope sat down on a small boulder, about thirty feet from the car, as Taylor walked a little higher up the mountainside to a cluster of rocks, where he turned and smiled. “As long as it’s so pretty here, I’m going to take pictures,” he said. He had brought the gun from the house and placed it on the front seat of the car as he drove; now he tucked it into his waist
band as he took pictures, standing above Hope on a boulder. “Turn around and smile,” he ordered, for Hope was trying to keep her back toward him, facing down the hillside. She felt certain he was going to shoot, and she didn’t want to see it coming.

  “We’ll go back now,” he announced after about half an hour, and they drove back down the road, through the gate, past the foreman’s house with no cars around, no sign of life. He pulled up by the side of the house, parked the car, then turned to her and took her hand in his. “Did you think I was going to kill you up there?”

  “Yes,” Hope said.

  Taylor laughed.

  “Don’t make me go back in the house,” she begged. “Please don’t make me go back in the house. I just can’t.”

  “But we have to do something about the body,” Taylor said in a reasoning voice.

  “Leave him here,” Hope said, sounding shrill. “Leave him here. I just have to get home and get the children safe and get my parents to help me. Let the authorities take care of it.”

  Taylor seemed to be considering. “Well, I have your pictures now, so if you ever tell anybody about me, everybody will know who you are and you won’t live very long, anyway.”

  “I promise I won’t tell on you,” Hope said. “I swear I won’t. I would never testify against you.”

  “Wait here,” Taylor said. He went into the house, leaving Hope in the front seat, staring blankly at the mountain. Except for the soft hiss of the irrigation pumps in the orange grove, the world was silent. She thought of something she needed from her car, so she got out of the Lincoln and crossed the grass to her Vega. But when she opened the car door and looked in, she couldn’t remember what it was she needed, so she closed the door and got back in the Lincoln. Taylor came running out. “What are you doing?” he demanded. When she told him, he seemed satisfied. “Stay in the car now,” he said. “There are some things I need to do in the house to protect myself.”

  Eventually he came out again with a handful of items: Bill’s briefcase, her nightgown, other pieces of her clothing. He placed the gun on the seat between them, backed the car onto the driveway, turned, and drove down the road. Hope did not look at the house as they drove past, nor at the hilly place above the river where she and Bill had stood in the moonlight with their arms around each other, in no rush to talk or to get back to the house, because they had all the time in the world.