Lily pushed herself up on her arms. “Oh, really?”
“I hate to admit it,” he continued, his dark eyes probing hers, “but I haven’t been quite as chaste as you. The male biological makeup, you know. It’s in our genes.”
“Sounds too clinical,” Lily told him, stroking his hair off his forehead.
“It’s a fact.” Richard lifted her off him. “I took a biochemistry class in college, thinking I could solve the mysteries of the universe. I only learned one thing. The purpose of life is to procreate. Men are genetically designed to have sex. Otherwise, the human race would have ceased to exist.”
“Why are you talking about other women?” Lily asked. “Are you trying to make me jealous?”
“Nope,” he said. “Just attempting to be honest.”
“I’m not the jealous type,” she told him, then gave her statement a second thought. “I take that back, okay? What you did in the past doesn’t matter, unless you have a disease.” When he didn’t answer, she assumed his sexual activity had not been irresponsible and that he had undergone routine tests as she did. Even with her rare sexual encounters, she was a stickler for safe sex. “What you do in the future might be a problem, depending on where we go with our relationship.”
“I can handle that,” Richard answered, stroking her breast. “But only under one condition.”
“What’s that?”
“You have to promise not to throw things at me.” Lily was puzzled. “Why would you say that?”
“Don’t ask.”
She kissed his mouth, his chin, his stomach, then began moving down his body before he gently pushed her away.
“I never thought I’d live to say this,” he said, propping several pillows behind his head, “at least not to you, anyway. But the only way I could perform right now is if you can arrange an immediate transplant.”
The lower halves of their bodies were still covered by the sheet. Lily yanked the sheet off. When she saw his penis, she had to force herself to keep from laughing. The skin was red and inflamed. It reminded her of a hot dog roasted over an open flame. She pointed at her chest. “Did I do that?”
“Unless there was someone else in the bed with us,” Richard said, touching his genitals and then grimacing.
“How could someone with your coloring have such sensitive skin?”
“Ah,” he said, pulling on a strand of her hair, “it’s my sensitive skin, right? It couldn’t have anything to do with the fact that we thrashed around in bed until after four this morning. If I’m not mistaken, the last thing I remember is you calling me your ‘little pony.’ I don’t mind you referring to me as a pony,” he continued, “but I don’t care much for the word little.”
Lily’s lovely face was flushed with the glow of a woman well loved, her red hair drenched in a streak of vibrant sunlight. Her problems suddenly seemed unimportant. “I think I know where the little pony remark came from,” she told him. “Shana had a book with that title when she was in kindergarten. I used to read it to her every night. The book even came with a little pony necklace.” When she finally stopped laughing, she sat up and pulled the sheet up over her body. “Are you complaining?”
“Of course not,” Richard said, climbing out of bed to head to the bathroom. “I’ll buy some cream at the drugstore. By tonight I should be ready for an encore.”
A few moments later, Richard poked his head out of the bathroom to tell her it was already after seven. Lily was sitting with her legs crossed, a serene, otherworldly look in her eyes, almost as if she were meditating.
“I hate to disturb you,” he said. “But we better get moving. You don’t want Shana to get to your place before we do. Then you won’t be able to keep her from finding out we spent the night together.”
“Oh,” Lily said, giving him a blank stare, “it doesn’t matter if she finds out. I’ll probably tell her eventually.”
“Boy,” Richard said, “did you do a hundred and eighty-degree turnaround here or am I crazy?”
“I’m a woman,” Lily told him. “Women change their minds, remember?” Even though she’d given him a lighthearted answer, she felt different. What they had shared was not only pleasurable, but in some way uniquely profound.
The feeling reminded her of a picture on the bedroom wall of her rented cottage, a reproduction of a painting entitled Embrace, by an Austrian artist named Egon Schiele. She had become intrigued with not only the sensuous nature of the painting, but because she’d spent hours staring at it during the nights when she couldn’t sleep. Coincidentally, the artist had painted it in 1917, the same year her mother had been born. It depicted a man and a woman reclining on what appeared to be a blue sheet, the fabric rippling beneath them like waves in the ocean. Thumbing through art books at the Tecolote Book Shop in Montecito one day, Lily had found the painting in a book compiled by an art historian and nun named Sister Wendy Beckett. The author had explained that those who viewed the Embrace were allowed to witness the mystical enigma of what she referred to as a true embrace, meaning the couple in the painting were uniting and each was becoming the other.
“Aren’t you going to get dressed?”
Lily walked into the bathroom, hugging Richard from behind while he smeared shaving cream on his face. “Thank you,” she said, her eyes moist with tears. “I believe last night did change me. I don’t know how exactly. I only hope it lasts forever.”
Richard said jokingly, “Don’t lay it on too thick, Lily. I haven’t forgotten what you and Shana said about guys who pay them too many compliments.”
I‘LL MEET you at the restaurant,” Richard said, leaning over and kissing Lily before she got out of the car in front of her guest house. Just as he drove off, she realized she was locked out. The key to her cottage had been on the same ring as her car keys. Now she’d have to wait outside until Shana returned, and her daughter would know she had spent the night with Richard. Lily might have said she didn’t mind her knowing they were lovers, but she wasn’t prepared to tell her right at that moment.
Lily had hidden a spare key somewhere on the property. Since she had never needed it, she’d forgotten where it was hidden. She suddenly panicked, certain Curazon had found the key, then used it to enter the cottage and steal the portrait of Shana. Her fears were magnified by the fact that the key to Shana and John’s duplex had also disappeared from her key ring.
Where had she put it? She couldn’t ask the owners to let her in, as they were on vacation in Europe. Finally she raced around to the side yard, whipped off the brown tarp covering the barbecue grill, and pulled a small magnetized box about the size of a matchbook off the top of the inside lid to the cooker. Someone had given the box to her as a Christmas gift one year.
Once she was inside the house, her eyes went to the end table where the missing picture and envelope had been. Now that she had found the key, she tried to regain her earlier sense of well-being.
Why would Curazon replace the key, she asked herself, if he had found it and used it to gain entrance to the house? She couldn’t fathom him going to the trouble of making a duplicate, then returning to replace the original in the little box hidden inside the barbecue.
From what she had learned about him following his arrest, Curazon was a seriously disturbed individual. He had been severely abused by his mother as a young boy. Most people didn’t realize that rape was a crime of violence, that sex was only the weapon, similar to a gun or a knife. Men raped to punish, inflict pain, gain power over their victim. In Curazon’s case, he had raped to alleviate his own emotional pain. He was a sexual predator who acted on impulse, one of the reasons she didn’t believe he had removed her key, then replaced it with a duplicate.
Wanting to change her clothes from the night before, Lily rushed to the bedroom and selected a pair of black slacks and a purple knit top. When she heard what sounded like the front door opening, she clutched the knit blouse in her hands, her pulse pounding.
“Mom,” Shana called out. “Are you here?�
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“I’m getting dressed,” she answered, pulling the top over her head and walking out to the living room. “How was your visit?”
Lily’s night of bliss with Richard seemed weeks behind her, and the lack of sleep showed on her face. Under her eyes were dark circles, and her naturally curly hair was more unruly than normal.
“Okay, I guess,” Shana said, sitting on the sofa, then picking up a package of gum off the table. “You look exhausted, Mom. How long did you stay over there with Richard?”
“We have to hurry.” Lily glanced at her watch, wanting to tell her the truth but knowing it wasn’t the right time to engage in such an intimate discussion. “We’re supposed to meet Richard at the restaurant in less than ten minutes,” she added. “I’m also going to have to stop by the office, but you can come with me. All I intend to do is show my face, then download some case files from my computer. Later this afternoon we’ll drive over to the university and check things out.”
“I don’t want to transfer to Santa Barbara,” Shana protested, smacking on her chewing gum. “Ronnie even wants to switch to another school, maybe UCLA. Most of the people she introduced me to last night were airheads.”
“It can’t be that bad.”
“Oh, really?” she said. “The ones who aren’t potheads are into that silly retro stuff with the big band music and old-fashioned dancing. They bored me to death talking about their stupid costumes.”
Lily hadn’t expected her to return home in such a bad mood. Her daughter’s sour attitude was causing her earlier cheerfulness to take a nosedive. “Aren’t the young people in L.A. into the same scene?”
“Who cares?” Shana said, standing. “The only scene I’m into is trying to finish college so I can go to law school. I’ve only gone out on two dates this past year, Mom. The kids last night are wasting their parents’ money.”
Lily walked over and hugged her. “That’s why I’m so proud of you, sweetheart.” When she pulled back, she said, “Let’s have a nice breakfast, listen to what Richard has to say, then we’ll attempt to solve some of your problems this afternoon.”
As they were about to leave, Lily came up with another idea. “Maybe I can find a way to rent you an apartment. We’ll pick up an L.A. newspaper this afternoon. We could get lucky and find a college girl around your age who’s looking for a roommate.”
“We could do that over the Internet,” she told her, jangling the key ring. “What about Dad, though? Isn’t that why you told me not to stay in L.A.?”
“I was only concerned if you stayed in the duplex,” Lily told her. “And besides, if you have a roommate, he won’t be able to pressure you into letting him live with you.”
Shana removed her lipstick from her backpack, putting it on without a mirror, then blotting her lips on a tissue. “Dad isn’t going to put pressure on me over anything,” she said, her voice firm with conviction. “Right now I don’t care if he jumps off a bridge. I can’t even stand thinking about him, I hate him so much.”
“Don’t say that,” Lily answered, scowling. “It’s one thing to be angry because of what he did, but you shouldn’t hate anyone.”
“Not even when they kill someone?” Shana shouted, kicking the rear tire of the Audi.
“No,” Lily told her. “Hate will eat you up inside. I lost six years of my life because of it.”
Shana refused to let it go. “The guy Dad ran over was my age, Mom. He even went to UCLA. Maybe I can get another place like you said, but people are going to find out. If the police don’t come after me, people will still know my father killed someone.”
“It’s a big school,” her mother said, placing her hand on one side of her neck. “You’re the one who brought that point up to the detectives. I think you’re worrying about the wrong things right now.”
“Right, sure,” Shana said, her eyes blazing with intensity as she paced around in a circle in the driveway. “Why don’t you just put me in a nut house? That would solve all my problems. Then I wouldn’t have to worry about Dad. I wouldn’t have to find another place to live, change schools, stay up all night certain Curazon or some other creep is going to rape me.” She walked over and spat the words in her mother’s face. “You said I shouldn’t be bitter, that I shouldn’t hate. Tell me how to do that, Mom! Go on, tell me!”
Lily shook her head, knowing there was nothing she could say to console her. Even though her heart was being wrenched, what her daughter needed was to vent. The only thing she could do was listen and love her. She felt guilty for spending the night with Richard, for experiencing pleasure when her child was suffering such emotional pain. She watched as Shana shoved a pair of sunglasses on her nose, seeing how badly her hands were shaking. The girl was desperately trying to hold herself together, find the necessary strength to continue functioning.
“It’s bad enough knowing that my mother killed someone,” Shana said, glancing back at Lily as she headed to the passenger side of the car. “At least I know you had a reason.”
Lily’s mouth fell open. Black spots danced in front of her eyes. The blood drained from her face, and she felt as if she were about to pass out. She knew! There was no doubt now that her daughter knew the truth.
Tossing her backpack into the backseat, Shana said, “Did you think I didn’t know? I even know who you killed, that it wasn’t the man who raped us. I figured it out a long time ago. You killed the guy whose picture was in the newspaper clipping, the one who murdered the prostitute and butchered those two teenagers.”
Lily spun around, starting to rush back into the house.
Shana chased after her, grabbing her by the arm. “Wait,” she said. “I might hate Dad, but I don’t hate you. I understand what you did. You were protecting me, making certain no one ever hurt me again. You risked everything for me… your career, your freedom, even your life.”
“I—I was wrong,” Lily stammered, choking up with tears. “No one should take the law into their own hands. When I told you I had lived with hatred all these years, I wasn’t talking about Marco Curazon. I hated myself, Shana. That’s the worst punishment of all. That’s why I told you not to hate your father. No matter how many years he serves in prison, he’ll spend the rest of his life regretting what he did, reliving the horror of that moment, pleading to God for forgiveness.”
“I hope he does,” Shana said, kissing her tenderly on the cheek.
The two women seemed frozen in time, locked inside the moment, merged together like the picture on the wall in Lily’s bedroom. Daughter became mother and mother became daughter, divinely entwined, yet each with her unique brand of wisdom.
“I just want you to know one thing,” Shana continued. “I would have done the same thing you did. Maybe you’re right about me not hating Dad, but sometimes people do things that are so awful, they don’t deserve to live.”
25
Thanks,” John said, picking up an envelope with a check from the receptionist at the real estate firm where he was employed. It was five-thirty on Friday evening, and everyone had already left for the day. The only person remaining in the office was the receptionist, and he had caught her just as she was preparing to leave. “Tell Martha I’ll call her next week. My mother’s sick. I didn’t realize it was so serious when I called in and spoke to her yesterday.”
“The flu?” the girl asked, using a tissue to blow her nose.
“No,” John lied, “she has cancer. She’s not expected to live.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Thanks,” he answered, rushing out the door to cash the check at the bank down the street before it closed.
Exiting the bank, he shoved the money into his brown leather jacket and used his cell phone to call a cab, instructing the driver to take him to an area off Pico Boulevard where there were a number of used-car lots. What he wished he could do was lease a car. That way he wouldn’t have to spend what little cash he had. But since his credit was lousy, he assumed it would be a waste of time to even try to get a comp
any to lease him a car. He had approximately twenty-five hundred dollars, and after the phone call he’d made that morning to the mayor’s office, extorting additional money from Lily was out of the question.
“Turn around,” he suddenly told the cab driver, placing his hand on the back of the front seat. “Take me back to the same place you picked me up.”
“Hey, buddy,” said the driver, a long-haired man in his early forties. “You want to go back where you came from, that’s fine with me. You still got to pay me.” He stepped on the brake, turning around and sizing up his passenger. “Let me see the money. I got kids to feed.”
“Here,” John said, flashing a wad of bills. “I left something in my office, okay? I’m going to pay you to wait while I run in and get what I need.”
As they traveled back down the same street, John sat with his hands folded in his lap, gazing out the window at Mother Nature’s exquisite display of colors—the deep pinks and vibrant blues, the muted greens, the intriguing shapes of the clouds. He’d never been much of a nature buff, but with the thought of a prison sentence looming over his head, he wondered how many more sunsets he would see.
Using his key to enter the building, he headed toward the back office, where the desk of a highly successful agent named Bryant Montgomery was located. Taking a seat in his chair, he booted up his computer. John hadn’t kept up with all the recent advancements in computer technology, but Shana had taught him a great deal since he had entered real estate. He knew Bryant was addicted to buying things over the Internet, particularly stuff at auctions. In addition, he knew the code words he used to access all his files and personal data. One day while Bryant was bidding on an antique mirror for his wife, he had called John over to watch. He couldn’t help noticing the man’s code, as it was so easy to remember. Bryant used his name, plus the numbers on the outside of the building: 1276. He assumed, like everyone else, he’d picked a code he was certain he wouldn’t forget.
Buried Evidence Page 24
