by N. M. Brown
‘Oceanside PD.’
The young guy in the checked shirt who was serving looked horrified, and he began to lick his bottom lip nervously.
‘Is this about those kids with the six packs?’ he volunteered. ‘Godammit, I knew as soon as they’d left. I saw them high-five each other, out there on the court, I’m telling you the honest truth, Officer, I swear I thought their ID was genuine.’
‘Take it easy, son.’ Leighton spoke slowly to help calm the mood. ‘I only want to ask about your security cameras.’
‘Oh Jeez, sorry. It’s just I had these college kids in here buying Wild Turkey and beer. They looked kinda young, but they had ID and it looked, you know, authentic.’
Looking at the kid behind the counter, Leighton estimated that he couldn’t be much older than the college kids sneaking around for beers. It was more than likely that this kid had simply been supplying some friends with beer without too many questions. In any case, Leighton had more pressing concerns, so he gave the kid the benefit of the doubt.
‘Appearances can be deceptive,’ Leighton said. ‘Now, do those security cameras out on the forecourt work?’
‘Yeah, sure,’ the young guy nodded. ‘Well, three out of the four are good; the one above the door fogs up a little, but they do all work.’
‘What do you record the footage on, video tapes?’
‘Yeah, one for each shift, there are fourteen in all. The boss keeps promising to get us one of those hard drive recorders, but I reckon he likes to keep us all busy.’
‘What day is changeover day for the tapes?’
‘Wednesday.’
‘So, you still have the tape from Friday night?’
‘Yeah sure – number ten. Give me a second.’
Leighton gazed absently at the items for sale, while the young man rummaged around frantically in a drawer behind the counter. Eventually he popped up, grinning like a pearl diver coming up for air.
‘Here you go,’ he said, and held out a plastic video cassette tape.
‘Do you mind if I take this?’ Leighton asked.
‘Sure,’ the clerk shrugged, ‘we have plenty of spares – those tapes are cheap shit.’
‘Should match my VCR pretty well. Thanks kid.’ Leighton said as he left the shop.
The young man let out a relieved sigh, sounding like a swimmer who had stayed underwater for too long.
Chapter Twelve
Although she was not the most observant young woman, Jenna Dodds instinctively knew that something was wrong when the car had pulled up on the dark street ahead of her. It had been a slow night, with nothing more than a handjob for a trucker in his cab, and a nervous college guy who couldn’t get it up in the back of his Kia so had sheepishly asked for his money back. Luckily, he had been too embarrassed to make a fuss, and Jenna had given him half of his forty dollars back.
After that she had wandered away from Highway 76, along Benet Road, and on to the quieter Via Del Monte. /This was avast landscape of industrial units, which was usually lifeless after dark. . However, in these deserted spaces there were also fewer customers. The whole area was a flat expanse of cracked parking lots, low buildings, and the occasional palm tree. Sometimes she would get picked up by a delivery driver making the most of the remote location and a willing participant.
In a funny way, she liked walking in this area rather than in the bustle of downtown – there was less competition and it was quieter. As she wandered next to the buildings, Jenna would sometimes imagine that she worked inside some of them. She would gaze at the occasional illuminated window and pretend that she had a regular job, like mopping floors, instead of one involving some sweating man squeezing her face and neck whilst thrusting angrily at her body. If things had been different in high school, maybe she could have ended up having a different kind of life. But Darnel had got her pregnant when she was fifteen. After social services took the baby away, she didn’t care so much about anything. It was a quick slide into alcohol, drugs, and then prostitution in exchange for crack. Then, after a short time, prostitution became as much of a habit as the crack.
Jenna was wandering past a long row of dark single-storey offices, when she heard the low groan of a car engine behind her. She half turned around and had to hold up an arm to shield her eyes against the fierce lights. She also had to suppress her natural urge to shout some obscenities at the vehicle in case the driver was a potential client. Instead, she placed a hand on her hip and pushed out one leg as she watched the car go by.
She stopped to lean against an oversized sign that was advertising office space, and felt a fresh sense of optimism as the car slowed down, and finally stopped.
Once it had paused at the kerbside, the vehicle lurched forward crazily a couple of times, and then the engine died.
In that moment, Jenna decided optimistically that the car was being driven by a potential customer. She promptly applied some peach coloured lipstick and strutted toward the red brake lights.
However, before she reached the car, a door was flung open. The driver, dressed in a dark tracksuit, jumped out and glanced nervously both ways before running off into the night.
Jenna, who had spent all of her twenty-three years living in a trailer park, was used to seeing ‘jacked’ cars being hastily abandoned. Sometimes, they were bait cars; other times the stolen vehicle had run out of gas, miles from the jacker’s home, leaving them stranded in enemy territory. She had even heard that some, more modern cars could be shut down remotely, but this old saloon car didn’t look fancy enough for that type of technology, so she concluded that it had simply ran out of juice.
‘Shit!’ Jenna kicked at the sidewalk and then turned around. A bad night was only getting worse. She suspected that she might have better luck down by the highway – where there were more cars. Of course, there was also a greater chance of getting busted by the cops, but it was evolving into a slow night and she had no other option. If she returned home with anything less than sixty bucks, Darnel would smack her around and send her back out again, and she knew from bitter experience that it was even harder to attract customers with an eye swollen shut and a burst lip.
Jenna had only taken a couple of steps away from the lifeless car when she first heard the noise. The sound was initially unclear – it might have been nothing more than the ghostly echo of a radio that had been left playing, or perhaps the sound of a TV, wafting from an open window of a nearby office. But, when Jenna cocked her head and listened properly, she realised the sound was that of a woman crying. The voice was begging for help.
For a moment, Jenna thought about walking away – back toward the freeway. In this neighbourhood, it was often the smartest thing to do when you encountered a crime. However, she also knew that girls like herself were easy prey for any psycho with a grudge. For once in her life, Jenna could choose to do the right thing.
She desperately glanced around in the hope that somebody else might show up to help, but that entire section of Via Del Monte was mostly a mixture of industrial units and offices, which meant the place was a graveyard at night. This was what made it a good place to turn tricks without offending the law-abiding citizens of Oceanside.
The voice whimpered again. Jenna shuddered and stepped tentatively toward the car. As she approached the vehicle, the sound seemed much clearer and increasingly desperate.
She hunched over and took only tiny steps, giving her the appearance of someone approaching a bomb.
‘Hello?’ she called out toward the colourless car.
The voice suddenly fell silent, as if gauging whether or not Jenna was a threat. Then, suddenly, it began calling out again, with renewed desperation. The increase in volume allowed Jenna to pinpoint exactly where the sound was coming from. It was located deep within the trunk.
Jenna took a deep breath, opened the trunk, and took an instinctive step away from it.
Inside was a small, portable CD player. After a moment of silence the begging started again it was coming from the
CD player, causing Jenna to jump with fright.
It was then, in the confusion of the moment, that she felt a strong arm fasten around her neck, and the chemical soaked rag that was pressed against her face sent her tumbling helplessly into darkness.
‘Hello, Veronica,’ a voice said.
Less than two hours later, in the room at the rear of the house on Thorn Road, he sat hunched over the small desk with the two adjustable magnifying glasses locked into position. He liked to revisit the killing in his mind as he worked on the trophy he had removed from the victim. This was his favourite part of the ritual. It had only been an hour since he ended her life, but already he was busy.
Once the remains were found and buried, or cremated, this fragment would be all that remained, and it would belong to him entirely – his possession. But right now, at this moment, it was at the point of transfiguration: when something mortal becomes immortal. It was as if he was granting her new life – a better life.
He paused to wipe his chin when he realised, with a degree of fascination, he was actually drooling.
Chapter Thirteen
It was after 11pm when Leighton finally returned home. After glancing at the dark windows for any sign of life in the bungalow, he climbed out of the car and locked it. A chorus of crickets fell silent as he approached the door, which was lit by a single overhead bulb. He hoped to hell that Annie didn’t have company – it wouldn’t heal their relationship very much if she had to watch her daddy throw her boyfriend out on his skinny white ass.
To help reduce the risk of this, Leighton decided he would make as much noise as he could when he opened the door. That way, if Annie did have a ‘visitor’, she would have enough time to hustle him out of her bedroom window. However, his efforts were unnecessary. The alarm began bleeping as soon as he stepped into the hallway. Leighton deftly opened a small panel on the wall behind the door and punched in a number of digits. With the alarm deactivated, he locked the door and wandered into the open living area. When he switched on the light, he discovered that the place looked surprisingly tidier than it had earlier in the evening. The magazines had been cleared from the small coffee table, and in their place was a neat white envelope.
Leighton sat on the sofa with a sigh and picked up the envelope.
It was a telephone bill, but a handwritten message had been scrawled across the back of it:
Gone to Lina’s. A.x
He had sent her a text message half an hour earlier to ask if she wanted him to bring back some food, but she had not replied. The note explained why.
Leighton yawned and lay down on the couch. He looked carefully at the scrawled note. He could remember the nights he had spent, ten years earlier, sitting at the supper table helping Annie with her homework. He had always been amazed at how she would take so long practising her spelling, saying each letter slowly and clearly. Back then, he had stupidly thought her childhood would last for ever: that there would always be more time to spend with Annie. Part of him envisaged that he would somehow reach a later day, a better time, when he would be free to be the kind of dad he wanted to be – a good one.
He closed his eyes for a moment and felt himself begin to tumble backwards into oblivion. It took all of his strength to make himself sit up. He knew it would be a mistake to allow himself to fall asleep on the sofa – he would only regret it in the morning when he woke up crumpled, cold, and stiff.
After he’d dragged himself up from the sofa, Leighton stripped off and stepped into a hot shower. At one year away from his fifth decade, he was still a fit man, but his muscles were tight like coiled springs. Twenty years of workplace stress, combined with grief and insomnia, had left Leighton Jones unable to ever fully relax. A tall glass of rum would create an artificial sense of calm, but it was like covering a steel chair with a soft blanket. Thankfully, the torrents of hot water in the shower went some way to soothing his weary bones.
He stepped, dripping, from the shower, and dried himself with a clean towel before slipping on a pair of grey boxer shorts and a white vest.
He padded into the kitchen and returned with a glass that clinked with ice cubes and white rum.
Crossing the bedroom, he placed his glass next to the bed and sat on the edge of the mattress. The room around him was neat and clean: white walls and dark wooden furniture. All the surfaces were clear, with the exception of a small cassette player sitting on one of his bedside cabinets. The silence in the room didn’t unsettle Leighton as much as it might other people. Sighing to himself, he leant forward and rubbed his hands over his face.
He’d become used to living without a wife – after the dream of ‘happily ever after’ had burst like a bubble, he had felt no real desire to create a new one – however, the absence of his daughter was a more palpable thing. They had been a solid unit for a long time. Before Gretsch had been appointed captain, his predecessor at the Mission Avenue station was a wise, old officer called Barney Feltzer. After Heather Jones had taken her own life in the bath of her elderly parents’ home, everyone in the station was fairly sympathetic to Leighton’s situation. The captain had quietly arranged for him to have permanent day shifts, therefore allowing him to spend evenings with his daughter. As she grew older, and spent the holidays at camp, Leighton worked three entire summers of nights to return the favour to his colleagues.
Around that time, he tried to ensure that Annie got involved in different activities-like swim class- in a naïve attempt to involve women in her life . He figured they might offer her the type of guidance Leighton never could- something like a mother’s touch.
Mostly, however, it had been just the two of them. He would help Annie dress each morning, and then drop her at Mrs Carrera’s – the childminder – before school. At the end of each shift he would return to pick her up. Often, she would be sitting at the kitchen table with a glass of milk and a plate of Oreo cookies, sketching some crazy picture of colourful birds or chunky rainbows. Annie would grin helplessly whenever she saw her father and her eyes would widen in joy. Now, in the silence of his empty home, those days felt like a different life entirely.
Here, in the silent apartment, Leighton felt the weight of his loss. He hoped, somehow, that the conflict of recent months would melt away, and that they could recapture the strong connection they had once shared.
Leighton lay back on his bed and closed his eyes. Perhaps, he thought, tomorrow would be a different day – a fresh start. It was then he remembered something that made him sit up and swing his legs to the floor: he had forgotten all about the video camera footage from the gas station.
Padding out of the bedroom, he made his way to the front door and unlocked it. The evening air was warm and the crickets were chirruping throughout the garden as Leighton walked barefoot to his car. Somewhere in the darkness he could hear a garden sprinkler swishing to life.
When Leighton returned, he relocked the door and collected his drink from the bedroom. A moment later, he was sitting in the living area holding the video cassette in his hand. Crouching before his television, he slotted the cassette into the mouth of the VCR. The image that appeared on the screen was a grainy shot of the gas station forecourt, with ghostly lights – from the headlights of passing cars – occasionally floating into view. After a moment Leighton’s eyes adjusted to the view. It was an angular shot of the gas station that covered two of the pumps, and switched jerkily every ten seconds to cover the other two. It was within the second shot that the parking lot of the Beach House Café could be seen, but only in the distance.
Leighton noted that the image of the lot wasn’t too clear because the garage forecourt was so brightly lit. This meant that the distant parking lot had a misty quality, as if it were deep beneath some strange ocean. Leighton sipped his drink and pressed the fast-forward button on the remote control. He watched as comedic cars appeared and vanished in an endless loop of activity. Combined with the black and white footage, the jumpiness of the scene reminded Leighton of the old Harold Lloyd movies h
e had watched as a kid.
After several minutes, Leighton leaned forward and peered at the screen. He used the remote control to pause the recording. A car had pulled into the car park, at the rear of the shot. The footage of the car was indistinct, and he was unable to identify the make or model, but the vehicle seemed to be parked in the bay that Rochelle had identified. ‘Hello there,’ he whispered.
Leighton released the pause button and watched transfixed as a figure climbed out of the car and vanished off to one side of the shot. The angle switched again – to the other gas pumps – leaving Leighton frowning in frustration as he forwarded the footage. Eventually the image switched back to the car park. The car was still in place and the driver was still missing, but this time a female figure was visible at the edge of the screen. Leighton paused the tape again and closed in until his face was inches from the television screen. At first Leighton thought he was looking at Rochelle – the build and hair looked similar – but the walk was different. The girl at the edge of the frame dropped something on the ground, probably a cigarette, and twisted her foot on it. She turned away from the car and started walking back to the café. Then, something made her stop. Leighton took a deep breath and rewound the footage a couple of seconds. He peered in fascination as the girl repeated the motion with her foot. This time he watched more carefully as she moved away and stopped. Whatever had grabbed her attention could not be seen in the video. She turned, and walked toward the car. Her movements suggested cautiousness and she was walking in an almost dreamlike way. She went round the car to the rear of it, where she reached down and opened the trunk.
At that moment, the image on the screen was shattered by jagged white lines. The VCR hummed loudly and began to whine like an animal in pain.
