Trashed

by Alison Gaylin

  Amazing that just ten days ago, digging through Emerald Deegan’s trash was probably the most horrific thing she’d ever done. Now she didn’t even notice the smell.

  After she finished searching through the last bag, she threw out the gloves, went back into her apartment, and took a shower. Nothing, she thought as the water ran over her. Nothing of Julie’s in the bags. Does that mean I’m safe? She had no idea. No idea about anything anymore.

  She tilted her face up, felt the hot water on it, rubbed shampoo into her hair and washed it out. After everything that had happened, it felt weird to be doing something so normal. She lathered soap into the washcloth and began cleaning her face, her hands, her body. When she finished, she didn’t feel clean enough so she did it again, lathering the cloth, rubbing her stomach harder, harder until the skin stung and went red, and still, she couldn’t get clean enough.

  Finally, she collapsed onto the floor of her tub, hugged her legs to her chest, her forehead on her knees as the warm water poured over her head, her back . . . and she couldn’t help it. She envisioned Julie hugging her legs at the side of Blake Moss’s pool, looking young, lost . . . with just four more days to live.

  She had to do something. She had to, or else she would spend her whole life in a fetal position on a shower floor, scrubbing and scrubbing but never getting clean.

  Simone turned off the water knowing what she needed to do. First, and most important, she would pull herself together. She would eat something, then call the hospitals, check on Holly and Walker. After that, she would get dressed—put on something nice. It would have to be nice. She had a funeral to go to.

  The funeral took place in Forest Lawn, the biggest, most elaborate-looking cemetery Simone had ever seen. When she was in junior high school, Simone had visited France with her parents and Greta, and in some ways it reminded her of the grounds of Versailles—only stretched out over three hundred acres. There were bubbling fountains and Greek statues and lush topiaries and rolling green hills, all dotted with graves, some in the open, some hidden behind walls or within private gardens.

  It was impossible to find your way around this place without a map. Fortunately, one had come with Greta’s invitation, and Simone used it as she drove through the sprawling grounds, passing two other funerals until she found it . . . Julie’s grave site. It was surrounded by rosebushes, which made Simone think of the pink rosebushes lined up against Julie’s house, the rosebushes in her mother’s garden back in Wappingers Falls. She wondered if Julie’s parents would be here, if she would recognize them if they were.

  But Simone wasn’t looking for Julie’s parents. She wanted the killer. She wanted to look into his eyes—or her eyes—and know. There were parking areas all over the grounds, and Simone pulled into the nearest one, made her way to where a group stood, all in black. As she reached the site, Simone saw Julie’s white casket resting next to the pit. It was a closed casket. Of course it was closed. She let her gaze pan over the growing, black-clad group of mourners and thought, Where are you, Dolores King?

  “Hey,” said a man next to her. She turned, and saw it was Ed Sandiford. Relief shot through her. It made her realize how tense she’d been.

  “Man, am I glad to see you.”

  “Don’t show it too much,” he said. “I’m undercover.”

  “Looking for Dolores?”

  “I see you ran a DMV check too.”

  Simone nodded.

  “There are six undercover here. I’m not gonna tell you who.”

  “I’m not going to ask,” said Simone.

  There were chairs lined up on the grass. Everyone started to take their seats. Simone chose one in the back and scanned the crowd . . . Chris and Lara, holding hands next to Caputo, Maurice stoic in the seat behind them. I guess, thought Simone, Lara re-upped. Blake Moss, in sunglasses, stood next to Julie’s other Devil’s Road costars. . . . A few rows to the right, she saw an elegant, slender woman in a long black shift and realized it was Kathy. Infiltrating. She turned for a moment, and the two women locked eyes. Almost imperceptibly, Simone nodded. I won’t give you away. She searched the group some more. Where was Randi?

  Simone thought she might have skipped the funeral, but then, in front and on the aisle, she saw Nathaniel, his arm around a large middle-aged woman who save for her size did not look like Randi at all. She was wearing black, not red. Her broad shoulders were slumped, her head lowered. Her big arms were wrapped around her stomach, as if she were trying to keep everything in—the secrets, the guilt, the grief . . . and she was crying.

  Simone had expected a confrontation—Randi or Chris or Moss shouting her down, calling her tabloid scum, telling her Dylan’s death was all her fault and she had her best friend’s blood on her hands, they hoped she was happy—all for the benefit of the paparazzi in the parking lot.

  But there was no confrontation. This was a very public funeral, with local politicians and newscasters and celebrities Julie had probably never met, unless for a “date,” and Dylan’s nearest and dearest were, above all, professional to the end. After the brief ceremony was over, they headed back to their cars, talking to each other, hushed and serious, as the paparazzi snapped them with their telephoto lenses.

  As Simone neared Chris Hart, he put his arm around Lara as if to shield her, and they both moved away, followed by Maurice.

  Randi, her tears gone, brushed past Simone with her head held high, while Nathaniel gave her the same type of glance he’d have given something unpleasant stuck to the bottom of his shoe. Simone glared right back at him, thinking, What you both did to her was no better than what I did.

  Blake Moss wouldn’t go near Simone. She knew he’d spotted her, yet he stayed as far away as possible, never looking in her direction. Then he rushed to the parking lot like a man being chased. Had all these people gotten a directive from Randi to keep away from her?

  Simone spotted Jason Caputo on the periphery of the site. He looked calm, relaxed. He was talking with Sandiford, as if the detective were just another loved one, which the director no doubt assumed he was. “Grief is a terrible thing,” Caputo was saying. “After I lost my dad, I stopped eating, didn’t shower for weeks. . . .”

  Simone walked up to the men and Sandiford nodded politely. “Hi, Jason,” she said.

  The director winced as he recognized her. But he didn’t walk away. He turned to Sandiford. “Excuse me a sec,” he said, and the detective joined another group. Caputo looked at Simone.

  “You’re the only one who has done that,” she said.

  “Done what?”

  “Looked at me.”

  “Simone,” he said, “I don’t have anything against you. We all have jobs. You were just doing yours.”

  “I wish everybody else felt that way.”

  “They don’t know,” he said. “You grow up like I did, with a dad like mine, you see it from a whole different perspective. The compromises you have to make, just to get your paycheck. Life’s full of murky gray, isn’t it, Simone? ”

  “You would think they would get that, though. Randi, for instance . . .”

  “Randi’s different, Hart’s different,” he said. “They’re the stars of their own shows. They have no objectivity. I’ve spent my whole life watching people like them, and that’s what I still do. I . . . observe.”

  Simone carefully worded her next question. “This is going to sound pretty random,” she said, “but . . . have you ever heard of an actress called Dolores King?”

  Ever so slightly, his eyes widened. “Yeah, that was pretty random, all right.”

  “I’m . . . I’m working on a story,” she said. “Her name came up in research.”

  Caputo swallowed. She could see his throat moving up and down. Then he smiled. “Never heard of her.”

  Caputo had said it himself. He was no actor. One look in his eyes, Simone could tell he was lying.

  On the ride home, Simone checked at both hospitals again. Still no change, in either Walker’s condition or
Holly’s. Then she called Sandiford. When he answered she said, “What do you think of Jason Caputo?”

  “Nice guy. Of course, talent-wise he’s not his father.”

  “No, I mean—”

  “I know what you mean,” he said. “We’re looking into it.”

  She heard a dim beep. She’d forgotten to charge her cell the previous night, and the battery was dying. She spoke fast. “When I mentioned Dolores King to Jason he seemed—”

  “Simone.”

  “Yeah?”

  “I know, with the job you have, you tend to . . . pay a little more attention to famous people.”

  “Ed, I’m losing you.”

  “With this case, I’d like you to try and do the opposite. Pay more attention to the unknowns.”

  Simone said, “Why?” But she didn’t hear his response. Her phone had timed out.

  “Damn.” She parked the car, walked up to her building. What was Sandiford talking about, anyway? There were famous people who were guilty of murder. Just because someone has a recognizable face doesn’t make him any better, any cleaner than the rest of us.

  Simone walked into her apartment. Where had she put the charger? It was usually plugged into the outlet by the door but . . .

  She felt someone watching her. She looked up. Blake Moss was sitting on her red Ikea couch, his long legs propped up on her coffee table.

  “Hi, angel,” he said. “I thought you’d never come home.”

  Simone’s breath went away for several seconds, then returned in one desperate, rushing gasp. She wanted to hit 911 on her phone, but the battery was dead, and now Moss was standing up, he was moving toward her.

  Stay calm, she told herself, and when her voice did come, it was strong, clear. “What are you doing in my apartment?”

  “Super let me in.” He smiled. “You’re a famous movie star, people open doors for you.”

  He was standing over her now. Simone backed up, but he took another step closer and she opened her mouth to scream, but no sound came out. Just a hollow rasp. Gently, Moss placed two fingers over her lips. “I’m not going to hurt you, Simone.”

  She looked into his eyes, expecting that famous leer, that evil, big-screen glint . . . but she saw only sadness. “I mean it,” he said. “I’m really not.”

  “What . . .”

  “I couldn’t do this at the funeral,” he said. “It was too public.” He took a breath. “I came by to apologize. For what I did at Randi’s party.”

  “What?”

  “I thought you liked it. I’m used to women . . . liking that.”

  “You mean you—”

  “You know how it is . . . the whole bad-boy thing. I’ve been acting that way for so damn long, getting what I want that way for so long, I . . . I sometimes don’t know when to stop.” He gave her a small smile. “I thought you liked it. I thought we were . . . playing.”

  She stared at him. “You weren’t really going to tell Dylan?”

  “Why would I tell Dylan?” he said. “It’s none of my damn business.”

  She shook her head, speechless.

  “When you wouldn’t let me give you a ride home . . . ,” he said.

  “Excuse me?”

  “That’s when I knew you weren’t playing. That’s when I knew no meant no.”

  Simone closed her eyes, pinched the bridge of her nose. She was beginning to get a terrible headache. “Apology accepted,” she said.

  “Thank you, Simone. I promise . . .”

  “Now go away.”

  “Huh?”

  “Go. Away. Blake.”

  He nodded and walked past her, then through her door. She collapsed onto her couch, and put her face in her hands, thinking about Blake . . . that look in his eye as he opened the door. It was a look—not of someone who’d eased his conscience. It was a look of completion, as if he’d finished a project.

  THIRTY

  After Moss was long gone, Simone finally found her charger. Somehow it had slipped under the refrigerator. She plugged her phone into it, made herself a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, poured a glass of wine she knew she wouldn’t finish.

  She then switched on her laptop and tried to do some research on Dolores King. There was very little to be found on the actress—no images, and her bio had been redacted from IMDb. Simone did find one article in an old issue of Fangoria. A piece called “Was Reginald King’s Death a Double Suicide?” She read. Known as a “vivacious but terrible actress,” Dolores King was apparently married to Reginald for ten years. They had what Dolores used to call an “open marriage,” meaning she slept around openly, humiliating her husband.

  “Being who he was,” said an unnamed “friend” of King’s, “Reg was used to compromising—in his job, in his art, in his life.” It was implied, but never proven, that King was latently gay. “He was plagued by guilt,” the friend said. “Over something no one should feel guilty about—the way he was. So he let his wife get away with whatever she wanted.” But it hurt him, deeply. The final blow came when Dolores announced she was writing a tell-all book about her affairs with famous men and about her husband’s sexuality. Reginald was found dead in 1987, having slashed his own throat with a hunting knife. A month later, Dolores disappeared. As the years went by, less and less information became available on the actress and her husband, the few publications that had interviewed them folding, copies of their straight-to-video films now collectors’ items. Before the Internet, it was a lot easier to fade into obscurity, especially if you were obscure to begin with. The other, very real possibility: Destroyed by her husband’s death, Dolores King had followed him to the grave.

  Or she was back . . . killing off women the way Reginald had killed himself.

  Simone didn’t want to think about it, not now. She was too tired. She e-mailed Greta back, thanked her for the funeral invite. Then she deleted the message from SwampDemon. She’d already forwarded it to the police and, for some reason, that tiny action—hitting the DELETE button—gave her a little jolt of power. “You’re not going to get me,” she whispered. “I’ll get you first.”

  The next morning, Simone got no new word about Walker’s or Holly’s condition. She showered, threw on a pair of jeans and a T-shirt and walked out to her Jeep, carrying her laptop with her. She’d drive to Valley Memorial, she decided, hang out in the waiting room and run some more searches, see if she could learn anything else about Dolores King. She doubted it. She was amazed she could even find that Fangoria article on the woman. It was as if she’d made a special effort to vanish.

  Simone had put the laptop in the Jeep when she realized she hadn’t checked the trash today, and ran back to her apartment to get her rubber kitchen gloves. She kept the gloves under the sink, next to the wastebasket. But as she bent down to get the box, she noticed a new bag in her wastebasket . . . a plastic bag from a nearby drugstore. She plucked it out.

  At first, she thought the bag was empty—it was that light, that odorless. But then she saw something inside. It was a photograph. She pulled it out and looked at it. Her whole body began to tremble and her face went numb.

  Julie and Todd’s prom picture.

  Her cell phone chimed and she picked it up, and before she said anything she heard that voice, Dr. Marshall’s voice, so sterile, so robotic.

  “Simone Glass?”

  She closed her eyes tight. “Yes.”

  “This is Dr. Marshall.”

  “Yes.” Please, thought Simone. Please, please, please.

  The doctor said, “Neil Walker has regained consciousness. ”

  Simone didn’t remember the drive to the hospital. She just knew that one minute she was in her Jeep and the next she was at Valley Memorial, rushing through the lobby, up the elevator, into ICU. She picked up the phone, and this time the nurse let her in without a fight. “He’s been asking for you,” she said.

  When she got to the room, Walker was in his bed, the bandage still wrapped around his head. The oxygen tube had been removed a
nd so had all but one of the IVs, and he was sitting up against propped pillows, thumbing his BlackBerry.

  It was the most wonderful image Simone had seen in days.

  She didn’t say anything, just watched him for a few minutes. Until he looked up at her, and he dropped the BlackBerry and his eyes lit up. “Took you long enough,” he said.

  Simone walked over to the bed and sat down next to him and hugged him, held him as tightly as she could without disturbing the IV. When she pulled away, his eyes were glistening.

  “You’re crying,” she said.

  “It’s the morphine.”

  “Ah.”

  He brushed a hand against her cheek, and kissed her softly. “You know I’m a liar, right?”

  Simone told Walker everything that had happened over the past two days, from the contents of the diskette to Dolores King to Chris and Maurice to Julie’s funeral to Blake Moss. The one thing she didn’t mention was what Nigel had told her about him. She figured, Neil Walker is allowed secrets of his own. Close to an hour later, the nurse ducked in, telling Walker they were going to move him out of ICU to a regular recovery room. He said, “Does it have a double bed?”

  The nurse smiled. “No.” She looked at Simone. “But you can squeeze in with him if you want, just as long as you don’t get him too excited.”

  “Well, forget it then,” said Walker.

  The nurse ducked out, said, “Be back in a few.”

  And then, Simone said, “There’s one thing I haven’t told you about.” She reached into her purse, pulled out Julie and Todd’s prom picture and showed it to him. “Julie used to keep this in her bedroom mirror,” she said. “I found it today. In my garbage.”

  Walker’s face went white. “Did you call Ed?” he said.

  “I will.”

  “You’re staying here. In my room.”

  “I know.” She looked into his eyes for a long, quiet moment. “But Neil,” she said, “I can’t stay here forever.”