by Matt Coyle
She was a challenge. I was an athlete, I thrived on challenges. But the flutter in my belly told me it wasn’t just a conquest I was after. For the first time in my young life of easy-women bachelor-hood, I wanted more.
We talked for hours by ourselves on a couch in the corner of a dorm living room, unaware of the debauchery going on around us. Literature, philosophy, politics, anything but what a stud I was to be the starting free safety on the Bruins football team. She mentioned her boyfriend a couple times, but he was just an obstacle to overcome, like a blocker between me and the ball carrier.
Colleen went back up to Santa Barbara the next day. We traded e-mail addresses and kept up an intermittent correspondence, but I wouldn’t see her again for almost a year. It took a career-ending knee injury, a school transfer, and nine months of trading barbs and finally punches with her high school sweetheart and his posse to finally win Colleen’s heart.
It took five years to break it. And one night to get her killed.
Line two on the office phone rang again. John Kerrigan calling back to fire more shards of his broken heart at me? He’d earned the right. And I’d forfeited the right not to hear him out.
I picked up.
“Rick?”
It wasn’t John, but the caller’s voice sounded so much like his daughter’s it would have sent a chill down his spine, just as it did mine.
Melody.
“I want to see you.” The sexy gravel.
“It’s a long drive from San Francisco.”
“I’m in San Diego.” The words came out fast and ran together.
I hadn’t heard from Melody since she left two days ago. I’d written her off as a two-night stand. One that had caused me a lot of grief, and one that I should have been glad was over. But Melody was back in San Diego, the woman who’d lied to me at least once, whose association had gotten me a front-row seat under a police spotlight and a front page perp picture in the morning paper.
“Where?”
“At the airport. I’m getting a car.” She paused and I thought she was done speaking. Then, “I was hoping I could come by your house later.”
I wanted to see her, but under my conditions. My house, my bed, her advantage.
“Things have gotten a bit hot around here since you left. The press already staked out my house once today. Why don’t I meet you at your hotel? Where are you staying?”
“I don’t have one, yet.” Disappointment. “I guess I was hoping we could pick up where we left off.”
“Do you know where Mount Soledad is?”
“You mean where the cross is?”
“Yeah. Meet me there in a half hour.”
Another pause. “Okay.”
I grabbed my coat and headed back into the dining room. Kris saw me as I approached the hostess stand and suddenly didn’t know what to do with her hands.
“Kris, I need you to stay till closing and help Pat shut everything down.” My natural inclination was to put my hand on her shoulder, but I kept it at my side. “Can you do that for me?”
“Yes,” she said, but without a “Boss” on the end of it. She couldn’t make her eyes meet mine. Another supporter lost to the other side, just like so many back in Santa Barbara. I didn’t have time to win her back tonight. I hoped she’d give me the chance to do so in the future.
I went into the bar, leaned toward Pat, and shouted over Leron’s sax solo of The Crusaders’ “Spiral.” “I need you to shut the restaurant down tonight. Kris will help. I have my cell if something comes up.”
“No problem.”
I pulled away from the bar, but Pat wasn’t done.
“Before you go.” He took a business card from his pocket and handed it to me. “This guy wants to talk to you. I think he’s still in the bar.”
I looked down at the embossed card: “Ellison Krandel Fenton III, Attorney-at-Law.”
A lawyer. Great. The vultures were already starting to circle. Something about the name seemed familiar, but I guessed I’d probably seen it on the side of a bus or something. I scanned the bar and caught a few startled glances from people who were probably eyeballing me because of Eddie Philby’s grand exit a half hour ago. Or maybe because of the article in the paper. Or maybe both. Time to go. I turned and headed for the liquor room door to make my escape out the back of the bar.
“Rick!” A voice I didn’t recognize competed with the band.
My hand was on the doorknob. A short reprieve from what was sure to be my life back under the floodlights just a twist of the wrist away. But I still owned a piece of Muldoon’s, and while I was there, I was its face. Guilty or innocent.
“Rick, wait!”
I turned and saw a man who looked vaguely familiar under the dim bar lights. He wove his way toward me through tables of customers. I made him for my age, give or take. He wore a smile that was too big for someone I didn’t know late on a Sunday night. No doubt the illustrious Ellison Krandel Fenton III. I felt sorry for his firstborn son.
He finally made it over to me.
“Rick!” Slightly goofy smile, now even bigger, showing perfect teeth. He put out a hand. “It’s me, Ellison.”
That much, I’d figured out. Why that should mean something to me, I hadn’t yet. I shook his hand.
“Sorry, I’m in kind of a hurry.” I pulled my hand away just before he could start the fourth pump. “Why don’t you call me here tomorrow morning? We can talk about whatever it is you want to talk about then.”
“Oh. Okay.” Hurt look of a grade school kid who’d just found out he hadn’t been invited to the slumber party.
I’d seen that look before. On that same face.
“Elk?”
“Well, I go by Ellison now.” Goofy smile back in place. “But you can still call me Elk. If you’re in a hurry, I don’t want to keep you.”
“I’ve got a minute.” I figured I owed him after fracturing his collarbone in football practice back in high school sixteen or seventeen years ago. “Let’s go somewhere we can hear each other.”
I led him out of the bar and into the dining room, which was nearly empty. We took a seat next to a window in the back.
“It’s been a long time, Rick. I’ve missed all my buddies back here in San Diego.”
I didn’t remember Elk having many buddies and I didn’t think I was one of them. He’d been the odd kid, the tagalong, who was tolerated because he was sometimes good for a laugh. Usually at his own expense. Back when I was young, stupid, and pissing testosterone. I thought of how I’d shown Eddie Philby the front door tonight and marveled at how much I’d grown since my high school days.
“Yeah. I haven’t seen you since you moved to Colorado junior year. Life been good?”
“Mostly.” The smile dropped for an instant, then realigned. “Got two beautiful girls who live with their mother in Los Angeles. That’s why I moved back to Southern California, to be near them.”
My life was in the headlines, I didn’t feel the need to share. “So, you living in San Diego or L.A.?”
“I’m practicing law here in La Jolla.” He pulled a silver card case out the pocket of his tweed coat and proffered a card.
“I’ve got the one you gave to my bartender.” I fished the card out of my pocket. “Thanks.”
“I have to tell you, Rick.” The smile flattened out of his face. “If you don’t already have an attorney, it might be time to consider one.”
That didn’t take long. I was a commodity now. Melody used me for an alibi, Heather used me for headlines, and now my old buddy Elk wanted to use me to pay child support.
“And here you are for my consideration.” I let the sarcasm hang off the words. “What a coincidence. Good-old-times talk is over and now it’s time to pimp for business.”
The little boy lost look came back. Elk pursed his lips, and I thought for a second he might cry. Even if I needed a lawyer, I didn’t want one this soft.
“No.” He squinted and shook his head. “I don’t even practice cri
minal law anymore. I specialize in estate planning.”
“Oh.” Another former supporter to win back.
“I just wanted to tell you that a couple defense lawyers at my old firm owe me favors. They’re good and I could probably get you a discounted fee.”
“I’m sorry, Elk. I’m a little defensive, myself, lately.” I reached over to shake his hand. “That’s very nice of you. If things get any worse, I may have to take you up on that. Please forgive me.”
He gave my hand a dramatic one-shake.
“There’s nothing to forgive, Rick. I still owe you.”
“How do you figure that?”
“You saved me from a severe beating.”
I racked my brain and finally pulled up what I thought he was talking about.
“You mean when we were kids at La Jolla Shores?”
“Ronald Jackson wasn’t a kid and neither were his goons.”
We were fifteen and Jackson was a high school dropout who liked to hang around teenage girls and act tough. The girls were from old money and thought it was cool to hang out with a loser ten years older than they were. One day Jackson and a couple of his toughs cornered Elk in the beach parking lot. I came along just as the pushing started.
They didn’t know that I’d been boxing Golden Gloves for three years and hadn’t lost a fight. Jackson made a move toward me and I dropped him with an overhand right. Then one of his toughs charged in, and I stopped him with a left hook under the ribs and a right uppercut. There was some huffing and puffing to try to save face, but that was the end of it. Jackson never bothered us again.
The next fall I blindsided Elk in practice and heard his collarbone crack through the ear hole in my helmet. The hit was legal, but one I could have held up on.
“I think we’re even, Elk.”
Muldoon’s
CHAPTER TWENTY
Mount Soledad rose eight hundred feet above the ocean and had panoramic views of the Pacific, La Jolla, and San Diego. Even Mexico, way to the south. The famous cross stood forty-three feet high above the summit and had rested there for over ninety years. First wood, then cement. It was put there as a war memorial to honor all those who had fought for our country. Black granite plaques memorializing veterans had been added to the base of the monument over the years. My dad always saluted it when he took me up there as a kid. I would, too.
He stopped taking me there after the LJPD brass kicked him off the force. He stopped going anywhere after that. Except the liquor store. When I was old enough and had bought a car of my own, I’d sometimes drive up to the cross alone. I just didn’t salute anymore.
I parked in one of the parking spaces that ringed the monument and got out of my car. Melody hadn’t yet arrived, and no one else was there. Just me, the cross, and the view. By day, the view was spectacular. At night, it was magical. Scattered rainbows of lights from the restaurants, stores, and hotels of the Golden Triangle to the north gave way to the intermittent twinkles of house lights among the dark vacuum of hills rolling down to the black expanse of ocean rimmed by white splashes of broken waves.
I looked from the beauty below up at the cross, white and shadow above footlights, towering overhead. Thoughts of Colleen floated into my head. They always did when I climbed up the mountain and faced the cross. There was no distraction from the truth up there. No hiding the guilt. No running away from the fact that Colleen was dead because of me.
Car lights came off the main street onto the road that led up the hill to the monument. The car circled behind the cross and parked next to my Mustang. Melody got out and walked up the monument’s steps to me. She wore jeans and a dark sweater, her hair in a ponytail, her face hidden in the shadow of the cross.
Two quick steps and she had her arms around me, her breath on my neck, cinnamon and lavender in the air. Just like the first night outside Muldoon’s. She felt good in my arms, a longing satisfied. But I was still hungry for more. I’d missed her more than I’d realized.
But why? Was it just the sex? Or the need to be needed again? No, I’d already had that with Kim. Colleen had been the only woman I’d ever loved. Melody was so different from her, yet so alike. Strong, confident, yet vulnerable. Their voices were even similar. Still, there was something else with Melody. Something inexplicable, just out of reach.
Then Peter Stone’s words echoed inside my head, “She could always make them fall in love with her.” Had I been that easy? I took a step back and held Melody at arm’s length. She tilted her head and her dark, almond eyes questioned me. I dropped my arms to my side and tried not to let those eyes pull me back in.
“I guess I should have called before I came down.” A quiver of hurt in the gravelly voice.
“A lot’s happened since you left.”
“I know. I’m sorry.” Her hand came out toward me, but I let it hang in the air until she brought it down empty. “It made the news in San Francisco because of Adam’s connection to me. Other reporters even staked out our studio to try and interview me. I had to get away.”
“Is that why you came back? To get away?”
“I came here to see you, Rick.”
“Bullshit.” I wanted to believe her, but wanting to wasn’t enough anymore.
“It’s true!” A trace of anger surrounded by hurt.
“Maybe it is. But there’s always another reason. Something hidden beneath the truth.” I put my hands on her shoulders and tried to penetrate her eyes. “First you tell me your source on the Albright story was the man who hit you, but you hide the fact that he was your ex-husband. Then you say Peter Stone is just some old boyfriend, but you don’t tell me that you have something he wants. What’s the other reason this time, Melody?”
“What did Peter say?” Her eyes flashed wide, then shrank back down.
“He thinks you have something the police didn’t find.” I squeezed her shoulders. “He told me that right after he had someone poison my dog.”
“Oh, my God! Is Midnight all right?”
“Yes.”
“Thank God. Rick, I’m so sorry I got you involved in all of this.”
She sounded sincere. She always did.
“I’m sorry, too, Melody. I’m sorry I’m front-page news in the morning paper and that half of La Jolla thinks I had something to do with Windsor’s death, including the police.”
“What can I do, Rick?” Her voice caught in her throat. “What do you want me to do?”
“Tell me the truth or it ends here.” I dropped my hands from her shoulders.
“What do you want to know?”
“Did you kill Windsor?”
“No.” Her eyes held mine. She didn’t blink. No deception that I could see. She looked exactly the way someone telling the truth would look. Exactly the way someone lying would try to look, too. It was one or the other. I just didn’t know which.
“How did my Callaway Golf hat end up in your hotel room with Windsor’s dead body?”
“I accidentally took it from your hall closet when I left early that first morning.” She kept her eyes steady. “It was dark and I didn’t want to turn on a light and possibly wake you. I thought it was my Giants hat. I didn’t realize I grabbed the wrong one until I got back to the motel. By then, it was too late.”
That’s how I’d pictured it, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t a lie.
“Why did you leave it in the motel room?”
“Adam was still there when I got back.” She shook her head and blew out a loud breath. “We had another argument, and I left in a hurry. I didn’t have time to grab it.”
Feasible.
“What was the argument about?”
“I wanted him out of my life. He tried to use the Albright campaign for governor story as a way to weasel his way back in.”
Possible.
“What do you have that Stone wants?”
She took a halting breath and stared at my chest like she was debating whether or not to tell me. Finally, “Something that Adam had.”
Another pause. “Take me to your house and I’ll show you.”
“No more games, Melody.” I grabbed her shoulders again.
“It’s not a game, Rick, I promise. I can’t show you here.”
I searched her eyes. “Why did you come back?”
“Because I’m scared and you make me feel safe.” She grabbed my coat at the chest and pulled herself into me. I let my arms accept her.
Colleen used to say she felt safe with me and that she knew I’d always protect her. And I had. Except for the one night that had really mattered.
“Let’s go.” I took Melody’s hand and lead her down the steps from the monument.
She stopped at the bottom and looked up at the cross and then at La Jolla sparkling below. “It’s beautiful up here, but why did you choose here to meet?”
“This is where I come to face the truth.”
• • •
Melody followed me down the mountain in her rental. A thin wisp of fog pushed in from the ocean. The road, steep and winding, traced through modest homes worth millions of dollars nowhere else but in La Jolla. The mansions above them, hanging off the mountain with views of the ocean, were where the real money in La Jolla lived.
I led Melody onto Highway 52, heading east. Back home. Where the people lived who worked for the owners of the hillside mansions.
I scanned the street in front of my house. No TV vans. Things were looking up. I pulled into the driveway, and Melody parked across the street behind me.
Bright lights exploded on the street and a cop car, light bar aflame, skidded to a stop behind me, blocking the driveway.
Running feet and then a gun at my window and a flashlight in my face. “Police! Out of the car, hands first!”
My adrenal glands vibrated my body, but I did as I was told. Someone slammed me against my car, kicked my legs apart, making me assume the position. Rough hands patted me down.
