SUMMER of FEAR

by T. Jefferson Parker

  I slid open the doors and stepped in. I went to the stairway and climbed. On the landing, I stopped for a moment to receive whatever silent messages the house might be sending. A voice told me again to leave. I crushed that voice by walking straight to Amber's bedroom door. I felt the vein pounding in my fore head. I reached inside and flipped on the light.

  The bed was made up.

  The walls and mirror were clean.

  There was a throw rug where I had last seen Amber.

  Amber was gone.

  Something from hell welled up inside me, rode along with my blood. I felt a tremendous withering—as if my cells were trying to retreat, shrink, cover themselves. I could smell something strong, and it took me just a second to realize what it was Fresh paint.

  I stood beside the new rug, knelt down, and lifted. A stain very faint, so faint that it vanished when I stepped away and looked from another angle. Was it just a shadow? I arranged the rug over it—just as it had been.

  I realized I was scarcely breathing. In the bathroom, I turned on the light to look in the mirror at my own sweating yellow face. The eyes belonged to someone I'd never met and wouldn't want to.

  That was when the door slammed shut behind me and I felt the hard steel of a gun barrel jammed into the base of my skull.

  "Turn around. Real slow."

  I knew the voice. It went with the face. My forehead felt as if it were ready to explode. I turned very slowly, open hands edging up. "Hello, Marty," I said.

  "Monroe."

  Martin Parish's face looked worse than mine did. His breath smelled like gin. He was wearing a pair of underpants and that was all.

  "Nice outfit," I said.

  "You're under arrest for, for, uh..."

  "For what, Marty? Put down the gun."

  "Breaking and..."

  I reached up and, purely on speculation, cupped the gun barrel away from my face and walked past Marty Parish, back into the bedroom. When I turned to look, Marty was standing in front of the mirror, hands to his side, shoulders slumped, and an expression of absolute bewilderment on his face.

  "B and E shit," I said. "If you're going to arrest me for anything, it ought to be for the murder of Amber. But then you'd have to explain what you were doing here tonight—and last night, too. I saw you, Martin."

  Parish turned to face me. He had the look of a man whose eyes are only looking about one foot into the world. "This is not what it appears. You don't understand what you're seeing."

  I had to smile. "What the fuck am I seeing, Marty?"

  "I didn't do it. I swear to God, I didn't do it."

  "Who did?"

  "I swear to God, I don't know." He lifted up his gun—a .44 Magnum with a two-inch barrel, a stupidly big gun, I have always believed—and studied the end of it. In a flash, I thought, He's going to shoot himself. But he let his hand drop to his side again. There are few sights in life as vividly unsettling as a drunk man in his underwear with a gun.

  "Where are your clothes, Marty?"

  "Under the bed."

  "Under the bed."

  "Yeah. I was..."

  The brief silence swirled with implications so bizarre, could hardly keep up with them. "Put them on and let's get out of here. I think maybe we need to talk."

  While Marty got dressed, I checked the shower and tub. No one had used them in the last few hours, unless they'd wipe them out. Amber's peach-colored towels were dry. The sink was dry, too, no moisture under the plug. I went back into the bedroom, pulled a few threads from one tassled end of the new throw rug, and slipped them between two bills in my wallet. I got up close to the walls and saw the fresh paint covering the old writing. Amber's suitcases were still near the walk-in. I looked through them at the unremarkable travel provisions. Where had she been going? Marty, tucking in his shirt, watched me. Overwhelmed by curiosity, I knelt down and looked under the bed. I saw nothing but a small, flat rectangular object just a few inches from my nose. I picked it up by one corner, stood, and took it into the bathroom. It turned out to be just what it felt like: three pull-apart plastic ties, like you get with trash or lawn bags. I put them in my wallet, too. A considerable chill blew through me. Running my hands over the carpet near where Amber had lain, I found by touch something I could never have spotted with my eyes. It was a tiny screw, the kind used by jewelers and watchmakers, half buried in the Berber mesh. I extracted it with my fingernails, examined its copperish color, and dropped it into the casing of the pen I always carry. There was a collection of them in there be cause my own glasses are always falling apart and I need spares.

  I got us down from the hills and into a bar on the beach. The place was right on the sand and you could look out at the white water, the dark horizon, the clear, star-shimmering sky. The white water wasn't white at all, but a faint, luminescent violet.

  I'd been drinking, and I'd sobered up the second I parked my car near Amber's. But Marty had been drinking, and he didn't want to stop. He ordered a double brandy. I got coffee.

  "You first," I said. "How come you were there last night?"

  Marty drank half the snifter in one gulp. "I couldn't stop thinking about her," he said. "I think maybe I didn't quite get her out of my system." He looked at me, raising his glass again. He had a Band-Aid on his thumb. The shaving cut was still there, a lateral scab on the tip of his Adam's apple. "So I called her and got nothing, just the machine. Then I drove by just for the hell of it. JoAnn and I aren't real good now. I used to love her, but I don't know anymore. I'm fuckin' sick of worrying about us."

  It was good that Marty was drunk, I thought. "Fifteen years since you and Amber," I said.

  "Yeah. Twenty for you. I got to admit, I hated you back then, Monroe."

  "I know. But she married you, not me."

  "One great year, that was. Then she left."

  "That was Amber."

  Marty drank down the rest of his brandy and pointed to the waitress for more. He waited until she brought it. "So last night, I parked down from her house and sat in my car. There was another car, right in front of the house, a Porsche convertible. Red."

  "Get the plate numbers?"

  "Don't need plate numbers. It was Grace's."

  Grace, I thought. Lovely, uncontrollable, unrepentant Grace—her mother's daughter, from her perfect olive skin to her errant spirit.

  "She came out of the house at about eleven-thirty. Got in her car and drove away."

  "Jesus, Marty—then she saw what we saw."

  Martin drank again, fumbled for a smoke. I lighted it for him. "She must have. She was in a hurry. She tossed her head back when she came through the gate—that way she always did—then walked straight to the car. She stood there beside for a second, getting out her keys. I don't want to believe Grace could kill her, but she was there. And she didn't report it."

  "So were you, and you didn't."

  "And so were you. Maybe you ought to tell me why."

  So I told him. It paralleled Marty's story in a way that made me sound as if I was mocking him. When I explained myself, the whole thing with Amber seemed so puerile, so sentimental, so treacherous. I was suddenly ashamed of myself, of submitting to my own self-created temptations. For a moment, I saw us from the outside—Marty Parish and me—two former lovers of a beautiful woman, nurturing their little hurts, nursing along their little hopes, fueling the ancient torches, dragging around every lost moment of an idealized time so we could remember how good it felt to be heartbroken by Amber Mae. It was disgusting. In that moment, I hated myself.

  "Maybe Amber picked us because she knew we'd miss her like this," said Marty.

  "Maybe Amber was just a selfish cunt we should have steered clear of."

  Marty nodded drunkenly. "Funny you'd mention that now that she's dead."

  "What in hell is going on here, Marty? Someone move

  her."

  "Cleaned the carpet and brought in a throw rug."

  "Painted the walls."

  "Cleaned the mirror."


  "Closed the sliding door and the screen."

  "Took her away."

  In trash bags, I thought. "Made the bed."

  "Gad, Russ—and she was all packed up to leave. What am I gonna do? I've got a marriage I'd like to save. I got a job I'd like to keep. I find my ex-wife dead and I can't say a word or the shit's gonna hit every fan there is. I'm not going to lose everything I've worked for because of Amber Mae. She took it all once already. I paid my dues. Christ, do I need a drink."

  "Think I'll join you."

  Marty ordered up a couple more doubles. I've known only one man who could drink as much as Martin Parish and still function. I saw Marty make a bet once at a party that he could drink a fifth of Black Label in one sitting, do a hundred push-ups, and not puke. He did all those things but still lost the bet, because I drank a bottle, did 150 push-ups, and held. I also went home that night, after Marty had fallen asleep, with the date that he had brought to the party—Amber Mae Wilson, of course. We were young and stupid then.

  Now we're just older. "Marty, can you explain... uh... why you weren't fully clothed when I barged in on you?"

  Marty drank more. "I still couldn't believe what I saw last night. It was like if I closed my eyes and got under those covers... then I heard someone coming up the stairs."

  "It was like if you got under the covers, what?"

  "That she'd be there."

  "That's your answer?"

  "That's it."

  "You're a sick dog, Martin."

  "Yeah, I know."

  "Let's take a walk."

  I paid up and we walked out onto the beach. I guided us south, toward the rocks. I picked my way around to a little cove that closed us off from the rest of the strand. When Marty was almost beside me, I drove my elbow into him as hard as I could, right below the sternum. He folded in half, head down, and I sent my knee into his forehead, hard. Then I grabbed him the hair, pulled him out to the water, and pushed him in. I got his hair again and leaned into his backbone with my knee. He was taking big gulps of air when I let him; the rest of the time he got ocean. "Truth time, Marty. You kill her?"

  "No..."

  "Come on, I'm a friend."

  "No..."

  So I jammed his face down again and gave him a good drink. For a while, he didn't even struggle. He blew bubbles. When I pulled him up, he was just starting to suck in a big breath. He swilled the air and I asked him again whether he killed her.

  "No..."

  Back under for some more quiet time. The water eased in, lifted us in unison, set us back down on the sand. I yanked up on his hair again. "Then what the fuck were you doing her house last night—and don't tell me because you had to see her."

  "I had to see her---I swear to..."

  I leaned harder on his back. "And you went back again tonight? For what, Marty? For what?"

  "I couldn't figure out why... couldn't figure out why nobody called it in... and maybe..."

  "Maybe what, Marty?"

  "And maybe I didn't really see what I thought I did. I could hardly remember anything this morning. I was hoping maybe I was blackout drunk and didn't really see her"

  "So then you got naked and wanted to get into her bed."

  Martin Parish was groaning now, not a groan of physical pain but one of terrible, terrible inner torment. "I just needed... needed five minutes of what it used to feel like. I loved her. I don't know. It's always... worked. I don't know... see... I'd done it before."

  "Gotten into her bed?"

  "Only when she wasn't there."

  "Oh, Christ."

  The shore break rolled in harder now and knocked me off him. I stood, balanced myself, and dragged up Marty by his belt. We staggered out, across a few feet of beach, then he sagged down, coughing and breathing hard. I knelt in front of him and yanked him by his shirt collar right up to me, face-to- face.

  "We've got five bashings, Marty. Did this guy paint up the Ellison and Fernandez places, too?"

  Martin just shook his head. He was drunk enough to admit crawling naked into bed with a murdered woman who wasn't there. But he wasn't drunk enough to break procedure and leak to the press just exactly what their man had left for them at two—and maybe three—crime scenes. Marty's divisions were more profound than I had ever suspected.

  "Maybe Amber just got up and walked away," he said, sobbing. In the moonlight, his face looked like a child's, like a slobbering infant who'd finally come to the end of a crying jag. "Maybe it was a makeup job. She knows all those Hollywood types. It was all a trick."

  I shook him hard. "She's dead, Marty. But nobody knows that except you and me and Grace and whoever took that club to her. And nobody's going to know, unless whoever moved Amber put her somewhere we can find her."

  Marty was nodding along dutifully now. I let go of him. He brought up his knees and arms and bowed his head against them. He was rocking back and forth a little. He was pathetic.

  "We need to talk to Grace," he said. "We need Grace.

  " We sure as hell do, I thought. "I'll find her."

  "You should do that, Russ."

  "I'll do it."

  "Since she's your daughter."

  "Right, since she's my daughter."

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Grace's red Porsche was parked in my driveway when I came home, and Grace was leaning against it. A quiet alarm went off inside me. I hadn't seen her in almost a year—an occasional phone call was all she had offered. Even though the night was humid and warm, she stood bundled inside a parka with fur around the collar, her shoulders bunched, her head set down into the fur, her hands in the pockets.

  Amber had claimed Grace from the start—seized her, appropriated her, removed her. From before the start, in fact: Amber was five months pregnant before she told me. I had first seen Grace when she was two weeks old, then not again until two years later. Amber had taken her to Paris. Amber had taken her to Rome. To New York, Rio, London, St. Barts, Kitts, and Thomas. Grace said her first words to me when she was four. She said, demurely offering her cheek for a kiss, "How nice to meet you, Russell." It was one of the strangest, strongest moments in my life, stooping to kiss that face so much like mine, turned in profile while her long-lashed brown eyes contemplate the sky with supreme control, supreme boredom. I believe that I felt a little part of my heart die in that moment. She referred to me as Russell, never once as Father or Dad or Pop ever since.

  Later that same night—the night when Grace was four---Amber and I had walked up into the hills behind Laguna and had the centerpiece battle of our lives. It was the kind of wild escalating fight where both parties are truly eager. My position was that Amber had stolen my daughter, and I demanded that she be at least partially returned. How naive I was, at twenty six, to think that such a return could come from anyone but Grace herself, if ever, if at all. I had no instruments then to measure the distance she had gone. Amber said that I had no more claim to Grace than a flower had to a bee, that I had only supplied the pollen. She actually used those words: "supplied the pollen." We each drew blood that night, though I will say that Amber struck first. The moon was full and ice-bright over the rocky path, and I can still remember the wet black shine of the stone she used.

  I saw neither Amber nor Grace again for almost five year:

  "Grace," I said, getting out of my car.

  "Russell," she said back. She came toward me across the driveway, her heels resonant on the asphalt. She proferred her cheek as she had done those fourteen years ago. Her skin was cold, and she smelled very strongly—a woman's scent cut with nerves and perfume. Grace was a large woman, nearly five fee ten, with an athletic strength to her body and a lovely face. She had her mother's dark wavy hair.

  "Sorry to just appear. I must seem like a ghost."

  "Is everything okay?"

  "Of course not, Russ."

  "Come in."

  "Thank you."

  I left Grace in my study and went upstairs to check on Isabella. She was deep in sleep. I
stood there for a moment and looked at her face buried down in the pillow. The crook of her cane was visible where it stood beside the bed, and I wondered for the millionth time why the Good Shepherd had abandoned it to her. Isabella would not be happy if Grace was to be here in the morning: She believed that both Amber and my daughter were the worst kind of manipulators, and she was always irritated—even during five years of marriage—when I mentioned either of them. I learned it was easier not to.

  Grace was looking at my bookcase when I went back into the study. In the clean incandescent light, I could see she was a little pale and clammy. A dew of perspiration marked her temples and upper lip with a very slight shine.

  "Be a nice place to open a bar," she said.

  "What'll it be?"

  "Dry vermouth on the rocks, if you have it. A twist."

  I made two and brought them back. She had unzipped her parka but hadn't taken it off. I studied her as she came across the room for her drink, feeling as always the astonishment at seeing a part of me in her. She was a beautiful young woman—eighteen years of age, strong, composed. She had gotten Amber's face—with just a touch of my Monroe width to it. She had Amber's fine jaw and full, relaxed mouth, her straight and narrow nose. But some things in her were mine: the heavy, inexpressive brow, the readable brown eyes that could seem at times so undefended. And these features had kept Grace free of Amber's most powerful characteristic—her guile—the very quality, I might add, that had put Amber's face on so many magazine covers and TV screens. Amber could suggest anything from lust to innocence to betrayal to heartache—and plausibly connect them to a certain shampoo, makeup, bra. But just beneath all these "emotions," there was always the guile, i willingness to conspire, the sense that there were only two people in this world: Amber and whomever she was looking back at. It was a wholly private and exclusive contract. Grace, for all her loveliness, could never fake that arrangement. And Amber, I thought, never would again. The terrible vision of desecrated face came to me as I looked at our daughter.

  "What happened?" I asked.

  "Two men, Russell, have been following me. One is with big ears, and the other one is slender, with short hair, I’ve seen them outside my condo, at my work, in a red pickup truck following me. They seem to be everywhere."