He looked at her and opened his hands palm side up.
“I guess we need more basketball courts,” he answered. “Hey, I haven’t even talked about the eighties and nineties yet. A starting five from the eighties could be The Pretenders, REM, Red Hot Chili Peppers...”
“Red Hot Chili Peppers?” she blurted out, her one-and-three-quarter gaze widening again. “That’s really their name?”
“Are you ready for this, Kayleigh? One of the band members is named Flea.”
Kayleigh’s jaw dropped. “Flea?” she repeated. “Like on a dog?”
“Do you know who could also be in that top five?” he asked.
“Who?”
“The Sean Hightower Band!”
Kayleigh smiled and clapped. “Hooray for Sean!”
“Gimme a high five!” he shouted, holding up his hand to shoulder level.
Kayleigh’s right eye disappeared under creased flesh as her smile extended to its farthest points. Raising her arm and rearing it back like a pitcher ready to throw a fast one, her noticeable lack of power produced nothing more than a soft thud.
Sean spotted Stephanie walking toward them, this time with sunglasses on.
“Thank you, Sean,” Stephanie said, her voice noticeably subdued. “I hope I wasn’t gone too long.”
“Gee, Mama,” Kayleigh said, “I never met anybody who knows more about music than Sean. Do you know how to play ‘Yellow Submarine’?”
“Sure do,” he answered.
“Can you play it for me?”
“Kayleigh,” Stephanie said, showing displeasure. “I’m sorry, Sean. I didn’t see that one coming.”
“But it’s my favorite Beatles’ song, Mama,” she explained, her voice a slight whine. “And Sean was a rock ’n roll star!’
“We’ll talk about it later,” Stephanie exclaimed, her mouth tightening.
Kayleigh’s shoulders sagged. “Okay,” she said, her tone coated in dejection.
“It was nice to finally meet you, Sean,” Stephanie said, extending her hand. “And thanks again for staying with Kayleigh.”
“Yeah, thanks, Mr. Music.”
“Mr. Music?” he replied.
“Well, well,” Stephanie said, a small smile appearing on her face. “Looks like you’re the newest member of the Nickname Club, Sean.”
“Is that so?” he said, smirking. “I approve.”
Changing the subject as if pushing the button on a TV remote, Kayleigh asked, “Do you want to see my travel pictures, Mr. Music? I’ve got really, really neat ones from all over the world.”
Sean looked at Stephanie, perplexed. “Travel pictures?”
“Photos and cutouts of all the places Kayleigh wants to see one day,” she explained.
He noticed the slight cracking sound in her voice.
“I put up a picture of the Eiffel Tower this morning,” Kayleigh said.
Sean called Hendrix over from a nearby resting spot on the lawn.
“I’m sorry, but I can’t right now,” he answered. “Another time, okay?”
***
He returned home. Closing the door with a gentle hesitancy, he studied his surroundings, steeped in dark uncertainty, as if revisiting a hometown burdened with anguished memories. He stared across the room at the scattered remnants of his deadly plans and trudged the short, dizzying path to the table. He stood there pensive and dreamlike, gazing beyond those twenty-one hit men into the depths of his soul. Moments later, or perhaps minutes, he returned the pills to their bottle and grasped the envelope from his pocket. The same hands that felt stable and firm in suicidal preparation now shook as he read his parents’ names and address through the blurred and burning vision of his tears.
With a sudden violent motion, he ripped the envelope in half, and then again into quarters. His shredded message no longer seemed inviting or inevitable, and his thoughts resided neither on the blackness of the recent past nor the bleakness of the immediate future.
He nodded, recalling a song he’d written called, “Red Life, Green Life,” after the breakup of his band when his life seemed at a crossroads.
I stop, I go, I stop, I go
Don’t know why or what roads I’ll pass
Fast and slow, fast and slow
Living in moments never meant to last
Here and now, Sean’s one craving centered on his desire to feel and taste a cigarette, inhaling each savory puff deep into his lungs as the soothing sensation of the tobacco percolated and circulated through his membranes in a slow, blissful manner before culminating in a smoky release of wispy, hypnotizing reminders of reminiscences and farewells.
After all, having decided to quit smoking, his final cigarette may as well be a memorable one.
Chapter 9
Lying in bed with his eyes still shut, Sean listened to the familiar morning sound of his automatic sprinklers. His thoughts latched on to the previous day’s events like barnacles to a ship, replaying the images of what had transpired. Writing the letter to his parents, counting out the twenty-one sleeping pills, the near...suicide.
An icy blade of recollection jabbed the pit of his stomach as he contemplated how convincing the decision seemed, the nearness of its consummation. He dry-scrubbed his face with both hands, leaving his eyes open to stare at the white blankness above him. Sean sensed a shadowy component remaining from yesterday he may have forgotten but found difficulty breaking down the details. After all, when a person’s mind is focused on taking his life, what else matters? Still, he reviewed everything again.
I made a pot of coffee and wrote my note. I showered, shaved, and put on the clothes I wanted to be photographed in. I read the note again, made some changes, and then got the pills from the medicine cabinet. I grabbed a beer from the fridge and looked at the note again before putting it in the envelope. I got up from the couch, looked at my guitar in the case, and--
Sean catapulted from his flat position to a ninety-degree angle. “Shit!” he blurted. “Detective Maldonado!”
He looked at his clock: eight-seventeen. Remaining in the same sitting position, he reflected on what Maldonado had told him: “We think you can help us find Ms. Franklin’s killer.” The thought unnerved him. What the hell could I ever do?
Walking into the station a few minutes past ten, Sean asked for Maldonado and waited at the front desk. His blank-slate state of mind from the night of the murder had prevented him from remembering any specifics of the detective’s appearance, so when a square-jawed Latino with a thick salt and pepper colored mustache approached him with an extended hand, engulfing Sean’s like a human talon, it seemed more like an introduction.
Perhaps two or three inches smaller than Sean, the man possessed wide shoulders and a thick neck. His face bore a vertical scar on the left side of his forehead, running in a downward curve like the map of a river. Extending from his silvery-gray hairline to the charcoal-smeared bush of an eyebrow, additional smaller scars dotted the landscape.
His intense gaze seemed heightened by the bowling ball blackness of his eyes, which, in turn, seemed held aloft by the fleshy pouches underneath. And in the center of it all, Maldonado’s wide, fleshy nose tailed slightly to the right, like a plane starting to spin out of control, a possible indication of a previous break. One immediate fact struck Sean--the face he gazed upon defined experience.
Maldonado led the way down a corridor. “I’ve been wondering how you are,” he said, his baritone voice sounding as if he should be speaking from a stage rather than a police station. “Are you talking with a medical professional as I suggested? Seeking any help?”
“No,” Sean answered, unaware of any recommendation. “But I took a leave of absence from work. That’s helped a little.”
“What have you been doing with your time?”
“Nothing, really,” he said. “Just staying at home mostly.”
“That doesn’t sound too healthy if you ask me,” Maldonado said. “Shutting yourself off from the world like that.”
Maldonado turned on the lights to what appeared to be a conference room, exposing a rectangular dark wooden table surrounded by three black vinyl chairs on each side and one at the far end. “Take a seat, Sean,” he said. “There’s a coffee machine around the corner. Tell me how you like yours, and I’ll go get us some.” A few minutes later, he returned with a cup in each hand and a manila envelope tucked under his arm. He slid his chair closer to Sean and placed the envelope on the table. Sipping from the cup before placing it on the table, he nibbled on his lip and squinted, staring at Sean as if looking through him. “I’m glad you’re here,” he said, “but this isn’t something I’ve been looking forward to.” Wiping his lip with the back of his hand he continued. “Not only do I need you to revisit the night of your girlfriend’s murder, I’m also going to discuss a couple of other things that may upset you.”
Sean fingered the rim of his cup, battling the urge to vent and wail again. “I don’t know how much more upset I can possibly get,” he said, surprising himself with the calmness of his reply. “I sure as hell can’t bring Merissa back, can I? Or go back in time to prevent it from happening. The only thing I can do is wait for the day that fucking monster gets what’s coming to him.” This time Sean’s eyes tightened to a squint as he stared back at Maldonado. “And if I can help make that happen sooner than later,” he told him, “then anything goes."
Maldonado leaned forward in his chair as a small smile appeared on his face. He gulped some coffee and pointed toward the envelope.
“Before I show you what’s in here,” he said, “I’m going to tell you something about Ms. Franklin’s murderer that we’ve known from the beginning.” Rolling his tongue around the inside of his mouth, he looked away for a moment before returning his attention to Sean. “Do you recall the writing on the two pieces of paper above the headboard?”
Sean had tried his best to tear the grotesque image of Merissa’s blood-soaked face from his mind. He rubbed his hand across his eyes as if to erase the visual and focused on the answer to the question. Yes, he remembered what was there. “One paper had ‘hello’ written on it,” he answered. “The other one, ‘goodbye.’”
“You’re a rock ’n roll guy,” Maldonado said. “Do those two words sound familiar?”
“Only if you’re talking about the Beatles’ song,” he answered.
Maldonado nodded. “That’s exactly what I’m talking about, Sean. The same man who raped and murdered Ms. Franklin has done this identical thing seven other times, dating back six years. He’s a serial killer the press has dubbed, ‘The Beatles’ Song Murderer.’ You ever heard of him?”
Sean stared dumbfounded and silent for several moments before shaking his head.
“He’s left pieces of paper with the name of a different Beatles’ song every time. The first killing we know of occurred in Bakersfield, the second about thirty miles north in a town called Delano, and the last six in different parts of northern and western LA County.”
Sean found great difficulty registering this information, his mind’s defense system erecting an impenetrable wall resistant to the bacterial blather of outlandish information. The news of a serial killer raping and killing the woman he loved left him numb. These kinds of things happened to other people, not to Merissa. “The Beatles’ Song Murderer,” he muttered under his breath. “I can’t believe it.”
“You told us that you let yourself in with your key that night, is that correct?”
“Yes.”
“You also told us that you didn’t open the sliding door to her balcony.”
Sean nodded as he stared at the side of his white Styrofoam cup. “That’s right.”
Maldonado tilted back in his chair and folded his hands. “Ms. Franklin’s apartment only had two ways of getting inside. For someone to have come in through the balcony they’d have to climb twenty feet above the garage. The risk of being spotted would have been pretty high. Even so, we searched the area. No crushed shrubbery, no scuff marks on the wall, no footprints on the ground. Nothing. The fact that Ms. Franklin’s front door was locked and her house key was missing from her key chain leads us to believe that the killer left the balcony door open as a decoy, and that he not only exited through the front door, he entered through the front door as well.”
“Entered?” Sean said. “You mean the killer stole her house key and got in that way?”
“That’s a possibility,” Maldonado replied. “Or perhaps he somehow obtained a copy of her house key and let himself in.”
Sean pursed his lips, adamant in his belief that Merissa’s street smarts invalidated that possibility.
“I don’t believe she’d let that happen,” he told him. “Merissa lived on her own her entire adult life and didn’t make those kinds of mistakes.”
Maldonado raised his cat-fur eyebrows, the points triangulating like two ascending birds on a collision course. “Okay, fine,” he said. “Let’s say you’re right. That leaves only one other possibility I can think of, and it’s the reason I called you here.”
Sean remained silent, confused and unable to think of any other logical answers. Maldonado manipulated the envelope on the table, feeling the contents inside. He sat up in his chair again, downed a large swallow of his coffee, and hurriedly rubbed his hands across his mouth. Looking at Sean, he held his gaze for several seconds before speaking.
“I think Ms. Franklin let the killer in because she knew him.”
The idea took a while to sink in, working its way through the speculation of likelihood into a dark hole of disbelief.
“What are you getting at?” Sean asked. “That Merissa might have been friendly with this sick asshole?”
Maldonado moved his thumbnail along the side of his cup before answering. “Not just her, Sean,” he replied. “You, too.”
Sean leaned back in the chair and pondered the detective’s comment. “That’s crazy,” he said, shaking his head. “Maybe there’s someone out there I don’t know about, but she and I were together long enough that I know every one of her friends. And believe me, none of them are who you’re looking for.”
“All right,” Maldonado said, reaching for the envelope, “but let’s go through these anyway, okay?”
Sean watched in curiosity as he removed what appeared to be a group of photographs. To his surprise, the picture on top showed an employee from the dealership standing outside the building where Merissa’s service had been held.
“Are all of those going to be pictures from the funeral?” he asked.
“I had two men stationed with telephotos.” He leaned over toward Sean. “I’m sorry,” he told him, his voice soft, yet firm. “I know it’s not respectful, but it’s something we had to do.”
Sean looked at Maldonado for a few moments before glancing down at the photograph. “Why?” he asked. “What could you possibly want with pictures of people from the service? You don’t really think that...”
“What I think is what I said before,” Maldonado said. “There’s a very good possibility that Ms. Franklin knew the killer well enough to let him in willingly.”
“You didn’t waste any time with your suspicions, did you?” Sean replied, disgusted at the thought.
“Suspicion is part of my job,” Maldonado said. “And it may interest you to know that in the other seven cases I mentioned, there weren’t any signs of forced entry either.”
Sean looked away and shook his head in denial. The idea of somebody making a copy of Merissa’s key started to make more sense. “Everyone who came to Merissa’s funeral was there for the right reasons,” he said. “I won’t believe there’s any more to it than that.”
Maldonado crossed his arms and pressed his weight against them near the edge of the table. A degree of irritation showed in his expression. “My job is catching scum like this and bringing
them to justice,” he told him, his voice rising, “so I don’t care how off-track you think I am. Serial killers don’t have horns or fangs, Sean. They’re able to avoid detection because they look and act like regular members of society. They talk sports with the bartender, ask their produce guy which watermelon is ripe, and talk shit about the boss with their co-workers.” Maldonado seized the photos and shook them at Sean. “Are you going to tell me about these guys or not?”
Sean stared at Maldonado then at the envelope in his hand. One certainty remained clear--they both shared the same goal of finding Merissa’s murderer. He was in over his head here. What did he know about investigative work? “Okay,” he replied, angling his chair. “Let’s look at them.”
Maldonado placed the first photo in front of Sean.
“That’s our head mechanic, Carlos Carrillo. He and Merissa were friendly. Carlos used to service her car after hours in exchange for her famous homemade brownies.”
“Do you know if he ever went to her place for any reason?”
Sean pondered the question and nodded. “Actually, yeah,” he said, “one time I remember. Carlos’s brother runs a mobile car washing service on weekends. He did Merissa’s car a few times, but a couple of months ago Carlos showed up instead because his brother was sick.”
Maldonado nodded slightly, turned Carlos’s photo over, marked a check in the center with the name, and wrote the word brother, followed by a question mark.
“I recognize those guys from our bowling nights,” Sean said, looking at the next picture of two men standing together. “Merissa loved to bowl and was one of the organizers of Wednesday matches every other week with the workers from the Chevy dealership across the street, so I guess they work there. But that’s all I know. She never mentioned anything about them before.”
Maldonado marked a straight line on the back and put the picture aside.
“That’s Elliot Hayden and his partner,” Sean said, looking at the third picture. “He runs a guidance center that’s part family counseling, part school for at-risk youth. Merissa did volunteer work for him. She’d invite the staff over for pizza and meetings sometimes, so it’s probable Elliot was there.”
You Say Goodbye Page 7
