Severed Relations

by Rebecca Forster

  "Here you go."

  Jenny was back, handing them paper still warm from the copier. Finn folded it and put it in his pocket, Cori made a date with the girl to stop by the station and look at some photos and they took to the road again, neither under any illusion that they would be talking to Mr. Charles E. Manson any time soon.

  They found out pretty quick that no such license existed and the address on the paperwork belonged to a small house nestled off road in the Hollywood Hills. There was a chain link fence around the building and a notice that it was scheduled for demolition. Finn climbed the fence and took a look around. There wasn't a car behind the house or in the garage, which they should have known since the weeds were high and there was no sign that anyone had walked, much less driven, over them.

  Finn climbed back the other way, dusted off his hands and got back in the car. Cori had already tracked down the owner of the property who thought it was a crank call when she mentioned Charles E. Manson and hung up on her. The owner's name was Irving Tsao and he lived in Ontario. Ontario was far and their time would be better spent closer to home, so they would probably never have the pleasure of meeting Mr. Tsao. It was going on four o'clock when they got back to Wilshire and a desk laden with paperwork, files and photos.

  "I was beginning to think some of our colleagues were draggin' their heels not wanting to help me out," Finn said.

  "I think the boys are finally kicking in for you, O'Brien. Let's see what they came up with."

  Cori rolled up her sleeves and Finn hung his jacket. Cori picked up a stack of files. She opened the one on top and something fluttered out and onto the floor. Finn bent to pick it up, but Cori was faster, grabbing it, crumpling it, and turning her back on Finn as she chattered some nonsense about bucking broncos and farm work, but Finn wasn't fooled. He took hold of her hand and pried open her fingers as she begged:

  "Finn, don't. It's not important. It's really dumb."

  "I've had my sticks and stones, Cori. Whatever is on that paper isn't going to do me much harm."

  Cori gave up and opened her hand. He plucked it up, smoothed it out, and took a good long look at the picture of a red hair man, naked save for an artful drape of chains crisscrossing his private parts. In the corner was a Post-It on which someone had scrawled a message: Thought you might want to check this one out yourself, O'Brien.

  "There you go, Cori. Proof positive that my fellow officers are looking out for my welfare."

  She stole it back from him and tore it to shreds.

  "Men are such pigs," she muttered.

  "Maybe it wasn't a man who wrote it." Finn rolled up his sleeves as he sat down.

  "No, it was a guy. A woman would have had the courtesy to look you in the eye when she kicked you in the balls."

  "Don't I know," Finn said, thinking how lovely Bev's eyes looked as she gazed into his and said goodbye.

  "I swear, you're back is slick as ice," Cori muttered.

  When he stayed silent, she gave him a glance and saw that she was right about his back, but his hide wasn't as thick as he pretended. She wished she could do something to ease his pain. When she sat down and opened her files, figuring she had done just that. She had, after all, stood with him.

  An hour and a half later, just as the rank and file were changing shifts, Finn and Cori's pile of possible suspects was a whole lot smaller than that of the impossible ones.

  "Are we looking at women?" Cori yawned through the question, shook it off and snapped the sheet she was looking at. "I've got one here who killed her kid with a knife back in ninety-eight. She weighed over three hundred pounds at booking so she had to be pretty strong."

  "But not swift," Finn said. "How old was she when she did it?"

  "Forty-seven. Insanity defense. She was in a facility. Never did time behind bars. Released five years ago. Last known address was in Sacramento."

  "Too old and Sacramento's too far. We'll work out from L.A. Let's keep it to the valley, over to Riverside and down to the South Bay. The car was rented locally. We may have had one of these two following Mrs. Barnett and that means he has to be within spitting distance."

  The phone rang and Finn dropped his feet from the desk to the floor.

  "Yes, I'll tell her. Thanks," he said and hung up. "Jenny's here to start looking at the mug shots."

  "I'll grab her." Cori closed the file she was looking at and pushed her chair back.

  "Bless you. I fear my ears would fall off if I had to listen to that girl's blue streak."

  When she was gone, Finn opened a new folder and found bank and phone records for the Barnetts and Rachel Gerber. He picked up a yellow marker just as the phone rang again.

  "O'Brien." When the person on the other end started talking, he tossed the marker and grabbed a pen and paper to make notes. "Yeah. Yeah. I got it. Okay. Yeah. Appreciate it."

  He cut off the call, and started to dial the medical examiner when he put down the phone and took a closer look at the piece of paper in front of him. He rifled through the other statements that had been sent by the bank and then went back to the first one. Picking up the marker, he highlighted the balance just as Cori came back.

  "She's all settled. I think it's going to be a couple hours though. That girl thinks this is all so much fun that she's ready to close down the place tonight." Cori knocked on the desk they shared. "O'Brien? Did you hear me? If she's here later than nine, you're going to have to deal with her. Unless you have something else going on."

  "I believe I do, Cori," Finn said. "I'm going to be paying a visit to the Barnetts."

  "Well now, what happened in the last ten minutes that I should know about?"

  "Stephen Grady is dead." Finn said. "He ran out onto the freeway. A woman on the way to the music center hit him and tossed him into a concrete piling. The officer on the scene says his hair is cut short but not recently. Still it's not long enough to be what they we're looking for. There were scratches on his arms but they were deep and recent. That's consistent with what Mrs. Barnett told us about him. There were none on his face or the back of his hands. We'll get a DNA sample, but I think we can safely assume he isn't the one who attacked Rachel Gerber."

  "Nice you want to hold their hands when you break the news. We could call that one in on the way home," Cori said.

  "Ah, but there's a bit more to chat about than Mr. Grady." Finn handed her the bank statement that he had found so interesting. Cori took a look and when she handed it back she said:

  "I'm going with you."

  CHAPTER 28

  DAY 5 – EVENING

  Elizabeth fussed while she waited for Sam to come home. She pulled the neck of her robe a little lower before closing it back up again. She checked her hair, putting it up and taking it down and finally getting it just the way Sam liked it. She climbed up onto the bed but that made her feel ridiculous, so she climbed down and stood in the most flattering light in the bedroom, just beside the big fireplace.

  Finally, she heard him at the front door. Her heart beat fast, only to slow when he didn't come upstairs. Elizabeth ran to the landing and looked over the banister. She didn't see him but she could hear him going to his study.

  He slept there now, worn down as he was by her plans, complaints and reproaches. He didn't have to say that's why he didn't come upstairs because she knew what he was thinking. Tonight, though, would have been different. She assumed Sam would have sensed that. He should have at least come up to check on her. If he was so worried about her like he said, he should have –

  Elizabeth caught herself before she became too upset. Sam could not read her mind. That's what Doctor Templeton said. Doctor Templeton said that Elizabeth was the strong one – which she had proved already in so many ways – and that she must be stronger now. Elizabeth, Doctor Templeton said, would need to set their lives straight.

  Empowered by this knowledge, Elizabeth went to Sam, gliding down the stairs, her satin slippers no more than a whisper over the marble floor below. Sam didn't hear her
open the door of his study, he didn't see her come into the room or sense her standing near his desk. But Elizabeth saw him as he was: a broken man, slouched in his leather chair, his head resting on one upturned fist as he stared at the bookshelves. It felt strange to be in the room watching him instead or peering through the window, hiding in the dark. Strange but exhilarating.

  "I'm glad you're home," Elizabeth ventured.

  "Why?"

  His voice was so heavy she was surprised he had managed to lift that one word. Her heart went out to him. She knew that horrible feeling of being of no consequence.

  "Because I saw a doctor today. A psychiatrist. I wanted to tell you about it."

  Silence.

  "I know it's been hard for you to come home."

  Nothing.

  "Sam?"

  Nothing.

  "I'm apologizing."

  Nothing.

  She licked her lips and tried again: "I've been wrong about a lot of things, I see that now."

  "Elizabeth, please." Sam's fingers moved, a fluttery gesture of defeat. "I'm just really tired."

  She took a few steps so that he could see her. All he really needed to do was look at her and everything would be fine.

  "How can you be too tired to listen to an apology? To a confession? I want to confess," Elizabeth insisted.

  "Fine. Apology accepted," He interrupted her. "Thank you. Really, I'm just tired and I'd like to be alone. I don't want to talk."

  "Please, Sam. You don't have to talk, but I want you to know everything. When you do, you'll see how much I love you. How much–" Elizabeth's voice broke. This was going to be very hard but Elizabeth prided herself on finishing what she started and she would finish this.

  She inched closer. The room that at one time seemed so exotic with its dark colors, soft leathers, and the tools of her husband's important trade, now felt old and worn, a caricature of an important man's retreat. She didn't want Sam to stay in this dark place. She moved until she stood between his outstretched legs.

  "I know you're feeling the same things. I know you see the girls just like I do. I think I see them run into a room I just came from. I think if I'm fast enough, I'll find them. Then I'll gather them up, and I'll lock the door, and they'll be safe. Rachel would still be…"

  Elizabeth paused. Sam hadn't moved an inch. He hadn't twitched. They were on the same page so Elizabeth was emboldened.

  "Rachel would still be dead, of course. I don't see her at all. You don't see her, do you? I can't even remember what she looked like now. Can you?"

  Elizabeth whispered the last. It was the two of them in this room, in this house, so it was all right to be brutally honest. She waited a long while for Sam to tell her something truthful back. Instead, he dropped his hand, raised his eyes to hers and said:

  "We're moving, Elizabeth. I spoke to a realtor."

  "Oh, Sam, no." She moved closer still. "This is our home. There are memories here. We can't leave."

  "Good lord, Elizabeth, you are sick." Sam swung his head away from her but not far enough that she couldn't see his expression of disgust. "Do you want to remember what those rooms looked like upstairs? I don't know how you go in them. I can't even think about them."

  "But there are good memories, too." Elizabeth cast around for something that would make him understand what this meant to her. If they left, the children would be completely gone, disappeared forever. "Okay. Okay. How about this? We won't ever open those rooms again. I'll move our bedroom down here. I don't know where, but I'll figure it out. Don't make me move. Please. I'll make it better. I'll make it all like it used to be."

  Elizabeth untied her robe. Beneath it was the silk teddy he had bought for her in Paris. Her boldness made her lightheaded. She was not a seductress, but Sam wanted that in his life and so she was trying. He just had to try back. Instead, his eyes went slowly up and down her body, comparing her, she was sure, to other women. When she realized she did not measure up, was not even worth his lust, a tear fell down her cheek. It wasn't his lust she wanted anyway. What she wanted was kindness, forgiveness, and a sign that he still loved her. Just when Elizabeth thought all was lost, when she thought of running up to her girls' room to hide, the cool leather of his shoe touched her bare ankle.

  Elizabeth closed her eyes. She heard the sigh of leather and the squeak of springs as he leaned forward in his chair and touched her hip. Elizabeth closed her fingers around that hand and held it tight. The fingertips of his free hand grazed her thigh. He put his head to her stomach and slowly rubbed his cheek against the silk as though he could go back in time, so far back that he would be in the womb or at least in a warm bed in Paris.

  "I'm so sorry, Elizabeth," he whispered. "Sorry. So sorry."

  Elizabeth took his face in her hands and turned it up to hers as she got to her knees. It would all be fine now. This was all she ever wanted. The two of them. Alone. In love. Safe. Happy. The strap of her lingerie slipped from her shoulder. He touched her breast, hesitated and then dropped his hand.

  "I can't. I just can't."

  Sam stood so quickly that Elizabeth fell back, landing hard on her hip. Sam reached for her, and just as quickly changed his mind and stepped over her. Elizabeth scrambled after him. On one knee, she grabbed for his hands.

  "Sam, what happened, what did I do? I'll change. I can be different."

  He pulled back only to swoop down once again, take her by the shoulders, and lift her up like a rag doll.

  "Elizabeth, for once understand. It's not just about you. This time it's about me and eventually it will be about us if we're lucky." Sam choked on the words. "I don't know if we can get back what we had. I only know it can't be done here. Not in this house."

  He kissed her hard and tried to let her go, but Elizabeth threw her arms around his neck. This was the moment; this was the time. If they moved from this place there would be no reminder of mistakes made and those lessons needed to be remembered. If she couldn't rein him in now and tie him to her she had lost, but the moment wasn't hers.

  The doorbell was ringing.

  CHAPTER 29

  Sam closed the front door with one hand on the big, brass knob and the other on the solid, polished wood. He put his forehead against the door. He was shot through with outrage at the insinuations, near accusations, sanctimonious shit that Finn O'Brien and Cori Anderson had brought into his home. Now they were gone, leaving him to deal with Elizabeth; Elizabeth whose righteous indignation was palpable, Elizabeth who was scratching for a fight when he had no strength to defend himself, Elizabeth who embraced innuendo as evidence, and Elizabeth who wanted to believe the worst as she always did.

  "Don't start with me, Elizabeth."

  Sam turned around and looked at her. As expected, that gorgeous face of hers was twisted into a hateful mask of disgust and loathing. He was not perfect – he would own that – but he was not as imperfect as she believed him to be by a long shot. When she opened her mouth, Sam put up a finger of warning.

  "Don't."

  "What does that mean, Sam?" Elizabeth would not be put off. "What exactly does 'don't start with me' mean?"

  Instead of answering, he headed back to his study, the almighty kingdom of the almighty breadwinner. But he wasn't there yet, so Elizabeth ran after him and jogged beside him. When he tried to dodge her, she put herself in front of him; when he tried to push through her, she pushed back. She grabbed at his arm and he shook her off. She snatched at his shirt and he knocked at her hand.

  "Look at me!" She slapped at his back, demanding his attention but when he turned on her, Elizabeth fell back just out of reach.

  "Stop it, Elizabeth. You're acting crazy."

  "I am not crazy. I want to know what you mean."

  "What I mean is don't you dare accuse me of having an affair with Rachel. She was the nanny for God's sake."

  "Oh, like that never happens," Elizabeth scoffed. "Like it doesn't happen every day. Like I didn't know it a long time ago. A long, long time ago. I hav
e eyes and now I have proof. Do you hear me? I knew it!"

  Sam turned toward the kitchen. Elizabeth stopped him. He went for his study. She moved in front of him, threw her arms out, hands against the hallway wall.

  "I didn't need those detectives to tell me that you were sleeping with her, but I didn't know you were paying for it. Thirty thousand dollars? She had thirty thousand dollars in her checking account. She must have been quite a piece of ass. There was enough of it."

  "That's, beneath you," Sam growled.

  "I've done a lot of things that are beneath me, but at least I had a good reason. But Rachel? I always wanted to know why, Sam. Wasn't I a good enough wife? Maybe I just wasn't a good enough lay."

  Sam shook his head and made to leave, but she grabbed him again.

  "Those people just told us Rachel had thirty thousand dollars in her bank account, and I'm supposed to just go upstairs by myself and be quiet? Why would I do that, Sam? Really? Why?"

  "Because you heard what I told them," he shot back. "There is nothing more to say."

  "Oh-ho, yes there is. There is no way she could have saved that kind of cash in two years unless you gave it to her," Elizabeth shot back. She had saved up words all her life and now she wanted to say them and hear them, but Sam only knew four and he said his words first.

  "I. Gave. Her. Nothing." He got in her face, put up a finger, and enunciated each word as though she were hard of hearing. Elizabeth's neck arched, she dragged her fingernails down the delicate skin of her throat until she drew welts.

  "You controlled all the money, Sam. You told me I wasn't all that good with money. Well, I sure would have known where thirty thousand dollars went if I was the one writing the checks. I'm smart enough to know that. And you had me thinking I was imagining things between the two of you. Oh, you are so smooth."