The disentanglement of Spirit from Flesh has a Scent and an Aura all of its own, my Love. One day I will show you, let you Smell and Taste it with me. We will disentangle our Spirits from our Gross Bodies and entwine forever, cut away the wretched excess. I will bury my head between your Milk White Thighs and drink the Blood and Baptize myself with your Menses. Outside our Skins we will know Eternal Love.
I must stop now. I am Weary and my Heart aches for you, my Love. Darkness falls and more Visions await me.
I am Yours, your Loving and Adoring Servant, unto all Eternity,
Outside, Sarah could hear the waves crashing against the sea wall and the wind gusting and moaning about the rooftops. A shutter was banging somewhere. Inside, she was aware of the loud beating of her heart. My God, she thought, he did do it. She had seen the heart with her name in it drawn in the sand. It wasn’t an illusion. But who was he?
Down the street, the wind whipped a tile from someone’s roof and sent it smashing to the ground.
15
Arvo drove up the coast highway on Saturday morning with the top of his tan convertible open and the Allman Brothers singing “Statesboro Blues” on the radio. The ocean breeze ruffled his hair and forced its way deep into his lungs. He needed it to blow the cobwebs out of his mind and bring him back to life.
Last night had been a bad one, starting when he found that I Married a Monster from Outer Space had been delayed by a late-running hockey game, leaving him with only the first ten minutes of the movie.
As a substitute, he had dashed out and rented Ilsa, Harem Keeper of the Oil Sheiks, which was every bit as much of a turkey as the guy in the rental store had warned him.
He had woken just after four in the morning with a dry mouth and a pounding head, courtesy of the Scotch and Sam Adams chasers he had drunk after the leftover pizza. He hadn’t been able to get back to sleep again, mostly for thinking about the Sarah Broughton case. He had arranged to meet Stuart Kleigman in Santa Monica for lunch, but first he wanted to take a look at the crime scene.
The backs of the houses that faced the Coast Highway were nondescript. Mostly, they were simple flat-roofed rectangular boxes of varying heights and widths, some beige or white stucco, some wood-frame. Some of them had high windows facing the road, but most presented a blank façade. Because the houses were close together, the narrow gaps between them had been closed with high chain-link fencing.
A hundred yards or so west of the houses was a white three-story office building, with stairwells visible through the large plate-glass windows. Architecturally, it was nothing but a cube of white stone fitted with windows. The parking lot, with spaces reserved for ten cars, was empty, and Arvo pulled into the one marked “Dr S.A. Pedersen.” You wouldn’t catch a doctor or a dentist working on a Saturday if he could help it. Not as long as there were golf courses within driving distance.
He walked down the stone steps to the beach, the route Joe reckoned the killer must have carried John Heimar’s body parts, probably in a plastic garbage bag.
At the bottom of the steps, Arvo stepped into the fine sand and looked around. Gulls skimmed the water’s surface, looking for fish. The only people on the beach were two men walking a dog.
There were no signs left of the horror that had taken place here just a few days ago, nothing even to mark the spot where John Heimar’s body parts had been buried. Since then, the tide had been in and out a few times and washed everything away. The crime-scene techs had had to work fast. Like King Canute, even the LAPD couldn’t hold back the tide.
Set on a long promontory about twenty feet high, the houses had steps carved in the rock leading down to the beach. Each also had a high gate at beach level. Despite the difficult access, though, it wasn’t a private beach, and such security as existed there — gates, wire — was pretty Mickey Mouse, in Arvo’s opinion.
On the other hand, it wasn’t a natural choice for dumping a body, and if the killer really wanted to show off his handiwork to the world at large, why not try Santa Monica, Venice or Redondo, further south? Maybe even have a good laugh when one of the bodybuilders on Muscle Beach pulled the severed arm loose? Plenty of people there, every day of the week.
Could Sarah Broughton have been the only audience he wanted? Arvo remembered the letter: “I have much to Plan and Execute before we can be together as Fate intends. My mind Boils and Seethes with the Burden, the Weight and the Glory of it. All for you. Let me prove I am more than equal to the Task.”
He shivered and returned to the car. In Santa Monica, he found a parking space in a side street and walked over the arched bridge onto the pier. Behind him, the white buildings along Ocean Avenue sparkled in the late December sun. To the north, across the bay, Arvo could just about make out the contours of the coastal hills behind where he had just been. Breakers crashed on the beach with a deep booming sound, churning up spume, and diamonds danced on the greenish-white ocean.
Just beyond the carousel, a Hispanic family stood busking: the father played guitar; the teenaged son sang in Spanish and looked as if he’d rather be just about anywhere else; the daughter danced as awkwardly as any spindly nine-year-old would; and the toddler stood with his mournful-looking mother by the upturned, white top hat, looking cute. Arvo grinned at him and flipped in a couple of quarters.
Stuart Kleigman was leaning against the chain-link fence past the Playland Arcade staring down the boardwalk toward Venice, where an endless stream of roller skaters glided back and forth.
At least Arvo thought it was Stuart. He was wearing light blue slacks and a shiny red blouson jacket, and when Arvo greeted him, he turned, revealing a blue-and-gold crest on the front of his jacket. Probably his bowling team, Arvo thought, unable to make out the lettering. The breeze blew a lock of Stuart’s gray hair over his eyes and he pushed it back. Arvo had never seen him dressed so casually before.
Stuart raised an eyebrow and squinted out to sea. “Probably five years since I’ve been here,” he said. “You wouldn’t think so, would you, Brentwood being so close, but it’s true. Karen and I used to come here sometimes when we first got married, but that was ten years ago now. And we brought the kids here once or twice when they were little. Leora sure loved that carousel. Now the neighborhood’s gone downhill — you wouldn’t catch me here after dark — and the developers have ruined the waterfront. You live around here?”
“Santa Monica, yes. Seafront, no.”
“Uh-huh. So what is it? Have there been any developments?”
“Yes and no.”
“What the fuck’s that supposed to mean? Sounds like a lawyer’s answer to me. Nothing’s happened to Sarah, has it?”
“Not as far as I know. What I mean is, I’m not sure whether there have been any developments or not.”
“Look, let’s go get something to eat, shall we?” Stuart rubbed his stomach. “I’m starving. Then you can tell me all about it.”
They walked along the pier. Arvo caught glimpses of the sea through the gaps between the boards. It made him feel a little dizzy. They went into the English-style pub.
It was more of a wooden shack than a pub, really. A few of the tables were occupied by young couples and groups of young people taking a break from skating on the boardwalk; a couple of sullen teenagers were playing darts in the corner; and one group of obvious east-coast tourists looked around with sheepish smiles as their kids painted the tables and floors with food. They looked as if they were remembering how cute everyone thought it was when the kids made a mess like that in South Duxbury, Massachusetts, but starting to worry that maybe you could get shot for it in LA.