“I checked you with the LAPD,” the cop said. “It seems that maybe what I ought to be asking is just what we can do to help you.”
Till held his eyes on him. “I was trying to drive her to the DA’s office in Los Angeles without being spotted, but that didn’t work out. So I would appreciate it if you would do a couple of things for us.”
“What are they?”
“Get her fingerprints and take her picture—front and side mug shots ought to do it. That way, if for some reason we don’t make it, then at least Eric Fuller won’t get convicted of killing her.”
“We’d be happy to do that,” said the cop. “Just tell me where to send it.”
“If you’ll give me your notebook, I’ll write it down for you.”
The cop handed him a small notebook and a pen, and Till talked as he wrote. “Sergeant Max Poliakoff, Homicide Special. Here’s his number, and the address at Parker Center.”
The cop accepted the notebook and turned his flashlight on it. “You have a good memory.”
“Not that good. It was my desk before it was his.” Till looked over at the police car, where Ann Donnelly was still sitting with the other police officer, and turned away so she couldn’t read his lips. “The other thing you can do is drive me to a place where I can rent another car. I want to find a quiet place where she and I can stay out of sight for a day or two, then take her into Los Angeles when I think the time is right. And I’d appreciate it if nobody writes down where we went. The man who’s hiring these people won’t give up while she’s alive.”
27
SYLVIE DROVE THE CAR up the long, steep, curving grade, past a convoy of slow trucks climbing toward Los Angeles. Even in the predawn darkness she could feel the change in climate. At the bottom was Camarillo, where the air was cool and damp from the ocean, but up here at the top was Thousand Oaks, where the air was dry, still heated up by yesterday’s sunshine. She knew that if she could have stopped the car and put her hand on the pavement, it would feel warm. As she drove past the green sign at the Los Angeles County line, she hit an invisible wall of frustration.
They had failed. She said, “I assume you don’t want me to drive this car to our house. Would you like to dump it someplace before the sun comes up?”
“In time,” he said. “I figure checkout time at the hotel where we got the car is noon. The housekeeping people will go into the room and find the bodies around twelve-thirty or so. We’ll be fine for now.”
“If you say so.” She drove past the eternal tie-up at the junction with the San Diego Freeway, and took the Van Nuys Boulevard exit.
Paul said, “Pull into the mall and let me out.”
Sylvie pulled to the far end near the corner and sat there as though she were checking a road map while Paul walked the few blocks to their house and returned in the black BMW. He stepped close to Sylvie and handed her the keys. “I’ll drive that one, and you follow me.”
He drove the stolen car onto the 170 freeway to the Simi Freeway and up to Little Tujunga Road. He drove up into the dry hills for a couple of miles, then pulled over on a wide turnout, and Sylvie stopped behind him. Already Sylvie could detect a special quality to the air that was still not luminous, but was beginning to lose its darkness. She got out of the BMW and joined Paul at the stolen car with the rags and Windex that Paul had brought from home.
They sprayed and wiped off the handles, knobs and buttons, the trunk and the hood, the interior metal and plastic surfaces. They were efficient and quick because they had done this together before. The whole process took no more than five minutes. Then Paul went to the trunk of the BMW, took out the fire extinguisher, opened the passenger door of the stolen car, and sprayed the interior thoroughly with white foam to destroy any prints they had missed. Paul reached inside to shift the transmission into neutral, then pushed the stolen car to the edge of the turnout and let it roll down the steep hillside into the dense brush below. The car was difficult to see from the turnout, and it appeared no more important than any of the other abandoned cars in gullies around Los Angeles. It looked as though it could have been there for years.
A few minutes later, they were in their BMW on the Simi Freeway going seventy miles an hour toward home. It was half-light when they approached the driveway of the house that Sylvie had inherited from Darren McKee. The garage door rose, Paul pulled inside, and the garage door closed behind them.
Neither of them spoke as they got out, walked through the doorway into the house, and locked the door behind them. One of the things that Sylvie loved about being married was that little talk was necessary at times like this, when they were both exhausted and disappointed and dirty. Two single people would think they had to fill the air with bright, insincere chatter. Sylvie stopped at the front door, glanced into the box she had put under the mail slot to catch the mail, but didn’t see anything that tempted her to look more closely. She walked to the master bedroom, opened the walk-in closet, stepped out of her clothes, took her robe off the hook, and went into the bathroom. In her peripheral vision she saw Paul doing something similar, and then heard him go two doors down the hall to the guest bathroom and close the door.
She stepped into the shower and turned it on. Usually Sylvie stood in the shower and passively let the water rush over her, but today she adjusted the temperature to be slightly hotter than usual, covered herself with soap, and scrubbed her skin. She washed her hair, then got out and ran the bath, settled into it, and lay there soaking. When she felt cleansed of the whole experience of the past few days she stood up, dried herself with a big, fluffy bath towel, and went back into the bedroom.
Paul had kept the blinds and curtains closed, so the room was dim and felt cool. Maybe he had turned on the air conditioning. He was lying in the bed with his back to her. She took off the robe and slipped under the covers beside him. She slid close to him, but she didn’t touch him. She closed her eyes.
When Sylvie awoke the room was still dark. She rolled over so she could see her clock radio. The red digits said 1:22. She reached behind her to verify the emptiness where Paul should have been. She lay there waking up. She smelled coffee. She caught a small sound in another part of the house that located him in her mind. She got up and went into the bathroom to brush her teeth.
As she passed the big mirror, she looked at her reflection, then took a step back to look again. Usually she saw only flaws, but today it seemed to her that she looked good naked. She brushed her teeth, then picked up a brush and began brushing out her hair in front of the big mirror instead of the makeup mirror as she normally did. She wasn’t twenty-five anymore, but she looked better than most women did at thirty, she assured herself. She finished her hair, splashed water on her face and patted it dry, then stepped to the makeup mirror and put on light daytime makeup, giving special attention to her eyes today because she had been sleeping, and then studied the effect. She looked even better. She looked terrific.
Sylvie decided to heighten the effect. Why not? She put on the eyeliner and mascara, and added eye shadow. Then she went into the closet and opened the lingerie drawers until she found what she had been picturing. She put on a sheer black lace baby-doll nightgown that had a bit of a push-up to emphasize her breasts. She turned in front of the mirror and looked at herself critically. The lace came down just to the spot where her legs reached her bottom, but didn’t quite cover her.
She and Paul had just spent too much time jammed into cars together, tracking that stupid woman and her private detective. It was time to remind Paul that she wasn’t just some partner, some other man who was a buddy of his. She was his wife. She took one last look and then walked out of the closet and let her senses guide her to him. He was in the kitchen cleaning guns.