Sunset Express

I made Jonna dump her hash down the disposal and spray Lysol to kill the smell. Flushing it down the toilet would've been better, but I didn't want anyone in the bathroom. Evidence. I had her wash her mouth with bourbon; if she acted goofy or giggly, they'd smell the booze arid figure her for a drunk. The paramedics arrived first, then the police. A uniformed sergeant named Belflower shook his head when we told him who James Lester was and said, 'Hell of a thing, ain't it? Guy stands to collect a hundred grand and he gets his neck slit from slipping on a bar of Ivory.'

I said, 'You think?'

He frowned at me. 'You don't?'

We stared at each other until he went out to his squad car and called the detectives. Pike and I stayed until the police were satisfied that Jonna Lester had found the body on her own and that we had stumbled in later, and then they said we could go.

We stopped at an Arco station two blocks away where I used the pay phone to call a friend of mine who works at the Medical Examiner's office. I told him that James might've had help falling through the glass, and I asked if he might share his findings after the autopsy. He said that such a thing might be possible if I was able to share four first-base-side tickets to a Dodgers game. I said, 'I don't have first-base-side tickets to the Dodgers.'

My friend didn't say anything.

'But maybe I can find some.'

My friend hung up, promising to call.

I dropped Pike off, and it was twenty minutes before seven when I arrived home.

Lucy's rental was wedged on the far left side of the carport, silent and cool in the deepening air. The far ridge was rimmed with copper and bronze, and honeysuckle was just beginning to lace in and around the musky scent of the eucalyptus. I stood at the edge of the carport and breathed deep. I could smell the grease and the oil and the road scents of my Stingray mixing with the smells of the mountain. I could feel the heat of its engine, and hear the dings and pops of the cooling metal. The house was quiet. A horned owl glided across the road and down along the slope, disappearing past the edge of my home. Insects swirled over the canyon, erased by the dark blur of bats. I stood there, enjoying the cooling air and the night creatures just beginning to stir and twilight in the mountains. Home is the detective, home for the night. Sandbagged, unemployed, and feeling more than a little suspicious.

I let myself in through the kitchen. Lucy was on the couch in the living room, reading Los Angeles Magazine. Ben was on the deck, sitting crosslegged in one of the deck chairs, reading Robert A. Heinlein's Have Spacesuit, Will Travel. There wasn't much light, and he would have to come in soon. I said, 'Another strange day in Oz, Lucille.'

Lucy closed the magazine on a finger and smiled, but the smile was small and uncertain. 'We got back around four.'

'Sorry I'm so late.'

'It's okay.' She made a little shrug, and in that moment I wondered how much of the tension from last night was still with us.

'Are you two starving?'

Lucy made the uncertain smile again as if she recognized the tension and was trying to soften it. 'I made Ben a snack a little while ago, but we could eat.'

'How about I make spaghetti?'

'Oh, that would be nice.'

I went into the kitchen, popped open a Falstaff, and took a package of venison sausage from the freezer. I filled a large pot with enough water for the spaghetti, dropped in the sausage, then put on the heat. I heard the glass doors slide open and Ben yelled hi. I yelled hi back. I heard Lucy tell Ben that dinner would be ready soon and that he should take a bath. I heard the guest room door close and water run. The sounds of other people in my house.

I drank most of the Falstaff, then examined the cat's tray. Crumbs of dry food speckled the paper towel around his food bowl and a hair floated in his water. He'd probably slipped down the stairs during the day when no one was home, eaten, then made his escape. I tossed the old food and water, put out fresh, and wished that he was here.

I finished the Falstaff, then opened a bottle of pinot grigio, poured two glasses, and brought one to Lucy. She was still reading the magazine, so I put the wine on the table near her. I said, 'I meant to get home sooner, but Rossi's in pretty bad shape, and the day just sort of grew from there.' I didn't tell her about James Lester. Lester would bring us back to Green, and I didn't want to go there. 'I was hoping that we'd have more time together.'

Lucy's face grew sad and she covered my hand with hers. 'Oh, Studly, I know you can't be with us every moment. It's okay.'

'It doesn't seem okay.'

Lucy stared past me and the sadness grew deeper. She wet the corner of her mouth as if she were going to say something, then shook her head as if changing her mind. 'There's a lot going on right now, Elvis, but it doesn't have anything to do with us.'

'Can we talk about it?'

She wet the corner of her mouth again, but she still didn't look back at me. She was staring at a point in midspace as if there was a third presence in the room, floating in space and demanding the weight of her attention. 'I'd really rather not. Not now.'

I nodded. 'Okay. Up to you.'

She looked back at me and made the little smile again, and now it was clearly forced. 'Let me help you cook. Would that be okay?'

'Sure.'

We went into the kitchen and collected things for the spaghetti sauce and talked about her day. We chopped mushrooms and onions and green peppers, and opened cans of tomatoes and jars of oregano and basil, and talked as we did it, but the talking was empty and forced, the way it might be if there was a distance between us and we had to shout to make ourselves heard. I asked how her meetings had gone and she said fine. I asked if she was finished with the negotiation, and she said that a final meeting tomorrow would do it. Ben came in and parked on one of the counter stools, but he seemed to sense the tension and said little. After a time, he went into the living room and turned on my Macintosh and went online.

We had just put the spaghetti in boiling water and were setting the table when the doorbell rang. I said, 'If it's a reporter, I'm going to shoot him.'

It was Joe Pike and Angela Rossi. Rossi looked ragged and uncertain, and there were great hollow smudges beneath her eyes. Lucy stared soundlessly from the kitchen, and Rossi glanced from her to me. 'I hope you don't mind.'

'Of course not.' I introduced them.

Angela Rossi glanced at Lucy again, and in that moment there was something very female in the room, as if Rossi somehow sensed the tension and felt that she was not so much invading my space but Lucy's. She said, 'I'm sorry.' To Lucy, not to me.

Lucy said, 'We were going to eat soon. Would you like to join us?' She was holding the sauce spoon over the pan, frozen in mid-stir.

Rossi said, 'No. Thank you. I can't stay very long.' She smiled at Ben. 'I have children.'

'Of course.' Lucy put the sauce spoon on the counter, then excused herself and took Ben out onto the deck.

We watched the glass doors slide shut, and Rossi looked even more uncomfortable. 'Looks like I've come at a bad time.'

'Forget it.'

Pike moved behind her. He hadn't yet spoken, and probably wouldn't.

Angela Rossi looked at the floor, then looked at me, as if her energy reserves were so depleted she had to conserve what little remained. She said, 'Joe told me about Lester. He told me what you've been trying to do.'

I nodded.

'I lost it this morning and I want to apologize. You're caught in this, too, just like me.'

'Yes, but it's worse for you.'

'Maybe.' She looked at the floor again, then looked back. 'I want you to know that I didn't lie to you. I want you to know that everything I told you was the truth. LeCedrick Earle is lying, and so is his mother. I didn't do those things.'