Sunset Express

The streets were still heavy with morning traffic, and the day was bright and hot, but a marine cloud cover had rolled across the basin that made the light seem source-less and somehow disorienting and had charged the air with a kind of vague dampness. It was as if the sun had vanished and the landscape was lit by a weird kind of indirect lighting that made Los Angeles take on a 19505 tract-home fluorescent reality.

I parked two houses down from Louise Earle's, walked back, and rang her bell exactly as I had done yesterday.

Still no answer. I stepped through the dozens of plants and peeked through the gap between the curtains of the same front window. What I could see of the room appeared unchanged from yesterday. Hmm. It was twenty-five minutes after nine, and I stood at the edge of Louise Earle's porch and wondered what I should do. The neighborhood looked calm and ordinary; maybe Louise Earle had simply run to the market and would soon be back. Of course, even it she wasn't back soon, it didn't matter a whole hell of a lot. Such are the joys of unemployment.

I went out to my car, put up the roof to cut the sun, and waited. It was hot, and, as the sun rose, it grew hotter. Sweat leaked out of my hairline, and my shirt stuck to my chest and back. A couple of Hispanic kids pedaled by on mountain bikes, both kids sucking on Big Gulps. A thin brown dog trotted behind them, the dog's tongue hanging from its mouth. The dog looked hot, too, and was probably wishing one of the kids would drop his drink. A Carrier Air Conditioning van pulled into a drive on the next block. Probably making an emergency call. An elderly man came down the sidewalk a few minutes later, covering his head with a Daily News the way you would if it was raining and you were trying to stay dry.

Two of the three girls showed up in their Volkswagen Beetle, pulled into their friend's drive, and honked. Guess it was too hot to go to the door. The third girl came out with her bag and an orange beach towel and jumped into the Beetle. As they drove away, they waved, and I waved back. Guess the third girl had noticed me when she was watching for her friends. People came and went, and when they did they raced between air-conditioned cars and air-conditioned homes at a dead run. No one stayed in the heat any longer than they had to, except, of course, for displaced private eyes working on a slow case of dehydration.

Louise Earle still had not returned two hours and twenty-one minutes later, when a very thin white woman wearing an enormous sun hat emerged from the house next door and crossed her yard to Louise Earle's porch. I made her for her late seventies, but she might've been older. She rang the bell, then peered through Louise Earle's window just as I had done. She tromped around to the side of the house, came back with a watering can, and began watering the plants. I got out of the car and went up to her. 'Pardon me, ma'am, but Mrs Earle doesn't wish to be disturbed.' The detective resorts to subterfuge.

She stopped the watering and squinted at me. 'And who are you?'

I showed her my license. You show them a license and everything looks official. "The news people were bothering her, so I've been hired to keep them away.'

She made a little sniff and continued with the watering. Guess she didn't give too much of a damn whether I was official or not. 'Well, my name is Mrs Eleanor Harris and I can assure you that Louise Earle does not consider me a bother. We've been friends for forty years.'

I nodded, trying to seem understanding. 'Then you must've seen how awful the news people were.'

The stern look softened and she resumed the watering. 'Aren't they always, though. You watch the way these people on television act and you wonder how they can live with themselves. All that smug attitude.' She made a little shiver. 'That Geraldo Rivera. That horrible little man on Channel Two. Ugh.' She shook her head in disgust and the stern look came back. 'You should've been here yesterday. Yesterday is when people were trying to bother her.'

'They were?'

She squinted harder. 'You know, one of them looked an awful lot like you.'

'I came by yesterday to introduce myself, but she wasn't home. I came with my partner, a tall man with dark glasses.'

The squint relaxed, and she nodded. 'Well, you and your partner weren't the only ones. There were others. One of them even tried to get into her house.'

I looked at her. 'Who tried to get into her house, Mrs Harris?'

'Some man.' Great. 'I remember him because he came three different times. You and your friend came the once. All the different press people came the once.'

'What did he look like?'

She made a waving motion. 'He was pretty big. You'd better watch out.'

'Big.' I put my hand a couple of inches above my head. 'Like this?'

'Well, not tall, so much. But wide. Much wider than you.' She gave me a just-between-you-and-me look. 'His arms were so long he looked like a monkey.' Kerris.

'And he was here three times.'

She was nodding. 'The first time was before you and your friend, then he came back in the afternoon and once more at dusk. When he was here in the afternoon he tried the door and he went around back. He was back there for quite a while, and for all I know he got in. For all I know he did all manner of horrible things in there.' She made the little shudder again, equating all manner of horrible things with Geraldo Rivera and the little man on Channel Two. 'It's a good thing Louise went away.'

'No one told me that she'd gone away.'

Mrs Harris continued with the watering. 'Well, no one told me, either, and that is highly unusual. We've been friends for forty years and I always water her plants when she's away. We watch out for each other. Older people have to.'

I looked more closely at the plants. Some of the leaves were wilting and the soil was dry and beginning to crack. 'Do you know where I can find her?'

Mrs Harris continued with the watering and did not answer.

I said, 'Mrs Harris, I can't keep people away from her if I'm here and she's somewhere else. Do you see?'

The water can wavered, and then Mrs Harris looked around at the drying plants and seemed lost. She shook her head. 'She always calls when she goes away. Why wouldn't she call?'

I waited.

Mrs Harris said, 'I saw her leave and it just wasn't like her, let me tell you. It was the day before yesterday, the evening after all those horrible people were here, and she just walked away.'

I thought about it. 'Could she have gone to visit Mr Lawrence?'

'Not walking. Mr Lawrence would always come in the car.'

'Do you know where Mr Lawrence lives?' I thought I might drive over.

'I'm afraid I don't. I saw her from the window, dressed very nicely and carrying her bag, walking right up this street, and in all this heat, too.' She made her lips into a thin, wrinkled line. She was holding the can with both hands, and both hands were twisting on the handle. 'I came out and called after her. I said, "Louise, it's too hot for all of that, you'll catch a stroke," but I guess she didn't hear.' The thin lips were pressing together. Worried. 'People our age are very sensitive to this heat.'

'Yes, ma'am. And she didn't call.'

Mrs Harris looked at me with wet, frightened eyes. 'You don't think she's mad at me, do you? We've been friends for forty years, and I just don't know what I'd do if she was mad at me.'

'No, ma'am. I don't think she's mad.' I was wondering why she might be in such a hurry that she would just walk away.

'But why wouldn't she call? I always water her plants.'

'I don't know, Mrs Harris. Maybe she was just trying to get away from the press. You know how horrible they are.'