“Middle of the road sex only gets you so far.” She loaded the last of her gear onto the truck and offered him a bone. “It looks like a domestic accident.”
“Anybody hurt?”
“Your interest goes suspiciously beyond curiosity, Stein. What the hell are you doing here?”
“Just trying to earn a day’s pay.”
She considered the possibility of that for half a second. “No you’re not.”
She cranked the diesel engine and ground the gears manually into first, stuck her head out the window. “Call me.”
“Really?”
“No.”
She slid into second and was gone.
It was pointless to try to get any closer to the scene without credentials. He scuffled back to where he had left his car and tried to put together what he knew, which was very little: There had been an explosion, possibly accidental. No injuries were reported so he had to deduce that Goodpasture had not been home at the time of the blast. Nor, obviously, had he returned. If it had been an accident, he or someone he knew would have to have seen the news by now. He surely would have come home to survey the damage. But he had not. And that was why Stein’s heart was racing.
He did not have to be there to know this was not just an innocent accident, that Nicholette’s fears had been founded. Just how valuable was that stolen crop of his? Could the thieves have wanted something more? Had they come here to get it? Had Goodpasture resisted, been taken? Or was it a signal to the absent horticulturalist that they-whoever they were-meant business?
The darker thought kept beating at his brain to be let in. It was what Penelope Kim had said about her fictional detective, about his daughter being his kryptonite. He realized that Goodpasture had a kryptonite, too. If somebody had come here wanting something from Goodpasture, and if that person wanted leverage over him, there was one obvious and beautiful place to exert that leverage. Stein took Nicholette’s card from the shirt pocket where Michael Esposito had so recently reinserted it. There, in her perfect handwriting that looked like typescript, Nicholette had written her address under Brian’s. It was right here in the canyon.
The fog became denser as he followed Old Topanga up above the two-thousand-foot level. It was far less developed up here. There were still bats and owls and every few years a bobcat. There was still an old lean-to perched haphazardly across the stream. And the smell of the air was the way God had intended it.
Stein arrived at a cul de sac that was barely longer than a driveway, called Lilac Elevation. Wisps of fog hung like a lace mantle over the swaying elm trees that framed the only house. It was all French doors and windows, a magical, windchimey, gingerbread cottage. An unpaved semicircular driveway led toward the garage on the side of the house that faced out into the canyon, but Stein decided to park on the street. He turned the car around to face back downhill. He didn’t exactly know why. Perhaps to delay going inside.
It was quiet. No stereo. No TVs. Just the breeze and the night birds twittering across the distance. He walked briskly up the inclined drive to the front door. He knocked lightly and called out Nicholette’s name, unsure whether he’d be seen as a savior or an intruder. He waited for a reply and then knocked again. The door was unlocked. He opened it just wide enough to lean through, and called out her name a second time and added, “It’s Stein.”
Ambient light entering through a skylight made the room seem like a fantastical forest. Potted palm fronds reached to the top of the twelve-foot ceiling. Stein experienced the sensation of running water, heard and felt more than seen. A stream to feed the plants, he reckoned. But no, he saw it running across the hardwood floor in a rivulet onto the porch step, between his feet. He opened the door wider.
His heart quickened as he saw the moonlight reflecting off a long stream of water running the entire length of the hall. Light came from a room beyond the vestibule. He walked silently toward its source. The sound of dripping water became more distinct. He passed through the living room and into the dining room. The kitchen was framed in its archway. He spoke her name again, an announcement of his presence, a request for permission to proceed. There was no reply.
The hallway turned and opened through an archway into a circular room that looked like a gazebo. This was her bedroom. It was slightly elevated, open on three full sides to a sylvan glade. Though it was lighted only by the moon and stars, Stein could see that he was not the first stranger to enter Nicholette’s boudoir tonight. Cushions were uprooted from their place. Clothes were laid out on the floor and all the emptied hangers in the walk-in cedar closet were pushed to one side. Her shoes were out of their boxes, arranged ten deep in five long, neat rows. The floorboards of the closet had been pried up.
The flow of water was not coming from the bathroom as he had thought, but toward it. He followed the water back through the main room and toward the back side of the house. The kitchen was airy and open, designed in Tuscan farmhouse style. Frying pans and utensils hung from ceiling hooks. Broad hardwood counters ran along both sides of the double sink. The floor was red Italian tile.
Nicholette’s tall, naked body was arched backward against the sink. Her skin was bathed in moonlight. Her feet were bound together by rope at the ankles. Her wrists were pulled back above her head and tied to the cornice that framed the window. Her neck was thrown back in an air of Dionysian ecstasy, so that at first glance she could have been dancing or crucified.
The faucet of a beautifully carved brass tube rose elegantly like a swan’s neck from the sink and then down into Nicholette’s beautiful mouth. Water flowed from the tap in a slow steady stream; just slow enough so that one could keep swallowing. For a while. The porcelain sink underneath her head was filled with water. Her hair was splayed out in the water behind her. One eye was open and one closed. Stein wrapped a handkerchief around his fingers and turned off the faucet. Water continued to gurgle down her chin from those exhausted red lips.
The faucet was embedded so deeply down her throat that in order to extract it Stein had to lower her neck down into the sink so that her face was several inches below the water level. He stood her up straight. Her spine was still supple. Rigor had not yet begun. Her skin felt almost alive. He cut her arms loose from their bindings. Her ear was alongside his lips. He apologized to her from the depths of his soul and promised that he would find whoever had done this to her and make them pay. Freed of its tresses, her body fell against him in a swoon. Her arms draped around his neck in a belated gesture of gratitude.
SEVEN
By the time stein emerged from Nicholette’s the fog had lifted and the sky was bright enough for wise men to read the stars. But Stein felt neither wise nor bright. He had already made a dozen amateur mistakes obvious to anyone who had watched even a single episode of a television crime show. He had moved the body. He knew that he shouldn’t have cut her down but he could not bear to leave her in that tortuous position. Partly for her but yes, more for himself. Her body was a finger pointing at him, indicting his cowardice, his hypocrisy. “ Give ’till it feels good.” What a joke. He heard John Lennon’s voice in his head. Instant karma’s gonna get you. Gonna knock you right on your head. You better get yourself together. Pretty soon you’re gonna be dead. What in the world you thinking of… Laughing in the face of love. What on earth you tryin to do? It’s up to you.
He wanted to die or to turn the clock back six hours and say yes to Nicholette instead of being the sticky, smarmy piece of condescending crap he had been. After he cut her down he had held her at the waist with the small of her back braced against the sink. This could not have happened long ago. Her skin was pliant to the touch. The possibility entered his mind that the killer might still be in the house or crouching under the grape arbor, watching him. Nicholette’s weight shifted against his chest, and for one ecstatic instant Stein thought he had brought her back to life by wishing. But it was only the settling of all those gallons of water in her stomach. He seated her gently on the floor and went in search of a blanket or a robe.
He repaired her rampaged bedroom, gathered up scarves, blouses, dresses, shoes, strewn undergarments and carefully folded and replaced them in her drawers. He recognized a familiar scent bearing from under the vanity table underneath her mirror. Her scent. He avoided looking at his reflection. He did not want witnesses. Inside the drawer was a long, bounteous, full-length wig, mesh skullcap woven inside it. He wondered why Nicholette would need such a thing with that amazing head of hair she owned. He replaced the hairpiece into the drawer and closed
