Now that he was hooked, he was about as happy as one of those guitarfish. Rod and Elaine Perth had lived contentedly together since their wedding in 1962. They were as devoted to each other today as they had been on the first day they met. They’d spent just about every minute of the last forty-seven years together, and they’d documented it all in loving detail. And somehow, in those entire forty-seven years, they had managed to do absolutely nothing that was of any interest to anyone.
Henry surveyed the endless landscape of photo mailers and keepsake boxes littering his living room. He’d been through them all twice, and he couldn’t find anything that even looked like a story. Apparently the Perths had spent the last five decades sitting happily on their living room couch drinking tea-or, when they were in a mood for a wild time, coffee. Occasionally Elaine ventured out into the garden to pull a weed or two; apparently Rod did his work as an accountant at a desk in the den while Elaine knitted next to him. Even when they traveled overseas, all they seemed to do was sit on foreign couches. The only things that changed in all the pictures were the gray hairs on their heads and the wrinkles on their faces. These people didn’t need a scrapbook to document their lives together; any one picture grabbed at random would have told the story just as well.
Henry pushed his chair back from the table irritably. He’d spent enough time on this project. He should just slap in a handful of random pictures, put a ribbon around the album, and call it done.
But the Perths wouldn’t let it be done. Every day since he’d taken on Rod and Elain’s lives, they’d dug up another box of identical photos they wanted him to go through. Every afternoon there’d been a knock at the door, and when Henry opened it, he’d find the Perths’ unbelievably unmemorable grandson standing on his porch with another delivery. The first few times Henry was excited, hoping that the new arrival would bring something of interest. But he’d been disappointed so many times that he’d come to dread the young man’s knock.
Which was why he almost chose to hide in the kitchen when there was a firm rapping on the door this time. Maybe if he didn’t answer, the kid would leave the box on the porch, and Henry could claim it had been stolen before he got home.
He was halfway to the kitchen when the rapping came again. He stopped at the sound. The Perths’ grandson’s knock was as uninteresting as anything else about him. It was more like the kid was brushing his knuckles across the wood, as if an actual blow was too assertive for him. But this series of raps was firm, assertive, urgent. Either the kid had stopped on the way over here to get a spine, or this was someone else. If Henry was really lucky, it was an ex-con he’d put away years ago who’d come to kill him and put him out of his Perth-induced misery.
Henry crossed the living room quickly and pulled the door open. The woman standing there smiled up at him shyly.
“Can I help you?” Henry said. “Miss…?”
“You are Henry Spencer, aren’t you?”
“Yes,” Henry said. “And you are?”
“So excited to meet you.” She held out a hand.
Henry lived his life by a few simple rules. Number seventeen was this: If you ask a stranger for his name twice and he still doesn’t answer, he’s hiding something. Henry knew he should slam the door in this woman’s face and, if she didn’t leave on her own, have the cops cruise by and check her out.
Somehow the door didn’t seem to slam. Henry’s left hand remained frozen on it. Like any man who finds himself violating lifelong beliefs when confronted by a beautiful woman, he could come up with dozens of reasons why he should let her in. Maybe she was lost. Maybe she had car trouble. And anyway, it was hard to imagine that she could be hiding anything. Her bright red T-shirt and shorts were so tight she couldn’t conceal a dollar bill without his being able to read the serial numbers.
Henry extended his right hand and took hers in it. He felt a tingle running up his arm as if she’d given him a minor electric shock.
“I can see the resemblance,” the woman said, peering intently into his eyes.
Henry felt a slight tang of disappointment as he realized that she was here looking for Shawn. Probably some girl he’d met in a bar and never bothered to call back. Although blowing off a woman this beautiful didn’t seem to fit Shawn’s standard operating procedures.
“Shawn’s not here.” Henry tried to withdraw his hand, but she wouldn’t let go.
“I know.” Her voice was like a seduction. “He sent me.”
“I see.” Now Henry was getting annoyed. It was one thing for Shawn to call the health department and report a toxic plume coming from Henry’s house that time he had tried to brew his own beer. That was funny-at least after Henry had retaliated by reminding the head librarian at the Santa Barbara Library that Shawn still hadn’t returned the copy of Harriet the Spy he’d checked out in 1984 and that he owed fines running into the thousands of dollars. But sending a hooker to Henry’s house went far beyond the realm of the prank. This was a crime, and he wanted no part of it. “I think you’d better run along now.”
“But I have a message from Shawn.” She still didn’t let go of Henry’s hand. Despite his irritation, he found the electric tickle from her touch was still running up his arm, and that made him even more annoyed.
“What’s that? He’s embarrassed to see me dating women my own age and thinks I should be going out with children?”
“He doesn’t like you doing the scrapbooks. He thinks it makes you look like an old lady.”
The tingling in Henry’s arm got stronger, and he realized it wasn’t sexual attraction at all. It was electricity. Before he could pull away, she tightened her grip on his hand and sent eight hundred thousand volts through his body.
Chapter Twelve
Over the days since John Marichal’s melting body had been scooped up and taken out, the stench in the tin impound shack had begun to dissipate. But the room was still stiflingly hot, and every atom of oxygen seemed to carry a small piece of decayed flesh with it.
As soon as Shawn had sliced through the yellow crime scene tape and pushed open the shack’s door, he passed quickly through toward the rear exit. But before he could get out into the lot, Gus had stopped to peer around the small office.
“What are you doing?” Shawn said.
“Looking for evidence,” Gus said. “Isn’t that why we’re here?”
Actually, it wasn’t. The real reason they’d come here after their long session in Chief Vick’s office was because they needed to find Tara. They had to turn her over to the police so they wouldn’t get blamed for any other assaults she might commit. But, as Shawn pointed out, Tara had a car and they didn’t, which meant that any attempt to find her was really just hoping for a lucky break. That they could do anywhere. Shawn’s first choice was an air-conditioned movie theater, preferably the revival house currently running a Jessica Alba film festival. Second choice was Eagle’s View, where Shawn and Gus could chill with Dallas Steele over a frosty Coca-Cola Blak. When Gus ruled out that option on several grounds, starting with the impossibility of getting there, the impound lot made a pretty good runner-up. Not because they actually expected to run into Tara there. But they had as good a chance of finding her here as anywhere, and this way they might also uncover clues to the murder of John Marichal. Solving that crime might buy them some goodwill with the department. At the very least, it would remove them from the list of suspects.
Gus ducked under the counter and swore under his breath. “The laptop’s gone.”
“We knew that,” Shawn said. “Lassiter said it was missing. And if it had been here, the cops would have taken it. Now can we get out of here?”
Shawn pushed open the back door and stepped out into the bright sunshine. He took a deep breath of clean, corpse-free air and looked out over the lot. It stretched out as far as he could see, acres of abandoned cars slowly rusting away in the salty air. In the center, the gigantic crane stood idle, iron jaws hanging open like a drooping flower.
“And what exactly do you think we’re going to find out here?” Gus said as he stepped up next to Shawn.
“For one thing, air.” Shawn took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “For another, the answer.”
