Before I went to bed, I’d plugged in my new smart phone to charge. I pulled it off the charger and turned it on. The features were pretty intuitive, and I was on the Internet in just a few minutes Googling: erotic asphyxiation. The first entry I found read:
Erotic-asphyxiation is the practice of interrupting blood supply to the brain via oxygen deprivation at the height of orgasm. Often accomplished with a scarf or belt, the lack of blood flow is believed to intensify the orgasmic experience. Erotic-asphyxiation is a paraphilia -- an attraction to life-threatening sexual activities. The element of danger may in itself heighten orgasm.
Well, they didn’t make it sound especially sexy. But that probably wasn’t the point. The thing I found odd about the entry was that it didn’t discuss the individuals who applied the asphyxia. I sort of had a handle on what people who liked this done to them might be like -- given my experience with Jeremy, who looked like he enjoyed it. But what about the people who liked to be, well, on top? Why did they like it? And how did you find them?
I had a queasy thought. If I couldn’t find an alibi, then I’d have to find the killer. But who was I kidding? I couldn’t find a killer. I wasn’t some action star; I was an accountant. I’d end up dead. My choices, however, were limited. If I did nothing, I’d end up in prison. If I found the killer, I could end up dead. Neither was an appealing choice.
I wanted to lock all my doors, stay inside all day, and look up things on the Internet. I sincerely wished I could just Google Eddie’s killer and email the information to the police. That wasn’t very realistic. I had to act. I had to somehow figure this out, and sitting on my sofa playing with my smart phone wasn’t going to cut it.
In the bottom drawer of my dresser was a pair of gloves I’d bought for a ski weekend Jeremy and I went on to Tahoe a few years back. I went in and grabbed them. Then, on my way out of the house, I grabbed Eddie’s keys from the bowl by the door. When I’d come home Thursday night, I remembered thinking that Eddie was gone because I didn’t see his car. But it had to be nearby, didn’t it?
It was a beautiful morning, cool and quiet, birds chirping. Anyone would think you were in a distant suburb, which was the whole charm of living in the Hollywood Hills -- even when you lived at the bottom of one of the canyons between two hills. Some pretty major streets were nearby, but I had to strain to hear them.
I flipped a mental coin and headed west. At the end of the block, Mariposa turned upward and began to climb out of the canyon. There were no sidewalks, just a macadam road that regularly broke apart at the edges. I turned a corner, nothing. Hiking up another block, I wondered why Eddie had hidden his car. Did he not want me to see it when I came home? Or was he hiding it from the person who killed him?
When I reached Harvey Lane, I saw the Lincoln sagging under a eucalyptus, but something was wrong. The rear passenger door on the driver’s side was partly open, as was the trunk. Someone had broken into Eddie’s car.
I walked around the car, peeking into the windows; the inside was messy. I slipped the gloves on, then tried the driver’s door. It opened. The car smelled like a cheap hotel room: stale cigarette smoke and caustic cleansers. I checked the ashtray, but it was empty of butts. The smell was likely the ghost of some previous owner. The front seat was a split bench with tufted, tan leather. On the dash was a glued-on portable GPS, which would have made Eddie’s outcalls easier to find. Next to that was a family of rubber ducks. A mama duck and three baby ducks “swimming” behind her; the last of the baby ducks coming loose and held to the dashboard by a piece of double-sided tape. Rubber ducks must be Eddie’s “thing”.
My first thought was that the car had been burgled. It happened often enough in L.A., and the car had been sitting there for a couple of days. Some drug addicts probably noticed it and broke in. I glanced into the backseat: empty water bottles, bags from drive-through restaurants, a Dodgers baseball cap, the ragged Thomas Guide that had been replaced by the GPS. Wait. The GPS was still there. Thieving drug addicts would not have left it stuck to the dashboard. They would have stolen it. So why break into Eddie’s car?
I slid over on the seat and opened the glove compartment. Inside was an ancient owner’s manual, receipts for repairs, two unpaid parking tickets. The corner of his car registration stuck out from the bottom of the heap. I eased it out from under and glanced at his address. He lived on DeLongpre in the Hollywood flats. On top of all this was a neatly folded piece of laser-printed paper. I took it out and unfolded it. Illogically, it was a suicide note. A suicide note for a man who’d been murdered.
It said, “I’m so ashamed of myself. I can’t go on any longer. I know I’ve brought sadness and shame
