Free Fall

phone rang and I answered, 'Elvis Cole Detective Agency, we're on your case for no money down.'

Jennifer Sheridan laughed. It was a good laugh, nice and clear. She and Mark were living together in Lancaster. She had given up her job with Watkins, Okum, & Beale and had taken a new job with a law firm based in Mojave. She had taken a twenty-percent cut in salary to do it, but she said that it was what she wanted. Mark Thurman had applied for a job with both the Palmdale PD and the Lancaster PD, but had been rejected both times. He had decided to return to school and obtain a degree in physical education. He thought he might like to coach high-school football. Jennifer Sheridan was sure that he would be wonderful at it. She said, 'How do you expect prospective clients to take you seriously if you answer the phone that way?'

I gave her Groucho. 'You kiddin'? I wouldn't work for a client who'd hire me.'

She laughed again. 'You do a terrible Groucho.'

'Want to hear my Bogart? That's even worse.' You get me on a roll, I'm a riot.

She said, 'Mark and I are getting married on the third Sunday of next month. We're getting married in the little Presbyterian church in Lake Arrowhead. Do you know where that is?'

'I do.'

'We've sent you an invitation, but I wanted to call. We'd like you to come.'

'I wouldn't miss it.'

'If you give me Joe's number, I'd like to invite him, too.'

'Sure.' I gave her the number.

Jennifer Sheridan said, 'It won't be a big wedding, or particularly formal. Just a few people.'

'Great.'

'We want a church wedding. We like the tradition behind it.'

She was leading up to something. 'What is it, Jennifer?'

She said, 'I'd really like it if you gave me away.'

Something warm formed in the center of my chest, and then I felt it in my eyes. 'Sure. I'd like that, too.'

'I love him, Elvis. I love him so much.'

I smiled.

She said, 'Thank you.'

'Anytime, kid. Romance is my business.'

She said, 'Oh, you,' and then she hung up.

After a bit I put aside the paper and went out the glass doors and stood on my balcony. It was late afternoon, and the fall air was cool and nice. A beauty-supply company has the office next to mine. It is owned by a very attractive woman named Cindy. She is also very nice. Sometimes she will come out onto her balcony and lean across the little wall that separates her space from mine, and look into my office and wave to get my attention. I did that now, leaning across and looking in her office, but her office was empty. It goes like that, sometimes.

I took a deep breath and looked out over the city to the ocean and to Santa Catalina Island, far to the south, and thought about Jennifer Sheridan and her love for Mark Thurman, and I wondered if anyone would love me the way she loved him. I thought that they might, but you never know,

I stood on the balcony, and breathed the cool air, and after a while I went in and shut the door. Maybe I would come out again in a while, and maybe, this time, Cindy would be in her office.

One can always hope.

END OF FREE FALL

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Robert Crais was born in Louisiana but now lives in the Santa Monica mountains with his family and an Akita guard dog. He is the author of the Elvis Cole novels, Stalking the Angel, Lullaby Town, Free Fall, The Monkey's Raincoat, which won the Anthony and Macavity Awards and was nominated for the Edgar and Shamus Awards, and LA. Requiem, which was also nominated for an Edgar Award.