Free Fall

the VCR were low-end Pioneer and neither was a bank breaker, even on a police officer's take-home. There was an overstuffed chair at either end of the couch, and a coffee table of bright white pine that matched the wall unit. He would've bought the set from one of those discount places. Imported, they would have told hum. Danish. There wasn't a sea of gold coins that you could dive into, or mounds of money bags scattered around, but I hadn't yet seen the bedroom. One shouldn't jump to conclusions.

I glanced through the kitchen, then went into the bedroom. It was small, with a single window and a door that led into the bath, and it wasn't any more lavishly appointed than the living room. I went into the bath first, then came back into the bedroom. There was a king-sized bed without a headboard, a nightstand, and a dresser with a large curved mirror that didn't match any of the other furniture. Garage sale. The bed was made and neat, and the spread was pulled tight across its surface. I went through the dresser drawers and then I looked under the bed. Under the bed there was a red Lily of France brassiere. Thirty-six C. I pulled it out and looked at it, but there was nothing to suggest the owner. Jennifer Sheridan might be a thirty-six C, but I hadn't asked and I hadn't thought about it. I put the brassiere back where I had found it, and then I looked in the nightstand. There was a New Balance shoe box in the large cabinet at the bottom of the nightstand with Mark Thurman's diploma from the police academy, a couple of letters from someone named Todd, and Thurman's credit card and banking receipts. Thurman held a checking account and savings account with Cal Fed, one MasterCard, one Visa card, plus gas cards from both Chevron and Mobil. He kept the billing statements from the Visa and MasterCard in a legal-sized envelope marked VISA. Neither card showed recent purchases for anything out of the ordinary, but the most recent bill was three weeks old. His savings account held $3,416.28. I copied the account numbers for the Visa and the MasterCard and then I put the box back as I had found it and went to the closet.

A summer-weight LAPD uniform and a set of navy winters hung with the sport shirts and the jeans and the slacks. They hadn't been worn in a while. A single blue suit looked like it didn't get worn much, either. There were shoes and a spinning rod and a set of golf clubs that looked so old they had probably been handed down from father to son. Above the clothes, a high shelf ran around the perimeter of the closet, weighted down with old issues of Sports Illustrated, a motorcycle helmet that looked like it had never been used, and a cardboard box containing an outsized scrapbook with yellowed clippings of Mark Thurman playing football and baseball and basketball and track for the Lancaster Wildcats. Four letter man. Mark had played fullback and strong side linebacker, going both ways for sixty minutes a game. There were newspaper photos of Mark in action, and Mark celebrating with teammates, but there were also snapshots of Mark alone and Mark with Jennifer and Jennifer alone, here Mark eating ice cream at the Tastee Freeze, here Jennifer posing shyly in the empty bleachers, here the two of them at the Sophomore Prom and the Junior-Senior and at graduation. I don't know how old they were in the earliest photographs, but they looked like babies. You got the feeling that Jennifer had taken the photos of Mark and Mark had taken the photos of Jennifer, and that there had never been anyone else in their lives, that they had been complete and whole since that moment when they'd fallen in love in the ninth grade, and, in some wonderful way, always would be. But maybe not. The clippings and the photographs began in ninth grade and ended with graduation. Maybe all those years of oneness had become oppressive to Mark and he had decided that there had to be more and, like the photos in the scrapbook, the oneness had to end. Maybe he had told me the truth. Maybe, after all those years, it was finally over.

I put the scrapbook back as I had found it and finished going through his things, but there were no keys to a newly purchased Porsche, no hastily scrawled map to bags of money buried in the high desert, and no unexplained series of numbers for the Swiss accounts. There was only the thirty-six C. That's the way it goes, sometimes.

I made sure the rooms were like I had found them, then I let myself out, locked the door, and went around to the drive. The German shepherd was gone. So was Allie. The other two were still on their backs. I said, 'Allie get bored?'

The one with the radio said, 'She said she was hot. She went in to cool off.'

The one with the little round glasses said, 'What took you so long?'

'Pit stop.' Elvis Cole, Man of a Thousand Lies. 'You guys know Mark's friend, Jennifer?'

'Sure.'

'She come around lately?'

'Not for a couple of weeks, but she used to.'

The one with the glasses said, 'She's so flat. I don't know what he sees in her.'

The one with the radio said, 'Puh-lease, Brittany.' Brittany. Whatever happened to the women's movement?

I said, 'Mark said he's got another friend. Have you met her?'

The one with the radio said, 'We haven't seen her.'

Brittany sat up and wrapped her arms around her knees. 'You mean he's available?'

I shrugged.

Michael Bolton started singing about how much being in love hurt and the one with the radio turned it up. Brittany lay back and stretched, making a thing out of lifting her ribs and showing her body. She looked thoughtful. Making plans, no doubt. Devising strategies.

The one with the radio said, 'Let me get Allie. She wanted to say good-bye.' Then she got up and went into the house. Brittany was mumbling to herself and Allie was probably mumbling, too. I left before they got back.

Women in heat are frightening to behold.

CHAPTER 4

I let myself out through the little gate, walked back to my car, and drove two blocks to a 7-Eleven where I used their pay phone to call a friend of mine who works in the credit department of Bank of America. I gave her Mark Thurman's name, social security number, and account numbers from both his Visa and MasterCard. I told her that I wanted to know if the charge totals for the month exceeded two thousand dollars and, if they did, how many separate purchases exceeded five hundred dollars and where and when they had been made. I also told her that I wanted to know if Thurman had applied for or received any additional credit cards during the past year. She asked me who the hell did I think I was, calling up out of the blue and asking for all of that? I told her that I was the guy who was going to take her to see Sting at the Greek Theater, then take her to dinner at Chinois on Main afterwards. She asked if tomorrow was okay, or did I want the information later tonight? She called me Chickie when she said it.

I drove back to the 405, then went south, back across the floor of the valley, then through the Sepulveda Pass and into the basin, heading toward Venice and Rusty Swetaggen's place. I left the freeway at Wilshire and