Allison (A Kane Novel) (34 page)

“Looks fine,” said Mike.  He pulled on his own gloves and donned his helmet.  “Let’s do it.”

I dismounted and followed Mike through a narrow gate designed to prevent the passage of motorized vehicles, rolling my bike vertically on the back wheel through the barrier.  From hikes I had taken in the Santa Monica Mountains years back, I knew we were entering a portion of Topanga State Park where the use of trails and fire roads was limited to hikers, bike riders, and equestrians—an uneasy mix that shared the park in a spirit of begrudging tolerance.  Nevertheless, as there had been no other cars parked at the bottom of Queensferry, I suspected it was unlikely that we would encounter anyone on our way up Sullivan Canyon at that early hour.

Once past the gate Mike threw a leg over his bike, clicking the metal inserts on the bottoms of his biking shoes into the pedals.  As I remounted my own bike, Mike pulled over, bracing himself against the trunk of a eucalyptus tree.  “We’ll be heading up an old dirt service road that the gas company restored some years back,” he said.  “Thanks to the rains, it has mostly washed out again and is single-track most of the way up.  There’s water, rough ground, sand, shale, and plenty of climbing.  There’s also no rush, so we can stop to rest anytime you want.  Just let me know.”

“Don’t worry about me,” I replied.  “We’ll stop when
you
want.”

Initially the ride proceeded down a short slope, following the last of the Queensferry pavement to a creek a hundred yards distant.  At first, as I accelerated through the cool mountain air, I regretted not bringing my jacket.  I regretted it doubly when we reached the creek bed and lost the sun.  But as we turned right and started up the canyon, following what seemed to be little more than a footpath winding through the gravel and sand of the streambed, I quickly forgot about being cold.  The ride was going to be a lot harder than I thought.

Unlike the chaparral-covered mountain slopes above, this lowermost stretch of Sullivan Canyon was dense with sycamore, oak, and cottonwood.  Here and there, as the trail proceeded through banks of blackberry bramble and native grasses, I spotted sporadic flashes of color—the oranges, yellows, and blues of spring’s resident wildflowers somehow persisting into the heat of summer.  With the exception of several rain squalls that had pelted the Southland during July, Southern California had received little precipitation since spring.  Despite the lack of rain, a spill of water still ran in the streambed, collecting in shallow pools behind logs and rocks.  Though the creek now appeared tame, deep erosive cuts in the banks attested to the stream’s power in flood.  The flow of the creek gradually increased as Mike and I climbed higher, and on numerous occasions we were forced to cross.  Following Mike’s lead, I pedaled through each ford without falling, enjoying the cooling splash on my legs.

Despite the shade of the canyon and our occasional bracing charges through the water, I was soon perspiring heavily.  Patches of perspiration stained my tee shirt under my arms and soaked a dark V on my chest.  Worse, sweat kept trickling into my eyes, the salty sting an increasing irritation.  My breathing growing labored, I repeatedly wiped my face on my shoulder, a risky maneuver while negotiating tricky terrain that more than once almost sent me careening into the streambed.  Still, I refused to call a rest.

Mike continued smoothly up the steepening trail, the muscles of his arms and shoulders standing out under his shirt like strands of a hawser, his steel-corded legs pumping like pistons.  Glancing back from time to time, he occasionally slowed to let me close the gap between us.  Noticing this, I strained even harder, determined to keep him in sight.  Running had toughened my body, but I quickly realized that my morning jogs had merely conditioned me for
running
, not biking, which seemed to require a whole different set of muscles.  The low gear I was using had seemed ridiculously easy at first.  Now, my legs turning to rubber, I wished I could drop the gear ratio down another notch.  Maybe several.

Again and again I was forced to dismount and push my bike past washed-out sections of trail—interludes that provided little respite but at least gave me an opportunity to drink from my water bottle, something Mike managed to do while still riding.  Twice he called back to ask whether I wanted to rest; each time I doggedly refused, insisting I was fine.  My goal, however, had changed.  No longer was I obsessed with keeping up.  Now I simply wanted to make it to the top.

After forty minutes of steady climbing, Mike and I began ascending the right bank of the canyon, finally leaving the cooling shade of the streambed.  Once more in the sun, we climbed a series of punishingly steep switchbacks to a rutted fire road topping the ridge, emerging from shoulder-high banks of yellow mustard weed on both sides of the trail.  Mike stopped on a level section that offered a panorama of the canyon below.  Heart thudding, lungs burning, shoulders aching, thighs cramping, I pulled up beside him.

Mike raised his water bottle and took a long pull.  “Nice going,” he said.  “Not many could have made that climb their first time out.”

I grabbed my own bottle, greedily guzzling the last of my water.  “Not many girls, you mean,” I gasped, wiping my mouth with the back of my hand.

“Not many, period.”

“It wasn’t so bad,” I puffed.  Heart still pounding, I looked down the way we had come.  A swath of green marked the bottom of the narrow canyon, tracing the course of the streambed as it snaked toward the ocean.  Ahead, the fire road we had joined climbed at a much gentler pace.  “Where to now?” I asked when I had finally caught my breath.

“You still want to do the loop that Mr. French took back to Mandeville Canyon?”

I nodded.

“Then we go up.”

Ten minutes of easier climbing brought us to the crest of an east-west ridge guarding the lower San Fernando Valley.  Here the fire road exited through a gate onto an improved dirt road, its graded surface over twenty feet wide.  After taking a single-track trail skirting the metal barrier, we again stopped to rest.  “I didn’t even know this road was here,” I noted, surveying the sprawling cityscape below.

“Few people do,” said Mike.  “We’re now on a portion of Mulholland Drive that’s never been paved, thanks in part to lobbying by several equestrian groups that ride up here.”

“Can you drive a car up here?”

“Sure.  It connects with paved sections at both ends.  But as I said, hardly anyone knows it’s here.  Great view, huh?”

“Gorgeous,” I agreed, my eyes sweeping the distant valley.  “What’s that lake down there?” I asked, pointing to an irregularly shaped body of water nestled in the foothills a mile or so north.

“Encino Reservoir.”

At Mike’s words, my blood ran cold.  “That’s where . . .”

“Yeah,” said Mike, picking up my train of thought.  “Pretty inaccessible, huh?  You can see why someone would consider it a good place to dump a body.”

I stared down at the reservoir.  As Mike had noted, it appeared unapproachable.  Steep, brush-covered ridges formed its eastern and western flanks; an earthen dam comprised the northern terminus.  Smatterings of housing developments dotted the hillside lower down—all clearly out of sight of the water.  Because of its lofty location, Encino Reservoir was visible only from the air . . . and the section of dirt road on which we now stood.  “It’s a great place for someone to dump a body,” I agreed.  “But first that certain someone would have to know the reservoir was there.”

“Ali, you don’t think . . .”

“I don’t know what I think,” I said.  And in truth, I didn’t.  After meeting Jordan’s mother and hearing her emotional denials, I, like most in the media, had come to believe that Mr. and Mrs. French couldn’t possibly have had anything to do with their daughter’s death.  Now I wasn’t so sure.

Mike looked at me doubtfully.  “Just because Mr. French rides up here doesn’t mean anything.”

“I know.  On the other hand, as you pointed out, not many people even know that this road is here.  I hate to say this, but now I can think of
one
person who does.  And he’s connected to the case.”

Mike nodded thoughtfully.  “Is that why you wanted to retrace Mr. French’s bike route?”

“Maybe.  Call it a hunch,” I replied.  Raking my eyes over the ridge, I spotted a cut in the hillside beneath a line of high-voltage power stanchions.  I traced the trail as it snaked down the mountain, losing it behind a hill before it reached the water.  “I think there’s a way down to the reservoir over there,” I added.  “Let’s check it out.”

“It’s an old access road.  A locked gate is at the top.  You can’t get down that way.”

I remounted my bike.  “Let’s check it out anyway.”

After cranking past a small rise, I located the beginning of a narrow dirt road intersecting our unimproved section of Mulholland.  An iron gate topped with outward-curving spikes blocked the road’s entrance; a thick chain and a handful of interlinked padlocks secured the gate to a stout metal pole.  Unlike the fire road gate we had encountered earlier, this barrier was accompanied on either side by an eight-foot-high fence topped with barbed wire.

I dismounted, leaning my bike against the fence.  Disappointed that we couldn’t continue to the water, I examined the locks on the gate.  Two identical, circular-shaped padlocks at either end displayed Department of Water and Power markings—with one of the DWP locks hooked through a gate chain.  Linked between the DWP locks were three smaller padlocks of various makes and shapes.  A final padlock connected the second DWP lock to the opposite end of the chain, securing the gate.  All the locks exhibited a reddish patina of rust and had probably been put there, I suspected, by different county agencies for their own use.  None of the locks appeared to have been disturbed.  The gate itself looked as if it hadn’t been opened for years.

“Told you,” said Mike, who had followed me to the locked entrance.  “C’mon, let’s hit the trail.  We still have a lot of distance to cover.”

“Hold on a sec.”  I peered through the gate, searching for signs of recent passage.  Like the gate, the ground on the other side looked undisturbed, although I realized the rocky roadbed might not be soft enough to show tire tracks.  Furthermore, any of the infrequent rainstorms that had blown across the Southland over the past weeks could have erased any tracks or footprints that had been left.

“I don’t want to burst your bubble, Ali, but I’m sure the police investigated all this,” Mike pointed out.  “It’s not something they would be likely to miss.”

“No, it isn’t,” I conceded.  “On the other hand, I’m not at all certain they know that Mr. French’s morning bike ride takes him in plain view of the reservoir down there.  For the time being, let’s keep this between us.”

“If you want.”

“Promise?”

Mike smiled.  “Cross my heart.  Anyway, it’s probably just coincidence.”

“Maybe.”  With one last glance at the reservoir, I remounted my bike.

“You have something in mind, don’t you?”  Mike looked at me curiously.  “What are you going to do?”

I shrugged.  “I don’t know.  Yet.”

23

After Mike dropped me off at UCLA, I lay on my dorm room bed, contemplating my discovery.  True, Mr. French’s knowledge of the reservoir’s presence might be coincidental, as Mike had suggested.  On the other hand, like my father, I accepted coincidence as an explanation only when all other avenues had been exhausted.  Yet no matter how I racked my brain, I couldn’t decide how to proceed.  In the end I resolved that my best course lay in simply turning over the information to my dad and letting him take it from there.  And if I were lucky, maybe there would be something in it for me.  Having made that decision, I couldn’t wait to talk with Dad.

Later that evening I drove to Malibu for dinner with my family, arriving at the beach at a little past six.  Although the dining room table was set and a pot of a delicious-smelling stew sat simmering on the stove, the house appeared deserted.  Wondering where everyone was, I made my way to my parents’ bedroom.  “Mom?” I called through the open door.  “Dad?”

No answer.

Thinking they must be downstairs on the deck, or possibly taking a walk on the beach, I entered their bedroom and stuck my head out an open window near the bed.  Not spotting them on the deck, I scanned the beach, failing to see them there, either.  Disappointed, I decided to check the music room downstairs.  As I left the bedroom, I passed my parents’ desk—an oak secretary where Mom paid bills and Dad, though complaining the desk was too fancy for his taste, occasionally worked as well.  A thick, three-ring binder on the desk caught my eye.  A single word, inscribed in my father’s bold cursive, was written on the binder’s spine:  French.

Over the years Dad had brought home similar books.  Though I had never looked into one, I knew that LAPD homicide detectives referred to them as murder books.  I also knew that they contained all pertinent documents and information relating to a case.

Curious, I returned to the bedroom and looked out the window again.  Then, on impulse, I went to the desk and picked up the binder, not really intending to open it.  It felt heavy, the files and reports crammed between its blue plastic covers as thick as a dictionary.  I hesitated, my curiosity building.

Against my better judgment, I opened the book.  Ignoring a surge of guilt, I quickly flipped through its contents, pausing on a grisly photo taken at the reservoir.  Nauseated, I continued turning pages.  I stopped when I came to the coroner’s findings, a pivotal report that had been sealed at my father’s request.

Most of the autopsy protocol—a multipage document containing anatomical drawings, photographs, swab results, histological summaries, and laboratory findings—proved too dry to hold my interest, and I skimmed through the pages rapidly.  As reported in the sketchy details given to the press, the cause of Jordan’s death had been a subdural hematoma.  Details that had not been disclosed to the public included the absence of water in her lungs and stomach, as well as the presence of areas of vaginal erosion and tissue inflammation.  Someone had underlined the latter, penning “chronic sexual abuse?” in the margin.  As I was about to move on, another underlined section caught my eye—an autopsy analysis of the gastric contents.  Jordan’s last meal, pasta with a red seafood sauce, had undergone a period of digestion of three to four hours before she’d died.  The digestion duration had been circled twice, with the addition of another question mark.