at First Sight (2008) (18 page)

I had an old army .45 hidden in my closet that I'd found in the weeds of a vacant lot behind our house a few years before. For some reason, when I found it, I didn't turn it in to the police. Why had I kept it? Well, I'm not exactly sure. Maybe I thought there would come a time when I would need an untraceable firearm. Maybe I just liked the way it felt in my hand. Maybe it was something as simple as finder's keepers. Or, here's a big one. Maybe all of this was writte
n d
own in the big book for me. Maybe my killing Evelyn was part of our preordained personal destinies.

I figured this gun had been ditched by somebody who had a criminal record. It had probably been stolen or used in a crime. At any rate, the important thing was, it couldn't be traced back to me.

Shortly after I found it, I bought a box of .45 ammo, went out to a shooting range and test-fired the thing. It worked fine. I didn't hit much, but in the army I'd learned that .45s were designed for use up close and not as target pistols.

I loaded it, making sure to wear gloves when I put the .45 shells into the clip. I've read my share of Michael Connelly and T. Jefferson Parker crime novels. I'm no dummy, and I understood it's possible for the cops to get a print hit off an ejected cartridge.

Once I had the car prepped, I put the gun, sans the loaded clip, under the seat, wrapped in a bunch of old newspapers. Then I put on jeans, a T-shirt, dark sunglasses, and a ball cap. With this disguise in place, I drove her car back to the car wash on Adams.

Delroy, the eighteen-year-old carjack-felon I'd overheard in the manager's office a month ago, was still working here. He was a finisher, which was perfect. Delroy was standing with another sullen youth, holding a chamois and a bottle of Windex, scowling at the line of cars like they were constipated turds.

I counted cars and timed it so when Evelyn's Mercedes came off the line at the end of the wash, Delroy would be next up and get the car. He opened the door, flopped in behind the wheel, and drove it t
o a
place where he could wipe down the water spots and do the tires and windows.

I walked over and watched him work. Delroy wasn't a happy guy. He was careless and left water spots everywhere. As I neared him, his animal magnetism hit me--his vibe. He was a menacing kid with impressive arms, which he displayed, having ripped the sleeves off of his blue car-wash jumpsuit. He exuded a murderous aura, if there is such a thing.

"Can y'get the dash?" I asked him.

He glared at me. "Say what?"

"There's still a lotta dust on the dash," I said.

He shot me his murder-one stare. "Ain't no fuckin' dust on your dash, Jim?'

"Do I need to get the manager?" I said, hoping this wasn't going to turn into some kind of altercation. He held my gaze for a few seconds, but finally turned with insolent grace, yanked the door open, got in again, and ran the rag carelessly over Evelyn's gold leather dash.

"You didn't clean the rearview mirror," I complained.

"Shee-it," Delroy muttered as he hit it with some Windex, then wiped it dry.

"You moved it," I persisted.

"The fuck?"

"You moved the mirror. I just saw you. Straighten it back. You should leave it like you found it."

"Hey, Mayonnaise, do I look like yo' fuckin' nigger?" he muttered, but he straightened the mirror.

When he finally climbed out of the car, I pointed under the seat. "What about all that?" I said, indicating the edge of the wad of newspapers poking out from under the seat. "Could you get that trash out from under there? I paid to get this car cleaned."

By then, Delroy'd had enough of me. He was sparking anger, wondering how he could take my head off and not go back to prison for it.

"I guess I'll just have to get Juan:" I sniveled, starting toward the manager's office.

Delroy growled something at me that I didn't hear, but as I turned back, he had already begun to fish for the trash under the seat. With elaborate fuck-you slowness, he started to remove the rumpled-up newspapers. As I mentioned, I had hidden the .45 in the middle of the wad, and Delroy quickly found it. He pulled the gun out, held it pointed carelessly in my direction, and grinned as if I'd just signed up to get my asshole stretched.

"Got yourself a strap under here, m'man. You licensed to pack this chunck a chrome? Still wanna talk to Fat Juan?" He kept smiling, the gold-boxed front teeth glinting in bright California sunlight.

"Just put it back:" I ordered.

He held it for a long time, trying to make me think he was about to shoot me right there on the car-wash finishing line. Of course, the , clip wasn't in, so nobody was going to get shot. At least not yet.

"Put it back," I said firmly.

Slowly, Delroy replaced the gun under the seat, smiling at me the entire time, like finding the gun had somehow made me his personal property--his yard bitch.

I pushed past him, got in the car, and drove home.

Once I arrived, I grabbed a pre-packed backpack that contained a plastic raincoat, a change of clothes, shoes, hat, and socks. Then I checked on Melissa again. My angry daughter was still zonked. So far, so good.

I went into the den and poured myself a stiff scotch on the rocks for courage. Then I sat in my upholstered club chair and waited for my adulterous wife to come home.

Chapter
21

A LOT OF THE GREAT FEMALE MARATHONERS TODAY
,
like Ethiopia's Getenesh Wami and Kenya's Helena Kirop, are from high altitudes and hot climates. The heat and thin air helps them with their training. Paige, on the other hand, trained in Charlotte, North Carolina, which was at sea level and freezing cold in winter. Wami and Kirop are light and almost seem to be built out of titanium, with no upper body--all legs and narrow shoulders. They carry what weight they have in their thighs and butts. Paige, on the other hand, had broad shoulders and carried her weight high. She'd started out in college as a middle-distance runner, so her strides tended to be less fluid and more choppy, but since Chandler had died, she'd been training more diligently, and her split times on 10Ks had come down to just under seven-minute miles-6:49 to be exact.

Since that terrible night when she learned of Chandler's death, her runs had been an oasis of sorts, where she could focus on the effort, and everything else faded away. As she ran, her mind miraculously cleared, and the Mean Reds were blown out of her like noxious exhaust. She began to contemplate her future. But the lingering anger--the Mean Reds--were always right behind her, chasing her like a swarm of gnats, waiting for her to slow down so they could engulf her again.

Paige ran in the evening along the well-lit clay path down by the river, smelling the damp, mist-wet ground, pushing herself harder and faster, trying to develop enough clarity to begin to chart the next act of her life. She was trying to view herself not as a victim, but as a work in progress.

One thing was damned sure. Chandler wasn't coming back. He was part of her past. If Paige intended to go on, she needed to establish some goals and pick up a more positive attitude.

It was November, on a Friday, almost seven months to the day since Chandler had died, and Paige was about four miles into her run, when she finally decided that she had to get out of Charlotte. Everywhere she looked there were painful memories. The restaurant where she and Chandler had gone to celebrate after they'd bought the house; the movie theater where they'd held hands and talked afterward about having a baby; the parks where they'd walked and shared their feelings. Even the dry cleaner that kept losing his favorite shirt. There were also her friends who still treated her like a broken thing. The constant reminders of what she'd lost were everywhere, an
d w
hen she saw them, they would drive her to the ground, where she would curl around her grief like a wounded animal.

She knew she had to leave. But where should she go? Where could she start her new life? Paige hadn't gotten to that part yet.

But her runs allowed her to stop marinating in Chandler's death, and if only for an hour, she was finally focusing on the future. She knew she would never find anybody to replace Chan, but she had to get on with life, had to reclaim what was left of Paige Ellis.

So, on that Friday, she finally made the decision to leave. It was an important first step.

When Paige returned from her run, she saw Bob Butler's car parked under a streetlight in front of her house. She slowed her pace as soon as she saw the gray Crown Victoria with her sad detective slumped in the front seat, waiting.

Right after Chandler died, she had looked forward to Bob's visits. They had pushed her out of the early stages of grief and forced her to contemplate the future, even though that future only encompassed the gristly act of vengeance.

Bob and Paige had pledged to catch the bastard. But lately, as her mind steadied and her emotions stabilized, she was beginning to have second thoughts.

Bob Butler had shown her how lack of closure could poison you. Bob was living proof of what could happen if you let yourself wallow in grief. She could still see the remnants of who he had once been, but his emotions had calcified. He was lost inside his Bible. There were fewer and fewer things that entertained or interested him. Wher
e o
nce there had been a lively enthusiast, she now only saw the skeletal fragments of what she thought was his former self. Paige was determined not to let that happen to her.

Worse still, despite his monumental, even heroic effort to find Chandler's killer, it was clear that Robert Butler was getting nowhere. This quest was all tied up in his emotions about his dead wife. This manhunt was something they were doing more for him now than for her. She could almost chart his failure in the stoop of his shoulders and the lower angle of his chin.

With no new breaks in the case to report, they often ended up giving their weekly meetings more weight by lapsing into long psychological discussions about loss and death. It was a subject where Paige still had no sense of proportion. They were both just venting.

She slowed and stopped a few hundred yards behind the gray sedan, and for an instant, had an urge to take off and ditch him. Catching Chandler's killer was no longer the sole answer for her. Vengeance had become a destructive emotion that kept her wallowing in despair.

But for the moment, they were still mired in it, so she jogged up to his car, stuck her head in the open passenger window.

"What's up, stranger?" she said, through a smile she didn't feel. "I think I'm finally getting somewhere," he said. "Get in and listen to what I just found out."

Chapter
22

I'D BEEN SITTING IN THAT DAMN CLUB CHAIR FOR
almost an hour when I finally heard Mickey D pull my Porsche into the garage. I heard them talking and laughing, then heard Mickey walking down the drive. He's short and wears Cuban heels, so when he walks his shoes clack; it's easy to hear him coming and going. His car is a piece-of-shit Camry, and to keep up appearances, Evelyn makes him park it just around the corner. Subtle as the Gay Pride Parade, these two.

Then Evelyn entered the house. I saw her walk down the hall to get her car keys out of the dish in the kitchen. She looked in the den and saw me pounding down scotch shooters, slumped in my chair, but she didn't bother to acknowledge my presence. She walked right past. But that's okay, Evelyn, 'cause you're about to get your wheels cleaned.

Evelyn passed the doorway again, heading out. This time she didn't bother to look in at all. I heard her unlatch the back door and walk into the garage. She started the gold Mercedes and pulled out.

I rocketed up out of my chair, and still clutching the bottle of scotch, I grabbed my gloves, my pre-packed backpack of fresh clothes, and a box containing the now-loaded .45. Then I followed her into the garage. I waited until she'd cleared the drive, then climbed into the Porsche and checked to make sure the lovers hadn't left the gas tank on E. Then I followed her.

My hands were shaking as I drove. I don't know if it was from anticipation, excitement, or fear. It took us about forty minutes, with the traffic, to get to her hair salon in the Valley.

I knew once I stepped out of the Porsche and started to do this, there would be no turning back. I couldn't approach her wearing a ball cap, dark glasses, and a plastic raincoat, aim a .45 at her through the window of the Mercedes, then get cold feet and say, "Sorry, just kidding." This would have to be, as they say in show biz, a one-take master.

It was about four-fifteen when she pulled in and parked behind Salono Bello. The hair salon is located in a strip mall on the north end of Van Nuys Boulevard. The guy who does her hair is a narrow-hipped sword dancer with a hair transplant. His name is Mr. Eddy--not Eddie, not Ed--Mr. Eddy. I love this shit.

I parked a block away in an alley and walked up the street to a spot where I could see her getting out of her car. I couldn't do the deed right then because, at that exact moment, some Mexican delivery guy was all involved in unloading boxes from his rusting van.

I found a spot up the street where I was out of sight but could see the parking lot and Evelyn's car. I opened the backpack and put on my leather gloves, then pulled the baseball cap low. I opened the bag and took out the plastic raincoat. The clothes I was wearing were old, and even though I had the raincoat, I was planning on dumping everything after the shooting to defeat paraffin tests and blood splatter evidence.