Earth Angel (37 page)

“That was footage of Grace Weiss staking out the Henley address earlier this evening, apparently unaware the kidnapping had
already occurred. And here she is at the home of local resident, anthropologist David Payton, as she worked to break this
fiendish riddle.” There I was again, sitting on David’s living room floor, my lists, the phone book, the map book, the dirty
dishes from cheesecake. Me in David’s shorts and T-shirt, looking haggard and defeated, my
hair stringy. I scribbled on the pad, looked something up in the map book index, completely unaware I was being filmed. I
calculated the angle of the camera to have come from the stairs. And from the length of the lists on the table, I even knew
the time of the filming. Just before Josh appeared.

Josh. The little bastard.

I lost whatever commentary Stanford Dale was giving with the video until I heard him say, “… is really Dr. Season Gottlieb,
whose fiancé, Dr. Timothy Kane, was responsible for the killings of five people at the clinic where Dr. Gottlieb worked.”
And there was videotape of the grisly crime scene, followed by some home video from a nurse at the hospital where Tim worked.
A picnic we’d attended at her house last summer. Tim and I playing croquet, deliberately trying to hit each other’s balls
so we could whack the other into the bushes. I’d seen this footage before at the time of Tim’s death. “Again,” Stanford Dale
continued, “the police refuse any comment as to whether or not they knew Grace Weiss’s real identity. For more on this bizarre
story, we go now to Karl DeMarco outside the David Payton household. Karl?”

Karl DeMarco stood on the sidewalk outside David’s house. No lights were on in the house and the car was not in the driveway
where David usually parked it because he was the only person in America without an automatic garage-door opener. Karl DeMarco
was a short, swarthy man who needed to shave at least twice a day and seemed to have missed his second shaving. “We’ve approached
the house several times, Stanford, but so far no answer. Whether that means no one’s home or just that no one is answering,
I don’t yet know. But we do know that Dr. Season Gottlieb has been very busy since her fiancé’s death at the hands of the
police.”

And there was Tina Grover and her daughter Beth telling a reporter how I’d tried to give them fifty thousand dollars. And
there was Daryl St. James standing in front of Gotham
City, reaping publicity for his store. He’d turned out to be quite the blabbermouth. And there were Gordon Moore and Jackie
Frears, arm in arm outside a movie theater, both refusing comment, then hurrying into the theater.

There was a knock at my door. I peeked out the curtain. It was the old man. I opened the door. “Hi,” I said.

“Sorry to bother you, Ms. Weiss, but there have been phone calls inquiring about you. Reporters. I told them you checked out
earlier this evening. I hope that was the right thing to say.”

“It was perfect. Thank you.” He obviously knew my real name. He obviously knew why reporters were calling. Yet he still referred
to me as Ms. Weiss and made no mention of the television reports. He just nodded and slowly strolled back toward the office,
stopping once to turn around and say, “I sure hope you catch the rat-fucker.”

“Yes, I hope so, too.” I closed the door. I shut off the TV. I climbed into bed. I had expected to toss and turn and not be
able to sleep after all that had happened. But I closed my eyes and fell asleep immediately.

“Grace!” Knock, knock. “Season!” Knock, knock.

I opened my eyes and waited to see if I was just dreaming.

“Open up. It’s David.” Knock, knock.

I sat up. The knocking wasn’t on my door, but four doors down, where my old room was. I looked at my watch on the nightstand.
It was a few minutes past midnight. I’d only been asleep fifteen minutes.

I heard a door open. “What the fuck are you doing? We’re sleeping!”

I peeked out the side of the curtain. David stepped back, startled to see the tiny old man standing in the doorway in Jockey
shorts in what he thought was my room.

“I’m looking for Grace Weiss,” David said. “Or Season Gottlieb. This is her room.”

“I don’t know these women, mister. This is my room as of tonight and I’ve got a long drive ahead of me tomorrow, so I’d appreciate
it if you went somewhere else and slept it off.”

David looked around the small parking lot, didn’t see my car. His shoulders sagged. “Sorry,” he said to the old man.

“Yeah, sure,” the old man replied and closed the door.

Why not just open the door and say, “David, I’m here, come on in. You’ll get a kick out of my story.” That’s what I asked
myself as I watched him hurry across the street, climb into his car, and drive away. I tried to come up with some grand answers,
something to do with my mission and blah, blah, blah. But in the end I just decided I was scared to face him. It’s easier
to have a mission than a man.

In the morning I called my mother.

“Hi, Mom.”

“Season? What the hell have you been up to? I thought you were in Europe, I see on the news you’re in Santa Barbara. What
the hell’s going on? Who’s the anthropologist?”

“It’s complicated. I’ll explain it later. How’re you feeling?”

“How am I feeling? I’m feeling like my daughter lied to me and made me out to be an idiot to everyone I told about your wonderful
stay in Europe. Oh, Season is having a marvelous time, I just spoke to her yesterday.”

“It’s something I had to do, Mom. I can’t talk about it right now.” Something broke in my voice and I stopped talking.

Mom didn’t say anything for a moment either. Then she laughed and her voice softened. “Then just tell me to shut up, for God’s
sake. I don’t have to know everything. Screw my friends, they don’t have to know everything either. They got their own problems,
believe you me. Billy Goldfarb,
you remember him? You went to Hebrew school with his little sister.”

“Shelly.”

“Right, Shelly, the one with the unfortunate mole on her chin. Well, Billy is a female impersonator in Boston. Dresses up
like Barbra Streisand and Liza Minnelli and sings like them, too. I heard a tape the Meltzers made when they were there. He’s
very good. His parents don’t think anybody in town knows. Don’t tell them, honey, they’re good customers. Buy a couple pounds
of corned beef and two dozen bagels every Saturday like clockwork. They think we know about Billy, then they won’t come in
anymore.”

I sighed. “Mom, when am I going to tell them?”

“How should I know? I have no idea what you’re doing or when or where? I go to bed, I think you’re in Switzerland skiing,
maybe getting laid by some blue-eyed Nazi named Otto, I turn on the TV and find out you’re Angela Lansbury, solving crimes
in California. So, you going to catch this bastard or what?”

“How’s Dad taking it?”

“He’s taking it. How should he take it? He bakes, he bitches at me for still being in bed. He’s got a special today, reuben
sandwich, toasted sweetroll, and choice of beverage: $5.50. Calls it a Mrs. Columbo Special, after you.”

“Any reporters call?”

“Oh, sure. They call, we say nothing, just like last time with poor Tim.”

Poor Tim. An image of Tiny Tim flashed in my head, a little boy with Tim’s face saying “God bless us, every one.”

“Sorry, Mom. For the mess, for not telling you the truth. I don’t know what I was thinking.”

She laughed. “Sweetheart, you think we care about reporters? Screw them. Season, why don’t you come home for a while. Let
us take care of you.”

I wanted to. I pictured myself flying home, crawling into bed next to my mother, the two of us just lying there watching talk
shows all day, arguing about the topics. Handing the remote back and forth. It made me homesick. “I’ll call you soon. Say
hi to Dad.”

Immediately I dialed Carol’s number at home—knowing she was at work—and got her machine. I left a message: “Carol, it’s Season.
I’ll explain everything very soon. You’ve seen my new haircut and color, think of that as punishment enough for not confiding
in you. Okay?”

I took a shower, long and hot. Then I did something I hadn’t done since I was a kid, I peed in the shower. I guess I was out
of practice because the shower water drove the urine back against my leg. But I didn’t mind. It felt warm and the tangy smell
of it mixing with the steam made me feel dreamy. I resoaped my legs, rinsed, and stepped out of the shower. I wiped the fog
from the mirror with my hand. My dye-job looked bad. The blond roots were reaching up like pale fingers from the grave.

The hot water drummed against my face until my skin felt numb. Why hadn’t I stopped to see Carol while I was home? Why hadn’t
I called her to explain? Carol was my best friend. I opened my eyelids and let the water stab my eyes for a second before
closing them tightly. God, that hurt. I rubbed them with my knuckles. Why hadn’t I confided in her, at least explained myself?
I opened my mouth. The hot water tenderized my tongue and filled my mouth. I swallowed. I guess the truth was I had never
treated Carol as a friend, but more like a prop. My confidences to her had always been small, the plot details of my life.
Things that had happened. I had never told her how I felt, never expressed any doubts in Tim, in myself, in my commitment
as a doctor. In a way, she was me; I’d told her only what I was willing to admit to myself. The secrets I’d kept from her
I’d kept from me.

The bathroom door flew open and Trump stood there
with an impatient look. For a moment I thought it had something to do with me peeing in the shower. “Sorry, to barge in but
I’ve been waiting out here for twenty minutes and I’ve got to drive my daughter to the train station in a few minutes. She’s
outside with Mr. Kessler, throwing raisins up into the tree. So let’s get down to it.”

I wrapped the towel around my body. “How’d you know I was here?”

“Mr. Kessler called us last night when you checked out, just as I had asked him to several days ago. He called us again when
you checked back in.”

“The old man is a spy?”

“Retired cop, Phoenix P.D. His dad was a deputy under Wyatt Earp, didn’t he tell you?”

I shook my head and edged past her into the room. I found my underpants and slipped them on under my towel. Jeans, too. I
kept my back to her while I fastened my bra and pulled on my sweatshirt. The whole procedure felt a little like getting dressed
after a strip search. But I was used to it. No matter where I hid lately, somebody always found me.

“Anyway,” she said, sitting down in the chair by the TV, “Mr. Kessler called last night and told us you’d checked out. I told
him to keep a room open for you. Just in case.” She frowned at me as I toweled my hair. “Your roots are looking pretty bad.
You might want to touch them up or something.”

“Why are you here, Lieutenant Trump? Other than fashion advice. I already know I screwed up. If I hadn’t ducked you those
few days I might have figured out the note earlier. Soon enough to prevent Christa Vaughn’s kidnapping.”

“That’s true. You blew it.” She lifted the edge of the window curtain, checked on her daughter. “But that was then and this
is now,” she said, facing me again. “Christa Vaughn was found in the trunk of a car early this morning.”

I held my breath. “Alive?”

“Yes, alive. But this time he committed rape. Vaginal, anal, and oral. Not with his penis, but with some sort of wooden object,
not a dildo, something else. Christa’s not too coherent yet.”

I dropped the wet towel on the carpet and sank to the bed. I knew my legs wouldn’t support me anymore. “Isn’t it too soon
for him to release her? He usually waits longer.”

“I think he’s speeding things up in your honor. You seem to have gotten his attention.” She looked at her watch. “I have a
train to catch.” She stood up. She was wearing a dark striped suit today, with a black tie and black stockings.

“Where are you going?” I asked.

“Not me, my daughter. I’m sending her to my mother up north for a while.”

“Because of the kidnapper?”

“Damned right because of the kidnapper. Because he’s a crazy fucker who’s liable to do anything. And because the bastard put
Christa Vaughn in the trunk of
my
goddamn car.
I’m
the one who found her this morning, hunched and naked and whimpering in my trunk right next to my golf clubs.”

I imagined Lt. Trump lifting the naked girl out of the car, like delivering a giant baby.

“Just give me the note,” I said. “I assume you got another note. That’s why you’re here.”

She opened her purse, walked around the bed, and handed me a folded piece of paper. “He may not wait three days for the next
kidnapping, Season. Not now that he knows about you. It’s as if he’s excited that you’re involved. Like a boy having sex for
the first time, he can’t hold back.”

I unfolded the paper and read the note:
I am not the enemy of the people. I do not have the mark of the beast. And to show you my good faith, I leave you a sign,
for I
am a diamond in the ruff. Catch me if you can, Homer. P.S. Excellent work so far, Dr. Gottlieb, I hope you find this more
challenging.

I refolded the paper and laid it on the bed next to me. I felt exhausted just reading it, as if it had vaporized the fluids
in my body. I closed my eyes. “I hate that he knows my name. Makes me feel creepy.”

“I know,” she said quietly. “Knowing he was at my house, in my car, near my daughter…”

“Do you think I’m in danger?” I asked.

“He doesn’t know you’re here. Let’s keep it that way.” She picked up the note. “You make anything out of this?”

I shook my head. “I have no idea what he’s talking about. I’ll have to work on it.”

That seemed to anger her. “Try real hard, okay? We don’t have time to indulge your personal traumas this time. You have some
compulsion to save somebody? Save the next girl. The next victim, our psychologists tell us, will get the full treatment.
Rape, torture, and probably murder.” She stared at me to make sure it all sank in. She dropped a business card on the bed.
“This has my home number and my beeper number. Call as soon as you’ve got something. Anything.” She didn’t wait for an answer.
She turned and left. Her footsteps echoed in the courtyard.