Red House Blues (22 page)

“
Kiki, I want you to
explain to me why, for chrissake,” said Marla. “Why you’re so hot
for Alexis all of a sudden and you’re treating me like
shit.”

“I’m hurt, Marla. I have to see a
doctor.”

“You’re hurt? You don’t know hurt. We’re
going to find a quiet place to park and you are going to tell me
why you decided to ditch me in front of everyone we know. Then I’ll
take you over to see your little girlfriend. And maybe I’ll smash
her face in just for kicks.”

The woman beside her was silent then. And
her silence was a blow. It spoke of fear. How could that be? Surely
she knew Marla couldn’t ever harm her? This was Kiki, her Kiki.

“I didn’t mean that,” said Marla. “I was
just pissed off and worried. You scared the crap out of me, you
know?”

A few blocks up Marla swung the car into a
narrow passage between a dry cleaners and a teriyaki shop, into an
alley that threaded garbage cans behind the shops. There she turned
off the ignition.

She would talk to the woman
cowering in the passenger seat - that was all - make her case,
plead maybe - who knows. It would be okay after all.
She’ll realize I’m the only one who really loves
her, the only one she can depend upon. I’ll hold her in my arms,
care for her. We’ll cry together. Then I’ll take her up to
Harborview and stay with her while they check her out, be with her
as she makes out the police reports. After tonight we’ll never be
separated again. She’ll be a star and I’ll be there by her side the
whole time supporting her, protecting her. We’ll put this night
behind us, forget we ever fought.

What happened then would remain frozen in
Marla’s memory - unchangeable - even fantastical. A thing that
couldn’t have happened but did, where everything went wrong. Angry
words flung between them - words that they should never have said,
but once said they were words, only words that should have been
easily forgiven. Could have been forgiven had there been time. But
there was no time. A blow. Then fury. The words like knives. Hands
grab for the torn strip of fabric at the tee shirt’s neck. Twist
off the words, shut out the sound. And it was over.

It never should have been. But she could not
take it back now, not make it right. Marla sat still for minutes
hoping that time would run backward and Kiki would wake up. At last
she knew no wishes would be granted that night. She needed to do
something with the body. There were plenty of places she could dump
it, she thought. Drive out into the mountains. Or just shove it
into one of the Dumpsters. But this was Kiki. She couldn’t dispose
of her as if she were trash.

In the end, what she did was lay the body
out in the middle of the alley. Stretched the arms out to the sides
as if she were embracing eternity, crossing the legs chastely at
the ankles out of respect.

Marla returned the car to the lot where she
had borrowed it, rubbed the keys with dirt and threw them under the
car. She didn’t worry about traces of her or Kiki’s presence being
found in the car. Nothing connected them with Ronny Jonson’s car
that, as far as any one knew, had been in the lot all night after
its owner went home in a cab. She thought it would probably be dawn
before someone found Kiki.

As it was, a homeboy cutting through the
alley found the body only two hours later. The kid called it in on
a stolen cell phone, then took off. Months later the cops got a tip
on the caller, picked him up but even though he had juvenile priors
they couldn’t connect him with Zell. They questioned all of her
friends. None had seen her with a man after she left the Comet. All
the police knew for sure was that Kiki Zell had been raped,
strangled and left in an alley a little after midnight on the first
of May of 1993. It would be ten years before they finally had the
technology to locate the man who raped her.

* * *

Only two people knew that the Alaskan
fisherman had raped Zell but hadn’t killed her - until one night
after the guilty verdict when Ronny Jonson was drinking at the
Comet with Scalplock’s new front man. The kid said he wished he’d
met Zell, wished he’d been there that night she died. Jonson said
he had been there that night. “Damned if I remember much though,”
he said. “God, I was destroyed! Had a hangover for days. Didn’t go
back for my car ‘til Tuesday.”

Ronny hadn’t thought of that night in years.
But now sitting at the Comet, looking back at that awful night an
unsettling memory stirred. Something about his car. The keys. That
was it, the keys. They hadn’t been in his pants pocket when he
looked for them the next day. He figured the bartender must have
confiscated them when he called the cab. But when he checked with
Cliff, who was tending bar that night, Cliff said he didn’t have
the keys. Jonson called Triple-A to get him into the locked car,
thinking he must have left the keys inside. But they weren’t in the
ignition. He searched under the dash and the seat but came up
empty. It was the Triple-A guy who found them under the car.

“Thing was, I wasn’t drunk,” Ronny told the
kid. “Not when I got to the Comet. I always put my keys in my right
front pants pocket. Never lost a key in my life ‘til that night. I
know I had them. So how did they get under my car?”

“Did you loan the car to someone?” asked the
kid. “You know, later when you were hammered, and not remembered
it? Or maybe someone ripped you off?”

“I don’t know.” He said. “I remember a
fight. Some women were really mixing it up but I wasn’t tracking
too good by then. Cliff put me in a cab. No, not Cliff. Marla.
That’s weird. I forgot it was Marla who got me into the cab. What
do you think of that?”

Chapter 21

The boat rocks gently at anchor. Listen,
eyes closed, to the sloshing of soft waves against the hull. A
comforting, soothing rhythm like breathing. Please let me sleep
forever. Tired, bones gone to water. Tired beyond dreams, beyond
caring. Somehow I have come home to Whidbey Island. Sean’s death
and the trip to Seattle. Murders and monster houses. All dreams.
Doesn’t matter, I’m home. In a little while I will row back to the
dock, tie up and go find Claire. She will have a theory about my
dream. Before long we’ll be laughing.

Sleeping, my back pressed to the ribs of the
boat. I will be sore and bruised in the morning. So dark, the moon
must have gone down. Or the sky is overcast. Can’t make out details
of the boat but it feels small. Rowboat small. I’m still half
asleep. But why am I in a boat? When I was a kid I’d take Dad’s
dinghy, row out into the center of the bay, ship the oars and
drift. But why am I out here at night?

“Your dad called me.” A voice from the other
side of the boat. “He wanted to come down but he’s got the
flu.”

The voice is familiar, but
intrusive
. It is pleasant dozing in the
dark boat, listening to the pulse of water against the wooden
sides. But there is someone in the boat with me - floating along
beside me, unseen and unwanted. A fragrance reaches me through the
salty mist. Something floral.

“Are you with me, girlfriend?” whispers the
voice.

How did she get here?

“Suzan, I know you’re awake. Open your eyes,
sweetie.”

“Oh no,” said Suzan, easing herself into
consciousness. “It is you after all, Claire.”

“Hey, that’s not exactly the warm welcome I
expected!”

“Sorry. I’m dreaming, I think. So where are
we, exactly?”

“If you open your eyes you’ll find out.”

Light seeped between her
lids. Not night after all
. Damn, why can’t
I go on dreaming, floating in a safe place with no death or pain or
lies. I might have known it couldn’t last.

A dim antiseptic room materialized. Claire
sat in a metal chair beside the bed holding Suzan’s hand, a hand
from which snaked a plastic tube to somewhere behind her head.

“How bad is it?” she asked.

“An impressive collection of bruises and a
mild concussion. Some stitches on your head where you must have hit
the concrete retaining wall,” said Claire. “That’s pretty much the
inventory.”

“So, I’ll live?”

“Basically.”

“At the risk of perpetrating a cliché, where
am I and what happened?”

“You’re in Harborview Hospital. You got
mugged or something. What were you doing wandering around the city
at night, anyway? God, Suze, that was not the smartest move you
ever made.”

“Guess not, considering,” she said. “Can’t
remember a lot. Marla took me to meet a guy at that house where
Sean used to live. After that ... well, I think I remember running
down the street at some point. That’s all I’m coming up with.”

“Well, never mind for now. The important
thing is to rest. The doctor says you’ll be okay to travel in a few
days, as soon as your eyes are tracking again. Then I’ll load you
in the Ford and we’ll get you home. You scared the shit out of us,
let me tell you.”

“I can’t leave yet. Things are just getting
interesting.”

“You’re kidding, right?”

“Maybe interesting isn’t the right word,”
said Suzan. “Could you do me a favor?”

“It depends.”

“There’s a guy, the guy who moved into
Sean’s old room. I have to talk to him,” she said. “He was hurt. He
may be in this hospital.”

“Hurt?”

“
Marla said it was a
traffic accident. If he’s still here I need to know what room he’s
in.”

Claire released Suzan’s hand.

“That’s the concussion talking. No way am I
indulging this craziness. You screwed up wandering around in the
dark, making yourself a target for every gangbanger in Seattle,”
she said. “I don’t know, maybe you need help. Maybe see someone
when we get home.”

Had Clair always treated her like a baby
sister who needed to be taken care of? Suzan hadn’t noticed until
then. Or maybe in the years since Sean left they had fallen into
those roles, a co-dependency of sorts. Claire needing to be needed,
Suzan a basket case requiring an extended period of mothering.

A realization took shape in Suzan’s pounding
head. Someone had gone to a lot to trouble to convince her to turn
tail.

“I know you mean well, Claire, but this is
my call,” she said. “You’ll have to leave without me. I don’t have
the strength to fight about this but I’ve decided I’m not about to
let them run me off.”

Whatever pain meds they had given her were
wearing off, her whole body was screaming in a vice of misery. She
wanted to be left alone to process what had happened but Claire
perched by the bed watching her as if she expected her to
disintegrate the second she turned her back.

“I’m not leaving you,” said Claire.
“Especially now. Who exactly is trying to run you off?”

“I’m not sure. If you want to help me find
out, see if you can learn what room Nick is in. I don’t know his
last name but I know that won’t stop you. You’ll have the whole
hospital eating out of your hand in ten minutes. Buy some flowers
in the gift shop and say he’s your boyfriend. Get me the room
number, that’s all. I’ll get to him as soon as I’m mobile.”

“And what do you seriously think that will
accomplish? The guy is probably in a coma anyway. Even if he’s
awake, what’s he going to tell you he didn’t say when you saw him
at the house?”

“He might tell me why someone tampered with
the Vespa and nearly killed him.”

“You said the guy had an accident.”

“No, I said Marla told me it was an
accident. There is a difference. She isn’t the most reliable
source,” she said, suspecting that was a vast understatement.
“You’re going to call me paranoid but I don’t like the idea that
Nick crashed after talking to me, then I’m attacked the same night
I go to that house with Marla. I suppose it could be a
coincidence.”

“You don’t believe that.”

“Would you?” said Suzan. “There’s also the
matter of Marla seeking me out at the hostel. I’m almost positive
she and her pals were waiting for me when I got into town. Those
people have to be connected with Sean’s death and I’m curious to
find out in what way and how they knew I was coming.”

Suzan waited for Claire to speak. She was
uncharacteristically silent, studying the folds of crisp white
hospital sheets.

“I know how they knew,” she said.

Suzan could see the pain as she struggled
with how to tell her what she had already guessed.

“I was all set to come down to tell you when
your dad told me you were in the hospital,” she said. “I couldn’t
trust the phone or e-mail. Sean’s nasty little pals knew . . . they
knew you were in town because Tony told them.”

There it was. Suzan didn’t remember much of
the night she was attacked but she did remember she had started to
piece it together. Tony. It had to have been Tony if it wasn’t
Claire. And Suzan refused to believe Claire was capable of such a
betrayal.

“I didn’t want to believe it,” Claire
continued. “I told myself that Tony didn’t know where Sean had gone
any more than we did. At least that’s what I thought. Now I suspect
he knew from the first where Sean was. All that hand-wringing and
searching was window dressing for our benefit. I think they kept in
touch by e-mail.”

“How could he do that to us, Claire? Why? I
would have sworn he was devastated. If he was in contact with Sean
for the last two years he’s a better actor than Tom Hanks.”

“I don’t know why. Maybe Sean swore him to
secrecy. Band of brothers or some such crap.”

“My god, Claire.”

“Yeah.”

“What made you think . . .”

“Remember I found you the Sea Turtle Hostel
on the internet? But as you know I’m not much of a geek. I pulled
the name from Tony’s bookmarks list, not really thinking what
interest he had in a Seattle hostel. I figured he must have stayed
there some time or other when he came down for seminars at the
University of Washington,” said Claire. “I now know that didn’t
make sense. Tony would have stayed closer to the university. Then
when I hadn’t heard from you for a few days, I thought something
might have corrupted my e-mail settings or something. What do I
know? I thought maybe you hadn’t gotten my e-mails because there
was something wrong with the computer. In the process of trying to
find out what was wrong I went into the address book. Half way down
the list was the e-mail address I’d seen on the hostel’s web site.
Someone has been e-mailing the hostel and it certainly isn’t me.
Tony is the only other person who uses our home computer.”