The First Cut (24 page)

An oddball mixture of antipolice activists and Lonny Velcro fans picketed the Pasadena Police Department for weeks. Volume fan sites on the Net railed against Vining. A top attorney hired by Velcro’s heirs claimed he was unarmed and Vining had planted the gun. The attorney attempted to show that Vining had a history of overreacting when wielding a badge.

PPD investigators turned up a man who claimed to have sold guns to Velcro and had a Polaroid of him posing with a .45 that might have been the one used in the shooting. Several unregistered firearms were found in the mansion. Investigators also tracked down women whom Velcro had threatened with guns. He was known to carry firearms.

The plaintiffs refused to settle. The case went before a jury who found in favor of the city.

A week after the verdict, the pearl necklace was dropped unwrapped into the mailbox at Vining’s home. A small card attached by a ribbon had a simple message: Congratulations, Officer Vining.

Most of the letters and cards that Vining received commended rather than condemned her for her actions. Some people had sent small gifts: stuffed toys, balloons, flowers, baskets of fruit, and goodies. These she donated. The pearl necklace stood apart. She had it appraised. It was costume jewelry, although first-rate. The “diamonds” were cubic zirconia. The pearls were imitation, but good quality. It was well made and hard to distinguish from the real thing. The jeweler estimated it was worth around $500.

She hadn’t given it away. She told herself someone was generous in rewarding her for a job well done. Still, she could never bring herself to wear it. Now she understood why.

“What’s the significance of pearls? It’s not my birthstone. I was born in April. My birthstone is diamond.”

“What month is pearl?” Emily asked.

“Don’t know.”

“Let’s look it up.”

After a minute on the Internet, Emily had the answer. June.

Em, crafty Em put it together. “Mom, T. B. Mann attacked you in June. Didn’t the Lonny Velcro incident happen in June?”

“Yes.”

“Don’t you get it? Pearl is your death stone.”

V
INING TOOK A PILL TO HELP HER SLEEP. SHE HATED RELINQUISHING EVEN
that amount of control, but her body and mind needed rest. Still, she dreamed. She dreamed her death dream, reliving the vision she’d had when she was dead for two minutes and twelve seconds.

She floated toward a radiant white light and passed a long line of all the dead people in her life. The vision was a classic death experience as reported by many. Vining had read dozens of similar versions on the Internet. That was why she discounted it as meaningless and silly. Its commonness surely proved that the experience was based in physiology. Tonight was the first time she’d had a dream that replicated it.

The line of dead people was long. It included friends and family, even relatives who had passed when she was a kid and whom she had barely known. All the souls she’d encountered during her years as a police officer were there—the traffic fatalities, the suicides, the homicides. Many she knew only as corpses. She saw Tiffany Pearson, Marnie Allegra, and Lonny Velcro. She saw the victim of the gang-related shooting she’d investigated right before her assault. Eleven-year-old Denzel Johnson was shot twelve times while riding his bike through an alley on his way home from school. He smiled sweetly at her.

Frankie Lynde was closest to the light. She was standing tall in full dress uniform, brass buttons and belt buckle polished. Her hair was pulled into a tight bun. Her hat was square on her head. Her eyes were clear and knowing.

The dead watched as she passed. They did not convey sadness or anger, not even Lonny Velcro. From them, Vining felt peace. None spoke but they had messages for her, wordlessly imparted as she floated toward the light. Messages she didn’t comprehend, but felt she would one day. She moved past Frankie Lynde and took her message as if accepting a mysterious gift wrapped in shapeless tissue paper. Then her progress toward the light stopped. For a brief second, she was suspended, looking into the light, feeling the wonder of it, but knowing she would go no farther right now.

She awakened feeling refreshed but not at peace, not like her dead people. The dream did not comfort or enthrall her. It was just one more confusing pinpoint in her map that was taking her down the road to nowhere except maybe a 5150 lockup. She’d done a fifty-one and a half on a woman before, involuntarily committing her to a mental hospital for seventy-two hours. The woman was stony and quiet the entire trip. Vining now understood. Talking about it gave it validity.

In the early morning while Emily slept, Vining played the CD. After a solid night’s sleep and in the warm light of morning, she again heard Frankie Lynde’s instructions seven minutes in. Why couldn’t Emily hear it? If her subconscious was conjuring messages from Frankie, it was doing so with precision timing. Maybe she was losing her marbles. That was the true explanation.

She stepped back and tried to look at it from a different perspective. What if she did wear the necklace? What harm would it do? Who would know? On the other hand, maybe that step made her certifiably insane, following instructions given by voices in her head. Wasn’t that what some of the notorious psychos of all time did? Didn’t Son of Sam claim to glean his instructions to murder from a dog?

Dressing for work, Vining put on her second best suit, the navy blue one. Into the slacks, she tucked a dark gray shell with a mock turtleneck. She’d purchased several shells with high necks before she’d returned to work, thinking she’d cover her scar. Today, she was less concerned about that than creating the appropriate background.

From her dresser, she picked up the pearl necklace and put it on.

“I am not insane. I don’t know exactly why I’m doing this or what’s happening to me, but I know I am not insane.”

She admired herself in the mirror. The necklace was striking, dangling precisely inside the V formed by her buttoned jacket. She unbuttoned the jacket and looked at it that way, too. It suited her. That was a creepy thought, but she had to admit the necklace suited her.

She remembered the pair of pearl earrings set with tiny diamonds that Wes had given her one birthday early in their marriage. She used to wear them all the time until he left and she relegated his few gifts of jewelry and her wedding set to the bottom corner of her dresser drawer. She found the earrings and put them on.

She recalled Frankie Lynde’s words on the CD, “He gave them to you.”

Of all the people who might have dropped the necklace in her mailbox, she never considered it was from T. B. Mann. The Lonny Velcro incident had happened five years ago. She’d put away the necklace and forgotten about it. If it was a gift from T. B. Mann, that meant he had been watching her for much longer than she ever imagined. There was a more reasonable explanation for thinking she heard Frankie’s ghostly words on tape. She’d had T. B. Mann on her mind lately, driving by the El Alisal house, getting the case files from Kissick. That’s all this Frankie Lynde voice-from-the-grave stuff was—the product of her subconscious mind on overload.

She looked at the card that had accompanied the necklace. The paper stock had a rich texture and a raised border. It looked expensive. Selected by someone who had an appreciation for that sort of extravagance and the time and money to indulge it. The message was scrawled with a fountain pen.

Congratulations,

Officer Vining

She’d never had the handwriting analyzed. She never thought much about it other than people were strange.

He gave them to you. Wear the pearls.

“Okay. Fine. I’m wearing them. Now what?”

T W E N T Y - T W O

L
ISA SHIPP HEARD MUSIC. CLASSICAL GUITAR. SHE DIDN’T RECOGNIZE
the tune, but it was beautiful.

Her head throbbed. It felt as if the top of it was going to explode. Trying to turn over, she realized she was restrained. Her arms and legs were tethered to the four corners of the bed or whatever it was she was lying on. Horrible images played on the insides of her eyelids, fueled by her imagination.

Lisa! Open your eyes.

She forced herself to do it. The first thing she saw was herself, nude, splayed out, hands and feet chained to the corners of steel foot- and headboards. There was a mirror on the ceiling above her.

She was whole. She breathed a sigh of relief. She was alive and she was whole. Nearly whole. She squinted at the mirror then pulled up her head as far as she could to see. Her pubic hair had been shaved off.

She shivered.

“You’re awake,” he said.

The guitar music continued.

She winced as she strained to raise her head and shoulders and climbed onto her elbows. The chains were about two feet long, attached with locked cuffs. She drew her knees up, crunching as tightly as she could, until she could cover herself a little with her legs and arms.

Looking left, she again saw her reflection—this time in a row of large, freestanding mirrors, their frames set with caster wheels at the bottom. Around the bed were several video cameras on tripods. There were lights—around the bed, attached to the ceiling—sufficient to supply a photography studio.

She swallowed. Her throat was bone dry.

What the hell have you gotten yourself into now, Lisa?

He was across the room on a straight-backed chair, one foot propped on a small box, a guitar resting on his elevated leg. He was reading music on a stand in front of him. His other foot tapped the floor, keeping rhythm. He was nude, sitting in profile. His body was taut, tanned, and muscular. She remembered thinking he was handsome when she’d climbed into his car. Dark wavy hair. His nose was a little broad and prominent, but it made his face interesting. Kept him from looking like a sample in a plastic surgeon’s picture book. His smile and eyes had been kindly and concerned.

She hadn’t been the least bit afraid of him. She realized her judgment had been clouded by her desire to help the drunken woman. Otherwise, she wouldn’t have put herself at risk. She thought she was done with risky behavior. Well, just like she’d always be an alcoholic, she guessed she’d also always be a daredevil. She figured she was on number eight of her nine lives. Her luck had held longer than she deserved. Wasn’t this poetic justice? She had finally pulled her life together and look what it got her.

She’d trusted him. Believed him. She was raised at the beach and used to being around all kinds of people. Everyone from all walks of life came to the beach. If he’d been able to put one over on her, who’d seen just about everything, he was good. Real good. Which was bad news. He was a kind of scary she’d never come across before.

“You can raise the bed,” he said. “The control is by your right hand.”

She found it and elevated the top. It was a full-on hospital bed. She felt the crunching of a plastic lining beneath the sheet.

Where was she? The rectangular room felt damp and musty. The air was cool. The ceiling was low. The walls were finished with unpainted plasterboard. The floor had wall-to-wall, low-pile carpeting. Under and around the bed, plastic sheeting covered the carpet.

The dankness indicated she was underground. Maybe it was a basement. If so, it was a commercial building or a very old house. Houses in California rarely had basements. The houses in the beach city neighborhood where she’d grown up had crawl spaces. She remembered going to a party at an old house in Claremont when her friend was attending one of the colleges there. The basement was such a novelty for her and her friends that they’d traipsed down for a look, to the amusement of others who enjoyed poking fun at Californians anyway.

Maybe she wasn’t in California.

Along one side of the room were musical instruments—an upright piano, electric organ, drums, and percussion gadgets. There were guitars and basses, electric and acoustic, in stands around the floor, and amplifiers and recording equipment. The space was comfortably furnished with leather easy chairs, couches, and sturdy coffee tables. A large flat-screen television was the centerpiece on one wall. A full-size refrigerator/freezer and a counter with a sink, microwave, and stacks of disposable plates, cups, and cutlery took up another wall.

She craned her head to look behind. The opposite side of the room was set up as a gym with racks of dumbbells and barbells, workout benches, top-of-the-line cardio equipment, and more rolling mirrors.

To her right was a bathroom that didn’t have a door. She couldn’t see if there was a tub or shower.

It looked like an upscale frat house.

He paused in his playing to turn the page of music, then resumed.

The sound was muffled and quiet, yet the notes were pure.

She looked around the room again. The unpainted wallboard was caulked along the joints. The ceiling was also covered with wallboard.

The room was soundproofed. The realization alarmed her more than anything she’d seen so far. More than the chained bed. Maybe it was soundproofed because of the music.

Come on, Lisa. Who are you kidding?

Maybe he had a warren of such rooms in which he held women. Maybe he would press her to abduct a girl for him. She wouldn’t be able to do it any more than the drunk woman who’d tried to warn her. What had he done to her?

And there he was. Making music without a care.

She ached all over. As her mind cleared, the pain grew more localized, and there was no denying the source. He’d raped her while she was unconscious. The realization made her recoil, jerking against the restraints. She told herself to calm down. It was a blessing that she hadn’t known what was going on. She feared she wouldn’t be as lucky the next time. Of course, there would be a next time. And a time after that and after that until…

You’ve done it now, Lisa. You’ve really done it to yourself now.

He looked at her. He seemed oblivious to her chains, nudity, and the way she had contorted herself in a grab for dignity. “Do you like music?”