California Girl (13 page)

“Correct.”

Nick stood there and watched Neemal smoke. “You didn’t take the saw blade?”

“No.”

“Kept it, put it somewhere for later?”

“Why would I do that?”

Nick shrugged. Had no idea why. “What did the shrink say today?”

“Said I could have my old meds back if I wanted. I said no. I may see and hear stuff that isn’t there but at least the reception is clear. With all the drugs from Atascadero it was like being underwater.”

“I’d like to know more about why you went back to see Janelle that second time.”

“So would I.”

Nick shook out another cigarette and handed it to Neemal. “Did you kill her, Terry?”

Neemal looked down at the table again. “I didn’t kill her, I’m pretty sure. But I will say…that sometimes my memory falls behind, then jumps ahead and catches up.”

“Terry, after five days and everything we’ve been through, you tell me you’re only pretty sure?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Next time, you tell me why you went back to see her.”

“Sure. Okay, Nick, I’ll give it some thought. Thanks for the extra cigarettes. Would they put that in the paper?”

“Put what in?”

“If I had some reason why I went back and saw her.”

Nick looked into Neemal’s mad tan eyes. Considered the possible answers. Then chose the one that would help him most. And would help Terry Neemal probably not at all.

“The newspapers would be interested in that. Yes.”

And I can get you an interview with the
Journal
’s best crime reporter, Nick thought.

“Good night, Terry. The deputy will be right in.”

BY SEVEN
that night Nick had talked with Deacon Mike Shaffner, who said he’d picked up the worship programs at six o’clock last Tuesday night. No, he had not given one to Janelle Vonn or to anyone else. Hadn’t seen Janelle.

Shaffner was very tall and thin, blond hair, gentle hands. Nick couldn’t cast him as Red or Ho. Or anybody who would do the kind of violence he had seen.

Shaffner said he’d taken them home and put the mailing labels on, rubberbanded them into stacks, and set them in a paper Market Basket bag to take to the church in the morning for postage. There was a postage machine in the office, which saved him licking stamps. Though it still cost the same six cents for each one, which hit the Grove Drive-In Church pretty hard. He said he finally dropped them off at the post office in Orange Wednesday morning around ten.

Shaffner didn’t know for sure, but he guessed the programs were printed by five o’clock. The job was done at the
Tustin Times
building, by a man named Gunnar.

“NICK BECKER?
I’m an old friend of Andy’s,” said Gunnar.

He smiled a jagged smile at Nick. Held out a blackened hand. He was short, late sixties. Oddly tanned for this time of year. Sharp eyes and thin brown hair combed from one side of his head to the other.

“Oh, Andy was one of the best reporters we’ve had. I was glad to see him go. He needed to try bigger things. These little weeklies, you know, you stay too long and end up like me.”

“You seem all right,” said Nick.

Gunnar smiled. “He likes the
Journal
?”

“I think so.”

“The Wolfman pictures were wonderful,” Gunnar said.

“It was good work.”

“He came by here a few months ago with the lady friend, Teresa. To say hi and for me to meet her. He likes me to know his women. I was pretty good friends with Meredith. I wished he could have stayed with her but it was impossible. You knew that Andy was going to go out and experience the world. But she has a family now. Like she wanted.”

Nick smelled the clinical scent of vodka. Looked around for the glass or bottle but saw neither. Noted the radio playing upstairs, oddly loud. Sounded like the big-band swing music his parents used to listen to on 78s.

Gunnar told him that the Grove Drive-In Church worship programs had been completely finished and boxed by 5:15
P.M.
last Tuesday. He was sitting at his desk reading the blockbuster paperback
Valley of the Dolls
when Mike had come to pick them up. That was about six. Gunnar said he printed eleven hundred each week now. Used to be two hundred. The
Tustin Times
couldn’t profit from such a small run, but Mae Overholt—J.J.’s widow—did it as a favor to God and David Becker. And
Valley of the Dolls
really wasn’t as bad as some people said.

A side door opened and a handsome woman came in, glanced at Gunnar and Nick with a pleasant smile. Mid-sixties, Nick figured. Had to be Mae. She waved in a way that promised no interruption. Just got something from a desk drawer and went back out. Looked like a roll of masking tape.

“Anyone else come by?” asked Nick. “Maybe to check the print run, grab a few early copies?”

Nick heard a new song start upstairs. No doubt about this one—“Smoke Gets in Your Eyes.” One of Max and Monika’s favorites from
when they were young. Danced to it in the living room. Boys hooting and fake throwing up.

“No,” said Gunnar with a sharp little smile. “I’ve heard of people rushing the printer for an early copy of an important newspaper. But never in all my sixty-seven years have I had someone rush the printer for a worship program.”

“That’s funny, isn’t it?” asked Nick.

“It is.”

“Until you realize someone did exactly that. And gave a copy to a girl who was murdered a few hours later.”

Gunnar’s already dark complexion went a shade darker. He took a deep breath, let it out. “No, no. There is no humor at all in that.”

“Not much. Who could have gotten early copies without you knowing?”

Gunnar sighed. Looked down at the floor as if chastising himself. “This is…no, this can’t be what you mean.”

“Try me.”

“I spent forty-five minutes away from the presses that night. Between the time I finished the programs and six, when I was expecting Mike Shaffner.”

“Were those doors unlocked?”

“Yes.”

“Where were you?”

“Right upstairs. With Mae, having an aperitif and some conversation. We do that often now. Since Mr. Overholt passed along. And I heard a car door shut. I didn’t hear a car drive up, but I heard the door shut.”

“Because of the radio?”

“Yes. Mae and I were listening to the radio. I got up and looked out the window and saw Barbara Becker get out of a blue station wagon. I think it was a Kingswood Estate. The Chevy. A bunch of kids in the back.”

Nick frowned, tried to remember the exact words of his conversation with David. He hadn’t said anything about Barbara and the flyers, had he?

“Did you go downstairs and talk to her?”

“By the time I got down there she was back in the car. I didn’t run after her. I figured it was something to do with the flyers, and how important could that be?”

“She didn’t take them?”

“No. Mike took them. Like I told you. Maybe fifteen minutes later.”

Mae came through the side door again. Another pleasant look for Nick. One a little sharper for Gunnar. She put a roll of tape back in the desk and left.

NICK CALLED
Sharon from a pay phone, said he wouldn’t be over. She said fine, she was awful tired, too. They talked quietly a minute and hung up.

Then he called David and Barbara’s house. Got Barbara because David was out. Made small talk, then asked about her picking up early copies of the worship flyer last Tuesday around quarter to six.

“I sure did,” said Barbara happily. “Just a few for my youth group to send out. Nick, is everything okay?”

ANDY BECKER CRUNCHED
along a gravel walkway toward one of the guesthouses behind Big Red in Bluebird Canyon.

Wednesday, a week after Janelle Vonn in the SunBlesst packinghouse. Light breeze, warm in the sun but cool in the shade. Seagulls crying over the beach. A hawk in the canyon pivoting just ahead of its own shadow, a flash of sun on its wings. Smell of ocean and sage and marijuana smoke.

The weather-beaten slat cottage sat at the far end of a mostly brown lawn. One of three, all similar. Wood silvered by the sun. Roof shingles warped. Stained-glass windows—hummingbirds and flowers. Small stands of plantain and giant bird-of-paradise for privacy. Beyond them rough hills sloping into the sharp blue Pacific.

Andy was about to knock when the cottage door slapped open. The window glass rattled. A young woman, batik sheet around her and nothing else, marched past, never looked at him. Bare feet on the gravel, orange hair flying, headed for the main house. Andy looked back at the girl and the big slouching home, barn red in the clear morning light. Big Red, all right. Paint peeling, blankets for curtains. Rain gutters askew.

Jesse Black stood in the cottage doorway. Hair a mess, jeans slung low and loose, a red plaid flannel shirt hanging out.

“I’m the writer,” said Andy. “Thanks for meeting.”

“You were at the ’Piper last Thursday,” he said.

Andy offered his hand and Black lightly knocked his fist against it. Black looked past him toward Big Red, then back at Andy. His eyes were dark and lively. Dark stubble on a pale chin.

“Come on in.”

Andy stepped through the narrow door into a tiny living room with a small couch. Throw rugs and beanbags. To the left a galley-sized kitchen. Sink and refrigerator and small counter. Cupboards and a window. Down a very short hallway Andy could see another room and what looked like the foot of a bed.

But mostly what he saw were instruments. The well-used Martin with the pickup over the sound hole leaned in one corner. An old f-hole Epiphone and a small amplifier in another. A white Stratocaster sitting upright on the couch. Beside the couch a Sears Silvertone electric with the amp built into the case. A ukulele stood beneath a window facing north up the coast. Maracas. A tambourine. Two recorders and a harmonica on the kitchen counter next to a plastic bag half full of grass and rolling papers.

“Busted,” Jesse said without interest.

“I’m cool.”

“I didn’t have that out when your brother was around. The whole compound was under FPA.”

Andy waited.

“Full Pig Alert,” said Jesse. Didn’t smile but his eyes did.

“That’s halfway funny,” said Andy. “It’s the cartoons of pigs dressed like cops getting shot and stabbed that bug me. Because he’s my brother.”

“Yeah, it’s all bullshit. One side against the other.”

Black motioned to the couch. Took the Strat and plunked himself onto a bright yellow beanbag. “I don’t get why you want to talk to me. Your articles about her already came out.”

“I’m interested for myself,” said Andy.

“You mean for a book or screenplay?”

“No. For me. I liked her. I’d known her since I was twelve. I mean, never well, but still…”

Black strummed the electric. Unplugged, it made a distant sweet sound like it was underwater. “She talked about you. You wrote the obit for her mother. She showed it to me. It was more than just an obituary, though. You got the mother’s misery. But you knew the difference between pathos and tragedy. I grooved on it.”

“Thank you. Most people don’t recognize the difference.”

“And you wrote that thing about her family. Now that was awesome. Got the stupid animal brothers and the innocence of Janelle and her sister. Changed the names and places, but you got the truth of it down. A lot of people knew it was her.”

“Not everybody,” said Andy. “But, yeah. A lot of people.”

“People wanted to help her after that.”

Black strummed a change that Andy recognized from the Sandpiper set last Thursday night. “Smoke?”

“Sure.”

Black set the guitar down and went to the kitchen counter. “This
sinsemilla
is dynamite.”

“I’ve heard about it. You and Janelle smoke a lot?”

“No. She liked acid. Leary turned her on to a dose of genuine Sandoz and she took to it. Not every day. Maybe once a week. Liked a little tequila, too.”

Black rolled a joint in less than a minute. Tight, slender, and filled all the way to the ends. Torched it with a Bic. A sweet green smell and Andy felt the smoke fill his lungs and the instant tilt of his senses.

“Those were good songs at the Sandpiper,” said Andy. “Even without knowing Janelle I would have liked them.”

“Outtasight.”

“‘Imagine You’ blew me away.”

“Came in a rush. Wrote it in a couple of days. Right after I heard.”

They passed the joint in silence. Finished half and let it go out. Jesse
cranked open a hummingbird stained-glass window. Took the Stratocaster and sat back in the yellow beanbag.

Andy looked north out a clear window to Main Beach and the lifeguard stand and the boardwalk. Waves lazy on the sand. A vulture shot across the sky startlingly close to the window. Could have reached out and touched him.

The door slammed open and the orange-haired girl swept in. Sheet still clinched around her with one hand and a beer in the other. Had to put down the beer to get the roach to her lips, the lighter to her sheet hand, and walk back out. Not a glance at either of them.

“Crystal,” said Jesse.

“Bummin’.”

Jesse shrugged. “She’s a good keyboardist. Kind of possessive, though.”

Andy could see the vulture, smaller now, framed in the window of sky. “I saw her. Janelle. After it happened.”

“I’m glad I didn’t.”

Andy felt his heartbeat echoing in his eardrums. Same thing every time, first few minutes of a high. The
sinsemilla
was stronger than any he’d ever had before.

“I’m not sure why I put myself through it,” said Andy.

“I’ve tried not to picture her that way,” said Black. “It’s bad enough to see that kind of thing in a book or something. But if it’s someone you loved, almost impossible.”

“The first time I saw her was by that packinghouse. This was, man, fourteen years ago. Something like that.”

“The fight.”

“The rumble. After it was over her sister ran down the embankment with rocks in both hands and threw them at us ’cause we’d just wailed on her brothers. Then Janelle, she was maybe like four or five, she’s got these two oranges and she’s going to throw them but she changes her mind. Blue dress and cowboy boots. Looks at us, drops the oranges, says something about her brothers, and runs away.”

Jesse was picking now, a muted aquatic twang when he pushed the
tremolo bar. “First time I saw her was at the ’Piper. Playing a set on a dead Sunday evening. In she walks with some girlfriends. I played straight to her for the next hour. Directly to her. Forgot to take my break. Just her and me in that room. I sat with her and her friends after. They bought me drinks. I was freakin’ in love with her by midnight. Still am.”

At the same time, Andy and Black both leaned over and pulled small beaten notebooks from their pant pockets.

Black saw what Andy had done, dropped the notebook in his lap, and picked the
Twilight Zone
intro on his high E string.

Andy smiled and made a note of Jesse forgetting his break the first time he played for Janelle. Pot made you pay attention to the small things. All immediately fascinating. Most pointless.

“What did you write?” Andy asked.

“I wrote
‘in love with her by midnight.’
It came with this A-minor riff. A lot of stuff I write in Laguna does. I think it has something to do with the ocean, or maybe the hawks. Or maybe this dope I get from Ronnie Joe. Listen.”

He strummed some chords and sang
“in love with her by midnight”
in a melody over them. Then again, but a different melody. Then another one. Andy was amazed anyone could do that, just invent three different melodies in thirty seconds. Black was full of music like Andy was full of words.

“What part of the song is it?” he asked.

“Who knows? Chorus, maybe. You know, hook line for the radio. Sing it loud enough to hear in a car. What did you write down?”

“You, forgetting your break when you first saw Janelle.”

“I wanted to sing my way right into her pants.”

“Guess you did.”

“Later, yeah.” Black played the A-minor riff again, looking through a stained-glass window back toward Big Red. “I wasn’t alone there. In her pants.”

“No?”

“No. I told her she was free. I meant it. She had a dude. She’d been
hooked up with him awhile, and I think it was a long while. Hardly talked about him. Never told me his name. Never told me what he did or what he looked like or anything. The only time she even mentioned him was if she couldn’t be with me. Once a week. Maybe twice. Then we’d be together three straight weeks and it was like there was no other guy. Then, well…she’d have to go.”

“Go for how long?”

“An evening,” said Black. “Sometimes part of a weekend day. She’d come up here after she was done. She’d be quiet. Not unhappy, really. But subdued. Still.”

“Numb?”

“Maybe,” said Jesse. “But not stoned. Not drunk. Just…calm.”

“You never saw him?”

“No. Never asked. Never followed her. Not my thing. People are free, you know? Free as they want to be.”

“Maybe she wanted to be less free,” said Andy.

“I don’t think so. She had a thing with Cory, too. He’s a bro. It was good karma for all of us. Least we thought it was.”

“She didn’t want limits and rules and security?”

“Not Janelle.”

Jesse plucked the opening notes of “Pretty Woman.”

“She was pregnant,” he said.

Andy’s heart dropped and flipped. Damned pot was bad enough, but then this ton of information. “Who was the father?”

“She didn’t know,” Black said quietly. “Maybe me. Maybe the mystery dude. Maybe Cory Bonnett. She was scheduled for an abortion on Friday afternoon. I was going to take her in.”

Andy’s heart rushing in his ears again. He remembered Meredith and him at the clinic in Santa Ana. Dr. Degaus Delineus. Suction. Over fast, but Meredith white and weak for hours. Dazed for days. Empty and distracted and tearful for weeks. So long to get over it. And he too foolish and young to understand what she was going through. What it meant to her body and her soul. What it meant that he hadn’t asked her to marry him and have the child. Andy felt the spiraling descent of regret
long avoided. Not that he should have married her. Not that she should have had the child. But that he should have
known
. Known what she was going through. Known what it meant. Known what it was like.

No, not what it was like—what it was.

He looked out the window. Felt like a small pale child being tossed back and forth by the gods through a dark and violent sky. The damned pot could clobber you with the past if you didn’t look out. It would change your memories. Or change your version of them. Their shape. The revised history would slide right in and you’d think it had been true all along.

“She was going to have dinner with your brother the night she died,” said Jesse. “Your other brother, the minister.”

“David? No way, man.”

“David and a friend of hers named Howard. I never met Howard. I talked to David a few times, though. He came to one of my gigs. He and Janelle were really tight. I don’t know if it ever went off, the dinner. But that’s what she told me she was going to do.”

“Were you invited?”

“No. After that, she was off to see the other guy. Mr. Mystery Man. To tell him what was growing inside her and what she was going to do to it.”

Andy stood and went to the window. Drew in some cool sea air. Felt his nerves settle. Like the hackles of a dog going back down.

“What did Janelle do for money?” he asked.

“Modeling.”

“How often?”

“In the year I knew her I think she went out on one or two shoots,” said Jesse. “Up in L.A. Gleason/Marx Agency.”

“You don’t make a year’s worth of food and rent in two shoots. She had a car?”

“Nice little VW. Powder blue. Just a year old.”

Powder blue, thought Andy. The marijuana plucked him out of the guest cottage and set him down in the packinghouse. Light slanting through the wallboards. Wind huffing outside, shaking the metal roof. Pigeons rustling in the smell of old wood and creosote.

Powder blue sweater.

Black-red around the empty neck.

Janelle’s legs faint blue, too.

Unholy shit.

“She making payments on the car?” Andy asked absently. Hard to get his head back into this moment. Like a record skipping, taking him back, taking him back, taking him back…

“Free and clear,” said Jesse.

“How did she buy a new car?”

Jesse shrugged. “She had cash coming in, but I don’t know how or why. She didn’t offer and I didn’t press. She had some nice things. And she was generous. Bought me this. It was used, but it’s a fine instrument.”

Jesse ran his fingers over the strings of the white Stratocaster.

Andy wondered at the shattered complexity of Janelle Vonn’s life. Felt like every new thing he learned about her made her less understandable.

“You told my brother Nick all this, I take it.”

“Hell no,” said Jesse. “Not the pregnancy or abortion. Not the dude she was with. Not the dinner with the reverend. None of that.”

“Well, why not?”

“I don’t have a problem with the truth, but I do have a problem with who I tell it to. I don’t dig the pigs. Sorry your bro is one of ’em, but I have my reasons. I didn’t tell him, so I’m telling you.”

Then a light knock on the door and Jesse said, “Come in.” A young blond woman put her head inside, smiled at Jesse. “Hi, Jess.”

“Gail. Come on in.”

“You sure it’s okay?”

“Sure I’m sure.”

She giggled and came in, still smiling. Denim jacket with a bright rainbow embroidered on a pocket flap. Flannel shirt and jeans with big holes in the knees. Suntanned kneecaps, bare feet. A toe ring. Round face, smooth straight hair past her shoulders. Skin like milk chocolate.