Grave Endings (23 page)

thirty-five

NIGHT WAS FALLING QUICKLY WHEN I LEFT CHARLIE'S house. The sky was changing from feathery gray to solid charcoal as I drove down Lake to Colorado, and by the time I made a left onto Arroyo Parkway, only a few stars relieved the inky blackness.

I couldn't stop thinking about Randy and the red threads he'd sold to (or through?) Rachel's Tent. All fake. In retrospect, I shouldn't have been surprised. Even people who liked Randy suspected that he'd been a liar and manipulator most of his life, and while Anthony Horton's prison experience had infused him with the desire to improve his life, from what I've read about prisons and rehabilitation, Horton was the exception, not the rule.

It was possible that Randy had entered Rachel's Tent determined to make a fresh start. But it's easy to slip, and when he saw an opportunity to make extra cash at Rachel's Tent, he seized it. No one would know. No one would be hurt. Thread is thread. Or maybe he'd been the actor all the time, giving a winning performance to Horton and Bramer, looking for the best venue to continue his life of petty crime. I knew what Alice Creeley would say, and maybe she was right.

In either case, after six years or so, a close brush with death had shaken him and done what prison hadn't. Randy had been determined to repent, and not just in words.

This wasn't what I'd come to Pasadena to learn, but it was intriguing and troubling, and maybe it explained the two calls Randy had placed to Rachel's Tent the day he died.

I had been lost in thought and hadn't noticed when the street had turned into a freeway. Running eight miles between Pasadena and L.A., Arroyo Seco (Spanish for “Dry Stream”) is the oldest freeway in California, a serpentine byway with three lanes in each direction that wasn't built to accommodate today's heavy traffic and speeds and has more curves than Anna Nicole Smith, and buckled side rails that give testimony to the numerous accidents that have taken place here. It also features beautiful bridges that form overpasses, though their beauty is lost at night, and it's been designated a historic highway, which probably explains the disrepair.

I stayed in the middle lane, avoiding the rails on my left and the merging traffic on my right. I was fine for now, but in ten minutes or so, when I passed Dodger Stadium and approached downtown L.A., two other freeways would converge with the 110 (Arroyo's other name). At that point I'd have to get into my right lane because two exits later I'd have to cross several lanes to access the Hollywood Freeway, which would take me home. The setup is the epitome of ridiculously dangerous engineering and is, I'm sure, the cause of many accidents. It's the reason I dislike driving the 110 even in daylight, when I can see the signs more clearly and plan my move. One time I inadvertently exited on Sunset and ended up in Chinatown, which isn't bad if you know your way around, but this happened at night, and I'd had to phone my dad and have him talk me through the streets until I was back on a street I recognized.

My thoughts returned to Randy and the phone calls, and the letter he'd sent Bramer. I knew that he had from the check next to the director's name on the list Trina had left with me, and if I'd learned nothing else today, I'd verified that every person whose name had been checked off had received an apology from Randy.

Until now I had assumed that Randy had asked Bramer's forgiveness for selling drugs at the agency and betraying his trust. Maybe not. Maybe he'd sought forgiveness for selling the bogus threads and asked Bramer to send letters of apology on Randy's behalf, along with genuine threads, to all the women who had received or bought fake ones. And if Bramer had refused?

Then I'll have to do it myself, Dr. Bramer.

According to the director, Randy had ordered the threads and filled the envelopes. Rachel's Tent had taken care of the rest. Which meant that Randy wouldn't have had mailing addresses for the people who had received the threads.

If you won't help me, Dr. Bramer, I'll have to figure
out something else. I have to do what's right, make
amends.

A newspaper ad?

All speculation.

Arroyo was doing its thing, winding back and forth. Unlike the oncoming Pasadena-bound traffic, a stalled parade of bright headlights that glared at me, the L.A.bound traffic was moving at a decent pace. I glanced in my rearview mirror and noticed that the twin dots of light from the car behind me were becoming larger. A few seconds later the car—an SUV, I now saw—was too close for my comfort.

I looked right and left, but there were no openings in either lane. With my eyes on the mirror, I honked and pressed my brakes several times, hoping the SUV driver would get the message. A moment later he dropped back. I watched him for a few seconds and relaxed when I saw that he was maintaining a safe distance between us.

I wondered if Randy had offered to pay for the replacement threads. According to Mike, he'd ordered “lots” of threads a few months ago on the Internet, where on some sites, Zack had said, the threads were selling for thirty-six dollars each.

Thirty-six dollars multiplied by X number of women a year, multiplied by six or seven years.

Even at half that price per thread, that could add up to a hefty chunk of money in reimbursements, especially for someone who hadn't been working steadily during the past nine months and had been doing odd jobs just to pay the rent and get by. Of course, for all I knew, Randy had a healthy bank account. Or maybe he'd offered to pay off his debt over time.

Bramer must have been livid when Randy confessed, but I suspected that Randy's betrayal had hit Horton even harder. He'd been emotional when he talked about Randy, maybe because of their shared history of abandonment. And concerned about his passion, Rachel's Tent.

It took years of hard work and a lot of dollars to
make it what it is today. All it takes is a couple of questions, a raised eyebrow, and the place is history.

But what if Horton didn't know about Randy's scam? Suppose Bramer had discovered nine or ten months ago what Randy had been doing. Bramer may have been afraid to tell Horton that his dream had been defiled. Maybe, I mused, he'd fabricated the anonymous note that accused Randy of dealing drugs at the agency. If Randy had been dealing drugs, removing him from the agency would have resolved the problem, and any clients he'd involved would have been eager to remain anonymous. But if clients learned that their hallowed red threads had come directly from a five-and-dime store . . .

People don't like to be scammed. And this wasn't just about money. This was about faked spirituality, about the abuse of faith. Charlie hadn't been upset with the agency, but she was staunchly loyal to the people who had saved her life, and maybe she hadn't been invested all that much in the red thread and what it signified. Some of the women Randy had duped might not be so forgiving.

I'm not a legal expert, but I assumed that Randy's actions had rendered the agency liable for multiple lawsuits, or even a class action suit. I could see the newspaper headlines:

RACHEL'S TENT COLLAPSES AS THREADS
OF DECEIT UNRAVEL
SCAMMED CLIENTS SEE RED

And the lawyers' fees would no doubt be steep. They always are. Was this what Randy had meant when he'd talked to his sponsor about the financial and legal repercussions that could affect someone else if he made amends?

I passed under the Via Mirasol bridge and checked my rearview mirror. The SUV was kissing my butt again. The left lane was crowded with cars. So was the right lane, which also had two huge trucks. I was already doing sixty, five miles over the speed limit, which would be slow on other freeways, but not on the 110 with its hairpin curves. And I was closing in on the car in front of me.

I glared at the SUV through the mirror, as though he could see me. Jerk, I thought. I honked and signaled with my brakes again, but the SUV was coming closer. When the left lane opened ten or twenty seconds later, I moved into it to allow the SUV to pass and wondered where Highway Patrol was when you needed them.

I thought again about the two calls Randy had made to Rachel's Tent the morning he died. Had he given Bramer an ultimatum?

Send the letters or I'm going public with what I've
done. I'll tell Mr. Horton.

But even if the director was furious and faced potential embarrassment and a PR fiasco . . . Even if the agency had to reimburse everyone who had bought the fake threads, or replace them with genuine ones, even if they had to deal with lawsuits and legal fees . . . Even if all that was so, did that constitute a motive to kill someone?

But what if Bramer thought his job would be jeopardized by Randy's campaign of penitence? What if he thought Horton would make him the scapegoat?

This happened under your watch, William. Sorry, but
I have to cut my losses.

One of Horton's golden rules.

I passed the Avenue Twenty-six exit. Next was Academy Road, which I'd taken several years ago when Connors had given me a tour of the Los Angeles Police Academy. In the distance I could see the lit-up skyline of downtown. Dodger Stadium was next, and not much farther up, the broad diagonal swerve that lay in store for me after the Sunset exit. I turned on my blinker and prepared to move into my right lane, but the SUV inched up so that it was blocking me.

There was an empty stretch of several hundred feet between my Acura and the car in front of me. I took the next curve, then sped up to pass the SUV. The driver sped up, too. I honked. He kept the front of his car alongside the middle of mine so that I couldn't make eye contact.

Fine, I thought. Let the jerk show me he's king of the road. I slowed down. He slowed, too, and a few seconds later, as my faithful Acura took another harrowing curve, I had a moment of panic when I saw that the SUV was creeping into my lane. I blared my horn again, but instead of correcting his position, the driver was narrowing the distance between his large car and mine, and I realized with alarm that set my heart racing that he was forcing me closer to the rails.

There were cars in front of me and behind me. I had no room to move, and the SUV was inches from the passenger side of my car. Still sounding my horn, I turned left with the next curve and heard the shriek of steel against steel. I had a brief reprieve of straight road, then another bend, this one to the right, but the one after that, only seconds later, was to the left again. I gritted my teeth at the screech of metal and felt the impact as my car grazed the rails.

The veins in my neck were pulsing madly. My muscles were rigid. My cell phone was in my purse, but I couldn't take my hand off the wheel to dial 911. I could only hope that some other driver had noticed what was going on and would alert the police, whose training grounds I'd passed only minutes ago.

The side of my car was scraping the rails. With my right hand gripping the steering wheel, I honked the horn repeatedly. Finally the Toyota in front of me moved to the right, in front of the SUV. My heart in my throat, I accelerated to eighty and urged the Acura forward as if it were a stallion. With only feet between me and the small car that now loomed in front of me, I passed the Toyota and made a sharp diagonal into the right lane.

Ahead of the Toyota, whose driver was honking furiously at me, ahead of the SUV.

Seconds later the Toyota returned to the left lane. Now the SUV was behind me again, closing the gap between us with each curve.

I had passed the Dodger Stadium and Hill Street exits. Sunset was next. Ahead of me were the large green signs for the Santa Ana and Hollywood Freeways, and for the Harbor, which is the 110, renamed once you reach downtown.

Another sign indicated that the on-ramp to the Hollywood was approaching. It would be all the way to my right, I knew, on the other side of a triangular median.

The driver of the SUV didn't know which freeway I would be taking. I debated staying on the 110 or taking the Santa Ana and finding an alternate route home once I lost the SUV.

If
I lost him. And if I didn't? I could be driving around for hours in unfamiliar territory.

I checked my gas gauge. The icon for the tank was blinking.

I passed Sunset.

If I turned off the 110 to access the Hollywood, the SUV driver could follow me, but I could lead him to the Hollywood police station.

Unless something happened before I got there.

I had seconds to decide. If I waited too long, I wouldn't be able to cross over because of the median.

If I
did
cross, I ran the risk of colliding with traffic speeding along lanes I couldn't yet see.

My hands were slick with perspiration. My heart thudded. There was the Hollywood Freeway sign.

I looked quickly to my right. The lane next to me was clear. The lane to its right was a line of barely moving cars.

The SUV was on my bumper.

Biting my upper lip, I made a sudden turn and drove onto the widest part of the median. The SUV sped by. I braked, but for a second or two my Acura bounced along the median, and my body bounced with it. Two seconds can be a long time. The wheels dropped and touched asphalt again. The impact jarred my teeth, which I hadn't realized I'd clenched.

My head whipped forward and backward and forward again. My palm was still on the horn when my car came to a shuddering stop and smacked the rear of a black BMW.

thirty-six

I WAS NAUSEOUS AND DIZZY. MY HEAD WAS POUNDING, especially where the redhead had struck me with the butt of her gun.

The driver of the BMW, a short, wiry man with curly brown hair, was rattling my car door.

“What the hell!” he yelled. “Are you crazy, lady?” Even in the dark I could see that his face was red, his eyes manic. I lowered my window a few inches.

“Someone was trying to crash into me,” I said. “I'm sorry about—”

“Sorry doesn't do it, lady. You could have killed me!”

He said the same thing to the California Highway Patrol motorcycle officer who had witnessed my maneuver. The officer, whose name was Lansing, checked to see that I was all right. Then he radioed for help, which arrived a few minutes later in the form of another motorcycle CHP officer, who set flares and began to clear the traffic I'd brought to a halt. He moved my car so that it was blocking only one lane.

Lansing was medium height, well built and handsome. Most Chippies are—I suppose they have to be, since Erik Estrada set the bar. He took notes while he talked to me and to the driver of the BMW, who drove off after he and I exchanged insurance information.

Lansing had listened without expression while I explained about the SUV that had been chasing me.

“Were you feeling all right when you started driving, ma'am?” he asked now.

“I was fine.”

I knew he was assessing me to see if I was under the influence of liquor or drugs. I had calmed down somewhat, but I was shivering from the blasts of cold air caused by the cars that were speeding by on all sides. I hoped he wouldn't mistake my shivering for symptoms of withdrawal.

“Did you get the license number of this SUV, ma'am?” I could barely hear him over the roaring and high-pitched whining of the cars. “No. I didn't have time. I was too scared. I was just trying to figure out how to get away from him.”

He nodded. “What about the make of the car, ma'am?”

“I couldn't tell.” Most SUVs look alike to me, especially at night. “It could have been black, or a dark blue or dark green.” I hugged my arms against the cold, which was going right through my peacoat.

“Was the driver a male or female, ma'am?”

“I don't know. I couldn't see, because of the way he positioned the car. I honked at him a few times, because he was crowding me. I used my brakes to try to signal him. Maybe I upset him. Maybe it was road rage.”

“Anything else I should know?”

I debated telling Lansing that someone may have been following me. Even if it was true, I had no idea who that someone could be, but the dark green SUV in Sue Ann's driveway popped into my mind.

Maybe I would tell Connors. “No. Can I leave now?”

I assumed the Acura would start. The bumper was scraped and dented, but aside from a small buckling in the hood, I hadn't noticed much damage. The BMW hadn't looked bad, either, but even minor damages would probably translate into several thousand dollars in repair costs.

He handed me a card. “You can give this to your insurance company and ask them to get you a copy of the traffic report.”

I dropped the card into my purse. “And that's it?”

“Unless you get a letter telling you to appear in court. This will go on your driving record, though. Nothing you can do about that.”

I reined in my frustration. “I was trying to lose the SUV. I didn't do this on purpose, you know.”

“You're lucky you didn't kill someone, ma'am, or yourself. To be honest, we have only your word that someone was following you. I'd like to clear this lane, ma'am.”

“
You
were following me. Didn't you see the SUV on my bumper?”

“No, ma'am. I was too busy watching you. People have accidents all the time. Sometimes they make a wrong turn, or their hand slips. Sometimes they jump the median because they decide too late they want to take the 101.”

“That's not what happened.”

“I'm not saying it did. But you can't tell me the license plate number or car model or color. You can't tell me anything about the driver. And no one called in anything about an SUV involved in a noncontact hit-and-run.”

“Check out the scrapes on the driver's side of my car, Officer Lansing. He was trying to force me over the rails.”

“I don't mean to be insulting, ma'am, but I have no way of knowing when those marks were made. I'd take photos if I were you, in case you need them for court. Have a good night.”

Have a good night?

Someone had tried to run me off the road. My car was damaged. Even if the traffic court judge let me off and I didn't have to pay any fines, I had a permanent mark on my record and my insurance rates would go up. I reminded myself that I should be grateful to be alive, but I felt like a child with a badly scraped knee. The Band-Aid with Disney characters that the doctor had slapped on was cute, but the scrape hurt like hell, the iodine had stung, and I still felt like crying.

I tried starting the Acura. It made cranking sounds, rebuking me for what I'd put it through. I was worried that I'd damaged something by driving over the median, but Lansing said I'd probably flooded the engine.

“Don't pump the pedal,” he said. “You want to floor it and keep it all the way down while you turn the key in the ignition.”

I can't say for sure, but I think he looked amused.

“Have a good night,” he repeated minutes later when my engine purred. He patted my hood as if it were a pet.
Good car, nice car.
“And drive safely.”