Shame (21 page)

“You’re looking
fine,
Corinne.”

Corinne threw out her arms wide as if to embrace her man and span the distance between them. “I’ve been
waiting,
Willie.”

And not willing to wait a minute longer, by the sound of it. From ship to shore, everyone seemed to be laughing. In the vocal department, Willie and Corinne were the perfect match, their calls heard over the sea of other voices.

“You put that
mattress
in the bed of the truck like I told you, Corinne?”

“Couldn’t wait that long, Willie. I tied it to my back!”

Over all the raucous laughter, Willie was heard to say, “That’s my woman!”

Elizabeth remembered the classic picture of the sailor kissing a woman on the street during the VE celebration in New York City, two strangers caught up in a moment of exuberance. There was the flavor of that all around her. She didn’t know any of these people, but she was still caught up in their excitement.

The gangway was being lowered, with the exodus about to begin. Winners of the First Kiss Contest were being lined up to kiss their sailors. The band was playing “The Star-Spangled Banner.” There was no war on, but the crew was still getting a heroes’ welcome. Much of Elizabeth’s adult life had been spent around scenes of intense anticipation, but this was very different from awaiting the verdict at a death penalty trial or the countdown to an execution. The electricity was just as strong, but it wasn’t generated by storms.

Sailors walked down the gangplank. They appeared to be under orders not to run but were hard pressed to obey. Sea legs that in other circumstances might have been unsteady held up just fine for their long-awaited reunions. All at once, everyone seemed to be kissing and hugging and holding. Babies were lifted high, some being held and seen by proud fathers for the first time.

The giddy emotions were contagious. Even those sailors who had no waiting loved ones disembarked with wide smiles.
Liberty was liberty, and San Diego awaited them. The men in white didn’t need to ask directions for a good time.

Elizabeth watched a half hour’s worth of reunions. It was the show that kept her there more than any expectation that Caleb was going to appear. There was at least an hour more of reunions waiting to happen, judging by all the sailors still lined up to come off the
Constellation.
But Elizabeth’s reunion was looking ever more doubtful. She finally joined the exodus walking away from the pier. From behind her, Elizabeth heard the sound of hurried footsteps. Four sailors were running up behind her. She stepped aside to let them pass, but two of the sailors slowed as they ran by, twisting their heads back to give her the once-over. It
must
have been a long voyage, Elizabeth thought. She offered no encouragement to their neck craning, and they continued forward. They had survived the voyage, only to arrive at the greater dangers of port.

She wasn’t in any great hurry to get to her car. Elizabeth could never understand why people rushed to their cars after the conclusion of some public event. The same traffic jam awaited them all. As she approached her car, Elizabeth saw what looked to be a ticket on her windshield.

So much for VIP parking, she thought. But it wasn’t a ticket. The writing on the paper, in block letters, read,
Couldn’t chance talking with you. When you exit from base park on Sixth and H, I’ll be looking for you.
It was signed,
C.

She jumped into her car and became one of those jockeying drivers she usually reviled for being foolish. The drive out wasn’t as bad as she expected; nothing was impeding the general exodus from camp. According to the GPS, Sixth and H was just a few blocks from the base. Once she exited NAS North Island, it wouldn’t be more than two or three minutes away.

Her cell phone started ringing. She checked the display and saw an unfamiliar telephone number. Elizabeth took a second look at the readout. Something bothered her, something about
the call. It was apparently a local number. She hadn’t given out her number to very many locals; several people at the Sheriff’s Office, Anna, and of course, Caleb. She didn’t call back immediately, not feeling comfortable talking and driving at the best of times, and especially not in an unfamiliar area. After parking, she would return the call.

Everyone exiting the base was headed for the Coronado Bridge. Elizabeth turned right on H Street and immediately found relief from the traffic. The area around NAS North Island was residential and pricy. At one time Coronado had been a popular place for high-ranking officers to retire. Now very few in the military could afford the real estate tariffs.

Elizabeth parked on the street. Around her were large, whitewashed houses with green lawns. The street was wide and pleasant, with tamarisk, palm, and pepper trees providing a pleasant canopy of green. There were other cars parked on the street but no drivers behind their wheels. She swiveled her head around. Again, no Caleb. She waited for a minute, and when he still didn’t show up, she studied her phone again. There was something nagging at her, but still, she couldn’t put her finger on it. Maybe when she called the number her unease would pass.

There was a thump overhead on the ceiling of the car, and then a tennis ball bounced off the hood. The diversion had her head moving as the glass shattered behind her. For a moment she didn’t know what was happening, and that was the moment he needed.

He closed the back door behind him and had the rope around her neck even before she could open her mouth. He pulled hard, slamming her head against the seat. The garrote tightened. She tried to scream, but the rope stifled any sounds.

Elizabeth grabbed at the rope with her hands, but she couldn’t pull it away from her neck or get her fingers underneath it. Her instincts only made matters worse. She strained forward to try to pull free, and that tightened the noose all the more.

“Did you know,” the man said, not straining, speaking for all the world as if he were just having a conversation, “that John C. Woods said he always slept like a baby?”

She saw stars, recognized she was blacking out, and suddenly reversed tactics. She pushed her head and body back against the seat, loosening the choke hold for just an instant. As she gasped for breath, her hands reached for the steering wheel. She felt around desperately with her fingers, searching for the horn.

God, so many buttons and knobs. One of them had to work....

There. The horn was sounding. Or was that just the pressure building in her ears? The choking was shutting down her senses. She felt as if she were on a plummeting jet. She couldn’t hear. And though her eyes were open, it was almost like a curtain had been dropped in front of them. Or a shroud.

Her own thoughts became whispers. What was she saying? What was so important?

All those scene-of-the-scream photos she’d had to examine. Her life flashed before her, and she saw all those tragic faces. She couldn’t, wouldn’t, become one of those.

The pressure suddenly eased. Her first breath was ragged and labored. The pain in her neck was awful.

Behind her the car door opened and then closed.

She turned her neck, the motion adding to her agony, and saw him crossing the street. But she never saw his face, dammit. And he was wearing a sailor’s outfit.

An older man with a dog on a leash came running over. Doors to houses began to open. Elizabeth wanted to yell instructions, but she didn’t have the breath, and they wouldn’t have heard her over the horn.

Part of her was aware that the horn was still blaring and that she should disengage her hands from it, but her fingers wouldn’t, couldn’t, release their hold. A woman came through the back door and talked to her. Gradually, she was able to regain
control of her fingers and pull back from the wheel. The horn was silenced.

People kept asking her if she was all right, and that made her feel weepy and stupid. When she gulped it hurt, and when she cried it hurt even more.

The police had been called. She could hear sirens. But before they arrived her phone rang. It was the same number calling.

She answered the call. Caleb was on the other line.

T
HE UNIFORMED OFFICER
put a blanket over Elizabeth’s shoulder and helped her over to his patrol car. Officer Lowery was young but had a calming way about him. He spoke slowly and sincerely and reminded Elizabeth of a youthful Jimmy Stewart with a Kevlar vest.

Before taking a seat, Elizabeth carefully turned around in a full circle. It was an awkward way of surveying what was going on around her, but it spared her from having to move her neck. A handful of police were already on the scene. Some were taking statements, while others were cordoning off her car with crime scene tape. Elizabeth resisted Officer Lowery’s guiding hand. She stood her ground, trying to remember something, doing her best to be unmindful of the whispers and stares of the bystanders.

“The ball,” rasped Elizabeth. She spoke through clenched teeth. It hurt less to talk that way, but it still hurt.

“What ball, ma’am?” asked Officer Lowery.

Elizabeth swallowed some saliva. She’d had strep throat before, where every swallow was painful, but this was much worse.

“Tennis ball,” she said. “Should be over there.” She pointed in the direction. “He tossed it on top of the car to divert my attention.”
Another swallow, enough for her to finish the sentence. “Maybe you’ll find some trace evidence.”

“I’ll tell that to the detectives, Ms. Line. They should be here any minute now.”

He motioned for her to sit down, and only then did Elizabeth allow herself to be seated in the squad car. She felt better for having remembered, for having at least tried to contribute something. It embarrassed her that she hadn’t been able to offer more.

“Try to get comfortable, Ms. Line,” he said. “An ambulance will be here shortly.”

“No...need,” she rasped.

“How about we let them determine that? Now I know you’re in pain, but I wonder if you can give me a description of your assailant. All we have so far is that he’s dressed as a sailor, and there’s certainly no shortage of those around here.”

Elizabeth nodded. She coughed slightly, and reached up to her throat, as if trying to ward off the pain.

“You want some crushed ice?” the officer asked.

She shook her head. Even doing that hurt. In the distance, Elizabeth could hear a siren. The ambulance.

The officer pulled out a pad.

“Did you get a look at who attacked you?”

“I did,” she said.

Then she took a big gulp, but this time not for the pain. “I can even tell you who did it.”

Caleb froze at the door, hearing voices inside, then realized it was only the television. He’d borrowed Lola’s Mustang to go call Elizabeth from a pay phone. Now he followed the sounds to the living room and found Lola sitting on the sofa. Even though she had to have heard him enter the house, she stiffened slightly upon seeing him, and her greeting sounded strained.

“You’ve been on the TV,” she said, nervously running her fingers up and down the buttons of her red silk blouse. “Lots.”

Caleb said nothing, just sat down on the sofa and frowned at the television.

“They’ve been doing all sorts of live new spots. From sheriff’s headquarters, from your house...”

“Anna and the kids weren’t there, were they?”

She shook her head. “They’re in hiding, or at least that’s what one report said.”

“Good.” Maybe Elizabeth had actually followed through, he thought, and helped them.

“I thought I’d be better about all this,” Lola said. “But I’m feeling awfully uncomfortable. I guess I’m not as brave as I wanted to believe.”

“Few of us are.”

She kept biting her lower lip, wanting to say more, but resisting the impulse.

Caleb sensed the unsaid: Lola wanted him out. “I’m not the man they’re talking about on the television,” he said. “I’m not my father.”

“I know that.”

“I wish I had your intuition.”

“It doesn’t mean I don’t have my doubts. I do. But they’re as much about me as you. There are times when I want to do what’s safe, as opposed to doing what’s right.”

Welcome to my world, thought Caleb.

“Is that writer going to help you?” Lola asked.

“I don’t know.”

The television volume went up, not for a commercial but another news break. “Here we go again,” said Lola.

A news anchor sat at his desk in a studio, offering an extra-somber face to the camera, his expression so serious that few wrinkles emerged through his thick pancake makeup. “This is Donald Jones with KGSI News,” he said. “We have a breaking story on Caleb Parker, son of serial murderer Gray Parker, who is a suspect in three recent murders in San Diego County. Our own Lisa Wong is on the scene in Coronado. Lisa?”

The shot changed to the reporter on the street. “Thank you, Donald. I’m standing on H Street in Coronado where just minutes ago it is believed that Caleb Parker, son of infamous serial murderer Gray ‘Shame’ Parker, attacked and attempted to strangle true-crime writer Elizabeth Line in her own vehicle.”

“What?” Caleb’s outburst was shrill. “That’s impossible,” he said, then turned to Lola. “You know that’s impossible.”