Buried Evidence (33 page)

“Look,” John told him, noting a slight tremor in his hand, making him even more uneasy. “I’ve not only got this big customer
coming in, the whole family is counting on me bringing home the car for my wife’s birthday. You’ve seen my credit history,” he said. His need for a drink was getting stronger with each passing moment. “You’ve got enough to write a book on me. Want a photo ID, take a damn picture of me with one of those fancy computer cameras everyone owns these days.”

“Take the car, okay?” Reynolds said, not wanting to lose the deal. “Just get in touch with our leasing agent as soon as you get another license.”

“You’re a good man,” John said, shaking his hand.

N
ow that I’ve talked your ear off,” Shana said, adjusting the pillows behind her head, “why don’t you tell me about your job at Sea World?”

“It’s not the money they pay me,” Greg Fowler told her. “I just resent the fact that the dolphins I work with have to spend their lives performing stunts. They belong in the ocean with other dolphins.”

“Now, wait a minute,” Shana argued, “if we didn’t have zoos and places like Sea World, people would lose interest in certain forms of animal life, even stop giving money to institutions to preserve them. Sea World might be a tourist attraction, Greg, but it’s also a place to protect your precious dolphins and a lot of other sea life that might never survive in some of our polluted waters.”

“Dolphins are special,” he said. “Last summer I interned at a place in Hawaii where people with physical and emotional disabilities flew in from all over the world to work with the dolphins.”

Shana unwrapped a piece of gum and placed it in her mouth. “Don’t you mean they
swam
with the dolphins? I’ve never heard of anyone
working
with them, unless they’re feeding them or cleaning the tank the way you do.” She stopped and laughed. “Dolphins don’t have jobs at this place, do they? If they do, they’ll have to give them a paycheck.”

“You’re making fun of me. I’m trying to tell you something.”

“Sorry,” she said, twirling a strand of her hair around her finger. “I’m being awful to everyone lately. Don’t ask me why, because I’m not going to tell you. Just finish the rest of your story.”

“Let me explain,” he continued. “Some dolphins can sense where a person’s physical weakness is, almost like an underwater
doctor. If someone who is disabled or sick swims with them, the dolphins will actually provide support for the part of that person’s body that’s been weakened either by illness or injury. I’ve seen children who were miraculously healed, even some who had spinal cord injuries.”

“That’s incredible,” Shana said. “The way I feel about people right now, maybe I should go to Hawaii and swim with your dolphins.”

“Not unless I can go with you.”

Shana’s ear had gone numb from their lengthy phone call, even though she had shifted from one ear to the other several times. “I better go now,” she told him. “My mother’s probably chomping at the bit right now. And you can imagine how much this phone call is going to cost your dad.”

“Don’t worry,” Greg reassured her, “Dad’s got plenty of money. The problem is, he can’t find anything worth spending it on, and he certainly isn’t going to give it to me. He’s tough, you know, thinks everyone has to make their own way.”

“Hey,” she replied, thinking of how hard her mother had struggled, “at least he’s able to pay for your education. A lot of my friends have had to drop out of school. Next semester I’m going to get a job and see if I can’t take care of my own expenses.”

Telling Greg she was looking forward to seeing him in the near future, Shana hung up and went outside to find her mother. When she discovered the note on the dining room table, she was certain Richard and Lily had snuck over to her mother’s guest cottage to have sex. She went back to the bedroom and curled up on the bed, quickly falling asleep.

E
N ROUTE
to the duplex, John stopped off at the liquor store and bought a fifth of Jack Daniel’s, then walked next door to the newsstand to pick up a Las Vegas newspaper, wanting to check out the classified section and see what kinds of jobs were listed. He subscribed to the
L.A. Times
, but he’d been too distraught to read it that morning. Something compelled him to pick the paper
up off the stand, sensing there might be something inside regarding the accident. When he found what he feared—the article about the death of the young man he had killed, his name in print for all to see—he staggered backward, dropping his head and ducking back into the car.

At least the article didn’t contain a picture of him. It did state, however, that he had been arraigned on charges of vehicular manslaughter. What choice did he have now but to flee, attempt to establish a new identity? He was no longer John Forrester, loving father. His family name was now publicly vilified. Even if they failed to convict him, he knew his life would never be the same.

While driving to the duplex, John remembered a recent segment on
Prime Time Live
, or one of the other news programs of that nature, emphasizing how easy it was for a person to obtain various forms of false identification, even credit cards. On his way out of town, he decided to drive by the location they had mentioned, an area known as MacArthur Park, located at Seventh Avenue and Alvarado, hoping he had enough money to pay for what he needed.

The shock of seeing the article caused him to unscrew the bottle of Jack Daniel’s and take a swig before he reached his front door, wadding up the paper bag and tossing it into a trash barrel. Swiping his mouth with the back of his hand, once he was in the house, he placed the bottle on the coffee table and headed to the kitchen to check his voice mail, hoping Shana had called him. When he heard only the nasal voice of a woman inquiring about one of his listings, he smashed his fist into the wall. All he wanted was to say goodbye, tell Shana he was sorry, tell her how much he loved her. How could his life have sunk to such a disgusting level? It was as if Hell had risen up out of the ground and swallowed him.

He had hoped to be able to keep the Buick for at least thirty days, thinking the real estate agent whose identity he had stolen wouldn’t find out until the first payment. He had promised the car salesman, however, that he would bring in some type of photo ID the next day. Maybe he could have one of those guys on the street make him up a dummy license, then send a copy of it in
the mail. With the new seal the state of California imprinted on each license, it was impossible to simply print one up on a computer. If he couldn’t take care of the problem, he’d be forced into ditching the car after he reached Vegas. At least the public defender had advised him that his next court appearance wasn’t scheduled for another three weeks.

John headed to the front door to retrieve his luggage from the detached garage, grabbing the bottle of Jack Daniel’s off the table. The shakes were getting progressively worse. He had to make them stop, and the only solution was to feed his body what it craved. Once he threw some of his clothing and personal items into a suitcase, he would make a pot of coffee to try to offset the effects of the alcohol before embarking on such a long drive.

As he stood in front of his garage, a car drove past full of young people, loud music blasting through the open windows. He imagined families inside the houses on the block, laughing, loving, enjoying one another. He would never live a normal life again, never see his daughter step onto the stage to receive her diploma.

He hesitated before hoisting up the door to the garage. Inside were the remnants of the life he had once lived with Lily. Tables, chairs, lamps, items that had been in their home in Camarillo. This time when he tipped the bottle to his mouth, he guzzled it down as if it were water.

John ducked inside when he spotted one of his neighbors out walking her dog, quickly closing the garage door behind him. Beverly Murdock was a white-haired busybody, and he was in no mood to deal with her. A small window was situated in the rear of the garage, vaguely illuminating the interior. Before he had a chance to turn on the lights, he suddenly froze, hearing a noise in the far left corner of the structure. A neighborhood cat must have managed to sneak inside when he came out a few weeks back to retrieve his toolbox.

He was feeling along the wall for the light switch when he heard another noise—a strange wheezing sound. Whipping out his pocket knife, he flicked open the blade, fearing the sound had been made by a rabid raccoon or some other type of wild animal.
He never locked the garage, almost hoping someone would break in and save him the trouble of hauling the junk inside away. Outside of a few pieces of cheap luggage, there was nothing of real value worth stealing.

He waited and listened, holding his breath. With the alcohol now coursing through his bloodstream, he decided to open the garage door rather than continue groping around in the dark for the light switch.

Just as he reached for the handle to lift the door, John heard something rushing toward him at tremendous speed, like a raging bull. Boxes and furniture tumbled over. The next thing he knew, he was pinned face first against the wall, held in place by the maniacal force of his attacker. “Booze, huh?” the man hissed, yanking the bottle out of John’s hand and slamming it against the wall.

A dagger of white-hot pain entered John’s back as he frantically struggled against his attacker. As he slashed out blindly with his pocket knife, the man seized his arm in an iron grip, a guttural, inhuman sound erupting from his throat.

John screamed in agony as he felt his wrist being bent backward until the bones emitted a loud, sickening crack.

“You thought you were gonna cut me with that pussy knife,” his attacker snarled in his ear, closing the knife and slipping it in his pocket. “You’re a joke, man. That knife’s not good for nothing but cleaning your fingernails.”

John felt warm liquid gushing down his back, knowing instantly that it was blood. The man had stabbed him. He had to force each word out of his mouth. “Money…I… have… money.”

The man waved the Bowie knife in front of his face, a streak of light reflecting off the shiny surface of the blade. “This what a knife looks like, asshole,” he said, his words spoken with a Latin accent. He plucked out the roll of cash and stuffed it into the waistband of his sweat pants.

The man had said something about booze. John thought of Antonio Vasquez. Had one of his relatives decided to seek revenge? His eyes closed, the weight of his body fell limp in the
man’s arms. The man’s voice and the words he spoke pulled him back.

“You’re her daddy, ain’t you?” he said. “Is she in the house? That’s who I want, old man. I want that pretty little daughter of yours. You, I don’t want. You just a man in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

John released an involuntary grunt with each thrust of the knife. He no longer felt the pain, only the pressure of the blade as it passed into his flesh. He had been driving Shana’s car. Vasquez’s family must believe she had killed their son. He suddenly saw himself inside a sun-filled room. Shana was a little girl again, her eyes filled with love and innocence as she gazed up at him. “Take me to the park, Daddy,” the vision said, her hand tugging on his sleeve. “You promised, remember?”

Shana’s image vanished with the light, replaced with the face of the beautiful young boy he had driven off and left to die. He felt himself diving into the same fathomless pool of swirling darkness he had glimpsed that night of the hit-and-run. He mouthed the same exact words Lily had the night Curazon had dragged her down the hall toward the bedroom where Shana was sleeping: “Please, God, not my daughter.”

L
ily had been mistaken about Von’s being open. Determined to treat Richard’s injured hand so it wouldn’t become infected, they ended up driving to Goleta, a small city just north of Santa Barbara. When they returned to San Ysidro Ranch it was almost midnight, and Shana had fallen asleep on the bed. “Don’t wake her,” Richard whispered, peering over Lily’s shoulder. “There’s two sofas in the living room. Stay here tonight.”

“That’s ridiculous, Richard,” she told him. “I can’t let you sleep on the sofa, particularly not after I caused you to cut your hand. That wound was worse than I thought. I’m worried now that we should have taken you to the E.R., let the doctor put in a few stitches.”

“God, Lily,” he said, “you really are a mother hen.”

“Let me wake Shana,” she said. “It’s time we got out of your hair.”

“Stay here tonight,” he insisted. “I saw some extra blankets and pillows in the closet.”

“Are you sure?” Lily asked, glancing at the two sofas. One was large enough to sleep on, but the other one was only a love seat. “You won’t be comfortable, Richard. I can curl up on the love seat, but your legs are too long.”

“Your daughter needs her rest,” Richard told her, walking over and closing the French doors leading to the bedroom. “I wouldn’t care if I had to sleep on the floor. Knowing you’re both safe is all the comfort I need right now.”

S
HANA’S EYES
sprang open Saturday morning. For a few moments she was disoriented, thinking she was in her bedroom in North Hollywood. When she realized she had spent the night
in Richard’s bungalow at San Ysidro Ranch, she tried to sit up, then flopped back on the bed, her body shivering as if she were covered by a sheet of ice.

The French doors leading to the outer room were closed. Her mother and Richard must have gone back to her place to be alone, she decided, thinking they would sneak back in before she woke up. As she climbed under the covers to get warm, her stomach began gurgling with hunger. Outside of her phone conversation with Greg, much of the previous evening had passed in a fog, and she couldn’t remember what she’d eaten for dinner. Since she had slept in her clothes, she got up and walked out into the living area to see if she could find anything to eat.

“Good morning.” Lily said, surprised they had slept so long. The clock on the wall read nine-fifteen. “How long have you been up?”