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Authors: Meg Gardiner

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BOOK: Jericho Point
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Horns blared around us. He steered into the skid, straightened out, and slammed it toward Goleta, full throttle. My blood rushed in my ears.
‘‘That girl’s dead, and P.J.’s involved. Fuck,’’ he said.
‘‘Pull the hell over.’’
He didn’t even look my way. We raced along, barreling through puddles, flinging up water. At the roadside trees thrashed in the wind.
‘‘You’re in trouble, aren’t you?’’ he said. ‘‘P.J.’s done something that’s going to boomerang on you.’’
‘‘I’m in big trouble. But I don’t know how P.J. fits in.’’
‘‘Don’t lie to me. And damn well don’t lie to yourself.’’
We boomed past the broad lawns and playing fields of San Marcos High School. His face was severe.
‘‘Tell me everything. And don’t talk to the sheriffs unless I’m with you. I’m your attorney right now; got that?’’
I sank in my seat. I felt as though everything was caving in at once.
‘‘Evan. That young woman was murdered. And . . .’’ He gripped the wheel, staring dead ahead. ‘‘The wire around her throat. I think I know what it is.’’
We ran a red light.
‘‘It’s a guitar string,’’ he said. ‘‘I think it’s from P.J.’s guitar.’’
Bitch
. The more he thought about it, the more it bothered him. He had missed his chance.
It had been perfect, yeah, every time he reran it in his head, he came to that judgment. Capital-P Perfect. Except for the woman. And now he’d seen her again, which made him a little jumpy, but not too bad, not yet. Bad things came in threes, and she was just a two right now. Ballbuster. Pussy whipper.
But last night . . . The problem was, it had been improvised. He had to perform at the last minute, and he was brilliant. Open-air, too. His performance had been—well, almost cinematic. She walked right into it. And everything had been right at hand. And nobody saw.
That was the kick in the ass. His hottest performance, an improv at that, and nobody saw. That was the pisser about this kind of gig. Which was why it ate at him that he didn’t get it on tape. If it were on tape, it would be there for him to replay. Rewind, appreciate, critique, improve upon. Forever. If only.
But this wasn’t like laying down tracks or doing a video. You performed live, ha, so to speak, and you only got the one chance. You couldn’t rewind.
But you could always do it again.
Keith and Patsy Blackburn lived on a well-kept street in north Goleta. Jesse’s old elementary school was at the end of the road, its playing fields dark green from the rain. The house was designed in the Taco Bell school of architecture, with stucco arches around the front door, a red tile roof, and a pint-sized Spanish fountain out front.
When we coasted into the driveway, the car was as silent as the cold-storage room. I had told Jesse everything I’d kept from him the previous night, and he was seething.
Not solely at me, of course. The destruction we’d seen at the morgue had nauseated him. It had also planted a seed of fear. He turned off the engine.
‘‘P.J. could not have done that to her,’’ I said.
‘‘I don’t want to think so. But that guitar string— heavy-gauge with the blue thread on the end. It’s what he uses.’’
‘‘It’s impossible. He couldn’t hurt a fly.’’
His eyes were weary beyond all age. ‘‘He’s on drugs. Don’t be naive.’’
His mother’s Honda sat in the driveway. I nodded at it.
‘‘Are you going to tell her?’’
He looked as if he’d rather set his hair on fire. ‘‘I have to. The cops are going to come asking about the bracelet.’’ He opened the door and pulled his wheels and frame from the backseat. We got out and headed for the house.
At the front porch he turned around. He could make it down the two porch steps with a double bounce, but not up, which meant that I got to play forklift. I went behind him and grabbed the frame of the wheelchair. He rocked back, pulled hard, and I hauled him up.
It was a moment, I think, that he quietly hated. Not because he’d thundered around this house growing up and now needed his girlfriend to help him move sixteen vertical inches. That, he was coming to believe, we could both take in stride. But each trip home reminded him that, more than three years after the crash, his parents had not built a ramp. And that he took as a message.
But they wouldn’t talk about it. His parents maintained a well-honed silence, a mental version of sticking their fingers in their ears and singing, ‘‘La-la-la I can’t hear you. . . .’’ Suppression, a cappella. It was a song the Blackburn family was good at singing. They had lots of verses. Disability was just the latest addition to the lyric sheet.
He crossed the small entryway. The sunken living room, with its wall of mirrored tiles, was empty.
‘‘Anybody home?’’ He shifted his weight and bounced down the step from the entry to the hallway. ‘‘P.J.?’’
‘‘Back here, Jess,’’ a woman called. ‘‘I’m on the phone.’’
We found his mom in the family room. A college basketball game was on TV. She had the phone pressed to her ear, and was stubbing out a Marlboro.
‘‘Your aunt Deedee,’’ she whispered. ‘‘The wedding.’’
Patsy wore cutoffs and a fuchsia blouse. Her shapely legs were draped across the arm of her easy chair. She cupped her hand over the receiver.
‘‘This’ll take a while.’’ She rolled her eyes. ‘‘A bride eruption.’’
Patsy had always reminded me of Liz Taylor playing Maggie the Cat. She had the barracuda smoothness and overt sexuality. The pout came easily. The swirling cigarette smoke added a retro aura of fifties dissolution.
‘‘I have to talk to P.J.,’’ Jesse said.
She turned a cheek toward him and squeezed her lips, asking for a kiss. He held still. She gave me a tight little ain’t-he-a-stinker smile and tapped her cheek. Stiffly he crossed to the chair and stretched to give her a peck.
‘‘He’s at work,’’ she said.
‘‘Which job, the shelter? Jimson’s?’’
She shrugged, making sympathetic sounds into the phone. The wedding of her sister’s son was a nuptial typhoon that had sucked everyone into its maw, including me. I had been drafted as a ninth-inning bridesmaid.
‘‘The girl’s hypersensitive. Give her a Valium, Deedee.’’
Jesse rubbed a palm against his leg. I knew he was one step from breaking down and shouting, but his mother lived her life one step from breaking down herself, day in and day out, so he held back, saying nothing about the murder.
She glanced up. ‘‘Yes, he and Evan just came in. I don’t know, I can’t imagine why he . . .’’
She scowled at him, and reached for a highball glass that sat on the coffee table. Jesse watched her take a sip. His expression smoothed into a mask. Turning, he headed to the door into the garage. He opened it.
‘‘Mom, his Suzuki’s here. Are you sure he isn’t upstairs?’’
Embarrassed for them, I looked away. Framed photos cluttered the mantel. It was the P.J. show, a collection of photos in which he invariably looked winsome and happy. The only shot of Jesse was in one corner of a family portrait, which hung like a rebuke to all that had happened since then. Keith seemed less beaten down, spiffy in his cheap suit. Patsy smiled proudly. The house appeared less dog-eared. P.J. was impish. And Jesse looked as though he might be able to take flight. His grin and stance radiated confidence that anything was possible and just around the corner.
As it had been.
‘‘Mom,’’ he said.
‘‘Hang on.’’ Patsy put the phone against her stomach and frowned at him. ‘‘You skipped David’s bachelor party?’’
Keeping his face blank, he headed to the stairs and craned his neck. ‘‘P.J. Come down.’’ He turned to me. ‘‘Go up and haul his ass out of bed.’’
I gave him a sour look. This wasn’t my house. And I didn’t like being ordered around, though I knew it cost him to ask, because it emphasized that he hadn’t gone up these stairs in years.
Patsy stage-whispered at him, ‘‘Would it have killed you to spend one evening having fun with your cousin? He’s included you and Evan in the wedding party. Do you know how this makes us look?’’
Jesse spun. ‘‘Hang up the phone.’’
‘‘Bad enough you two called off your wedding. Now you’re going to embarrass me in front of my sister?’’
He wasn’t quick, but she wasn’t sober. He grabbed the phone out of her hand.
‘‘Aunt Deedee, she’ll call you back.’’ He hung up.
Patsy punched to her feet. ‘‘Jesse, this wedding is the biggest—’’
‘‘P.J. is in deep shit. Next time it won’t be me at the door. It’ll be the cops.’’
She didn’t exactly sway, but her posture eroded. Her gaze broke from his and, seeking a new target, lit on me.
‘‘Less than a week to the ceremony. Can’t you get him to think about the family for six lousy days?’’
I spoke softly. ‘‘Does P.J. know any girls with a blue streak in their hair?’’
‘‘He has a dozen girlfriends. I don’t know.’’ She put up her hands. ‘‘You work it out with him, Jess.’’
‘‘You’re not listening. This isn’t about us,’’ he said.
Crossing to the kitchen, she opened the fridge and took out a pitcher of iced tea. I saw confirmation that P.J. had been here recently: a pizza box, bottles of Corona beer, and Tupperware containers labeled
Patrick’s
—specialties Patsy cooked to mollify his food allergies, which was what P.J. claimed made him averse to early mornings and schoolwork and a steady job. Such as his work at the animal shelter, which had been imposed as community service after a DUI arrest.
‘‘Dad drove him before I got up. I don’t know where,’’ she said.
She poured herself a refill from the pitcher. I couldn’t smell the vodka, but of course that’s why it was her drink of choice.
Jesse watched. ‘‘Take it easy. Please?’’
‘‘It’s Saturday. Cut the world some slack.’’
Bang
, slam that door right in his face. He leaned back. Then cut a sharp turn and headed down the hallway for the door.
She thumped the highball glass onto the counter. ‘‘He’s my sister’s only son, Jess. And you’re standing up for him. This is just . . . it’s the country club, and your uncle’s colleagues are flying out from New York; it’s so—’’
‘‘Whatever.’’
I followed him. ‘‘You have to tell her.’’
Her voice trailed us. ‘‘Honey, wait. I’m sorry.’’ She came down the hallway. ‘‘I didn’t mean it. You know that, sweetheart.’’
At the step into the entryway he popped his front wheels up and held out a hand. The rise was too high for him to manage on his own. I pulled him up. Patsy watched, her face stricken.
She looked away, blinking. ‘‘I’ll see you at the rehearsal. Okay?’’
He made for the door, but I stood in front of it.
‘‘Patrick’s going to be all right. You’ll see to that, won’t you?’’ she said.
I crossed my arms. He had to tell her. His shoulders dropped.
‘‘No, he’s not.’’ He waited for her to look at him. ‘‘P.J. took your charm bracelet, and it ended up on a girl who’s dead.’’
Her hand went to her throat. ‘‘Why would you say a thing like that?’’
‘‘She was murdered. The police are going to be coming around to question him.’’
‘‘No.’’ She waved him off. ‘‘Don’t do this.’’
The phone rang.
‘‘That’s Deedee. I have to get it,’’ she said.
Without a word, she hurried back down the hall.
Blowback took longer than I expected—twenty minutes. I walked out of the animal shelter, where a canine sonata racked the air, and saw Jesse on the phone. The wind shivered across pewter puddles. I got in the car, shaking my head. P.J. wasn’t there.
‘‘Playing head games is the last thing I’m doing. This is extremely serious, and if she . . .’’ Hand through his hair. ‘‘No, Dad. I can’t help it if— Fine. Yes. Soon as I can.’’
He hung up. ‘‘I have to go back to their house.’’
He started the car. ‘‘P.J.’s at the Jimsons’.’’ Can you go? We have to talk to him before Mom gets riled up and starts calling him every two minutes. He’ll rabbit.’’
As Patsy lost count of her drinks, she lost control of her tongue. But it meant a potential run-in with the Iron Pixie.
‘‘Sure.’’
He shot me a glance. ‘‘Don’t let her scare you.’’
‘‘I won’t.’’
I lied. But P.J. was going to tell me the truth.
Santa Barbara believes it escaped the Fall. The bumper sticker says so: ANOTHER DAY IN PARADISE. We find proof everywhere—in the sunshine, the beaches, the relative infrequency of gang wars. And, of course, the celebrities.
We’re a straight shot up the freeway from Hollywood, so stars seeking a haven from L.A. land here constantly, like space debris. It convinces us we’re hot stuff. Sight an Oscar winner buying taquitos at La Super-Rica, and we coast on it for weeks.
Montecito, the tony suburb that styles itself a village, draws the biggest names, and has the most pretensions. Quiet and lush, it’s a place where old money needn’t speak, rock gods don’t raise their heads, and if your house can be seen from the street, you plain ain’t rich. Granted, Jesse had a village address—but in the neighborhood that surf rats call Baja. Lower Montecito, where you get fog, and train whistles at midnight.
Karen Jimson, on the other hand, had installed her family on a Spanish-style spread with a pool, tennis court, gym with sauna, and Japanese rock garden. They called it Green Dragons, after a slang term for jimsonweed.
I followed the winding drive up to the house. The sun was spearing the clouds, gold light through the gray. Parked in front of the garage was the BMW four-by-four I’d seen that morning outside Sanchez Marks, with the JMSNWD tags. Oaks arched over the house. The adobe walls had a creamy heft. Inside, music was thundering. I rang the bell, bracing myself for Karen.
The door opened and gangsta rap rained down on me, lyrics hitting the air like buckshot. A young woman stood in the doorway. Early twenties, Karen-sized. Her long hair flashed like black water. Sunlight kicked against her silver earrings and bracelets, and the eyelets of her steel-toed Caterpillar boots. Not to mention the diamond stud in her nose.
BOOK: Jericho Point
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