CoverBoys & Curses (22 page)

Chapter Sixty-Four

Another
Memorable Memorial

PARAMEDICS
ARRIVED WITHIN ten minutes. They were about ten hours too late.

           
Falls died of massive coronary heart
failure. Although my mom, dad, fiancé, best friend, and every other death I’d
encountered were unexpected, Sterling knew in her heart that this day was
inevitable.

           
I understood that grief is an equal
opportunity employer.

THE
MEMORIAL SERVICE displayed the dignity of the man we were honoring and remembering.
Quiet. Respectable. Even Sterling toned down her glitz. Flowers overflowed. No
one could prevent the mourners’ arrival en masse, although the final wishes of
Oliver Falls dictated cremation without pomp and circumstance.

           
Brock had an away game. Excused. But
where was Carly?

Sterling
and I hadn’t really made any plans for afterward, but I presumed I would take
what guests might linger on to a nice meal at an equally quiet restaurant.
Sterling shocked me when she told me she was unavailable. She and Dr. Coal were
leaving together. They had made other plans.

           
“I didn’t realize you even knew Dr.
Coal,” I said.

           
“Daddy liked Harlan,” Sterling said.
She must have seen the distress in my eyes. And maybe jealously, which is hardly
an appropriate emotion at the conclusion of a memorial service.

           
“Daddy probably liked Harlan because
he knew he’s the only male friend I have that hasn’t jumped my bones. That’s a
record for me, you know,” Sterling said in defense.

           
“You’re dating him?” I asked.

           
“A few times. If you can call no sex
a date. He’s not my shrink, Lauren. You can’t go after him on ethic charges.
And in case you haven’t noticed he’s a drop dead hunk.”

           
“Of course,” I uttered, still unsure
why it was a private affair between the two of them, and right after the
service. Yes. Coal was my shrink, although after the invitation to buy the home
on his compound I had neglected to schedule any further sessions with him.
Somehow I got the feeling Coal could be more persuasive than Gabri when it came
to buying a home. Somehow I didn’t want a dead person’s house. And I certainly
didn’t want to move away from the beach.

           
The timing was all wrong, but still
I wanted to ask Sterling what Coal was like. The man and not the shrink. On a
date. And I wondered why in the world, if he wasn’t the seducer, had Sterling
not yet seduced him—in totality.

           
The timing was wrong. I would wait.

CARLY
WAS NO WHERE to be found. I kept phoning her studio and cell. Finally, I called
Sterling.

“Oh,
yeah,” Sterling said. She took off for a few days. Gave her employees some time
off, too. She was going to take some days for herself, and then go install some
big design job. You know the one. The job that’s going to cash flow her new
antique store.”

I knew.
And I didn’t. Honestly my mind and time and efforts had been driven back to
CoverBoy
, and then to help Sterling
handle her father’s final goodbye. I had left the tumultuous affairs of Payton Doukas
into the capable hands of Victor Romero. As for all the heinous stuff going on
with the slayings that seemed to surface with every issue I printed, I guess I
had left that to Detective Wray. It seemed to me there was some guy out there
pulling a Robin Hood thing. Instead of robbing from the rich he was robbing the
world of all evil.

“You
haven’t spoken to Carly?” I asked.

“She’s
not returned my calls, like I could care right now,” Sterling said. “She’s a
big girl. Chasing her dream.”

Chapter
Sixty-Five

Fateful
Decisions

ARMAND’S
REGURGITATED memories could satisfy him for weeks. Occasionally, after an
especially delightful encounter, he could go for months.

           
He was no killer but he loved blood.
He obtained his fix with the brutality of his own hands. The burgeoning skin
that instantly swelled under the force of those hands only caused him to want
more. He preferred the screams that came with it, but he acquiesced to Coal and
stuck with the
rohypnol
. Sort of. Sometimes he cheated
on that promise. When living in the desert he’d experimented with the abundant
oleander foliage, and later he learned the wonders of camphor. Armand
especially liked the convulsions when he used camphor. It beat the hell out of
fucking a passed-out ragdoll on the
roofies
.

           
He abandoned the
rohypnol
all together after he had found the magic of the colorless, odorless, and
tasteless scopolamine.

           
How stupid of him to waste time on
the other drugs. Yes. So easy to get from his homeland in Bogota, scopolamine
became his drug of choice.

           
Armand had long known that he had
two problems. One,
rohypnol
might cause a type of
amnesia, but in recent court trials clever attorneys had placed their poor
little victims under hypnosis and their lost memories were not lost at all.
They were there on the hidden transcripts of the brain all along.

           
Harlan Coal assured Armand that he
could take care of any of those memories, claiming them as false, or even
laying the fresh veil of a new memory over any reality. But that led Armand to
his second problem. Coal had made himself indispensible to him.

           
Armand was quick to reclaim his
roots. The
borrachero
tree. Scopolamine and its drunken pollen stopped any recorder in the brain. Not
a pause. No record. Just STOPPED.

           
A few seeds and the drug could be
lethal. Armand learned this to be true through trial and error. But pure and
cheap scopolamine, easily acquired throughout Bogota and the harvested fields
of Ecuador, allowed Armand to be in control of his own destiny. This secret, he
owned.

           
I love my life, Armand thought. The
rohypnol
and all the other drugs leave my conquests like
splayed out dolphins after the slaughter. How fun is that? With the
borrachero
his
little playmates were free to scream, slither, and slash back at him. Just the
way he liked to come—good and hard.

He did
enjoy the privacy of the Bel Air house. The huge walls afforded him more
options, but too many times Harlan Coal would ditch some of his boy toys
inside. He’d have to keep them doped up, along with any of his bloody little
whores.

           
The whole scene grew wearisome, even
as he folded up his black leather gloves and folded them into his pocket.
Better than latex should ever his memory
loss program fail him
. The gloves scared the shit out of his girls, Armand
reminisced. Just like they had the Visconti woman.

CARLY
LOVED BIG BEAR.
 
She breathed in the cool
pure mountain air and felt the pulse of time slowing down as she left the big
city of angels behind in her rearview mirror.

In time
she would ask Sterling for forgiveness, for even though she knew about
Sterling’s father’s death, Carly had a business future to secure. Surely
Sterling would understand. Sterling had been born with a sterling silver spoon
in her mouth and Lauren’s was golden, but they would both somehow remember
Carly’s splintered wooden one.

           
The cabin rested on the rim of the
lake, protected by a cathedral of towering pines. Carly had never met the
non-resident owner but she’d been up to the property on four occasions to tour
it, take measurements, and facilitate the deconstruction process that needed to
occur prior to the magic of her design work, furnishings and accessories.

           
Carly knew the scale of the job
would match any king’s castle. The income would be enough for her to place the
phone call to Gabriella Criscione. Carly would finally secure her dream antique
store.

           
The truck had delivered the first
phase of furniture and accessories. Although they would be stripped of shipping
containers and any wrapping, Carly would be lucky if the king-sized mattress
set actually made it into the master bedroom.

           
The owner wouldn’t arrive for
another two months. His parameters proved to be vast. He didn’t want too much
cabin-like horse and cowboy crap, no contemporary look, and no Scandinavian.
The left Carly’s design palette wide open, fueled by an exorbitant budget.

           
With a bed she could put together
herself, decorator towels and linens she could replace before the owner ever
knew it, and a remote quiet, Big Bear beckoned her.

           
The hundred-mile drive had never
been so easy. Carly needed time to think, oblivious to any verdict of fate.

Chapter
Sixty-Six

Big
Bear

JUMPING
OUT OF the van, Carly stretched out her legs, took a deep breath of pine-laced
air, then grabbed a load of the new linens from the cargo door.

A quick
walk-through and Carly realized the delivery men did a better job than she
expected. Even the beds had been put together. It pays three-fold to treat your
people with respect and surprise bonuses, Carly thought. Some designers refused
to treat their hired labor as humans, let alone give them tips.

She
eagerly grabbed the August Horn linens and dressed the king bed for a good
night of sleep. She’d already made the note to take what would now be used
linens home with her and reorder new ones. Even at her cost she would not be
one to invest in them for herself, but this time was different. This time was
special.

Carly
would enjoy a great night or two of sleep. Maybe even three. She would work
hard on the furniture, the art, the lighting and accessories. And she would
have time to relish and bless this design job that would launch her into her
new career as proprietor of a world-class antique store.

After
finishing making up her borrowed bed Carly toured the rest of the home. New
tongue and groove flooring banished any sensation of the cold or damp. The leathered
granite counters, installed in the kitchen, three bathrooms, and the wetbar
offered a surface of milky green perfection.
Copia
Designworks
hardware adorned walls and cabinetry. Their bronze
towel bars hung like pieces of art, cabinet knobs and pulls rose off the cherry
wood panels as if each one opened up a treasured jewelry box.

While
firmly attached, Carly could feel the meaty weight of the bronze knobs as she
opened up the cabinets. The empty cupboards would be filled with her ultimate
kitchen package in another six weeks. She needed the time to lug the heavy
pieces of furniture and art around without concern for breaking the new china
and crystal.

Besides,
her client wouldn’t be there and expect complete perfection for another eight
weeks.

Chapter
Sixty-Seven

Beach
Storm

RETURNING
HOME FROM the sorrow of Oliver Falls’ memorial service, I made several more
calls to track down Carly.

Nothing.
Maybe she really did need a great escape.

 
My car never got over twenty miles an hour,
even though it felt like I’d been taking curves in a racing Shelby with no idea
how to shift.

Traffic
was crawling out to the beach communities. Rain pelted down hard as the wiper
blades caught blowing grit and sand that scraped across the windshield.

           
When my cell rang the diversion
startled me, so hard were my eyes focused on staying on the road.

           
“I’m worried about you out in this
storm,” Brock said.

           
“I’m a little worried about me, too,”
I admitted. “Are you home?”

           
“You bet I’m at home, and dry. You
bolted from Oliver Falls’ reception service before I could tell you the good
news that I have a few days off for good behavior. You didn’t even see me
there.”

           
I’m sorry I didn’t see him. I could
have used his shoulder. But this wasn’t good news. Brock’s old shoulder injury
had never healed properly, but the pitcher refused to baby it the way it
deserved and the coach, the team, and the league seemed to look the other way.
For a while.

           
“Look, I didn’t bolt. I just knew
this storm would hit hard and I wanted to try and beat it. And you sound like
you’re in pain. Are you hurt?” I asked.

           
“I’m okay. I’ll be back in the game
soon.”

“Did you
see Carly there at the service?”

“Nope.
And where are you by now?”

           
“I’m almost home. Ten minutes. I
have a full tank of gas but I’m low on windshield solvent. I guess I’m sort of
hoping it keeps pouring rather than have sand sticking to the glass.”

“Swing
into a station and get some solvent.”

“Too
lazy. And like I said, I’m ten minutes from home.”

“The
forecast is gloom and doom and it sounds like the coast is getting the brunt of
it. You take twenty minutes, then call me.”

I shut
off my cell and drove another thirty minutes, sighing with relief when my car
pulled into my drive and the garage door rolled open.

The wind
gusts pushed the pelting rain into my damp but warm garage. Closing the
overhead door before I exited the car, I listened as the wind moaned and the
massive door heaved and creaked. Smell of salt and sand—a refreshing smell now
that I wasn’t driving in it, permeated the air.

           
Windshield solvent, I remembered. I
should put some in now, rather than forget it and risk muddy drive conditions
in the morning.

           
I popped the release of my hood and
pulled it up. When I turned toward the oak cabinet that housed my limited
selection of auto supplies, the hood slammed shut.

           
A second attempt produced similar
results.

           
Shit. Okay. Prop it up with
something. No big deal.

           
The broomstick was too long to
squeeze in, I deduced. The squeegee, and where the hell did I get that? It was
too short, anyway.

           
Feeling like Goldilocks, I searched
for just the right size of gadget that would hold the damn hood open. The roar
of the wind urged me to go inside, but logic told me I was safe from any weather
if I’d take the time to put the stupid solvent in my car. Hopefully the storm
would be gone before my morning commute, but just in case…

           
I opened the built-in closets to
find them bare to empty. Then I spied the golf bag. The same one I had
collected from the airport package service.

           
I unzipped the cover and pulled out
one of the shorter clubs. Golf is not my game, but I know I used an iron. Just
the right size. Goldilocks got it right.

           
Once again I popped the release
button and lifted the hood, wedging the club into place. I had started pouring
the solution into the funnel when the crash sounded and I jumped, losing
control of both the solvent and the funnel.

           
As the golf bag careened over to the
concrete floor, its contents splayed through the air. White golf balls toppled
out and pinged across from wall to wall.
 
Clubs spewed out of the bag with a harsh clanging noise, along with
dozens of pieces of paper.

           
The solvent now poured onto my shoes
and the surface under them, blazing a river of steely blue liquid toward the
mess of golf clubs. Only then did I realize the papers were photographs.

           
Without thought, I collapsed to the
floor and scrambled to retrieve the glossy images.

Revolting.
My hands shook as I glanced at the photographs, wiping off the fluid where I
could. Black and whites. Color. Sodomy. Fellatio. Naked boys of every size and
color. I couldn’t tell their ages, but if they were of flesh and blood, they
were all innocent children that had been violated.

           
I didn’t want to look at them. I
couldn’t look away. One photo, then another and another. I scooped them up and
dumped them into a garbage bag, bringing the uninvited nightmare into my home.

Why were
the photographs in a golf bag?

Where did
the golf bag come from?

Where
were the kids’ parents and how could they let their children fall victim to
such atrocious evil?

I dumped
the images onto my travertine floor. Nausea set in, an odd companion to an ever
more disquieting sense of familiarity. A knowing sense, although of what—I did
not know.

At first
it was just one photograph that captured my mind. A pillow on the floor. A pair
of wire rim glasses, common enough. A
dhurrie
rug.
Again, common enough.

What was
it that unsettled me?

I
scoured more images and returned to the one that held my stomach captive.

The
durrie
rug. It was a pattern I knew.

I sorted
through the photographs again. A realm of familiarity engulfed me.

My eyes
and my heart froze when I focused on the statue of the ivory elephant with a
raised foot and in a boat, and perched on a blue slab of stone. Lapis lazuli.

It had
been in
his
office. I saw it there on
my first visit. Definitely he had told me it was one of a kind.