Naked Addiction (32 page)

Chapter 51

Norman

I
t was early evening by the time Norman got back to the office. He knew the editors would be upset that he hadn’t called to warn them he had a huge story coming, but he’d lost his cell phone somewhere on the cliffs. His upper body was sticky with sweat from the ordeal and his hair was stuck to his forehead in curly wisps. His appearance merely reflected what he’d been through: a near-death experience, perfect for Page One.

Norman saw Al and Big Ed, sitting at their computers, sharing a big bag of chips as they both were reading Jerry’s story about the press conference. At first, Al refused to acknowledge his presence. Norman stood patiently, waiting for him to look up, but Al was playing his usual power game. He was going to make Norman wait until he was good and ready to stop what he was doing. Big Ed, too.

“So glad you decided to join us,” Al said, finally looking up from the screen. “We saw you being interviewed on the news and we’ve only been calling you for the past two hours. Why the hell didn’t you call in? Don’t you know it’s our story before it’s theirs?”

“I lost my cell when that woman tried to kill me, but I’ve got tons of stuff they won’t have on TV. It’s an amazing story,” Norman said, trying to restrain his enthusiasm.

Dammit. I deserve to gush. But the editors don’t seem to care that I was almost been pulled over a cliff to my death.

“Yeah?” Big Ed said. “I’ll believe it when I see it.”

“Clover Ziegler jumped off a cliff. And she almost took me with her,” he said in desperation.

“Yeah, we know,” Al said. “But even so, you’re going to have to pull yourself together. It’s getting close to deadline and we need a story. Are you up to writing it? Or do we need to have Jerry interview you and insert it in the story he’s already turned in?”

“No, I’m fine,” he said. “This is my story and I’m going to write it.”

“Fine,” Big Ed said. “Then get the hell to it. Since it happened to you, you won’t need to worry about getting yourself to go on the record. Ha.”

Norman felt relieved that they were finally joking with him. “I’ve got it all right here,” he said, tapping the side of his head.

“Well, I should hope so,” Al said. He paused for a moment. “So what’s your lead?”

“Maybe we can work one out together,” Norman said, hoping to make Al feel a part of the story and draw him in. Big Ed gave him a salute, as if to say,
You two go for it.

Norman made a few more calls to check some facts, then Al shooed everyone away so the two of them could sit together at the computer and craft the story. Norman told his tale, and for the first time ever, he captured the city editor’s attention. It was better than sex, no question about it. Al even blew off Jerry, who came over at one point to see if he could help.

“Go home,” Al told him. “We’ve got it under control here.”

When they were done, Norman had to admit that he couldn’t have written it as well without Al.

Afterward, Norman invited Tommy to celebrate at the Italian place next door to the Tavern. He could hardly hold in his ego, it had expanded so much. He was looking forward to a late dinner of antipasto salad, spaghetti bolognaise, and at least one bottle of Chianti. They arrived just after nine thirty and were seated right away.

“Do you know if Lulu is working at the Tavern tonight?” Norman asked the waiter.

“Lulu? She quit today. Something about a baby on the way.”

Norman felt a sinking feeling in his stomach. “You’re kidding,” he said, trying to sound nonchalant. “Who’s the father?”

“You know that guy she’s been seeing, the prison guard?” The waiter, who knew Norman from his many meals there, leaned over and whispered, “Well, from what I hear, it’s not his.”

Norman gulped, a difficult task given the huge lump in the back of his throat. “Give us a minute, will you?”

“Sure.”

Norman turned to Tommy. “Can you believe that? He’s got to be lying. She’s not that kind of girl.”

Tommy put his hand on Norman’s shoulder. “Buddy, I didn’t want to burst the bubble you’ve been blowing for months, but, yes, she is.”

Norman shook off Tommy’s hand. “Yeah, whatever. We’re supposed to be celebrating, here. Forget the Chianti. Let’s get something serious, like some Jack Daniels. Where’s that waiter?”

Chapter 52

Goode

O
nce Jake’s attorney realized that the police had his client cold, he tried to make a deal with the DA’s office to try to save Jake from going to death row at San Quentin.

“When you hear his story, you’ll see that a life sentence is really more the way to go,” the defense attorney said to the prosecution team in the jailhouse interview room.

“I’m not making any promises,” the prosecutor replied, “but I might be more lenient if Jake gives a full confession and holds back no details. The nation is waiting to hear why he killed those people.”

Goode didn’t see how the DA could withhold the death penalty on this particular set of murders and still get re-elected, but he was ready to take the statement. Only Jake didn’t really want to confess to cold-blooded murder.

“It was an accident,” Jake said. “Tania and I had this hot night at a strip club a couple of weeks back and then to see her from the kitchen, dancing with that asshole, Friday night. . . It just ate me up inside. So, on Saturday night, I decided to go over to her apartment and warn her about what a womanizer and a prick Seth was.”

Goode nodded.
Sounds familiar. I thought the same thing as I read Tania’s diary. Why did she pick such jerks?

“We were talking in her living room and she didn’t look well, so I asked her what was wrong,” Jake went on. “She said she felt groggy, but all she could remember was going next door with her neighbor and then waking up sometime later in his dark apartment. I told her I had just what she needed, and offered her some meth to perk her up. I was thinking I had a few other things to offer her, too,” he said.

He was acting like this was a big joke. Nudge, nudge, wink, wink. Smart man to smart man. Goode couldn’t take his tone. “Don’t you have any conscience, you little freak?” he said, lunging at him across the table. He grabbed Jake by the collar of his orange jumpsuit and yanked.

“Dude! Calm down,” Jake said, startled, as he tried to pull back in the chair. He couldn’t move much, though, because his hands were cuffed behind him.

Goode let go of him and sat back down. “Show a little respect,” he said curtly.

“Okay, okay,” Jake said, taking a deep breath before he continued. “So at first she wasn’t sure she wanted to do it. She said she’d never tried meth before and didn’t really want to be high when she met up with Seth that night. Well, it was my plan for her to hang out with me all night. So I told her about the incredible euphoria—not to mention the intense sexual energy—she would feel if she tried some.”

Goode nodded. It sounded true so far.

“But then, after doing like three lines, she stopped breathing all of a sudden. I freaked out, but then I got a hold of myself and started doing CPR. Only she just lay there. All I could think was that I couldn’t let my life end like this. I had big plans. I was going to medical school to become a surgeon. But I got scared that no one would believe she died on her own, and they’d blame me for overdosing her or something. So my first impulse was to make it look like someone else killed her. Everyone had seen her with Seth on Friday night and she was supposed to go out with him that night, too, so I decided he was my best bet. I yanked the lamp cord out of the wall and pulled it around her neck to make it look like she was strangled to death. Then I also thought I should make it look like a sexual crime, so I ripped off her panties and put them in the trash. Then I carried her down to the alley. I figured the coke on her table was left over from the night before, that you’d find out Seth was selling coke at Pumphouse, and that would be that. I remembered later that I’d left some meth on the table, but I figured coke is often cut with meth, and Seth would get blamed for it all anyway. 

“I went back to the alley on Sunday to check on the body and there you were. But I thought that all went pretty cool, so I wasn’t worried. Then on Monday night, I was taking a break at Pumphouse, when Clover came in and poured out this big sob story, that Seth did her, then he did Sharona, and then he did Tania, too, right in front of her. I’d been hanging out some with Sharona myself, and that didn’t sit too well with me either. So I went over to Sharona’s apartment to shoot the shit and get high with her. I was coming down hard from the night before and was feeling a little strung out. We were talking about what had happened and she was defending Seth, saying he wouldn’t do this because he was actually a good guy if I got to know him. She’d just done a couple lines of coke on the counter and I tried to kiss her, but she pushed me away, and I guess that just set me off. Things were so fucked up already and they just kept escalating. The next thing I knew I was strangling her and she wasn’t breathing anymore.”

“Why Sharona? What did she ever do to you?”

“It was the meth, man. I didn’t even know what I was doing. . . So then I started wracking my brain what to do next.”

Goode tried to remain expressionless, but it was extremely difficult. Despite Jake’s claim of accidental death, and blaming his plight on methamphetamine, he did not sound even remotely remorseful. “Go on,” he snapped.

“I knew Jack wouldn’t snitch me out to the police about selling meth at Pumphouse, because we talked about it, and he said he thought this would all blow over once Seth was sent away and we could get back to the business at hand.”

“Good thinking,” Goode said wryly.

“Yeah, well, I thought I was in the clear. But then Keith comes to me in the Pumphouse parking lot the night after Tania’s funeral as I was going in to work and says he wants to talk to me. He says he had it all figured out, and the sucky thing—for him, anyway—is that he did. So I had no choice. I shot him. He said he was on his way to tell you all about it.”

So Keith was smarter than I gave him credit for, the poor schmuck.

“That’s when I decided to send a letter to Norman Klein at the
Sun-Dispatch
, and make it sound like Clover wrote it. I figured that since Sharona was Clover’s friend and Seth had just slept with her, you guys would have your hands full figuring out who did what to who and why, but you’d focus on Seth and then Clover, and not on me. So I turned on the charm for Clover’s maid and went upstairs to put Keith’s ring, Sharona’s hair, and Tania’s fingernails in that box. Dude, I thought I was golden.”

Goode shook his head. The guy had been clever when he’d come up with this plan, but not clever enough, and being a meth-addled sociopath did not a defense make.

“So, seriously. What was it?” Jake asked Goode earnestly, as if it were just the two of them in that room. He seemed to really want to know where he’d screwed up—as if this were an academic test that he could take again for a higher grade. “How did I blow this whole thing?”

Goode paused long and hard, for effect as much as anything else. “You thought you were smarter than everybody else. And that mistake, my friend, is worth at least a life term. But I’ve got to tell you, if the prosecutor here asks the victims’ families for their input, a death sentence is more likely.”

Chapter 53

Goode

T
he moon was just shy of being full as Goode walked the length of Crystal Pier, where the water glistened as the two-foot waves gently broke against the pilings underneath. It felt very peaceful there.

When he got to the end of the pier, he kneeled and set his cappuccino—decaf—on the ground in front of him. Then he pulled his wallet from his back pocket and slipped the photos out of their slot. They were warm in his hand as he opened up the two folded ones and laid them out in a row next to the faded shot of his mother. She really did have an uncanny resemblance to Tania. It was almost surreal. He put his mom back into her resting place, then after a few moments, also replaced the photo of Alison. As he stared at Tania’s smiling face in the moonlight, he could feel her presence there with him. He also swore he could detect the fleeting sweet scent of gardenias.

“I hope you’ve found some peace, Tania,” he said.

Almost as if on cue, he felt a warmth come over him and a sense of serenity.

“Good,” he said. “I’m glad. Then my work is done.”

Goode wished he’d brought a gardenia in her memory, but all he had was the photo. So he slowly ripped it up into little pieces, then tossed them over the side. He watched them flutter down to the water and sink, forming sequined bubbles that reflected the light of the moon.

As the water swallowed the shreds of her image, Goode felt his obsession with her go down with them. Tania had died young but she seemed to have lived more than most. Even in death, she’d taught him that life was about taking chances. He also felt the guilt in not being able to save Clover recede as well.

She wanted to be free and now, hopefully, she is.

He pictured Alison’s cute, lopsided smile, her curly golden hair, and the scared-deer look in her eyes that had begun to dissipate as he gained her trust. He wanted to see her happy, but he wasn’t going to let her draw him into her problems and he also wasn’t going to try and save her from them. Not this time. He figured it would be best for both of them if they took it slow and kept it casual for a while, at least until they knew if there was a chance for something real. He didn’t want to be another man who hurt her.

Goode never thought it would happen, but the dead feeling inside him had gone. All this real-life stuff still made him want to sprint home and hide. But he’d already decided he wasn’t going to run anymore. He was going to sit right there and watch the sequined lady dance.

Author’s note

This book started off as a short story, inspired by a news article I wrote when I was a City Hall reporter for the
Springfield Union-News
in Northampton, Massachusetts, about twenty-five years ago. After writing more than two thousand news stories during my nearly twenty-year career as a daily newspaper reporter, I’d forgotten those details until I dug up my original author’s note for this book.

A young woman, who was an old friend of my then-boyfriend, was murdered in New York City and he took me to her wake. That true crime story worked as a creative catalyst for me to create the character of Tania Marcus, who, by the way, is in no way based on the young murder victim I wrote about in the newspaper. For that matter, no character in this book is modeled on a real person.

The plot built from there in a year of Sunday writing workshops; in fact Tania’s journal entries came right out of those sessions. At the time I had about four years of newspaper experience, only a few years more than my cub reporter character, Norman Klein, who was nicknamed Inky throughout my earlier drafts because of the newsprint ink smudged on his face. As I churned out two to four news stories a day I yearned for a creative outlet and was homesick for La Jolla. And out came my surfing protagonist, Detective Ken Goode.

Even though I spent much of my journalism career covering government and politics, I was always interested in stories about bizarre deaths, the psychology of the criminal mind, addiction, murders, and suicide. Those interests have continued for me as the
New York Times
bestselling author of nine books, including a tenth that I’m working on now about the Steven DeMocker case in Prescott, Arizona.

I’ve been drawn to stories involving addiction not only because I’ve dealt with those issues in my own family, but also because it’s such a devastating problem in our society. Ironically, I conceived of this plot years before I met my late husband, who turned out to be an alcoholic and ultimately committed suicide. Back when I was still working to get this book published, I wondered if I had a strange power to foresee the future.

Getting this novel into print was not just a goal, it was my dream. I rewrote it countless times, trying to please workshop critique groups, agents, and even an editor who read two versions before I signed with an agent. I was working as a professional writer then, but was still an aspiring and yet unpublished author. Journalism is a good training ground for the kind of rejection you get as a wannabe author, because when one door closes, you go knock on another one. I wanted nothing more than to get a book published, and I was determined to do so.

As the years went by, I began to worry that this venture was turning into a vanity exercise, so I’d often put the manuscript in a drawer for a while, then send it out again. I would wait for a response, and just when I thought I was getting somewhere, I would get another rejection.

But time after time, I managed to pick myself off the curb and persist, taking heed of any word of encouragement or positive sign that I should keep going. Sometimes it had nothing to do with me or my writing; it was just part of the learning curve as I tried to navigate a constantly evolving publishing landscape. Circumstances, and even natural disasters such as 9/11, impeded my efforts. The nagging question was how to break in.

Ultimately, I decided to try writing a non-fiction book to see if I had any better luck, and that turned out to be the way to go. My first book, POISONED LOVE, which was published in 2005, was a work of narrative non-fiction, combining the fiction-writing skills I’d learned through many years of weekends working on my craft with the investigative reporting skills I’d honed as a weekday Metro reporter for daily newspapers.

After getting two non-fiction book deals and being offered a third, I was finally able to get this baby published in 2007. It only took seventeen years.

Unfortunately, the publisher didn’t do much to promote the book and I didn’t know how, so it made a quiet debut and went out of print without many people even knowing it existed. Those who did read it told me they enjoyed it very much and wished I’d write more fiction. But having to make a living has always gotten in the way. I’ve spent most of my time churning out true crime books and memoirs I’ve co-authored, working my way onto the
New York Times
bestseller list with MY LIFE, DELETED.

Given that accomplishment and seven or eight books under my belt, the publisher agreed to re-release this book with a new cover. I was very excited and hoped my first and only novel would get the attention I’d hoped for it the first time out.

But that was not to be. The publisher went into foreclosure on the eve of publication and it took me a year or two to get my rights back. My hope was to find a new home for it, or even self-publish it.

I hope I’ve found something better, and that’s WildBlue Press, a new indie publisher I joined even before it launched this summer. We are a “consortium” of established authors who have multiple books under our belts but can’t make a decent living with just the money we’ve earned from traditional publishers. Our goal is to be able to make enough to continue doing what we love.

I want to thank fellow author Steve Jackson and his partner Michael Cordova, the publishers of WildBlue, for helping me revive my dream of seeing this baby in print. I also want to thank Renee Yewdaev, who designed this great cover, which never made it into the marketplace for the first scheduled re-release. I also owe my gratitude to Chris Keeslar, the editor who commissioned that endeavor, and recently helped me hook up with Renee to get her permission for this new edition.

I also want to tip my hat to the original agent for the book, Gary Heidt, who was the first to take on my fiction and get it published, and also to my current agent, Peter Rubie, for helping me get my rights back. I offer a heartfelt thank you to my mother, Carole Scott, for her continuous generosity and support, as well as to Géza Keller for his emotional support and musical contributions to my book parties.

Along the way, many others have assisted me with the writing and research of this book. There are too many to list here, so I will name just a few:

I am most grateful to the benevolent bestselling crime author Michael Connelly, who read and critiqued an earlier draft of this book, before I even had a publisher, and also gave me the very nice blurb you see on the cover. I also want to thank Pulitzer-winning author Jennifer Egan for her helpful remarks at Bread Loaf, author Alan Russell for his suggestions on an early version, and Pulitzer-winning editor and friend Susan White for her comments on my early drafts. Thanks also to San Diego PD detectives (retired) Laurie Agnew and Randy Alldredge for answering my police procedural questions.

So, here we are, and I humbly present you with the revised edition of NAKED ADDICTION. It has a few improvements and modern technological references inserted here and there, but I wanted to preserve most of the original text so those of you who read my later books can see how I got started.

If this is your first time reading my work, you can see from my more recent titles how I’ve taken my fiction craft and applied it to my narrative non-fiction storytelling. I’ve got eight other books to choose from, with a couple more in the hopper.

After researching and writing POISONED LOVE, I was able to give the detectives in this novel more investigative techniques to work with, but mostly I focused on fleshing out the characters. I have since learned so much more about killers, homicide investigations, and the criminal justice system in general that I will be able to incorporate all that knowledge and experience into whatever sequels come next.

I hope you enjoy it.