Killer Commute (19 page)

That's it, we've got it all now. The answer to Jeremy's death and this whole thing. It all came together today.

Swell, so what's the answer?

The cats were dark humps with glowing eyes trading threatening moans that grew in graduations of fanatic urgency and decibels.

I don't know, I just sense it—it's so tantalizingly close to the tip of my—

Oh, knock it off.

“Who, me or the cats?” They were sitting on the picnic table with their feet resting on chairs, much like Charlie and Ed Esrerhazie had the night before last, and Maggie leaned over to bump Charlie's shoulder with hers. The gesture said, I know you talk to yourself and it embarrasses you but I think it's endearing.

But in real life Maggie said, “I have something to say, and I want you to be patient and hear me out, okay? I know you don't like to talk about it.”

“After that wonderful lead-in, how could I refuse? I don't like to talk about what?”

“About your intermittent hearing problem.”

“What, you consulted Kate Gonzales, the cleaning-lady doctor? We're supposed to be keeping watch, right?”

It seems that Maggie Stutzman had consulted the
Harvard Women's Health Watch,
a monthly publication she subscribed to. “And it had a section on hearing loss recently. Charlie, your problem doesn't exist.”

“That means it'll go away, right? I can live with that.”

“No, it means that what you are experiencing is impossible—apparently.”

“Like my ulcer that apparently doesn't respond to antibiotics. Can I get a second opinion from the cleaning lady?”

“Hearing doesn't return. Your exceptional hearing going from nothing to normal and back again because of trauma doesn't play.”

“And if the Long Beach PD gets a hold of that information, they'll interpret it as just another example of how my veracity cannot be trusted. Maggie, how do you know when Betty Beesom is lying? You said she was so obvious.”

Like her common sense, Charlie was beginning to feel tantalizingly close to something, too. But like life itself, there was always a distraction that wiped out the sense of the progression of things or reality.

“Now don't change the subject. As I understand it, we hear because of little hairs way deep in our ears, and the hair cells are often gradually destroyed with aging and hearing diminishes in stages. But traumas like auto accidents and explosions that cause complete hearing loss suddenly mean that the trauma has destroyed those hair cells. The only time you lose hearing completely and it returns is with ear infections. Your type of hearing loss doesn't exist.”

“Oh yeah? Well, tell that to Art Granger's brother. He fell off a tractor and hit his head, and heard on and off for a week.”

“Then what?”

“Never heard another thing again.”

CHAPTER 26

JEREMY FIEDLER'S
MEMORIAL
service was a real bust. But it wasn't because Larry Mann didn't perform. He even used Mrs. Beesom's Bible, mostly as a stage prop, but since he couldn't wear robes—“Feareth not, for I am the only chance you got, sayeth the Lord. Isaiah—words and numbers.”

Wherever possible these days, an ocean beach protected by a breakwater, natural or manmade, or a sea wall to shelter it from the surf, sports a paved walking, running, biking, skating, baby-stroller, dog-walking path. Long Beach was no exception.

The memorial ceremony could not have been more different from the one in Charlie's dream. There was no cliff, no torrey pine, no rock for Mrs. Beesom to sit on (she'd brought a small, webbed aluminum lawn chair), no Jeremy Fiedler looking on approvingly. There were lots of seagulls and enough wind to tatter the fog remnants and send sand runnels across the paved beach path. There were mothers running behind high-tech strollers, a lean gray-haired gentleman loping along with a cellular to his ear, the inevitable dog walkers with pooch-poop bags in the hand not holding the leash, and the golden-years couples—holding hands, walking briskly, he looking somewhat shell-shocked, she doing all the talking.

Spandex, sweats, jackets—no swimsuits this afternoon.

The scent of sea sort of welled up—salty, fishy, decaying. The lingering fog wisps carried the scent, too, but with a cooling freshness.

Larry and Charlie had somehow ended up on one side of the beach walk and Jeremy's few mourners on the other. Everybody else out today passed between them, looking a bit uneasy about the ceremony.

This location had been a mistake, Charlie knew immediately, and wondered if it was the dream that had formed her decision. There were too many people here. Who could tell if any of them knew Jeremy? Officer Mary Maggie had dressed in a long dress, sandals with white socks, and a stretched-out sweater with a matching knit hat. She certainly didn't look like a cop.

Charlie and Maggie Stutzman had spent half of Larry's watch last night making up his eulogy or whatever, which Larry wasn't following at all. Libby and Doug Esterhazie and Lori had taken off from school to attend—any excuse welcome there. Art and Wilma Granger came to stand by Betty's chair. Even good-time Mel had accompanied Charlie's best friend. And just when she thought that was it, Ed Esterhazie sauntered into view, and not long after that so did David Dalrymple and Detective J. S. Amuller. Charlie didn't know if they were all together, but they all had dressed in spandex and jackets and running shoes to blend in.

They stuck out like rollerskaters in a buffalo herd.

“And God shall smite ye down with Jerry Falwell.”

A few people stopped and stared. A couple stooped to scoop poop with plastic covered hands while runners and bikers too pooped to notice nearly ran down young mothers and baby strollers and dogs trying to sniff out the scene. There was something of a traffic jam on the beach path where Jeremy Fiedler's memorial service took place.

Car horns from inland, ship's horns from seaward, sounds of seabirds. The chatter of the retiree wives seemed sort of nervous passing here.

“As ye sew, so shall ye sleep.”

And Charlie'd thought her dream surreal. If the woman in the long coat had come, she wasn't wearing her coat. What else could Charlie identify her by? She'd had the sense that though the woman could outrun Charlie, the only people who couldn't were in wheelchairs, and not all of them qualified, she was not young. Somewhere in middle age, maybe. And Charlie decided that sense came from the way the woman moved. She'd seemed slenderish, and her hair was shoulder length—it had swung about when she ran. She was tallish and probably white. Not much to go on.

Larry finally mentioned Jeremy Fiedler and his tragic death. How horrible that it should be by another human's hand. His voice sonorous and rich, his vulnerability and defiance barely masked by slick cynicism—ever the protection of those who don't quite fit in. Even though more of them slowed down and didn't even pretend not to notice, the passersby were giving him a wide berth. People who preach on the beach are gonna be suspect—get used to it.

The three rollerskaters in the buffalo herd garnered quite a few looks, too. Sort of reminded Charlie of Secret Service dudes in disguise. They moved their eyes and not their heads—they missed nothing, except the man who'd crossed the beach and behind them from the street access. Ed Esterhazie, tall and distinguished, Detective J. S. Amuller, even taller and determined, and David Dalrymple, smaller but professional.

“Weep ye not—all ye need fear is fear itself.”

Officer Mary Maggie stuck a stick of gum in her mouth and pushed her glasses back up her nose. She was watching Betty Beesom.

Betty did not look good. She had her hand over her heart. Since Charlie was the only mourner on Larry's side of the walk and people kept walking between her and the others, she worried she'd lose even more control of the sermon on the sand. She was afraid to leave Larry on his own but he ignored her gestures to move across the path to the people who came to hear him. He was playing to a bigger crowd where he was.

Mel watched two Spandex blonds in swinging ponytails and running shoes bounce by. And then Maggie and Libby noticed the burly tanned guy in Levi's and a flannel shirt open over his T-shirt standing behind the three pseudo–Secret Service dudes.

“… and the Lord shall impeach thee.”

Charlie, on her way to Betty, was nearly creamed by a high-tech running stroller for twins with a St. Bernard tied to the handlebars beside a Spandex mom. She emerged safely (with a rude remark from the mom) to find Maggie and Libby looking at her while pointing to the burly guy in the flannel shirt. But when she reached Mrs. Beesom, he was not the problem.

“I saw him. Knew I shouldn't of come.” Betty stood up and clutched Charlie. “I forgot he's still here. I get so confused sometimes, Charlie. I'm so sorry.”

It was the guy in the flannel shirt who noticed Charlie's distress over Betty's distress first. Art and Wilma, held in shock by Larry's strange beach preaching, weren't far behind. Charlie felt she'd topple over herself trying to support the poor woman.

“And the Lord said, Let there be Might, and behold there was Genghis Kahn and elephants, too. And Hitler and—”

Shit, people on the path were beginning to congregate, hurl questions, congest traffic. A Monty Python Horror Picture Show—story of Charlie's life.

“And the Taliban,” somebody from the beach-path audience yelled. “Cover up those women and shame them—ignore their needs and lame them.”

“You need help here?” Flannel Shirt asked unnecessarily. Art and Wilma and both Maggies were attempting to fan air in Betty's face, eight hands waving between Charlie and the guy suddenly holding Mrs. Beesom up by the armpits.

“Betty, who did you see?”

“Hairy.”

“Hairy Granger? He never strays this far from home.”

“Jeremy warned me,” the old lady said before her eyes rolled up under swollen lids and Flannel Shirt picked her up in both arms.

*   *   *

“Didn't seem like a very proper service,” Ed Esterhazie complained as they strolled to Manic Mechanics, in no hurry because they wanted to get there after J. S. Amuller and David Dalrymple left. “Was your assistant on something?”

“No, he's just an actor who can't help but entertain people.”

“I thought they were going to stone him there for a minute. Is he…?”

“Yes. And it's a good thing there weren't any stones available.”

Betty Beesom had revived before Maggie Stutzman and Officer Mary Maggie loaded her in a squad car to rush her to Urgent Care. Her heartbeat had settled down and she refused to explain to Charlie what she'd been apologizing so profusely for except that it wasn't for talking about Charlie with that “nice Detective Amuller.”

“That poor old lady's lying about something, Ed, and it's got her tied in knots. At her age she doesn't need that, but what do you do?”

“You don't think she could have had anything to do with Fiedler's murder?”

“Jeremy's death is hard on all of us, but her most of all. She had the most to lose by his death.”

“Except his house. It's hers now.”

“But she didn't know that—she says.”

“That poor old lady is rolling in Sara Lee, Johnson & Johnson, and Exxon.”

“Are they good?”

“They pay dividends. Get enough of it and live at her standard of living and you don't even have to worry about cashing in shares to live on—since she doesn't have anyone to leave it to, anyway. She's got no worries.”

Charlie stopped and considered him. They were on a street corner she didn't think she'd ever driven through. Now, the 405 and the 10 she knew by heart. The street signs had been destroyed but she was pretty sure they were somewhere in the vicinity of Wilson, Libby's school. He wanted to walk and she wanted to talk to him. “How do you know this, Ed?”

“I checked her out on the Internet. Or rather, Doug did. It's scary how far he's into this computer stuff. How comfortable he is with it, when it drives me to madness.”

Charlie's extraspecial, nonexistent other sense was perking up again. No, it was common sense—she just wished it would tell her what was going on.

“Doug can just break into people's investment records? Mrs. Beesom doesn't invest by computer. She doesn't even own one. I mean, she doesn't use the library anymore because the card catalog is now a computer.”

“But her broker does her transactions online. Her records are out there. Credit-card companies, and those wanting to target her for sales and I'm sure scams and—we're all of us Internet-accessible, Charlie.” Ed was into yachting and had a deep tan and lots of dark hair that contrasted with the bandage on his forehead to give him a dashing appearance. “You, for instance, are heavy into Automatic Data and Stryker and Oracle. Doug looked you up, too. We're all an open book.”

“Except for Jeremy. If he hadn't died, cyberspace wouldn't know he'd ever existed.”

When they reached Manic Mechanics—a plain, one-story stucco with two car bays and a big window to write the name of the shop and the hours on—Joe Manic was leaning against the storefront window, smoking a cigarette. He was the burly man in the plaid shirt. More importantly, he had introduced himself as Jeremy Fiedler's mechanic.

CHAPTER 27

I
NSIDE, MANIC MECHANICS
looked a lot like old-fashioned filling stations did before they were conglomed into convenience stores with gas pumps. Joe replaced the cigarette he'd stubbed out on the sidewalk with a toothpick. He had a bowl of wrapped, flavored toothpicks and offered it to his visitors like you would candy.

“I didn't catch much of it, but that was some sermon your preacher was dishing out down at the bay. What religion is that?”

“He's an actor,” Ed explained. “When he's not a secretary.”