UP ALONG ARROYO SECO past the neat, sweet Arts and Crafts houses and over the Colorado Street Bridge where Betty Bechmeir had hung herself, he paused to check April Lamotte’s roadmap outside a sprawl of new real estate signs on the fringes of Pasadena, then found the scenic byway which led north and east through green foothills. Soon, there were winding switchbacks. Increasingly fantastic views. Buzzards. Flashing waterfalls. Eagles. He checked the rearview for the umpteenth time and pushed the button which made the Delahaye’s top fold down.
A poker-burned rustic sign pointed to an overlook on the road’s right. He pulled in and stopped the Delahaye’s engine and climbed out. There was no one else around. There was no sound of any cars approaching on the road. This was some spot. The air was raucous with the wind, the trees, the sunlight, and with the tumbling rush of a creek which glimmered in the valley somewhere far beneath. The drop beyond the old wood and iron barrier was spectacular. Whether or not April Lamotte had chosen it, this was some place to die.
He pecked and peered at the loose gravel. Saw evidence of many recent cigarette butts, screwed-up Chesterfield packs, gritty lumps of discarded gum, half-eaten sandwiches, a few fluttering sheets of yesterday’s Van Nuys News. Cops were such slobs. Amid the recent swirl of car treads, there were also the wider tracks of what he took to be the ambulance and tow truck. He peered more carefully over the flimsily-guarded drop where rocks gnashed and tumbled through scrub larch toward the flashing creek. Something long and black had been tossed that way and was lying curled, nasty as a snake, about thirty feet beneath. His heart hammered. The wind rushed in his ears. The length of hose which had ended April Lamotte’s life had probably been thrown that way by the walkers who’d found her, or the guys from the tow truck. Evidence or not, no-one was going to risk climbing down there to get it. Neither was he.
He wandered about some more. Found a small rill and splashed his face and drank. Water had rarely tasted so good. Then he went to edge of the trees which raked up toward the mountains to take a piss. Just as he was finishing, he noticed a glassy glint amid the pine needles down by his feet. He picked it up. It was a glass and steel hypodermic. The plunger was fully depressed.
Driving on and up the road toward Bark Rise, he passed a small settlement of prefab bungalow houses and a gas station-cum-general store. He pulled in. A rangy, mangy dog was growling and yapping at the end of its chain. The old man who came hunching out from the dark of his hut was white-eye blind in the same eye as the dog, and had similarly bad teeth.
“Nice ride,” the old man muttered as the meter clanked and he filled the Delahaye up with gas. “Shame about that busted window. City kids do that?”
“Yeah. You hear much about what happened down the road there yesterday? That woman who killed herself?”
“Not much. Other than that the cops came up this way an’ bought me clean outa Chesterfields.”
“Many people use that overlook to end it all?”
“Not soas I’d know of. Nice enough spot. More likely to make you want to start afresh than dump it all down the can.”
“That was what I thought.” He remembered those bleak little scraps April Lamotte had written. What had the last one been about? Something about being in a dead and empty place …
“You ain’t some ree-porter, are you?”
“No. Just happened to know the woman.”
The meter stopped clanking. “That’ll be three fifty on the nose.” The old man gave the nozzle a shake.
“Say, you didn’t happen to see a guy around here who looks a tad like me? Tallish. Same pale suits. A beard, but these teeth and ears.”
“What? You related?”
“You could say.”
The old man shook his head, took the money, and hooked the nozzle back into the pump. “You sure you ain’t some kinda press?”
“Yeah. I’m just—”
“Heard the broad was some looker, as well. Car almost as fancy as this here. Done dead like that, real waste. More as like, someone might take that bend wrong and go down the ravine. Them barriers ain’t gonna stop nothin’. ’Bout time they got it sorted, just like I was telling that cop yesterday.”
“The ones who came up after the suicide?”
“Nah. The cop who was here earlier. Saw him when I was coming thataway. Puttin’ up some kinda roadblock on the same spot. Said it was for a survey.”
“When was this?”
The old man gave him a wall-eyed version of the you-must-be-stupid look Clark was getting used to receiving. “Like I say, early yesterday.”
“What time?”
“’Bout nine thirty, maybe ten. Mist hangs there sometimes ’til almost midday.”
“What was this cop like?”
The old guy rubbed his stubble. “Tall, I’d say. Almost as tall as you. ’Bout middle age the same. But thinner. Had one of them longish faces that looks sad even when it ain’t. Wore them newfangled glasses people put on against the sun. Didn’t take his cap off either.”
“Any kind of accent?”
“Cop had what I’d call a churchy kinda voice.”
“You mean, sing-song?”
“Nothin’ like that. Just mean ed-u-cated like he’s come from no particular place at all and ain’t we all supposed to be impressed by it.”
“Happen to notice his car?”
“Like a zebra got stripes, it was a po-lice car, drawn right across the road with a stop sign put up beside it. Just one of them regular black jobs. Said through it was for some kinda safety survey before he left me.”
“Any idea of the car’s make?”
“The sort you don’t notice. Like I say—”
“Just a regular black sedan, maybe a Mercury, with a badge stuck on the door and a light on the top?”
The old guy nodded.
“But you haven’t seen him since?”
The old guy shook his head. “Not much you see the po-lice round here. Don’t have no call for crime. Do get some am-bu-lances, though. People come up here from down there in winter, stay up in them cabins like they think they’re Rebels. Do that thing on the snow.” He worked his lips and gestured his scrawny arms.
“Skiing?”
“That’s the one. Then they come back down again with their legs broke. Must be some way of passing the time.”
“You visit LA much?”
“Just the once. Heard things have changed a lot since. Heard the picture houses these days got gadgets that’ll pry up the inside of your head neat as a melon. Heard them ce-lebrities dance around in there like hobgoblins. Change the way a man thinks. Sure don’t sound like the work of the good Lord to me.”
“You’re right,” Clark agreed. “It isn’t.”