Around 11:30 she drove to Lincoln Boulevard in Santa Monica to give a quotation on a suicide pact. She was supposed to meet the family lawyer outside the house, but he called her almost as soon as she drew up to the curb to say that he was delayed. He had one of those voices that sounded as if he were wearing a swimmer’s nose clip.
“Delayed?” asked Bonnie. “How long?”
“I can be there in twenty minutes.”
“Okay. But if it’s twenty-one minutes I won’t be here. If it’s twenty-and-a-half minutes I won’t be here.”
She sat in the car listening to country music and tapping her fingers on the steering wheel. She wondered if she ought to visit her mother. She always felt guilty about her mother even if she visited her twice a week. Bonnie always felt that there was an unspoken question between herself and her mother—a question that was never answered—and the trouble was, she didn’t even know what it was. Their relationship was like one of those cryptic crosswords that don’t give you any clue numbers.
She dialed her mother’s number, but she pressed the clear button as soon as her mother snapped, “Hello?” It would be better if she visited her by surprise. It would be even better if she didn’t visit her at all. No, it wouldn’t. She had to.
The house where the suicide pact had taken place stood on a corner plot of the 500 block—a two-story frame building with peeling white paint. It was deeply overshadowed on one side by a tall cedar tree, which gave it an almost unearthly gloom, and it had all the telltale signs of recent tragedy. An untended lawn, sagging drapes, and a Ralph’s supermarket cart tipped over by the front door.
Not only that, but two of the upstairs windows were boarded up, and there was a smoke smudge just above the left-hand window, shaped like a waving black chiffon scarf. Bonnie didn’t know the full details, but Lieutenant Munoz had told her that a forty-seven-year-old widow had been having an affair with her fifteen-year-old nephew. When her brother found out, he had called the police and threatened to have her prosecuted for child abuse. The same night the widow and the boy had lain on her four-poster bed together and doused themselves with three-and-a-half gallons of premium-grade gasoline. Clinging tightly together, they had set themselves alight.
There is never anything romantic about burning alive. The boy had leaped up from the bed and rushed around the room screaming in agony, setting fire to the drapes. Then he had run downstairs and tried to get out of the house by the front door. His fingers, however, were already too charred to draw back the safety chain and turn the handle. His body was found by the fire department still standing against the door, stuck to the paint like a grinning, shriveled monkey. The widow’s body had been so badly burned that they couldn’t decide which was mattress ash and which was human cinders. The contents of her funeral urn had been part widow and part Sealy.
Bonnie checked her watch. If the family lawyer didn’t show up within four minutes exactly, she was leaving. She was sweltering, and she was feeling so hungry that she was nauseated.
She had already started her engine when a shiny red Porsche convertible drew up on the other side of the street, and a tall, suntanned man climbed out of it, wearing a cream polo shirt and white tennis shorts and carrying two racquets under his arm. He had well-cropped blond hair, mirror sunglasses and a strong cleft chin. He reminded her of somebody, but she couldn’t think who it was.
He was about to walk toward the house opposite, but then he stopped and lifted his sunglasses and frowned at her. He came across the street and said, “Pardon me. Can I help you with something?”
“I’m fine, thanks.”
He laid his hand on the door of her Electra. His arm was very brown, with fine golden hairs and a fine golden Rolex.
“You know what happened here?” he asked her. She was absolutely sure that she had met him before. But when did she ever get to meet men who looked like this? She averted her eyes, but then she found herself looking at his firm, suntanned thighs, and the bulge in his crisp white tennis shorts. Immediately, she lifted her head again and looked at herself in his reflecting lenses—two of her, both plump, both distorted, both perspiring.
“I know what happened here, sure.”
“Well, we’ve had quite a few people driving by to take a look at the place, and we’ve even had people getting out of their cars and peering into the windows and having their photographs taken on the front lawn. One family even brought a picnic. I’ll tell you. Can you believe that? Cold barbecued chicken legs.”
“And you think that’s what I’m doing? Rubbernecking?”
“I’m just telling you that what happened here was a terrible human tragedy, and we’d prefer it if people behaved with a little more respect.”
“I see.”
“So”—he made a sweeping gesture with his hand—“if you don’t mind being on your way.”
She suddenly realized why she recognized him. “You’re Kyle Lennox!” she said, breathlessly. “That’s who you are! You’re Kyle Lennox. From The Wild and the Wayward!”
“Yes, I’m Kyle Lennox from The Wild and the Wayward, but that doesn’t alter anything. This is where I live, and me and my neighbors are all pretty much sickened by people like you coming to … ogle this house. I knew Mrs. Marrin. She was a personal friend of mine. I knew her nephew, too. What do you think you’re going to see here? An action replay?”
“No, no.” Bonnie reached across to her glove compartment and took out one of her business cards. “That’s what I’m doing here, Mr. Lennox. I’m waiting for the family lawyer so that I can give him a quotation for cleaning the house up.”
Kyle Lennox lifted his sunglasses again and peered at the card with the palest blue eyes that Bonnie had ever seen. She had always thought he was handsome when she saw him on television, but to see him right here on the street.… She made a point of not looking down at his tennis shorts again.
“Hey, listen,” he said. “I’m really sorry. I didn’t have any idea.”
“That’s all right. When somebody dies in circumstances like these, it isn’t surprising that their neighbors get kind of sensitive about it.”
“No, I’m really sorry. I accused you of being a sicko and I was totally mistaken.”
“It’s all right, really. It was a pretty easy mistake to make.”
“I didn’t even know that there were special people—well, you know, I didn’t know that there were special companies who cleaned up after suicides and stuff. Don’t the cops do it?”
“They don’t have the expertise. It takes more than a mop and a bucket to clean up after something like this.”
“Jesus … I never knew. I’ll bet you get to see some pretty gruesome things, huh?”
“Now and again. Mostly it’s just stains.”
“Jesus. How many trauma scenes do you go to every week?”
“Four, maybe. Sometimes more. People are always offing each other.”
“Jesus. What was the worst one you ever saw?”
Bonnie pointed to her business card. “Would you mind signing that for me? I really love The Wild and the Wayward. Sign it for Duke, could you, my husband? He loves it, too. He watches it even more religious than me.”
“Okay, sure. Do you have a pen?”
Bonnie took the chewed ballpoint pen from the top of her clipboard and handed it to him. He signed the card with a flourish. “There you go. For Duke … You Too Can Be Wild and Wayward.”
“Well, he can be pretty darn wayward. I’m not so sure about wild.”
At that moment, a metallic-green Coupe de Ville arrived outside the house, and a small ginger-haired man climbed out. He shrugged on a wheat-colored sport coat and then raised his hand to Bonnie in greeting.
“That’s the family lawyer?” asked Kyle Lennox.
“I guess,” Bonnie nodded and climbed out of her car, too.
“I’d better leave you to it, then,” said Kyle Lennox. “It’s been real interesting to meet you, Bonnie … and sorry again about the misunderstanding. I hope you forgive me.”
Bonnie smiled. “It’s nothing, really. Forget it.” Until she stood beside him, she hadn’t realized how tall he was—and how he smelled of suntanned, young, well-exercised man and Hugo aftershave by Hugo Boss. Forgive him? She would have forgiven him if he had publicly accused her of turning people’s milk to vinegar and sleeping with Satan.
She watched him walk back across the street. She loved the little bounce in his step, a combination of fitness and very expensive tennis shoes. The family lawyer came up to her and stood beside her. “Isn’t that—?”
“Yes, it is. He just gave me his autograph.”
“My wife’s going to be so sick when I tell her. I’m Dudley Freeberg, by the way. Freeberg, Treagus and Wolp.”
“Nice to meet you, Mr. Freeberg.”
“Well, likewise,” said Dudley Freeberg, and gave her a gappy grin.