She didn’t ask again. Lorena beat him to the check and they went down to the garage and all the way to her house without a word. Willem was watching television in the living room when they arrived, beach volleyball. Lorena clomped past without acknowledging him. Waldo half raised a hand, fractional apology for his girlfriend’s hostility. Another turn he’d never have predicted.
Lorena rummaged through her bureau, then went into her bathroom and closed the door. Waldo took his toiletry kit from his backpack and waited. The bed, which he’d rushed from in the hustle to meet her at the restaurant, was still unmade.
The bed. From that first week, sex had been their essential expression of every emotion: after success, it was celebration; after grief, comfort; after jealousy, reclamation and reassurance. Even the night he heard about Lydell Lipps, they’d made love twice. They’d never discussed it afterward and it astonished him to recall, but at the time it made all the sense in the world. Now the possibility of a second sexless night loomed like a second night without language.
Lorena emerged from the bathroom in a stoplight of a nightgown he’d never seen, plaid blue flannel with a schoolmarmish white fringe at the collar. She grabbed the comforter by two corners and flapped it to straighten it, then crawled in underneath. She took her phone and checked her email or pretended to, ignoring him. He’d always been mystified by her ability to hold on to anger over nothing—a trait that, in calmer moments, she’d acknowledge with a self-joshing snicker as her Latina prerogative—but this took it to a new level. Which one of them had lied, for God’s sake, about where she’d spent the afternoon? Waldo took his toiletry kit into the bathroom, peed, washed, and brushed his teeth. When he returned, the lights were off and she had the comforter clutched around her. Waldo lay down in his clothes atop the bare sheet.
He couldn’t imagine staying here after tonight. But where else could he park himself in town, until he cleared himself of Ouelette’s murder? That silly hotel in Santa Monica? Probably not: it’s faux-eco offenses aside, his modest investment income needed to be carefully husbanded. And what would the days even look like? Could he imagine getting on well enough with Lorena to keep working together? They’d slipped back into the old place, the bad place, and this time he didn’t feel like working to fix it.
“She did it.”
It took him a few moments to find his way onto her page, to realize she was saying that Stevie Rose had killed Ouelette.
“She steered us to him, to set us up. Then she killed him.”
He knew he shouldn’t respond, that if he let that line of conversation continue, she’d end up provoking him into calling her on her lie and then the fight would be on. He didn’t want it. He just wanted to leave quietly in the morning and figure out the rest later. But he couldn’t help himself; the obvious illogic was too much: neither Waldo nor Lorena had motive to kill Ouelette, and any suspicion Stevie drew toward them would just lead straight back to her. “Why would she do that?”
“Because she’s fifteen.”
Waldo frowned in the dark but he held his tongue; he could feel her stumbling toward his detonator and he didn’t want to help her find it.
“Remember that,” said Lorena. “She’s fifteen.”
She’d found it. He said, stonily, “Where were you today?”
“Newport Beach. I told you.”
“After that.”
“Here. In bed.”
“How long did you sleep? This ‘nap’?”
“Fuck are you interrogating me for?”
“I’m just wondering when you got here. Two o’clock? Four o’clock? You were late to the restaurant—”
“I finished in Newport Beach around one thirty,” she snipped. “I stopped at In-N-Out and had a Double-Double and a shake. You going to give me the lecture again about the cows and the methane?”
“Just answer my question.”
“I got here about three thirty. I’ll take a polygraph, if you want.”
“Bet you’d pass, too.”
“Fucking A, I’d pass, because it’s true. What the hell is your problem?”
“I was here.”
“You were where?”
“Here,” he said. “In this bed. I couldn’t sleep last night, so when I decided to stay in town, I came back here for a nap. Willem let me in.” She was quiet, caught. He said, “You’ve been seeing someone else, right? This whole time.” When she still didn’t answer, he said, “I knew it.”
“No—”
“Somebody you were already involved with before you came up to see me the first time, right? Another fuck buddy.” It was exactly the same old, bad place. “I was thinking maybe it was your husband, but—”
“Waldo, stop. I was the one who suggested the understanding, remember?”
“Yeah, I remember. Understandings—which last until they don’t.”
Neither of them spoke. Did he even need to hang around L.A.? Let someone else figure out Ouelette. The cops didn’t have anything real on Waldo. It would get solved or it wouldn’t. Wasn’t his problem. Fuck it. L.A. was over; this was over. Time to get back to his woods and get back his balance. His peace.
Finally, Lorena said, “I got pantsed.”
“What?”
“This isn’t what you think. There isn’t anybody else. It was my case in Newport Beach. I got totally pantsed.” She turned on the light and sat up. “I got an email from this woman, had some questions about marital surveillance. Rates, confidentiality, wanted to know everything before she gave me her information. Sometimes it’s like that, and you never hear from them again.”
He listened, jealousy abating, as Lorena told him the rest of the story. After a few days of emailing, her prospective client had agreed to a phone call, placing it from a blocked number. The woman was distraught, frightened of her rich, powerful, abusive husband. She was sure he was spying on her—thus all her secrecy—and particularly terrified of what he’d do to her if he found out she was hiring a PI. In fact, she was afraid even to call from California; she waited until she was in the Berkshires, where she was visiting family.
Late in that first conversation the woman identified herself to Lorena as Brenda Wax. Her husband, Roy, she said, had founded a toy company and made a small fortune. Brenda was sure that Roy, who’d stayed home in Newport Beach, was cheating on her while she was away. If she could get proof positive, she’d pull the trigger on a divorce. Without that, she feared Roy’s attorneys would clobber her in the settlement. Lorena told Waldo that that was a common fear among wealthy women who came to her, especially ones who grew up without family money of their own.
Lorena had asked Brenda for a thousand-dollar retainer. Brenda’s response was that time was of the essence and that if Lorena would put it at the top of her pile she’d make it five thousand up front—and that if her divorce lawyer determined that Lorena found sufficient evidence against Roy, she could keep the whole retainer even if she hadn’t used it up.
Waldo said, “So, what—you nail him and she stiffs you?”
“I’m not that stupid. I’m not going to start until the money clears, not with all that out-of-town stuff. High bullshit potential, right? But while I’m waiting, I do check out the rest of what she gave me and it’s all good: Roy, the company, everything. Then two days ago the money drops, PayPal. So yesterday I start tailing the guy. Morning, he goes from his house to the office, and at lunchtime he’s riding the Matterhorn.
“First I’m thinking, maybe the whole Disneyland thing is smart: second-rate tourist hotel, no chance he’s running into anyone from the country club. Anyway, jackpot: blonde, slightly washed-up, a little too much dress for the middle of the day. On camera, clear shot, dwarf-fucker’s checking in with his hand on her ass.”
“And you’re already shopping for O.C. office space.”
“Don’t rub it in.”
Next, Lorena emailed Brenda Wax in the Berkshires and Brenda emailed back that she was coming right home, taking a six A.M. flight out of Logan, and could Lorena meet her at their house at two o’clock? “All good, right? I go to the FedEx store, make some beautiful prints, head on down to Brenda Wax’s in Newport Beach, finally meet her in person, hand her the envelope, she looks at the pictures . . . and asks me who the hell I am. Turns out, the woman who hired me to catch Brenda Wax’s husband? Wasn’t Brenda Wax.” Before Waldo could react, she said, “You laugh and I’ll tear your nuts off.” He didn’t. “Anyway, this Brenda Wax swears she never heard of me, swears she never emailed me, swears we never talked on the phone. Though, of course, she wants to keep the pictures.”
“And the other Brenda’s email—”
“Dead before I get back to the car. Naturally. So then I go to the bank I got PayPal’d from, some pissant S and L in fucking Tustin. I tell them what happened, all they’ll tell me is the account’s empty.”
“How’d you even get that out of them?”
Lorena shrugged like it hadn’t been a problem. Some assistant manager was hoping to get lucky, was how. Lorena had a way of pulling those out of the air.
She said, “I’ve never been pantsed before. Now this and Stevie, twice in a couple days? Fucked me up, Waldo, I couldn’t even call you back. I did go to In-N-Out—and by the way, I am trying to stop eating that shit. Had fries, too. And a second shake, to have in the car. I don’t know what I was thinking—two sips, I had to throw it out the window.” Waldo blanched at the image. “And then I took the wrong exit on the freeway, got halfway to City of Industry before I realized. That’s why I was late.” She stood and paced, reliving the stress. “You’re the one who’s always saying there are no accidents. How the fuck does this happen to me twice? Is someone trying to screw with me?”
“Through Stevie Rose? I doubt it. This one probably is a coincidence.”
“But explain Wax, even. If somebody wants to screw with him, why pick me? An L.A. detective for an O.C. case?”
“Name of your company, maybe? Very Private Eyes? I told you: says you’re a specialist.”
“Yeah, maybe I should change it. Maybe I’ll have to. And now I’ve got Cuppy threatening my whole business? Shit, Waldo, I’ve been trying so hard to get this thing going.” She plopped onto the bed and covered her eyes.
Waldo said, “Hey. We’ll figure them out. Both of them.”
“‘We’?” Her voice dripped skepticism. “‘We’re’ going back to the woods.” She didn’t take her face from her hands. Lorena distraught was as rare a sight as Lorena in flannel jammies.
He said, “I’ll stay. Till we’ve got them both. Okay?”
She turned, still scowling, and regarded him. Maybe he spoke too fast. What was he committing himself to? Okay, she hadn’t been with someone else, but it’s not like things were going smoothly even before O.C. blew up in her hands.
Then again, maybe she’d turn down his offer anyway. The distress on her face—he’d never seen her like this. Could be she wouldn’t even want him around.
She ran her eyes down his body and back up. She said, “Why are your clothes still on?”