Heroine: California Dreamin' (2 page)

On Monday I turned on the television shortly after Daniel had left the house. Until noon there was still no reporting on it. I sat there like on hot glowing coals and felt relief when Irene knocked on the door a short while after.

“Juliane, you are so nervous. What’s the matter with you?” she asked me when we sat in our favorite café. She again reported on the most recent crimes.

Ever since she had picked me up my mood was changing between euphoria and panic and I was sliding hectically back and forth in my red armchair that was positioned in front of the low table. My coffee and her empty champagne glass sat on the table.

“Too much coffee I think”, I said with uncertainty. A panic attack swooped through my belly. I was desperate. The waitress passed by and asked if we wanted something else. Irene ordered champagne and I heard myself asking for a whiskey. Double.

“I thought you don’t drink alcohol?” Irene asked me flabbergasted. I shrugged my shoulders and took a small sip from my glass since the waitress had already come back.

“I don’t feel too good today. I need to wash something down.”

She took a sip from her glass. It was her third since arriving at the place an hour ago. In the meantime I had learned about all crimes that had occurred during the course of last week in the Bay Area – I knew them by heart now. Irene was informed about everything. However, she knew nothing about my crime.

“I thought you’ll attack men when you drink alcohol”, she asked carefully.

“Not only men. Women too”, I laughed cocky
with a hoarse voice. The whiskey took already effect on me. I noticed it because I started to find interest in the young barkeep – but this was meant as a joke.

“Are you serious?” Irene asked back in a whisper. I shrugged my shoulders and tried to get the guy’s attention. But he didn’t react to my flirt attempts at all.

“Forget it; he is gay. You won’t be able to drag him into your bed.”

I woke up from that short trance and was terrified.

“Irene, please forgive me. I have a short attention span today.” I looked at her in a friendly way. My girlfriend’s cheeks had blushed. The alcohol seemed to take effect on her as well.

She was silent for a while, finished her glass and then asked – while looking to the ground:

“Have you ever with a woman? I mean, oh well you know …,” she got all muddled.

Suddenly I had an idea.

Did she want – did she want with me? Why not if the barkeep doesn’t want. And it was always beautiful with Tanja, my memories told me.

“Yes, and I liked it a lot. Even more. It was beautiful.”

Irene’s hand slid onto mine and she look into my eyes silently. I looked back at her for a long time. Then I nodded.

“Yes, sure thing.”

Ten minutes later we stood in front of her garage that opened without a sound. She drove her convertible into the garage. Both other spaces were empty.

“Charles is at the office. He surely won’t be back before this evening.” She guided me into the giant dining room on the first floor that I knew already from previous visits.

“Another one?” She had a bottle of whiskey in her hand and looked at me questioningly. I shook my head.

“No, thank you, I had enough for today.” The whiskey worked. The panic feeling was gone, I really fancied her. I didn’t have to increase that feeling. Otherwise we would have an orgy here soon.

Instead she poured herself another glass, went to the other room and sat down on the large yellow couch in the living room. This room rivaled the living area of our entire house. Including the porch. Or perhaps the garage would also fit in here? Irene padded the upholstery of the couch beside her with her flat hand and smiled at me. I gladly accepted the invitation.

“Let’s go on with it in the bedroom, I am afraid that somebody might be watching us through the windows”, she asked me. Barefooted I trotted up the stairs to the second floor which I had not yet seen before. My girlfriend pushed me gently into the bedroom that appeared to me to be as big as the living room.

“Make yourself comfortable I’ll be right back.” Irene disappeared through a side door. I sat down on the wonderful wide bed and looked out through the window into the park behind the house. The park wasn’t that gigantic because other homes bordered right behind it. Now I understood what Irene was talking about when she told me that her house was visible from all sides, and her living room didn’t feature any curtains.

When Irene came back she wore a short black robe made of satin that was held together by a cord.
After I’d left Cologne I’d never thought about another fling with a woman. But now I happened to have one again. Eventually we were stretched out on the white satin linen on her bed.

“You are so beautiful”, she whispered into my ear.

“Irene, you are also beautiful you know that.” My girlfriend shook her head.

“I was once beautiful but this is a long time ago”, she whispered sadly. I decided to comfort her a bit and she liked it.

Later we stretched out on the bed on our back close to one another, panting heavily, holding hands. Ever since I saw her naked I wanted to ask her something that was sitting on top of my tongue for a while. It reminded me of Tanja. I turned to my side and caressed her belly gently to what she reacted with soft cooing sounds. She loved me.

“Irene, may I ask you something very personal?” I started carefully.

“Sure darling, you may ask me anything you want.” I hesitated.

“Please don’t misunderstand me but I have seen those stretch marks on your belly. Do you have children?”

“Didn’t you know that?” I shook my head and was prepared for some sad story like the one from Tanja. Irene smiled softly.

“Yes, of course. Charles and I have a son. Ron. I did tell you once about him.” I could not recall that.

“Ron is a great guy. He looks like his dad when he was young when I first met him.”

“Does he still live here?” I asked and I was relieved that no other past drama could destroy our mood.

“Oh no, he moved out a long time ago. He goes to college in San Jose and lives in a dorm on campus there together with his friend Alonso. A nice guy. They both play for the football team.”

I heard alarm bells sounding in my head. Excuse me, what is going down here?

“If I could only see him with a girlfriend once. He’s always hanging out with Alonso. That guy is polite and educated on the one hand but I am afraid that he is gay and that he may seduce Ron.”

If that is the Ron who I saw before my inner eyes then that assumption can be excluded. That dude had fallen in love with me as fast as a Chinese New Year rocket. Again a pleasant feeling spread through my belly. My head, on the other hand, signaled ‘danger’. For once I listened to my head and guided the subject to something else.

“But then your son must be at least eighteen years old if he attends college already?” Irene laughed out loud.

“The rascal is already nineteen, almost as old as you. How old do you think am I?”

I looked surprised.

“So far I thought you might be thirty five. But if your child – I avoided the term ‘son’ on purpose – is already nineteen then I guess you’d be older. Did you meet Charles at such an early age?” Now she laughed out loud and kissed me on the forehead.

“Juliane, you are so dear. If I could I would make it with you again right now. No, I am forty eight. But thank you for the compliment.”

“If I had your looks with forty eight I’d be happy. You look stunning for your age.” That earned me another kiss. Since the subject ‘Ron’ had been finished I decided to shut up and concentrated on listening to her quiet heartbeat since I cuddled close to her. I woke up from a dream when she asked me directly:

“Now I must ask you something.”

“Go ahead, I am all yours”, I answered playfully.

“Last week I visited you briefly at your door. There was a black car parked outside. A SUV, I guess.” Bang! A shot rang out in my head. And there was a whistling sound in my ears.

“Did you have any alcohol that day? What I refer to is that I had run into you with Stanley and now that again.”

“What did you observe?” I asked with hoarse voice. The demons of last week caught up to me.

“Well, it was quite exciting to see that dude behind you and you bent over the couch. I wished that would happen to me.”

All floodgates opened up in me. I couldn’t hold back any longer, I had to talk to someone or I would die instantly.

“Irene, please listen to me. I beg you not to talk to anybody about what I have to tell you now. I am so afraid.” She looked at me with eyes wide open and sat up. Then she picked me up and squeezed me tight.

“Speak, I am here for you. I’ll protect you.”

“That guy had raped me. He was a cop who wanted to investigate a death in Daniel’s company. He came to my house several times to question me. When he had found out that my tourist visa had expired he started to threaten me and then attacked me. Irene, when you had stopped by he tied me up. I was totally helpless.” I sobbed and my body shook when remembering those events. Irene comforted me in her arms and held me tight when I unleashed my pain. She remained silent and kept on stroking me way after I had stopped crying. At some point she said to me calmly:

“We will deal with this pig. Do you know his name?”

I winced and shook my head vehemently.

“Irene, please don’t. I am at his mercy. There is so much more, so it would be me who has to go to prison. Not he! And perhaps Daniel is also in danger and I don’t want this under any circumstances. He must not learn about that, never! Please swear that you never tell it to anybody!”

She remained calm.

“I’ll do everything to protect you. Believe me I have ways and means to do so. What else do I need to know?” It took quite a while in which I hemmed and hawed and sobbed until I started telling her the whole story about Alan Apala’s visit and the first rape by Robert. Up to the point in time when Robert’s threat took shape and when he demanded from me to work for him as hooker. I spared the rest and excluded everything that went down the prior Saturday or what could be linked to it. I guessed that Irene would learn about that early enough from the newspapers. I was afraid she would throw me out of the house if I told her about Robert’s demise.

A bit later we sat all dressed in her kitchen which was gigantic as well. We drank some coffee and kept silent. Irene pondered. It was getting dark outside. Daniel would be coming home soon and I wanted to be with him then.

“Darling, this is how we proceed.” She sipped from her cup of coffee.

“I will ask Charles to ask around a bit. No, do not worry; he will only learn what he needs to know. As I said I will protect you. First of all he should request the police file about this Apala. Then we’ll know what’s in it and see how we’ll proceed from there. Because this is the threat used by this Lieutenant Gutierrez.”

“Sounds good but how will your husband obtain this file without arousing suspicion?”

Irene laughed out loud.

“If he arouses suspicion through that then I’ll throw him out of the house. Because then he has no longer a job and no more money. Dearest, Charles is a prosecutor of Roquetas county.” I cringed once more.

“Now don’t you panic, if he thinks he can play the big man here I’ll confront him with all his affairs”, she snarled grim-faced. That was enough to calm me down and it actually cheered me up a bit.

Shortly thereafter she dropped me off by car at my house. It was only a couple of streets away from her house but reason enough for Irene to warn me against walking back home.

“Do you know what kinds of crimes are being committed in this area? It would be awful if something else would be happening to you. I will keep my eyes on you all the time until this Gutierrez is behind bars.”

In a flashback I recalled that during the last couple of weeks indeed two or three rapes, one murder and one unexplained fatality had occurred in our area. All due to me but I did not tell her that. She got out of the car, gave me a big hug for good bye and yet she whispered into my ear:

“Many thanks for Stanley’s contact address. By the way he’s still thinking of you.”

I looked at her in surprise. She just nodded at me and bit her lower lip.

“From next week on he’ll come to my house on a regular basis after his cab driving shift. You won’t believe what a tender lover he is.”

I didn’t have to believe that, I knew about it. My husband was awaiting me at home.

I spent the next few days almost exclusively with watching TV. During commercials or when no news was reported I nervously ran around the house and expected to be arrested at any moment by an armada of armed cops. I skimmed through the phonebook to find the name of a lawyer who supposedly spoke German. I briefly called them to make sure that this is true and then I hung up again.

Perhaps I should surrender? But then I felt defiant. Let them fetch me and let them tell me first what they actually knew. Perhaps there is one policeman I could truly negotiate with. Several times when I heard police sirens from far away I started to panic and thought: “
Now they come for you.”
Make a long story short I was confused and it was hard to have any clear thoughts.

On Thursday towards noon a car rolled into the driveway. I jumped up from the couch from where I kept watching the news and looked out the window.

It was Irene. I took some deep breaths in order to calm myself and then opened the door. She gave me a huge hug and laughed. Then she waived a brown envelope before my face.

“Darling, Charles got the files and looked through them. I copied them secretly. It says nothing bad about you!”

First I didn’t understand a thing then I felt sick. When I came to myself I was stretched out on the couch, panting. Irene stood beside me and looked at me with a concerned face.

“Do you want me to get an ambulance? You just managed to make it to the couch and when you passed out I was really afraid for you.”

“No, not an ambulance,” I whispered. “I will be OK in a minute. I didn’t drink enough fluids this morning, that’s bad for my blood pressure.” Irene ran into the kitchen and came back with a glass of water. I drank it down in one gulp.

“Another one?” I nodded.

When I managed to sit upright again, still trembling, I asked Irene to repeat what she had just told me.

“The file was closed a long time ago. There is nothing in it incriminating you. This Apala died from natural causes. Here, have a look yourself.” She pulled a couple of white sheets of paper from the envelope, sat down beside me and we screened the documents together.

There were copies of reports about Alan’s death which also contained some photos of the body and some medical reports. I felt sick again when I saw Alan’s face in front of me.

It took me a while to understand the professional lingo because my command of the English language wasn’t that good. Irene translated most of it. It appeared that she was superbly familiar with the subject.

“Well, I am married to a prosecutor, did you forget that?” I indeed had forgotten that for a moment.

“Charles brings files back to the house every day. I’m allowed to look at them since I know what is going on in our area. I asked him about this file specifically. He knows my curiosity and he knows that the guy was Daniel’s boss. Therefore he had the file sent to him.”

After all, Alan died from a heart attack caused by excessive alcohol consumption and generally poor physical health. One part dealt with the fact that they found a room in his house that was obviously furbished for sadistic practices as one could deduce from photo material also found in the same room. It was recommended to issue a search warrant for the entire premises in order to investigate if, before his death, Mr. Apala had possibly performed criminal offenses on the women portrayed in those images. That measure, the search warrant, could possibly divert likely damage claims from the State of California.

Also interesting was a witness statement by the owner of a bar in downtown Los Altos who had stated that Mr. Apala had come to his bar by car already in the afternoon and then had several drinks. Since he knew Mr. Apala as responsible citizen he assumed that Apala had left the car near the bar and actually walked home
or took a taxi.

There was no mentioning of electro shock needles or surveillance cameras
or gate protocols. Nothing. Robert had made all these things up in order to blackmail me. I was speechless for a long time. My head was empty, I didn’t have any thoughts, and I felt nothing. Then I snuggled up to Irene and asked her to hold me tight.

“We’ll get this pig, I promise you that. Right after I leave here I will inform Charles that he should go after this scumbag. Who knows what else he might have to answer to.” My belly signaled danger! Something was missing in that puzzle. What would happen if they found Robert dead? Irene’s husband would immediately connect the dots to me. They would question Paolo and the others and they would identify me as Robert’s girlfriend. This thing was not over.

I knelt on the floor before Irene and begged her not to do anything.

“Please Irene, keep your husband away from that. He must not learn about that under any circumstances. I haven’t told you that because I was so embarrassed. Robert had not only threatened me to force me to work as a prostitute. It actually happened. I had to work for him. Only once but when that comes to light my husband is gonna kick me out. Then I need to leave the country with no money to myself. I might be forced to walk the streets after all.” Irene looked at me with a horrified expression.

“Dear Lord, what did he do to you?! But I’ve told you I will protect you under all circumstances. We need to come up with an idea how to eliminate that bastard.”

“Please Irene, Robert went to LA for the whole week. He won’t be back before Monday. I know that because he treated me like I was his personal property. I would like to wait until I can think clearly again before we do anything about it. Daniel is here, he will also protect me.” In the meantime it had dawned on me that the storage hall might only be used on weekends. Therefore my pimp hasn’t been found yet.

“What did you have to do for him? Tell me about it; perhaps you feel better afterwards.” I shook my head vehemently.

“I will never ever talk about that with anybody. I don’t want to know anything about it any longer. It happened and I came out of it in one piece. Please don’t put pressure on me, I can’t bear it.” I looked her into the eyes, begging.

“Beside that I have great angst that you would be disgusted with me and that you will never touch me again when you learn about it. After I went through with it I cleansed myself with disinfectant to get rid of it.” Irene was silent for a long time then she said:

“Good, let’s sleep on it for a night. Then we’ll see about it.”

I put my head into her lap and allowed her to caress me. For a while I just held tight to her upper legs, then I started to respond to her tender strokes. First on the side of her legs then I moved my hands slowly under her skirt and continued moving my hands around there. Irene started breathing heavily.

“Do you really want to do that now? After what had happened are you in the mood for it? Please, I don’t want you to feel obliged to do anything.”

No, I needed that now. I was still feeling the angst and therefore I wanted her to touch and caress me. In that way we landed in my bed this time. Later she gave me a big hug and kissed me tenderly.

“I have to go now. Please don’t get me wrong but Stanley wanted to stop by at four o’clock before he starts his shift. Stanley is important for me. At my age you don’t have so many opportunities any longer. You understand, don’t you?”

I didn’t understand because she still looked stunningly. But I was also happy to be left alone now because I had calmed my nerves. I needed to think about the whole thing. I told her the first part of my thoughts and I was awarded with a kiss, the second part I kept to myself.

“May I keep the files?” I asked when she stood at the door. Irene shook her head.

“That file must not appear anywhere under any circumstances. If it were to become public that we’ve taken confidential documents Charles would lose his job. He doesn’t even know that I showed them to you.”

It was OK with me. I knew anyway what was in the file and what was missing from the file. The stuff that was missing gave me a belly ache. Nevertheless I felt all wound up when Irene finally had left but I still had my thoughts.

They probably won’t find Robert’s body before Saturday. Could they connect me to Robert’s death? Perhaps, but then they have to find me first. The boys and Judy knew me only as Julie-Anne from Europe and as Robert’s girlfriend. So I relaxed about it. There was not a single hint to me in the file.

I decided to further follow the news on television. Eventually I got restless. What would be if they worked at the storage hall during the week? Perhaps they have already discovered my crime and just don’t want to make it public. I thought about giving them a call. The phone number was still stored on my cell phone.

The business card Robert had given me I had torn up and flushed down the toilet of the motel room in San Jose. I had also gotten rid of the paper bag there that contained the pink handcuffs. And those I had thrown into a garbage can prior to that and I had taken great care not to touch them. My finger prints could not be found anywhere. Even the door handles I had subsequently cleaned with the disinfectant. No traces from Robert in me, no traces of me that could link me with Robert. That was my goal.

However, there was one trace; my oomph feeling told me that clearly. Only my brain hadn’t figured it out yet. Therefore my desire to call the storage hall became increasingly stronger. I had just picked up my cell phone when I remembered that - in the USA - the caller can be traced; even when the number was suppressed. That would be like my finger print if the police searched through the caller IDs of the storage hall. I thought about it again. Then I noticed that I had actually increasingly fun with wiping my tracks and to take care … take care of what?

“Dammit Julie, you need to take care of staying alive!”
a sad voice said inside me, a voice that had formerly belonged to Juliane.