Naked Addiction (23 page)

Chapter 35

Norman

N
orman’s head was throbbing as he stared into space, waiting for people to return the half dozen calls he’d put out.

Maybe I’m just not cut out for all this stress.

But he only allowed himself to think that for a moment before deciding that he wasn’t going to give up. He was going to prove to Al and Big Ed, and to himself, that he could do this.

Somehow, other reporters got their sources to talk. Why was he having such a hard time? He’d called the cop-shop several times looking for Sergeant Stone and Detective Goode, but the secretary kept saying they were out. He got his hopes up when she said she’d fax him a news release, but it turned out to be the same one he already had.

Norman went to the bathroom and splashed his face with water, hoping it would help ease the pain behind his eyes. When he returned to his desk, he found a letter sitting on his keyboard, addressed to him. Flipping it over, he saw a waxy, red imprint of two lips across the back flap of the envelope. He took a ruler and ripped it open along the edge so as not to disturb the lip print and pulled out a letter written on white, blue-lined notebook paper:

To Norman Klein:

I am writing to tell you that Seth Kennedy murdered Tania Marcus, Sharona Glass, and Keith Warner. I’m scared I’m going to be next.

Norman’s heart was beating wildly. “Wow,” he whispered, recognizing Kennedy’s name from the release.

Seth was my boyfriend, so I’ve seen his violent side. I read your story about the marks on the necks of those two girls and I knew immediately that Seth was the one who did it to them. He grabbed me by the throat one time and I think he would have strangled me to death if Keith hadn’t knocked on the front door. If anything happens to me, don’t let him get away with saying it was a suicide. I’m scared he’s going to get to me when he figures out that I know about the murders. After reading your stories, I feel I can trust you. I have to stay anonymous for now.

Norman read the letter one more time to make sure he wasn’t hallucinating. He could barely contain his excitement. This could be his big break. He made a beeline for Al’s desk and shoved the letter under his nose. Al was making small talk with Sabrina, the very shapely, but not too bright, obits clerk. The editor tried to wave Norman away, but the intrepid cub reporter would not be denied. Not this time.

“Al, you’ve got to check this out,” he said. “It’s huge.”

Al glared at him as if to say,
Not now
.

“It’s important. It’s about the guy who was arrested in that drug bust last night. This letter says he’s the PB killer.”

“I’ll catch you later, Al,” Sabrina said.

“This better be good, kid,” Al said in a low voice. “Couldn’t you see I was busy?” His eyebrows went up as he read the letter. Then he frowned. Always the skeptic. “Where’d this come from? You didn’t write it, did you?”

“Of course not. I found it on my keyboard just now. It must’ve come in the mail this morning,” Norman said as calmly as he could muster, nearly paralyzed with anger and disbelief at the implication of Al’s questions. He showed him the envelope flap. “Here look at these lips. They obviously aren’t mine, right? You think it could be worth A-1?”

Al took the envelope and examined the lip imprint more closely.  “Just hold your horses, kid. I’ll take it into the morning editors’ meeting and we’ll talk about what we want to do. It’s not even signed for Christ’s sake. You don’t want us to get sued, do you?”

There went the lawsuit argument again. The other reporters were always complaining about the paper not having any guts. “Well, no, but geez, it seems like a good story to me, don’t you think?”

“Look,” Al said. “We don’t know where it came from, or who wrote it, or what their intentions were. There could be some legal problems if we run it. In the meantime, see if you can figure out who Seth Kennedy has been dating lately. Maybe we can track down whoever wrote this letter.”

Norman could barely maintain his composure. He’d gotten the nod. “They’d better print it,” he mumbled as he walked back to his desk. “They’ve got to.”

Chapter 36

Goode

G
oode told the jail deputy that he was done with One-Eyed Jack. He couldn’t do anything more with the bartender until he’d questioned Seth Kennedy, and he’d lawyered up. In the meantime, Goode planned to head over to Keith Warner’s house in La Jolla, where he’d lived with his parents, and see if they would let Goode poke around his room for drugs. The Warners also might know if Keith and Seth had been at odds recently.

Their small cream-colored house needed a new coat of paint and the lawn was unevenly mowed and mottled with white patches, signaling that they either had brown thumbs or couldn’t afford to hire a gardener. With Keith still living at home, Goode figured it was the latter.

Martha Warner invited Goode into the living room, where her husband, George, was sitting on a green and blue paisley couch. The room was sparsely decorated, with only a few pieces of furniture, one of those clichéd paintings of a roiling ocean at sunset, and crocheted white doilies on practically every tabletop and chair arm. Martha sat next to her husband and directed Goode to sit in a stiff wooden armchair with a cushion that matched the couch. They both stared numbly at the detective.

A silver antique teapot and four cups sat on a matching tray on the coffee table between him and the Warners, almost as if they’d been expecting company.

“I’m very sorry for your loss,” Goode said. “You must be in shock.”

“Would you like some tea?” Martha asked, holding the pot over one of the cups. “No, thank you,” Goode said.

She proceeded to fill the cup and set it in front of him. “Just in case you change your mind,” she said.

“Keith always liked tea,” she said, her voice breaking. She set down the pot and dabbed her wet eyes with a tissue she pulled from inside her sleeve. “He was such a good boy. Studied very hard in school. He said his goal was to buy us a bigger house. We’ve owned this one since the seventies.”

“I read in the paper that you’ve arrested Seth Kennedy and put him in jail,” George said.

“Yes, sir, we have.”

“Good job,” George said, nodding. “We always thought he was a bad influence on our boy.”

“Were Keith and Seth getting along lately?”

“Oh, my, yes. They’d been friends since elementary school,” Martha said.

Martha also poured cups of tea for herself and then George, who looked like he was approaching eighty. Doing the math in his head, Goode calculated that George must’ve fathered Keith in his late fifties. George slurped his tea and as soon as he set the cup in its saucer with a clatter, Martha promptly refilled it. She looked at least twenty years younger than him.

“You don’t think he had anything to do with Keith’s death do you?” Martha asked.

“That’s what we’re trying to determine, Mrs. Warner,” Goode replied. “Do you know if Seth or any of Keith’s other friends own a gun?”

Martha frowned and shook her head. “Oh, my, no.”

She twirled her salt-and-pepper curls around her index finger as she rocked back and forth slightly on the sofa. “We miss him so, don’t we George?”

George didn’t answer. He was busy counting out sugar cubes from the bowl onto the tray with a pair of silver tongs, moving them one at a time from the tray to a wall he was building on the table.

The Warners seemed a bit out of touch with their son’s life, the way older parents or grandparents can be. But Keith was their son. Goode still hoped to have children before he was as old as George and unable to relate to them.

“Sugar, sweetie?” George asked Martha as she poured herself another cup.

“Yes, thanks, honey,” she said. Smiling sadly at Goode, she added, “He takes such good care of me.”

Funny, but it seemed to be the other way around to him. Goode smiled back at her. They were a bit eccentric, but quite sweet, really. Goode’s cell phone went off. He didn’t recognize the number and decided to finish talking with the couple and have a look around before calling back. He stood up. “You mind if I take a quick look in Keith’s room?”

“No, go ahead,” Martha said, sipping her tea.

Goode found nothing unusual in Keith’s closet or under his bed, other than how fastidiously neat and clean it was. As soon as he saw a ginger tabby cat run out of the room his nose and eyes started to itch. It was time to go.

Heading toward the living room, he stopped just before he reached the doorway so he didn’t intrude on an intimate moment. Martha was stroking George’s head, which was resting on her chest, and saying, “Remember that time he brought home that poor sick bird and wanted to nurse him back to health?” Her lips were pursed, as if she were about to cry again.

“I’ve got to run to an emergency,” Goode said gently. “I’ll see myself out.”

Chapter 37

Alison

A
lison woke from a nap feeling that something bad had happened, but she was so groggy she didn’t even know where she was. Her eyes roamed the room, which was cast in the shadows of the gloaming. Startled by the figure of a man standing by the window, she realized it was the silhouette of the hat stand she’d bought on an antique shopping trip with Tania. Slowly at first, then in a flood, the events of the last few days rushed back to her.

She wrapped her arms around herself, closed her eyes, and rubbed her cheek against the pillowcase, trying to simulate the feeling of someone stroking her face. But it didn’t work. As hard as she tried to push the sad thoughts away, they kept coming back. Finally, she gave up and threw off the covers. She padded into the bathroom, not much liking the puffy and depressed face that looked back at her from the mirror.

The phone rang in the living room. She picked it up and heard static, followed by a man’s voice going in and out. Bad reception.

“Alison?”

A current rushed through her body at the sound of the man’s voice. It was Tony.

“Alison? Can you hear me?”

“Yes,” she said softly, barely able to breathe.

“How are you?”

She felt scared, shocked, and alone. But she wasn’t going to tell him that. “Why are you calling me?” she asked in the harshest tone she could muster.

“What do you mean? I thought you’d be happy to hear from me.”

She didn’t even know where to start. “It’s just really weird, after the funeral and everything,” she said. “How did you find me?”

“It’s a long story. Tania had mentioned you to her mother, who then gave the police your name after we got the bad news. I got your number from the beauty school.”

Alison couldn’t answer right away. Her mind had gone white. She felt uneasy talking to Tony. Violated. As if he’d burst into her apartment uninvited.

“What do you want?” she asked finally, hoping to keep the conversation brief.

“I just wanted to hear your voice. Why, you don’t want to talk to me?”

She heard a sad, vulnerable note in his voice. “Well, all right. But only for a couple minutes.”

“Okay. Good. I mostly wanted to say that it was good seeing you at the funeral. It’s been pretty rough for me at home lately. I still can’t believe you left LA like that. No forwarding number, not even a good-bye.”

“I’m sorry,” she said, not meaning it. “About Tania, I mean. You know, I almost died when I saw your photo on that display at the funeral.”

“I’ve missed you.”

Alison paused again. Tony wasn’t listening to a word she was saying. She felt confused. “I wanted to start over down here. You know, go somewhere and be a whole new person, where no one knows you.”

It was Tony’s turn to be silent. Something about this conversation seemed ominous to her.

Maybe you’re just being paranoid.

“How come you never told me about Tania?” she asked. “She turned out to be the best friend I had here.”

Tony sighed. “I guess I figured that if I didn’t tell you about her that she would never know you existed. Some twisted logic, huh?” There was that pain in his voice again.

“Yeah. I’ll say.”

“So you met Tania at the beauty school?” he asked, repeating the obvious.

“Yeah.”

“Alison.” There was another long pause before Tony started talking again, his voice breaking. “I can’t believe. . . . she’s dead. Who. . . .would do something like that?”

He sounded so pathetic, Alison felt sorry for him and a little guilty for leaving him the way she did. “I have no idea, Tony. I wish I knew.”

“I need to see you,” he said abruptly.

“Tony, I already told you—”

He cut her off. “Things are different now. I told you I was sorry about that night at the hotel. I had a very stressful afternoon and you made me angry, and then something inside me just snapped. I’ve never done that before. It won’t happen again. I promise.”

“I don’t know, Tony.”

“Alison, don’t you care about me at all? What about all the things I’ve done for you?”

There it was, the “You owe me” part. She knew it would come sooner or later. She tried to choose her words carefully, but they came tumbling out. “I did care. But you hit me. Why should I believe that you wouldn’t do it again?”

“I drove down to San Diego to see you. I’m coming over,” he said.

“No, Tony, don’t.”

“You’ll see. It’ll be good for both of us.”

The line went dead and she started to panic. How did he know where she lived? Did the beauty school tell him that, too? Her hand slipped off the phone, leaving a wet sheen where her palm had been. She looked at the flimsy lock on her front door and pictured Tony bursting through it, sending shards of cheap wood flying. She paced across her living room carpet.

What to do, what to do, what to do?

Grabbing her purse, she tossed its contents onto the rug, searching frantically for Ken Goode’s card. She called his number and got voice mail.

“Shit!” she said. She tried his cell phone next. “What if he doesn’t have it turned on?” she whispered. “Please Ken, answer the phone.”

Alison got voice mail again, punched in her number to page him, and hung up. She gripped the cordless phone, as if holding it tightly would cause it to ring.

Answer the page. Answer the page.

She took a diet soda out of the fridge and placed the phone on the counter. Something in the garbage smelled rank. She knew she should’ve taken the bag out the night before, but she couldn’t face going down to that alley, not after what had happened to Tania. She wondered if she should buy some of those stick-up pine scent deodorizers Grandma Abigail used to hide in the bathroom. They never seemed to work, though.

She poured her diet soda too full and let out a squeal as it foamed onto the counter, creeping dangerously close to the phone. She was mopping up the mess when the phone rang.

“Hello?” she said frantically into the receiver.

“Alison? Is that you?” Goode asked.

Alison collapsed onto the couch with relief, setting her drink on the coffee table. “God, I’m so glad you called back.”

“What’s up? You sound upset.”

Alison could hear voices and street noise in the background. “Yeah. I am. ‘Member I told you about Tony, the guy I used to date who turned out to be Tania’s father?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Well, he just called and said he’s coming right over. I told him not to, but it was like he didn’t even hear me. He sounded really weird. I’m scared.”

“How does he know where you live? I thought you said you left LA and didn’t tell him where you were going.”

Alison drew a heart in the moisture on her glass. “Well, he said he got my number from the beauty school and my address too, I guess. Can you come over?”

Goode paused. “Um, yeah, sure. Hang tight and I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

Alison took a long gulp of her drink and was so startled by a noise in the room that she nearly dropped the glass. The wind coming through the window had knocked down a poster she’d taped to the wall. It was a black and white photograph, the famous one of the two French lovers kissing after news hit the streets that World War Two had ended.