Naked Addiction (8 page)

Chapter 9

Alison

T
ime became irrelevant after Ken Goode left. Alison could do nothing but stare at his business card and tap her bare feet on the carpet. She grabbed strands of her hair, twirled them around her fingers and pulled, repeating the motion again and again. She couldn’t believe Tania was gone. Goode’s last words played over in her mind.

“Take care of yourself, Alison,” he’d said. Not in the usual brush-off tone she’d heard other guys use when they said that, but in a kind, caring way. Like he really meant it. She didn’t want to jump to conclusions, but was he implying she might be next?

The more Alison pondered Tania’s death, the more it fell into perspective. This was her destiny, to live through a series of losses that came in almost predictable intervals, generally not long after she thought she’d finally found the true path to happiness. The setbacks started when she was ten, the morning her mother, Lila, left for her secretarial job and didn’t come back.

They’d been staying at Grandma Abigail and Grandpa Harold’s two-bedroom house in the San Fernando Valley to save money. When her mother, Lila, didn’t return from the office that evening, Grandma Abigail kept saying that her mom was going to walk through the front door and surprise them with some fancy chocolates.

“Lila always deals with the bad times by buying expensive candy in gold boxes,” she said.

But Lila, as it turned out, was gone for good. Night after night Alison sat on the loveseat with her grandmother, watching sit-com reruns and waiting for her mother to return. Her father had disappeared, too, but she was too young to remember him. Lila never talked about him, so the only image Alison had of him was the photo in her bedroom—dressed in an Army uniform, with soft eyes that could’ve disarmed any woman. They had sure worked on Lila.

Alison saw something similar in Goode when she’d opened her door and seen him standing there. She felt an immediate connection. He seemed to feel it too; he kept smiling at her even though she could tell he was trying to be serious. Under the circumstances, it felt wrong to think about him that way. But she couldn’t help it. Plus, the distraction lessened the impact of the news he’d delivered.

After he’d left, she stuck her face into the sofa cushion and breathed in the scent of his cologne, which had rubbed off on the cushion, until she couldn’t smell it anymore. She knew it well. A big seller at Nordstrom, it came in a blue bottle and conveyed a strong but pleasant maleness. When she and Tania were at the mall the weekend before, Alison sprayed a tester on Tania’s wrist. Tania looked distracted for a minute.

“Tom,” she declared finally, and Alison knew exactly what she meant.

Alison knew it was selfish, but she couldn’t help feeling angry about Tania. Why did she have to lose her so soon? Now she’d have to start looking for a friend all over again. She toyed with a series of what-ifs. What if she’d gone over to Tania’s apartment Saturday night? What if she’d interrupted the murderer? What if she’d been killed too?

That’s silly talk.
Think about something else.

She felt nauseated and strange as Goode’s voice echoed in her head: “Was Tania dating anyone? Had she broken up with someone recently? Did she mention any men from Los Angeles who’d been bothering her? Did she have any female friends in San Diego besides you?”

Alison wanted to know more about what had happened to Tania, but then again, she didn’t. Who would have done such a thing? It couldn’t have been Seth. He and Tania really seemed to like each. And Keith? Quiet and not very friendly, but not the murderer type. Not that she’d ever met one. She wished that she’d pressed Tania for more details about her life in LA. For all the talking Alison did about herself, Tania shared very little.

Alison’s hair-pulling turned painful as her neck cramped up, but she couldn’t stop herself. Dozens of hairs had fallen into the lap of her robe in swirled patterns, like silken threads of a tapestry. She wrenched herself off the couch and grabbed a can of diet soda from the refrigerator. In her nervous haste, she poured it too quickly, watching helplessly as it foamed over the lip of the glass. She swooped down to suck the river of beige suds before any more of it could pop and sputter on the counter.

If Tania were still alive, Alison would’ve called to give her the lowdown on Goode. She figured he was a good six feet tall, a hundred and seventy-five pounds, with nice, broad shoulders, a thin waist, a great jawline and a sexy grin.

But Alison didn’t trust her own instincts. She’d had pretty bad luck with men since her twelfth birthday, when Grandpa Harold had come into her bedroom to say good night, his head a silhouette against the moonlight, and pushed her hand inside his robe. His visits, which grew increasingly violating, continued until she was seventeen. It was a heart attack that finally stopped him from sticking his nasty wrinkled red thing in her.

After that, she’d tried to date guys her own age, but few interested her. Sure, she’d had sex with a bunch of them. But every time, it felt as empty as the last. Eventually she just felt numb, so she stopped.

Then came Tony, an older married man she’d met at her perfume counter, where he’d bought one of her most expensive bottles.

“It’s for my daughter,” he said.

She thought nothing of it—this was LA and it was none of her business anyway—but she did remember seeing him later that afternoon in the parking lot with a young woman with long flowing dark hair. Alison never saw her face. He showed up again the next week and asked Alison to dinner, but neither the dark-haired woman nor his wife came up in conversation and she didn’t ask. If he wanted to tell her, he would.

After that, Tony kept taking Alison to nice places. He treated her with respect, at least most of the time. But even that situation went bad. She’d seen the signs but had ignored most of them, including the nagging feeling in the pit of her stomach that the excitement she felt with him was wrong. He made her feel naked and vulnerable, even when she was fully clothed. She didn’t really trust him
or
her own instincts, so it was very confusing.

She and Tony agreed to meet at a hotel one Saturday night, and he was late. She put on the black teddy he’d sent her in the mail and stretched out on the purple velvet bedspread to read a magazine. When Tony walked in about an hour later, she asked him where he’d been. He slapped her face and pressed his fingers so hard into her shoulder that she cried out in pain.

“Don’t ever talk to me with that tone again,” he said in a low voice, his mouth a narrow slit.

He went outside to the balcony and lit a cigarette, then he called room service for a bottle of Dom Perignon. He drew a bubble bath and guided her into it. He seemed to be trying to make peace, but he never said he was sorry.

Tony was the first person she’d ever dated who smoked. He said it filled him up, made him feel whole. He was all nerves if he went too long without a cigarette. At least he chewed mints, which helped mask the dirty taste when they kissed.

Alison never told Tony she was leaving LA to go to beauty school in San Diego. She just stopped returning his calls and then disconnected her phone without leaving a forwarding number. Alison wished she’d gotten Tania’s input on the Tony situation.

Goode was quite a contrast to Tony. He made her feel safe, and not just because of the gun and the badge. He seemed like good boyfriend material.

She felt agitated, her mind suddenly spinning with images—Tony slapping her, then leaning against the balcony, smoking. Tania dancing with Seth. Goode leaning toward her as he asked his questions. She felt claustrophobic, as if the room had no air. Was there something to what Tony said about smoking? It seemed counterintuitive, but she decided to go buy a pack anyway. A walk in the cool night air would feel good, maybe even relax her a little.

She pulled on the jeans and turtleneck she’d been wearing before she took her bath and stepped into her ankle-high boots. To top off the outfit, she put on some “Burgundy Summer” lipstick.

The drugstore was about half a mile away. To avoid drunk skateboarders, she took a wide residential street parallel to Garnet, the main drag. The moon seemed even bigger from outside her apartment. It was a Super Moon, after all. She swore her hands were gleaming.

Chapter 10

Goode

G
oode reported the details of his conversation with Alison Winslow to Sergeant Stone as he was driving over to the Pumphouse bar in search of a Seth, Keith, J., or anyone else who’d seen Tania on Friday or Saturday night.

“You’re making good progress,” Stone said. “Keep it up, buddy.”

Pumphouse was only a few minutes from Tania’s and Alison’s apartments—not really far enough to take a cab. But then again Goode could understand why a woman wouldn’t want to walk the streets of Pacific Beach, which were crawling with young men, teeming with testosterone. He certainly didn’t like his sister living among them. He always worried that one would follow her home because she’d let him buy her a drink.

Goode parked a few blocks away. By the time he got to the bar, it was about ten o’clock. The green neon sign cast a cartoonlike incandescence over the sidewalk. As he opened the door, he heard the scratchy sound of skateboard wheels on pavement and scooted out of the way just in time. He felt a breeze as a kamikaze surf rat rode past him, jumped the curb onto the street, and skated away, his long, stringy hair flying behind him like the tail of a kite.

Ah, youth
.

Inside, stools and round tables were clustered around the narrow dance floor, which skirted a stage that would comfortably fit a two-person band but likely would have to accommodate four and a drum set. The place had that fraternity house smell from so much stale beer seeping into the wooden floor that no amount of soap or wax could kill it. No one was playing at the two pool tables in the adjoining room. The lights were low and Patsy Cline was singing on the jukebox. The music was a little loud but Goode didn’t mind. He liked Patsy.

“I go out walking, after midnight, out in the moonlight, just hoping you may be somewhere a walking, after midnight, searching for me…”

It seemed like an apt theme song for the night.

Apparently, Sunday nights were slow enough that the bartender could choose his own music, a marked contrast to the monotone bass-thumping noise emanating from bars along Garnet, where the Navy guys and the hip twenty-something crowd hung out. The bartender was polishing glasses with a towel, sliding them into an overhead rack and singing along with Patsy. There were only a few patrons, including a middle-aged man with a three-day beard, hunkered over the bar. He tossed back a shot of whiskey and a beer chaser, pounding the glasses on the bar so hard that Goode was surprised they didn’t shatter. Goode couldn’t picture Tania Marcus there. But then again, maybe he could.

“What can I get you?” the bartender asked, without making eye contact. He was a large man with a big beer belly, his T-shirt not quite long enough to cover the hairy roll. His sun-streaked brown hair was pulled back into a pony tail.

“Some information,” Goode said, pulling his badge from the inside pocket of his windbreaker. “Detective Ken Goode, Homicide. And you are?”

“Jack O’Mallory.” The bartender hung another glass in the rack and this time he looked at Goode for a moment. “What kind of information?”

The bartender had a lazy eye, so it was difficult to know where to focus when talking to him. Goode settled on his nose. “There’s been a murder,” he said.

One-Eyed Jack shrugged. “Yeah?”

The guy probably played a good game of poker. Goode pulled the photos of Tania and Alison out of his wallet and laid them side by side on the bar as if he were doubling down in a game of twenty-one. One-Eyed Black Jack. He generally found humor in irony, but he didn’t have time for that now.

“Remember these two women from Friday night?”

The bartender leaned over to examine them more closely, the towel still in his hand. “I remember that one, that’s for sure,” he said, pointing to Tania. He grinned, exposing a row of crooked teeth. His smile dissipated when he saw Goode’s grim expression. “It’s not her, is it?”

Goode nodded, monitoring Jack’s face for signs of credibility.

“Oh,” Jack said, grimacing. “That’s too bad.”

“Recognize the other one?”

“No. Well, I don’t know. This place was jammed Friday night.”

“So why do you remember the dark-haired one?”

The bartender cocked his head toward the dance floor. “She was dancing over there with one of the regulars. Pretty wild.”

“Yeah? Who was that?”

“A young guy, Seth. He was here with another guy he usually comes with, Keith. She came over here and called for a taxi around midnight. I don’t usually allow customers to use the phone, but she was hot, if you know what I mean….It’s a shame that she’s dead. A real shame.”

One-Eye seemed to be overdoing the mourning act a bit. “How well do you know these guys?” he asked.

“Not that good. Seth’s got dark brown hair, and—”

Goode cut in. He needed more information than hair color and he didn’t like this guy’s evasive behavior. “What’s his last name?” he said tersely.

“You got me.”

Goode felt his blood pressure rising. “Thought you said he and his friend were regulars here.”

The bartender pulled a pack of Camels from under the bar and shook one out. “They are, but so are a lot of guys.”

“Anyone who goes by the initial J?”

One-Eye gave Goode a “you’ve-got-to-be-kidding” look. “I’m sure there are at least three Jays, ten Mikes and a few Daves. But like I said, I don’t know them or any of the other guys you mentioned that good. Mind if I smoke?”

“As a matter of fact I do, considering it’s against the law,” Goode said. He was losing patience. “So what do you know about Keith?”

One-Eye put his cigarette on the counter, probably waiting to smoke it after the law left. “Not much. The two of them have been coming here for about a year. This isn’t really a support group where we bare our souls every night.”

Goode felt a caffeine-tension headache coming on. He took a deep breath, which sometimes helped, and only half-pretended he was sighing with exasperation. “They work around here?”

“Yeah, over at the real estate office down the street. Something and Something. It’s right on the corner.” The bartender paused and gave Goode a funny look, bordering on concern. “You all right?”

“I’m fine,” Goode snapped and turned for the door.

Outside, he leaned against the wall in the green neon glow and tried to will his temples to stop throbbing. He concentrated on listening to his breath going in and out. He was probably just dehydrated. He knew he shouldn’t drink so much coffee, but he really wanted to stay on top of his game during this investigation. The drug dealers he usually dealt with never noticed if he got anxious like this, because they were always experiencing something similar, only their source was illegal.

Goode scanned the tacky business signs as he made his way down the block he called Neon Row: KATIE’S POODLE PUFF. WILLIAMS’ OFFICE SUPPLIES. PACIFIC BEACH HARDWARE. LAZOWSKY & PUCCHI REAL ESTATE.

He stopped, cupped his hand around his eyes to block the glare and peered through the window of the dark real estate office. All he could make out were a few desks, but they seemed pretty cush. The sign on the door said they’d be open for business at 8 A.M.

Goode walked back along the strip, stopping in front of Pumphouse again for a minute. The bartender was probably lying when he said he didn’t know Seth and Keith that well, probably to protect them, and himself as well. The question was why. He decided to go back in and see if he caught old One-Eye smoking, or doing something else he shouldn’t, like calling one of Goode’s potential suspects on the house phone. He also wanted to ask where he could find Clover. One of his team needed to track her down to see if she knew anything.

This time the jukebox was playing some hip-hop song he didn’t recognize. The customers had either gone to the head or walked out the back door because the place was empty. Goode didn’t see the bartender until he sat down on a stool in front of the swinging shutter-style doors leading to the kitchen. Just like the ones in the old Western saloons, where you could see people’s legs underneath, and if they were tall enough, their heads, too.

From that vantage point Goode could see a very animated One-Eye arguing with someone who was out of eyeshot, his good eye bulging with anger. Goode couldn’t hear what they were saying over the music, but when the doors pushed open, he saw a guy backing out, wearing a backward baseball cap. When the guy turned around, Goode was surprised to see it was Jake, especially since he’d never mentioned working there. Jake’s face froze when he saw the detective.

“Mr. Lancaster,” Goode said calmly, with a little “gotcha” in his voice.

“Uhhh,” Jake said. “Yeah. . . I just came in to pick up my paycheck. I work here part-time.”

“How come you didn’t tell me that before?” Goode asked.

“I didn’t think it was relevant,” he said. “It’s not what I
do,
if you know what I mean.”

Jake gave Goode a look like he was supposed to understand, smart guy to smart guy, that this job was beneath the would-be med student, Dr. Jake.

“Why don’t you let me decide what’s relevant and what’s not,” Goode said. “So were you here working Friday night?”

“Yeah,” Jake said, “but I was in the kitchen a lot of the time, helping the cook, because he wasn’t feeling too well.”

“That’s always a good thing—cooking for people when you’re sick,” Goode said. “Did you see Tania and Alison in here?”

“Who?”

Goode slapped the photos on the bar. One, two.

“That’s the girl from the alley,” Jake said.

“Yeah, smart guy. So, you had seen her before this afternoon, hadn’t you?”

“I said I didn’t really know her, I didn’t say I’d never seen her before.”

“You do go by the initial J, right?” Goode asked.

Jake looked puzzled, as if he didn’t know how to answer, then gave him a strange smile. “Well, my mother calls me that sometimes, but I’m not sure that’s what you’re asking.”

Goode raised his eyebrows as if to say,
One false move and I’ll have your ass
. “Okay. I’ll see you guys. Later.”

Goode casually sauntered out the front door, then turned and ran to his van. He figured Jake was sure to be hightailing it to his car, which was probably parked in the back. Goode wanted to follow him and his Saab wherever he might be going now that he’d been rattled. Two encounters with police in one day. That had to suck.

As he’d suspected, Goode saw an old red Saab driving down the alley at a good clip. Goode kept his headlights off so Jake wouldn’t know he was following, although that would be tough given he was driving the old VW. Not many of them around these days. He was worried about hanging back far enough so Jake didn’t see him, but close enough not to get trapped by a stop sign or red light. Jake drove down the alley for several blocks until he had to turn onto a main street. Goode followed until the Saab pulled into the driveway of a small house a few blocks from where his sister, Maureen, lived.

Jake stood outside on the porch and took a few puffs of a cigarette before he stubbed it out in a planter, then went inside and turned on the porch light. Goode could see the address matched the one Jake had given him that afternoon. So, he was telling the truth about that at least.

Goode put on some latex gloves and quietly approached the house by crossing the lawn to collect the cigarette butt. He put it in an evidence bag and skulked back to his van. Back inside, he turned on the light and saw that it was a Camel. A popular brand, he had to admit, but he planned to have it tested just in case.

From there, he drove downtown to the station so he could drop off the butt for transport to the crime lab and also make some copies of the diary to preserve the evidence, just in case. He wanted to study the diary at home for some uninterrupted reading in the privacy of his living room, this time with a beer in hand, and come up with a plan for the next day. Not to mention catch a few hours of sleep.

Once he got home, he tossed his keys on the kitchen counter. There were no messages on his answering machine. Grabbing a Heineken, he carried the diary to his black leather lounge chair. He eased into it, put his feet on the coffee table and popped open a beer, taking a long swig before resting it between his legs.

Goode still didn’t know Seth’s last name so he couldn’t run him through the database, but he assumed the guy would show up for work in the morning, that is, unless One-Eyed Jack advised him to take a quick trip south of the border. In that case, Goode could have himself a little Baja vacation.

Hell, I could use one.

He pulled Tania’s photo out of his wallet so he could really picture her while he was reading the diary, and soon became engrossed in the details of her love life. She was never very graphic, so he had to fill in a lot of the gaps himself. Given her appetite for sexual adventure and exploration, chances were that she could have easily died at the hands of a “Mr. Goodbar.” Jake or Seth looked like good candidates, but then so did other men in her life. As he skimmed through the entries, he could see those with oddities, perversions or wives were attracted to her, and vice versa. He turned to a page toward the end to an email message she’d sent to a guy named Zlaviserciez. 

“After disappearing the last time, you looked in my eyes, kissed me tenderly, touched my most private areas and told me you wouldn’t disappear again. I said, ‘I really do like you, you know,’ and you said, ‘I really like you, too.’ I’d ask you to think about how I feel now that you refuse to return my calls. It makes me think of a story a wise old woman once told me about a man who chased the ghost of love: He meets a beautiful girl in a cafe. She’s articulate and intriguing. She says she wonders if she will ever fall in love again. He has wondered that too, and for the first time in years, he thinks maybe, just maybe, she will be the one. He only hopes she doesn’t turn out to be another disappointment. For the next two days, he leaves messages at the number she gave him but he gets no response. So, he asks the café owner if he’s seen the beautiful woman. ‘What woman?’ the owner replies. ‘I saw you talking to yourself. Maybe you should go to a doctor.’ The man is confused, so he makes an appointment for the next day. He spends that afternoon and night feeling nauseated and listless. He lays awake, worrying. Could it be a brain tumor, or cancer? The next day, the doctor can find nothing physically wrong. Asked how he’s been sleeping, the man tells the doctor of a dream about a woman he had broken up with. In the dream, she claims to have rejected him, and this angers him. The doctor suggests that the man see a psychiatrist and try to determine why he can neither sleep nor maintain relationships. ‘Perhaps what you need is a paradigm shift in your thinking and the way you interact with women,’ he says. The man thanks the doctor and takes his receptionist out for a drink. She wants to take him home, but he says no. He feels nothing for her. That night, he dreams about the beautiful woman. The two of them have a sensuous session of lovemaking that surpasses any he has ever experienced. He wakes up and calls her number again. This time, a recording says the call cannot be completed as dialed. He walks into the bathroom, feeling numb, the phone still in his hand. He tries to repress his disappointment, as he usually does, only it’s not working. He stands naked in front of the bathroom mirror, looks into his own eyes and asks, ‘Where have you gone this time?’”