No Cure For Love (27 page)

Though you were far away in Body, I felt that we were together in Spirit. I surround myself with your Image. I stand against my wall and I project your Image onto my Skin. I feel the warmth of the Light brush over me and I think it is you gently caressing me. But you were so far from my Arms and I saw you kiss him. I watched him put his Arms around you. I couldn’t bear it. You know what I can do, you have seen the Fruits of my Labors. All for you. For Love of you. Now you’re just a little bit freer than you were before Christmas. One of the Ties that binds you to Them has been cut. Accept my offering in the spirit of love and devotion with which it was intended. I will come for you soon then we will both be free to breathe beyond the Mirrors of the Sea for ever.

Love, M.

Joe frowned and handed the letter back. ‘Weird,’ he said. ‘Know what he means?’

‘At first I didn’t,’ said Arvo, folding the letter and putting it back in his pocket, ‘but this morning I checked the
Good Cop, Bad Cop
tapes for the time Sarah Broughton was away in England. There was a show on Christmas Eve where the Jack Marillo character kissed Sarah. It was just a friendly kiss, really – you know, a peck on the cheek. She was upset about a kid she was trying to help who got shot in a drive-by, so he gave her a hug and a kiss. I think that might have been what set him off.’

‘What else did you find out from the actress?’

Arvo took a bite of his chili dog and told Joe about the heart drawn in the sand by John Heimar’s body. He also handed him a copy of the Christmas card and letter Sarah had found the morning she left for England.

‘Shit,’ said Joe after he’d read the other letter. ‘Two letters, two hearts, two confessions. Wouldn’t stand up in court, but it’s good enough for me. Why didn’t she tell us this before?’

Arvo shrugged. ‘Scared. Thought it would all just go away.’

‘She’s been withholding evidence.’

‘True. But she’s also been playing denial. She didn’t want to believe it was happening. Couldn’t believe it. Wouldn’t admit it to herself. Not until Marillo’s murder.’

‘And now?’

‘Oh, now she knows. Now she feels guilty. Thinks she might have been able to save him if she’d acted sooner.’

‘Some hope.’ Joe paused to take a mouthful of chili dog, then said, ‘Why are you defending her all of a sudden?’

‘I’m not. I talked to her, that’s all. I think she’s scared enough to tell the truth.’

‘Sure she’s not working that old Hollywood charm on you?’

An image of Sarah Broughton’s nakedness flashed through Arvo’s memory again: particularly the butterfly tattoo on her left shoulder, a beautiful, professional job done in red, blue and green, about three inches across. Somehow, seeing that tattoo had changed her again in his eyes; it added yet another dimension to what was already an enigma. But charm?

‘Fuck you,’ he said.

Joe laughed. ‘Yeah. Methinks this gentleman doth protest too much. But I’d rather be me than you when the Chief finds out.’ He took another bite of his hot dog. Chili sauce dribbled from the corner of his mouth and onto his jacket. He swore and dabbed at it with a napkin.

‘What do you mean?’

‘We’ve got the links we were after now,’ Joe said. ‘The heart. Both scenes. The letters. There’ll be no sitting on this. Just wait till the media get hold of it.’

‘Christ, you’re right,’ said Arvo. ‘Any rookie reporter should be able to put two and two together.’

‘True,’ said Joe. ‘But it’s my bet they’ll be busting their asses on the gay angle, if you’ll forgive the pun. And look on the bright side, man. This is a
major
case now.’

‘That doesn’t seem a particularly bright side to me,’ Arvo said. ‘What it means is we’ve got a major
political
case. We’ve got the Chief and the DA’s office falling all over one another to get an arrest on this. We won’t even be able to take a crap without somebody looking over our shoulders to make sure we’re doing it right.’

‘What I’m saying is we’ve got unlimited resources now. Manpower. We’ve got people looking into every nook and cranny of Marillo’s and Heimar’s lives, see if they intersected anywhere, plus we get a rush on all forensic evidence. It ain’t all bad.’

Arvo was silent for a moment. Maybe Joe was right. Anything they wanted, they’d just have to ask. But Arvo was right, too; whatever they did, they’d have to do it under scrutiny. ‘This guy’s smart, Joe,’ he said. ‘He might be crazy, but he’s smart. He’s not going to be easy to stop unless he starts getting careless. He’s very patient and very careful. Whoever planted Heimar’s body must have watched Sarah Broughton for days or weeks to get the timing just right. He had to know how far the tide would be in or out, what time she would pass the spot where he left the body. If he drew that heart for her to see, he didn’t want it washed away before she got there.’

‘He probably waited a long time outside Marillo’s house, too,’ said Joe. ‘There’s no way he could have known where Marillo was, or even if he was coming back that night. Shit, it was Christmas Day. Normal people spend it with their families or close friends.’

Sure, Arvo thought, remembering his own solo Christmas celebration. ‘I don’t think Christmas means a hell of a lot to the guy we’re looking for,’ he said. ‘You read the letter. He’s very confused about family.’

‘I guess so, if he could spend all Christmas Day hiding in the woods waiting for Marillo.’

Arvo nodded. ‘He’s a loner. Fits the profile. He’s also either very brave or very foolish. He put that letter I just showed you in the mailbox at Sarah’s beach house last night.’

‘She was
there
?’

‘Yeah. From the airport. I told Stu it seemed like the best environment to talk to her, where she’d feel most comfortable, be most likely to open up.’

‘What about protection?’

‘I was there, too.’

Joe raised an eyebrow and his eyes twinkled with humour. ‘All night?’

‘Don’t say a word, Joe,’ Arvo told him. ‘Not a word.’

‘Who, me?’

‘Nothing happened.’

‘Sure it didn’t, Arvo.’

‘The bastard slashed my tires.’

‘Jealous?’

‘That would be my guess.’

‘Then
you’d
better be careful.’

‘That thought had occurred to me. Anything else on the Marillo killing?’

Joe threw away his chili-dog wrapper and lit a cigarette. ‘Found some footprints in the ground back of the house – cheap Korean sneakers – but that’s all. Mostly dead ends, nothing but dead ends. And believe me, we’ve been pushing it. There’s plenty of pressure from above.’ He pointed with his thumb towards the sixth floor of Parker Center, where the Chief had his office.

‘What about Jaimie Kincaid?’

‘Kid’s clean. And, believe me, we went at him hard. The DA’s office really liked him for it at first. Pretty young faggot, lovers’ quarrel. So we really put him through it. He stuck to his story. We got a search warrant and went through his place, gave it the works. Nada. No physical evidence whatsoever connecting him to the murder. Given that Marillo bled like a stuck pig, it would’ve been hard to get rid of every last drop. Footprints aren’t his, either.’

‘So you’ve let him go?’

‘Yup.’

‘I told you he didn’t do it.’

‘Yeah, yeah. I know. You?’

Arvo took a sip of Coke. ‘I talked to Sarah’s shrink, Dr Fermor, on the phone. Seems Sarah was pretty much in isolation while she was out at the Shelley Clinic, and she didn’t form any relationships at all, even at a distance. I also phoned Stan Harvey, who promoted the Gary Knox tour in LA. He put me on to a guy called Carl Buxton down in Orange County. I’m going to see him in a couple of days, when he gets back from Mexico. This guy was the drummer on the tour. He should have some firsthand knowledge of what went on.’

‘What makes you think that’ll help?’

‘Well, if the killer really does know Sarah from somewhere, from what I’ve heard that tour might have attracted more than a few crazy hangers-on. I want to see if Buxton remembers anyone in particular. Sarah disappeared from public view for over a year after she split with Knox, then she resurfaced, with a new name, as the star in a major network series. The timing makes sense, Joe. It also gives him a year to brood over his lost love.’

‘But wouldn’t she remember someone like that?’

‘Not necessarily. Dr Fermor also told me that Sarah’s illness might cause some memory loss. If that period of her life is really as hazy as it seems, then the illness might explain why she doesn’t remember. Some sort of retrograde amnesia. When I first talked to her, I was sure that “Little Star” meant something. Maybe the truth is that she can’t remember exactly
what
it means, or who said it. Maybe it was someone on the periphery. A guy like this wouldn’t need much to set him off. Maybe she smiled at him once.’

‘I guess. But what’s he after, Arvo? That’s what I don’t get. Is he just trying to scare her?’

‘Scare her? No, I don’t think so. Not the way he sees it. Mostly, he’s trying to impress her.’

‘What? By killing people in front of her, dropping them at her feet? I’ve worked homicide a few years now, and I thought I’d seen pretty much everything, but this scenario . . .’ He shook his head.

Arvo finished his chili dog, dropped the wrapper in a garbage bin and took a long swig of Coke to cool the heat in his mouth. ‘Like a cat does,’ he said. ‘Ever noticed that, Joe? We had a cat when I was a kid. Called him Watson. My father’s idea. He was a criminology prof. Anyway, he got run over when I was about twelve – Watson, not my father. But the point is, I remember him once getting on the roof, killing a pigeon and bringing it in his mouth through the bedroom window and dropping it on the floor in front of me looking for approval. My pa yelled at him and threw the pigeon out in the garbage, but goddammit if he didn’t come back with another half an hour later. And another after that. No matter what we said. And what I remember especially is that look on his face: “See what I’ve done for you? Isn’t it wonderful? Love me for it.”’

‘You saying this guy’s the same? But surely he must know how much he is scaring her, whether he means to or not?’

‘He’s out to impress her, he’s looking for approval, but he’s tuned in so close to his own frequency that he doesn’t hear her screaming at him to stop. It’s like he’s watching a different movie from the rest of us, Joe. To him, screams signify love, and murder gains respect.’

‘Where is she now?’

‘Sarah? She’s at the studio. Then she’s going to stay with Stu in Brentwood until this is all over. They’ll have a bodyguard watching over them, and Stu’s no slouch. Also, I want to put the beach house under surveillance, though I think he’s smart enough not to show up there again.’

Joe dropped his cigarette butt on the sidewalk and ground it out with his heel. ‘Is
she
in serious danger,’ he asked, ‘or is it just the people around her?’

‘You read the letters, Joe. That weird stuff about the mirrors of the sea, cutting away the flesh and all. Now he’s jealous as hell, too, going out of control. Love, approval, jealousy, murder – they’re all mixed up together for him. And he says he’s coming for her soon. The gloves are off now. I sure as hell hope she doesn’t have to face him alone.’

28

The black stretch-limo left Stuart’s Brentwood home at ten in the morning on December 31. Karen, Leora and Ben had come back from Santa Barbara for the day, and they sat in the car along with Stuart and Sarah.

The three days Sarah had spent at Stuart’s house had been uneventful. Every evening Arvo phoned to make sure everything was okay. Sarah was getting used to his concern, but she still resented his intrusion into her life, the way he seemed to have taken control out of her hands, and she still felt annoyed that he had seen her naked.

As it turned out, Jack’s murder meant that there was a lot of work to do at the studio, retaking scenes, rethinking plot lines and so on. At least work took Sarah’s mind off her problems part of the time. Pity it was so bloody depressing on the set without Jack.

So it had been a simple routine: drive to the studio, work, drive back to Brentwood, read or watch TV, then sleep. Every time they went back to the house, the bodyguard, Zak, drove on ahead to check the place out. He was close to them even now, on the way to the funeral. The saving grace was that his presence was so unobtrusive Sarah hadn’t even
seen
him yet.

The day was warm and hazy inland. As they drove through Sepulveda Pass on the freeway, cool and comfortable in the luxury car, Sarah glanced through the separating glass and the windshield and saw the San Fernando Valley spread out below them, its neat little blocks of grid-work streets stretching as far as the distant mountains, all shimmering under a thin veneer of amber smog.

She remembered what a powerful sight it had been the first time she saw it, which must have been that evening Jack took her for Thanksgiving dinner at his folks’ house in Northridge. She had never had any reason to go to the Valley before that; she didn’t know anyone who lived there. It was night-time then, and all she could see were the lights spread out across the broad, flat valley-bottom as far as the eye could see. It was like seeing the city from a plane coming in to land.