Shame (12 page)

T
HE BODY HAD
been found on holy ground, just outside the Presidio in Old Town. The killer had found his shrine. The mission’s founder, Junípero Serra, was even being considered for sainthood by the Roman Catholic Church.

The victim still hadn’t been identified. She was a young woman, believed to be no more than twenty, marked and posed like the others.

As if all that weren’t bad enough for the Sheriff’s Office, Caleb Parker still hadn’t shown up at his home.

Promises to keep, thought Elizabeth, taking her leave of homicide headquarters.

“We got a situation here,” said Detective Holt, calling from his car phone.

Lieutenant Borman wiped the sweat off his face. It had been his decision to let Parker walk. It was the right call. In a homicide investigation, you had only one opportunity to do things right. If he had prematurely arrested Parker, it would have jeopardized the whole case. No one had thought he was a risk to run. But now two hours had passed since Parker’s departure. It should have taken him only half an hour to get home, which meant he was ninety minutes tardy. Parker still could be shopping, or at a bar, or talking with a friend, but Borman had a bad feeling that he’d
skipped. A “Pick Up Or Check” directive had been sent out to all law enforcement, with a description of Gray Caleb Parker and his truck. The Sheriff’s Office, SDPD, the feds, the Border Patrol, and the FBI all had that directive. That still hadn’t produced Parker.

“What now?” Borman asked Holt.

“That writer just pulled up in her car. She’s making for the front door right now. You want us to intercept her?”

“Shit,” Borman said. Another decision. Something else for him to be second-guessed on. But his ass was covered on this one. The sheriff himself had given permission for that Line woman not only to circulate freely among them but to be allowed access to their investigation. The boss probably wanted a chapter devoted to him in her next book, a really complimentary one.

“Don’t try and stop her,” Borman said.

Anna recognized the woman from the night before. She wished the house looked a little better, but with both her and Cal working, and two active children, it was a moral victory that it was as presentable as it was. For a moment, Anna wondered if Cal was having an affair with this woman. She was older than Anna but still very attractive. Maybe that explained Caleb’s behavior and this woman’s showing up at their house two nights in a row. She had announced herself at the door by saying she had a message from Caleb. Though not dressed for company, Anna had still invited her inside.

Self-consciously, Anna ran her hand along the collar of her bathrobe. “Can I get you something to drink?” she asked. “There’s some coffee I brewed earlier.”

“No, thank you,” Elizabeth said.

They went to the living room, Anna using her hand to tidy her hair along the way. James and Janet were banned from going into the living room, which meant she didn’t have to clear a path.

As they both took seats, Anna spoke. “You said that Cal gave you a message for us?”

“In a way,” Elizabeth said. She didn’t want to be enigmatic, but she wasn’t sure how to approach what she needed to say. Elizabeth hadn’t even been sure she would get this opportunity. She knew that at least two detectives were monitoring the house, and she had half-expected them to try to intercept her. “Earlier this evening,” she said, “I promised your husband that I would help you and your children.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Do you know anything about your husband’s family?” asked Elizabeth.

Anna registered surprise at the question, her thick eyebrows beetling together into one. “I know he doesn’t have a family,” she said. “His parents are dead, and he doesn’t have any brothers or sisters.”

“That’s true,” Elizabeth said. “But did he ever tell you anything about his parents?”

Anna shook her head. “Very little. I only know that his mother divorced his father when Caleb was a boy, and that she worked as a waitress to support him.”

When Anna and Caleb had started going out, Anna had thought his orphan status had made him that much more irresistible. She had married him when he was twenty-five, and she had been certain she could be his family, could be everything to him. Caleb’s not having any living relations had been a positive thing as far as she was concerned. He had her. It had all seemed so very romantic.

“Did he tell you how his parents died?”

“His mother passed away when he was twenty or so. She had a bad liver...”

Cirrhosis of the liver, Elizabeth thought.

“...and his father died after he was struck by lightning. But since Cal didn’t even really know him, his death didn’t affect him much.”

Clever lies combined with wishful thinking, thought Elizabeth. Caleb had probably wanted to tell his wife a biography
as close to the truth as possible, or as close to the truth as he dared make it.

“What Caleb told you was mostly true,” Elizabeth said.

“Mostly?”

“His father didn’t die by lightning—though that’s a phrase that inmates often use. They call it “riding the lightning.” It’s a euphemistic phrase for electrocution.”

“What are you saying?”

“Caleb’s father, Gray Parker, died in the electric chair. He was known as Shame.”

The color left Anna’s face. “No.”

Elizabeth forged ahead. She knew it was only the beginning of her bad news.

“Your husband spent most of today at the Sheriff’s Department. He was being interviewed by homicide detectives. In the past month, several women in the San Diego area have been murdered. The police think Caleb killed them. The women were strangled, and then the word
shame
was written across their thighs and pubic areas. It’s the same way Caleb’s father killed and marked his victims.”

Anna kept shaking her head, each shake more adamant than the last. She was a nurse, used to dealing with crises, but this wasn’t a situation she was trained to handle.

“No,” she said.

“I am not making any judgments,” Elizabeth said. “I am just telling you what information I have. I had conversations with your husband both last night and today, and in all of our talks he expressed his innocence.”

“Where is he?”

“I don’t know. We only talked briefly tonight after he was released from questioning. He told me he was on his way home, but he must have changed his mind, or something changed it for him. That doesn’t matter; his not being here doesn’t change my promise to him. I said that I would help you.”

“Help me with what?”

“With all that’s about to occur. Your husband knows the trauma you’re about to face because he went through it. And he knows I’m familiar with what happens in this kind of a situation. I can be useful to you and your children.”

“Who are you?”

“My name is Elizabeth Line. I’m a writer. Many years ago I wrote a book about your husband’s father, and since that time I’ve written a number of other crime books.”

Anna stopped shaking her head. The woman had looked familiar to her. Anna vaguely remembered having seen her interviewed on television.

“If time weren’t of the essence,” Elizabeth said, “I wouldn’t have come barging in here uninvited. But in a matter of minutes detectives will be knocking at your door. They’re going to have a search warrant, and they’re going to have a lot of questions. And right behind them will be the media, who will make your life a living hell. They’ll report dirt and innuendo and downright lies. What’s worse is that people whom you consider friends will betray you. In hindsight, those former friends and neighbors will remember all sorts of terrible things about your husband, you, and your family.”

Anna’s breath was short, her mouth dry. She managed to say, “You make it all sound so awful.”

Elizabeth shook her head with regret. “I just gave you the best-case scenario.”

T
HE MAN ENTERED
the room, drew a deep breath, and looked around with the eyes of someone who had never been there before. There was a nervousness about him that caught Lola’s eye. Married, Lola decided. Out on the town and looking for some forbidden fruit. But no, that wasn’t quite it. Lola studied him from her seat at the lounge. He stayed in the back for a minute, giving her plenty of time to do her observing.

I know him,
Lola thought, but then realized that was impossible. Still, the resemblance was uncanny. And so was her feeling that this was the person she had somehow been expecting for weeks.

The man sitting on her right had been trying to catch her eye ever since she had sat down. He finally decided to address her, even without the benefit of her full attention. “I just loved your Judy Garland,” he said. “I closed my eyes, and I swore it was Judy singing.”

“Thank you,” Lola said.

She was still watching the man who looked like Shame. He was making his way uncertainly toward the crowded bar. His face was pale, and he kept looking around. Afraid to be seen, thought Lola. Afraid he might be recognized. But she’d seen that kind of furtiveness enough times to know that wasn’t quite it.

Her neighbor was still talking. “My name’s Joe,” he said. “You have a wonderful voice. I was in the theater myself, once upon a time. I—”

“Joe, I wonder if you would do me a huge favor,” Lola said. “An old friend of mine just walked into the room. I hope it’s not too presumptuous of me to ask for your seat.”

Joe’s mouth hung open in midsentence. He recovered enough to offer a martyr’s nod. The diva had spoken. He reached for his drink and started to stand. Lola waved at the Shame look-alike and patted the suddenly vacant seat next to her.

She’s mistaken me for someone else, thought Caleb. He turned around, but there was no one behind him and no one else around him. For some reason, the woman in the very colorful gown wanted to talk to him. Her eyes never left his. She had long eyelashes, and when she blinked, their folding and opening reminded Caleb of a butterfly’s wings. What could she want?

Caleb was half convinced he should turn around, but he wasn’t ready to face the streets again. The black-and-whites were out in force, and he had only just avoided coming face-to-face with a foot patrol by ducking into the club. He supposed he was in some kind of cabaret. In the back of the room was an elevated stage with seating beneath it. The lounge was in the front of the building. Between it and the seating was a control panel for the lights and music. The performance was apparently over, judging by the empty stage and the crowded bar.

He approached the tendered seat. “Thank you,” he said.

She nodded. Her outfit glittered even in the dim bar, abounding with sequins and chiffon. The woman on her left was wearing an outfit even more iridescent. Performers, Caleb decided. That, or they were going to a midnight ball.

“The outfit’s an original,” she said. “So am I.”

“So I see.”

“Do you have a name?” Lola asked. She had a Southern accent, put honey on her words, but not cloyingly so.

So she didn’t know him. Good. Caleb paused before answering, reluctant to give his real name. “Paul,” he finally said.

“Paul,” Lola repeated, not hiding her skepticism.

He nodded.

“You didn’t ask me my name,
Paul
.”

“What’s your name?”

Her very red lips parted: “Lola.”

There was almost a fluorescent glow to her lipstick. But she wasn’t the only woman at the bar wearing a lot of makeup. In fact, she was wearing less than most. Stage makeup, Caleb decided. She was obviously part of the troupe. But that still didn’t explain why she had called him over. He looked at her for an explanation, but all she gave back was a little smile. Lola had short, dark hair that was combed up and back, with eyes the same dark color, but her skin was lighter, cocoa colored. Instead of lifting her drink up, she leaned forward and brought her lips to her straw. Her appearance seemed to change with every shift of her head. She could have been Hispanic, Mediterranean, African, American Indian, or even Asian.

And she could have been a woman, a very pretty woman, but Caleb realized she wasn’t.

He turned away, embarrassed, and found himself looking around the room at anything but Lola. With all that had happened to him that day, with his life literally on the line, Caleb knew it was absurd that he should be flustered by a drag queen. But he still couldn’t bring himself to look her way.
His
way.

In a voice that only Caleb could hear, Lola said, “You really didn’t know, did you?”

“No.”

“The marquee says ‘Female Impersonators’ in letters about as big as me.”

More avoidance, more neck craning. “I missed it.”

“I’ve been with lots of men who pretended they didn’t know, but you’re the first I ever believed.”

“I was preoccupied.”

“Must have been a hell of a preoccupation.”

The room wasn’t big enough for him to avoid her eyes indefinitely. He gave Lola a quick look and saw a small, knowing smile come over her face. His face, Caleb remembered.

The bartender picked that time to stop ignoring Caleb. “What can I get you?” he asked.

“Coffee. Black.”