The First Cut (13 page)

“For about five minutes. The M.O.’s too different. Plus my guy worked alone.”

“I agree. Hopefully your guy’s dead or in jail.”

She nodded even though she doubted it. T. B. Mann knew how to get away. He had gotten away.

“Are you still concerned he’ll come back?”

She shrugged. After she’d returned home from the hospital, it had been her obsession. With her ex-husband’s help, she had just about turned her hillside home into a fortress.

“Odds are he wasn’t out to get you in particular.”

“Is that what you tell yourself in the middle of the night?”

His face was in shadows. Still, she saw that her dart hit its mark.

“Yes,” he admitted. “When I feel like being in denial.”

“What do you think? We’ve never discussed my case. You were the lead investigator.”

“I
am
the lead investigator. The case is still open. In my heart, I feel he did come after you. If he was out to kill a cop, any cop, he could have shot one on the street, escaped to Mexico, and be living in the open, knowing the government there will never let us extradite him. But he didn’t do that. Our guy planned every move. Start to finish. He wanted you. But why?”

“I’ve been asking myself that for a year. Do you think he’s done it before?”

He exhaled slowly, not wanting to answer in haste. “I believe he has. It was no amateur gore-fest. This is an assured, methodical killer.”

“I want to see my case file. I’m ready.”

“I’ll give it to you tomorrow. Looking at it with fresh eyes might reveal a new angle.” He paused before continuing. “Have you gone back to the El Alisal house?”

“No.” That wasn’t completely true. She’d tried without success.

On her first attempt, her grandmother had driven, parking her Oldsmobile Delta 88 in the shade of one of the giant camphor trees that lined the street.

Vining looked out the car window and recalled that day she’d responded to the suspicious circumstances call placed by her attacker. She had walked up the brick path lined with mounds of white petunias, passing the “Offered by Dale David Realty” sign. She remembered looking forward to going home, taking a shower, and firing up the barbecue to grill steaks for her and Emily.

She relived approaching the open front door and knocking. Suddenly, in Granny’s car, she began gasping for breath and seeing spots. She awakened with her grandmother patting her face and hands.

“Let’s go,” she told Granny, and couldn’t get away quickly enough.

A few weeks ago, she tried again, alone. She took three steps down the path before she began hyperventilating and turned back, feeling a failure.

She said, “I heard the people who bought that house had the kitchen completely gutted and redone.”

“Like the people who bought the Barrington Avenue condo where Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman were slaughtered. They re-made that notorious entryway. You’d have to, I guess. Maybe you’d be able to destroy some of the bad karma.”

His choice of words made Vining shoot a glance at him. She privately disagreed. A new kitchen at 835 El Alisal Road would do nothing to change the karma of that house.

“When I try to visualize his face, it gets confused in my mind with the pictures of Dale David I see all over town, hawking his real estate business. My guy wore a black hairpiece to look like Dale David. He knew the neighbors wouldn’t question the realtor being around that house.”

“My guess is he’s long gone. I’m not saying that to give you a false sense of security. He may be insane, but he’s not stupid. Therein lies the problem.”

“He has a name.”

Kissick gave her a surprised look.

“T. B. Mann. That’s what Emily and I call him. It means The Bad Man.”

Kissick’s face showed he liked it.

They turned to look as a car crossed the bridge traveling well below the speed limit. The widely spaced headlights indicated it was a monolithic older car. In the dim light cast by the antique globe lampposts lining the bridge, Vining identified her grandmother’s baby blue Oldsmobile Delta 88.

She saw her grandmother peering at Kissick as she passed. Granny stopped the car in the street and rolled down the driver’s window as Vining and Kissick approached.

“Hi, Mom. Hi, Jim.” Emily bounded from the car and ran toward them, stopping just before she ran into the path of a car that darted around Granny’s.

“Em!” Vining scolded. “Watch where you’re going.”

“Hey, Emily. Can I get a hug?”

She and Kissick embraced. Emily didn’t know about Vining’s romantic relationship with Kissick. She knew him only as a trusted friend.

“Seems like I just saw you, but you’ve grown so much. You’re almost as tall as your mom.”

Emily was at that horrible age for a tall girl in which she towered over nearly all her classmates. She claimed it didn’t bother her, but Vining lately had to remind Em to stand up straight. Vining remembered slouching to compensate for her height when she was her daughter’s age. Emily was more grounded than Vining had been, and Vining took her share of credit for that, but adolescence was tough any way you cut it.

Vining ran her hand down Emily’s long, straight hair. The girl’s eyes were green-gray, like Vining’s, but shone with the brightness of youth. That spark had left Vining’s eyes when she was too young. Emily’s enthusiasm buoyed Vining’s spirits. It made her proud yet sad that her little girl was almost grown.

“Jim, come meet my grandmother.”

Granny rolled down the driver’s window as they approached. She gave Kissick an appraising look and it wasn’t hard for Vining to read her thoughts.

“Corporal Jim Kissick, I’d like you to meet my grandmother Nanette Brown.”

“Pleased to meetcha.” She extended a hand and arm festooned with diamond rings and heavy, gold bangle bracelets.

Kissick shook her hand through the window. “Very nice to meet you, Mrs. Brown. I’ve heard a lot about you.”

Granny made a dismissive wave. “You can’t believe anything she says.” She had probably been dead asleep in the easy chair at Vining’s house when roused by Emily, but nothing short of nuclear war seemed capable of mussing her stiff, set-and-comb-out that she had done once a week.

“So Nan’s your namesake. I never knew that.”

Granny’s toothy smile showed Kissick’s charm was working. She’d had the same set of dentures for years and as her body shrunk, the teeth appeared ever larger in her mouth. “She wears it well. She’s a good gal.” She extended her hand toward Vining.

Vining took it, always surprised by how frail it felt. “I told Jim that I’m taking Em for ice cream.”

Emily immediately took stock of the situation and didn’t reveal her true motive for being there. “Do you want to come with us?”

“Thanks, sweetheart, but a couple of guys are waiting for me. I’d better get going. Hope to see you soon. See you bright and early tomorrow, Nan.”

“You got it.”

He climbed into his car and took off.

Vining knew what was coming.

“Nanette, he seems nice. He married?”

“Divorced. Yes, he is nice.”

“He likes you. Anyone could see that.”

“We work together, Granny.”

“So work someplace else.”

“You’re funny.”

“You’re not getting any younger, Nanette.”

“I feel like I’m on fast forward lately.” She turned to her daughter. “Okay, Miss Ghost Hunter. Get your gear. You have half an hour.”

Emily took her equipment from the Olds’s trunk as Vining kissed her grandmother good-bye. She gave Granny directions to the freeway on-ramp and she took off.

“Emily, stay up here. I don’t want you going down the hill.”

“But Mom, that’s where she was.”

“We might still find evidence there. Plus it’s steep and we saw a snake this morning. And I just don’t want you down there.”

Emily set up her tripod and camera at the edge of the slope. She stretched as far as she could to position her audio equipment and microphone down the hillside on the trail of smashed brush where the body had rolled. The girl began taking photographs with both a film and digital camera.

Vining sat in her car and turned on the radio. She tuned in the nightly love songs broadcast with the songs introduced by a woman who read sappy dedications in a dulcet voice. Vining listened to the lovers’ tributes and laments with an almost clinical detachment. It had been a long time since hearing a song on the radio had made her wistful. Even her sentiments about the songs she’d shared with her ex-husband had faded until they now seemed a curiosity. Still, as much as she told herself the love songs show was stupid, she often listened to it, claiming there was nothing else on at that hour that was any good.

The Eric Clapton song “Wonderful Tonight” came on. It reminded her of the last night she’d spent with Kissick during their short romance. Emily and Kissick’s two boys were spending the weekend with their respective ex-spouses. Vining had come over to Kissick’s Craftsman bungalow in Altadena and they had made dinner. It had been a small and cozy evening. They had eased toward such a routine and it was starting to feel like domestic bliss. They had just finished making love on the floor in front of a crackling fire. A CD began playing the Clapton song.

Kissick stood, pulling her up with him. They danced nude by the firelight. He told her he loved her. It was the first time. She could have told him she loved him back. It would have been an honest response. She felt she loved him. If she felt it, she did love him. No blood test for love, like she said. But she couldn’t say the words. She was bold as a police officer, unafraid to kick butt, but she couldn’t tell Kissick she loved him. Guns and knives could inflict pain, but the damage was finite. Measurable. The joy and pain of love had no restrictions. She’d been on the losing end once and that was enough.

The next week, she told him it was best if they cooled things off. As discreet as they tried to be, they were attracting attention around the station. Didn’t look good for either of their careers, especially hers. It always looked worse for the woman. Plus it was potentially confusing for their kids. Set a bad example. Her life was too complicated to include a man. It was best to end it now, before they got in too deep. Best for both of them.

He didn’t squabble or squirm or say a thing other than, “If that’s what you want.” That was Kissick. Her Gary Cooper. Her old-school hero.

That was over two years ago. She’d had few dates before and hadn’t been with anybody since. Joked to herself that celibacy was fun. As for him, she didn’t know. He was the soul of discretion. She wished he did have someone. Someone who treated him better than she had. Who was more available. He deserved that. Still, she sensed his presence always, watching over her.

Sitting in her car, keeping an eye on Emily, Vining made up a love song dedication.

“I’d like to dedicate this song to Jim, the good man I threw away.”

E
XHAUSTED, VINING WELCOMED GOING TO BED ONLY TO FIND HERSELF ALERT
as soon as her head hit the pillow. After using every relaxation technique she knew and not finding sleep, she went into the family room, pulled up a chenille throw, and watched an old black-and-white Hitchcock movie,
Shadow of a Doubt,
on a station that had lots of commercials. The actors’ voices eventually drowned out the chatter in her head and she fell asleep on the couch.

T W E L V E

V
INING PLAYED CAR-POOL MOM IN THE MORNING, DROPPING OFF
Emily and her friend Aubrey at school early to work on their project for a science fair. Emily insisted that Vining come inside and say hello to her favorite teacher, Mr. Walthers, who taught math. Vining sensed her daughter had pulled herself taller as they walked side by side to the classroom. She and Em made quite a pair, both of them tall drinks of water with straight, nearly black hair. She walked a little taller herself.

Tom Walthers rose from his desk when they entered his room. He, too, was tall, a lean redhead with piercing blue eyes and a full beard that was mostly brown. Vining had met him at a parents’ open house but didn’t recall if she had detected then the spark in his eye that went beyond mere interest in the parent of his star pupil.

When Emily walked her out, she let slip that Mr. Walthers had lost his wife to breast cancer awhile back and had a daughter in grammar school.

“Are you trying to set me up?” Vining couldn’t hide the amusement in her voice.

“I’m just giving you information. You like information.” Emily was prepared for her mother’s reaction. “He’s nice and smart. I think he’s cute, you know, for someone as old as him.”

Vining reined in her attitude. “Yes, he is.”

“Anyway, I told him I’d sit with his daughter, if that’s okay.”

“Sure.”

Back inside her car, Vining thought of the warmth from just being with Kissick last night and the undeniable look in Tom Walther’s eyes. There were men in the world. She
knew
there were men in the world, but for years now she had tried to give them as little of her time or interest as possible. She co-existed with them. She had gone so long without sex that passion with her ex and Kissick had become a dim memory.

She hadn’t always felt that way. During those first, tough years as a single mom, she’d plunged into dating as distraction and revenge. Men were a necessary evil. One evening, her date came to pick her up and she saw the bewildered look in Emily’s eyes as she blew her a kiss good night and stepped out the door. That look had probably always been there, but Vining had been too caught up in her own drama to see it. Once she had, she couldn’t shake it. She became Emily’s age again, observing with her sister Stephanie the revolving door of their mother’s men. Some were cloying, as if to demonstrate how good they were with children. Others fixed them with gazes that would have vaporized them if possible. She stopped dating. Her armor cracked just enough to let in Jim Kissick.

He turned her beliefs upside down. He was proof that men weren’t all wife-and-child-abandoning scumbags. He adhered to her rigid rules about never coming to the house when Emily was there. It was working and it was wonderful, until he blew it by saying he loved her. Her reasons for ending it were valid but not honest. It was about love. She couldn’t do it. Had to run.