The First Cut (28 page)

Lesley felt privileged and loved it. To quote a corny movie, he felt like he was king of the world. He’d done many things in his life. Accomplished many milestones. Owning a property like this had been just one of his goals. Having beautiful wives that other men coveted was another. Having the hottest club in town was another. But all those were just window dressing on the way to achieving his ultimate dream. The money gave him the means. The secluded home gave him the place. The beautiful, fragile wife gave him the foil. The nightclub gave him above-the-law celebrity and access. It was all table setting for the main event. Now that he’d accomplished murder, he’d found it more satisfying than his wildest dreams. The release he’d experience had been so powerful, such a high, that he immediately wanted more. It was a physical craving and could not be denied. One hit was sufficient for addiction. Like crack.

He was blessed with many natural abilities, but this was his raison d’être. A dream deferred had now been realized.

He hadn’t been certain he’d be able to pull it off. Like most personal tests and tough challenges, there was that crunch moment, that do-or-die point where he had to face himself straight on and ask the hard question: Can I take it to the next level? The answer was a resounding,
Yes, I can!

He had his system down. He hadn’t achieved success in business by accident. He applied the same hard-learned principles to his new endeavor. Now he was set up to do it as much and as often as he wanted. It was easy for a smart, clear-thinking man to get away with murder. The technology today made it tougher than in, say, Jack the Ripper’s day. He had to stay on top of developments in forensic science and investigative procedures. But it wasn’t hard to stay ahead of cops, for crying out loud. The hardest part for wannabes was keeping your wits about you and keeping your mouth shut. He’d always been blessed with sangfroid, so that had never been a problem. But as far as using a partner, he had to rethink that big time. He hadn’t clearly thought out the Pussycat factor. Then, he hadn’t expected that Frankie would be his first. Frankie presented a convergence of circumstances that begged for appraisal with fresh eyes. Then there was Frankie herself. There was irresistible Frankie…

He would never do it again like he had with her. He would snatch them off the street with no strings attached. Or track a potential victim until the time was right. He expected repercussions from Frankie. The cops hadn’t come sniffing around, but he suspected they would if they were smart enough to follow the minuscule trail he’d left. But that would die down and the cops would go away. He’d taken pains to cover his tracks.

Money. The KY Jelly of life. That’s what he always said and it was so true. A brilliant observation, if he said so himself, that illustrated the inexorable bond between the two most important things in life: sex and money. Anyone who thought otherwise was a fool.

It had been Frankie’s fault. When the three of them had partied those last weeks, she’d become hostile, making broad hints that she was about to end it. He decided he had to act or risk losing her. Couldn’t be hotheaded. Had to keep the old self-control. Frankie had always claimed that he and Pussycat were her dirty little secrets. That she had told no one.

“What am I going to tell my friends?” she’d said. “That I’m seeing a high-profile pervert who’s paying me to participate in his sex games?”

If someone else knew about them, he would have let her go. He needed proof. He didn’t hope for absolute confirmation, but he could look at the evidence and weigh what his instincts told him. Having Pussycat steal Frankie’s documents and computer confirmed that Frankie had told the truth. Only then did he make the decision to follow through.

It had been Frankie’s fault. So tough, but so vulnerable. He was skilled at picking out female vulnerability. The wounded soul beneath the coat of armor. The fluttering sparrow’s heart within barbed wire. All he had to do was peel back the defenses enough to get inside and they were his. Fueled with booze and pot and satiated with sex, he’d slowly gotten Frankie to open up to him, talking about her mother’s murder and her distant father. Talking about the aunt and grandmother who raised her but never accepted her. Talking about the married police lieutenant she’d loved but who had only used her. Talking about the abortion she’d had because he’d said it was better for them and how he’d dumped her right afterward. She’d cried. It was the only time he’d seen her cry. She was too tough to cry at the end, but she’d cried talking about the lieutenant who’d done her wrong. As she laid her soul bare, Lesley fell in love with her little by little. She belonged to him and no one else. It had been Frankie’s fault.

She was his first kill. That premier position of bittersweet reverie would always be hers, and rightfully so. There would be many more. He was at last, finally, pursuing his true vocation. Once he was old and in failing health, he would confess. But unlike other pussies who let themselves get caught, he would go out differently. He envisioned more of a Butch Cassidy and Sundance Kid exit in a hail of gunfire. Standing. Not strapped to a table waiting for the death juice.

But today he had a more pressing dilemma. Pussycat had become a liability. He had to think long and hard about that one, but for the moment, he had the situation contained.

Midway down the block, he turned into a driveway. Two semicircular walls of rough brick supported an iron gate that swung open when he clicked the remote. He drove down a long, straight lane that cut across a broad lawn. The ever-present background noise of roaring leaf blowers faded as he moved beyond the gates. Soon, he heard nothing but birds chirping.

Surrounding the property was a grove of orange, tangerine, and grapefruit trees. On a long stretch of lawn was an archery target on a stand. A rack holding bows and quivers of arrows was fifty feet away. The equipment belonged to the previous owner, Walter Lemming, a silver medalist in archery at the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin, where Hitler sought to demonstrate the superiority of the Aryan race. The four gold medals won by African American track star Jesse Owens and the medal won by Lemming, a Jew, spoke for themselves. Lemming became a sought-after archery coach and built a reputation for training Hollywood stars for roles. He also collected archery equipment. Dozens of antique wooden archery sets decorated the rough hewn walls of a clubhouse on the property. When Lemming died without heirs, the executor of his estate offered the equipment to Lesley. Lesley also asked for the photograph of Lemming posing with Sylvester Stallone, whom the Olympic champion trained for his Rambo movies.

A sprawling ranch-style house was at the end of the lane, about an eighth of a mile away. Lesley had maintained the integrity of the original structure while adding a two-story addition to the back. Terra-cotta pots filled with multicolored flowers descended the brick steps that led to the front door.

In back was a large lawn with a putting green. Beyond it was a pool. To the left were a guesthouse and the clubhouse that looked like a sportsman’s lodge with redwood beams and genuine Navajo rugs on the wide-planked floor. Encircling the property were acres of citrus trees with a couple of avocados thrown in for variety.

He pulled in front of the detached garage. An older Toyota was parked where the lane widened at the front of the house. The front fender was painted with gray primer, an unfinished home collision repair job. It belonged to Lolly, his longtime housekeeper.

He went into the house through the back door, which was always open when Lolly was working. He stubbed the cigar in an ashtray on a glass-topped table and left it there. He’d retrieve it later. He liked to smoke cigars but could not abide the smell of smoke in his house. This created a dilemma for him when Frankie had been pleading for cigarettes. Tired of her bitchiness, he’d caved in and let her smoke, only after he’d bought Ionic Breeze air purifiers from Sharper Image. The new one, Lisa Shipp, the dry drunk vegetarian, hadn’t asked for cigarettes. He’d nearly gotten her to drink beer, but she’d resisted. No fluttering sparrow’s heart there.

“Hey, Lolly Lolly. I brought your favorite pastries from Weby’s.”

Lolly was a solid and steady, fortyish El Salvadoran who had lived in California for over twenty years. She’d worked for John Lesley since he’d bought this house fifteen years and two wives ago. Lesley knew she wasn’t a particularly good housekeeper, but she was reliable, wasn’t nosy, and did what he asked.

“Good morning, Mister John. Oooh…Look. So good. Thank you.” She took an apricot turnover from the box and set it on a paper towel she tore from a roll. She bit in, scattering flaky pastry crumbs onto her chin. “None for you?”

“No goodies for me this week, I’m afraid. I have to watch my figure, or no one else will.”

Lolly made a dismissive noise. “Oh, no, Mister. You’re in good shape.”

“Well, thank you.”

“Mister John, Pussycat is still not well?”

“That’s right. She has a terrible migraine. She needs to lie still and stay in a dark room.”

“But so long? Maybe she should go to the doctor.”

“She’s been to the doctor, Lolly. He’s given her medication. She gets these very bad migraines sometimes. She needs to rest. She’s fine. Leave her alone.”

P
USSYCAT WAS LYING IN BED WITH HER BICHON FRISE MIGNON SNUGGLED BESIDE
her. She didn’t have the energy to get up. She’d been wearing the same cotton p.j.s for more than a day. They used to be her favorites, now she was sick of them. She should get up, shower, wash her hair, change into street clothes, put on makeup, and fix her hair. If she continued to lie here like this, he had won. She still had some fight left in her. Certainly she did. She tightly held Mignon and closed her eyes. She’d get up later.

She picked at the skin on her arms. Coming off meth made her skin feel like worms were crawling under it. She shoved her hands beneath her.

She’d been locked in her suite of rooms for over twenty-four hours. Only the night before last she’d helped him drug Lisa and carry her into the basement. She’d then climbed to her own rooms and fell deeply asleep, nauseous, still drunk, and crashing down as the meth wore off.

When she’d awakened late the next morning and tried to leave the suite, she discovered she was locked in. There was a small lock on the inside door, but there had never been one on the outside. Now there was one.

She then saw the portable phone missing from its cradle on the end table in the sitting room. Rushing into the bedroom, she found that phone gone, too, the unplugged cord lying across the nightstand. Her purse was where she usually left it, but her cell phone was gone.

She pounded and yelled at the door to the suite, then ran to a window and flung open the heavy black-out drapes. Plywood had been nailed over the windows. The heads of the nails had been cut flush with the wood. She clawed at the panels. Maybe she could find something to pry it off with. Then what? She had no ladder and nothing to use to climb down. Maybe she could tie bedsheets together as she’d seen in movies.

She returned to her purse and took out her wallet. He’d taken her cash and plastic. Her car keys were gone, too. She could still break through the wood and glass, climb out the second-story window, and run to a neighbor’s house. She now regretted not attending any of their holiday parties or being more cordial. She didn’t know any of them beyond waving hello as she drove out in her Mercedes. She could still run over there. Run to the neighbors, and tell them what? That she’d helped dispose of the murdered policewoman’s body? That she’d helped kidnap another woman who was in their basement right now? At least she assumed Lisa was still there.

On the mirror over the bathroom sink, he’d taped a note: Behave yourself and I’ll bring Miss Tina to see you later. Take a Xanax and eat something. You’ll feel better.

She’d looked inside the cabinet to find he’d left her just two tablets from her recently filled Xanax prescription.

Also missing were the over-the-counter Benedryl she took for hay fever and a bottle of aspirin. In their place were two plastic cups. One held three aspirins. The other had two Benedryls. Her razors were gone, too. And her meth.

He thought she’d try to kill herself. It had occurred to her even before they’d met Lisa. Two Xanax, two Benedryl, and three aspirin would knock her out and give her a terrible hangover when she woke up, but wouldn’t kill her.

A few weeks ago, she would have believed he was concerned about her. Now she knew he was more concerned about a suicide bringing the police and their questions to the house. He knew her sister would check on her if several days passed without a phone call.

He’d stocked the small refrigerator with plenty to eat and drink and had left food for Mignon. She’d fed the dog, but couldn’t eat a thing herself. Where was Lolly? He must have told her she was sick and not to be disturbed. Knowing Lolly, she’d be happy to have less work to do and would leave it at that.

She felt too sick and drained to cry.

She had loved him once. Always having been a practical girl, Pussycat saw just one solution for him. He would have to kill her. She’d watched enough Court TV to know the best way to dispose of a wife was to make her disappear, have an airtight alibi, and be double damn sure her body never turned up.

He already had the most important part of all nailed. He was a liar par excellence.

On the bed, her dog blinked coal black eyes buried in a cloud of white fur.

Pussycat scooped her up and cradled her beneath her chin. “What are we going to do, Mignon?”

She saw herself in the mirrored closet doors. She looked pathetic.

She set the dog on the floor and got up. Her husband hadn’t thought of everything. She yanked open the doors to the walk-in closet. All her clothes and accessories were intact. She opened a drawer full of belts and another of scarves. She grinned with childlike glee at having outsmarted him. She grabbed a handful of scarves. Scarves seemed the best to do the trick. They felt smooth and cool in her hands and she knew from her fashion design courses that silk was one of the strongest fibers there was.