Trust Me (14 page)

CHAPTER 29

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They decided to see some music.
Ron liked jazz; Leanne said she liked anything.

“. . . except country and opera.” She laughed. “But then, I’ve heard great country—and great opera, come to think of it.”

He drove up Wilshire Boulevard toward a club he had in mind.

“There must be something you don’t like.”

“Well, I’m not real big on Lawrence Welk, and I could do without heavy-metal and rap music.”

“Ah,” he said, “how could you not like—” he banged a rhythm on the steering wheel—“‘It’s like a jungle sometimes, it makes me wonder how I keep from goin’ under’?’”

Leanne burst out laughing. “Isn’t that really old?”

He pulled up in front of the club and peered at the marquee. “Okay, let’s do it. This guy’s really good.”

When they were inside the club, a hostess led them past a long bar to a table against the far wall. When they were seated Leanne asked, “Does that bother you at all?”

“What, walking past a bar? Looking at all those pretty bottles?” He laughed. “I drank for an effect that I don’t crave any more. Miraculous, but true.”

A few people on the stage were efficiently dismantling some band equipment.

“Our timing is pretty good,” he observed. “The headliner starts in about fifteen minutes.”

A waitress took their orders for two Perriers. People laughed loudly at a table nearby. The full room buzzed with the chatter of about two hundred people, black, white, students, professionals, some scruffy, some clearly belonging to the Mercedes and BMWs in the lot.

“I think I’m ready to go back to teaching,” Leanne said, apropos of nothing.

“I think that’s terrific.” He looked at Leanne and the din of the club, its entire existence, receded into the background. “I think it’ll be great for you.”

“You don’t think I’ve been a coward, hiding out all this time?” She looked at him, wide open and vulnerable.

“No, Leanne. For God’s sake, you were badly traumatized and you’ve been focusing entirely on rebuilding your life. You’re one of the bravest people I’ve ever known.” He put his hand out on the table and Leanne took it.

“I needed to hear you say that.” She looked down at their clasped hands for a moment, then pulled his hand to her mouth and held it there. The waitress came with their drinks. When she left, Leanne said, “So what’s this thing you told me about—young beauties jumping out of buildings?”

He squeezed lime into his drink. “I covered a suicide a few weeks back. Pretty gal in her twenties. Somehow, I got a hunch that turned up seven similar suicides in the last couple of years, and enough coincidences between them to convince me that something very odd has been going on—may still be going on, for all I know.”

“Like what?”

He shrugged. “Beside their ages and looks?” He leaned forward, elbows on the table. “Well, for starters, they all fell—” he made quote marks in the air with his fingers “—from high places. Two of them had the same drug in their systems—”

Leanne interrupted. “What kind of drug? Coke? Pot?”

“No, that wouldn’t mean anything. This one’s called Halcion. Prescription. Makes you mellow if you’ve got anxieties. Good thing I never knew about them. Oh, and they make you susceptible to hypnosis.”

“So, that’s two of them. What else?”

“I got three of them all going to the same self-help meetings. Not the same meetings, really, but the same deal. Saving Our Lives—they’re all over town.”

“So maybe people that go to those meetings are more prone to taking their lives. Have you checked male suicides to see if they went to those meetings?” Leanne grinned and brushed her hair back with her hand.

“Are you making fun of me?” He grinned back, but wondered if maybe his hunch was wrong, that LA was a big city and that it contained, among other things, a lot of attractive women, some of them troubled, some of them fatally so.

“Not really. Well, maybe a little. So, do you think they were pushed, or deliberately brought to despondency so they jumped?”

“Who could pull that off?” he wondered.

“A therapist,” Leanne volunteered.

“Or a psychotic Romeo.”

“How about a psychotic Romeo therapist?” Leanne was enjoying herself now.

“You know about those therapists, don’t you?” he asked, cocking an eyebrow.

“No, what?”

He pulled a pen from his jacket pocket and wrote the word “therapist” on his paper napkin, then turned it to Leanne.

“Can you divide this into two words?”

Leanne studied it for an instant and then laughed.

“The rapist. I never noticed that. That’s truly terrible. I knew there was a reason I never trusted them.”

A deep voice announced over the PA that the band was about to begin. Applause filled the room as the house lights went off. Ron and Leanne turned to watch as figures appeared on the darkened stage. When the lights lit up the band and the musicians launched into their first tune, she took his hand again and there was nothing but the two of them, immersed in music.

CHAPTER 30

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Monday morning at 7 a.m., Jeff found himself in the LA County Sheriff’s bus for the second time, only this time it was headed west.
There were only four other men in the bus, plus the driver and the guard standing in the enclosure at the front. Nobody spoke. Jeff stared out the window at the gray morning. A marine layer had brought a gloomy fog inland. In a couple hours it would burn off and become one more sizzling summer day.

By 7:40, they were herded out of the bus and into a holding cell adjacent to the West Los Angeles Municipal Courthouse. Because they had missed breakfast at the county jail, they were given sandwiches wrapped in cellophane—stale sourdough rolls with ham and cheese. The guard from the bus unlocked their handcuffs and rolled the cell door shut.

Jeff straddled a wooden bench so that he could rest his back against the wall and unwrapped the sandwich.

“You goin’ to trial? Sentencing? What’s up, man?” A burly guy that looked like an aging surfer was looking at him from the other end of the bench, about eight feet away. He chewed on his sandwich and appraised Jeff with washed-out blue eyes as he leaned against the opposite wall.

“Bail hearing,” Jeff said. The guy had greasy black hair, thick and curly, and a weird little tuft of hair under his lower lip. Jeff didn’t want to talk to him.

“Yeah, been there, done that. You know what they want for my fuckin’ bail, man? Twenty-five thousand bucks. Twenty-five grand on a fuckin’ bogus DUI.”

“Yeah? What was bogus about it?” He didn’t doubt for a minute that the guy had been caught smashed, snockered, pickled, shitfaced and stumbling out of his pickup truck blowing the cops’ Breathalyzer off the scale with Coors and Kamchatka fumes. Just like Jeff himself had been. He had finally come to grips with that, sitting on his bunk, surveying the bustling room full of miscreants in the county jail. Come to realize that the cops weren’t full of shit, and that he, Jeff, had gotten laid, had a drink, gotten pissed off, drunk a bottle of tequila, stolen a car, and broken down a door. And that it was the cops’ job to bust people like him.

“What d’ya mean, ‘what was bogus about it’?” The guy’s eyes narrowed, like he had suddenly identified an infiltrator, a spy, something other than the kindred spirit whose agreement he had taken for granted. “Who are you, the fuckin’ designated driver?” He spat on the floor of the cell.

Jeff shook his head and took another bite of his sandwich. It seemed like the one thing everyone in the jail system had in common, besides that they were innocent, was that they all got pissed off so easily. Jesus, it was ludicrous.

“No, I’m not the fuckin’ designated driver. The fact is, they said I was drunk, and I was drunk. So, the question is, what about you? Were you drunk, or what?”

“So I had a few drinks. So fuckin’ what. I was in a bar—what do you think I was doing, eatin’ fuckin’ dessert?” The guy gave him that hard look now, that don’t-fuck-with-me jailhouse scowl, and said, “I got in my truck and drove home. I was fine, man. I was fuckin’ fine. Fuckin’ pigs got a quota to fill, don’t you know that? They get a fuckin’ bonus if they fill their quota, so they can buy new boat racks for their RVs, man.” He shook his head in contempt. “Fuckin’ bogus.”

A marshal came and ushered the five men into a hallway and through a door. Jeff was surprised to find himself suddenly in a courtroom: he felt conspicuous in his blue jumpsuit, like in one of those dreams where he’d be in high school with his pajamas on, or on the street with only a gym towel around his waist.

The marshal gestured him toward a bench that lined the wall on one side of the courtroom. A wooden divider topped by a thick panel of clear Plexiglas separated this section from the rest of the room.

He looked out and saw his father in the front of the sparse audience, staring back at him, nodding his head almost imperceptibly, as if in agreement with some inner voice.

When his name was called, he was led by the marshal to a table in front of the judge’s bench. A small man with round glasses bent over the table to his right, peering at a file. Beyond him, a tall, gaunt man with crew-cut gray hair sprawled in his chair, gazing up at him with clinical interest.

The judge—a nameplate identified him as the Honorable Timothy Metcalf—peered over his microphone at him and said, “Jeffrey Alan Fenner, you are charged with breaking and entering, carrying a concealed weapon, drunk and disorderly, and drunk driving. How do you plead?”

At this point the small man stood up, adjusted his glasses, and whispered to him, “Just say, ‘not guilty, Your Honor.’”

He repeated the words, “Not guilty, Your Honor.” So this guy must be Herman Katz, his father’s lawyer.

The judge turned his attention to the man sprawled in the chair beyond Katz.

“Mr. Deemer, what have you got?”

Mr. Deemer spread out in his chair like he owned the room and said, “Well, Your Honor, the officers found him exiting the premises. The door had been kicked in. The man had the weapon tucked in his pants, and he blew a 1.6 at the station. He’s got no employment of record, so I’d consider him a flight risk. He was inebriated at two in the morning, with a loaded semi-automatic pistol, so that qualifies as a danger to the community in my book. I’m going to recommend bail be set at twenty-five thousand dollars.” He looked up at Jeff and smiled cheerfully.

“Mr. Katz?” The Honorable Timothy Metcalf, a jowly black man with a gleaming bald skull, didn’t seem too pleased with the prosecuting attorney’s nonchalance.

Katz shrugged his shoulders.

“I’d say that’s fairly ridiculous. My client has no record. He’s living with his family in West Hollywood, a good family who recently endured a tragedy. The police have no evidence that my client damaged the door to the apartment, and it’s my understanding that his friend had been living there and that Mr. Fenner didn’t know the individual had moved. I say he’s no risk to the community, nor is he a flight risk, and I’m asking for him to be released on his own recognizance.”

The judge peered down at some papers and nodded wearily, as if it were already the end of the day. Jeff’s heart thumped in his chest—his father might not put up bail if the judge went for the DA’s recommendation. He’d be stuck in the county jail indefinitely.

“Bail is set at five thousand dollars,” the judge proclaimed. He handed a sheaf of papers to his clerk.

Katz took his elbow and whispered up to him, “You’ll be out today,” then nodded toward the bailiff, who walked Jeff back to the partitioned area and told him to please have a seat, sir.

By four that afternoon, he finally walked out of the county jail. It felt good to be in his own clothes, wearing his watch again, his wallet in his pocket. He looked around the parking area and wondered where his father was.

Half an hour later, a white Land Rover pulled up right next to where he stood. Its driver leaned over and opened the passenger door.

“You ready?” It was the guy who had visited him—Ron somebody. He was grinning cheerfully.

“What are you doing here? Where’s my father?” He was baffled that this guy should have shown up.

“Get in. I’ll tell you all about it. Unless you’d rather stay here.” Another big grin.

He stepped up into the truck. Ron waited until he closed the door and fastened the seat belt before wheeling around and driving out of the lot.

When they pulled into traffic he said, “Okay, what’s going on?”

Ron looked over at him and said, “Your folks have had enough. They don’t want you in their house anymore.”

“What? What do you mean they don’t want me in their house anymore? Who told you that?”

“Your father told me. Look in the back.”

Jeff looked in the back and saw a suitcase and his briefcase.

“Your clothes and stuff are in the suitcase. I don’t know what’s in the briefcase, but if there are drugs or another gun, you’d better tell me now.”

It was starting to sink in that he wasn’t going home. “No, there’s no drugs and there’s no gun. So where am I supposed to go?”

“Well, that’s up to you. From what I understand, you’ve been evicted from your apartment. Is that right?” Ron pointed the Land Rover up a freeway on-ramp and accelerated.

“Yeah, my apartment is history. I still have to get my stuff somehow.” It seemed overwhelming to even think about.

“So the first question is, are you ready to stop drinking?” Ron looked over at him, not grinning now, eyebrows raised in anticipation of an answer.

“I haven’t been too good at quitting drinking,” he said.

“That’s a good answer. But are you willing to go to any lengths to try?”

CHAPTER 31

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By Tuesday, the marks on Holly’s throat were no longer visible.
She had dreamed that blue handprints were emblazoned on her neck, and that when she awoke something held her by the hair so that she couldn’t move her head. The awakening itself had been a dream, but had a quality to it, a texture of realness that she could recall vividly even now, hours later.

She knew it had to do with her session at Art’s office. Something had happened there—something frightening, something that hovered on the periphery of her awareness, just slightly out of reach. There was a ponderous feeling to it, a dangerous size and weight, like a large and stupid animal.

She reached for the edge of the pool and turned, concentrating on her swimming. Sometimes she could turn her mind off entirely, tuned only to the reach and pull of each stroke, the quick breath over her shoulder, the clear blue of the water. Twenty laps made a kilometer in her gym’s large pool; on a good day she would do twice that. The payoff was always the same—after a light workout and a good swim she would feel refreshed and optimistic, temporarily free from the desolate and oppressive condition that seemed to be her normal state.

Not that anyone knew, except for the doctors and therapists she had seen over the years. She had been told so many different things by so many professionals that she wondered if the mental health field had a scientific basis at all. Depressive with anxiety disorder. That one had come up a few times. Periodic seizure syndrome. One doctor had given her an anti-convulsant, which stopped the seizures but made her feel drowsy. He added a prescription to help her remain alert. When she couldn’t sleep, he prescribed a hypnotic that would put her in a dreamless black void until she came to in the morning. Another doctor gave her Ritalin just to shake the groggy feeling that made it impossible to function. Then she would feel slightly edgy—time for a Valium.

The next doctor put her on anti-depressants, without any perceptible improvement. She thought back to the time she had finally weaned herself from all medications. It was at that time, only about four months ago, that she had started going to SOL meetings. Something had started to change for her, though it was hard to put a finger on it. She stopped to adjust her goggles—if she didn’t wear them, or if they leaked, the chlorinated water would irritate her eyes—and then resumed swimming.

Whatever it was that was changing seemed to be accelerating now, ever since the night after Bobbi’s lecture, when Art and Joanie had taken her on her first strange trip. Now, she thought, it seemed like she was approaching a threshold, a place of danger but also of great possibility. A place that Art had shown her and through which only Art could lead her.