All or Nothing (10 page)

“And then the crap hits the fan,” Giraud said quietly.

“And then we shall take it from there, my friend.” Lister smiled at him. “Steve, I suggest you go home to your wife. Take it easy. Trust me, I’ll be working on this. Meanwhile get some rest, see your kids, that sort of stuff. Okay?”

Steve nodded, frozen–faced. As if, Marla thought, he simply did not feel a thing.

“Here’s my home number, and my car phone,” Lister added. “Feel free to call me anytime, Steve.
Anytime.
I mean that. Okay?”

“Okay,” Steve repeated like a man in a dream.

He left the untouched bagel half and eggs on the table, along with a large tip from Al.

“Bye,
honey,
” the waitress called mockingly after Al as he exited.

He was grinning as they got in the car and headed back on the 405 to L.A. Marla was not as happy to be relegated to what was laughingly known as a “backseat” in the Corvette, but Steve was a big guy and besides she didn’t fancy having a suspected murderer sitting behind her all the way to L.A.

“We’ll have you home in no time, Steve,” Al said easily. Only, Steve wasn’t at all sure he wanted to go home.

Not since JonBenet Ramsey’s murder had there been such an outcry. The name of Steve Mallard had become synonymous with “killer.” Polls were taken on his guilt––fifty–six percent said he was guilty; twenty–three percent not guilty. The rest didn’t know. Rivera; Larry King; Matt Lauer . . . Steve’s possible guilt in the abduction and murder of Laurie Martin was discussed on TV every night, in the tabloids every day, on radio, in every magazine . . . it was being talked about in England, in France, in Australia . . . and the final outcome was always the same. “Who knows where Laurie Martin is?”

The question was unanswerable; the implication clear.

Another week had passed and Laurie Martin’s body had still not been found.

Vickie Mallard had stopped her daily workouts at the gym––she couldn’t bear the turned heads, the whispered comments, the speculative glances. Everywhere she went she felt as though people were watching her, talking about her. She stopped marketing at her local Gelson’s and took to driving long distances just to pick up groceries in a store where she might remain anonymous. And even then she was trailed by tabloid paparazzi, and followed as she drove out of the garage with the kids in the back of the Chevy Suburban on their way to school. Then she saw her daughters’ pictures in a tabloid under the black banner headline
“A KILLER’S KIDS.”

She drove straight home, slammed into the kitchen, dropped the brown paper sacks of groceries onto the counter and ran upstairs to confront her husband.

He was lying on the bed, as he always seemed to be these days. Their big California king bed with its patchwork quilt made by somebody’s grandmother in Appalachia and bought on one of their vacations. The bed where their children had been conceived––the same children who were now being made outcasts.
Branded   .   .   .

“I can’t take it anymore.” Her voice had the high pitch of hysteria and Steve lifted his head wearily.

He looked at her for a long moment. “I know.” He lay back, eyes closed again.

“
I’m going crazy.
Have you seen what they are saying about my children?” She flung the newspaper at him. It landed on his chest. “Read it,” she screamed, “just read it, God damn it. They are calling them
A Killer’s Kids.
” Tears choked her and she sank, sobbing, onto the end of the bed. “I can’t take it, I just can’t . . . I can’t go on like this . . . not knowing . . . it’s hell for them at school too. Oh, sure, everyone’s been told to act normal, but it’s not the same. They are little outcasts.
I
am an outcast. What happened, Steve?
What happened to our lives?
”

Steve got up and stood next to her. He put out a hand to touch her, then drew back. Whenever he touched Vickie these days she just tensed up, as though he might be going to hurt her.

“I’m under siege in my own home,” she sobbed. “I’m stalked by photographers when I do the marketing, the girls are trailed by men on motorcycles with cameras. . . .”

But Steve had not missed that telling little phrase . . . “I can’t go on––
not knowing.
” He knew it was over. He had to make a move.

“It’s better if I just leave you,” he said quietly. “I’ll go when it gets dark.”

She looked up at him with tearstained eyes, but did not protest. “Where will you go?”

“Arrowhead, I guess.”

Vickie said nothing but she knew she couldn’t stand him being in the house any longer. He had to go. “I’m sending the girls to stay with my sister,” she said more calmly. “It’s impossible for them here, it’s just not fair.”

“But that means you’ll be alone here.” Instinctively he reached out to her, put his hand on her shoulder and felt her stiffen. He stepped back, shoulders stooped wearily. “I don’t know what else to do, Vickie. What else to say.”

She didn’t look at him. She was thinking of their rabbi, who had been a tower of strength, helping her any way he could. And of her father, who had loved Steve as his own son. “God does not find a man guilty until it is proven that he
is
guilty,” her father had said, looking sadly at her, but there had been a furrow of doubt between his eyes.

It was that doubt that killed her. When she looked in the mirror, she saw it in her own eyes and she hated herself for it.

“I’ll help you pack” was all she said.

“You have to ask yourself why this woman––young, attractive, bright––was such a loner.”

It was the following Sunday morning. Al was sitting on Marla’s squishy, down–cushioned taupe chenille sofa. His feet, in their scuffed boots, were propped on her expensive glass coffee table, leaving smudges of dust on its pristine surface. He had on his jeans and a T–shirt––black today for a change, though so well worn it was tending toward gray, and he was surfing through the channels looking for the best football game while Marla, in a white terry robe and nothing else, lay with her head in his lap, scanning the L.A.
Times,
rising occasionally to take a sip of cold coffee.

It was their favorite time of the week and one they had vowed never to tarnish by discussing business.

“Perhaps she had something to hide?” Marla’s logical brain sifted through the information at the same time as she was reading her horoscope. “Sidney Omarr says I should beware of people wearing masks of falsehood. Whatever do you think he means?”

“What’s mine say?” Al reached for her coffee, pausing en route to drop a kiss on her tousled blond head.

“Scorpio’s rising,” she snickered. “Watch your back, true love may not be as true as it seems.”

“The man’s lying.” He gulped the rest of her coffee and put the empty mug back on the table. “Get your clothes on, honey. We are going out.”

Marla groaned, looking at the rain trickling down the bank of floor–to–ceiling windows that were supposed to frame a bird’s–eye view of the Pacific Ocean.

Her apartment was as glamorous as Marla herself, a big––3,400 square feet––ocean view condo on the eleventh floor of a glossy white marble building in the Palisades. The floors were pale limestone, the kitchen black granite and steel, the bathrooms––three––blond marble and glass. The huge expanse of windows offered a view of Pacific Coast Highway immediately below, and across from that, the beach with the waves rolling in and––on most days––the surfers.

It was almost as sparingly furnished as Al’s place, except Marla called this style “Comfortable Minimalist.” Overstuffed taupe sofas; deep–jewel–toned Oriental rugs; an aluminum console teetering on spindly legs in the hall; a single crystal vase three feet high holding a tall branch of pussy willow; white Phalaenopsis orchids in the bedroom and an antique Chinese bed in scarlet and gold lacquer that was like a small room with panels that closed around it like little doors, supposed originally to keep out the drafts of ancient China.

Al thought Marla’s home was exactly like her, a place of many facets, many moods. What he didn’t understand was how she could afford it.

He was never one to beat about the bush. When he wanted to know something, he asked.

“Dad, of course,” she had replied. “He bought it from the floor plan as an investment a couple of years ago. Sometimes it’s useful, him being in real estate.”

Which brought Al’s thoughts right back to the missing Laurie Martin again.

“It’s raining out,” Marla said. “Besides, I thought this was
our
day. Our lazy let’s–not–get–dressed–for–anyone–let’s–not–see–anyone–let’s–not–talk–to– anyone–about–business day!”

“Honey, are you or are you not my assistant? We’ve got a murder on our hands and our murderer is still out there. How can you spend a Sunday lazing on the couch, reading a newspaper and watching TV, knowing Vickie Mallard and her family are going through hell?”

Marla sat bolt upright, remembering her role as assistant P.I. “You hard–hearted bastard. Even cops get a day off. And I’ve already put in four days at my other job. Plus I have tests to prepare for tomorrow.” She was planning on giving her law students a surprise test; see how much they had actually learned in the last couple of weeks, trip them up, jolt the little bastards awake . . . she was sure some of them slept through her classes.

“No, you’ve gotta ask yourself this, Marla. Here’s Laurie Martin, a single woman living alone in a nice condo she bought two years ago. She drives a Lexus 400––leased from a local car dealership. Her payments are prompt, her credit cards are current, as are her accounts at a couple of department stores, and she has no bank loans. We know she was quiet socially. No real friends, more like business acquaintances. She attended a local Baptist church regularly. No family members have come forward. She has never been married. Laurie was, in every respect, a loner.

“And that’s something else that puzzles me. Laurie was quite a looker, in that bouffant blond kinda way. So how come there was no boyfriend? No parties? Not even nights out with the girls at the office?”

“Beats me.” Marla thought about it, frowning. “You think she had something to hide?”

Al beamed at her. “That’s exactly what I think, honey. Now all
I
have to do is find out what that was.”

“We,” she corrected him. He lifted a puzzled eyebrow. “What
we
have to find out. Remember me? Your assistant.”

He grinned. “How could I forget?”

Laurie Martin’s condo was in Laguna Beach, a cute little town––part artistic, part tourist, filled with galleries, gimmick stores and gift boutiques. The good hotels and the Pacific beaches brought in the tourists as well as the surfers, and houses and apartment buildings were scattered throughout the neighboring hills.

This was the first time Giraud had been allowed access to Laurie’s home, and it had taken the combined efforts of Lister and Marla as Steve’s attorneys to get Bulworth to agree to it now.

“Thanks for getting me out in the rain on a Sunday afternoon,” yawned the detective, who met them at the condo. “I was enjoying a rare peaceful afternoon at the precinct until you came along.”

The apartment was light and compact rather than spacious. “Around sixteen hundred square feet,” Marla the real estate developer’s daughter assessed. “Plenty for one person.”

“Unless they’re like you,” Al said. “Then they need twice as much.” He stared at the pastel decor: white, pink, turquoise. “Kind of tropical–looking. I thought she came from Texas.”

“Looks more like Florida to me.” Marla was looking at the framed photo on the mantel. It was of a dog, a black mutt wearing a red bandanna around its neck. “Cute,” she murmured, ever soft–hearted. “I wonder what happened to him.”

Al checked the kitchen and the bedroom. No dog basket; no dog bowls; no dog paraphernalia. “Who’s taking care of the dog?” he asked the detective.

“There is no dog. Never was one. They’re not allowed in this building.”

The detective stepped out onto the covered balcony for a smoke and Al looked thoughtfully at Marla. “Steve said that when he showed Laurie the pictures of his kids, she showed him a picture of Clyde. She talked about the dog as though she really had it living here with her. Like Steve had his kids. Y’know what I mean? And you notice there are no pictures of people here.”

“Perhaps she only loved her little dog.” Marla took the dog photo from the shelf and slipped it out of the frame, looking for information on the back, but there was nothing.

Al was scanning the shelves of books. He stared at the bottom shelf, then glanced over his shoulder at the detective out on the balcony. “Marla, go make nice with the detective,” he whispered. “Keep him busy.”

“Oh. But how?”

He threw her a withering look. “What kind of P.I. are you?
You’re
asking
me
how a woman keeps a man interested in her conversation?”

“Oh. Okay   .   .   .” Marla drifted across the room to the balcony.

“Got another cigarette, Detective?” Al heard her say in her velvetiest voice. She didn’t even smoke. He knew he would pay for this later.

He reached down, took a leather–bound volume from the bottom shelf. As he had thought, it was a photograph album. He riffled quickly through the pages. Most of the pictures were of houses that Laurie must have sold and of various holiday landscapes. Then he came across a page of pictures of the little black mutt. In one, it was perched on the hood of a car. Al couldn’t make out the license plate––it was too blurred, but it didn’t look like a California plate to him. Quickly, he slipped the photo into his pocket and replaced the album on the shelf.

He could hear Marla coughing out on the balcony and he called her back in. “I’m glad I never was tempted to smoke,” she grumbled. “My mouth tastes like a garbage can.”

“All in day’s work. Every detective I know smokes.”

“Except you. Now I’ve trained you better. No more garbage mouth   .   .   .”

He heaved a regretful sigh. “You have no idea how good that garbage tasted sometimes.”

They were standing in the bedroom now. “Girly,” Marla commented, taking in the thick pile white carpet; the queen–size white and gilt Louis–style bed loaded with ruffled pillows; the round tables with ruffled turquoise silk skirts and glass tops; the pink velvet chaise with a collection of dolls; the bedside lamps with beaded pink shades. “So this is what our woman is really like.”