Authors: Caitlin Rother
In the corner near the closet was a collection of stuffed animals, including your basic teddy bear, a well-worn pink creature of undefined species and a spanking new three-foot-tall florescent green elephant. Goode wondered how many quarters some lovesick guy had thrown away, probably at the Del Mar Fair, to win it for her.
On the dresser, Tania had staged a glass menagerie without walls. There were unicorns, cats, dogs and swans arranged on a mirror as if they were gliding across water. One wall was hung with prints and posters framed with glass: Degas ballerinas and van Gogh sunflowers; wine glasses dripping with moisture on a shiny black table next to a block of Brie and a knife that picked up the glow of a candle. Typical innocent girl stuff.
Then Goode saw three photos on the wall next to the bathroom door that didn’t fit with the others. The first was a self-portrait, with a soft light shining on her solemn face as she sat naked in a wooden dining room chair turned backward so its back hid her breasts and private parts from view, her arms folded in front and her legs dangling out the sides. Another featured an orchid, signed by Robert Mapplethorpe, which must have cost a fortune. The last was another nude self-portrait, only this time the fair-skinned Tania was in a glorious side view: She sat on a dark floor, knees together, her hands resting behind her, her breasts pouting and her back arched over a kitchen knife standing on its end, with its point almost touching her spine. Her dark hair streamed down, nearly reaching the floor, and an expression of ecstasy played across her face, which was turned toward the camera. Not so innocent at all.
Goode didn’t quite know what to make of the photos, but the images were somewhat disturbing. It was becoming clear that she was no ordinary young woman. And what was with the knife fetish? He saw a couple of photo albums on a shelf, and looked through the pages until he found a recent and much more innocent snapshot to use during witness questioning: Tania, with her shapely tanned legs, posed in a crouch with a Springer spaniel at the beach, looking up at the photographer. She’d written
Lucky and me in Malibu
on the back. Goode tucked it into his wallet, nestled against the photo of his mother.
Her queen-sized bed, which rested in an ornate black iron frame with candleholders at each corner, was covered with Egyptian cotton sheets and a dark red satin spread. Goode was feeling the soft—and clearly expensive—fabrics when Slausson found her “goodie drawer” in the nightstand.
“You’ll love this,” he said to Goode, chuckling in a prurient kind of way.
Goode really didn’t like his tone. It wasn’t respectful, considering the girl was dead, but he saw why Slausson was amused. She had a whole collection of vibrators, gels, flavored body oils, a couple pairs of handcuffs, nipple clips, some black satin ties, and a strap-on dildo, along with a short stack of girl-on-girl magazines. Not what he’d been expecting, but definitely a telling find. Nonetheless, he felt a need to protect her honor. Goode doubted her mother would want to find out that her baby had had such adventurous sexual tastes. Was she a lesbian, a bisexual, or just bi-curious? Determining that could prove important for narrowing the field of suspects.
He reached under the bed, and found something that felt like another photo album, only bulkier. Sticking his head underneath, he pulled out what turned out to be a red scrapbook with dated, handwritten entries, published articles and pieces of paper taped or pasted in, almost like a decoupage or collage, cataloging chapters of her life. The lacquered cover was decorated with magazine cutouts—women’s breasts, red painted lips, and black spike heels. The pages were thick from the paste-ins and dog-eared from use. As Goode flipped through them, most read like diary entries, but some were more like creative writing, so it was hard to tell what was reality and what was art imitating life. But a quick skim produced far too many men’s names and adventures for her to be a lesbian, unless that was a very recent realization.
Goode took the book into the bathroom, locked the door and turned on the tap so his colleagues wouldn’t hear him turning pages. He needed a little private time with the victim.
Just to process it all.
Chapter 3
Goode
S
team rose from the sink as Goode let the water run, fogging up the mirror. He switched off the knob marked cold, which obviously had been put on the wrong faucet by a dyslexic plumber, and turned on the one marked hot instead. Closing the toilet lid, he sat down and opened the journal. He was only planning to go through it a little more thoroughly, but he soon lost track of the time.
The first entry was a double-spaced typed sheet that had been cut and glued onto the page. Scribbled in red throughout were comments like
Excellent phrase
, or
Very moving
. And because the top of the page was marked with an A, he assumed it was a creative writing assignment from college, which was UCLA based on the other notebooks in the bookcase.
He stared at me and I stared back. But we weren’t communicating. He was the artist and I was his subject. When we were in bed together, he called me his Little Conchita. I was eighteen. He was forty-five. Sometimes he wanted me to lie motionless like a statue so he could study every niche and curve. Other times, he’d sit me in a big red velvet armchair and tell me to sit very, very still while he drew me. If I moved, he’d rip a piece of paper off his pad, half-finished, and fling it to the floor. Mostly, they consisted of swirling masses of dots, lines and circles. I told him I didn’t see why it mattered if I moved, seeing how his drawings were abstract. He replied that some were abstract, but all were precise. The last time he threw a sheet of paper at me, the corner of it caught me across the eyelid, slicing the skin. Luckily the cut wasn’t in my eye. Had he cut my pupil, I would have taunted him sexually and then rejected him as many times as it took to make him repent. But instead, I responded by crumpling my beret into a ball and flinging it at him. Berets aren’t meant to be crumpled, I guess. By the time it reached him, it had caught the air, stretched and extended itself, and landed softly in his lap. I just laughed, which only angered him more. “You’re a silly old man,” I told him. “You’ll never get a show.” With that, he rose from his wicker chair, which creaked when he breathed hard, and headed for the cognac. It took me three snifters before I could sit as still as he wanted. My eyes glazed over and my face remained a blank so he could draw his silly little picture. And when he finished, he showed it to me. It looked just like him. He had drawn himself from looking in the mirror behind me.
Goode wondered if this was autobiographical and if the “silly old man” had been one of her art professors at UCLA. He pulled out his pocket notebook and jotted down a note to himself:
Check out UCLA professors?
Then he turned the page to a handwritten piece of notebook paper that had been ripped out of a binder and taped into the journal. Again, he wondered how much of this was based in reality.
Ex-stripper Finds Career is Taking Off. Sallie Mae Johnson. Watch her sequins glitter. See them sparkle under the bright lights. Watch the lustful stares of bedraggled men with no place to go. They cast aspersions aside, the wife and the kids, they all fade into oblivion along with the bills stacked up on the kitchen counter. All they see is Sallie Mae, the ambitious young girl who wrote to her mother last week: “Dear Mom,” she said in a perfumed letter, stained with coffee. “My career is taking off. But not like before, Mom. I’ve cleaned up my act. No more whips and chains or spiked chokers. Today, I wear frilly lace, petticoats and pretty sheer pink stockings, the kind that end halfway up your thigh. My new job at the She-Shell Club pays me real good. I’m the Feature Girl this week. They picked me over the other girls who pose for Penthouse and Playboy. They said I was the prettiest, the one with the most style. ‘You’ll go far,’ they told me. ‘Just stay sweet and the tips will keep coming.’ It’s like magic, Mom, just like you used to tell me. I wasn’t really asleep all those times when you whispered to me in the middle of the night. I just kept my eyes closed and listened real good. I like the work, and the power that comes with it. I am what you always wanted to be before you quit the business: I’m a Feature Girl.”
So, Goode wondered again, fact or fantasy? At the bottom of the page, he was pleased to see that Tania answered his question:
Of course stripping is just a fantasy for me, but I feel like this girl I wrote about for my creative writing class. Pretty and clean on the outside and dirty on the inside. Daddy would die if he knew some of my thoughts. Mom, too. Thank God she never found my magazines. If she only knew what kind of dreams I’ve been having lately. I feel so confused when I wake up. I don’t know what they all mean. Maybe I’ll never really figure it all out.
Tania seemed to be on a journey of discovery. Goode jumped ahead, and found another entry about sex. He wondered if they were all like this.
I had another dream about Sheila the other night. But it’s never the Sheila of today. It’s the Sheila I knew in high school. She’s so different now. She hardly seems like the same person. And besides, she’s married and we’re not even close. Her husband never shows up in my dreams. It’s always just the two of us, like it used to be. I tell her about my sexual curiosity about her and she acts shy. I caress and kiss her neck before she gives in, but we always stop short of doing anything too intimate. It got me thinking, though, so yesterday I browsed some lesbian porno sites on the web. They’re obviously for men and not for real lesbians, so I didn’t feel like I was doing anything really wrong by looking at them. There’s something about watching two women together that is so much more sensual than watching some gross guy do things to a woman. It’s funny, though, I can’t see meeting a woman who makes me want to put any of those scenes into action. As long as it’s on the computer, it’s all virtual reality anyway, so it’s safe. Right?
Goode flipped to a later chunk in the journal, where he saw more references to San Diego, so he figured she’d made the move from LA by then.
It’s been a while since my creative writing teacher told me that my stripper story lacked “verisimilitude”— yes, that’s the word she used— but I still remember thinking that I can’t write about strippers without actually meeting one. So, the other night, that cute guy, J. from Pumphouse, asked me to go to Nude Nude Nude. I thought it was kind of a strange place to take a girl on a date, but I was up for it and that seemed to make him happy. Like a naughty, excited little boy. We sat in the front row and he bought us a couple of Diet Cokes (no alcohol allowed in all-nude places). Then he started kissing me on the neck as we were watching the girls on stage. It was hot—until this skank came over and told us to stop. “It bothers the girls,” she said, “They think it’s rude.” In other words, we weren’t paying them enough respect, which I found curiously ironic. J. was undeterred, though, and tried to buy me a lap dance. I said no thanks, so J. went for it instead. The whole time she was sliding all over him, I felt uncomfortably aroused. She had black hair in a pageboy cut, smooth skin, clean features, doe eyes, and an unbelievably tight body. I had to fight back the urge to run my hands all over her to see if she felt as good as she looked. When she was done, J. tucked forty bucks into her bikini top, but she leaned over and whispered in my ear. “You’re really pretty,” she said, and kissed me on the cheek. J. and I drove to the beach and made out some more. What I really wanted to do was have wild sex. Anything to get rid of all that weird energy. But he didn’t have any condoms, so I decided we should stop.
Goode wondered who J. from Pumphouse was. Could it be Jake? The handwriting in the next entry appeared hastily scribbled, with the letters all scrunched together, as if Tania had been stressed out. But this one seemed like an authentic diary entry.
I’m not sure if it’s because I went to that strip club, or what, but I had a pretty explicit dream about Ms. X last night. Let’s just say we did more than hold hands and kiss. I don’t understand why I keep having these dreams and it seems like they’re escalating. It’s scaring me. I had all these butterflies when I saw her today, and that freaked me out even more. Really, all I want is to find a guy who’s nice to me and loves me. I guess I still have a lot of years ahead of me to do that. At least that’s what Mom keeps telling me. I hope she’s right.
Goode was so embarrassed at feeling aroused that he dropped his little notebook on the tile floor. But he couldn’t put down the damn scrapbook-diary. Who was this Ms. X?
He figured he should read these pages later in more detail, so he turned to the end to ensure he was doing real detective work. The last page was dated just the day before. A drop of sweat fell from his face onto the page, which he quickly removed with his index finger, and wiped his forehead with the sleeve of his T-shirt.
Last night at the Pumphouse was truly amazing. I saw this guy looking at me from across the bar but I dismissed him as just another handsome playboy. When I refused to meet his gaze, he suddenly appeared at my side. Without saying a word, he took my hand and pulled me to the dance floor in an act of unadulterated confidence. It was the whole dominance-submission thing. Sexy, plain and simple. I like a man who can take me where I want to go without my having to give directions. When we were dancing, it was as if he could anticipate my every movement. Our eyes were locked as we moved in sync, side to side, hips swaying, drawn together but not quite touching, arms at our sides. The beat of the bass drum vibrated inside my chest as my head spun from the margaritas. He put his hands on my waist, guiding my body but still keeping me a few inches away from him. I could feel his breath on my face, the heat of his body seeping into mine. He moved a little closer, so our chests were barely rubbing against each other. The heat, the tequila, and the endorphins made for quite a cocktail. I started to feel dizzy. I turned so my back was to him, and he lowered his hands to my hips, pulling my ass into him. I was hypnotized by the way we fit together as he moved us to the music. We stayed like that for what seemed like hours, his nose nuzzling my neck, his hardness pushing into my ass. I moved away from him, and turned around to look him in the eye. This time, I put my arms around his neck and pulled him to me. His mouth was less than an inch away from mine as we danced. He brushed his lips against mine, then my cheeks, forehead, and nose. He came back to my mouth, caressing me with his, slow and wet. It was the most awesome first kiss I can ever remember. I know I made a deal with myself to stop bringing home men I just met because of all the heartbreak it’s caused, but I felt this intense connection with him. Plus, I needed to get Ms. X out of my mind.
There she was again: Ms. X. Goode jotted down the name in his notebook, with three question marks, then went on to finish the entry, which was particularly long. Tania must have been feeling the need to process a lot of confusion.
I couldn’t even admit it to myself by writing about it last week, but Ms. X and I went out for drinks and she started playing with my hair, kissing me on the cheek, and pressing her breasts into my arm, stuff like that. She wanted to come back here, so I let her. We messed around for at least two hours, and it got pretty intense. Finally, I said I wanted her to leave so I could get some sleep. She seemed put off, but I needed some space. I felt confused for days. I wanted—needed—a man inside me, and so, last night at Pumphouse, Seth seemed like the perfect antidote. I thought this could be the forever kind of connection I’d been hoping for, so I let him stay the night. Not surprisingly, the sex was, in a word, magical. I have finally found Nirvana and his name is Seth.
He was writing down Seth’s name and
Pumphouse
when a loud rapping on the door startled him. “Goode, what the hell are you doing in there? Taking a bath in the sink? A few of us have some business to take care of.”
“I’ll be right out,” Goode said, standing up and flushing the toilet if, for nothing else, to stall for time while he pulled himself together. It was going to be a long night.
He ran his hands under the cold water and sloshed it over his face. He hadn’t shaved for a couple of days, but he figured no one would notice because his beard wasn’t very heavy. If he moved to Homicide, he knew he’d have to shave every day. But such is life. He wet both sides of his hair, which bugged him when it got this long, but he’d been too lazy to get it cut.
When Goode came out of the bathroom, he told Stone about finding the journal and that it could be a good source of leads on witnesses and suspects. Stone agreed, but said Goode needed to let the evidence tech log it in and photograph it before he took it anywhere.
“Why don’t you see if you can match any names you find in there with the contacts in Tania’s phone, then divvy up the best leads with Fletcher and Slausson,” Stone said.
“Okay. I’ll study the journal more carefully tonight at home, where it’s quiet,” Goode said, pretending to be agreeable. But truthfully, he wanted to be cloistered away from the other detectives’ prying eyes, and didn’t plan on sharing any leads with anyone. He needed that transfer.
For now, Tania’s thoughts were all his.