Authors: Peter Robinson
‘Want one?’ Arvo asked Sarah.
‘No, I mustn’t,’ she said. ‘I’ve got a Diet Coke on the go somewhere. I hope you like Indian food.’ She turned the chicken pieces again.
‘If it tastes as good as it smells,’ he said, ‘I can’t see any problems there.’
‘Sit down.’
‘Sure I can’t do anything?’
‘No. Everything’s under control. Paula’s making a salad, aren’t you, dear?’
Paula stuck her tongue out and went back inside.
Arvo sat and put his feet up on the low wooden railing of the deck. He cradled the can of Michelob with both hands on his lap. He was wearing white cotton slacks, sandals and a dark green golf shirt with a tiny knight on horseback embroidered on the breast pocket.
‘You a copper, then?’ Arthur Bolton wheezed.
‘Yes,’ Arvo answered. ‘A detective.’
‘Never did like coppers. Never friends of the working man, they weren’t. And certainly no friends of the miners.’ Then he went back to staring out to sea. Sarah looked at Arvo and winked, giving a ‘What can I do with him?’ shrug. Arvo shook his head and smiled.
Soon the food was ready and they all sat around the wooden picnic bench to eat. Sarah helped herself to a glass of chilled white wine. Arvo and Paula stuck with beer. Arthur Bolton tried a Michelob but didn’t drink much of it.
‘It’s okay to talk about it,’ Sarah said to Arvo. ‘You know, about what happened. I’ve told them just about everything. But there’s still a lot I don’t know.’
Arvo nodded and tasted some chicken. ‘Delicious,’ he said. ‘How’s Stuart?’
‘He’s at home. I think he’s still on fluids. The knife did some intestinal damage. The doctor says it’ll be a while before he’s up to par. It’ll certainly be a while before he’s up to Indian food. Can you imagine Stuart having to change his diet?’ Sarah took a mouthful of rice and smiled at Arvo. ‘What did you find out?’ she asked.
‘Quite a lot, really. Mitchell Cameron was pretty keen to talk after he found out Mark was dead. I believe he really did care for his kid brother, in an odd sort of way.’
‘Why did he run away from you?’
Arvo shrugged. ‘It’s habitual with some people. Mitch is a small-time felon. When he left San Francisco, he owed a lot of people money, people who wouldn’t go that easy on him if they found him. He also owed the phone company and utilities. That’s why he put them all in Mark’s name here in LA. Mark
Lister
. Which is also why we couldn’t track him through phone or utility records. Anyway, Mitch had been into dealing drugs with a couple of crooked cops from Hollywood Division. They’d arrest someone, take their stash as evidence, then it’d find its way back onto the street again via Mitch and his club connections. Trouble was, he’d been robbing them blind, and he thought they’d finally found out and sent someone over to get him. These people break limbs and shoot kneecaps. That’s why he ran.’
‘And meanwhile, Mark had come out here?’
‘That’s right. He must’ve thought he’d died and gone to heaven when he saw you come home. We screwed up. I’m sorry.’
Sarah said nothing. She was remembering her confrontation with Mark on the beach. Heaven? She doubted it. ‘Why?’ she asked. ‘What made him do what he did?’
Arvo took a sip of beer before answering. ‘You’d have to ask a psychiatrist that,’ he said. ‘And I doubt if even they would be able to give you the full answer. I don’t know. His family background was one factor. His mother was a real piece of work.’
‘How?’
‘She hung around with a rough crowd, bikers mostly. Liked to live fast and dangerous. She died of a drug overdose.’
‘What happened to the children?’
‘Fostered. Best thing that could have happened to them. They got fed, schooled, well taken care of.’
‘Then why did they turn out the way they did?’ Sarah asked.
‘Again, we don’t know,’ said Arvo. ‘Maybe it was just too late. They’d suffered abuse and neglect when they were kids, in their most formative years. The sister turned out best of the three. Lives in Boston, got a good job with a publishing company. She wants nothing to do with her half-siblings. And who can blame her? When you get right down to it, Mitch is just another asshole with an attitude, a petty criminal. Only Mark was genuinely sick and nobody really knew because he didn’t talk.’ Arvo took another sip of beer to cool the heat of the spices and went on. ‘Mitch told me a story which might explain part of what happened, though I don’t think we’ll ever be able to explain it all.
‘Apparently, when Mark was a kid he was on a picnic with his mother and the bikers, so the story goes. They were on a remote beach, somewhere in Mexico. A fight broke out between his father and one of the other bikers. A fight over his mother. Apparently this guy had been sniffing around her for some time. Anyway, she egged them on and the other biker killed Mark’s father. Stabbed him.’
‘While he was watching?’ Sarah said in disbelief.
‘It gets worse.’ Arvo cast a glance at Paula and Arthur Bolton.
‘It’s all right,’ Sarah said. ‘Go on.’
‘As soon as he’d killed Mark’s father he and the mother . . . well . . . they did it, made out, right there in the sand. He was still covered in the father’s blood. Everyone cheered them on. Mark hasn’t spoken a word since. Mark’s father was the only one Marta Cameron had actually married. That’s why he has his father’s name: Lister.’
Sarah paled and pushed her plate aside. ‘My God.’
‘I’m sorry,’ said Arvo. ‘You asked.’
‘Please, it’s all right. What did they do with the body?’
‘Cut it up and buried it under the sand.’
Sarah had a sudden image of the body she had found on the beach what seemed like decades ago.
Let’s bury Daddy in the sand
. ‘How did Mitch know this?’ she asked.
‘He says one of the bikers who was there told him when he was older. Apparently this was one guy who didn’t cheer them on but didn’t do anything to stop what was happening either. Mitch wasn’t there himself that day. He was in school. But remember, Mitch is a compulsive liar. It could be just a story he made up to try and give his half-brother an excuse for his behaviour.’
‘Except that it makes so much sense.’
‘Yes. Do you want me to go on?’ he asked.
‘Yes. please. I just feel as if a cloud passed over the sun, that’s all.’ Sarah looked down to see the children still playing on the shore.
‘Mark was mentally ill, but because he didn’t speak and his brother protected him, he slipped through the cracks. At school he was bright and well behaved. And a loner. They say it’s the squeaky wheel that gets the grease. Mark Lister never made a sound. How could anybody
know
what was going on in his mind?’
‘But surely Mitch should have known? They did live in the same house, didn’t they?’
‘Yes. But, remember, I said Mitch protected Mark. Mostly that just meant giving him a home, a roof over his head, taking him out occasionally. The big difference between them was that Mitch was active, outgoing, and Mark wasn’t very sociable. He preferred to be left alone with his computer and fantasies most of the time. They also kept very different hours. Mitch worked most of the evening and night in clubs and slept during the day, when Mark did most of his computer work. They hardly saw each other. And Mitch said he didn’t pry into Mark’s everyday life, let alone into his deepest fantasies.
‘He hadn’t actually been inside Mark’s room and seen the shrine and all the computer collages. He didn’t know about the letters. And he certainly hadn’t seen John Heimar’s wallet and Jack’s coke spoon, trophies on the altar. He’d stood on the threshold, yes, and he’d seen the photos. But like he said, what’s so unusual about that? Plenty of teenagers cover their walls with posters and photos of rock stars and movie stars. Mark was his little brother and he wasn’t that long out of his teens. Besides, he was different, he was gifted, a computer genius.’ He glanced at Paula, then back at Sarah. ‘Would you believe your sister was a stalker and a murderess if you saw a few pictures on her walls?’
‘He’s right, you know, love,’ Paula said. ‘A person overlooks a lot of things in a brother or sister. We make excuses for our own, maybe when we should be helping.’
‘I suppose so,’ Sarah said. ‘How did he find me?’
‘We think he got your address through a computer bulletin-board. It makes sense. He didn’t speak, so he couldn’t go around asking. And a bulletin-board would be more discreet, too.’
Sarah cleared the plates and passed out more beer, then she helped herself to another glass of wine. The way things were going, she felt she needed it. The hell with the diet. She’d start her new regimen tomorrow.
They all drifted away from the table and sat in the lounge chairs, listening to the waves and looking out at the diamonds dancing in the sea.
Love. Love. Love. Sarah would never, so long as she lived, understand love. She loved her family, no matter what. They were kin and blood, and she was happy they were with her now. In his way, she supposed Mitch Cameron had also loved his disturbed, silent half-brother, Mark, too.
And she had loved Gary, yet she had watched that love die the way a patient, anaesthetized but still conscious, might watch a surgeon cut out a malignant tumour. They say that happens sometimes, that you wake up during an operation and feel it, but you’re still paralysed by the anaesthetic and you can’t communicate your pain. That was what happened. And she had walked away. Since then, family aside, she hadn’t been capable of loving anyone. Maybe that, too, would change.
And unknown to her, someone had been standing in the wings taking it all in, twisting and colouring it all until it took on the form he wanted and needed for his own obsession. And in his own way, this someone had loved her. Mark Lister had loved her so much that he had killed for her. Now he had died for her, too.
No, she would never understand love.
She felt someone nudge her. It was Paula. ‘Sorry, I was miles away.’
‘He’s going now,’ she said, nodding towards Arvo.
Sarah stood up. ‘Oh, must you?’
‘I’ve got a few things to do.’
‘Okay. Let me see you out.’
‘No need,’ Arvo said.
Sarah stood awkwardly. ‘Well, then . . .’ she said. She might never have another reason to see this man again. She didn’t even know if she wanted to. She liked him now, but the thought of a relationship, even a date, terrified her.
And she had a feeling that he might be involved with Maria. She didn’t know why, it was just something she had sensed when she saw them together, something in the way they related to one another.
On the other hand, Sarah did feel
something
between herself and Arvo, some kind of spark, and after everything that had happened, she didn’t feel she could bear it if he just walked away, right out of her life for ever.
Christ, she was shifting from one foot to another like a silly teenager. She could feel Paula mentally urging her to say something.
But Arvo spoke first. ‘What next?’ he asked.
‘Work,’ she said, feeling silly as soon as the word was out. ‘I mean, I’ve got a lot of work to catch up on, what with Jack’s replacement and all. We’re really behind. The public can only stand reruns for so long.’
‘Right,’ he said. ‘Well, good luck.’ He stuck out his hand, and they shook.
Arvo began to walk through the sliding glass doors towards his car. Paula nudged Sarah and pointed after him. ‘Go on,’ she mouthed.
Then, like that policeman on television, the one with the rumpled raincoat, Arvo popped his head back through the doors. ‘Just one more thing before I go,’ he said.
‘Yes?’
‘Do you think I could give you that driving lesson sometime? And maybe afterwards we could go to dinner?’
Sarah found herself smiling. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Yes, to both. I’d like that.’
‘Have you got a friend?’ Paula yelled after him as he left, then collapsed giggling on her lounge chair.
The children came running up the steps, smelling of the salt water and making wet footprints on the wooden deck. Sarah could still smell traces of the Indian spices from the meal. She took another sip of wine.
There was a lot to take in, yes, and a lot of personal demons to grapple with. But today the sun was shining, the waves were crashing on the beach, her family was with her, she still had her job, Stuart was recovering, and a handsome man was going to give her a driving lesson. On the whole, she thought, allowing herself a private smile, things weren’t looking too bad right now. Things weren’t looking too bad at all.
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank Lieutenant John Lane and other members of the Threat Management Unit of the LAPD for being so generous with their time and expertise; also, thanks to Detective Dennis Payne of the Robbery-Homicide Department, LAPD.
Special thanks are due to Patricia McFall, Michael Connelly and Richard and Barbara Matthews for reading and commenting on earlier drafts of the manuscript, and to Linda Grant for her help with the San Francisco chapters.
So many people extended their kindness and hospitality on my visits to Los Angeles; in addition to the above I would especially like to thank Wendi Matthews for the studio tour, Karen and Eric Ende for their support, and Timothy Appleby and Sheila Whyte for the Laguna Canyon drive.