The blood was still wet, so it came off easily. Barely had to scrub. This one’s eyes were closed, her face peaceful despite the way her scene had ended, almost as if she were enjoying his soapy touch. As if any moment she might sit up and smile and thank him for being so careful and gentle...
“Feels good, doesn’t it?” he whispered to her.
Her head seemed to shift slightly on the pillow, in affirmation, as he leaned on the mattress, allowing him easier access to the wound in her neck. He cleaned the gash as best he could, and the area around it.
Her hair would be hardest to clean — no point in putting that off. Her dark tresses still felt soft and thick between his fingers as he used a wet towel to wipe them, taking care with each lock, as if fearful a rough touch might pull her hair and cause discomfort.
When finally he finished, he regarded the day player — she looked as though she had just stepped from a shower. The only remaining red spots were the open wounds, but nothing was to be done about that.
For some reason he thought of the old man.
He hated the old son of a bitch — dead or not. Their mother fleeing his abuse, the nighttime visits to brother and sister... then the evil bastard had to go fall over dead before they were of maturity enough to do something about him.
Daddy, in dying, had done them one big favor — with the old man gone, and when they were of legal age, they had sold the farm, the proceeds allowing them to move to LA and leave the heartless heartland behind.
Ironic — the old man had made it possible for them to come to the fame capital of the world, where he and his sister at last could be somebodies. Where they would be rich and famous and powerful.
It had taken longer to “make it” than they hoped, and they were taking what some might consider an unconventional path... but they weren’t helpless anymore.
Screw you, you old bastard!
Funny that the only way to be somebody in this town was to pretend to be somebody else. But that’s show biz!
When their day player was ready for her final curtain call — No small roles, only small actors! — he went off in search of his sister. She was gone from the shower, towel hung up, mirror fogged.
He found her in his bedroom, the black womb room, already in bed, covers tight at her neck.
“You all right, Sis?”
“Yes...”
Her voice was tiny, childlike, as when she would ask him to comfort her after the old man was done.
“... but I’d be better if you held me.”
“Let me get my shower first,” he said. “I just finished with the day player. Feel kinda dirty.”
“Go get clean,” his sister said.
He was in and out of the shower in five minutes; he lingered to watch the blood from their victim rinse down the drain, like in Psycho. That Hitchcock was good.
As he toweled off, his thoughts turned to the only woman he ever loved. The only woman he ever really wanted, in the... you know way.
But he knew better than to put his thing in his own sister. That would be sick and dirty and no shower could wash it off. His old man never understood such a simple basic moral rule, but he did.
Naked, he crawled in bed next to her. She was on her side, back to him. She, too, was nude. Hairless as a grape. He spooned her, his arm draped across her. She was so warm it was like standing in front of the space heater back on the farm.
Snuggling him, she made a sound a lot like purring.
“That’s better,” she said. “I love you.”
In the darkness, feeling her against him, he said, “I love you too, Sis.”
Her hand reached back and touched him, worked him. His hand slipped around and found the warm moist place and they comforted each other.
The lovemaking was over.
When the team finally broke up Sunday night, everybody running on fumes, Harrow had been surprised to hear himself ask Anna over to his place. And astonished to hear her say yes.
It was a casual evening, delivery pizza and a Dodgers game on ESPN. They watched on the sofa, with her curled up next to him. She seemed so small, so young with her dark hair ponytailed back, almost elfin in T-shirt and jeans and bare feet.
When he fell asleep during the game, she elbowed him. Laughter had followed, and kissing and fondling and then they were in the bedroom and the lovemaking had been slow at first, amazingly so considering how long it had been for him, and then frantic at the conclusion, and now she was asleep and he was at the window, looking out into the abstraction of Los Angeles by night.
He felt empty and guilty and generally like shit.
“Are you all right?”
He jumped at her voice. Hadn’t heard her get out of bed, much less come up behind him.
Looking nicely rumpled, Anna smiled. “Did I just make the heroic Harrow jump?... Or are you... hey, are you...?”
Crying?
She didn’t say it.
He just nodded.
She kissed the tears away and said, “I understand.”
“I shouldn’t have done this tonight... I’m sorry...”
“Damnit, don’t you apologize. This was what you needed, and what I needed. Understand? And whether we never do it again, or if we wind up together for the next twenty years, it doesn’t matter. Nothing can take tonight away from us, and it doesn’t take a goddamn thing away from all your other nights, when you were married.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Quit apologizing. Damn! Come back to bed.”
She led him there and he lay on his back and she cuddled him.
Her voice was soft, soothing. But there was still something cop in it.
“You had a marriage that worked,” she said. “I had a marriage that went south. But what we have in common is, we don’t have anybody now.”
“That’s true,” he said.
“So quit being such a big baby.”
That made him laugh, and he was kissing her when a cell phone vibrated nearby.
“Yours or mine?” she asked.
“Mine,” Harrow said, reaching across her to pluck the dancing thing off the nightstand. Caller ID box read: CARMEN GARCIA. He glanced at the clock: 2:38 A.M. in blood red LED.
Warmth had filled this room seconds ago; now Harrow felt a chill.
No way this was good news.
And when Amari’s phone jumped in vibration, too, he knew his suspicion had been validated.
Chapter Thirty
When the call came, and another body had turned up in Griffith Park, Detective LeRon Polk took no chances. He hit the observatory parking lot in black T-shirt, jeans, and Timberland boots.
And when Amari showed up, moments later, in typical smart work attire — charcoal gray blazer, black silk blouse, and dark gray slacks — he figured he finally put one over on teacher.
She gave him the once-over. “Going camping?”
“Call was Griffith Park,” he said, cocky with confidence. “You won’t see me ruinin’ another new pair of Bruno Magli’s.”
She nodded toward the concrete parking lot and long, manicured lawn of the Griffith Park Observatory. “As a trained detective, LeRon, you may notice this is not the crest of Mount Lee.”
She had a point.
A couple of patrol cars and the coroner’s wagon were parked nearby, on the circular drive. No lights were flashing. A uniformed officer stood guard near the astronomer’s monument maybe fifty yards from the north entrance of the wide white observatory with its three dark domes.
With the building and statue lit up against a clear sky, a nearly full moon wielding its ivory brush, the scene had a stark beauty interrupted by a single work light and two officers near the door. They stood over a body deposited atop the building’s front steps.