‘Morning, Detective,’ she said, and smiled warmly.
‘Good morning, Miss Reiner. You all ready?’
Leighton glimpsed something familiar at her bright eyes, and her long hair pulled back into a loose ponytail. He felt a moment of nostalgia so powerful it threatened to eclipse all other rational thought.
‘Raring to go,’ Vicki said cheerfully.
‘Okay.’ Leighton shrugged. ‘Put your bag in the back seat, and jump in.’
As Leighton waited for Vicki to get in the passenger side, he gazed at the row of flawless beach houses. They were not the most opulent properties at the beach front, but they still whispered of exclusive wealth. Leighton estimated their value to be somewhere between one and two million dollars apiece.
‘Nice home,’ he said, as she clicked the buckle shut on her seatbelt.
‘Yeah.’ Vicki shrugged. ‘It used to be.’
Leighton looked at her inquisitively, sensing some shift in her mood. In a moment it had gone, replaced with her smile, and she returned to her previous disposition.
‘I just mean, I’m fairly messy,’ she said, but Leighton didn’t believe her.
Deciding it was better to let the matter drop, he put the car into drive, and they headed off.
They had travelled along the smooth grey interstate for fifteen minutes, before the clamouring traffic spread out, and allowed them both to relax. The car windows were opened just far enough to keep a comfortable breeze of morning air blowing through the interior of the car.
The first thing Vicki had noticed when she stepped into it, was that Leighton’s car was immaculate. He had on old style cassette player in the middle of the dashboard; beneath this, was a small shelf, in which a row of plastic cassette cases was carefully arranged in alphabetical order.
‘You just had this thing cleaned just for me?’ she joked, but Leighton just raised one eyebrow quizzically, and shook his head.
‘I just like a tidy car,’ he said by way of an explanation.
‘Yeah, but there’s tidy, then, there’s super-tidy.’
Leighton frowned slightly but said nothing.
‘Come on,’ she pressed. ‘This car is clearly too clean - humans need chaos to thrive.’
‘What do you want me to say?’ he said, feigning irritation.
‘You need to explain this - the neat thing.’ Vicki laughed.
‘It’s not a neat thing; it’s just how I am.’
‘Okay,’ Vicki nodded in agreement. ‘So, where does that neatness come from?’
‘Well,’ Leighton sighed, and adjusted the rear-view mirror, ‘I’m not sure. It just kind of makes sense. For a number of years, my job involved dealing with mess.’
‘Mess?’ It wasn’t really how Vicki had ever considered police work.
‘Yeah, you know, messy lives, messy crime scenes, messy desks. I suppose this,’ he nodded towards the overly tidy interior of the car, ‘is my small place of order.’
He let out a wry chuckle. ‘Sometimes, when I’d get called out in the night, my mind would still be groggy by the time I’d arrive at the scene. I’d take a tour of the place, make all the notes I could, and then, I’d go sit in my car. It was kind of like finding a quiet place in the middle of a storm. Some sort of haven, I suppose.’
He paused for a moment, then adjusted his rear-view mirror again. ‘I reckon most people could survive just about anything, if they get their own little patch of space, and keep it free from the mess of the outside world.’
‘The Leighton Jones mess-free method,’ Vicki said resolutely, and smiled at him. ‘You could sell that idea and become a millionaire.’
‘Amen to that.’ Leighton nodded.
Vicki watched, as some unreadable emotion crossed Leighton’s face.
‘Do you miss it,’ Vicki asked, shifting her tone. ‘The job, I mean?
Leighton glanced at her for a moment, then returned his attention to the road. ‘I miss some of the people from the station, but no, I don’t miss the job in the slightest.’
‘But, it must be a good feeling when you solve a murder.’
Leighton said nothing, and his weighty silence was enough to let Vicki know he was unlikely to talk about the job.
They were now heading up through the orchards fringing the free-way north-east of San Bernardino. Vicki gazed out of the window at the neat lines of the orange groves. She wondered how far exactly Laurie had travelled. Perhaps, she had left the bus somewhere out here, and vanished amongst the aromatic trees.
They were driving through Verdemont, when Leighton smiled, and adopted a formal announcer’s voice.
‘And if you look to your right, ladies and gentleman, you will see a lovely little Pet Cemetery…’
‘What, you’re kidding, right?’ Vicki sat up, and within a few minutes, she saw he was telling the truth. A cheerful sign on the opposite side of the free-way indicated the place where beloved family pets could rest in peace. Vicki smiled at the idea of it, then glanced back at the dashboard of the car.
‘You don’t have sat-nav?’ she asked.
‘What?’
‘You’ve driven sixty or so miles, without glancing a road sign?
‘I used to work Traffic before homicide. My job kind of gave me an internal compass. I’ve never really been a big fan of technology.’
‘Yeah.’ Vicki glanced at his archaic cassettes. ‘I get that.’
She looked out of the window again at the sand-coloured hills on the horizon. It seemed like another country in comparison to her ocean view at home. Yet, Vicki thought there was something about the desert landscape that seemed to mirror the sea. It seemed just as vast and unknown.
Turning back to Leighton, she found him looking to the distant horizon, and wondered if this arid world felt like home to him.
‘Did you like it out here in open country - amongst the Joshua trees, and lizards?’
‘I didn’t work this far outside of the city. But I liked taking a drive up here with my kid on my days off.’
‘Yeah? So, how come you moved across to homicide?’
Leighton sighed, and shifted in his seat, but said nothing. Up ahead, a couple of motor-homes were playing leapfrog, and slowing down the traffic.
‘Well?’ Vicki persisted. ‘Did you get a speeding ticket, or show up drunk for work?’
Leighton glanced at her quickly, then pinched the bridge of his nose.
‘There was nothing scandalous; I just came across a bad accident on the road, one rainy night.’
‘Ah.’ Vicki nodded. ‘A whole lot of fatalities?’
‘No, actually, there was just one,’ Leighton said, and smiled sadly. ‘But, it belonged to my seventeen-year-old daughter. You mind if I put some music on?’ His hand clambered over the cassette cases, sending some spilling on to the floor.
‘Oh, jeez, I’m sorry. Here, let me help you.’
Vicki carefully gathered the cassettes up, and restored the order. She slotted a tape into the mouth of the player, and the sound of Booker White filled the car, eclipsing any further awkward conversation. For a while, there was nothing but warm road and the hissy old music. Eventually, the tape ended, and the player spat it out in a slow, mechanical manner.
‘I’m sorry, Leighton,’ Vicki said in the moment of silence, and looked at the floor.
‘It’s okay,’ Leighton said. ‘Bad things happen to people every day. I reckon that just happened to be my day. Anyway, this traffic’s not going anywhere - must be problems coming in from the Ontario freeway. You fancy a coffee while it settles?’ Leighton pointed to a green roadside sign for a diner up ahead.