Demolition Angel

  Marzik shifted uncomfortably. It was Marzik who spoke first.

  “My kids want to go to that place. I keep putting them off because it costs so much, but, Jesus, they see these damned commercials, these people on the roller coasters. The commercials never say how much it costs.”

  Starkey glanced over, expecting Marzik to look angry and resentful, but she didn’t. She looked tired and miserable.

  “Beth, I want to ask you something. What you said about me and Pell, is it really that obvious?”

  Marzik shrugged.

  “I don’t know. I was just saying that.”

  “Okay.”

  “You never talk about your life. I just kinda figured you don’t have one.”

  Marzik looked over at her.

  “Now can I ask you something?”

  Starkey felt uncomfortable with that, but told Marzik she could ask whatever she wanted.

  “When’s the last time you had a man?”

  “That’s a terrible thing to ask.”

  “You said I could ask. If you don’t want to talk about it, fine.”

  Starkey realized that she was gripping the steering wheel so hard her knuckles were white. She took a breath, forcing herself to relax. She grudgingly admitted that she wanted to talk about this, even though she didn’t know how. Maybe that was why she had made Marzik come with her.

  “It’s been a long time.”

  “What are you waiting for? You think you’re getting younger? You think your ass is getting smaller?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “I don’t know what you want because we never talk. Here we are, the only two women in the section, and we never talk about anything but the goddamned job. Here’s what I’m saying, Carol, you do this damned job, but you need something else, because this job is shit. It takes, but it doesn’t give you a goddamned thing. It’s just shit.”

  Starkey glanced over. Marzik’s eyes were wet and she was blinking. Starkey realized that suddenly everything had turned; they were talking about Marzik, not Starkey.

  “Well, I’ll tell you what I want. I want to get married. I want someone to talk to who’s taller than me. I want someone else in that house even if he spends all his time on the couch, and I have to bring him the beer and listen to him fart at three in the morning. I am sick of being alone, with no one for company but two kids eating crackers. Shit, I want to be married so bad they see me coming a mile away and run.”

  Starkey didn’t know what to say.

  “I’m sorry, Beth. You’re dating, right? You’ll find someone.”

  “You don’t know shit about it. I hate this fucking job. I hate my rotten life. I hate these two kids. Isn’t that the most horrible thing you’ve ever heard? I hate these two kids, and I don’t know how I’m gonna get them up here to Magic Mountain.”

  Marzik ran out of gas and lapsed into silence. Starkey drove on, feeling uncomfortable. She thought that Marzik must want something for having said all that, but didn’t know what. She felt that she was letting Marzik down.

  “Beth, listen?”

  Marzik shook her head, not looking over, clearly embarrassed. Starkey was embarrassed, too.

  “I’m not very good at girl talk. I’m sorry.”

  They lapsed into silence then, each of them lost in her own thoughts as they followed the freeway down from the mountains into the great Central Valley. When Bakersfield appeared on the flat, empty plain, Marzik finally spoke again.

  “I didn’t mean that about my kids.”

  “I know.”

  They left the freeway a short time later, following directions that Estelle Reager had given until they came to a prewar stucco home between the railroad transfer station south of Bakersfield, and the airport. Mrs. Reager answered the door wearing jeans, a checked shirt, and work gloves. She bore the lined, leathery skin of a woman who had spent much of her life in the sun. Starkey guessed that Mueller had come in like a cowboy, thinking he could ride roughshod over the old woman, who had gotten her back up. Once up, she would be hard to win over.

  Starkey introduced herself and Marzik.

  Reager eyed them.

  “A couple of women, huh? I guess none of the lazy men down there wanted to drive up.”

  Marzik laughed. When Starkey saw the twinkle that came to Estelle Reager’s eye, she knew they were home free.

  Mrs. Reager showed them through the house and out the back door to a small patio covered by a translucent green awning. The awning caught the sun, washing everything with a green glow. The driveway ran along the side of the house to a garage, behind which sat a small, neat guest house. A well-maintained vegetable garden filled the length of the yard between the patio and the guest house.

  “We appreciate your seeing us like this, Mrs. Reager.”

  “Well, I’m happy to help. I don’t know what I can tell you, though. Nothing I ain’t already said before.”

  Marzik went to the edge of the patio to look at the guest house.

  “Is that where he lived?”

  “Oh, yes. He lived there for four years, and you couldn’t ask for a better young man. I guess that sounds strange, considering what we know about him now, but Dallas was always very considerate and paid his rent on time.”

  “It looks empty. Is anyone living there now?”

  “I had a young man last year, but he married a teacher and they needed a bigger place. It’s so hard to find quality people in this price range, you know. May I ask what it is you’re hoping to find?”

  Starkey explained her belief that Tennant still had a store of bomb components.

  “Well, you won’t find anything like that here. The police searched high and low, let me tell you that. They were all in my garden. I was happy to help, but they weren’t very nice about it.”

  Starkey knew that her guess about Mueller had been right.

  “If you want to look through his things, you can help yourself. They’re all right there in the garage.”

  Marzik turned back, glancing at Starkey.

  “You’ve still got Tennant’s things?”

  “Well, he asked me to keep them, you know, since he was in jail.”

  Starkey looked at the garage, then at Mrs. Reager.

  “These were things that were here when the police searched?”

  “Oh, yes. I got’m in the garage, if you want to look.”

  She explained that Tennant had continued to pay rent on his guest house for the first year that he was in prison, but that he had finally written to her, apologizing that he would have to stop and asked if she would be willing to store his things. There weren’t very many. Only a few boxes.

  Starkey asked the older woman to excuse them, and walked with Marzik to the garage.

  “If she says we can go into the garage, we’re okay with that because it’s her property. But if we go into his boxes and find anything, we could have a problem with that.”

  “You think we need a search warrant?”

  “Of course we need a search warrant.”

  They would need a search warrant, but they were also out of their operating area, Los Angeles police in the city of Bakersfield. The easist thing to do would be to call Mueller and have him come out with a request for a telephonic warrant.

  Starkey went back to Mrs. Reager.

  “Mrs. Reager, I want to be clear on something. These things in your garage, they are things that the police have already looked at?”

  “Well, they were in the guest house when the police came. I would guess they looked.”

  “All right. Now, you said that Tennant asked you to store his things. Did you pack them?”

  “That’s right. He didn’t have very much, just clothes and some of those adult movies. I didn’t pack those. I threw them away when I found them. The furniture was mine. I rented it furnished in those days.”

  Starkey decided that there was nothing to be gained by searching the boxes. Her real hope was in identifying people with whom Tennant might have stored his c
omponents well before the time of his arrest.

  “Did you know any of his friends or acquaintances?”

  “No one ever came here, if that’s what you’re asking. Well, I take that back. One young man did come by a few times, but that was long before Dallas was arrested. They worked together, I think. At that hobby shop.”

  “How long before?”

  “Oh, a long time. At least a year. I think they were watching those movies, you know?”

  Marzik took out the three suspect sketches.

  “Do any of these look like the man?”

  “Oh, Lord, that was so long ago and I didn’t pay attention. I don’t think so.”

  Starkey let it go, thinking that she was probably right.

  Marzik said, “That was Tennant’s only job, the hobby shop?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Did he have any girlfriends?”

  “No. None that I knew.”

  “What about family?”

  “Well, all I knew of was his mother. I know she died, though. Tennant came into my house and told me that. He was heartbroken, you know. We had coffee, and the poor boy just cried.”

  Starkey wasn’t thinking about the mother. Something about the boxes bothered her.

  “Tennant continued paying rent to you for a year, even after he was in prison?”

  “That’s right. He thought he might be released, you know, and wanted to come back. He didn’t want me to rent the house to anyone else.”

  Marzik raised her eyebrows.

  “Imagine that. Is anyone renting it from you now?”

  “No. I haven’t had a guest in there since my last young man.”

  Starkey glanced over, and Marzik nodded. They were both thinking the same thing, wondering why Tennant didn’t want to give up his apartment even when he had no use for it. If Tennant wasn’t paying rent now and wasn’t the occupant of record, they could legally enter and search the premises with the owner’s permission.

  “Mrs. Reager, would you give us permission to look inside?”

  “I don’t know why not.”

  The guest house was musty and hot, revealing one large main room, a kitchenette, bath, and bedroom. The furniture had long since been removed, except for a simple dinette table and chairs. The linoleum floor was discolored and dingy. Starkey couldn’t remember the last time she had seen linoleum. Mrs. Reager stood in the open door, explaining that her husband had used the building as an office, while Starkey and Marzik went through the rooms, checking the flooring and baseboards for secret cubbyholes.

  Mrs. Reager watched with mild amusement.

  “You think he had a secret hiding place?”

  “It’s been known to happen.”

  “Those police who were here, they looked for that, too. They tried looking under the floor, but we’re on a slab. There’s no attic, either.”

  After ten minutes of poking and prodding, both Starkey and Marzik agreed that there was nothing to find. Starkey felt disappointed. It looked as if the drive up to Bakersfield was a waste, and her trail backwards to the RDX was at an end.

  Marzik said, “You know, this is a pretty nice guest house, Mrs. Reager. You think I could send my two kids up here to live with you? We could put iron bars on the windows.”

  The older woman laughed.

  Starkey said, “Beth, can you think of anything else?”

  Marzik shook her head. They had covered everything.

  Something about Tennant continuing to pay rent still bothered Starkey, but she couldn’t decide what. After thanking Mrs. Reager for her cooperation, Starkey and Marzik were walking through the gate when it came to her. She stopped at the gate.

  Marzik said, “What?”

  “Here’s a guy who worked at a hobby shop. He couldn’t have made very much money. How do you figure he could afford paying rent while he was in prison?”

  They went back around the side of the house to the back door. When Mrs. Reager reappeared, they asked her that question.

  “Well, I don’t know. His mother died just the year before all that mess came up. Maybe he got a little money.”

  Starkey and Marzik went back to their car. Starkey started the engine, letting the air conditioner blow. She recalled that Mueller had noted that Tennant’s parents were deceased, but nothing more had been written about it.

  “Well, that was a bust.”

  “I don’t know. I’m having a thought here, Beth.”

  “Uh-oh. Everyone stand back.”

  “No, listen. When Tennant’s mother died, he could have inherited property, or used some of the money to rent another place.”

  “When my mother died, I didn’t get shit.”

  “That’s you, but say Tennant got something. I’ll bet you ten dollars that Mueller didn’t run a title search.”

  It would take a day or two to run the title check, but they could have a city prosecutor arrange it through the Bakersfield district attorney’s office. If something was identified, Bakersfield would handle the warrant.

  Starkey felt better as they drove back to Los Angeles, believing that she had something that kept her investigation alive. The A-chief had told her to keep the case moving forward; now, if Kelso asked, she could point to a direction. If she and Pell could turn a second lead through Claudius, fine, but now they didn’t need it.

  By the time they reached Spring Street, Starkey had decided to call Pell. She told herself that it was because she had to arrange a time for visiting Claudius tonight, but she finally realized that she wanted to apologize for the way she had acted last night. Then she thought, no, she didn’t want to apologize, she wanted another chance to show him that she was human. Another chance at a life. Maybe talking with Marzik had helped, even though they had mostly talked about Marzik.

  Starkey saw the manila envelope waiting on her desk all the way from the door. It was like a beacon there, hooking her eye and pulling her toward it. Giant letters on the mailing label read KROK-TV.

  Starkey felt her stomach knot. She could tell by the way the envelope bulged that it was a videocassette. After ordering it, she had put it out of her mind. She had refused to think of it. Now, here it was.

  Starkey tore open the envelope and lifted out the cassette. A date was written on the label. Nothing else, just the date three years ago on which she died. The noise of her breathing was loud and rasping, her skin cold, and getting colder.

  “Carol?”

  It took her forever to look over.

  Marzik was next to her, her expression awkward. She must have seen the date, recognized it.

  “Is that what I think it is?”

  Starkey would have spoken, but couldn’t find her voice.

  “What are you going to do with it?”

  Her voice came from a million miles away.

  “I’m going to watch it.”

  Marzik touched her arm.

  “Do you want someone with you?”

  Starkey couldn’t take her eyes from the cassette.

  “No.”

  * * *

  Driving home from Spring Street, the tape was a presence in Starkey’s car. It sat on the passenger seat like a body brought back from the dead, breathing so deeply to fill long-empty lungs that it threatened to draw all the air from the car and suffocate her. When traffic forced her to stop, she looked at it. The tape seemed to be looking back. She covered it with her briefcase.

  Starkey did not drive directly home. She stopped at a coffee shop, bought a large black coffee, and drank it leaning on a little counter that looked out toward the street. Her neck and shoulders were wound tight as metal bands; her head ached so badly that her eyes felt as if they were being crushed. She thought about the bad stools at Barrigan’s and how a double gin would ease the pressure on her eyes, but she refused to do that. She told herself no; she would see this tape sober. She would witness the events of that moment and her final time with Sugar Boudreaux sober. No matter how terribly it hurt, or how difficult it was. She was sober o
n that day. She would be sober now.

  Starkey decided that the way to play it was not to race home and throw herself into the tape, but to act as if her life were normal. She would pace herself. She would be a mechanical woman feeling mechanical emotions. She was an investigator; this was the investigation of herself. She was a police detective; you do your job, leave it at the office, go home and live your life.

  Starkey stopped at the Ralphs market. There was no food in the house, so she decided this was the time to stock up. She pushed the buggy up and down the aisles, filling it with things she had never eaten and probably would never eat. Canned salmon. Creamed corn. Brussels sprouts. Standing in the check-out line, she lost her appetite, but bought the food anyway. What in hell would she do with creamed corn?

  Starkey fought an overpowering urge for a drink as soon as she stepped through the door. She told herself it was a habit, a learned pattern. You get home, you have a drink. In her case, several.

  She said, “After.”

  Starkey brought her briefcase and three bags of groceries into the kitchen. She noticed that there were two messages on her answering machine. The first was from Pell, asking why he hadn’t heard from her and leaving his pager number. She shut him out of her thoughts; she couldn’t have him there now. The second call was from Marzik.

  “Ah, Carol, it’s me. Listen, ah, I was just, ah, calling to see if you were okay. Well. Okay. Ah, see ya.”

  Starkey listened to it twice, deeply moved. She and Beth Marzik had never been friends, or even had much to do with each other in a personal way. She thought that she might phone Marzik later and thank her. After.

  Starkey set the cassette on the kitchen table, then went about putting away the groceries. She had a glass of water, eyeing the cassette as she drank, then washed the glass and put it on the counter. When the last of the groceries were away, she picked up the cassette, brought it into the living room, and put it into her VCR. Marzik’s offer to be with her flashed through her head. She reconsidered, but knew this was just another ploy to avoid watching the tape.

  She pressed the “play” button.

  Color bars appeared on the screen.

  Starkey sat cross-legged on the floor in front of her television. She was still wearing her suit; hadn’t taken off the jacket or removed her shoes. Starkey had no recollection of when KROK arrived on the scene; when they had started taping or for how long. They might have gotten everything or they might only have the end. She recalled that the cameraman had been on top of their van. That was all. The camera was on top of the van and had a view of everything.