Chapter 35
THIRTY-FIVE
Rikki
“Personality,” the Killer Body theme song, plays as I walk into the chapel for Rochelle’s memorial service with Lucas, our last date, in a way. Two services too close together, but I need to be here, afloat in this sea of grief. I hold on to Lucas as an anchor.
Lucky. That’s what they tell us we are. Lucky that my shoulder is only a dull ache now. Lucky that Lucas didn’t lose a leg when he tried to save my life. Lucky that Earl Homer murdered only two people. Only two.
In the front row of this small chapel, Rochelle’s husband and daughter also hold on to each other.
Blond Elvis, looking like a family member, sobs openly, his arms around both of them.
Outside the chapel, he told me Rochelle’s sister did not choose to attend.
I shudder at how horrible that must be—to have a family member so estranged that not even your death beckons her back.
In the back row, Princess Gabby buries her face in Prince Alain’s shoulder. Seeing the way the Prince holds her—as if she is a precious jewel he’s been allowed to touch—gives me pleasure and just a little envy.
Only Tania Marie, her bodyguard at her side, stands outside the group of mourners, her head held high, dark glasses hiding her eyes.
If we were lucky, those of us who survived that nightmare, Tania Marie was the luck.
Her courageous appeal to Ellen is probably the only reason we’re alive.
I intend to say that, in print. She’s since come forward about recognizing Julie at the clinic.
When reporters asked what she was doing there, Tania Marie said, “Gathering information. It’s a procedure that saves a lot of lives. I decided to go a different route.”
Ellen Homer’s plea of self-defense will be corroborated by all of us who witnessed what happened. She will inherit Julie’s estate, which Bobby Warren has insisted will include the Killer Body trust.
We will never know if Earl Homer’s motives were money, or if he was really trying to protect his daughter’s image. Nor will we know why Julie Larimore, who excelled in so many areas, could not break her ties with her father or with what Ellen called the hole in her life.
Ellen told us later that it was Julie’s idea to buy their former home for their father once he was discharged from the psych ward of the veterans hospital. If Earl Homer was an example of what gets discharged, I’d hate to see what’s still inside.
Lucas recognized him at once as the man who attacked Bobby and him on Catalina Island.
“She said one time that she couldn’t even remember when she ate, let alone what,” Ellen told me, her words coming out in little gasps. “Can you believe that?”
In a voice that didn’t sound any more certain, I told her I could.
“That was the only thing in her life she couldn’t control. She’d come back to us, time and again, and we’d take care of her when it got too bad.”
“You and your father?”
“First me, then us.” She glanced over at my fingers as I tried to scribble down her every word. “Go ahead and write it. Maybe if I’d read about something like this, I would have recognized what was happening in my own family. People need to talk about it.”
“Yes, they do,” I said.
Pete may hate me. Aunt Carey may never speak to me again, but I’m going to have to talk about it, too. As long as I—we—remain silent, the monster that destroyed Julie, Lisa and countless others will continue to claim new victims.
Bobby Warren stands before a tabletop shrine that includes photos of Rochelle and her family, publicity shots and, on the wall behind them, the famous poster that captured her at her most gorgeous, when Rochelle McArthur was the face of the moment.
“Shelly was more than a beautiful woman,” Bobby says in a wavering voice. “She was an intelligent woman, an intelligent person. And she had personality. I’m going to miss her every day of my life.”
The last word ends in a high-pitched wheeze.
He is unable to continue. With shaking hands, he reaches into the pocket of his jacket and brings out something, that, at first, I think is a crucifix.
But as the sunlight reflects from its red-enamel surface, I realize it is the Killer Body pendant, hanging from a silver chain.
Bobby Warren presses it to his lips, then places it on the table, beneath the poster.
An involuntary shudder chills me to the bone. That pendant, that image, is what caused Rochelle’s death, and Julie’s, as well. I look up into Lucas’s eyes, and he squeezes my arm.
“Rochelle would have loved it,” he says. He doesn’t have a clue.
In front of us, Princess Gabby collapses into sobs.
The service has left me drained, with an inner pain greater than the one in my shoulder. There’s nothing more for me in this town. All I can do now is write the story and hope that, in doing so, I can start to heal.
I talked to Aunt Carey again this morning and told her what I learned.
The man who met with Lisa in Los Angeles was Julie Larimore’s trainer, a bodybuilder known as Blond Elvis, who knew about Julie’s weight problem and didn’t think she’d return to Killer Body.
He told Lisa more than he should. He also supplied her with the drugs she used to lose weight.
“He’s lying,” Aunt Carey said. “Lisa would never take drugs. That girl wouldn’t even swallow an aspirin.”
I didn’t try to convince her otherwise, yet when I heard the denial in her voice, I couldn’t help wondering how I was really raised, and if I got out in time.
Maybe I did. I was able to confront Pete at the boxing match that night.
I was able to confront my own knowledge, my own guilt—a guilt so entrenched in the tangled roots of the past that it sometimes forces us to look away from what we know is true.
Here, I’d written articles on the subject, and I couldn’t see it in my own family.
The truth is that my perfect cousin lived like the crystal she collected.
Tap it, and it rings. Tap it too hard, and it shatters.
Damn, will I ever get over that? No, but I will no longer deny it, not to Pete, not to my aunt, not to myself.
Acknowledging it saved two women’s lives, three, if you count me. And I do.
Because I cannot drive yet, Hamilton is coming tomorrow, around noon, he said. I’m ready to go, to leave Killer Body behind. But I’m not ready to leave Lucas.
He asked me to have dinner with him tonight, but I said I have to pack. It’s more than that, of course, and we both know it.
On this late Friday afternoon, perched on the edge of dusk, a teasing breeze stirs the scents of Santa Barbara into a tantalizing aroma.
Soon, the tourists will arrive, and the laid-back city will pose and preen.
The tile rooftops will gleam in the sunlight.
The jacarandas will bloom, and the ocean will whisper its promises to anyone willing to believe.
Instead of returning to my motel, Lucas drives along the beach. He’s taken off his jacket, and his soft, linen shirt drapes across his shoulders.
“A detour,” he says when I question him. “I can’t give you much of a walk along this beach today, but at least we can look at it.”
He stops the car and we get out. I lean against the car’s cool surface, staring out at the ocean.
He moves slowly, trying not to limp, I know, then stands beside me, takes my hand in his. I am reminded that he risked his life for me, and that he’ll always carry the evidence of it in his leg.
“I’m leaving Killer Body.”
That startles me. I look up, see lines around his eyes I haven’t previously noticed. But I also see certainty there, resolve.
“What are you going to do?” I ask.
“That depends.”
“On what?”
“What do you think?”
He’s asking much more, of course. I don’t know how to answer. “What would you do?” I ask. If I weren’t part of the equation. That’s what I mean, what I can’t admit.
“Take some time off. Try to make some of my boat dreams come true.”
“You mean sail to Mexico or Hawaii?”
He gazes out at the blue-green ocean, then back at me. “Probably the South Seas, Tahiti. I crewed there once, and I’d like to do it again, solo. That’s every sailor’s boat dream.”
“Why don’t you, then?” I feel as if I’m tearing the words out of my heart.
“I guess you answered my question.” But he doesn’t look away, his gaze more intense than ever. That he’s not willing to settle for my platitudes makes me even less certain of my decision. “Is it that guy you work for?”
“No.” I don’t think so, but I’m not sure. “It’s too soon.” I can barely hear my own words, not sure, as I speak, that any of this is right, at all. “Too soon after a lot of things, and, yes, Den is one of them.”
“‘Soon’ isn’t a constant state. It can change.”
“Yes, it can.”
“I have something else to discuss with you.” His set expression softens. “Although I know what you’re going to say.”
“What?”
“My last official act on behalf of Killer Body.” He flashes me an indulgent smile, too perfect to matter. “At Bobby W’s request.”
“I’ve got to report what happened, Lucas. I can’t soften any of this.”
“Bobby W knows that. He’s fine with it.” He looks awkward, standing there in his linen shirt and penetrating gaze, like a man about to propose marriage. But that’s not what this is about. This is about endings, not beginnings. This is about cutting one’s losses, as I am trying to do right now.
“What does he want of me?” I ask. “Just say it.”
“He thinks—hell, he wants you to be Killer Body’s new spokesmodel.”
For one moment, I feel a flush of flattery. But only for one moment.
“You can’t be serious.”
“I mean it,” he says, speaking rapidly, as his words register. “Real life. That’s what Bobby W’s decided we’re missing, and I think he’s right.”