Chapter 35
35
P reviously on Things told from Elena’s POV , Fred was trying to get me inside his car and probably make me disappear.
“I really need the exercise,” I said as I yanked my arm out of Fred’s hand and kept walking away from him at a brisk pace that had me almost panting. “My cardio fitness is ridiculous for my age. I’m turning thirty-five in a couple of months.” I kept babbling while putting distance between me and Fred. “And I have decided to start with the good intentions and resolutions early for a change.”
Everyone who knew me even a little could tell those were a bunch of lies. Elena Freire Valls had never started something early in her life. But it got me thinking about my thirty-fifth birthday because I was starting to doubt I was going to see my mom’s sour face that day. She’s disappointed in everything I haven’t achieved at my age and makes sure I’m aware of it every single year.
I became conscious of the fact that this year I wouldn’t get the talk about my successless, childless, marriedless, awardless, and overall unsatisfactory state from my mother. Not because I didn’t deserve it, in her opinion, but because I wouldn’t be alive. My anxiety grew as fear took hold.
Fred had switched techniques and no longer tried convincing me to get in the car with him. He’d jumped into his battered Toyota Prius and was now speeding in my direction. Even without my eternally neglected glasses on, I could see the rage and determination in his face.
This was my second day in a row being thrown in the path of danger, so this time I managed to ask myself the pertinent question a lot faster even if I was in a state of growing panic. It seemed I always asked myself What would Tom Cruise do? to reach the same conclusion: RUN. So, I did. If only I’d put even an infinitesimal amount of effort in my training of what Tom put in his, maybe I wouldn’t be so slow.
I could hear the Prius getting closer and closer but didn’t look behind me and kept running. I was heading for the trail again where the car would not be able to follow and run me over. I felt like Cary Grant in the most adrenaline-fueled scene of North by Northwest , only convinced that I wouldn’t find a way to get my pursuer to crash against something and take himself out of my way like Grant does in the Hitchcock flick. And then I heard the loud clash, realized I was in one piece and not hurt at all, and I finally allowed myself to turn.
I recognized my sister’s car right away. She has a pastel-blue custom-painted electric SUV. I can’t stress enough how unmissable it is. It had bumped into Fred’s Toyota on the passenger side. I started running to my sister to make sure she was okay when I heard police sirens in the not-so-far distance.
“Elena!” I heard yells coming from my sister’s car. “Are you okay?”
“Of course I’m okay, are you okay?” I helped her open the door and get out of the car. She gave me a big hug and nodded. She was garbed in bright-pink Disney-princess pajamas and Koala-shaped slippers.
“How did you know?” I managed to say, still confused and enveloped in a sea of sweetness.
“David,” my sister answered, and I think both of us were a bit shocked. But she was pointing to the passenger side of her car.
I didn’t let go of my sister, grabbing her hand and running to the other side of her car. I’ve been told I was yelling David’s name by then, but given my tendency to remain cool as a cucumber in all situations, I think that’s highly improbable and a total fabrication.
David, thank goodness, was completely unscathed and was just now getting out of the car. He’d been trying to recover from an acute case of car sickness. Marta’s aggressive driving can make even the most immune-to-car-sickness passengers feel queasy. And I could only imagine that must have been a bumpy ride.
“Are you both okay?” he asked me and my sister. His golden skin looked grayish, and he was unbalanced, keeping a hand on the car door. I tackled him in a hug and buried my face in his chest, inhaling his smell shamelessly.
“?Habéis hecho las paces, entonces?” My sister wanted to know if we had reconciled, and that brought me back to reality. I was still holding one of her hands and pretty much the whole of David’s body.
“Have we?” David asked me, tentatively.
“I cannot be mad right now, but we still need to have a long chat,” I said, looking at him.
By then, the police had made it to the crash area and some uniformed officers approached us. I recognized Detectives Clooney and Moreno between the agents. They didn’t care as much for us and went straight to the Toyota Prius.
“Shoot! What happened to Fred?” I asked.
“I’m sure he’s okay,” my sister said. “I didn’t even hit him so hard!”
“But he didn’t flee, right?” I asked. We’d been so distracted making sure we were unhurt, we hadn’t paid any attention to Fred. I now realized the driver’s door on his car was open. “Detective Clooney, that’s the guy who killed Dashing Henry!” I yelled, pointing to Fred in sudden anguish. He was running toward the trail and making good progress.
“Rooney,” both my sister and David whispered.
“Oh, I don’t care!” And I really didn’t.
Detective Moreno ran after Fred with a cadence and graceful style that made me realize she probably was more of a runner than I had ever suspected. A few of the uniformed officers followed her closely. Detective Clooney seemed to think about it and decided there were already too many people getting sweaty. He came toward us instead.
“You again, I see,” he said, referring to me and David. “And this would be...?” he addressed my sister.
“Marta Freire Valls,” she said, and she sounded like a total boss. “I’ll be representing Ms. Elena Freire Valls and Mr. David Ramos until their other attorney gets here. He’s on his way.” She was typing on her oversized phone and not missing anything.
“I see. You really like your lawyers in the family, huh?” Clooney asked.
“We do,” I said, and I would have smiled but I was too worried about something else. “Fred is escaping!”
“Don’t worry. Detective Moreno is into trail running and that sort of thing. No one outruns her,” Clooney said, but I wasn’t convinced. “We’ll be able to wrap this up and arrest him shortly.”
“You got my message, then,” David told Clooney.
“We did. We’ll still need to talk to you, but you’re suddenly looking a bit less suspicious. Now, can you tell me what happened here?”
Marta signaled to David and me to shut up, and we acquiesced.
“A bit after 7 a.m., Mr. Ramos, while pursuing his professional investigation of Mr. Dashing Henry’s murder, found a piece of evidence that linked Fred Appleton to the scene of Henry’s death,” Marta explained.
“What evidence?” Clooney asked. He was taking notes.
“You saw the sticker, right?” I intervened, asking David. That’s how I’d figured out Fred’s involvement.
“What sticker?” David’s brows drew together.
“The Procedural Writers Association of America sticker that Fred has on his car. The first time I saw the Prius on CCTV, I thought the sticker was a red star over a green background, then I realized it’s the ugly-ass logo of the association. It’s not a star but a quill and inkwell,” I explained.
“As usual, you lost me,” David said. My sister and Clooney seemed to be following our conversation as if it was the most engrossing tennis match.
“This isn’t even a pop culture reference. The only reason I know the fucking logo is because I’m a member of the Procedural Writers Association,” I added.
“I know you’re a member, but no. I hadn’t realized about the sticker or logo or whatever,” David said. He was starting to get his natural glow back but still looked a bit ashen.
“Then how did you figure it out?”
“With the CCTV from the parking area, but the one from the camera you noticed at the garage.” David didn’t mention that we were breaking into Henry’s car when I saw that particular camera. “We hadn’t fully watched all the footage the first time, but I did it this morning and recognized Fred Appleton at the parking area of the Eastern Columbia.”
“You recognized him?” I asked, confused. He wouldn’t be able to tell Ryan Gosling from Ryan Reynolds, or Chris Pine from any of the other Hollywood Chrises. Hell, David wouldn’t even know how many Hollywood Chrises there were or that they were a thing. And he recognized a showrunner?
“He was your boss,” he said. And that explained it. It also told me that even if I had been convinced he didn’t pay any attention to anything Hollywood related, he did when it came to my career. Because he cared.
“What I don’t understand,” my sister started telling Detective Clooney while David and I were still having a moment, “is how my client was able to find a crucial piece of evidence for this investigation that puts Fred Appleton at the scene of the crime while you couldn’t and actually, in fact, were about to arrest Mr. Ramos.”
“We never saw that particular CCTV footage, the one where you see Fred Appleton. We’d seen the ugly-ass sticker and were wondering what it was. In fact, we’ll need your client to surrender the CCTV with Appleton in it,” Clooney said, defensive. “How the hell did you get it?” he asked David.
“From the security guys at my building,” David explained. “They told me the police had also been there and they’d also requested the videos.”
“We did,” Clooney said. “We watched everything. There’s no Fred Appleton anywhere.”
“Even in the video from the camera pointing toward the elevator?” David asked.
“I don’t think we got that video,” Clooney admitted. “And we were told we’d been given everything .”
“I think the guys told me they’d just installed that camera a few days ago. They must have forgotten about it,” David said.
David had probably gone out of his way to be extra nice to the security team working at the Eastern Columbia. And the fact that I had seen that camera and he was able to ask specifically about it had gotten us more CCTV material than the cops.
“My client will share the extra CCTV material with you,” my sister said.
“Will he now?” Clooney said. “Will he also share how one of my partner’s informants brought us Henry’s stolen Patek Philippe today?”
Both me and my sister looked at David with extra curiosity.
“I would advise my client not to make any statement about that particular subject until his whole legal team is able to confer with him,” Marta finally said.
“I see.” Clooney chuckled. “Have your client and the whole legal team drop by the station in an hour, will you? For now, care to finish telling me what happened here?” Clooney pointed to the car crash.
I cleared my throat. “I was summoned to a 7 a.m. walking meeting with Fred Appleton. He angered the hell out of me, and I had a sort of epiphany to start saying no and speaking my mind more often, not that’s relevant to you or anything. I also deceived Fred into believing that I was close to uncovering Henry’s killer. When we said goodbye, he tried running me over with his car. My sister appeared out of nowhere and stopped him,” I summarized. “How did you find me?” I asked David and Marta.
“We read the messages you wrote to Marta and then stalked your location,” David explained.
“Stalked my location?” I asked, confused.
“Remember how I set a system with the Find My thingy on iPhone for the whole family to see where the others were?” Marta said matter-of-factly.
“You mean all this time, Mamá has been able to follow my every move?” I asked in panic.
“Seriously, Elena. We save your life, and all you can think about is Mamá finding your whereabouts.” Marta shook her head.
Clooney seemed to agree with my sister. He was chuckling when he decided it would be better if I joined David at the police station for further questioning.
···
After dealing with the car insurance and the tow truck that would take care of Marta’s car and dropping by my parents’ house for a quick pit stop so my sister could change out of her pajamas and into a three-piece pinstripe suit, we were all aboard my dad’s vehicle en route to the police station.
David and I were in the rear seats while my dad and Marta were going over the legal strategy in the front of the car.
“There’s something I still don’t understand,” I told David in an almost whisper as I hoped my family/legal team wouldn’t hear us. “I met the Hot Neighbor.”
David gave me a blank stare.
“Andrew,” I explained.
“Who’s Andrew?” David asked, still not seeming to understand.
“Our neighbor from 10D. Didn’t you see him the night of the murder?”
David shrugged. “We never talked. No idea he was called Andrew.”
“Then how come he said he’d met my boyfriend?” I prodded. I knew David wasn’t responsible for Henry’s death, but I needed to know what had happened there. Had he knowingly lied to the police in an attempt to have more of an alibi, or was he simply confused about his recollections?
“Technically,” David said with a smoldering face, “I’m not your boyfriend. Victor is.”
Oh my god. Of course! Andrew had met Victor. He’d come to my place the previous week to drop off some hideous clothes my mother wanted me to try on. I’d dismissed them only by looking at them but had kept them somewhere anyway. And Victor had probably met the Hot Neighbor on his way out. I had just assumed that, since David was the most agreeable and sociable person—always willing to meet new neighbors—and Victor was eternally buried in his cell phone, it was David who had chatted Andrew up, not the other way around. But David hadn’t said a word to the Hot Neighbor when he saw him the night of the murder, and Andrew had probably already forgotten about him, while Victor seemed to have chatted the Hot Neighbor up and made an impression. Also, David was right. Technically, Victor had been my boyfriend. But by then I knew why I had decided to understand something else entirely.
“He’s no longer my boyfriend,” I said. “Technically or otherwise.”
…
We were once again seated in the interrogation room in urgent need of a paint job and some redecorating. Only now it was four of us on one side of the table, as my sister was helping my dad in our representation, and only Clooney sat in front of us.
“Is Detective Moreno still chasing Fred?” I asked. After my former boss had tried running me over, I wanted him behind bars pronto .
“I heard an arrest is imminent. The sucker has managed to outrun us as apparently he knows the geography of Griffith Park pretty well,” Clooney offered.
I decided that, for once, I should trust the professionals even if I still felt uneasy about the whole situation and Fred being at large.
“You’ll be glad to know we found marks and scratches on Fred Appleton’s car consistent with the hits on Dashing Henry’s body,” the cop started.
“So you’re prepared to charge him with the murder of Henry and drop our clients from this investigation,” Marta said. She was looking quite smart in black-rimmed glasses, and it appeared my dad would assist her and not the other way around.
“There’s still the matter of the watch,” Clooney said.
“What about it?” Marta asked.
“We’d like to know how it came into our possession. As I mentioned before, an informant delivered it to us this morning, but we believe the informant may also be one of Mr. Ramos’s sources. We think it was him who gave it to the informant and would love to know how that happened.”
“I think you better stop speculating and start investigating,” Marta concluded.
“I see,” Clooney said. “Both your clients should be more cooperative. We still have video evidence of them breaking into Henry’s car.”
“It is our understanding that the video shows two individuals garbed in white jumpsuits, wearing face masks and hoodies. How are you able to identify my clients?”
Clooney clasped his hands on the table. “The individuals in the video match their height and build.”
“That hardly narrows it down,” Marta said. “Both my clients are quite common in that regard.”
Ouch! Even if being a common height and build was perfectly okay and convenient at the moment, I still almost got offended.
“Let me just tell your very common clients,” Clooney said, and I didn’t appreciate the tone, “that if they decide to share whatever they could have found inside Henry’s car, if they were indeed the ones breaking into it, we wouldn’t be pressing any charges. But they only have twenty-four hours to come to their senses about it.”