Day 92
Day Ninety-Two
Lally peered at the house, seeing it perhaps for the very first time.
On the few occasions she had visited before, it had been Norman and Jesse’s, no other context was needed.
All the house’s details were blurred around the defining presence of them in it.
Like visiting a childhood home as an adult.
Were those power lines always there, so close to the bathroom window?
Was my bedroom really this small? Did the roof always sag?
It existed not as a collection of walls with defining characteristics of its own, although to the sister of an architect it probably should.
It was its own little universe created only to house her family.
In truth, despite Norman’s discourse on the subject, she was never that interested in the house itself and never much understood their move to the desert—who would leave the beach for sand with no ocean? What interested Lally was the feeling of home.
Staring at it through the windshield of Harlan’s Impala, parked down the block so as not to be seen, and empty as it was of her brother, the place—architecturally marvelous though it was—looked rather desolate.
Sad. Joshua Tree was so different from Venice.
The wind had kicked up enough grit and sand to mute the blue of the sky.
Or maybe it was Harlan’s car that was in desperate need of a wash, but both things could be true.
She could understand why Jesse might want a pool, his sudden interest in digging.
Was that why there was so much dirt in the air?
Everything here felt so dry. Her contacts bothering her, Lally continually rubbed her eyes.
“What?” Harlan asked.
Lally turned to him, confused.
“You keep rubbing your eyes.”
Why can’t they just make windshields in my prescription? Lally pondered. That way she could ditch her lenses altogether. “It’s my—” She stopped herself before saying contacts, as if imperfect eyesight made her less desirable. “Allergies. All of this wind isn’t helping.”
Harlan leaned over the steering wheel and looked up at the browning sky. “Unusual. It’s not even the windy season.” The Impala’s windows were already sealed tight, but he closed the air vents so nothing agitating could get in. Only a real gentleman would think of that. “Does this make you nervous?”
You closing the vents? Lally wondered.
She must have made a face, because he sharpened his inquiry. “Being on stakeout. They put some clients on edge.”
“I asked to come,” Lally reminded him, and she had.
In fact, she was beginning to wonder if her need to play spy had overtaken her need to find Norman.
And she knew it wasn’t that exactly. The work of a spy was considerably less glamorous than in old black-and-white movies.
There was very little slinking around in dark corners, and she didn’t even own a trench coat.
(Although for the first time in her life she thought about buying one; she even stopped at the outlets in Cabazon.) It was that she was searching for a man, and here she had found one.
It wasn’t the one she was looking for—namely, her brother—but she had come to enjoy Harlan Faulkner’s company.
Eventually she would no longer be able to pay his retainer, but she could for a little bit longer and she was not ready to be left with no man at all.
“You’re not nervous?”
“Instead of a nervous system, I have a super-chill system.”
Harlan laughed. “I meant about what we might find.”
Lally folded her hands in her lap, fidgeting a good while before answering. “I lost a brother once. I know what that feels like. This does not feel like that.”
Harlan touched her arm, starting to speak twice before he managed actual words. “You lost a brother? Another brother? Is this something I should know about?”
Lally shook her head no before he could think of her as some sibling black widow.
Harlan must have felt her tense up. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to pry. It’s just recognizing patterns can be an important part of what I do.”
“Childhood accident,” Lally blurted, turning away from him so he could not witness any more pain.
“I promise they’re unrelated.” That last statement might be a lie.
Perhaps they were related. Grief has a funny way of finding you, announcing itself, even many years later when you think you’ve outrun it.
She wasn’t nervous that their investigation would result in their stumbling upon Norman’s corpse.
But she did worry that Norman was hurting.
And that he was out there alone when he needn’t be.
But maybe she should be nervous. “I keep coming back to these missing people. You talk about patterns. What do they all have in common?” She imagined pain at the top of an imagined list.
Harlan narrowed his eyes, like he was supposed to get something that he clearly wasn’t. She hadn’t told him the degree to which she’d been playing detective on her own. And then it dawned on him. “They all went missing after Jesse moved to the desert. He’s the common denominator.”
Lally chewed on that, not wanting to believe what she thought he might be insinuating. “What are you saying?”
“What if Jesse is a serial killer?”
Lally snickered and then covered her mouth when it became clear Harlan was only half joking.
“Keep in mind, it’s really difficult to be a serial killer these days. Cell phone data, DNA. It’s not like it was in the heyday.”
“The good old days of serial killing,” Lally chuckled. “Well, Jesse has always excelled. If anyone could thrive in the current environment…”
Harlan smirked. “Of course, I’d be remiss not to point out that they all went missing after Norman moved to the desert, too. Maybe he’s the serial killer.”
“Are you forgetting he’s also missing? He’s a victim, if anything.”
Harlan didn’t see it as that open and shut. “Serial killers go on the run. Besides, it’d be a pretty good cover. A victim is also the killer.”
Lally sighed; it was too much like the plot of an old dime novel, the kind people used to leave behind on airplanes. “I shouldn’t have to point this out, but Norman is not the one currently digging a giant hole in his backyard.”
Harlan had to concede this was true.
They were scraping the bottom of the barrel.
Harlan had already checked Norman’s cell records, thanks to a friend at Verizon.
There’d been no calls since late August and his phone last pinged at the house.
Lally didn’t know his credit card numbers or even which bank her brother used.
Bank statements would be harder to obtain without police involvement, Harlan had informed her, and Lally was adamant she was not yet ready for that yet.
She worried about Harlan’s interest waning, especially if she was going to keep his hands bound.
What choice did she have but to imagine Jesse a serial killer?
“There he is! There he is! Look, look, look!” Lally dropped as low as she could, her head dangerously close to Harlan’s lap. She yanked on his collar to pull him out of view, but he protested.
“It’s fine. He’s not looking.”
“What if he comes this way?”
Harlan tracked Jesse’s movements carefully before sounding the all clear. “He’s just getting the mail.”
Lally peered over the dash and sure enough, Jesse was elbow-deep in the mailbox. He was shirtless, dirty. Thinner than she remembered him being. Tanner, too. Although maybe that was the dirt. “He looks skinny,” she said, concerned.
That, apparently, was not what Harlan was expecting her to say. “Skinny?”
“Like maybe he’s not eating.”
“His victims?”
Lally slapped Harlan’s arm. “And, oh my god. Is that a dog?” A majestic shepherd-looking dog followed Jesse back up the drive. “When did he get a dog?”
Harlan shrugged. “I guess one of the days I was not here.”
“It’s so big,” she marveled. Years ago, when they still lived in Venice, Jesse and Norman had discussed getting a pet, but she pictured them with a cat—or something small like a bichon frise.
As Lally resettled herself in the passenger seat she wondered how she could think him a deranged killer one moment and imagine him tenderly caring for a dog the next.
“My heart is racing,” she said, and she pushed her right fingers between the buttons of her blouse.
“Feel that.” She used her free hand to place Harlan’s on her chest. He indulged her before growing self-conscious and turning away.
“I thought you had a super-chill system?”
“I lied.” Lally looked at him, concerned for his gullibility. “What if he saw us? That would really put a damper on his pool.”
Harlan shook his head. Apparently he was also worried about hers.
“You have to trust me. He’s digging a pool.
” Jesse had always been attracted to water.
He was raised in Santa Barbara, for god’s sake.
It was the only explanation that made sense.
Wherever Norman was, it was not rolled up in an old rug ready to be buried in the yard.
“I’m telling you. Is it so hard to believe? ”
“The Nutty Professor?” Harlan asked in disbelief. Lally hated herself for it, but she laughed, too. “It would take him a thousand years to dig a swimming pool.”