Screenplays were everywhere. I logged off.
Mate’s records … Time to give the ever-amiable Alice Zoghbie another try? For all I knew, Haiselden had never had the files, they’d been stored at the pretty little vanilla house on Glenmont.
No reason for her to be any more forthcoming.
Unless I pointed out the discrepancies between Jo-anne’s assisted suicide and Mate’s other travelers. Suggested Mate hadn’t helped Joanne, that Richard had killed Zoghbie’s mentor for nothing—had turned Mate into the sacrificial lamb she’d claimed.
If she knew that already, hearing about Richard’s arrest would have sent her reeling, she might even be contemplating coming forth. If so, maybe I could tip the scales—turn her grief to my advantage.
Manipulative, but she was someone who believed the infirm should be encouraged not to exist.
At worst, she’d slam the door in my face. Nothing lost; as things stood, I was pretty useless.
I made the drive to Glendale in thirty-five minutes. In the morning light, Alice Zoghbie’s house was even cuter, flower beds crayon bright, the copper rooster weather vane vibrating in a breeze I couldn’t feel. The same white Audi sat in the cobblestone driveway. Dust on the windshield.
A bit more humanity on the street this time. An old man sweeping his front porch, a young couple pulling out of their carport.
I tapped the goat’s-head knocker lightly. No answer. My second attempt, more energetic, was also met with silence.
Making my way back to the driveway, I walked past the Audi to a green wooden gate. Bees buzzed, butterflies fluttered. I called out, “Hello?” then Alice Zoghbie’s name, got no reply. Flowers kissed the side of the house. Lights on in the kitchen.
The gate was latched but not locked. I reached around, popped it open, continued along a cobblestone path shaded by the arthritic boughs of an old, scarred sycamore. A small stoop led up to the kitchen door. Four panes of glass gave me something to look through. Lights on, but unoccupied. Dishes in the sink. A carton of milk and half an orange on the counter. The fruit, slightly withered. I knocked. Nothing. Climbing down
the stoop, I moved along the side of the house, peeking in windows, listening. Just the bee buzz.
The backyard was small, charmingly landscaped, with hedges of Italian cypress on two sides that blocked the neighbors’ views, and a tall wooden fence at the back. Victorian lawn furniture, more flower beds. The kind of flowers that bloom in shade. A dark yard, shrouded by a second sycamore, even larger, stout branches supporting a macrame hammock.
Trunk as thick as two people.
Two people propped against the trunk.
The buzzing, louder—not bees, flies, a storm of flies.
Both of the bodies were tied to the tree with thick rope, fastened tight at chest level and around the waist. The hemp was crusted maroon and brown and black.
Barefoot corpses, insects reconnoitering between fingers and toes. The woman slumped to the right. She had on a blue floral housedress with an elastic neckband. The elastic had allowed the garment to be yanked down without ripping, exposing what had once been her breasts. The killer had hiked it above her waist, too, raised her knees, spread her legs. Wounds everywhere, that same red-black splotching her skin and her clothing, running down her thighs, filthying the grass. Her flesh was green-tinged where the blood hadn’t settled.
Triangles sliced into her abdomen, three of them. Her head drooped to her chest, so that I couldn’t see her face. A black gaping necklace was visible along her jawline. A helmet of white hair, sparkling where it wasn’t fly-crowded, said she’d once been Alice Zoghbie.
The man’s khaki shorts had been removed and folded next to his left thigh. His blue polo shirt remained on but had been rolled up to his nipples. Big man, heavy, flabby. Stiff, reddish toupee—a hairpiece I’d seen on TV.
Triangles danced along the swell of Roy Haiselden’s abdomen, too, distorted by his paunch. His head lolled to the right. Toward Alice Zoghbie, as if straining to listen to some secret she was imparting.
Not much remained of his face. His genitals had been removed and placed on the grass between his legs. They’d shriveled and shrunk and bugs congregated there with special enthusiasm.