“No, but I think you did exactly the right thing by calling your father.”
“Walking in on that detective . . . Guess what my father did? Chartered a plane and flew up to Palo Alto. He looked worried. And that bothers me.”
“He doesn’t get worried too often?”
“Never. He says anxiety is the province of fools.”
I thought: The lack of anxiety is the province of psychopaths. Said, “So you’re alone in the house.”
“Just for a couple of days. I’m used to it, my father travels all the time. And Gisella—the maid—comes every day.”
The phone cut in and out during the last sentence.
“Where are you, Stacy?”
“At the beach, some big parking lot on PCH. I must have driven here from Dad’s office.” She laughed. “Don’t even remember. That’s weird.”
“Which beach? “I said.
“Um, let’s see … There’s a sign over there, says . . . Topanga … Topanga Beach. Kind of pretty out here, Dr. Delaware. Plenty of traffic on the highway, but no one on the sand—except for one guy walking around near the tide line … seems to be looking for something . . . he’s holding some kind of a machine . . . looks like a metal detector… I know this place, you can see it from Dad’s office.”
Her voice had softened, turned dreamy.
“Stay right there, Stacy. I can be there in twenty, twenty-five minutes.”
“There’s no need,” she said. It sounded like a policy statement.
“Humor me, Stacy.”
Silence. Crackle. For a moment I thought I’d lost her. Then: “Sure. Why not? Got nowhere else to go.”
I drove too fast, thinking about Eric. A brilliant, impetuous loner, used to getting his way. The one person who seemed able to elude Richard’s dominance. Working hard at maintaining control, but powerless over what had mattered most: his mother’s survival.
Close to his father, and his father despised Mate, expressed his hatred openly.
Eric. A hiker who disappeared when he wanted to, liked the mountains, knew the terrain. Dark, hidden places, like the dirt road stretch of Mulholland. ,
Impetuous enough to get violent? Smart enough to clean up thoroughly?
How far had filial devotion taken him?
After Joanne’s death, Richard had tried to contact Mate, but the death doctor hadn’t called back. Had Joanne warned Mate about Richard? Knowing Richard would fight her decision—that’s why she’d kept it from him. From her children, as well.
But what if Mate had answered a call from Eric?
Poor, distraught kid wanting to talk about his mother’s final passage. Had there been enough of the physician left in Mate to respond to a cry for help?
Dark BMW parked down the road.
Borrowing Daddy’s car …
I kept racing west on Sunset, turning it over and over. Pure speculation, I’d never breathe a word to Milo or anyone else, but there was nothing that didn’t fit.
A red light at Mandeville Canyon stopped the Seville, but my mind kept revving.
Stacy had offered a sibling’s eloquence: a big brain machine combined with emotional immaturity.
Combined with boiling, adolescent rage. Perfect for the meld of compulsive planning and reckless daring that had transformed the brown van into a charnel house on wheels.
Broken stethoscope . . . Beowulf. Happy Traveling, You Sick Bastard.
Slaying the monster, as if it were just another myth— just another video game.
There was an adolescent feel to the phony book. To sneaking into Mate’s flat and leaving a note. The message itself. Primitive gamesmanship, but backed up by an intellect that was starting to scare the hell out of me.
Where had Eric been last Sunday? The trip from Stanford to L.A. was no big deal, shuttles from San Francisco ran all day. Easy enough for a college student with a credit card. Do your business, jet back to school, show up for class as if nothing had happened.
But now the perfect student had missed a test for the first time. Unable to run from what he’d done? Or had some other stress worked apart the fissures that had spidered their way across the perfect porcelain image of the Doss family?
Richard jetting up to Stanford, leaving Stacy alone, sitting at the beach, oblivious … I sensed she’d always been alone. Squeakless wheel not getting any grease.