Writing on the Wall Read online

  “Oh, it’s lovely. Everyone has been very welcoming.” She was looking at the fireplace, as though all of a sudden she’d realized it was there and wanted to study it. Del looked there, too.

  You knew she got beat up, she told herself. There’s no reason to freak over a black eye. You knew it was there. Still, knowing and seeing are two different things, and she fought hard to control the rage that surged through her when she saw that particular black eye. She took a deep breath and forced an easy smile.

  “Thanks for being so hospitable. I don’t like imposing on people.”

  “It’s no imposition. I’m glad for the company.” Still staring at the fireplace. She was waiting Del out, counting on Del to have the manners not to comment. No such luck, Lola. I see the dead bodies of the women whose family and friends have the good manners not to comment on their black eyes and broken arms and bruised ribs. She pointed at her own eye.

  “Looks like it hurts.”

  “Oh.” Lola coughed out an awkward laugh and shook her head. “No, it’s nothing.”

  Del waited her out. They were so close that she could almost hear Lola’s thrumming heartbeat. She again imagined her as a little bird, but this time she was trapped and beating her wings against the bars of a cage. It was a disturbing image, and Del closed her eyes as though to block it out. Then she felt movement next to her. Lola was getting up. She’s flying away. The fanciful thought was strangely disconcerting. Lola sat opposite Del again, smoothing her jeans with her hands.

  “Just—I’m pretty clumsy.”

  Yeah, tell me that one. I’ve only heard it about a million times. She watched Lola for a few seconds, giving her a moment to change her mind. But she didn’t. She fussed with the tray of stuff and offered Del the plate of cookies.

  Del took one and shrugged. “Marco came to see me.”

  “Oh.” Lola almost dropped the plate. She set it down with exaggerated care, grimacing, and then smoothed her expression. “I didn’t realize. Yes, well. Marco is so sweet. He and Phil, both. I need to thank them. I guess you heard about last night.”

  Del nodded, waiting. She kept her expression blank and munched her cookie.

  “Sorry for lying to you. I didn’t, it didn’t seem necessary to tell you.”

  “Okay.” Del snagged another cookie. She sort of even wanted one and hoped it would settle her stomach. But mostly it gave her the chance to take her eyes off Lola for a second and let the woman collect herself. It didn’t seem necessary to tell me?

  No, of course not. Because I’ve done a terrible job of making friends with this woman. Because I’m scary. Lola was too scaredy not to be hiding from somebody. And I just looked the other way. Her disgust with herself was a distraction she needed to put aside. She chewed on the cookie and forced it down her throat with a slug of the cooling coffee.

  “Did you really come over here for a friendly face?” Lola’s eyes were on her knees. Del was surprised that Lola had called her on her ruse.

  “Yes. Uh, no.” Del gave a small laugh. “No, but you did make me feel better.”

  Lola’s expression was neutral for a moment, and Del had the sense that she was being evaluated. Lola’s eye signaled that Del had passed inspection. “It’s okay. You’re a police officer. You’re in the habit of trying to help people. And, I guess, lying, sometimes. If that’s what it takes.”

  Del absorbed this. “How did you know?” Marco wouldn’t have said. He knew she preferred her privacy.

  Lola shrugged. “What you do for a living? Everything about you says, cop.”

  What did that mean? Is it obvious to everyone? What does she think of me being a cop? Does it scare her? Or, worse, turn her on? She pushed those thoughts aside. This isn’t about you. It’s about that black eye and the way she’s holding herself like she’s about to splinter into pieces and fall between the floorboards. She shrugged an assent and gave Lola a second to move past that subject.

  “So,” she began, “would you be willing to tell me about last night?”

  “It’s nothing,” Lola protested. “They already took a report. It wasn’t a big deal, really. I kind of overreacted, and that made Marco and Phil overreact, you know, and it was just one of those freak things.” She shrugged, affecting nonchalance, but her eye wouldn’t meet Del’s. She fussed with the coffee things again.

  “Okay.” Del slowed her words and masked her face. As she did so, she again wondered what in her demeanor showed that she was a police officer. Or was Lola just more observant than most? She did seem pretty sharp. Del waited a moment to start speaking.

  “Listen,” she said, softening her tone and her expression deliberately. “Obviously, you don’t have to tell me anything. You’re fine, and the guys called 911, and the guy just ran off. It’s over, nobody died, you know, so it’s cool.”

  She paused to let Lola nod.

  “And, whatever, I’m not going to stick my nose in, okay?”

  “Okay.” But she was still wary. She wasn’t buying it at all.

  “I just—you didn’t know him?”

  “No.” That could be the truth or a lie. It was hard to tell.

  “I just figure if there’s some new bad guy in the neighborhood, it would be good to get rid of him, you know, sooner rather than later. Can you understand that?”

  Another nod. Still wary. Del took a second, almost reluctant to press the subject. That wariness was smart. This was a trap, and they both knew it.

  “Okay. So, the thing is, whoever this guy is, he knows where you live, right?”

  Lola’s nod was almost imperceptible.

  “And that you live alone?”

  Lola’s head tilted.

  Del continued, “Well, no one came out of your house, right? To help you? It was a neighbor who stopped him?”

  Lola nodded fractionally. Her face looked frozen.

  Del almost wanted to stop. She hated to play on Lola’s fears, but she knew that this was necessary. “I’m not trying to scare you,” she insisted, “I just think that a little more conversation about the subject might be useful.”

  She waited a moment and saw Lola consider this. She had assessed correctly. Pushing would make her back away, but gentle persuasion would work.

  “Do you think you could tell me what happened?”

  Perfect! Del thought, waiting for Lola to respond. She felt some relief. She usually didn’t feel guilty for playing a victim to get to the truth. It was for her own good, after all. But it felt dirty, in some weird way, doing it to Lola.

  Lola’s voice was low and conversational. “You’re very good at your job, aren’t you?” She didn’t seem angry or annoyed. She genuinely seemed interested in the answer to the question.

  Del shrugged. Lola was both smarter and tougher than she looked. But not tough or smart enough to stay safe, she reminded herself, eying the way Lola’s hands were fisted, the knuckles white. She was scared, all right. As Del watched, those hands relaxed. The decision had been made, and she would talk. Del let out breath she hadn’t realized she was holding.

  “You’re right, though,” Lola continued slowly. “I would like to know what you think and what you’d recommend.” She met Del’s eyes, tucking her hair behind her ears. “If you don’t mind.”

  Del shook her head, forcing herself not to react to the sight of Lola’s face, bruised along one side from temple to chin and from her hairline almost all the way to the bridge of her nose. Her stomach flipped. The guy had walloped her, and hard. Maybe slammed her head into the stairs or the ground. Had she had a concussion? Her eye was clear now, but it had been almost twenty-four hours. Had he been her lover? Had he been a stalker? She tried to swallow, but her mouth was dry.

  “Well…” Lola chewed her lip. Her eye met Del’s as if in defiance. “I went online. Uh, this is really embarrassing. I don’t know anyone around here very well. I mean, the book club is nice, but— Anyway, I set up a blind date. With a woman. At the coffee shop? The one we meet at, by the park?”

 
; Del nodded, her face blank.

  “So, I went, but the woman wasn’t there. I waited a little while, but I got embarrassed. I felt like everyone knew I’d been stood up.”

  Del nodded her encouragement.

  Lola smoothed her jeans again and shook her head. “Silly. Anyway, I gave up and started walking home, and a man came up beside me. He’d been in the coffee shop, I think. Maybe. Really, I’m not sure. He asked if I was there to meet Joan. And that was the name of the woman online. So I figured it was sort of a bait-and-switch thing.”

  Del nodded, making a sympathetic noise.

  “Like, maybe he was the person online, and it was a setup. So I lied and said no. He was walking next to me, and I was really getting nervous and uncomfortable. He was asking me a bunch of questions. Like, where am I from, and what do I do, stuff like that. He told me I was pretty. He said he liked the way my hair smelled, and I wasn’t sure what he wanted or how to get rid of him. I told him goodbye, and I went into the drugstore, the one on the corner? I figured I could just hang out in there for a while, and he’d give up and go away. Which he did. I mean,” she flushed, “I thought he did. He said goodbye, and he kept walking. And after a few minutes, I went out and looked around and didn’t see him, and I walked home. I didn’t see him at all, and I was definitely looking.”

  Lola stopped, collecting herself. Del could picture it: Lola trotting home, looking around, seeing no one, and gradually relaxing as she got within sight of her house.

  “I got home, and he was just—there. Just like that. He was really mad, and he was yelling, and he grabbed me. I tried to get away, but I couldn’t. He was so...he was strong.”

  Del nodded again. She wanted to interrupt as little as possible and ask questions later. Adrenaline was rushing through her body and putting her on high alert. She masked her building tension as well as she could, but it was hard. Lola’s recounting was designed to minimize, that was obvious. It pinged as a red flag, over and over, and Del struggled to ignore that.

  “So,” Lola continued, “he sort of slapped me, and I fell down. That’s all, really. I mean, he was trying to get me to go inside my house, but I didn’t want to. I, then I heard Phil yelling, and then the man ran away, that way—” she pointed, “and then Marco came over and said he’d called the police.” She paused. “I need to thank them. I didn’t mean to upset them. I mean, it was scary, but it wasn’t a big deal.”

  Yeah, Del thought, nodding as though she agreed. I can see that it wasn’t a big deal at all. That’s why your face is smashed and probably a rib or two. And why you’re shaking like that, and why your eye—the one you can open—looks dead from the soul out. Yeah, he “sort of slapped” you. I definitely buy that. Yup. But she just kept nodding until she knew she could control her voice.

  “A patrol officer came? And took a report?”

  Lola nodded.

  “Could I see it?”

  Lola rose, guarding her torso with an arm, and pulled the limp yellow complainant’s copy of the police report from the top of the nearby bookshelf. Del nodded her thanks and scanned it. It was a brief, unclear, badly misspelled and cursory recounting of events. The guy might just as well have written that some stupid bitch got smacked around, but she probably deserved it, and why can’t I ever get any good calls? He had gotten the date wrong and neglected to take down the names of the witnesses. He’d gotten the address wrong, too. Not that it really mattered. His disdain for the unworthiness of the victim and the call came through even in his sloppy writing. The department was full of smart, dedicated officers who actually cared about doing a good job, so why did Lola have to get the one asshole on patrol that night?

  Nothing would happen as a result of this report. She handed it back to Lola, mentally noting the number. She wanted to have a conversation with Officer Rob Schaeffer. Unofficially, of course. Could be, she thought, she’s minimizing because Schaeffer was a dipshit and humiliated her. Or, she’s hiding something. It was hard to tell which. Probably, it was both.

  She drained her cup. Lola rose to refill it, one arm held against her middle again, and Del considered how to proceed. Carefully, she decided. Lola’s mouth was tight. The pain was getting worse. Definitely bruised ribs. They’d take awhile to heal and hurt like hell until then. She probably had a hell of a headache, too. He’d hit her more than once, and hard. Del was sure of that. Why minimize it? Was it Schaeffer or a secret? Or, she thought, force of habit. If she was used to getting smacked around, she’d be used to hiding it. She was suddenly weary and took a deep breath and forced herself to engage and relax.

  “Can I ask you a few questions?”

  Lola nodded, and Del noted that the wariness still lingered in her eyes. Well, in the eye that could open.

  Del tried to disarm her. “You know, I tried meeting someone online,” she lied, “she turned out to be pretty different in real life, but at least she was a chick.”

  “You think he was the person online?” Lola asked. “Or is that paranoid?”

  Del answered, “I don’t know. It’s a possibility.”

  “Do you think he’ll come back?” Lola leaned forward with her eye pinned on Del’s.

  Del considered. “Maybe.” She was surprised Lola was taking control of the conversation. And glad.

  “I just keep wondering,” Lola sat back and gazed at the painting above the fireplace, an abstract full of reds and golds and greens, “how did he follow me without my knowing it? Did he already know where I live and just beat me here and wait behind the tree or something?”

  Her voice took on the sharp edge of fear. “Has he been watching me? Is he out there,” she gestured wildly with one hand, “right now, watching me?” She shook her head and lowered her hand. “I don’t want to make a bigger deal out of this than it is.”

  Del rubbed her forehead. “You’re sure you don’t know him?”

  “Yes.” It sounded like the truth. Maybe. Though she was still minimizing. Usually people do that when they know who attacked them.

  “But you thought he might have been in the coffee shop?”

  “I don’t know. I’m not sure if I actually saw him or just wondered if he’d been there. I was looking for Joan, not a man.”

  “Okay,” Del continued. “What did he smell like?”

  There was a long pause.

  “Oh.” Lola’s voice was small. There was another long pause. “Clean,” she said. “He smelled like soap and toothpaste and shampoo. And something else. I don’t know how to describe it. Like, plastic or something. I don’t know,” she finished lamely. “I thought you’d ask what he looked like.”

  Del nodded.

  “He was wearing a dark blue, long-sleeved shirt, like a T-shirt. Jeans. Boots. Brown boots with black soles. The clothes were cheap, but the boots were expensive looking.”

  “Good,” Del murmured, nodding.

  “Um, he was really tall, taller than you. Well over six feet. He was in very good shape, I think. He had big muscles, but he wasn’t big overall. His hair was gross, really long, really dark, really dirty looking. Weird, because he smelled so clean. Glasses, the big, old-fashioned kind—um, like Martin Scorsese? Big and black and heavy-looking. Blue eyes. Good skin, kinda tan. Perfect teeth.” Not surprisingly, Lola’s description was significantly more detailed than that in the report, which read, “WM, 6’, avg. bld., dark clothing.” The glasses, the weird hair—a wig, a crude disguise?

  “What did he say?”

  Lola bit her lip. “Well, he didn’t say much other than what I told you at first, but here, in front of the house, he was really, really mad.”

  Del nodded.

  “He said I was a, well, a whore. He said I should have played nice with him instead of trying to hide in the store.” Lola’s voice had dropped to a whisper. “He was trying to pull me up the stairs. I figured he wanted to get me into the house, and I was scared of what would happen. He kept yelling and saying that I was a bitch and a whore.”

  She paused, and Del
saw she was trying to decide whether to open up. She waited, forcing the muscles in her body to relax. This was the moment a good interrogator would either get the truth or not, depending on whether or not she’d built a strong enough rapport with the witness.

  Think about it later, she coached herself. Think about Lola trying not to get dragged up the stairs and into her own house and raped or killed or beaten or tortured. Don’t think about how much you hate this guy. That doesn’t help her. Her face and body were still and looked relaxed, and she was conscious of how naturally she masked her feelings. Was that a good thing, aside from its usefulness on the job? Probably not.

  Lola cleared her throat. “I don’t know if it matters, Del, but I wonder if maybe it could be about my, uh, my book?”

  “Book?” Del was nonplussed.

  “Well, I wrote this book, and it was kind of a little bit controversial. I used a pen name, but maybe he knows it was me.” Lola flushed. “My agent said I might get some hate mail or whatever, but that hasn’t happened. Honestly, not that many people have even read it! This guy, I doubt he has anything to do with that, but I just can’t be sure.” Her next words came in a rush, “Please don’t tell anyone, please? I don’t want people asking me all kinds of questions and, you know, looking at me, and everything.”

  Del frowned. “What book?”

  Lola refused to meet her gaze. “I Thought All Women Were Lesbians. I don’t know if you’ve heard of it.”

  “Oh.” Del sat back. Of course she’d heard of it. Mostly because some Jesus freak was getting famous by ranting on television and radio and online about how this book was the work of the devil. The mysterious author, whom the press had discovered was hiding behind a pen name, was a minion of Satan, a godless whore, a destroyer of families and America and puppies and marriage and whatever.

  Del had heard the story and wondered if the publisher created the whole campaign. Surely book sales were driven by controversy. She leveled her gaze at Lola and tried to keep her face impassive. This was going to be more complicated than she’d thought. Her head was whirling with too many emotions and thoughts. She needed to cool it.