Johnny Temple - USA Noir - Best of the Akashic Noir Series

“It’s our wedding cake,” I said.

“Yeah, I know what it is. How is it you still have it?”

“You said I could take anything I wanted.”

“What did you do with it for the two months you were in Prague?”

“I got a sentimental streak a mile wide, so sue me.”

She started shaking her head. She shook her head and laughed. Laughing and crying, mascara running. “At first I thought Elaine was the nut job, but it’s you! I didn’t believe her when she said you didn’t even go to Prague. It was impossible. No one is that crazy. She said if I didn’t believe her to check the freezer.”

“Elaine is a nut job,” I said. “She thinks she’s a witch.”

“Stop, Ray, just stop.”

“She wanted to put a spell on you but I wouldn’t let her.”

“You’re out of your mind.”

“The guys broke into my flat when I was out one night with Agnessa,” I said. “You wanted the truth and this is the truth. I’m in love with Agnessa.”

“The girl who lives with her parents and likes stuffed animals?” She put the wedding cake on the table so she could cross her hands over her chest like she does and throw her head back, the better to laugh her guts out. She was lucky I didn’t throttle her right there and then.

I said that I strolled across the Charles Bridge with Agnessa, and admired the astronomical clock with Agnessa, and that Agnessa’s family actually owned the Clown and Bard.

She said, “God, Ray, could you be a bigger loser?”

I stared at her. She wasn’t supposed to say that.

“That’s a rhetorical question, by the way.”

She stalked down the hall to the bathroom to find some tissue to wipe her eyes. I followed her, and when she turned around I grabbed her by the neck and gave her a good shake. Grabbing a woman by the arm is a loser’s game. They throw your hand off and shriek, “Don’t touch me!” and act as if you’re some low-life abuser. I just needed her to shut her up, and the neck is the pipeline to the mouth. I will admit that after she got quiet, I tossed her against that scalding-hot water pipe just to get my point across. So sue me.

Back in the kitchen, I put the frozen wedding cake back into the freezer. I looked out the window. Down on the street a girl rode past on her bike, the flakes settling on her hot-pink bike helmet. Portland is cold enough to invite snow but too warm to keep it. It has something to do with the Japanese current. Charlotte could tell you, but she isn’t coming out of the bathroom anytime soon.

The snow stops like I said it would. I put on my Vans and locate my passport in the top drawer of my desk. Outside, the air feels good on my arms. The back of my neck is nice and cool. The forced-air heat was way too much in that place. In the parking lot I pull the plates off my truck, crunch across the snow, and stuff them into the dumpster behind Esparza’s. Just as I’m closing the lid, I hear the slow koosh-koosh of bald tires on snow and look up to see the art car rolling down the street. I tell you, I’ve always been lucky.

At PDX I call the phone company to turn off my service. I’m doing Agnessa a favor. I only want the best for her and it’s best for her to go with the guy with the multiple TVs. Then I call 911 and report an intruder. I give my address and tell them it’s right across the street from Noble Rot, where wine is a meal. Then I buy a ticket for the next plane out. Like I said before, I’m a simple guy. I take life as it comes.

Burning flares and flashing red and blue lights ripped the night apart. Clewiston counted four black-and-whites pulled halfway off the roadway and as close to the upper embankment as was possible. In front of them was a firetruck and in front of that was a forensics van. There was a P-one standing in the middle of Mulholland Drive ready to hold up traffic or wave it into the one lane that they had open. With a fatality involved, they should have closed down both lanes of the road, but that would have meant closing Mulholland from Laurel Canyon on one side all the way to Coldwater Canyon on the other. That was too long a stretch. There would be consequences for that. The huge inconvenience of it would have brought complaints from the rich hillside homeowners trying to get home after another night of the good life. And nobody stuck on midnight shift wanted more complaints to deal with.

Clewiston had worked Mulholland fatals several times. He was the expert. He was the one they called in from home. He knew that whether the identity of the victim in this case demanded it or not, he’d have gotten the call. It was Mulholland, and the Mulholland calls all went to him.

But this one was special anyway. The victim was a name and the case was going five-by-five. That meant everything about it had to be squared away and done right. He had been thoroughly briefed over the phone by the watch commander about that.

He pulled in behind the last patrol car, put his flashers on, and got out of his unmarked car. On the way back to the trunk, he grabbed his badge from beneath his shirt and hung it out front. He was in civies, having been called in from off-duty, and it was prudent to make sure he announced he was a detective.

He used his key to open the trunk and began to gather the equipment he would need. The P-one left his post in the road and walked over.

“Where’s the sergeant?” Clewiston asked.

“Up there. I think they’re about to pull the car up. That’s a hundred thousand dollars he went over the side with. Who are you?”

“Detective Clewiston. The reconstructionist. Sergeant Fairbanks is expecting me.”

“Go on down and you’ll find him by the— Whoa, what is that?”

Clewiston saw him looking at the face peering up from the trunk. The crash test dummy was partially hidden by all the equipment cluttering the trunk, but the face was clear and staring blankly up at them. His legs had been detached and were resting beneath the torso. It was the only way to fit the whole thing in the trunk.

“We call him Arty,” Clewiston said. “He was made by a company called Accident Reconstruction Technologies.”

“Looks sort of real at first,” the patrol officer said. “Why’s he in fatigues?”

Clewiston had to think about that to remember.

“Last time I used Arty, it was a crosswalk hit-and-run case. The vic was a marine up from El Toro. He was in his fatigues and there was a question about whether the hitter saw him.” Clewiston slung the strap of his laptop bag over his shoulder. “He did. Thanks to Arty we made a case.”

He took his clipboard out of the trunk and then a digital camera, his trusty measuring wheel, and an eight-battery Maglite. He closed the trunk and made sure it was locked.

“I’m going to head down and get this over with,” he said. “I got called in from home.”

“Yeah, I guess the faster you’re done, the faster I can get back out on the road myself. Pretty boring just standing here.”

“I know what you mean.”

Clewiston headed down the westbound lane, which had been closed to traffic. There was a mist clinging in the dark to the tall brush that crowded the sides of the street. But he could still see the lights and glow of the city down to the south. The accident had occurred in one of the few spots along Mulholland where there were no homes. He knew that on the south side of the road the embankment dropped down to a public dog park. On the north side was Fryman Canyon and the embankment rose up to a point where one of the city’s communication stations was located. There was a tower up there on the point that helped bounce communication signals over the mountains that cut the city in half.