April Smith: North of Montana

“I know it.”

When John Roth and I first started having sex we used to marvel at how powerful and instantaneous our connection was, as if we were riding a secret current that swept past ordinary pleasures to a lagoon of desire known only to us. We thought we were so inventive and unique and amazing that we used to joke about making an instructional video or posing coupled for an artist; we used to watch ourselves in a mirror and tease each other with pet names, “John” and “Yoko.”

So now, a year or so after the crash and burn, maybe we’re both thinking — me with cold dread — that our connection is somehow still in force; that the universe has brought us together again in a strange and unexpected way.

“We probably have a lot of dead people in common,” John says.

I laugh nervously. He seems encouraged.

“I was calling outside of channels because I thought you’d want to check this thing out.”

“It has nothing to do with me.”

“The lady was insistent—”

Suddenly the flight part of the flight-or-fight reflex clicks in and my foot is tapping up and down as if it had a mind of its own.

“Look, John. It’s weird, it’s funky, it’s whatever, but it’s over. I never even heard of Violeta Alvarado and I really don’t give a rat’s ass, so please don’t call me again. I’ve got to go. I’ve got a meeting.”

I hang up and grip the familiar nylon handles of the bag, heavy with rubber fins and hand paddles, a folding hair dryer, and a mesh sack containing slippery old bottles of shampoo and moisturizer with the writing rubbed off. Crossing the bullpen, I try to concentrate on how good it will feel to hit the water and stretch it out for that first fifty yards. As the workout builds, the fear will dissipate; by the end of the hour I’ll forget about John Roth.

FRIDAY NIGHT and I have big plans: grocery shopping and a hot bath. Barbara lent me the hardcover edition of Clear and Present Danger by Tom Clancy and I am looking forward to reading it in bed with a cup of raspberry tea. There is a lot to be said for the monastic life.

Ocean View Estates is one of the oldest apartment complexes in Marina Del Ray. It was world famous for a brief moment during the quaint psychedelic era of 1970, when I was ten years old. At one of their notorious swinging singles parties, somebody sprinkled LSD over the potato chips and three people boiled to death while tripping out in the Jacuzzi.

Afterward they changed the name from South Sea Villas to Ocean View Estates, but the singles and transients and corporately owned condominiums remain. Friday nights they still have a “social barbecue” where everyone’s supposed to come out of their huts and gather around some greasy old grills, but dragging my briefcase and four plastic bags of groceries past the pool area, all I see this Friday night is an extended Middle Eastern family right off the boat, women in black veils unpacking bright yellow boxes of takeout chicken, tortillas, rice and beans from El Pollo Loco. My brand-new multicultural training tells me they haven’t got a clue.

My place is located in a cul-de-sac of two-story brown stucco apartment buildings still absurdly called Tahiti Gardens. It is a long way from the parking garage but it’s home. I have lived in these three furnished rooms for seven years. The good part is I have never had to buy a couch.

The mailbox is filled with catalogues and one large brown manila envelope with no return address. I might have gotten to the envelope earlier if I weren’t fumbling with the groceries and desperate to pee. Instead it lies on the counter.

The air is stagnant and laced with the smell of carpet shampoo and Formica scrubbed with scouring powder; I guess latex wallpaper over wallboard over cinder block doesn’t breathe. Shoving the heavy glass doors open, I step onto a balcony to a nice view of the largest manmade marina in the world, six thousand boats moored at neatly laid out docks, a shifting forest of white masts. I enjoy looking at the boats even though I’ve never been on one, letting my eyes wander the riggings and blue sail bags and pleasantly swelled white hulls glazed with golden light. Someday I will learn to sail.

Forty-five minutes later the groceries are put away and I am sorting through the catalogues to decide who to spend dinner with, Eddie Bauer or J. Peterman. The timer goes off and I pull chicken cordon bleu prepared by Boy’s Market — my little indulgence — out of the microwave and settle on a stool at the counter, cozying up to a warm cloud of steam scented with toasted bread crumbs and Gorgonzola cheese.

I open an Amstel Light.

And the envelope.

Inside is a series of photographs of an autopsy taken by the Los Angeles County Coroner’s Office.

I stare at the glossy images in a state of numb disbelief. They are eight-by-tens, in color, and more pornographic than anything I have ever seen or could imagine. The victim is identified by a plate reproduced in the bottom right corner of each as V. ALVARADO. There is no cover letter, there doesn’t have to be: the angry marks of the sender are all over the photographs like fingerprints.

First there are aerial shots of an intersection with an arrow drawn in grease pencil to show the probable route taken by the car.

Next, overall streets: bars, warehouses, street corners, alleys.

Orientation view of the crime scene: The body as it lay face down on the sidewalk. White triangular markers set next to a purse thrown five feet away and more markers where the bullets hit a bus-stop bench and a wall.

Closer on the body: She had tiny bare feet. God knows what happened to her shoes. The tight jeans with zippers at the ankles have white embroidered flowers over the pockets. The shirt is still tucked in neatly but the entire back is blackened with blood and a tangle of dark hair that blends into the sharp shadow cast by the flash.

Her face, on its side looking at the camera, is heart shaped, jaws apart, tongue swollen and protruding in the classic configuration of a choking victim. The eyes are half closed and that is what draws you to the picture, those dark glinting slices of obsidian beneath lids set halfway between anguish and nothingness.

The pictures of the actual autopsy, showing the progression of the body from when it was brought in fully clothed through every step of the procedure, are grisly as hell.

But the worst — as I sit frozen on my kitchen stool — is not the surgical blood and gore but the initial shot of the naked body lying on its back on the gurney after it has been undressed and still looks like a person. It is shameful to look so frankly at someone no longer able to defend herself, spread in death with blood smeared all over, rudely exposed with no secrets left. The magnitude of the violence that it takes to shatter a human body to this degree is deeply sobering. I think, my God, somebody take care of this woman, pull the sheet back over her, do whatever it takes to restore her dignity.

The rest of the photos document the probing of the wounds to remove the 45s. The Y incision down the abdomen to the pubic bone. The removal of the rib cage, which I have been told they do with a pair of pruning shears. The examination of internal organs. Until all that is left of the victim, the violence, and the scientific examination of that violence is a scraped-out carcass. A bit of nonliving refuse and on to the next. The packet is minus any medical dictation except a form stamped M.E. REPORT PENDING.

I slip the photos back into the envelope, shaken by the impact and outraged that John Roth would send them to me. But why should I be surprised? He’s always favored shock tactics — the midnight phone call, the drunken appearance from behind a pillar in the garage. Six months ago I heard he received a thirty-day suspension for firing a handgun into the pitchers mound of a public park while doing some righteous partying with a bunch of other officers. I jump off the stool and stalk into the bedroom. The smell of congealed Gorgonzola cheese is making me sick.