No Second Chances, page 8
Luke dropped his gaze to where she’d tapped, and saw no LAPD badge. As much as he wanted to show indifference, he couldn’t keep the question out of his eyes.
“I’d always planned to retire early,” Tera said. “So here I am. New freedom. New adventures.”
“I’m thrilled for you,” Luke said stiffly. He moved to step around her but she followed again, cutting him off.
“I recently acquired my private investigator license.” There was a glint of intent in her otherwise dull eyes. “It’s a simple process for an ex-cop; I have a police science degree and the requisite hours of investigative work. I have my PI firearm permit, too.” She lifted the left side of her jacket. “A lot of scumbags out there. I’d rather be prepared than sorry.”
“Yeah, best way to be,” Luke said. “Now, whatever it is you really want to say, make it quick.”
Montecino sneered—her wrinkled mouth had no problem with that—and finally took a step away from him. He fetched an unsteady breath and held her gaze, breaking it only to blink.
“I’m not famous like you.” She all but spat the f-word. “But I closed my share of high-profile cases—got my name in the L.A. Times on more than one occasion.”
Luke had never been to Tera Montecino’s home. He had no idea where or how she lived, but an image popped into his mind at that moment: a small, lonely apartment, an alcove dressed with police commendations and framed cutouts from the Times, a retirement watch in a display case, next to a novelty mug with i see guilty people printed across the front.
“You were the one I always wanted, though,” she said, jabbing her finger at him. “And you were the one that got away.”
“No.” Luke shook his head. “I lost everything.”
“You didn’t.” She narrowed her eyebrows. “But I have all kinds of time on my hands now. I’m my own boss, without any departmental red tape or bureaucratic bullshit holding me back. And I’m going to use that newfound time and freedom to find out what happened to Lisa Hayes.”
“By harassing me?”
“By getting to the truth,” Montecino vowed. “And when I do, when you’re wearing an orange jumpsuit and eating slop with a paperboard utensil, then you’ll know what losing everything feels like.”
Luke swallowed hard, uncomfortable in the heat, but more uncomfortable in Montecino’s presence. He dragged sweat from the back of his neck and looked at her.
“A good cop will keep an open mind,” he said. “I learned that when researching my role for Out of Midnight. So I’m curious: Does any part of you believe I didn’t kill my wife?”
Tera held her thumb and forefinger half an inch apart. “I have this much doubt.”
“Okay,” Luke said. “Some doubt, then.”
“Not enough to make a difference,” Tera said, and sneered again. “Occam’s razor: the simplest explanation—”
“Yeah, I know how it goes.” Luke sighed and gave his collar another tug. “Believe me, I want an explanation more than you do, whether it’s simple or not.”
“I doubt that very much.”
“Just let me know if I can help.” He stepped around her, jangling his keys as he headed for his car. “This isn’t the best time, though. I know you’re not great at reading clues, but . . . the suit, the cemetery . . . I’m actually at a funeral right now.”
“Floyd Tallent. Pancreatic cancer. Eighty-one years old. The funeral ended”—she checked the time on her cell phone—“sixteen minutes ago. And talking of death, a little bird tells me you tried to kill yourself a couple of months back.”
Luke had reached his car door but stopped short of opening it. He looked at Montecino over his shoulder. She stood straight and cool, not a drop of perspiration on her face.
“Did you know that almost half of all mass shooters turn the gun on themselves, or commit suicide by cop?” She shrugged her broad shoulders. “Maybe it’s self-loathing, or the fear of infamy—of shame. But some forensic psychologists believe it’s the guilt, that they simply cannot live with what they did.”
“I’m depressed and lonely,” Luke said, surprised to hear himself speaking out loud; Tera Montecino was not a woman with whom he would ordinarily share such truths. “I don’t know where I’m going, or what I’m doing. I can’t see a future for myself.”
Montecino showed nothing. She was unaffected. A piece of flint.
“It was a cry for help.”
“That doesn’t always work, does it? Crying for help.” She stepped forward and dropped her ass onto the hood of his car. She wasn’t finished with him yet. “If it did, your wife might still be alive.”
Lisa had been missing for 1,134 days. Luke had counted every one of them, and had relived the first several days—sleepless, surreal stretches of time—over and over again.
For him, the nightmare began when he woke up in the woods to find the front of his shirt covered in blood. He’d thought it was his—a nosebleed, perhaps, even though there was no dried blood around his nose. The gaps in his memory were cavernous, but this seemed the most likely explanation. Or maybe he’d gotten into a fistfight and the other guy had bled all over him.
Sure. Why not?
It was only later, when the crime lab had done its work and the blood came back as Lisa’s, that Luke began to realize the extent of his trouble.
The volatile nature of their relationship was in full effect on the night she went missing. They were at a party at Uncle Lizard’s, a biker-style roadhouse in the Los Padres Forest. It was either a launch or album-wrap party. Luke didn’t know which, only that it was busy and loud, and that he and Lisa were drunk when they arrived. They’d gotten a head start at their hotel in Santa Barbara (where they’d also had their first fight of the day), and had downed a bottle of red wine during the twenty-minute limo ride to Uncle Lizard’s. Luke remembered arriving—he’d met Axl Rose outside and they’d stumbled in together. There were a few other celebs present but mainly it was music industry peeps and starfuckers. He remembered doing tequila slammers with the band—whoever the fuck they were—and posing for photographs. Things started getting blurry around midnight. He had vague memories of dancing on a table and snorting vodka out of a spoon . . . of drinking Knob Creek directly from the bottle and flirting with some chubby goth chick outside the men’s restroom. Then there was the second fight with Lisa. He had no idea how it had started or who was at fault. His only recollection was of calling Lisa a talentless whore, and of her trying to break a bottle over his head.
This no doubt appeared shocking to their fellow partygoers—and indeed, many would later communicate their shock to the authorities—but it was just another night for Luke and Lisa.
Did they kiss and make up? Luke couldn’t say for sure, but he had an imprecise memory of being outside with her . . . close and hot . . . the smell of the forest and of her perfume.
“I don’t think it’s working,” Lisa had said, or maybe he’d dreamed that. Either way, he didn’t think she was talking about their marriage. There was something else, something in her eyes . . .
The next thing he remembered was waking up at the foot of a tree, thirty yards from Uncle Lizard’s. Morning light sloped through the pines. A jogger crouched over him, plum-faced and wide-eyed.
“Jesus Christ, mister,” he said. “I thought you were dead.”
“Hnnh . . . whuuggh?”
“Thought you’d taken one to the chest.” The jogger gestured at the blood down the front of Luke’s shirt. “A bullet, that is.”
Luke looked down at his shirt. “Whufuggdat?” He tried sitting up, then shuddered as a thunderclap of pain reverberated through his skull. Instinctively, he reached for the back of his head and felt a good-sized goose egg. No blood, but the skin was tight and tender. He must have gone for a walk in the woods, passed out, and bumped his noggin on the tree trunk.
Getting to his feet was a gradual, painful process. Luke brushed pine needles from his ass, examined the blood down the front of his shirt again, then looked dazedly around.
“What the fuck?”
He tried to remember the night before. There were only glimpses . . . embarrassing flashes . . . indistinct puzzle pieces. Maybe the blow to the back of his head had caused some short-term memory loss. Or maybe it was the disgusting quantity of alcohol he’d consumed.
Okay, yeah, it was probably the alcohol, but still . . .
“My wife,” he groaned, looking around again, one hand plastered to his forehead.
“Say, you’re that actor fella,” the jogger said unhelpfully, and snapped a photo on his phone. It was either a lucky shot, or the jogger had a knack for capturing people at their most murderous-looking: Luke, sneering crookedly, standing in a gloomy forest with blood splashed across his shirt. The jogger would later post the shot to social media. Multiple news sources would comment on his impressive camerawork skills, and ask if they could use and distribute the photograph across all media. The jogger said, sure, go right ahead, to the first dozen or so, then wised up and started requesting payment—a decision that made his bank account very happy.
Luke, blessedly unaware of the U-turn his life was about to take, flapped a dismissive hand at the jogger, then staggered off in the direction of Uncle Lizard’s. He took out his cell phone and called Lisa. Straight to voice mail. She was probably back at the hotel, he thought, sleeping off her hangover. He then navigated Uber—slowly, through bleary eyes—and ordered a car. It took twenty minutes to arrive. During that time, Luke had the good sense to turn his bloodstained shirt inside out. It wasn’t perfect, but it was better.
Lisa wasn’t at the hotel, either. She hadn’t been back at all. The room was exactly as they’d left it: one bed made, the other (the one they’d had sex in) all messed up, the heavy sheets drooping to the floor. The curtains were pulled closed. Lisa’s bathroom shit was still assembled around the sink. Her toothbrush was bone-dry.
He called her cell again. Okay, now he was starting to worry. Had she bypassed the hotel and gone directly home? Had she gone to someone else’s home?
Straight to voice mail.
“Hey, hon . . . it’s, umm . . . it’s eleven-twenty, and I don’t . . . I don’t know where you are. That was . . . Christ, that was one hell of a night. Fucking Jesus. I woke up in the . . . Shit, I’ll tell you later. Anyway, I’m at the hotel. Give me a call or drop me a text when you get this. Okay? Love you, babe.”
He showered, brushed his teeth, and changed into clean clothes. It felt heavenly. He called Lisa again. Voice mail. He packed up their stuff and checked out, but waited in the lobby for two hours. He tried Lisa’s cell yet again and still nothing. He texted her:
I tried CALLING you. Waited at the hotel until 2. where the FUCK are you??? I’m going home. CALL ME PLEASE!!
Luke’s concern increased as he drove the one hundred miles back to their house in Sherman Oaks. He ran through dozens of possibilities. Maybe she’d finally left him and was cooling off with a sister or friend. Maybe some fucker had roofied her martini and she was tied up on a couch somewhere. Maybe she was still partying, snorting coke in the back of a stretch limo, on her way to Vegas.
He called her name as he opened their front door, not expecting a response and not getting one. He walked through their spacious house, then out to the pool. No sign of her.
His anxiety grew. It crawled onto his shoulders and pressed down. He couldn’t eat. He could barely breathe. Desperate, he called Lisa’s best friend, her producer, her manager. Nobody had heard from her. Not a single text, and that was unusual.
Something had happened to her. Something bad. Luke became more certain of this with every passing minute.
His agent called a little before six. It was Friday. Luke recalled that they’d scheduled a call for that afternoon to talk about the Netflix original he’d signed on to, but that wasn’t what this was about.
“What the fuck, Luke?”
“Yeah, sorry I missed our call. I’ve got other shit on my mind.”
“Forget the damn call. You’ve gone viral. Again.”
Marty sent the photograph that the jogger had taken that morning, which had already been picked up by national news groups and speculated upon widely.
“This is nothing,” Luke said to Marty, an irritated note in his voice. “I got blind drunk last night and woke up in the woods. Some douchebag took a picture of me. Big fucking deal.”
“But the blood,” Marty said.
“Yeah. Nosebleed, I guess. I don’t know.” Luke turned a slow circle, gazing around his lonely living room. His heart thumped heavily. “Listen, I can’t talk right now. I haven’t seen or heard from Lisa all day. I don’t know where she is and I’m starting to freak.”
“She’s missing?” Marty drew a sharp breath, which was followed by three or four seconds of edgy silence. Maybe Luke was too emotional to grasp the significance of a missing wife and a bloodstained shirt, but Marty was not. He connected the two ominous dots quickly, then stuttered something about having to feed the cat and hung up.
Luke called the police at nine p.m.
Two uniformed officers came to his house. They asked all the right questions and took notes, but Luke expressed dismay at the muted response. He wanted action, dammit—search parties, sniffer dogs, fucking helicopters. Lisa was a celebrity, for God’s sake. The senior officer pointed out that Lisa had been missing for fewer than twenty-four hours, and that she would, in all likelihood, return voluntarily. He suggested Luke get in touch with all of Lisa’s family, friends, and associates, and inform the Van Nuys Division of any developments.
“That’s it?” Luke asked. “You guys are done?”
“Not quite,” the senior officer replied. “The shirt you were wearing. The one in the photograph. Do you still have it?”
Luke dragged a hand down his face, then gestured in the direction of the driveway. “I packed it up with the rest of our shit at the hotel. The bags are still in the Tesla.”
“We’d like to take it with us,” the senior officer said.
“The shirt? What do you—” Luke stopped abruptly, interrupted by the cold, metallic chime of the penny touching down. “Oh right. Yeah . . . yeah, of course.”
Thirty-six hours later, Lisa still hadn’t returned and Luke sat in an interrogation room with two detectives, one of them—Tera Montecino—assigned to Van Nuys from LAPD’s Detective Support and Vice Division. Montecino had earned a reputation narrowing the gap between unsolved homicide and missing persons cases, and with the blood on Luke’s shirt being matched to Lisa’s, she was intent on adding to her résumé.
“Lisa is strong, beautiful, and successful. Two platinum albums, two Grammy Awards. After working the club circuit for nine years, she finally has the career she’s always dreamed of.” Montecino had leaned closer to Luke, her iridescent hair pooling on the table between them. “A woman like that . . . spirited, ambitious . . . she doesn’t simply walk away, leave it all behind.”
“No,” Luke agreed, his voice just above a whisper.
“So . . .” The detective lifted one side of her wrinkled mouth. “What happened to her?”
She showed no sympathy, despite Luke’s tears. On the contrary, his damage and confusion fueled her. She circled the table ravenously, pulling and picking at everything he said. She had him go through his version of events multiple times, and asked the same questions from different angles.
“Does Lisa’s success threaten you?”
“No.”
“I read in an interview that she wants to get into movies. Does that threaten you?”
“No.”
On and on. Around and around. The minutes crawled into hours, and each increment of time had its own threatening shape and feel. Luke fought to keep his cool, but resisted asking for a lawyer. That would only make him look more guilty. Besides, he wanted to work with the police, not against them.
The other cop—Kraemer, a homicide detective—took his turn. He arranged several surveillance-video stills on the table in front of Luke. They showed Luke and Lisa leaving Uncle Lizard’s. The time stamps in the top right-hand corner read 1:52 and 1:53.
“This one.” Kraemer tapped his finger against a grainy black-and-white shot showing Luke and Lisa heading across the parking lot. From the angle of their bodies, it looked like they were staggering, propping each other up. “You’re clearly walking toward the back of the lot. No lights that way. No roads. Nothing except the Los Padres Forest.”
“I think we were going to make out,” Luke said.
“What are you, sixteen?”
Luke closed his eyes, half remembering the smell of Lisa’s perfume, the tangy, Arcadian aroma of the pines. I don’t think it’s working. Had Lisa really said that? Luke shrugged, touching the bump at the back of his head. It was still sore.
“You weren’t seen again,” Kraemer continued, “until you were photographed the following morning with Lisa’s blood all over your shirt.”
“Why didn’t you destroy the shirt?” Detective Montecino asked, leaning casually against the wall with her arms folded. “You knew it would be incriminating.”
Luke wiped tears from his eyes and said, “Because I didn’t do anything wrong.”
Kraemer asked Luke about his and Lisa’s fight at the hotel. He mentioned that the manager was called to their room at 4:24 p.m.
“Loud fight,” the detective said.
“Unh . . . kind of average.”
“You broke a lamp.”
“Lisa broke a lamp.”
Kraemer stroked his graying goatee and asked about their second fight, at Uncle Lizard’s. He showed Luke a video of the altercation that some turd had uploaded to YouTube. “You’ll like this bit,” he said, turning up the volume in time to hear Luke call Lisa a talentless whore.
“Sounds like true love to me,” Montecino noted. Her hair swayed and flashed.
The pressure continued, more of the same questions, the detectives pecking at his answers like hungry birds. Eventually they vacated the interrogation room, leaving Luke to stew. He paced and prayed. He thumped his fist on the table and swore at Lisa, wherever she was.
