Born To Be Wild

THIRTY-FOUR

Irna Phillips created and wrote some of the most successful radio soap operas in the 1930s and 1940s, including The Guiding Light, which premiered in 1937.

“What’s wrong? What did you do?”

She rubbed the muscle frantically. He slapped her hand away and began massaging her arm, deep and hard. She moaned, rocked back and forth on the chair.

“What did you do to your arm?”

“Just a cramp.”

“I can see that. It’s your biceps.” He continued massaging, lightening up a bit. “Make a muscle for me.”

“Are you nuts? No, no way. It’s all right.”

“Make a freaking muscle, would you?”

She made a freaking muscle, held the whimpers in her throat as he massaged. To her surprise, it helped.

“Okay, now loosen. That’s it-flex, loosen, flex, like that. It’s hard to tell which you’re doing, you’ve got such skinny little arms.”

“My arms are fine, you macho jerk.”

He stared down as she held her arm. “Did you overdo it with weights at the gym?”

“No, I wasn’t at the gym.”

“Then what did you do? It had to be over the top to make your biceps cramp up like that.”

Mary Lisa pictured herself in a graceful profile, sending her leg out smoothly at Chico to land her foot solidly in his gut. She pictured him grabbing his belly and keeling over onto the ground. Two weeks. Two more weeks and she could do that. “Too much shopping. Trying on all those shoes is tough on the arms.”

“It’s interesting,” Jack said slowly, watching her stand up, still cradling her arm, “you’re a good actress, I’ll give you that, but still you’re not convincing playing the spoiled prima donna.”

She didn’t know what else to say, and it was infuriating. She stomped off toward her bedroom, still holding her arm.

“Where are you going?”

“I think I’ll go surfing with Carlo. If he’s not around, there are usually lots of cute young guys to help me out.”

She slammed the door.

“Yeah, right, give it a try, see how many of those horny teenage boys even know what a massage is.”

She growled through the door. He heard it. He was pissed and horny, a miserable combination, and he guessed she knew it. He’d almost kissed her when he’d flattened her on the sofa. Almost. He’d managed to stop himself in time. He thanked the Lord he had gotten ahold of himself. He was here to help find out who was terrorizing her, not-well, he didn’t want to think about that. He walked to the kitchen, got himself a bottled water from the fridge, rubbed it over his forehead. He sat down on the sofa, saw the soap script, and picked it up.

He was still reading it ten minutes later when Mary Lisa, wearing a cover-up over a swimsuit, paused a moment when she saw him. “The mail is due soon. Perhaps you’d like to read that too.”

“Nah. You’ve seen one electric bill you’ve seen them all. Hey, this is pretty cool. I like this scene between Sunday and her father. Except-”

“Yeah, except…?”

“It seems to me that you could make the announcement only once-you know, call a meeting of everyone involved. That makes more sense than having each person find out one at a time, drawing it out like that. I guess this way each character gets a chance to dramatize it?” He tossed the script back on the sofa. “Telling one character at a time about the evangelist father could go on for weeks.”

“It will go on for at least a week, maybe two, before it’s done. Welcome to the wonderful world of daytime entertainment.” But she couldn’t leave it alone, she had to justify it. “The viewers want to know how each character will react, or at least their favorite character. And every character will react differently to the news, depending on who they are, what’s happened between them and Sunday or her mother, Lydia. Now, please feel free to take yourself home, Chief. I’m going out to the beach.”

“I was lying on top of you, Mary Lisa. I very nearly kissed you and you know I probably wouldn’t have stopped, and you wouldn’t have stopped me-”

She started humming, very loudly. She grabbed up the script and went out back through the kitchen. Five minutes later, Jack was leaning on the deck railing, his opaque sunglasses in place, looking for Mary Lisa. He spotted her sitting in a deck chair some twenty yards down the beach, reading her script. Four surfers, all of them male, all of them below the legal drinking age, were clustered near her, occasionally eyeing her like she was an extra-crispy chicken breast.

They were playing around, strutting the way teenage boys do, poking each other, trying to impress her. It was almost enough to make a grown man wish he were back in Goddard Bay. Three girls in bathing suits walked up and joined them.

He pulled up a deck chair and sat down, his feet up on the deck railing, ankles crossed. He leaned back his head and closed his eyes. The midmorning sun was soft and warm against his face.

He must have dozed off because he only thought he heard a gunshot. There was a yell, then screams. He leaped over the deck railing, landed light, and ran toward Mary Lisa.

To his utter surprise, none of the kids had scattered. They’d shoved Mary Lisa down, covering her with their bodies. Her beach chair was overturned, and Mary Lisa lay on the sand, her script pages fluttering in the afternoon ocean breeze. He came to a halt over the pile of bodies. “I’m a cop. Is anyone hurt?”

A chorus of voices sang out, “We’re okay. Mary Lisa’s okay.”

“Does anybody know where the shot came from?”

One of the boys-no, not a boy, this one hadn’t been a teenager in at least five years-raised his head to look down the beach. “A guy fired at Mary Lisa from over there, from beside the Sanderson’s house, the second to the end. I saw the bullet kick up sand a few feet from Mary Lisa’s chair. We all dove on her.”

“You all did good. Now it might be better if you let her breathe.” Jack ran along the row of houses that backed up to the beach. He saw about a dozen beachgoers wondering what was going on, but no one suspicious looking. He noticed the young man was running beside him.

“I only heard one shot. Did you hear any more?”

“Nope, only one. The guy couldn’t have driven in, that’s for sure. He’d have had to run Chad down first. That’s a public beach not fifteen feet away. He could have come under the fence, fired at her, crouched next to the Sanderson house, then run out again.”

They made their way through scattered groups of people who rose to watch them. “Right about here, I’d say. By the way, my name’s Mark Nickels. I’m a senior at USC, in film.”

Jack nodded. “Chief of Police Jack Wolf.”

“Wow, man, you’re the chief of police of L.A.?”

“No, Goddard Bay, Oregon. To be the Big Dog here, you’ve got to know where all the bodies are buried. You think he was standing-where, right there?”

“Yeah, that seems right. It’s nice and sheltered. I doubt anyone got a good look at him before he went back under the fence.”

Jack knew he was right. He called Daniel to send in anyone close by, which would help only in case the shooter was dumb enough to draw attention to himself. He cupped his hand over his mouth. “Listen up, everyone! I’m Chief Jack Wolf. If any of you saw anything having to do with this shooting, come over and tell me.”

Mark Nickels yelled, “The guy tried to shoot Mary Lisa, so if you’re worried about the hassle or about missing a wave, forget it. Tell the chief what he needs to know.”

A few people detached themselves from some of the groups and headed toward them.

Jack flipped out his badge, showed it around. “Chief Wolf.”

The first kid who stepped up was so tanned and loaded down with tanning lotion, he looked like polished leather. “Dude, this sucks. Someone shooting up our own beach. I hope you guys catch this creep.”

It was the third person to step up, a girl no older than sixteen, California tan and California beautiful, who had actually seen anything useful. “I know I saw him, Chief, a brief flash, like a speeded-up scene in a movie, but it was him-he wasn’t all that tall, but tall enough, about like Dougie here, only skinnier. He was wearing a ball cap, backwards, you know? White T-shirt loose over baggy jeans, real dark lens sunglasses.”

“Could you tell his age?”

“Well, I turned when I heard the shot and he moved fast, like he was young.”

Jack called Daniel again with the description, but beyond that, the well was dry.

Jack thanked all of them, took the girl’s name and cell phone number, and walked back to Mary Lisa.

Mark said, “Do you think this is a good description?”

“Maybe. If they spot him right away. Thanks for your help, Mark.”

“That paparazzo guy still missing?”

Jack nodded.

It took Jack a few minutes to detach Mary Lisa from all the teenagers, but finally he walked her back to her house, staying on the beach side of her. She was still rubbing sand off herself where all the bodies had pressed down on her.

“Are you all right, Mary Lisa?”

If he expected her to be terrorized, she surprised him. “I have only a couple of hours to get myself together and cleaned up.”

“You mean for the party? Why don’t you cancel it?”

She shook her head. “No. After what happened, I want to be with some of my friends and neighbors. They deserve to know what’s going on here in the Colony. They all live here too.”

“Did John call you back?”

“Not yet. I called him but got his answering machine.”

“You want to go back home?”

That stopped her in her tracks. “Back home,” she repeated, and she frowned.

“Goddard Bay.”

“Yeah, that’s what you meant. Funny thing is, that isn’t home any longer. I can’t leave anyway. I’m solid on the soap for the next week. You know, we’re taping the reunion of Sunday and her father. And I’m not going to let this…monster make me run and hide.”

They had reached the house, and she turned to face him. “Thank you for being here. I’m not sorry I threw the pillow at you, but I’m glad you stayed.”

“You’re welcome.”

“You know what? I’m thinking I’d feel a whole lot better if I took a hand in this.”

He opened the deck gate for her. “What does that mean?”

“I’m not going to sit back any longer like a helpless ninny. I’m going to make a pretty good investigator, with me as my first client.”