Freezing

TEN

Jayne had fallen asleep on her sofa but the scraping noise woke her. She sat up, pushing the open book on her lap to the side, and turned to look at the front door. It was too early to be Steelie and it sounded too loud and definitive to be an animal poking around. It sounded like a person was out there and now . . . were they gone? Without a window to look through, she only had a few choices. She could wait for the sound again and try to identify it, look through the peephole, or open the door. The peephole was out. She’d seen a film where someone was shot through the eye doing just that. And she had seen too many people lying dead on autopsy tables after having let their killers in the front door. So she waited to hear the sound again. She almost jumped out of her skin when her cell phone came to life, its vibrations creating a buzzing noise against the coffee table’s glass surface.

‘Hello?’ she half whispered.

‘It’s Steelie . . . are you OK?’

‘I thought I heard a noise.’

‘What kind of noise?’

‘Hang on, I just heard it again. Something on the front landing.’

‘Human or non-human?’

‘Can’t tell. There it is again.’

‘Then keep your door locked. I’m less than a minute from your place.’

Jayne decided to sit on the floor, her back against the bedroom door. This gave her a clear view of the front door but kept her hidden from all the windows. She kept the phone cradled in her lap but didn’t hear the noise again. When the phone vibrated with another incoming call, she didn’t flinch but she still answered quietly.

Steelie sounded confident. ‘It’s me. I’ve looked around down here but don’t see anything. I’m coming up.’

Jayne got up with relief and went to the front door. She opened it just as Steelie exclaimed, ‘Whoa!’ and there was a sound of footsteps thudding down the stairs.

‘Steelie?!’

Her voice came from the bottom of the stairs. ‘Make some noise up there, Jayne. You’ve got a mother possum on your stairs with her baby. And the baby’s big enough to have a name. I’ll wait in the driveway.’

Jayne started clapping her hands and whistling. Then she walked forward until she could see around the corner. The possums were about halfway down the stairs and the larger one was the size of a small dog. She was leading her cub in an unhurried manner down the stairs. When they reached the bottom, Steelie turned on the flashlight she was holding and mimicked airport ground staff guiding a plane into its berth, raking the light across the lawn and away from the driveway. The possums obediently headed off into the darkness.

Steelie trotted up the stairs. ‘That’s probably who you heard.’ She looked down at the silver plant tubs by the front door. ‘And you got off lightly with the mess. At my place, they get in the dirt, then put their paws in the water I leave out for the birds, wash their hands—’

She broke off and sank down into a crouch by the pots, flicking on her flashlight again. ‘Look at this. There’s something in the soil.’

‘Where?’

‘You’re at the wrong angle. Come this side.’

Jayne walked over and they crouched down to look at one of the tubs. Something was glinting in the beam of light. It looked like the top of a metal plant marker.

‘Has that always been there?’ Steelie asked.

‘I’m not sure.’ She hadn’t looked at the daisy bushes closely when she came home but thought she would have noticed the marker. She’d since forgotten to even call Marie to thank her.

‘Mind if I pull it out?’

‘No, go ahead. It’s the sort of thing my mother would do. She’s responsible for these things.’ Jayne stood up and looked at the roofline of the duplex where a telephone wire seemed to be hanging loosely.

Steelie said, ‘It’s only got a series of dots, like Braille.’

Jayne looked sharply at the metal tag in Steelie’s hand. It was a flat rectangle above a sharpened stake, now studded with soil. A series of dots were etched into the soft metal.

‘You think your mother would have brought this by without knocking on your door to say hi? No way, Jayne, not Marie.’

‘She brought the plants without telling me.’ They stood for a moment in silence. ‘Why don’t I call her?’

She stepped inside while Steelie began poking around in the other plant tubs. While Jayne waited for Marie to answer, she took the book of raffle tickets from the kitchen counter and waved them in front of Steelie, who pocketed them with a nod.

Marie answered after five rings.

‘Well, hello darling! To what do I owe this pleasure?’

‘I wanted to thank you for the daisies and the tubs. Sorry I didn’t do it right away.’

‘Daisies?’

‘Yeah, the ones in the metal washtubs.’

‘By your front door?’

‘Yes.’ Jayne was relieved that her mother remembered them.

‘Well, I’m glad someone replaced those cacti, but it wasn’t me, darling.’

‘Wait. So you didn’t leave a plant marker in them today?’

‘No, but what a cute idea!’

‘It’s not cute if you didn’t do it!’

‘Jayne, what’s going on? You sound . . . frazzled.’

‘Look, did you tell anyone about my cacti?’

‘Why would I tell anyone?’

‘You know, like one of your landscapers? Tell them to replace the cacti for me?’

‘No. What is this? Jayne?’

She didn’t answer because Steelie had come to stand in the doorway and was making a throat-slitting motion, which Jayne took to mean, Get off the phone NOW.

‘I’ll call you later, Mom. Bye.’

She looked at Steelie who now had a finger to her lips and was beckoning to her.

Steelie shined light into the plant tub closest to the house. She had excavated more soil than the possums had and the landing was a mess. The root ball of the daisy bush was exposed and nestled beneath it was a plastic box. Steelie gently tilted the tub to expose its underside. A coated wire snaked out of the central drainage hole and ran under the landing. Steelie used the light to trace the wire along the inner edge of the floorboards until it disappeared into a small hole just under the threshold to her apartment. The hair on the back of Jayne’s neck stood up.

Steelie whispered, ‘Get your purse and whatever else you want. You’re coming to my place and we’ll call for help from there.’

Jayne was filled with an overwhelming desire to get out of there and perhaps never come back. A few minutes later, she was driving behind Steelie, her overnight bag on the bench seat next to her, concentrating on the Wrangler’s tail lights. She couldn’t think; felt frightened out of all proportion and that fact bothered her as much as the situation itself.

Her cell phone rang and Jayne jumped again. She knew it would be half an hour or so before she settled down. It was Steelie on the phone, telling Jayne she was stopping for ‘emergency ice cream’ and confirming that Jayne had the spare key. Steelie pulled into the left turn lane for the Atwater Village Shopping Center, followed by the sedan behind Jayne, who herself indicated a right turn.

Jayne drove slowly through Atwater’s rows of 1920s Spanish houses, each looking compact and picturesque under graceful towering trees. Few had fences, so the streets felt open and inviting. Narrow driveways separated most houses, enough of whose stucco finishes were painted in earthy tones to give away mild gentrification.

She parked in front of the casita, noticing that Steelie had left a light on inside but only sheer shades pulled over the front windows. That wasn’t like Steelie but the effect was nice. The glow emphasized the arches of the tall living room windows while the up-lights among the aloes in the garden picked out the interlocking curves of the clay roof tiles. Jayne’s shoes crunched on the gravel path to the front porch, reminding her of how Marie and Steelie had collaborated to make a water-conscious garden on a budget. She unlocked the door and stepped inside.

Steelie waited for the arrow, feeling a little worried. She was used to Jayne’s fears, which almost bordered on paranoia, but she knew from where they originated. She’d learned it was better to address whatever had frightened Jayne rather than try to talk her out of it. PTSD didn’t work like that.

But this was different. There was something man-made in the plant tubs outside Jayne’s front door. Someone had put it there, and Steelie couldn’t come up with a ready explanation. She made the turn into the shopping center parking lot. Almost immediately, she was blinded by light reflected in her rearview mirror. She put her hand up to cut the glare. The side mirror showed nothing but bright light. Then she heard the too-brief wa-woop of a siren behind her. It seemed to echo on the night air. Odd that she hadn’t noticed a police cruiser before now and she didn’t think she’d rolled through a red light anywhere.

There were plenty of parking spaces to choose from at this time of night and she navigated the Jeep into one. She locked the door, opened the window, and got out her identification, using her side mirror to see if the officer was approaching. She could barely see him because the spotlight on his vehicle had made a silhouette of his form but she noted his swagger and that he didn’t make the usual stop to write down her license plate number.

When he reached her window, the bright light slanted across his oversized, tinted glasses. It was impossible to see his eyes.

‘Ma’am.’

‘Evening, Officer.’ Steelie scanned his uniform for his badge. The way he was leaning hid most of his nametag – ‘Marron’ or ‘Marion’.

‘Do you know why I stopped you?’

‘No. Is there a problem?’ She was looking at his mouth since she couldn’t see his eyes. A light-colored moustache all but hid his upper lip.

‘One of your tail lights is out.’

‘Really? Which one?’

‘Step out of the vehicle, Ma’am.’

‘Don’t you want to check my license and registration?’

‘Please step out of the vehicle, ma’am.’ He took a step back and crossed his arms over his chest. ‘I can help you determine if it’s a fuse or a bulb. It’s a lot cheaper to fix if it’s a fuse.’

Warning bells were going off in Steelie’s mind but she couldn’t tell how much was Jayne’s paranoia infecting her and how much was her ex-Legal Aid bias against police but she was going to follow Legal Aid’s advice to its clients. ‘Can I see your ID first, please?’ She tried to smile. ‘Never can be too sure these days.’

‘No, ma’am, I guess you can’t.’ He came to the window and leaned his right arm on the door. He used his left hand to pull a vinyl badge envelope from his top pocket and flashed it quickly before replacing it.

Steelie barely made out a photo with some writing next to it. It had looked OK. She told herself to stop being paranoid and moved to unlock the door. Then she noticed his fingernails. They were long. They seemed too long for a cop. Her pulse quickened.

‘Sorry, could I see it closer, please?’

She wasn’t ready when he tried to open the door, and then reached through the window. He seemed to know the lock was low and forward and his hand scrabbled for it, banging Steelie’s knee. She screamed and grabbed for the ignition. She over-started the engine, which whined, then roared to life. Throwing the car into first gear, she slammed on the gas and popped the clutch. The car peeled out, the window frame slamming the cop’s elbow.

‘God dammit!’ he shouted, leaping back.

One of the Jeep’s wheels went directly over the concrete bumper at the front of the parking space and Steelie momentarily drove on the passenger-side wheels until the vehicle dropped back down. As soon as all four tires gained purchase, she was at the exit in an instant. Only the Jeep’s high clearance saved it from scraping heavily across the deep gutter where the driveway met the road but her head almost hit the ceiling when the car bounced across the intersection. As she raced down the nearest residential street, her heart pounded. She barely watched the road ahead as she scanned her rearview mirror, looking for chasing headlights.

When she halted in her own driveway minutes later, she only calmed down when she realized she wouldn’t be able to get her keys out of the ignition until she actually shut off the engine. A buzzer sounded as she opened her door and she whipped her head around to the street before recognizing the sound as her own car’s warning that the lights were still on. She walked to the back of the car, expecting to see one of the tail lights darkened. Both lights were working. She squeezed her eyes closed for a second, then took a last look around the street before she turned off the lights, pulled a car cover over the Jeep, and ran to her front door.

When Jayne saw the look on Steelie’s face, she knew not to ask about the ice cream but when Steelie double-locked the front door and pulled closed the living room curtains, Jayne sat up on the sofa. Steelie kept moving fast toward the rear of the house. Jayne first heard the slap of Venetian blinds as Steelie wrenched them closed at the kitchen window that overlooked the small back yard, then the sound of the fridge or freezer, followed by the microwave starting. When Jayne heard the bolt at the back door slide into place, she got up. She’d only known Steelie to throw that bolt when she was going out of town. She crossed to the kitchen as Steelie came in from the back hall and the microwave dinged.

Jayne asked nervously, ‘What’s going on?’

Steelie shook her head as she pulled a wax paper-wrapped parcel out of the microwave. She ate what Jayne recognized as a defrosted Krispy Kreme donut in three bites. Only then did she speak.

‘I’m either about to be arrested for assaulting a cop or I’ve just escaped being kidnapped by a total nutcase. I know,’ she looked at Jayne. ‘You’d think I’d be able to tell the difference.’

Jayne wrapped her arms around herself. ‘What happened?’

Steelie recounted the incident at the shopping center but she couldn’t do it without pacing to the front window periodically and peering out at the street through a chink in the curtains. Finally, she said, ‘At first I thought he was legit. But then there were those fingernails and I couldn’t see anything! And he didn’t want my ID! I mean, that’s so not like them. God, this sounds stupid now.’

Jayne sounded more confident than she felt. ‘No, it doesn’t. Cops are supposed to identify themselves properly, not wrench your car door open. It’s not like he stopped you after a high-speed chase.’

‘I should have known when he got out of the cruiser right away. Don’t they usually sit there for a couple minutes while they run your license plate through NCIC?’

‘I think so. But this was a tail light stop.’

‘Except it wasn’t.’

‘Wait, what?’

‘Sorry, I forgot that part.’ Steelie glanced out the front window again. ‘I checked. My tail lights are fine.’

‘Oh my God.’ Jayne came around to sit on the sofa. ‘What the hell is this? Why would a cop tell you to get out of your car to look at a tail light you would immediately see was just fine?’

‘Well, it would get me out of my car, wouldn’t it? And once there, I’m just another vic he can overpower.’

Jayne was shaking her head. ‘But if he assaults you, you could ID him later. It’s risky as hell.’

Steelie sat down next to her, arms folded across her chest. ‘Maybe it was a carjacking.’

‘In Atwater Village?’

‘Why not? Look at it. Late at night, deserted parking lot, some guy with a decommissioned police cruiser painted a dark color just waits for someone to pull in. Uses a fake uniform picked up at any Hollywood costume shop to get the person out of their vehicle on the fake pull. He hits ’em on the head or whatever once they’re out, and he gets to go off in their – presumably nicer – vehicle. Parts will be sold to fifteen shops all over town by the time you can call the real cops.’

‘Do you really believe that?’

Steelie was silent for a moment, thinking. ‘No. It’s an awful lot of trouble for your typical opportunist. So if he was a cop, he probably already has my license plate and he will come and get me . . .’

‘I hear another “and” in there.’

‘And . . . I was thinking about your place. The wire. What if it’s connected? Think about it, Jayne. We find some black box on your porch, in plant pots delivered by someone unknown. Wire is drilled into your house. We leave, you come here, I get pulled over by a fake cop who’s followed me into the parking lot.’

Jayne grabbed her arm. ‘I’ve just remembered! I saw that car pull in behind you. He had been behind me!’

‘From where? How far back did you notice him?’ Steelie looked at her intently.

‘Um, let me think. He was there when we turned on to Los Feliz.’

‘By Griffith Park?’

‘Yeah. I definitely remember him being there after we crossed the river, because I was looking behind me for anyone merging off the Five.’

‘You’re going forwards, Jayne. Did you see him before we turned on to Los Feliz?’

Jayne thought. ‘No.’ She exhaled. ‘I don’t remember anything from before then.’

Steelie walked to the telephone hanging on the wall in the kitchen. ‘I’m going to call Bud Reese. I’ll bet his wife hasn’t let him retire yet.’

‘But doesn’t he work out of Downtown?’

‘He’ll know who to call over here.’

Jayne listened as Steelie greeted Reese, one of the LAPD officers she had had a lot of interaction with while working at Legal Aid. She described what had happened to her that evening and then described the wire in the plant pots. Then she listened while making notes on a pad. She laughed once and said, ‘Give me a little credit, Bud.’ Eventually, she thanked him and hung up.

Steelie threw the pencil down on the pad. ‘OK, so he says I have grounds to make a complaint because the guy probably was a cop – a bad one. He gave me the number to call. He doesn’t think it was a carjacking, though they just picked up two guys for impersonating cops while shaking down undocumented immigrants who keep stalls in the Garment District. So it’s not unheard of. But the wire in your pots is another story. He asked if we’d ruled out a self-watering system.’

‘He thinks this is funny?’

‘No, he thinks he’s funny. The wire he takes seriously. He said wires going toward thresholds “scream” tapping to him.’

‘Tapping? Like bugging?’

‘Like that. He didn’t want to touch it with a ten-foot pole. Said it was very unlikely whatever’s going on will end up in LAPD’s jurisdiction so he recommended we go direct to the FBI.’

Jayne scrunched her hair. ‘God, Steelie. I really, really don’t want to call Scott.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because there’s no way to tell him what happened without him finding out that I . . . that I overreacted to some noise on my porch.’

‘It wasn’t an overreaction for someone with PTSD.’

‘Argh! How many times do I have to tell you? I do not have PTSD!’

Steelie compressed her lips. ‘Yeah, I got that memo. So, what you’re actually telling me is that Scott doesn’t know that you have symptoms of some thing that isn’t Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder but, ya know, looks just like it?’

Jayne glared at her but then sighed and shook her head in the negative.

Steelie crossed her arms. ‘Here I always thought you kept things going long-distance with Scott because you were holding out for when you two lived in the same city. Now I see you’ve just been hiding behind the telephone.’

Jayne only shrugged.

‘God, Jayne, you have no reason to hide anything. You’ve nothing to be ashamed of! How many times do I have to tell you?’

Jayne’s voice was small. ‘I just know he’ll see me as damaged goods and that’ll be the end of it.’

Steelie crossed the room to put a hand on Jayne’s shoulder. ‘The problem isn’t how he sees you, it’s how you see yourself. Plus, he probably knows about trauma. He was in Kosovo when the bombs were still dropping.’

‘Exactly. And he’s never mentioned repercussions.’

Steelie shrugged. ‘That just makes him lucky, not superhuman.’ She let go of Jayne and looked at her watch. ‘I’m going to call him and Eric first thing tomorrow. In the meantime, you’re staying here. Get up so I can make the sofa bed.’

Jayne went to the kitchen. ‘I wasn’t planning on leaving you here to get attacked by the rogue cop-carjacker who probably has your address.’

‘He never even looked at my license!’

Jayne opened the fridge and leaned down to examine its shelves. ‘You don’t know what he looked at. You got anything to eat in here? What is all this stuff? Looks like pressed cardboard.’

Steelie came in from the hall with two pillows and some sheets in her arms. ‘That’s Tofurkey. Trader Joe’s special.’

‘Why did you give up meat only to eat false meat?’

‘You want me to short-sheet your sofa bed? No? Then I suggest you shut up and be glad when I serve it up for breakfast tomorrow.’

Jayne straightened up and saw that Steelie’s eyes were troubled despite her light tone. She closed the door of the fridge and leaned on it, overwhelmed with the desire to lie down and go to sleep.