The Fallen

18

That evening I walked through our house again, much as I had done after Gina first left. I felt different now. I knew for a fact that she was gone and did not want to come back. I also knew that my anger had passed. I still had that ticklish little ember of hope inside, though, a hope that I might be able to come up with some way to make her want to return. It was difficult for me to be here in a place bristling with her magnetic power, with so much of my life and our history stamped onto every object.

When my schizophrenic Aunt Melissa died, Uncle Jerry told me their house had suddenly developed “different weather.” He said the drafts came from different directions, lightbulbs gave off substantially more or less light, that the house cooled on hot afternoons, and that rain came through half a dozen leaks in a roof that hadn’t leaked in fourteen years. He bought buckets to catch the drips and an indoor thermometer to prove he wasn’t going crazy. He recorded some “very strange” temperature patterns in the old North Park house. He said they gradually subsided, as did the lightbulb fluctuations and roof leaks, though three years of San Diego drought followed Melissa’s death.

Standing in the bedroom I looked at our wedding picture on the bedroom dresser. By the expressions on our faces it seemed impossible that we had been photographed in the process of making a huge mistake.

I took a few minutes to browse the Web site of the San Diego Synesthesia Society, as I had done several times in the last year. Their next meeting was Wednesday — tomorrow — and I was tempted to go. I was also unnerved by the prospect. I wasn’t sure what I would find in a roomful of people with conditions like my own, but I was curious. I’d read that most synesthetes were female and left-handed, like Gina. I was curious about the long-term effects of my condition. Did it slowly drive people crazy? Might my synesthesia gradually fade away? Could it get more acute?

When I called Vince, he would tell me nothing other than that Gina was in a good safe place and doing well. This troubled me in a way I couldn’t admit. I knew that Vince wanted to help me but I knew he had to put his daughter first. Dawn came on to tell me that I should let whatever was supposed to be, be — things happen for a reason, and things were going to work out. This made me feel worse because it seemed like a loftier way of saying, Why don’t you just give up?

I went to the garage and looked at my fly-tying table but had no interest in creating imitation insects to catch trout that I would put back in the river anyway. Instead I sat there and wondered how McKenzie was doing with Hollis Harris. I had an unprovable feeling that he was taking advantage of her in some way but I couldn’t say what it was. She was a grownup. She was smart. She was experienced in the world. She had a sharp tongue and could shoot a chest-size group at fifty feet in nine and a half seconds with her sidearm. I wondered if Harris had run a standard hidden threat assessment on her, maybe come up with something he could exploit. I knew that there were gang problems in the outer branches of her family tree. His money bothered me, as it bothered her. He could rent things that most of us committed a lifetime to buy. No risk. I hoped McKenzie wasn’t one of them.

Well after dark I drove from Normal Heights back to La Jolla and parked across from Jordan Sheehan’s place. The night was cool and clear and I could hear the waves and the barks of the sea lions down by the seawall.

It was a quiet neighborhood. An elderly couple walked a miniature dachshund in a red sweater. When they wobbled out of sight I ambled over to Jordan’s driveway and slapped a piece of duct tape over the rear right taillight of the pale blue Porsche. I pressed it down against the cap so it would stay on.

I’d bought a bag of tacos and a large root beer from a drive-through, and after taping Squeaky Clean’s taillight, I sat back in my big Chevrolet, ate, and waited.

Exactly for what, I wasn’t sure. But logic told me that Jordan Sheehan was connected to almost everyone we had interviewed regarding the death of Garrett Asplundh. She was connected to the police through Fellowes and Mincher, to the city government through Rood and Stiles, to business through Sarvonola and Vinson. She was connected to the streets through her girls and their johns and Chupa Junior. She wasn’t a work-at-home financial adviser who just partied with the city players for fun. Her connections were the very ones that Garrett Asplundh had been hired to keep clean, polished, and in working order.

An hour and a half later, around eight, Jordan came down the steps of her house. She wore a sunny yellow dress with a shiny belt and buttons that ended high enough to show her legs. Over it draped a silky gray overcoat. She unlocked the car and got in, and a moment later the powder blue Porsche revved hoarsely, then backed out of the driveway.

I let her get almost to the avenue, then turned on my lights and swung a U-turn. I let two cars between us. The taped-off taillight made her easy to follow and oddly enough, Jordan Sheehan was a conscientious driver who signaled her turns well ahead of time.

On the outskirts of town she picked up Interstate 5 north. I stayed four cars back and a lane over, my eyes keyed on the one-lighted Porsche. She got off at Lomas Santa Fe and doubled back south into Solana Beach, then Eden Gardens. Then east into the hills and up a grade.

There was just one car between us now — a gas-electric hybrid of all things — and I could see the Porsche eating up the incline ahead of us. I couldn’t pass the hybrid without getting Jordan’s attention, and the hybrid couldn’t keep up with the Porsche. We were past the homes and offices now and the hills were dark against a darker sky. Far ahead she swerved right then took a left turn fast and disappeared into the darkness of the upper canyon.

I goosed the Chevy around the hybrid car and floored it up the grade. The gearbox kicked down into second, then third, and then the V-8 found its power band and the car ate asphalt. I broke the back tires loose around the turn that the Porsche had made so nimbly and tried to accelerate through it without making too much noise. Ahead of me I saw nothing but a vanishing white line and a glimmer of taillight moving beyond the hillside brush.

I let the incline slow me down and set the shifter for third. I followed a sweeping curve, still climbing, then straightened out briefly, then curved back the other way. Ahead I caught a flash of lighted windows and the shapes of buildings.

Squeaky Clean hit her brakes, signaled, then turned left into a wide entryway with a guardhouse and an ornate white gate blocking the way. The guardhouse was not lit. I saw her arm extend from the car window as I drove past, continued a hundred yards up the road, then made a sweeping U-turn and crept back down toward the guardhouse in second gear.

The gate was just closing and the Porsche was already far past it, moving into the neighborhood of huge, dramatically lit homes. I watched the little car make a right and vanish behind a house the size of a multiplex theater. When the gate settled into position I read the words formed by the white iron: EDEN HEIGHTS. I thought how different it looked from Normal Heights. The homes were several times larger and much more spectacular than in the old neighborhood where I lived.

I pulled off to the side of the drive, killed the lights. Twenty minutes later an exotic-looking roadster that McKenzie would probably drool over came flying up the road, then swerved into the entryway at the last second and stopped at the gate. The driver reached from the window and slid a white card into an electronic box set in a slate stanchion. Music and a woman’s laughter floated into the night. The gate rolled back and the exotic car rolled through it as I guided my land yacht of a Chevy into Eden Heights.

Mr. Exotic went the same way Squeaky Clean had gone. I drove slowly toward that first turn. I had browsed just enough home and architecture magazines in my life to realize that places like this were where they got their cover shots. Everything was outsize and lit from the bottom. There was no wood construction, no stucco. Just stone, plaster, and glass. Majestic palms swayed overhead in the cool, gentle breeze. Fountains trickled within expansive courtyards. Each home sat on a big lot, recessed from the street, with a planted slope in front. Some of them faced the street and others faced one way or the other, like people trying to avoid eye contact.

I made the turn. More bashful mansions. At the end of the cul-de-sac, set off from the other homes by space and height as if it were royalty, sat a two-story Italianate villa with a grand circular drive designed around a big fountain spraying blue lighted water into the air. Squeaky Clean’s car sat in the drive, tucked up close to the house. There were several other cars, too, and four of them were Cabriolets. Mr. Exotic got out of his roadster as I drove past. I recognized him — Anthony Rood, Ninth District councilman with an eye on an assembly seat, a soft spot for sports teams, and for throwing public money at depressed areas so poor people couldn’t afford to stay. And a special friend of at least three Squeaky Clean girls. Still another girl now unfurled from the passenger side of his car. All I saw was the flash of a silver dress as I went by.

I came to the end of the cul-de-sac, made the turn, and parked out of sight of the house. I killed the engine. Behind me was the darkness of the hills and in front of me a hillock of brush from beyond which rose a bank of soft light from the house and grounds. I couldn’t exactly cruise the place in my Chevy.

From the trunk I got my binoculars, a knit watch cap, and a dark windbreaker with SDPD on the back in yellow. I locked the plainwrap and climbed into the brush before putting on the coat and hat. I closed my eyes for a second, and when I opened them the night was lighter. It took me a while to make the crest of the hillock because of the stiff, high brush and the rocky earth. I stopped for a moment and looked up at the moon through the branches of a tall manzanita bush. I wondered if by some tiny chance Gina was looking at the moon too. A rabbit chose this moment to bolt, which sent my heart racing.

When I got to the top of the hill, the side of the mansion came into view. I was just about eye level with the first-story windows. I looked through the binoculars at the big patio behind the house and a swimming pool and a bubbling whirlpool. They were all enclosed by an elegant metal fence topped by ornate but intimidating spears. A man and woman buried to their shoulders in the boiling green water kissed urgently in a cloud of rising steam. A pool house stood dark, just a faint porch light burning outside. King palms stood around the pool, each tended by its own light like a painting in a museum. To my surprise, a pretty woman in a short dark dress and high heels came from the house with two drinks on a tray. She set the drinks on a small table by the whirlpool and went back inside.

All of the windows were shuttered, so I couldn’t see into the house. Only the French doors through which Short Dark Dress had come offered me anything at all. Through them I saw a large, dimly lit room. Short Dark Dress stood behind a bar, rinsing a highball glass in a sink. I could make out a sofa and a floor lamp turned down low, a man and a woman sitting on the sofa talking intently, a big abstract painting on the wall behind them, and a pool table lit by a hanging Tiffany-style lamp. The balls were racked and ready but nobody was playing.

Suddenly Jordan Sheehan strode into the room with a cell phone held to one ear and said something to Short Dark Dress. Then, talking into the phone again, she walked past the couple on the couch and disappeared.

I moved up the hillside a few yards and found a place where I could sit and see the house. The couple in the whirlpool rose naked from the boiling green water, wrapped towels around their bodies, swept their drinks from the table, and hustled across the patio into the pool house. I didn’t recognize either of them. In the binoculars I could see their dark footprints on the flagstone patio. The lights inside the pool house didn’t come on.

I wondered what to do. Jordan would have at least one set of eyes on the road out front.

I could call for backup, but the arrival of police cruisers would only start a mass exodus.

I could go knock on the door and ask to come in. Whoever answered would be within his or her rights to tell me this was private property and to beat it. But they might let me in, and by law I would be able to observe everything and anything in plain sight.

Or I could enter the premises based on my reasonable suspicion that a crime was taking place inside and be prepared to argue probable cause later. People would scatter. I could chase one down or surprise somebody and make an arrest or two. But unless I saw the money change hands or could find a witness who had seen such a thing, there would be no case for court. I would have to justify my moving surveillance of Jordan Sheehan. As an officer acting alone, I’d be placing myself at risk. And I’d be setting up my department for lawsuits for illegal search and unlawful arrest.

Or I could come back some other time with paper and a half dozen plainclothes officers and we could serve the warrant and toss the place. But I wasn’t likely to get a warrant based on what I’d seen — a suspected madam who was licensed by the county to do business as a financial adviser, a city councilman and his aide, a woman with a tray of drinks, two naked people kissing in a whirlpool. Does that sound like a brothel to you?

I unclipped my cell phone and called Captain Villas. He was not pleased to be interrupted at home but I explained to him, quietly, what I had done and what I was now watching from the bushes behind the mansion in Eden Heights. He said he’d inform the chief and I should keep it to myself for now. He asked me if I was alone and told me to be careful.

I stood and worked my way back around for a front view of the house. With my pocketknife I trimmed back some branches of wild buckwheat, then got out my notebook and sat down again. It was nine-thirty. A white VW Cabriolet rolled into the circular driveway and parked behind Rood’s roadster. A redhead climbed out and my heartbeat spiked. She had Gina’s bouncy red hair and fast walk and for a split second I thought I was seeing her. But her skin was darker, and she was fuller-figured than my wife. As she climbed the steps, Chupa Junior opened the front door. He was dressed in a shiny blue suit. They talked as he let her in. He scanned the street and shut the door. With the binoculars I could see the stylish grate-covered window in the handsome front door. Chupa’s office window, I thought. I made notes and wished I had a silent camera with a long telephoto and a slow shutter.

I made more notes as the girls and johns came and went. Between nine-thirty and two in the morning, six men arrived alone and eight left. Four more Squeaky Clean girls came, parked, and entered the house. Seven left.

Among them were Carrie Ann Martier and one of her two friends who had cooperated to make Garrett’s sex video. Chet Fellowes pulled up in a shiny SUV and climbed the steps around midnight. He looked nervous and hungry. Trey Vinson arrived at 1:00 A.M. and was gone by 1:25. I was surprised he had the courage to be here after what we had shown him earlier that day. By 2:30 there were only two cars left in the drive. Jordan Sheehan padded outside with her high heels in one hand, got into her blue Porsche, and drove away. A few minutes later the lights inside went out one by one, and Chupa walked from the house. He locked the door and lumbered across the driveway to a black BMW. The car dipped with his weight. The bass from his trunk woofer thumped into the night and his car disappeared downhill in a swirl of white smoke.

I took my time heading down the hill and out of Eden Heights. I made my way to La Jolla thinking about what I ’d seen. I didn’t understand why such beautiful young women would sell sex to men who were married and not very attractive. It wasn’t that the girls were starving or destitute or couldn’t do anything else for a living. Could you really just put your mind somewhere else and pretend it wasn’t happening? I parked short of Jordan’s pretty home, walked briskly up the sidewalk to her driveway, and pulled the tape off her taillight.

When I got home I immediately checked for a call from Gina, but there was none. Rachel had called to ask how I was doing. She said she hadn’t heard a thing and hoped I was okay. I didn’t trust Rachel as far as I could throw her but it was nice of her to check in.

I sat in the darkness in our little living room and thought some more about what I had seen that night. I did some loose math in my head. Estimating one thousand dollars for each john I counted, minus the discounts for Fellowes and Vinson, the Squeaky Clean girls would have brought in somewhere around twelve thousand dollars. If Jordan Sheehan took four hundred per trick, that meant she made forty-eight hundred dollars. And this was based only on the men I had counted. The house had had paying customers in it before Squeaky Clean and I even got there. I figured that Tuesdays would be slow. What would a Friday night bring in — double that? More? And add to that the income of the Squeaky Cleans out in the streets in their shiny cute convertibles.

Because I was tired, my mind skipped along on minor thoughts: Did they have a laundry service? Was the house rented furnished? What did the neighbors think was going on so late at night? Was the brothel open only on certain nights?

For a moment I stood on my porch with the light off and looked out into the cool March darkness. The springtime that I felt coming seemed to be far away now. It seemed like the night could last forever. I wondered how Mom and Dad were doing out in El Cajon. I was glad they had each other.

A little while later, I sat on the couch and put “The Life and Death of Samantha” into the DVD player. I should have been exhausted by almost no sleep in the last forty-eight hours but all I felt was jittery and bleak.

I watched the adults eating and drinking and listened to their voices and the cameraman’s voice: Great party. I saw Garrett and Stella at the center of the table, happy and expansive. And Garrett’s brother, Sam. Great people. I couldn’t help noting that even Fellowes looked leaner and better formed than he did now. Great country. Kaven’s thick hair lifted in the breeze, and his smile flashed behind the big mustache.

I wondered which of the Asplundhs’ party guests had shot and narrated this part of the video. His voice was clear and strong and I knew I’d heard it before but couldn’t place it.

I watched the children playing and the splash from the cannonball and the water hitting the lens of the camera. Then the fireworks and the boy running with the sparkler. Then the awful hush surrounding the small casket bathed in the stained-glass light of the chapel.

I watched the party scenes again. I had the feeling I was missing something obvious. They took only a few minutes to flicker by in the bright July sun. Then I pictured Garrett Asplundh sitting in his black Explorer at his special place by the Cabrillo Bridge while the rain came down.

What a terrible difference eight months had made.

I woke up a few hours later to a room jolted by sunlight and the sounds of birds carrying on in the coral tree in our front yard. I was on the couch. I had the remote in my hand and a kink in my neck.

I had dreamed that Gina and I were living happily in a tree house in a forest of Saskatchewan. The house was near the top of the tallest tree and it was open on all four sides. It was small and fragrant, and you could see for hundreds of green miles. I was aware even in the dream that I’d never been to Saskatchewan and this made our lives there feel all the more precious and temporary. We had leaf blowers to keep the pine needles off the floor and we could point the blowers backward between our legs, just kind of sit on them, then jump right off into the sky and fly. The blowers were not loud, and they gave off the smell of cinnamon instead of gas exhaust. When Gina flew by she laughed and her dress blew up and I tried to catch her but couldn’t. I don’t know how the dream ended.

I checked her closet again but was unsurprised by what I found. I looked at myself in the bathroom mirror and wished I were somebody else.