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Authors: Susan Kandel
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same spot. Young and stupid, right?”
I stared at Lisa’s tattoo.
Green, and red, and yellow.
71
My mind was reeling now. I thought back to the body un-
der the white sheets.
White, and white, and white.
All I’d seen that morning was white.
Who was this woman?
Who was that woman?
CHAPTER
NINE
Isat in my car for a long time.
I’d woken up this morning convinced that the body I’d
seen at the coroner’s office wasn’t Maren’s. But I’d talked my-
self out of it. I’d been rational. I’d resisted my natural impulse
to complicate matters when they were already complicated
enough.
Tans fade, I’d said to myself.
But not tattoos.
Tattoos don’t just fade away.
Of course, Maren could have had her tattoo removed. It
was possible, happened every day. But it didn’t seem likely.
The process was painful and expensive. What’s more, yellow
and green were the most difficult colors to get rid of, virtually
guaranteed to leave fragments of pigment, and probably scars.
I knew because Bridget had considered having her ankle tattoo
removed last year, but had ultimately decided against it.
74
A person, she’d said, should learn to live with her mistakes.
Maybe there had never been any matching tattoos. Who
got matching tattoos, anyway? I’d never heard of such a thing.
It was absurd, just like the woman’s insistence that she’d have
known if Maren were planning to kill herself. I believe two
people can have a psychic bond, but why should I put stock in
anything she had to say? A complete stranger? How did I even
know she was Lisa? I hadn’t seen her talking to Will or Rafe,
or anyone else for that matter. She’d materialized out of thin
air when everyone else had long gone. Like a figment of my
imagination.
No.
She was real, flesh and blood.
Which meant someone was lying.
I just didn’t want that person to be Rafe.
t
P a l o s V e r d e s i s c l o s e t o S a n P e d r o .
San Pedro is a port town.
Sailors get tattoos.
If it were the late seventies, and you were a couple of surfer
girls from the Peninsula trying not to get caught, San Pedro is
where you’d go.
It was as logical as a mathematical proof. The fact that I’m
bad at math didn’t so much as cross my mind.
I devised a plan. The Thomas Guide was a crucial part of
this plan. By some miracle, the pages I needed (822 to 823)
weren’t missing. I studied them closely, tracing my route, in
pencil, of course: you sully your Thomas Guide at your peril.
75
Yes, according to my calculations, Palos Verdes Drive South
would lead me pretty much straight into San Pedro.
I headed down the hill, but traffic slowed to a crawl before
I’d made much progress. Then it stopped entirely. Maybe it
was a sign. Go home. Mind your own business. People were
leaning out of their windows and yelling at anybody who’d lis-
ten. I turned on the radio—classic rock—and cranked up the
volume to drown out the honking horns.
The Eagles were singing about a girl in a doorway and the
ringing of a mission bell, which to me sounded not the least bit
like hell. But it did rhyme.
Hell, as everybody knew, was being stuck behind a big rig
with no passing lane.
I drummed my fingers on the wheel.
Biggest big rig I’d ever seen.
I checked the glove compartment for candy, but no such luck.
I listened to Santana. Then Neil Young. Then ABBA came
on, and my patience was shot.
I leaned out my window like everybody else and yelled up
to the driver of the big rig, “What’s going on?”
He turned his head and yelled back, “Accident just past the
Wayfarer’s Chapel.”
The Wayfarer’s Chapel. That was where Jayne Mansfield
married bulging muscleman Mickey Hargitay in 1958. Talk
about signs.
Twenty minutes later I pulled into the parking lot, which
was nestled in a dense hillside. The traffic would probably be
unsnarled by the time I left.
I’d read about this place for years, but had never quite real-
ized where
I stared at Lisa’s tattoo.
Green, and red, and yellow.
71
My mind was reeling now. I thought back to the body un-
der the white sheets.
White, and white, and white.
All I’d seen that morning was white.
Who was this woman?
Who was that woman?
CHAPTER
NINE
Isat in my car for a long time.
I’d woken up this morning convinced that the body I’d
seen at the coroner’s office wasn’t Maren’s. But I’d talked my-
self out of it. I’d been rational. I’d resisted my natural impulse
to complicate matters when they were already complicated
enough.
Tans fade, I’d said to myself.
But not tattoos.
Tattoos don’t just fade away.
Of course, Maren could have had her tattoo removed. It
was possible, happened every day. But it didn’t seem likely.
The process was painful and expensive. What’s more, yellow
and green were the most difficult colors to get rid of, virtually
guaranteed to leave fragments of pigment, and probably scars.
I knew because Bridget had considered having her ankle tattoo
removed last year, but had ultimately decided against it.
74
A person, she’d said, should learn to live with her mistakes.
Maybe there had never been any matching tattoos. Who
got matching tattoos, anyway? I’d never heard of such a thing.
It was absurd, just like the woman’s insistence that she’d have
known if Maren were planning to kill herself. I believe two
people can have a psychic bond, but why should I put stock in
anything she had to say? A complete stranger? How did I even
know she was Lisa? I hadn’t seen her talking to Will or Rafe,
or anyone else for that matter. She’d materialized out of thin
air when everyone else had long gone. Like a figment of my
imagination.
No.
She was real, flesh and blood.
Which meant someone was lying.
I just didn’t want that person to be Rafe.
t
P a l o s V e r d e s i s c l o s e t o S a n P e d r o .
San Pedro is a port town.
Sailors get tattoos.
If it were the late seventies, and you were a couple of surfer
girls from the Peninsula trying not to get caught, San Pedro is
where you’d go.
It was as logical as a mathematical proof. The fact that I’m
bad at math didn’t so much as cross my mind.
I devised a plan. The Thomas Guide was a crucial part of
this plan. By some miracle, the pages I needed (822 to 823)
weren’t missing. I studied them closely, tracing my route, in
pencil, of course: you sully your Thomas Guide at your peril.
75
Yes, according to my calculations, Palos Verdes Drive South
would lead me pretty much straight into San Pedro.
I headed down the hill, but traffic slowed to a crawl before
I’d made much progress. Then it stopped entirely. Maybe it
was a sign. Go home. Mind your own business. People were
leaning out of their windows and yelling at anybody who’d lis-
ten. I turned on the radio—classic rock—and cranked up the
volume to drown out the honking horns.
The Eagles were singing about a girl in a doorway and the
ringing of a mission bell, which to me sounded not the least bit
like hell. But it did rhyme.
Hell, as everybody knew, was being stuck behind a big rig
with no passing lane.
I drummed my fingers on the wheel.
Biggest big rig I’d ever seen.
I checked the glove compartment for candy, but no such luck.
I listened to Santana. Then Neil Young. Then ABBA came
on, and my patience was shot.
I leaned out my window like everybody else and yelled up
to the driver of the big rig, “What’s going on?”
He turned his head and yelled back, “Accident just past the
Wayfarer’s Chapel.”
The Wayfarer’s Chapel. That was where Jayne Mansfield
married bulging muscleman Mickey Hargitay in 1958. Talk
about signs.
Twenty minutes later I pulled into the parking lot, which
was nestled in a dense hillside. The traffic would probably be
unsnarled by the time I left.
I’d read about this place for years, but had never quite real-
ized where
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