"I
think she's dead."
I
had been taking my dog on a nice Sunday walk along the beach when I heard this.
The kids had already caught my attention, standing in a circle, around
someone lying on the sand.
I
moved in and looked. Whoever had
said "I think she's dead" was right.
She was dead, contorted and not breathing. I squatted and felt for a pulse.
Nothing, though the skin was still warm. I unclipped the cell phone from my belt as I stood, and
looked at each of the faces standing around me and the body -- three males and
two females. They were all in
bathing suits. And since they were
all about high school age, they all had that sickening healthy glow to them that
would have made anyone in my generation feel defective. I dialed 911.
"Anyone
know her name?" I asked as I waited for my phone call to be answered.
Stanley, was smelling the dead woman's feet, his snout nudging her heel
as if to wake her up. The body was twisted from the fall, hips going one way, one
arm invisible beneath her, the other thrown behind her back, face buried in the
sand. Hard to tell who she was.
The
teenagers all shook their heads, one girl saying "She wasn't in our
group."
"Operator
241," a voice said in my ear. "What
is your emergency?"
"I
want to report a victim from a fall. I'm
on Stetman Beach, just below the cliffs."
I told the operator the rest of what I knew -- that I had found the body
of a female at the base of the cliffs, and that she was not breathing and I
could not find a pulse.
The
operator said she would dispatch paramedics and police immediately and thanked
me for calling.
"Anybody
see anything?" I asked the firm young bodies. They all shook their heads no, transfixed by the dead person.
Stanley sat and panted, no longer interested.
"I
thought I saw something," one boy said. He had one of those stupid haircuts -- buzz-cut short around
the sides and long and unruly on top. He
had a tattoo of some sort of strange animal on his chest over his left nipple.
I wondered what kind of blobby thing it would look like in twenty years.
Then I wondered what kind of idiotic parents would let their flesh and
blood go around with a stupid haircut and a tattoo of a strange animal.
"I was, you know, body surfin' and when I came up, I thought I saw
something fall you know, but when I cleared my eyes I didn't see it.
The water is, you know, below, like, the beach."
The
water is below the beach.
Somehow, that made sense to me -- from the ocean, he could not see the
body. "How long ago was
that?"
"Five
minutes, maybe."
Judging
from his wet mop head and the beads of water on his skin, that would be about
right. I checked my watch -- 3:35.
So she hit the ground at half-past.
"Then
I came up on the beach to get my towel, you know, and I saw her," he added.
That
would be about the same time I saw the body from down the beach and thought
something was wrong. The kids were
just approaching then.
The
paramedics beat the police by at least five minutes, and Stanley greeted them
with a friendly bark and a fiercely wagging tail. They ignored him.
When
they turned the body over, one of the girls said "Oh!"
We
all looked at the girl, even Stanley.
"It's
Shari," she said.
"Shari
who?"
"Shari
Barile."
The
boys all nodded, and the other girl looked shocked -- that, or she was going to
be sick.
"She
was Prom Queen a couple of years ago," the boy with the blonde conservative
haircut said. He had muscles that
didn't look natural.
"Which
school?"
"La
Puera," three of them said in unison.
*
* *
When
the detectives finally arrived, they questioned me as if I was the one who
pushed the girl off the cliff, especially after they discovered I was Michael
Dastoli, disgraced former member of their ranks. I let them play the little game.
"So
what were you doing here?" Detective Portman said, still snide and
unpleasant after his partner wandered off.
"Walking
my dog. I live off Beach Canyon
Road."
He
sniffed and looked out toward the waves before turning his head back to me.
"Oh ... so, is that where the money went?"
He chuckled.
I
gritted my teeth, feeling the anger flush my face. Portman's face had settled into a ghost of a smirk as he
looked back at the water.
I
waited until I could un-grit my teeth. "The
kids say the girl was La Puera's Prom Queen."
"What
kids?"
"The
kids who left because it took you too long to get here."
He
clucked his tongue. "Did you
get their names?"
"I
know the victim's name is Shari Barile."
Portman
squinted at me as if I was too bright for him, then he turned and stomped off to
the body, pulling up the white sheet. He
said something to his partner, whom I had yet to be introduced.
The partner said "The actor?"
*
* *
It
was almost ten that night when the phone rang and a voice asked if I was Michael
Dastoli. When I said yes, the man
asked if he could come by to see me.
"That
depends," I said. "Who
are you?"
"Andrew
Barile," he said. He didn't
need to say more, and he knew it. Fame
can do that to a person.
Barile
showed up about five minutes later -- which means he lives closer to me than I
thought, or was already in his car when he called. He was everything he is on the movie screen, only in actual
size and not dressed as well. His
sharp, expressive eyes were signaling a combination of anger and sorrow, which
could have come off as an overdone acting job if he hadn't underplayed it.
Still, he was every bit as handsome as he thought he was, with just
enough vulnerability to pretend he didn't care.
"You
found my daughter?" His eyes
were hopeful, yet challenging. No
wonder he was an actor -- I couldn't make my eyes do that with a mirror and a
month's practice.
"Me
and some kids, yes. Please
sit," I said, gesturing toward the couch.
As
he sat, Stanley wandered into the room and noticed the new guest, tail erupting
in a frantic wag. The actor petted
him, and Stanley responded by sticking his snout in the man's crotch.
I snapped at Stanley with a command that was, as usual, ignored.
I grabbed the dog and pulled him backward, apologizing to my guest.
Apparently,
Stanley had been outside and had taken a drink of water, which now left a big
wet spot in Mr. Barile's groin.
"Oh,
gad," I said, sounding like an idiot.
"It's
alright, I have two Great Danes. They
have big mouths."
They
have big everythings,
I thought. Stanley was a cross between a German Shepherd and something
unidentifiable, so he had a big snout and attaching mouth.
Barile
crossed his legs and almost smiled. My
ex-wife would have passed out in a full-blown swoon. I could almost hear her voice saying "Lucky dog,
lucky dog ..."
"The
police told me not to talk with you," he said, and I realized a little
better the type of personality I was dealing with -- not only disarming with his
looks and body language, but with his language -- confronting people before
there was a reason to confront them.
"Yeah,
that sounds like them."
"Why
would they say that? Are you
trouble?"
His
slight accent was playful. If I
were blind, I would have thought he was smiling.
"They
have their side of the story, and I have mine."
"You
were a cop?"
I
nodded.
"How
long ago?"
"Two-and-a-half
years."
"Did
you leave ... or were asked to leave?"
I
looked down at Stanley, who was comfortably lying near my feet, panting,
dripping slobber on the carpet. "Mr.
Barile, I think you have more pressing matters at hand than my life
history."
His
face softened as his eyes narrowed. "Yes,
I do, and I'm trying to see if I can trust you with them."
He paused, rubbing his hands and watching himself do it.
"I don't like that cop. I
don't trust him." He looked
up, contempt now playing on that theater of a face.
"Portman?"
"Yes.
Shari is my daughter -- how can I trust a cop I don't like?"
I
nodded, something I'm good at."You
were there, you were a cop, and I want to know if I can trust you."
"With
what?"
"My
daughter. I need to know --"
He stopped, looking past me somewhere out the window to my tiny backyard.
Then he looked down, away, blinking.
"I just need to know," he said.
"And
you want me to investigate?"
"Of
course. I want the truth."
I
thought this over. I could get some
help from a friend in the department, but I'd be working mostly from scratch on
everything. I could probably get
more information than Portman, considering his snide-and-arrogant demeanor was
not conducive to opening people up. I
also knew that whatever dollar amount I threw out would not result in an
argument from Mr. Barile, so I gave him something respectably high without being
insulting and he nodded, barely thinking about it. I added that I was not a licensed private investigator nor a
law enforcement official, blah blah blah blah blah, and he nodded again not even
bothering to listen.
"Would
you like anything to drink?"
He
thought for a moment. "Coffee?"
I
nodded. "Just a moment."
When
I returned with the coffee, I asked him about his daughter.
He
offered a sad smile. "What can
I say? She was the love of my life.
A joy." He paused, looking past me again. His eyes slowly filled up, and he tried to blink them clear.
"She used to call me Big Daddy," he said.
"She heard it on TV when she was eight, and--"
He stopped, looking down at his hands.
Andrew
Barile, the actor, was gone, replaced by Andrew Barile, the father.
He
talked for almost an hour.
*
* *
The
kid with the tattoo and stupid haircut was named Ben, with a last name that was
both unpronounceable and unspellable, at least by me. It seemed to have no vowels: Krnylyzywlskrt, or something
like that. You could get it wrong
and no one would be able to correct you.
It
was the next morning, a Monday, and Ben was at the beach, apparently skipping
school. I ran into him while
walking Stanley again. He was in a
T-shirt and the same swim trunks he wore the day before.
At least his hair was dry, though he kept running his hand through the
unruly locks, making them look more stupid by the minute.
"Shari
was cool," he said, sitting on the sand just down a ways from yesterday's
incident. "Everyone liked
her."
He
had a funny twinkle in his eye, which I quickly interpreted.
"Everyone?"
"Yeah.
Well, not the girls you know, but the guys dug her."
I'd
spent a total of five minutes with Ben, and now realized the 60's had never
really gone away. They got passed
on in the genes.
"Did
she party?"
"Oh,
yeah. She was like, you know, very
hospitable." Then he cackled
and I wondered if Ben was not above a little recreational marijuana to
kick-start his mornings.
"Was
she hospitable to you?"
"Of
course. I don't know anyone she
didn't do. Except the girls you
know." Then he looked at me
with a world-wise grin. "She'd
swirl with three or fours guys at a time. How
do you think she got to be Prom Queen?"
Then he cackled again.
This
is our future, I
thought.
"When
was the last time you ... she was hospitable?"
"With
me? Oh, you know like a year, year
and a half ago, before she graduated. She
liked younger guys."
"When
was the last time you saw her, you know, around?"
I moved my hand in a circle, hoping he would get what around
meant.
"Like
hanging? Not likely.
She blew this town. More
like on video."
I
raised my eyebrows. "She
acted?"
My
friend Ben cackled again, rocking back on his butt to the point of almost
falling over. "Yeah, she
acted. Not likely." He sat upright and shook his head. "She was hot. She
turned eighteen and bolted to the valley, working for a couple of studios."
"Do
you know which studios?"
He
snorted and looked out at the waves pouring onto the beach.
"I don't know. Adult,
you know? She went from Prom Queen to Porn Queen."
-- An
excerpt from "Side Effects" © Eric Dalen. All rights reserved.
