What Remains of Me Read online

  They were standing outside a holding cell—Barry, Greg, and Louise Braddock, who’d met him at the station. Inside the cell, Shane Marshall was passed out, snoring lightly. He was half-sitting on the bench, his body propped up against the wall at a weird angle that was bound to cramp him up in a bad way once he regained consciousness. Louise and Barry had hoped to question him and, being one of Barry’s sort-of gym buddies, Greg had said, “No problem.” But clearly Shane Marshall was no good to anybody right now.

  “No drug arrests?” Louise said. “DUIs?”

  “Well, he is a Betty Ford grad,” Barry said.

  Louise frowned. “And you know this how?”

  “Hank Grayson told me.”

  “He did?”

  Barry smiled a little inside. (That’s right. Hank Grayson and I are pals now. We go out for beers together. Chew on that for a while.) But he kept his expression neutral—watched Shane Marshall’s chest rising and falling, the snore whistling out of him. Such a harmless-looking guy, really. Small, slightly built . . . Not the type you’d expect to beat the crap out of somebody in a strip club. Hank Grayson was convinced Shane Marshall had a dark side—a “Mr. Hyde” that jumped out and bit whenever he fell off the wagon. But Barry wasn’t so sure. You had to look at the big picture here. The guy’s father had just been shot to death. Grief did strange things to people.

  Louise said, “What was he on tonight? TMZ said he was druggy.”

  “Ambien.” Greg gestured at Marshall, his sweaty hand flying into Barry’s line of vision. “We spoke to his mom. I guess when he was back at her house earlier today, he stole a whole bunch from her bottle.”

  Louise’s voice pitched up an octave. “Seriously?”

  Barry turned, looked at her. “Ambien doesn’t make everybody fall asleep,” he said. “Some people get mean on it. Some can black out and do things they don’t remember—eating, having sex, driving even . . .”

  “I know that, Barry.”

  “So why the shock?”

  “Because earlier today, I talked to a friend at the Joshua Tree police department. A little more than a week ago, Shane Marshall was taken in for trespassing on someone’s property. He was wandering around this guy’s yard at three in the morning, trying to look through his windows.”

  Barry turned to Greg. “Why wasn’t it on his record?”

  “The guy didn’t want to press charges,” Louise said. “Mainly because Marshall truly had no idea what he was doing. He was acting hypnotized—possessed even, my friend said.” Louise looked at Greg, then Barry. She held his gaze. “Turned out he was having a bad reaction to Ambien.”

  Barry looked at her. “So . . .”

  “He woke up in the police station two hours later. Didn’t remember a thing. He’d blacked out everything—including the drive to the neighbor’s house.” Louise started to thumb through her notebook.

  “Jeez,” Greg said.

  “This morning, when I spoke to Shane Marshall, he told me he had taken sleeping pills last night,” she said, reading her notes. Barry glanced over her shoulder. He’d never known anyone with such perfect handwriting. “He said he wouldn’t have heard his wife coming or going because, and I quote, ‘I was dead to the world.’”

  Barry shook his head. “You honestly think he could have taken Ambien last night and blacked out not only a two-hour drive to his parents’ house—but getting his father’s gun out of a locked drawer, killing him with it . . .”

  Louise stared at him. “I think he could claim that’s what happened.”

  “You’re kidding me,” he said. “Right?”

  “Do I look like I’m kidding?” She blinked at him, pursed her lips even thinner than they were to begin with.

  “Louise,” Barry said. “You never look like you’re kidding. Your face doesn’t go that way.”

  “One week ago, he blacks out on Ambien, wanders around some random neighbor’s property long enough for the guy to notice, call the cops . . .”

  “Wait. You think he was setting the stage? Like this is part of some grand plan?”

  “I don’t think or know anything. It’s a possibility,” she said. “At this point, anything is a possibility.”

  Inside the cell, Shane Marshall stirred in his sleep. “No,” he said. “No, no. Get off of me.”

  Greg wiped his sweaty forehead with the back of his hand. “You guys are freaking me out.”

  Barry looked at Louise. “Was his wife told about this, uh, altercation in Joshua Tree?”

  She shook her head. “He was mortified. Begged those cops not to tell.”

  “And they listened?”

  “They know him there. Everybody knows him. He’s a nice guy, my friend said, and kind of a local celebrity because of his dad. So they went along with it. Never called his wife.”

  Barry nodded. “Who was the neighbor?” he said. “Was he a friend of Marshall’s too?”

  “Get off of me!”

  Louise shook her head. “Some local weirdo,” she said. “Chainsaw artist. Goes by the name of Rocky Three.”

  KELLY SCREECHED HER CAR TO THE CURB ON SEWARD, JUST AROUND the corner from the Hollywood Police Station. By now, more than two hours had passed since TMZ had broken the news, and it showed in the vans outside the station, the bank of paparazzi clustered on either side of the front door, as though Shane’s arrest were some kind of red carpet event.

  She got out of the car, slammed the door shut, and took a few deep breaths. “Collect yourself,” she whispered—same thing the shrink at Carpentia had said to her the one time she’d ever cried in therapy. She’d been talking about her dad. Her poor dad, who had never hurt anyone other than himself and, when she thought about it, was not unlike Shane . . .

  “Collect yourself please, Kelly,” the shrink had said. As though bits of her had fallen off and would blow away if she didn’t gather them up fast.

  Did Shane know about last night? Was that what had sent him over the edge? She wanted to tell him what had happened, but how could she? She tried rehearsing it in her mind as she headed up Wilcox and waited to cross at the light. She tried several ways to phrase the story, but every version fell flat.

  She wouldn’t even be able to tell Shane how she’d been able to sleep last night, because the truth was this: sleeping had been easy. The hard thing had been waking up.

  Kelly was nearing the police station now. Some of the paparazzi caught sight of her. She noticed them turning toward her and put her head down. As she approached the front of the building, she heard one of them say, “Is she anybody?” And then a mumble—Kelly couldn’t discern the answer, but she suspected it was “no.” For a teenage killer, aging was the ultimate disguise, and Kelly Michelle Lund was now forty-seven, not seventeen. She was grateful for that as she passed the group of them, muttering and shouting and pushing at each other, saying Shane’s name, Sterling’s name . . . growing restless and vicious like the pack they were.

  “Wait, wait, wait,” said one of them, a woman. “I think she might be the wife.”

  Kelly sped up her pace, pretending not to hear. Just get to the door. Open it. Ask for Officer Sullivan. Don’t turn around. Keep your head down.

  “You mean the murderer?” said another, this one male.

  Almost there. Kelly’s foot was on the first front step when she heard, “Kelly. How are you?” She froze. She recognized the voice—deep and gravelly and unfortunately one of a kind, each word laced with a British-by-way-of-Massachusetts lockjaw. Intimidating to Kelly when she was just a kid, but so ridiculous now—so ringingly, pathetically phony. Kelly’s head jerked up at the sound of it.

  And there he was. Sebastian Todd. (“Call me ST, Kelly. All my friends do.”) Since she’d last seen him, Todd had replaced his wire-rimmed granny glasses with squared-off tortoiseshell frames. His swoop of snow white hair had been shaved all the way down, so that in the light it looked like glitter sprinkled over his head. But he was still 100 percent ST, still wearing one of his signature cream-co
lored suits, slumped shoulders straining against the expensive fabric, his posture reminding Kelly—as it had when she’d met him—of a cartoon vulture, grinning from a tree branch.

  He’d been talking to a woman with gunmetal gray hair and another man, whom, after a few seconds, Kelly recalled as the detective from this morning. The sugar lover. Of course they’re hanging out together. Why wouldn’t they be?

  Kelly said, “I’m doing peachy, ST.” And then she put on the smile for him. The Mona Lisa Death Smile, as he’d named it himself. Flat eyes, mouth stretching. She hadn’t realized what she’d been doing back when he’d named it. She’d been a young girl, scared out of her mind, imagining a fuse box, escaping . . . But after Kelly had read his first essay about her in the Los Angeles Times, after she’d seen that phrase spelled out on the page, Mona Lisa Death Smile . . . Well, she’d kind of liked it. During her first few days in, she’d spent hours practicing it in front of the mirror. Tilting the chin, narrowing the eyes just so . . . The reward had come the first time she’d tried it out on Javerbaum, the biggest, meanest guard at Carpentia. “Answer me when I talk to you,” Officer Javerbaum had said. And Kelly had smiled that smile at the bitch and watched her face change, watched her crumble . . . The detective was looking at her the same way Javerbaum had, which made her smile for real.

  Todd shook his head mournfully. She could practically hear the clucking of his tongue.

  The only one unmoved was the gray-haired woman, who strode toward Kelly, hand outstretched. “Kelly,” she said. “I’d like to ask you some questions about your husband.” The woman pressed a business card into her hand.

  “My husband?” she said.

  Behind her back, shouts echoed.

  “Have you talked to Shane, Kelly?”

  “What drugs was he on?”

  “Did you kill Sterling Marshall, Kelly? Is that why Shane went nuts? Because you killed his dad?”

  “Kelly! Over here!”

  Kelly’s head went down again. She looked at the business card in her hand. LOUISE BRADDOCK: LAPD ROBBERY/HOMICIDE.

  She nearly laughed. “About my husband, huh?”

  Kelly heard the click, beep, and whir of their cameras at her back, her name shouted louder and louder. She brushed Louise Braddock aside, pushed open the door, and yanked it closed behind her. “Free at last,” she whispered. The irony wasn’t lost.

  COMPARATIVELY, THE INSIDE OF THE STATION HOUSE WAS QUIET AND, despite the fluorescent lights and the sickly yellow walls, soothing.

  The air conditioner was on full blast. It froze the sweat on the back of Kelly’s neck, snaked under the neck of her T-shirt. She shuddered as she made her way to the front desk, where a ruddy-faced and sweaty young male cop stood talking to an equally young policewoman, blond hair pulled back into a ponytail. “I’m telling you, it can happen,” the sweaty one was saying. “Just because a drug is supposed to work a certain way, doesn’t mean it’ll work that way on everybody. Body chemistry is a strange thing.”

  “Come on, Greg. It’s a sleeping pill.”

  “You come on. Big Pharma’s obviously got you brainwashed.”

  “Excuse me,” Kelly said. “I’m here for Shane Marshall.”

  The sweaty one abruptly stopped talking. The blonde trained her clear blue eyes on her. “Mrs. Marshall?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m Officer Sullivan. We spoke earlier . . .” Kelly caught that hint of a southern accent.

  “Yes?”

  “Listen, ma’am. I’m sorry you had to come all the way out here.”

  Kelly frowned. “Huh? It isn’t a problem.”

  “No,” she said. “No, that’s not what I meant.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “What I mean to say, ma’am, is that Mr. Marshall’s already left.”

  “What? But I’m—”

  “He left with his sister. She posted bail, and we let them out the back, to avoid the reporters.” She took a step forward, gave Kelly a pained smile. “I’m so sorry. I tried calling, but it went straight to voice mail.”

  Kelly grabbed her phone out of her bag and pushed at it. The battery was dead. She’d never plugged it into her car charger, never even plugged it in at home, when she’d gotten back from Rocky’s. Almost as though you have a need to see it die . . . “Don’t worry about it,” she mumbled, heading out the front door before Sullivan could reply.

  That press murmur again, tugging at her: “Kelly!” “Where’s Shane?” “Are they keeping him, Kelly?”

  “Did he help you kill Sterling?”

  At least he’d been able to sneak out the back, keep them all waiting out here for no reason. Kelly hoped they’d stay all night. She glanced over at Todd. “Something wrong, Kelly?” he said in his ridiculous accent.

  Oh, how she wanted to slap him.

  He took a few steps toward Kelly. Her cue. One foot in front of the other, fast as possible, starting now. She hightailed it, running into a broad shoulder as she passed: the sugar-spooning detective on his way into the station, his partner the business card giver at his side . . . Dupree. Barry Dupree. How odd, for her to remember his name now. “Sorry,” Dupree said.

  Sorry?

  “Kelly, can I ask you what kind of mood your husband was in last night?” It was the business card giver talking.

  “No,” said Kelly. “You can’t.”

  Barry Dupree stifled a smile.

  More and more, this night was feeling like a bad dream, one she knew she’d had before and would hate herself for having again, were it ever to do her a favor and prove itself a dream and end.

  She ran past the shouting paparazzi, across the street against the light, horns blaring at her, bringing back memories that she pushed away, pushed them hard, fast as they came. Stop thinking. Charge your phone. Check it to see if Shane called, and then drive away. Kelly heard her name again, footsteps behind her.

  “Leave me alone!” It came out a scream and her voice sounded foreign, unhinged.

  Once she made it around the corner, Kelly peered down the street. Her car was about half a block away, license plate glaring back at her from under a streetlight. The street was a residential one—unassuming duplexes, a squat, three-story apartment building she hadn’t noticed during the rush to the station, but, as she now saw, much like the place where she and her mom and Catherine used to live. “Mama, look! Kelly and I can see the sign from our bedroom window!”

  Most of the windows were dark, the sidewalk empty. She hurled herself at her car, breathing heavily, her sneakers slamming into the concrete. Once she reached her Camry, she shoved her key in the door and flung it open. She stuck the key in the ignition and plugged her dead phone into the charger, waited just long enough to be able to turn it on. She’d received a text. Just one, from Shane. It was only one line long.

  I NEED SOME TIME AWAY FROM YOU.

  “What?” she whispered. “Why?”

  “Why?” She said it again. Such a dumb question. There were so many reasons why Shane would need time away from her, with last night at the top of the list, Rocky a close second, and what followed nearly endless. So many wrong things Kelly had done and kept stashed away from her husband of fifteen years, hoping he’d never find out, believing that her secrets might outlive them both.

  “What you don’t know can’t hurt you.” Kelly’s mother used to say that. Kelly’s mother, who had driven Catherine out of the house and to her death with her rage and then Kelly, two years later, to a different type of death . . .

  Kelly thought about calling Shane. She imagined herself tracking him down at Bellamy’s house and banging on the door, demanding to see him. But then she looked at the text again. The words he’d chosen. Not just time away, but time away from you.

  Another one. Gone.

  She started up the car, so lost in her thoughts she didn’t feel anyone approaching, didn’t notice the passenger door opening until it slammed. She turned fast to see Sebastian Todd, vulture-slumped in the passenger seat as
though this were a planned meeting.

  “What are you doing here?” Kelly said.

  “Apologizing.”

  Kelly stared at him, barely noticing the paparazzi rounding the corner and making for her car. “Apologizing?” She pulled away from the curb but kept her eyes fixed on his face. “For what?”

  Sebastian Todd gave her a weak smile that had nothing to do with anything that was going on around them. “I know you didn’t kill John McFadden.”

  CHAPTER 11

  STERLING MARSHALL’S SON GOES WACKO AT A STRIP CLUB!

  Less than 24 hours after his movie star father’s brutal and mysterious shooting death, Sterling Marshall’s son Shane went completely CRAY CRAY at Teaserz on Pico, terrifying the dancers and leaving fellow patron Cary Wurst with a broken jaw and black eye. “I’ve never seen anything like it,” Cary’s friend Dave Farnsworth told TMZ. “The dude was like a wild animal!”

  Farnsworth told us that Shane Marshall, 40, arrived at the club alone and blotto. “He was hammered on something,” said one of the club’s dancers, who goes by the name of Bliss. “Definitely he has anger issues and was looking to pound somebody to a pulp!” Other patrons told TMZ that Shane’s eyes were half closed, and his head was “lolling,” in a really drugged-out way. “Looked like meth to me,” said another eyewitness, who thinks it also could have been bath salts. Whatever Marshall was on, it wasn’t pretty. After leaping onstage and mauling a dancer as she tried to perform, Marshall was approached by Cary Wurst, who politely told him to keep his hands off the girls. “Shane Marshall made this growling sound, like an animal,” Bliss said. “Then he dove on poor Cary—he just started tearing him apart.”

  The scariest part was, Marshall spoke to Wurst throughout the entire, vicious attack. “You could only make out a little of it but it was weird,” said Wurst’s friend Dave. “A bunch of times, I heard him say, ‘Kelly.’”

  Marshall’s wife, convicted murderer Kelly Michelle Lund, could not be reached for comment. But regardless of what he was saying to his victim about his wife, Marshall clearly wasn’t behaving like a loving, loyal husband on the night of his father’s shooting death.