AllFreeNovel
Share Us
She snapped her fingers. “Likethat.He’d just get this look and that’s the look he got when he told me about Forrest. But first he got mad at me. I was in the gym and he said come into my office and then he got really scary and started freaking out. Forrest had fucked him over, Forrest had played him like a stupid asshole and did it happen because I convinced Forrest?”
She shuddered. “That’s when he came up to me and held me here.” Touching her shoulders. “His eyes were like…these red dots. I thought he was going to kill me. I said why would you think that, why would that be in your fucking head? And he’s like because Forrest is obsessedwith your pussy, you could get him to drive his car off a cliff and I’m like it’s not like that, it’s normal love and I’d never tell him to go off a cliff or do anything he didn’t want to do and he said he didn’t believe me and I started crying and then he believed me. Said the fact that you’re crying shows me you’re being straight. Then he let go of me and said go back to your elliptical machine, I’m going to Forrest and we’re going to have a talk.”
Tears pooled in her eyes and flowed down pale cheeks. “The next day, Tyler came to me and said Forrest was dead, it had been an accident.”
Milo said, “What kind of accident?”
“A heart attack, they were talking and getting angry and all of a sudden Forrest collapsed and Tyler tried to do CPR but it didn’t work and I needed not to tell anyone because if I did I might get in trouble myself.”
“Why?”
“Because I was the girlfriend, the cops always look at the girlfriend or the boyfriend. I said that’s crazy and Tyler’s like I’m telling you, your life’s going to get turned over, they’re going to find your dope and make like the bad girl who did corruption to a rich older guy and even if they stop, you’ll lose your job and your apartment and be totally fucked up.”
“Heart attack,” said Milo. “Did you ever learn differently?”
“Just from the papers,” she said. “They said it was a gang thing, a home invasion. They never said more. I figured he got scared.”
“You never talked to the police.”
“They never talked to me and Tyler scared me not to.”
“Did you ever suspect Tyler had murdered Forrest?”
Her eyes drifted to the left and back.
Bloomfield said, “I can’t help you if you don’t help yourself, Lisette. Please. Read.”
“Okay, okay.” She looked at the second page, seemed lost.Bloomfield poked a spot. “You were here but skip that, we’ve covered it…here.”
“So…” said Montag. “Tyler moved back to L.A. and I stayed there. Then The Style-Right Hair and Beauty Salon closed because the owner, Mrs. Tranh, decided to retire. She only told us a month before, I was already late in my rent and without Forrest I was totally messed up inside. So I also moved back to L.A. and got a chair in a place but it was all the way in Alhambra and I was living in my aunt’s place in Venice and the commute was difficult. So I finally made some contacts and started to freelance and soon after I heard from Tyler. He was back but still looking for work but he had some money saved up, he never said from where. But he was saying the truth because he was wearing a Rolex watch.”
Milo said, “Several watches were taken from Forrest’s house the day he was killed.”
“I know that now. Tyler told me. And that’s why it happened.”
“Why what happened?”
“What happened to Tyler.” She pushed the papers aside. “That’s why.”
Bloomfield said, “I give up, just tell it the way you want, dear.”
“Okay,” she said, suddenly perked up and eager. “Tyler and I started to…you know. Not regularly, he’d call, if I was free, why not? Then last week, it happened. He got crazy stoned on meth and got that same look he had when he grabbed me in his office, the red dot eyes. And he did it again. Grabbed me. Not mad, just…you know, intense. I said what’s going on? He said, I need to tell you. I’m like about what? He’s like about Forrest. Then he gives a creepy smile and says Forrest didn’t die of a heart attack. I snuffed him, Lisette. I snuffed him while he slept because he was an asshole and a traitor, even when he did my divorce he fucked me over, someone else would’ve got me more money for the gym.”
Her hands rose to her temples. “I was so so so so scared. And yeah, mad, I loved Forrest, Forrest was going to make my life better and look where my life was, living in my aunt’s garage. I could’ve had that house in Palm Desert, Forrest had a pool and a sauna and an eighty-inch high-definition Sony and…whatever I wanted. And Tyler had ruined everything. For what? Because he didn’t get his way and had anger management issues? Because Forrest changed his mind? But I said nothing, with Tyler if you said the wrong thing when he was on meth, anything could happen.”
Al Bloomfield said, “Exactly, anything. It’s a narcotic with unpredictable side effects but violence isn’t uncommon and the person in question was violent, unstable, and had shown himself capable of becoming cataclysmically enraged.”
As good a summation as I’ve ever heard.
Milo said, “So you did nothing.”
“Yes, sir. Not that time. Then I started thinking. And that’s what happened.”
“You decided to kill Tyler.”
“I was scared, sir. He killed Forrest, I was terrified he’d kill me because now I knew and when he came down from the meth, he’d think about that.”
“You didn’t call the police in Palm Springs.”
