San Diego Noir

“Sorry, talk to you again soon.” The snap of my cell felt harsh, but I’d spared myself a clitorectomy.

“I thought Betty was an ex from ages ago,” Caterina probed. “I thought you said she was boring.”

“True and truer.”

“Then why do you still talk to her?”

Why, indeed. Because she reminded me of an underdog boxer who struggles up from the mat on the count of nine repeatedly until she finally wins the bout. Because when she wasn’t complaining, she cracked corny jokes. Because for the sixteen months we were together, she tried her damnedest and it was my fault it didn’t work out. Because when I broke my ankle years after we split up, Betty walked my dog and made me dinner every day for six weeks. Because I could feel her heart from across a room.

These were not things I would be able to easily explain to Caterina, who had forgotten her own question and was now gliding around the house nude in search of asparagus stalks and cellophane. I like that in a woman.

I got up early the next day to brainstorm a new marketing campaign for my employer, Sciortino’s Winery, in the San Pasqual Valley. To save gas, they allowed me to telecommute most of the time. Caterina had, as usual, slipped out and returned to her home in the dark of night. I sipped Brazilian coffee and concentrated on strategies that would inspire critics to hyperbolize about our new Tempranillo.

The first call came at 7:48 a.m.

“I’m so sorry, Nikki,” a friend’s voice said.

“About what?”

“About Betty. You haven’t heard?”

“Heard what?”

“Turn on channel 39.”

For the next few minutes I ignored twelve more calls while I watched reporters second-guess the situation pertaining to the body lying on the sidewalk. They were calling it a suicide. They were calling her a jumper.

Traffic being what it is, I knew it would be faster to walk the mile or so from my house to Betty’s. I grabbed my house keys and cell and headed out.

I couldn’t swallow. Guilt and shame percolated deeper with every footstep. My pulse pounded. Suicide? Why hadn’t I been more patient? Why couldn’t I have been more helpful? Hanging up on her when Caterina distracted me was a very human thing to do, but hiding behind the species is a cheap excuse.

I walked fast, a dyke on a mission, hardly noticing the Craftsman bungalows, Spanish-style stuccos, gay bars, and boutiques that filled the neighborhood.

Hillcrest used to be dominated by a huge Sears, Roebuck and Co. When chichi condo complexes, an art-film theater, and distinctive eateries squeezed out Sears, blue collars were replaced by lavender boxers. Promises of erotic satisfaction now hang in the Hillcrest air, like the pots of petunias and pansies swinging from summer lampposts.

While not as well known as the Castro or WeHo, Hillcrest received national media attention in ’97 as the home of Andrew Cunanan, the twisted serial killer who murdered Versace. Now Hillcrest was on TV again: a dead body, sirens and news crews, with Betty Lou Thomas headlining.

I turned east on University toward the Uptown Shopping Center near where Betty lived. I just missed the Walk signal at Vermont. Too fidgety to wait, I strode another block to Richmond to burn adrenaline.

At Richmond the front door of the Alibi, Hillcrest’s oldest neighborhood saloon, stood open revealing a murky interior behind the jukebox. Nothing much going on at this hour. The corner smelled of cigarettes; the sidewalk was confettied with butts.

I caught the light, crossed the street, closed the distance, and insinuated myself into the crowd. Betty’s body had landed atop fallen jacaranda blossoms, their soft periwinkle blue crushed and smeared into a bruise-colored shroud.

I squirmed through the scene, inching my way toward the officer in charge. “Why are you calling this a suicide?”

“Who are you?”

“I’m one of her closest friends. I spoke to her yesterday and she didn’t seem in the least bit suicidal. Not at all.”

Gently: “Sometimes it happens that way.”

“But it could’ve been an accident, right? She could’ve slipped and fallen?”

The officer—a slow-moving whelk of fiber, muscle, and taut uniform—studied me more carefully. “There’s a safety parapet around the perimeter of the roof. If someone slipped and fell, they’d slide into the wall.” Seeing I was not persuaded, he leaned down so he could speak directly in my ear. “We found Prozac in her medicine cabinet.”

“If you took a survey here,” I gestured toward the crowd of looky-loos, “you’d probably find 70 percent of them are pumping their serotonin. The rest are on Adderall and a pharmacopeia of other fine substances.”

Officer Whelk did not respond.

I persisted. “Did you find a suicide note?” If the police had, maybe it would explain what had provoked Betty to take such an extreme measure. And if there was a note, had she cited me as one of the provocations? I used to be able to talk to Nikki, but now she acts as if our friendship is of no importance.