I was two blocks from the house and there were no other cars in sight. No one was following me so I began to think that maybe it wasn't John Parker that had visited Charlie that morning. Maybe it was a cop and Tony just didn't know about it.
I was waiting at the light to make a left onto the Charleston Boulevard when I saw a silver Ford Explorer turning right off Charleston on to Desert Foot Hills Drive. I took a quick look at the SUV and although I couldn't see the driver through the tinted windows I saw that the vehicle had California plates on it. Seeing California plates on a car in Nevada is no surprise but seeing a car with California plates turning on to the street where I had been staying was just too much of a coincidence for me.
As I traveled east on Charleston I was trying to decide which hotel I should go to when I came upon the I-15 interchange. I made my decision in that instant. I turned right onto the ramp for I-15 South. If John Parker was in Las Vegas looking for me I was going back to LA.
The ten year-old Honda performed admirably, easily maintaining speeds between seventy-five and eighty miles per hour all the way back to the 10. Things slowed down a little there but I was back in Burbank at 2:30 AM were I checked into a small hotel near the Burbank airport.
I wasn't sure if it would be safe to go home because I still wasn't sure that John Parker was in Vegas looking for me. He might be watching my house. Then again he could be on his way to Mexico. I really didn't have a fucking clue as to what was going on.
I sat down on the bed in my dingy hotel room and once again began to ask myself questions trying to make sense of things. Why would John Parker want to kill me? Did he want me out of the way so he could have Nicky? That was a possibility but it didn't seem to make sense. If he wanted Nicky and she wanted to be with him they sure as hell didn't need to kill me. Divorce would have been much easier. It wasn't like I had a lot of money that Nicky would inherit. Financially she would have made out just as well in a divorce. There had to be something else going on.
I was beginning to wish that I had confronted Nicky with what I knew before I brought in Tony and Jim. Maybe she would have told me what this was all about. My body was aching, my head was beginning to hurt and I needed sleep.
In the morning I called Tony and told him where I was. I also told him about the car I saw with California plates the night before.
"What kind of car was it?" Tony asked.
"It was a silver Ford Explorer," I said.
"That was probably his Explorer," Tony said. "We found out late last night that Mr. Parker had parked his Ford Explorer at LAX when he flew out to Denver. We managed to get a security camera picture of him as he drove out of the parking lot Sunday evening. Where are you now?"
"I am at the hotel. Room 254," I said.
Forty-five minutes later Tony was at my door. When he came in he was carrying a brief case, which he set on the only table in the small room. Tony opened the brief case and took out a photograph and handed it to me.
"Do you recognize him?" he asked.
It was a black and white picture taken from a high angle looking down through the windshield of a car. The man in the drivers seat had dark hair and a rather ordinary face. He appeared to be rather large but it was difficult to tell from the photo. I didn't recognize him.
I looked at Tony and asked, "Is this John Parker?"
"That's him. Have you seen him before?" he asked.
"No. He doesn't look at all familiar to me," I said.
"I notified the Las Vegas Police and the Nevada State Police to be on the lookout for his car. They will arrest him if they find him and hold him for us," Tony said. "I think you'll want to watch this."
Then Tony pulled videotape out of his briefcase and set the video on the table. "I'm not supposed to let anyone see this yet but I thought you should. You can't tell anyone I gave this to you."
"I won't, but what is it?"
"You'll just have to wait and see," Tony said. "I have to get back to the station. As you can imagine things are a little crazy since Mr. Parker disappeared." Tony was at the door ready to leave and said, "I'll call you later and we can talk."
When the door closed behind Tony I looked that the television sitting on the dresser. I knew there wouldn't be a VCR there but I looked anyway. I called the front desk and asked if they had a VCR that I could rent. The guy that answered the phone said that they did have VCRs and if I wanted one he would have it sent up to my room. I was actually surprised when the VCR was delivered five minutes later. I didn't expect that level of service in that hotel.
It only took me a few minutes to hook up the VCR. I loaded the videocassette into the player but waited for another minute before I hit the play button. I was a little afraid of what I was going to see. I was just ready to hit the play button when I remembered something from when I was in the hospital. I remembered waking up and hearing Nicky talking to a man as they stood by the door. She had called him John. Could it have been Parker? I thought about it for another minute and remembered what they were talking about.
Nicky said, "John, you really shouldn't be here."
"Does he remember what happened?"
Nicky responded, "I don't know. Detective Trenca tried to question him about it yesterday but Eric was too doped up from the painkillers to give any answers."
"As soon as he is able to talk to the police I want to know what he tells them."
"John, please leave before he wakes up and sees you. Beside, Detective Trenca could come back at any time."
John said, "Okay, I'm going, but just remember what I said."
"I will. Now please leave. I just can't deal with you right now." Nicky said.
"She had him in my fucking hospital room," I said out loud.
I would have to be sure and tell Tony about that. Finally I took a deep breath and hit the play button.
The television screen was all snow for a few seconds then the picture flipped a few times and settled down. On the screen I could see Nicky and Jim sitting at a table facing toward the camera. The room was painted a drab gray color and the tabletop was an equally drab gray. Nicky was wearing the clothes she had been wearing when she left the house with Jim a week earlier. I assumed then that the video was from that night.
Jim was talking quietly to Nicky and she had her hands on the table in front of her palms down and she was staring straight ahead with no expression on her face. After a minute a door on the left side of the room opened and a man dressed in gray pants and wearing a white shirt sans tie entered the room.
"Good evening, Mrs. Anderson, I am Detective Harris and I will be conducting this interview. Before we get started would you like a glass of water or do you need a bathroom break," he asked.
"No, I don't need anything right now," Nicky answered in a weak monotone voice.
"Fine, then let's get started." Detective Harris said.
From what I could tell the video camera must have been hidden behind a two- way mirror. I got that impression because no one in the room paid any attention to the camera. I would expect that if the camera were in the room it would draw Nicky and Jim's attention.
"Mrs. Anderson, I would like to start with the events that took place in your home on Friday August eighth. So if you will just answer the questions truthfully and with as much detail as possible I think we can clear this up quickly," Detective Harris said.
Nicky said, "Okay."
"Now Mrs. Anderson, were you in the house when your husband was shot?" Detective Harris asked.
Nicky's head dropped to her chest. "Yes."
"Who shot your husband?" Detective Harris asked.
"It was an accident," Nicky said.
"Mrs. Anderson, who shot your husband?" Detective Harris asked again.
"John Parker," Nicky said in a voice just barely above a whisper.
"Who is John Parker?"
"He's a phys Ed teacher at my school."
"Where were you when your husband was shot?" Detective Harris asked.
"I was hiding in my closet."
"If you were hiding in your closet, how do you know the shooting was an accident?" Detective Harris asked.
"John told me what happened," Nicky said.
"Okay, Mrs. Anderson, why don't you tell me what happened that afternoon."
"John and I were upstairs in my bedroom when we heard the front door open," Nicky said. "I knew Eric wasn't due home because I was supposed to pick him up at the airport that evening so I was scared. I picked up the phone to call 911 but John signaled me to be quiet and he stepped out of the room to the top of the stairs and looked down. He came back into the bedroom a few seconds later and whispered that someone was snooping around downstairs and then he told me to hide in my closet until he came to get me."
"How long were you in the closet?"
"I don't know, a minute maybe two." Nicky said.
"Then what happened?"
"I heard the gun shots. I was terrified. I thought someone had shot John and I was sure they were going to find me too," Nicky said in a shaky voice. "I sat on the floor in my closet listening for any sound that might tell me what was going to happen next and then the closet door opened and John was standing there. His face was ashen. I asked him what happen as I got up off the floor. He started mumbling, 'It was an accident... It was an accident.'
"I followed him to the bedroom door and he said, 'I thought I saw a gun in his hand. I panicked and shot him.' I didn't know what he was going on about until I looked down the stairs and saw Eric laying there. I ran down the stairs and screamed for John to call 911 but John was right behind me on the stairs and he said it was already too late. He said that if Eric wasn't dead yet he would be before help could arrive.
"By then I was sitting at the bottom of the stairs trying to see if Eric was breathing. While I was doing that, John said, 'We have to make this look like a burglary.'
"It was then that I noticed that Eric was still breathing and I told John that I was going to call 911. John grabbed my arm and told me to wait a few minutes while he tried to make this look like a burglary and then he went into the family room. I heard him throwing stuff around the room but I knew I couldn't wait any longer so I dialed 911. I was immediately put on hold. John came back into the foyer while I was still waiting for the 911 operator to answer. He asked me what I was doing and I told him I was calling 911.
"John took my face in his hand and pulled it toward his face and said, 'When the police get here tell then you came home and found Eric laying there and don't tell them anything else.'
"I asked him why and he said, 'The police will never believe this was an accident. They will think we killed him on purpose.'
"I was so scared and confused that when the 911 operator finally came on the line I told her that I had come home for lunch and found Eric on the floor at the bottom of the stairs and that it appeared that he had been shot."
