“Don’t.” Tania Marie steps from behind a vat. “Leave him there for the police.”
Ellen pauses, looking as if she has just awakened. “The rifle,” he bellows. “Give me the rifle, Ellie.”
Ellen turns, bends.
“No.” Tania Marie moves closer to her now, her expression wild, tears streaking her face. “Julie didn’t want this. You said so yourself. You don’t have to do what he says anymore. Not ever again.”
“Ellie,now.”He pushes the crate from him, his arm extended. My whole body throbs with pain as the crate falls away. I try toshout, to beg Ellen to help us, but my voice comes out a weak gasp.
Ellen reaches down for the rifle.
“Don’t.” Tania Marie makes a run for her, but Ellen already has shouldered the weapon.
She turns, points it at Earl Homer’s head and fires. Then she collapses to her knees in tears.
The last image I have is of Tania Marie, long skirt torn and stained, her arms wrapped around Ellen’s sobbing form.
THIRTY-FIVE
Rikki
“Personality,” the Killer Body theme song, plays as I walk into the chapel for Rochelle’s memorial service with Lucas, our last date, in a way. Two services too close together, but I need to be here, afloat in this sea of grief. I hold on to Lucas as an anchor.
Lucky.That’s what they tell us we are. Lucky that my shoulder is only a dull ache now. Lucky that Lucas didn’t lose a leg when he tried to save my life. Lucky that Earl Homer murdered only two people.Onlytwo.
In the front row of this small chapel, Rochelle’s husband and daughter also hold on to each other. Blond Elvis, looking like a family member, sobs openly, his arms around both of them. Outside the chapel, he told me Rochelle’s sister did not choose to attend. I shudder at how horrible that must be—to have a family member so estranged that not even your death beckons her back.
In the back row, Princess Gabby buries her face in Prince Alain’s shoulder. Seeing the way the Prince holds her—as if she is a precious jewel he’s been allowed to touch—gives me pleasure and just a little envy.
Only Tania Marie, her bodyguard at her side, stands outside the group of mourners, her head held high, dark glasses hiding her eyes. If wewerelucky, those of us who survived that nightmare, Tania Marie was the luck. Her courageous appeal to Ellen is probably the only reason we’re alive. I intend to say that,in print. She’s since come forward about recognizing Julie at the clinic. When reporters asked what she was doing there, Tania Marie said, “Gathering information. It’s a procedure that saves a lot of lives. I decided to go a different route.”
Ellen Homer’s plea of self-defense will be corroborated by all of us who witnessed what happened. She will inherit Julie’s estate, which Bobby Warren has insisted will include the Killer Body trust.
We will never know if Earl Homer’s motives were money, or if he was really trying to protect his daughter’s image. Nor will we know why Julie Larimore, who excelled in so many areas, could not break her ties with her father or with what Ellen called the hole in her life.
Ellen told us later that it was Julie’s idea to buy their former home for their father once he was discharged from the psych ward of the veterans hospital. If Earl Homer was an example of what gets discharged, I’d hate to see what’s still inside.
Lucas recognized him at once as the man who attacked Bobby and him on Catalina Island.
“She said one time that she couldn’t even remember when she ate, let alone what,” Ellen told me, her words coming out in little gasps. “Can you believe that?”
In a voice that didn’t sound any more certain, I told her I could.
“That was the only thing in her life she couldn’t control. She’d come back to us, time and again, and we’d take care of her when it got too bad.”
“You and your father?”
“First me, then us.” She glanced over at my fingers as I tried to scribble down her every word. “Go ahead and write it. Maybe if I’d read about something like this, I would have recognized what was happening in my own family. People need to talk about it.”
“Yes, they do,” I said.
Pete may hate me. Aunt Carey may never speak to me again, but I’m going to have to talk about it, too. As long as I—we—remain silent, the monster that destroyed Julie, Lisa and countless others will continue to claim new victims.
Bobby Warren stands before a tabletop shrine that includes photos of Rochelle and her family, publicity shots and, on the wall behind them, the famous poster that captured her at her most gorgeous, when Rochelle McArthur was the face of the moment.
“Shelly was more than a beautiful woman,” Bobby says in a wavering voice. “She was an intelligent woman, an intelligent person. And she had personality. I’m going to miss her every day of my life.”
The last word ends in a high-pitched wheeze. He is unable to continue. With shaking hands, he reaches into the pocket of his jacket and brings out something, that, at first, I think is a crucifix. But as the sunlight reflects from its red-enamel surface, I realize it is the Killer Body pendant, hanging from a silver chain.
