by John Saul
“I’m not sure…” Alison said in a tone that told Risa she was sure, and whatever they were doing, they wouldn’t be going to a movie.
Risa turned and looked straight at her daughter. “You’re going to his place?”
The stricken look on Alison’s face gave it away so quickly it was almost comical. Alison had never been able to lie, and obviously still couldn’t. “I didn’t want you to feel bad,” she said, her voice quavering and her eyes glistening with tears. “Dad—well, Dad wants me to meet Scott.”
Scott. So there it was. Every instinct in Risa wanted to scream at her daughter, to demand that she refuse to be a party to Michael’s betrayal of her. But even as the words rose in Risa’s throat, she pushed them away, reminding herself once more what she already knew to be true: that Michael hadn’t betrayed her at all. Falling in love with another woman would have been a betrayal. But it hadn’t been another woman. It was something Michael had been struggling with for years, and she knew, in her heart, that it was something he could in the end do nothing about. Indeed, if he’d told her he was gay before they’d married, they would still have been friends.
Good friends.
And she’d believed him when he said he hadn’t known he was gay all those years ago.
She’d seen the genuine torment in his eyes when he told her the other night what had been going on. It wasn’t torment for having been caught, but at the pain the truth was causing her.
The pain she was still feeling.
Now, as she saw the pain her daughter was suffering just at the thought of hurting one parent by seeing the other, Risa decided that she and Michael had borne enough pain for all of them, and that whatever happened, she wasn’t going to put any of hers onto Alison. Not onto Alison, and not onto Michael either. “Of course he wants you to meet Scott,” she said. “He wants to share his life with you, and he always will.” A tiny tear dropped off Alison’s lower lid and landed on her cheek. Risa sat on the edge of the bed and wiped it away. “He loves you, honey. Nothing will ever change that. Nothing.”
Alison nodded and brushed tears from her eyes with both hands. “So you won’t be mad at me?”
Risa thought quickly, wondering how many hurdles she could make it over in one day. The one she’d just jumped had seemed far too high a few moments ago, but she’d made it. And felt exhausted.
She slipped her arm around Alison’s shoulders. “Honey, I’m going to ask you for a huge favor.”
Alison tensed. “What kind of favor?”
“I’m wondering if it would be too much to ask you to let me meet Scott first. That way, I’ll at least know who you’re spending time with.”
Alison frowned. “You don’t trust Dad?”
“Of course I trust him,” Risa hurriedly assured her. “But you have two parents for a reason, because parents balance each other out. Would it be a terrible thing for you to go with me this afternoon and meet Scott another time?”
Alison shifted away from her mother. “I never even met Margot Dunn. Why would I want to go to her funeral?”
“Well, she was an international supermodel, and there will probably be lots of famous people there.”
Alison looked more interested, but not much. “Like who?”
“How would I know?” Risa countered, frantically searching for the name of someone, anyone, who would not only interest Alison, but be likely to show up at the funeral. “Probably some movie stars,” she finally ventured, hoping it might be enough.
“Really?”
Risa shrugged casually, then stood up and went back to her lingerie drawer. Pulling out the underwear she’d already chosen, she laid it out on the bed.
“Yeah, but a funeral?” Alison said, still obviously unconvinced.
Risa decided to lay her cards on the table and trust her daughter. “I have to go because Conrad Dunn is a client and a friend, and he needs all the support he can get right now. And I gotta tell you, hon, right now I could use some support, too.” As Alison wavered, she played her last card: “Please? For me?”
Her daughter hesitated, then uttered the words that told Risa she’d given in: “What am I supposed to wear?”
“You have that black skirt you wore when you sang in the Christmas chorale. Just wear that with a simple white blouse.”
Alison shrugged. “Okay. I’ll call Dad and tell him I’ll meet Scott sometime next week.” She eyed Risa, waiting for an answer. “Okay?” she pressed. “Next week?”
“Next week,” Risa promised. “We’ll make it happen, okay? Now jump in the shower. Lexie will be here to pick us up in an hour.”
“I have to call Dad first.”
“I’ll call him,” Risa said. “I’ll explain everything. He’ll understand.”
“Okay,” Alison said, but made no move to get up.
Risa waited.
“Are you and Dad going to fight?” Alison finally asked. “Are you going to hate Scott no matter what he’s like?” Another tear rolled out of the corner of her eye, trailing toward her ear.
“No, honey.” Risa said. “We are not going to fight. Your father doesn’t want to fight, and neither do I.”
“But it seems so weird, Dad living somewhere else, and with a guy.” Alison took a deep, quivering breath.
“I know, sweetheart, but it will be all right. Trust me. It’s going to be hard for a while, for all of us, but we’ll get through it. And we’ll get through it without fighting, okay? I can’t say I’m happy about all this, but I know there’s nothing I can do to change the way people are. Your father is who he is, and I’ll just have to get used to it. I’ll do my best not to get angry, but if I ever do—and I probably will—you’ll just have to forgive me, okay?”
Alison nodded. “Life is weird,” she finally said.
“Indeed it is,” Risa agreed. She hugged her daughter and silently vowed to keep the peace with Michael and Scott.
No matter what.
THE DOORBELL RANG just as Scott poured himself and Michael a second cup of coffee, the remains of a Belgian waffle feast still on the dining room table. As the bell rang again, Scott sighed in resignation. “There goes our lazy Saturday morning.”
“Not necessarily,” Michael replied. “Maybe it’s just the postman. Isn’t he the one who always rings twice?”
Abandoning the coffee, Scott headed for the front door. “Mine never rings at all—he just leaves things on the porch and hopes for the best.”
He opened the door to find Tina Wong hovering impatiently, her finger poised to press the bell a third time. She spotted Michael sitting at the table in the dining room, and ignoring Scott, walked right in, brushing past him as if he didn’t exist. “You turned your phone off,” she said accusingly.
“It’s Saturday,” Michael said. “And good morning to you, too.”
Scott shot a questioning look at Michael. “Shall I offer her a cup of coffee?”
Tina didn’t wait for Michael to respond, and either didn’t catch his sarcastic tone or chose to ignore it. “Black, with one sugar.” She turned to eye Scott as if he were a recalcitrant waiter. “Not Splenda, or Equal, or any of that crap. Sugar.” Then she set her briefcase on the dining room table, snapped open the locks, and sat down next to Michael. “I’ve got a lot of stuff on the Caroline Fisher murder.”
Michael shrugged a helpless apology to Scott as Tina pulled a folder from her briefcase and opened it. She spread the contents out on the table as Scott disappeared into the kitchen.
“Not only was she mutilated,” she said, “but the killer stole parts of her.” She spread out five eight-by-ten photos.
Michael was still looking at the pictures a minute later when Scott reappeared and set a mug of coffee in front of Tina. “Jesus,” Scott breathed as his eyes fell on the images, “isn’t it a little early in the morning for that kind of stuff?” He touched Michael’s shoulder. “How about I leave you two to your business? I’ll be out by the pool.”
“The killer not only mutilated with app
arent glee,” Tina said as soon as Scott was out of earshot, “but took the breasts, vagina, and—get this—glands.”
Scott quickened his step, disappeared into the kitchen, and closed the door behind him.
“Glands?” Michael repeated hollowly.
“Glands. Both adrenals and the thymus.”
Michael sat back. “Okay, I’ll grant you that’s pretty weird. But how does it merit interrupting my Saturday?”
“Because,” Tina said, riveting him with her trademark piercing stare, “this is not the first time that glands have been taken from a murder victim.” She handed him two faxed autopsy reports. “San Diego, and San Jose, one week apart, fifteen years ago. And now again, Caroline Fisher in Encino.”
“Fifteen years, Tina?” Michael said, handing her back the pages without so much as a glance. “That’s a long time. It doesn’t mean anything.”
“Wrong!” Tina declared, pushing the papers back at him. “We’ve got a serial killer here, Michael. Right now we’re ahead of the other stations, and I don’t even think the cops have put it together yet. But they will.” She leaned toward him, a posture he’d seen her use during many an effective interview. “Before they figure it out, I want to run a special that will blow the roof off our ratings.”
Michael shook his head. “Two murders fifteen years ago is no longer news,” he said.
But Tina wasn’t about to be put off that easily. “I’m telling you, Michael—there’s a monster out there. And right now I’m the only one who knows this isn’t his first kill. The murderer, me, and now you—we’re the only ones who know.”
“Then shouldn’t you be taking this to the police?”
“Oh, I will,” she said. “I’ll go to the police with the tape of my special precisely one hour before we air it.”
Michael leaned back in his chair and gazed at Tina speculatively. “Are those other two murders still unsolved?”
“Yes!” Tina leaned even farther forward, sensing impending victory.
“Do you have crime scene photos?”
Tina nodded.
“Is the M.O. the same?”
Tina hesitated. “I don’t know yet. I’ll have to go to San Diego and San Jose to find all that out. That’s why I need a budget.”
Michael sighed, sagging like a tire losing its air. “Sorry. The whole thing’s way too weak. I can’t authorize a budget for something that goes back fifteen years without any kind of connection at all.”
“Women murdered for their glands, Michael,” Tina said, leaning in again. “This is going to be big. This isn’t just going to be news—this is going to be a book and a movie, and the whole ball of wax. And I want it.”
“You can want it all you want, Tina,” Michael said, unimpressed by her theatrics. “Maybe there is a book, and a movie, and a ball of wax—whatever that is—but at least for now, it’s not a news special. Not in a newsroom I’m running.”
“You’re going to regret it. I’m telling you.”
He smiled thinly. “I’ve regretted decisions before, and I’m sure I will again. But for the moment, I don’t think this will be one of them.”
“What will it take to convince you?” Tina put her files back into her briefcase.
“One more body,” Michael said. “More recent than fifteen years ago, and the same M.O. If you can give me one more body, and prove that the M.O. on all four is the same, I’ll get you a budget and you can have your special.”
“One more body.” She nodded. “If it’s out there, I’ll find it.” She stood up and grabbed her briefcase, her coffee still untouched.
He followed her to the door and opened it.
“I’ll find it, Michael.”
“I have no doubt,” he said, then watched her walk across the porch and down to her car, parked next to a fire hydrant in front of the house.
He knew that if there was another body out there, Tina would find it, even if she had to make it herself.
He closed the door and went to find Scott.
They had a leisurely Saturday morning to resume.
6
ALISON HAD NO IDEA HOW MANY TIMES SHE MUST HAVE PASSED THE old mission-style church at the corner of Bedford and Santa Monica Boulevard, but as her mother searched for a parking spot, she found herself looking at it as if for the first time. Gazing up at the twin towers that flanked the main sanctuary, and the three crosses that surmounted the entire structure, she wished she weren’t coming here for a funeral. The whole idea of someone’s body lying in a coffin for everyone to stare at made her skin crawl, and for a moment she wished she’d found a way to beg off. But when she saw two familiar faces in the crowd moving up the steps and through the doors—two faces she’d seen just last week in a movie—her misgivings vanished.
By the time they got inside the church itself, it was almost overflowing, not only with people, but with more flowers than Alison would have thought the place could hold. Perfect arrangements filled tier after tier behind the altar, and were banked around the casket as well, and whoever had arranged them had managed to combine the rainbow of colors into gentle waves that seemed to cradle the coffin and the beautiful woman who lay inside it, her head resting on a satin pillow that raised her face high enough to be clearly visible even from the back of the church.
Even though they were half an hour early for the service, the only space they could find was on a pew way in the back. As she waited for the service to begin, Alison scanned the congregation, searching for more familiar faces. And just as her mother had promised, they were everywhere, some of them so close that she could have reached out and touched them.
Finally the service began, and as the music swelled, Alison tried to prepare herself for a long, dull hour or two. But it didn’t happen. Instead, two people talked about Margot Dunn for no more than ten minutes each, the priest recited a mass for the dead, and then a woman who looked vaguely familiar sang, “You Are So Beautiful.” When the priest finished the final prayer, a classical guitarist began to play softly, and everyone stood up. But instead of leaving the church, Alison followed her mother and Lexie Montrose down the aisle to file past the coffin in which Margot Dunn lay, her beauty on display for the last time.
“I heard that Danielle DeLorian herself did Margot’s makeup,” Lexie whispered to Alison as they slowly made their way toward the front of the church. Alison stared at Lexie. How was that possible? The head of DeLorian cosmetics herself? Doing a dead person’s makeup? Alison shuddered, just imagining someone putting makeup on a corpse. Yet when she finally reached the casket and got a clear view of Margot Dunn’s face, she could barely believe what she was seeing. The woman looked as if she had merely fallen asleep on her white satin pillow while reading or watching television in bed.
Everything about Margot Dunn’s face was flawless, and appeared so lifelike that for a moment Alison couldn’t believe she was dead at all. She found herself looking for a flutter of eyelashes, for the rise and fall of the woman’s chest as she took a breath.
But there was nothing. No movement at all.
Yet the face was perfect. There was no mark, no scar, not even any discoloration—no evidence that she had fallen onto the rocks last week, or that a propeller had gouged chunks of flesh from her right cheek a year ago. It was as if they were about to bury someone who was still alive, and Alison stood rooted to the spot until she felt a tug from her mother to move along.
For the five minutes it took to walk the four blocks to the reception at the Beverly Hilton Hotel, she couldn’t get the vision of Margot Dunn’s body out of her head, and was certain that from now on her face would haunt her dreams. Even now, in broad daylight, she could imagine the woman waking up in her coffin, desperate, gasping for air, screaming for help and clawing at the satin lining of her coffin with her perfectly manicured fingernails. Alison shivered yet again, and once more wished she hadn’t agreed to come along.
Following the crowd moving through the hotel, they made their way to the International Terr
ace, where servers wearing white shirts and black bow ties strolled by with trays of hors d’oeuvres and glasses of champagne, as if it were a wedding instead of a funeral.
At least a dozen poster-sized photographs of Margot stood on easels that dotted the perimeter of the ballroom. Wherever Alison looked, the image of the woman in the coffin gazed back at her, and it occurred to her that Margot Dunn had looked as perfect in her coffin as she did in all these pictures. She tried to pay attention as her mother introduced her to people, but her eyes kept straying toward the photographs, particularly one near the bar. Finally, she went over to get a closer look. It was a larger-than-life black-and-white photograph of Margot looking directly at the camera, chin on her hands.
But she wasn’t just looking directly into the camera. Margot was also looking directly into her eyes.
Alison stood as if transfixed, gazing at the clear eyes, perfect skin, exquisite features, and thick, luxurious hair. How was it possible that someone could ever have been this beautiful? Or that anyone this beautiful could have been so unhappy over anything that she killed herself?
She was still staring at the photograph when she sensed someone standing beside her. “Magnificent, wasn’t she?” Lexie Montrose said.
An unexpected sadness flowed through Alison. “Why would she kill herself?”
Lexie squeezed her shoulder. “She was afraid she was never going to look like that again, sweetheart. When she first got here, Margot couldn’t even get an agent. Then she met Conrad, and the rest was—shall we say—the stuff of plastic-surgery legend.”
Alison finally tore her eyes away from the photograph. “Where’s Mom?”
“Waiting in the reception line to meet Conrad and his sister. C’mon.”