by Susan Isaacs
"No way," I said. "Bonnie Spencer. Motive. Opportunity."
Ray Carbone added his twenty to ours. "Who's left? Lindsay Keefe? All right. She may have felt cornered, her job, her reputation on the line. And she probably has a lacuna of the superego. It would be too much like a movie if she did it, but I'll go with her anyway."
Charlie Sanchez was about to retire and didn't care enough anymore to join the pool. He wrote down our bets, folded the money and slipped it into the pocket of his beloved suede vest.
The interrogation room we were in at Headquarters was better than a naked light bulb and a chair, but it wouldn't win any awards for design excellence. Headquarters itself had originally been a county social services agency, and in the heart of the soft green and brown fields of Yaphank, the building rose up, uncompromisingly ugly. Inside, it was full of gray asphalt tile and orange plastic furniture—just to remind the meek that while they might be in line to inherit the earth, their actual lives were shit and likely to remain that way.
Four of us sat around the fake-wood table. Charlie, who'd been with the department for twenty years and was within weeks of becoming head of security for a shopping center in Bay Shore, stroked the vest his girlfriend had given him for his forty-second birthday. He wore it inside and outside, even in ninety-five-degree heat. He loved the vest almost as much as he loved his girlfriend. (His wife had given him a snow-blower for his birthday, probably in response to the electric pencil sharpener he'd given her for hers.)
"We got a missing-one-thousand-bucks situation," Charlie began. He'd been doing background on Sy. "Here's what I found out. At fourteen minutes past eight on Friday morning, Sy was at the cash machine at the Marine Midland Bank over in Southampton."
"His secretary in New York said he told her he'd be getting cash for his trip to L.A.," Ray added.
Charlie went on: "Sy had one of those preferred-customer cards, so he could withdraw up to a thou. Well, that's what he withdrew. Did any of you guys come across a thousand bucks?"
Robby shook his head. "No. There was"—Robby checked his notebook—"a hundred and forty-seven bucks in his wallet."
I closed my eyes, concentrated. Then I said: "Hey! Hold on! Listen to this timetable. Sy went to the bank at eight-fourteen. He got to the set in East Hampton eight thirty-five, eight-forty, which is about what it takes from Southampton to East Hampton if you don't make any stops. When he got there, he stayed pretty much in his trailer, talking to people. Right? That Gregory kid was around a lot, and we talked to everyone else who talked to Sy. Did anyone say anything about any cash changing hands? No. The people he was seeing were mainly technical—a special effects guy who was doing a fire and some gunshots, Nick Monteleone and his makeup lady. Spent a few minutes with Lindsay, but she was being fitted for a dress, so a seamstress and the costume design lady were there the whole time. He wasn't talking to union guys or local cops or politicians—people he might pay off. You with me?"
Robby and Ray nodded. Charlie caressed his vest some more. "Okay, assuming he didn't slip anyone a wad of cash, he leaves the set about eleven-fifteen with a thousand bucks in his pocket. Doesn't stop at Bonnie's this time. Instead, he seems to have gone straight home; he was there at ten of twelve. We have the cook's word on that, because he asked for a green salad and bread for lunch, ASAP."
"That's lunch?" Charlie shook his head. "Can you believe it? A guy has a cook all to himself and he says, 'Give me a salad.' New York faggots, I swear to Christ. Makes me sick."
"What does all this add up to, Steve?" Ray demanded.
"It adds up to that after he got home, Sy saw only one person besides the cook: the person he as a practicing nonfaggot seems to have humped in the guest room. Now, there was Bonnie Spencer-type hair on the pillow in the guest room—okay, we have to wait till Lifecodes finishes the DNA analysis, but I'll bet you anything it's hers."
"Why are you fixating on her?" Ray asked.
"Because this is an intelligent murder, and she's very intelligent. Because he used her—twice—and I don't think this is a broad who allows three strikes. I think she's got a tough streak in her. And because she's been hiding something from me from the minute she opened the door Saturday morning. And because she was there Friday, at his house. Motive and opportunity, Ray."
"You know what I can't figure out? He was cheating on Lindsay Keefe with his ex-wife," Charlie said. "What was he? Nuts?"
"Keep your eye on the missing thousand bucks," I reminded them. "Ask yourselves: Where was the wallet we found that did have some money in it?"
"In the inside pocket of his blazer," Ray said.
"Where?"
"In his and Lindsay's bedroom, on a hanger outside the closet door. Stuff for his trip was all set out—a packed carry-on, a leadier envelope with a couple of scripts."
"Right," I said. "But the pockets of the pants he was wearing that day were empty except for some change and his car keys, and those pants were in the guest room. My guess is, he packs, then has an hour or so, decides he wants to get laid and calls Bonnie to get over. He sneaks her past the cook, upstairs, into the guest room. He throws his pants over a chair, fucks her, then..."
"Then what?" Ray asked. "This is the first serious speculation I'm hearing about this person—other than the fact that she was his ex who lived nearby. What do you think went on?"
"My best guess? They had words. He tells her to get dressed and get out. Or he doesn't have to say it; she figures it out for herself. Whatever. But he grabs a robe and leaves her there while he goes for a fast swim before the plane ride. In any case, she feels she's been had. She goes through his pants, takes the thou."
"And then she goes outside, finds a .22 and shoots him?" Charlie asked. "A lady writer is able to score two bull's-eyes from fifty feet?"
"Could you do it, Charlie, if you had the rifle?"
"From fifty feet? Why not?"
"Yeah, well, why not her too?" I said. I told him what I'd learned about Bernstein's inventory from Ogden's finest.
"Well, I can't buy Bonnie as a serious suspect," Robby said. He shifted, and his rayon pants rubbed against the plastic of the chair and gave off a squeaky fart sound. "Even if she has long dark hair, even if she was sleeping with him, even if she can shoot that well, which I seriously doubt, why would she kill him?"
"Lots of reasons." I was starting to like this, the explaining, the persuading, the idea that things were coming together. But most of all, I was liking the realization that I had no trouble making a case against Bonnie, that finally, where she was concerned, my head was harder than my dick. "First of all, she's living hand-to-mouth." I explained. "She got shafted in the divorce. She's gotten a look at Sy's way of life, sees how he's given up the humble Farmer Spencer bit he was doing when he was married to her, the denim overalls and butter-churn crap. Now he's living like an out-and-out multimillionaire, which he is. She sees the richness of his life, compares it to the poorness of hers. Probably has already told him how rough things are, asked him for help. And expects it too, what with her probably giving him a blow job and soup and sandwiches every goddamn day that last week. Except he says no."
"Why didn't she just keep at it?" Ray asked. "Play on his sympathy? Or make him feel guilty?"
"Maybe she's already given it everything she has—which isn't that much. She fucks and she's nice. What else does someone like her have to offer? And anyway, it wasn't just money. She could have been in love with him and really believed she could get him back. But no matter what she wanted from him, Sy said, No way."
"He just turned off on her, so she kills him?" Robby asked. He didn't sound convinced, but then again, he had his twenty on Mikey LoTriglio.
I pushed harder. "All she's been doing is covering up, lying to us. Why? So we don't think she's a fast girl who lets a man put his thing into her you-know-what? No. Because she has something important to hide. A murder."
Robby turned that over for a minute. Then he asked: "But why wou
ld she shoot him? Revenge?"
"Revenge. Plus desperation, plus greed."
"Where would she get the .22?" Charlie asked.
"She lives alone. Probably had it for years, a present from Daddy Bernstein. Could be she sensed this was the final fuck and brought it along in her car. Or maybe she left, went home, got it and came back. Come on, guys. Sy was wearing his pants at the movie set, so no one took the thousand off of him there. Then he gets home, sticks it to the as-yet-unknown brunette we know has to be Bonnie, goes for a swim and bang. He's gonzo—and so is the money."
"Even if she was there, it could have been someone else who shot him," Carbone said.
"It could have been. But who? Why? We already know about Bonnie."
"So she killed him for a thousand bucks?" Robby asked. "I've got to tell you, Steve, that still doesn't compute. Not with the way you described her. She doesn't sound like a really bad person. Except for the screwing around, and what the hell, she's lonely."
"But why is she lonely?" Naturally, I didn't look at Ray Carbone, even though I was playing to him, trying to get the psychology vote. "Ask yourselves, what kind of a normal single woman stays in a town she has no roots in, a town that's deserted three quarters of the year except for locals like me and some antique-dealer types who talk about stuff like the bleak beauty of the winter seascape and shit like that. How come she didn't sell the house, which could bring her big bucks even with real estate being what it is, and move to Manhattan, get a decent job?" Charlie rubbed his chin, Robby looked mildly intrigued and Ray leaned forward. "I'll tell you why not. She's a loser, and she knows it. She had one minute of success that might have been a fluke, and in that minute she lands Sy. You know what that marriage said to her? It said: 'Bonnie, babe, you're terrific.' But then he gets bored and takes a walk. She stays in that isolated house because she knows if she moved to the city, she'd have no excuse for being a loser. This way, she lives hand-to-mouth—but she can keep up her illusions. That Sy will come back. That one of her shitty screenplays will get made into a movie. That she's worth something. And then what happens?"
Despite the fact that Mikey LoTriglio was due any second with his lawyer, Robby was getting hooked. "What happens?" he said, as if waiting for the end of a bedtime story.
I gave it everything I had; I knew it would be a major asset to have Robby on my side, not off after the Mafia. "Sy starts sleeping with Bonnie again, gives her hope. Suddenly she's thinking: I am terrific. I can have a life. I'll have my husband back and live in New York, on Fifth Avenue
, and in a seven-million-dollar mansion on the beach. And she must have started sharing her dream with Sy, because all of a sudden he blows her off. Maybe nicely. Or maybe he just tells her the truth: 'Bonnie, baby, I was P.O.'d at Lindsay and felt like a grudge fuck, and you were available. It didn't mean anything.' "
Ray was breaking his empty Styrofoam coffee cup into white chips. "All right. His rejection might hurt her. Destroy her. But would it push her over the edge?"
"Yeah, because this time he didn't leave her with any illusions. He didn't want her. He didn't want her screenplay. Don't forget: He humiliated her, treated her like a two-bit whore when she came to visit him on the set. And he didn't value old times' sake enough to help her out of a crappy financial situation. Look, two strikes: he'd used her once, to get a foot in the door of the movie business, and he'd used her again, to get his rocks off when he got mad at Lindsay. And now it was kiss-kiss, sweetie, I'm off to L.A. I'm telling you, he walked out of that guest room leaving her with nothing."
"It's just a theory," Robby murmured. But he sounded on the verge of being convinced.
So did Ray. "Okay, Steve and Robby," he said, "keep your other options open, but follow up on this Bonnie. It sounds like she needs a little extra attention."
Fat Mikey LoTriglio looked like a Sicilian version of Humpty-Dumpty. He had no visible neck; his silk tie, a dark blue dangerously close to purple, seemed suspended from one of the chins that rested on his chest. "I grew up wit' Sy," he was explaining to me and Robby. "He was like a brother to me. Let me tell you, you find the guy who took him out, you call me. You tell me, 'Hey, Mikey, we found the guy who blasted Sy,' and I swear to God, I'll—"
"At the time Mr. Spencer was murdered," Fat Mikey's lawyer interrupted, "Mr. LoTriglio was having cocktails with several business associates, who, naturally, can vouch for his whereabouts." The lawyer, a guy around my age, wore round little glasses with wire frames, as though hoping someone would assure him that he didn't look like the sleazy mob lawyer he'd become, that he still looked like John Lennon.
"Hey." Mikey turned to the lawyer. "I don't have cocktails, okay? I have drinks." He looked back at us and explained: "This is a new lawyer. My old one, Terry Connelly. Ever deal with him? Massive stroke. They got him in some hospital in Rhode Island, poor vegetable. Sad, sad. And now this fuckin' murder..." He shook his head in disbelief. "It's a knife in my heart, Sy gone."
"What's going to happen to your investment in Starry Night?" I asked.
"Mr. LoTriglio's participation in that venture has not been established," the lawyer said.
"We know Mikey invested four hundred thousand in the movie and got his brother-in-law and an uncle to put up another six hundred thousand," Robby said, but reasonably, not with his usual I'm-gonna-see-you-fry vengefulness. At some moment between the time Ray and Charlie left the interrogation room and the time Mikey and his lawyer walked in, Robby had switched to Bonnie Spencer. I smiled to myself. I was really happy. I'd won Robby over. I could stand back; she was his girl now, and he would do anything to get her.
"How was your investment going, Mikey?" I asked.
Mikey fluttered his eyes, a single flutter: his naive expression. "What do I know about producin' movies?"
"You must know something if you put up a million bucks."
"Hey, my friend Sy asks me to put up some money, I do it."
"Mr. LoTriglio's accountants were impressed by Mr. Spencer's track record," the lawyer said softly. "They felt Starry Night was an excellent investment—albeit any investment in filmmaking entails a certain degree of risk, of which they were fully cognizant."
"Did Sy let you know how the movie was coming along?" I asked. Fat Mikey shook his head; his chins jiggled. "A million bucks, Mikey. Weren't you curious?"
"Nah. What do I care? Sy says this is gonna be an Oscar winner. He says, 'Mikey, get your tuxedo cleaned for a year from March.' That's all I needed to know."
"You didn't hear anything about any problems with the movie?"
Mikey smiled. Well, the corners of his lips moved upward. He crossed his arms and rested them on his belly. "What problems?"
"Problems like the movie was looking like a piece of shit."
"Fuck you. I didn't hear nothin' like that."
"Problems like the only way to save it was to get rid of Lindsay Keefe, which would have put the producers—that's you—a few million deeper into the hole before they even began again."
"Bullshit," Mikey said.
"You were on the phone a lot with Sy Spencer last week. What were you talking about?" Robby inquired.
Mikey looked at his lawyer, who seemed to be lost in wonder, beholding his shoelace. "You from Harvard!" he bellowed. "Look alive. My memory isn't so good. I need a reminder. Maybe I happened to mention it to you. What was I talkin' to Sy about last week? I think Sy and I might have been on the phone a couple of times, but for the life of me I can't remember what we said."
"I think you did mention that you had the most general conversation with Mr. Spencer. Hello, how are you, how are things going—and he assured you all was well."
"That's right," Mikey said. He rotated his head and looked Robby right in the eye. "All was well. And then—a fuckin' bullet. Two fuckin' bullets. I gotta tell you, a piece of me died when Sy went. We were like flesh and blood. When we were kids we'd follow his old man and my old man around through one of the processing p
lants, and while they talked about all the cheap shit they could stuff into one salami, Sy and me talked about ... Life."
"Life?" I repeated.
"Yeah. Life. Like philosophy. Now I remember. We were talkin' about philosophy last week, on the phone." His lawyer put a restraining hand on Mikey's huge, sausagelike thigh, but Mikey either didn't feel it or was ignoring it. "There we were, two businessmen, but we're such good friends we don't talk business. We talk ... Plato!"
"Where were you last Friday night, Mikey?" Robby asked.
"You mean what's my alibi?"
"Mr. LoTriglio was at Rosie's, a bar in the meat district," the lawyer said. "He is widely known there. A good many people saw him, and several engaged him in conversation."
"Talking Plato?" I asked.
"No, you stupid asshole," Mikey answered. "Talkin' fuckin' liverwurst."
One of the guys I sometimes ran with, T.J., a marathoner, owned a couple of video stores on the South Fork. He was in love with my Jag, so I made a deal with him. Whenever I wanted to be inconspicuous, I could take one of his married-man cars—his Honda Accord or Plymouth Voyager—and leave my car in his garage. At a little after four in the afternoon, I parked the Voyager across from Bonnie's house and waited.
Surveillance had always been a snap for me. I'd bring along a bottle of club soda, a Thermos of coffee, and a jar to pee in, sit back and enter into some kind of twilight state. It was like being asleep with my eyes open; I could keep watch, but my mind was someplace else, and I'd be totally unaware of the passage of time. I'd know that I'd sat through a whole night when the sky turned red at sunrise.
But now I was itchy, looking at my watch every couple of minutes, as if to encourage it, wishing that I'd stopped at the luncheonette on the way over for a sundae because I felt like I needed a hit of chocolate. I was annoyed with myself that I hadn't sent one of the younger guys to do this job. Finally, though, it wasn't that long a wait.
She came out at five o'clock, dressed for a run. The weird thing was, she was dressed exactly the way I would dress for running. Shorts and a T-shirt, wool crew socks, with a light sweatshirt tied around her waist, in case it got cool down by the ocean. She was carrying a red ball; Moose was barking with joy at her side. I slid down in the seat. She braced herself against her mailbox, stretched her calf muscles and then her quads. What a pair of legs! They looked like she'd been captain of the girls' soccer team since nursery school. She and Moose started out at a nice clip, picking up more speed as they rounded the corner and headed down toward the beach.