Magic Hour

by Susan Isaacs

  "No."

  "Come on. You've got everything to gain, nothing to lose. Let it be over."

  "I want you out of here."

  "Bonnie—"

  "Don't come back. I won't speak to you again."

  "Honey, I'm sorry, but you'll have to."

  "No. And I'm not your honey. Not by a long shot, you son of a bitch. If you have any more questions, you can speak to my lawyer. Now out."

  Robby Kurz came swishing over to my desk, licked his pinkie and ran it over his eyebrow. I told him: "Hey, you're not telling me anything about yourself I don't already know."

  "Gideon is outside," Robby simpered, in an exag­geratedly faggy way. Well, what do you expect from a cop? A gay rights button? "He's simply dying to see you."

  "Gideon who?"

  "Are you ready for this?" He waved a business card. "Gideon Isaiah Friedman, Esquire. Of East Hampton, sweetie. Attorney for Bonnie Spencer."

  Gideon Friedman walked toward me. He didn't take little mincing steps. And he didn't lisp or wave a limp wrist. Still, you knew what he was. Maybe it was that his getup was impeccable country lawyer, English style: awesomely casual, perfectly cut brown tweed suit with a tattersall shirt, green knit tie and shoes that looked like wing tips, except they were brown suede. Or maybe it was the flawless haircut, where every single strand of brown hair lay smooth against his head, as if his skull were magnetised. Or maybe it was that he was too boyishly handsome for a guy in his late thirties, with that innocent, round-eyed, ultra-upper-class queer look male models have, the ones who always have very long scarves tossed around their necks in interesting ways. Forget his name; he had the look of one of those guys with a wood racquet who leap over the net at the Meadow Club.

  Or maybe it was just the way he checked me out when I stood up to shake his hand. "Hi," he said.

  "Hi," I responded.

  "I'm here representing Bonnie Spencer." He had a breathy voice, like a waiter in one of those trendy, expensive seafood restaurants, Fish Hampton or whatever, that open and close every summer because nobody, not even the most pretentious schmuck from New York, would voluntarily eat rare scallops more than once. I looked at him and thought: Oh, Christ, Bonnie's going to sit in Bedford for twenty-five to life.

  "Why don't you sit down?" I suggested. He sat in the plastic chair next to my desk and glanced around the squad room. I figured he'd murmur, Oooh, how butch! or at least cross his legs at the knees. "Well, Mr. Friedman, what can I do for you?"

  "Well..." And suddenly he stopped being a homo. He became a lawyer. "Why not start by telling me what this bullshit is about Bonnie coming in and taking blood and saliva tests to 'rule her out' as a suspect."

  "I meant that. Sincerely."

  "Give me a break. You were referring to that DNA testing, right?" I shrugged. "What's the story here? Sy Spencer was shot from a distance. Are we talking about some perspiration that dripped onto the mur­der weapon? A little saliva? Did the perpetrator drool?" It was weird, the hard-edge-lawyer sarcasm presented in that whispery waiter's voice. "Or was there some kind of a fight, and you have blood—or skin cells from under Sy's nails?" For a lawyer with no leverage, who had no idea what we had or where we were going, he was pretty good.

  "I'm not prepared to discuss the evidence at this time."

  "Why not?"

  "You should know why not. There's no percentage in it."

  "Okay," he said. "Then I suppose there's no per­centage in anyone taking any blood tests." He stood, regretfully, as if he hadn't been able to save me from making the most grievous misjudgment of my career. "I'm going to have to advise my client to stand on her Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination and not take the test."

  It was only then that it hit me that Gideon probably represented dress designers. "You're not a criminal lawyer, are you?" I asked.

  I waited for him to get pissed or, minimally, petu­lant, but to his credit he stayed composed; serene, even. He sat back down and examined the nap of the suede on his English shoe. "Why do you ask?"

  "Because a criminal lawyer would know that a sus­pect in a murder case can't refuse a blood test."

  "Why not?"

  "Because blood tests and other medical tests are fact, not testimony. They aren't covered by the Fifth Amendment."

  "Says who?"

  "Says the U.S. Supreme Court."

  "Really? Recently?"

  "Within the last five or ten years."

  "It must have happened after law school. I'll check it out."

  All right, so maybe he represented a hairdressers' lobbying group. But he wasn't that bad a guy. Not full of shit. And not full of himself. Except what the hell would he do when he got to court? Go fancy dress, show up in a black robe and white wig? And what would he do when the chief of the Homicide Bureau of the D.A.'s office cross-examined Bonnie? Take smelling salts?

  "What kind of lawyer are you?" I asked.

  He smiled. Perfect, even white teeth, like Chiclets. "I specialize in real estate."

  "Real estate," I repeated. "Must be busy, over in East Hampton."

  "Let me tell you what you're thinking," Gideon said. "Okay?" I shrugged. "You're thinking: Oh, goody! I can send Bonnie Spencer up the river for life and that land-use faggot lawyer who represents her won't be able to do a thing except wave bye-bye as she goes." I sat back in my seat, trying to look as­tounded at such a ridiculous—no, prejudiced—no­tion. It was not all that easy since, basically, that was what had been going through my mind. "Well, that's not the way it's going to be, Brady. Let me tell you how it's going to be. If you're just toying with her, I would hope you'd be smart enough to stop right now. Before I make a scene in front of your superi­ors."

  "You think I give a shit? Go ahead. Make a scene. The captain's in that office off the reception area."

  "You should give a shit, don't you think?"

  "No."

  He paused for a second. "All right. If you sincerely think you have any kind of a case, I'd appreciate it if you'd let me know. Because then I'd have to step out—and bring in Bill Paterno." I picked up a pen and twirled it between my palms; Paterno was the best criminal lawyer in Suffolk County.

  "Do you think Bonnie Spencer can afford Bill Paterno?" I asked, trying to sound casual, as though I didn't know how broke she was.

  "No. But I can." Gideon put on a little-old-man Jewish accent. "I make a very nice living, tanks God, and have some vonderful inwestments." Then he added: "Bonnie is one of my dearest friends."

  Well, it figured. I could see them. Giddie and Bon­nie. He'd have her over to his place in East Hampton for Mexican beer and guacamole or whatever nouvelle hors d'oeuvre had replaced it, and they'd giggle and gossip and talk about James Stewart and Henry Fonda—or Share Deep Feelings.

  "You can hire Paterno, Mr. Friedman. You can res­urrect Clarence fucking Darrow. Bonnie's still going to have to take the tests. And then we've got her."

  "Why? Because she told you she could shoot? Please. Girls in Utah do that sort of thing."

  "They hand out a .22 with every box of Kotex?"

  "Where's the rifle?" he inquired. I said nothing. "Bonnie doesn't own a rifle. She doesn't have access to one." Gideon waited. "You don't have the murder weapon, do you?" I kept silent. "Why Bonnie? Why not Lindsay?"

  "Lindsay?"

  "Lindsay can shoot. You don't believe me? Go rent Transvaal. Bombastic dreck, but you'll see her with a rifle."

  "She's an actress. Holding a rifle doesn't mean she can shoot it."

  "Why not find out?"

  "Mr. Friedman, we know where Lindsay Keefe was at the time of the murder."

  "And?" he asked, lifting a nonexistent speck of lint off his tweedy sleeve. "Are you implying my client was anywhere near Sy Spencer's house?"

  "Possibly."

  "I don't believe you." I shrugged again. "Stop that shrugging!" he said. "It's very irritating. Now let's get serious. You don't want to torment this woman, do you? You just want to get her a little agitate
d. Well, you've done it. She is agitated to the extreme. Now why don't you let me know why you want the tests. Be big about it. Maybe I can recommend taking them—if it's not unreasonable, or damaging to her inter­ests."

  I thought about it. The only reason to let a suspect know what evidence you have is when you decide to short-circuit an investigation and go for a confession. I wasn't in that much of a rush; I could wait another twenty-four hours. I sensed there were still more leads to follow. And I had to cover my ass on the illegal search of Bonnie's house by getting a warrant and then "finding" the real estate listing and the money in her boot. Those two items would give the D.A.'s office more rope to hang her.

  "You know," I said to Gideon, "the perpetrator was a very intelligent person. But not that intelligent. He or she"—Gideon made a sour face—"left so many loose ends we're still tripping all over them. The evi­dence box on this one is going to be so heavy the court clerk will need a goddamned moving van to bring it in. So what's the point of telling you what we have, when by this afternoon we'd have to give you a major update."

  "You're playing poker," Gideon commented.

  "Do me a favor, Mr. Friedman. Give your client a message for me. Tell her that if she did it, she should come in now. Maybe we can bring the matter to a conclusion that's mutually advantageous."

  "Why won't you be decent? She's a truly good per­son. Why won't you give her the benefit of the doubt?"

  "Let me continue. If she lets this thing play out, if she doesn't come forward with a confession, it's go­ing to be harder for her."

  "Tell me something," Gideon said. "Do you hon­estly think you can be objective about my client?" I didn't like the way he was eyeing me; I got a quick, bad, pukey feeling. Had he picked up something from me? Had Bonnie told him anything? But what could she tell him? That once I stood a little too close to her? That a couple of times she'd sensed a bulge under my clothes that wasn't my gun?

  "Yeah, I can be objective. She's a lovely lady. Good sense of humor. Friendly. Personally, I think she's a sweetheart." Gideon listened, alert. "But she's a sweetheart with a mean streak."

  "You're wrong."

  "Hate to say it, but I'm right. You see, I think Bonnie got—what's the word?—piqued at Sy. She was lonely, divorced, poor, unsuccessful. And along came her ex. He winked, then fucked her a few times ... Hey, we know about that, even though she swears she didn't. She lies all the time. Anyhow, he fucked her. And then he told her goodbye. No companion­ship, no marriage, no money. Oh, and no movie. No nothing. So she blew him away."

  "You don't really believe that."

  "I do."

  "You have no evidence."

  "We've got plenty of evidence." I put my feet up on the desk. "I've got to tell you, I find homicidal behavior not worthy of a sweetheart. But what I think isn't important. The lady's going away. So be prepared. Maybe make her a nice bon voyage party."

  Marian Robertson, Sy's cook, was being paid by the movie production company to remain on her job un­til Lindsay finished Starry Night. "Cook?" she sneered. "Lindsay Keefe needs a cook? Do you know what she eats? Fruit. All right, an occasional nut. No wonder she looks like a glass of milk. I sit here all day so that maybe, when she gets home, I can make her seven Crenshaw melon balls. What kind of person can live on melon balls?"

  For a second I couldn't answer because my mouth was full. She'd insisted on making me bacon and eggs, to say nothing of a tower of English muffins and coffee. "You don't like her," I managed to say.

  "There are worse."

  "Who?"

  "Oh, the pushy ones. The braggarts. And the ones who come in two minutes before a dinner party for twenty and tell me they're on Pritikin. The ones who have to explain to a colored woman what milles feuilles is."

  The marmalade was in a tiny white crock, like a souffle dish for midgets. I spooned some onto an­other muffin. "What about someone like Bonnie Spencer?" I asked. Marian Robertson started to gnaw on the inside of her cheek. "Remember Bonnie? Sy's ex-wife."

  "Oh, of course! Nice girl." "Mrs. Robertson, this is very difficult for me. I've known you since I was a kid. I look up to you. I would hate to see you in trouble."

  "Me?"

  "Yes. We have physical evidence that Bonnie Spen­cer was in the house the afternoon of Sy's murder. Now, you can tell me you didn't know she was here, but sooner or later we're going to confront Bonnie with our evidence. And she may say something like: '...and that nice Mrs. Robertson, who knew me so well when I was married to Sy. She always made me my favorite ... whatever. Kumquat pudding. Well, Mrs. Robertson and I had a nice chat that afternoon.' And then you'd have a legal problem, because in your statement you said no one was here."

  "More coffee?"

  "Mrs. Robertson, withholding evidence, lying to the police—it's a crime."

  Finally, she said: "You're barking up the wrong tree, Steve. Bonnie's as good as they come."

  "If she's that good, why did you lie to protect her? Don't you think it would be better to let her good­ness shine through?"

  "If she wanted to tell you she was here, it was her business, not mine." She cleared the cream and the marmalade off the table. I was no longer a welcome guest.

  "Was she here last Friday afternoon?" She took away the sugar bowl.

  "Yes." Clipped. No, Steve, you're looking fine. No, You were the best shortstop the Bridgies ever had.

  "Did you speak with her?"

  "Just hello, how are you, and just a couple of min­utes of catching up."

  "Was it friendly? Did she kiss you hello? Did you make a fuss? 'Good to see you, Mrs. Spencer!' "

  "I call her Bonnie. And I was glad to see her and she was glad to see me. I gave her a big hug. What are you going to do about that? Put me in the electric chair?"

  "Mrs. Robertson, I'm just trying to get the feeling of the afternoon."

  "The feeling was, Mr. Spencer must have gotten tired of Madame Melon Balls, because he actually brought Bonnie into the house. And he was smiling, happy to be with her—like the old days. And they didn't stay in the kitchen to chat. My guess is they had other fish to fry upstairs. But that was all right, because I got the feeling Bonnie would be back. Then we could catch up. I know her; Mr. Spencer would get busy on the phone, and she'd wander down to the kitchen and we'd have ourselves a good gabfest."

  "I'd like the truth now. Were there any sounds of fighting coming from upstairs?"

  "No."

  "Any sounds of anything?"

  "No. Listen to me. He wouldn't have gone out to the pool to relax and make his last-minute phone calls if Bonnie was still upstairs. Say what you will about him, his manners were perfect. It wasn't in his nature not to drive a lady home, or if she'd come on her own, escort her to her car. Believe me, after Bon­nie and before Lindsay, there was quite a parade of women going upstairs to see his ocean view or what­ever. He always said a proper goodbye."

  "Then how come you didn't hear him escort her out?"

  "I don't know. Maybe I was beating egg whites. Maybe I was powdering my nose."

  "Did you hear Mr. Spencer come down and go out to the pool?" She did a cheek chew before she nod­ded. "And what about Bonnie? Did you hear her leave after he went outside?" She didn't answer. "Okay, between the time Bonnie went upstairs with Sy and the time you heard the shot, what precisely did you hear? Her voice? Her footsteps? The sound of her car?"

  "She didn't kill him."

  "What did you hear, Mrs. Robertson?"

  "I didn't hear anything." She took away the muf­fins and my plate. "Does that make you happy, Steve?"

  I knew the old saying was true: You don't remember pain. Physical pain, like in Vietnam, when some new kid from North Carolina heard enemy fire, aimed his M-60, and blasted me through the shoulder. The medic shot me up with a ton of shit, but they had to stuff a gag into my mouth so I wouldn't scream and give away our position when they cut open my shirt. Me, who'd always looked at wounded, screaming guys and thought: Sure, it must hurt like hell, but ca
n't he just bite the bullet, control himself? I kept moaning so loud that they kept the gag in, and they took it out only when I puked and almost choked to death on my own vomit.

  I can recall thinking, when they joggled my shoul­der as they put me on the stretcher to get me to the helicopter: I will not live through this flight because the pain will kill me. I truly cannot take it. I kept howling, "I want a priest!" Me, whose last confession pretty much coincided with my first communion. But I don't remember the pain itself.

  And you don't remember emotional pain either.

  Like being a seven-year-old kid playing ball and my father drives onto the field in some farmer's tractor he's doing day work for, and he cuts the engine, stop­ping between the pitcher's mound and first base, practically breaks his neck getting down and then grabs a bat out of the hands of one of my friends and insists on hitting a few.

  More pain? Being a thirty-five-year-old and seeing my pal, my confidant, the only person I ever really spoke to outside work, the one person I thought to buy a Christmas card for—the guy who owned the liquor store—flash his wife a look of revulsion when I walked through the door.

  You know all that pain and more occurred. Recall­ing it, you might feel sad or even cringe. But you do not remember the pain itself.

  So when I rang Bonnie's bell and got no answer, and then ran to her garage to see if her car was miss­ing, and then, finally, spotted her in her chicken-wired garden, picking vegetables, I almost laughed at the panic I'd felt, the horror, the stab in the gut—the pain—when I thought she'd gone. So what if she had? You do get over these things.

  And when Moose barked a welcome and Bonnie looked up and saw me and shuddered—a violent, un­controllable shiver of fear—I wanted to disappear, or die, it hurt so much. But I said to myself: I'll get over it.

  She was squatting over a basket of eggplants. "What are you going to do with all those things?" I asked.

  "Get out of here." Her voice was a hoarse whisper. She braced her hands on her knees and slowly, as if it were too much of an effort, pushed herself up. All her energy, all her fire, all her humor was gone.