by Susan Isaacs
I steered Bonnie over to a straight-backed chair. "Stay put," I told her. I turned back to my brother. He stopped his sideways skedaddling. "You saw her that day at the set, when she knocked on the door of Sy's trailer?"
"Yes." His yeses sounded more like yaps than complete syllables. I thought: He's fucking mortified about being caught red-handed. Steal billions, everybody knows, and you're invited to the best parties; steal ties, and you're a tacky little piece of shit.
"And Sy told her to get off the set, that she didn't belong?"
"Yes."
"Stephen, listen—" Bonnie started to say, in her direct, you're-not-approaching-this-right voice, as though we were husband-and-wife detective partners in some 1937 movie.
"Not now!" Then I asked my brother: "Did you know Sy was having an affair with her?"
"What?" It wasn't an assertion of amazement, as in: I don't believe it! It wasn't even a question. It was more a "Duh" of befuddlement. Easton was on overload; he couldn't seem to get what was going on.
"Answer me," I snapped at him.
I had to know how finely tuned in he was to Sy's private life. How much did he know? What could he guess at? After dailies that night, had Sy made any secret phone calls? When they'd gotten back to the house and Easton was setting out Sy's papers or his pj's or pink pages for the next day, had he possibly picked up another reference to "Lindsay"? "Lightning"? An icy laugh? An intense "I need your help" spoken behind a closed door? Would Easton the Refined actually eavesdrop? Would Easton not eavesdrop was more the question. My brother wouldn't recognize an ethic if it snuck up and bit him on the butt.
But still, as I looked at him, I knew he'd make a fantastic witness for the D.A., all blue-suited and white-shirted, with one of his new ties. His fair hair would shine in the harsh light of the witness box, his low-key gentleman's voice would appeal, convince. I thought: Wouldn't it be wonderful if he actually could remember something important?
State your name, the assistant D.A. would command. Easton Brady. I ask you, Mr. Brady, the A.D.A. would say, did you overhear a telephone conversation between Sy Spencer and Michael LoTriglio? The defense lawyer—Fat Mikey's, maybe, although I felt a twinge of regret at the notion—would leap up and object on the grounds of no foundation. The A.D.A. would rephrase the question and inquire, How did you know who was on the phone with Mr. Spencer? Well, I answered the phone and the man said it was Mike LoTriglio and he wanted to talk to Sy now. I'd spoken to Mr. LoTriglio before, and this sounded exactly like him, Easton would begin.
I glanced over at Bonnie. Her eyes were riveted on Easton.
I remembered her eyes in that moment when she'd stood before the gun cabinet downstairs. I thought I'd seen a fleeting shadow of pain in them, a recognition of what was behind those doors.
What was behind those doors?
My old man's twelve-gauge shotgun.
And his .22.
And then I knew what Bonnie knew.
Eastern seemed to understand that, at last, I knew. He stood quietly, thumbs hooked into his pockets, watching me.
I had to get ready for an interrogation. Oh, we Bradys were so neat. I lifted Sy's folded sweaters from the bed and placed them—one, two, three—gently on the dresser. I was so painstakingly careful you could hardly hear the rustle of the tissue paper between the folds. Then I took my brother by the hand, and, together, we sat side by side on the space I had cleared.
"East," I said.
"Yes?"
"You have something you want to tell me."
"No."
"Come on."
His neck and his ears got fiery red, but he said, "No. Absolutely not."
"I found the rifle." He shook his head. It could be taken to mean: I don't understand. Or: No, you didn't. "I found it, East." I prayed—neat, always put things back where they belong—that he had returned it to the cabinet, that he hadn't done something like take a ride on the Shelter Island ferry to drop it into Long Island Sound. But then I saw I was okay; Easton angled his body away from mine and with the side of his hand was ironing out an imperceptible wrinkle in the blue tie right next to him. I said softly: "It's just a question of time before we get back the results of the ballistics tests." He wouldn't look at me. "We fire the rifle and then compare the markings on the bullet with the two bullets we took from Sy." I was afraid if I looked at Bonnie I'd lose my rhythm, but then she didn't seem to want my attention. There was no sound, no motion; if I hadn't known she was sitting in a chair five feet away, I would not have sensed she was in the room. "The markings will match, East. You know that."
Easton lifted his chin and breathed out sharply, giving his nostrils a scornful, Southampton flare, so Old Society. "I can't believe you can even think something like this!"
"How can I not think it?"
"You're my brother!"
"I know. Maybe that's why it took me so long to understand."
In the past, when a case finally came into focus, I always got a wild burst of energy, a hunger to know. But now I felt heavy, sluggish, incredibly weary. If Easton ran, I wouldn't have been able to go after him; I was on some other planet, with terrible gravity.
"I want both of you out of here!" he ordered. He scowled at Bonnie. "There is nothing to discuss."
"There's a lot to discuss," I said.
"This is totally asinine."
"No. This is very serious and important."
"You have no proof of anything."
"I have the murder weapon."
"Oh, don't be melodramatic! Are there fingerprints on it? Are there?"
"There may be, even if you think you took care of that. We use laser technology now."
He shook his head. Either he didn't believe me, he wasn't impressed or he wasn't afraid. "And what if there aren't fingerprints?" he inquired.
"Who the hell else would take Dad's .22 and shoot Sy Spencer? Mom?"
"You would bring her into it."
"Relax. Who do you think she's going to blame for all this? You or me?"
I got up and walked toward Easton's closet. A regular closet, not a mahogany-and-brass state-of-the-art architectural space like Sy's. But Easton aspired. Everything was in perfect order: suits, shirts, ties—more of Sy's—slacks, blazers, shoes. Shoes in their cardboard boxes, stacked on the top shelf. The front panels of the boxes had been cut off so you could see each pair. Years of shoes: penny loafers, tassel loafers and oxfords; white bucks, golf shoes and rubber-soled boaters; tennis sneakers, running sneakers, sandals, slippers. And thongs. Ordinary rubber thongs for the beach, the kind you can pick up anywhere. A men's size eleven, my size, my brother's size.
I covered my left hand with my handkerchief. I took out my pen with my right and, carefully, eased the box off the shelf and caught it in my left.
I said, "You hated to bet when we were kids. You know why? I always won. But I'll bet you right now these thongs will match the molds we made from impressions in the grass right near Sy's house, where the shots were fired. A fancy, hot-shit lawn, East. Turf, they call it. It's a special variety of Kentucky bluegrass called Adelphi. The guy at the State Agricultural Extension said it must have cost him a fucking fortune to cover all that ground. But what the hell. The right shade of green makes a statement." I held up the box. "I'll bet you we find a blade or two of Adelphi right in here."
It took a while before Easton could get his eyes off the shoe box. Then, in an I've-got-a-secret boyish manner that my mother would have found enchanting, he gestured me over with his index finger. Without looking at Bonnie, he whispered: "Why is she here?"
"She's been giving me some information on the case. Some insights into Sy."
"Oh." He seemed hesitant about what to do next His mouth opened, but nothing came out.
"Why don't I tell her to take a hike?" He seemed so relieved. He inclined his head; it was almost a bow.
I walked over to Bonnie and spoke softly. "Can you drive a stick shift? Okay, you know where the
nature preserve is, that swamp place, about a minute and a half north of here? Go there. Watch birds or something for an hour and a half. Then take back roads to your friend Gideon's. Don't park too close to his house. Don't call him to tell him you're coming. And make your approach from one of the houses behind his in case they're surveilling his place. Got it so far?"
She was levelheaded, serious and terse. "Yup."
"Explain to Gideon what's happening. Under the circumstances, he won't want you to turn yourself in. So just sit tight."
"Do you need any help? Want me to call anyone?"
"No."
"Promise me—"
"Yeah, I'll be careful. Now look, if for any reason they find you and scoop you up—arrest you—don't make any statements of any kind."
"Okay."
Her eyes darted over to Easton. I knew what she was thinking: There was a good chance that if I didn't nail him, she'd be nailed. And maybe, in the final analysis, I couldn't nail him. Or I wouldn't be able to.
"I trust you." That's what Bonnie said instead of goodbye. Then she held out her hand for my car keys and was gone.
"You killed Sy," I told my brother.
"Please, Steve."
"You killed him."
He lowered himself on the chair Bonnie had vacated. "I didn't mean to." His voice had the emotional intensity of someone caught running a red light. "I'm sorry."
"You meant to kill Lindsay."
"Yes. How did you figure it out? From that one conversation about lightning?"
"Just tell me what happened, Easton."
"You know what's funny?" He kept tugging at the hem of his bathrobe like a woman with lousy legs in a too-short skirt. "You always call me 'East,' and now you're saying 'Easton.' "
"What happened?"
My brother's bright-blue eyes filled with tears. "I want you to know I really loved that man. There was only a sixteen-year age difference, but Sy was like a father to me." He put his hands over his face and wept.
I sat on the edge of the bed and watched him. I wanted to be moved by his grief, but I had too many years in Homicide; I'd watched this movie, The Crying Killer, too many times.
People who commit murder are weird, and not just in their willingness to stick out their tongues at God, to steal His gift of life, to commit the one act that is unquestionably and universally wrong. No, what always got to me about murderers wasn't their evil, their distance from the rest of humanity, but their closeness to it. I'd watched mothers sob at the coffins of babies they'd clubbed to death; I'd heard boyfriends scream out in anguish at the funerals of the girlfriends they'd battered, strangled and, postmortem, raped. They were so vulnerable, so wounded, these killers. And I knew what would be coming next from my brother because, for me, this was the hundredth rerun of that scene. His eyes would plead: Pity me, help me, go easy on me, because I, the survivor, am also a victim of this monstrous crime. What a loss I've suffered! Look at these tears!
I played it with Easton the way I always played it. I gave him exactly what he felt he deserved: sympathy and support. "It must be such hell," I said.
"It is. Complete hell." I shook my head as if I couldn't bear his—our—sadness.
What the fuck right did he have to kill? To fly off, with a new wardrobe of ties, to California, leaving Bonnie to spend the next twenty-five years paying for what he did?
I felt no sadness for my brother's stupid, wasted, empty life, and no guilt, not a goddamn twinge, about not having been a better older brother so I could have given him some values or shit like that. No, I just felt cold and very tired. "Tell me how it happened, East," I urged. Oh, did I sound full of compassion.
"You're calling me 'East' again."
I smiled. "I know. Hey, you're my brother, aren't you? Come on. Let's talk. Tell me what went on. Was there any discussion about getting rid of Lindsay before that night at dailies?" Every now and then I slipped, but I knew to avoid the word "kill" when questioning a killer.
"No. Nothing. I knew they were having troubles. Sy had turned off on her completely, went from hot to cold overnight. But I'm sure you know by now that he wasn't the confiding type."
"But then there was that remark that if lightning struck Lindsay, if she died, the problems with Starry Night would be over. What happened after that?"
Easton didn't answer. He yanked at the hem of his bathrobe. It was one of those Saks uglies that my mother had bought on final, maximum markdown and saved for Christmas; it was some sort of strange, long-haired terry cloth, and grayish-brown, the color of a rag used for unpleasant chores.
"Who brought up getting Lindsay out of the picture? You or Sy?"
"I did, but it isn't the way it sounds. I just asked him some questions about the completion insurance. He said that if a star dies, the guarantors will pay to make another movie. If you're on a forty-day shooting schedule and she dies when you're fifteen days into it, the producers will get fifteen days of money. Well, minus a deductible of either a couple of hundred thousand or three days. But Sy said the coverage was quite fair."
"But there was no suggestion he wanted you to facilitate matters?"
"No. Not then." My brother's face reflected a little hurt, as in why hadn't Sy leapt at his unstated offer right away. I had absolutely no doubt that Easton's questions about insurance were openings to Sy. Maybe Sy hadn't even thought about offing Lindsay before. Who knows? But all of a sudden, there it was, out in the electrified air: if lightning struck.
But Sy was no fool. He knew lightning was dangerous; only an expert could handle it, like Mikey. Not a jerk like my brother. So he'd bypassed Easton, who was, most likely, doing everything but jumping up and down, waving his arms, calling out: just ask me, Sy. I'm your boy. I'm your assistant producer. I'll do whatever you think needs doing. Sy, though, had gone to a pro. But the pro had been smarter than both Sy and Easton put together. He just said no.
"When did the matter come up again?"
"Wednesday night."
I sat back on the bed, as though I were getting comfortable, all ready and eager to hear about my kid brother's first day of junior high. "Tell me, how did he bring it up?" I asked.
"That's what amazed me, Steve! He was so unbelievably direct. He said, 'We've got to terminate Lindsay.' He already had the plane reservations and the appointments in L.A., so he wanted it done over the weekend, when he was out there." Easton was talking fast, freely, so I didn't stop him to ask how come he'd done it the day before the weekend. "He didn't say, 'Will you do it?' or anything. He just assumed I would."
"Goes with the territory, right?"
"You don't have to be sarcastic."
"Hey, East, I'm not. But I want us to talk straight, matter-of-fact. No bullshit between us. We're brothers."
"Don't condescend to me, Steve. That's all I ask."
"I'm not. Now, did he plan it out, or did you?"
"He had it all mapped out. He invented this imaginary killer—a crazy fan. He would make believe Lindsay had gotten a letter from the fan, telling her he loved her, threatening to kill her if she didn't write back to him."
"But she'd never gotten any letter like that?"
"Well, she had gotten crazy letters. All actors do. That was the beauty of it. She'd talked about them, to her agent, to some of Sy's friends at a dinner party a few weeks ago. Sy said that this murder would just seem to be a horrible extension of those letters. He'd tell the police she'd seemed a little upset about some new threatening letter, but that he'd never seen it. He'd say he kept after her to have one of the private investigation agencies who handle things for public figures look into it, and she kept saying fine, but she was busy with the movie and never bothered. And then I was supposed to say—but not volunteer it, only if the police asked me—that I'd overheard Lindsay telling him about the letter."
"Was he going to write one for the police to find?"
"No. He said he'd given it a lot of thought, and almost did it, but it was jus
t too chancy. Who knows what kind of scientific tests the police have these days? He didn't want to risk having it traced."
What I couldn't get over was how clever Sy was. In the course of just a couple of days, he'd come up with a brilliant, almost foolproof scheme for getting rid of Lindsay. Except instead of convincing Mikey to carry out the plan, Sy had relied on a fool. So maybe, in the end, he wasn't such a brilliant mogul. He'd executive-produced his own death.
"Who decided on the rifle?" I asked.
"I did. He wanted me to stab her."
"Wouldn't that be a mess?"
"Yes, but it would be very convincing," Easton explained. "Stab her once, to kill her, but then do it again and again, so it looked like the work of a mental case. Except I told him I didn't have the stomach for it." I nodded with great seriousness, trying to show how much I cherished my brother's decency. "But then I told him I'd been a pretty good shot as a kid. And he loved it that I already had the rifle, that we didn't have to go out and buy one. He was very edgy about leaving any kind of tracks."
"I don't blame him. We've been checking gun dealers' records going back six months. He was a smart guy."
"Yes, he was." My brother got teary again. He sniffed.
"East, how did you have the balls to pick up a rifle that probably hadn't been touched for years? And then to rely on your being able to bag Lindsay with one or two shots?"
He gave me an I-thought-of-everything smile. "Well, it did take some balls, as you say. But I did some fast planning. Although first I had to find the key to the padlock for the gun cabinet. That took me hours! You'll never guess where it was."
"On top of the gun cabinet."
"You knew?"
"Yeah. You should have given me a call. I could have saved you some time." We both went chuckle-chuckle. "So you just took it out, locked the cabinet and went ready, aim, fire?"
"No. I cleaned it."
"Smart. Did you try it out?"
He inclined his head. "I went to a range."
"Which one?"
"The one up near Riverhead."
"Right. I've been there. Where did you get the bullets?"
"At a hardware store right near there."