by Don Potter
“We spoke by phone yesterday afternoon. I saw him the night before.”
“Where did you meet?”
“At his place. Why are you asking me these questions?”
“Just routine. We need to gather all the facts so we can learn who murdered Mr. Stone.”
“Murder! You didn’t say he was murdered. How did he die?”
“We’ll get to that, but we have more questions that you might be able to answer.”
“Do I need to have my attorney present? Aren’t you supposed to read me my rights? Am I under arrest or what?”
“This is only an information gathering session, but call your attorney if you wish.”
“I don’t like the odds. Let’s make it even. I want my attorney here before I answer any more questions.” Elaine did not know if she was doing the right thing, but having her legal advisor there, even though he had a business practice was better than taking on the LAPD alone.
With the arrival of her attorney Elaine was asked about her relationship with her ex-husband, both personally and professionally. These questions included the reasons for their recent spats, why she was in his apartment two nights before, what topics were discussed during the phone call on the night of the murder as well as a litany of standard homicide questions. She cooperated, with counsel whispering in her ear several times during the interview.
“How was Ross murdered?” she asked when the time seemed appropriate.
“He was at the desk and stabbed in the neck with his letter opener sometime around midnight.”
“So he must have known the killer.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Because unless it was a very quiet intruder why would he let someone get behind him?”
“I didn’t say the fatal wound was in the back of the neck,” the first detective replied.
“He had his check book out and may have been writing a check when things went wrong,” the other cop said. “You wouldn’t know anything about that would you?”
“No, and I think it’s time to end this discussion.” Elaine said, realizing if she kept talking she was bound to say something wrong.
“It so happens that we’re finished with the questions for now, but we will need to talk further. You’re not planning to leave LA any time soon are you?” the first detective asked.
“Well, no.”
“Don’t, and thank you for you time,” the other detective said.
“This is a total disaster, Jeff,” she said to her attorney after the police left.
“I wouldn’t worry about being a suspect at this point. Family, ex-spouses and business associates are always high on the suspect list until they sift through the evidence and establish motives and timelines. And you, my dear, fall into two out of the three categories.”
“Do I need a criminal attorney?”
“I was just about to suggest this. Let me make a couple of phone calls and get back to you.”
“Don’t think of me as being hard-hearted, but we have to address the business ramifications now that Ross is gone. Remember, yesterday we were trying to devise a strategy for me to take over all the PR accounts. Now I guess we have to see how to save the entire business from going under. The negative publicity I’m going to get won’t make that an easy task.”
“Let me talk to Ross’s attorney and determine if he’s going to help solve the problem or be part of it.”
“What should I do in the meantime?”
“Go to an AA meeting, but don’t talk with anyone about anything relating to Ross’s death.”
Outside the AA meeting, Nora waited anxiously for Elaine to arrive. She was there early and staked out seats for both of them. When Elaine showed up Nora rushed to greet her.
“I’m so glad you’re here. I saved us seats. Can we talk after the meeting?
“Wow. You act like you’re on a mission. Sure we can get together later.” Elaine was looking forward to getting her mind off the horrendous problems of the past few days and onto those perceived to be important to an AA newcomer. Going back to the basics, she believed, might also help put her personal issues into proper perspective.
They walked through the crowded church basement room. Upon reaching their seats, Elaine was shocked to see a key chain with the female/male symbols that was in Ross’s condo lying on Nora’s chair.
“Are these yours?” Elaine asked, pointing to the keys.
“They’re mine.” Nora picked up the keys, stuffed them in her purse and sat down. Elaine took the seat next to her and spent the entire meeting trying to determine the best way to bring up the keys, with their unique symbols, and not mention that she had seen them before or where.
“Okay, what’s going on in your life as well as your mind?” Elaine asked after they were seated in the deli.
“Well, I got an old debt paid, so I won’t be sleeping on my friends couch once I find an apartment.”
“And then you’ll be looking for a job?”
“Yeah, but I won’t have to rush into anything. I’ve got more then enough for the next few months.”
“Lucky you. That’s something to be grateful for.”
“Grateful has nothing to do with it. I earned the money.”
“I meant you were broke and now your not. That’s a blessing.”
“Not having to deal with the guy I was living with makes me happy. If you want to call it gratitude or a blessing, fine.” Nora showed she was annoyed.
“You may deserve what you got or call it a coincidence, but to me having such good fortune is God working anonymously. If you don’t believe it now, you will when we finish the twelve steps.”
“Speaking of the steps, I need to do an inventory and read it to you.”
“We do them in order. You haven’t done step two. And you need to do three before doing four and five. It will take a little while to do them right.”
“I can’t wait. I’ve got to do this right away. It’s driving me crazy. Don’t you understand?”
“What I understand is you’re letting your mind run wild. Tell you what, write down what’s bugging you and we’ll get together tomorrow afternoon and discuss it. This is not a true inventory, but this spot check might help you deal with the issue short-term while providing some insight as to what the process is all about.”
“Where will we do it?” Nora asked.
“We’ll want more privacy than this restaurant offers. Let’s do it at my place before the meeting. I’ll provide the snacks and cold drinks as long as you do your homework and are ready to dig deep into what’s bothering you and why.”
“That’s a deal.”
“By the way,” Elaine said, changing the subject to what was on her mind. “I noticed the symbol on your key chain.”
“Oh, ‘The Union of Woman and Man?’ That’s something I made before coming out to LA.”
“You were part of a club or something?”
“No. It’s one-of-a-kind as far as I know. To me, it signifies the spiritual joining of the sexes.”
“So you never saw another?”
“Nope. But maybe I’ll start a business and sell them worldwide.”
“Maybe you will. Anything’s possible in sobriety.”
The new day brought with it a flurry of activity. The news of Ross’s death had been slow to make the news media, because he was no longer considered a ‘player’ in Hollywood. And the police were slow to respond and offered little information when asked. They believed the less said the quicker the case could be solved.
Elaine remained a person of interest and retained a criminal lawyer and held her first meeting with him. Following that she spoke with her regular counsel to discuss business strategies.
“There are basically two possibilities as I see it. One approach is to take the PR accounts out of the Stone Agency and leave the rest of the business for employees on the entertainment side to fight over. The other is for you to assume control of everything,” the attorney said.
“L
et me sleep on it,” Elaine responded. She checked her watch and saw it was time to meet her sponsee.
At four o’clock the doorman buzzed and announced, “Nora is here to see you.”
“Please send her up.”
“How are you today, Nora? Better than last night I hope,” Elaine said as she opened the door.
“Yeah. Went home and wrote. Got a good night’s sleep. Then I got up and wrote some more. The inventory is ready for you.” Nora scanned the condo taking in everything. She went to the balcony door, opened it and stepped outside to take in the view offered from being on the twentieth floor. Satisfied, she came back in but left the slider open.
“Okay,” Elaine said. What do you want to drink? Hot or cold?”
“Cold.”
“Soda or iced tea?
“Tea.”
“Me too. There are cheese and crackers on the counter. We’ll sit in the living room to talk.”
Elaine got the drinks while Nora filled her plate. They positioned themselves at one end of the giant glass coffee table where two large couches met at right angles. The arrangement was intimate but provided each of them with their own space.
“Well, what do you have?”
“First, I need to make sure I understand the sponsor/sponsee relationship. Whatever I tell you stays with you, right?”
“Your secrets won’t own you anymore. You’ve probably heard the expression, ‘you’re as sick as your secrets.’ Sharing them with your sponsor takes away the power these things once had. You lighten the load, and what is said to me stays with me.”
“All right. Where do you want me to start?”
“How about at the beginning.”
“I didn’t move out here for the reasons most young woman do. Fame and fortune Hollywood style had nothing to do with it.”
“That’s different.”
“My reason was strictly business. I met a man. A successful man. At least he told me he was. Anyway, he was twenty years my senior and convinced me to move here and live with him.”
“When did you do that?”
“About a year ago. The deal was he would take care of me and give me a healthy allowance as long as I took care of him.”
“How did that affect your self esteem?”
“No problem really. As I told you before, I have used my looks and sexual prowess to get what I wanted since I was a teenager. Besides living at the beach had to be better than where I came from.
“So you moved out here thinking it would be better than the situation you were in.”
“There was no situation at home. Here’s where the secrecy part comes in. I had been in a mental institution for nearly two years, because my temper got me in trouble. I tried to use a broken beer bottle to carve up a girl who made a pass at my date. He tried to stop me and I went after him. And when the cops came, I attacked them too.”
“That’s some temper.”
“Lots of therapy and medication brought me back to normal, and I was released. Two weeks later I met this guy at a party. He was in town for a convention and a girlfriend got me into the fancy event. Three days later, I was ready to move out of my parents’ home and move to the coast.”
“And as you told me before, you finally stopped drinking and he didn’t like the sober Nora. So he threw you out.”
“That’s pretty much it. Oh yes, and I went off my meds. Afterwards the fighting escalated.”
“Makes sense.”
“Nothing that happened over the past couple of days makes sense. The other night I went back to his place to get money. After all, he brought me out here. Leaving me with no place to live and no money is not fair. We argued. And I think I may have killed him.”
Elaine was speechless. With an unsteady hand she reached for the iced tea, because her mouth went suddenly dry. The glass seemed to weigh a ton, so she put it down after lifting it no more than a couple of inches.
Nora began to weep. She reached into her nearby handbag and searched for a tissue. In so doing, she put her keys on the coffee table – the ones with the female/male symbol attached to the chain – at that moment Elaine realized what this meant: the one Nora murdered was Ross.
“You don’t hate me do you?” Nora asked.
“What’s the name of the guy you...ahh, ahh...lived with?
“Ross. Ross Stone.
“Oh my God.”
“Sounds like you know that son-of-a-bitch.”
“Yes I know him. Ross was my ex-husband.”
“I would call it a coincidence, but you believe it’s God working anonymously. Either way he hurt both of us.”
“You said you think you killed him, but the police were here and told me Ross was murdered.”
“Well I didn’t stick around to find out. He looked dead when I left. The cops simply confirmed it.” Nora’s voice and demeanor were changing. She was harsh. Her voice and movements appeared to be in an increased state of aggravation.
“Do you understand what you did?” Elaine attempted to deal with her rationally.
“Of course. He won’t be bothering you or me any more.”
“I mean, we have got to report this to the police.”
“So I can go back to the nut house? No way.”
“Couldn’t this be a case of self-defense? Did he threaten you or push you around? Anything like that?”
“Hardly. Ross was all bark and no bite. You ought to know that. If anything, I did the threatening. I told him if he didn’t give me all the cash he had on hand, write me a check for what might be called a severance fee and keep paying me on a monthly basis that I was going to use the inside information I had and blow the whistle on him.”
“What inside information did you have?”
“One time, when he had too much to drink, he bragged to me that he was cooking the books at his company and hiding money from his ex-wife who was also his business partner. If I had known you were that person, maybe things would have turned out differently. But they didn’t. Believe me, we’re both better off with him out of the way.”
“So tell me more about what happened at his place. The police said Ross was stabbed to death.”
“You bet he was, and I did it. He had given me a couple of thousand in cash, which he kept in the safe behind his desk. I was standing behind him as he wrote me a check. But Ross being Ross couldn’t keep from making a nasty comment. Well he made one snide remark too many. It ticked me off. And I nailed him in the neck with his own letter opener,” she said in a manner of fact tone. “He never saw it coming.”
Nora withdrew a hunting knife from her purse and began to stroke her arm with its blunt side. It was as if she were sharpening the back of the knife using her arm as a strop.
“Nora, please put that knife away.”
“You’re judging me aren’t you?
“Certainly not. I’m you sponsor.” This was the strongest response Elaine could muster, but the weakness in her voice betrayed her.
“You’re just saying that. I can’t trust you or anyone else.”
“That’s not true. Haven’t I listened to you and tried to help you get started with the steps?”
“Well what AA advice do you have to get me out of this situation?”
“I never said following the steps would get you out of every problem. What I have tried to teach you is that following the principles of the program will help keep self-made problems from occurring and that you’ll have tools to deal with difficult situations when they come up.” Elaine was thankful for the strength to utter these words.
“You’re a good teacher, because I see a way to deal with the situation.”
“That’s good.”
“It’s not so good for you.”
“Nora, stop scaring me. Please.”
“Let’s take a walk out on the balcony and watch the sun drop over the hills in the west. Then you’ll be dropping off the balcony – committing suicide because you were so distraught after killing your ex-husband. It all fits together.
He was stealing money from the business. You found out and confronted him. Things got out of hand and you stabbed him. Case closed.”
“Let me help you, Nora.”
“This is the best way for you to help me.”
“No. No. You need professional help. Want me to make a call?”
Elaine stood up and darted across the room. Nora jumped up. She started to chase after Elaine but caught her foot in the strap of her handbag. Nora fell forward and hit her head on the iron corner that supported the massive glass coffee table. She emitted a heavy sigh as she hit the floor with a thud.
The sounds of Nora’s struggles caused Elaine to stop and turn around. She saw that Nora was hurt and rushed to her. It was too late; Nora was dead.
After calling the police, Elaine stood in the kitchen to be as far away from the dead assailant as possible. But she could not resist glancing into the living room to be sure Nora was in the same position as when she hit the floor. By the time LAPD arrived, Elaine had regained enough composure to pour another glass of iced tea.
The crime scene team was busy doing their job when the two detectives that had previously interviewed Elaine showed up.
“You’ve had a couple of rough days,” the first detective said. “We have a few questions and we’ll be gone.”
“Finger prints at your ex-husband’s condo included yours in the living room. The dead woman’s were all over the place. Her prints were on the letter opener too. And there was a bloody one on the door knob as well,” the second detective confirmed.
“We checked out the prints online. Turns out she had problems in Chicago before relocating out here. Several assaults and attempted murders landed her in a mental institute for awhile. You were lucky not to be a victim once she decided to take her activities up a notch.”
“Look at this. Found it in her wallet.” The CSI investigator held up a baggie with a blood-stained check payable to Nora and signed by Ross in the amount of ten thousand dollars.
“Guess she thought that’s all she needed to get a fresh start.”
Elaine shook her head and said, “Takes a lot more than that to make a fresh start in LA.”