Conspiracy of Innocence

by Gene Grossman

  Once back in my Hummer, I take the disc allegedly containing footage of Vinnie’s botched entrapment, slip it into the slot on my dashboard CD player, press the ‘play’ button, sit back, relax, and listen to Ella Fitzgerald and Louie Armstrong sing a duet, backed up by the Oscar Peterson Trio. Gee, I guess I must have made a mistake and brought the wrong disc.

  Needless to say, the twenty-four-hour noon deadline has passed about an hour ago and I still haven’t heard from the City Attorney’s office with an arraignment date. I’ve decided to not tell this story to the good folks at StuartCorp.

  Looking down the dock, I see that Laverne has just returned from her nudist vacation and has a nice tan. Maybe later this evening I’ll check out the extent of it. She’s carrying her small suitcase and boarding her houseboat I’ve been on vacations with women before, and even if it’s only going to be an overnighter, a female feels compelled to bring enough outfits for any occasion. The female brain seems to think that even on a two-night camping trip up in the National Forest, there’s always a chance of bumping into the President of the United States, who will invite her to join him at a black tie campfire. I’m impressed to see that Laverne traveled so lightly, but then again because she went to a place where no clothing was required, I guess all she needed to bring were her toothbrush, lots of sunscreen, and a depilatory.

  The phone’s ringing and I recognize Jack B.’s cell phone number on the display.

  “Yes, Jack, what have you got for me?”

  “I did what you said, Mister Sharp, and Phyllis went in to the market while Beverly Luskin was shopping.”

  “Okay, what’s she got to report?”

  “Strange thing. She saw the widow Luskin shopping, and she was wearing those large sunglasses you told me about, but Phyllis noticed another bruise on her face, other than the black eye. Phyllis says that it looks like she tried to cover it up with makeup, but any woman could tell that it was there. It looked large, like she was slapped real hard, on the same side of her face as the black eye.”

  “Have you seen anyone else go in or out of her house?”

  “Nope. Just her.”

  “So what you’re telling me is that on one day she didn’t have that bruise, and then on the next day she did have that bruise, and in between not having it and having it, she was in her house all the time, and you didn’t see anyone either come in or go out?”

  “That’s right. If she got slapped, it must have been inside that house.”

  “How about the groceries Jack? What’s she picking up at the market?”

  “Nothing unusual, just milk, cereal, pasta, eggs, steaks, sanitary napkins, cleaning stuff, frozen dinners, you know, things like that.”

  “Okay, Jack. You guys are doing a good job. I’d like you to stay there another couple of days and watch her house for a while after dark too. Maybe you’ll get lucky and see some shadows by a window. And Jack…”

  “Yes Mister Sharp?”

  “Have Phyllis keep track of Luskin’s shopping list, and if you see her dump any plastic trash bags, please make sure to get them before the city’s pick-up truck comes. I want her garbage brought over to Victor’s lab when you return.”

  I know I might be getting into trouble with the office by authorizing this money for Jack’s snooping, but we took a five thousand dollar retainer from Beverly Luskin, and in view of the fact that she’s being beaten in her own house, I feel justified in spending her money to find out how we can protect her from further abuse.

  Talking to Jack about all the groceries that Beverly Luskin is buying has made me hungry. The kid and her dog are spending the night at Myra’s, so I’m on my own for dinner, and since I’m not in the mood for FatBurger, I’m going to have to forage for something to eat.

  Being a friendly neighbor, I think it would be nice to invite Laverne over for a ‘welcome home’ dinner. She’ll probably bring a large can of her favorite wine and maybe we can both cook up something to eat. I’m sure she’s capable of making something better than that greasy French toast she usually leaves for me.

  She accepts my gracious invitation and hurriedly starts looking through her mail for this week’s TV Guide, so she can find the info necessary to Tivo tonight’s episodes of those crummy reality shows she’s addicted to. Before leaving the boat to join me, I see her grabbing some items from her pantry to bring along for tonight’s feast, which will be prepared by two people wearing towels. The anchorage where our boats are docked has the largest swimming pool in the Marina, used by the boat tenants and apartment dwellers of the eight buildings in this project. We intend to get some swimming done, soak in the Jacuzzi for a while, and then shower off the chlorine, wrap ourselves in huge hotel towels, and cook our dinner.

  I now know that I’m not capable of doing as many laps in the pool as I used to be able to do. The Jacuzzi helped relax the swimming muscles a little, but I know I’m going to be stiff tomorrow. Laverne and I are now bumping into each other in my boat’s galley, preparing dinner.

  I start by chopping the salad and adding my favorite ingredients. Laverne has signed a release form, allowing me to add chopped garlic, onions and anchovies. I have no idea what she’s working on, but it smells Italian. There’s a possibility that she’s planning some special recipe of ravioli, stuffed with cheese and spinach. She says she’s making it from scratch, so I hope I don’t find any cans of Chef Boyardee in the garbage tomorrow morning. The side dish she whipped up has something to do with eggplant. It’s dark, wet, and cold, but smells good.

  The phone has been turned off, and we are now sitting in the salon, feasting off of the buffet we spread out on the coffee table, while we watch the evening news on the large flat-panel plasma display television screen across the room from us. We’ve already gone through both cans of wine, so no pain is being felt. Our towels are barely hanging on to our bodies, and we’re both in an exceptionally good mood, having eaten and drank to our hearts’ content. I reach over and undo her towel and then my own. Being a typical woman, she feels compelled to interrupt the mood.

  “How come you didn’t come to pick me up at the airport this afternoon?”

  “Laverne honey, I had no idea you were coming back until I saw you get out of that cab and walk down to the boat.”

  “Didn’t she tell you?”

  “You mean the kid?”

  “Yes. I called a couple of days ago and left word that I was coming back today. I left my flight number and everything.”

  Before I get a chance to defend myself against her cross-examination, I hear a dog bark. I jump up and look out the window.

  “Oh shit, they’re back. Laverne, you better put your towel on.”

  Laverne does more than that. She jumps up, re-fastens her towel and beats a hasty retreat down the aft deck swim ladder to the dock. As the kid, the dog, and the ex-wife come up the boarding ladder, Laverne sneaks by and runs to her boat.

  The kid doesn’t say anything. She just looks around, grimaces at the mess we made cooking dinner, and heads for her stateroom. The dog lingers a little longer and does a thorough job of investigating the droppings status. Myra looks great, as usual.

  “What happened? I thought she was going to stay over at your place tonight.”

  “She didn’t want to leave you alone on the boat. Must’ve been afraid you’d get into trouble.”

  “Well, she’s partly right. I was going to get into something, but I wouldn’t call it trouble.”

  “I can tell by the empty wine containers in the trash that you’ve been entertaining. Where did your date go, back to her trailer?

  “Hey, my love life is off limits, unless I bring it up first. Did you think I was going to go celibate when you moved me out into that back yard?”

  “No Petey, but I think you’d be better off if you considered it. Your choices aren’t the wisest, between a lesbian, some white trash, and a possible murder suspect.”

  “Hey, I don’t have an application form for them to fill out. All I care a
bout is qualified people who can perform satisfactorily. Besides, I’m not looking for anything long term, because when I hit fifty, I’m going to retire to Stuart’s condo in Thailand, and spend the rest of my life surrounded by young, beautiful, cherubic Thai girls.”

  “Good. I wish you the best of luck. I hope they have plenty of pharmacists there, because you’ll need them.”

  “Hey, speaking of murder suspects, how’re you guys doing with that shooting out in La Verne?”

  “The shell casings found in your car had some prints on them, and we came up with a match for two drug dealers from Oregon. The bullets we removed from the victim also matched some that were recovered from another case, so we’ve got some things to go on now. Why? Looking for some new clients?”

  “No, I’m just curious. Besides, I couldn’t represent those perps if I wanted to. First of all, it would be a conflict of interest because I represent the victim’s widow in a civil matter. Secondly, I’ll probably be called as a witness, because it was my car they stole and used for the crime.”

  “Wrong on both counts, counselor. You’d have no conflict, because the criminal charges won’t have anything to do with her civil matters. And as for your car, our office doesn’t care if they used a bicycle to shoot the victim, so you wouldn’t be called as a witness. So face it, you dog, you wouldn’t represent those killers for only one reason, and that’s because if you did, the widow wouldn’t let you into her slacks.”

  I have to hand it to Myra. When she’s right, she’s really right. But it was good to hear that the hit was by professional drug dealers, because that just about completely rules out Beverly as having put out the contract. And now that Laverne has been spooked, Myra is gone, and Beverly is too busy getting abused, I’m sleeping alone tonight. Thank you, Suzi. I might as well spend the rest of the evening doing my homework for next week’s class. We’ll be covering coastal navigation and using nautical charts.

  If I have anything to say about it, this boat will never go out past the breakwater again, so I’m not too interested in basic navigation other than to learn enough of it to pass the test at the end of the course. If I don’t pass and get a certificate so that the kid can save us three dollars on boat insurance, I’ll be shamed out of the Marina.

  The first chapter in this lesson is about the difference between the various ‘norths,’ like True and Magnetic. Does anyone really care? It took me hours to learn the difference between the various categories of life jackets. Isn’t that enough?

  Saved by the bell, because when everyone left the boat, I turned the phone’s ringer back on, and now Jack B. is calling.

  “Hello Jack, tell me something I want to hear.”

  “I’m sorry, Mister Sharp. We parked across the street from her house after it got dark, but never saw more than one shadow at a time in any window. It looks like she’s in there alone. And she hasn’t been at the market recently, so we don’t know if she’s added any more bruises to her collection. What should we do? You want us to stick around some more?”

  I tell Jack to give it another couple of days. I’ve got to be back in La Verne for my traffic ticket trial, so he might as well keep an eye on her place until I get there. I don’t know what I’m going to do then, but a visit to her house is definitely called for. After all, I am her attorney. Now all I’ve got to do is figure out some way to search the house for other life forms while I’m there. I can feel it in my bones. Someone else is in that house with her, and that someone is ruining a gorgeous face.

  13

  One of these days my love for pretty women is going to get me in trouble, but when it does, it’ll probably have been worth it. Myra was gorgeous with that flowing red hair. Now that she’s the District Attorney, it’s dark brown and kept back in an occipital bun. Her facial features still make her attractive, but she’s obviously not interested in me anymore. Patty Seymour is a more robust type of female, like the kind you’d expect to see climbing a large rock somewhere, but Myra says she’s a lesbian, so I guess her macho boss has a better chance with her than I do. Beverly Luskin is a beautiful green-eyed blonde, but aside from being geographically undesirable, Myra says she may be a murder suspect.

  Laverne is my fallback lady, but the way she was scared off the boat when the kid and Myra showed up during our last romantic attempt, I may have lost my standing with her too. I’ve already been with three of these four, so it couldn’t hurt to try Patty. All she can do is say no, and my ego has been bruised so many times, another rejection shouldn’t bother me too much. I may owe her an apology for the way I acted with her boss, so that can be my excuse for calling, and since she wrote what looks like her home phone number on the back of her card after that luncheon we went to, I’m going to take my best shot. My luck is running like it always does: I get her answering machine.

  “Hello, this is the Seymour residence. Please leave your name and number and the purpose of your call.” Beep.

  “Patty, this is attorney Peter Sharp, and I just wanted to…”

  “Hello, hello, I’m here. Wait a sec, I’ll turn off the machine. Okay, it’s off. Hi Peter, how are you doing?”

  “I’m doing fine. The reason I called is to apologize. I hope that my ranting at your boss didn’t put you in any embarrassing position.”

  “Not to worry. She can be a little pompous at times, but overall she’s a good prosecutor and stands behind her people.”

  “I have a confession to make. I’m not really calling to apologize for my actions that day. I’m calling for a strictly social reason. To tell the truth, I find myself attracted to you, and cutting directly to the chase, I wonder if it would be possible for us to get together some evening. I mean, I know that you have other interests, but I still would like to see you.”

  “My goodness, this is a surprise. You mentioned other interests and I’m curious what you meant by that, because I’m not married.”

  “Yeah, I know you’re single. It’s just that, well, you know, everyone has different preferences, and I just want to sort of broaden your interests and…”

  “Peter, you’re babbling incoherently. Come on, spit it out. Tell me what’s on your mind. Something must be bothering you, because I thought you’d call me long before this.”

  “Well, what do you expect a guy to think when the object of his affections belongs to a lesbian club?”

  “Lesbian club? What are you talking about?”

  “That luncheon, the L.L.B., the Lesbian Lawyer Branch.”

  “Oh my God. Peter, those initials stand for Lady Lawyers Brunch. I’m not a lesbian. Who gave you that idea?”

  “I’d rather not say. It was obviously a tremendous faux pas, and I really don’t want to embarrass anyone.”

  “Well, I think it’s time for an honest exchange of information, because I was told that you were gay.”

  That stops me cold. A womanizing dog like me, and she believed I was gay? I may be handsome, educated, know some show tunes and the names of most of Elizabeth Taylor’s husbands, but I’ve never even come close to being thought of as gay. Just because I’m a good dancer and can put on a convincing ‘sensitive’ act shouldn’t give anyone that idea either. I have to ask.

  “Patty, I’ll make a deal with you. You tell me who told you I was gay, and I’ll tell you who told me you were a lesbian.”

  “Okay, it’s a deal. You first.”

  “No, I’ll tell you what. I’ll pick you up and we’ll go out for a quick drink, yogurt, or any other thing you can think of doing quickly, and we’ll exchange pieces of paper, on which each of us will write down the source of our information.”

  She went for it, and I’m now driving down Wilshire Boulevard towards Barrington to pick her up. Almost at Sunset Boulevard, I see her standing out by the curb waiting for me.

  After our frozen yogurt sundaes have been completely devoured, it’s time to do some business. We both know that it’s time, so we reach into our pockets, remove the pieces of paper, and wave them in the air. Then
, in an act of mutual trust, we exchange the pieces.

  I read what’s written on hers, she reads what’s written on mine, and we start to laugh, because the same name appears on both pieces of paper: Myra.

  We decide that it would be a good idea if gay guy and a lesbian girl went to her apartment, had a few drinks, got comfortable, and found out if it was possible to convert each other to the ‘straight’ life.

  After an entire night of successful scientific research, I can now definitely state with confidence that conversion is possible, and that we should both keep this newly discovered phenomenon to ourselves. She doesn’t want her boss to know about it, because she feels that Mizz Nash has designs on her, and doesn’t want to antagonize her with the fact that her arch- enemy has been to places where she will never go.

  I would rather not have Myra find out about this tryst, because now that I see what she’s done, I’d like to think that there’s still some interest there for me, and I know that the kid is staying up nights trying to design some devious plan to get Myra and I back together again.

  This works, and if I can avoid screwing it up like every other relationship I’ve ever been in, then the loss of consortium with Laverne and Beverly won’t be too hard to handle. We also agree that our meetings should not be at the boat, unless we can figure out some way to make it look completely harmless. When I explain how sharp the kid is, we both realize that the boat is out of the question. I can live with that.

  It looks like something is finally going right in my life. I’m on the way back to the Marina and my cell phone is ringing with a call from Stuart.

  “Hello Stu, what’s up?”

  “I’ve got bad news and good news.”

  It sounds like he’s got at least a half hour of explaining to do, so instead of driving through Santa Monica talking on my cell phone and possibly getting arrested for it, we decide to meet for a cup of coffee.

  When Stuart walks into the deli, I can tell by the happy smirk on his face that the bad news isn’t really that bad.