The Pleasure Set

by Lisa Girolami

  And Sandrine’s message sank her into a deeper depression. She dreaded never being able to tell her what she’d let herself get into. Sandrine was a police officer, for God’s sake, the last person she should talk to about this.

  And she also knew what that meant. She and Sandrine were finished. Any chance for them to be lovers had been smashed into oblivion.

  If she went to Sandrine, she could end up in prison, her career would probably be over, and at the very least, Sandrine would decide to have nothing to do with her.

  The mirrored image before her was shaking its head in disgust. How could she have fucked this all up so horribly? She had allowed herself to be seduced into a malevolent group of women. She was mortified that she had so easily gone along with their every exploit. The lure and advantages of the elite and the benefits of celebrity had been a hollow sham. She had not recognized their façade and had let it suck her in. It sickened her that she had been a passive participant in her own downfall.

  But now she was through letting others decide her fate. She had to take back control. The mirrored image stopped shaking its head. No more, she thought. Vowing to repudiate any further loss of control, Laney suddenly knew what to do.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Laney was nervous waiting for Sandrine to arrive at the Change. Known for creamy coffee drinks and excellent local folk singers, the Change was a combination café and art house in West Hollywood. Normally, it would be a great date location.

  She and Sandrine had just begun something wonderful. The dates had been extraordinary, and Laney had let herself wonder what could develop between them. But now she knew that what she had to tell Sandrine would kill any chance. Keeping the corruption from her wasn’t an option either, unless Laney went to another detective and avoided Sandrine forever. Her heart wouldn’t allow that. This evening was probably the last chance she would have to be close to Sandrine—at least for a few minutes before she destroyed what they had just begun.

  Sandrine looked incredible, as usual. She walked into the Change wearing black jeans and a billowing white peasant top. A few women stared at her, which didn’t surprise Laney.

  They kissed when she reached Laney’s table.

  “It’s so good to see you, Laney.” Sandrine’s smile sent an ache right to Laney’s heart.

  Laney stood. “What would you like to drink?”

  “Cappuccino.”

  As Laney waited in line to order from the coffee counter, she grew more afraid. She dreaded ruining this night for Sandrine, but she had to at least give her the chance to end their involvement before her feelings strengthened. And maybe Sandrine would offer some advice—if she didn’t throw coffee in her face and storm out, which would be appropriate.

  When she returned with their coffee, Sandrine looked into Laney’s eyes and seemed to study her. “Is something wrong?” she said gently.

  Laney took a deep breath. “There is.” She didn’t know how to start. She didn’t know how much to even tell her. “I’m in trouble.”

  “Trouble?”

  “I made friends with some women and, without me knowing, they used my friendship to open accounts at my bank. I’ve just found out they’re laundering money through those accounts.”

  Sandrine took this information in before responding. “But you said you’re in trouble. What does that mean?”

  “I did some really stupid things. This is so hard to tell you.” Laney’s voice caught in her throat.

  Sandrine touched the top of her hand. “Just tell me what happened.”

  “They’re a bunch of women who get together a lot. One of the things they like to do is go places at night, like places where we all work, and party. The bank was one of those places. I didn’t know what they were up to at the time. I shouldn’t have let them into the bank but, stupidly, I did.”

  Sandrine was obviously ahead of Laney. “Was the bank’s security camera on?”

  Laney nodded.

  “And then you found out about the laundering?”

  “Yes. They were making deposits just under ten thousand. When I confronted one of them, she denied it. And when I told her I planned to have them investigated, she got ugly.”

  “And I take it that since you’re talking with me, you haven’t called BHPD yet.” Sandrine’s voice had grown stiff and professional.

  “That’s right.”

  Sandrine hadn’t yet taken one sip of her coffee, but neither had Laney. A horrible silence fell between them. She couldn’t read Sandrine’s face. However, she knew this was the beginning of the end for not only their relationship but for her own career. Did Sandrine’s heart hold as much for her as hers did for Sandrine? If so, this confession was sure to shatter it into a million pieces. She would never get to experience and share her intense emotions. She was falling in love and wanted to give Sandrine everything, but all she could offer now was the truth.

  “There’s more.” Laney had nothing left to lose but then noticed that Sandrine’s expression had become rigid. She had totally disconnected emotionally.

  “Tell me.”

  “They’re siphoning the money through an art gallery on Melrose. I found that out when I studied the paper trail. And I believe the source of their money is heroin.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “I questioned one of the women when she was drunk. I don’t know any more than that about the heroin, but I do know the money comes through the gallery.”

  “This has to be officially reported, Laney.”

  “I know.” She looked down at her coffee, crestfallen. She understood that Sandrine had shifted from lover to detective in order to protect herself. She was alone in this mess and would suffer the consequences. “There’s something else.” She looked up. “Two of the women from this group are dead.”

  “Recently?”

  “One, for sure. Last week. I’m not sure when the other one died. I just heard about it. I don’t want to sound paranoid, but the deaths may have something to do with the laundering scheme.”

  “And what involvement do you have in the heroin or the deaths?”

  The words slapped Laney in the face. “None. When I started asking questions, that information came out.”

  Sandrine grew silent once more, slowly tapping her fingernails on her coffee mug. Finally, she said, “Laney, I want you to come down to the station tomorrow and see me. I’ll arrange for a meeting with a Homicide detective as well as someone from Narcotics.”

  Laney nodded, humiliated beyond anything she had ever experienced.

  “I need to leave now. This is a lot to take in.”

  “I understand, Sandrine. But I’m horribly ashamed. I didn’t know what I was getting into. I’m afraid this has ruined any chance I had with you. I’m so sorry.”

  Sandrine didn’t respond as she rose to leave.

  *

  Sandrine squeezed the Glock’s trigger and absorbed the powerful force of the recoil. The bullet from her service revolver pierced the human-shaped paper target right above the heart. She focused and fired another round. It hit just to the right of the last hole.

  The police shooting range was fairly busy with other officers, but she blocked out their presence. She didn’t know where else to go. She had just left Laney at the Change and driven down Santa Monica Boulevard, shaking uncontrollably from what she had learned. Anxiety gripped her and she couldn’t sort things out. She needed some kind of release or she would explode.

  She fired in rapid succession, unloading her revolver into the paper target. After reloading, she emptied the gun a second time. She fired and fired, pulverizing the target and trying to erase the shock and the doubt that threatened to destroy her trust in the one person she had started to believe in. Fifteen more rounds went into her pistol and an anguished sob caught in her throat. She coughed to suppress the rising torment and raised her weapon, firing as fast as she could force the trigger to function. With each kick of the revolver, she willed the gunshots to obliterate her real
ity.

  Sandrine laid her revolver down on the shelf in front of her, suddenly as depleted as her gun. The ache in her heart threatened to drop her to her knees. Everything she had thought about the woman she had made love with was now in question. Laney’s disclosure had shaken her faith and left her dazed.

  She picked up the gun again and reloaded. Now she stared but couldn’t focus on the target and she fired, barely feeling the recoil. She was aware only of her finger squeezing once, twice, three times, four.

  “Girard.”

  A muffled voice punched through the ear protection she wore. She turned to see Bruce MacRae, dressed in Bermuda shorts and a BHPD T-shirt.

  He pointed to her target. “Don’t you think you need a change-out?”

  She looked back down the pistol range. The target was hanging by a few strips of paper. Stunned by her living nightmare, she had been blind to what her bullets had done. It looked as if she had blown the paper human into pieces and left its severed head hanging brutalized and lifeless.

  “Just letting off some steam,” she said, suddenly uneasy at the obvious display of her current state of mind.

  “You okay?”

  No, she wasn’t. “Sure.”

  “Bullshit.”

  She dropped her head and finally took a deep breath.

  “It’s about a woman, isn’t it?”

  She met his gaze. “How did you know?”

  He looked around the range. “This is where I come, too.”

  She nodded. “It’s Laney. The one I told you about.”

  “What’s wrong? You’ve been so happy about her.”

  She let herself drop back against the shooting shelf. She should tell him what was going on. Before, she always dealt with her personal business privately, but this time, she needed to confide in someone who knew the ramifications of her situation.

  “Between you and me?”

  MacRae’s eyes were direct and serious. “And no one else.”

  They collected their things and walked out to the parking lot. With the traffic noise buffering them, she told him what she knew. It wasn’t much, but MacRae comprehended the treacherous triangle that tied Sandrine to Laney and Laney to the laundering.

  “It’s possible that she’s not guilty. Do you agree?” MacRae said after he took a moment to think about what she had said.

  While MacRae waited for her response, she kicked pieces of asphalt from a hole in the pavement. With one last kick, she said, “I don’t know.”

  “You’re too young to be jaded and too old to be fooled. What does your gut say?”

  “That I want to help her.”

  MacRae seemed to weigh the words, finding more in them than they actually stated, which was exactly how Sandrine had meant them. He nodded as if he had come to a decision. “Sometimes as cops we feel the heavy burden of living by every word that’s written in the fictitious and,” he tapped the side of his head, “mental edition of the good-cop handbook, you know?”

  Sandrine didn’t answer because she was sure there was more.

  “Cops have this image of what is right. It’s the black and white of it all. Sometimes, your heart gets wrapped up in the space between. And then that mental book becomes too black and white.”

  She had never seen Bruce look so serious and she wondered if he spoke from experience.

  “Look, you’ll sort things out. And if helping her means tearing out a page from that good-cop book and burning it, then know that I’ll look the other way, too.”

  “Thank you.”

  “I’m certain you’d do it for me.”

  “I would.”

  He lightly shoved her arm, and as he turned for his car he said, “Now if you’d only grease that squeaky chair of yours.”

  As she watched him pull out of the lot and turn onto the boulevard, her throat grew tight. If she thought about the day too much longer, she would break down and never stop crying.

  Chapter Twenty

  Laney had been in the interrogation room at the Beverly Hills Police Department with Sandrine and two male detectives for a little over two hours. A small table, four chairs, and a chalkboard were the only pieces of furniture in the room. A camera mounted in a corner of the ceiling silently watched them. How many accounts of crime and grief had these walls heard? Her story probably wasn’t the worst of them, but it was certainly the worst she had ever been involved in.

  She didn’t have much to tell Detective Bruce MacRae, who had originally come to her with news of Candace’s death. She did give the Hollywood Hills address of the house where the party took place. In her shock that night, she had only retained Bridget’s first name, but the police would uncover the rest of the details.

  She had even less to tell Detective Anoop Singh, from Narcotics. Laney recounted the conversation with Kay but had never heard anything else about any heroin.

  Laney spent the lion’s share of the time recounting the details of the laundering scheme and provided copies of the paperwork that showed the transactions. While nothing proved conclusively that money was being laundered, the indicators were there. The police would investigate the trail backward to the Morgan Art Gallery, and further back if heroin was the original source.

  Though Laney felt disgraced in disclosing all these details to the police, she was mortified to have to admit them to Sandrine. And the pained look Sandrine had shown for the last two hours crushed her.

  She had told them about everything to do with the bank except the security tape Theresa had taken. Certainly, they would ask to see the tapes of the days when Theresa, Kay, and others were making deposits and withdrawals, but only Sandrine knew about the tape. She was frightened to bring it up again and hoped that all the other evidence would be enough to catch the Pleasure Set. Surely Theresa wouldn’t mention the tape once she was questioned.

  When all the facts had been laid out and gone over two or three times, the detectives finally stood. Detective MacRae exchanged looks with Sandrine and pursed his lips slightly, but otherwise he showed no emotion. “We will call you with any other questions, Ms. DeGraff.”

  As Detectives MacRae and Singh left the room, Sandrine stayed, looking directly into Laney’s eyes. “I don’t know what to say, Laney.”

  Laney nodded, the predicament hanging heavily between them. But at that moment, all Laney thought about was losing Sandrine. Probably, nothing would alleviate Sandrine’s disappointment, but Laney had to tell her one last thing. “Sandrine, I’m guilty of getting involved with these women and not seeing what they were planning. I’m guilty of bringing them into the bank when it was closed, something I’ll probably lose my position over. But that’s all. As soon as I found out what they were doing, I backed off. I’m disgusted with myself and,” her throat almost closed as she choked back tears, “I’m so sorry.”

  Sandrine’s face grew sad and she nodded silently. Looking down at the floor, she took a deep breath and left.

  *

  Laney hardly noticed the usual Wednesday commerce at the bank. She had gone into work early, mostly to avoid greeting any customers. She couldn’t find a smile or a happy thought and didn’t want anyone to notice or ask questions.

  But Kelly had noticed. She asked, but Laney made up an excuse about not feeling well, which was true. After a brutally long day, she went home and spent the rest of the evening in a daze. She needed to pick up the phone at some point and begin the necessary disclosures.

  Now that she’d gone to the police, she would have to call her father within a few days and let him know what had happened. The bank wouldn’t be in financial jeopardy because she had caught the crime soon enough, but her life with the bank would never be the same.

  And her exhilaration and hopes for a relationship with Sandrine had been broken like a beautiful glass fishing float swept against the craggy rocks in a turbulent ocean.

  Hillary would find out soon enough, but their friendship would survive. However, she wasn’t sure about any other relationships in her life—
business, personal, or family.

  Nausea constantly churned in her stomach. And she had fallen into a depression that felt bottomless.

  As the sun began to descend in the Southern California sky, Laney opened a bottle of tequila. She had forced down some buttered toast, and though she knew the alcohol would make her stomach feel worse, she didn’t care. The first shot went down like gasoline. She squeezed her eyes shut, waiting for the burn that scorched her throat to subside. The second shot went down easier, and she lay down on the couch in her living room. She reclined motionless and numb until the sun dipped under the horizon, enveloping her house in murky darkness. Her mind had grown blank, which was exactly the effect she’d wanted from the tequila.

  When her doorbell rang, she lay there willing the salesman or neighbor to go away. With the second ring, she got up off the couch.

  Sandrine stood at the door looking neither happy nor angry. “We need to talk.”

  Laney led her into the living room, motioning her to the couch and turning on some lights as she did. She grew more nervous with each step. What would happen between them now? What would happen to her? Through her fright, she managed to say, “Would you like something to drink?”

  Sandrine surveyed the tequila and shot glass. “How far ahead are you?”

  “Two shots.”

  “I’ll join you.”

  As Laney filled another glass, Sandrine said, “I’m not here to talk about us.”

  Laney nodded silently.

  “I want to talk about the case.”

  Though that seemed reasonable, Laney wondered why Sandrine hadn’t just called her down to the station. However, she was in no position to question her and let the thought, or any hope about them ever being together, drop away.

  Sandrine summarized the conversation they’d had at the station. “So these women open an art gallery and hang up a bunch of homemade art with high prices on it. Fictitious buyers come in and purchase the art with cash, the sales are recorded, taxes are paid, and the money is clean after that.”