by Susan Isaacs
Jonah had only a couple of pens with dark blue ink, so I hit the boys’ art supply basket and came back with a flat box containing a rainbow of thin-tipped markers. We decided to circle any questionable entry on the printed calendar pages. After a couple of minutes, Grandma Ethel found she had too many questionables and insisted I print out another set of calendar pages so we didn’t have to share. She wound up finishing ahead of me because as I came to an appointment I couldn’t make sense of, I’d switch to Jonah’s contacts list and see if I could find something that came close.
I made pretty good progress, although even when there was a listing for the “Jun” who was on his calendar the first week in January at ten-thirty in the morning, it had only a Manhattan phone number. It looked as if Jonah was between surgeries at that hour, but I couldn’t get up the courage to pick up the phone. Maybe I was thinking “Jun” was a “We’ll gladly come to your office” prostitution ring.
Grandma Ethel reached across me, dialed the number, and asked for Jun. “Hello. This is an official call,” she said. I had no idea what that meant and neither did she, but it sounded important. “We found your name and number in the records of Dr. Jonah Gersten. You’ve heard . . .” The person on the other side of the line talked, then talked some more. Finally, Grandma Ethel said, “I see. Thank you. We appreciate your cooperation,” and hung up.
“Who was it?” I asked.
“The guy who made Jonah’s custom shirts. He heard about it, he’s really sorry, and he made the shirts but decided not to send them because that might—I forgot his exact words—cause offense or hurt. There’s no deposit or refund because Jonah had been a customer for five years. Jun would come to Jonah’s office with fabric swatches. He said Jonah stayed the same size, never gained weight or got flabby. That’s it in a nutshell.”
“What are you not telling me?”
“Aren’t you Little Miss Cross-examiner,” she said. “What makes you think there’s something I’m not telling?” I didn’t have time to answer. “Nothing. In fact, it was complimentary in a way. Something to the effect that a fine gentleman like Dr. Gersten should not have to die that way. My first thought was, If a guy was a redneck slob, he deserved to be stabbed to death? But like Sidney, my second husband, said once too often, ‘Ethel, that remark is beneath you.’ Anyway, I wasn’t keeping anything from you. I say whatever comes into my head. It’s part of my charm. See? I tried to do something unnatural—censor myself—and you picked it up in two seconds flat.”
One name started popping up early in November: Marty. The last Marty entry was eleven days before Jonah was killed. I couldn’t tell whether the appointments were in or out of the office, but they were all between noon and one in the afternoon. Grandma and I each circled five Martys, which struck us as possibly pertinent, especially when I couldn’t find any Marty or Martin in Jonah’s personal contacts. There were four Manhattan Aesthetics patients whose last name was Martin, one with Martin as a first name, and a Martino. Of them, only Brigitte Martin and Denise Martino were Jonah’s patients, and I couldn’t think of a way to call and ask “Did you have lunch or something else five times with my husband?”
Grandma Ethel was almost as tired as I was, so we called it quits. Bernadine’s teatime goodies hadn’t been enough, so I made us tuna-fish wraps on whole-wheat tortillas. By the time we were finishing, the boys and the twins had arrived. My grandmother looked from one to the other, not seeming at all appalled, but after being Fun Great-grandmother for fifteen minutes, she had me call a car service to take her back to the city.
As she left, I was on the verge of saying “See you tomorrow,” when I realized I might be overstepping my bounds in assuming she’d be around. There probably weren’t any such bounds with a sweet old granny you’d known forever. But Ethel O’Shea was not in that category. Besides, she had a life and a lover in another city, and whenever she mentioned Sparky, I could tell she missed her. Maybe I’d soon be on my own in finding the truth about Jonah’s murder.
Chapter Twenty-Five
The next morning, since I was stuck in thinking-about-partners mode anyway, I called Gilbert John. I thought both he and Layne would be in on a Thursday morning, operating and seeing patients. I asked if I could come into town and meet with them. Gilbert John said, “Of course!” in his most mellifluous voice, but I could hear he was baffled about why I wanted to stop in. He asked if there were any papers or documents I wanted to look at that they could have ready for me. I was clearly an unscheduled annoyance, though he didn’t intimate that. I told him I had no agenda. I wanted to see the two of them, talk with them.
Since Grandma Ethel’s habit seemed to be hiring a car and driver to bring her out to Long Island and simply ringing the doorbell, I called her and told her I’d be in the city meeting with Jonah’s partners. “Don’t ask them directly,” she murmured, as if she were cupping the mouthpiece with her hand to avoid being overheard by a crowd of paparazzi just dying to listen in on the conversation of a seventy-nine-year-old.
“Don’t ask them what?”
“Don’t rush me, I’ll work cheaper. What I’m saying is you shouldn’t ask them up-front if there were any serious bad feelings between Jonah and that Donald person. It would only put them on guard. Can you be subtle?”
“I’ll give it my best shot.” Then I added, “Even if there was genuine hatred, which I can’t imagine being the case on Jonah’s part, how could that translate into Jonah getting killed at Dorinda’s place?”
“Are you having qualms?” my grandmother asked. “You know what I mean. Qualms about questioning the whole rush-to-judgment process.” Apparently, being a person with qualms wasn’t an asset in my grandmother’s book. While she didn’t sound pissed at the possibility, her inquiry couldn’t be called neutral.
“No, no qualms. I just want to be clear in my head where I’m going.”
“Where else would you be clear if not in your head?” I was getting the impression that eight-forty-five A.M. was not Grandma Ethel’s finest hour. “All right, I’ll tell you what. Call me on my cell when you’re finished with them. I’ll either be out walking or having my nails done. I’ll tell you, I shouldn’t have moved from New York. A nail salon on every block, and so cheap compared to Miami.”
Moved? I was tempted to ask. Like her leaving was a job transfer or a yen for a warm climate? How about ran from New York, abandoning your child to Lenny the Loser? Yet here I was, hoping this woman who had done something I considered perfectly dreadful wouldn’t fly out of my life. As for the woman she’d done the dreadful thing to, who happened to be my mother, I gladly would have given her all my frequent-flyer miles if she’d move someplace else. Arizona, maybe, or some expat town in Mexico for retirees with allergies and personality deficiencies.
“Whenever I’m done,” I promised, “I’ll call.”
Manhattan Aesthetics looked like most other Park Avenue upscale, highly touted plastic surgery practices: modern furniture that went for wood over metal (warmth, genuineness); muted colors, mossy green and cream (tranquil, gender-neutral, conveying confidence that the patients weren’t slobs prone to staining furniture); and soft classical music (elegant, calming, as in “Your tummy tuck will be as marvelous as Bach’s Air on the G string”). In other words, it was somewhere between chic and inoffensive, but since every plastic surgeon I’d ever met thought he or she was in the ninety-ninth percentile of some Exquisite Taste aptitude test, the only opinion I’d offered was saying “Fabulous!” when their decorator was done.
Gilbert John Noakes and Layne Jiménez must have been buzzed the instant I opened the door because they swept into the waiting room together and gave me a duet of “Susie! Good to see you! Susie! We were so touched you decided to come in!” before I got halfway across the room.
I’d been so focused on talking to the two of them that it hadn’t occurred to me how affected I’d be going to the place not just where Jonah had worked five days a week, but to the practice he’d helped sustain and gr
ow. I knew nearly all the staff from holiday parties and from dropping in when I was in the city to meet Jonah, or just to use the bathroom and leave my packages between shopping and a museum. There were kisses, hugs, a gamut of handshakes and “How are you doing?” asked politely or with concern. Because Jonah must have had at least a thousand pictures of the boys and me in his office, everyone asked after them. Mandy, the woman I thought of as the supply/coffee lady although she had some other title, took my hands in hers and said, “There’s a hole in my heart.” Normally, that sort of comment made me want to stick my index finger in my mouth and mimic retching, but I could only squeeze her hands. If I’d tried to say thank you, I would have broken into sobs.
Since the hallways were big enough for two people walking side by side, or one and a gurney, Gilbert John fell behind and let Layne take me into the conference room. It wasn’t really for conferences. The table could seat six and was covered in leather, so in spite of the decorator swearing it was treated, any emphatic gesture near an open can of Diet Coke would probably equal disaster. It was set for lunch with mirrored place mats, octagonal plates I was sure I’d have recognized if my tastes had gone to late-twentieth-century modern, and a platter of sandwiches. I looked at the seven- or nine-grain bread and wondered whether Jonah’s death had freed them to give up salads or, if in the less than two months since he’d been gone, there’d been a revolution in Upper East Side lunch thinking.
After my “The boys are doing great, considering” and ten sentences on their spouses plus Layne’s children, the conversation began to go slo-mo. Before it could stop totally, leaving us in unbearable silence, I said, “I should be the one giving you lunch, or giving you something. The two of you have been so decent throughout all this. I know it’s been an ordeal for you, too, not just because of your professional and business ties to Jonah, but because when you lose someone you really care about at work, there’s no kind of formal mourning process that helps you get over it. I just want to thank you for being so strong and so there for me.”
Both gave me their version of thank-yous being unnecessary. Layne said a partnership like theirs was another form of family, and members of a family did for one another. Gilbert John quoted a poem, “‘No man is an island . . .’” I’d heard it before and, frankly, didn’t want to listen to it again. Then he came down to earth a little and said from the first time he’d met Jonah, when Jonah was a resident, he’d known he was superior: not just as a surgeon but as a man. He was gratified that they’d been able to form a special bond. In grievous circumstances like these, he would always hope to be able to reach out and offer help, but the boys and I were a very special case because we were part of what was Jonah.
Just when you thought Gilbert John couldn’t go on and on because he’d used up all the words in the entire universe, he’d stop, giving you hope that there was an invisible THE END sign. As usual, I fell for it, taking a deep breath in preparation for sighing in relief, but then the monologue continued, about Jonah’s balance and how he’d fitted the various pieces of his life into a beautiful mosaic.
I tried to tune him out while I had a triangle of turkey and avocado and a bite of a grilled vegetables with hummus wrap that tasted like something you regret buying at an airport. Finally, I set it down, wiped my fingers, and said, “I’ve spoken with the chief of Homicide at the DA’s office a couple of times.” The two of them nodded politely. “Mostly, it was because I had some questions.”
“About what?” Layne asked. She leaned forward, listening so intently that you’d think she was wishing she could grow another pair of ears to better hear what you were about to say.
“About their case against Dorinda Dillon.” I glanced around. Someone, probably Mandy, had forgotten to put out water and soda, and I was thirsty. But I didn’t want to ask for anything, because then they’d be upset that she wasn’t doing her job. “I have some questions about the investigation, and also about how fast they focused on her being the one who killed Jonah.”
They stared at me like I was a foreign movie and the English subtitles had disappeared. I didn’t go into a lot of detail. I did mention Dorinda’s lack of any history of violence and also the bump on her head that she’d claimed the real murderer had inflicted on her, though I left out the electric broom, as it needed too much explaining.
Without looking at each other, both of them reacted in pretty much the same way: tilting their head to the side and drawing their brows together in an I don’t get it expression. Gilbert John straightened his head first and said, “I understand your being concerned that the authorities should do a thorough job.”
“I feel uncomfortable coming here like this. It’s not like me to go on about stuff like justice and ethics, but there are some details of the case that don’t seem right.”
Layne propped her elbows on the table and rested her chin on top of her entwined fingers. “This must make it even more painful for you,” she said compassionately. “Of course you care about justice. You’re a good person. That’s one of the reasons Jonah loved you so much.” She kept going in her lullaby of a voice. I started getting the feeling that Layne was intent on making me feel good because she knew about lots of other call girls in Jonah’s life, to say nothing of seventy-five affairs with non-professionals.
When she finally finished, Gilbert John was pulling some excess roast beef from between two triangles of bread. He looked as though he wanted to pop it into his mouth, but he put it on the side of his octagonal plate. “It’s impossible not to be touched by your concern, Susie. It does you great credit,” he said.
“It was their total focus on Dorinda Dillon,” I continued, feeling they needed more of an explanation. “If all they could think about was her, they weren’t looking to see if anyone else was involved.”
“I see,” Layne said softly. “I understand where you’re coming from.”
“As do I,” Gilbert John said. “You should never hold back on questioning authority. However . . .” He hesitated, probably because he was afraid of me reacting with this huge, hysterical fit. But he obviously decided to risk it. “In my opinion, only one person killed your husband. Dorinda Dillon. I’m sorry, Susie.”
“I’m not so sure,” I said. “I wish I were.”
After I left the building, I called Grandma Ethel. She told me I should eat grilled vegetables only in four-star restaurants because lesser places served leftovers soaked in olive oil to revive them. Then she said it sounded like I needed company and to pick her up in front of the Regency in fifteen minutes. When I did, a bellman was beside her with a huge, impressively aged Vuitton suitcase. “Don’t worry,” she said to me as the bellman, still thanking her for his tip, closed the car door. “I’ll only stay a couple of days. Sparky has meetings in Atlanta, and anyway, you need me. If I get on your nerves, just sic the little tykes on me. Oh, excuse me, before you correct me: my great-grandsons.”
While Grandma Ethel unpacked in the guest room, which was as far from the boys’ rooms as it could be and still be part of the house, I went into my home office, a room the size of an inadequate walk-in closet, and turned on my computer. There was nothing in my e-mail that made me want to double-click, but I did notice the cursor seemed to be pointing out an emptiness in the Google box. It really was one of those “before I knew it” moments when, the second before, I was wondering if I could still order pizza for dinner, as I’d been planning. Suddenly, there I was, typing Joel Winters into the search box.
“Winters,” he said. It wasn’t necessarily worrisome that a criminal lawyer answered his own phone on the first ring—unless you were a client. The thought went through my mind that his secretary could be out to lunch, though four in the afternoon was a little late for that. Still, I considered she might have gone to the ladies’ room and he, busy poring over law books where he would find an old precedent that would save a client from a lifetime behind bars, had been jarred by the phone and grabbed it. But there was something in his “Winters” that sounded
both desperate and aggressive.
I hadn’t expected him to get on the phone immediately, so my plan for what I was going to say wasn’t fully formed. That was like saying a two-week-old embryo wasn’t fully formed.
“Joel Winters?” I asked.
“Yeah.”
“You’re Dorinda Dillon’s attorney?”
“Who’s this?” I didn’t see him showing up on my mother-in-law’s guest list, even if she had an opening at the table for someone a little rough around the edges.
“Mr. Winters, my name is . . .” I swallowed, not buying time but because I knew I’d be lying. “Ethel O’Shea. I’m working on an article for The New York Observer, and I was wondering—”
“I read it all the time.” Compared to his initial “Winters,” this response sounded like someone had turned on an eighteen-light Murano chandelier inside him.
“Good, glad to hear it.” I said it without too much enthusiasm, since that didn’t seem to be a quality a journalist would have or want. “The piece is called ‘Dialing for Death.’ It’s about call girls charged with serious crime.”
“You want to ask me about Dorinda?”
I sensed a few of the lights in his chandelier had gone out, so I said, “This is my hook: It’s the easy way out for the cops and the prosecutors to target a prostitute for murder. It doesn’t require a lot of convincing.”
“You know the guy was found in her apartment,” he said. I couldn’t see a best-selling biography entitled Joel Winters for the Defense appearing anytime soon. “But you’re right. It doesn’t take a lot of convincing. Just say ‘The ho did it’ and be done with it. Wipe their hands of it. Move on to the next case.”
“I’d like to come in and talk to you,” I said. “Get a sense of you and your work.”
“I’m in the process of moving. My office is a mess.”
“I’m not interested in how your office looks. I’m interested in what you have to say about your client.”