If he was threatening to have me disbarred, he was going in entirely the wrong direction. For one thing, I am obligated to tell the police if I think a client might be intending to do harm to someone. For another, I didn’t really care that much if I kept the law license. It was nice to have but hardly essential to my business.
Still, what Harve said had sounded like a threat, and even a lame one like that can have an effect. My stomach fluttered a bit.
I felt the cell phone in my pocket vibrate and reached for it as Bagels and I headed for the exit with not much to report back to Jamie. The phone was showing a text message, and it was from my mother.
Come home, it said.
That couldn’t be good, but if it was truly awful, Mom would have called, not texted. Her choice of messaging said “important, not life-threatening.” I looked down at my client.
“Come on, Bagels,” I said. “Let’s get both of us home.”
* * *
I resisted the temptation to call Mom on the way home. I realized her texting was a way of letting me know there was no serious emergency but that there was at least a situation that required my presence, not just my advice over the phone. If she didn’t want to talk to me immediately, that could mean she wasn’t able to pick up the phone for a conversation either, and that could mean good things or bad.
Was I overthinking this?
I dropped Bagels off at Miriam’s Hell’s Kitchen apartment, told her what I knew (which was what I’d already told her on the phone), and took off, saying I was double-parked, which was true. It was something of a miracle my car hadn’t been towed when I got to the driver’s seat again.
The GPS was on, not for directions but for traffic advisories. I didn’t want the trip to take too long. Once I got through the Lincoln Tunnel, I called Consuelo and asked her to set up a conference call with Patty and Jamie because I didn’t know how to do that from my car.
Jamie, of course, turned out to be unavailable, so I talked to Consuelo and Patty, mostly about the logistics of getting Barney, who was still in our office, back to Patty’s house. Consuelo, like many New Yorkers and certainly a lot in East Harlem, doesn’t own a car. Taking Barney on the subway would be, let’s say, unwieldy. It was agreed that Patty, feeling better but still under considerable press scrutiny, would drive to the office the next day and Consuelo, who actually liked having Barney around, would keep him in her apartment for another night.
We didn’t discuss Patty’s legal issues. Patty wasn’t interested in rehashing the murder again, Consuelo wasn’t involved, and I wasn’t qualified. It was a wise move on everyone’s part.
Halfway home Jamie called me, no doubt having received Consuelo’s message, and I told him what Mannix and Harve had said. He was quiet for a moment, then asked, “Is that it?”
“Yeah. Oddly neither one of them broke down in tears and confessed to the parrot’s agent,” I said. “What did you expect?”
“I expected to hear you had spoken to Heather Alizondo,” he reminded me. “But seriously, you’re doing very well.” I explained about Heather’s absence and Jamie actually asked me to go back the next day to question her.
“Can’t I just text?” I pleaded. “Heather doesn’t know anything that she hasn’t already told the cops and she’s on deadline to finish what might be the last show in the series.”
Jamie harrumphed a little, said he had hired an investigator to start working on the case, and conceded it would be okay for me to skip the schlepp to Queens the next day if I set up a phone call with Heather, which I thought was magnanimous of him. We hung up.
I pulled into my own driveway with some difficulty; it seemed the level of press coverage around my house had increased again. I guessed Patty’s arrest had brought the reporters back around to me, and as I ran the gauntlet to my front door, I lamented my home’s lack of a garage. Would have been better if I could have driven in completely without questioning. Next house.
Mom met me at the door and immediately apologized for alarming me. Seated behind her on the sofa was a stunning blond woman a little younger than I am, made up just a little too much, like she’d been expecting bright lights.
Before I got my bearings, she stood up and faced me. “I’m Denise Barnaby,” she said. “I understand you’re defending the bitch who shot my husband.”
Mom sighed a little. “It’s been this way all afternoon,” she said.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Denise Barnaby sat down again and apologized for her abrupt greeting as my father emerged from the kitchen with what looked suspiciously like one of his signature vodka and tonics. He handed it to Denise, who thanked him. If she was going to be combative, at least she’d now decided not to be unpleasant about it.
She’d flown in from Los Angeles to be with Dray’s ashes (he’d been cremated as he’d requested) on the way back to be scattered over the home team bullpen in Chavez Ravine. It wasn’t clear whether Dray had been a big Dodgers fan or if the network, which was broadcasting this year’s baseball All-Star Game, had thought it would be a good public relations move. Either way, Denise seemed down with it, but she was now on the East Coast to better understand what had happened to her husband.
“First of all, the police have not arrested or charged my client,” I told her as Dad handed me a diet soda with caffeine. I was going to need my wits through this one. “That’s important for you to know. They brought her in and questioned her and then they let her leave.”
“She did it,” Denise said without inflection. “I saw the letter she wrote to Dray. The cops scanned it to me. She’s obviously a complete nut job.”
Some women don’t want to believe their husbands have been unfaithful. But given the state of most marriages in Hollywood, it’s difficult to imagine the thought had never crossed Denise’s mind. “What makes you say that?” I asked.
“She says she’s pregnant with Dray’s baby. Right off the top, I’ve seen pictures of this woman, and come on. He’s married to me and he’s with her? I don’t buy that.” She sipped her vodka and left a lipstick imprint on the glass.
“Men are difficult creatures,” my father told her. “Sometimes they want what they don’t have no matter what. And you were three thousand miles away, after all.” If this kept up, I would have to find a good therapist. For me.
“She couldn’t be carrying his baby,” Denise insisted. “It’s not possible.”
“Now, dear…” my mother began. I think she was trying to let Denise down easy.
“Dray couldn’t have kids,” Denise said, voice very matter-of-fact. “He was shooting blanks.”
There was a stunned silence in the room. For a while, really.
“I beg your pardon?” Mom finally managed.
“Yeah, Dray’s little guys weren’t good swimmers,” Denise said. “We’d been trying for months to get pregnant—although I was really the one who was gonna get pregnant, if you want the truth—and we went to this doctor. Dray couldn’t do it. I mean, not that he couldn’t do it, but…”
“We get the idea,” Dad said, rescuing all of us.
“He got really depressed about it. I mean, Dray was depressed about half the time and had a shrink who’d do nothing but put him on meds for it. But Dray didn’t take his pills when he was shooting because he thought they made him gain weight. Anyway, he got upset about not having kids. I have the records from his doctors. I know he couldn’t.”
“So if Dray wasn’t capable of having a child, who’s the father of Patty’s baby?” I asked nobody in particular.
“Good question,” Denise said. “See, your client isn’t exactly playing fair with you.”
That raised so many issues it was hard to process. First of all, someone wasn’t telling the truth. That was a mathematical fact; there were diametrically opposing stories being peddled here, and they couldn’t both be true. But if Patty wasn’t telling the truth about Dray’s parenting her child, did that make her more or less likely to have shot him in a rage when he didn
’t respond to her letter?
Or was Denise’s appearance here just a smoke screen she was trying to set up because she had actually, either herself or through a hired hand, killed Dray and wanted to pin it on Patty, the best available fall person? It was perplexing. Then it struck me that this technically was not my problem.
“Hang on,” I told Denise. “What you need to understand is that I am not actually Patty’s attorney of record. I mean, I am her attorney of record, but I’m not a criminal attorney. I’m just her parrot’s agent.”
Denise stared at me for a moment, no doubt trying to determine if I was trying to eschew responsibility for my client or if I was a raving lunatic. From the look in her eyes, she was tilting about six to five in favor of lunatic.
“What I’m saying,” I finally managed, breathing slightly less frantically, “is that you should be talking to her lead attorney. Let me get him on the phone for you.”
I reached into my purse to get my phone and was cursing myself for not putting Jamie on speed dial when Denise said, “Hold it. I don’t want to talk to two lawyers. I’m just talking to you.” Well, me and Entertainment Tonight, which was probably why her makeup was a little overdone.
“I’m really not the one you need,” I reiterated. “The lawyer handling Patty’s case is named James Wallace.” I redirected my attention to the phone.
But Denise was not having it; she put her hand over my screen and I looked up into her face. “No,” she said, “I’m not here to help in her defense, lady. I’m here to tell you that you should get away from this case because the woman you’re representing shot my husband and is lying to her own attorney—attorneys—about it. Don’t make a fool of yourself.”
I’m an agent for animals, so not making a fool of myself is rarely an option. I learned that as a child, singing and acting in sketches written by my father. So the plea was not as effective with me as it would have been with a normal person.
“Let’s sit down for a minute,” I said in a soothing tone. “I want to know more about your marriage to Dray.”
“What’s in it for me?” Denise asked. “I’m not in the business of helping that…”—she looked at my mother—“woman get off scot-free. Why should I tell you anything?”
Dad got there before I did but only because he’s the person who trained me to begin with. “Because the one thing everybody here definitely wants is for the person who actually killed your husband to get punished for it,” he said. “If Kay’s client isn’t guilty, your giving Kay information that can help in the investigation might enable the police to find the killer and put that person behind bars. Isn’t that what you really want?”
Denise narrowed her eyes a little, trying to find the angle in what Dad was saying. “What’s the point of talking to her lawyer?” she asked, apparently with sincerity. “If I can help find the killer, why shouldn’t I talk to the cops?”
“You should,” I said, nodding like an idiot. “You shouldn’t keep any information from Sergeant Bostwick and Detective Baker.”
“He’s the one who doesn’t talk?” Denise asked.
“Yes. And you should definitely tell them everything you know. Are they aware that Patty isn’t carrying Dray’s child?”
It was odd that Denise had shown up without an entourage—not even an assistant or a friend who would ostensibly be here to help the grieving widow through her painful revelations. Her manner was less distraught and more suspicious, and her motive for coming to see the attorney representing the woman she thought killed her husband was at best hazy.
So when she took a moment to answer I couldn’t tell whether she was worried she was giving away too much information (which hardly seemed characteristic after everything she’d told us so far) or if she was making decisions about what lie to tell next. It would be so much easier if I could just read minds; I’d have to look into developing that talent when I had less on my plate.
“I talked to the police when they called to tell me what happened and again later on when they had questions about your client,” she said. The way she kept emphasizing the word client was starting to grate on me, and then I remembered that I really am not a defense attorney. That made me feel better. “When they told me about the letter, I told them what I just told you.” Couldn’t she have just said yes?
“Then why would they arrest Patty if she can’t possibly be pregnant with Dray’s baby?” Mom asked.
“Because Patty doesn’t know that,” Dad told her. And suddenly it felt awful that they were breaking up the act. They worked so well together.
“I just want to make sure you’re not operating under the wrong impression,” Denise said. “I can give you Dray’s medical records if you want proof that what I’m saying is true.”
I was sure Jamie would want that, so I asked Denise to email the records to me and I would pass them along. “Rest assured,” I said, “we understand that you’re going through an impossibly hard time and everybody wants the person who killed Dray to face justice. It’s our job—really the other attorney’s job—to defend Patty if she’s charged, but either way, the truth will come out. Okay?”
Denise seemed torn: She’d come to face the enemy and was not encountering a lot of opposition. “Okay,” she said. “But I’m not going to let these stories go around that Dray was sleeping with this woman. I have a reputation to uphold.”
“How did you meet Dray?” I asked. I was testing a theory.
“I was working on a commercial a couple of years ago, just background, and he was the spokesman,” she said. “We just hit it off.”
“So you’re a model?” Dad asked.
Denise looked offended. “Actress,” she sniffed.
That was exactly what I’d thought. She was concerned about her image now that she was the Widow Mattone. The idea that Dray could be attracted to anyone else, but especially someone as unglamorous as Patty, was abhorrent to her, and in her mind, damaging to her brand. A girl had to look out for herself when her husband was no longer making millions each year as a TV star.
“I’ll keep you informed if anything significant comes up, but I bet the police will tell you if they make an arrest even before they tell me,” I said.
Denise nodded and stood up. “I’ve got to get going. I have to make a few stops before I go get the ashes.” Not even the hint of a tear—she wasn’t acting or she’d at least have put in the effort.
“There are a ton of reporters outside,” I said. “Do you want to leave through the back door?” The dogs were sitting in the kitchen, chilling, but Denise did not look in their direction.
“Don’t be silly,” she said. She shook hands with all of us, stood up straight, checked her face in a hand mirror she took out of her purse, and faced the door. She walked out looking nothing but regal as the horde flocked around her. She kept moving, but slowly, making sure everyone got the shot they needed, until my front door closed.
Well, that was pretty much what I’d expected too.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
My first phone call was to Jamie, who took the information I gave him from my conversation with Denise and did not comment beyond “Uh-huh.” He said I’d done good work and promised to get in touch with me in the morning.
This had been at the very least a thirty-eight-hour day. And it wasn’t even dark yet.
Dad, seeing how weary I looked, cooked dinner, as my parents had clearly given up their plan to dine out. My mother is a hopeless chef, but Dad has picked up a number of tricks over the decades of living in hotel “suites” (really efficiency apartments in the resorts we were working) and cruise-ship staterooms to make up for his lack of education on the subject. He can scrape together a lovely dinner with little more than salt and inspiration. But he needs the salt.
Tonight he had more than that to work with and made a very lovely chicken Parmesan with rotelle and green peppers. We opened a bottle of red wine that I mostly drank by myself, and by the third glass I was relaxed enough to ask how they had spent thei
r day.
My father’s mouth flattened out at the question, which was not the reaction I had been expecting. “I made some phone calls,” he said. I took that to mean that he was trying to find a solo booking and had not yet been successful, so I asked no more questions of him.
Mom seemed surprised by the idea that she had done anything at all with the day. She took a bite of her dinner, savored it—she’s the biggest fan of Dad’s cooking—and chewed thoughtfully. “I’ve been giving some thought to taking a few college courses, maybe just auditing, once your dad is back on the road,” she said. “Art history, things like that. I’d like to be better educated.” Mom, who had been stunned when I’d opted for college over the stage, might have been living just a little vicariously through me since. She has always harbored thoughts about what might have been if she’d continued in school. I understood her curiosity.
“Is that expensive?” Dad asked. He put his plate, with a few scraps of chicken left, on the floor next to his chair and the dogs, mostly Eydie, came over to investigate (re: scarf down hastily).
“I haven’t gotten that far yet,” Mom told him. “I don’t know if I’ll do it or not.”
“If it costs a lot, you might not be able to,” Dad told her. “They’re not going to pay as much for a single act as they did for both of us.” He noted the shining surface of his plate, picked it up, put it in the sink, and walked out of the kitchen toward the guest room where he and Mom slept.
Just to be clear: Dad was not in a good mood.
Mom and I finished our dinner, and each of us made sure one of the male dogs got to lick our plates since Eydie had swooped in on Dad’s without asking. Then we put the dishes in the dishwasher and I said I would take the dogs out for a decent walk.
“Would you like some company?” Mom asked. “I could do with a little fresh air.” We had the dogs leashed up and out in minutes.
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