Krissy typed Ginger’s name on the screen, and added Bill Brand’s name with a question mark.
“Who else?” asked Michael.
“Not Ivory,” I said. “I asked her directly. She said it didn’t surprise her, but she didn’t know specifically.”
“Should we assume Frederick didn’t know? Unless Grace got a real taste for the rough stuff and introduced it into their marriage?”
“Or,” mused Seth, “if some of that came up in their adventures at the Crimson?”
Krissy added Frederick to the screen with another question mark.
“Who else?” asked Michael.
“Could be anybody,” I offered. “Another one of her friends, a therapist, her Brazilian wax specialist. Ginger’s father.”
“Her father?” chorused the entire room.
“Gus. Ivory’s friend and, well, sometime lover, I think. Although not exactly the kind of information you’d share with your father, no matter how unconventional he was.”
“Did we know Ivory’s live-in is Ginger’s father?” asked Michael.
“I did,” I said.
“Me, too,” said Isabella, “although it hardly seems important. He and Ivory alibied each other. They were both at some obscure art-house film in the Mission that night.”
“I thought Ivory had a stroke,” said Andrea. “That’s why her memory is shaky about events around the time of the murder.”
“She did,” said Isabella. “Right after Travis was arrested. But she was fine the night of the murder, and the cops vetted both of them after Travis became a suspect. They both had pretty complete recall about this quite eccentric one-night-only showing of some independent flick about a West African musician who comes to New York and gets a gig playing in a klezmer band and ends up converting to Judaism.”
“Not something you could catch another night at the multiplex,” observed Michael.
Isabella shrugged. “Well, good enough excuse to start an alibi for both of them. And then, that mutual alibi got corroborated by some off-duty cop who happened to be at the movie that night and happened to notice Ivory and Gus, because he didn’t think they looked as if they belonged together. So, the short answer is—we don’t know if Ginger confided in dear old dad about her willingness to play Miss Scarlett at the Crimson, along with her best pal.”
“I can’t imagine she would,” I said, “given how protective Gus is.”
“Okay, so back to who knew about Grace’s taste in the rough stuff,” Seth reminded the group.
“Someone else at the Crimson?” offered Isabella.
We all fell silent.
“Field trip,” said Seth, a little too eagerly. “I think we need to check out the Crimson first hand. Who’s in?”
“Hold on,” said Michael. “Absolutely not. I’m probably on thin ice even asking you guys to look at these issues. I don’t want to think about the ethical implications of sending you to a sex club.” He set his beer bottle down, a little forcefully. “Forget it. Plus, you couldn’t afford the cover charge. And I’m sure as hell not paying for you to go.”
Seth looked crestfallen.
“Okay,” said Krissy, “next up.” She clicked the mouse and the next AWE question appeared. “Who had a key to the Plummers’ house?”
“This is important,” said Krissy, “in order to check out the possibility that Travis was telling the truth, that he had, in fact, delivered Grace home, and that someone else had been waiting for her there.”
“Or,” interjected Andrea, “it could have been someone Grace let in. Someone she knew.”
“Maybe,” said Isabella, “but I think you’re asking the right question. According to Travis, Grace was exhausted when they got back to her house, plus she’d had a fair amount to drink, so she told him she was going right to bed, that she was locking the door and turning the phone off.”
“So, do we know who else had a key?” I asked.
“Frederick, of course,” said Krissy.
“But the timetable still rules him out,” said Seth.
“Could he have given his key to someone else?” asked Krissy.
“Oh, like—what’s that movie? Dial M for Murder?” I interjected. “When that loathsome Ray Milland leaves the key for the burglar he’s hired, when he’s plotting to kill his wife.”
“I love that movie,” said Isabella, “except for Bob Cummings. What a weakling! How could Grace Kelly fall for him? Why would any woman get tempted into adultery by that baboso?”
“And we’re off-topic,” said Michael.
“Wouldn’t Ginger have a key?” I asked. “They were best friends.”
“During the trial,” said Isabella, “the key thing came up. But Frederick testified that only their housekeeper had a key, because the security code was complicated, and the housekeeper was there full-time, so she could let tradespeople in. So, there didn’t seem to be a need to have keys spread around the neighborhood, or among friends.”
“But did anyone ask Ginger and Bill if they had a key?” I persisted.
Isabella shook her head. “No, they didn’t. At least not while she was testifying.”
“So, that’s something to follow up,” said Krissy, entering the words on the screen: Did Ginger and Bill have a key?
“Okay, here’s the next AWE point,” she said, and the screen read, “Whose gun?”
Isabella sighed. “We’ve been down that path. It wasn’t Travis’s weapon, or at least, not the one he was registered to carry. In fact, he says his gun was upstairs with him that night in the apartment, and there’s no evidence he was lying. Besides, his gun was a different caliber from the one that was used to kill Grace. It was like one of those wise guy movies, the serial numbers had been filed off.”
“So what did the police conclude?” I asked.
“They didn’t conclude much, and they didn’t need to,” said Michael. “There was so much physical evidence linking Travis to the murder, that they just assumed he’d managed to get his hands on another, ‘identity-less’ gun, and that he wouldn’t be dumb enough to use his own gun to kill Grace.”
“Oh, but he would be dumb enough to stash her in his parking place, overnight? In an unlocked car?” I asked.
“Those were always the 64-million-dollar questions,” said Isabella. “But the state insisted it wasn’t that big a risk. Why would anyone look inside the limo? They were used to seeing it there. And, they theorized, he was overwrought after the killing and just needed a few hours to get his head together and figure out what to do with the body.”
“Who else in our little collection of folks owned guns?” asked Seth, clicking back to the list of names and timetables he’d assembled. He scrolled quickly through them: Travis, Frederick, Ginger and Bill Brand, Purity Meadows, Ivory.
Quickly we agreed to follow up on the likeliest suspects—Ivory, as a bar-owner, and Purity, since A Mom’s Place sheltered women from their former lives on the street. Travis had been licensed to carry a gun, but his had inconveniently disappeared.
I turned over the thought of Purity having a gun in the house, with all those kids around. It seemed very unlikely to me. “I don’t think so,” I said, “but I’m willing to check it out.”
“Though I don’t see much of a motive for Purity,” said Andrea. “Grace was her guardian angel. No reason to kill the golden goose.”
“Although,” said Michael, “take a look at what Krissy’s turned up on the money front.”
“That’s the last AWE issue,” said Seth, as he clicked the last question onto the screen. “If we follow the money, what do we find?”
“I’m all ears. What do you find?”
“A few interesting things,” said Krissy. “First, even though Frederick was the major beneficiary as surviving spouse, Grace had recently redone her will and had created an irrevocable trust for A Mom’s Place, along with generous bequests to several of her other causes, including the San Francisco Botanical Gardens.”
“Why didn’t that come
up in the trial?” I asked.
Isabella said, “The terms of the will came up briefly, but it was hard to make much of them. Those other gifts are pretty minor compared to how Frederick would benefit from Grace’s death. Some of their assets were jointly held. In addition, Grace had her own life insurance, and Frederick was the big winner of that jackpot. So, all these other relatively small bequests seem to pale in comparison to the way Frederick would benefit. And, we knew he had an alibi for the time of the murder.”
I thought about Purity’s day-to-day struggle to make ends meet. Could she have been desperate enough to murder Grace to get some security for those young women? It just didn’t compute. Grace had already been generous to Purity’s program; she was likely to become even more generous. Why limit that possibility?
“Anything else on the money front?” I asked. “Were Bill and Frederick fifty-fifty partners, by the way?”
“Not exactly,” said Krissy. “Frederick brought more of the founding capital to the business, but Bill apparently attracted a lot of the new, young start-up geniuses. Plus, at this point, they’ve got ten partners in the firm. Frederick and Bill each hold twenty-five-percent ownership positions; the balance is divided among the other eight partners, about six percent each.”
“So they’re equal partners, though?” asked Andrea.
“Right,” said Krissy, “as far as we can tell.”
“That’s funny,” said Andrea. “Somehow the way news gets reported about that firm, it always seems as if Frederick is Mr. Big, and Bill is his able lieutenant. Wonder if that riles Bill?”
“And if it did,” said Krissy, “why would that be a reason to kill Frederick’s wife?”
She entered another question on the screen: Any financial tension between Frederick and Bill? Any tension between the two of them and any other partners?
“One other thing,” Seth said, “before we finish. I wondered who might have been in trouble with the law at some time in the past. Anyone who had a little something buried in the personal-history department.”
Isabella said, “We looked briefly at that on the principals, of course. During discovery we had asked for everything—health records, service records, criminal records, all that stuff. And there wasn’t much there. Ivory had been arrested in college for some sit-in protesting the war. Bill Brand and Frederick Plummer both had a DUI apiece. But we couldn’t look through every single sheet of paper on all those records, and we pretty much ruled out the people who had alibis—including Plummer and Ivory. So, what’s the deal? Did you find anything?”
“Probably nothing significant,” said Seth. “But a couple other interesting things with the peripheral characters.” He consulted his notes. “Purity, the woman who runs A Mom’s Place, was arrested for assault. And Gus, Ivory’s friend, and some sketchy friend of his in the military had both gotten in trouble with the locals in Ho Chi Minh City during the war, for harassing some teenage girl.”
“Gus had an alibi,” I said. “The same as Ivory’s, but what’s the deal with Purity? Hard to imagine her assaulting someone.”
“Maybe so,” said Seth. “But apparently she got mad at some abusive ex of one of her residents who showed up on the doorstep making threats.” He glanced down at his notes again. “Went after him with a baseball bat she kept by the door. He was knocked out and had to have his forehead stitched up.” He handed me a paper-clipped bunch of papers. “I made a copy for you of both of these little run-ins.”
Isabella rubbed her eyes. “Okay, gang, this has been a very instructive evening. But I’ve got an early court date tomorrow, so I’m going to pack it in.” She picked up her briefcase. “You all are doing terrific work.”
“Especially for a bunch of tax weenies, huh?” said Krissy.
Isabella laughed. “And now,” she said, “you’re fired.”
A chorus of protests greeted her pronouncements. “We’re just getting started,” said Krissy.
Isabella shook her head. “Michael agrees with me.”
“Sorry, guys,” said Michael. “I do agree.”
“You’ve raised some issues we need to follow up, and I’m grateful for that. But I can’t have the bunch of you running around playing private detective any more. We’d be taking way too many risks of botching some piece of evidence—and frankly, I don’t want to see you guys taking any personal risks either.”
Seth groused, “That sucks.”
Michael spoke up. “It does. But here’s the thing—you’re already coloring way outside the lines of the moot court topic. And I’ll be liable if something goes wrong, or God forbid, if something should happen to one of you. Besides, we’re getting close to showtime for moot court, and you guys have got to be ready. Or you make me look bad, and hey, what could be worse than that?”
Suddenly I realized just how young Michael’s students were. The slightly pouty, sullen looks that settled on their faces reminded me of the way my boys looked when they were on restriction for some transgression.
“Before you go,” I said, “Seth, can you put that list of players up there one more time?” Seth obliged. We all looked at the list. Something was nagging at me. “Add Carol Ann to that list, would you?”
“Who?” came back to me in another chorus.
“She’s a young mom Grace befriended at A Mom’s Place. She’s not there any more. In fact, according to Purity, she’s really gotten her life together. She’s married, going to college, working nearly full-time, and her husband’s in law school.”
“Sounds like a success story to me,” said Michael “Not a suspect.”
“I don’t think she’s a suspect,” I said, “but I’d sure like to talk to her. Besides, guess where she works? At Ocean View Day Spa, where Grace got her a job, and she’s moved up the ranks to a management job. And it’s where Grace used to hang out. I’m willing to bet Ginger goes there too.”
“Okay,” said Andrea. “I’m on it.”
Krissy said, “There’s one more deader-than-dead end we couldn’t figure out—so, we didn’t highlight it as an AWE factor.”
“Two cars that the nosy neighbor spotted at Grace’s,” said Seth. “Could be imaginary, could be real. But no corroboration anywhere, and the neighbor’s dead, so it’s literally a dead end.”
“The late, sadly nearsighted Mrs. Herbert Orson Lomax,” I said. “We all wish she’d lived a little longer.”
“Still you’ve given us plenty to think about,” said Isabella. “Thanks everybody, and Michael, thanks for the pizza and beer.”
Seth and Krissy began packing up, as we sorted out who should follow up on the remaining unresolved AWE items.
Krissy lingered on the steps, as Michael waved to Seth as he roared off. I said, “Krissy, I know you and Seth are really disappointed about not finishing what you started.”
“I am,” she said. “But I guess I understand. I just hope…”
“Michael will keep you posted about how things go,” I said.
“That would be great. But I hope I get to see you again,” she faltered.
“Of course,” I said. “Good to have an older pal or two.”
“Oh, thank you,” she said. She grinned. “Now that I know who I want to be when I grow up.”
“Yes, well, good to know that no one is perfect,” I said. “Although I hope you won’t share that information with my boys.”
She made a zipper gesture across her lips.
We had a girl hug, and off she went down the steps to the ancient little Honda.
After she was gone, Michael cleared up the mess, while I went to check in on baths, homework, and bedtime. Zach was already out of the tub, tucked into bed, warm, fragrant, and drowsy. “One story, Mom, please,” he roused himself to say.
I perched on the side of his bed and complied, reading half a chapter in The Phantom Tollbooth, until I heard the little puffs of air that meant he was out of the tollbooth and on the road to Nod. I imagined him dreaming about rolling through that tollbooth on a motorcyc
le like Seth’s, and I reached over to pull the covers more snugly around his neck. “Wear your helmet,” I whispered. “Even in your dreams.” I wondered what things Ivory had whispered to Travis when he was a boy.
I knocked on Josh’s door. He was hunched over his math book and a notebook, and had his socks and shoes off, and his bare feet buried in Raider’s fur.
“How’s it going, honey?” I asked.
He looked up. “I’m just about done,” he said. He looked sheepish. “I thought I’d get most of it finished while I was listening to Dad’s team,” he said. “But I got way too interested in what they were saying.”
I moved his shin guards to the floor, so I could sit on the edge of his bed. “What did you find most interesting?” I asked.
He regarded me suspiciously. “You’re interviewing me, Mom,” he said.
Busted! “Okay, maybe I am,” I said. “You’re a pretty interesting subject to me.”
He put his pencil down. “I thought it was cool how they weren’t competitive. Like, they help each other out, and they’re into paying attention to each other. I know it’s hard work, what they’re doing. Dad said so. But it looked like they were having fun. And nobody’s telling them to work that hard. It’s not like it’s a class or something.”
“You’re right,” I said. “That’s when work gets really fun. When nobody tells you what you have to do, when you have to do it, and how—you just have a job to do and you figure it out. That’s one way work is way better than school.”
“Geez, I hope so,” said Josh. “School sure seems dumb a lot of the time. Read this; answer these questions; do a topic sentence; blah, blah, blah.”
“It gets better,” I said. “Trust me on that. Soon you’ll have choices about what you work on. High school is different. College is way different. College is like a reward for all the stupid stuff you have to do in school.”
“And if you go to law school, you get to hang out with girls like Krissy,” he said with a sly smile.
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