“I was investigating,” I said.
He snorted. “Yeah, I remember, that’s what you said. Not too skillfully, if memory serves. I made you as a party crasher in about two minutes.”
We came to Sutter, and turned west. Rush hour was beginning, and the streets were filling up.
“So,” he continued, “is that what you’re still doing? Nosing around in things that don’t concern you?”
I bridled, then took comfort in the thought that this nasty little guy probably never got all that lucky at the Crimson Club.
I was panting too much to sound very dignified, but I tried. “First, we are doing a magazine piece on Grace, so this is my business. And second, Ivory Gifford has become a friend, so I was naturally concerned.”
He shot me a skeptical look. “Is that so? That’s why you conned your way into her hotel room?” I looked surprised. “You think we don’t talk to the front-desk staff? How dumb do you think cops really are?”
“I don’t think all cops are dumb,” I said pointedly. “I think Lt. Moon is very, very smart.”
“Yeah, well, he’s just like the rest of us. Once there’s a conviction in a capital case, it’s a trophy on our wall, too. Nobody wants to be responsible for taking that trophy down—least of all the cops.”
We glared at each other, companionable in our mutual dislike. We pushed open the doors to the St. Francis Hospital lobby in silence.
CHAPTER 45
It was dark outside by the time they brought Ivory up to her hospital room. The young doctor who came to talk to us said that they’d pumped her stomach and were hydrating her. The cut on her head was minor and had been stitched up. She was conscious, and we could go see her in an hour or so. She had been asking for me and for Isabella. I left voice mails for Isabella at home, work, and on her cell. Moon and I continued to sit in the waiting room near the nurses’ station, checking our watches every few minutes or so to see if we couldn’t make that hour go a little more quickly. It didn’t work. Pollack had gone to stand watch at Ivory’s room with the young, uniformed officer.
My phone was turned off, so I didn’t disturb people in the waiting room, but I’d turn it on periodically and check messages. Michael. Anya. And a message from Lulu: “Maggie, call me. I’ve been thinking about our conversation at the soccer game. What did you mean when you said Gus and a friend had ‘restrained’ that young woman in Vietnam? How did they restrain her?”
Moon and I sipped more disgustingly sweet tea together. The taste was not growing on me. He reached into his side pocket and pulled out a flat plastic bag and passed it over. “Don’t open it,” he said. “I’ve got a copy of what’s inside for you to read. But just look at the envelope through the plastic.” I held the bag gingerly in one hand. Through the plastic I could see the envelope was addressed to Isabella and me.
“Where’d you find this?”
“On the floor, by the bed. Pollack found it. Is it her handwriting?”
I frowned. “I have no idea. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything she’s written.”
“Doesn’t matter,” said Moon. “We can get samples.”
“Can you?” I said. “Everything burned up at Ivory’s place.”
“Room service check,” he said.
“You’re killing me,” I said. “Did you open it? What did it say? And by the way, it wasn’t addressed to you.”
“Potential crime scene,” he said. “Gives us certain privileges.”
He slipped the bag back into his pocket, and pulled out a piece of paper and handed it to me. “Here you go.”
It was a photocopy, written on hotel letterhead, with the distinctive, cursive Westin St. Francis mark at the top.
Dear Isabella and Maggie,
Thank you for everything. I’ve remembered some things that make me very, very sorry. Tell Travis I will see him soon.
I turned the piece of paper over. “That’s it?”
Moon nodded. “Doesn’t that seem odd? No signature?”
“A little,” he said.
“So is it a suicide note or not? Did she mean she’d see him when…” I shuddered. “They’re both dead? That seems horrifying. And as if she’s giving up on Travis.”
“Or—” Moon started, then stopped.
“Or,” I said grimly, “it means that Ivory remembers killing Grace, and that’s why she’s sorry. And what, then? How would she see him? If she confessed…” I broke off. “But this isn’t a confession. Why would she leave things hanging like this?”
Moon shrugged. “Maybe whatever she put in that glass worked faster than she thought, and she couldn’t finish.”
“Something for sure in the glass?”
“We’ll know tomorrow,” he said. “There’s a rush on at the lab, and the hospital can analyze what they pumped out of her. But I’d be willing to put money on it. There was something that looked undissolved at the bottom of the glass.”
“Envelope sealed?”
“Nope. But the note was tucked inside.”
“So, she didn’t have time to finish the note? But she did have time to fold it and slip it in the envelope. That makes no sense. And the gun?”
“Not hers. She did have one at the bar, and it was in a fireproof safe, so it’s probably still there.”
I looked at Moon. “Numbers gone on this one?”
“Precisely. Just like the weapon that killed Grace.”
“Who has access to guns without numbers?”
“Any bad guy—or gal—who wants to file them off.”
“Who else?”
Moon looked puzzled. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“The cops,” I said. “I bet your evidence rooms are filled with weapons that don’t have numbers.”
“They are, but so what? Every weapon is logged in, tagged, and tied to an investigation. And how would Ivory get a gun from a cop anyway?”
“I don’t think she did,” I said. “I think Gus got one from a cop.”
“A specific cop—or are you just speculating?”
I shook my head, trying to clear the fog. I muttered, “Quis custodiet ipsos custodies?”
Moon glanced at his watch again, and stood. “Restroom break. Want anything while I’m up? More tea?”
I made a face, and watched him walk down the hall toward the cafeteria and the restrooms. As soon as he was out of sight, I stood and raced down the hall.
CHAPTER 46
The door to Ivory’s room was closed. No sign of the young uniformed officer or of Pollack. I hesitated a moment, then tapped and pushed the door open. The lights were out, and the room was dim. But the shades were up, and some light came from the street outside. The closet door was wide open, and the yellowish fluorescent light inside fell directly on the bed, where I could make out Ivory, lying very, very still. I took a step closer, nervously looking over my shoulder at the closed door to the bathroom. Now I could see Ivory more clearly, her eyes fluttering, as if she were torn between waking to rejoin the world or staying tucked in the merciful oblivion of sleep.
I crept over to the side of her bed. The call-button cord was looped around the metal rail at the side, with the button itself right next to her left hand. I sat down next to the bed, and tentatively put my hand on hers. Suddenly, the room got darker, as the closet door squeaked closed and Pollack stepped out from behind the door. He had a pillow tucked under his arm. We regarded each other, the glittery little eyes in the snakehead catching the light from the open closet door.
“No visitors yet,” he said. “What are you doing here?”
“What are you doing here?” I asked. “You’re supposed to be guarding the door. And where’s the cop who was with you?”
“Officer,” he said, taking a step closer. “We call them officers. And, he’s in the men’s room, not that it’s any concern of yours.” He turned to glance at the door, and while he did, I slipped my hand from atop Ivory’s to the call button and pushed it quickly three times. He looked back at me. “Where�
�s the Lieutenant?”
“On his way here,” I said, hoping that was the truth. “What’s the pillow for?”
He looked down at the pillow, as if he’d forgotten he had it under his arm. “Oh, this? I heard Ms. Gifford call out, and she was struggling to sit up.” I looked down at Ivory. That seemed unlikely. “I thought another pillow behind her back would help her be more comfortable.”
“A regular Florence Nightingale,” I said. “Sure you weren’t trying to do something else with that pillow?” I watched as he tossed the pillow on the bed, first with relief, and then with concern, as I realized that both his hands were now free.
“You know Gus Reeves, don’t you?” I said.
He smiled, and tapped the snakehead at his throat. “Smart little thing, aren’t you? Old Gus saved my life in Nam. Killed a very nasty, slithery, poisonous thing for me one night while we were out on patrol. That’s why I’m here. Looking out for the lady Gus loves.”
“The ‘silver fox’ he loves,” I said. “You’re the officer who said you saw Gus and Ivory at that movie, aren’t you?”
And then the door to the room flew open, as a nurse, Moon and the missing-in-action cop bustled in. Everyone started talking at once, and the nurse rushed over to Ivory’s bedside. From the opposite side, I watched in relief as she checked her pulse, the monitors, and put a stethoscope to her chest. She looked up and said, “Sounds good.”
And then, Moon pointed at Pollack and said, “Outside. Now.”
Pollack shot me a look and edged toward the door, with the young officer at his side. “I’m staying,” I said. I glanced at the nurse, “If it’s okay.”
She nodded. Moon crooked his finger at me. “Maggie, give me five minutes, please.” I started to protest, and then followed him outside. You’ve got to know when to compromise, or at least, that’s what I think I was starting to learn from Dr. Mephisto.
CHAPTER 47
After briefing Moon on my theories, and my fears, I returned to Ivory’s bedside. Periodically, she’d wake up, look over, talk for a few minutes about the klezmer music, and drift off again. Around ten o’clock that night, Michael and Isabella arrived. I could hear Isabella’s heels tapping toward the door, before I heard the knock. Ivory was sleeping again, so I went into the hall and shooed them all into one of the visiting-room lounges. I’d seen a shift change of nurses, introduced myself, knew the name of the nurse assigned to Ivory, and the names and ages of all her kids. We’d even traded hat-shopping tips. She leaned more to contemporary, wearable art; I favored vintage. But we were becoming pals. Michael had stopped at Everett and Jones on the way to the City and brought me a big, messy barbecue sandwich and a milkshake. I hadn’t known I was hungry ’til I smelled the familiar aroma of burned brisket edges and smoky sauce. Comfort food, which I devoured while we talked, and I licked stray dribbles of sauce off my fingers.
Isabella was so wired, she could hardly sit still. Between bites, I told them what I had learned from Ivory. That the shock of losing The Devil’s Interval, sifting through the rubble, and coming face-to-face with the possibility Travis would never come home to the place they both loved, had shaken something loose in her. She’d started to remember—and Gus had tried to help with those memories. At her insistence, Gus had driven her to the movie theater where Mitzvah in Mali had played. She’d walked inside, sat in the seats, and realized that she’d never set foot in the place.
“Where was I if I wasn’t at the movie?” she’d asked Gus.
And he had told her. That she’d come home late at night, dirty, distraught, and with a gun stashed in her purse. She’d sobbed and babbled incoherently about protecting Travis from “that woman.” Gus cleaned her up, gave her a sleeping pill, and put her to bed. He’d been to the movies, he said. Later, he found a tape of Mitzvah in Mali and brought it home, and convinced Ivory she’d actually seen it that night, and liked it enough that they needed to own a copy.
Michael and Isabella listened. A few times Isabella tried to interrupt with questions, but Michael put his hand on her forearm, and kept saying, “Go on, Maggie. Finish.”
“The next day, Gus told her he had taken care of everything and not to worry. Ivory was frantic to go to the police, but Gus insisted that she think things over. Travis would never forgive her when he found out what she’d done. And what good would it do anybody for her to go to prison?”
“She agreed to wait. And then, a few days later…”
“Travis was arrested,” Isabella completed the sentence. She sank back into the rump-sprung armchair. “I can’t believe she was going to let Travis take the rap for a crime she committed. What the hell kind of parent would do that? Where’s this famous do-anything-for-my-kid love?”
“The kind of love…” said Michael slowly, “that can’t remember anything about what happened.”
“That’s right,” I said. “Ivory had a stroke right after Travis was arrested. When she regained consciousness, she remembered nothing—about the crime, about Gus’s cover-up, zip. It’s as if the hard drive in her brain had been erased about that night.”
Michael was looking at me. “It wasn’t erased, was it, Maggie? It was altered. And Ivory just realized how.”
“The klezmer group playing upstairs,” I said. “It shook a lot more stuff loose.”
CHAPTER 48
In fact, Isabella was right. The whole thing was about protective parental love gone very wrong—but it wasn’t Ivory protecting Travis. It was Gus protecting his daughter, Ginger, from what he perceived as her hopelessly immoral and corrupt best friend. It was Gus who had crashed the Crimson that night and dragged Ginger, disguised in one of her dress-up moments, outside into the night. And, of course, Doc had reported that story to me because he knew I’d hear it anyway, and he could cover for Gus.
“That is so random,” said Krissy, through a mouthful of pizza, the night we gathered the AWE duo and some other selected guests—Moon, Lulu Brown, Andrea, Calvin, Hoyt, and Carol Ann. Beer and wine for the grownups, along with an informal agreement among everyone that we’d keep the details of what went on at the Crimson at the PG level, lemonade for Josh and for Esme, who seemed to be logging more time at our house than hers. Zach, mercifully, was spending the night at a soccer buddy’s house. Krissy continued, “I mean, I’ve heard of overprotective parents, but Ginger’s an adult. Get a grip!” She shook her head.
Lulu, now at work on the blue and gold booties to accompany the sweater, looked up. “You haven’t met my mother-in-law. She would have murdered anyone to keep me from marrying Prince Hal. Fortunately,” she allowed herself a small smile, ”the senior Mrs. Brown realized there was a new sheriff in town just in the nick of time. So, I didn’t have to off her.”
I shot Michael a glance. More things Lulu and I had in common. The senior Mrs. Fiori had been something less than pleased to see “her Mikey” lie down on the nuptial couch with a Jewish harlot. Or wait, had she called me a Whoring Daughter of Zion? I’ll have to ask Michael; I seemed to have blocked those particular memories out of my personal hard drive.
Michael and I opened beer bottles, passed pizza, and shared the floor, bringing everyone up to date. About how creepy, old, snakehead Doc Pollack had alerted Gus he’d seen his precious Ginger at the Crimson Club, frolicking with Grace, their husbands, and a few others. How Gus had pled with Ginger to end her friendship with Grace—and Ginger had refused. How serendipitous it seemed that Travis and Grace became involved, and how handy to have the keys to Travis’s car and apartment, hanging on a hook in the bar.
“And my mom was smart enough to figure out how that weirdo cop Pollack was connected to Gus,” bragged Josh. He beamed at me. Dear Lord, take me now, I thought. I’ve impressed my kid—it will never get better than this. In fact, Josh looked delighted with the whole scene. Krissy had brought him a “Hastings Hunk” T-shirt, and though it drowned his still-slender chest, he wore it proudly. And there was that little Esme, glued to his side, and oh, my goodness, were they holding hands
?
“Mom,” said Josh, “Mom? Tell ’em how you figured it out.”
“Oh, well,” I said, distracted, tearing my eyes away from the completely fascinating-in-a-disturbing-way sight of my son holding hands. With a girl. In front of his parents!
“They both spelled something out in front of me and they used the military alphabet—when I couldn’t understand Doc’s nickname at the nightclub, he spelled it: Delta Oscar Charlie. And then, the night of the fire, Gus told us not to worry about Ivory, because he had a gun, and he spelled it out for us: Golf Uniform November. Plus, I knew Gus had been in Vietnam, and Pollack was about the same age. And then, when I saw Doc hanging around the crime scene, it just seemed like too much of a coincidence all around.”
“And Gus is who I saw at Grace’s that night?” asked Carol Ann. “And Doc was the short guy hiding in the backseat?”
“That was our big break,” said Isabella. “That gave all of us some hope that there was some mysterious somebody or somebodies out there.”
Krissy let out a sigh. “Well, all our terrific AWE ideas didn’t pan out, did they?”
“Actually, they did,” I corrected her. “You were chasing down financial information to find out who might have benefited from Grace’s death. And benefiting from her death turned out to be exactly the right answer—just not for financial reasons. And then,” I added, taking a lovely gulp of Merlot, “Lulu pointed out that what we really needed to figure out was who would benefit from Grace’s death, and also benefit from getting Travis out of the way.”
“The elusive Mr. Reeves,” said Moon. “He saves his daughter from what he perceives as Grace’s evil clutches, and is suddenly able to be the ‘main man’ in Ivory’s life, with her son conveniently locked away. Her son, who doesn’t really approve of Mom’s longtime beau, anyway, is now a nonfactor.”
“At the end, he wasn’t so elusive, though,” pointed out Michael. “The cops found him, cara.”
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