Nursery Crimes

by Ayelet Waldman

  “Giuseppe made me fed-up-cino alfwedo. Is that okay?”

  “Sure, Peanut,” Peter said. “But only if I get a bite.”

  “No, Daddy. Alfwedo is only for me an’ Mama today. Right, Mama?”

  “Right, kiddo,” I said, somewhat amazed that Ruby was sharing with me rather than her dad. When faced with a choice between the two of us she never picked me.

  Peter turned back to me. “Do you want me to call the cops for you?”

  “Of course not. I’m the one who figured this out; I’m the one who should call. And I’d like to ask them one or two questions about the investigation.”

  Peter smiled. “Be sure to tell them you were a public defender. That’ll put them right in your corner.”

  THE next day I called the Santa Monica Police Department and asked to speak to the detective in charge of the Hathaway investigation. I was connected to the homicide unit and spoke to a woman who informed me that Detective Mitch Carswell was out of the office but would return later in the day. I told her that I had information regarding the death of Abigail Hathaway, and she said she would pass my message along to Detective Carswell. He called back later that afternoon while Ruby and I were making Play-Doh pasta.

  “Juliet Applebaum?”

  “This is she. Ruby, not in your mouth!”

  “Detective Carswell, Santa Monica Police Department. I understand you called regarding the Hathaway case?”

  “Yes, I did. Ruby! Can you hold on for a second, Detective?”

  Without waiting for his answer I quickly put the receiver down on the table, leaned across, and hooked my finger into Ruby’s mouth. Over her screams of protest I scooped out clumps of turquoise blue Play-Doh.

  “But it’s pasta!!” she shrieked indignantly.

  “For heaven’s sake, Ruby. It’s pretend. It’s pretend pasta. You can’t eat it!”

  PlaySkool puts huge quantities of salt into its Play-Doh with the idea that that will make it unpalatable and prevent tiny sculptors from consuming their medium. This precaution is wasted on a child whose idea of a snack is sucking the salt off of an entire bag of pretzels.

  I picked up the receiver again.

  “Sorry. I have a two-year-old and I’m trying to keep her from killing herself.”

  Detective Carswell didn’t laugh.

  “I’m kidding,” I said, just to make sure he didn’t actually show up at my door with an arrest warrant and a couple of social workers from the Department of Youth and Family Services.

  The silence on the line was deafening.

  “Are you still there?”

  “Yes, Mrs. Applebaum. Can you talk now, or shall I call back at another time?”

  “Ms. And now’s fine.”

  “You have some information for me regarding the Hathaway hit-and-run?”

  “Yes. That is, I think so. I mean, I have the information, but it may or may not be relevant to the Hathaway case.”

  “Why don’t you let me be the judge of that,” Detective Carswell said.

  “Right. Sure. Um, where do I begin? My husband, daughter, and I were at Heart’s Song, that’s the school Ms. Hathaway ran.”

  “I’m familiar with it.”

  “Of course you are.” Did I detect a note of sarcasm? “We were there for an admissions interview with two other couples. At the end of the morning, one of the people there got into a fight with Ms. Hathaway.”

  “A fight?” Carswell interrupted. “What kind of fight?”

  “It was actually pretty ugly. Ruby! Stop that! Put that Play-Doh down, now!” I pried the purple gunk out of my daughter’s hands and did my best to scrape it off the underside of the kitchen table.

  “Detective, hold on a sec, okay?” I put the receiver down again.

  “C’mon, honey, let’s watch a video.”

  I loaded up The Lion King, a film that by a conservative estimate Ruby has seen 237 times, hit the play button, and picked up the receiver again.

  “Sorry. Where was I?”

  “There was an ugly fight at the preschool.”

  “Right. This one guy, Bruce LeCrone, grabbed Ms. Hathaway and started yelling at her because she didn’t accept his daughter to the school.”

  “She told him that at the interview itself?”

  “I know. Pretty obnoxious. They have this procedure where they give out applications to the families who move on to the next step of the application process. She gave one to this other couple but not to LeCrone or us.”

  “Wait a minute.” Carswell sounded genuinely astonished. “You people were applying to preschool, right?”

  “Well, yes, but this isn’t just any preschool. It’s a really good school and it’s very competitive.” As I explained this to the detective I became decidedly embarrassed at being involved in the whole preschool rat race. What were we thinking? If we ended up in this kind of frenzy over preschool, imagine the horrors of college applications!

  “Let me get this straight. You all come for an interview, and at the end she only gives an application to the people she likes?”

  “Right.”

  “And she didn’t like you?”

  “Right. I think she thought I was beating my kid.”

  “Excuse me?” He sounded confused and a bit suspicious. “You were beating your child?”

  “No, no!” I nearly shouted. “It’s just that Ruby was about to destroy the sand table and I grabbed her and . . . oh, never mind. It’s not relevant. I don’t know why I even mentioned it.”

  Detective Carswell sighed. “What exactly is the relevant information you have for me?”

  I really needed to get to the point. I could almost hear his thought: “Who is this crazy broad who’s wasting my time?”

  “Bruce LeCrone’s daughter didn’t get in either. He began yelling at Ms. Hathaway and grabbed her arm. He left without doing anything more, but I think he’s worth investigating. He has a criminal record for domestic violence!” I ended, dramatically.

  Detective Carswell didn’t respond.

  “He beat his wife!” I continued just in case he hadn’t understood.

  “Mrs., er, Ms. Applebaum, how is it that you are familiar with his criminal record?”

  Now it was my turn to be quiet.

  “Are you a friend of his wife?” he asked.

  “No. Nothing like that. Anyway, I think it was his ex-wife.”

  “How do you know about his record?” he repeated.

  I paused. “I’d prefer not to answer that question. But, if you don’t believe me, feel free to check it out on your own. It’s capital L, E, capital C, R-O-N-E.”

  “I’ll do that,” Detective Carswell said. “I have a few more questions for you, if you don’t mind. For starters, why is it that you prefer not to answer my questions?”

  “I have no problem answering your questions, just not that particular one.” I knew I sounded defensive, but I couldn’t help it. No way was I going to get Al into trouble.

  I peeked into the family room, where Ruby was singing about how she couldn’t wait to be king.

  “Go ahead. Ask away,” I said.

  “Abigail Hathaway rejected your daughter from the Heart’s Song School?”

  “Right.”

  “And that upset you?”

  “Of course. Wait a minute. Are you actually suggesting that I killed her?”

  “I’m not suggesting anything. I’m just trying to get my facts straight.”

  “Fine. We were rejected at the school. We spent the rest of the day at home and I was in bed when I found out that Ms. Hathaway was killed. The phone rang any number of times during the evening, in case you want to verify my alibi.”

  “There’s no need for that.”

  The detective paused. “Ms. Applebaum, now, I want to make sure you understand that the Santa Monica Police Department is doing everything we can to find the driver of the car that hit Abigail Hathaway. Leaving the scene of an accident is a very serious offense and, rest assured, we intend to find the pe
rson who did this.”

  “I’m glad to hear that.”

  “Ma’am, we deal with cases like this all the time. Drivers operating under the influence, uninsured drivers, they drive off after an accident all the time. But we’ll find him. We usually do.”

  “So you’re certain that this was a hit-and-run?” I asked. “Aren’t you even considering the possibility of murder?”

  “We haven’t ruled out anything, ma’am.”

  “Good.” I could hear myself starting to get a little snippy. That invariably happened when I was confronted with the hyperpolite condescension of your average police officer. I changed my tone. “Thank you for calling me back.”

  “That’s quite all right, ma’am. Good-bye.”

  And he hung up.

  I stared moodily at the receiver. I considered the idea that Detective Carswell might view me as a suspect in Abigail’s murder, but pretty quickly dismissed that. Peter and I had each other as alibis and, if the detective was crazy enough to investigate a hugely pregnant woman, I could always pass a lie detector test. They might not be admissible in court, but they usually convince a prosecutor of a suspect’s innocence or guilt.

  What really worried me was that it sounded like the detective wasn’t looking that hard for anyone to suspect of murder. In a city replete with drive-by shootings, gangland-style hits, and domestic murders, a simple hit-and-run car accident, even one that cost the life of a prominent citizen, wasn’t going to get much police investigation. I’d seen it before. The cops would put a few signs up in the neighborhood, friends and family would raise funds for a reward, and in a year or two people would ask, “Hey, did they ever find out who ran over poor Abigail Hathaway?”

  I sat down on the couch and pulled Ruby into my lap. Idly twirling her curls in my fingers and humming “Hakuna Matata,” I puzzled over my next step. Detective Carswell wasn’t going to change his approach to this case just because some housewife told him to. The truth was, he was probably right. It probably wasn’t a murder, but rather at worst a vehicular homicide—drunk or reckless driving. But Bruce LeCrone’s past made him worth investigating. And if the cops weren’t willing to do it, I could. After all, this was something I’d been trained to do, and something I was actually very good at.

  Only a very small fraction of a criminal defense attorney’s job involves dancing around a courtroom turning prosecution witnesses into quivering lumps of jelly. The vast majority of the job is investigation. The lawyer has to figure out what happened—not what the police say happened, and sometimes not what actually happened, but what, if any, scenario exists to make her client’s claim of not guilty at least plausible. That involves long hours at crime scenes, interviewing witnesses, talking to family members, and more. If a client is convicted, there’s even more investigation to be done. The lawyer has to find enough information to convince the judge that a lighter sentence is warranted. It’s all about fieldwork, and I had always loved that part of the job. There was no reason I shouldn’t exercise that atrophied muscle in the service of Abigail Hathaway. At worst, I’d find out nothing. And, maybe, just maybe, I’d discover something that would give the police a reason to consider the possibility of murder.

  I was still puzzling out my next step an hour later, when Ruby danced over to the VCR and pressed the rewind button.

  “Wanna play trains, Mama?” she asked.

  I sighed, already bored at the prospect of toddler games. I looked at my watch. I had a whole hour to kill before I could expect to see Peter walk through the door and relieve me of my Romper Room duties.

  “Why don’t you play by yourself, Ruby.”

  I looked up in time to see a fat tear rolling down my baby’s face.

  “You never wanna play with me,” she whispered.

  “Sure I do. I play with you all the time. Don’t I?”

  “No.”

  I thought for a moment. She was right.

  “Okay, honey, let’s play trains,” I said, pushing thoughts of Bruce LeCrone and untimely deaths out of my mind and lowering my substantial bulk onto the floor.

  Ruby hauled out her plastic bin full of Brio trains and tracks. Peter had brought the little magnetic train set home with great fanfare as part of our campaign to ply Ruby with gender-neutral and boy’s toys. She loved it from the moment she set eyes on it. Much to Peter’s horror, however, she was not at all interested in setting up the tracks and making the little train run around them. Instead, she liked to play “train family.” Lately, the train babies all had bad colds and were in bed, being cared for by the train mommies. The engine, in its role as train doctor, gave them frequent shots and pills. These games drove her normally patient father to distraction, and I’d once heard Peter wail, “Can’t they just pull a heavy load?”

  Balancing a little caboose on my round belly I said, “Hey look, Rubes, the train baby is stuck on top of a mountain! Can the train mama rescue her?”

  By the time Peter got home we’d been playing for close to an hour and my eyes had long since glazed over. What was it about me that made it so hard for me to enjoy these games? Peter loved playing with Ruby. I often saw other mothers playing with their kids. Was I the only one who found it cataclysmically boring?

  At the sound of the garage door opening, Ruby and I rushed to the front door like a couple of golden retrievers who’d been left alone all day. Peter walked in wearing his gym clothes and carrying a brown paper bag that gave off the most tantalizing aroma.

  “Guess what?” he said.

  “What?” Ruby shouted.

  “I went to the gym and guess what?”

  “What?” she shrieked again.

  “What’s next door to the gym?” He matched her yell.

  “What?” This time I thought the windows would shatter.

  He lowered his voice to a stage whisper. “Barbecue!”

  Peter and I had celebrated the pink line in the pregnancy test by ordering a pizza—stuffed, no less—and had been going strong ever since. While he didn’t quite match me inch for inch, Peter’s belly was slowly creeping outward. I found this to be a considerable comfort. The last thing a rotund, pregnant woman needs is a guy with a washboard stomach lying next to her in bed.

  We feasted on our ribs, dipping the pieces of spongy white bread that Ruby liked to call “cottony bread” into the barbecue sauce. Finally, chins and fingers sticky and stomachs content, Peter hustled Ruby off to her bath and bed. I picked up the receiver. Stacy was where I knew she’d be at seven-thirty at night. At work.

  “Hey.”

  “Hey to you, too. Did Bruce LeCrone confess yet?” she asked.

  “Ha, ha, ha. You’ll all be sorry you gave me such a rough time when the guy’s trying to run the studio from San Quentin.”

  “Oh, please, Juliet. You are really being ridiculous. Seriously, have you found out anything new?”

  I brought her up to date on my phone conversation with the police detective and what I had found out about LeCrone. When I told her about the domestic violence charge she gasped.

  “Oh, for crying out loud, Juliet, you are so full of it,” she said.

  “What are you talking about?” Sometimes Stacy really made me angry. “I am not full of it. I put his name through the computer. The guy was convicted of beating up his wife.”

  Stacy was silent.

  “Stacy? Are you still there?”

  No reply.

  “Stacy, come on. Would I lie to you?”

  She sighed. “No, I suppose not.”

  “Look, I need some information from you,” I continued.

  “What?” She sounded suspicious.

  “Nothing too big. I just need to know LeCrone’s address.”

  “Oh, for God’s sake, Juliet. I’m not going to give you his address.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because he used to be a colleague. He worked here before he left to run Parnassus. I can’t just give you a colleague’s address.”

  “Well, can you tell me ap
proximately where he lives?”

  “No!”

  “Just look it up on your database. Don’t give me the address, just the neighborhood. C’mon, I’d do it for you,” I wheedled.

  She fell silent for a moment and then said, “Are you sure about this domestic violence thing?”

  “Absolutely. I couldn’t be more sure. I saw the printout of his record myself.”

  “All right. Give me a second, I’ll check in the computer.” She sounded grim. I heard her tapping a few keys.

  “He lives in Beverly Hills a little east of the Century City Mall.”

  “Near Roxbury Park?”

  “I think so,” Stacy said.

  “That’s a nice park,” I said. “Ruby would like it. Maybe we’d better go check it out.”

  “I’m not even going to bother telling you to be careful, Juliet. It doesn’t do any good.”

  “I’m careful. I’m just taking my daughter to the park. What could possibly be wrong with that?”

  Five

  THE next morning dawned warm and beautiful. It was one of those days that remind you that Los Angeles is just a desert covered in freeways and parking lots. The light was so bright it hurt my eyes, but it seemed as likely to be emanating from the white lines in the road as from the sky above. I usually greeted this kind of day with a scowl and a muttered, “Great, another beautiful day. Who needs it?”

  Not so today. Today we had plans. Ruby and I donned matching purple sunglasses and, careful not to wake Peter, gathered up her pails and shovels and headed out to Roxbury Park, a lovely expanse of green grass, play structures, and bocci and basketball courts on the southern end of Beverly Hills. The children playing there generally reflected the demographics of the neighborhood, primarily wealthy white kids with a smattering of Iranians and Israelis who’d made good in the jewelry, film, or air-conditioning business.

  When Ruby and I arrived we found the play area packed with toddlers. I dumped Ruby’s sand toys out in the pit and set her up next to a dark-haired little boy with a bulldozer, and a little girl with blond pigtails who was making sand pies. Ruby and the tiny chef immediately struck up a conversation and I headed out to the benches, satisfied that she was busy for a while at least.