Murder Under the Italian Moon

by Maria Grazia Swan

  Was Bonnie behind this? Not seeing him every day?

  Visiting time was over, and Kyle was spared the paranoia burgeoning in my eyes at least, that was what I figured he'd see if I stayed any longer.

  Kyle was ready to fight this on his own, without my help, a side of him I hadn't discovered before. Then again, we hadn't shared much quality time together in the last few years. Sure, we exchanged weekly phone calls as generic as Sunday sermons. Now and then we would eat together on the run because Kyle always seemed to be stopping by on his way to here or from there. Somehow Mom's place was never the destination, only the quick stop in between. Dear God, what was happening to me? All these negative thoughts about my poor son. Like the old saying goes, it takes two to tango. The time Kyle managed to spend with me seemed to originate from a sense of duty, but I couldn't honestly say I did much to improve the relationship, perhaps because up till now, I hadn't suspected it could use improvement.

  I couldn't remember the last time we did something spontaneous together, something just for the fun of it. Every mother-and-son activity was pre-planned and served a definite purpose always aimed at accomplishing a specific outcome. Often I would be asked to go to a movie premiere, in particular if Kyle's role was of a naive young family man. It made me feel important; it made me feel needed. Life just served me a slice of reality, a slice big enough to gag me.

  Driving home after my visit with Kyle, it hit me that Flash was the only living being who needed me, because she couldn't get her bag of food out of the cupboard.

  A sense of nothingness seized my brain, erasing the elation of my night with Larry, the illusion of my revamped sexuality. Once again, guilt prevailed. Had I been home, Kyle would have been able to reach me, and perhaps I could have kept him from spending time in jail. If my son and I were closer, I would have offered him my car for his business trip. I would have turned the Ferrari over to the police. That was what real mothers did. They took care of their children instead of cavorting with men they barely knew. I felt old, unwanted and unloved. A failure in every aspect of life.

  All this mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa meant nothing, of course. The more I beat myself up, the more I realized the real problem had little to do with the agonizing, Catholicism-induced guilt trip. All I needed was one person: Ruby. Find Ruby and force her to go the police and tell the truth. Voila. Simple. Problem solved.

  What if I couldn't find Ruby?

  Nonsense. Knowing Ruby, she was in some hotel with the stranger du jour, trying to fill the void left by Tom's death. She had a short attention span when it came to men. At some point she would come back home; she had to. Home? What home? She never spoke of relatives or good friends living outside California. If she drove Kyle's Porsche anywhere, she would attract attention. The police had the description, and this was no ordinary car. Of course, all this common sense was for my own benefit. I had to find something or someone to focus blame on before I lost my mind.

  Ruby was that someone. And it appeared I was her only friend. Would she come knocking at my door?

  I kept my speed under the limit. I didn't want to go home to my empty house. I could use a hug, a friendly voice, a shoulder to cry on. Maybe I should go to a busy shopping center, lose myself in the crowd. I had to face the truth: I had isolated myself. Ruby had been the main presence in my life outside of Kyle, and now here I was, alone. I wasn't about to call Larry. Stop thinking about Larry, and make yourself useful. Feed your cat.

  I had been home for less than ten minutes when the phone rang.

  "Hello."

  "Lella, you're home." Larry's voice was full of relief. I, too, felt a wave of relief and other mixed emotions, but for different reasons than his, for sure. "You need to pack an overnight bag. I'll pick you up in a few hours."

  I decided to play along. "Where are we going?"

  "To my place." Over the phone came sounds of engines, traffic, horns blowing and brakes screeching. "Fucking idiots. Sorry about that. Truckers are racing with each other; they barely missed me."

  "Where are you?" No sarcasm now.

  "I'm on my way back from Parker."

  Parker. He said Parker. Aunt Millie drowned in Parker. Audrey was in Parker. I remembered the way he spoke to her the night before, with a super-sized helping of charm, and how quickly he left without even a good-night kiss. I remembered Bonnie's statement about his guilt.

  I hung up. My hands shook. The phone rang again before I reached the far end of the room. I couldn't ignore it. It might be Kyle, and it was his only means of communication.

  I lifted the phone to my ear without speaking because my anger had reached the point of eruption.

  "Lella?" Bonnie. "Lella, are you there? Can you hear me?"

  "Yes, Bonnie, I'm here. I can hear you." What now?

  "Hey, what's wrong?"

  "Nothing's wrong. Why are you calling? Is it about Kyle?"

  "Did you talk to Larry?" She ignored my questions.

  "Okay, you know what? This is stopping right here, right now. What? Are the two of you tag-teaming me? What is it you want from me? The only precious thing in my life is sitting in a prison, and you're supposed to be the genius getting him out. Why aren't you there with Kyle?" I sounded shrill and out of control, even to myself.

  "Remember I mentioned a list of questions I'd have for you after talking to Kyle? Well, I have that list." She spoke with the same silky voice she might use to reason with a child throwing a tantrum.

  I took a long breath and mentally counted to ten. "Fine, Bonnie. Ask away."

  "Actually, I'd prefer to meet with you and talk about it over a cup of coffee."

  My suspicion resurfaced. Talk about it over a cup of coffee? What was it with these people? They had nothing to do but chit-chat all day?

  "Lella?"

  "I'm thinking."

  "Stop thinking. I'm coming over and we can talk."

  "What do you mean you're coming over? To my house?"

  "Yes, I'll be there in twenty-five minutes. I'm coming straight from seeing Kyle. See you." Click.

  No, you aren't. She was lying. I knew it. I sensed it. She wasn't coming from the jail. Something was up. First Larry wanted me to pack and go with him, and now Bonnie was on her way here. They want something from me. What?

  Bonnie said she'd be here in twenty-five minutes? Okay, I could be gone in ten. All the pent-up anger and guilt I brought with me from Kyle's visit fueled my sense of rebellion.

  I went upstairs. Flash followed me, possibly surprised by my misguided burst of energy. I was practically running. This time I wasn't going to forget my phone. I threw some clothes and toiletries in a large canvas bag without paying much attention at first. When I packed two unmatched shoes, I stopped.

  What was I doing? Running away? I couldn't run away from myself. I emptied the bag on the unmade bed, grabbed my overnight luggage and started to repack, this time like I meant it. I would spend the night in LA, at Kyle's condo. I had a key. What if Ruby was hiding at his place? Oh, my God! I felt like I'd found the answer to all our problems.

  "Okay, Flash, you be good, I'm leaving enough food for you until I get back. I need to clear my mind and go check out Kyle's place. Just in case. And I'll make sure no food is getting spoiled, and no plants are dying of thirst. Try not to miss me."

  Flash kept on cleaning herself, unconcerned by my monologue.

  I double checked doors and windows and left a light on in the laundry room for Flash. Good, I still had ten minutes on Bonnie. Bag on my shoulder, carry-on in hand, I opened the front door wide and found myself staring at two men in dark suits.

  Jehovah's Witnesses? Who let them through the gate? Then I noticed two more people in uniform behind them, carrying tool boxes?

  "Mrs. York?" A tall man in a suit.

  He knew my name? I stood there, my mind blank.

  "Are you Donatella York?" His voice was businesslike, yet friendly. Not intimidating. The sheer number of strangers standing around staring did the t
rick anyway.

  "Yes, that's me." Behind me, my door was wide open. I swallowed air. My heart pounded so hard I thought the neighbors next door could hear it, except they were in Parker, Arizona. Snap out of it.

  "Who are you? What's this about? I'm in a hurry." Breathe, Lella, breathe.

  The tall man fanned a tri-folded piece of paper. It looked official.

  "Hello, boys. Let me guess—it's a search warrant." Bonnie's cheerful voice came from somewhere behind the growing crowd of suits and uniforms outside my front door. Oh, Bonnie.

  The tall man, still holding the white paper, broke into a wide, genuine smile. "If it isn't my favorite lawyer." He tilted his head in her direction." We need to stop meeting this way."

  Bonnie grabbed the paper from him. "Always disrupting my clients' peaceful lives." They appeared to know each other so well, it all sounded like a familiar game.

  "Lella, why don't you wait for me in the car?" She handed me her car keys. I was still sucking air. "It's okay, Lella. I'll explain it to you. You can leave your bags here."

  The kaleidoscope of emotions twirling inside my head must have been obvious because she said, "It's to help Kyle. Go to the car. I'll be there in a minute."

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  "Okay, Bonnie, here we are, in your car. Start talking. What was that all about? An army of cops invading my house, without warning. I'm a suspect now? Suspected of doing what?"

  "I understand how it would look to you, Lella. No, you are a not a suspect. It's quite the opposite. The detectives are trying to establish a timeline, I'm sure. If Kyle is telling the truth, this can only help him."

  "I'm beginning to think you're using my son as the bait to get me to go along with all this hush-hush nonsense. Timeline? I was out of the country and my son was in Palm Springs. Somebody is fudging the truth, and it isn't us."

  "Again, no one is accusing you of anything. It will all be clear very soon, I promise. It takes time. We are all fighting for the same cause, to get Kyle home."

  By the time Bonnie parked her car at the Dana Point harbor and we found a shaded bench to sit on, I was done with the rant, the threats and the begging. Now, feeling useless and deflated, I appeased myself by staring at the frothy waves splashing against the rocks below.

  "Do you think Ruby is hidden in one of my closets and I forgot to tell the cops? I haven't seen her since the day I left for Europe, over a month ago. She's probably in some hotel in Vegas, gambling away poor Tom's money and driving Kyle's car." I said "poor Tom," like Mrs. Snoopy. Oh, mio dio.

  "They know that. The detectives aren't concerned with you. They want to make sure no clues are missed. In the end, it will help Kyle—if everything he told the police checks out."

  We'd danced around the ifs and the maybes so many times I'd run out of new steps. Aside from that, I felt terrible for allowing Larry to distract me from my son.

  "Larry should be back before sundown."

  Damn it, here we go again. She knows what I'm thinking.

  "You know about the trip?" That sounded innocent enough—no jealousy, no anger.

  She tilted her head so that we faced each other. "Of course I know about it. Why?"

  "You two must be really close friends."

  "Friends? Oh, we're a lot more than friends."

  That was not the answer I needed to hear. I rested my chin into my hands and looked at the ground. The last thing I wanted was for Bonnie to guess my thoughts.

  "I wouldn't be sitting here with you right now if it hadn't been for Larry." Her voice was trancelike; even her expression reflected an altered state of mind.

  I felt uncomfortable, like I'd been caught reading someone else's diary. I missed the security of my home. My home? It was probably being violated in more ways than there were ants on the ground. I kept quiet. I wanted to grasp the underlying meaning of Bonnie's one-way conversation. Maybe it was a confession, a way of freeing herself from guilt. Or maybe I was reading too much into it.

  "We've known each other for over twenty years. We met at Parents Without Partners."

  "You have children?"

  "Had. They are not children anymore." Bonnie's voice was brisk enough to discourage any question. She put her hand on her forehead like a visor, but the sun wasn't very bright. She rubbed her temples—would the motion help her remember? Or forget? "Larry was a big hit as you can imagine. One daddy to a dozen or so of us mommies. The odds were in his favor. And what a daddy he was—young, good looking, caring, yada, yada, yada. He had temporary custody of Olivia, his precious little girl, while the mother was out of the country on a fundraising assignment for the non-profit she worked for."

  Daddy and mommies? Yada, yada, yada? The Bonnie sitting next to me on the bench had little in common with Bonnie the lawyer. I wished I could get up, walk away, turn back time, to before I met Bonnie, and Larry. Oh, Larry.

  "He made it his mission to bring joy to as many of us as possible." She sounded amused by the implication of his multiple romances. "He managed to do it without causing jealousy or competition among us. The man was gifted that way." She smiled. Were the memories of the indiscretions the reason for the smile? "There was only one problem. He still lived with his mother here, in Dana Point." Larry lived with his mother, here in Dana Point?

  "So the sex was always at the woman's house or in a hotel room. And that was how Mr. Devin happened to save my life." She stopped talking, let her hand drop to her lap and kept her eyes on that distant horizon and the sun lowering into the Pacific. I wanted to say something, but the knot in my throat wasn't budging. This woman sitting next to me was telling me about her affair with the man I considered my lover and, oddly enough, instead of feeling resentment, I felt compassion. I wanted to put my arms around her and tell her everything was going to be okay.

  "I was so broke, just out of law school." A big sigh. "A single mother of twin boys. I lived in this one-room apartment over a friend's garage. Olivia's mother was due back soon, and I knew if I didn't connect with Larry right then, I'd never see him again. I found an excuse to get him to my place after he got off work. He knew the score. We did some necking in the back of the car before, but I wanted more. I spent my last few dollars on a six-pack of beer, got a friend to take the twins for the night, and I waited, and I waited. He never showed up. My phone had been disconnected because I was too broke to pay the bill, and I didn't want to walk to the corner phone in case I missed him." She stopped talking, her eyes fixed straight ahead. I didn't know what to say or what to do.

  Part of me wanted to disappear, but the other part was anxious to hear the end of the story. There had to be an end. "I had some over-the-counter sleeping pills. I popped a few to dull the pain. I drank a beer. I repeated the process a few times. Next thing I remember, I woke up in Larry's house, with his mother, a nurse, watching over me. He was late coming to my place because he had to work overtime and didn't know how to get in touch with me. By the time he got there, I'd passed out. The man knew if this showed up on my record my professional career would be over before it ever started. His mother called in some favors. They kept me out of the emergency room and still saved my life and my future. That's way beyond friendship." She stood and stretched her arms.

  I guessed she considered the discussion over and done with. That was not the way I saw it. My mind spun with questions. What happened after that? Did they have an affair? How long did it last? Where were her twins now?

  "I'm getting cold and hungry. Let's go get something. There's a nice coffee house at the south end." She looked at me, waiting for an answer.

  I shrugged. "You're my ride home." That was all I could say without sounding angry and resentful, and I felt a little of both. I had planned to visit Kyle on my way to his condo. What if he called while the detectives, or whatever these cops are called, were there searching?

  "Bonnie, where are they searching? Like, my living room? Where?"

  "Everywhere they want, dear."

  "Even my bedroom?"

&nbs
p; "Even your bedroom." She nodded.

  "What are they searching for?"

  "Anything and everything." She shrugged.

  It was that time of the evening when the sun sets and light and darkness mingle. They blend like milk and coffee in a cappuccino. A mild smell of decaying fish rose from the jetties, and few crafts sailed close to shore. We walked toward the southern end of the harbor where in late spring tourists wait for the boats that take them out whale watching. I had run out of neutral subjects to talk about. Apparently, so did Bonnie. Lights came on around us. Cannon Restaurant, high on the hill, looked like a ball of fire, the last rays of sun reflecting on its glass facade.

  I was up there with Larry less than ten days ago, yet it seemed like a long time had passed.

  "It's getting cold." Bonnie turned to me. "If I feel cold with my extra padding, you must be freezing." She smiled. "Let's get back to the car and go see what the boys are doing."

  I knew she meant the detectives at my place. I nodded and we turned to walk back to the parking lot.

  From outside my house you couldn't guess someone was inside going through all my things. The front door wasn't locked. I pushed it open. Bonnie stood on the threshold. Before I could call out, the tall detective appeared, followed by the other three. They had several small bags of stuff. I wanted to see what they were taking.

  "Perfect timing." The tall man noticed Bonnie by the door. She nodded.

  "What did you take? What's in the bags?" The pitch of my voice sounded a little crazy. I felt a lot crazier. Bonnie laid her hand on my arm. If it was meant to reassure me, it wasn't working. The tall man had something for me to sign, and he wanted me to get swabbed.

  "Swab? Me? What for?" The outrage was real. On TV they only swabbed criminals or suspected criminals. What was happening?

  Bonnie stepped in. "I'll take care of this. Lella, this is to eliminate your DNA from any other. It's pretty standard. Trust me." Trust me. Here we go again. I'm supposed to trust the whole world, the same world that trusts no one.