by Julie Smith
“Hello, Paula. I was just wondering—has the autopsy been done yet?”
“I’m sorry, but I really can’t give out that information.”
“Sure you can. I bet it has been done—or it’s scheduled for sometime today, right? I mean, how many homicides do you have around here?”
“Two in a year would be a record,” she said dryly. “Who’s the DA assigned to the case?”
“Todd Greenberg. Why?”
“What did he think of your case?”
“Why don’t you ask him?”
“I will. But as long as I’m here, why don’t you let me see the autopsy report?”
“Sorry.” She gave me a pitying look and went back to her paperwork.
I kind of liked what I heard. She was a little more defensive than she’d had to be. I wondered if Greenberg wasn’t as thrilled with her airtight case as she and Tillman were.
Perhaps fifteen feet away from the pleasant office with the view of a lemon grove, just around the comer, was as nasty a jail as—well, frankly, as jail always is. This one was painted a deep turquoise instead of black or gray, but bars are bars. It seemed ten degrees colder after Tillman turned the oversize key in the lock and led me inside. His feet—mine were in noiseless tennis shoes—echoed in the corridor. Three steps in, I was deeply depressed, and Marty’s cellblock was at the other end of the place.
She was standing, waiting for me, in the business suit I’d left her in, the same one she’d worn to work the day before.
Her cell nearly made me cry, and would have, I suspect, if I’d been younger and less experienced and not so angry with her. That horrible chestnut. “She’s made her bed—” popped up, but it was hard to be too punitive when the bed in question was a concrete bunk built into the wall. It had on it only a mattress, a pillow, and a folded-up blanket.
The only other furniture, if you could call it that, was a no-frills metal toilet.
She spoke first. “What time is it? They took my watch.”
“Around two, I think. Have they fed you?”
“Two TV dinners already today, but of course I didn’t eat them. Do you know what the sodium content of those things is?”
“Didn’t eat them? You were expecting radicchio with a little warm chèvre?”
We both sat on the bunk.
“It’s no big deal. I needed to lose weight anyway. It’s inconceivably boring in here, though. I wish I’d taken a meditation class, but there never seemed to be time. Did you know you’re not allowed any reading material? Or pantyhose—how about that one?” She held out a bare foot, shod in a neat black pump. “You might strangle yourself with them.”
“But they let you take a shower, of course.”
Of course they hadn’t. I was rubbing it in. I was getting madder by the moment, and not only at her—at myself for wasting sympathy on her. “Marty Whitehead, you lied to me.”
Her face lit up. “You’ve been to my office? Did you bring the stuff?”
“No, I did not bring the stuff. I had to impersonate a member of the staff to get in, and then I was caught in the act, so I didn’t get anything out of the building—except this.” I produced the calendar leaf for the night before. “You couldn’t have killed her, damn you! You were somewhere screwing your brains out.”
I admit I made this speech partly in case the cell was bugged—a ridiculous idea for a quiet town like Monterey.
“You sound mad that I didn’t kill her. Whose side are you on, anyway?”
“I’m mad because only a born victim would spend a night in jail to protect a man. A born victim is a dead loser in court, and I don’t want one for a client.”
“Okay, okay. I’ll get another lawyer.”
“That won’t solve your problem. Another lawyer’s going to feel exactly the same way—like doing anything in the world besides stand around watching you cut your own throat. Tell me the guy’s name, Marty. Tell Jacobson and Tillman and walk away from this. He got himself into this mess, you didn’t. Who cares about him? Think of Libby and Keil, dammit!”
Her refusal to think of her kids seemed so heartless,I wanted to bang her head against the bars. Recent encounters with ten-year-olds had left me feeling protective and righteous.
“Rebecca, I don’t have an alibi. He stood me up.”
“He stood you up. Sure he stood you up. First your date wasn’t this Friday, it was last Friday, and now he stood you up. If your own lawyer can’t trust you, how’s a jury supposed to?”
She said nothing.
“The guy’s married, I suppose. Is that it?” Suddenly I thought I knew what she was up to, and I was sorry for the remark about Libby and Keil. “Wait a minute. You’re afraid of a custody battle, aren’t you?”
She nodded, maybe blinking tears, maybe not, I couldn’t tell.
“Well, get it out of your head. If you have to stand trial, even if you’re not convicted, those kids are going to have to go through something a whole lot worse than any custody fight in the world. If you’re found guilty, it won’t be an issue.”
I knew I sounded cruel—I’d learned how in acting class. But a good alibi was my best shot at getting her out of this mess. Besides, she was genuinely getting my goat. Self-destructive behavior in a client spells defeat in the courtroom. And I hate defeat.
“I don’t expect you to understand.”
“Okay. All right. But I’m off this case as soon as you’re arraigned.”
“I think that’ll be best for both of us. Are the kids okay? Did Mother get here?”
“Your mother got here. The kids are not all right. Their mother’s in jail, and they’re worried.”
“Has Don turned up?”
“Not yet.”
Ava had called her “cool as a cucumber,” and while it wasn’t original, I had to admit that mother certainly knew daughter. Her business suit was pretty wilted after thirty hours of constant wear, she was a shadow of herself without her Rolex, and no one could confuse a steel toilet with the seat of power. But Marty was doing business as usual, cool as a whole truckload of cucumbers—cucumbers, in fact, garnishing Pimm’s cups being served around a swimming pool. She could have been planning the financial future of the aquarium. “Has an acting director been named?”
“Warren Nowell—at least he said he expected to be.”
“Damn! I could have had a shot at it.”
“Here we go again. Look, I hate to harp on this, but you’re in jail. If you were out of jail—”
“I’m going to be, Rebecca. On Monday at the latest—and frankly, I don’t really consider Warren a whole lot of competition. What did you think of him?”
Was she trying to distract me from getting on her case, or was she really this cold? Maybe I’d been wrong about her that night in San Francisco—when I thought she was in denial about the breakup of her marriage. Maybe she just didn’t have any feelings.
“He doesn’t look like much, but he was acting okay. Using his authority pretty well.”
“Oh? I find him unprepossessing. He’s well connected, though. You’ve heard of Katy Montebello?”
I shook my head.
“The former Katy Sheffield. She’s probably the aquarium’s chief individual benefactor. Companies give more, but I doubt any one person has put up more money than Katy. In fact, she’s sponsoring our new exhibit. Anyway, Katy and Warren’s mother are best friends. He went to Stanford, but other than that, he’s a pretty weak sister.”
“What’s his job?”
“Director of education. Big deal.”
“Who’s your other biggest competition?”
She tapped her chin. “I don’t think Martin would take it—the director of husbandry. Really, unless they went outside—” she shrugged “—it’s Warren or me.”
“I met someone in husbandry today—Julio Soto.”
“Oh, shit! Esperanza was supposed to come over this morning.”
“She did. Libby sent her home.”
“I forgot all about it.
That’s really unlike me. I should have had you call Julio—”
“Marty, you’re in jail. Give yourself a break.”
“This is the way I am. I run like a machine.”
I could believe that.
“Tell me, what did you think of Julio?” She smiled almost girlishly.
“He seems very nice.”
“No wonder you like fish. You’re cold, Rebecca.” Her eyes were playful.
“I did happen to notice the mustache and the eyes and the shoulders.”
She laughed. “I’ll bet you did.”
We had slipped back into our old camaraderie. Weird under the circumstances, but I supposed this was Marty’s way of coping. For all I knew it was a front. Maybe as soon as I left she’d cry into her rough blanket.
I wondered if I was relaxed enough to ask her if Julio was “J.” I tried working up to it subtly. “Was he one of Sadie’s conquests?”
She laughed. “He’s too much man for her. She went in for the Ricky Flynns of the world.”
“I met Ricky Flynn, too.”
“You really get around, don’t you?”
“He came over to Julio’s—” Too late, I realized I’d said too much.
Marty narrowed her eyes. “Oh. ‘Over to Julio’s—’”
I lied like a teenager. “I took Esperanza home. Ricky dropped by. Actually, I liked him. I see what Sadie saw in him.”
“I’ll bet he’s worried about losing his job. Warren hates him. With good reason, too. Ricky taunts him.”
“About what?”
“About being a stuffed shirt.” We both laughed, just two girls in a dorm, having a gabfest.
“So what does Ricky do?”
“He’s not even permanently on the staff. Does seasonal work, actually. I mean—not seasonal. Piecework, I guess you’d call it. He’s a model-maker.”
“A model-maker?”
“Makes models for the exhibits. You want some barnacles the size of your hand, Ricky’s your man. A life-sized elephant seal? Actually, he’s doing one of those for the new exhibit. He’s a genius, but he drinks.”
“Drinks?”
“You know, like alcohol? I think that’s why Sadie dumped him. Not that he ever was a main squeeze or anything. Ricky’s not the type you take to business parties—leave it to Sadie Stoop-Low.”
The nickname reminded me that she had said Sadie was unpopular with the staff. It was funny, I hadn’t noticed. As I got up to go, Marty called me back. “Rebecca.”
“Yes?”
She stared at the floor. “I’m really embarrassed about last night.” Mustering all her effort, she met my eyes for the big confession. “About falling apart. I’m not usually like that.”
* * *
Back at the ranch, Ava had everything out of Marty’s kitchen cabinets and on the table. Methodically, she was cleaning each cabinet, a look of utter disgust on her face.
“I’ll bet these haven’t been cleaned since they moved in. I know they were cleaned then, because I cleaned them.”
“Marty and Don are busy people.”
“Nothing wrong with those two strong kids they’ve got.”
“I guess clean cabinets are more important to some people than others.”
“Marty hates dirt. Last time I was here, I thought I’d surprise her and scrub the kitchen floor, but Don made me stop in the middle—said it was an ‘inappropriate’ time to do it.”
“Mmmm.” I could smell a grievance coming on, and I thought life would be a lot simpler if I could head it off.
She jabbed at a comer with a sponge. “Three in the afternoon and he had to start cooking dinner!”
I couldn’t help it—curiosity got the best of me. “What was he making?”
“That’s not the point—the point is, he and Marty got mad at me for trying to help. And then they had the nerve to ask me to help with dinner. Can you imagine? After that? They were having thirty people over, too.”
“Gosh.” I began to back out of the room.
“And it was my birthday. They wanted me to work on my own birthday.”
Rebecca, do not say it. Do not say a word about the voluntary scrubbing of the floor in the midst of party preparations. Keep your lip zipped.
I called Judge Reyes again, felt mildly guilty that I was going sailing instead of sticking around to phone every half hour, and then absolved myself by remembering that Marty was where she was because she’d chosen not to murmur a certain word starting with “J.”
And then I went on a kid-hunt. Keil was in his room sitting at a computer screen. “Hi, Keil. Hacking away?”
“Naah. Just playing a game.”
“Want to go for a sail with Julio and Esperanza?”
He spun around in his chair, eyes excited. “Yeah! I was getting really bored.”
“I’ll go find Libby.”
“Oh. She won’t want to go.”
I shrugged. “Then we’ll go without her.”
“Grandma won’t let me—unless she goes.”
I’d forgotten I wasn’t in charge. “Okay then,” I said. “I’ll persuade her.”
“She doesn’t persuade easy.” He sagged in his chair, looking defeated. “She never wants to do anything.”
“Get on some warm clothes—it’ll be cool on the bay.”
“Rebecca, I live here.” He sounded rude, know-it-all, and obnoxious. The kid was starting to like me.
I went around the house hollering Libby’s name until I heard a nasty “What!”
From the TV room. I should have guessed.
“Hi, honey. What’s on?”
No answer.
“Keil and Esperanza and I are going for a sail—want to come?”
No answer.
I stepped between Libby and the TV. “Libby, is something wrong, honey?” I could have bitten my tongue. Only everything was wrong.
I said, “I just saw your mom. She said to give you her love and tell you she’ll be home real soon.”
Actually she hadn’t, and now that I thought about it, that was another thing that was wrong.
Libby got up and started to walk out of the room. I chugged cabooselike behind her. I said, “Young lady, you answer when I talk to you!”
She turned around and stared at me in shock. But it was nothing compared to the shock I was in. I sounded like my own first grade teacher. The horrid phrase must have been curled up, dormant, in some sort of mental cocoon. In no way did it resemble a butterfly.
Libby picked up a ceramic dish from a table that also held a lamp. She threw it hard and I feinted instinctively, a bad move—better the dish had hit me than the wall, which it did.
“Now look what you’ve done!” I couldn’t believe the sound of my own voice.
“Shithead!” shouted Libby, and my ears rang as I heard her steps pound up the stairs.
She wasn’t kidding. “Shithead” about summed it up. I literally couldn’t believe the way I was behaving. Some internal trigger had betrayed me. One cross word from a kid and I turned into instant virago. I sat down, shaking, trying to figure out what to do.
Ava came in, wiping her hands on a dishcloth. “Did I hear profanity coming out of that child’s mouth?”
“I’m afraid I made her mad. I’m sorry.”
“Where does she get that kind of language?”
“The playground, I guess. All the kids—” But it wasn’t a serious question.
She sat down and looked me in the eye, getting intimate.
“That child is bad. Has been from the first day they brought her home. Some kids just come out that way. Wouldn’t even nurse, cried all the time, woke up three times every night screaming like a banshee. It was like she was born with a mission—to drive all the adults out of their minds. When she was four years old, she’d take her bath and leave her panties in the bathroom. Can you imagine that? Four years old and still leaving dirty panties on the bathroom floor! When she was a guest in someone’s house!”
“You don’t like her
, do you?”
Her brown eyes snapped hatred—whether of me or of Libby, I couldn’t tell. “Like her? Whoever heard of not liking a child? She’s like her mother, she needs discipline. She needs to have some boundaries set, and know she can’t cross them. Of course she wouldn’t like the person who tries to set them. It’s not that I don’t like her—that’s absurd. Everybody likes children. She doesn’t like me, Rebecca. No matter what I do, I can’t get her to warm up to me. My own granddaughter.”
I was reeling. First from the back-and-forth stances of victim and aggressor, which I’m sure would have taxed a psychotherapist, let alone a mere houseguest. And second, from the concept of Libby’s mother needing discipline—Marty, who resembled a calculator more than a human being while waiting for bail to be set. To Marty, that was all it was—waiting for bail, getting over the next hurdle.
I had spent a night in jail once—or most of one—and you never heard such a whining and caterwauling. I like to think of myself as no more neurotic than the average, but at the time, I was worried I’d get a venereal disease from the blankets on my bunk. Being in jail brings out the terrified child in you—unless, of course, you’ve been “disciplined” out of most of your emotions.
I was willing to bet Marty had not only picked up her dirty panties, but rinsed them and mended the lace by age four. After that she’d probably earned enough washing dishes and setting tables to buy new ones in case they wore out from too much scrubbing. And still she couldn’t appease this great maw of judgment and censure.
I stood up, feeling slightly queasy. “I’d like to take the kids sailing with a friend. Do you think you could clear off a space in the kitchen so I can make a snack for us?”
I was truly shocked at the edge to my voice. I needed to get along with this woman—she had the power to throw me out of here, and for some stubborn (probably not too healthy) reason, I very much wanted to stay right now, to see the thing through, at least till Marty was released. I had the sinking feeling of wanting desperately to help, and that frightened me, seemed inappropriate; this family had been muddling through one way or another before I came along. Who was I to play rescuer? Yet I was getting caught up in the role. And I wasn’t going to be effective if I didn’t stop offending Ava.