Death Gets a Time-Out

by Ayelet Waldman

  Twenty

  AFTER a day in bed, I got back to work, concentrating my investigation on Chloe. I decided to start with the person likely to know the most about her, the person who would, if my own were anything to go by, possess both a clear-eyed sense of her failings and an utterly disproportionate estimation of her talents—her mother. Chloe’s mother lived in Laguna Beach, a small seaside town in Orange County, about an hour south of the city. I’m not sure what I was expecting from the mother of such an unsavory character, but it certainly wasn’t the pleasant woman with graying blond hair who greeted me at the front door of a little blue cottage covered in bougainvillea and shaded by a massive avocado tree.

  Wanda Pakulski was beautiful, with full lips and large blue eyes, and clear, pale skin entirely unsullied by makeup. She had a few laugh lines, but she hardly looked old enough to have a daughter in her late twenties. Her hands were broad and capable, with close-trimmed nails, and she answered her front door in her bare feet. Her hair was swept off her high forehead with the kind of turquoise hair clip that is sold in gift shops on Indian reservations. She was wearing faded blue jeans, and I found it difficult to keep from staring at the disconcertingly massive breasts straining at the buttons of her bright white men’s Oxford cloth shirt. I forced myself to look around the room I had just walked into, taking in the vaguely Southwestern décor and the walls covered in small square paintings of flowers. The painter was clearly heavily influenced by Georgia O’Keeffe. “Are these yours?” I asked, pointing at the walls.

  “Yup,” she said. “I’m in a floral phase right now.”

  “They’re lovely,” I said, without lying. The paintings were pretty, the colors soft and pleasing, the flowers more than competently rendered.

  “Too lovely,” she said, looking critically at a small canvas. “They’re a little bit Hallmark, don’t you think?” She shrugged. “People seem to like them, though. They’re selling like crazy. Come on in the kitchen. I’ve got coffee made.”

  “Please, don’t go to any trouble,” I said, following her through the living room into the small, bright kitchen. She bustled around the room, pouring coffee into cups and arranging a few muffins on a plate.

  “It’s no trouble at all,” she said.

  “I really appreciate your agreeing to talk to me. It’s very generous of you, considering the fact that I’m working for Jupiter.”

  She paused and looked up at me. Her blue eyes were dry, but she looked incredibly sad. “You’ll probably think I’m crazy for saying this, given everything that happened, but I always liked Jupiter. He was very sweet to Chloe. I felt so sorry for him when she married Polaris.”

  “But you must be very angry with him now.”

  She shrugged. “Yes, of course. But somehow I still can’t help feeling sorry for him. Has he said anything? I mean, about why he did it?”

  I weighed what my obligation to confidentiality would allow me to reveal. From the very beginning, Jupiter had publicly denied his guilt. That much I could tell her. “Jupiter says that he’s innocent of her murder.”

  She sighed. “Yes. I read that in the papers. Is he, do you think? Is he innocent?”

  “I think he is,” I replied. “But then, he is my client.”

  She nodded. “I’ve had such a hard time believing it was him. I just don’t think he could have hurt her. He always loved her. Always.”

  I didn’t tell her what I knew to be true. Loving someone and hurting them are hardly mutually exclusive.

  “If he didn’t do it, then the person who murdered my daughter is still out there.” Her voice quavered.

  “Yes,” I said gently.

  “But the police aren’t looking for him.”

  “No.”

  “Are you?”

  That gave me pause. Was I looking for Chloe’s murderer? If Jupiter was innocent, as he claimed, then the best way of proving that was to find the real killer. No matter who that was. I pushed the thought of my friend Lilly out of my mind. “I’m trying to help Jupiter. Any way that I can,” I said.

  Wanda nodded. “Let’s go out into the yard.”

  She put the cups and plates on a tray and led me out the back door into a perfect, miniature garden. She balanced the tray on a tiny wrought iron table and motioned for me to sit down in one of the two chairs. There were flowers everywhere. Roses climbed the arbor underneath which we sat. The air was thick with the smell of honeysuckle, wisteria petals littered the brick patio like purple confetti, and the flowerbeds alongside the house were a jumble and tangle of pinks and blues, fuchsias and violets, as though someone had dumped bag after bag of wildflower seed. It was all utterly enchanting.

  “Is this where Chloe grew up?” I asked, wondering how someone who came from such a beautiful place could have turned out so wrong.

  Wanda smiled ruefully and shook her head. “Hardly. When Chloe was a girl, I could never have afforded this. I can’t really afford it now. She helped me buy this place. Or rather, Polaris did. He was very generous with me.”

  “He bought you the house?”

  “When he and Chloe were first married, he gave me the money for the down payment. Or rather, he gave it to her to give to me.”

  “Are you and Polaris close?”

  She shook her head, and something about her expression made me feel that my next question would not come as too much of a shock.

  “Do you know if Polaris was ever . . . well, abusive towards Chloe? Did he ever hit her?”

  Wanda wrinkled her brow. “No. No, I don’t think so. I mean, not that she ever told me. But then, she might not have, you know? Chloe often tried to protect me from the sad things in her life. Did you find something out? Did he hurt her?”

  “Jupiter said he did.”

  Wanda smiled sadly. “But he might be lying, mightn’t he. To protect himself?”

  I nodded back, wondering if that were true.

  Wanda pushed the plate full of muffins across the table. I took one. My teeth crunched through the sugary outer crust and into the soft, buttery inside. The tang of blueberries filled my mouth. “Oh my God, these are amazing,” I said.

  “I’m a woman of many talents,” she said, the bite of sarcasm belied by the small smile of pride playing across her mouth. “Here, have another one.”

  I helped myself to more, and said, “Where did you live when Chloe was young?”

  “All over, but mostly in L.A. I traveled a lot, for my work. When Chloe was little, she came along with me, but when she got old enough for school, I had to leave her behind. She usually stayed in L.A. while I was on the road.”

  “What did you do?”

  “I was an exotic dancer. I went by the name of Cherrie Delight.” Her voice was matter-of-fact, as though taking off your clothes for a living were no different from, say, being a flight attendant or a truck driver. And maybe it wasn’t. Who was I to say? At any rate, that explained the size of her chest.

  “You don’t look old enough to be a mother of someone as old as Chloe.”

  “That’s because I had her when I was sixteen. Chloe and I kind of grew up together.” She swallowed hard and turned her head away from me. We sat in silence for a few moments while she gathered herself together. I liked Wanda Pakulski. She was open, and friendly, and not the least bit angry, which was remarkable given the fact that her only child had been murdered. She was, very simply, a nice woman. I didn’t want to force her to talk about her daughter. I didn’t want to make her sad, and I didn’t want to ask the unpleasant questions that I knew I had to if I was going to find out if Chloe had been blackmailing anyone else.

  “I was much too young to be a mother, and that’s probably why she was such a complicated person,” Wanda said.

  “Complicated?” I asked.

  “Chloe wasn’t easy to get along with. I’m sure that’s because she spent her childhood going from club to club with me, or living with relatives while I was on the road. Poor baby. I don’t think she ever went to the same school for lon
ger than a year, and then she ended up dropping out so early.”

  “I guess it couldn’t have been easy. On either of you.”

  “No, but I was supposed to take care of her. I was supposed to keep her safe. Everything that happened is my fault.” She said those words firmly, as if instructing me of a fact, not giving me a window into a private pain. But her eyes were moist, and her lip trembled.

  “What is? What’s your fault?”

  “Everything that happened to her. How she dropped out of school. The drug use. And then what happened later. Her death. I know it’s no excuse, but when she was a little girl, I honestly felt that I was doing the best I could. I was on welfare when she was born, but I hated that. And then when I started dancing, I was making so much more money than I could have made at any other job, I couldn’t bring myself to stop. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think there’s anything morally wrong with the work. I never did anything I was ashamed of. It was just the travel, and having to leave her alone for such long periods of time. I kept promising myself that I’d dance just another year, but the money kept getting better and better. Once I started doing movies, then it really became impossible to walk away from it. Not that I had much to show for it.” She shook her head, obviously disgusted with herself. “Most of what I earned disappeared right up my nose. Poor Chloe got that from me, too.”

  I didn’t know whether Wanda was responsible for Chloe’s failings. Had she grown up in a perfect two-parent home in a perfect small town, Chloe might have been an entirely different person. She might have finished high school, gone to college, volunteered in the Peace Corps, and gone on to a career as a neurosurgeon. Or she might have ended up dropping out of school and becoming a coke addict. Plenty of kids from all kinds of families do. We’d never really know if it was the circumstances of her childhood or something about her, something hardwired into her brain, that made her who she was. But one thing was for sure: Wanda would feel guilty for the rest of her life. Mothers do.

  “Do you have kids, Ms. Applebaum?” Wanda asked.

  “Call me Juliet, please. Yes, I’ve got two.”

  “Any pictures?”

  I raised my eyebrows. “Do you really want to see them?”

  “I’d love to.”

  I pulled a couple of snapshots of Ruby and Isaac out of my purse. “These are about a year old,” I said. “I keep meaning to put some newer ones in my bag.”

  She looked at the photographs of Ruby astride a pony and of Isaac’s face peeping out from under a crown of bubbles in the tub, and then traced a delicate finger across the children’s faces. “They’re precious,” she said, her voice quavering just a bit.

  “Thank you,” I said.

  She swallowed firmly, blinked back tears, and then said brightly, “Is this it for you? Are you going to have any more?”

  “Well, at least one, that’s for certain.” I laid a hand on my stomach.

  “You’re pregnant! Congratulations!”

  “Thanks. Thanks so much.”

  She handed me back the pictures. “Well, what else can I tell you about my Chloe?”

  “Well, the most important thing, I suppose, is if there was anyone who might have wanted to hurt her, other than Jupiter. Did she have any enemies that you know of?”

  Wanda closed her eyes for a moment. Then she said, “There were probably women—wives—who didn’t like Chloe very much.”

  “Wives?”

  “The wives of men Chloe was involved with. My daughter had a lot of boyfriends before she met Polaris. Mostly older men. She started dancing as soon as she was old enough. She knew all the managers of the better clubs, through me, so it was easy for her to get on the circuit. She called herself Little Cherrie.”

  So the minister’s wife was a stripper. Why hadn’t I heard that before? Polaris must have known. He was close enough to Wanda to have bought her a house, and she clearly didn’t keep her own past a secret.

  “Did Polaris know that Chloe was a . . . dancer?” I had been about to say stripper, but I stopped myself in time.

  “Of course. They all did. That was part of the story. You know, loose woman saved from drugs and sexual perversity by God and the church. They loved that crap.”

  “What about you? Did they try to save you?”

  She laughed. “I had already stopped dancing by then or I’m sure they would have tried.”

  “When did you stop?”

  “Not long after Chloe started. We played the same club once, and that kind of ended it for me. When I saw her up on the stage, it made me question what I was doing. Not that I think there’s anything wrong with exotic dancing,” she said hurriedly. “There isn’t. It’s a great way for a girl to make a living. The money is amazing, and you’re in total control of your own life. You are,” she said at my dubious frown. “You dance when and where you want to. You decide how much you’re going to do. Even with private dances, it’s the girl who is in complete control. The guys aren’t even allowed to touch us.”

  Wanda pushed the muffin plate toward me, and I shook my head. Then, reconsidering, I took another. She smiled briefly.

  With my mouth full, I said, “If you liked dancing, and if you think it’s a good way to make a living, then why did Chloe’s dancing make you want to quit?”

  “I guess I just felt embarrassed. Like if I had a daughter old enough to do it, then I shouldn’t be doing it myself. And I had had enough of the life. I was ready to quit the travel. It can really wear you down. Once I stopped working, it was really easy to stop using drugs. It was like I didn’t really need them anymore. I haven’t had more than an occasional glass of wine since I retired.”

  “Did Chloe like dancing? Was she happy?”

  A small sad smile flickered across Wanda’s lips, and she shook her head. “My daughter had a real hard time being happy,” she said. “She liked the money, I know that. I think she liked the attention. She was a beautiful girl, and she liked it that people noticed. That men noticed. I’m sure she liked the power.”

  “Power?”

  “The power to make men want her, to want to do anything just to have her. Even to leave their wives for her.”

  “Did they leave their wives for her?”

  “I don’t know. Some probably did. And even if they didn’t leave them, they certainly cheated on them.”

  “What made Chloe decide to stop dancing? Was it Polaris?”

  Wanda shrugged. “I guess. One of her clients arranged for her to go to this fancy rehab center in Ojai. She met Jupiter there, and then he introduced her to Polaris. I don’t know if she would have gone back into it if she hadn’t married him. Probably. It’s a hard life to walk away from. Where else can a girl with no education earn a couple of thousand bucks in a single night?”

  “Do you know who was the client who paid for her to go into rehab?”

  “No one paid. The doctor who ran the center let her in for free.”

  “Dr. Reese Blackmore let Chloe have a free ride? Why?”

  “I told you. He was one of her clients. He must have fallen in love with her. Most of them did.”

  I stared at Wanda, stunned, my coffee cup halfway to my lips. Blackmore was sleeping with Chloe! Maybe something more was going on. Chloe had begun a relationship with Jupiter while she was at the clinic. Could that betrayal have made Reese angry enough to kill her? But then why would he have waited so long to exact retribution? I was obviously going to have to dig around the center a little more carefully. For the time being, though, I needed to take full advantage of Wanda’s willingness to discuss her daughter’s life with me.

  “Do you mind telling me a little bit about Chloe’s relationship with her husband? Was Polaris generous with her? Did she have as much money as she wanted?”

  Wanda took a sip of coffee. “She certainly lived well. And he bought her stuff. Nice clothes, jewelry, a car. That kind of thing. All she had to do was ask, and he’d give her whatever it was she wanted. At the beginning, like I said, he even ga
ve her money to give me.”

  “But did she have any money of her own? Did she have a regular source of income? Like an allowance? Or did she always have to ask him when she wanted something?”

  “That’s exactly what bothered Chloe. I don’t think it was that she minded asking him for things. She probably would have asked for presents no matter how much money of her own she had. But she did want to have her own money. She told me that it drove her crazy that he knew how she spent every dime. And sometimes, well, when things weren’t so great between them, it was harder for her to get what she wanted.”

  “What do you mean?” I leaned forward eagerly.

  Wanda blushed, seeming to regret her words. “Nothing. I shouldn’t have said anything.”

  “Please, Wanda,” I said, extending my hand. “I need to know the truth, no matter how irrelevant it seems to you. It could help me understand what really happened to your daughter.”

  Wanda wrinkled her brow, and then nodded. “I’ll tell you, but please, I don’t want you to overinterpret this. Chloe and Polaris went through a rocky period. People do. Especially when there’s an age difference. I think it’s only natural.”

  “Sure,” I said encouragingly.

  “During those times, Polaris wasn’t as generous with Chloe. She felt . . . strapped. You know. Because she didn’t have a job or anything. It was hard for her.”

  “Do you think Chloe might have tried to get money some other way?”

  “Like how?”

  I paused. I didn’t want to hurt Wanda’s feelings by insulting her daughter. But there was no other way for me to get the information I needed. “Blackmail,” I said. “Do you think it’s possible that Chloe would have resorted to blackmailing people?”

  Wanda didn’t express any outrage at the suggestion. She just leaned back in her chair and looked up at the roses overhead, considering it. “She might have. I don’t really know. Do you know if she was blackmailing someone? Is that why you asked the question?”

  I didn’t answer her directly. “Does it sound like something she might have done?”