Death Gets a Time-Out

by Ayelet Waldman

  Wanda replaced her cup in its saucer and sighed. “Maybe. Like I said, my daughter was a complicated person.”

  “Before she died, did she seem to have more money than usual?”

  Wanda wrinkled her brow. “Actually, she did. I know because she gave me some. I hadn’t asked her for it. She knew I was saving money to buy into a gallery downtown. She showed up one day about three months before she died. She hadn’t called or anything. She surprised me. I made her lunch, and she gave me a check for twenty-five thousand dollars. She told me to use it to buy a share of the gallery. And then a week later she called and told me I wasn’t going to have to worry about my mortgage anymore. She was going to pay it off for me.” For the first time since I’d arrived at her house, tears began to roll down Wanda’s cheeks. “I just assumed she got the money from Polaris. But she was blackmailing someone? Oh that’s just so like Chloe. To do something so awful, and then to do something so wonderful for me with the money. To be so bad and so sweet at the same time.”

  Twenty-one

  WHAT I wanted to do the next morning was drive right up to Ojai and confront Blackmore about his relationship with Chloe. What I had to do instead was go see Lilly. One of her assistants called me at the crack of dawn to let me know that Lilly was home from Japan and could “fit me in” if I could make it to her house by ten. I dropped off the kids and made it in plenty of time. The assistant showed me into the breakfast room. The table was set for four, with pale blue crockery and crisp white napkins. A matching blue bowl held a stubby bouquet of fragrant peach-colored roses. A glass pitcher of fresh-squeezed orange juice sweated in the middle of the table, and steam rose from a carafe of coffee.

  “Help yourself to juice and coffee. The cook will have breakfast up in just a minute,” the assistant said. “As soon as Lilly and her mom are done with yoga.” I certainly was getting fed well on this particular investigation. It made being a pregnant PI positively pleasant.

  “Beverly’s here?”

  “She and Mr. Green came down from Sacramento a couple of days ago. Their L.A. house is being renovated, so they’re staying here.”

  I was about halfway through the Los Angeles Times when Lilly’s father joined me. He clomped into the room awkwardly, wearing his biking shoes and clutching his helmet under his arm. His tight black bike shorts clung to his muscled behind, and his lycra bike shirt covered in French logos fit snugly over his chest and across his shoulders, revealing defined biceps and browned forearms. His hair was cropped so close to his skull that it was difficult to determine its color, and he had a small gold hoop in one ear. He was damp and sweaty, and looked young for his age, but there was something stiff and almost ironed about his face, and I couldn’t help but wonder whether its smooth youthfulness was real.

  He greeted me with a smile and said, “Good morning.”

  “Hi.”

  “I’ve got to drink something.” He gulped down a huge glass of the orange juice and wiped the back of his hand across his mouth. “I remember you. We met at Lilly’s divorce party.” When her divorce was final, Lilly had thrown a huge party, to which she’d worn a nineteen-thousand-dollar Vera Wang wedding dress—dyed black. I wondered what she was going to do with the photos of that event if she really did get back together with Archer.

  I said, “How are things in Sacramento? Is the state of California still solvent?”

  He smiled. “That you’ll have to ask my wife, I’m afraid. I try to pay as little attention to the politicians and pundits as possible.”

  “So you’re retired now?” I asked, making small talk.

  He nodded. “Yup.”

  “What was it you did?” I had a vague memory of Lilly telling me a couple of years before that her father had retired from some kind of political work. Given his past as a denizen of communes and marijuana farms, I could imagine what it was.

  “I was a lobbyist for a few different environmental groups,” he said. “Mostly community groups dealing with environmental racism.”

  “Oh, right,” I said. Now I remembered reading about a campaign Raymond had spearheaded to force the government to pay for the cleanup of a public housing project full of toxic mold.

  Raymond pulled out a chair and sat down. “Beverly’s election kind of put the kibosh on my career. It’s hard for the husband of the Speaker of the Assembly to be a lobbyist.” Was I making assumptions, or did I detect the faintest hint of bitterness in his voice? “My last project was keeping a waste processing plant out of Richmond. We made the rich white lawyers and doctors in Walnut Creek smell the poop for once. And the rich white liberals in Berkeley, for that matter.”

  I felt a momentary surge of embarrassment. I was, after all, a white lawyer, and compared to the overwhelming working class and minority population of Richmond, a grim little city north of Oakland, I probably could be considered rich. But then, so could Raymond.

  Lilly and her stepmother saved me from having to write a sizable check for a donation to assuage my liberal guilt. They came into the room, dressed in matching black, boot-cut, lycra yoga pants. Lilly’s tank top was adorned with a picture of Ganesh, the elephant-headed Hindu god of India. Beverly’s was more simple—black with a small embroidered OM in Sanskrit.

  “How was Japan?” I asked after Lilly had greeted me with a hug, and her mother had shaken my hand firmly.

  “Well, it was nice to be out of L.A. It was pretty exhausting, though,” Lilly said. “Next time, I’m taking Saraswathi with me. There isn’t a single decent yoga teacher in all of Tokyo.”

  “She’s really quite wonderful,” Beverly said, stretching her arms up over her head. “I don’t know when I’ve had a workout like that. This is honestly the first time I haven’t had a sore neck in ages.” Beverly was small and stocky, with a helmet of evenly colored brown hair. Her shoulders were broad for her size, and her waist a bit thick. But she carried her weight well. She was a woman who had probably been pudgy and plain when she was younger, but middle age had leant her a kind of stout handsomeness. She looked strong and capable. And she was.

  Raymond got up from his seat and squeezed his wife’s shoulders. “She carries all her tension right here,” he said. Beverly shook his hands away with a jerk. I looked at her, startled, and saw the ball of her jaw pulsing. She was gritting her teeth. Raymond sat back down in his chair heavily, the very faintest tinge of a blush creeping across his neck. Clearly, all was not happy in that marriage. Had they just had a fight, or was there something more serious happening? Then I recalled the bit in the papers about Raymond and his actress. Was that what she was making him pay for?

  One of the denim-shirted maids came in just then, a huge tray loaded with food balanced on her shoulder. She unloaded platters of cut-up fruit, baskets of scones and muffins, and a covered baking dish. Lilly lifted the top off and announced, “Egg white frittata.” We all waited for Lilly to fill her plate before we helped ourselves to the food. I was curious to see that even Lilly’s parents treated her like a movie star, with a hint of deference that I imagined they would not have exhibited had she been, say, a cosmetologist.

  Sipping coffee and munching on mango slices and cranberry pecan scones, it was difficult to remember that my suspicions of Lilly had been growing stronger. She was so quintessentially herself, cracking jokes, moaning in imitation of her yoga instructor (“ooodianabanda, ooodianabanda”), gently teasing her parents about their left-leaning politics. I just couldn’t imagine her coolly shooting Chloe, or paying someone else to do it. But then, neither could I imagine any little girl shooting her mother, so perhaps my inability to conceive my friend guilty of murder had more to do with the failures of my own imagination than anything else.

  About halfway through the meal, Raymond said, “So, Lilly. Have you given any more thought to that business plan I showed you? That social justice venture capital fund is a great idea.”

  “Sorry, Dad. My money guys gave it the thumbs-down.”

  “But . . .”

  “She
said no, Raymond,” Beverly said. “Leave it alone.”

  Her sharp tone cut through the companionable conversation and silenced us. Finally, Lilly broke the tension by telling us a story about Amber and Jade and their campaign for a pet snake. Relieved at the distraction, we all laughed far more hilariously than the actual tale warranted.

  Finally, when breakfast had been reduced to a pile of crumbs and crumpled napkins, I steeled myself to broach the subject of Chloe’s murder. Beverly beat me to it.

  “Lilly tells us that you are helping Jupiter. Tell me what it is exactly that you’re doing,” she said. Beverly had a political reputation as a straight shooter, one of the few people in Sacramento who could be trusted to speak her mind and tell the truth. For that reason, and despite the fact that her politics were well to the left of center—to the left of left, in fact—she had allies and friends on both sides of the aisle. Even the Republicans trusted that, with Beverly Green, what they saw was what they got. If she made a promise, she’d follow through. If she reconsidered a position, she’d announce that she’d been wrong, publicly and honestly. Lilly had obviously learned her sense of humor at her stepmother’s side. Beverly had a famously caustic wit, tempered by genuine warmth and concern for friends and strangers alike.

  I briefly described the process of mitigation investigation to Lilly’s parents, and then said, “While the victim’s character isn’t ordinarily relevant in the trial, in this particular circumstance . . .” My voice trailed off. I wasn’t sure what they knew.

  “You can talk freely, Juliet,” Beverly said. “Lilly has told us everything.”

  I glanced at Lilly, and she nodded. I continued. “I think the fact that Chloe was blackmailing Lilly might prove valuable to the defense.”

  Lilly paused, her coffee cup halfway to her mouth. “Did you tell Wasserman?” she whispered.

  “I’m sorry, Lilly. I had to.”

  Beverly reached an arm around her stepdaughter and hugged her reassuringly. “Does he plan to tell people about Lilly? About what happened in Mexico?” Beverly asked.

  Lilly put her coffee cup down on the table with a trembling hand, and it rattled once in its saucer. Her father embraced her from the other side, and the three sat across from me, united.

  “That’s just not acceptable,” Raymond said.

  “There may never be a trial,” I said, although I didn’t really believe it. “It’s possible that the prosecution might hear the story of the blackmail and decide to charge Jupiter with a lesser offense.” I didn’t believe that, either. If anything, they would probably view the blackmail as further evidence of motive for premeditated murder. It would be up to the defense to convince a jury that either Jupiter was innocent or he hadn’t planned to kill anyone, but had rather been swept up in the heat of the moment.

  “You don’t believe that, do you? You think there’s going to be a trial,” Lilly said, her voice small and flat. The sparkle had drained from her eyes, and her skin had lost its luminous glow and was strained tight across her cheekbones. For the first time I wondered if she, like her father, had had surgical assistance in preserving her youth.

  “I don’t know, Lilly. There might be a trial, there might not be,” I said.

  “But if there is, then the whole story would come out. In court. And in the papers.”

  “Probably.”

  “That is simply unacceptable,” Raymond said again, drawing his daughter closer. “You don’t understand what Lilly has been through, how hard she’s worked to overcome the horror of her mother’s death. That would . . . that would devastate her.”

  Beverly turned to me. “Juliet, you’re Lilly’s friend. I expect you to do what you can to prevent her from being exposed. I can trust you, can’t I?”

  I wanted to say yes. I wanted to promise my allegiance. But I couldn’t. “I’m a member of Jupiter’s defense team,” I said. “I have certain ethical obligations to him. But given that, I’ll do whatever I can to protect Lilly.”

  Beverly nodded curtly. She knew that that was the best I could offer. She turned to Lilly. “Sweetie, I don’t want this publicized any more than you do. Not after we’ve worked so hard to protect your privacy all these years. But you will not allow yourself to be devastated. It will be difficult. Your career will certainly suffer. But you’re a strong woman. You’ve accomplished a tremendous amount in therapy. If for some reason we can’t keep this out of the papers, you’ll survive. We’ll be here for you, and you’ll survive.”

  “Yes, Mom,” Lilly whispered.

  “Jupiter says he’s innocent,” I said. “If that’s the case, and if someone else murdered Chloe, then perhaps all this will become entirely irrelevant.” I left unsaid the thought that had surely occurred to them. If Jupiter wasn’t the murderer, and if Lilly had so much to lose, then it was inevitable that she be considered a suspect.

  “If he didn’t do it, then who did?” Raymond asked. “Who do you think might have killed her?”

  “Maybe Lilly wasn’t the only person Chloe was blackmailing. She may well have had a whole roster of victims. I’m doing what I can to find out more about her. I’ve spoken to her mother; I’m planning on tracking down her friends and acquaintances. If there’s someone out there, I’ll find him.” I wasn’t as cocksure as I pretended to be, but Lilly looked so fragile, so damaged. I couldn’t resist the urge to reassure her.

  Beverly squeezed Lilly’s shoulder again, and then let her go. She poured herself a cup of coffee and looked at me. “So, Juliet. Tell us what we can do to help.”

  I smiled uncomfortably. “Well, just so we know that we’ve crossed all our t’s and dotted our i’s. Do you mind telling me what you were doing the day Chloe was murdered?”

  Raymond began to sputter angrily.

  Beverly interrupted his outburst. “What was the date?” she asked.

  I told her.

  “Give me a moment,” she said. She got up from the table. She was back almost immediately, holding an electronic organizer. She tapped at it with the stylus a few times. Then she said, “I had a Northern California Democratic Women’s luncheon at the Fairmont Hotel in San Francisco from noon to two. We left Sacramento at about ten-thirty, as I recall. After the luncheon I did a series of one-on-one meetings with party donors. Those lasted until around close to seven, and we were back in Sacramento by eight-thirty. We ate in the car.”

  “We?” I asked.

  “My aides and I. They never left my side. Well, except for bathroom breaks. But much as I might have liked to do away with that horrible girl, I could not have flown from San Francisco to Los Angeles, murdered Chloe, and flown back while pretending to use the bathroom.”

  I jotted down the information and looked at Raymond. He shrugged his shoulders. “I haven’t the faintest idea where I was. I mean, I was at the Sacramento house. And I probably went for a bike ride. That’s what I usually do.”

  “Do you have a calendar you can check?”

  He shook his head. “I don’t really bother with that. Beverly keeps her calendar, and I have so few appointments that I can remember them without bothering to write them down.”

  We looked at each other uncomfortably. I’m sure they wished as much as I did that Raymond could have accounted for his time. I decided to move on. “One thing it’s critical to find out is how Chloe knew about what happened in San Miguel. I think Polaris was probably the source of the information.”

  Beverly and Raymond looked at each other.

  “Why do you think that?” she asked. “Have you heard something?”

  I narrowed my eyes. Was there something she wasn’t telling me? “No, but he seems the most likely possibility.”

  “I don’t think he would have said anything,” Beverly said.

  “Why not?”

  “Because he swore not to. He took an oath. Whatever we might think of the Church of Cosmological Unity, Polaris is a religious man. He would not have broken his pledge.”

  I raised a skeptical eyebrow, but refr
ained from telling her just how much I trust anybody’s sworn oath. “Who else knew about the shooting?” I asked.

  “You mean besides us and Polaris?” Raymond asked.

  I nodded.

  “The people living in the house at the time. Seth Goldblum, for one.”

  “Seth Goldblum? Do you mean Hyades? Polaris’s assistant?”

  Beverly rolled her eyes. “Those people and their names. Yes, Hyades. Back then he was Seth Goldblum from Parsipanny, New Jersey.”

  “Who else?”

  “Kitty Forest and Angela Williams,” Beverly said. “They were there. But it couldn’t be them.”

  “Why not?”

  “They’re both dead. Kitty died of breast cancer about ten years ago, and Angela was killed in a car accident a few years after we came home from San Miguel. Angela’s son was there, but he was only a few months old at the time of the accident, and only three or so when his mother died.”

  “Was anyone else living in the house?”

  “No, not by then,” Raymond said.

  “That’s not true,” Lilly interrupted.

  We all looked at her. It was the first thing she’d said in a long time.

  “There were other people there,” she said.

  “Who?” Beverly asked, her worry apparent in her voice.

  “The maids. The maids knew.”

  “Of course,” Beverly said. “But they couldn’t have told Chloe. Could they have?”

  Lilly shrugged.

  I turned over a fresh page on the pad on which I’d been taking notes. “What were their names?”

  Lilly squinted and looked up at the ceiling as if the answer to my question might be scribbled next to the light fixture. “Um . . . Juana, I think,” she said. “Yeah, Juana. That sounds right. She was the one who took care of Jupiter and me. There were a couple more. I remember that there was someone who came to cook, and a man who took care of the garden. But I can’t remember any of their names. They weren’t there that much.”

  I was disappointed, but at the same time I thought it was pretty unlikely that Chloe would have met a maid from San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, who happened to know a secret involving Chloe’s husband. It was just too unlikely a coincidence.