‘How long was it before someone came out to you?’
Cindy stared at herself and Lorraine had to repeat the question.
‘I don’t know, it seemed a very long time. Then Juana came out, with Jose just behind her, and she said to me, she said . . .’
For the first time since they had come into the gym Lorraine saw some emotion. ‘She said to me, “Holy Mother, Mrs Nathan, what have you done?”’
Lorraine waited, watching Cindy closely. The girl’s breathing had become irregular, and she was swallowing rapidly. ‘Go on, Cindy. Then what happened?’
‘Jose jumped into the pool, and he said, “She’s shot him! She’s shot him!’” She gulped air into her lungs, her chest heaving. ‘They dragged him to the shallow end. I could see white bone . . . and they couldn’t lift him out.’ She shuddered.
Lorraine tapped her notebook. ‘Go on.’
‘They called the police, I guess.’
Lorraine looked up. ‘But Cindy, you told me you called the police.’
Cindy blinked. ‘Oh, yes, that’s right. I did.’
Lorraine made a note that the call to her office had come in at just after eleven o’clock. If Cindy couldn’t recall contacting the police, maybe she couldn’t remember calling Lorraine either.
Cindy continued, ‘I called Mr Feinstein, because the next thing the garden was full of people and someone brought me some brandy. I was still by the pool, but sitting on one of the wooden chairs, and all I could think of was that he’d been sitting where I was sitting, smoking that cigarette. Then Mr Feinstein said to me, “Cindy, they want to take you into the station to ask you some questions,” and that it would be best if I got dressed.’ Cindy began to twist a strand of her blonde hair through her fingers. ‘I got dressed, I got my purse and my sunglasses, just like I was going out shopping or something, but I didn’t put any make-up on, and then they took me to the station.’
‘Do you recall the name of the officer who questioned you?’
‘No.’
‘Did Mr Feinstein come with you?’
‘No, he came on later.’
‘So you had no lawyer with you?’
‘No, I was on my own.’
Lorraine jotted some notes, then looked up sharply as Cindy began to cry. ‘They said they found my gun, they said I did it, but I kept on saying over and over that I couldn’t have done it, that I wouldn’t have done something that bad even if I said I would.’
Lorraine repeated, ‘“Said I would”?’
‘Well, I told you, I was always threatening him.’ Cindy’s voice steadied a little, and her chin lifted. ‘I was always saying I’d kill him, because he used to get me so mad. He could be so mean to me, I’d get mad as hell. I’d scream and shout and try to hit him, but he would just laugh, and that got me even madder, but I never meant what I said. It was just I was upset.’ She dissolved into real tears again – more at the memory of her anger and humiliation, Lorraine thought, than out of grief at her husband’s death.
‘I need a tissue,’ Cindy said, sniffing, her dark blue mascara beginning to run.
Lorraine crossed to the shower area and headed for one of the toilets to get some tissue. She dragged off a length of paper and hurried back to the gym.
‘I didn’t do it. I wouldn’t kill him, even though he got me madder than hell!’ Cindy mopped her face, then blew her nose. ‘I didn’t kill him, did I? Please tell me I didn’t do it.’
Lorraine bent down to her, in an almost motherly fashion. ‘But you didn’t do it, did you?’
Cindy wiped her face and blew her nose again, her voice a hoarse whisper. ‘I don’t know. You see, it’s all blurred. I mean, I’d know, wouldn’t I? I’d know if I hud done it. That’s what you got to help me with, because I’m all confused.’
Lorraine straightened up. One moment Cindy had given her a detailed description of what she had done leading up to the discovery of the body, the next she was asking if she could have been the one to pull the trigger. It didn’t make sense.
‘You’ve just told me how you found the body, Cindy, so why are you thinking now you might have killed him? ‘
Cindy rocked forward, head in her hands. “Cos I can only remember going to the pool and seeing him in the water. Nothing before that. I do the same thing every day – I mean, I could be just filling in the gaps.’
‘But you said you heard the gunshot?’
‘Yes, I know. I know I said that.’
‘Are you telling me now that you didn’t hear it?’
‘Yes. No, I heard it, I’m not lying to you. I heard that one, but . . .’
‘But what?’
Cindy twisted the damp tissue in her fingers. ‘Maybe it didn’t happen when I think it happened.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘What if I’d done it before?’
‘You’ll have to help me, Cindy, I can’t follow what you’re saying. How do you mean before?’
‘Earlier.’
Lorraine sighed. ‘You mean before you went to the balcony to sunbathe?’
‘No. I mean the first shot. When I was sleeping. I mean, I could have done it half asleep. Like in an altered state of consciousness – you know, the way people remember past lives, and sometimes they just act them out? I mean, I could have been a murderess or anything. Maybe I just couldn’t help myself.’
Lorraine rolled her eyes as Cindy sprang to her feet, thinking that her client had been watching too many of her husband’s killer-bimbo fantasies. She watched the girl dive at the punch-bag and hit it, her face a mask of anger. Lorraine let her go until she tired herself out and eventually put her arms around the punch-bag, hugging it tightly.
‘Sometimes he didn’t come home,’ she said softly. Lorraine kept silent. ‘Often he stayed out all night, and I knew about the other women. I knew he was never faithful, he always said that to me, said he could never be faithful to one woman and that I’d just have to accept that. The day before I found him, he’d been really mean to me. We argued at breakfast, and then he came down here. I came after him and he was furious, but I wouldn’t go. I said to him that if he carried on this way I’d leave him, and he said he didn’t care what I did and he laughed at me, kept on punching this thing, laughing and ignoring me. So I went and got the gun, and when I came back he was on that weight machine, and I went right up to him and I pointed it at his head, and I said that was the last time he was ever going to laugh at me.’
Lorraine still said nothing, but was interested to note that Cindy was calm now, her mind focused on what she was saying.
‘He looked at me, then he reached out and pulled the gun over so it was almost in his mouth and he told me to fire it.’
‘And?’
Cindy sighed. ‘I did. I pulled the trigger, but it wasn’t loaded.’ She pushed away the punch-bag, which began to swing slowly. ‘He got up from the bench and hit me in the stomach. I fell backwards onto the floor and he kept on coming towards me, but he stepped right over me and walked into the showers. I screamed at him that I would get him the next time. Next time the gun would be loaded.’ She rubbed her belly. ‘Punched me right in the baby, and it hurt so bad I was sick, but he made me get dressed and go out for dinner at Morton’s, and he told everyone what I’d done, and they all laughed. He kept on fooling around at dinner with this baby zucchini as the gun, shoving it into his mouth, and everyone laughed, and I got so upset I was crying, but I wasn’t going to stay and be made a fool of. So I got up and I shouted it out. I said the next time he wouldn’t live to tell anybody anything because the next time I’d make sure I killed him.’
Cindy went to fetch another Diet Coke. This time she drank it from the can. ‘He didn’t come home. I waited and waited, and it was six o’clock in the morning when he came back. He was in his dressing room, taking his clothes off, when I went in to see him. He just told me to get out, but I wouldn’t. I said he shouldn’t make a fool of me in front of people like he had done, but he just kept on choosing
which shirt he was going to wear, ignoring me again.’
Lorraine waited while Cindy sipped the Coke.
‘I went into the bedroom to get the gun. I meant it, I was going to kill him, and I’d just figured out how to load it, but I couldn’t remember where it was, or if I’d taken it from the gym. I was looking all over the room for it when he strolled in all dressed up and Jose knocked on the door.’ Cindy frowned as she tried to recall the details.
‘Jose said that the car needed to be serviced, and did Harry need it after his breakfast meeting at seven. Harry said he didn’t. He’d had a long, hard night and he’d just sit by the pool reading scripts after his meeting. Then . . . he started laughing and he told Jose that I’d threatened to kill him again and that Jose was his witness that I was a real flake, a psychiatric case. He knows how upset I get about him saying things like that because I’ve had, you know, some problems.’
Lorraine shifted her weight. ‘Problems?’ she said gently.
‘Mmmm, I have these . . . kind of bad days, you know. I get depressed, uptight about things, angry.’
‘Can you go back to what you were saying about when your husband and Jose were talking in the bedroom? What happened then?’
‘Oh, yeah. Well, Harry left. And I went back to bed. I’d had such a bad night I told Juana not to disturb me. I couldn’t sleep, so I got up and went out on the balcony to lie in the sun, and I guess I must have gone to sleep there. I had a nightmare, me shooting Harry, like I’d threatened to do, and something woke me up – well, I think it was me woke myself up because I pulled the trigger. I fired the gun. But I’m sure it was in my dream and then I’m not sure. That’s what terrifies me. Did I do it or was I dreaming?’
‘How long do you think there was between the two shots, or the one shot and what might have been a car backfiring?’
‘Er . . . maybe ten minutes.’
‘About how long does it take to get from the balcony to the pool, Cindy?’
Cindy drew open the sliding door. ‘Oh, four, maybe five minutes, but it would depend on how fast you were moving.’
Lorraine picked up her purse and followed Cindy out. ‘Do you think you’re going to be all right here alone?’
‘If I’m not there’s Jose and Juana, but they don’t like me.’
‘When you said I had to pretend to be a masseuse you seemed worried someone would find out that I was investigating the case.’
‘I am. I don’t want Jose or that bitch Juana to know. I don’t want anyone knowing my business because they all believe I killed Harry, and so they won’t say nice things about me in the court. But if they saw this, maybe they would change their minds.’ Cindy pulled up her top. There was a nightmare bruise across her belly, a virtual imprint of a fist. ‘This is nothin’. He was always knocking me around, just not my face.’
‘Does anyone know he did this to you?’
‘Maybe his ex-wives or his girlfriends – my mother always used to say once a wife-beater always one – but they won’t lift a finger for me, will they? Nor will my mother come to think of it.’ Lorraine lit a cigarette. She asked Cindy for the names of the people who had been at the dinner the night before Nathan was killed, the addresses and names of girlfriends and ex-wives, business associates, anyone who would benefit from his death, anyone who had a grudge against him. Eventually she said, ‘Let’s leave it there for the present, Cindy,’ and got up to go. ‘I’ll start checking some of this stuff out.’
‘Sure.’ Cindy shrugged. ‘But I’ll see you tomorrow anyway, won’t I?’
‘What?’ Lorraine was surprised.
‘Harry’s funeral. The coroner’s office released the body last night. I just called Forest Lawn and told them to take care of everything – they said they’d put a notice in the papers and all that stuff. I’d kind of like it if you came. I mean, my folks aren’t going to be there, and I never liked his that much.’
‘I’d be glad to,’ Lorraine said, thinking that a chance to get a closer look at Harry Nathan’s friends and relatives would be welcome. ‘What time?’
‘Eleven,’ Cindy said. ‘It’s in that fake New England church they have there. Match all his phoney friends.’ She gave a wry smile, but Lorraine saw the flicker of pain in her eyes. She could see too that having become Mrs Nathan III at the age of nineteen hadn’t landed this isolated, mixed-up girl in any bed of roses.
‘Okay,’ Lorraine said. ‘Just one last thing. Can I have access to some of these recordings Harry made?’
Once again it was clear that Cindy was uncomfortable, but she said, ‘Oh, sure. I’ll have Jose send them over.’
‘Couldn’t I have them now?’
‘It might take a while to find them. He kept them in weird places.’
She was evidently preparing the ground for some of the tapes to become conveniently untraceable, Lorraine noted. ‘Didn’t the police ask for them?’ she asked.
‘Well, I didn’t tell them about them. I figured, I pay my taxes, let them do their job!’ Cindy said with another touch of defiance. But then the fight went out of her. ‘Besides, they’re so fucking sure it’s me that they aren’t going to bother listening to ten million hours of Harry talking about all the ginseng he stuck up his ass.’
‘I see,’ Lorraine said evenly. ‘Well, I’d be interested to hear about it, if you could send over any tapes you have. See you tomorrow.’
By the time Lorraine returned to the office, she felt drained and Decker looked at her with his head on one side. ‘Go well, did it?’
Lorraine tossed her purse down. ‘You try interviewing Cindy Nathan. The porch light’s on, but there’s nobody home. She’s not sure that she didn’t do it, because she dreamed that she’d just pulled the trigger when she heard a gunshot, or as she told me repeatedly, it might have been a car backfiring!’
‘What’s your gut feeling?’
Lorraine leaned back in her chair. ‘I don’t think she did it, but I’d better find something fast to prove that she didn’t because, pushed by any decent prosecutor, she’ll admit that she did. She’s that dumb.’
‘Why would someone like Harry Nathan marry such a flake?’
Lorraine sipped her coffee. ‘Because she’s twenty and he was a fifty-year-old guy dyeing his hair and having face-lifts, and she’s got a body like a fourteen-year-old Venus, and an angel’s face. He also had quite a line-up of women as well as Cindy, plus remained friendly with his ex-wife, who still, by the way, runs his art gallery. I’d say Cindy was the classic babe armpiece for a man with a small dick.’
‘Oh, he had one of those, did he?’ Decker said, camp.
‘According to Little Miss Bimbo he did, but she’s having his baby. Not that he seemed all that interested – almost punched it through her backbone. I saw the bruise.’
‘So,’ Decker said, leaning on the doorframe, ‘what’s the next move?’
‘I think she’s hiding something about tapes Nathan made at the house – phone conversations, security videos. She didn’t tell the police and she kind of let it slip to me, but she said she’d send the tapes over. We’ll just have to wait and see what we get.’
Cindy Nathan brought the boxes upstairs from the gym herself and stacked them in the hall. She had listened to some of the conversations again and again, just to hear his voice, but they had agreed a code and stuck to it and there was nothing to make Harry or anyone else suspicious: even the police could have listened to them, if they’d found them. She dialled a cab company, said she wanted some items delivered, and sat down to wait for the driver to come. It would have been easier, of course, to send Jose, but she was sick of Harry’s housekeepers knowing all her comings and goings, the pair of them always watching her. They had been surprised when she had given them the rest of the day off, but within half an hour they had been on their way to Juana’s sister.
When the cab driver showed up, Cindy gave him the boxes of tapes with Lorraine’s address and twenty-five dollars. Good riddance, she thought. Mrs Page was welcom
e to listen to all the rambling rubbish Harry recorded. There was nothing to find.
The videos, though, they were something else – but where the fuck were they? Harry had kept all the recordings together in the safe under the floor in his dressing room but the videotapes, both the ones from the security cameras and the . . . the other ones, were gone. Cindy tried to tell herself that if she couldn’t find them, nobody else was likely to, but the possibility that they might be circulating somewhere out there tormented her.
It was more likely that the tapes had never left the house, she told herself. Harry had just moved them again, the mistrustful, suspicious-minded bastard. She set off for the stairs to have another look in the gym, where there was certainly no visible hiding place for the substantial stack of videos. She deduced he must have had a new cavity let into the floor or the wall.
The noise of Cindy’s tapping on what she considered various likely spots on the walls masked the sound of the doors opening to the pool area. At first she didn’t notice the man’s presence, and for over a minute he watched her in silence before he spoke.
‘Cindy,’ he said, his voice curiously cold and flat.
She froze.
‘Cindy,’ he said again.
‘Jesus, Raymond, you gave me such a fucking scare! Don’t ever do that to me again! How did you get in here?’
In front of her was a tall man with thinning silver-grey hair, and an extraordinarily handsome face. When he began to speak, it became clear that behind the distinguished façade was a vapid, unstable personality. There was only one thing Raymond Vallance could ever have been, and that is what he was: an actor.
‘Through the pool doors. I still have the key to this fairy bower, Rapunzel, remember?’ He had the mannered and over-emphasized diction of the lifelong performer, and shook the key at Cindy before he put it back in his pocket.
‘Well, long time, no see,’ Cindy said, trying to ignore his apparent froideur and assuming a coquettish air as she moved across to him. She made to slide her arms round his waist, but Vallance stepped away immediately. Close to, she could see that he was grey in the face, haggard, as though he hadn’t slept in days, and his clothes were creased and dirty. Not that that was necessarily anything new with Raymond, she thought, but he was clearly in no mood for fun and games.
Cold Heart Page 5