“Come in,” Valerie said.
As soon as they were in her small living room, Amanda collapsed onto her red chair. She began to sob uncontrollably, her body heaving, her voice like a dog barking. There was so much pain in those cries that Valerie was struck, physically, by the force of them. She didn’t know what to do. Any other time she had seen her friend crying, she always knew instinctively to move to her side. But now, she could only watch in horror as Amanda cried with an intensity Valerie had never witnessed, not in anyone. Valerie’s fear grew and grew. She didn’t want to ask what was making Amanda cry so hard. Instead, she wanted to pull Amanda from the chair and shove her out of the house. She wanted to rewind thirteen years and never meet Amanda.
Instead, she marshaled her strength. “Tell me,” she said.
But Amanda couldn’t speak right away. It took a full five minutes for her to control her sobs. She tried to speak a few times through her tears, but she would almost choke on them.
Finally, Amanda stood and moved closer to the couch where Valerie sat. In an awkward attempt at sympathy, Valerie stroked Amanda’s hair.
Amanda’s sobs shuddered to a stop. She lifted the camera and turned it on. It had a small screen on the back about the size of a fist.
There, flickering on the screen was her baby. Layla.
Valerie gasped.
Layla was topless, her full breasts proudly bared to the camera. She wore panties Valerie had never seen. Unlike most of Layla’s clothes, she hadn’t bought them, had never washed them. They were silk. Pink. Hot pink.
Layla was looking into the camera. She giggled. She crooked her finger at the person behind it.
“Come here,” she said, laughing some more, a deep, low sexy laugh. An adult laugh.
The camera shook back and forth as if the person behind it were shaking their head.
Layla threw her head back, still laughing. She lay back on the bed—it had a black leather headboard. The room looked like a hotel room. And then she began to stroke herself between the legs over the pink underwear. The panties had only thin strings at the side and a tiny triangle to cover her pubic hair. Layla moaned as she made this action.
Valerie’s hands flew to her face, horrified. “Turn that off!”
She heard Amanda clicking a button on the camera. The sound died away. She pulled her hands back and saw the screen was black. “Where did you get that?” she demanded.
Amanda just stared at her.
“Where did you get that?”
“It’s Zavy’s.”
Valerie felt her forehead crinkling with confusion. “What do you mean?”
“I went to his office. I wanted to just drop in and see what he did in there. I almost never go there, but since you told me…you know…”
Valerie nodded.
“Since you told me about that night at the party, it’s been on my mind. And I guess I was suspicious. Was he really at the office when he said he was?” Amanda coughed up some tears, a strangled sound coming from her mouth. “Well, he was there,” she said bitterly. “I found him masturbating to this video. I left before he knew I was there, then I snuck back into his office when he went to the gym and took the camera.”
Valerie leaped from the couch, her arm pointing to Amanda. “Didn’t I tell you?” She shook her finger at Amanda’s face. “Didn’t I tell you? Zavy’s sick. Where did he even get this tape of her? He stole it. That’s clear.” Without a reply, Amanda pushed the Play button on the video camera. There was Layla, still lying back, stoking herself.
“C’mere,” Layla said to the camera.
The camera shook back and forth again.
Layla lifted her head up and looked at the camera with a sultry gaze. “If you don’t come here, I’ll stop.” Pointedly, she took the hand that had been touching herself and ran her fingers through her hair—long and tousled and gorgeous. She made a show then of putting that hand down on the bed. One side of her mouth lifted in a suggestive smirk, and she shrugged.
The sound of a man’s groan could be heard. The camera was placed on something stationary and then a man entered the camera shot. Zavy.
Valerie gasped and her hands flew to cover her mouth. She wanted to cover her eyes, but she couldn’t look away.
Zavy was dressed in jeans and a pastel polo shirt. He nudged Layla with his knee in a familiar way, and she scooted toward the middle of the bed. He sank onto it with her. He stroked her hair, then her jawline. He drew a finger along her bottom lip. She opened her lips farther, then closed them over his finger, sucking on it, looking into his eyes.
He took his finger from her mouth and ran it over one of her nipples. It was Layla who groaned then. He touched the other nipple, then drew a line down her taut stomach muscles.
When his hand reached her pelvis, he stopped, then drew a finger back and forth at the top of her panties. He stopped again. She groaned. Finally, he began to stroke Layla between her legs.
“Do you want me to do it to you?” he said, his voice low and grumbling.
“God, yes,” Layla said.
Amanda paused the camera.
“Do they have sex?” Valerie whispered.
Amanda nodded, her jaw working back and forth as if she was grinding her teeth down to mere sand.
“He drugged her,” Valerie said.
Amanda shook her head, the muscles of her neck stiff cords. “You saw her. She wasn’t high. It was consensual. They both wanted it.”
“That’s impossible.”
Amanda shot her a dismissive look. “I’ve watched the whole thing, Valerie. They’re both very sober, and very into each other. He cheated on me. He cheated on me. With Layla!” In silence, Valerie stared at her friend, horrified.
Amanda began to cry once more. They were angry tears, her face flushing red. “I can’t fucking believe that he did this.”
“He took advantage of her. She’s just a young girl.”
Amanda’s eyes flashed at her. “She’s eighteen, Valerie. She’s an adult, whether you like it or not. And she knows what she’s doing. If you want to see just how much she knows what she’s doing, let’s look at the rest of this tape.”
She made a movement toward the On button again, but Valerie stopped her with a harsh, “No!”
More silence, then Amanda spoke in a flat voice. “He’s been grooming Tessa.”
“What do you mean?”
“When we met, I fell in love with him because he was so passionate about my children. And now I see, that was exactly what he was passionate about. Not me, not me at all.”
Valerie recoiled. “Do you think he did something to Layla when she was younger?”
“No.” Amanda gave a harsh laugh. “I think he likes them older than that. He’s always talked about how it’s so beautiful when girls start to become women. He said he loved teenagers. He ‘got them,’ that’s what he said. And I knew what he meant. Kids that age always responded to him. And the girls always flirted with him, and it seemed innocent. But he’s always buying Tessa and Brit so many gifts. So many. Like he’s wooing them. And he talks to them all the time about how they’ll soon have to be adults and learn how to make their own decisions….” A flailing expression took over her eyes. “I don’t know how to explain it, but it’s like…it’s like he’s with me because of them. It’s like he’s been waiting.”
“Oh, God,” Valerie said.
“I keep thinking of all these other things now—he’s been talking about colleges for Tessa, and the schools are always far away from Chicago. He talks about how she should get an apartment rather than live in a dorm. He says he’ll visit her often because he has to travel to these places for business. So she wouldn’t be lonely. That’s what he told her. I thought it was so sweet that he was reassuring her, but now I see what he was doing.”
Valerie thought of something. “Remember how he was with Layla in high school? All those gifts he bought her?”
Amanda gave a single nod in grim recognition.
Zav
y had bought Layla so many things—an Xbox, a $500 crocodile purse she wanted, pink broadcast-quality headphones. It made Valerie uncomfortable, but only because she couldn’t buy such things on her own, and so she let him keep doing it.
“And when Layla went to college, she changed,” Valerie said. “I could tell she was in love. She said she had a boyfriend who was older. I thought she meant a junior or something! But that must be when she and Zavy started. She’s been so happy.” She shuddered with disgust. “She wouldn’t let me meet him. It turns out I’ve known him the whole time.”
“Jesus!” Amanda said. “He was waiting for her. Just like he’s waiting for Tessa and Brit.”
“Are you sure he hasn’t…done anything to them yet?”
“I’ve asked them in oblique ways, and they said no. And my girls don’t know how to lie to me. I know every little fib they tell, and they’re not lying now.”
Valerie felt some relief at that, but it couldn’t cool the heat in her stomach, as if her insides were tinged with acid, curling and churning. She put her head in her hands. She felt as if she had lost Layla, as if her little girl was gone forever. She hadn’t even experienced that feeling when she’d taken Layla to college that fall. She’d known Layla wasn’t a child anymore, but she always felt there was some sweetness to her, some innocence. And now it appeared that innocence was gone. Taken by Zavy.
79
“So you decided to kill him,” I said.
Valerie looked at me. “Do you understand why? It felt like there was no other option. Layla was of age. Even the earliest we could tell that he’d been with her, when she was first at college, she was eighteen.”
“Age of consent in Illinois is seventeen,” Maggie said.
“Exactly, so we couldn’t press charges. And I didn’t want anyone to know about them. It would have ruined Layla if it became public knowledge. That stuff stays with you forever and taints you, and it taints how people look at you. I know because of what I went through with my father being arrested.”
“But this is different,” I said. “No one would have been arrested.”
“But if people found out, it would be scandalous. More importantly, if Amanda tried to get a divorce, she knew he would fight her. So she would have to tell the court her beliefs about him grooming the girls, but how could she prove it? She checked with her kids, got them to see a psychiatrist and she was right—nothing had been done to them yet, so there would be no evidence at all to show the court. He really hadn’t done anything to them but treat them well. He was waiting for them to turn of age, just like he did with Layla. Amanda didn’t want to hide, to pick up and move and run from him.”
“A hell of a situation. So how did you decide to use Propranolol?”
“Amanda read about a doctor who had committed suicide with a massive dose of Propranolol.”
“And she already had a prescription.”
Valerie nodded. “She didn’t take it that often, so she had quite a lot.”
“So you mixed two different batches of Mexican food? Just like they said at trial? One had the Propranolol in it and the other didn’t?”
Valerie nodded.
“Zavy was supposed to eat the one without spice.” Valerie nodded. “The one with the Propranolol. Zavy didn’t like spicy food. Amanda was always making two batches of everything and she would mark the spicy one with a garnish. When we cooked the mole, we marked the spicy with sliced onion on top.”
“So Amanda would know to eat that.”
“And Zavy would eat the one that was laced,” Maggie said.
Valerie nodded. “He never, ever tried the spicy food she made. We thought it would work perfectly.” Tears streaked down her cheek.
“And Zavy figured it out?”
Valerie’s mouth set itself in an angry straight line, although the tears made crystalline tracks from her eyes. “Yes. I’ve played it back over and over. I remember when he came in, and he saw me with the Propranolol. We’d just crushed it. Amanda said she was feeling guilty, starting to change her mind, so I told her to leave. I would put the drug in the food.”
“But he saw you?” I asked.
“Yes. He came in when I was putting the last of it into the dish. I can remember it perfectly. When he walked in, I was feeling guilty then. He was standing right there. And I was about to kill him. I wondered if that was how my father felt before he killed Marilee.”
“What did Zavy do?”
“He saw my emotion. I could tell. He sat down. He never did that when we were cooking before. Said he wanted to watch us, to learn. He asked me about what the blue powder was that I’d just put into the one dish. He pointed at it.”
“You lied and said it was blue cornmeal.”
She nodded. “Amanda nearly freaked out when she came back to the kitchen and saw him. He watched us for a while, talked to us. He asked us how we spiced up Amanda’s dish, said maybe he would start trying spicy food someday. We all laughed at that. We were so incredibly nervous. But then everything seemed okay. We talked about other things, we kept cooking and he left. By then we thought it had been us who were being suspicious, being strange. We were relieved we were getting away with it.”
“So when did he switch the dishes?”
“When he came home later, that’s what I figure. He moved the onions on the one that was clean and added the spice, just like we had told him.” She laughed bitterly. “So stupid. We underestimated him.” She made a choking sound now, as if fighting a sob. “Amanda ate the contaminated one.”
Maggie and I looked at each other. Maggie took a deep breath. “Valerie, I hate to say this, but there are two other possibilities. The first is that you incorrectly laced the wrong dish.”
“No, I wish. I wish it had been a mistake. Right after Amanda died, I thought maybe I had screwed it up, put the drug in the wrong dish, but I know I didn’t. We were very, very strict about it when we cooked that day. We’d been over it a million times. We kept the batches away from each other the whole time. And when Zavy left, we finished cooking in exactly the strict way we’d designed, keeping the two separated.”
Maggie said nothing, inhaled visibly. “Well, then let’s talk about the other possibility.”
Valerie was silent. I was, too. The air seemed to pulse with intensity, suddenly, as if there was resistance in the air to whatever Maggie was about to say.
“You have to be aware, Valerie, that…” Maggie took another breath. “That your daughter may have killed Amanda.”
80
“Shut up!” Valerie barked, two sharp, succinct, loud syllables.
The intensity in the air had increased. I looked from Maggie to Valerie and back again.
“The motivation is there,” Maggie said softly, as if to contrast her tone from Valerie’s. “Layla and Zavy have been having a relationship, probably her first true adult relationship. Does she love him?”
“Yes,” Valerie said through tight lips. “Very much.”
“Well, then I think this is a possibility we need to consider.”
Valerie sank into her chair. “I’m sorry for yelling. The truth is I considered it myself.” She choked on tears, then seemed to will them away. “I can’t believe I suspected my daughter, but I did.”
“And?” Maggie asked.
“She was at school that afternoon. And after school she was in a music lesson. I’ve confirmed that she was at both. She has, as you would say, a tight alibi.”
“You’re sure.”
“I’m sure.”
Maggie and I said nothing. Finally, I spoke up. “Valerie, you’re telling us the truth, right?” She glared at me, but before she could lash out, I talked fast. “You can’t blame me for asking. You put yourself through a whole murder trial so that no one would know you and Amanda planned Zavy’s death. I know you didn’t want to admit to attempted murder on Zavy, but it seems like more than that, you didn’t want anyone to know about Zavy and Layla.”
“That right.”
&n
bsp; “So you went through it and refused to allow us to call Zavy or her, in order to protect your daughter, so no one would know about her relationship.”
“Yes.”
“But maybe you’re protecting something greater than her reputation.”
Tears streaked down Valerie’s cheeks. Quiet reigned again.
Then Valerie Solara stood and walked from the room.
Minutes went by. Maggie and I stared at each other.
What’s going on here? I asked Mags with my eyes.
No frickin’ clue, came the reply from her own.
At last, Valerie walked back in the room carrying sheets of paper. “Here.” She handed them to Maggie. “I not only spoke to her teachers and music instructor, I got it in writing from them that she was with them, just in case the state did find out and tried to bring Layla into the case.”
Maggie took her time reading the documents. Slowly, she nodded. “These would prove conclusively that Layla was nowhere near the Miller house during that afternoon or early evening.” She looked at Valerie. “I’m sorry. I had to ask.”
“I understand. As I said, I wondered, too.” Maggie handed the documents back to her and she sat.
“Okay,” Maggie said. “Let’s get back to what really happened that afternoon. If Amanda ate the wrong dish, the one that Zavy switched, she would have known it when she started feeling ill,” Maggie said.
“I know.” Another wail. “He must have stopped her from getting help. That’s why she had the bruises on her wrists. He was holding her down, stopping her from leaving until she died.”
“Why don’t we turn him in?” I asked.
Maggie spoke up. “Because then Valerie would have to confess to attempted murder.”
Valerie nodded. “I can’t do that. I can’t leave Layla without either parent.”
“You ran the risk of leaving her by going to trial on the murder charge,” I said.
“Yes, but I couldn’t let Layla’s relationship with Zavy get out. It would have destroyed her reputation. The media would have been all over the story of two women killing a husband who was sleeping with one of their daughters. She would never be able to outrun the stories.”
Claim of Innocence Page 32