by Mary Kennedy
A long beat passed between us. “You knew him?” I ventured. I spoke softly, not wanting to interrupt the story she seemed so eager to tell me.
“I know quite a bit about him.” She looked directly at me then, and her pale green eyes suddenly blazed with an inner light. She grabbed my hand and squeezed my fingers so tightly, I winced. “You see, Maggie, Guru Sanjay killed my daughter.”
Chapter 12
“He killed her?” I blurted out. This was the last thing in the world I was expecting, and I took a quick breath, my chest tight. A chill snaked up my spine and my pulse ratcheted up a notch. I had to resist the impulse to yank back my hand.
“Well, not physically.” She finally released my fingers from her death grip and gave a dismissive little wave. “In some ways, what he did is even worse, because he killed her spirit, her soul,” she said, her eyes drilling into mine. “Do you know what I mean, Maggie?”
“He harmed her in some way psychologically.” I remembered what Ted had told me about the marathon encounter group session and what an ordeal it had been for her.
“Yes, that’s it. He ruined both our lives, because I’ll never be the same, either. Sometimes I don’t know how I’m going to go on. There are days I can hardly drag myself out of bed.”
Her words ran together and ended in a wrenching sob. Suddenly she reached out, her jeweled hand leaning heavily on the buffet table. The color had suddenly faded from her cheeks, and she’d turned such a deathly shade of white, I was afraid she might pass out.
I grabbed her elbow to steady her. “It’s the heat, Kathryn,” I said tactfully. “Let’s sit down somewhere where we can talk privately.” I motioned toward the umbrella tables set up on the flagstone patio outside the Seabreeze breakfast room. It was secluded, and the lush wall of arborvitae muffled the sounds of the Sanjay-ites who had started some eerie chant in a minor key.
“I don’t know where to start,” she said, settling herself on a black wrought-iron patio chair. A waiter stopped, and I ordered two club sodas with lime.
“Start anywhere,” I prompted her. I knew the important thing was for her to tell the story in her own way and her own time.
“I had such high hopes for Sarah when she first told me about the guru,” she said ruefully. “Sarah was in her first year of college and having a hard time adjusting. I thought it was just the usual adjustment that most kids go through, you know, first time away from home. She’s an only child, and I suppose I’ve been a bit overprotective with her.” She shot me a challenging look, as if daring me to disagree with her.
“It’s normal for mothers to want to protect their children,” I said lightly. “What happened exactly?”
Kathryn drew in a long breath, her green eyes filled with sadness. “She had read one of Sanjay’s silly books, and she was just enthralled by him. I figured it was harmless, the sort of psychobabble that you see everywhere.” I figured this wouldn’t be the right time to tell her I had written a pop-psych book myself. Unlike Sanjay’s tome, it had plummeted to well-deserved obscurity.
She propped her chin on her elbow and fixed her gaze on me. “But then it got out of hand. She seemed almost obsessively devoted to him. She bought all his books and tapes and even had a poster of that loathsome man in her room. As if he were a rock star! Can you imagine such a thing?”
I shrugged. “He seems to attract some pretty devoted followers.” And he certainly loved publicity, I added silently. I noticed that garden was thick with mourners, mostly women, all wearing virginal white dresses. They couldn’t all have attended the conference. Word must have gotten out about the memorial service, because I saw Ted hastily setting up a few more rows of folding chairs, and the catering staff was bringing out more trays of cakes and fruits.
“She went to a weekend retreat on the California coast. It was over her summer vacation from college. It sounded harmless enough, although it did have a rather retro flavor to it. It reminded me of one of those encounter groups, you know, the kind that were popular back in the sixties?” Kathryn gave a sad little smile. “I told Sarah I thought she was wasting her money, but she swore it was just what she needed. She said it would ‘open up her spirit’ and that she would be completely transformed by the experience.”
“What happened?” The server silently placed our club sodas on the table. Kathryn was so caught up in her story, I don’t think she even noticed.
“I’m still not clear on the details.” She blew out a little puff of breath. “Well, for one thing, Sarah is a diabetic; did I tell you that?” I shook my head. “She has juvenile diabetes, type one.”
“That can be serious,” I murmured sympathetically.
“Very serious,” Kathryn said. “She’s what they call a brittle diabetic, and her blood sugar can suddenly plummet with no warning, you know? It can be life-threatening.”
“And they knew all this? The people organizing the meals at the conference?” I immediately thought of liability issues. Had she told them she was a diabetic? Had they provided the proper food for her? Was medical help available on the site? It seemed surprising that such a well-oiled machine as Team Sanjay wouldn’t have explored all those possibilities and taken legal steps to protect themselves.
“She wrote it all out on the form. I insisted she make a copy of the contract before she submitted it with her check.” A smart move, I thought. My instincts had been right about Kathryn—she was definitely someone to be reckoned with.
“And then something happened? She had some sort of medical crisis at this retreat?”
“They deprived her of food and water. Can you imagine? She had taken some diabetic granola bars with her, but they took them away from her, as if they were contraband!” Her eyes blazed at the memory. “And then she and the others were all forced to sit in a circle for hours without moving, without even taking”—she paused delicately—“a bathroom break.”
“Sounds awful.” And dangerous. Especially for someone with health issues.
“It gets even worse,” she said darkly. “After hours of this silly navel-gazing, or soul-searching, or whatever they call it, everyone had to get up on a stage one at a time. The rest of the group would shout at them, taunt them, tell them they were worthless. Verbal abuse. Each person had to just stand there and endure it, until the leader finally decided they ‘got it’ and could step down.”
“What were they supposed to ‘get’? I wonder.”
Kathryn shook her head. “I have no idea. But you see how crazy the whole thing was. Sarah ended up collapsing onstage and being rushed by ambulance to the local hospital; she’s been ill ever since. Both mentally and physically.”
“I’ve read about those groups, but I’ve never been to one.”
“Well, it was very irresponsible, and I called Guru Sanjay to tell him so. Naturally, he has a wall of people around him, and I had to talk to one of his underlings, that dreadful Dobosh woman. She was completely unsympathetic and said there was nothing they could do. She even suggested that my daughter must have had emotional problems to start with, and reminded me that Sarah had signed a liability waiver.”
“So you never had a chance to talk to Sanjay directly?”
She hesitated. “No. I never did.”
I leaned back in my chair then, while Kathryn sipped her club soda. The sunlight was filtering through the banyan trees, and the white jasmine creeping over a wooden trellis was giving off a delicious scent. It would have been a beautiful scene if it hadn’t been completely overrun with those annoying Sanjay-ites.
Olivia Riggs approached me, looking considerably more cheerful than the last time I’d seen her, crying her eyes out in the ladies’ room. “Maggie Walsh? A reporter told me your name. I’m Olivia Riggs. I’m so sorry for the meltdown the other day,” she said in a low voice. “I was just in shock at Sanjay’s death. He was my mentor, and I thought my career was over. I thought my whole life was over.” She shook her head as if trying to dispel negative thoughts.
“No apolog
y necessary. It must have been very difficult for you,” I murmured.
“It was.” She looked glum for a moment, but then her expression brightened. “But something amazing happened. Remember what Sanjay always said—when one door closes, another one opens? That’s exactly what happened for me!” She gave a wide smile. “I met somebody at the Seabreeze who offered me a marketing job with a string of health spas in California. I’ll be based in Laguna Beach and making twice the salary I was making here. Is that lucky or what?”
“I’d say that’s very lucky indeed.”
“Thanks for being so understanding.” Olivia touched my arm and flitted away, looking young and carefree in her flirty cotton sundress. From the depths of despair to Laguna Beach, I thought. Interesting.
I could see Miriam Dobosh fiddling with the microphone on the podium, probably preparing to make some sort of address, and I figured this might be a good time to make my exit. Kathryn and I had exchanged business cards, and there didn’t seem to be any reason to prolong the interview. There were probably more questions I should ask her, but they could wait.
But there was one last thing I had to know.
“Kathryn,” I said slowly, “I’m puzzled about something. Why did you come here today? If Guru Sanjay was the person responsible for harming your daughter, why would you turn up at his memorial service? Surely not to pay your respects?”
I let the question dangle while I pushed my hair out of my face. I could feel a thin sheen of perspiration forming on my temples, and I wished I could look as cool and collected as the woman sitting across from me.
Kathryn drained her club soda and stood up. I was relieved to see that a hint of color had returned to her face. Maybe telling me the story had been cathartic for her, because her expression had brightened, and just for a moment, she seemed almost lighthearted.
“Pay my respects? Oh, you can be damn sure I didn’t come here for that, Maggie.” She tossed her head back and I saw a look of defiance cross her pale green eyes. She leaned across the table, her eyes fixed so intently on mine, I was starting to feel nervous. “I just wanted to make sure that bastard was really dead.”
“Well, butter my butt and call me a biscuit! She really said that?” Vera Mae was bustling around the studio, doing her usual sound checks before the afternoon show. I’d come back to the station early and was munching on a cinnamon bagel (proving once again, you can never have too many carbs!) before checking my notes for the day’s show.
“Kathryn Sinclair really said it, but that doesn’t prove anything, you know. She was speaking metaphorically, and even if she wasn’t, making sure someone’s dead isn’t exactly an admission of guilt.”
“I still think you should call that Martino fellow and tell him to check out her alibi, if she even has one,” Vera Mae said. “It’s a well-known fact that murderers often attend the funerals of their victims.” Vera Mae is a big fan of CSI, Law & Order, and Criminal Minds. “Another thing—it’s a darn shame you didn’t get her comments on tape. Haven’t I been asking you to get batteries for that little recorder you carry around?”
“Guilty as charged,” I agreed. “You’ve asked me about a dozen times. I’m not sure what the Florida law is on taping conversations without permission, and anyway, she didn’t really say anything incriminating.” I finished the last crumbs of the bagel and flipped through my day planner.
The afternoon show was going to be a snooze, I thought, spirits sinking: Cecilia Gregg from the Cypress Grove Horticultural Society on the psychological benefits of gardening. I saw from her bio that her specialty was tubers. I had no idea what a tuber was and had even less desire to hit Google and find out.
My experience with gardening is somewhat limited. When I first moved into the condo, I planted some luscious pink and white begonias in the long wooden box sitting on the edge of the patio. They looked adorable, but the little darlings must have made a suicide pact during the night, because they all were dead by morning. Lark swears they picked up negative vibes from me, but I don’t think that’s possible. I’m thinking they were psychologically unstable from the start and when I transplanted them from their little garden-store pots it pushed them right over the edge.
“Sounds pretty suspicious to me,” Vera Mae continued. “Going to a funeral just to make sure someone’s dead. Besides, it would give you an excuse to call that nice young detective, not that I think you really need one. A young feller like that, single and all, could probably use a home-cooked dinner. If I were thirty years younger, I’d invite him over myself. There’s nothing like a platter of chicken and biscuits to win a guy over, with a mess of greens on the side and a nice blueberry cobbler for dessert.”
“I’ll keep that in mind,” I murmured.
“You young girls never learn,” Vera Mae retorted. “The way to a man’s heart really is through his stomach. Ask any gal over fifty, and she’ll tell you.”
An inner office line buzzed and Vera Mae turned to answer it. She clamped the handset to her ear, listened to a voice on the other end, and frowned. “You don’t say. Well, that’s a fine kettle of fish. All righty, I’ll tell Maggie and we’ll come up with something else. We always do.”
“Bad news?”
“That was Irina. Cecilia has the flu and can’t do the show today. She plumb forgot to cancel,” she said, raising her eyebrows. She was glancing out the big double window that looked out onto the parking lot. It was cracked open at the bottom, and the buzz of cicadas drifted into the studio. “I figure we can always do an open call-in show, or maybe do a repeat of one of your last shows, or . . . Oh, lordie, is that who I think it is?”
Vera Mae broke off suddenly, her voice tripping into an uncharacteristic falter. She wrenched her gaze away from the window and stared at me.
Her eyes were bulging as if she were auditioning for a Wes Craven flick. If this was a slasher movie, this would be the point where Vera Mae would have just learned the terrifying phone calls were coming from inside the house.
“Vera Mae, for heaven’s sake! Who’s out there? What did you see?” For some reason, Vera Mae’s anxiety was infectious. I sat frozen to my chair, heart pounding, a horrible feeling of impending doom spreading over me. Either all those grande lattes with cinnamon had set my nerve endings atwit ter or I was teetering on the edge of a major panic attack.
“Maggie, I don’t know how to tell you this,” she began.
A wild gulp of laughter rose in my throat, and I tamped it down. “Just spit it out, Vera Mae. You’re making me nervous.”
“Brace yourself, Maggie, and take a look outside.” I reluctantly pulled myself out of the chair and walked shakily to the window. “See that woman in the pink halter dress and those big Jackie-O sunglasses? Goshalmighty, I think that’s your momma come to pay us a visit.”
I peered out the window and my heart dropped into my stomach. The platinum hair, the swaying hips, a voluptuous frame delicately balanced on four-inch stiletto sling-backs.
Goshalmighty, I think Vera Mae was right.
Lola was back in town.
Chapter 13
“Kisses, everyone! Kisses!” Lola burst into the studio the way she did everything.
Full throttle.
She leaned in to give a startled Vera Mae an air kiss before enveloping me in a quick hug and love bombing me with a choking cloud of Arpège. Then she folded her fifty-eight-year-old—but still gorgeous—legs into a swivel chair and checked out the studio.
I know the tabloids are fond of saying some celeb or other is a “force of nature,” but in Lola’s case, it is absolutely true. My mother, Lola Walsh, has the style and panache of one of those long-dead heroines of the silver screen. The ones you see late at night on Turner Classic Movies, when it’s just you in your jammies with a pint of Chunky Monkey watching those feisty heroines of yesteryear.
Think Dorothy Lamour, Jane Russell, or even Lola’s icon, Marilyn (Monroe, not Manson).
Everything about Lola is big. Big hair (Clairol Bl
issfully Blonde), big lips (Sally Hansen Lip Plumpers), and a big voice. (“I’m not loud, dahling, I’m projecting, as we theatre folks like to say. As the great director Hal Prince once told me, ‘They have to be able to hear you all the way in the back row of the mezzanine, Lola.’ ”)
Talk about larger than life. Take a Barbie doll’s measurements, calibrate them to human scale—voilà! Lola in the flesh. Her shocking-pink dress, very retro, very seventies, was hugging her body as if it were liquid polymer.
“What brings you to town, Mom?” My mother lives north of Miami and ventures to Cypress Grove only when she feels a compelling need to shop the outlets at Sawgrass Mills. After a tough day of shopping, she sometimes jumps back in the car, heads north on A1A, and spends the night at my condo.
“I have some big auditions coming up, my love, and all my clothes are hopelessly out of date. Well, what I really mean is, they make me look out of date. Positively matronly. I have a new agent now, and Edgar thinks that I need to present a more youthful image.”
A more youthful image. Vera Mae and I exchanged a look. My mother has never come to terms with the fact that she’s “of a certain age,” and her wardrobe is either early Nicole Richie or late-night Lindsay Lohan.
She paused, looking around the studio hopefully, and Vera Mae filled the gap.
“My stars, Lola, if you looked any more youthful, you’d be jail bait. What does this Edgar know, anyway? Is he anyone I’ve heard of?”
Lola wrinkled her nose. Even she knew when a compliment was over the top, although she would certainly give Vera Mae an A for effort. “Edgar Dumont,” she said loftily. “He’s been a theatrical agent for many years and has only recently become involved with film and television. I believe his first client was James Dean.”
“James Dean!” Vera Mae chortled. “That must make him older than Methuselah. Are you sure he’s the right agent for you? And where does he get off telling you that you should look more youthful? He must be pretty long in the tooth himself.”