Sins of the Mother

by B K Johnson

  This all made Tommy laugh. She knew her friends were just looking out for her interests, and would never impose their own opinions on her. Nor would they ever cheat on her with her boyfriend. So she didn’t feel rankled at all about their joint onslaught. She would prefer to keep the relationship with Rod a little more private for now. And let nature take its course.

  With that thought, she smiled again at the remembrance of the cop at the window of her car, flashlight intruding into the back seat to show herself all disheveled and obviously naked under Rod’s body. It would be a memory she would enjoy flashing back to when she grew older. Having been an alcoholic who’d done and gotten caught at doing worse, Tommy had very little shame!

  Most importantly, once all the ribbing was done and the women had caught up with each other’s hectic lives, Tommy told them about her decision to go back and question the brunette in the purple Victorian on Webster Street.

  “I’m shocked,” exclaimed Trish, “that you don’t know who that brunette is. She is quite a vocal force in the lesbian community, named Michaela Kahn. The rambling purple Victorian is famous for being the city’s most visible lesbian headquarters.”

  It was reputed that Michaela had slept with almost every lesbian in the city and she could martial up a cadre of willing protesters any time some politico jeopardized an important issue affecting gay-lesbian rights. She was bi-sexual but primarily enjoyed being exclusively with a woman, or joining in a ménage a trios with another woman and a man. The striking, educated and articulate Jewess was a formidable opponent, and had caused more than one political homophobe to change his self-righteous stance against homosexuality in order to be elected in San Francisco politics. Michaela and Trish were acquaintances, and Trish respected her so much she’d offered to hold a fundraiser for Michaela any time she decided to run for office.

  The light bulb finally glared fully in Tommy’s eyes, and she realized that this Michaela had to be the woman with whom the Gages had their threesome. After all, how many bisexual Michaelas could there be in San Francisco who lived in the Gage neighborhood and whom Samantha had visited? So, after bidding her wonderful friends adieu, it was no surprise to Tommy that her Jetta just seemed to drive itself to the Pacific Heights area, slowing down as it passed the Gage mansion, and then taking the right onto Webster and down the street. The Jetta found parking all by itself, right across the street from the purple Victorian. It was still only 11:00 a.m. on Sunday morning, and there was no paucity of parking spaces today.

  Tommy walked up the steps to the rambling home, and looked into the bay window whose curtains were draped to the side today. She had barely rung the chime doorbell when the handsome Michaela answered the door herself, clothed in a rich, purple brocade dressing gown. Tommy introduced herself, gave Michaela one of her cards, and explained that she was there to ask Michaela some questions about Samantha. Tommy punted, and told Michaela directly that she knew the two had been friends and lovers, and she really wanted Michaela’s help in trying to find Samantha’s killer.

  Michaela harrumphed, and said, “Well, of course, it’s Geoff, isn’t it?” Nevertheless, she ushered Tommy into her anteroom and took her coat, hanging it on an antique coat rack just inside the doorway.

  Michaela strode purposefully into a parlor, gesturing for Tommy to take a seat in the plush white velveteen loveseat. She rang a bell and a Mexican maid entered the room quietly within minutes, withdrawing shortly after Michaela requested tea. Although tea was offered to Tommy, she declined. The marble fireplace was glowing brightly with real logs that smelled to Tommy like Lake Tahoe campfires. The room was comfortably warm and impressively stylish. A magnificent oil portrait hung over the mantle. It could have been of no other person than Michaela some 10 years before.

  Her dark brown hair was done up in a chignon high upon her head, her bangs swept back to show her broad and intelligent forehead. Long tendrils of hair hung over the smooth white shoulders, with full breasts swelling up over the décolletage of a deep blue velvet gown. Bright, full red lips were played back in a come-hither smile, and vivid, dark eyes glistened vibrantly over the straight, proud nose. High cheekbones accentuated the royalty that was this woman. She did not appear haughty, just goddess-like.

  Tommy had not realized she had been staring at the portrait for so long that not a word had been spoken. Maria Luisa, for that was the maid’s name, had already returned with the silver tea set and was pouring tea for the two women before Tommy found her voice.

  “Your portrait is amazing and captures your very essence. The artist must have known you well,” she theorized.

  “Yes, as well he should have. Bernhard Kahn was my husband for some years before he painted that. It was one of his last portraits before he died, poor man.”

  “How long were you married, Ms. Kahn?” queried Tommy.

  “Long enough to bear a child and find out that men were not sexually pleasing to me,” chuckled the doyenne.

  “Now, please, tell me all you can about Samantha and why you think Geoff is the person who murdered her in their bed,” requested Tommy.

  For the next two hours over tea and ladyfingers, Michaela regaled Tommy with Samantha’s exploits. She assured Tommy that there just wasn’t any way that Geoff had not known that Samantha was having at least one serious lesbian relationships. “I know this from experience, you see,” advised Michaela.

  “Yes,” replied Tommy. “You are the Michaela referred to in Samantha’s court documents and deposition testimony as the ‘other woman’ in the threesome the Gages enjoyed.”

  “What you don’t know, my dear,” patronized Michaela, “is that Geoff could see for himself just how much more Samantha enjoyed my attentions than his, and how she was fully into pleasing me as well. He really was more a voyeur to our lovemaking, so why should he plead ignorance of her sexual proclivities? I personally think he just tired of it, and decided she wasn’t going to fritter away any more of his millions on dalliances with girls.”

  “Does he not have any redeeming social value, then?” Tommy asked.

  “Sweetheart, I may prefer a woman in my bed, but I am charmed by many men, and for some years Geoffrey was my preferred male companion when his former wife allowed him to escort me. I could certainly see how Samantha would fall victim to his gallantry, and how he would believe, somewhat naively, that he could make her happy. That doesn’t negate, however, that a man scorned is twice as venomous as a woman rejected.”

  Right at that moment someone came rushing down the stairs, crying plaintively, “Mummy, Mummy.” The voice sounded like a teenager’s to Tommy’s ears, and she wasn’t far off. For into the room ran a weeping Daniella.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  Tommy could not have been more surprised to see Daniella in this home, much less hear her call Michaela “Mummy.” Even though she was not wearing the spiky black wig she’d had on when she’d met Daniella and Gina’s, she turned her face away from the embracing mother and child. Fortunately, Daniella kept her face pressed to Michaela’s neck while she wept. Michaela told Tommy that her daughter was too distressed over Samantha’s murder, and had to stay with her while she mourned the loss of her lover. Michaela apologized to Tommy for the outburst, and gently coaxed her distraught daughter from the room.

  While listening to the comforting noises Michaela was making while she led Daniella back up the stairs, Tommy rose from the sumptuous loveseat and went straight to the mantle of the fireplace to check out the photographs ensconced thereon. On either side of the magnificent portrait of Michaela were two pictures, one of which was on the right side and an obvious, posed senior picture of Daniella. She was as spunky and bright in the photograph as she had been when Tommy had first seen her with Samantha in Sausalito. On the left was another posed photo, this one of a family of three – Daniella, Michaela and a very handsome older Arian gentleman. Tommy lifted the family picture from the mantle and looked at it so intently that she did not hear Michaela’s quiet return to the room.<
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  She was startled when Michaela pronounced, “That is a family photo of myself, my daughter Daniella, and my late husband, Bernard Kahn. As you could probably see in the few moments my daughter joined us, she took after him genetically, with her blond hair and blue eyes. I know those traits aren’t supposed to be dominant, but there you have it. Life is so interesting, as is what we pass on to it.”

  Tommy returned the photo to its place of honor on the mantle and apologized. “I had no idea that you’d actually had a child with Mr. Kahn, much less that she favored his looks. Not one person in the research I’ve done on you has mentioned a child. I’m sure she is quite lovely when she isn’t so histrionic. What upset her so? Is it all to do with Samantha?”

  “Well, I may as well tell you now, as I’m sure you will discover it while you continue to “research” me, as you call it.” Michaela sighed affectedly and explained to Tommy over the next hour and two more cups of Darjeeling how she and Bernard had separated but remained friends several years’ back. Because he was an artist and worked from home, and Michaela’s time-consuming political involvement left her little time for child rearing, their daughter Daniella moved to Sausalito with him.

  “I also seemed to have little ability to raise a child effectively,” admitted Michaela. “I was constantly afraid my daughter would discover my sexuality and scorn me for it. Furthermore, I wanted to be her friend, not her mother. All of the time we spent together over the years was adventurous and exciting, rather than domestic. I never did learn how to set limits or discipline Daniella, and always gave in to her every whim.”

  “When her father died a few years before she graduated from high school,” continued Michaela, “we tried living together for a while, but it just couldn’t work. I’d get exasperated at her unwillingness to behave, and she’d rebel against every tactic I employed to get her to mature gracefully. Our relationship was so fraught with anxiety and argument most of the time, we finally agreed that she would go back to live in her father’s home on the bay.”

  “Did she live there by herself?” queried Tommy.

  “Oh, heavens no,” responded Michaela. “Maria Luisa acted as her guardian as well as her housekeeper, and she did the very best she could to see that Daniella attended school and kept fairly normal hours. I kept in touch with Maria Luisa on a daily basis and saw Daniella every other weekend, either here or there, so it wasn’t as if I washed my hands completely of her upbringing. Truly, although I had chosen a life of female companionship, I wanted my daughter to have the freedom to discover her own sexuality without my example constantly flaunting itself before her.”

  “It sounds very noble,” snorted Tommy sarcastically.

  “I would have given my eye teeth to have the opportunity to raise my daughter,” Michaela stated pointedly. “Oh, I know all about your sad loss and subsequent fall from grace, my dear,” she proffered. “There isn’t much that goes on in this city that I don’t follow, and your story was quite the talk of the town for some time, especially with your ex being so well-known in my own circles. This is the first time I’ve had the displeasure to meet you, however. I really don’t like condescending, patronizing homophobes.”

  “I’m hardly a homophobe,” Tommy said, defending herself while pacing the spacious parlor.

  “Oh, don’t tell me you have lots of friends who are gay or lesbian,” interrupted Michaela. “It is so dreary to hear the same old lines from women who are too afraid of liberating themselves from male dominance.”

  “You are misguided and wrong,” responded Tommy. “I am hardly a subjugated, retiring little woman, and certainly wasn’t even while married to Robert. I really find it more preferable to be intimate with the opposite sex, and for some reason I can’t put my finger on, you seem threatened by any woman who is heterosexual. Why you have to demean us for not making the same choice you have is beyond me.”

  Michaela calmed herself and made her excuses to Tommy for taking offense, but explained that as far as she was concerned, homosexuality was often not a choice, but a genetic trait just as much as brown or blonde hair, and brown or blue eyes were. “I fervently believe that no one can really discover their own true sexuality without experiencing all of the choices,” commented Michaela. “I myself would never have learned that I am bisexual if I hadn’t experienced the occasional ménage a trois while still married to Bernard. And I have several friends who maintain bisexual relationships as a result of opening themselves up to a sexual awareness that most people refuse to embrace.”

  Tommy, for her part, recognized that by allowing their conversation to deteriorate into name-calling and accusations, she was closing off any opportunity she might have to learn more about Samantha and who could have murdered her. And that was the whole purpose for which she had come, wasn’t it? She regained her composure and seated herself once more in the loveseat, spending the next several minutes of her time with Michaela in compiling a list of Samantha’s other closest friends and lovers, and anyone who might have held a grudge against her, including Geoff’s former wife, Alexa.

  As far as Michaela was aware, Alexa had been quite upset to have been cast off by Geoff in favor of the younger, more delicious Samantha. But that had been several years before, and she’d multiplied her alimony payments and community property assets from the divorce many times over. She was now quite a wealthy woman in her own right. Although never remarried, she was in a very happy relationship with her accountant, a handsome man 10 years her junior. Michaela remained convinced that Geoff had to be the guilty party.

  Tommy timed her last few questions to coincide with her departure. She pushed herself up from the loveseat, returned to the mantle, and picked up Daniella’s senior picture. Gesturing with it, she dropped her bombshell and suggested, “You don’t think your daughter got fed up with Samantha’s decision to continue in her marriage with Geoff rather than live openly with Daniella as her lover, do you? Does she know how to use a gun?”

  Rather than protesting that she knew nothing of the relationship between Daniella and Samantha, Michaela stormed over to Tommy and ripped the photograph from her. Placing in with her own trembling hands back upon the mantel, Michaela objected, “That is none of your affair, bitch. My daughter is only 19 years old, and Samantha was a 29-year old married woman who experimented in pleasure with other like-minded adults. . There is no way in hell that I would allow Daniella to be manipulated by Samantha for her own needs.”

  Tommy walked determinedly past Michaela and said on her way out of the room, “Well, then, perhaps you offed her yourself, Madame.” With that she took her leave rather unceremoniously, glancing back to see a fuming Michaela Kahn still standing by the mantle with her daughter’s picture in her hand.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  Tommy was still mulling over Michaela’s outburst, as she picked up the car phone and dialed Clay Cox’s office. She spoke with his secretary, who set an appointment for her with Geoff and Clay in his office at 4 p.m. that afternoon. Only after arranging the meeting did she retrieve her messages. She was surprised to have two messages from Dave, who seldom called her car phone and usually left messages at her office. She figured his contacting her twice in the same day, and on her car phone, must be indicative of how urgently he wanted reach her.

  The first message was him gushing about his dinner with Loke and how very much he enjoyed her company. He said he was leaving Loke’s now and heading home after having spent the night making love. He sounded ecstatic and overjoyed that he’d at last found the love of his life. The message was a little disjointed, as if he were thinking how to phrase his comments. Tommy knew he was in his BMW and on his cell phone, so she didn’t concern herself. He asked her to call him later that evening. He wanted to talk to her about when she could come to Hawaii and meet his girlfriend. He said he missed Tommy and that he was more than a little disappointed she had not returned his earlier calls.

  In the second message he said he was calling her from his home, and that
he was a little tired from the all night sex session, so would be taking a nap. Tommy smiled to herself thinking about how happy he was to be making that statement, in light of the fact it had been quite a few years since he had fallen in love. She knew he was a very discerning man when it came to the kind of woman who pleased him, and that he was reluctant to become involved sexually unless he felt a commitment was inevitable. He didn’t have any wanderlust or desire to romance the world, he just wanted to find his “perfect mate” so he could settle down. For him to have bedded Loke at this early juncture in their relationship was telling of how smitten he was with her.

  At the same time, Tommy felt so guilty about not having called Dave before now. She knew how much he valued her opinion and frankly she wanted to hear more about his ladylove. His sentences were still a bit stilted, as if he had trouble voicing his feelings. Even though she’d been terribly busy, she knew better than to let such a close friendship languish due to lack of communication, however valid her excuse. If he hadn’t told her to call later after he’d rested, she would have picked up the car phone and dialed him right then, just to let him know how much she really did care. Being burdened by work and family issues were insufficient reasons for her to have avoided chatting with him.

  Resting the receiver back in the car phone cradle, Tommy made a note to herself to call Dave later that evening. She’d call from her office after concluding the meeting with Geoff and Clay. Her next order of business for the day was to make a stop at Gina’s house, whose address she’d obtained from Michaela prior to Daniella’s appearance. Mostly, she wanted to pin Gina down about allowing someone as young as Daniella to frequent a gay bar that served alcohol. But she also hoped that Gina would have some relevant information about the beginning of Samantha’s and Daniella’s affair.