“You didn’t before?” Natasha asked.
“Not really. I couldn’t figure out what he saw in me; he seemed so grown-up and worldly. I was dazzled, getting to go to nice places, being treated like a princess. He even took me clothes shopping.”
“He was still married then, wasn’t he?”
“Yeah.” Her smile faded for a second.
“Did he tell you he was married?”
She shook her head. “Not at first. I must have asked him sometime because I remember him saying he was divorced. It took a little while for me to figure out that he wasn’t as divorced as all that.”
“Meaning?”
“Well, his wife—Pat—was in the process of divorcing him, but it wasn’t final yet, so he was still married. Later I learned that she filed for divorce after she found out he was dating me.”
“And at some point he proposed to you.”
“Yes.” Another downward glance.
“When was that?”
“Over the holidays—New Year 1987. He and Pat were separated at that point, but he spent Christmas with his kids. Then we drove to LA to spend New Year’s with Linda and… I guess she was with Pete by then. I remember they were interested in buying the house in Silver Lake, but they were short money for the down payment. Greg offered to help them.”
“He was in real estate,” I explained to Natasha.
“Yes. Commercial real estate and developing properties. I never understood any of it,” Sunny said.
“Was that the first time he met your mother?” Natasha asked.
“Yes. When he offered to help them get the house, they became fans of his for life.”
“That’s when he proposed to you?” I asked.
“Yeah. We drove up to the observatory in Griffith Park one day, just the two of us. I remember we took a picnic: sandwiches and drinks from a deli. He must have brought the ring with him, and I think he told Linda ahead of time what his plan was.”
“Why?”
“She never could keep a secret, and she was walking around that whole time kind of smiling and looking at me. She even told me that if he proposed I should totally accept. So I figured at least that he’d been talking to her about it, probably getting her on board as his ally.
“When he asked me to marry him—he literally went down on one knee and offered me the ring—it was actually kind of funny.” She shook her head and smiled. “But I said yes. I adored him at that point, and he seemed to really cherish me.”
“And after that?”
“Let’s see—a couple months later, the lease on my apartment was up, and the landlord wanted to raise the rent. I told Greg that I was going to have to find another place because I couldn’t pay the new rent, and he said, ‘Why not move in with me? We’re engaged, after all.’ So I did.”
“When did you get married?”
“In the spring. May. We got married in Reno.” She gave a small laugh. “I was kind of hoping for something a little more—so Grandpa and Nana and Linda could be there. But Greg didn’t want to. I think his family didn’t approve of what happened with him and Pat and me. But we went to Italy on our honeymoon—Venice, Florence, Rome. It was so romantic! Nana and Grandpa took care of Brittany while we were gone.”
“Greg had you sign a prenup before the wedding, right?” I said.
Another eye-roll. “Oh, Lord, that! I couldn’t believe they used that against me. I remember when his lawyer explained it to me I thought it was really fair. I never felt I had any right to Greg’s money, anyway. He earned it, and in his eyes, what he made was his. But he was always generous to me and Brittany, with money anyway.”
“Did you mind that?” Natasha asked.
“It didn’t occur to me to mind. I was twenty-two and nobody; and he was giving me a life like I’d never had and taking care of Brittany and promising that I’d be provided for if we split up. I didn’t think that would ever happen, but I was grateful. It was his money; I didn’t feel I had any claim to it.
“It’s funny,” she added, including Carey and me in her gaze, “but the idea that I would have killed Greg for his money still makes me angry. If they’d said I’d killed him out of jealousy or because I was tired of being played games with—I mean, I didn’t kill him, but at least those are real reasons. But money—” she shrugged and made a “pfft” sound through pursed lips “—that was the last thing I cared about.”
“You said you thought Greg’s family didn’t approve of his splitting up with Pat and marrying you,” I asked. “Did you see much of them while you were married to Greg?”
“Oh yeah—all the time.”
“How was that?”
“Well, they lived right in the area. The ranch was outside of Harrison. Papa and Mama Ferrante and Bob—Greg’s older brother—and his wife Marlene all lived there; so did Greg’s other brother Tony and his wife. His family were early settlers; they’d had the ranch since the 1870s. Robert— Greg’s dad—was a good businessman, Greg used to say; he planted the land in wine grapes and olives. Anyhow, they had money, and they were pretty influential in local politics. Greg’s brother Tony was on the county board of supervisors for years. They did things for charities and the community college, and they used to entertain a lot, dinners and barbecues on the ranch. The mayor of Harrison would come, and Alan Eldridge, the Congressman from the county, and a state assemblyman, too—I forget his name—and other bigwigs. Greg always wanted to be there, networking, he used to say.”
“Did you get to know his family well?”
“Kind of, over the years. Not at first, I felt really shy. I mean, I knew they’d all known Pat for forever, and I didn’t know how they’d feel about me. And Greg would tell me to be quiet and not talk unless he said so. I’d just kind of sit in a corner with Brittany and the kids and not know what to do.” She hesitated, as if considering whether to say the next thing on her mind. Then, perhaps uncomfortable with silence, she spoke again.
“There were the clothes.” She stopped again, then went on. “I was cute back then, and I had a good figure. Men hit on me. But I didn’t much like it, that kind of attention, and I tried not to encourage it. I was careful what I wore and how I acted. When I was with Troy, I just wanted to be what I was, a married woman. But Greg wanted to show me off. I’d never heard the term ‘trophy wife’ when I met him, but I figured out eventually that that was really what I was to him. He wanted me to dress in a certain way, what he called classy but sexy. He’d pick things for me to wear different places. For barbecues in the summer, he wanted me to wear things like short shorts, and bikinis in the pool. And he’d call me over to sit next to him sometimes while he talked with his men friends, and pat me on the bottom, like ‘see what I’ve got.’ And what that meant was that all the time I was there, men would give me those looks, even the married ones. And the women mostly stayed away. I’d end up playing with the little kids, with Brittany, a lot of the time. That’s how I finally began to make friends; women would come talk to me because their little ones were playing with me and Britt. That’s how I met Carol—Carol Schiavone.”
“Who was Carol?”
“My best friend. She was one of the first people who was nice to me after I married Greg. Her boy, Michael, was about Britt’s age, and we kind of bonded over that and stayed friends afterward. She still visits me here.”
“That’s great,” Natasha said. “Would she mind if we talked to her?”
“I’m sure she wouldn’t. She lives in New Mexico now.” She thought for a moment, then said, “I can’t remember her whole address and phone number. I’ll send them to you.”
“How did the Ferrantes treat you?” Natasha asked.
“Okay, actually. Most of them tried to be welcoming, in their way. Papa was nice; Mama didn’t approve of Greg remarrying. She was Catholic, and really religious. I always had the feeling she kind of tolerated me because she loved Greg, but that was about it. After I was arrested, she completely turned against me. Craig—my lawyer—said sh
e pressured the district attorney to go for the death penalty.”
“Really?” Natasha said. “I thought the Catholic Church was against the death penalty.”
“I guess not. Or maybe she didn’t care.”
“What about the rest of the family? How did they treat you?”
“Like any other family, I guess. But to me it felt like everyone was older than me except the kids, who were all younger, so I didn’t really fit in anywhere. But Aunt Cindy— Tony’s wife—was always sweet, and so was Tony. And so were Bob and Marlene. They tried to make me feel like part of the family.”
“Who were Bob and Marlene, again?” I asked.
“Oh, my,” Sunny said with a laugh. “Bob was Robert Ferrante’s—Papa’s—son, Greg’s brother. Rob was Bob’s son. They were all named Robert, so the family gave them different nicknames, to help tell them apart.”
“A big family tree,” I observed.
Another light laugh. “Oh, yes. It took me years to get everybody sorted out.”
Carey changed the subject. “You said something about jealousy being a motive for killing Greg?”
“If I had killed him. He was unfaithful, a lot. He hurt me, again and again. And in the end there was that girl Carlene who said he was going to leave me and marry her. But by then, I didn’t really care.”
“It sounds like you felt your marriage was just about over at the time he died,” Carey said.
“Yeah, by then.”
“But it wasn’t like that at first.”
“No, not at all. At first, it felt like a fairy tale. Greg didn’t want me working after we were married, so I quit my job and was able to spend time with Brittany. He sold the house we were living in—he said he and Pat each got half as part of the divorce, and neither of them wanted to buy the other one out. We bought a new one—or rather, he bought it. We went together to look at places, but we ended up buying the house he liked. It was the same with the furniture and decorating it; he didn’t like my ideas, he said they were too low-end. He ended up hiring a decorator. I think he was having an affair with her.”
“Why did you think that?” Carey asked.
“Something in the way they interacted, the way he treated me. I wasn’t sure then, I thought I was just being insecure. But when I got to know Greg better and see the patterns in how he behaved, I figured that’s what was going on even back then.”
“Did you confront him?”
Sunny shook her head. “Not then. I didn’t say anything at the time. But I was a little scared—you know, he was married to Pat when we were seeing each other. Later, I got better at seeing the signs, and I started asking. He’d say there was nothing going on and get upset that I’d doubt him. And I’d keep doubting myself, thinking I had no proof, better to just let it go. But after a while there were too many late nights and weekends away, and once or twice he slipped up—I remember when some flowers he sent to one of his girlfriends got delivered to the house by mistake. When I brought it up, he’d get mad, say I was crazy and jealous. Later, when things cooled off between us, he didn’t even bother to deny it; just said he was under a lot of pressure, and he worked his ass off to support me and my shiftless family. And we’d have an argument because I’d say it wasn’t fair, Nana never asked him for any of the things he bought her, and Brittany was in junior high and what was he going to do, send her out to work? And he’d storm off into the night. After a while I just stopped saying anything.”
She lowered her eyes, toward her hands clasped on the table in front of her. “I could smell it on him. He’d come home late and get into bed with that smell all over him. Or sometimes he’d have showered. They think they’re being so smart, but why would a man shower somewhere away from his house in the middle of the night?”
“Did you still love him then?”
“For a long time, yes. But by the end I didn’t feel much. I was just kind of floating along, not sure what was going to happen next. I had no idea what to do. He’d worn me down with criticizing me about so many things over the years; I had no confidence left. I think I was more afraid than anything.”
“Afraid of him?”
She shook her head. “Not him… afraid of how I’d manage if he left me, how I’d be able to take care of Brittany. Not money so much; I knew we had the prenup. But I felt like I had no idea who I was anymore. I had no self-esteem by then; I didn’t feel like I could make any decisions or do anything important on my own. He’d convinced me that I was too stupid. It’s funny—” she looked up, around the room and through the window in the door “—I didn’t really figure out how strong I was until I was here.” She gave a small laugh and shook her head, baffled. “Prison—what a crazy place to find yourself.”
“Was Greg abusive?”
“Physically, do you mean? No,” Sunny said firmly. “Not that way.”
“What do you mean?”
“He never hit me. He had his problems—the women, obviously, and he could be just so self-centered and mean. Not just to me and Brittany; he never got close to his own kids, either. But he wasn’t a monster. He gave us plenty of money and a beautiful house. We traveled, had nice vacations. He was good to my family—he helped Nana after Grandpa died. He’d go himself and do repairs and stuff on her house. Put ceiling fans in the rooms, built her a deck, paid for a new roof and air conditioning. Nana thanked him, but she wouldn’t use the air conditioning. Said it cost too much money, and she’d lived in Central Valley summers all her life. Linda and Pete mooched off him all the time, but he never cut them off. He really wanted to be liked.”
“You said he wasn’t physically abusive—was he in some other way?”
She nodded. “He was, but it took me years to finally realize that’s what it was. I don’t think I really figured it out until I was here. But all the time we were married, he made me feel like nothing. Anything I did was never quite up to his standards. If I cooked for him, he’d always find something wrong with what I’d made. If I put on an outfit to go out, half the time he’d make me change into something else. He’d criticize my hair; it needed cutting, I waited too long to cut it; it needed highlights; it was too straight or it was too frizzy. If we went out with his business friends, he’d tell me afterward that I’d laughed too loud or eaten too fast or said something I shouldn’t have. He’d tell me I didn’t discipline Brittany enough. So I was always doubting myself, wondering if I was good enough to be the wife he needed.”
“That and his cheating—is that what did in your marriage?”
“That’s about the size of it. We just drifted apart. He lost interest in me. He spent more and more time away from home, and I just stayed—went out with my friends, visited family, played tennis.”
“What about Brittany?”
“She was okay until high school. Then she started acting out, cutting school, not coming home on time. She started seeing Todd Betts, hanging out with him and his friends. Sometimes she’d be gone all night. I didn’t know what to do about it, and Greg took no interest at all.”
“And at some point,” I said, “you found out Greg was seeing Carlene Renner.”
She nodded.
“When was that? Do you remember?”
She sighed. “Oh, Lord, I’m not sure now. Maybe just some time early in the year he was killed. He died in May of 2002, not long before our fifteenth anniversary.”
“How did you learn about him and Carlene?”
“Well, Harrison isn’t that big a town. My friends sometimes knew when Greg was fooling around, but they didn’t usually want to say anything, I’d just see it in the way they sometimes looked at me; you know, sometimes you can tell when people are talking about you behind your back. But one woman I knew, Mary Ellen, told me about Carlene because her hairdresser and Carlene’s family were close. I remember she said Carlene was saying Greg was going to divorce me and marry her.”
“How did you feel about that?”
“You know, I felt worse than I thought I would. I actually cried w
hen I got home.”
“Do you know why?”
“I guess, like I said, I was scared. It seems funny, because I wasn’t happy where I was. Also, looking back, I’d always been afraid it would happen. Every time I knew Greg had another girlfriend, I’d wonder if this was it. And this time, I figured it was.”
“Did you say anything to Greg?”
“No, I was afraid to bring it up. I thought if we got into a fight about it, he might really decide to leave me.”
“And he didn’t say anything to you.”
“No. He was even more distant than usual, though, and of course that made me more worried.”
“Did you talk to anyone else about it?”
“Carol. And I called Linda.”
“What did they tell you?”
“Linda was saying, you need to fight for him; don’t let her take him from you. But then she really liked Greg; he won her over early. He charmed her, gave her presents and money when she needed it, and she always took his side when I complained about him. She may have been almost as upset about losing him as I was. Carol said not to worry. She didn’t think Greg really intended to leave. She said getting divorced would be expensive for him, even with the prenup, and she didn’t think he’d really want to marry someone like Carlene. And even if it happened, there were plenty of people around, including her, who’d help me get a new start. That made me feel a little better.”
“But then Brittany found out about it,” I said.
Sunny stiffened a little, and she gave me a guarded look. “She heard about it from someone—I didn’t tell her.”
“How did she react?”
Sunny spoke a little more carefully than she had before. “I don’t know how she felt when she learned about it. She told me what she’d heard, asked me if I knew and what I was going to do, and I said we’d figure it out.” She paused for a second, as if considering whether to go on. “She was angry at Greg. She and Greg never got along. He was always critical of her, and she didn’t like him.”
Next of Kin Page 4
