The Last Guest

by Tess Little

  “Haven’t you got what you wanted?” I shouted. “Can’t you leave her alone?”

  But Lillie was opening her car door, and the jeering cries found their target.

  “Lillie.” “Hey, Lillie.” “Over here.” “How are the cops doing, Lillie?” “Did you kill your daddy?” “D’ya know who did it, Lillie?” “Hey, hey, Lillie.” “Who killed your daddy, Lillie?” “Did you do it?” “Over here.” “Was it your co-stars, Lillie? Was it your godfather?” “Give us a smile.”

  Lillie held her jacket across her face.

  “Go away,” I said. “Leave her alone.”

  This only fueled their sneers.

  “Running to Mommy?” “Mommy looking after you?” “Is Mommy protecting her little murderer?” “Who killed your daddy, Lillie?”

  Then Lillie was pushing past me, and I could shut the men away.

  “Lillie,” I said, as the front door muffled the racket. “I tried to call.”

  “I’m fine,” she was saying. “It’s fine.” Her hands were trembling as she removed her glasses and cap.

  I began, “What they were saying—”

  “They were just baiting me. I don’t listen to it.”

  Lillie lay down on the couch, covered her face with her arm.

  “You should have stayed inside,” she said. “I can deal with it. I’m used to it. They’ll lose interest soon.”

  “You shouldn’t have to deal with it,” I said. “But Scott says there isn’t anything we can do. Maybe a taller fence, if it continues.”

  “I know.” She shrugged. Then said, “This is what I was telling you before. About not wanting to go out. Not wanting Scott with me. Can you imagine if I was photographed with a lawyer?”

  I sat on the arm of the couch.

  “How was it?” I asked. “The questioning.”

  “Fine.”

  “What did they ask you about?”

  “Like I said”—she was slipping off her shoes—“they only wanted to ask about Dad and his filming.”

  “Was it difficult, talking about him?”

  “I told you,” she said. I could hear the exhaustion in her voice. “It was fine. They were more interested in asking about the cast and crew.”

  “The ones at the party?”

  “I guess,” she said, and then sat up. “But, Mom, can we do this another time?”

  She started walking to her room. I followed her.

  “Could you just tell me the kinds of questions they were asking?”

  “I don’t want to talk about it right now.”

  I should have dropped it, but the photographers’ accusations were still gnawing through. “It might be useful, Lillie. For me to know. It might help me remember. Did they ask you about Miguel? And what about the other people at the party—the paparazzi were saying things about Jerry, Tommo. Do you know why—”

  “What is this? Another interrogation?”

  I hung back. Apologized. “I’m sorry. It’s the stress,” I said. “The investigation must be getting to me. Those photographers.”

  “And you don’t think I’m stressed too?”

  “I’m sorry.”

  She opened her bedroom door and said, “You know, it was hard enough going through those questions once.”

  “I’m sorry, Lillie. It’s just that you might know something that could help me, especially after you worked—”

  “That’s right, I worked with those people. How do you think that feels?”

  When I didn’t answer, she went on: “To know that your father was murdered and to know that the only suspects are your friends, your colleagues, your godfather, your mother. To have it thrown in your face by a bunch of middle-aged men hiding behind cameras.

  “How do you think that feels?” she said. “If I knew anything helpful, then I would have told you and I’d have told the police. I don’t want you to go to jail. I don’t want any of you to go to jail, but it had to be—what am I supposed—”

  Lillie turned away from me, caught her breath.

  Then said, in a smaller voice, “I can’t do this now, Mom. Please.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said.

  She closed her door.

  I made myself a coffee and sat with it in silence. No thrum of voices from the road—the swarm had dispersed.

  I felt ugly, contaminated by those men and their taunts. Poor Lillie—to face the police, the paparazzi, and now my questions too.

  This had always been our problem. We kept things to ourselves; we avoided difficult conversations. We compressed them away. But such things have a way of pushing to the surface—and when they pushed their way between Lillie and me, they always burst into confrontation.

  Now she was grieving, I was embroiled in an investigation, and after living apart for more than a year, we were squashed back together. There were always going to be difficulties, arguments, hurt. But I shouldn’t have asked her about the other suspects; it wasn’t the time.

  And yet: When would it be?

  Lillie’s door slammed. She came into the kitchen, red-cheeked.

  “What the fuck, Mom? What the fuck?”

  I froze, my lips hovering over the coffee cup. I had no idea what she was talking about.

  “My room?” she said. “What the fuck?”

  “I thought it would be a nice—”

  “That is not okay. You can’t do that. You can’t just go into my private space.”

  The washing machine in the next room was picking up speed. She shouted over its roar.

  “This is my house,” she said. “This is my private space. And you touched my things? That is not okay.”

  Lillie was about to leave, but she hesitated. When she turned back, she was on the verge of tears. “I thought I’d lost the card from Dad. Don’t do that. Don’t touch my stuff.”

  “I didn’t know,” I said. “I thought it might be helpful. Your sheets…”

  She put her head in her hands. Rubbed her face.

  In her silence, a terrible thought struck—the script, the note from Richard; Lillie’s friends and colleagues.

  “Lillie,” I said, trying to keep my voice composed, “you haven’t been in touch with any of them, have you? Since that night.”

  She said nothing.

  “Lillie?”

  She looked up at me. I could see it in her face.

  “Lillie, who has been contacting you?”

  “All of them,” she said.

  “Did you respond?”

  “Only to one,” she said. “Honey.”

  * * *

  —

  “But what about party scenes? I always think they have so much potential for confrontation, for character development,” said Miguel. “Romances, mistakes, arguments. I’m always saying that. You gotta have a nice party set piece.”

  “Totally,” Kei said. “And every character has something they want to achieve. It’s socially awkward and—”

  “Hey,” said Jerry. “Rude.”

  “My favorites are proms,” Honey offered.

  “Honey.” Sabine giggled. “My treasure. You like the crowns and pretty dresses.”

  I listened to the conversation in the atrium as I picked my way down, relieved my absence had not inspired more gossip. I could not hear Richard behind me, but he would be there, following. I walked faster to put distance between us.

  “Dear god, no.” Tommo pretended to vomit. “Please. What an awful, tacky trope.”

  “I think it’s sweet,” said Honey. “You know, the paper decorations and a wonky corsage. It’s like what Miguel said about parties but amplified by all the teenage melodrama. I love that rite-of-passage stuff.”

  “But is it a trope when it’s a part of life?” Miguel said. “When it’s something people actually ex
perience? The mean girls and jocks and nerds in high school, are they a trope?”

  “American high schools,” Tommo corrected. “We had ruggers and readers.”

  “Is marriage a trope?” said Jerry.

  “No,” said Kei, considering. “But weddings are.”

  “Divorce,” said Richard from the mezzanine. “That’s a trope.”

  “No, dude,” Kei said. “It’s a cliché.”

  “Along,” I called, “with love itself.”

  Tommo laughed, moving toward me to offer a stabilizing hand for the last few steps.

  “Are you okay, darling? You don’t look well at all,” he whispered.

  I nodded, cleared my throat.

  “In that case, can I get you another drink?” He squeezed my arm. “We’ve moved on to a delicious bottle of vodka.”

  I hesitated, with the attention of the room focused on me, and said, “Depends on the mixer.”

  “We don’t do mixers here.” Kei laughed. Then shouted at Tommo: “Pour another round of shots!”

  As I observed the group, wondering whom to position myself beside, I caught Charlie studying me, as though measuring whether I was worth conversation. When he saw that I was looking, he quickly turned away, began to talk with Honey. My irrelevance must have appeared contagious.

  “Brought the vodka with me.” Miguel had wormed his way next to me. “You’ve seen this brand before? Pretty cool, right? It’s Crystal Head. Additive-free. So, listen, I’ve been thinking about what we discussed earlier, and I’m sorry, I just can’t let it go. You just have to get back out there. I was telling Nicole at Brian’s house last weekend—you know Brian, right?—about this problem we have with casting older women, and she was like, Miguel, honey…”

  As Richard came down the stairs, Sabine skipped up to him. I watched her place her hands around my ex-husband’s neck, watched them slide down the length of his body. The others were taking turns with the shots—shrieking like teenagers. Kei poured the vodka straight from the skull-shaped bottle into Jerry’s open mouth.

  “…but I don’t think Matt’s right for the role. What would you say?” Miguel continued. “I mean, when you think about the character’s motivation. He’s just lost his job, he’s…”

  “A birthday dance?” Richard said. “I’m a lucky boy.”

  Sabine flipped her hair, slipped a hand into his pocket. I could see her fingers moving beneath the fabric. Miguel was still blathering on, the others were throwing back glasses—had none of them noticed? Sabine giggled, swaying her hips back and forth. And then she pulled out the remote.

  “Hey.” Miguel hit the back of his hand, a little too hard, on my arm. “Thought I lost you for a second there! So anyway, I call up Bruce…”

  “Devious,” called Richard. “Minx, harlot!”

  She was running away from him, cackling, thumb stabbing the volume button. The beats drowned his insults.

  “…and it was a DUI, you know, so he couldn’t shake it.” Miguel raised his voice. “Anyway, that’s the funny thing, he came by my house the night before. But then his wife, who’s a jewelry designer…”

  Honey turned from the liquor cabinet, wiping his mouth, and reached for Sabine’s hands. She kicked off each Louboutin—a flash of red sole—as he pulled her onto the coffee table. Her naked tiptoes tapped a perfect rhythm on the marble. His hands rested on her hips.

  “Elspeth?” said Miguel. “You want one?”

  Kei was holding out a shot glass.

  I should have left then. I could have kissed Tommo and Jerry goodbye and called myself a cab, escaped—far from strange Sedgwick with its shifting floors and haunted name, far from the silent creature, the troubled guests. I could have slipped my fate: the wet “O” of the mouth, the stare of the eyes, the stench of vomit.

  “Well?” asked Kei.

  The music pounded. I hesitated. Saw Richard step onto the table, between his darlings. Took the glass, bit back the cold spirit, returned it to Kei for another measure.

  Many times throughout the investigation—piecing together the events of that night—I recalled this moment, wondering why, after Richard’s ambush in the hallway, I had accepted the glass. Perhaps I was drunk already, to have thrown back the vodka without thought. Perhaps it was fury or hatred; insouciance or fear. Then three shots were finished and I was pushing off my shoes as Tommo pulled me into the throng.

  * * *

  —

  “Honey found an envelope in Dad’s desk,” Lillie said. “It was labeled In the Unlikely Event. Dad’s will, those kinds of documents. But also instructions for his memorial. Food, music. Guest list, speeches. So then he messaged me—”

  “When?”

  “A day or two after Dad died, that’s when Honey texted about the memorial. But I didn’t really reply until he started calling.”

  My heart lurched. “He called you?”

  “Yeah, and then he came to see me. The day that the cops told him what had happened.”

  That was right: She’d known before I’d told her. But I had never questioned how.

  I frowned. “He told you that? That was Honey I saw driving away from your house that day?”

  “He was distraught,” she explained. “He just wanted…He thought I was the only person who’d understand. And I did, he was right. I couldn’t have gotten through any of this without Honey.”

  “Don’t you find it suspicious? That he reached out right after your father’s death?”

  “We need each other,” she said. “He’s the only one who understands what I’m going through.”

  “But he’s a suspect, Lillie.”

  “I know, I know, I just don’t think he—”

  “Can you trust him? I mean, how long had your father and Honey been back together before the night of Richard’s death? If they had broken up before, if things had been bad between them before, don’t you think there’s a chance—”

  “Do you?” Lillie said. “Do you think he could have done it?”

  I didn’t think he had done it. I had seen him unconscious, hadn’t I? But that was just one paper-thin memory. Would I bet my daughter’s safety on that memory?

  “Do you honestly think he could have done it?” Lillie repeated. “You saw them together that night. Tell me.”

  When I didn’t reply, she went on, “Honey loves Dad. They were fine, they’d— I don’t know exactly what happened between them, I don’t know why Dad forgave Honey, but he did. And if Dad could forgive him, then…”

  I knew she wanted to believe Honey couldn’t have done it. I knew she was trying to convince herself.

  After a few moments I spoke—deliberately, without anger. “How many times have you seen him? Was that it? The day he told you about the investigation?”

  “Of course not. We’ve been planning the memorial. There have been loads of things to—”

  “How many times have you seen Honey?”

  “I don’t know. We speak at least once a day. He’s dropped by a couple of times.”

  I’d seen how she’d been opening up over the past week, how she’d been throwing herself back into the world. Now that I knew it had been with Honey, I felt sick. A nasty, ugly sickness; a terrible dread.

  “When I’ve been out?” I asked. “At the police station?”

  Lillie nodded.

  “Don’t you think that’s suspicious? Why hasn’t he visited when I’ve been here?”

  “It’s just how it happened.”

  “So he just decided to strike up a friendship with you, when I’m not here, right in the middle of a murder investigation?” She flinched. Was I shouting?

  Lillie had rarely mentioned Honey in the years before the allegations. He never entered her childhood tales of L.A. I had assumed that Richard preferred to have quality time with his daughter and that, cons
equently, Honey had been only a distant figure for her. Had I gotten this wrong? Had she purposefully omitted him from her stories over the years, knowing it would make me jealous?

  “No, I—no,” she said, “it wasn’t out of nowhere. Before Dad and Honey broke up, we were pretty close.”

  So this wasn’t a new relationship; it was just new to me.

  I couldn’t say any of this, not now. All I could do was repeat: “But he is a suspect, Lillie.”

  “I just…” She was quiet, voice straining. “I guess I don’t find it suspicious because it’s true. It is. We need each other. Honey’s the only other person who loved Dad as much as me, and he knows what it’s like to lose family.”

  She didn’t need me.

  I closed my eyes. How had I let this happen?

  “Mom,” said Lillie, almost pleading. “You said you didn’t think he did it.”

  “No, Lillie, I never said that.”

  “I could see it. In your face. I could see.”

  “I never said that.”

  “Well, do you think he did it?”

  Again, I couldn’t answer.

  “Because I don’t. And I believe that with my whole heart,” she said. “But if you have one good reason to think Honey did it, you need to tell me now. If you don’t, then I’m not going to stop seeing him, and we’re going to keep organizing the memorial together. He’s my only link to Dad. I need him. Why shouldn’t I see him? Give me one good reason.”

  * * *

  —

  The night progressed in lulls and spurts. Dancing came and went with the erratic playlist, the room clearing when Miguel chose a song; he did not care, he danced, content, alone. Conversations gathered in strange corners of the house: the kitchen, the hallway, the doorway to a room. Every so often I stepped outside by myself, watched the group through the glass, and resolved to drink more water, call a cab. Why had I not left yet? I could never remember.

  Only snippets of conversation, isolated scenes, survived my vodka-steeped memory.

  Kei sitting on the lawn, humming to herself as she rolled a cigarette, telling me it was the taste she liked, the time it took to create.

  Miguel struggling to contain his tears as he played his favorite childhood song.