by Lynn Bulock
“No, not at all.” Her long blond hair was pulled back in a more severe style today, and her eyes were red-rimmed, as if she’d been crying. “I hate to interrupt you, but the last time you were here Nicole told me who you were, and I wanted to talk to you.”
My common sense told me that whatever she wanted to talk about would be something that Ray would go ballistic over. I could almost hear the lecture he’d give about possible witnesses to a crime, or even murder suspects and how I should stay uninvolved here. Common sense is not always my strong point. When it’s a battle between that and caring for people, the caring wins every time. Catalina looked like she needed somebody to care right now.
I cleared books away to make an empty spot on the bench. “So what did Nicole tell you, anyway?”
She looked around as if checking for her supervisor, then sat down beside me. “That you were Hal’s ex-wife, and you were really cool with everything. It helped her a lot, I think. She was so nervous about being a stepmother, especially to somebody not much younger than her sister.”
“I can understand that. But surely that isn’t why you wanted to talk to me.” Okay, I couldn’t help saying more than I should to her. Maybe I’d be truly fortunate and Ray wouldn’t show up here today.
“Not exactly. It’s just that I know you’ve probably got a lot of contact with Hal, and with Nicole’s family. She’s got a desk full of stuff here and nobody’s even started cleaning out her cubicle or anything yet. It’s kind of creepy, seeing all her stuff still there like she’s coming back any old time.”
I could appreciate that. When my former husband Dennis died he’d left all kinds of belongings for me to deal with. Of course I’d dealt with a lot of them after the serious auto accident five months before he died. But even after all that he’d had a nightstand at the board-and-care home where he’d spent his final months and a few boxes of stuff stored at his mom’s house that still had to be gone through. For someone who’d had no warning, as young as Nicole, she’d have an entire life for her family and friends to sift through.
“I know Hal and Nicole’s parents would both appreciate having all her things from here, but you better hold off on that a little while longer.” She looked puzzled and I knew I had to explain further. “Nicole’s death is a police matter at least until there’s some ruling on her death. Right now it could be suicide, an accident or even murder.” Catalina’s large blue eyes widened as I talked, and I could see that even as a nurse she hadn’t thought of some of those possibilities.
“Murder? Who would want to kill somebody like Nicole? She wouldn’t have ever hurt a fly.”
“Neither would Hal, but until the county sheriff’s department has their answers to how Nicole died and why, everybody around her may be under suspicion. And he’ll be under the most suspicion “
“Because he was the closest to her,” Catalina finished. “I get that part. But I feel sorry for him. From everything Nicole said, he was great.” She stopped, turning red. “Whoops. I guess I ought to watch what I say around you, huh? You being the ex and all.”
“Trust me, I’m pretty much over Hal as far as romance is concerned. My worries are more for our son. He’s not quite nineteen and I don’t want to have him watch his father go through something like this if I can help it.”
We’d wandered pretty far off track here and I needed to get back to the subject we started with. “But that’s not the issue here, Nicole’s stuff is. I’d leave her cubicle just like it is now until whoever the county sheriff’s department sends comes to investigate. They’ll want to see as much as possible of what it looked like before.”
Catalina winced. “It’s going to be hard to convince them that nobody’s been through it all already, then. Nicole was kind of disorganized on the best of days. She was forever misplacing stuff. Like her car keys, for example. Her spare car key has been gone for about a month, I think. Because of the way she lost stuff and looked for it, her desk was pretty cluttered a lot of the time.”
“That’s funny. The house was nearly perfect.” After I said that I thought a minute. “But that was probably Hal’s influence, wasn’t it?” The man had been a neat freak most of his life. He wouldn’t have changed that just for Nicole. I wondered what kind of discussions they had about his little quirks and probably hers, as well.
“Yeah, Nicole always said he was trying to reform her.” Cat gave a sad smile. “I don’t think it was working, though. The only thing she really complained about was the way he wanted everything arranged at the house. I think she rebelled by keeping things here in a worse mess than she would have normally.”
I tried not to laugh. With Nicole dead this was more moving than funny, but in any other set of circumstances I would have said it served Hal right. I didn’t have time to respond, though, because of the commotion that started in the courtyard from someone bursting through the doors closest to the hall where Linnette always went for her therapy session.
“I told her about the agents! That’s why they did that to her. Now they’re going to be after me.” Zoë stood, wild-eyed and shaking for a moment, then bolted across the courtyard. Her nimbus of brown hair looked more disordered than usual, and she wore a jacket she must have culled from somebody else, judging from the way it fit her. Wherever she’d gotten it, the original owner had taste and some money, because it was nicely cut and of good fabric.
“Hey, slow down there. Let’s find somebody to talk to you.” Catalina bounded up from the bench and crossed half the space between them to try to calm her down. “C’mon, Zoë. We can help you with this.”
Zoë backed through the door at the far end of the courtyard. “No you can’t. Nobody can. I can’t trust anybody. Not even him.” Before Catalina could reach her Zoë bolted out the doors that led through the lobby. It would only take a minute or two for her to be off the hospital property.
“Can you do anything?” I asked Catalina, who pulled out a walkie-talkie and spoke into it briefly.
After a moment she looked at me and sighed. “If she’s off hospital grounds? Not really. She’s not an inpatient, she wouldn’t sign herself in voluntarily, and just being freaked out over Nicole’s death isn’t something that we can have her arrested or committed for. Unless she does something a lot worse, she’s out there on her own.”
Cat’s brow wrinkled. I didn’t know her well enough to know whether she was worried about Zoë or just thinking hard. I figured it couldn’t hurt to ask. “What’s wrong?”
“I wish I could have said the right thing to calm Zoë down and keep her here. She got out of here so quickly, I didn’t get a chance to ask her something.”
“Was it important?”
Cat nodded slowly. “I think she was wearing Nicole’s jacket, and I wanted to ask her where she got it.”
“Maybe you’ll get another chance,” I told her. Through the heavy glass doors into the front area I could see across the lobby to Ray Fernandez, leading a reluctant Zoë back into the building.
*
Twenty minutes went by before Ray got everything sorted out. Once he established that Zoë was an outpatient and not escaping somehow from the hospital, he let her go. “You might want to stay around here while I talk to people,” he told her, more gently than I expected. Now his tone with me was another story. When he got done glaring he used about the same kind of voice Buck Morgan uses with a recalcitrant dog he’s training.
My explanation that I was there to drive Linnette to her group therapy session didn’t make him much happier. “What I saw was definitely not driving. So have a seat on that bench and we’ll talk once I’m done asking a few questions of the staff.” Not wanting to intensify an argument, I sat. Soon Linnette and others came through the door, apparently done with their session.
Following them was another dark-haired young woman who looked about the same age as Nicole. I figured this was Monica, and tried to think of a way to verify that with Linnette without being loud enough to attract Ray’s attention.
> I motioned to the empty place beside me on the bench. When she got there I told her as quietly as possible what was going on. And I learned from her that yes, the young woman with dark hair and a slightly troubled expression was indeed Monica. There was a little time to talk, as we weren’t the main focus of anybody’s attention right now. Neither was Zoë.
The moment Zoë realized that nobody was going to force her to stay any longer she sidled to the door into the lobby and vanished. If Fernandez wanted to ask her any more questions right now he was out of luck. So was Cat.
I knew Ray would be upset with himself when he realized he’d let Zoë go. However, the man had said he didn’t want to hear anything else from me, and he wasn’t going to. Let him figure out himself that the woman he’d just released on her own recognizance was wearing a piece of clothing belonging to a murder victim.
“How much longer will he want to keep us here?” Linnette kept her voice as quiet as I had. She’d gotten a little experience watching Ray work a few times now and she knew how little interference he tolerated during his investigations.
“I’m not sure. He can’t be too interested in why we’re here but I’m afraid to leave without Ray giving us the okay.”
“What were you doing out here while I had my session?”
I shrugged. “Talking to Cat. She actually approached me. In fact if he asks her what we talked about he’ll know that I told her to do things exactly the way he would want them done. Not that I’ll get any credit for that.”
“Hey, it might happen.” Linnette liked Ray enough she usually took his side on issues. She straightened up and I looked over to see him finish talking to Cat and head in our direction.
“Okay, why don’t you two head on home? If you’re truly here just to drive Ms. Parks to and from her session, you won’t mind leaving now, right, Gracie Lee?” His golden-brown eyes showed more than a hint of challenge.
“Fine. I appreciate you being so understanding, Detective Fernandez.” The look of surprise he gave us warmed my heart. Ray might have expected an argument from me on this issue, but he was right. If Nicole really had been killed by someone else and not just gone for a midnight dip after drinking too much, then the sheriff’s department should come to that conclusion on its own. “By the way, did Catalina tell you what we were talking about?”
His answering grin was swift. “Why do you think I’m letting you go? For once you showed enough common sense not to get involved in a murder investigation and you gave somebody else good advice, as well. Now I’d like you to leave before the temptation to revert to your normal behavior becomes too great for you to resist.”
Next to me Linnette stifled a tiny laugh. She covered beautifully, making it sound like a cough instead, but I recognized the true nature of her noises. And this woman called herself my best friend. “Perhaps we’ll speak again soon, Detective.” Without another word to either of them, I headed toward the lobby.
Linnette caught up with me before I cleared the doors to the outside world. “Hey, don’t get grumpy. You have to admit he’s got a sense of humor.”
“Yeah, but it’s harder to appreciate when it’s directed at me,” I admitted. “So was there anything else that happened back there that you could actually tell me about?”
“Not a whole lot. Monica seems very nice. Most of the participants in the group session were surprised to hear about Nicole. Zoë wandered in after everybody else got there. Did you see her cross the courtyard?”
“No, come to think of it, I didn’t. And I think that even while I was talking to Cat we would have noticed her.”
Linnette shrugged. “Security is supposed to be very tight here, but there must be ways around it because that’s not the first time I’ve seen people slip into therapy sessions late, coming from somewhere other than the courtyard. Something about Zoë‘s appearance startled Monica anyway.”
We got in the car while I filled her in. “Cat said she thought Zoë might be wearing one of Nicole’s jackets. I’m not sure how that might have come about. Cat also told me that Nicole was always misplacing things, and that her spare set of car keys has been gone for a while.”
“Were any keys found with the body?”
“Nothing much was found with the body besides underwear and a necklace. And I’m pretty sure that the investigators don’t know where the body went into the water.” I stopped talking to reverse the car out of its spot and get out of the lot. “I imagine there’s some kind of formula they use to figure out where a body probably entered the ocean from where it’s found.”
Linnette sighed. “And you know that nobody’s going to share that formula with us. You’d think that one of those TV shows about forensics would explain it all, anyway.”
“They might, but with the number of things I’ve gotten wrong from listening to various cop shows and movies, I think I’ll stick to the Science channel from now on.” It might be boring, but at least a certain detective wouldn’t laugh at me as much.
Driving down the freeway with the breeze whipping through my hair, I was surprised to realize how much Ray’s regard of me mattered. Better watch yourself, I thought silently. Once a man’s opinions started to matter, commitment was just around the corner. And at this point in life, it was a corner I couldn’t afford to turn.
TEN
We all had plenty to talk about at Christian Friends that evening. Linnette insisted that I lead the group, with her walking me through everything. She explained why right after opening prayer and welcoming. Almost everyone knew she’d been depressed, but not all of them were aware of the extent of her problems this time around.
I was struck once again by what a good bunch of people I had for friends. Everyone gathered around Linnette, gave her empathy and asked how they could help. Paula hadn’t made the meeting tonight, but I was sure that even she would have been supportive and caring. In the outside world some people treated those with emotional illness unkindly, but in here we were there for each other all the time. Maybe there was a situation that this group of praying women couldn’t handle, but so far it hadn’t come up.
“So, besides Gracie Lee driving you places when you needed somebody, let us know what you’ve been doing for yourself,” Dot asked. Linnette’s explanation of her battle over the last few weeks and the steps she and her doctor had used to treat it helped lead into my concerns over Hal. Once the group understood the connection between Nicole as Linnette’s therapist and also as Hal’s fiancée, they started asking questions about Nicole’s death. The last time most of the people in this room had heard anything about her, we were lightly calling her a runaway bride. Now the situation was so much more serious and Hal might be in deep trouble.
Neither Linnette nor I could answer all their questions about what might have happened to Nicole over the weekend, but Lexy helped out by answering some of ours. “Now remember that I’m no expert in criminal law. I do entertainment law, contracts and agreements and negotiations. But I haven’t forgotten everything I learned in law school.”
“I hope not. It wasn’t that long ago,” Linnette told her. Lexy made a wry face.
“I’m glad somebody thinks so. In the legal world, five years can be forever if you don’t keep up with stuff.”
Lexy confirmed what I already feared; if the medical examiner ruled that Nicole’s death was a homicide, Hal would be the most likely suspect. “The good thing is that there’s no hard physical evidence that points toward him. Cases are made on circumstantial evidence alone, but they don’t usually result in convictions. Most district attorneys want more, especially when there’s not a celebrity angle.”
“Do you think her father being a well-known plastic surgeon would give the case enough notoriety to put Hal in trouble?” Heather asked the question, citing one of those things we’d learned from the newspaper. It didn’t mean that much to me, but then I wasn’t a Californian, either. If Nicole’s father had enough star-quality clients, the media could latch on to this.
“
Better hope he’s very good, but not working on a lot of well-known people,” Lexy said, confirming my suspicions. “The fact that he’s in Newport Beach means that he might draw less limelight. But we’re all working under the assumption that the medical examiner will find evidence of foul play.”
Dot made a noise that sounded like “harumph.” It was out of character enough that we all looked at her. “Since when does the media around here wait for full facts? And judging from what I’ve seen in the paper already, something happened to that young woman. People don’t accidentally ingest a heavy amount of alcohol and end up in the ocean unless they’re having a party on a pier or a boat.”
She had a point. While I felt real comfort from the way everyone had rallied around Linnette, I needed their help, as well. “Dot’s probably right,” I told them. “And even though you’ve heard me complain more than once about Hal as an ex-husband, and for the way he parents Ben, I can’t imagine that he would murder anybody.”
Lexy shook her head, making her blond shoulder-length hair bounce in heavy waves. “I hate to say it, Gracie Lee, but that’s just what a good defense lawyer would say in court. And no matter who says it, a district attorney isn’t going to listen.”
We sat quietly sipping our coffee for a while, everyone trying to come up with something positive to say. In the end I changed the subject to Ben’s engagement announcement. While the Christian Friends didn’t have any words of wisdom for Hal’s situation, they had plenty for Ben’s. Again, it was Dot who had the best advice. “Make the two of them sit down and tally up the costs of marriage. Not a wedding, but the marriage that comes afterward. Once they see all those figures it might be a deterrent. And if it isn’t, at least you’ll know they’re going into this with their eyes open.”
It made good sense. I had a fairly good idea that neither of these kids had a clue what the basics in life truly cost. A full day carrying around a notebook and jotting down the costs of everything might provide a rude awakening for my love-struck son.
