Rebecca Schwartz 05 - Other People's Skeletons

by Smith, Julie

  I went in the water closet and flushed the toilet, to cover my spy mission. When I got back, Rob was still holding Adrienne and stroking her hair, but she had stopped crying. “I don’t think you should stay here,” he was saying.

  “I’m fine. Really.”

  “Where are you from, Adrienne? Do you have relatives around here?”

  “I grew up in El Cerrito. Why?”

  “Wouldn’t you like us to drive you over there? I get the feeling you could use some home cooking.”

  “My mom’s dead.”

  He gave me a look that said Help!

  I came up behind her and touched her back. “Does your dad still live there? Wouldn’t you like to go home for a while?”

  Miserably, she shook her head, leaning into Rob, trying to bury her face even deeper into his shoulder. He gripped her upper arms and stepped away from her. “Look at me, honey. Listen, I really don’t think you should stay here.”

  She looked around doubtfully. “I guess … Danno … I don’t know.”

  “Who’s Danno?”

  “A guy I used to hang with. But he might not want me there.”

  “What about a girlfriend?” I said.

  She didn’t answer, just shook her head to let me know what a dumb idea that was. Either she didn’t have any girlfriends or didn’t want to stay with one.

  “Danno then.” I wasn’t exactly brimming with sympathy for Adrienne. Her boyfriend was dead and she had a horrible apartment, but on the other hand she didn’t seem to be doing a lot to get through the gloom. I know that this is the way with depressed people, but it makes me impatient.

  She pulled away from Rob and looked at me, possibly drawn by the edge my voice was developing. “No, I don’t think so. I think I should stay here.”

  The idea sounded dreadful. If the apartment wasn’t bad enough, aesthetically speaking, there was the problem of Jason’s memory, his clothes scattered on the floor, his toothbrush in the bathroom. I made my voice softer. “You need to be away from Jason. It’s so sad this way.”

  To my surprise, she nodded. “He was killed here, you know. Right outside— crossing the street on the way to his car. I keep looking out the window. Something draws me there. It’s creepy.”

  I had an almost irresistible urge to look out the window; Rob crossed over and did it. “Isn’t that his car?” She joined him and so did I. “Yeah, it’s still there.” Rob pointed it out. “The old Nissan.” It was old and battered indeed— far from the sharp little sports car I’d have picked for someone like Jason.

  I was thinking how different people can be from their public personas when Adrienne said, “Maybe I could go to my dad’s. I could stay in my old room and act like a hermit.”

  I nodded. “Good. We’ll take you.”

  “But it’s so quiet there.”

  I looked around. It had to be better than this.

  Rob and I waited while she packed a few things, pulling clothes out of a vanity in the bathroom— an odd place to keep them, but nothing about the household seemed ordinary. And then we drove her across the Bay, me in the backseat, Adrienne next to Rob.

  “I’m assigned to the murder story,” said Rob. “I guess you know that.”

  “Murder. Jeez! It’s so fucking hard to believe.”

  “I was wondering if you know of anybody who was mad at him; you know, had a grudge, anything like that.”

  Slowly, she shook her head. “The police asked me that, and I really can’t think of anyone. I mean, people threatened to get him fired all the time, but that was just business as usual. It was just a thing. You know, after a bad review. A day or two of temper tantrums, and that was that.”

  “Really? Because if anyone would know, you would. You must have been the person closest to him in the world.”

  She shrugged, her face angry. “I don’t know if he was close to anyone.”

  “But you were his girlfriend and his assistant. You can’t get much closer than that.”

  She turned toward him abruptly. “I wasn’t his girlfriend.”

  “But…”

  “Oh God, no. Do I look like his type? He was just letting me stay at his place for a while. I mean, after I broke up with Danno, I didn’t have any place to go.”

  “Well, I’m glad to hear that. I thought he was cheating on you with all those other women.” He paused, made the next question casual. “Who has he been dating, by the way?”

  “Oh, Jason. He always had a million women. Usually one at a time, though. Lately, I guess, Felicity Wainwright was the most usual. She’s an oncologist. Weird, huh? But I think he was about to dump her. He was starting to have lunch with Sabrina Gelderman. That was usually how he started out. But women called him all the time, you know. He had a ton and a half of them.”

  “Always dangerous,” I said. “If he dated them, he must have dumped them— at least some of them.”

  She shrugged. “They never seemed to get mad. But then, he did have a little secret.”

  “What?” Rob and I spoke together.

  “Oh, it’s just something I think. I can’t prove it or anything.”

  “But what?” A reporter never gives up.

  “Just talk to Felicity, why don’t you. And maybe Vanda Ragusin— she was right before Felicity.”

  “Ms. Ragusin didn’t get mad when she got dumped?”

  “I don’t know. It was like the people he reviewed. For a day or two, maybe. Yeah, she might of called up a couple of times and left snotty messages.” She turned up a palm. “But that was about it.”

  Rob said, “He must have been a pretty smooth guy. I’d be pretty pissed if someone dumped me.”

  Maybe he was trying to tell me something. I had dumped him— he’d found out when he saw my picture in the paper with someone else— but he hadn’t seemed even slightly pissed about it. Which, of course, was one of the reasons he needed dumping. Mr. Passion.

  Before we dropped Adrienne off, we extracted more names from her— those of Jason’s closest men friends and couple friends; there were no women friends, she insisted, even herself.

  It was early yet, and I had a date with Julio, the man Rob thinks I dumped him for (though of course it wasn’t like that), but nothing was so urgent as keeping Chris out of jail. I’d called Julio and told him what was going on— told him not to come up from Monterey, where he lived. But his daughter was with her mother that weekend and he was lonely, I guess. He didn’t care how late I was going to be— he’d come, let himself in, and see me when I got home, he said.

  I wasn’t happy about that— I was wildly preoccupied— but I was too distracted to say so. I tried not to think of him as Rob and I talked about what to do next. The police might work all weekend— who were we to slack off? But as it happened, we had little choice. Only one of the people whose names we had was home— Vanda Ragusin— and she was just going out. But she could see us first thing in the morning if we’d like.

  A capital idea, we thought. We’d call on not only Vanda, but as many people as we could before noon the next day— being Saturday, it should be an ideal time for catching them. And Saturday night, there was a wake for Jason— a huge one, with everyone at the Chron invited, as well as everybody Jason knew in the music business and theater. Of course it would be a little odd— Chris’s lawyer showing up, if Chris had been arrested by then— but I was game.

  I went home to find my guest had arrived.

  Normally, I would have been thrilled at the sight of Julio, his elegant body flung casually on my bed, watching some ancient cowboy movie. But I was exhausted with worry, too tired for polite chitchat.

  “Whoa. You look—”

  “Don’t say it.”

  “Why not? There’s honor in hard labor. You look like you’ve been doing some.”

  “Mind if I step in the shower before I say another word?”

  “Yes.” He patted his full lips, lips you could write a poem about— why, I wondered, wasn’t more literary attention paid to men’s lips?
“Kiss first,” he said, sounding like Tarzan, looking like a movie star. Or so I thought, anyway. Julio Soto is one of the handsomest men on the face of the earth, even if he doesn’t like my car, which is a white Jeep. In which he looks like a desert prince.

  I kissed first, showered second, came out and lay beside him in a towel, too tired to fossick for clothes. He wanted to kiss third, but I couldn’t even get my lips to work. “Ten-minute nap?” I pleaded, and he offered me a lovely nest in the crook of his arm.

  It was more like half an hour, I guess, before I stirred, and Julio said, “You shouldn’t wear those high heels, you know. You get this way when you do.”

  “Umm. I’ll take that under advisement.” I was still bleary-eyed.

  “Chinese food?”

  “God, yes!” I said, not caring a whit that I’d had it for lunch. It meant no decisions— about where to go, what to wear, how to find parking— and that was like a rare gift; it also meant another half hour of lying about.

  Finally, though, I made it into a pair of white leggings and a long-sleeved T-shirt, and when Julio came back with the goodies, I ingested with gusto. Feeling human, finally, I brought Julio up-to-date— he knew the outline but not the details. To me, there were mind-boggling matters here— my partner of many years was suspected of murder; she’d been leading a secret life; and she was psychic. Which meant, perhaps, that other intelligent, noncrazy people could be psychic, a possibility I hadn’t considered. He was right about the high heels, they did make me tired. But all this new data positively exhausted me. I couldn’t remember when I’d been so overwhelmed.

  Julio had a slightly different take on the whole thing. “I don’t see how you could have been so naive. Why wouldn’t there be psychics in the world? Do you think the only things that are real are the ones you can see?” Did I? I’d never thought about it.

  “Well,” I said slowly. “I’m not exactly an atheist, I just don’t think about it much. But that’s different anyhow.”

  “Right. Because it’s culturally acceptable, and being psychic isn’t.”

  “How come you accept it, then? You’re a scientist.”

  He shrugged. “I just never thought about not accepting it. Plenty of people say they’re psychic and have throughout history. What’s the percentage in disbelieving it?”

  “You mean, who can be bothered?”

  “Right.”

  Everyone I knew, practically. People with college educations who worked in the professions. No, that would include Julio. A phrase came to me: Urban smartasses. Smug people intolerant of other people’s beliefs.

  People like me. This was a new way to think of myself. And yet, there were so many crazies in the world, weren’t there? People into flower essence therapy, live cell blood analysis, iridology, ayurvedic kinesiology, past life readings, feng shui, shamanic counseling, devic gardening. People like my Cosmic Blind Date. I just lumped them together and assumed everyone else I knew did too. And that was why I was having such a hard time now. I didn’t know where Chris really stood in all of this. Had she only pretended she thought Roger DeCampo was crazy? For all I knew she saw ETs herself. Maybe Julio did. I didn’t know the answer because we’d never talked about it. It never occurred to most people, I realized, to bring up socially unacceptable beliefs.

  “Listen,” I said, “where do you stand on ETs?”

  “What?” He looked at me as if I’d lost my mind.

  “Are they real or not?”

  “Who cares?”

  “If you met someone who believed in them, would you think they were crazy?”

  He thought about it. “Well, I did meet someone like that— girlfriend of a buddy of mine. Said she got abducted, the whole bit.”

  “And was she crazy?”

  He shrugged. “Seemed pretty sane, now that I think of it. Why are we talking about this?”

  “It’s kind of on my mind.”

  “Well, something’s on mine.”

  “What?”

  “Rob Burns. Your old boyfriend.”

  “You mean my spending time with him?”

  “Of course. What do you think I mean? It bothers me.”

  “You’re jealous?”

  He considered. “Yeah. I think I’d have to say I am.”

  I laughed, delighted. “Well, I’m flattered.”

  “You’re not taking this seriously.”

  “Oh. Well, I guess I don’t really understand it yet. It’s business— you understand that.”

  “That doesn’t mean I have to like it.”

  Honestly, I didn’t blame him. There was a spark between Rob and me. But on the one hand, it was certainly no threat to Julio. And on the other, I didn’t have the least idea how to reassure him.

  “I appreciate your telling me,” I said. “But I don’t know what I can do about it.”

  He linked his fingers and put his hands behind his head. He was silent, a truly bad sign. Julio had one of the sunniest dispositions I’d ever encountered.

  At least he wasn’t mad enough to go home. But it might have been better if he had— eventually I had to tell him I had to get some sleep because Rob and I were getting together first thing in the morning. He slept with his back toward me.

  Chapter Five

  Ragusin had invited us for eight-thirty.

  What kind of fanatic, I wondered, got up that early on a Saturday? In fact, she wasn’t home— probably, I remarked to Rob, jogging an extra mile just because she felt like it. I was glad we had a few minutes— something was bothering me.

  “Rob,” I said, “I’ve got to take a more active role in the interviews— I hope you don’t mind, but it has to work that way.” I’d felt terribly out of control on the one with Adrienne.

  “I don’t think we can do that. Nobody’s going to talk to the lawyer of the main suspect.”

  “First, nobody knows that’s who I am. And second, you know they would. People will talk to anybody.” He grumbled a little, but eventually I won. He didn’t have a choice, really— I could walk, and right now, since we both had the names we’d gotten from Adrienne, he needed me more than I needed him.

  When Ragusin appeared, it wasn’t on foot, it was in a zippy little Alfa, out of which she popped in black jeans and black T-shirt, looking a trifle the worse for wear. We introduced ourselves.

  “Let’s go have coffee,” she said. “Or you can. I’m going to bed pretty soon— I’m a night worker.”

  She had a cozy cottage in which she could brew a mean cup of coffee. We sat on wicker furniture while she yawned and talked about herself and Jason.

  She wasn’t wearing makeup, but even so, I could tell she fit the type he was known to date— very beautiful, very sophisticated. She was probably a little older than Jason, about forty maybe, with a good figure, a little on the thin side, black hair cut in layers, and curious hazel eyes that were almost gold sometimes. Her skin was white and fragile looking. She was probably one of the last people in California who still smoked.

  She pulled a cigarette out of her mouth and stared at it. “Sorry about this. I’ve got a high pressure job. Can’t seem to stop.”

  “What do you do?”

  “Disc jockey. All that ad-libbing. Stress city.”

  “How’d you meet Jason?”

  She shrugged. “Some party, I guess. I was the perfect date for him— available for anything before midnight; and then, instant pumpkin.”

  She sucked at her cigarette as if she were angry.

  “Why was that perfect?”

  She gave Rob a good hard stare. “Well, I’ll tell you because it might be important. But it’s definitely not for the paper.”

  Rob nodded. “We’re off the record.”

  “He didn’t, uh … he wasn’t interested in sex.” She was a woman who got right down.

  “How long did you date?”

  “A couple of months, I guess. He was a great date—attentive, courteous, always took me interesting places. But it never came to more than that�
�� I mean, no Saturday hikes, no Sunday brunches, no hanky, and no panky. It was like he needed me for a front or something— maybe he was gay, I don’t know. But there were these good-night kisses, which were getting better and better until we were necking like a couple of teenagers.” She stubbed out her cigarette, again taking out her anger on it. “So when I pressed the point, he dumped me.”

  Neither of us knew what to say.

  “Dumped you.” I repeated finally.

  “He just quit calling. You know how that works.” She brushed hair away from her face, obviously trying to keep her dignity.

  “Were you mad?”

  “You mean, did I kill him? It’s pretty hard to work up that much excitement over someone you’ve never even slept with.”

  “Well, actually, I didn’t mean that. I was just wondering how much you had invested in him at that point.”

  She nodded before she answered. Rob looked at us as if we were speaking Albanian.

  “A lot, I guess. He was so charming and yet he seemed so sad. I’m a sucker for sad.”

  “I know what you mean. You keep wanting to cheer them up.”

  She looked at me and smiled. “Ah. A fellow neurotic.”

  “Did you meet friends of his? Double-date or anything?”

  “He knew everyone in town. You couldn’t go out with him without running into friends of his.”

  “But I mean close friends. Intimates.”

  “Intimates! I doubt Jason McKendrick knew the meaning of the word.”

  Rob said, “You don’t seem that sorry he’s dead.”

  She pulled on a cigarette, no longer angry, thinking things over. “Don’t I? I almost cried on the air tonight. I think it only gets to me when I’m alone. Are you going to the wake?”

  We nodded.

  “I guess I am too. The point of those things is to make it real— that somebody’s really dead.”

  When we left, I felt bereft myself and couldn’t figure out why. Rob said, “Creepy, wasn’t she?”

  I’d kind of liked her. “Was she?”

  “Oh, yeah, like a vampire. Dressed all in black. Anorexic. Killing herself with cigarettes. No wonder he wouldn’t have sex with her— it’d be like humping a corpse.”