Rebecca Schwartz 05 - Other People's Skeletons

by Smith, Julie

  He spread his hands, all innocence. “Hey, Elena, you know me.”

  “Thassa prob’em.”

  I thrust a bagel in front of her. “Eat something, Elena. Now you’re losing letters.”

  She spread cream cheese thickly and applied a good portion of lox while I got bagels ready for Rob and me. He found us a couple of diet Cokes. “The girls are into those,” Elena said. “Think they’re bad for the complexion, myself.”

  When she had eaten enough to get her blood sugar up, I said, “So who’d you get for McKendrick?”

  “Well, I can’t tell you. I mean it, not even you, Rebecca.”

  “Hey, come on, Elena, this is murder. We need to talk to her.”

  “You can’t. She moved to Alaska last month.”

  “Okay, she didn’t kill him, anyway. But last I heard they had phones there.”

  “No dice. Look, you want to know two things, right? Did she do it, and did anything happen that might shed some light on anything.”

  I nodded; Rob chewed.

  “Well, no to both questions. He couldn’t even get it up.”

  “What?” Both of us nearly leapt across the table. She smiled like the Mona Lisa, enjoying the effect she’d created. “Ha. Got you, didn’t I? Yeah, she was thrilled. He wanted her to get all dressed up and meet him in this hotel suite. Very, very fancy hotel, I won’t say which one. Ordered room service, anything she wanted. Champagne, every kind of thing. She didn’t want to drink on duty, but he insisted. Paid her extra. And then he made out with her awhile.” She grimaced. “Ick. You know how whores hate to kiss. But he paid her for that, too. I think he took all her clothes off and everything. But he never did fuck her.”

  “Just didn’t? Or tried and couldn’t?”

  “Well, just wouldn’t, I think.”

  “But you’re not sure.”

  “Oh, okay, okay. I’m ornery before brunch. We’ll call her, okay? Will that make you happy?” And she left to get a phone.

  Pretty soon we were talking to one Claudia (aka Tami) Robinson, who said she couldn’t remember that much about it, because after all she’d been drinking, but to the best of her recollection, Mr. McKendrick had kept his clothes on.

  “What was that all about?” I asked.

  “Who knows? You get weirdos.”

  “McKendrick was a weirdo?”

  “Does that sound normal to you?”

  “Did he give any reason for it?”

  “He said he just wanted to be with me and hold me. In case you don’t know the technical jargon, that’s what they say when they can’t get it up.”

  “Did he do or say anything odd— I mean, except for that?”

  She thought for a minute. “Yeah. Yeah, he did. He cried.”

  “He cried?”

  “Yeah. He held me and cried all over me. I remember, I said to Elena, ‘Hey, you can’t get AIDS from tears, can you?’ I mean, they’re bodily fluids. But, anyway, he called me a name.”

  I stiffened, ready for a particularly nasty obscenity. “What did he call you?”

  “Sean. He called me Sean. He said, ‘Oh, Sean, I’m so sorry.’”

  “Did he say who Sean was?”

  “Look, all I wanted to do was get out of there. You think I asked? The guy was drunk and sloppy. No wonder he couldn’t get it up— nobody could have.”

  “Okay, just one more thing. Did he pay for a whole night?”

  “Yeah, by the time you added in all the extras— kissing and drinking and everything— oh, yeah, and me calling him. Then there was the suite and the champagne and dinner and everything. Jesus! Must have been about a fifteen-hundred dollar night for him.”

  If he’d made a habit of this sort of thing, that would explain where his money went.

  Chapter Ten

  Tami swore she hadn’t ever told any of this to a soul (“I mean, why would I? Just who would you expect to give a shit?”) so we had to figure Tommy La Barre hadn’t known when he sent us over there. But what I couldn’t figure was why he sent us. I still thought he was our man.

  “So do I,” said Rob. “But we can’t afford to ignore this Sean thing.”

  “Okay. You've got to go help Chris plow through clips anyway. Why don’t you look for any Seans he might have panned while you’re at it. And I’ll call back everyone we’ve already talked to and see if they know what it means.”

  So we did— and turned up nothing.

  The only good news was, I got in nearly five hours’ work on my pending case before it was time to pop over to Mickey and Alan’s. Kruzick had left, as usual, at five— “got to go pluck that pheasant”— leaving me to slave for two more hours. But somehow it wasn’t pheasant I smelled when I walked in— it was pasta puttanesca, and I guess it was just that kind of day.

  I inspected the kittens and returned to the kitchen just in time for the ceremonial unveiling of the garlic bread. Mickey said, “I made pasta because it’s your security food,” which was so sweet I didn’t remind her it was all she ever made. Kruzick bore the salad to the table in triumph, and I found myself hungry as a horse.

  But I could barely eat because Mickey wanted details— lots of them. Kruzick had told her very little, saying I was coming over, she might as well get it from me. But of course he wouldn’t even have known about some of the things I wanted to talk about.

  It was just as well because I needed new eyes to look at this thing. The task, as I saw it, was to keep my law partner out of jail. I couldn’t see a way to do that without finding the murderer. Was I right so far?

  They nodded.

  Well, then, what to do now? Look for Jason’s enemies? I hadn’t found any. Look for Chris’s? She claimed she didn’t have any unless you counted Tommy La Barre. Was he a good suspect?

  Vigorous nods. Shouts of approval. Tommy had fans.

  So how to find a motive?

  “Well, you could start in on his friends,” said Mickey.

  I sighed. “I can’t go around doing that— I mean, I’m still a lawyer. I guess I better hire an investigator.”

  “But you promised Rob.”

  It was true. We were still using the Chronicle’s resources; I could hardly stop now.

  Kruzick said, “Maybe you could go to gay bars and ask around for Sean.”

  I almost said, “Maybe I’ll send you,” but that would have been playing right into his hands. He would have launched into an offensive swish act if I had. Years of knowing Kruzick were finally paying off.

  “Or you could thend me,” he said, holding his hands like paws, so I could watch his wrists go limp. So much for heading him off at the pass.

  “We could thend you to your room,” Mickey said.

  “But theriously,” said Alan.

  “Go!” Mickey pointed. She was getting tough, and I liked it.

  “I didn’t mean to do that. Seriously. Listen, I want to say something.”

  We cocked our heads politely.

  “This guy’s sex life is weird. I mean, it’s a trail to follow. It’s too strange to leave it alone.”

  He was right. It might have nothing to do with anything, but we couldn’t just leave it.

  “And I’ve got this other idea. Maybe some witch is mad at Chris. You know, like Chris is more powerful than she is, so she puts a spell on her to get revenge.”

  I tried to fathom this. “You know about her being psychic?”

  “I know she’s into something from the phone calls she gets.”

  Mickey said, “It would take a pretty damn powerful witch to get her name and number in Jason’s pocket.”

  “It’s interesting,” I said, “the way everybody went right from psychic to magic.”

  “What?”

  “Look. We’ve got to take Chris seriously. She feels lousy about being psychic. Let’s not make fun of her, okay?”

  “Touch-y,” said Kruzick.

  But Mickey said, “What’s it all about, anyway? I mean, it is pretty weird.”

  It seemed the secret
was out. So I told them what Chris had told me in the dim sum restaurant. And then I launched into my favorite new subject— poor Rebecca betrayed by a heartless world that wouldn’t be still: “It’s hard for me, getting used to this. I mean, my best friend really isn’t the person I thought she was. She’s actually been leading a double life when you get down to it. I said that to Julio and turned out he had, too— I mean not really, he’s just in the men’s movement— or maybe he really isn’t, I don’t—”

  “Excuse me.” Mickey was up and out of there. We heard a door slam.

  “What’s going on?”

  Kruzick shrugged. “Hell if I know.”

  I got up and followed, but Mickey had locked herself in the bedroom. I heard sobs, but she wouldn’t answer my knocks. I couldn’t get back to the dining room fast enough— almost tripped over Lulu in the process. “Alan, what is going on?”

  “On the rag, I guess. She’s been weird lately.” He started clearing the table. That way he didn’t have to meet my eyes.

  “I swear to God, if you do not treat my sister the way she deserves to be treated, I’ll—”

  “What? Fire me? Hey, I quit. But I am treating her right. Why the hell is this my fault?”

  “Fire you! I’ll grind you up and make you into hot dogs, which I will donate to the zoo with the stipulation that they be fed to the monkeys. Mess with her and you are monkey shit, Kruzick!”

  “You need a vacation, you know that? And take Mickey with you.”

  Sure. Take her with me. He wanted to get her out of the house so he could carry on his affair. It had to be that because what else would she get so upset about the minute you mentioned secret lives?

  Figuring I was momentarily superfluous, I got out of there.

  And found myself with the same old blues I’d been singing all weekend. I didn’t want to be alone, that was all. It wasn’t like me, but I couldn’t shake it. Not even, apparently, by knocking on the door of everyone I knew.

  Why was I feeling so damned insecure? Honestly, it was a full two minutes, while my mind went through a litany of trivialities, before I remembered the lump. With amazement, I realized I’d had all day to call a doctor, and I hadn’t done it. Nothing like putting bad news off till tomorrow.

  But it was more than that— just as neurotic, but more. I couldn’t take time out to be sick right now. I could only deal with one crisis at a time— and not only that, I didn’t physically have the time. As rationalizations went, it worked. Besides, everybody else seemed to have a secret right now. Surely I was entitled to one.

  I went home and played the piano and thought about what Chris had said— about the way people mock other people, about orthodoxy and the way it’s kept pristine. Some things you just didn’t question and others were fair game. I had asked my father once, when I was a little girl, why God was a man, and he had said, “He isn’t a man; he’s a spirit.”

  “But why is he a man spirit?” I asked.

  And my dad had said, “Because that’s the way God made himself.”

  You know what? I’d never bought it. But you just didn’t go around talking that way.

  I’d never understood the word “spiritual”; didn’t have the least idea what it meant. Nor, I gathered, did most people like me— the kind Chris said made fun of other people’s beliefs. I wondered if that was because it was just so damned hard to buy some of the sacred cows— but you had to bow down to them anyway.

  Did this mean I had a religious secret myself? I love it, I thought to myself— the Shirley MacLaine of Green Street.

  Frankly, the closest I can get to a spiritual experience is playing music. I played Scarlatti and felt better.

  * * *

  On Tuesday, Chris and I had a breakfast date at my apartment to take stock— not my idea. Such things never are, but she’s a morning person. Nonetheless, she arrived as haggard and drawn as if she’d had an argument with a controlled substance.

  “You poor peach,” I said, stealing her favorite word. “Are you okay?”

  “Still not over the weekend, I guess.” But she smiled as if she was merely tired from dancing all night. She’d bounce back, but it would take time. Time, and renewed self-esteem— the vindication of turning the real killer over to Martinez. I wanted to give her that with every cell in my body.

  She stretched out her lanky body on one of my facing white couches, in perfect confidence that coffee would arrive soon. It did, of course.

  I took the opposite sofa.

  Quickly, we brought each other up to date. She hadn’t found anything in the clips. Tommy La Barre was looking better and better.

  “But let’s go over everybody again,” I said. The question of enemies was touchy— who wanted to think someone didn’t like her? And Chris was Southern. “We’re s’posd to be like golden retrievers,” she used to say. “Born to please.”

  “Have you ever been responsible for someone going to jail?”

  “Hey, partner, we’re defense attorneys. Did you forget?”

  “Okay, okay. Wasn’t there anyone— like maybe from high school or something— that you broke up with before they were ready?”

  “I never even dated in high school.”

  I wouldn’t want to say her mood was negative, but she didn’t really resemble a golden retriever. I brought in some pastries from my local Italian bakery, but she didn’t reach for one. A bad sign.

  “Well, look,” I said. “I really don’t mean to criticize your friends, but you’ve got to admit the Raiders of the Lost Art aren’t exactly out of Our Town. I mean, nothing against being psychic and all, but they’re a little on the strange side, and I was just wondering—” to my amazement, something struck her funny. “You are such a peachblossom!” she said, and it was the closest she’d sounded to her old self for nearly a week. “You’re tryin’ so hard to be nice. I guess I really got you with that lecture on tolerance. I’m sorry. Really. I was just in a mood.”

  “Actually, it gave me a lot to think about. Especially when Julio confessed he’s in the men’s movement.”

  That provoked a new outburst of gales. “The men’s movement! Come on!”

  “Hey, what happened to tolerance and not making fun of people just because they’re different?”

  “Julio as the wild man. I can’t stand it.” She was out of control.

  “Hey, look, he’s got a right—”

  “To paint his face? Rebecca, there’s such a thing as taste.”

  These ever-changing Chrises— one all urban scorn, the other put-upon minority— were starting to get to me. “Chris, you’re making me mad.”

  “Mad? Huh? What’d I say?”

  “If you want to be taken seriously, you’d better take other people seriously.”

  She sat up— she can drink coffee lying down, and that was what she’d been doing. “Don’t get mad at me. Listen, I really need you.”

  “Well, look, it doesn’t make sense. You’re leading some secret life with a bunch of screwballs from the space bar in Star Wars, and you think it’s okay to laugh at some gorgeous hunk who’s trying to get in touch with his manhood.”

  Which just showed how shell-shocked I was. I would have taken his announcement a lot more in the vein she had if she hadn’t been such a little trailblazer.

  “Well, I mean! Julio. Who wouldn’t like to get in touch with his manhood?” She laughed a little more and wiped her eyes. “I’m sorry, I guess it was the thought of him naked. I must have felt like dwelling on it.”

  “He’s too short for you.”

  “Anyway, about the Star Wars cast— begging your pardon, but they’re the only ones who couldn’t have killed Jason. I was with them, remember?”

  “Oh, yeah.” I thought a minute. Maybe I was still a little mad with her, maybe just emboldened by her giggle fit. Before I could stop the words, I said, “Well, goddammit, if you’re so psychic, why don’t you know who did it?”

  “It’s not that easy.”

  I fixed her with a stem
eye. “Keep talking.”

  “The stuff’s not all that reliable.”

  “How does it work, anyway?”

  “You have to know what questions to ask, for one thing.”

  “How about this one: ‘Did Tommy La Barre kill Jason McKendrick?’”

  She shrugged. “Why the hell not?” She closed her eyes and dropped her chin. When she opened her eyes, she looked amazed. “Well, he might not have. I didn’t think I’d get anything, because it’s impossible to read for yourself. But I did get a little something. It looked a lot like ‘innocent.’”

  “Does it come in images or what?”

  “Sometimes. I get lights mostly. Tommy just didn’t light up over that one.”

  “Where do you think it’s coming from? Are you reading his mind or what?”

  “I wish to hell I knew.” For a moment she looked as miserable as when she’d first told me about it.

  “Well, back to the original subject.”

  “Who hates me.”

  “Look, somebody had to know you were in that group. They had to steal your car, remember?”

  “They just followed me. I’m sure that was all it was.”

  “Even so. You can’t get around the fact they went to a lot of trouble to frame you. If it wasn’t Tommy La Barre, who? Who, who, who?”

  “I’m getting depressed.”

  “You’ve got to face it, Chris. Somebody wanted you to take the rap for murder. That’s a lot of animosity.”

  “I’m getting depressed again. Can’t we get Julio to come do a naked dance for us?”

  I didn’t answer.

  Finally, she said, “Maybe it was a crazy person.”

  “Do you know any?”

  “Well, La Barre didn’t act normal that time when he threatened me, but now that I think of it, you know what? I’ll bet he was doing a lot of coke at the time. I wonder if he still is.”

  “If so, that would qualify him as crazy.”

  “He might be the only one I know. But you know one, of course— the Cosmic Blind Date.”

  “Oh. Roger DeCampo. But it can’t be him— he doesn’t know you. La Barre suggested Jason might have attracted one— like in Play Misty for Me.”

  “But it would still have to be somebody who knows me too.”