Good Sister, The

by Diana Diamond

  In Germany, my sister suddenly developed a taste for classical music. We had both taken piano lessons and played flute in the school orchestra. She was no more into music than I was. But she put a move on one of the German teachers who was lecturing us on Bach, Beethoven, and Mozart – the big three, he called them. Our last night in Munich, they sat together at a chamber-music recital, her head on his shoulder, completely ignoring the rest of the group. She didn’t come home until early in the morning, then had a fit when I told her she was an embarrassment.

  In the Greek Isles, the whole tour group went to a topless beach. I found a spot with a bit of privacy, but not her. She was topless in a second right in front of the others, and then all the other women joined in. And then she acted as if there was something wrong with me because I didn’t want to be part of their tasteless display. “It’s just for laughs,” she said, but I knew she was doing it to embarrass me. It was her way of getting back at me for the things I said to her in Germany.

  There was no stopping her. In Italy she was an opera lover; she even sang with one of the gondoliers in Venice. In Spain she used her high school Spanish to flirt with the men. I know as much Spanish as she does. I think I even got better grades. But I wouldn’t stumble through someone else’s language simply to try and make an impression. And in France it was impressionist painting. She actually missed two days of touring to spend the time with some French sidewalk painter at the d’Orsey. I didn’t mind, because at least she wasn’t bothering me on the bus. But it was hard to explain to the others where she was without making her look cheap.

  I finally got rid of her on the way home. The night before we were supposed to board the QEII, I dumped her passport down the hotel incinerator chute. There was a big row at the pier in Southampton, but no matter how we pleaded, they wouldn’t let her board. She missed the ship while she went back to the American embassy, so I enjoyed the cruise without having to put up with her little tricks. She ended up flying home.

  So, yes, to answer your question, I did think I was better off without her. She was always spoiling things for me. Maybe she didn’t mean to all of the time. Like when she entered the tennis tournament, I’m sure that wasn’t just to ruin things for me. She enjoyed tennis, too. But there were times when she very intentionally rained on my parade.

  I brought a boyfriend home from college for one of the vacation weekends. There was nothing serious between us, but we had gone out together a few times. Then he invited me to a fraternity party, which was exciting because this particular frat had great affairs and it wasn’t easy to get invited. When a three-day holiday came up, a lot of people were going home, but he lived too far, down in Texas or someplace. So I felt sort of obligated to invite him home with me, and he jumped at the opportunity. I don’t know how my sister found out, but when we walked in the door, there she was, waiting to be introduced.

  For the whole weekend we couldn’t get away from her. If we put on the television, she would sit down to watch. When I had lunch brought out, she came right out and joined us. Of course we invited her. We had to be polite. But she certainly knew that she was barging in. And then, when we came back home from our evening out, she and her date were already in the family room, curled up on the sofa. “Oh,” she said, like the most gracious person in the world, “come in and join us. We’re just watching an old horror flick.” “Come in and join us,” like she owned the place. You see what I mean. She knew it was my weekend home.

  I could go on and on with one story after another. But that wouldn’t answer the question. It’s obvious that I wanted room to breathe. I have no doubt that I wished she weren’t in the picture. But that doesn’t make me some sort of a homicidal maniac. There was nothing unreasonable about wanting her out of my life.

  But wanting her dead? I think that’s pushing things too far. I would have wished her a long and happy life if I’d just known that she would lead it someplace else. In a different family, with a different house. Or maybe the same family but during alternating months. I was fed up with the rivalry. I was sick and tired of being second chair. I was entitled to my own space and my own successes. It wasn’t right that I had to share everything with her, and it certainly wasn’t right that she could take from me whenever she wanted to.

  As for actually killing her, I certainly couldn’t have done that. I know I couldn’t, because I often had the opportunity. If I had wanted to kill her, I would have done it in a way that no one ever would have suspected. For instance, we used to dive together. While we were in college, we took a family vacation to the Caribbean, and my father had arranged for us to take scuba lessons. We both got certified, and then every winter we would go off to Tortola or Belize or some other diving mecca. You always dive with a buddy, so she and I would often go together. There would be just the two of us, all alone in this underwater world that was filled with all kinds of dangers. I mean, a shark or a moray could attack you. Or you might slice your leg open on a sharp piece of coral. Maybe your breathing system would fail and you’d suffocate before you could get back to the surface. It wasn’t something that you worried about. Diving is pretty safe if you know what you’re doing. But there were always dangers.

  Once, I think it was in Belize, I thought of a way to get her. She had charmed our boat captain, a big lanky guy who was kind of a dropout. I certainly had no real interest in him, except maybe as a one-night drinking partner. I don’t think I would have risked bringing him back to the hotel. But before I could even get close to him, she had him up and dancing to reggae music. And she wouldn’t leave even when I wanted to leave. I was really furious. I had just about had enough of my dear sister.

  I was still burning the next day when we were down about sixty feet, only the two of us. She was swimming ahead of me, swinging her ass the same way she had been swinging it on the dance floor. I should have been concentrating on the dive, but all I could think of was what a sneaky little bitch she was and how glad I’d be to be rid of her. And I saw how easy it would be. Just pull off her air hose so that she got a faceful of water instead of air, then sit on her shoulders so she wouldn’t shoot back up to the top. Once she was out of air, with her weighted belt, she’d sink to the bottom, and then I could go up and act as if I expected her to be up there waiting for me.

  What would they find? A diver who had drowned because her air line had separated from the tank. Tragic, but certainly not suspicious. We were both pretty much novices. All they would think was that she had breathed in water, panicked, and kept trying to suck in air when there wasn’t any. All I had to say was that she was behind me, and when I turned around I couldn’t find her. Naturally, I had come right up to investigate.

  I swam right up to her. I was inches above her, and I actually had my hand on her air line. But she must have felt me, because she turned her head to look up. I got a glimpse of her face. And then I couldn’t do it. Maybe if she hadn’t looked at me, if she had been just a diver in a wetsuit, I could have done it. But when I saw her face, I couldn’t. I smiled and pretended to be pointing out something I had seen. We both looked around for a few seconds, and I sort of signaled that it must have gone away, so we got back to our diving. I didn’t think about it again.

  But my point is that I couldn’t kill her, any more than I could have killed Inky. I’m not that kind of person.

  So, what am I saying? That I wanted to be rid of her, and with very good reason. But I didn’t really want her dead, just gone. And that I don’t think I ever could have actually killed her, although it might not have bothered me if someone else had.

  There must be a million people who feel that way about some other person. A sister or brother, a parent, maybe even an acquaintance. I know people who feel exactly that way about a business partner or a boss.

  Are they all crazy? Is anyone who feels that way a psychopath?

  You see what I mean, don’t you?

  NINE

  “WHY?” PETER Barnes asked Catherine.

  “Because we sho
uld be making an investment in a production company. It will give us a way to develop and test services.”

  He cocked his head skeptically. “And why O’Connell’s company, which as far as we know doesn’t even exist?”

  “Because it won’t take a very big investment. We can own the lion’s share for just a bit of seed money.”

  “You’re suggesting that we go into business with a man who may have tried to murder your sister.”

  “So he won’t need any of Jennifer’s money. Or her stock.”

  “Hoping that if he doesn’t need her, he’ll leave her alone?”

  Catherine sagged into a chair in Peter’s office. “It’s one way to protect her. We have to do something. She won’t face the facts. She won’t even look at the evidence. And the more desperate O’Connell gets, the more dangerous he’ll become.”

  “You think he’s going to try again?” Peter questioned. It was his way of working to question every suggestion and expose it from every angle.

  “If he tried once, why wouldn’t he?”

  “Because he knows that there’s a pretty good case against him. He can guess that we’re watching him and that another ‘accident’ would get thoroughly investigated.”

  “But he could romance her into putting up her money. He might even get her to put up some of her stock.”

  Peter nodded. “That makes sense. We put up a little money so that he isn’t scheming for a lot of money. But that won’t buy him off. That will only buy us a little time.”

  “And with a little time, Jennifer might begin to see the light. At a minimum, she might press him to sign the agreement. By now she should have figured out that he was bluffing when he promised he’d sign anything.”

  “And when will we get your sister back in her office?”

  Catherine shook her head. “Not while that Irish con man has his arms around her. Maybe if she sees him snatch up the money, she’ll come to her senses and realize what he’s after.”

  “You want me to call him?” Peter asked.

  “First call Jennifer and tell her you need her back here. I’ll get to O’Connell and tell him we have a proposition to discuss. I bet he’ll bring her back on the first flight.”

  It worked the way Catherine had envisioned. Within hours Jennifer called to say that she was returning and that her husband would accompany her back to New York. Peter met privately with Padraig, handing him a check for $2 million and promising him a call on $10 million more.

  “A fifty-one-percent share of the production company you open,” Peter said of the contract that had been under the check. “You run it any way you want. The only stipulation is that you distribute electronically through Pegasus Satellite Services.”

  “The only stipulation?” Padraig asked with narrowed eyes. “Nothing about the peace and order of my household?”

  “What you and Jennifer decide is entirely up to you. Personally, I think you’re a conniving snake, maybe even a cold-blooded murderer. But I think we need an early stake in a business like yours. And I think having a chain around your finances may prove good for Jennifer’s health.”

  O’Connell took the contract and the pen that went with it. “I’d think, with your past, you’d be a little slow to make charges of cold-blooded murder.” He looked up in time to see Peter stiffen. He smiled. “Oh, I see you haven’t told the good sisters all the grizzly details of your youth.” He signed with a flourish. “Probably smart,” he allowed. “Wouldn’t want them wondering exactly what befell your partner. Especially if there might be a killer in our midst.”

  Peter never glanced at the contract that was pushed back to him. His eyes stayed locked on Padraig O’Connell until the actor left the room. He rose and paced around his desk for just a minute. Then he picked up his phone, keyed in to his private line, and dialed the number of his detective agency. He arranged for an off-site meeting later that day with the firm’s owner, a National Security Agency investigator who had gone into business for himself.

  O’Connell stayed at Jennifer’s loft apartment for the next few days, spending most of his time on the telephone. Even when she arrived home in the evening, he waved away her attempts at conversation as he continued his deal-making well into the Hollywood evening. Jennifer noticed a change in his attitude. Padraig was strident and at times even arrogant. Before he had been asking. Now he was telling. Instead of trying to talk his way in, he now sounded as if he were in charge.

  “Get it for me, dammit,” she heard him shout angrily during one call. “I don’t care how high you have to go.” And, during another call, “No, not him. I don’t want to work with that little prick!”

  “Is everything all right?” she asked after listening to his side of the conversations for three straight evenings.

  “Splendid, darlin’. Couldn’t be better. People are finally coming to their senses. But I will have to get back out there next week. At least for a few days. Some of these things can’t be done over a telephone.”

  They spent a pleasant weekend together, with Padraig joining her on the walks that were part of her therapy and waiting in the gym where she was swimming. Jennifer teased him about the attention he was getting from all the women going in and out of the gym. “I’ve never seen such raw lust in women’s eyes,” she told him.

  “A burden I’ve been living with for years, darlin’,” he answered. “And if I may say so, some of the young men seemed to be taking a shine to me as well.”

  He kissed her goodbye on Sunday afternoon and taxied out to La Guardia Airport in order to be in Hollywood Monday morning. In his film roles as a spy, O’Connell was always aware of the things happening around him. But he never noticed the man in a casual windbreaker who had followed him from the loft and was seated on the plane two rows behind him.

  Catherine called Padraig at his Malibu apartment on Monday and left word that she was arriving on Tuesday. “I could help you,” she said, “deal with any problems about the source and reliability of your financing. Besides,” Catherine added, “I want to keep track of my investment.”

  Padraig had thought of Catherine as a society-page poster girl who served her company best by mingling with celebrities, garnering publicity, and bringing in well-heeled customers. He assumed that the inner workings of Pegasus were as foreign to her as they were to the original winged horse. So he began with a condescending greeting when he met her in the lobby of her hotel.

  “Come to mix with the glamorous folks, have you?” he said.

  She steered him to a corner table, ordered his single malt and her dry martini, and said little until the drinks had been delivered and the toast exchanged.

  “Your eyes have a color similar to your sister’s,” he said, “which makes them particularly lovely.”

  “It’s the same color,” she answered, “only mine are a bit nearsighted. Now, can we dispense with the happy horse shit and get down to business. You bought two scripts today, one at an outlandish price. I’d like you to tell me about them.”

  He leaned back from the table. “I thought there was to be no interference.”

  “None at all,” Catherine said, “but as our money flows out, we’d like some information coming in. Like why we’re buying a script that has been passed on by all the majors. And who in hell is this Tommy Devlin you’re promoting for one of the leading roles?”

  “The majors,” he responded slowly, “would pass over the story of Jesus Christ because it doesn’t have enough helicopters in it. And they’d want him to die in a slow-motion fall from the top of the Empire State Building rather than on a cross.

  “As for Tommy Devlin, he’s an eighty-year-old gentleman with yellow teeth and a twitch in his eye who just happens to be the best character actor since Olivier. The man can make you laugh and cry your heart out at the same time. And that, dear lady, is the end of my report to management.”

  Catherine sipped her martini. Then she said, “Your artistic preferences are noted. But I really wanted to talk about money. Th
e studios loved one script that you bought. They just said it couldn’t make any money. Expensive to produce with very limited audience appeal. And Tommy Devlin hasn’t made a movie in six years. His last picture was about an Irish sheepherder, and according to the critics, the sheep stole the show.”

  “My, but we’ve been doing our homework, haven’t we,” he said.

  “That’s only the first page of my information. There are twelve more pages that I’d like to review.”

  He stood up and stayed standing as he finished his drink. “I have taken a small office in West Hollywood,” he said. “I’ll phone the desk and leave you the address. Be there at nine. We’ll go over the rest of your pages, and then a few pages of mine.” He stormed out, leaving her to finish her martini.

  The next day was all business. O’Connell began with a spirited defense of his decisions and let Catherine listen in as he began pulling together the pieces of his company. “A production company isn’t a fixture, like the gas company. It doesn’t come into existence until it has something to produce and talent to do the producing. For the past year, the only place that your company existed was right here.” He pointed at the side of his head. “It was born when we acquired a promising script, but it will die if we don’t attach talent.”

  “It will die if it doesn’t make money,” Catherine countered.