I looked in the pantry and cupboards, which were pretty bare. Just as I left them.
“Must have cleaned out your shelves so the mice don’t get nothing over the winter, Alex,” noted Wally.
“Wally, she’s got the skinniest roaches in all of New York City. If they wait around for Alex to serve ‘em food, they’ll die of starvation,” joked Mike, knowing that my dislike of cooking meant that the cabinets were usually empty.
Luther moved to the old Welsh cupboard which held my collection of antique pitchers and opened the doors below, where the liquor was stored.
“Anything missing?”
“I don’t measure the bottles, Luther. I wouldn’t have a clue what was here last month or whether something’s an inch lower than it was before. I told Isabella to help herself to whatever she wanted, of course.” I thought of my Aunt Gert, who used to swear that her housekeeper sipped gin every Wednesday morning when she came in to clean her apartment. Gert took to using the tape measure from her sewing kit to check the level in the bottle, but could never remember where she hid the slip of paper with the number on it from week to week. The housekeeper long outlasted Aunt Gert, but the old girl would have been right up Luther’s alley.
He was about to close the door when Mike asked if the cops had dusted the bottles.
“Obviously not. There’s no powder on them, is there?”
“Well, take those three in. The front ones. I’d be willing to bet you’ll find prints maybe Isabella’s, maybe someone else’s but they’ve been moved since Labor Day.”
Even I looked puzzled.
Mike went on.
“See how the Stoli and Jack Daniel’s are in front? If Alex was the last to use them, the Dewar’s would be the closest to the door. But the Scotch is a step back and the other two are in front.”
Luther was frowning as he looked from Mike’s triumphant expression to my grin. I guessed that he was more upset by the suggested intimacy of our friendship than the thought he had missed a point he had no reason to know about, but I had missed it, too.
“He’s right, Luther. And Isabella usually drank vodka, so…”
“I thought she was a vegetarian,” mused Wally, puzzled by the significance of any of this.
“Do they drink?”
“She was a man-eating vegetarian, Wally,” Mike said, deadpan, ‘and a heavy-drinking one at that. Alex used to tell us she liked vodka, wine, and lighter fluid best, didn’t you? That’s what kept her so arrogant and frisky.“
Luther had his notepad out and was starting his list of additional things to do. There was nothing else of significance in the kitchen and we paraded out the far door ahead of him, through the room I had converted into a small office which seemed untouched and into the master bedroom.
While I stopped to take in the tableau of Isabella’s interrupted retreat, Mike walked across the large room to stare out the glass doors, which made up the entire wall, at the stunning view down the grassy slope to the blue tints of the pond and sound. This room was my favorite, sunny and cheerful all day, and so private that not a curtain or shade covered an inch of the opening. My only encroachers were the deer who ventured out at night and the osprey I had built a nest for at the edge of the property. Over my bed was a whimsical trompe painting of my wildflower field done by a local artist who liked to come to my hilltop to paint, and who gifted me with it years ago.
Now there was the clutter of Isabella’s belongings. I recognized the monogrammed luggage from T. Anthony: two duffels and a train case. A few of the silk lounging outfits she collected had been hung in the closet much too formal for the Vineyard but most of the sweaters and leggings were still sitting in the open cases, and underwear all La Perla was draped on my chaise and lying twisted on top of the coverlet on the unmade bed.
Luther caught up with us and the three men watched as I circled the room to distinguish between my possessions and those that would be neatly repacked and sent out to Isabella’s cousin, her only living relative. Next to my clock radio was the other Rigaud candle and a script of a screenplay for a movie entitled A Dangerous Duchess the Story of Lucrezia Borgia. Isabella had longed to do a period piece about a complicated character, but despite the eagerness she had expressed, it appeared from the place mark still near the front of the manuscript that her plans to slip away to read were put on hold by the pleasurable companionship of a playmate.
My eyes moved to the table on the other side of the queen-sized bed. The books and tea caddy that sat there had been in the same positions all summer and seemed unmoved. I tossed through her bags and folded up some of the items I knew were Isabella’s, and explained to Luther that nothing I could see gave me any leads. The bathroom was full of her lotions and potions, all from Kiehl’s, and more makeup than most women would use in a lifetime.
“We, uh, recovered some used condoms from the bathroom wastebasket and sent them down to the lab,” Luther said.
“No, Luther, they weren’t here from my last trip,” I offered, since he seemed uncomfortable about suggesting that. “I’m afraid there’s not much more I can show you here. Are you thinking that the guy who was here with her killed her, or that the shooter came in after the killing and took anything?”
“I wish we could answer that one, Alex. Right now we just don’t know. Miss Lascar’s purse was right there in the car with her, with plenty of cash and traveler’s checks in it. So if you’re not missing anything from the house, it doesn’t seem like anything of hers is gone either.“
“Luther, was her Filofax in the pocketbook?”
“Her what?”
“Her datebook. It’s a red leather booklet, about this size,” I said, outlining its dimensions with my hands. “That’s her bible, she never let go of it. It has every name and phone number she’s ever known in it, every appointment, every assignation, every lover. Did you find anything like that?”
Wally answered first.
“Was my boys that found the stuff, Alex, and there wasn’t any finder facts that I know of. Not in the house either. We went through everything pretty good.“
“There’s two things that Isabella wouldn’t part with very easily. One was her ring.” She and I shared a passion for Schlumberger jewelry – I coveted it, she bought it. She had a fabulous sapphire mounted in a setting called Two Bees – the most exquisitely delicate gossamer wings supporting the deep blue stone.
“And her book. That book was the key to her entire life, professional and social. Find the book you’ll find the phone number and other vitals for Mr. Safe Sex and most of the other people you’ll want to interview.”
“Well, I can account for the ring all right. They had to saw it in half down at the morgue to get it off her hand Wednesday night.”
Mike saw me grimace.
“That’s okay, blondie. Keep this up and I’ll have enough overtime next year to get you one of your own.” He only said it to rattle Luther a bit more, but it didn’t help me either, underscoring the additional brutality of an autopsy to the already ugly fact of Isabella’s murder.
“No book, though,” Wally added.
Luther’s pad was out again as he wrote my description of Isabella’s book.
“It was always in her pocketbook or tote. If that’s gone, I’d suggest that your killer had enough fortitude to reach into the bloody car and remove it. That’s my guess.”
When he finished writing, Luther asked me to join him in the kitchen to answer a few questions about Isabella.
“Wally, why don’t you take Mike out and show him around while we’re talking here,” I suggested.
“Finest kind, Alex. Love to do it. Let’s go, Kojak,” Wally chuckled, as he led Mike out the side door and Luther and I sat down at the kitchen tab leto dissect what I knew of Isabella’s life.
Special Agent Luther Waldron was out to show me just how thorough a federal investigation could be, even though it was pretty clear to the rest of us that he didn’t actually have jurisdiction over the murder of Isabell
a Lascar. He wanted to know the entire history of our relationship and all of the details of our recent conversations, despite the fact that I had gone over that with Mike Chapman the day before.
Had I been anything less than cooperative, Waldron’s boss would have been on the phone to the District Attorney and I would be forced to waste the rest of my weekend doing this again.
“I don’t mean to suggest anything negative by my question, Alex, but why do you supervise the stalking cases that come into the office? They’re not really sex offenses.”
“No, Luther, they’re not. Back when Battaglia asked me to take over the Sex Crimes Unit, he used to joke that my professional territory was everything between the knees and the neck. That covered most of what I did. But with the increase in stalking cases and harassment that all of us in law enforcement began to see in the late eighties by phone, by mail, by computer, and by physical menacing we didn’t know what to do with them. Once the psychiatric experts started to work with us it was obvious that a lot of the cases involved domestic relationships that had broken up and lovers who had been jilted, so the D. A. thought our unit was a natural home for many of them. They’re usually crimes with complex motivations and victims who need especially sensitive treatment. In that sense, they’re very much like sex offenses.”
Stalking cases are really an odd variety of criminal behavior, which Waldron knew every bit as well as I did. Most states, like New York, don’t even have a law that proscribes the conduct there is no penal code provision that specifically outlaws what most of us think of as stalking, no crime on the books with that name.
We struggle to prosecute under a broad range of petty violations when the bad guy makes harassing phone calls or mails threatening letters. But the risks are enormous between that sort of action when not punished and the enraged lover who tires of his calls and entreaties being ignored by his subject, and waits outside her office building with a gun in his hand. Not a week goes by when I don’t have several of these pending, with women desperately fearful as they tell me about their estranged husbands standing outside their offices or apartments every day, watching their movements. They plead with me, each of them wanting to know the same thing: if that conduct is a violation of their orders of protection. Can’t he be rearrested?
No, I respond, it rarely is legal cause for rearrest, no matter how sympathetic the prosecutor or cop. Lurking and watching and following seem to have no sanction in the courts, and yet the stalker’s next move often escalates to a deadly one. You can keep the harasser a certain number of feet away from the victim’s front door, order him not to enter her workplace, and demand that his calls and letters cease, but once she’s an open target walking in a public space or street or subway, the thin sheet of paper handed to her by a judge as an order of the court is as worthless as Confederate currency. The criminal justice system is far more capable of dealing with murder than with harassment, though the line that divides them is often deceptively slim.
“Tell me what you know about Miss Lascar’s latest threats.”
“Well, that’s just it, Luther,” I said sheepishly. “I’m afraid I didn’t ask her much about them I thought they were mostly an excuse to ask me to use the house and to come up here for some privacy.”
He frowned and I knew he was telling himself how unprofessional of me that had been. He was right.
“She told me that she had gotten some messages at the hotel and even some callers who got through the operator, but then hung up on her. She didn’t save any of the slips of paper. Isabella attracted attention wherever she went, Luther, and she was used to dealing with it. She did tell me she was annoyed about a shrink her words and some letters she had gotten. I don’t know if it was her psychiatrist or just someone she met who happened to be a shrink.”
“Yeah, we had that information yesterday. Her agent’s getting the information on all her doctors for us. She’s been through six or seven therapists in the last few years. And we’ve got the agent and the cousin taking the LAPD through her house on Sunday – the funeral’s tomorrow…“
“Yes, I know.”
“They’ll be looking for that correspondence plus notes, love letters, business deals. Perhaps we’ll fax you copies of any papers that might be connected to things she talked to you about – you can tell us if they relate to the problems she discussed with you.”
“Of course, anything I can do.”
“Have you ever met her ex-husband, Richard Burrell?”
“No, no I never met him. She had told me a lot about him, and Nina Baum our mutual friend knew him quite well.” I waited to see where Luther was going with this before I offered the information that Isabella and Nina had gossiped about so freely when we first met.
“They’d been divorced for some time, I understand.”
“Yeah.”
“Well, we’re giving him a close look, Alex. The reason she went to Boston was to meet with him last Saturday.”
“What?” That information really came as a surprise to me. Richard Burrell had produced a few of Isabella’s first movie projects and she had eloped with him one weekend when she was still an unknown. He had been a big deal in the business once, but just as she started to emerge, his cocaine problem engulfed him and cost him most of his money as well as his short-lived marriage. She dropped him instantly, accepting the advice that she would be poison in Hollywood if anyone suspected that she was as deeply into the white powder as Burrell was.
“I’d keep it under your hat, Alex, but it’s a fact. They were both at the Ritz-Carlton last weekend. Separate rooms, arrived and departed at different times but it was a planned meeting. Her agent thinks he’s been trying to reconcile – wanted to meet with her to show her he’s off the coke, clean. He’s been living on one of those small islands off the coast of Maine for the past year, trying to write.”
“You ought to talk to my friend Nina about Richard Burrell. I’ll give you her number. I think Isabella always had a soft spot for him, but reconciliation was out of the question.”
“Did she ever tell you he was violent to her, or abusive? You know, confide in you because of what you do, what your job is?“
”With a couple of drinks she’d have confided in anyone, Luther. Isabella was quite open about her personal life. Much too open. No, she had a lot of complaints about Richard, and how much it cost her to keep him out of trouble, but he never hurt or threatened her. He was wild when he was coked up – vulgar and coarse and unfaithful but he didn’t direct it at her.“
“How about guns? Did she ever mention he had guns?”
“No, not specifically. But when I listened to Isabella and Nina, I used to think that everybody in L.A. had guns. It always seemed so different than New York. Everyone in the Hollywood Hills, in the Valley, in town they all seem to have guns. Not necessarily to carry, but at home or to keep in their cars. Weird. The more upscale they are, the more guns, the more automatics. You know, Luther, when the revolution comes… they’ll be ready.“ I don’t think Luther followed me, but he was probably a gun freak, too.
“Do you have a gun? I mean, a handgun, for protection?”
“Luther, with my temper that would be a real mistake. No, I hate guns.“
“Oh. Well, that’s about all I can think of for now. We’ll be able to pick up some speed on this investigation next week. A lot of the West Coast friends and business associates will be more available to us once the funeral is over.“
We got up from the table and I glanced at the clock on the wall to see that it was almost two in the afternoon.
Mike and Wally were sitting in the sunshine on the deck off the kitchen, feet up on the railing, keeping themselves out of our way. Wally probably hadn’t had a fresh, captive audience like Mike in years and was undoubtedly telling him all the local news and island crime stories.
Luther and Wally thanked us for our help and we made arrangements to be in contact during the week. I saw them to the front door and waved good-bye as each car head
ed out the gate.
“Don’t tell me you’re leaving me for Luther,” Mike said as I headed back out onto the deck. "That is one huge blast of hot air.“
“How come you didn’t ask me if I did him? You left me alone in there with him for almost two hours.”
“Nah. I figure Wally’s more your type. You got a real thing for those sweet old guys. I can see you living up here, married to Wally, running the local jailhouse, or maybe a saloon like Miss Kitty while he rids the island of all the vermin who sail in from the mainland.”
“You guessed it, Chapman. C’mon, I’ve got to call the office and check my messages. I’m sure you do, too.”
“Then you have to buy me some lunch – I’m starving. I’m dying to hear what you got from J. Edgar Waldron – Wally was easy as pie.“
Laura answered my phone on the first ring. She expressed her usual concern for me and told me that it had been a relatively quiet Friday.
All calls from police officers and witnesses had been transferred to Sarah Brenner. My mother had phoned to get Laura’s opinion about how I was holding up (just fine) and whether I was really in any danger (of course not). Nina wanted me to call her when I got back to the city. Dinner invitations from Joan Stafford and another friend, Ann Moore (Tell them thanks but I’ll be exhausted. Rain checks). And Jed called from Paris see you tomorrow.
Mike checked in with his office and then turned back to me.
“Okay, Coop, I’m ready. Who’s got the best fried clams on the island? I’ve got a craving.”
“That’s simple – the Bite. Grab a couple of cold beers and let’s go.”
A seven-minute car ride from my door was the best joint for fried clams in the world. It’s a tiny wooden shack on the side of the road in Menemsha – a stone’s throw from the commercial fishing dock with only two picnic tables next to it. But Karen and Jackie Quinn turned out thousands of the most lightly fried clams from late morning through late night in season, which was only from the Memorial Day weekend through Columbus Day.
Final Jeopardy Page 9
