Lily White

by Susan Isaacs

  “No. But you tell me. Woman to woman. Something was bothering you.”

  Mary clasped her hands in her wrinkled lap. Finally, she said: “Swear to God you won’t tell him?”

  I nodded. That wasn’t enough. I put up my right hand and said: “I swear.”

  “To God.”

  “I swear to God,” I exhaled, thinking that I should double my hourly rates for dealings with my clients’ sweet patooties.

  “It’s like, I’ve been so worried about him,” Mary said. “He’s tired. I mean, you have no idea how much his job takes out of him. The last few cities, when we have mail call—that’s what we call it—it used to be so much fun getting all the answers to his ad in the personals. We’d drink our martinis and read them out loud to each other and laugh and laugh.” She must have read something on my face, because she quickly added, “Of course, we didn’t laugh all the time. Some of them were kind of pitiful. But now, when he brings in the mail, it’s like it weighs a ton.”

  “It’s weighing him down,” I suggested.

  “Yes! He says he doesn’t have the energy anymore to do the dance. Not a real dance. He means the con. He says it’s draining him.”

  Sandi came in carrying a small tray with two glasses of water. Mary declined hers. “It’s bottled water,” I reassured her.

  “I’m not thirsty.”

  I waited for Sandi to go out and close the door. Then I prompted Mary: “You were saying how tired Norman is.”

  “He says: ‘I’m bone-weary’ You know how tired that is. He says he wishes we had enough money to retire. Buy a condo in Florida or the Virgin Islands or someplace and just, like, spend the rest of our lives together.”

  Suddenly I asked: “You like being on the water?”

  “I love looking at it. Being on the beach. Except it’s not as much fun since sunblock.” I walked over to the wall facing my desk and took one of the framed photographs off the wall, a shot of a house and dock that the man in my life had taken from a small boat in a canal: his house in Oceanside. I handed it to Mary. “Ooh! Isn’t it adorable!” she exclaimed. “A little dream house.”

  “My boyfriend took the picture,” I said, hanging it back in its place on the wall among his other work. He was a terrific photographer. “You know, you’ve spoken about all the pressures of Norman’s job and how wiped out he was, but you still haven’t made me understand why you felt Bobette was such a threat.”

  Mary’s eyes were still on the picture. “I was afraid he would leave me for her,” she said quietly.

  “What?”

  She seemed gratified by my incredulity. “Not ’cause he doesn’t love me. But he’s so exhausted. When you’re tired of the con, what else is there? Like, on Montel or Leeza, there was this show: Men Who Get Depressed so They Run Off with Older Women Because It’s Like Their Mothers, or something. I remember thinking: Oh my God! Norman!”

  “Did he ever indicate that he was thinking of leaving you and going with Bobette?”

  “Of course not! But I could see sometimes how much it took out of him just to get up and go meet one of these old maids. I think there may have been a teeny-weeny part of him that was saying: ‘Finally, here’s one who’s got more than money in the bank. Here’s one that’s got an income, who could support me.’”

  I met up with Terry Salazar again a little before Happy Hour at Plumpie’s, a bar that catered to the fringes of the criminal justice system: ex-cops, court reporters, bail bondsmen, an occasional disbarred lawyer. Its jolly name was misleading: Plumpie’s was one of those dank, dark-wooded places in which you’re grateful for the dismal lighting, because if they put in 150-watt bulbs, you’d see thirty years of unspeakable crud and a cross section of insect life that would haunt your dreams. Terry was drinking straight gin, which never did much for his disposition but mellowed his irresistible voice so it was even more compelling.

  “Are you still coherent?” I asked.

  Aggrieved, he answered: “It’s my second.”

  I ordered one of the more esoteric light beers, one that Herman Oberndorfer, a.k.a. Plumpie, would not have on tap, so I wouldn’t have to drink from one of his never-washed-properly steins. I lifted the bottle and took a swig. “Anything on Bobette’s credit cards?” I asked.

  “You’re going to love this. Over six thousand dollars worth of stuff charged on the date of the murder.”

  “Maybe Bobette went on a shopping spree early in the day.” I tried to sound confident, but I would have to work on it.

  “I’m having my pal call a couple of the stores. They’re all in that Americana Shopping Center. Like Louis Vuitton.” He pronounced it perfectly, which led me to think that his wife had probably given up meditation once again and was shopping (once again) and I’d better make sure Terry wasn’t padding his disbursements (once again). “Barneys,” he went on. “Someone ran up three thousand bucks there.”

  “Probably bought two pairs of pantyhose. All right, try to get the information as soon as you can. Not just to time of day. Find out what they bought. My guess is, most of the men’s stuff in an upscale place like that wouldn’t fit Norman; he’s way too tall.”

  “Maybe he bought something for someone.”

  “Right,” I said, thinking of Mary. “Anything on the prints yet?”

  “I had to pass my pal a hundred.”

  “Put it on your bill,” I said, sure that what he passed was probably a couple of twenties. “Were they able to get a make on them?”

  “No. Not yet. He can check with the Feebies, but that’ll cost you more.”

  “Do you have a copy of the card I gave you, the one with those prints?”

  “I gave it to my pal. I just have a Xerox.”

  “With you?” He patted all his pockets until he found it. “Do you still keep a fingerprint kit in your car?” I asked.

  “Sure.”

  “Let’s go.”

  Irked at having to pass up the thimbleful of gin still remaining in his glass, Terry followed me out to the street and got his print kit from a tackle box he kept in his trunk. We walked a half block more to my car. I handed him the framed photograph of my man’s house that I’d taken down from the wall in my office. “Try for thumb prints on the two vertical sides of the glass,” I told him.

  Ten minutes later, he told me. “The thumb prints are from the same person who left the latents all over Bobette’s place. How the hell did those prints get onto your picture? Who the hell is this guy?”

  “Mary Dean.”

  Ten

  The summer before her senior year of high school, Lee White contracted a vicious case of poison ivy when she ran up the hill behind her house to spy on Jazz Taylor playing tennis with his mother.

  It wasn’t as if she had planned such a mad act. No, she had just been lying on a chaise near the pool trying to catch her breath after swimming laps for forty-five minutes. Her eyes were closed. The sounds of the long, dull summer bubbled through the water in her ears: her own labored inhalation; the outrage of blue jays; the aggressive drone of the central air-conditioning unit; the interminable, cheery tinkle of her mother’s Hawaiian wind chimes; the far-off thunk! thunk! of balls smacking against rackets on the Taylors’ tennis court. Suddenly, out of this chorus of boring sounds, one youthful baritone descended from Hart’s Hill: “Lucky shot, Mom!”

  Lee was seized by a lunatic passion. Throwing off her towel, leaping from her chaise, clad only in a bathing suit, she charged up the steep rise that separated the Whites’ from the Taylors’. Clearing a path, she pushed aside branches and tore away clinging vines with the fierce strength of a battle-crazed warrior. She had known for years that the entire incline was choked with nettles and poison ivy, but in that insane instant, she flung that knowledge out of her mind. Two whole years had passed since she had seen Jazz at Dante’s Pizza. Not a single day had gone by that she hadn’t thought about him.

  When Lee reached the summit, she crouched low, darting in the serpentine fashion Charles Bronson had
employed in The Dirty Dozen to dodge Nazi fire. She hunkered down behind one of the junipers that screened the Taylors’ tennis court. It was only then that she came to her senses. Well, somewhat. To be perfectly frank, Lee looked slightly moronic, glancing behind her as if to ask: What means of transportation got me here? But then the game took over.

  Ginger was by far the better player. As much as Lee wished Jazz Taylor would be a god of tennis, wielding a Tad Davis Deluxe Imperial instead of a lightning bolt to strike his mother dead, she was too savvy about the game not to recognize which of the two was just a social player—and which might have once aspired to greatness. To Jazz, it really was a game; he relaxed between points, changing his grip on the racket, wiping his palm on his shorts, shaking out a crick in his leg, combing back his hair with his fingers, squinting into the sun, smiling across the net. But his mother played with an intensity that was almost scary. Ginger’s tan, muscular arms and legs were bright with sweat. She was primed for every ball. Without taking her eyes off Jazz, she moved into position so she could cover the court no matter where her son hit the ball. For God’s sake, Lee thought, he’s not Billie Jean King! This is your son. Still, she was wowed by Ginger, and a little frightened. She had never seen a woman so intent on winning.

  It was a half hour later, as the two Taylors were strolling off the court, when it suddenly occurred to Lee they might catch sight of her behind the juniper. Still, even then, when Jazz actually turned and looked back in her direction, as though homing in on the rays of desire beaming out from her, she stayed calm; her heart didn’t pound, her mouth didn’t go dry. No, all that was in her head was how extravagantly defined his thigh muscles were, like in those Da Vinci drawings in one of her mother’s art books on the coffee table. Such thighs! Then a stray thought popped into her mind and grew and grew: If she were across the net from Jazz and slammed one with her backhand, he would say, “Holy …!” And Ginger, from the sidelines, would call out to her: “Nice shot!”

  That was when it hit her, how alien these Taylors were from her own family. Not just that they had more money, what her father called old money, and were a different religion and sent their kids to private schools. No, they were alive. They had pep. A nauseating word, Lee conceded, but that was what they had. Plain and simple vigor. Well, Ginger had pep squared. Okay, she was a killer who had no qualms about cutting out her own son’s heart. But God, they were both so strong!

  Whereas her family: Leonard, who hardly knew a tennis ball from a silver fox pom-pom, was a knob-kneed embarrassment in shorts. Winded by a stroll to the end of the driveway to pick up the Sunday papers, he could only gaze up the hill with his heart corroding with envy, pierced by desire. If her mother were here beside her, behind the spreading juniper, she would eye Ginger’s grass-stained shorts and baggy, sweaty Lacoste shirt, sigh, then summon up barely enough energy to pat a stray platinum-on-gold-frosted hair into place, and decree: “Ick!” And Robin: At the first overhead smash, she would drop her racquet and shield her head. But from behind her bush, Lee now knew She could play their game.

  That night, Lee’s shapely legs swelled until they looked like bowling pins. The tiny red dots that covered them, signaling her immune system’s outrage were so numerous that from the soles of her feet all the way up to her thighs she was a solid blaze of crimson. Her legs were so sensitive that it was agony when she covered them, even with a sheet. Greta had gone off to Frankfurt for a rare week’s vacation, her mother was in one of her moods where she never got out of her bathrobe, so there was no one to look in on Lee. For forty-eight hours she lay shivering in the arctic air-conditioning, too sapped from antihistamines to get up and open a window.

  But her espionage had been worth it. What memories! What treasures! Jazz’s powerful forearms. His brawny wrists. And his shorts! He must have outgrown them, because when he lunged for a net ball she could see his hamstrings as they thickened into the pale crescents of his buttocks. Oh, and she didn’t want to forget the bandanna he’d tied around his head as a sweatband. And more! When he and his mother changed over, and he was facing Lee; he looked so … Okay, not handsome. But he had such a genuinely nice face, and when his mother aced a serve so hard he didn’t even see the ball, he hadn’t gotten defensive or temperamental. On the contrary! His wonderful face, his absolutely, totally good-natured face lit up with an appreciative grin.

  It had been worth it! Jazz, she said to herself. Jasper. Jazz. If she ever met him, what would she call him? Of course, he might say: “Hi, I’m Jazz Taylor.” Or: “How do you do? My name is Jasper Taylor. I believe we are neighbors,” hopefully oblivious that in fifth grade she’d almost punched him in the suck.

  Does all this sound like an obsession on Lee’s part? It was. Not a dangerous fixation, the sort you hear of nowadays, where monomaniacs stalk their prey without rest or mercy. Actually, until her sortie up the hill, the extent of Lee’s preoccupation with Jazz consisted of calling his prep school (from a pay phone so the call would not show up on her parents’ bill) to ascertain when his spring break would be. She then spent an inordinate amount of time walking Woofer back and forth past the Taylors’ driveway, hoping (in vain, it turned out) to get a glimpse of Jazz.

  She kept hoping throughout her senior year of high school. Aware that they were both in the same grade, she fantasized every night about running into him at college interviews. (“Jasper, isn’t that the girl who lives in that modern thing down the hill?” “I think it may be, Dad.” Then, Jazz would turn to her: “Excuse me, are you from Shorehaven?”) When Jazz didn’t show up for the guided tours at Cornell or Brown, she felt cheated, as though she’d just missed him by seconds. She had even gone so far as to arrange interviews at Smith and Mount Holyoke, for the sole reason that, having studied an atlas, she’d calculated that the two colleges were a mere sixty miles from his prep school. In her mind’s eye, she could see him waiting at a bus stop just outside snow-covered, Christmas-card Amherst on a frosty New England afternoon, anxious about getting back to be on time for afternoon tea or chapel or whatever. She’d spot him and turn to her mother: “Stop the car!” Then she’d lower the window and say: “Aren’t you from Shorehaven?” They’d give him a lift back to school. With the cooperative illogic of fantasy, she was magically transported to the back seat beside him, while Sylvia chauffeured up front; by the time they got to his school, Jazz was slipping his class ring onto her finger. Of course it was much too big, but she knew exactly how to tape it so it would fit.

  But the question remains: Was this obsession anything more than the standard teenage crush? Yes, it was.

  Lee White clung to the image of Jazz Taylor’s sliver of ass, to the remembrance of his vigorous baritone, far longer than might be considered healthy because she was a lonely girl. True, she had a lot going for her. She was a gifted (if not brilliant) student, a key member of the girls’ tennis team, and managing editor of the Shorehaven High School Beacon, where she was a pillar of strength and fount of common sense for the temperamental reporters and the wild, impetuous photographers. She had a smart and lively best friend, Dorie Adler, three devoted pals, and at least ten acquaintances who thought of her in the warmest possible terms. But she had never had a boyfriend.

  Of course, a seventeen-year-old girl who has never had a beau is not exactly a rarity. Still, almost every girl, even the most obnoxious adolescent, stands on the brink of womanhood with the reassuring knowledge that her family’s love has always been (and will ever be) there for her. So it is no great loss if she does not yet have a pair of manly eighteen-year-old arms around her, because she knows—from her mother, father, sisters and brothers—that she is intrinsically lovable. In time, Mr. or Dr. Right will embrace her and whisper in her ear precisely what her family has been telling her all along: You are wonderful. I love you.

  But Lee never got that from her parents. Not just those three little words: the feeling behind them. By the time she was finishing high school, Leonard was hardly home except on weekends. In 1967, ther
e was no business like fur business. Well-off women wanted more than just their full-length minks. They wanted “fun furs”—ski jackets of dyed rabbit, trench coats lined in sheared beaver—plus serious furs to show that they were worthy of more than mere mink; they seized fox coats, sable cloaks, shearling tunics, off the racks at Le Fourreur as if they had been sentenced to decades of hard labor in Siberia. Leonard was becoming rich beyond even his wildest dreams.

  So it was no problem for him to pay the rent on a one-bedroom apartment on East Seventy-eighth Street so he could have a place to stay weeknights. Obviously, Sylvia could not be there with him. The girls needed her. But he urged her: “Use it whenever you come in during the day. It’s a great place to put your feet up for an hour or two before dinner if you’ve been shopping.” (What Sylvia did not know, naturally, is that when she called the East Seventy-eighth Street apartment, the phone also rang in Dolly Young’s somewhat larger, more lavishly furnished co-op apartment on Central Park South which Leonard had also paid for and where he actually spent most Monday through Thursday nights.)

  So Lee saw relatively little of her father. On school holidays, like Columbus Day or Veterans Day, he would often take her out to lunch, but their conversations were limited to safe subjects: school, polite inquiries about her friends and—the only area of her life that aroused his interest—the triumphs and travails of the Shorehaven tennis team.

  “What’s your won-loss record?” he inquired one day during Easter vacation of her senior year.

  “You had to ask?” Lee laughed as she reached across the table at Miss Pansy’s, a tearoom around the corner from her father’s store. “We’re one-five.”

  “Even with your backhand?”

  “If it weren’t for my backhand, we’d probably be five-one.” Father and daughter exchanged smiles, each comfortable that this was not the case. Lee picked up a crustless triangle of her sandwich. “What’s this gook inside?”