“Maybe it’s just easier to call it a suicide, Andy. Then you don’t have to figure out who did it. Case closed.”
“Are you done?” he asked, his voice filled with quiet anger.
“Sorry.” Sometimes I go too far. “She called me, Andy. She said she was afraid.”
“How did the killer slash Lenore’s wrists without getting caught, Miss Marple? Wouldn’t she have resisted, yelled for help? Someone would have heard her.”
“Maybe he smothered her with a pillow.”
“We would’ve seen that right away. If she was asphyxiated, the skin on her head and neck and upper body would’ve been a deep purple. And there would’ve been some hemorrhaging on the pink lining around the eyeball. Red dots. The M.E. didn’t see any of that. And there’s no sign she struggled. No tissue or blood under her nails.”
“What if the killer upped the Haldol and waited until she was out?”
“Then why slash her wrists?”
“Because the other times she slashed her wrists. So this would fit her pattern. Why are you fighting this?”
“Why are you so determined to prove she was killed, Molly? Because you need to be right?”
“If I’m right, it means I failed her!”
We stood there for a moment glaring at each other, breathing hard, not speaking.
Connors sighed. “For what it’s worth, I think it’s possible Lenore was killed. So, yeah, that’s why I asked Mrs. O’Day not to let anyone in Lenore’s apartment. And if it makes you feel better, I considered her phone call to you. So they’re going to do an autopsy.”
That surprised me. “Don’t they always?”
“Usually, if there are past documented suicide attempts, it’s pretty much an open-and-shut case for the coroner. They might do a psychological autopsy, have the shrink review the circumstances, then rule it a suicide. I’m hoping we’ll have the results by Tuesday. I don’t want any of this getting out, Molly, or word of the break-in.”
“Mrs. Rowan knows, right? And Mrs. O’Day, the manager, told me about it, and she probably told others. So I hardly think it’s a state secret.”
“Fine. But I don’t want you telling anyone Lenore was pregnant. If I read about it, I’ll know it came from you.”
“Why not from her mother?”
“I haven’t told Mrs. Rowan. Lenore’s doctors didn’t say anything to her either—it’s privileged information. I’m serious, Molly.” He scowled at me to press the point.
I nodded. I’ve never abused Connors’s trust, which is why he’s willing to share information with me. And I don’t take his willingness for granted. “Did Saunders know?”
“He says no. He seemed shocked when I told him. Which doesn’t mean squat.”
“Maybe Lenore went to his place Saturday night to tell him she was pregnant with his child.”
Connors smiled. “Believe it or not, Molly, the possibility occurred to me.”
I smiled back. “Just helping out.”
“If necessary, we’ll do DNA testing to determine paternity. But we’re a long way from that.”
“The fiancée may have known. She wouldn’t be thrilled.”
“Again, stating the obvious. Let me do my job, okay, Molly?”
I glanced around the room again. “Did they take anything?”
He raised a brow. “Are you saying you don’t know their names yet?”
I suppose I had that coming. “Come on, Andy.”
“Aside from the contents of the jewelry box, you mean. According to Mrs. Rowan, Lenore had some serious jewelry, including a diamond choker and a tennis bracelet, all compliments of her ex. That’s gone, plus a coin collection from her father. They left a full-length mink coat, also from the ex.”
“Maybe they’re members of PETA,” I said.
“Yeah. And it’s less risky to take stuff you can slip in your pocket.” He looked around the room. “Whether or not Lenore was killed, I think the robbery and vandalism were just stage dressing. Whoever did this was looking for something. I have no clue what, or whether he found it.”
“The journal,” I said.
Connors frowned. “What?”
“Lenore told me she was keeping a daily journal. Dr. Korwin told her to. And Mrs. O’Day said she always saw Lenore writing. Maybe Lenore wrote down stuff somebody didn’t want known.”
twenty
“I don’t know anything about the hit-and-run,” Nina Weldon said. “Lenore was sleepy when I first visited her in the hospital, probably from the medication. And I didn’t want to upset her with questions.”
We were in Nina’s breakfast nook, which she’d painted a cheery yellow, seated across from each other at a knotty pine trestle table she told me Lenore had helped her pick out. She’d set the table for company—royal blue linen place mats; china plates, teacups, and saucers with a blue-and-yellow floral-wreath design; a crystal bowl filled with fruit; a cobalt platter with cinnamon buns that smelled heavenly but probably weren’t kosher. It was rather formal for an interview with a reporter, and I had the feeling she didn’t entertain much and welcomed the opportunity.
Betty Rowan had called Nina Weldon mousy—an unkind description, but true. She was remarkably colorless in this room of bright yellows and blues, as though she’d used up her allotment of pigments on her surroundings and accessories. She was the before woman in magazines and romantic comedies who had fine features but needed a dresser and hairstylist and a Bobbi Brown makeover to transform her into a butterfly. Right now she was a moth: drab, shoulder-length brown hair; faint, unshaped brows; quiet brown eyes, invisible lashes; pale lips that disappeared into skin the color of oatmeal. She was somewhere in her thirties, I guessed, around five feet six or seven, neither slim nor heavy, her shape camouflaged by a beige tentlike dress.
Her hands were surprisingly beautiful, long and slender, but she’d bitten her unringed fingernails all the way to the nail bed and they looked raw. The hands flitted from place to place—her chin, the table, her mug, her lap. Again, I thought of a moth. I wondered if she was nervous because of me, or whether this was her natural disposition.
“I spoke with her ex-husband on Friday,” I said. “He told me Lenore was at his house Saturday night, just before it happened. Did she tell you she was going there?”
“I didn’t see Lenore on Saturday.” She gazed at me with interest. “Did he say why she was there?”
“He said she wanted to spend the night because she was afraid she might harm herself.” I was watching Nina carefully, but saw no reaction. “He told me about their son. I don’t know how anyone gets over something like that.”
“You don’t, really.” She ran a finger over the rim of her coffee cup. “Lenore was depressed lately. Something was bothering her, but she didn’t want to talk about it.”
“Do you know if she was taking her medication?”
“I have no idea.”
“Maybe she wrote in her journal about whatever was bothering her. She told me she was keeping one, at Dr. Korwin’s suggestion.”
“Dr. Korwin has all his patients keep journals.” She pushed a strand of hair behind her ear. “To be honest, I don’t feel comfortable discussing Lenore.”
“Especially with a reporter.” I smiled. “I don’t blame you. But Lenore wanted me to talk to you. She said so in the hospital. ‘Ask Nina.’ I think she has a right to have her story told, don’t you?”
Nina cocked her head. “Are you going to write about her?”
“Yes.” With Lenore dead, probably murdered, I needed to do it, although I suppose I’d been headed in this direction from the moment I read about her in the police report. “So far, everything I know is from the media coverage of the trial and whatever her ex-husband told me. The newspaper accounts aren’t flattering, and her ex-husband . . .” I left the sentence unfinished. “As Lenore’s best friend, you could shed another view. You probably knew her better than almost anyone else.”
Yes, I was being manipulative. No, I didn’t f
eel great about it, but I hoped it would make her open up. I took a sip of coffee and watched her eyes, which gave no clue as to what she was thinking. Her fingers played a sonata on her napkin.
“What do you want to know?” she finally asked.
I relaxed against my chair. “What she was like. Her hobbies, her likes and dislikes. What kind of perfume she wore. What her life was like before and after her son’s death.”
“Her favorite color was blue,” Nina said quietly. “She wore mostly Calvin Klein perfume, sometimes Angel. She didn’t like sports, but she loved games and puzzles and amusement parks and cotton candy. She was always interested in what you were doing. She made you feel special.” Her lips quivered, and she stilled them with her hand. “Did you see her smile?”
I shook my head.
“She had a beautiful smile, and a great laugh that started way down in her stomach, and she loved to sing. She didn’t smile or laugh or sing when she came to the clinic, and that’s where we met, so I don’t know what she was like before Max died, but I do know she never stopped blaming herself for what happened.” It was a long sentence, and she paused to take a breath. “She told me that the best two things that ever happened to her were Robbie and Max, and then she lost both of them.”
“She must have been devastated when he divorced her.”
“There were problems,” Nina said. “Even before Max died. Lenore didn’t think she measured up to the people in Robbie’s world, including his family and his business associates. She was a working girl from a small town. His family practically built L.A. She wasn’t as sophisticated as his crowd. She was nine years younger than Robbie, too.”
“I read that her mom raised her alone.”
“Her dad skipped when she was a baby, and her mom barely made ends meet. I think that was why Lenore fell so hard for Robbie—because he could give her security. The fact that he was older was a plus.”
“A replacement for her father?”
Nina nodded. “That’s what Dr. Korwin told her. But Robbie was in L.A. on business a lot, and that was hard on Lenore.” She paused. “But to answer your question, yes, she was devastated about the divorce. She was shocked when he told her. Thank God she was in therapy at the clinic. I don’t know how she would have handled it on her own.”
I thought about the photos I’d seen in Lenore’s hatbox. Lenore’s father had divorced her mother. Saunders had divorced Lenore. She must have felt that history was repeating itself.
“She was lucky to find a friend like you there,” I said. “Actually, I find it odd that she went to her ex-husband for support when you and she were very close. Especially with the fiancée there.”
“We were best friends!” Her lips quivered. “We told each other everything!” She sounded hurt, almost angry. A moment later she blushed, probably embarrassed by her show of passion.
I thought about the pregnancy. Maybe not everything. “I’m sorry. I know it’s hard to lose someone you love.” I didn’t want to think about Aggie, but there she was.
“Actually, Lenore knew Jillian was going out of town,” Nina said. “I think her mother mentioned it.”
Not what Saunders had said. I felt a prickling of excitement. “Her mother and Robbie are on good terms?”
Nina nodded. “When he and Lenore married, he bought a house in L.A. for her to live in so she could leave Twentynine Palms and be closer to Lenore. She lives there rent-free, and Lenore said he still helps her financially.”
Maybe that explained Betty Rowan’s reluctance to involve Saunders in the hit-and-run. “That must have been uncomfortable for Lenore, having her mother chummy with her ex-husband.”
“She hated it.” Nina grimaced. “It was awkward for her, and it made her feel more isolated from everyone.”
“Lenore told me everyone blamed her for Max’s death. What about her mother?”
“Her mother, his mother. Practically everyone in Santa Barbara. They all said they understood about Lenore’s postpartum illness, but she knew they blamed her. Dr. Korwin told Lenore she couldn’t change what they think. He was trying to help her move on with her life.”
“I think I saw him when I was in the hospital the day Lenore died. He was talking to her mother.”
“Dr. Korwin is wonderful.” Nina’s eyes sparkled, rescuing her face from ordinariness. “He doesn’t just treat postpartum illness. When I came to him I was in a terrible depression. It was—” She stopped. “It was a dark time for me. I couldn’t hold down a job. Most days I stayed in bed. I had no hope. But Dr. Korwin gave me hope. He did that for so many other women who are depressed for all sorts of reasons. Lenore, too. She told me over and over how grateful she was to Dr. Korwin, how he’d changed her life. She adored him.”
“Patients often become attached to their therapists.” I smiled.
Nina stiffened. “Dr. Korwin would never allow that to happen. There was nothing inappropriate in their relationship.”
The mouse had turned into a lion. “Of course not. I didn’t mean to suggest that there was. I’m glad he was able to help her.”
Nina relaxed her shoulders, apparently mollified. “He tried, but she didn’t always follow his advice. He didn’t approve of her seeing Robbie.”
“Was Lenore still in love with Robbie?”
“She thought so. Dr. Korwin told her she was holding on to Robbie because she was trying to re-create her life before Max died. It’s one of the things she was working on, letting go.”
“She must have been upset when Robbie became engaged. Has he known Jillian long? What’s her last name, by the way?”
“Horton. Their families have been close for years.” Nina hesitated. “Actually, they were engaged when Lenore met Robbie. That’s one of the reasons Lenore wanted to move away when they married. Robbie’s mother disapproved of her and blamed her for the broken engagement. As if Robbie didn’t have anything to do with it.” She sniffled.
I shook my head. “It’s always the woman’s fault, isn’t it?” I wondered whether Jillian had known about Lenore’s pregnancy, and if so, how she’d felt having her marriage plans threatened a second time by the same person. And what about Saunders’s mother? “So when did they reconnect? Jillian and Robbie, I mean.”
“Robbie moved back to L.A. a year ago, after the trial. A few months later he filed for divorce. Lenore thinks he was seeing Jillian way before then. She didn’t come out and say it, but I think she suspected something was going on even before the baby was born. I think that’s the real reason she wanted to move to Santa Barbara, to put some distance between them. A little over a month ago, when the divorce was final, Jillian moved into his house in Mount Olympus. Lenore was very upset.”
I couldn’t imagine being pregnant and worrying that my husband was lusting after someone else. Thank God I’d found out about Ron before it was too late.
Nina moved another strand of hair behind her ear. “You said she left a message on your answering machine. What did she say?”
“That she needed to talk to me. She started to say something else, but my answering machine ran out of tape.”
Nina’s hands fluttered against her chest. “What do you think it was?”
“It sounded like ‘I’m afraid.’ Do you have any idea what she meant?”
“The only thing I can think of is that she was afraid she’d harm herself. Because she did, didn’t she?” she said softly, her eyes flooded with tears.
I reached over and patted her hand, wishing I could be of more comfort. “How did Lenore seem when you visited her?”
“The first two times she was confused. I wasn’t even sure she knew I was there.” Nina wiped her eyes with her napkin. “On Wednesday morning I talked to her on the phone, and she seemed much better. She asked me to bring her makeup and other stuff from her apartment. I took that as a good sign.”
I had to agree. “When were you there on Wednesday?”
“The first time, on my lunch break. I went to her apartment first to get her
things. She was stronger, more alert. She was asking about people in the clinic, taking an interest in things. When I came back at seven-thirty, she was depressed again. Something must have happened to upset her, but she didn’t want to talk about it.”
“Did Lenore ever tell you she was afraid of anyone, Nina?”
The question seemed to startle her. She frowned. “Why do you ask?”
I’d promised Connors not to say anything about the suspicion of foul play, but that was all. “Someone burglarized her apartment.”
Nina’s hand flew to her mouth. Her eyes widened. “I don’t— When?”
“Sometime Thursday night or Friday morning.”
“Oh, my God! What a horrible coincidence!” She shuddered, and I watched her expression go from shock to bewilderment to suspicion. She stared at me. “Unless it’s not a coincidence. But that doesn’t make sense either. Why would someone break into Lenore’s apartment because she killed herself?”
“The police think it could be coincidence,” I said, making amends to Connors. “Or maybe someone was looking for something he didn’t want found.”
“Like what?”
I decided not to mention the journal.
Nina was frowning, preoccupied. I was out of questions, at least for now. I thanked her, and she nodded and walked me to the door, still lost in thought.
I asked if I could call again.
“I suppose so,” she said without enthusiasm.
“By the way, what kind of nightgowns did Lenore like?”
She blinked a few times, as though trying to focus. “What?”
I repeated the question.
“Lenore didn’t wear nightgowns. She liked pajamas.” The idea must have amused Nina, because she smiled for the first time. “Are you going to put that in your book, too?”
twenty-one
Gardening relaxes me. I love running my fingers through clumps of earth, inhaling the rich scent of loam and fertilizer. I even enjoy pulling weeds and sometimes wish life could be as black and white, and that I could yank out of my life the problems or people who annoy me.
Blues in the Night Page 12
