“Good try.” He smiled, apparently amused. “Betty gave me the original, then phoned me the next day and said she’d made a copy. She wanted money, as if I haven’t been giving her enough all these years. Greedy bitch.”
“Why?” I was nauseated with fear, talking to a man who had killed at least one person and wouldn’t hesitate to kill me, but I had to know.
“Don’t play games, Molly. You obviously read the journal. Lenore told Betty I was the one who shook the baby. It’s ridiculous, of course—Lenore was on drugs half the time, and the other half, she was delusional. But I wanted to keep Betty happy. She helped me convince Lenore to sign the divorce papers.” He took another step toward me. “Give me the journal pages, Molly.”
“I don’t have them. Maybe Nina found them after all.” I shrugged and used the opportunity to look around for a weapon. I didn’t see one. I took another step to my left.
“The journal’s crap, Molly. But it could be embarrassing to me, especially now. I’m willing to pay you for it. Not that I have to. But I’m willing to do it.”
Was this what he’d told Betty? “I wish I could help you.”
He sighed. “Molly.”
I’ve never heard the promise of so much menace attached to a name. “I put the pages back in the albums,” I told him and pointed to the carpet.
His eyes followed my finger. In two steps I was at the door. I yanked it open and ran through a laundry room into a long, narrow, dark kitchen. I found the nearest drawer, opened it, and felt around with desperate fingers. Towels and papers.
A pair of scissors.
He was right behind me. I grabbed the scissors. His hand clamped down on mine and squeezed my fingers until I screamed in pain, but I wouldn’t let go of the scissors.
He clamped his free hand on my mouth. I bit at the palm and tasted blood.
“Bitch.”
I shoved my elbow behind me into muscle and heard him grunt. I shoved again and met air. He slipped something soft and smooth around my throat and jerked it tight. A scarf. I let go of the scissors, heard them clatter to the tile floor as I tugged at the silky length of fabric that was squeezing my windpipe. Oh God, was this how Aggie felt before she died?
I couldn’t breathe, I was dizzy and faint. Bracing myself against the counter, I lunged backward as hard as I could, surprising him. We fell together, the scarf around my throat looser, and I heard a thunk as his head hit first the wall, then the floor.
I used both hands to wrest the scarf away from him, but he pulled it tighter. Keeping one hand between my neck and the scarf, I reached behind me and pinched hard at the skin on the inside of his thigh, my freshly manicured nails digging deep. He yelled and grabbed my arm.
I pulled away, the scarf no longer a noose, and crawled on the floor, stretching out my hand in a wide sweep as I felt for the scissors. His hand gripped my ankle like a vise. I kicked free and scrambled to my feet, wheezing, my throat raw and aching, every breath a fiery pain, and still I couldn’t get enough air. He grunted again, and I knew he was getting up, too.
My eyes had adjusted to the dark, and I made out the shape of an appliance on the counter. A blender. I raced for it, grabbed it, and turned around, holding the thick, heavy glass container high as Robbie came at me with the scissors aimed at my throat.
I slammed the container into his nose. He screamed. Blood spurted out of his nose, but he was still coming toward me. Raising the container higher, I slammed it into his forehead until he fell to the floor. I think it was only two times. It could have been three.
He’d dropped the scissors. I picked them up and approached him gingerly. The rise and fall of his chest told me he was alive, and though he looked unconscious, I took three dish towels and knotted them together, then rolled him over and tied his hands behind his back.
I found my cell phone in my purse and phoned Connors.
forty-four
Later, I read some of the other journal entries.
Tuesday, August 6
I was so angry when I phoned him at the office, and later on his cell phone.
Was I sleeping when he came home? He says I was, even though the baby was crying, but I was so tired. He tried holding him, tried giving him a bottle with formula, but nothing would quiet him.
I know he didn’t mean to hurt the baby. I know how tired he was because Max hadn’t slept all night, how frustrated from the long day. And I didn’t help. Calling him so often, bothering him at work, accusing him of being with Jillian. That really made him angry, and I don’t blame him. And I was the one who refused to have a nurse.
So it’s my fault, too, isn’t it?
He says he didn’t realize how hard he was shaking the baby until Max suddenly stopped crying and he saw that something was wrong. He was terrified, and I believe him. I would have been terrified, too. It could have been me, couldn’t it? He loved Max, so why would he want to hurt him?
He was sobbing when he woke me and told me the baby was dead. He wanted to call the police right away. If I were a mother they’d understand, he said, but now they’ll lock me away for years, and we’ll never be together.
Thursday, August 8
Sometimes I don’t remember who came up with the idea
first. I think it was me. Elizabeth Proctor lied for John, even though he cheated on her. She went to prison for the man she loved, and I didn’t want to lose my lover and my son on the
same day.
He came to see me every day. You’re so brave, he said. I can’t believe you’re doing this for me, and I told him it was for us.
Tuesday, September 10
I think about Max every day, and even when I press my
hands against my ears I hear his cry. Robbie says we can have another baby right away, but the emptiness will always be
there.
Three more months.
Maternity.
Eternity.
Friday, February 14
Sometimes I think he’s lying to me, and we’ll never be together. He says he can’t upset Donald Horton now, and I understand. But what if that’s just an excuse?
I threatened to tell the police the truth, but who will believe me?
Friday, May 5
Betty says if I don’t sign the divorce papers Robbie won’t let her stay in the house. Why should I care?
You owe me, she says. I could have had an abortion.
Sometimes I wish she had.
Friday, June 13
Robbie set the table with candles and wine. After dinner we went into the bedroom and he had me put on one of Jillian’s nightgowns. It’s exquisite, cream silk with lace.
It looks much more beautiful on you, he said.
Be patient.
You know I love you.
Friday, July 11
Dr. K says I should tell the police the truth, but I have to be prepared that they might not believe me. Don’t worry about me, he said. Do what you need to do. But I think he is worried.
What I need is Robbie.
I shouldn’t have told Nina the truth. She is angry that I fooled Dr. K, and hurt that I lied to her.
Saturday, July 12
Robbie told me Jillian’s away. He begged me to come, he wants to explain. I’m so angry, but he has a right to know about the baby.
A second chance, his last.
forty-five
Tuesday, August 12. 6:02 P.M. Corner of Crescent Heights and Olympic Boulevards. A suspect approached the victim at a school and said, “You are not going to have that baby.” (Wilshire)
A few days ago I asked Connors why Robbie didn’t use his key the night he killed Betty Rowan. Why mess with the lock? That bothered me, but Connors thinks Robbie wanted to deflect suspicion in case the police didn’t believe Betty killed herself.
Robbie’s a smart guy, and a great storyteller.
He told Connors he drove to Betty’s after Zena phoned him, to see if he could help me search for the journal. He heard screaming and thought I was inside, wit
h Betty’s killer. So he ran into the kitchen and was knocked down by someone he couldn’t identify, and the next thing he knew, I hit him in the face with a blender and broke his nose. He’d suffered a concussion, too, but he told Connors he wasn’t going to press charges against me because he knew I’d been too frightened to know what was going on.
Talk about chutzpah.
As for the journal, he insists Lenore was delusional and what she wrote was fantasy.
Chapman is his lawyer, but I don’t think Robbie will wiggle out of this one. The lab found traces of Betty’s blood on the scarf (Jillian’s), and his fingerprints were all over Lenore’s Four Runner, which he parked in her spot (labeled L. SAUNDERS). Connors said it’s definitely the car that hit Lenore (the O’Days hadn’t seen Lenore leave, and had assumed that her car had been there all night). But the D.A. will have to prove that Robbie had intent.
I think he did, but then, I’m biased.
I think she drove up there in a fury and he did what he always did, calmed her down, promised her the moon and marriage as soon as the election was over and Horton’s money was in the bag. Had her put on Jillian’s nightgown.
Then Lenore told him she was pregnant, and they’d have to get married, now. And he said, baby or not, we have to wait. And that’s when it all fell apart.
I think she threatened to go to the police and meant it this time. I think he knew it. I think he grabbed her car keys and said, let’s talk about this. So she ran out of the house and left her car.
Maybe he did follow her down Willow Glen to catch up with her and sweet-talk her one more time. More likely, he thought she’d always be a noose around his neck, and though most people would believe she was lying, jealous because her ex was getting married, he couldn’t risk the publicity. Not with the election coming. Not with Horton breathing down his neck.
So was there intent?
You tell me.
I try not to think about her final moments, but the images come unbidden. I see her running down Willow Glen in Jillian’s nightgown, crying as she stumbles along in the moonless night in those backless sandals. Maybe she trips once or twice. Maybe she keeps looking over her shoulder, wondering when he’s coming. Because she knows he will. As she nears Laurel Canyon she hears the car. She keeps going, because he’s hurt her, hasn’t he? He should feel sorry, he should worry. And then she turns around and sees him behind the wheel of her Four Runner, and she’s smiling, because she believes in happy endings and she knows he’s come to tell her he’ll marry her after all. But the car doesn’t stop, it’s coming too close, and she wants to run, but she’s paralyzed with fear and horror, she can’t believe he’d hurt her.
I think he visited her in the hospital that one time to find out how much she remembered and was relieved to find out, not much. I think he worried when Betty told him she was starting to say things and a reporter had been by.
You’ll be pleased to know Jillian admitted she lied when she alibied him for the morning Lenore died. They both heard all the phone calls, and Jillian said, why don’t you make her stop bothering us once and for all?
I think he did. I can see him walking into Lenore’s room after the nurse has gone and he’s created that diversion by pushing another patient out of his bed, clever guy.
“Hey, sweetheart. I just heard your messages and got here as fast as I could.”
She’s been agitated all night, so they’ve been giving her Haldol. She tells him she’s starting to remember things, but they don’t make sense. Something with her car? And her journal is missing.
“We’ll find the journal,” he tells her. “We’ll get married right away and we’ll have the baby, but you have to get well first. Why don’t you take this, it’ll help you sleep.”
She believes he loves her because to do otherwise is unthinkable, and she’s sedated. He has her purse, remember, and Nina told me Lenore always carried Haldol tablets with her. He gives her enough to knock her out, which I found out can take just minutes, and then he slashes her wrists.
Nevermore, Lenore.
Jillian says she was asleep when he came back, and he told her he never saw Lenore, he changed his mind. People believe what they want. I learned that a long time ago, with Ron.
I’m sure Robbie trashed the apartment after Betty put on the squeeze, in case Lenore had left anything that would incriminate him, but he was careful not to leave fingerprints. And I think Betty went there Thursday to look for more evidence to strengthen her hand.
Nina told me that Betty had mailed her journal pages that referred to her private hell and the fact that Lenore had duped Korwin, something Nina already knew. Lenore had been in a rage after Darren told her the wedding date had been set and, by the way, Robbie was with Jillian that fateful March day. So Lenore told Nina the truth about Max’s death.
Ask Nina. Tell her I said.
Nina thought Robbie may have killed Betty. She wasn’t sure and she had no proof, and she was terrified, and furious that her best friend had kept a secret that could ruin Korwin. So she’d gone to Lenore’s to make sure there was nothing else to damage his reputation. And she’d taken the book. (To new beginnings, Yours, Doctor K.) She didn’t admit to jealousy, but I think there was some.
And there was outrage, too, that Lenore’s charade would cast its shadow on all those poor women trapped in the grip of postpartum depression and psychosis.
I’m sure Korwin shared that outrage. He insists he never received Lenore’s messages, but my guess is he ignored them because he wasn’t in the mood to hold her hand. I’m sure he felt guilty, and maybe that’s why he was so defensive. Plus he knew the truth about Robbie, but couldn’t reveal what Lenore had told him in confidence, and maybe part of him didn’t want to, because what would that do to his credibility? He says that when Betty Rowan was killed and he’d read some of the journal pages, he’d worried that Nina might have been involved because she’d been unusually nervous and distraught but hadn’t been willing to say why.
It’s amazing how much we think we know, how little we actually do, how ready we are to jump to conclusions. I had done it, too. Donna Bergen had opened the door, but I had willingly walked through it.
Korwin’s book is still on all the bestseller lists, and for the two weeks after Saunders was arrested, his Amazon rank kept bouncing between one and ten. I watched him on Good Morning America, and I have to say he handled himself with grace and dignity and good humor, and even a little humility. I hope he reaches a lot of women.
I’ll never know why Lenore phoned me. Maybe she had a lucid moment when everything clicked. Her journal was missing, and she was remembering things about the accident, but she didn’t want to believe what she knew deep inside: that Robbie had run her down.
For a little love, Bubbie G says, you pay all your life. And sometimes, with your life.
Mindy gave birth to a boy two weeks ago. She was in labor during Monday night mah jongg, doing her Lamaze panting in between picking and discarding tiles until her contractions were five minutes apart and we made her leave.
She and Norman named the baby Yitzchak for Bubbie G’s late husband, Zeidie Irving. Zack came to the bris on Tuesday morning, and I introduced him to everyone, including Bubbie. Even with macular degeneration, she can see through people better than anyone I know.
“Gitte schoyreh,” she told me when she took me aside. Good merchandise.
But I already knew that.
As I told Zack, it’s hard to unlearn a learned response, but I’m highly motivated. We’ve been talking late into the night and seeing each other four or five times a week.
Tonight is the eve of the fifteenth day of Av, a special holiday. During the era of the Holy Temple young maidens would dress in white garments and go out into the fields. They would dance in the vineyards and say, “Young man, lift up your eyes and see—what do you choose for yourself?” The beautiful maidens would say, “Look to beauty.” Those from good families would say, “Look to family.” And those who were p
lain would say, “Look for the sake of Heaven and adorn us with gold.”
Tonight is the meet-the-rabbi reception at the shul. “Will you come with me, Molly?” Zack had asked three nights ago while we sat on my landlord’s porch.
I know that Reggie will be there, and other young women looking to dance in a vineyard, each one hoping to find her young man. But it won’t be the rabbi. Zack has lifted up his eyes and chosen, and so have I.
Yes I said, yes I will, yes.
Last Wednesday night, on the eve of Tisha b’Av, the Ninth of Av, I ate a hard-boiled egg dipped in ashes and began my fast. At shul I sat in my tennis shoes on a pillow on the carpeted floor in the women’s section as several men, including Zack, took turns reading aloud from Jeremiah’s Lamentations. It is a grim elegy, chanted softly in a haunting, solemn melody that tugs at your heart, of the destruction of the Temple, of the accompanying famine that led to unspeakable acts, of desolation and despair.
I spent the day fasting with Bubbie G, reading stories to her from different Judaic texts, and in the afternoon, the first two chapters of my manuscript, The Lady from Twentynine Palms. Bubbie is curious about the nightgown, and I said, wait, you’ll see.
In the evening we broke our fast at my parents’ house, and I ate too much, as usual. Then we all went to visit Mindy. Bubbie sat in Mindy’s rocker, and I placed the baby in her arms.
The Three Weeks were over, and what better way to rejoice than by celebrating a new life.
Glossary of Hebrew and Yiddish words and phrases
bashert (noun or adjective, ba-shert´). Destiny, or destined.
besser (adjective, bes´ser). Better.
bikur cholim (noun, bi-kur´ cho-lim´ or bi´-kur cho´-lim). Visiting the ill.
bimah (noun, bi´-mah). Elevated platform on which the Torah scroll is placed for the reading.
bissele (noun, bis´-se-le). A small amount (of), a little.
blech (noun). Heavy sheet of metal placed above a stove top burner, used on the Sabbath to keep food warm.
Blues in the Night Page 28
