The detective shook his head. “As I’m sure your partner will explain to you, Ms. Applebaum, our information sharing cannot be the two-way street you would like it to be. I’m trusting you to turn over to me anything you discover. I will not be able to do the same. I’m sure you understand why not.”
I sighed. Of course I did. And I was used to being on the short end of the informational stick. As a public defender, what I knew was always limited to what my client was willing to tell me, and what I was able to pry out of the prosecutor, sometimes with the help of a judicial order. I didn’t expect Detective Goodenough to come entirely clean. Nonetheless, he’d already told me enough to convince me of one thing. I just didn’t believe Alicia was the victim of a random act of violence. Sure there were killers who didn’t rape their victims, but more often than not, this kind of stranger-attack was a sex crime. Perhaps the very fact that Alicia had been naked and in the shower was in and of itself sufficient to satisfy her killer’s sexual perversion. But I doubted it. The lack of any kind of physical violation seemed to preclude a stranger attack. Furthermore, Alicia had been murdered by someone who knew how to get the key out of the lock box, or someone who had keys to the house. Now, again, it was possible that there was a serial-killer/real estate agent on the loose in the greater Los Angeles area, but I didn’t believe that, and I was certain Detective Goodenough shared my doubts. No. Alicia Felix had been murdered by someone who knew her well enough to gain access to her home. I hoped to God it wasn’t her brother, because I had every intention of figuring out who had killed her. And I seriously doubted Felix would sell me his house if I ended up putting him in jail.
ON my way home I stopped at the supermarket. We were entirely out of breakfast cereal, and I didn’t relish trying to force something else down my finicky children’s throats in the morning. It was hard enough getting them to eat a small bowl of organic chocolate crispies. Anything else was beyond them, and me.
Once inside the store I surprised myself by remembering deodorant, and a new tube of bubblegum-flavored toothpaste for the kids. I was so pleased with this feat of deep-pregnancy recall that I decided to reward myself with a donut. I still hadn’t gotten that life-size box of Krispie Kremes out of my mind. The pastry counter offered my honey glazed favorites in boxes of four, just enough, I told myself, for my perfectly sized little family. I ate my donut as I waited in line behind an elderly woman with a hand tremor who was insisting on paying by check. The confection went down altogether too fast. While the ancient woman consulted her calendar for the date, and laboriously filled in and then crossed out the number “19” in the spot for the year, I decided that not only wouldn’t Peter really expect me to bring him a donut, but that since I was eating for two, I really deserved another one myself. As long as I still had two left for Ruby and Isaac, I was fine.
Once I was in the car, I recollected what the kids’ dentist had said about sugary snacks late in the day, and the need for better toothbrushing. Well, I’d been trying, but I couldn’t get the kids to brush with anything resembling the commitment the dentist demanded. I was going to have to limit the amount of sweets they were allowed. Therefore, it was my duty as their mother to eat the other two donuts.
I’d like to say I felt sick, or regretted my gluttony. I didn’t. In fact, I felt like I could easily put away another four-pack. But turning the car around and heading back to the pastry counter was beyond even me, wasn’t it? I checked my watch. Alas, I didn’t have time. I had to pick up the kids from school.
I started feeling bad while I was waiting out in front of Ruby’s school in the pick-up line. I don’t mean physically bad. Physically, I was just fine. No, what got to me wasn’t abdominal discomfort, but rather a bit of good old fashioned self-hatred. A group of moms had gotten out of their cars and were chatting amiably as they waited for the doors to open and the children to pour out. I joined them, and was confronted with the ugly truth. I was, by far, the fattest woman there. Now granted, I was pregnant, and moreover I wasn’t really fat by any stretch of the imagination. At least not fat like any normal person would consider fat. After all, when not under the influence of a developing fetus I fit more or less comfortably into a size 10, and could even manage an 8 if I was willing to forgo respiration. The problem was that these were all Los Angeles mothers. Not all were actresses, or even in the industry at all. In fact, these particular women were mostly stay-at-home mothers. But nonetheless they looked, to a one, like they had just walked off a movie set. They weren’t dressed particularly glamorously—a pair of tight yoga pants and a stretchy T-shirt was the style of the moment. But they were all thin. They were aerobicized and stepped and Zone-dieted down to a svelteness that only a town that idolized the broomstick likes of Calista Flockheart and Lara Flynn Boyle could have considered normal. Alongside them, I felt hugely, lumberingly, hideously fat. I’m fully aware that it is simply unreasonable for a woman who has given birth even to just one child to have an abdomen that looks good in hip-hugger pants and a belly button ring. Still, it bothered me that my belly button, after three pregnancies, was going to look more like a deflated party balloon than a body part that deserved its own jewelry, and that even if I had a pupik-plasty or whatever that surgery was called, I still would never have the courage to bare my midriff.
I made as much small talk as I could stomach and then made my way back to my car, pulling my shirt over the behind that suddenly seemed bigger than anything that could easily fit into my station wagon. I thought of the donuts, each of them in turn, oily and coated with its grey scum of sugar. For the first time in my life I felt, or at least understood, the compulsion of women like Alicia. I wanted to run to the nearest ladies room, stick my finger down my throat, and get rid of the pounds of carbohydrate and fat that would soon be taking up permanent residence on my thighs.
Then the image of Alicia’s emaciated, vandalized body sprang before my eyes. Was that really what I wanted to be? I looked out the window at the woman gathered together in front of the school. How many of them maintained their slimness by denying themselves basic sustenance? How many of them vomited up any item not on the paltry list of foods they considered acceptable? I was willing to bet that it was more than a few. Not many of us ended up like Alicia, institutionalized and force-fed, but we were all completely crazy when it came to food. Felix was right. We all had eating disorders. It was only a question of degree.
Just then, the door to the school burst open, and the children began to pour out. I caught sight of Ruby’s gleaming red curls immediately. When she saw my car she smiled widely, revealing the gap where her front tooth had just begun to grow in. I smiled back and waved. I was damned if I was going to let my little girl grow up feeling the way I did about my body. Ruby was going to be proud of how she looked, and take pleasure in every morsel that passed her lips, if I had to tie down every Tab-drinking mother in the city of Los Angeles and force-feed them Ding-Dongs from now until doomsday.
Sixteen
I didn’t notice the Mercedes parked in front of my house. If I had, I might have hustled the kids off to the park, or to the movies, or anywhere at all to avoid the scene that greeted me when I walked into my apartment. Kat was huddled in an armchair, her face mottled with a humiliated blush, and her hands knotted in her lap. She was staring out the window, doing her best not to look at her mother-in-law and my husband, who were sitting side by side on the couch, their heads bent together in an altogether disturbing těte-à-těte. While I stood in the doorway, Nahid’s tinkling laugh filled the room, and she reached out one manicured hand, pushing at my husband’s sweatshirt-clad chest, as if he had said something so witty, so daring, that she needed to swat him for it. He laughed in reply, and leaned ever so slightly into her.
I coughed, loudly, and released my hold on Ruby’s and Isaac’s hands. They flung themselves into the room and onto their father’s lap, reminding him, I hope, that he was married, and that flirting with middle-aged, artfully sculpted real estate agents was a sing
ularly inappropriate activity.
Nahid looked at me, and her smile turned acid. Kat shot me a worried glance and turned back to the window. For a moment, I felt a tightening in my stomach. I shook it off, firmly reminding myself that Nahid Lahidji was not my mother-in-law. She couldn’t scare me. Could she?
“Hello Kat, Mrs. Lahidji. What’s up?” I said in a sprightly voice.
Peter set the children on the floor and said, “Guys, go play in Ruby’s room for a minute, we’ve got grown-up things to talk about.”
“But we just got home!” Ruby whined.
“And you said we’d play Bionicles today!” Isaac said, matching her tone.
“Give us a few minutes, kids,” I said, shooing them out of the room. “Daddy will be in to play with you soon.”
As soon as they were gone, I said, “Can I get you something to drink? Coffee? Tea?”
Kat raised a grateful face, and nodded, but Nahid said, “No, no. We’re fine. Your darling husband has already made us very comfortable.” I could swear she batted her eyelashes at him.
“Well, what can I do for you?” I asked, settling myself on the ottoman that passed for a second chair in our living room.
“Juliet,” Peter said, “Mrs. Lahidji is worried about the whole house thing.” There was just the tiniest hint of ‘I told you so’ in his voice, and I scowled at him.
“Juliet, dear,” Nahid said. “I’m sure you had only the best intentions. After all, I know just how desperate you must be to move from here before the baby is born.” She waved a condescending hand around my living room, as if to say that of course no one could imagine bringing a child into such desperate and meager surroundings. “But I’m afraid I must ask you to refrain from disturbing poor Felix and Farzad. They’ve gone through so much.”
“Disturbing them?” I sputtered.
“Katayoun has told me of your plan.”
“Kat!” I said to my friend. She winced, and shrugged as though to ask me what I had expected from her. Clearly I should not have imagined that she would withstand the force of nature that was her husband’s mother.
Nahid said, “She has told me everything. That you have befriended the poor grieving man. That you have worked your way into his confidences. All to convince him to sell you the house. Sell it below market value!” The outrage, the horror in her voice filled the room.
“Listen, Mrs. Lahidji, you’re being ridiculous. Yes, of course I’m interested in the house, and maybe my motives weren’t entirely altruistic at first. But I’m not trying to cheat Felix out of anything. Anyway, Felix has hired me to investigate his sister’s murder. He’s my client.”
She shook her head furiously. “How long do you think you’ll be working for him if I tell him you’re just after his home?”
“First of all, he knows I’m interested in his house. That’s the reason Kat and I were there in the first place. Second of all, how long do you think you’ll be his real estate agent if I tell him you care more about the price of his house then you do about finding out who killed Alicia?”
She sputtered for a moment, and then seemed to deflate just the tiniest bit. “Look my dear,” she said. “We are both on the same side here. We both want this situation with Alicia resolved as quickly as possible so that the house will be free to be sold. Let’s not argue.”
I turned to my husband. “Sweetie, give me your seat,” I said.
“Huh?”
“Your seat. My back is killing me.”
He leapt to his feet and gave me a hand up off the ottoman. “Maybe I should see how the kids are doing,” he said.
“Good idea.”
I sat down on the couch next to Nahid. “Mrs. Lahidji, I promise I won’t go behind your back, okay? If Felix ever decides to sell me the house, I promise you’ll not only be the first to know, but I’ll make sure you’re involved in the sale, okay? You’ll be able to advise him on a fair price.”
She pursed her lips together, and then stretched her mouth into a smile. “Very good, my dear. That is all I was asking.”
“On one condition.”
Her smile died. “What is that?”
I reached over for my purse and pulled out my little notebook. “Let’s talk a little bit about Alicia. Did you know her?”
“We should not discuss this unpleasantness.”
“How else will we achieve our mutual goal of resolving the issue quickly?”
Nahid narrowed her eyes. “I’d met her. But only once, when Farzad first had me over to look at the house. She was there, cleaning up after a dinner party. Or, rather, she was ordering the maid to clean up.” Her tone of voice made it clear that she had not liked Alicia.
“Did you talk to her?”
“No, my business was not with her. I was there to appraise the value of the house. Whether she liked it or not.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, the girl obviously didn’t want her brother to sell the house and move permanently to Palm Springs. She would have had to get a job. Find someplace to live. God knows how she would manage that. She was supposed to have been an actress, but Farzad said she hadn’t gotten a part in years. She was nothing but her little brother’s nanny!”
I looked up from my notebook, surprised. “Farzad told you that? He told you that she didn’t want Felix to move?”
Nahid waved a dismissive hand at me. Her diamond ring caught the light, and we were both momentarily distracted by its brilliance. “Lovely, isn’t it?” she purred. “I will tell your husband where my husband bought it. His cousin, Momo, is in the diamond business. He’ll give you a special deal.”
It looked like the glass shade on the Czechoslovakian floor lamp in my Bubbe’s old apartment. Only larger.
“That’s okay,” I said. “You were telling me about what Farzad told you?”
“Farzad didn’t need to tell me anything. The girl threw a tantrum as soon as she realized what I was doing. She began screaming at Farzad, telling him she would tell her brother he was trying to throw her in the street. She was like a wild person. Tears, howls. Awful. So tacky. So low class.”
“What did Farzad do?”
Nahid smiled. “He yelled right back at her! Farzad is like his mother, Lida. No one has ever won a fight with my cousin Lida Bahari. She is the most formidable woman I know.”
Kat and I sat in stunned silence for a few moments, contemplating just what a woman scarier than Nahid would be like.
“What did Farzad say to Alicia?” I asked, finally.
Nahid laughed. “He told her he’d throw her out right then if she didn’t close her mouth, and then he chased her out to the guest house where she lived. Such a scene. The two of them, screaming like a couple of fishwives. Farzad is just like his mother. Only prettier.” She laughed again.
Suddenly, Kat leaned forward. “Nahidjoon, maybe we should go. Juliet probably has things to do.”
I scowled at her. She had been too afraid to speak a word the entire time, and now she mustered up the courage to cut our conversation off just when things where getting interesting?
Nahid nodded. “I must get back to the office. And you,” she said to Kat. “You need to get to work on those rental units. I need a full inventory of tenants and rents by the end of the day.”
Kat sighed, following in her mother-in-law’s wake out the door.
Once the two women had gone, I sat for a moment in my quiet living room, pondering what Nahid had told me. There was no love lost between Alicia and Farzad. If he had had his way, and it appeared like he had been about to, she would have been out on the street. I was supposed to be finding out who might have had a motive to kill Alicia, and instead I kept coming up with people whom she would have liked to see dead.
Seventeen
THE next morning I dropped by Felix’s house. I found Farzad in the dining room conferring with two very young women over a pile of fabrics printed with black and white photographs.
“Hello, Juliet,” he said, when the housekeeper h
ad shown me in. “Come, tell us what you think of these. Gorgeous, aren’t they?”
I fingered a corner of the soft gossamer fabric, and then held it up. “Are these crime scene photographs?” I asked, trying not to sound as horrified as I felt.
“Yes, aren’t they fabulous?” one of the young women said. “So edgy.”
“And so bloody,” I said. The length of silk I was holding had the image of a woman sprawled on a bed. Her head hung over the side, dripping a pool of black blood onto the floor. “What are these for?”
“Felix’s new line,” Farzad said. “Mostly formal-wear. He’s having problems with the final designs.”
“Gee, I wonder why?” I said.
Farzad smiled thinly. “I know what you’re saying, but Aimee and Bethany have been working on these for months. Long before Alicia died. It was Felix’s idea to use the Weegee photographs, and it cost a fortune to get the rights. We can’t exactly just toss the entire line because he’s having a personal crisis.”
I didn’t reply. What good would it have done to point out to my client’s partner that he was an insensitive ghoul?
“Felix is resting,” Farzad said. “Is there something important? Should I wake him?”
“No, don’t. Actually, I’ve come to talk to you.” I shot the girls a glance.
He gathered the fabric swathes into a pile and dumped them into the arms of one of the girls. “These are fine. Call the factory and tell them we’ll have final designs by the end of next week.”
“Are you sure?” the girl said. “I mean, if they get set to go, and we don’t have the drawings for them, they’re going to freak.”
“That’s Felix’s problem, darling, not yours.”
“Okay,” she said, doubtfully, and headed out of the room. The other girl scooped up their two identical Burberry totes and followed.
Farzad sighed and collapsed onto a leather Morris chair. He kicked off his embroidered slippers and tucked his feet up under him.
Murder Plays House Page 14
