Interest of Justice

by Nancy Taylor Rosenberg

  Once she was seated on the opposite side of the sectional, she reached for a cigarette from a pack on the end table and lit up, the flimsy robe falling open and exposing an ample white breast, the skin like buttermilk, the nipple a bright shade of pink. “So, what do you want?” she said, exhaling a thin stream of smoke.

  “Uh, I…gosh,” he said, thinking of how long it had been since he had made love to Joyce. Was it four months now…or five months? “Mind if I smoke?” he asked, pulling out a cigar.

  “Not those. Want a cigarette?”

  “No, I…” Her breast was still exposed. She was watching him squirm. “Why don’t you cover yourself?” he finally said, feeling his face flush. “You know…”

  She did. It didn’t help much. He could see right through the fabric.

  “Tell me what you know about Ivory Perkins.”

  “She’s dead. I know that. It was in all the papers.”

  “But you knew her? Did you work together occasionally, turn tricks together?” He could smell her cologne all the way across the room. Something heavy and sweet. He wondered if it was really cologne or just her body that smelled so good. It looked good; it must smell good. No, he told himself, what he was smelling was Lara’s cologne from last night and imagining what Lara would look like in a robe like that. He rubbed his eyes, thinking he needed a cold shower and a cup of black coffee.

  “Yeah, we worked together a few times,” the woman said. “Sometimes a client wanted a threesome or wanted to just watch a couple of women together. Men like that kind of thing. You know what I mean?”

  He certainly did. She had those mile-long legs crossed and was swinging one up and down as she talked. He licked his lips and cleared his throat, trying to remember why he was there to begin with. “Did you know any of her clients? Anyone that might have wanted to hurt her? Anyone that she could have been blackmailing?”

  She stabbed the half-smoked cigarette out in the ashtray and walked across the room to a mirrored bar, pouring herself a glass of vodka in a cut crystal glass. “Want I a drink?” she asked. Rickerson shook his head. Then she left the robe completely fall open as she crossed back to the sofa. Her pubic hair was pale blond and sparse, inching its way between her legs.

  “Ivory…poor Ivory. She had such an asshole for a husband. Did you know he turned her out, put her in the trade? What a prick. Chick never got to spend a dime of the money she earned. Not a fucking dime. And the nose candy, man. He fed it to her like it was chicken soup or something. When she was high, she’d do just about anything and anyone. And let me tell you ; something, this girl liked it. She liked it a lot.”

  “Were they dealing cocaine? Anything like that?”

  “No, not to my knowledge. Most of it Ivory got from her Johns or I guess her man bought it for her on the street. He was a boozer. He didn’t even use, but boy, did he make sure she stayed high.”

  “You didn’t answer my first question,” Rickerson said. “Did you know anyone that might have wanted to kill her or her husband?”

  “When I first read about it in the papers, I was certain he’d killed her, but of course, he’s dead too. So…as to her clients, I didn’t know many of them. She did a lot of B and D calls. I don’t handle those. Sometimes the clients get nasty. My clients like it straight—just sex, a little fun. Most of them are professionals.”

  “She never mentioned anyone in particular…perhaps a regular client, someone she saw all the time? Maybe someone with a big job like a judge?”

  Carol Montgomery tossed her head back and laughed. It was a wonderful sound, like tinkling bells. “A judge, huh? I don’t remember her mentioning a judge, but I know she had a client she saw a lot. He was a regular. Good tipper too, from what she told me. She kind of liked him. But a judge…”

  “I see. Know this guy’s name?”

  She shot Rickerson a knowing look. “No one has names. Not real names anyway.” There was an awkward silence. “Sorry, I can’t help you, Detective…what was your name again?” She smiled. Her teeth were straight and white.

  “Ted,” he said slowly. “Ted Rickerson. Tell me about her other clients. Anyone other than this guy who was a regular, someone she mentioned?”

  Carol Montgomery twirled a strand of her blond hair in her fingers, bringing it to her mouth and draping it provocatively across her lip. “Let me think here a minute, okay? Sometimes these people just blur after so long. I can’t remember who was her client and who was mine,” she said, leaning forward and crossing her arms at the waist so that her cleavage was even more pronounced. “I mean, you’d think if you fucked someone you’d remember them, but believe me, Ted, after a few thousand or so, you wouldn’t recognize the sucker on the street if you walked right into him. She had one real weird guy. He was also a regular.”

  “Tell me about him.” Rickerson decided he didn’t have to look at the woman to hear what she had to say. As soon as he looked away, he saw her pull her robe shut and slap back on the sofa. Evidently the game was no fun when no one was playing.

  “White guy. Young. Skinny, she told me. He wanted her to dress him in diapers and feed him in a custom-made high chair. Then she’d spank him. He never had sex with her. Wouldn’t even touch her.”

  “No name, right?”

  She didn’t even answer him. She just glared at him.

  “Know what this guy did for a living?”

  “Let me ask you something, Ted,” she said. “If you went to a hooker and had her dress you in diapers and feed you, do you think you’d tell her your life history? Give me a break here. All I know is the guy didn’t have any bucks. Sometimes when business was slow, she’d do him on credit. She used to call it a student loan.”

  “So he was a student? Was he in college?”

  “How the fuck do I know? Look, it’s late.” She stood and walked up to him, purposely spreading the robe now, moving her body only inches from his face. “I mean, I might not be able to help you on your case, but maybe I can help you in another way.” She had stepped over his legs and was standing with her own legs on either side of them. She reached a hand down and touched her genitals.

  “No,” he said flatly, standing, pushing her back. He shifted his jacket on his shoulders and headed for the door. Then he turned and glanced back over his shoulder. “Don’t think I can afford you, sweetie. But if I were you, I’d be mighty careful. Don’t want that gorgeous body to end up on a slab in the morgue.”

  For the first time he saw a crack in her self-confidence, a slight tremor in the slender hand that reached for another cigarette.

  “Can I ask you something?” he said. “It’s something that really bothers me. I don’t know why, but it does.”

  “You’ve asked me everything else,” she said. “Fire away. If you want to know how much I charge, it’s two bills. That’s for straight. Anything else is extra. Of course, I do have a police discount. For cops, I charge two fifty.” Again she laughed.

  “Aren’t you even a little concerned about AIDS? People are dying out there, woman. Don’t you want to live?”

  Carol Montgomery’s brows knitted and her mouth compressed into a thin, hard line. She seemed to age right before his eyes. Flicking her ashes on the carpet, she reached under the sofa and pulled out a large box and tossed it across the floor, where it landed right at Rickerson’s feet. It looked like a carton of cigarettes. “Condoms, dick head. I buy them by the case at the Price Club. Trick doesn’t wear one, he doesn’t fuck.”

  Now he could see how hard she really was. The curtain fell on her little performance and she was fully exposed. “Everybody fucks, Officer,” she snarled, her lip curling, “it’s a basic instinct. And they’re gonna just keep on fucking, AIDS or no fucking AIDS. As long as they fuck, I’m gonna make a living. And as long as I’m alive, I’m gonna make my living fucking.”

  She didn’t show him to the door. Rickerson let himself out. No one on the list had been identified as a student. Then he recalled Lara’s statement that her secretary, Phi
llip, attended law school. Carol Montgomery had described Ivory’s client as tall and skinny. Lara said Phillip was tall and thin. Rickerson stuck a stub of a cigar in his mouth and lit it, looking up at the sky. A few seconds later he was coughing and tossed the cigar in a dumpster next to his car in the parking lot. This case was going to kill him, he thought, his back aching and his head throbbing. The last thing he needed was another suspect. He got into the car and pulled the door shut.

  “Damn,” he said, looking out over the parking lot and slapping the steering wheel with both hands. He wanted Evergreen, not some skinny secretary. Ever since Evergreen had dismissed that case when he was a rookie, Rickerson had been carrying a grudge against him. He didn’t like the man. He was too smug, too cold. He’d raked Rickerson over the coals that day, right in the courtroom in front of his fellow officers. He’d blamed Rickerson for compromising the case. And bringing down the presiding judge—what a coup that would be. Had he slanted this investigation to fit his own agenda? Obviously he had.

  “Can’t bust Evergreen if he isn’t guilty,” he said, taking a deep breath and then letting it out. Cranking the engine on the big Chrysler, he roared out of the parking lot and headed home.

  Monday was a beautiful day. A beautiful day, Lara thought, if you were going to the beach, or roller skating, or for a nice long walk. But this was the day she was burying her sister and Josh would say his final goodbye to his mother.

  There was no such thing as a beautiful day for a funeral.

  What she really wanted was for the sky to open up and soak them all, make it really lousy, make it seem like what it really was: a day of death, a day of finality. From this point there was no going back. Once you went in the ground, you didn’t come back up.

  But no, she thought, tilting her head up, the skies seldom darkened in Southern California, not just a few miles from Disneyland. The sun was shining and the temperature was in the seventies with a gentle breeze filled with the scent of the ocean.

  The cemetery was in San Clemente, high on a hill. From some spots the shoreline could be seen, but most of this property was being overrun with developers. Less than a mile from where they were standing, they were clearing for a new housing tract, and huge bulldozers like dinosaurs gobbled up the foliage, turning what was once natural and green into barren, dusty earth.

  While everyone was standing around, talking in hushed voices among themselves, Lara walked over to the plots where her parents and Charley were buried and gazed down at the simple markers. “She’s with you now, Pop,” she whispered. “You, Mom, Charley, and now Ivory. You’re all together.” She stopped and inhaled deeply, knowing that one day she’d be there next to them. Except for Josh, this spot of earth would soon cover her whole family. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Sam’s casket next to Ivory’s on the berm, the man from the funeral home standing there solemnly in his black suit. “I’m sorry about Sam, that he has to be here too,” she added. “But he was her husband.”

  She faced the small gathering. Only four people were present other than herself: Irene Murdock, Benjamin England, Phillip, and Josh. Lara had decided at the last minute that Emmet shouldn’t come after last night and what he’d been through. The poor man had been scared out of his wits, and the police had kept him up half the night. Irene’s husband, John, couldn’t spare time from his thriving medical practice.

  They all stood around in a tight little circle, and Lara bowed her head and said a brief prayer. Josh stood beside her in his new striped suit. “Lord,” she said, not really knowing what to say, “bless these two souls. One of them was a wife and a mother, a sister. She was loved and we will miss her.” As hard as she was trying, tears were gathering in her eyes behind her dark glasses. “They are in Your hands now.” She paused and then said, “Amen.”

  Everyone was silent.

  Lara had Josh’s hand in hers. He walked over and placed a letter in an envelope on his mother’s white casket with the brass fittings. He didn’t cry, but his hand was shaking; Lara let go of his hand and put her arm around his waist. For a few long moments they just stood there, wind whipping their hair, leaning on each other.

  Finally she turned back to her friends. “I guess that’s it,” she said. “We can go now.”

  Rickerson was sitting in his county vehicle on the little paved road leading to the area where they were having the services. He’d come today fully intending to pay his respects and see Lara, but once he was there, he couldn’t force himself to get out of the car. She hadn’t asked him to come, and in some ways it had hurt his feelings. It was a sign that she didn’t consider him a part of her life outside of the investigation. He saw the BMW and the Mercedes. Fancy cars, he thought, thinking of the ten-year-old Ford parked in front of his house with the ripped upholstery. “She’s out of your league, bud,” he told himself. He picked up his binoculars off the seat and watched the little grouping of people. Seeing a tall, thin young man, he adjusted the focus. That had to be Phillip, he thought, searching the man’s face with avid interest. He’d have to get his last name and address from Lara tomorrow.

  Seeing that they were about to leave, he started the car and pulled farther down where he couldn’t be seen and again looked through the binoculars. The guy in the expensive suit had to be Benjamin England, the attorney she had mentioned. He watched as he embraced Lara. “Fucking prick,” he said, feeling jealousy surge through his veins, an alien, ugly emotion. “You’re a suspect too, buddy.” Then he let the binoculars slide from his hands to his lap in frustration and locked his fingers on the steering wheel. It was time for him to leave.

  Lara and Josh had driven to the cemetery with Irene Murdock. She’d arrived at nine o’clock with her BMW filled with food in plastic containers. She was always well dressed, generally something tailored and professional, something extremely expensive. Today she was appropriately dressed in black. Unlike Lara, she looked and acted like a judge even when she was outside of the courtroom. She had a presence about her that exuded strength and purpose.

  “Please come to Lara’s,” she told the little group of people, taking charge of the situation as she always did. “I’ve prepared some food. That would be nice, don’t you think?”

  Benjamin England and Phillip followed them to the condominium in their own cars. Lara was bursting to tell Irene what Rickerson suspected about Evergreen and her own suspicions about Phillip, but with Josh in the car, she knew she had to wait. “When we get to the complex, Josh,” she said, turning around to speak to him in the backseat, “we’re going to go and get my friend Emmet so he can join us. He’s in my old place now, you know. I’ve been wanting you to meet him.”

  “Why do I have to go with you to get him? Just call him on the phone.”

  “He’s in a wheelchair, Josh. Didn’t I tell you that?”

  They rode in silence the remainder of the drive. Rickerson had said he didn’t feel there was a risk right now for Emmet to stay where he was; they’d searched her house now and the condo. He doubted if they would come back. Stay maybe three more days until the evidence on Cummings was processed, and then he had told her, she could finally return to her house in Irvine. The killer, Rickerson supposed, was probably now under the assumption that Lara had done something with the photos: turned them over to the police, taken them to her safe-deposit box or the office. Whoever was behind this knew where she was and could obviously find her. Lara turned her head around and glanced at Phillip in the car behind them, feeling the icy touch of fear. Then she wrapped her arms around herself and remained that way until they arrived at the condo.

  At the condo, Benjamin cornered her in the kitchen. “Lara,” he said, “we need to talk.”

  She stared up at his face. There were dark circles under his eyes, and he looked awful. “Late night, huh?” she said, thinking he’d had some young secretary in his bed last night, someone who’d lie and tell him what a fabulous lover he was, hoping to end up with a ring on her finger and a membership to the country club. />
  “Not really. I’ve been sick with the flu, and let me tell you, it’s cold as a bitch in San Francisco. The wind goes right through you.” He stopped and Lara went back to what she was doing, transferring the food from the plastic containers to serving dishes. “Lara, can we talk about the other night, the last night we were together? I’ve thought about it and know you were angry with me. I shouldn’t have asked you to take a cab home. I was just so tired.”

  “Forget it,” she said. “It’s done.” After all that had happened, the night in England’s backyard seemed like a lifetime ago. “Oh,” she said suddenly, “did you call the San Clemente Police Department and ask for information on the homicides?”

  He stepped back a few feet and his mouth fell open. “How’d you hear about that?” he said. “I was really upset when I read about the murders in the newspaper, Lara. And to tell you the truth, I think it was rude that you didn’t return my phone calls. I really thought we were close, you know.”

  He was right, Lara thought. She should have called him back. “There was a lot going on, Benjamin. Surely you can understand that. I think I called you once or twice, but I couldn’t reach you.”

  “Are you going to see me again?”

  She didn’t turn around. “I don’t think so. We can be friends, though. I need a few friends.” It was almost as if she was talking to herself.

  He turned her around. “But why? Don’t you think you’re being childish? Did I really do something that bad?”

  Lara glanced through the kitchen door. Phillip and Irene were talking and sipping coffee. She didn’t see Josh. She kept her voice low, almost a whisper. “That depends on how you look at it. I’d say satisfying yourself with no regard whatsoever to your partner is inconsiderate and obnoxious, but then I’m not a man.” Lara had always been frank. If you asked a question, you usually got an answer.