A Playdate With Death

by Ayelet Waldman

  “Look here, I’ve had about as much as I’m willing to take of you. My wife doesn’t want to see you. Get away from my front door and off of my property before I call the police.” He hunched over into my face and spoke through gritted teeth. I felt a thin spray of spittle and didn’t wipe my cheek, although I desperately wanted to.

  “Mr. Sullivan, my friend Bobby Katz is dead. He was shot in the head, and I think your wife knows something about how and why he was killed. And, frankly, I’m betting you or your son Matthew knows, too.”

  His eyes narrowed. “What are you talking about?” I couldn’t tell if his ignorance was real or feigned.

  “Mr. Sullivan, if you want to call the police, by all means go ahead and do so. I’m sure they’d be interested in exploring your family’s involvement in Bobby’s death. Alternatively, you could let us in and help us figure out what may well be an innocent explanation for all this.”

  Patrick Sullivan stared at me, his face inscrutable. Then, suddenly, he stretched out his arm and opened the door wide. “Come in,” he said.

  He led us through the circular entry hall and into the living room. We stood on the crimson Chinese carpet in the middle of the room. He didn’t invite us to sit down.

  “Wait here. I’ll get my wife,” he said and left us, clicking the door shut behind him.

  Al rocked back and forth on his heels. I paced nervously.

  “Do you have any idea what you’re going to say when he drags the woman down here to talk to you?” Al asked.

  I scowled at him. “More or less. Have some faith.”

  We both turned to the door when it opened, expecting to see Susan Sullivan. Her son Matthew stood there instead. He was pale and sweaty, and his breath came in shallow gasps, audible across the room. He looked like he’d been running or crying.

  “Get out! Get out of here!” He tried to shout, but his voice cracked and came out an awkward squeal.

  “We’re here to talk to your mother, Matthew,” I said.

  “Get out!” This time he managed the yell.

  I could see Al firming up his stance out of the corner of my eye. His feet were planted shoulder-width apart, and he’d assumed a barely detectable crouch. He was ready to spring at the young man if he needed to.

  “Hey, Matthew,” I said in a conversational tone. “Is that your Audi or your dad’s?”

  His face turned beet red, and he lunged at me. Al, moving more quickly than a man of his age has any right to, stepped between us. He grabbed Matthew around the shoulders with one arm and swung him away from me. Matthew wiggled frantically in his grip. Before I could make it across the room to the grappling men, Matthew had somehow managed to yank one arm free of Al’s, and he was punching wildly. The two men slipped on the edge of the carpet and fell to the ground with a thud. I saw Al’s hand fumbling with his holster as I ran to help him subdue Matthew. I had just reached the two when I heard a pop like a piece of wood snapping in two. Suddenly, Matthew was pointing the gun at Al, who knelt, hunched over, holding his right hand against his chest. His index finger was bent at an unnatural angle, and he groaned.

  “Get over there with him,” Matthew said, swinging the gun in my direction. It wobbled in his trembling hand, and I was terrified that he would accidentally pull the trigger. I walked quickly over to Al and helped him to his feet. We backed away from Matthew. Al and I both stared at the gun. Matthew followed our gaze and suddenly pulled back the safety.

  “I can shoot it now,” he said, and he made a sound halfway between a giggle and a groan. Sweat was pouring freely down his forehead, and he hitched up his shoulder to wipe it away. At that moment, his parents walked into the room. Susan gave a strangled cry and began to run to her son, but Patrick yanked her back.

  “Matthew! What the hell do you think you’re doing? Put that gun down!” Patrick bellowed.

  Matthew’s back was to the door, and he turned slowly, keeping the gun aimed at Al and me.

  “You go stand with them, too,” he said, the words hissing from his throat.

  “What the devil—” his father began.

  “Do it!” he shrieked, and the Sullivans joined us where we stood, backed against the long sofa.

  “Sit,” he said, his voice almost gleeful, as though he was relishing the opportunity to force us to comply. Patrick did not seem a man who took orders willingly, certainly not from his son. It was obviously an unusual pleasure for Matthew to feel power over his father.

  Al, Susan, and I sat, but Patrick remained standing. “Sit down, Dad.”

  “Look here, Matthew. This is ridiculous. Hand me the gun.”

  “No.”

  Patrick took a step forward. “Come on, son. Give me that gun.”

  “I’ll shoot. I will. Stop!” The young man’s teeth were gritted shut as he tried to keep his voice from quavering. Patrick kept moving forward, and Matthew suddenly swung the gun in the direction of his mother.

  “I’ll shoot her!” he screamed. And his father stopped stock-still. Susan whimpered.

  “Shut up!” her son screamed at her. “This is your fault. All of it. You’re a . . . a slut! That’s what you are. You’re a whore!”

  The woman’s chest rose and fell with her sobs. Matthew kept talking. “I knew you’d done it. I knew it as soon as the genetic counselor told me I had that Jew disease.”

  “Son, son, what are you saying?” Patrick’s voice had lost its authoritative swagger. He sounded afraid.

  “It’s not what you think, Matthew,” I said calmly and slowly. Everyone looked at me except Al, who kept his eyes fixed on the gun in Matthew’s hand.

  “What do you know?” Matthew snarled.

  “You tested positive for Tay-Sachs, right? You’re a carrier?”

  “No! You’re not. You can’t be,” Susan cried. “You said you weren’t. And you can’t be.”

  “I lied! Of course I lied. You and P. J. each said you didn’t have any of the three diseases. And then Dad said of course you didn’t because Sullivans are a strong breed. How the hell was I supposed to tell you that I had it? How? Particularly since I know what it means!”

  “You don’t know, Matthew. You’re making a mistake,” I said.

  “What are you talking about?” Patrick said. “Matthew, Susan, what the hell is she talking about?”

  I didn’t reply to Patrick. I kept talking to Matthew quietly but firmly. “Bobby got in touch with you, didn’t he?”

  The young man nodded. “He said he was my brother. He asked me to meet him, and I did. He told me that she didn’t want to have anything to do with him but that he hoped I might. He told me about the Tay-Sachs, and that’s when I knew I had to do it.”

  My chest tightened, and I could feel my eyes begin to burn as tears collected in them. “Matthew, did you hurt Bobby?” I asked in a soft, gentle voice.

  “I had to,” he whined.

  I could hear Susan’s harsh, ragged sobs and willed her silently to keep her mouth shut. Patrick seemed stunned and unable to speak.

  “I had to,” he repeated. “He wasn’t going to leave it alone. He wasn’t going to go away. He was going to make her tell Dad, and then Dad would find out about me. I couldn’t let that happen. I couldn’t let that happen.” He turned to his father. “I know you hate me. I know you’re just looking for a good reason to cut me off. You want to throw me out, but you don’t think you can, right? Right?”

  This time it was Patrick who sobbed. I turned to look at him, expecting to see him reduced to tears. His eyes were absolutely dry.

  “You were afraid that if Bobby forced your mother to tell your father about him, then Patrick would find out about you, too?” I asked, again keeping my voice low and calm.

  He nodded.

  I continued. “You’re afraid that you’re not your father’s son, aren’t you?”

  “I’m not his son. She had an affair. She had an affair, and she got pregnant, and she had Bobby and gave him away. And then she kept on seeing the guy, and she had me. I d
on’t know why she didn’t give me up, too.” He stared at Susan and cried, “Why did you keep me? Why didn’t you give me away like you gave away my brother?”

  Susan didn’t answer. She had her hands clasped over her mouth, and she rocked back and forth, moaning. Patrick stared at his wife, rage and disgust warring on his face.

  “You’re wrong, Matthew. You are your father’s son. And so was Bobby. Your mother did have an affair while your father was in Vietnam, and she did give Bobby up for adoption, but you’re wrong about the rest, Matthew.”

  Matthew shook his head furiously, but his eyes narrowed as he looked at me.

  “Bobby didn’t come from the affair your mother had. Bobby is Patrick’s son, too. Just like you are. Tay-Sachs doesn’t just affect Jews, Matthew. Anyone can have it. Anyone, especially the Irish. It’s almost as common in the Irish population as in the Jewish. You inherited the Tay-Sachs from your father.”

  “What?” the young man whispered. “What?”

  “Patrick is your father, Matthew. And he was Bobby’s.”

  “No. No he’s not. Is he? Is he?” The young man shrieked, first at me and then at his mother.

  “I don’t know, I don’t know,” Susan whispered.

  At that moment we all heard the faint sounds of sirens. We stiffened as they grew closer and closer. Matthew’s arm began to sink to his side so slowly that it was at first almost imperceptible. Al and I both rose to our feet, also slowly. Matthew said nothing, he just continued to lower his arm. I stepped to one side of him and Al to the other. Al reached out his hand and carefully and deliberately removed the gun from Matthew’s now limp palm. He slipped it back into the holster attached to his belt. The police found us thus, Al with the gun securely clipped in its place, Matthew trembling, just barely managing to keep to his feet, and Susan and Patrick sitting next to each other on their lovely and expensive sofa, frozen in despair.

  Twenty-three

  THE police kept us there for quite a while. I’m sure it was Al’s status as a retired member of the LAPD that finally convinced them that it was safe to take our names and telephone numbers and let us go on our way. We drove in silence down Sunset Boulevard. I wasn’t thinking about what had happened so much as I was trying to figure out the best way to break the news to Bobby’s fiancée and his family. I knew the police would inform them, but that could take some time, and I certainly owed it to Betsy and Michelle to tell them myself. I didn’t realize how distraught Al was until he cleared his throat. I looked over at him sitting in the passenger seat. His face was blotchy under a sheen of sweat.

  “Are you okay?” I said. “What’s wrong? Are you feeling all right? Should I pull over?”

  He shook his head and cleared his throat once again. “I’m . . . I’m very sorry. Truly. And I’ll understand if you don’t want to partner with me anymore.”

  I took a quick right into the parking lot of a big box store and pulled the car into a spot. I turned off the engine and turned to face him. Looking him full in the eye I said, “What the hell are you talking about?” Although I knew. Of course I knew.

  “My gun. I let that kid get hold of my gun. You could have been killed. I let him overpower me, and I endangered both our lives.”

  To a man who had always been as physically powerful as Al, the vulnerability that comes with age must be devastating. How impossibly painful it is to acknowledge that you are no longer able to protect yourself and others, when that has always been your primary occupation, the source of your identity. If your physical strength is one of your paramount skills, what must it feel like when that begins to go?

  I’d often wondered how it was that Al made the transition from law enforcement to defense investigation so easily. It had never seemed to bother him that his job was no longer to protect and defend but rather to work toward the release of those who he’d once been so committed to incarcerating. Sitting next to him in the car, I understood that it had only seemed to come naturally to him. Perhaps the job of defense investigator had enough of the trappings of the police—he investigated, he searched, sometimes at least, for truth—that he could feel like he was still in the business of protecting people. At the moment when Matthew wrenched the gun from his hand, Al must suddenly have confronted the fact that not only was his job no longer to protect the public, but he was no longer even able to protect himself and those he cared about in the way he once had.

  “You didn’t let him get your gun,” I said. “You didn’t let him do anything.”

  Al shook his head and knotted his old man’s hands, gnarled like tree branches, in his lap. His index finger was swollen and red. There was something very wrong with it.

  I reached out my own hand and rested it ever so gently on his. He flinched slightly. “Al, listen to me. I know this is hard. I know twenty years ago, hell, even ten years ago, Matthew would never have gotten your gun away from you—”

  Al grunted. “He should never have been able to lay a hand on my gun. Not then, and not now. Never.”

  “Al, the guy’s in his early twenties. He’s strong and young and out of his mind. Crazy people are capable of amazing feats of strength; you know that. He was desperate, and he got lucky. I mean, look at your hand! He snapped your finger! There’s no way you could have held on to the gun.”

  Al stared at his swollen finger and gave it an angry shake. He immediately winced in pain.

  “I’ve got to get you to a doctor to have that taken care of. It looks excruciating.”

  He looked for a moment like he was going to object, then he shrugged. “Don’t worry. I’ll get it looked at. Some bodyguard, huh?”

  “You’re not my bodyguard. You’re my partner.”

  He raised his eyebrows at me. I waved him off. “Look, I want to break this news to Michelle and Betsy in person. You coming?” I asked. He nodded. “Should we stop at an emergency room?”

  “Let’s do it later,” Al said. “If we go now, we’ll be there all day waiting for them to deal first with the coke-head gang-bangers bleeding to death.”

  That’s my buddy Al, always able to toss a slur even in the midst of exquisite agony.

  Before I pulled out of the parking lot, I handed him my cell phone and asked him to call Big Bear and let everyone know that the police had Matthew in custody and that the kids were no longer in danger. Al spoke quickly to Jeannelle—Peter and Robyn had taken the kids out for a hike—and then I called Michelle. I tracked her down at her lab. I didn’t want to tell her on the phone, so I asked her if we could come see her.

  As soon as Michelle met Al and me in the lobby of her building, she ushered us back through the double doors marked Authorized Personnel Only to a small office kitchenette. She pulled a first aid kit out of a cupboard and held out her hand for Al’s. With a quick snap, she’d straightened out his finger. He’d winced briefly, but by the time she’d taped it to a tongue depressor, he was smiling.

  “Thank you, dear. You just saved me about three hours and three hundred bucks at the ER.”

  She said, “It was just dislocated, but I’m happy to oblige. Actually, I like being reminded that I’m also a real doctor now and again.”

  Al and I took Michelle up on her offer of coffee, and we sat at the Formica table in the sterile little kitchenette and told her how her brother had died. She cried, but it seemed as much with relief as sorrow. Knowing that Bobby hadn’t killed himself, and knowing why Matthew had murdered him, gave her some sense of peace. More, certainly, than she’d had before.

  “It just seems so pointless,” she sighed, wiping tears from her eyes.

  “It almost always is, in my experience,” I said. “People never kill each other for very good reasons. It’s usually about love, or jealousy, or some horrible misunderstanding. And it never feels justified to those left behind.”

  Michelle asked me to leave it to her to tell her family, and I was only too happy to agree. After my recent conversation with her father, I’d been dreading seeing him again. And we still had to
break the news to Betsy.

  I called Betsy from the car but got a busy signal, so we just headed over to Hollywood.

  Betsy’s door was opened by the same man who had been there when last I’d seen her. He had a cigarette clenched in his teeth, and he squinted his eyes against the smoke curling from the end. He was holding a roll of packing tape in one hand and a thick magic marker in the other.

  “Yes?” he said. “Oh, right. The detective girl.”

  Al nudged me in the side with his elbow, but I ignored him. “I’m a lawyer, actually. Is Betsy around?”

  Roy took the cigarette out of his mouth and ground it out in a little white saucer that looked like it had been serving as his ashtray for quite a while. “Nobody told you?” he said.

  “Nobody told me what?”

  “About Betsy?”

  My stomach knotted in dread. “What happened?” I asked.

  “Betsy had a positive urine test. Her probation officer had her arrested.”

  I wasn’t surprised. I looked around the shambles of the living room. Cardboard boxes rested on every available surface.

  “You’re packing?” I asked.

  “She asked me to. Her lawyer told her she’s looking at a few months in county, at the minimum. Since she’s getting evicted at the end of the month, she asked me to take care of her stuff for her. I’m putting it all into storage.”

  “She’s going to jail?” I asked. “Not into a drug treatment facility?”

  He nodded. “Sick, isn’t it? I mean, the woman has a disease, but instead of giving her the medicine and therapy she needs, they throw her in jail. Where, incidentally, she’ll be able to get as much crank as her little heart desires.”

  I shook my head. “Ridiculous.”

  I could feel Al aching to put his two cents into the conversation, surely to comment on how using drugs is against the law and people who break the law deserve to go to jail, but I silenced him with a glare. The last thing I was interested in at the moment was one of our trademark political debates.