Cover Your Assets

by Patricia Smiley

  Apologies are like blind dates. You occasionally accept one, but they seldom live up to the hype.

  “Let the dead past bury its dead,” I said.

  She frowned. “That sounds familiar.”

  “It’s Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. ‘A Psalm of Life.’” I could have added that it was one of Evan’s favorite poems, but I didn’t. Maybe she already knew.

  When I finally got up to leave, Cissy offered to walk with me to the car. We moved together in silence until we reached the driveway.

  “Tucker?” Her voice was soft and tentative. “I don’t know what your schedule is like, but I know Mom would love to see you.”

  I felt a stab of guilt. “I’ll try to give her a call sometime soon.”

  Cissy nodded, but I could see the disappointment in her face.

  I’d just slid into the front seat of my car and was searching in my purse for the key when she said, “You know . . . maybe there is something you can do to help.”

  She was trying to keep her expression neutral, but I caught a faint glimmer of uncertainty and perhaps a little fear as well.

  “Sure, name it.”

  “That apartment in Venice where Evan was killed—it was his. He wanted a place where he could get away from the office and work without being bothered. He liked the neighborhood, because it was sort of funky and anonymous.”

  “The police say he used a fake name on the rental agreement.”

  “They’re making it sound like it was something sinister. It wasn’t. Everybody in the entertainment business makes up phony names. Do you think Madonna calls up the Peninsula Hotel and says, ‘Hey, guys. It’s the Material Girl. Book me in for a couple of nights’? No. Somebody would leak the news to the paparazzi. She’d never have any peace and quiet. Evan didn’t use his real name to rent the place because he didn’t want the locals bugging him about his work, that’s all.”

  I didn’t want to add to her burden by telling her the police suspected Evan of using an alias as a cover for his drug dealing, so I just shrugged.

  “He was hardly ever at the apartment,” she went on, “so he hired the little girl across the hall to open and close the curtains, pick up the junk mail—you know, make it look lived in. Anyway, somebody has to close up the place. The furniture is rental, so that’s easy. Everything else needs to be packed up and donated to charity.” She paused as her eyes welled with tears. “Mom said she’d do it, so I gave her all of the paperwork—the rental contracts, stuff like that. But I think it’s going to be too hard on her. I know it’s asking a lot, but maybe you could help. The papers are still at her place. You could pick them up. It would give you an excuse to see her again.”

  I hesitated, wondering how to say no tactfully. Frankly, the idea of going to the scene of Evan’s murder didn’t exactly appeal to me. Facing Claire Jerrard again after all these years didn’t sound so great, either. After Frank died and Cissy began dating Evan, Claire and I drifted apart—my choice, not hers. Maybe I hadn’t handled the situation very well, but it was too late to change that now.

  I knew I’d waited too long to respond when I saw Cissy’s cheeks flush with embarrassment. “Never mind, Tuckie. It was a bad idea.” Then the fierceness crept back into her voice. “But I want you to know, in spite of what you may think, Mom never stopped loving you.”

  I leaned back against the headrest and let out the breath I’d been holding. There were a thousand reasons why I shouldn’t do what Cissy had just asked me to do. In the end, my thoughts kept coming back to one thing: second chances.

  I turned slowly to face her. “I’ll need Evan’s address.”

  -3-

  after I left Cissy’s house, it occurred to me that the logical person to handle the apartment closure was Evan’s personal assistant, Jerome Fielding. I wondered why Cissy hadn’t asked him. That seemed odd. On the other hand, I’d sensed some tension between the two of them. Perhaps Jerome’s loyalties didn’t extend beyond Evan, and Cissy resented him for that. I knew it was a bad idea for me to get involved with Cissy Brice again. I should have gone back inside and told her I’d changed my mind about helping, except that I’d given my word. I couldn’t take it back without feeling like a jerk.

  According to Cissy, the police had taken the original rental agreements for both the apartment and the furniture as evidence. They’d given her copies, which she’d handed over to her mom. Claire Jerrard’s job had been to notify the management company of the family’s intent to vacate the apartment, make arrangements to clean the place, and remove the rental furniture. I was responsible for doing that now. I decided to pick up the documents at Claire’s place on my way home just to get it over with.

  Members of the media were still congregated around the Brices’ front entrance as I retraced my path down the driveway. As soon as the gate opened, I stepped on the gas and didn’t look back until Darcy Daniels became a mere speck in my rearview mirror.

  No one had to give me directions to the Jerrard family home. The map coordinates were indelibly stamped on my memory. Only a few high-rises interrupted my view of the western skyline as I turned left at Fox Studios onto Motor Avenue, heading toward Cheviot Hills, the West L.A. neighborhood that had displaced acres of orange groves and bean fields back in the 1930s and ’40s. When I crossed Monte Mar, the congestion of Pico Boulevard was replaced by winding roads and hillside lots crowned by pricey real estate. Only one or two For Sale signs were visible, and almost no examples of the latest L.A. remodeling craze: tearing down a perfectly good house in order to squeeze a McMansion onto a fifty-foot lot. I turned off the ignition at curbside and looked around for any signs of the upper middle class searching for greater meaning in their lives, but all I saw was a Latino gardener herding garden debris with an outlawed leaf blower.

  Claire’s house was a well-maintained two-story English traditional with dormer windows. I felt melancholy gazing at the neatly trimmed hedge that surrounded the property. Even though Frank Jerrard had been gone for years, in my mind’s eye I could still see him out in the yard in his chinos and plaid shirt, laboring with hand clippers to make the hedge boxy but not so flat that the white flowers wouldn’t bloom. His life had seemed so effortless compared to mine. In high school I used to fantasize about how things might have been if I’d grown up in this house instead of an apartment in Palms where my mother struggled to make ends meet.

  A black Mercedes S-class sedan was parked in the driveway. The vanity plate read, “1GR8MOM.” The car was obviously a gift from Cissy—Evan, too, I assumed. Claire deserved it. After Frank died, she had gone through a rough time financially and almost lost the house. The crisis had warped Cissy into viewing money as a protective cloak. In fact, for a long time it was the only thing she cared about—until I introduced her to Evan.

  I knocked on the door, and when it finally opened, I realized I’d been holding my breath. Claire was standing at the threshold wearing a lavender warm-up suit, the type meant for driving your SUV to the grocery store, not for serious exercise. She was thinner than I’d ever seen her, and her hair was now completely white and cut short. Aside from that, she hadn’t changed much in the past ten years. We hugged long enough for me to smell her flowery hair shampoo and feel her ribs beneath the jacket.

  “Tucker, it’s been too long.”

  Her voice was deep and husky from years of smoking. She once told me that she had learned the proper way to hold a cigarette from her college sorority sisters back when smoking had been considered first sophisticated, then rebellious, and finally merely a way to keep your weight at 120 pounds. I hoped she’d quit by now. Cancer is a heavy price to pay for a size six.

  Standing in the foyer, I could clearly see into the living room. The couch was covered with the same brown and blue floral print I remembered from high school. On top of the seldom-played piano were the silver-framed family photographs, some done in vintage tints by an artist’s hand before the computer mouse ruled the world. From a nearby window, a beam of light fell across
a picture of Frank Jerrard. Tiny dust particles floated around his face, making him look as if he were encased in some kitschy snow globe.

  Claire led me to what had always been the true center of life in the Jerrard household: the kitchen. We gravitated naturally to our traditional places across from each other at the breakfast bar. Sitting there felt just like the old days, when I’d come over to visit and she’d listen to my problems without seeming to pry.

  Without asking, Claire poured freshly brewed coffee. As she placed a cup on the counter in front of me, I noticed a tissue tucked into the elastic wristband of her jacket. It made her seem vulnerable and old, which caused a heaviness to settle in my chest. She followed my eyes to the tissue and smiled as if she knew what I was thinking. She took my hands in hers and looked at me for a long moment.

  “So,” she said, “tell me about your life.”

  “There’s not much to tell. I got married, divorced. Now I’m struggling to keep my head above water. You know, typical American-dream stuff.”

  There was a tinge of sadness in her smile, as though she regretted missing out on the events in my life. I didn’t want to dwell on the past, so I moved on to Pookie and Bruce and my current campaign to convince Marvin Geyer that muumuus were costumes, not haute couture. As always, she listened without interrupting, offering only an occasional sympathetic nod. When it was her turn, she told me about her garden club and her prize-winning camellias.

  I waited for a lull in the conversation. “I guess Cissy told you I volunteered to close Evan’s apartment.”

  She flashed a wry smile. “Yes, she just called, but knowing my daughter, it was probably something short of volunteering. I hope it isn’t too much of a burden for you. It’s just . . . I didn’t realize the family was responsible for cleaning the crime scene. When I found out, I didn’t have enough oomph to do anything . . .” Her voice trailed off into a sigh. “Well, that doesn’t really matter, does it? You’re here. That’s all that counts. I only wish it had been pleasant news that brought you back.”

  “I’m sorry about Evan,” I said. “It must be hard on you.”

  “Evan has always been a dilemma for me. What’s hard about his death is knowing the police think my daughter killed him.”

  Claire’s tone was tinged with resentment, but I chalked it up to worry and grief. I understood why her feelings toward Evan might be conflicted. For years her daughter had lived with his substance abuse and infidelity. Cissy’s life couldn’t have been easy. Now his death was putting her future in jeopardy. I thought about reassuring Claire that Moses Green was looking at other suspects, too, but in fact, I wasn’t at all sure that he was. I was sure of one thing: If Cissy remained in the detective’s crosshairs, it would destroy the only family Claire had left.

  “I thought Evan was finally getting his life back on track.”

  “We thought so, too, but after he got out of rehab, he seemed anxious all the time, as though the weight of the world was on his shoulders.”

  I didn’t want to tell her, but for a lot of people sobriety was sobering.

  “Do you know what was bothering him?”

  She hesitated. “No.”

  “Look, Claire, maybe it’s time Cissy talked to a lawyer.”

  She held up her hands in a gesture of futility. “I agree, but she thinks it will just make her look guilty.”

  “How can that be? She was with you the night Evan died. I don’t understand why the cops are still focusing on her.”

  Claire seemed tense, fiddling with the tissue in her jacket sleeve. “Unhappy marriages raise eyebrows.”

  “Maybe, but I’m sure there are other suspects, like friends Evan partied with.”

  “Those people weren’t his friends. They were users who either wanted clout in the entertainment business or access to drugs.”

  A loud noise interrupted our conversation. I glanced out the window and saw the gardener firing up something that looked like a weapon from The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. I was waiting for him to put on a leather mask and wield the tool like a samurai sword. Instead, he began hacking away at the hedge, moving with purpose. It was clear by the stony look on his face that beauty and possibility didn’t bring him the same joy they had brought to Frank Jerrard.

  Claire didn’t seem to notice the noise. A moment later she pushed back the stool and walked to the coffeepot for a refill. In the old days she would also have been going for a smoke. There were no cigarettes this time. I was glad about that. Nevertheless, she took a long time before returning to her chair at the breakfast bar.

  “You know, Tucker, I wasn’t thrilled about having Evan as a son-in-law. I told Cissy that a man who cheats once will cheat again, but she wouldn’t listen to me.”

  “They stayed together,” I said. “That says something.”

  “Yes, but if she’d stayed away from him in the first place, none of this would be happening.”

  I wasn’t sure why she was bringing this up now. Cissy and Evan had been married for at least nine years. If Claire wanted to salve my wounded ego after all this time, I wasn’t interested.

  “Look, Claire, that’s ancient history. I’ve been dumped by dozens of guys since Evan.”

  She paused for a moment. “You’re right. Ancient history. I’m sorry. I’ll get those contracts.”

  She rose from her chair and began searching through a hand-painted wooden organizer sitting on the kitchen counter. Whatever she was looking for wasn’t there, so she moved on to a drawer across the room that appeared to be filled with appliance manuals and paper doilies. After a short search, she pulled out several pieces of legal-length paper, which I assumed were the copies of the furniture contract and the apartment rental agreement. She laid them on the counter beside her, pausing for a moment as if to debate some issue in her head; then she pulled a trifold brochure from the drawer.

  “There’s something I want to show you,” she said. “It’s the program from a poetry reading. Evan wrote something shortly before he died. He wanted to try it out on an audience. I don’t know why Cissy invited me. Moral support, maybe.”

  I could tell by the distance in her tone that she wasn’t a big fan of Evan’s poetry. “Pretty bad, huh?”

  “Truthfully? Yes, but another of his poems was printed in the program. It’s quite nice. I think it’s about you.”

  She handed me the brochure. From the cover I saw that the event had been held two months before at a café in West Hollywood called Poet’s Corner. I flipped through the pages until I found Evan’s piece. I recognized it immediately. It was a love poem he’d composed for me shortly after we met, one of the few he’d written that hadn’t been derivative. Now, after almost ten years, I was reading it again. The words were equal parts angst and longing, but they possessed a purity of emotion that caused a lump to form in my throat.

  I’m not sure how long I stood there lost in the moment, but at some point I sensed Claire staring at me. I glanced up and saw on her face an unguarded, critical frown. I was taken aback. Obviously Moses Green wasn’t the only person who questioned the nature of my recent reunion with Evan Brice.

  “Claire, I hope you know this was written back in college.”

  Her frown softened but did not disappear. “Yes, that’s what you said—ancient history.”

  I was frustrated and a little annoyed, but mostly hurt that she would think I was capable of that kind of payback. I waited for the silence to pass. Meanwhile, I returned my gaze to the program. Ten people, including Evan, were listed as readers at the event. As I scanned down the page, I was surprised to see another familiar name: James Brodie. I asked Claire if she knew him.

  “Evan introduced me to several people that night,” she said. “I don’t remember any names. Why?”

  “Just curious. He was a close friend of Evan’s in college. It’s got to be the same guy.”

  I didn’t tell her, but Brodie had been a friend of mine as well, until he’d been swept up along with Evan in the vortex of rhyming co
uplets and cocaine. In my experience, old friends are often the ones we trust most with our secrets. James Brodie had been one of his closest old friends. I wondered if Evan had confided in him up to the end.

  I could tell by the droop of Claire’s shoulders that our conversation was wearing her down. As I stood to leave, I wondered if I’d ever stop drumming up ways to feel responsible for her pain—probably not. I owed Claire Jerrard, if for no other reason than because she’d told me my yellow taffeta little-piece-of-heaven prom dress from J. C. Penney made me look like Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman, even though the image in the mirror looked more like Big Bird in Sesame Street, or for playing mother when my own was playing sidekick to the real star in some forgettable film so she could pay the rent on our one-bedroom apartment. But mostly because she’d assured me that Frank Jerrard’s death was a tragedy that couldn’t have been prevented, even though I knew how terribly wrong she was about that. Suddenly, old memories began carving out a hollow cavity in my chest that I felt compelled to fill with words.

  “Don’t worry,” I said. “I’ll close the apartment. I’ll take care of everything. Hopefully I’ll be finished by the end of the week.”

  “I can’t thank you enough for what you’re doing for Cissy.”

  I didn’t have the heart to tell her I wasn’t doing anything for Cissy. I was doing it for her or for Evan or maybe even for Dara. What the hell, maybe I was just doing it for myself.

  “No problem,” I said, “really.”

  Relief eased the crease between her eyebrows, which should have made me feel good instead of merely dutiful. As I said my good-byes and headed for the car, I wondered if James Brodie could tell me anything about Evan’s death. For a moment, I considered trying to locate him. On the other hand, I knew that if I did, I’d eventually be smacking my palm against my forehead and thinking, Stupid idea? Who knew? Besides, I couldn’t allow myself to get sidetracked. My number one priority was closing Evan’s apartment. Let the police handle the rest.