The Best Defense

by A. W. Gray

  Melanie was seated directly across from Sharon, eyes shining as she peered out the window with her mouth agape. The overhead interior light came on as Gray climbed in behind the wheel, illuminating Darla Cowan as she leaned against the door behind the driver. Darla’s hair and makeup were perfect. She looked at Sharon and grinned.

  “You have some kind of following, lady,” Darla said. “Excuse me for asking, but are you a movie star?”

  Melanie was speechless at first, being in the company of a famous actress, but about fifteen minutes into the drive she began to pester Darla in a manner which would have driven Sharon up the wall. Melanie wanted to know what it was like to be in a movie. Sharon very nearly intervened, telling her that Miss Cowan was too tired for all this, but before Sharon could open her mouth Darla had launched into a full­blown discourse. Sharon sank back, every bit as mesmerized as her daughter.

  Darla began with the first script reading, continued on through auditions, rehearsals, and shooting schedules, and even gave her impression of the first time she had seen her own image on the screen. Melanie was just getting started; now she wanted to know what Sean Penn was really like, and damned if Darla didn’t know a few stories about Penn as well. There was the tiniest vibe in Darla’s voice, a tremor in the dialogue which Sharon caught that no one else was likely to. She hadn’t spent the better part of a year in Darla’s constant company without latching on to the actress’s changing moods. Darla was wound up like a two-bit alarm clock, a fact which made her patience with Melanie even more remarkable. Darla Cowan, kook, ego­maniac, confused personality, taking time out from the murder of the year to converse with a starstruck kid. Sharon blinked in awe.

  It was Sharon’s first ever trip to Los Angeles, and she listened to Darla with one ear while watching the scenery out the window. A road sign told her that they were headed north on Highway One, which at this point was also called Lincoln Boulevard. Another sign on the left pointed toward Marina del Rey. Alongside the highway stood the most humongous miniature golf course that Sharon had ever seen, complete with a castle and a waterfall. Up ahead were still more reflecting signs, these pointing toward the Santa Monica Freeway. Sharon was so caught up in surveying the landscape that Melanie’s questions became background noise—until she all at once asked, “Miss Cowan, do you know my dad?”

  Sharon snapped her head around.

  There was pin-drop silence, broken only by the music from the stereo. Sharon inhaled and held her breath. In the dimness, Darla looked her a question. Sharon gulped, shrugged, and nodded her head. She crossed both her fingers and her toes.

  “Why, yes,” Darla said, caution in her tone. “Known him since before you were born, in fact.”

  “From New York, when my mom lived there?”

  Sharon pictured Darla auditioning for the part of “Old Woman Storyteller” in a Mother Goose production. The image was a stretch, but Darla made the role plausible by never batting an eye. She fixed Melanie with a confidential smile. Sharon resumed her peering out the window, but had one ear cocked in a listening attitude.

  “You don’t remember this,” Darla said, “but except for your mother and the doctors and nurses, I was the first person to see you after you were born. You drooled all over my blouse, young lady.”

  Melanie wriggled in fascination. “Even before my dad saw me?”

  Uh-oh, Sharon thought, not good. Not only had Rob never visited the hospital, Sharon had sworn Darla to secrecy that she was pregnant at all, and if Rob had shown up he likely would have brought his current sweetie along. None of which Melanie knew; ever since Rob had come back into their lives, Sharon had allowed her daughter to live with the fantasy that Rob had been All-American Dad, and that it was only the rigors of his career which had kept him away for, oh, eleven years or so. As if Rob were freaking Ulysses or something.

  Darla said, simply and quietly, “Right. Even before your dad.”

  Melanie sat proudly upright. “While we’re in California, my dad may take us on a tour of the studio.” Sharon’s jaws clenched. Darla watched her, but Sharon looked at her lap. Me and my big mouth, Sharon thought. With his current status regarding child support, it’s unlikely we’ll be able to get Rob on the phone.

  Darla’s mouth set in determination as she returned her attention to Melanie and patted the teenager’s hand. “Right. I run into him occasionally, and he’s dying to see you. And as for the studio tour, you can bet your boots that he’s going to take you. Sometime tomorrow I’ll give him a call.”

  They drove by places with names straight from Aaron Spelling television shows, Pacific Palisades, Topanga Canyon, Sunset Boulevard, Malibu Canyon Drive. On the driver’s side of the car were majestic cliffs, below which the night black Pacific Ocean rolled and swelled. Melanie oh-ed and ah-ed at every bend in the road. Sharon and Darla exchanged buddy-buddy glances, and Darla grinned in satisfaction. Sharon looked over her shoulder. Gray and Yadaka sat in front like wooden sentinels.

  They left the highway a mile or so past Malibu Canyon Road and took to the cliffs, up a narrow gravel road with barely enough room for two autos to pass abreast, twisting and turning as the headlights reflected from boulders the size of modest homes. Gray finally steered the limo between two giant slabs of granite and entered a clearing bathed in moonlight. The ground was flat and covered with twisting broad­ leaf vines. The plateau extended ahead for a hundred yards or so, and ended abruptly in a drop-off. Visible over the precipice were snow white rocks and crashing waves. Directly ahead was a driveway leading to a high iron gate. The gate was centered in a ten-foot brick wall which extended on either side to the drop-off. Visible through the gate was a monstrous house, its front bright as day in a floodlight’s beam. Tall white pillars fronted the porch, and the entry door was dark wood with a brass knocker in the shape of eagle’s wings. In the driveway between the gate and the house sat a sports car which Sharon believed to be a Jag. She sucked in a breath and murmured, “God.”

  The limo rolled smoothly forward, crunching gravel. A panel truck sat before the gate, both front doors swinging open as the limo approached. A man toting a minicam emerged from behind the wheel as a woman alighted from the passenger seat. As the limo stopped before the gate, Sharon read the sign on the side of the truck. KERA TV. Yadaka pointed a remote, and the gate swung wide. The reporter tapped on the window by Sharon’s ear, and the cameraman pointed his lens. Sharon ignored both the woman and the minicam as Gray steered the limo through the gate and parked behind the Jag. As the bodyguards opened the trunk to remove the luggage, and as the women and the teenager got out of the limo and walked up on the porch, the on-the-spot news lady stood at the gate and fired a question through the bars. Any comment on the murders? Christ, Sharon thought, if anyone in this group had a comment, sweetie, you’d have gotten it by now. Try Milton Breyer, he’ll give you the scoop of the century. Darla used a key to open the door, and then led the way inside. Sharon followed Melanie into the biggest entry hall she’d ever seen. Darla went over and peered outside. “Any comment, Miss Cowan?” the newswoman yelled. Darla slammed the huge front door, cutting the outside world off from their view.

  The ocean made a never ending hissing sound, a constant ssssssst! as if it had secrets to tell. Sharon watched the breakers roll in, white gashes on a field of black, appearing in the distance out of nothingness, dissolving into foam as the waves hit the rocks fifty feet below. The air was free of smog this far from the city, and a three-quarter moon showed above the edge of a cliff. The strip of beach was even whiter than the breakers. She was certain she’d never seen anything so gorgeous in her life, not even when she and Darla had played a local theater gig at Cape Cod. She sipped Cutty, made a face, and clinked the ice around. “I could die happy here,” Sharon said.

  Darla reclined on a chaise longue near the balcony railing, classic legs stretched out below a thigh-length kimono. Her ankles were crossed. “I thought I was going to, sev
eral times.”

  Sharon raised her rock glass to her lips. “Die happy here?”

  “Just die.”

  “You need to shake out of it. You’ve got a lot of decades left to live.”

  Darla lifted her own drink, Tanqueray with tonic and a twist of lime. “I’m sad for David, even though there were times I could have done it myself.” She managed a halfhearted chuckle. “That I’m a suspect in something like that is pretty silly, isn’t it?”

  Sharon continued to watch the ocean, and felt a tug of despair. She debated leveling with Darla about her situation, telling the actress that arrest was likely imminent, then decided against it. She said, changing the subject, “Melanie will beat those video games of yours to death. Forget her sleeping tonight.”

  Darla sat up and hugged her knees. “She’s darling. I wish I had kids.”

  “You need to know them when they’re small and cuddly, and then hang on to the memory through the lovely teens,” Sharon said. She got up from her director’s chair, walked up to the balcony, and peered down on the rocks. “It’s not near as cool out here as I thought it would be. The forecast said what on the beaches, in the forties?”

  “Television weathermen never include Malibu in their prognostics.” Darla gestured to the south, waving her glass. “There’s a point down there shielding the wind. We’ll average ten degrees warmer here than the beaches south of L.A. Something about the currents, they tell me.”

  Sharon had changed into bedclothes, which for her consisted of a tee, size XXL, and panties. The T-shirt was orange, with black lettering on the front saying, “I’m a Virgin.” On the back was a smaller parenthetical caption, “This is a very old shirt.” She’d bought the garment in Deep Ellum and had thought it hilarious, but had never gotten up the nerve to wear it anyplace outside her bedroom. She peered down at pounding surf and at waves breaking up on the beach, and felt a bit dizzy.

  Darla left the chaise and stood beside Sharon at the rail. She rolled her glass across her forehead. “God, Sharon. I just want all of this to go away.”

  One corner of Sharon’s mouth tugged to the side. She tried a dose of reality. “Get used to it. For you it won’t ever be over, as long as you’re a public figure. People will remember.” She walked back over and sat in the director’s chair, and had a sip of scotch. “Do something to take your mind off it. Read a few scripts, plan your next movie. I suspect you can name your price, as long as you don’t wait until the iron is cold.”

  “Hah.” Darla went back to the chaise, curled up her legs, and sat ,on her ankles. “I’ve got seven or eight scripts downstairs my agent sent. Top directors, hotshot writers, all of them. In every plot I’m fucking somebody. A cop in one, the president in another. Half the guys are married, but my character’s not supposed to care about that. There’s even one where I’m a murderous lunatic again.” She stared off into space for a moment. “You know what I did? When they were casting Little Women, I offered to work for scale if they’d just give me a part. The casting director told my agent”—she tucked her chin and deepened her voice—‘We got no fuck-me roles. Call you back when I get one, okay?’ I swear, Sharon, I’d rather be selling Playskool blocks,”

  The reference brought a smile to Sharon’s lips. Once she and Darla, out of work and down to their last slice of bologna, had accepted a gig during Christmas season at F.A.O. Schwarz. There they’d dressed up as alphabet blocks and jiggled kiddies on their knees, and one of the little darlings had poured glue in Darla’s hair. They’d cursed their agent for weeks. They had, however, laughed all the way home. They’d found something funny in every situation in those days, which had had a lot to do with seeing them through the lean times. Sharon sighed and looked out to sea. “What’s tomorrow’s schedule?” she said.

  “We’re due in Chet Verdon’s office at ten. It’s downtown.”

  “Verdon being your contracts attorney?”

  “Right. Beginning at one, we’re supposed to talk to a string of criminal lawyers.” Darla seemed thoughtful “I should tell you, Chet didn’t like the idea of my bringing you along.”

  “I suspect that’s putting it mildly. Look, Darla, if you want me to bow out of the picture—”

  “No way.” Darla showed her classic profile, her gaze to the west. “I told you on the phone, I don’t trust these people. I don’t even trust Chet all that much. I had to put my foot down. Told him, without you by my side I’m speaking to no one.”

  Sharon was flattered, but a bit awestruck as well. “If the meetings aren’t till one, isn’t ten a bit early for us to show up?”

  “There’ll be the two-hour lunch before. People in L.A. make careers out of lunch, just like in New York. Saves me some on my fees, believe it or not. Chet’s theory is, if he’s seen with me and I’m his client, it’ll drum up more business for him.” She laughed. “That’s not something he told me. It’s just that every time we’re in a restaurant, all of a sudden I’m introduced to all these people I never heard of. Chet represents me for three hundred dollars an hour. For common people he charges four hundred.”

  Sharon wondered how much business she could drum up by lunching with her illustrious client Tired Darnell. Now, that would really impress the crowd at Sfuzzi’s or wherever. A coolish ocean breeze wafted across her legs, raising a few goose bumps. “Power lunch, check,” she said. “That’ll be from eleven till one. What do we do for the first hour, plan strategy?”

  Darla seemed hesitant. “Well, first there’s the press conference. That’s at ten-fifteen.”

  Sharon’s eyes widened in the moonlight. “There’s the what?”

  Darla finished her drink and set the glass aside. “I told Chet you wouldn’t approve. That’s when we first got into it over my bringing you at all.”

  “You shouldn’t be talking to the press, Darla. That’s true in Texas and in California. It’s true in freaking Afghanistan, for God’s sake.”

  “Chet thinks you’re being paranoid. That the idea I’m any kind of suspect is ridiculous.”

  “Milton Breyer is ridiculous. Criminal law is ridiculous, but that doesn’t change anything.”

  “Chet says, what I need to do is get things out in the open. Let the public know I’m not hiding something.”

  Sharon couldn’t believe her ears. “A lawyer told you that?”

  Darla shrugged. “UCLA. Class of ‘73, unless his sheepskin is a phony.”

  Sharon set her glass down and folded her arms. “I think perhaps I should stay here at the house tomorrow and catch up on my ocean watching.”

  There was a sudden edge in Darla’s tone. “You promised you’d go with me.”

  “I’m afraid I’ll spoil your meeting.”

  “Without you there is no meeting. I’ve made that clear to Chet.”

  Sharon pretend to sneeze, to give herself just a second to think. Just as quickly as Darla had charmed the pants off Melanie, she’d now lapsed into her bitchy mode. One of the most impossible, totally unpredictable … no, check that, the most impossible …

  “You have to, Sharon,” Darla said.

  Sharon lost it. “Let me tell you something. I don’t have to do a goddamned thing.”

  Darla’s mouth went slack in shock.

  Sharon testily flipped her bangs. “I’ll tell you something about evidence. There was a dead man found in the hotel room where you were registered, Darla, and there are about four thousand witnesses who can place you on the scene within the right time frame. The dead man just happened to be this guy you’ve been living with, and you and that gentleman ju8t happened to have a screaming fight in front of four thousand more witnesses about six hours before the murder. Oh, yes, you also left your rental car at the hotel and fled the scene in a taxi, before which you came screaming into the lobby with your clothes torn half off. Those circumstances alone are enough for Dallas County to issue a probable-cause warrant for your
arrest, if they haven’t already. If you talk to the media, they’re going to question you about all of this. Your choices will be to refuse to answer, in which case you’ll look guilty as hell, or to give a lengthy denial, every detail of which the district attorney can pin you down to at a later date. No press conferences, Darla, and that’s so important…”

  “Dammit, Sharon, I can explain. I walked out on David and gave him the keys to that car as I was leaving. Told him if he was through beating me up, here was his transportation to the airport. Told him the rental contract was in the glove compartment.”

  Sharon expelled air through her nose. “You left him alive?”

  Darla gave an emphatic nod. “Damned straight.” “Okay,” Sharon said, “now I’ll cross-examine. You left him alive in front of who as a witness?”

  Darla turned her back. “We were alone in the room. You know that.”

  “Yeah, right.” Sharon walked around so that she and Darla were eye to eye. “And what happened next, Miss Cowan? Was David Spencer then so grief­stricken over your departure that he ran around the room stabbing himself and then shot himself in the head? And if he did, who put him in bed and tucked the covers up under his chinny-chin-chin, and who took the gun and knife away?”

  Darla closed her eyes and hugged herself. “Someone. Someone besides me.”

  Sharon felt a twinge of conscience. “Look, I told you on the phone, you shouldn’t discuss anything without your lawyer present, and this is an example of why. You’re going to be asked all kinds of questions, and you need to think your responses over very carefully. You certainly shouldn’t be giving any answers to the media.”

  “Chet will be sitting right there when I lay it out to the reporters. So will you. Come on, Sharon, the idea that anyone suspects me, that’s silly.”