Second Guessing

by K. J. Emrick

  Actually, I kind of like buddy cop movies. Mel Gibson was at his best in the Lethal Weapon franchise. Before he went completely nuts for real. “Can you tell me who else is in it? Who are your costars? I’m just so curious about what we’ll see you in next.”

  “Oh, I couldn’t possibly tell you that.” She pushes at a piece of mushroom as she begins to fidget in her chair. “My agent has us all sign these confidentiality waivers and if I tattle anything at all about it, they could fire me. Yes, my agent is very strict about these things. So, mum’s the word, I guess. Sorry.”

  She takes another bite.

  I lay my fork aside.

  “Your agent, huh? That’s funny, because when me and Detective Caine stopped by to see your agent earlier today, she told me that she didn’t know anything about you shooting a movie. In fact, she said she has no idea why you’re in Detroit.”

  Amelia freezes in place like a deer caught in the headlights of an oncoming tractor trailer. She just backed herself into a corner with her own lies. Chewing the rest of her bite of food slowly, she swallows it back, and then pushes her plate away. She folds her hands on the table. She locks her gaze on mine. “Have you been checking up on me, Sidney? You doing the work of the paparazzi for them?”

  “No, I’m investigating this case, is what I’m doing. Do you remember what I told you was going to happen if I found out you were lying to me?”

  “I’m not lying to you. I didn’t kill Donnie.”

  “You’re lying to me about why you’re here in Detroit,” I point out to her. “We went to your agent and you know what? I think she’d make a pretty fine suspect, whether it was to ruin your career or give it a shot of publicity, either way. She also mentioned your sister Barbara has had money issues and she thinks maybe, just maybe, that might have something to do with the situation you’re in. That could make Barbara a suspect too. I’ve got ways to take this investigation that would definitely put doubt in a jury’s mind, at least, but I can’t even begin to prove someone else did it because you lied to me. Everything you said after that is garbage as far as I’m concerned.”

  My little speech brings out what might be the first true emotion Amelia Falconi has displayed since she showed up here a few days ago. Anger. It flashes in her eyes as she leans in to grab her beer bottle in a white-knuckled grip. “My sister had nothing to do with this. You stay away from Barbara. She didn’t kill Donnie, and neither did I.”

  “I wish I could believe you, Amelia, but you know that whole thing about fool me once? Yeah. That’s where we are. Fool me twice, and I’m dropping you as a client and the media sharks can eat you for breakfast with a side of bacon for all I care.”

  “How can you say that to me?” She looks honestly shocked. Honestly offended. “I’m the victim here, Sidney. Did you lose sight of that? I hired you to prove I’m innocent because I’m the victim. Me!”

  I can’t believe what I’m hearing. I haven’t even had half of this beer in front of me and I’m nowhere near drunk enough to feed an ego like Amelia Falconi’s. “Donnie Sterling is the victim here. Did you lose sight of that? He’s the one who got murdered. You’re still alive. Someone targeted him and I’m telling you right now, Amelia, that everything I do to help you only gives more evidence that you might have done this.”

  “Exactly!” She stands up from the table, slapping her palm down on it as does. “You don’t think I’m a victim? My career might be over because of this.” A single tear leaks out from the corner of her eye, but the anger persists. “That may not mean anything to you, working out of your apartment and living off beer and tap water but for someone like me, my career is all I have. It’s all I know. If someone takes that away from me then I’ll have nothing left! They wanted to hurt me by putting me next to a dead body. That’s what happened here. I’m the victim. Me!”

  I wait for her to get done talking, before asking the next question on my list. “I thought you loved Donnie Sterling?”

  “I do!”

  Her words seem to surprise her even more than they do me. She blinks, and then she actually takes a step back, and now her hands come up to press against her chest, right over her heart.

  Amelia Falconi is a woman who fakes emotions for a living. Laughter, joy, misery, love. She’s played all those roles on the big screen. A couple of TV movies, too. She’s done it for so long that she didn’t recognize when she’d fallen in love for real.

  Wow. That’s… kind of sad, really.

  “I do love him,” she says again, quietly. “I do. I mean, I did. He was good to me. He cared about the real me, not the famous actress. It’s hard to explain. I have this whole world that I live in, but Donnie and me we had another world, too. Does that make sense?”

  “Yes. It does. That’s called love, Amelia.”

  She sniffs and looks at me defiantly. “That’s what I said.”

  “Then why can’t you show a little sympathy for the guy?” I’m not letting up. I might be understanding her a little better here in my kitchen but I’m going to get the truth out of her. No more lies. “You loved him, and he’s dead, and you’re standing here playing the victim.”

  “That’s my point,” she insists. “This is all about me. The whole murder was about me. They killed a man I loved to hurt me. Why can’t you see that? Why?”

  She’s whining. It’s not a good look for her. “You are so selfish, Amelia. Just like you were back in high school. You haven’t changed a bit. Not one bit. Oh, you’ve got money, and fame, and you’ve got people to make sure you get everything you want but all that did was let you show your true colors. You are selfish and egocentric.”

  “Me? You think I’m selfish?”

  I take a breath before I lose it on her. Hearing all this bullcrap with my future-sense and then hearing it for real three seconds later is giving me a massive headache. “We’re not teenagers anymore, Amelia. A man is dead, and you’re still lying to me hoping that I won’t notice. If you don’t tell me exactly what’s going on, then I’m done. We’re done. You can take your chances with the jury.”

  Her bottom lip starts to tremble. Her eyes are swimming with tears now. If this is an act, then she deserved that best supporting actress nomination she got for that crappy sci-fi flick because this is one of the best acts I’ve ever seen. “Selfish,” she mutters. “You think I’m selfish. Yes. I suppose… I was selfish back in high school. I wasn’t a good person back then, was I?”

  I don’t answer her, because that’s a simple truth, and we both know it. So if this is her attempt at an apology, it sucks.

  When I just sit there watching her instead of playing into her drama, Amelia snorts out a laugh. “You don’t think I know how shallow I was back in school? I know. Maybe I didn’t back then… well, there’s no maybe about it, is there?” With the heel of one hand, she wipes at her eyes. “I know what I was like. I know what people said about me. Back then I didn’t care. I was popular. Then I got this acting career and I was popular, and I didn’t care. Well, I care now, Sidney. Maybe it’s too late but I… Do you want to hear the real reason why I came to Detroit this time?”

  The question is an abrupt change in the conversation. I spread my hands to tell her the ball was in her court. “Go ahead. I’d love to hear what excuse you come up with this time. It’s not going to change anything, but you go right ahead.”

  “It’s not an excuse,” she promises. “Just the truth. It’s what you wanted from the start, but I don’t like to tell people because I find that they shut me out when I tell them what I’ve been doing. Look, Sidney. I came here to make amends. With you.”

  Not even my future-sense could have prepared me for that one. “Excuse me?”

  “It’s true. I came here to make up for the person I used to be. I know perfectly well who I was. The popular kid. The mean girl. I had it all and everyone else could go to hell for all I cared. No, no. Don’t try to argue.”

  I wasn’t. I really, really wasn’t.

  This all sounds ki
nd of rehearsed. Like maybe she’s said this same thing a dozen times before or more. Repeat a line, pause for dramatic effect, pose for the cameras. It’s too smooth. Too practiced. But… at the heart of what she’s saying there’s an honesty. Like maybe she had all these emotions to get out, and she didn’t know how to say them, and so she’s acting out this little scene so she won’t forget her lines.

  I might just be seeing behind the curtains of Amelia Falconi’s life.

  She sighs, and her next words seem to take her off script. “I’ve changed, Sidney.”

  “Not that I can see.”

  “I have. I really, really have. You want to know why? Do you want to know the real truth? The thing I haven’t told anyone yet.”

  All right. I’ll bite. I sit back and kick my legs out in front of me and get myself comfortable. I have a feeling this is going to take a while.

  Grabbing her beer up from the table she downs half of it in one swallow.

  “Here’s the truth,” she says, holding the bottle in her fist. “I’ve been going across the whole country, finding the people I remember from high school, making excuses to bump into them, just so I can apologize for who I used to be. A mean girl. A bully. That… that’s not who I want to be anymore. I said I’ve changed but maybe the truth is I want to change, and I’m trying really hard.”

  She stares down at her beer bottle for a long moment before she can talk again. “At first I’d go up to people and I’d say something like, hey remember me, I’m the one who said all those mean things about you and stole your boyfriend and wouldn’t let you hang out with me, or whatever. I’m sorry.” She takes a breath, and sighs. “It never worked. People didn’t believe me. They always told me to go away or drop dead or maybe, sometimes, ask for an autograph before they shut a door in my face. Telling people the truth about why I went to see them never worked. I had to start lying to make them spend some time with me, and then I could slip in an apology, and they’d listen. I had to lie to even get people to listen to me.”

  I wait to hear the punchline with my future-sense, but there is none. She’s serious. This is what she’s been doing? Going back to people she hasn’t seen in years and apologizing for being… well, for being the girl I remember back then? If she’s making this up it’s the most elaborate story I’ve ever heard. Although, it would explain the odd meeting in the Shake Shack. It would also explain something else.

  “That’s why you haven’t had a new movie come out in two years? Because you’ve been going around on a sort of apology tour?”

  She nods her head, up and down. “Apology tour. Yeah. I like that. That describes it pretty well. I did lie to you about being here to film a new movie. I’m sorry. It’s just that usually, that lie works with all of our old classmates. We meet for lunch because hey, I’m this famous movie star, and then while we’re talking, I slip in my apology and they’re all like, oh that’s okay we don’t mind and then I leave. Go on to the next person. It’s, um, kind of a long list.”

  “I’ll bet. Can I ask you a question?”

  “Sure, I guess. I mean, that’s what I’m paying you for, right?”

  She’s going to get her money’s worth. “Did you really give Mister Baskins a… well you know… to pass Geometry class?”

  Now she actually bursts out laughing, even as she wipes at her tears some more. “He was the fifth name on my list. He’s still good looking, to be honest. And he’s married now. I had to kind of rush my apology to him while the wife went to get us lemonade. He kind of rushed me out the door after that.”

  I’m sure he did. “You still lied to me. I told you not to, and you did it anyway.”

  “But for a good reason, like I’m saying. You’re the first one to question it. Makes sense. I remember how smart you were. Everyone knew it. I resented you for it, I think. That’s why I ignored you all the time. That’s why I was… maybe not so nice to you and most of the rest of our class. I didn’t want to admit you were better than I was at anything. I was going places. I could always feel it. Then my star took off and I never looked back until…”

  The words trail off behind another long drink of her beer. I notice that her tears have stopped, but her eyes are still watery like she might start crying again at any moment, now that her real emotions are finally coming out. After everything I’ve just heard her say I find myself questioning whether I might just, maybe, possibly believe her.

  I think I might.

  “Why the change of heart?” I ask her. “You’ve got it all. You never needed anyone unless they could do something for you, and now you’ve got fortune and fame and you could have your pick of scripts for movies but you’ve set all of that aside just to go cross-country and apologize to people you hardly ever knew? Your agent sounded like she was ready to drop you because you aren’t producing revenue for her firm. Drop you, or kill you, or maybe even set you up for murder. You’re risking everything you’ve gained for this trip of yours. That’s not just something you do on a whim. So there must be a really good reason why you started doing all this.”

  “There is.”

  “All right. What is it?”

  Now she sits down again, too, and her empty beer bottle thumps down onto the table. “Back then I didn’t realize it, but I was being a bully. That wasn’t even the word for it back then, remember? We were all just kids, treating each other badly. Now we know… now we know better. We know what a bully is, and what they can do to kids without even realizing it.” She had to swallow, twice, before she could tell me the next part. “My niece committed suicide two years ago. My sister’s beautiful girl. She was being bullied in school by these mean alpha girls. Yeah, that’s right. The same kind of girl I used to be. They tormented her until she felt so lost that she took a bunch of pills and didn’t wake up. Her mom was devastated. That’s my sister. Barbara. It tore her whole world apart. I was devastated, too. The funeral took everything out of us.”

  My heart sank. I could understand the pain she was describing. The suicide rate in this country is at its highest since the end of World War Two. Too many people are taking their own lives. People who will never come back. And the rate among teenagers is the highest it’s ever been. Entire families have been torn apart by this plague. As an ex-soldier, this is an issue I know all too well. Retired military suicides are estimated at about six thousand every year.

  I don’t know how to stop people from taking their own lives. I do know that putting an end to bullying would be a good place to start. Especially for the young people of our country.

  Amelia said her niece killed herself two years ago. That’s the same time she stopped doing movies. That’s the reason for her change of heart. Suicide affects all of us. This one affected her.

  In a quiet voice, she tells me, “My niece’s death opened my eyes to the way I was living my life. My own sister said she wouldn’t talk to me after it happened. She said I was the same as the girls who bullied my niece to death. I didn’t understand that, not at first, but then I thought back and I saw it. I saw my life from a totally different perspective. All the mean words, all the whispers that started rumors that ruined people’s lives. Just all of it. I got to be head cheerleader by spreading rumors about the other girls. The geeks in the school knew to avoid me if they didn’t want to be made fun of. I was a horrible person. I got to wondering, if I was doing all of that, did I ever make anyone think about killing themselves? I didn’t know. I just knew I had to change. I needed to be a better person, for my niece’s sake.”

  Part of me respected her for coming to that conclusion. Part of me hated her for still calling people ‘geeks.’ She hasn’t changed as much as she wants to think. Maybe she’s trying, and maybe that’s enough for now, but she’s got a long way to go. “So you’ve been going around for the last two years looking up your old classmates to, what, apologize for being a jerk?”

  “Do you think it’s been easy?” she blurts out, throwing her hands in the air and dropping them back into her lap. “I’ve
got all these fans running around thinking I’m their best friend, their future lover, their next wife! It’s not easy being me, Sidney. I’ve got a reputation to live up to as this perfect woman and for me to drop my defenses and apologize for my past mistakes so that no one will ever have to feel like my niece did… this has not been easy for me. It wasn’t easy approaching you and lying about it and for what? Now I’m in the middle of a murder investigation and you still don’t want to hear my apology. This isn’t what I wanted at all. I just wanted to do better. For myself and for the memory of my niece, I wanted to be better. If doing good gets you in this much trouble, then why bother?”

  “Listen, Amelia, that’s really… well, it’s commendable, I guess. If everyone could take a good look at their life and find ways to improve, the world would be a better place.” Which is true, but it’s also what I know Amelia needs to hear. That’s another tactic in an interview. Play to their egos. Amelia Falconi has an ego I just can’t miss. “You came here to apologize to me, but the truth is I haven’t thought about high school in years. That’s the past. I need to look to the future. A future that you may not have, if you can’t come up with some reason to convince me that you didn’t kill Donnie yourself.”

  She gasps. “Isn’t what I’ve told you enough? I loved Donnie. I’m trying to be a better person and I’ve spent two whole years making up for my sins, or my mistakes, or whatever. You don’t understand how hard my life is.” She sniffs, and wipes at fresh tears that fall down over her cheeks. “Everybody wants a piece of me. My agents, my security detail, my fans, my costars, everyone! Nobody sees me as just Amelia Falconi, a woman who grew up with the same hopes and dreams as everyone else. They only see the movie star. Donnie was different. He’s the first man I’d been with who I can say that about.”

  “And now,” I say, “he’s dead.”

  She looks at me, wiping away more tears. “Yes. He is. It’s not fair, but there it is. He’s dead. He knew what I was doing you know. He knew all about me trying to be better and he supported me. He told me I was doing the right thing and he stayed by my side wherever we went. The other bodyguards came and went and I hardly ever knew their names, but Donnie always stuck with me. You know what? Even you didn’t see me as a person when I made sure to run into you at the Shake Shack. There I was, all nervous and vulnerable, and all you saw was the rich, privileged megastar. Why’s she talking to me, is what you were thinking. It was written all over your face.”