Divas

by Rebecca Chance

  ‘Omigod, it’s just like Law and Order!’ one gawker cried as they pushed her towards the middle patrol car.

  ‘For real? Are they filming?’ someone else exclaimed, looking around for TV cameras but seeing only the ones from the daily news shows.

  ‘Who’s the actress?’

  ‘She looks like Sarah Michelle Gellar, only prettier—’

  Someone opened the car door and someone else put a big hand on the top of Lola’s head and squashed her down bodily. She slid across the seat, sandwiched in by cops on either side. The driver was talking excitedly into her radio as the cars pulled away: dimly, she could feel the detectives’ excitement, barely controlled. They were all sweating lightly, pumped up, psyched at having made such a high-profile arrest.

  Leaning forward, unable to sit back because her arms were handcuffed behind her, Lola stared ahead at the wire screen that separated the front and back seats. The car was tearing through the streets, sirens whooping – sirens! For her! It was all so absurd that she could barely believe it was real, even despite the hard physical reality of the steel handcuffs cutting into her, and the way she was bouncing on the seat because she couldn’t get any purchase with her feet on the wheel base.

  The car slammed to a halt so abruptly that Lola jerked forward, unable to catch herself. As she crashed forward, the last thing she remembered was one of the officers beside her yelling:

  ‘Shit! Grab her before she—’

  Then her forehead smashed against the panel, and everything went mercifully dark.

  Chapter 19

  ‘Look at her!’ yelled Simon Poluck, pointing dramatically at Lola.

  All heads turned in her direction. Joshua Greene, the Assistant District Attorney, grimaced in embarrassment and annoyance all over again, even though he’d seen her bruised face and filthy condition already.

  ‘My client was brought in wearing handcuffs behind her back, like a common criminal, ’ Simon Poluck continued. ‘She was perp-walked out of the front of her residence, where photographers and news cameras were already waiting. Plus, she had absolutely no history of prior arrests, so why wasn’t she handcuffed in front, which would have avoided her concussing herself on the divider of the police car?’

  Lola had already seen the bruise on her forehead. It wasn’t pretty: the metal screen had cut into her, grazing her skin in a layer of criss-cross bruising even deeper than the purplish background. She wasn’t surprised that everyone was now averting their gaze from her.

  ‘But then it really gets bad, ’ Simon Poluck continued heavily.‘Did they take her to the medical office at the Tombs to have her treated? No, they didn’t even bother to have her concussion diagnosed. They took her prints, they took her photo – in which, let me point out, you can clearly see that bruise forming – and they put her in plastic flex cuffs, which have also left marks on her wrists, because they were too tight. Lola?’

  Dutifully, Lola held up her arms, the sleeves of her cashmere hoodie falling back to show narrow twin purple lines running all round her wrists.

  They were sitting in the DA’s office, a lavishly appointed room in the downtown building at One Hogan Place. Though it was large, lined with custom-built bookcases holding arrays of legal reference books, and dominated by an impressive leather-covered mahogany desk, Simon Poluck’s personality filled it easily: he seemed to loom over the other people present. The DA was in Albany, and Joshua Greene, one of his chief ADAs, sitting behind the imposing desk, seemed somewhat dwarfed by it. To one side was a woman from the DA’s office, and a lieutenant from One Police Plaza in dress uniform.

  The lieutenant looked at Lola’s wrists and winced. Not because he felt guilty that she’d been marked in police custody: because he could sense lawsuits arriving.

  ‘Then they dumped her in a holding cell with a bunch of hookers and arsonists—’ continued Poluck.

  ‘There was only one arsonist, ’ said the woman from the DA’s office unhappily.

  ‘—and moved her four times between cells, in the space of three hours, believe it or not, in what I am sure was a deliberate attempt to slow down my ability to locate my client and speed up her arraignment—’

  ‘I can assure you that nothing of the kind was intended, ’ protested the police lieutenant. ‘We may have been over-zealous in not wishing to seem to give Miss Fitzgerald privileged treatment because of her, um, social status—’

  ‘Social status?’ Simon Poluck demanded, reaching in his briefcase and extracting a copy of that day’s edition of the Ledger, which he slapped down on the table. ‘What kind of social status do you think she has left after this?’

  On the cover of the tabloid newspaper was a blurred picture of Lola, hanging limply between two police officers, being half-carried into Central Booking, colloquially known as the Tombs. The headline blared:

  ‘DID DRUG-CRAZED LOLA KILL BILLIONAIRE POP?’ and the text below read:

  ‘Too drunk or drugged to walk on her own, former socialite Lola Fitzgerald hits an all-time low as she’s arrested for the murder of her own father!’

  Lola, seeing it for the first time, drew in her breath in horror and turned away.

  ‘Believe me, ’ said the lieutenant unhappily, ‘the officers responsible for not securing Miss Fitzgerald’s safety in the patrol car have already been disciplined—’

  ‘She could have broken her neck!’ Simon Poluck declared. ‘It’s outrageous to me that your office’ – he glared at Joshua Greene – ‘had the balls to ask for bail at all under the circumstances! She should have been released under her own recognisance! I can’t believe she’s being forced to surrender her passport – what an insult!’

  ‘Miss Fitzgerald is without question a flight risk.’ Joshua Greene defended himself. A small, white, balding man with glasses and a clear tenor voice, he gained confidence by knowing himself to be on stronger ground with this part of the latter’s complaint. ‘Through her ex-fiancé, who posted her bail, she has access to unlimited funds and the Van der Veer family’s private jet. I frankly feel she should be under house arrest.’

  ‘Even the judge didn’t fall for that one, after seeing what your goons did to her when they had her in custody, ’ Poluck said contemptuously.

  The judge had been a large, phlegmatic man, Lola remembered, but even he had come to life when he heard Lola’s surname and identified her as her father’s daughter. It had all been so unreal, like one of those nightmares where you’re suddenly thrust onstage in your dirty, stained day clothes, and, blinking in the spotlights, forced to give a performance in a play you’ve never even heard of before. She remembered the dark shiny wooden rows of seats, the high ceilings, the panelled walls hung with bad oil paintings, the high windows behind the judge, who was hunching forward curiously to get a good look at the notorious Lola Fitzgerald, It girl and coke whore, whose fiancé had overdosed with a tranny on her hen night, and who was now accused of the worst crime in the world: patricide.

  High drama. The spectators greedily took in every detail of Lola’s appearance: bruised and wincing, her grey cashmere hoodie filthy, her shoes stinking of urine from the holding pen. If you loved to watch celebrities brought low, dragged down to the lowest depths of humiliation, Lola’s appearance would be the high point of your year. Everyone was staring: the court officers, the court reporter, lifting her head from her transcription machine to look at Lola as her fingers flew across the keys.

  Simon Poluck, who she’d never met before, turned out to be a tall, skinny black man in a superbly cut suit and a dashing mauve and yellow silk tie. And after her plea of ‘Not Guilty’, full of righteous anger at how bruised and dirty she was, Simon Poluck had demanded that a meeting be convened immediately following the bail hearing. So here they were in the DA’s office, as Poluck hauled the New York police department over the coals for their treatment of her.

  ‘Excuse me, Josh. Mr Poluck, if I could cut in here?’ said the woman sitting to one side of the desk. She had pale skin and masses of dark
red hair, pulled back into a thick plait. ‘Serena Mackesy, ADA, ’ she said, swiftly introducing herself.

  ‘Now that you’ve given us a hard time, Mr Poluck, could we get to the bit where you tell us what you want?’

  ‘I’m glad that someone in your office can talk straight, ’ Simon Poluck said dryly to Josh Greene. ‘Sure, Ms Mackesy. I want an apology to Miss Fitzgerald from One Police Plaza. All the tabloids today have been blaring headlines about Miss Fitzgerald being drunk or on drugs when she was arrested. Tomorrow, I want them to be screaming about how she was abused by the police who should have been securing her safety from the moment they took her into custody.’ He glanced at his very expensive watch. ‘That means a press conference in an hour. And I want someone from the top brass in full uniform doing it.’

  The lieutenant winced as if he were in physical pain.

  ‘And if we do that, you’ll agree not to file any lawsuits?’ he said hopefully.

  ‘Believe me, ’ Simon Poluck said, waving one manicured hand, ‘Miss Fitzgerald doesn’t need the money.’

  ‘Now she doesn’t, ’ Joshua Greene said sharply. ‘Because her father’s death gives her fifty per cent of his entire fortune.’

  Lola’s eyes widened.

  ‘I thought Carin would have got him to change the will, ’ she said naively. ‘When she got him to give her power of attorney, and took over my trust fund.’

  ‘Well, she didn’t, Miss Fitzgerald!’ Self-assured now, Joshua Greene steepled his fingers together on the desk into a little pyramid. ‘And that’s your motive in a nutshell! You faced a long, arduous court battle to wrest control of your trust fund back from your stepmother, and it was easier simply to murder your father, knowing you would inherit half his estate!’

  ‘But he was alive when I left him!’ Lola protested.

  ‘You injected him with insulin when you were alone with him, knowing that an overdose would cause his death, ’ accused Serena Mackesy.

  ‘Knowing – how would I even know that?’

  ‘According to the nurse who was present during the first part of your visit with your father, you asked him a considerable number of questions, ’ Joshua Greene informed her. ‘And he then discovered a used hypodermic needle and an empty vial of insulin in the sharps container, doubtless where you had hoped to conceal them. They have your fingerprints on them, ’ he added triumphantly. ‘Oh yes, we expedited the process. We have a twelve-point match.’

  ‘But he—’ Lola began, desperately anxious to explain the truth of what had happened in her father’s bedroom yesterday.

  Simon Poluck raised a hand quickly.

  ‘Not another word, Miss Fitzgerald, ’ he insisted. ‘Not. Another. Word.’ He smiled at her reassuringly and leaned forward, fixing Joshua Greene with a hard stare. ‘Drop the case now, Mr Greene.’

  ‘Not a chance in hell, ’ Joshua Greene retorted defiantly. ‘We have a very strong case. No plea offers on the table. She’s going to do twenty-five to life.’

  ‘Hah!’ Simon Poluck snorted. ‘This fragile little creature? Who, after this evening, is going to be the latest pretty little white poster girl for the horrors of police brutality? This is what’s going to face you on the stand, ’ he said, gesturing at Lola. ‘There isn’t a jury in the world who’d convict her of the terrible crime of which you’ve accused her.’ He stood up. ‘Drop the case now, Mr Greene, ’ he said. ‘It’s your last chance to save your career.’

  And on that perfect exit line, he shepherded his client from the room.

  Outside the DA’s office, a blaze of camera flashes greeted them immediately. The bright flare of news cameras, collected in a group on the steps, made Lola blink and duck her head, but Poluck bustled her down the stairs and into a waiting stretch limo with darkened windows.

  ‘Darling!’ Jean-Marc and David screamed in unison from the facing seat.

  They had champagne glasses in their hands, and they pressed one on her. Lola took it automatically, still dazed by everything that was happening. She took a sip. It went straight to her head as if it had been cognac.

  ‘We’ve been waiting for hours!’ Jean-Marc exclaimed. ‘How are you!’

  ‘Oh my God, look at her, ’ David said with horror as the limo pulled away from the curb. ‘What did they do to you?’

  ‘Did you get the charges dropped?’ Jean-Marc begged Simon Poluck. ‘Tell me you made it all go away! It’s so ridiculous!’

  They all looked at Simon Poluck, who was waving away the glass of champagne David was proffering to him.

  ‘The good news, ’ he said, ‘is that we’re winning the PR war. By the time we get the police department’s statement on the TV news tonight, everyone will be on Miss Fitzgerald’s side.’

  ‘And the bad news?’ Lola asked.

  ‘There isn’t a chance in hell Greene will dismiss this indictment, ’ he told them grimly. ‘The case against you is very strong indeed. I was just grandstanding in there to try to rattle his cage. But with that nurse’s testimony—’ he shook his head. ‘We have an uphill battle ahead of us.’

  ‘But he’s lying!’ Lola said furiously. ‘Carin’s paying him to lie!’ She caught her breath. ‘Oh my God, it’s worse than that – Carin set me up!’

  She played that scene back in her head, the time she spent with the nurse by her father’s bedside. Various details that had struck her as odd at the time now had a totally plausible explanation. Joe, the nurse, had handed her the syringe, and asked her to take the insulin out of the fridge, because they wanted to get her fingerprints on both of them.

  Plus, the sharps container had always been kept in her father’s private bathroom: why had Joe gone to the main bathroom to dispose of the needle? Carin wouldn’t have wanted an ugly yellow sharps container in her bathroom when there was a much better, and customary, place to keep it.

  Lola had heard a rustle in the bathroom as Joe went in, a small noise that hadn’t struck her at the time as noteworthy. But now she realised that it hadn’t been made by Joe: she had heard the sound of his white coat over his trousers, and it hadn’t rustled at all. Which meant that someone else had been in there.

  Carin. Watching through the door, which had been ajar. Checking on how the plan was going, seeing Lola duly handle both the syringe and the insulin, approving Joe’s actions in carrying out her scheme . . .

  Which meant, inevitably, that Carin had killed her father. Whether he had died of the injection Joe had given him before Lola’s eyes, or whether another, lethal injection had been administered after she left, Carin had murdered him and planned to pin the blame on Lola.

  Gasping for breath, she was speaking so fast, Lola poured her theory of the case out to the three occupants of the limo. Jean-Marc and David gawped at her, dumbstruck by the idea that Carin could have orchestrated something so Machiavellian.

  ‘Because I was challenging her for control of my trust fund!’ Lola gabbled finally. ‘She knew I was going to win – George said we had a really strong case! So she thought if she killed Daddy, and pinned it on me, she’d get everything!’

  ‘I thought you inherited half, ’ Jean-Marc pointed out.

  ‘No!’ Lola said triumphantly. ‘You can’t profit by the proceeds of a crime! So if I’m convicted, then I can’t inherit, and it would all go to Carin! I saw that on a Lifetime TV movie, ’ she explained, as Jean-Marc looked baffled by her unexpected command of the laws of inheritance. ‘That’s right, isn’t it?’

  She looked eagerly at Simon Poluck.

  ‘Absolutely, ’ he said. ‘But you do see how difficult this is all going to be to prove? It’s going to come down to a he-said, she-said, and Mrs Fitzgerald and the nurse will deny everything. And as it stands, you have a much more plausible motive for killing your father than she does.’

  Lola leaned forward in her seat, pounding her fist on her thigh.

  ‘I don’t care!’ she said furiously. ‘I didn’t do it! I didn’t kill my father! I loved him more than anyone else in the world!’
>
  This was a new Lola, truly her father’s daughter, determined and fearless. Not a victim any more.

  ‘And I know that nurse is lying, ’ she concluded. ‘So I’m going to find a way to prove it!’

  Chapter 20

  ‘David, this looks . . .’

  Lola was lost for words as she stared at herself in the mirror.

  ‘I know! Hideous!’ David said excitedly. ‘But just the kind of hideous I was going for – not actively hideous, so nasty you can’t take your eyes off it.’ He picked up a fake silk scarf and started knotting it around her neck. ‘I wanted dull hideous. Where if you kept looking at it, you’d pass out with boredom and crack your head on the way down.’

  ‘Well, you’ve certainly managed that.’ Lola fingered the scarf. ‘What’s this made of?’

  ‘Eww! Polyester!’ David giggled happily. ‘It’s probably completely flammable! Don’t light up a cigarette when you’re wearing it, for God’s sake, or you’ll go up like a firework!’

  Lola had to admit that the scarf was an excellent touch. She did a full 360-degree turn, examining her grey wool trouser suit, with its pleated trousers that pulled at the crotch and bagged at the knees. The jacket had narrow sewn-in shoulderpads, unnecessary pockets on the chest, and loose threads already straggling from the buttonholes. The buttons themselves were cheap plastic made to look like bone. Under the jacket, David had chosen a thin cotton-mix sweater in a putrid shade of pale green, and he had even insisted, for total verisimilitude, that she wear her tightest bra on the tightest set of hooks, so it cut into her and made her look a little lumpy. The flammable scarf was patterned in white, orange and a similar-but-different green to the colour of the sweater.

  David had also done her make-up. He’d trowelled on much heavier base than she usually wore, which made her usually glowing skin look dull and greyish; a hard line of brown pencil completely circling each eye; no mascara; and cheap pink blusher.