Death Gets a Time-Out

by Ayelet Waldman

  “What?” Lilly said. I looked up quickly. “What’s wrong?” she said.

  “Nothing, nothing. I was just thinking about something . . . it’s nothing.”

  She leaned forward, resting her elbows on her knees. Her shorn hair was beginning to grow in, and the blond caught the light of the fire and glowed. “Is it Polaris?”

  “I can’t really talk about the specifics of the case with you. I’m bound by attorney-client privilege,” I said. “Because I work for Wasserman, the privilege extends to me, too.”

  “It’s Polaris, isn’t it? He won’t help you.” Her voice was flat, and the muscles in her jaw twitched.

  “Not exactly,” I said. “He talked to us, but he hasn’t decided what position to take on the imposition of the death penalty.”

  She shook her head. “The man of God.” She bit the words off and spat them out.

  “Does it matter?” Archer asked.

  I nodded. “The victim statement matters. It matters to the prosecutor—sometimes they won’t go for the death penalty if the family is opposed. It definitely makes an impression on a jury. I don’t know how Polaris will come down on this. His aides at the CCU seem to be looking for some consistency with their public position of opposition to the death penalty. At least one of them is.”

  Lilly buried her head in her hands, and Archer walked behind her chair and rested his hands lightly on her shoulders. She leaned against his arm for a moment and then turned her face up to his.

  “Thanks,” she said, her voice warm and low.

  He squeezed her shoulders. I felt like I was eavesdropping on a moment too intimate to be shared, and I fixed my eyes on the dancing flames in the fireplace.

  Just then, a young woman, dressed in khaki pants and a denim shirt, the casual livery worn by Lilly’s household staff in place of black polyester dresses with starched aprons, walked into the living room. “Lilly, can I tell Amber her time-out is up?” she said.

  “Sure,” said Archer. “Tell her to come down and say goodbye to Daddy.” He squeezed Lilly’s shoulders one more time and walked back to his seat. He picked up the soft suede jacket that was crumpled next to where he’d been sitting and shrugged it on over his shoulders.

  “You’re going?” Lilly asked him.

  “I promised my mother I’d take her to a movie tonight,” he said apologetically. “Do you want me to cancel and have dinner with you and the girls?”

  “No, no. That’s okay. I’ll let Phoebe and Stephanie feed them and put them to sleep. I plan to have a bath and a massage, and be in bed by eight. I’ll see you when I bring them over on Saturday.”

  “Let’s have brunch, all of us together.”

  “I’d like that.” She lifted up her face to him and he kissed her on the lips. It was a quick kiss, but it certainly seemed like more than a friendly buss.

  By the time Archer had said goodbye to his daughters and left, Ruby was awake. Her sleep-creased face crumpled when she found herself on a strange couch, but before she could begin to cry, Amber and Jade hustled her off to their playroom to play with their Habitrail full of gerbils. Lilly and I sat quietly for a moment after they’d left. I wanted to ask her more about the money. Her answers had made sense, but they’d felt too glib. First, though, I had to find out what the heck was going on with her ex-husband. “Are you planning on telling me what that was all about?” I said.

  She smiled faintly and tucked her knees up under her chin. Her feet were crossed at the ankles and her long delicate toes dug into the fabric of her bench. Everything about Lilly was lovely, even her feet. I wriggled my own unmanicured toes in my shoes and sighed. “Well?” I said.

  “What do you mean?” Lilly asked, coyly catching one edge of her pale lip in between her teeth.

  I rolled my eyes. “Archer? You? Brunch?”

  She smiled the same small, private smile. “I wish I knew.”

  I raised an eyebrow.

  She hugged her knees to her chest. “Things have been really great between us lately. I can’t explain it. We went for nearly a year almost without seeing each other at all. And then one day, about four months ago, he dropped the kids off himself, instead of sending one of the nannies to do it. We ended up talking for hours. Since then we’ve been spending time together. We do stuff with the twins. Lately we’ve even started going out alone.”

  “You’re dating Archer?”

  She laughed. “I guess so.”

  I bit back the words that leapt to my mouth. Words like, “Are you out of your mind?” Words like “Don’t forget this is the guy who tried to take all your money.” Words like “Archer’s a poisonous cretin who’s only nice to his own mother because he stands to inherit money from her.”

  “That’s nice,” I said. “Listen, Lilly, about the bank deposits . . .”

  “Bank deposits?” she said, picking a piece of chipped polish off her baby toe.

  “The deposits to Chloe’s bank account.”

  “Hm. What about them?”

  I leaned forward, pushing myself into the line of sight that seemed altogether too focused on her pedicure. “Are you sure you don’t know anything about them?”

  “Of course not,” she said, sitting up and glaring at me. “What are you getting at, Juliet? Are you trying to imply that I had something to do with those deposits?”

  Maybe. “No, no. Of course not,” I said.

  “Good, because I’d hate to think you were suspicious of me. I mean, I hired you because you’re my friend. Because I knew I could trust you.” Her eyes were wide, and her gamine face looked hurt, but there was a hint of iron in her voice.

  I decided to forgo reminding her once again how my ethical obligation was to her brother, not to her, no matter who paid my bills. Instead I broached another subject guaranteed to bother her. “You can trust me. Of course you can. Can you tell me a little more about your mother’s death? What else you remember?”

  “I can’t talk about it, Juliet. It’s too painful for me to talk about.”

  I sighed. “Are you sure? I mean, it would help me set this all in context. It has to have been a pretty traumatic memory for Jupiter, too. It might be something we can use in our mitigation argument.”

  She shook her head. “I can’t. I just can’t.”

  I gave up. We ended up having a desultory conversation about schools—how the twins liked their exclusive private school where members of the Hollywood elite mollified their liberal guilt by supporting a wonderfully generous scholarship program that resulted in a student body evenly divided between fabulously wealthy white children and black and Latino children from backgrounds of varying deprivation. Ruby went to a magnet public school not too far from where we lived. It was a sweet little school with nice teachers. It only went up to fifth grade, however, and I was pretty sure private school was in our future after that. She probably wouldn’t be able to get into the twins’ school, though. We were neither sufficiently famous, nor sufficiently bereft.

  After a little while, one of the attractive, khaki-clad nannies brought the girls down for dinner. I refused Ruby’s entreaties to stay and eat with the twins—“but their cook made chocolate cake for dessert!”—and bundled her into the car for the twenty-minute trip home.

  Ruby was still whining when I pulled into our block. I had already given her one time-out—hardly an effective tool in the car—and was ready to put her to bed for the rest of the night. As I was about to swing into our driveway, I briefly turned my head to tell her once and for all to be quiet. I turned back around, and gasped. I slammed on my brakes and just missed hitting the low black car that was right in front of me, parked at an angle in front of our house, blocking the driveway. The webbing of my seat belt bit into my neck and chest, and I exhaled with a loud grunt.

  “Are you okay, honey?” I shouted, jerking the car into park. I unsnapped my seat belt, turned around, and reached into the backseat to touch Ruby to make sure with my own hands that she was okay.

  “My seat belt squee
zed me!” she said indignantly.

  “What hurts?” I said, frantically groping her arms and shoulders. “Your neck? Your arm?”

  “Nothing hurts. I just don’t like being squeezed.”

  I patted her once more, reassuring myself that she was really okay, and then said, “You wait here.” I jumped out of my car and stormed over to the parked car to see just who it was who had blocked my driveway. Our block wasn’t one where you’d normally find a Jaguar, let alone an illegally parked one. As I was bending over to jot down the license plate number to report to the cops, one of the car’s windows glided down, surprising the hell out of me.

  Lilly’s ex-husband leaned out of the window, resting an elbow on the frame. “Hi.” His voice was so soft it was almost a purr.

  “Archer, are you crazy? Why are you parked across my driveway? I almost plowed into you!”

  “I just wanted to talk.”

  He smiled, and the hairs on the back of my neck rose just the slightest bit. Suddenly, he opened his door. I stepped back and bumped into the grill of my car.

  “I’ve got Ruby in the backseat,” I said unnecessarily. He knew she was there.

  “We need to talk.” Archer came up beside me and pressed his hand on my shoulder. I sat down on the hood of my car. He took his hand away and sat down next to me. I swallowed.

  “Why don’t you come inside?” I said, making my voice bright and friendly. I glanced back at Ruby, willing her to sit quietly in her car seat.

  “Let’s talk here.” His tone was even and bland, and for some reason that scared me more than if he’d been shouting. I didn’t know Archer well. Peter had gone to a couple of ball games with him, but I had always spent time with Lilly alone, or with Lilly and the girls. I couldn’t honestly think of a time I had socialized with Archer and Lilly as a couple, other than the few times he’d joined her at some party or other. Their marriage had been on the rocks almost from the first time we’d met Lilly, although it had taken them a while to call it quits. Still, he’d never been anything but perfectly pleasant to me, and of all the complaints Lilly had about him, she’d never accused him of being violent. So why was he making me so nervous?

  “It’s getting dark early nowadays,” Archer said, tilting his face up and leaning his body back on his elbows.

  I looked at him. Was I supposed to sit on the hood of my car making small talk? “What do you want, Archer? Why are you here?”

  He didn’t turn to me, just continued to look up at the night sky. “Your job is to keep Jupiter off death row, right?” he said.

  “Right.”

  “You find witnesses who can testify about what a hard childhood he had, what a nice guy he is, that kind of thing.”

  “More or less. Why are you asking me this? We talked all about it at Lilly’s house no more than an hour ago.”

  He smiled at me, and now there was just the barest hint of menace in his face. “I think you should just do your job.”

  “Excuse me?” I said, leaning away and looking at him.

  “Just do your job. Talk to people about Jupiter. About what a hard life he’s had. About how his mother abandoned him. That kind of thing.”

  “That’s what I’m doing, Archer.” I began to get down off the car, but he reached out a hand to stop me.

  “Yup. You should just do your job. Leave the rest of it alone.” His fingers pressed ever so gently into my arm. I shook him off and stood up.

  “The rest of it?” I said as I opened the door of my car.

  “Just leave Lilly out of it.”

  That stopped me. I stood with the door half open and stared at him. “What?”

  “You heard me. Just leave Lilly out of it. The bank accounts, all that stuff.”

  “Lilly hired me to investigate. That’s what I’m doing—investigating.”

  “Lilly’s your friend. You know she’s not involved in any of this. You don’t need to investigate her.”

  “I’m not investigating her. I’m investigating the case.”

  He smiled at me. “Well, great. Then we’re both on the same page. You’re not going to investigate her. Or bother her with this anymore.”

  “Bother her?”

  “Lilly and Jupiter were really close when they were kids, and this is all very difficult for her. Did you know that she’s been so freaked out that she got her doctor to prescribe antidepressants for her?” I shook my head. “She’s taking Zoloft, and sleeping pills, because she’s had a terrible time sleeping since this happened. I don’t want you to upset her more than she already is. You need to just back off, do your job, and leave her alone.”

  I closed the door again, to keep Ruby from hearing any more of the conversation. “What exactly are you saying, Archer? It sounds like you’ve got something to hide. It sounds like you’re threatening me.”

  He jumped down off the car. “Of course I’m not. Why would you say that? I’m not hiding anything, and I didn’t threaten you. I would never threaten you. I’m just letting you know how painful this is for your friend.” He opened his car door and got in. Then he leaned his head out the window again. “I know you’d never hurt Lilly. I trust you. Give Peter my regards.” With that, he took off down the street. I stood staring after him for a moment, then shivered and got into my car.

  “Why was Amber and Jade’s daddy parked in front of our house?” Ruby asked.

  “He just came by to say hi,” I said, and pulled my car into the driveway and around back to the garage. I got out of the car and unbuckled Ruby from her car seat. Then I grabbed her and hugged her, hard. She wriggled in my arms. “Don’t be afraid,” I said.

  She tipped her head back and scowled at me. “I’m not afraid!” she said disgustedly. I hugged her again. She might not be, but I sure was.

  I had a hard time explaining to Peter why Archer had unnerved me so much. While he agreed that it was weird for him to have shown up at the house, he told me that I was jumping to conclusions by assuming that Archer was trying to warn me off the case.

  “He’s probably just worried about Lilly. She’s clearly taking this incredibly hard, and he doesn’t want her more upset,” Peter said. We were sitting on the couch, enjoying a few minutes together after we’d put the kids to bed and before he went to work.

  “Lilly’s not some delicate creature who needs to be protected. Anyway, Archer certainly never bothered to take care of her in the past. More like the other way around. She was always the one worrying about him.”

  Peter shrugged.

  “What?” I said.

  “I don’t know that she ever really worried about him. More like worried about what he was up to.”

  I nodded. “I guess so. But still. How do we get from that to him lurking in front of our house like some extra from The Sopranos?”

  Peter shook his head.

  “What?” I said again, irritated now.

  “Maybe he’s changed. You said yourself they seem to be having some kind of reconciliation. Maybe he’s trying to do more for her.”

  “Like terrorize her friends?”

  Peter poked me in the side with his toe. “You were hardly terrorized. Don’t be so melodramatic.”

  I pushed his feet off my lap. “He was waiting in front of the house in the dark. He told me to back off my investigation. It sure seemed to me like he was trying to scare me. And guess what? It worked. I’m scared.”

  Peter leaned over and hugged me. “Don’t be scared,” he murmured into my hair, except he said it in a Bugs Bunny accent, and then he giggled.

  I shook him off and jerked to my feet. “I can’t believe you. What, are you and Archer in some kind of husband brotherhood? Why doesn’t this bother you?” I’m afraid my voice was a little shriller than I would have liked.

  Peter sat back and shook his head. “I’m sorry, honey. It’s just that I know Archer a little better than you do. He’s just trying to impress Lilly by playing the macho husband.”

  I stomped off into the kitchen to call Al, sure that
he would find Archer’s behavior as suspicious as I did. I’d forgotten about his crippling sexism.

  “What do my hormones have to do with anything?” I shouted.

  “They’re all out of whack. It makes you overreact.”

  “Overreact? Overreact? I don’t get this. You and Peter are always on me to be more careful, to take more precautions. Hell, you even want me to carry a gun! And now you’re saying I’m overreacting? I’ll give you overreacting!” I clapped the phone down in his ear.

  It rang a moment later. “Sorry,” I said into the receiver.

  “That’s okay,” Al said. “Like I said. Hormones.”

  I gritted my teeth and didn’t reply.

  “Tell you what, how about I get one of my buddies to put him through the computer, check on any priors. Would that make you feel better?”

  “I guess so.” Was I overreacting? I didn’t usually scare easily. That was actually one of my problems—sometimes I didn’t scare easily enough.

  “Why don’t you try a bath?” Al said.

  “What?”

  “That’s what Jeanelle always does when she’s upset.” The condescension in his voice was palpable, and it was all I could do to keep from hanging up on him again. “Anyway, if you’re really worried, you should call your friend Lilly and ask her what’s up with her ex.”

  That wasn’t a bad idea. I decided to do that first thing in the morning. I did end up taking a bath, but not because Al told me to. The idea had been in the back of my mind ever since Lilly had announced her plans to have one. I only wished that I also had someone on staff to give me a massage. If I was substantially more serene when I got out of the tub, that certainly wasn’t something I was ever going to admit to Al.