Face Value

by Lia Matera

  The overall effect was shocking, but it would be relatively easy to fix. I’d have to take down the collage and repaint the wall. I’d have to right the furniture and restore the contents of the drawers (worrying as I went along; perhaps that was the point).

  This was some kind of war cry. But I could do battle, too.

  Whoever had done this had failed to make their point clear to me. That’s what made it scary. But perhaps that reflected their weakness, not their strength.

  It had something to do with the dead women. It had to.

  But I hadn’t killed them, and no one could prove otherwise. I would remain calm.

  I’d remove myself from this apartment, and I’d be on guard, and no one would hurt me. No one would blackmail me because I’d go to the police myself before I let that happen.

  I’d be all right. If I stayed calm.

  I sat on the sofa, skewed to a strange position facing the bedroom door.

  I could hear Brother Mike’s voice in my head: You’ll notice something if you can stay focused.

  He’d told me some vague “it” would happen—a safe-enough prediction—and that my reaction would be distorted by an earlier trauma. He’d advised me to make myself notice something.

  It was generic advice applicable to a range of situations. I realized that now. But it was good advice, nevertheless.

  I walked back through the living room, looking at everything again. A quick dishevelment; what did it tell me? That this was a hired job, fast and sloppy? Or anger that knew bounds and showed restraint?

  A triple ring of the doorbell told me Sandy had arrived.

  I opened the door. He was wearing a sport jacket and slacks. He must have arrived home from work and listened to his messages before changing. I was glad he’d come immediately without taking time to call.

  “Sandy, look at this and tell me: Should I be scared?” I waved at the damage. “I’m talking myself out of being scared.”

  He began his circuit around the room, flicking me glances. “Only thing you ever stay scared about is what you do yourself.”

  I didn’t reply.

  “But maybe that’s part of the problem here?” He turned to face me. “Besides the obvious, what are you worried about?”

  “Isn’t the obvious enough?”

  “Yes. But that’s not what I’m asking.” He tilted his head, his expression hovering between sympathy and distrust.

  “I don’t know who did this or why.” Nonresponsive but true.

  He watched me a moment. Then he turned back to the painted circle, touching it with two fingers. “Are we calling the cops?”

  I leaned against the wall. What could they do for me? “If I have no idea what this is about, they certainly won’t.”

  “True,” he agreed.

  “They’ll tell me to move out for a while if I’m nervous.”

  “Also true. But you can get that advice from me.”

  I headed toward the bedroom to gather more belongings. I’d be ready to go by the time Sandy was through snooping.

  21

  I was tired the next morning. With Sandy’s help, I’d moved into a downtown hotel. I had enough clothes to get me through the week, and I’d set the call-forwarding function on my answering machine to ring straight up to my room without going through the desk. Sandy had lent me one of his office machines to pick up on my end, so no one would know I’d left my apartment. No one would know where I was. My only regret was the cost of the room. But I still had some credit. And what else could I do?

  I put on a linen blouse and a double-breasted gray suit. I put on gray-white hose and gray shoes. I’d had my hair cut to downplay what my stylist called “the boing factor.” I looked like the lawyer I’d always been. And I didn’t. Some of the polish and enthusiasm were gone. I’d brought back a small hint of country disregard. It was in the absence of silver chains and earrings, it was in the unmoussed hairline and the uncolored nails. Most of all it was in my face. The smooth cordiality of my lawyer mask had cracked slightly. I could see the real emotion beneath. Right now, it was fatigued discontent. I’d have to make sure other feelings remained hidden.

  I was surprised to hear a knock on the door.

  Sandy ran long fingers over his windblown hair. I could tell something was wrong.

  I opened the door saying, “What is it?”

  “You okay this morning?” He inclined his head, watching me.

  “Yes.”

  “Margaret Lenin phoned in sick today. But she doesn’t answer her phone or her doorbell. I’m wondering if she had anything to do with trashing your place. I’m also wondering about the guru. You heard from Hover yet?”

  “I told his chief minion to call me last night if he didn’t hear from him.” I crossed to the telephone. “But let me check and make sure.”

  I flipped through the Rolodex on the tiny hotel desk. I punched Brother Mike’s number into the phone. At first no one answered. Ten or twelve rings later, a sleepy voice said, “ ‘Lo?”

  “Who’s speaking?”

  “Paulette. Who’s this?”

  “Laura Di Palma.” Which one was Paulette? Had I met her at the session? Was she the big-hipped one who kept moaning when— “Is Brother Mike back yet?”

  “No.” It sounded as if her hand had gone over the mouthpiece. I heard muffled speech. “You’re the lawyer from San Francisco?”

  “Yes. Are you sure he’s not there?”

  “Uh-huh. We were supposed to have another session, and we couldn’t. And he was supposed to be at breakfast for a round table this morning, and he wasn’t. It’s not a big deal for me—I live in Port Townsend. But a bunch of people had to go back last night.”

  “Are Roy and Rhonda there?”

  “No. They left. I think they went to get him.”

  “Went where?”

  “The mainland, I guess.”

  The mainland was a very big place. “Can you get me whoever seems to be in charge right now?”

  “Um, gosh. I’m not sure. Everyone’s sort of scattered. I’m not sure where anyone is.”

  “Look, I need to speak to either Roy or Rhonda immediately. You’ll have to go find me someone who can tell me how to reach them.” I gave her my apartment phone number, trusting call-forwarding to reroute it here or to my work number. “I need to speak with someone very soon. If you absolutely can’t find anyone, call me back anyway.”

  “I’ll try.” She sounded too intimidated to do even that much well.

  “Is Jeff there? I think that’s his name. He’s a lawyer from San Francisco.”

  “I think he went back last night.”

  I hung up, telling Sandy, “Hover’s still gone. His two lieutenants are gone now, too.”

  I fumbled in my handbag, extracting the maritime lawyer’s card.

  “Let me try this guy.” I dialed the number. To my relief, I got through. “Hello, this is Laura Di Palma. We met yesterday.”

  “Of course.” The lawyer’s voice was warm with innuendo.

  I kept my tone frosty. “I’m trying to locate Michael Hover, or, alternatively, Roy or Rhonda. Can you help me?”

  “No, sorry. I talked to Brother Mike yesterday. All he said was he was back on the mainland. Roy got pissed off about it. There were some things scheduled. Rhonda was a little more mellow. She basically said, you know, we could trust Brother to do what was most important. But they went after him when he called back.”

  “He did call back?” I had only this lawyer’s word for it. It troubled me.

  “Around dinnertime. Roy came in and announced there definitely wouldn’t be a session. He and Rhonda left on the same boat we did.”

  I thanked him and hung up.

  “I don’t know what the hell’s going on.” I sat opposite Sandy on a blue floral couch. “Hover and his people ar
e ‘on the mainland.’ No one’s being more specific than that.”

  He nodded. But his brows were pinched, he wasn’t meeting my eye. “I don’t like that de Janeiro was pinioned and slugged. It’s like someone wanted information. Or assurances. Same with the women at The Back Door. Could be someone was trying to scare them into agreeing to something.” He was slumping, legs splayed in front of him. He’d been a cop a long time. Maybe something had struck him. Maybe he didn’t quite know what.

  “I have an appointment with Arabella’s attorney this morning,” I told him. “I need to hustle.”

  “Fast work.” He didn’t sound surprised. “Meet you afterward. Lunch okay?”

  “Pick me up at the office. I’ll have a check for you.”

  It pleased me to know I’d see him later.

  22

  Arabella de Janeiro’s attorney looked out of place in a reception area of glass tabletops and Japanese flower arrangements. She was a thick-waisted, somberly dressed woman whose brows met over the bridge of a too-small nose. Her skirt hung long and her blouse gapped. Her brown hair was sheared in front where curls might have been attractive, and long in back, forming a frizzy pyramid that shortened her neck.

  I felt a twinge of superiority. It disconcerted me. After my recent night of watching doll-perfect bodies, I hated my gut-level disdain for frumpiness.

  She extended her hand. “Hello. I’m Judy Wallach. Come on back to my office.” Her voice had an interesting timbre, not deep or loud, but somehow large, a singer’s voice.

  I followed her through several turns of a corridor, past open doors framing exquisite lawyers in silk shirt sleeves. Their furniture, I noticed, was uniform: mostly old-fashioned oak, stately and oiled. Associates, not partners. Partners would enjoy individualized suites.

  “Have a seat.” Judy Wallach gestured toward burlap-weave chairs with oak arms. Her office, like her neighbors’, was standard and middling expensive.

  “About your request for masters of Mike Hover’s videos …” I smoothed my skirt. Just looking at her made me feel wrinkled. “I’m confused. You haven’t stated a cause of action or even indicated an area of contention. Why should my client turn his property over to you?”

  A flash of mirth crossed her face. But she didn’t actually smile. “I guess I could have been more specific in my demand letter. I assumed you’d know I wanted the masters to check against the distributed copies of the videos.”

  “Why? Your client signed a release giving up her right to protest any changes in the film or distribution of it.”

  “A release is only as broad as a reasonable person’s understanding of its terms. And not even a highly educated person would know about or foresee the huge technological leaps your client took. The average person doesn’t know those types of changes are possible. Arabella de Janeiro did not sign away her right to look like herself, because she didn’t know it was possible to have her image altered.”

  “Nonsense. She knows my client intimately, and his love of computer technology is legendary. But even supposing she didn’t know, what damages did she suffer? Her privacy hasn’t been invaded—she’s not recognizable. And she didn’t make the films to further her career, so she didn’t suffer due to lack of recognition.”

  “You know my client is an exotic dancer?”

  “Yes. I’ve been to The Back Door.”

  She put a quick lid on her surprise. “Then you know a dancer’s appearance is the basis of her ability to generate income. That’s why unauthorized tampering with my client’s appearance, especially a wholesale degradation of it, is severely damaging to her self-esteem. And given the nature of her work, lack of confidence can be crippling.”

  Wallach sat forward, brushing aside file folders and leaning on her forearms. “This is a situation where making a person look less attractive in a commercial context profoundly impacts her career. My client makes her living being beautiful. More than that, she makes her living thinking of herself as beautiful and imparting a certain feeling about herself to others.”

  “Every devotee of every philosophy is in it to be changed.” I knew I sounded patronizing; that was fine. “If the devotee decides later she didn’t like the methods or the results, that may be sad, but it’s part of the package. It’s hardly the basis of a lawsuit.”

  “You’re assuming my client acted according to the belief system she adopted from your client. That’s not the case. He did something later, after her act of devotion, that fundamentally altered it. Altered it in as blatant a manner as I’ve ever seen.” Her cheeks flushed and she fidgeted in her chair. Either she was impassioned on her client’s behalf or she was uncomfortable with the details. I knew the feeling. “Michael Hover won his disciples’ devotion, then turned around and used them for his amusement. You know he couldn’t tamper with other film because of copyright problems. He just wanted video images to manipulate. If he’d been a therapist, there would be no question of his having acted unethically. If he’d been a rabbi, a lawyer, a guidance counselor—”

  “Counselors are bound by secular rules of ethics. Religious leaders operate in an entirely different sphere. You can’t judge a guru by the same standards as a state-licensed therapist, not without stepping all over religious freedom.”

  “It’s not that simple. Hover doesn’t offer a religious package. He offers a type of therapy—in essence, sex therapy.” She managed to sound calm and confident, despite her flushed face. Despite the big holes in her theory.

  “That is categorically untrue. My client is not a therapist. To say so is to utterly mischaracterize his relationship to his devotees.”

  “I guess what we have here is a question of fact.”

  Judges rule on questions of law—the interpretation of statutes, case law, common law. But jurors decide what the facts are. Was Brother Mike a guru or a therapist? Would a reasonable person understand that changes in a videotape might include reimaging? Could such changes result in self-esteem and career damage?

  I looked at Judy Wallach, sizing her up. She was making a case out of a sow’s ear, and she was doing a pretty good job so far. She’d be an interesting opponent.

  “Your client’s profession will work against her in jurors’ minds,” I pointed out.

  She smiled. “If it turns into a personality contest on that level, your guy stinks.”

  I was startled. Attorneys don’t usually speak so bluntly, not without heat. I’d have to put some time into tracking Wallach’s quirks, figuring out how to use them against her.

  She was sitting back in her chair now, her look of appraisal probably mirroring mine.

  “I heard about the attack on your client. Have you had word about her condition?”

  Her brows pinched. “What attack?”

  “My information is that she was beaten somewhere near The Back Door at about eight o’clock Tuesday night. On her way to work.”

  Judy Wallach’s hand was already on the telephone. “Please excuse me. I’ll need to follow up on that.”

  “You didn’t check on her after what happened?” Why be coy? “After the murders Wednesday morning?”

  She held the receiver aloft. “She wasn’t a named victim nor, to my knowledge, was she sought for questioning. Or of course I would have spoken with her.”

  Not sought for questioning: why not? Surely the police wanted to interview everyone who worked there? More likely, de Janeiro hadn’t phoned Wallach.

  I wished I could speak to someone at Homicide without putting myself in the position of lying to them.

  “They’re not questioning the deceased women’s coworkers?”

  “As I said, to my knowledge they haven’t contacted my client.”

  To my knowledge. That meant she’d left messages on de Janeiro’s machine, perhaps. Written her a letter.

  But she hadn’t realized her client was in the hospital. She hadn’t
been looking for her in the right place.

  Her cheeks grew ruddy with consternation. She held the telephone receiver conspicuously aloft, obviously waiting for me to leave.

  I sat there another moment, making sure of my dismissal. I’d have preferred to overhear her conversation, to find out the latest. Or maybe I was making a statement: I’m in your space until I choose not to be.

  Perhaps lawyer society wasn’t that different from baboon society.

  She rose and extended her hand. “We’ll be in touch,” she said.

  To remain would be tantamount to breast-beating. I demonstrated my evolutionary superiority. “Thank you for your time.”

  23

  Gretchen Miller’s office was six floors above Judy Wallach’s. I found her at liberty.

  “Gretchen? Have you seen Margaret Lenin? Or heard from her?” As long as I omitted some details, I could be blunt. “She phoned me Tuesday night in the wee hours. She sounded upset. She said she’d tried to reach you.”

  Gretchen’s face froze.

  The night of the murders, Margaret had tried to reach Gretchen, but Gretchen hadn’t answered her phone. For the first time, I wondered if that might be significant.

  “Are you certain?” Gretchen’s tone was cool. But then, I’d burst into her office with this strange query. Who knew what I’d interrupted? “I always leave my message machine on.”

  “Maybe she didn’t want to speak to your machine. Did your phone ring?”

  She shrugged. “I didn’t waken, if it did.”

  I was getting bogged down in detail. “Have you spoken to Margaret since?”

  “No.”

  “She was upset because Arabella was beaten up on her way to work. By two men.”

  “I heard about that from Mike and Roy. Their impression was that Arabella was basically all right. But they hadn’t heard from her. I don’t imagine it will affect her decision to sue, do you?”

  “I have no idea. I just spoke with her lawyer. She didn’t know about the beating.”

  “Well, it’s no use speculating. We’ll have to wait.” No expression of sympathy. If she’d ever felt friendship for Arabella, it had been erased by the dancer’s disloyalty to the guru. “Did you come here to discuss Arabella and Margaret?”