Unfortunately, by the time my putative rescuers drew close, I could see that they had been making rather merry, so that the spectacle of a half-drowned fortyish mermaid in the middle of San Diego harbor seemed more a source of befuddled mirth than a call for immediate action. Their sweatshirts proclaimed them students of that large and famous local party school that regularly ranks as a top contender as a place to go to have a good time. In general, I regarded such pursuits with tolerance, if not approval, but now it looked as if they were going to sail right by me with a cheery wave. I tried to call out, but I couldn’t. They grinned. Someone opened another beer. Desperate, I hauled myself to my knees, reached out my arm as far as I could, and extended my thumb.
A half hour later, dressed in borrowed sweatpants and a Hussong’s sweatshirt (Hussong’s is a hole-in-the-wall bar down in Ensenada. For reasons no one has ever been able to explain satisfactorily, it enjoys a certain cachet all over Southern California. The sweatshirt had seen maximum use and minimum washing, but I regarded it with as much reverence as if William Faulkner had worn it to accept the Nobel Prize.), I set foot on land again. My rescuers had a thermos of coffee as well as beer, so I’d warmed up a little. They wanted to give me a ride home, but I had already spoiled their outing as it was, so I said I would call a cab. When I insisted, they gave me money for the phone and a twenty just in case no one was home when I arrived. I collected addresses for the return of all these favors except for the Hussong’s sweatshirt, which the owner pressed me to keep. It seemed ungracious to refuse. I could have kissed them all and very nearly did.
I propped myself up inside the phone booth. Now that I was warmer and almost dry, my mental faculties were starting to function again. I looked at the coins in my hand, deciding who to call first. I felt alert, calm, detached. I had this vision of the phone booth as my command center, from which I would direct the various segments of my life. It was exhilarating. I put in a quarter and got the operator to supply me with the number of the Intercontinental Hotel in Rio. I dialed it in, charging it to my phone calling card, but when they put me through to an English-speaking clerk, I discovered David was out. I left a message. I called Susan in New York, but she was out, too. I called my stockbroker. I considered calling the police, but I thought better of the effort involved. My “evidence” was at the bottom of the ocean. Finally, I called my children.
“Where have you been, Mom?” Jason asked me. “Dad was really pissed off that you weren’t here when he dropped us off. He says he needs to talk to you about the settlement.”
“Don’t say ‘pissed off,’” I said automatically. “Anyway, Dad will have to wait. Can you get someone to drop you over here? I lost my keys.”
“Sure,” he said. I could hear the hesitation in his voice. “Brian’s over here right now. Is it okay if he drives me?”
Brian was a charming but not altogether trustworthy classmate of whose company I did not normally approve. He was rather too reminiscent of an updated version of James Dean for comfort. “Bring him,” I said. “You can drive my car back. And Jason, order a pizza. The biggest one you can find. With lots of cheese. And pepperoni.”
“Mom, are you okay?” he asked me. “You sound kind of funny.”
“I had a little accident,” I told him. “But I’m fine now.”
The hot shower was invented for moments like this. I let it run full blast, oblivious of past or future droughts. I could never understand how anyone could prefer to sit in a tub, surrounded by soap scum and little flecks of skin. The shower was definitely the thing for making you feel new and clean again.
While I stood there, I thought about what had happened on the boat. If this had been a murder mystery, even a third-rate one, Henry would have confessed everything as soon as he realized the jig was up, and the harbor police would have been waiting to lead him away in handcuffs right after he finished. As it was, he had very carefully admitted nothing about his role in Eleanor’s death, and if I accused him of lunging at me on the boat, he would probably just contend that he had lost his footing and slipped. Other than a deep-seated conviction that my days of dining chez Eastman were undoubtedly over, what did I have? I was left with a great theory and some circumstantial evidence. You can make books turn out to order, but life is something else.
I toweled off and put on a terry cloth robe, the thickest, warmest one I owned. The answering machine flashed at me, so I pressed the “Messages” button.
“Caroline, this is Barclay Hampton,” began the message. “Something’s come up.” He didn’t sound apologetic. I remembered the phone ringing just as I left the house. “I just realized Henry usually takes the boat out on Sundays, and I don’t want him to see us together at the café.” Now that I knew more of the whole story, I realized why not. He seemed to hesitate. “I have to talk to you,” he said. “Since you’re not home right now, I’ll call another time to reschedule. Please don’t tell anyone that I’ve contacted you. I—well, we’ll speak later.” He hung up.
I pressed the button and listened to the tape again, considering the problem of Barclay. Despite the fact that he was now only a second-tier player in Eleanor’s death, I still didn’t want to have anything to do with him. I remembered that Tricia was beside herself with worry because he was so distracted and couldn’t sleep. I had taken this for a sign of his guilt, but maybe he felt guilty not because he had killed his ex-wife, but because he suspected Henry had. How? I wondered what he wanted to talk to me about. Was he trying to warn me?
Someone knocked on the bedroom door. I opened it.
“Mom?” Jason had a strange look on his face. “There’s some guy from Dad’s firm on the news. Mr. Eastman. They said he’s dead.”
I walked over to the bed and turned on the TV with the remote. Sure enough, there was the Legiti-mates, back in port. “What happened?” I asked Jason.
He was still looking at me oddly. “They found his body on the deck. The boat almost ran somebody down; that’s how they knew. They think he might have had a heart attack.”
I thought so, too. Fascinated, I watched the camera focus on the removal of the gurney while the newscaster overlaid intoned pieties about the tragic end of one of San Diego’s leading legal lights. Right. The corpse looked stiff and uncompromising beneath its cover. Even in death, Henry observed the formalities.
“That’s the same boat Dad took us on, isn’t it?” Jason asked me.
“Probably,” I agreed.
“It sure was a busy day down at the harbor,” he said, his hands in his pockets, when the news had moved on to the canine frisbee tournament in Balboa Park.
Well, I had to tell him something when he picked me up at the marina, adorned with the Hussong’s logo and smelling of seaweed and stale beer. I had come up with a preposterous account of having slipped off the end of the dock while taking a stroll among the yachts. Jason had looked dubious even then, but Brian had cried, “Oh cool!” and asked if he could have the sweatshirt if I was sure I didn’t want it. I gave it to him.
“Mom, were you on that boat?” Jason asked me.
I thought about what I would say now, in view of Henry’s death. I wondered if he had pitched my purse overboard before his heart gave out from stress and guilt and the exertion of trying to run me over with the yacht. On the whole, I thought so; it was like Henry to attend to the details. If not, I would think of something, but in all likelihood not the truth. This ending coming off the Celestial Word Processor might not be perfect justice, but it was probably close enough.
“Of course not,” I told Jason, smiling. “It’s just a coincidence.”
24
Henry Eastman had one of the biggest funerals in La Jolla history. Everyone who was anyone in the legal world was there, trading stories about all the incredible lawyer tricks Henry had pulled off in his prime. What a swell guy. Pamela, whose fashion sense had frozen with Jackie Kennedy in the sixties, wore a black dress with a hat and a veil. The news camera caught her going into the church, clinging to
Jeff Grayson’s arm.
Naturally, I was not among the mourners. Neither was Susan, because after I called her in New York to tell her what happened, she decided to fax the firm her resignation and stay on in Manhattan to hunt for an apartment. As soon as she found one, she was going to fly back and pack up her things.
I don’t know whether our absence occasioned any comment, but I doubt it. Eastman, Bartels, and Steed, and Barclay in particular, had other things to worry about. David, with my blessing, took our documents to the SEC, and as soon as even the tiniest rumor leaked out, the shit hit the fan. Naturcare’s stock price went south. The business section of the paper started running uncomplimentary articles about Mike and Cindi Meadows. Barclay, not surprisingly, did not return my calls. The engine was set in motion, and however long it took to get where it was going, I was content to leave it alone.
Well, almost. Steve called me the day after the funeral, spitting nails. “The whole goddamn firm’s in an uproar,” he yelled into the phone. “You did something, didn’t you? You found some information, and you used it against us.”
“I didn’t do something; you did.”
“I’m coming over.”
“You are not coming over,” I told him. “We will not enact this scene in front of Jason and Megan. They’re upset enough as it is.”
“If you’re so concerned about them, why don’t you think about their future, for God’s sake? You’re throwing it away.”
“Steve, will you listen to yourself? When did money turn into the only thing that’s important? What kind of future will they have if they grow up believing that?”
He was silent.
“You knew what Barclay did, didn’t you?” I asked him.
“I’m not going to say anything about that.” His voice was stony and flat.
“You don’t have to. I already know. Henry sent you to look for that side letter here because he suspected I might have it. How could you do that to me, Steve? How could you abuse my trust and go through my things like that?”
“You don’t understand,” he said in the same uninflected voice. “You’ve never understood. You might have ruined us. We could lose all our money. And if I go down, you’ll lose your child and spousal support; I can promise you that.”
“I understand. It’s been explained to me often enough. If it comes to that, I’ll sell the house. I don’t want my whole life to be a hostage to keeping my possessions. I’ll stand by what I’ve done. All I ask is that you do the same.”
His voice was thick with horror. “Are you so drunk with revenge you don’t even care?”
“Of course I care. I’ll tell you something else. You are Jason and Megan’s father. Like it or not, we have a relationship. I’d like it to be a friendly one, but that’s up to you. But whatever happens, I don’t ever want to be dependent on you again the way I was. We’ve divided our property and made our deal. I hope you live up to it, but frankly, I don’t want to worry all the time that you’re going to cut my support or haul me into court to renegotiate it on whatever pretext you can dream up. I won’t live like that. I did what I thought was right, and I’m prepared to take the consequences. I’m sorry if it hurts Barclay or the rest of you at the firm, but frankly, you brought it on yourselves. Jason and Megan and I will be all right. That’s the bottom line. It can’t be renegotiated.”
“You’re brave enough now,” he sneered, “but how are you going to support yourself?”
“I’ll have some money,” I told him.
“How much?” he asked suspiciously.
“Quite a bit, actually.”
He didn’t exactly say “Oh, sure,” but he meant it. “Where will you get it?”
“Well, I took my half of our investments and—”
His voice was hoarse. “What? What did you do?”
“I shorted Naturcare,” I said.
A couple of days later, in the interest of truth (justice, I believed, having already been served), I confronted Maria in the kitchen.
“I’d like to talk to Manuel,” I told her.
She looked up from scrubbing the grill on the Jenn-Air and then down again. “I’m still not sure where he is, Mrs. James.”
“I understand,” I said, “but if you should hear from him, you might ask him if he wants to come and work for me.”
She straightened. “Here?”
“Yes—I need some help getting the yard back into shape. There would be several days of work at first and then a maintenance schedule.” I took a deep breath. “Tell him…tell him that if he comes here to work, I will help him get a green card.” I was letting myself in for an incredible amount of hassles dealing with the INS, but then we both knew I wanted more information from Manuel than how deep to plant the tulip bulbs.
Maria considered. As a bribe, it was fairly sizable.
“There is something else,” I told her, before she could say anything. “The man in the suit…you know who I mean?”
She nodded. “Sí, señora.”
“He is dead. Muerto,” I emphasized. “So, if by chance Manuel should get in touch with you, I’d like you to tell him that.”
“I will,” she said, bending over the grill again. “If he calls.”
Two mornings after this conversation, Manuel sat nervously on the edge of a kitchen stool, cradling a cup of coffee gingerly between his hands while Maria translated my assurances that no, I did not mind that he had slept in our garage for a couple of days and yes, wasn’t it a delightful coincidence that he had called her so soon after I had indicated I wanted to hire a gardener. There are certain rhythms and rituals to such conversations, and I observed them, but eventually I brought him round to the day of Eleanor’s death. Now that he hoped to be legal, and the threat of retaliation was removed, he seemed to savor the attention.
“Ask him to please tell me exactly what he saw,” I said to Maria.
This required some discussion and handwaving, but eventually she said, “It was as I told you before. He remembered he had left out a tool—” She broke off and asked him something I did not catch, and then turned to me. “We do not know the name in English. It is small, like this, for digging holes.”
“A trowel,” I suggested.
She shrugged. “Maybe. Manuel came around the corner of the house. He saw the man with the suit, bending over the pool. The señora’s head was above the water. So Manuel did not look at her, although he was far away, because she would not wear clothes like a decent woman. It is just as I told you,” she said again, with satisfaction.
“And then what?” I asked her.
“He ran away, because he was afraid.”
“Did he see anything else?”
She seemed to hesitate. “Please ask him if there is anything else he can tell me,” I implored. “It is important, for Mrs. Hampton’s sake, to know the truth.”
She turned to him and said something in rapid-fire Spanish. He took a swallow of coffee, looked briefly out the window and then at me. His reply was animated.
Maria shrieked something at him and said, “He did not tell me this before, Mrs. James, I swear.” She seemed quite agitated.
“It’s okay,” I said, as patiently as I could. “What did he see?”
“Manuel says the señora’s head was back against the side of the hot pool, like this.” She tilted her head backward, and Manuel nodded. “The light beside the water was on. The man in the suit put his hand out toward the wine bottle—Manuel thinks the señora was borracha—and then the man stopped, like this.” She held out her hand, poised just short of the imaginary bottle. “Then he—” She turned to Manuel and asked him a question. He nodded. “He put his hand on top of the señora’s head and pushed her under the water.”
“Did she struggle?”
“Señora?”
“You know—did she fight?”
She asked him. “He says no. He says it was very peaceful, like sleep.”
Well, thank God for that, at least. “Maria, did Manuel get a good
look at the man? Could he identify him from a picture?”
This required considerable discussion, but in the end she was firm. “He says no. He says the man had his back to him, and then Manuel ran.”
I could scarcely blame him for that. I had an inspiration. “Manuel said the man was definitely wearing a suit.”
She nodded.
“Did he see what color his hair was? Was it brown, like Mr. Hampton’s?”
She translated, and Manuel looked at me. “The man is really dead?” Maria asked me.
“Most definitely. His funeral was last week.”
She looked at Manuel expectantly. “Plata,” he said. “Color de plata.”
I didn’t need the translation. The man who killed Eleanor had had silver hair. “Gracias,” I told them. “Thank you very much.”
David and I had a private celebration of the end of my career as a private eye. Afterward we lay propped up on lots of pillows, eating winter grapes and talking about revenge.
“Doesn’t it bother you that Henry will never be exposed for what he did?” he asked me.
I considered. “Not much. He’s dead, and Barclay is headed for a very rough time. The firm, too. That ought to be enough, even for Eleanor.” I put the grapes back in the bowl. “I’ve thought about it a lot, and I’ve put together the most likely scenario for what really happened,” I told him. “I think Barclay had an appointment with Henry on the day Eleanor died. Remember the little blot before the ‘E’ on Barclay’s calendar? I thought it meant that Barclay was going to see Eleanor that afternoon, but now I think the blot was an ‘H.’ I bet Barclay told Henry that Eleanor was going to expose the fraud if he didn’t come up with a lot more money, and he wasn’t going to have a lot more money now that Henry had discovered what he had done and was going to force him out of the firm. I think Henry went over to Eleanor’s house to offer her a bribe and a threat, the way he did me.”
Making Waves Page 31
