Dead File (19 page)
“Oh, yeah. Get this: He cried. Between asking me to have dinner with him. God, I’d like to take his mirror home with me for just one night, see what he sees. Talk about supreme ego!”
“So, are you seeing anyone, Laurel?” Wendy asked.
“No. As you women know, I’ve had two marriages and three live-ins. My new motto is: I’m dying to be intimate with a guy who’ll leave me alone.”
Maxi and Wendy laughed. On some level, they could relate. There was never enough time.
Sunday Trent called over from her computer station, “Wendy, after the show, check out
DBD.
I’ve reorganized all the menus into day plans.”
“Terrific. Thanks, Sunday,” Wendy called back. And to Maxi, “The book’s coming along great. My agent can’t believe how fast we’re getting it done, and it’s definitely because of Sun-day—she’s tireless.”
“Does this big New York agent have a name?” Laurel asked.
“Robin,” Wendy said, beaming. “Robin Ruell. I love her. She’s so
reasonable.
Not to mention encouraging and helpful.”
“Big surprise—she’s a woman,” Laurel said archly.
“Laurel, you’ve got to stop man-bashing,” Maxi said.
“Why?” Laurel asked, putting on an innocent face.
“Because it’s
so
last year,” Wendy tossed at her.
It was exactly twenty minutes before airtime. They looked up to see Rob Reordan, the just-dished Eleven O’clock anchor, strolling through the door from what must have been a fabulous dinner. He looked anchorly, avuncular, and trustworthy, in a well-cut three-piece suit, his complexion ruddy, a smile on his face. As usual, he would have just enough time to pick up his messages, go down to Makeup, skid across the hall to the set, sit down behind the anchor desk, and pick up the script in front of him before the stage manager pointed his fingers and said, “In five, four, three, two . . .”
“You’d think he could give us ten frigging minutes to read through the script in advance instead of bumbling through it cold on the air,” Wendy groused dully to the two women.
“Yeah, then he could
ask
one of us how to pronounce Yemen instead of calling it ‘yay-man’ on the air,” Laurel snipped.
“Give the guy a break—the viewers love him,” Maxi said, though she couldn’t help smiling. She knew that, say what they would, Rob Reordan was not about to change his work habits at this late date. Nor would he be happy with a contract that didn’t give him a big raise and his exclusive perks, including his company Rolls-Royce and his company credit card for unlimited dinners at L.A.’s finest restaurants. With Reordan, free was good, and image was everything.
After her piece ran, Maxi went upstairs to the newsroom to wait for the Eleven to get off the air and Wendy to come up from the booth, so they could do their usual post-show kibitzing. She walked back to her office to grab her jacket and saw the message light blinking on her phone. Dropping into her desk chair, she hit the red MESSAGE button. And was startled to hear the same raspy whisper that had delivered the last threatening message: “I told you not to pump Sandie Schaeffer—you were there tonight. This is your last warning.” Click.
“My God,” Maxi said aloud to her empty office, “it has to be someone who
works
there.”
She picked up the phone to call Capra at home.
M
axi never slept this late—10:42
A.M.
—but she’d been in the newsroom until three in the morning. Pete Capra had driven in from his home in the Valley, listened to the latest threatening message with her, again got a technician to lift a copy, and had an officer from the Burbank PD come over and pick it up at the station for delivery to Detective Skip Henders. After the officer left, Capra said, “You’re off the story, Maxi.”
“But, boss, I’m so
close.
This message just
proves
I’m close.”
“Close is no good if you’re dead.”
“C’mon, Pete. You know I’m careful—”
“Then at least stay out of the hospital.”
“But how can I—”
“
Stay out of Cedars, Maxi.
If I find out you went back there,
I’ll
threaten you.”
Maxi knew when Pete meant business. She left the news-room, got in her car, drove home, talked a little to Yukon, and went to bed. But couldn’t sleep. She kept sifting through events of the story, then sifting through the players, trying to match them up. The last time she’d glanced at her bedside clock before dropping off to sleep, the digital readout said 4:52
A.M.
Now half the morning was gone. But it was the weekend.
And by some miracle, Yukon hadn’t tried to wake her up early. She watched him watching her as he stretched his paws in front of him, lying a few feet away from her on the bedroom area rug. Maybe he knew how exhausted she was. More likely he’d tried to wake her up but couldn’t, and gave it up.
She needed to get her mind off the story and the second creepy, anonymous message that had come in last night. She pulled herself out of bed, dressed in sweats and running shoes, put Yukon on his leash, and took the boy out for a walk.
And forced her mind onto mundane concerns. Here it was, another Saturday night without a date. What else was new? Not that men didn’t ask her out. She was impossibly exacting, she knew, when it came to men. She’d been married once. Didn’t want to make another mistake. And didn’t want to waste time with men who didn’t interest her. A friend once told her that the rule was you have to go out with a man three times to know how you feel about him. Maxi knew in the first three minutes.
Call me shallow,
she thought,
but I know as soon as I look through my peephole and see the guy coming up the walk with flowers in his hand.
Back home at nearly noon, she found a message from Richard on the answering machine in her study: “Hi. I’m here. It’s freezing, but I love New York. My mother’s feeding me leftover turkey. Ever hear of turkey croquettes? A new one on me. Fried cones of mashed turkey with some kind of sauce on top. Never, never order it if you see it on a menu. She’s having all her friends over to show them she really does have a son. I’m taking her to see
The Producers
tonight. I did a profile on Mel Brooks back in his
Men in Tights
days, and he still takes care of me. Anyway, Mom’s out doing the after-Christmas sales now, and I’m going over to the West Side to play handball with a couple of buds at the Y. So take care, Maxi, and thanks a lot for getting me to the airport yesterday.”
Decidedly unboyfriendlike. But that was best, wasn’t it? That was what they’d both agreed on. She had mixed feelings about it, but maybe that was because she was looking at yet another Saturday night with a glass of wine, Yukon, and a Sue Grafton mystery.
Q Is for Quarry.
In her case, Maxi observed to herself, Q was for Quiet. No bells, no whistles, zero fireworks in her life.
She allowed herself a mini-daydream about Richard, of the two of them together only two nights ago, and she felt the usual tingle in the usual places. Just checking to make sure everything was still working, she told herself, and chuckled. Then she listened to his message again.
Then she closed her eyes and shook her head and yelled at herself for being such an idiot. Then opened them wide and stomped her index finger on the ERASE button to delete his message. Then immediately wished she hadn’t.
The phone rang. Gratefully she snatched it up. It was Joe Crighton on the weekend assignment desk at work. There was a William Schaeffer on the line, trying to get ahold of her, he said.
“He’s okay—give him my home number,” Maxi told him. She hung up and stared at the phone for a minute until it rang.
Saved by the proverbial ring-a-ding,
she thought, and grabbed it.
“Yes, Bill. This is Maxi.”
“I wanted to let you know that Sandie’s coming home tomorrow. The police told us about the new message you got last night. We think she’ll be safer at home.”
“But … can you manage?”
“Yes.”
“How are you going to—”
“She’s so much better, Maxi. She ate on her own this morning for the first time: scrambled eggs. And she kept saying she wants to go home. So Dr. Stevens said as long as someone is with her around the clock, she can go. Not to her own apartment, of course—to my house. The house where she grew up.”
Schaeffer sounded determined. But he was in a wheelchair, after all, and Maxi worried about his ability to take care of his daughter in a crisis. “You’re sure you can handle it?” she asked.
“Definitely. They’re moving her out of the ICU into a regular room today while they process her out. I hired a private-duty nurse—she’s coming over to the hospital now to spend some time with Sandie and learn her routine. She’ll come to the house at noon every day when I leave for work, and stay until I’m finished at the store. And I’ll come home every evening and have dinner with Sandie. Then I’ll go back to the store for a couple of hours and close up.”
“Sounds like you’ve got it covered,” Maxi said, holding back the further reservations she had.
“I think so,” Schaeffer said. “I know her IVs and her meds, and the nurse will too. Otherwise, there’s not that much caretaking. As I said, she ate solid food this morning, and she got up and used the bathroom. Tomorrow she’ll be stronger, Dr. Stevens says. And a little stronger every day.”
“Let me know how I can help,” Maxi offered.
“That’s why I’m calling. She’s said your name again. Several times since you visited yesterday.”
“And she’s talking more?” Maxi asked. Her subtext said, Is her brain working? And Bill Schaeffer knew that.
“Yes, she’s talking more, though she has what they call selective memory loss. But here’s the good news: Her tests show no brain damage, just disassociated amnesia. That’s when traumatic events impair memory. She knows me, she knows people, she knows she’s in the hospital, and she wants to go home. But she can’t remember anything involving the night she was shot, or some of what went on before that. She doesn’t know that Gillian Rose is dead. She’s said a couple of times that she has to get back to work or Gillian will be way behind.”
“I’ve heard of that syndrome, short-term amnesia,” Maxi said. “Will that memory block come back, do they know?”
“Stevens says there’s no way of knowing. For some patients the trauma recedes and recollections come rolling back to them, like they’re coming out of a fog. It could take days, or decades. Others never recall the trauma-induced events, or the block of memory loss they produced. Whatever happens for Sandie, he says she might as well be where she’s comfortable right now. He thinks she’ll do better at home with me. And I’ll be a lot more comfortable about her safety.”
“Will they continue the twenty-four-hour police guard at your home?”
“That’s their call, and they made the decision to drop it when Sandie leaves the hospital. My address is private, and the house has good dead bolts, and an alarm system. But if anything at all happens, they’ll reinstate a police guard at the house, they told me.”
“Bill … what if something comes up that you can’t handle?”
Again, he read her subtext: You’re in a wheelchair. You have all you can do to take care of yourself. You can drive, but you couldn’t lift Sandie into your car. There are a lot of things you can’t do.
“I talked that over with her doctor,” Schaeffer answered. “If an emergency comes up, large or small, I’ll call nine-one-one. Get the paramedics out. And get her back to Cedars, if necessary.”
“You also have a business to run,” Maxi reminded him.
“Benny will open up for me, and he’ll stay till I get back from dinner every night. I think we’re going to do fine. Will you come visit? I live in the Palisades.”
“Of course. You have my numbers. Just give a shout when you get Sandie settled in and I’ll make arrangements with you to come by.”
S
aturday night. Maxi was in her Corvette headed over the hill to the sprawling San Fernando Valley, to the Cineplex on the Universal Studios lot. Wendy had called earlier and asked what she was doing. Oh, exciting Saturday-night things, she’d said. Putting together some series ideas—the February sweeps were four weeks away. The three “sweeps” months, February, May, and November, generated the ratings on which stations based the cost of their commercials to advertisers. In those months, viewers were inundated with so-called sweeps series, which were usually provocative and always heavily advertised.
Dark Sex in Southland Nunnery,
that kind of thing. Lord help us. But there was major pressure on everyone in the television news business to win the sweeps months ratings; jobs and salaries depended on it.
“How about a series on why women think they need to have a date on Saturday night?” Wendy had quipped.
“Easy. It’s our nature,” Maxi said. “A built-in primal drive to further procreation and keep the species going.”
“But what about today’s woman? Can’t she suppress that, for her own
personal
well-being?”
“Don’t think so,” Maxi had said. Heaven knew, she was trying.
“How about we just line up some fab women—single women, like lawyers, waitresses, teachers, real estate agents, women in health care—and just ask them what’s the deal here. Get their statements on this vital issue in twenty-five words or less. Why do these successful, creative, productive women think they need a man in their lives?”
“And we’ll interview a bunch of shrinks on the subject to butt to their statements,” Maxi put in.
“Women shrinks?”
“Women, men—
therapists.
Doesn’t matter. We have to be objective.”
“You know,” Wendy said, “we’re kidding, but this could actually be a very popular series. Think about it.” It was a fact of television news that the two series subjects that always got the biggest ratings were diets and relationships. In that order.
“Want to take in a movie later?” Wendy had asked. “Sure. What do you want to see?”
“They’re rerunning
The Ya-Ya Sisterhood
at Universal. Did you see it?”
“Nope. Read the book, missed the movie.”