Lily White (20 page)

“Did you play the ex-wife or the secretary with Bobette Frisch?” I asked.

“No,” Mary said. A little tight-lipped, I thought.

“How come?”

“She was so crazy about him, I didn’t have to.”

I tried to sound casual. “Too crazy about him?”

“A clingy vine,” Mary said, pushing out her over-glossed lips into a pout. Not a cutesy pout: the real thing.

“In what way did she cling?”

“Like always begging him: ‘Stay over. Don’t go home, Norman. I can’t stand it when you’re not with me, Norman.’”

“Just the way you feel,” I observed. Okay, not tactful, but it had been a long day.

“I have a right to him!” She was still wearing that pistachio-green eye shadow, and, with the red dress and lipstick, looked unseasonably Yulish.

“Of course you do.”

“Who the hell does she think she is? I mean, I know it’s Norman’s job to make them feel he loves them, but she was acting like …” Mary shook her head; it was almost a shudder. “Like she really thought
he
couldn’t stand being away from her. Like she was doing him a favor, letting him stay overnight in that stupid house.”

“Did he spend the night there often?”

“Once or twice,” she said, resuming her pout.

“Once or twice?”

“I don’t know,” she said, her volume control going out of whack, until she was almost shouting again. “Maybe three or four times. Okay? Like he would really get into that stupid purple bed of hers and do it to her. Fucking cow!”

“How did he avoid doing it?” I asked.

“Told her he wanted to wait till they were married. I mean, she was so old! Did she really think he could make himself do it without, like, puking?”

“Where did he stay when he spent the night there?” I asked.

“There’s another bedroom right next to it. It’s more an office, but it has a Hide-A-Bed.” Mary was cooling down enough to give me a small smile. “At least it wasn’t purple. I couldn’t believe it!”

“I went there today. Even the botanical prints on the wall were all purple flowers.”

“And did you see her dresser? That whole collection of purple perfume bottles?”

“Right,” I said. We sat in silence for a few seconds. I buzzed Sandi and asked her for two glasses of water, hold the ice. “You seem really upset about Bobette.”

“Why shouldn’t I be?” Mary stopped, a theatrical pause, as if she were on a talk show, waiting for audience approval: Yeah! and Right! “Norman’s in jail and—”

“I didn’t mean about her murder. I meant about her relationship with Norman.”

“No. I mean, I hated it when he slept over, but like he said: ‘Unless you put in the man-hours, you don’t get the profits.’ He says a lot of business things like that. He has a great head for business.” She got busy tugging at the hem of her polka-dot dress in order to get rid of the wrinkles around her lap, putting her weight first on one hip, then on the other. The dress was too short and much too tight, at least in terms of wrinkle-prevention. But with her long legs, it did look spectacular, and the dozen or so wrinkles didn’t detract from it in the least. However, I felt she was avoiding my question and using the only means of obfuscation she had at her disposal: her sexuality.

“Mary,” I said, “I don’t buy it.”

“Don’t buy what?”

“Don’t buy your act that you weren’t upset about Bobette and Norman.”

“What do you mean? Do you think, like, he fell in love with her or something?”

“No. But you tell me. Woman to woman. Something was bothering you.”

Mary clasped her hands in her wrinkled lap. Finally, she said: “Swear to God you won’t tell him?”

I nodded. That wasn’t enough. I put up my right hand and said: “I swear.”

“To God.”

“I swear to God,” I exhaled, thinking that I should double my hourly rates for dealings with my clients’ sweet patooties.

“It’s like, I’ve been so worried about him,” Mary said. “He’s tired. I mean, you have no idea how much his job takes out of
him. The last few cities, when we have mail call—that’s what we call it—it used to be so much fun getting all the answers to his ad in the personals. We’d drink our martinis and read them out loud to each other and laugh and laugh.” She must have read something on my face, because she quickly added, “Of course, we didn’t laugh
all
the time. Some of them were kind of pitiful. But now, when he brings in the mail, it’s like it weighs a ton.”

“It’s weighing him down,” I suggested.

“Yes! He says he doesn’t have the energy anymore to do the dance. Not a real dance. He means the con. He says it’s draining him.”

Sandi came in carrying a small tray with two glasses of water. Mary declined hers. “It’s bottled water,” I reassured her.

“I’m not thirsty.”

I waited for Sandi to go out and close the door. Then I prompted Mary: “You were saying how tired Norman is.”

“He says: ‘I’m bone-weary’ You know how tired
that
is. He says he wishes we had enough money to retire. Buy a condo in Florida or the Virgin Islands or someplace and just, like, spend the rest of our lives together.”

Suddenly I asked: “You like being on the water?”

“I love looking at it. Being on the beach. Except it’s not as much fun since sunblock.” I walked over to the wall facing my desk and took one of the framed photographs off the wall, a shot of a house and dock that the man in my life had taken from a small boat in a canal: his house in Oceanside. I handed it to Mary. “Ooh! Isn’t it adorable!” she exclaimed. “A little dream house.”

“My boyfriend took the picture,” I said, hanging it back in its place on the wall among his other work. He was a terrific photographer. “You know, you’ve spoken about all the pressures of Norman’s job and how wiped out he was, but you still haven’t made me understand why you felt Bobette was such a threat.”

Mary’s eyes were still on the picture. “I was afraid he would leave me for her,” she said quietly.

“
What?
”

She seemed gratified by my incredulity. “Not ’cause he doesn’t love me. But he’s so exhausted. When you’re tired of the con, what else is there? Like, on
Montel
or
Leeza,
there was this show: Men Who Get Depressed so They Run Off with Older Women Because It’s Like Their Mothers, or something. I remember thinking: Oh my God! Norman!”

“Did he ever indicate that he was thinking of leaving you and going with Bobette?”

“Of course not! But I could see sometimes how much it took out of him just to get up and go
meet
one of these old maids. I think there may have been a teeny-weeny part of him that was saying: ‘Finally, here’s one who’s got more than money in the bank. Here’s one that’s got an
income,
who could support me.’”

I met up with Terry Salazar again a little before Happy Hour at Plumpie’s, a bar that catered to the fringes of the criminal justice system: ex-cops, court reporters, bail bondsmen, an occasional disbarred lawyer. Its jolly name was misleading: Plumpie’s was one of those dank, dark-wooded places in which you’re grateful for the dismal lighting, because if they put in 150-watt bulbs, you’d see thirty years of unspeakable crud and a cross section of insect life that would haunt your dreams. Terry was drinking straight gin, which never did much for his disposition but mellowed his irresistible voice so it was even more compelling.

“Are you still coherent?” I asked.

Aggrieved, he answered: “It’s my second.”

I ordered one of the more esoteric light beers, one that Herman Oberndorfer, a.k.a. Plumpie, would not have on tap, so I wouldn’t have to drink from one of his never-washed-properly
steins. I lifted the bottle and took a swig. “Anything on Bobette’s credit cards?” I asked.

“You’re going to love this. Over six thousand dollars worth of stuff charged on the date of the murder.”

“Maybe Bobette went on a shopping spree early in the day.” I tried to sound confident, but I would have to work on it.

“I’m having my pal call a couple of the stores. They’re all in that Americana Shopping Center. Like Louis Vuitton.” He pronounced it perfectly, which led me to think that his wife had probably given up meditation once again and was shopping (once again) and I’d better make sure Terry wasn’t padding his disbursements (once again). “Barneys,” he went on. “Someone ran up three thousand bucks there.”

“Probably bought two pairs of pantyhose. All right, try to get the information as soon as you can. Not just to time of day. Find out what they bought. My guess is, most of the men’s stuff in an upscale place like that wouldn’t fit Norman; he’s way too tall.”

“Maybe he bought something for someone.”

“Right,” I said, thinking of Mary. “Anything on the prints yet?”

“I had to pass my pal a hundred.”

“Put it on your bill,” I said, sure that what he passed was probably a couple of twenties. “Were they able to get a make on them?”

“No. Not yet. He can check with the Feebies, but that’ll cost you more.”

“Do you have a copy of the card I gave you, the one with those prints?”

“I gave it to my pal. I just have a Xerox.”

“With you?” He patted all his pockets until he found it. “Do you still keep a fingerprint kit in your car?” I asked.

“Sure.”

“Let’s go.”

Irked at having to pass up the thimbleful of gin still remaining in his glass, Terry followed me out to the street and got his print kit from a tackle box he kept in his trunk. We walked a half block more to my car. I handed him the framed photograph of my man’s house that I’d taken down from the wall in my office. “Try for thumb prints on the two vertical sides of the glass,” I told him.

Ten minutes later, he told me. “The thumb prints are from the same person who left the latents all over Bobette’s place. How the hell did those prints get onto your picture? Who the hell is this guy?”

“Mary Dean.”

T
he summer before her senior year of high school, Lee White contracted a vicious case of poison ivy when she ran up the hill behind her house to spy on Jazz Taylor playing tennis with his mother.

It wasn’t as if she had planned such a mad act. No, she had just been lying on a chaise near the pool trying to catch her breath after swimming laps for forty-five minutes. Her eyes were closed. The sounds of the long, dull summer bubbled through the water in her ears: her own labored inhalation; the outrage of blue jays; the aggressive drone of the central air-conditioning unit; the interminable, cheery tinkle of her mother’s Hawaiian wind chimes; the far-off
thunk! thunk!
of balls smacking against rackets on the Taylors’ tennis court. Suddenly, out of this chorus of boring sounds, one youthful baritone descended from Hart’s Hill: “Lucky shot, Mom!”

Lee was seized by a lunatic passion. Throwing off her towel,
leaping from her chaise, clad only in a bathing suit, she charged up the steep rise that separated the Whites’ from the Taylors’. Clearing a path, she pushed aside branches and tore away clinging vines with the fierce strength of a battle-crazed warrior. She had known for years that the entire incline was choked with nettles and poison ivy, but in that insane instant, she flung that knowledge out of her mind. Two whole years had passed since she had seen Jazz at Dante’s Pizza. Not a single day had gone by that she hadn’t thought about him.

When Lee reached the summit, she crouched low, darting in the serpentine fashion Charles Bronson had employed in
The Dirty Dozen
to dodge Nazi fire. She hunkered down behind one of the junipers that screened the Taylors’ tennis court. It was only then that she came to her senses. Well, somewhat. To be perfectly frank, Lee looked slightly moronic, glancing behind her as if to ask: What means of transportation got me here? But then the game took over.

Ginger was by far the better player. As much as Lee wished Jazz Taylor would be a god of tennis, wielding a Tad Davis Deluxe Imperial instead of a lightning bolt to strike his mother dead, she was too savvy about the game not to recognize which of the two was just a social player—and which might have once aspired to greatness. To Jazz, it really was a game; he relaxed between points, changing his grip on the racket, wiping his palm on his shorts, shaking out a crick in his leg, combing back his hair with his fingers, squinting into the sun, smiling across the net. But his mother played with an intensity that was almost scary. Ginger’s tan, muscular arms and legs were bright with sweat. She was primed for every ball. Without taking her eyes off Jazz, she moved into position so she could cover the court no matter where her son hit the ball. For God’s sake, Lee thought, he’s not Billie Jean King! This is your son. Still, she was wowed by Ginger, and a little frightened. She had never seen a woman so intent on winning.

It was a half hour later, as the two Taylors were strolling off the court, when it suddenly occurred to Lee they might catch sight of her behind the juniper. Still, even then, when Jazz actually turned and looked back in her direction, as though homing in on the rays of desire beaming out from her, she stayed calm; her heart didn’t pound, her mouth didn’t go dry. No, all that was in her head was how extravagantly defined his thigh muscles were, like in those Da Vinci drawings in one of her mother’s art books on the coffee table. Such thighs! Then a stray thought popped into her mind and grew and grew: If she were across the net from Jazz and slammed one with her backhand, he would say, “Holy …!” And Ginger, from the sidelines, would call out to her: “Nice shot!”

That was when it hit her, how alien these Taylors were from her own family. Not just that they had more money, what her father called old money, and were a different religion and sent their kids to private schools. No, they were alive. They had pep. A nauseating word, Lee conceded, but that was what they had. Plain and simple vigor. Well, Ginger had pep squared. Okay, she was a killer who had no qualms about cutting out her own son’s heart. But God, they were both so strong!

Whereas her family: Leonard, who hardly knew a tennis ball from a silver fox pom-pom, was a knob-kneed embarrassment in shorts. Winded by a stroll to the end of the driveway to pick up the Sunday papers, he could only gaze up the hill with his heart corroding with envy, pierced by desire. If her mother were here beside her, behind the spreading juniper, she would eye Ginger’s grass-stained shorts and baggy, sweaty Lacoste shirt, sigh, then summon up barely enough energy to pat a stray platinum-on-gold-frosted hair into place, and decree: “Ick!” And Robin: At the first overhead smash, she would drop her racquet and shield her head. But from behind her bush, Lee now knew
She could play their game.