Lucky Stars (19 page)

M
aura agreed to be my partner in crime prevention. I couldn’t go to Jack for help, since he disapproved strenuously of my poking around in Victor’s marital escapades, so much so that I didn’t even tell him I had decided to go ahead and do it. No, I didn’t like deceiving him, but our relationship was progressing smoothly and we had passed the all-important three-month mark and I believed that he would confess his love for me any day. I couldn’t afford to screw things up, not at such a critical juncture. Besides, Maura had more time to snoop than Jack did, plus she knew Victor, although marginally, and, as a result, was the ideal co-conspirator.

We began by looking into the death of Mary Elizabeth Chellus, who supposedly drowned during a sailing outing. Our first order of business was to search
the
LA. Times’
s archives for news of the accident, which we did at Maura’s house on her computer.

“Anything?” I said, breathing down her neck as her fingers skipped over the keyboard. “It’s possible that Mary Elizabeth died over twenty years ago, and the
Times’
s archives only go back seventeen years.”

“She died sixteen years ago. Take a look.”

We waited breathlessly for the article to appear on the screen.

“Boy, they didn’t devote much ink to this,” I said when the blurb—and that’s truly all it was, six or seven short paragraphs—popped up on the monitor.

The gist of the story was that the weather on the day of the Chellus’s excursion had turned threatening. Victor was at the wheel of the couple’s thirty-eight-foot sloop, the unfortunately named
Lucky Lady,
while Mary Elizabeth (Victor hadn’t lied to us about this; she really did go by both the Mary and the Elizabeth) was on deck trying to bring the sail down. When the boat was hit by a strong gust of wind, she slipped and fell overboard. He attempted to turn the
Lucky Lady
around in order to both find his wife and pull her back onboard, but the seas were choppy and he couldn’t spot her. He radioed the Coast Guard for help. By the time they arrived, Mary Elizabeth was gone. They continued to search for her until dark without success, and it wasn’t until the next morning that they made the grim discovery of her body. An autopsy was performed, the police ruled her death an accidental drowning, and Victor was said to be grief stricken.

“What do you make of it?” I asked Maura when we’d finished reading. “Other than that Victor took his sweet time getting married. If Mary Elizabeth died sixteen years ago and they were relative newlyweds at that point,
he was a ripe old fiftysomething when he finally walked down the aisle. That’s unusual right there.”

“It sure is, although at the rate I’m going, I may not have any
rice thrown at me until I’m in Depends.”

“That’s because your boyfriends are already in Depends. But getting back to Vic, it is odd that he waited so long to get married. I wonder what there was about Mary Elizabeth that convinced him to trade in his bachelorhood.”

“Maybe he was waiting for just the right combination in a woman,” she said. “She had to have money, she had to be inexperienced with men, and she had to be easy to fool.”

“My mother has money and is inexperienced with men, but she never used to be easy to fool. Quite the contrary.”

“Everybody’s easy to fool when they come to Hollywood and stumble on success and start believing the
ir
own press releases.”

“I know. Victor must have been overjoyed when he met Mom and realized how impressionable she was.”

“What’s interesting is that, according to this article, no one suspected him of foul play in the drowning,” Maura pointed out.

“But let’s say there was foul play,” I speculated, “and the police just didn’t pick up on it. Let’s say Mary Elizabeth didn’t slip overboard on her own but that Victor caused her to slip overboard, which wouldn’t necessarily show up in the autopsy unless he whacked her over the head first or shot her or strangled her. I bet he could have finagled the whole thing so that she went overboard without a single mark on her body.”

“If he was professional about it, yeah,” said Maura. “But that would suggest he either had help—like a hit
man—or that he’d committed murder before.”

“Committed murder before?” I said. “But he’s only had one wife. Who else would he have murdered?”

“You’re right. I’m getting off the track. The truth is, we don’t have anything on Victor. We’re back to square one.”

“Not necessarily,” I said. “Why don’t we take a ride to Marina Del Rey, where Mr. and Mrs. Chellus kept their sailboat. We could ask around, see if anyone remembers the accident.”

“It was a long time ago and the marina is the biggest one in the country. Who’s going to remember an old boat or its owners?”

“Only one way to find out,” I said.

We drove to the marina on Saturday morning, parked the car, and accosted every craggy-faced guy in a nautical shirt, asking every one of them if they remembered the
Lucky Lady
or the Mary Elizabeth Chellus accident. None of them did. Then we stopped in at all the yacht clubs based at the marina and tried to find someone familiar with the case. No success there, either. We finally found our way into the headquarters for the Coast Guard and the sheriff station, and started hounding people there.

“How can you
not
remember?” I snapped at the young coast guardsman who happened to be standing near the reception desk. I was growing frustrated and had become rather cranky. “The boat was docked right here at this marina! Yes, it was sixteen years ago, but the woman died, for God’s sake!”

“I wasn’t working here sixteen years ago,” he replied. “I was in elementary school.”

It wasn’t insulting enough that I was considered too old by Hollywood standards? Now I was too old to get
answers to questions that could save my mother’s life? Please. “Aren’t there records we could look at? Maybe there was a report filed? Couldn’t you be a little more helpful?”

I must have been raising my voice and attracting attention, because someone from the sheriff’s department sauntered over and asked what the trouble was. I brightened when I saw that this someone appeared to be old enough to be the other guy’s grandfather.

“Sorry for the disturbance,” I said. “I’m Stacey Reiser and this is my friend Maura Lasky, and we’re trying to get information about a woman whose boat used to be docked here.”

“Joe Harmony. How’re you doing?” he said. I saw from his badge that he was a deputy sheriff. What’s more, he was pleasant looking in a graying, Dennis Franz sort of way. “What’s the woman’s name?”

“Mary Elizabeth Chellus,” said Maura, who sidled up closer to Joe. (He was her type, agewise.) “She and her husband Victor had a thirty-eight-foot sloop called the
Lucky Lady.
Sixteen years ago, they went out for a sail and she drowned. Is there any chance you remember the accident, Joe?”

He winked at her. (Apparently, she was his type, too.) “Sure do.”

“Really?” I said excitedly. “What do you remember?”

“I remember that her husband was heartbroken, mostly,” he said. “When the Coast Guard gave up the search for her that night, he was about as busted up as a man could be.”

“Right,” I said, “but what about the investigation? What, I mean is, why wasn’t there one?”

“Once they got the autopsy results, there was nothing
to investigate,” he said. “The woman fell overboard and drowned.”

“Or was pushed,” I said. “Didn’t anyone suspect that her husband could have
caused
her to drown?”

Joe chuckled. “No offense, miss, but I think you’ve been watching too much TV.”

He should talk. There was a TV on in the background, and he kept sneaking peeks at it, which was not very confidence inspiring, given that he was a law enforcement officer and that what he was sneaking peeks at was an infomercial hawking women’s lingerie.

“I guess what I’m getting at is that the autopsy could have been incomplete. Isn’t that so, Joe?”

“Not usually and not this one. Like I said, I remember when they found the body the day after the drowning. There was no gunshot wound, no blunt trauma to the head, no strangulation marks on the neck, nothing to suggest that Mrs. Chellus’s death was anything other than what her husband said it was. It was all very routine, if you can call a drowning routine. It stuck in my mind because I had a buddy whose boat was docked right next to the
Lucky Lady.
As he told it, the Chelluses were a nice couple—Beverly Hills types but not snooty. They didn’t fight, didn’t throw parties, didn’t engage in reckless behavior. The day she drowned it was cloudy, with a forecast of rain, but nothing that would keep a sailor out of the water. My buddy said they showed up in their foul weather gear, carrying their cooler the way they always did.”

“Their cooler?” said Maura.

“Yeah. Their cook made them lunch whenever they’d take the boat out for the afternoon. My buddy used to drool over all the fancy stuff they’d bring onboard. All
his wife ever sent him off with was a bologna sandwich.”

“So you have nothing to add?” I said, my energy flagging-

“Nope,” said Joe, who smiled at Maura. “Except I wouldn’t mind having this young lady’s phone number if she isn’t spoken for.”

I left the sweethearts to themselves and waited for Maura in the parking lot. As I waited, I tried to sort out my feelings. On one hand, I was disappointed that we hadn’t uncovered anything that would prove Victor’s guilt. I was like a dog digging for a bone that I could bring back to my mother and deposit at her feet so she’d pat me on the head and say, “good doggie” or “good daughter” or something of that nature. I was determined to save her by giving her hard evidence that her boyfriend was a criminal. On the other hand, if my attempts at producing evidence failed and it turned out that Victor was innocent of murdering his wife, I would be embarrassed for making such a fuss but relieved that he and my mother could move ahead with their relationship and, above all, I would be happy for her, just as she hoped I’d be. What I’m saying is that I didn’t
want
Victor to be guilty; I just thought he was, and if he was, it was my daughterly duty to expose him.

“Hi. All set,” said Maura when she arrived in the parking lot.

“By ‘all set,’ does this mean you and Joe made a date?”

“What do you think?” she said with a sly grin.

“I think you should stick to boys your own age,” I said. “But then you pay your shrink to tell you that, so I won’t waste my breath.”

“
Thank you. Besides, just because you and Jack are
madly in love doesn’t make you the authority on what constitutes a good match.”

“You’re right. I’m hardly the authority. Not when I’m lying to him about this sleuthing adventure of ours. He thinks I’m working at the store today.”

“Don’t worry. If Victor’s clean, Jack will never be the wiser about our snooping. If Victor’s a rat, he’ll be proud of you for rescuing your mother. It’s a win-win situation, Stacey.”

We high-fived each other and contemplated our next move.

t
wenty-four

A
s we were driving out of the marina, Maura and I decided we should search Victor’s house at some point, his office in particular, to see if we could find a connection between his failed business ventures and the death of Mary Elizabeth—i.e., whether his sudden influx of cash as a result of her death restored his financial health. It was a ballsy move and I was risking my mother’s wrath, as well as Jack’s disapproval, but the meter was ticking. If she was even contemplating marrying Vic, she could run off and do it at any moment, and I couldn’t afford to take that chance.

She had mentioned in passing that in a couple of days she would be attending a dinner in her honor, hosted by W&W, the ad agency that had made her a star, and that Victor would be out of town on one of his jaunts. Seizing
the opportunity, Maura and I planned our outing for the evening they would both be away from the house. I set the caper in motion by asking Mom if Maura and I could watch a movie in Victor’s screening room while they were gone, and she had said she would arrange it.

Speaking of movies, after Maura and I returned from Marina Del Rey that Saturday, Jack and I went to a preview of a romantic comedy starring Meg Ryan. Predictably, Mr. Highbrow hated it.

“It’s not that I dislike Meg Ryan as an actress,” he said as I was whipping up a postmovie pasta dinner in his kitchen. Lately, I’d been trying to improve my culinary skills, so he would see what an ideal partner I’d make. I wanted so much for him to tell me he loved me, tell me he was committed to me, tell me that I was the one and only woman for him. I longed to hear those words or, if not those exact words, then anything other than the dreaded: “I think we should talk.”

“What is it you disliked about the movie?” I said.

“The fact that there was no story,” he said. “It drives me insane when these romantic comedies are twenty minutes of plot and an hour and forty minutes of filler. Do we really need to see shot after shot of the lovers throwing snowballs at each other in Central Park or strolling down a country lane holding hands or sipping mocha lattes together by the fireplace at some cutesy country inn? I want something to
happen
in a film, and nothing happens in this one except that the audience gets ripped off. I think the people who made the movie should be chained to their chairs and forced to watch it themselves, over and over until they die of boredom. That would be a fitting punishment.”

“Gee, Jack,” I said with a smirk. “Why don’t you tell me how you really feel?”

He calmed down a little, put his arms around me. “Was I pontificating again?”

“Bi
g
time.”

“Sorry. But you know what I’m talking about. Movies are not synonymous with music videos.”

“I agree.” I kissed the tip of his nose. “But you know, now that I’m not appearing in the sort of movies you trash, it’s kind of fun watching you foam at the mouth.”

“Is that so?” He tightened his grip around my waist and pressed his body against mine.

“Yeah. It’s fun watching you foam at the mouth and turn red in the face and make your eyes roll around in their sockets. Scary but fun.”

He laughed. “I can’t help it. I’m a purist when it comes to movies. Always was, always will be.”

“I know, and I love you for it.”

The instant the word “love” was out of my mouth, I felt my own face turn red. I wanted to crawl under the floor, hide behind the draperies, stick my head in the pot of pasta sauce—anything not to deal with Jack’s reaction to the fact that I had just told him I loved him! Without meaning to! Without any encouragement on his part! It had slipped out, in spite of my promise to myself that I wouldn’t be the one to say it first, that I wouldn’t rush the relationship, that I wouldn’t put pressure on Jack or make him feel icky toward me or, worst of all, repel him. It had slipped out and I couldn’t suck it back in.

“Stacey, look at me,” he said, tilting my chin up while I continued to die of humiliation. “It’s okay.”

“No, it’s not okay,” I said, refusing to meet his eyes. “I never meant to put you in an awkward position, Jack.”

“It’s too late for that.”

“Swell.” So I had ruined it, ruined us. I braced myself for the “You’re really terrific and we’ve had some great
times together, but I’m not ready for a serious relationship, and I think we should cool it for a while
… Blah blah
blah.

“It’s too late because you told me you loved me, and now I have to respond.”

“There’s no law that says you have to respond. Besides, I already know what you’re going to tell me. I’ve heard it all before.”

“Not from me. Please look at me already, would you?” He had my face in his hands, practically squishing my cheeks.

“All right, I’m looking.”

He smiled. “I have to respond, because I love you, too.”

“Say that again?”

“I love you, too, Stacey. I love you and I have since the first night we were together. I just wasn’t very speedy about telling you, because of my own insecurities, I guess.”

“Jack Rawlins? Insecure?”

“Isn’t everyone? Not only that, I’m a guy, for God’s sake. It’s not in our genes to be able to say the right thing at the right moment.”

“Okay, enough about insecurities and genetics. Let’s get back to the love thing. I wouldn’t mind hearing it again.”

“I love you, Stacey Reiser. Very much.”

He kissed me for a long time. The pasta sauce was drying out on the stove, and I couldn’t have cared less.

“What do you love about me?” I asked at one point during a break in the action. “You’re a big star, Jack, with your own show and a career that’s going gangbusters, while I’m an actress who’s still grappling with what I want to be when I grow up. I guess what I’m asking
is,
why
do you love me? We seem like such an unlikely match.”

“Not so unlikely at all,” he said, stroking my hair. “But to answer your question, I love a lot of things about you. I love your humor, especially in the face of disappointment. I love your feistiness, your gift for picking yourself up after a fall and carrying on. I love the way you look, so pretty and yet not artificially or calculatedly. And I love your values.”

“My values?”

“Yes, those solid, midwestem values that keep you from getting corrupted by Hollywood. Sure you want to succeed as an actress, but unlike most of the strivers here, you’re only willing to go so far. You don’t sell your soul, in other words. You haven’t done the boob job. You haven’t had your face carved. You haven’t slept with every producer in town. That alone makes you a breath of fresh air.”

“I slept with you,” I teased.

“And I don’t know how to thank you,” said Jack.

“I do,” I said. “You can sleep with me again.”

“Now?”

“Right now.”

We abandoned my poor excuse for a pasta dinner and headed for Jack’s bedroom, where we undressed each other and caressed each other and showered each other with lush, Hallmark card-type declarations of love. It was a beautiful thing.

When I woke up the next morning, it seemed as if the whole world, my whole world, had changed, had opened up, had energized me. In the dopey jargon of pop music, I felt “brand-new,” now that Jack loved me and I loved him and we were truly, magically going to be together forever. Although there was one tiny snag in
the proceedings. While we were eating breakfast, he asked how I was handling the situation with my mother and Victor.

“You haven’t mentioned the subject in a while,” he said. “Does that mean you agree with me that Helen’s entitled to make her own choices in a man and that your attempt to sabotage their relationship was a little neurotic?”

“I wouldn’t exactly call it neurotic,” I said.

“I stand corrected,” he said. “But you have to admit that you did want to turn the tables on her—to insinuate yourself into her personal life because she’d spent so many years insinuating herself into yours.”

“No. Actually, I was insinuating myself into her personal life because I thought there was something off about Victor. I still think there’s something off about Victor. I’m very concerned that he’s had a history of womanizing, that he’s had financial trouble, that his wealthy wife died under suspicious—”

“Stacey, you’re doing it again.”

“Doing what?”

“Obsessing over Helen’s romance. How about obsessing over ours instead? I don’t have to leave for the studio for another hour.”

“No?”

“No. What do you say we go back to bed and—”

“Yes.”

And so I didn’t tell Jack what Maura and I were up to. Why ruin what promised to be a fabulous hour of sex with my honey? Did I feel guilty about not telling him that she and I were planning to show up at Victor’s house and rummage through his personal belongings? Yes, I did. He and I had pledged our love for each other,
and loving meant trusting. On the other hand, I was a firm believer in the old adage: What he doesn’t know won’t hurt him. I also believed in the related adage: What he doesn’t know won’t hurt me.