Night Night, Sleep Tight (10 page)

Jackie smiled a perfect toothy smile. “So my sister was your best friend?”

“From sixth grade,” Deirdre said, “until . . .” Her voice trailed off.

Jackie narrowed his dark eyes at Deirdre. “Was she crazy then, too?”

“Crazy?” Joelen gave him a shove. “Look who’s talking.”

“Not exactly crazy,” Deirdre said. “I’d say fearless. She did some pretty wild things and I followed her. So I guess I was the crazy one.”

Joelen snorted a laugh. “Remember thumbing a ride home from the five-and-dime?”

“Miraculously without getting abducted.” Deirdre remembered the black Cadillac that had stopped. The man had leaned across the passenger seat and opened the door and they’d hopped in. Just like that. All the way to Deirdre’s house the driver lectured them about the dangers of getting into cars with strangers, explaining in graphic detail just how bad things could go. Deirdre had been relieved to get out of that car.

Joelen picked up the thread. “Hey, it was raining and we’d have been soaking wet by the time we got back. So we get a ride home and Pollyanna here insists on walking all the way back to the damned store in the downpour, so she can return the stupid lipstick she pilfered.”

“
I
stole it? Ha!”

“What ha? How did it end up in your pocket?” Joelen was all wide-eyed innocence.

Passionate Pink. The tube had felt as if it were burning a hole in her pocket—once she realized it was there. “I think you know the answer to that.”

“Me?” Joelen turned to Jackie. “So then she gets arrested trying to put it back!”

“I did not get arrested.” Deirdre felt a flush rising from her neck to her forehead. The dweeby J.J. Newberry security guard had squeezed her arm as he dragged her to the back of the store and propelled her up a smelly staircase to an office with windows that looked down over the store’s vast aisles. He’d sat her down and made her give him her name and phone number. Thankfully neither of her parents had been home to take his call. But before that asshole let Deirdre go, he made her sign a paper promising she’d never set foot in the store again. As if she would have. But the worst part was when he’d taken her picture and pinned her humiliated face to a bulletin board along with about a dozen other shoplifters.

“You must have been quite the pair,” Jackie said.

“The original odd couple,” Joelen said. “She was Miss Goody Two-Shoes.”

“And you were”—Deirdre searched for the right comparison—“Bonnie Parker.”

“Bonnie who?” Jackie said.

“He’s such a child.” Joelen pursed her lips. “What do you expect?”

They were quizzing Jackie on iconic rock singers, old TV shows, and more movie roles when the phone rang. For a moment, Deirdre’s throat went dry. Joelen crossed the room to the bedside table and answered it.

“Sure. Okay, I’ll tell her.” She hung up and turned to Deirdre. “That was Sy. He’s waiting for you. I’ll get the car and meet you by the back door.”

“Honey,” said Bunny, squeezing Deirdre’s hand, “it’s showtime.”

Chapter 17

B
unny packed Deirdre’s jeans and T-shirt into her messenger bag and led her to the end of the hall, through a door, across a dimly lit passageway, and down a back stairway.
Mothballs.
Floor wax.
Deirdre gagged on the smells as she grasped the wooden railing and slowly made her way down steeply raked steps. Her memory of her father spiriting her out of the house after Tito was killed clicked into place. Of course he hadn’t led her out through a tunnel. It had been this narrow hallway.

They were halfway down the back stairs when Bunny stopped and turned to face her. “So you found the dress?”

Deirdre froze. She nodded.

In the half-light, Bunny looked tense and tired, her face showing her age. “Your father was supposed to take care of it.”

“Take care—?” Deirdre didn’t know what to say.

“Get rid of it.”

“Because?”

“Because no one needed to know that you were there.”

“I was?”

“You don’t remember?” Bunny asked, and when Deirdre shook her head, she sighed. “Just as well that you don’t.”

“But—”

“So what are you going to do?”

“Do?”

Bunny gave an exasperated sigh. “With the dress.”

From outside came the sound of a car horn tooting. Deirdre automatically looked toward the noise.

Bunny grasped Deirdre’s arm, bringing her attention back. “You have no idea what you’re playing with here. The last thing my daughter needs is to have things stirred up again.” She squeezed Deirdre’s arm so hard that it hurt. “Do you understand what I’m telling you?”

In truth, Deirdre didn’t, but Bunny didn’t wait for an answer. When the car horn tooted again, she released Deirdre and turned away. Deirdre followed her down the stairs. At the bottom, they emerged into a laundry room.

Joelen came in to meet them. “What’s the holdup?”

“Just putting on the finishing touches,” said Bunny. She opened a broom closet and pulled out a Ralph’s shopping bag. Into it she stuffed Deirdre’s messenger bag. She handed Deirdre the loaded shopping bag and then stood back, her brow furrowed. “Needs something more. Let me see—”

“She looks good. Just fine,” Joelen said. “Let’s go.”

“Good isn’t great and fine isn’t finished,” Bunny said. “Wait here. I’ll be right back.” She disappeared back up the stairs.

“
Good isn’t great. Fine isn’t finished,
” Joelen singsonged. “I stepped right into that. What can I tell you? She’s a perfectionist.”

Deirdre rubbed her arm where it was sore and reddened from Bunny’s grip.

Moments later Bunny reappeared carrying a battered black vinyl purse. She hooked it over Deirdre’s arm along with the shopping bag, smiled approval, then hustled her and Joelen out the back door to the car.

Deirdre threw the purse and shopping bag into the backseat and got in the front, her crutch across her lap. She wiped the sweat from her forehead. The too-tight underarms of her “uniform” were already damp with perspiration, and the fabric stuck to her back.

Joelen started driving down the long driveway. As she pulled the car out onto Sunset and turned south toward City Hall, Deirdre ran through the conversation she’d had in that dark stairway with Bunny.

You have no idea what you’re playing with here.
She’d been right about that.

“Are you okay?” Joelen asked.

“Sure,” Deirdre lied. “Why?”

“I don’t know. You seem . . . tense. Upset.”

So you found the dress?

Your father was supposed to take care of it.

No one needed to know that you were there.

“You always were good at reading me,” Deirdre said. “I guess I’m feeling anxious about talking to the police. And”—she looked down at her getup—“ridiculous. Conspicuous.” She tugged at one of the sleeves. “Hot and uncomfortable.”

Joelen turned the A/C up and adjusted one of the vents so the cool air blasted out at Deirdre. “Does that help?”

“Thanks. Yeah, it does.”

“You’re sure that’s all?” Joelen gave her a concerned look.

“I guess it just seems weird.”

“What?”

“You know, being back in the house with you and your mom after so many years.”

“I hope not weird in a bad way.”

“Your mom’s the same—”

Joelen laughed. “I know. She’s a tidal wave. Wouldn’t want to get in her way, that’s for sure. What do you think of Jackie?”

“Handsome as hell.” Deirdre ran the back of her hand across her damp brow. It came away coated with dark makeup. “Sweet, actually. Is he still in school?”

“I wish.” Joelen waved her hand as if she were swatting away a fly. “He barely finished high school. Not because he’s not smart. He just wasn’t buying what they were selling. But he’s doing okay.”

“Doing what?”

“Selling his favorite toys. Harleys. He’s pretty good at it, too.”

Deirdre remembered seeing the bike in the driveway. “Really? Where?”

“Marina del Rey. There’s a dealership there that’s been in business forever, and . . .”

As Joelen went on about how great the dealership was and how well Jackie was doing there, Deirdre sat in stunned silence. There was only one Harley dealership in Marina del Rey, and Henry worked there. And yet Henry claimed he hadn’t heard word one about Joelen since high school?

“Sorry. I didn’t mean to go on like that,” Joelen said as she double-parked in front of City Hall. She put her hand on Deirdre’s arm in the same spot where Bunny’s squeeze had left her red. “Relax. You’ll see. No one is going to bat an eyelash at you. Look, there’s Sy.”

Deirdre spotted him, too, sitting beyond a news team that was broadcasting from the sidewalk at the base of broad steps that led to the main entrance. The center bell tower provided the perfect backdrop for the suited man talking animatedly at the camera.

“Go on,” Joelen said. “Get out. Brazen does it! Before I get a ticket for double-parking.” She reached across and opened the passenger door. Hot air flooded the car. “You’re in good hands. I ought to know.”

A car behind them beeped. Deirdre set her crutch on the macadam and got out. Before she reached the sidewalk Joelen had pulled away, and for a moment Deirdre felt completely exposed. The massive Spanish colonial building that housed city government as well as the police and fire departments towered before her. She adjusted her grip on her crutch and the ridiculous handbag and started past the film crew, stepping over wires that snaked back to the van. The Ralph’s shopping bag banged against her side with every lurching step.

She was so close to the film crew that she could hear the young TV news commentator, his smooth mannequin face barely moving as spoke: “Scenes from this year’s number-one action movie were filmed right here. But the project that started out as a vehicle for Sylvester Stallone . . .”

“Watch where you’re stepping!” said a guy she assumed was a production assistant, glaring at her, his words an angry hiss.

The commentator held the mike in front of a shaggy-haired man wearing a black T-shirt tucked into belted jeans, his silver-tinted aviator glasses reflecting the sun. He chuckled, then spoke in a raspy voice: “So Sly bails. Weeks before shooting is scheduled to begin last spring, he pulls out. And we’re talking about the project with Eddie. And he says, ‘Enough of this. Do you guys want to make the film or just talk about it?’ ”

Deirdre relaxed a notch. In this celebrity-obsessed town, how hard could it be to fly under the radar? She smoothed her dress, hoisted up the sagging panty hose, affected a slightly turtle-necked slouch, and started walking toward where Sy was perched at the edge of a raised bed of pink and purple petunias, so bright that they looked artificial. People leaving the building glanced at her, but none looked twice. The hairnet made her head itchy, but she resisted the urge to scratch.

As she got closer, Sy’s gaze passed over her without a flicker of recognition. It wasn’t until she was three feet away that he registered her crutch, looked her full in the face, and sprang to his feet. He eyed her up and down, then looked around. “Brava,” he said in a stage whisper.

“I had help.”

“I imagine you did.” He picked up his briefcase and cast an anxious glance in the direction of the news team. “Come on. Let’s not press our luck. There is a side entrance.”

Sy led Deirdre around to the side of the building where cruisers were angle parked and a sign pointing up a narrow flight of stairs said
B
E
V
E
R
L
Y
H
I
L
L
S
P
O
L
I
CE DEPARTMENT
. He followed Deirdre up the steps and held open one of the double doors at the top.

Deirdre passed into a cool, dark interior. An outer waiting area was lined with benches—a tired-looking woman rocking a baby in a stroller sat on one of them—and smelled of burnt coffee, stale candy, and pine cleaner. Beyond another set of glass-paned double doors, uniformed police officers milled about. When an officer pushed the door open and exited, the sound of phones ringing and loud voices pulsed out.

“Does the detective know we’re coming?” Deirdre asked.

“I thought we would surprise him. When you talk to him, please remember, do not offer information. Do not speculate. Just answer his questions. This is important. Do you understand me?”

“I do. Don’t offer. Don’t speculate. Can I change first?”

“Go.”

Deirdre ducked into the ladies’ room. She ripped off the hairnet and shook out her hair. Gave her scalp a good scratch. Relief! Then she changed back into her pants and T-shirt and stuffed the baggy tights and the dress and vinyl handbag into her messenger bag. She scrubbed her face using the gloppy, bubble-gum-colored soap from the dispenser. Patted her face dry with a brown paper towel that left a residue of wet cardboard smell.

When she emerged, Sy was no longer in the lobby. He was on the other side of the glass door in the midst of what looked like a heated discussion with a visibly exasperated Detective Martinez.

Chapter 18

D
eirdre pushed through the door to the police department in time to hear Martinez reaming out Sy. “If you people are going to start playing games—”

“No one is playing games with you. She is right here,” Sy said, spotting Deirdre and motioning her over. “See? Ready and willing to answer your questions.”

A vein was pounding in Martinez’s forehead. He gave a tense nod in Deirdre’s direction and checked his watch, then turned and led her and Sy through a busy room filled with desks, down a corridor, and through a door into a small office. The interior was Spartan—just a desk, a phone, and a half-dead ficus that Deirdre found herself wanting desperately to water. A dust-coated window overlooked a eucalyptus tree behind the building.

Martinez sat at the desk and motioned for Deirdre and Sy to sit on the other side. A half-full mug of coffee sat on the desk, white ceramic with a splash of red, the motto
HOMI
C
I
D
E
:
O
U
R
D
A
Y
B
E
G
I
N
S
W
H
E
N
S
O
M
E
O
N
E
E
L
S
E
’
S
E
N
D
S
.
A second mug, filled with pens and pencils, had
S
U
P
E
R
D
A
D
D
Y
on it.

Martinez took out a pad and made a few initial notations. Then he leaned back in his chair and just stared at Deirdre for what seemed like forever. Taking her measure or, more likely, trying to freak her out. “You won’t mind if I record this,” he said, taking a cassette recorder from the desk drawer. “Then I won’t have to worry about getting everything down in my notes.”

“Not a problem,” Sy said. “Right, Deirdre?”

Following his lead, Deirdre nodded. Martinez snapped in a fresh cassette, turned it on, and set the recorder on the desk between them. He recorded a little preamble—time, date, and who was present. Then played it and went back to recording.

“Miss Unger, thank you very much for coming in. I’ll get right to the point. I need to clarify your whereabouts late Friday night and into Saturday morning.”

“I’ve already told you, I was in the art gallery. Xeno Art. Until late. Then I went home.”

“I know.” Martinez gave her a tired smile. “Like I said, just to clarify and get the details correct. So you closed the gallery? When was that?”

“We’re open until eight. Then I closed up. But I stayed later, prepping a new exhibit.”

“Alone?”

“With the artist’s assistant.”

“Do you have this artist’s assistant’s name? Can we contact him—”

“Her. Shoshanna.”

“Shoshanna . . . what?”

“I don’t know her last name. But I can get her contact information for you.” The assistant had been young. Brunette. With hair that hung down to her waist and a lot of makeup.
Aspiring actress
had been Deirdre’s first thought. The artist had arranged for her to come help, since he was in Israel. He said she’d be at the gallery at eight but she hadn’t gotten there until after ten, complaining about heavy traffic. Two hours of heavy traffic well past rush hour? It sounded lame, but Deirdre hadn’t bothered to call her on it.

“Please do. And you were at the gallery with this Shoshanna until—?”

“After midnight.” It was so late by the time they’d finished up that she’d been afraid her car would get ticketed for overnight parking. Too bad it hadn’t.

“What about casual passersby? They’d have seen that the lights were on inside and the two of you in there hanging paintings. Maybe someone stopped in?”

“It was an installation. Not paintings.” Shoes, actually. Avram Sigismund had shipped them hundreds of old shoes—looked like a Salvation Army resale store’s entire stock of shoes that had been thrown in the mud and driven over a few times—along with some graffiti-covered canvas backdrops delivered to the gallery in crates. Shoshanna had a schematic that showed where the shoes, each of which was numbered, were to be placed—some on the floor, others climbing the walls, still others hanging from the ceiling. When all the shoes were in their appointed places, Deirdre hadn’t been all that impressed. On top of that the gallery reeked of feet, something that the assistant called “texture” and insisted was an essential part of the concept. “And no,” Deirdre added, “no one stopped in, and I doubt if anyone going past would have realized that we were there. We covered the windows.”

“You covered the windows.” Hearing Martinez repeat her in a deadpan, Deirdre realized how bizarre this sounded.

“The artist was quite definite.” Paranoid, even. “He didn’t want anyone to see his work until the show opened.”

“Did that seem unusual to you?”

“I could understand it, really, especially with an installation of that nature.”

“So this artist. What’s his name?”

“Avram Sigismund.” Deirdre spelled it for Martinez.

“He’s well known?”

“He’s Israeli. Up and coming.” Deirdre avoided Martinez’s gaze. In fact, she’d never worked with Avi (as he asked them to call him) before. Never even heard of him until just a week and a half ago when they’d agreed to clear their front gallery space and show his work. She could tell herself that it was Stefan who’d pressured her to break their long-standing policy and accept payment to mount a show, but that wouldn’t have been fair. The gallery was struggling and they needed to pay their rent. It seemed like a gift when, out of the blue, Avi contacted Stefan with a proposal. He was desperate for gallery space for just two weeks to accommodate a curator from a major American museum who wanted to see his work firsthand. His work was represented by the prestigious (even she’d heard of it) Rosenfeld Gallery in Tel Aviv, but he’d never been shown in the United States. Stefan had gotten the strong sense that the museum interested in acquiring his work was the MOCA in L.A.

The whole deal had sounded slightly sketchy to Deirdre, because why couldn’t he have found a gallery in the Los Angeles area to show his work? But what was there to lose when Avi was offering to pay expenses and then some, up front, in addition to a 40 percent commission when (not if) the museum purchased the work? Both she and Stefan held their noses and signed on. It was only for a few weeks, she’d told herself. Besides, they’d clear enough to bankroll shows for a half-dozen artists whose works they were eager to exhibit.

“So you were in the gallery until—”

“After midnight.” How many times did he need for her to say it?

“And then?”

“I went home.”

“Home?”

“To my house. I live in Imperial Beach. It’s near—”

“I know where it is. Was anyone with you? Anyone drop by? Anyone who can vouch for your whereabouts?”

Vincent Price.
By the time she got home, even Johnny Carson had gone to bed. The only thing on was the ending of
House of Wax
.

“No,” Deirdre said, her tone sharper than she’d intended. She wasn’t sure if she was annoyed because he kept asking the same thing, or because she was always alone in bed at night.

“Did you receive any telephone calls after you got home?”

“No.”

“Are you sure?”

“Positive.”

“What would you say if I told you that phone records show that calls were made to your home phone late that night?”

“Excuse me,” Sy said. “You need a subpoena to examine my client’s phone records.”

“We haven’t examined
her
phone records.” Martinez placed a computer printout in front of her. Several lines were highlighted. “These calls were made to you from your father’s phone.”

Deirdre looked at the highlighted calls. She pointed to the first one, Friday at 3:12
P
.
M
.
“I was at the gallery then.”

“Looks like you didn’t answer this call, either,” Martinez said, pointing to a call at 1:41
A
.
M
.
“You said you were home by then.”

Deirdre swallowed and shifted in her seat. “I’d turned off the ringer.”

“Why did you do that?”

Martinez just sat there waiting. “I was tired. It was late.”

“Who would have called you so late?”

My father.
Even though that was perfectly innocent, Deirdre felt beads of sweat prick from her upper lip.

“What is the relevance of this?” Sy said, saving her from having to answer. “Just because Miss Unger didn’t answer her phone doesn’t mean she was not at home.”

Martinez leaned forward. “The coroner estimates the time of death at between midnight and three
A.M.
This”—he put his finger on the list—“would have been the last phone call your father made before he died. Unless”—he paused for a moment, like this thought was just now occurring to him—“unless it was someone else, calling you from your father’s house.”

Sy’s warning came back to her.
Do not offer. Do not speculate.
Deirdre didn’t say anything.

Martinez sat back. “So your story is that you left the gallery, drove home, turned off the ringer on your phone, and went to sleep?”

Close enough. Deirdre nodded.

Martinez pointed to the cassette recorder.

“That’s right,” Deirdre said.

“Alone?”

“Alone.” She said it calmly but she wanted to scream
Yes! Alone! I live alone!

“And you left the house again when?”

“The next morning. Saturday. Maybe at about nine.”

“And you drove—”

“Straight to my father’s house.”

“Without stopping?”

“Without—” Then she remembered. “I stopped for gas and something to eat at a McDonald’s somewhere around Mission Viejo.”

“You used a credit card?”

Of course it would be nice if she had some evidence to support her claim. “Paid cash. But I think the cup and the wrapper are still in my car.”

Martinez looked unimpressed.

“I probably kept the receipts,” Deirdre added. She sounded confident but she wondered if she had in fact bothered to keep them. She saved every receipt, even small ones, when the expense was business related. But this trip had been personal. “I’ll look.”

“So you got to your father’s house when?”

She’d answered that question already. Several times. “At about noon. But no one answered the door and I couldn’t get in. That’s why I went around to the backyard.”

“Who has keys to your father’s house?”

“Henry, of course. He lives there. My mom, though she’d never go there. The woman who comes in once a week and cleans for my dad.” Deirdre looked over at Sy to see if he had anything to add.

“Not you?” Martinez asked.

“Not me.”

“Was that a problem? Not having a set of keys.”

“No. I don’t visit very often.”

“The last time was—?”

Was this a test? Because she’d already answered that question at the house. “January.”

“Months ago. Sounds as if you and your father weren’t that close.”

“We got along. We just didn’t spend time together.”

“But you drove up to help him move.”

“He asked me to. He needed help. Of course I came.”

Martinez nodded and rubbed his chin. “Okay. Just a few more questions. Was your father having financial problems?”

“I don’t know. He didn’t talk to me about his finances and I’d never have hit him up for money.”

Sy put a finger to his lips:
Just answer the question
.

“But he was putting the house up for sale.”

“Right.”

“Did your father have any enemies? Any ongoing disagreements with business associates or neighbors?”

“Not that I know of.”

“He and your mother—?”

“Got along fine since their divorce.”

He leaned forward, as if he were about to ask another question, then thought better of it. “All right. I guess that’s all.”

Deirdre breathed a sigh of relief. When she started to get up from her chair, the backs of her pants were stuck to her thighs.

Martinez shook Sy’s hand. He offered his hand to Deirdre and held it. “Just one more thing. There was a shovel near your father’s pool. Did you notice it?” He released her hand.

“A shovel?” At first Deirdre didn’t remember seeing one. And then she did, lying where Henry would have backed his car right over it. “Yes. It was in the driveway. I picked it up and moved it out of the way.”

“Ah. Well, that explains why we found your fingerprints on the shaft. In fact, yours are the only prints on that shovel. And there are no traces of dirt at all. Just traces of blood. Hair. Chlorine. Like it was never actually used for gardening.”

Deirdre’s stomach turned over and she closed her eyes.

“The blood on the blade?” Martinez continued. “It’s not a particularly common blood type. AB positive. Your father is AB positive. Shall I tell you how I think the blood got there?”

She wanted to say
No, don’t tell me
. But Sy’s stony look kept her from saying anything.

“Sometime after midnight, your father went for a swim. His usual thirty laps. He thought he was alone, but he wasn’t. Someone else was out there, and while he was swimming, that person picked up that shovel and struck him. Right here”—Martinez indicated a spot above his own right eye—“and knocked him unconscious. It would not have taken a whole lot of strength on the part of his assailant. A woman could easily have managed it.” Martinez paused, then went on, “Victims of violence usually try to protect themselves. But there’s no evidence that your father did that. So either he didn’t see it coming, or he knew and trusted the person who attacked him.”