Night Night, Sleep Tight (11 page)

Martinez paused for a few moments, watching Deirdre, his head tilted, like an osprey waiting for a fish to break the surface. “Which is it, do you think?”

Chapter 19

H
e thinks I killed my father,” Deirdre said when she and Sy were outside in his car. She felt as if she’d been punched in the stomach.

“Not necessarily. He is considering his options.” Sy put the key in the ignition and turned on the engine. The A/C started to pump cool air and the clock on the dashboard lit up. It was after four. “He is poking around to see what sparks. That is his job.”

Deirdre reached out to steady herself against the dashboard. “I feel sick.”

“You did fine.”

“The shovel. I wasn’t thinking . . . I didn’t know.”

“You did what anyone would have done. You picked it up and moved it. If you had killed your father, more likely you would wipe it clean, yes? What concerns me more is that no one can verify where you were when your father died. It’s your word—”

“I’m sure Stefan has Shoshanna’s contact information. He talked to Avi. He made the arrangements. I’ll get it from him.”

“Good. Do it right away. Okay?”

“As soon as I get home.”

“Good. Good.” Sy turned to her, a concerned expression on his face. “You did not tell me about the shovel.”

“I . . .” The observation rattled her. “I barely remembered it myself, and I had no idea that it was important.”

“Fair enough. But think. Is there anything else? Anything that seemed unimportant at the time? Run through the timeline of what happened that night and the next morning.”

Deirdre sat back. “I worked until late. I slept at home. Alone. Yes, I turned off the phone. I wanted to get a decent night’s sleep. You know how he could be.”

“I do.”

“I left the house around nine. Stopped to get something to eat and to pee. Found him.”

“Was anyone out on the street when you arrived?”

“Not that I remember.”

“Any cars that you noticed parked when you got there?”

“Just Henry’s in the driveway. I moved the shovel. No one answered at the front so I went around to the back. Knocked.” Deirdre closed her eyes, remembering standing on the patio as the dogs attacked the sliding glass door. “There was a glass on the table on the patio.”

“One?” Sy’s bushy eyebrows went up and his hairpiece shifted forward. “And then?”

“Finally Henry came to the door. Then I noticed Dad’s shirt was out by the pool. That’s what made me go over.” She swallowed. “That’s it.”

Sy nodded, rubbing his chin. “You are quite sure? Deirdre, if you know anything more about your father’s death, tell me.” Sy returned her look with a steady gaze. “This is not the time to withhold information.”

“You think I’m withholding . . . ?” Angry tears welled up. “I’m telling you everything I know. Why would I be hiding something? And you haven’t asked, but no, I did not kill my father.”

“Of course not.” Sy put his hand on her arm. “So let me help you. I can do that.”

“Like you got Joelen Nichol off?”

“Got her off?” Sy seemed taken aback for a moment. Then he gave her a wry smile. “I did not get her off. She confessed. Remember? It was the evidence supporting her confession that kept the case from going to trial, but she did not get off. She paid for what she did.” Sy stared out the window for a moment, then looked back at Deirdre. “Take my advice. Focus on the present. Give the police the evidence they need to eliminate you as a suspect. Find those receipts. Get in touch with the woman who was with you in the gallery.”

“Sy, even if I can’t convince the police that I couldn’t have been here, what motive could I have for killing my father?”

“Once the police demonstrate opportunity, motive is easy to manufacture,” Sy said as he released the emergency brake, switched on the turn signal, and looked over his shoulder. “Greed. Revenge. A stupid argument gets out of hand. The police find evidence and they build a story that supports it.” The turn signal ticked as Sy waited for a break in the traffic. “Your friend? Now that is a case in point.”

It took a moment for her to get what he was saying. “Are you saying Joelen didn’t kill Tito?”

“She was only fifteen years old. Antonio Acevedo had a history of violence. He was a bully. It was no secret that he and Bunny fought. Joelen confessed. Everyone went home happy.” He backed out of the parking space and pulled into traffic. “I kept you out of trouble then. Let me keep you out of trouble now.”

Sy’s remark left Deirdre momentarily speechless. “Me?”

“Did the police question you? Did you have to account for your whereabouts, or give a statement about what you saw or heard?”

“I . . .”

“Well, there you go.”

Deirdre was still mulling that over when Sy dropped her off in the alley behind her father’s house.

“Do not forget,” he said, leaning across the passenger seat to talk to her through the open car door, “find those receipts and track down Susanna.”

“Shoshanna. Right away. Thanks.” Deirdre closed the car door and watched Sy drive away, then pushed through the back gate. If Stefan didn’t have Shoshanna’s contact information, he’d certainly be able to get it from Avi. But would that be enough? Because even if she could convince the police that she’d been in the gallery when she said she was, that only accounted for her whereabouts until midnight. The drive to Los Angeles was just two and a half hours. She could have driven up, killed her father, called her own phone from her father’s house, then driven back and started out again the next morning as if nothing had happened. It made no sense, but it wasn’t impossible.

Deirdre was at the kitchen door, digging for her keys, when she registered an acrid smell. She looked around. Despite the deepening shadows, she could see that the door in the garage leading to her father’s office was ajar. Had she left it open? Or maybe Henry had gone up after she’d left. When she started back to investigate, a flock of blackbirds perched in the upper branches of a eucalyptus tree behind the garage swooped across the yard, whistling and screeching like so many squeaky hinges. For a moment she thought she saw something move across the garage’s second-floor window. She squinted up at it. Maybe Henry was up there. His car wasn’t in the driveway, but it could have been parked out on the street.

That’s when she noticed rivulets of smoke seeping from underneath the garage’s overhead doors. She moved closer and dropped her messenger bag in the driveway. Covering her mouth and nose, she peered in through a window in the door. All she could see was a dull glow on the floor between her father’s car and the bay where Henry kept his motorcycles. Something was burning.

In a panic, she reached down to throw open the garage door but stopped herself. Wouldn’t that feed the fire? Maybe she could drag over the garden hose. Or was there a fire extinguisher? Her mother had bought one years ago for the kitchen.

Just as Deirdre was trying to see if a fire extinguisher was hanging on the wall inside the garage, sparks exploded like messy fireworks. She heard a
whoosh
and felt a wave of heat, and stumbled backward seconds before the window she’d been peering through splintered, pieces of glass falling and shattering on the concrete threshold. Inside, flames had sprung to life and licked up toward the ceiling.

Deirdre stood frozen for what was only a second but felt like forever. “Fire!” she screamed, as loud as she could. She banged her crutch on the door and yelled at the top of her lungs, “Fire! Fire! Fire!” Inside, the blaze had doubled. She backed away, choking on smoke. Surely if Henry was upstairs in her father’s office he’d smell it now.

She had to call the fire department. She hurried as fast as she could down the driveway to the house. When she finally reached the kitchen door she realized she hadn’t unlocked it and her keys were still in her bag, which was lying on the ground in front of the garage. Deirdre turned and looked back. The spot where her messenger bag lay was now completely engulfed in smoke.

Weren’t there alarm boxes on the street? There’d been one a few houses down. Once upon a time, Joelen had decided it would be fun to see what happened if she pulled it.

Deirdre struggled to get out to the street, wishing a police cruiser or media van were still parked out there. She focused on the tip of her crutch, feeling the vibration up her arm each time the rubber tip connected with the sidewalk, each time she took a step, dragged her leg, and moved forward again.

The alarm box was right where she remembered, three houses down. For a second Deirdre just stood before it, panting for breath, her throat burning. Then she pulled down the handle. And waited. Was something supposed to happen? A click? A whirr? She tried to remember, but was pretty sure that she and Joelen hadn’t hung around to find out. They’d taken off running and hidden behind some bushes in a neighbor’s yard.

Deirdre heard the
whump
of an explosion and turned back toward the house. Another loud pop sounded. Deirdre felt paralyzed as she watched a plume of black smoke rise, thickening and hanging over the garage like a swarm of bees. Where were the sirens? Should she rouse a neighbor? Borrow a phone? Borrow a fire extinguisher?

Finally, in the distance, she heard a siren’s wail. Then another joined it.
Thank God.

Deirdre arrived back at the house at the same time that a hook and ladder truck pulled up. “It’s the garage!” she cried, pointing up the driveway, though with all the smoke
where
would have been obvious to anyone. “My brother might be up there. Please, hurry!”

Another fire truck pulled up in front of the house. Neighbors on both sides had come out of their houses and were on the sidewalks watching. A police cruiser screamed up, lights flashing, and parked sideways, closing off the end of the block.

As firefighters in dark turnout gear swarmed from the trucks, Deirdre drifted up the driveway after them. She stared up at where smoke was seeping out from between the louvers in the second-floor windows, barely able to breathe. Henry was not up there, she told herself. He couldn’t be. What she’d seen had to have been the shadow of a bird. He’d told her himself he never went up to Arthur’s office.

“Stay clear!” a firefighter coming up behind her barked. He was carrying a fire hose. A smaller truck and a Fire Rescue van screamed up to the house. When Deirdre looked back toward the garage, the overhead doors had been flung open and the interior was engulfed in flame. Moments later, flames shot through the roof. Heat pulsed, driving Deirdre back into the street. She was sobbing. Henry could never get out of there in one piece.

At last water gushed from the fire hoses. With the water pouring on full force, the flames were quickly tamped down. A firefighter strapped on an oxygen tank, adjusted the mask over his face, picked up an ax, and waded in through the smoke, disappearing into the shrouded stairwell. Deirdre imagined him climbing the stairs to the second floor in smoky darkness. Would he have to break down the door to her father’s office, or was it unlocked as the downstairs door had been? Would he find Henry laid out on the floor? Unconscious in a closet?

She felt seconds ticking by as she waited for a yell. Or a wave from the window. A signal of some kind. Any kind.

Finally the firefighter who’d gone upstairs appeared in the doorway. He unstrapped his silver tank, shucked his coat, and wiped sweat from his face with the back of his arm. Deirdre tried to read his expression. Was he getting ready to deliver bad news?

“Deeds?” Henry’s voice was loud behind her.

She whipped around.
Thank God.
“You idiot!” she screamed.

Chapter 20

W
hat happened?” Henry asked.

Deirdre gave a helpless gesture toward the garage. “It . . . I . . . And I thought you . . .” Her voice was rising.

“What did I do now?”

It was too much. Just too much. Deirdre’s world kaleidoscoped and her legs buckled. Her crutch slipped away as she dropped to one knee. She felt Henry lift her and put his arms around her. She buried her face, which felt as if it were twisted into a Kabuki caricature of anguish, against his chest.

“I’m sorry,” Henry said, his warm breath on her hair. “I’m sorry.”

She knew it wasn’t fair. What had Henry done other than not get himself killed? She pulled away and wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. The hoses had cut off, and the plume of smoke rising from the garage turned into a dark cloud that hovered overhead. Sooty water that had been cascading past them down the driveway slowed to a trickle.

“You scared the shit out of me. I didn’t know where you were. And I thought I saw you—” She gestured toward the garage. Its siding had buckled. There was a blackened hole in the roof. A few window louvers hung from their frames like orphaned wind chimes. All it would take was a stiff breeze to send them crashing down.

“Why would I go up there?” He picked up her crutch and handed it to her. “It wasn’t me. I would have gotten here sooner, but they made me park a block away.”

“You scared me.”

“You scared
me
. What in God’s name happened?”

“I have no idea. When I got back, I smelled smoke. And then the fire exploded.” Deirdre hiccuped. “I knew I couldn’t get in and put it out. So I had to call. And then I couldn’t get into the house.” Her voice rose to a wail but she couldn’t stop. “I couldn’t get to a phone. I didn’t know what to do. I . . .”

“It’s okay.” Henry put his arm around her shoulders. They watched in silence, enveloped in charred, steamy air, as firefighters brought in portable lighting and set up orange cones in front of the garage. One firefighter ventured into the garage. In his dark gear, he seemed to fade in the interior until all she could see was his flashlight beam. More firefighters followed.

Blackened cushions and the frames of yard furniture appeared as if by magic, hurled from the garage interior. One by one they landed in a welter in the driveway. A firefighter dragged out some cardboard packing boxes, one of which collapsed and disgorged what looked like sodden linens and curtains. A tire rolled out of the garage and spiraled lazily into the grass.

The sun had sunk below the horizon, and the last streaky pink clouds were cooling. Deirdre retrieved her messenger bag from the grass where firefighters had tossed it. Trampled and soaked, it seemed like the perfect metaphor for how she felt.

From the second floor, flashlight beams were visible through the openings where there had once been windows. Deirdre could only imagine how bad it was inside the office. Literary executor? Sort and cull? That was a laugh. She’d be sifting ashes. She hoped the yellow dress had been reduced to cinders, too, and she could forget about it—just like Bunny wanted her to.

A tall figure emerged from the garage, took off his heavy coat, laid it across his arm, and looked over his shoulder. Then he turned back and started walking toward Deirdre and Henry. He was flushed, and soot was streaked across his face like war paint. As he got nearer, Deirdre realized he seemed familiar. “Deirdre? Henry?” he said. “You don’t remember me. Tyler Corrigan.”

Tyler.
Of course. He used to live across the street. A few years older than Deirdre, back then he’d reminded her of Opie with his freckles, straw-colored hair, and earnestness. She used to watch him ride his bike up and down the block, popping wheelies and spinning around. A few years after that he’d been out there doing tricks on a skateboard. His family had moved away when she was in high school.

“You’re a firefighter?” Deirdre asked.

Tyler shucked a thick work glove and offered his hand. His grip was strong. “Arson investigator. But I work with the police and the fire marshal.” He offered a hand to Henry.

“Hey, Tyler,” Henry said, shaking his hand. “Arson?”

“It’s routine for me to get involved when there’s an unattended fire.”

Routine. Unattended.
Those were the words the police had used to explain why Deirdre’s father had to be autopsied. Why a police detective had come to investigate.

“I didn’t realize you guys were still living here,” Tyler said.

“I still live here,” Henry said.

“And my dad lives here—” Deirdre added, then caught herself. “Or at least he did. He died. Yesterday.”

Tyler’s look darkened. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know that.”

“He drowned,” Deirdre said, swallowing the lump in her throat. “I drove up from San Diego to help him get ready to move and when I got here, I found him in the pool, and—” She clamped her mouth shut. She hadn’t intended to say any of that, and now her eyes were stinging. Henry looked pained.

“And now this.” Tyler shook his head. “I’m sorry. Your dad was a great guy.”

A firefighter came up to him from behind and tapped him on the shoulder, drawing Tyler away. They exchanged a few words that Deirdre couldn’t hear. When he returned, Tyler said, “They shouldn’t be too much longer. Couple hours, max.”

Deirdre edged closer to the open garage. Inside, a camera flash went off. Then another. Two men were crouched in the dark interior alongside the blackened hull that had been her father’s car. Next to it, Henry’s bikes were on their sides. “What are they doing?” she asked.

“It looks like that’s where the fire started. They’re documenting the point of ignition. At least no one was hurt.” Tyler eyed Deirdre. “You told one of the first responders that someone was upstairs?”

Henry gave her a surprised look. “You did?”

“I told you. I thought it was you.”

“Well, no one’s up there now,” Tyler said.

D
eirdre could smell smoke, even from inside the house, long after the fire hoses had been reeled back and the hook and ladder truck had driven off. The street had been reopened, but a gray pall lingered in the air. Only Tyler was left, packing his equipment away in a fire department van parked on the street.

In the meantime, the mortuary had called. They expected the coroner to release Arthur’s body the next day. What followed was a stream of questions to which Deirdre had no answers. When would they like to schedule a service? Did they want to reserve the Reposing Room? Open or closed coffin?

She promised to have answers for them in the morning, which was when she hoped her mother would be back. All she knew for sure was that her father had wanted to be cremated.

That led to more questions. Should they reserve a spot for Arthur’s cremains in one of their lovely urn gardens? Or perhaps he’d prefer to reside in the columbarium?

The business of death had its own vocabulary, rife with comforting euphemisms, and every choice came with unstated price tags. Price tags came with guilt. Deirdre had no idea whether there was money in the estate for the kind of service to which Arthur would have felt entitled.

Deirdre went outside and stood alone on the lawn in front of the house, watching Tyler jot some final notes and load the van with bags of evidence—material to be analyzed, she assumed. He closed the van door, locked it, and looked over at her.

“Done,” he said. His face looked grave. He opened the passenger door and threw his clipboard on the seat.

“Does it feel weird, being back here?” Deirdre asked.

“Kind of. It’s a shame they did in our old house.” He glanced across the street to where he’d once lived in a modest Spanish colonial with a walled garden. The property had always evoked
The Secret Garden
for Deirdre, with Tyler its Dickon, a character memorably described in the novel as looking like the god Pan with his rosy cheeks and rough curly hair, a charmer of wild animals and unhappy humans.

New owners had torn down the house Tyler had grown up in and replaced it with a house easily double its size. And in place of Dickon was this tall, gangly, competent human being who looked at her so intently that it felt as if he were x-raying her brain.

“My mom drives by and cries,” Tyler said.

“Welcome to Beverly Hills,” Deirdre said, “where anything that’s just plain old is plain old embarrassing. Where is your family living now?”

“My parents moved to Silver Lake, but it’s changing, too. And I’ve got an apartment in Culver City. Funky neighborhood that’s staying funky for the foreseeable future.”

“I’m guessing new owners will tear down our house, too. And maybe that’s not a bad thing. It’s not the great house that yours was to begin with, and my dad didn’t exactly improve it.”

Tyler held her gaze. “I know this isn’t the best time to say this, but it’s good to see you again. I’ve thought of you often.” He looked at her crutch. “I hope you don’t mind my asking, but what happened?”

“Car accident.”

“I didn’t know. When?”

“Sixty-three. I was fifteen.”

“Sixty-three.” He thought for a moment. “We’d moved away the summer before. Where did it happen?”

“I don’t know exactly. It was late. My father was driving me home from my friend Joelen’s house. I remember rocks and thornbushes.” Thinking about it brought back the smell of creosote and sage. The air had been thick with it as she lay on the ground and later on the stretcher. That and the pain, which everyone said you forgot but she hadn’t. She folded her arms to contain the tremor in them and the tightness in her chest that the memory roused.

She went on. “For a long time I was afraid to find out. Afraid to go back. Then, when I did ask, Dad said he didn’t know.”

“Didn’t know?”

“When I pressed, he said he forgot where it was exactly.”

Tyler scrunched up his face in disbelief. “Maybe he thought he was being kind.”

Maybe. But if he’d thought not knowing would make her stop thinking about it, he’d been wrong. Instead she’d become obsessed.

“Do you remember anything?” Tyler asked. “The terrain? Houses?”

“No houses. They had to carry me out of a thicket of brush and up a steep embankment. Which is weird, because Joelen lived near here on Sunset. Dad said he took a back exit”—to avoid the police—“and must have taken a wrong turn. He ended up getting so disoriented that when the car went off the road, he didn’t know where he was.” Back then she’d bought the story.

Tyler paused, thinking. “No houses. Thick brush. This was twenty years ago?”

“Twenty-two.”

“Maybe there was some undeveloped land back then, but a slope?” He shook his head. “Farther north, maybe.”

“It never made any sense to me, either. When I asked an attorney if I could find the accident report, he told me it was too late. Those records had been destroyed.”

“Really? Maybe he was talking about the paper copies. In the seventies they started transferring data to fiche. But it’s all still there, indexed by date. So if police responded, and you know the date of the accident, it shouldn’t be hard to find.”

“But Sy said—” Deirdre stopped. Of course. Sy was probably trying to protect her, too.

“You’re sure you want to know? Because I can look it up for you if you want.”

Could it be this easy? All she had to do was say yes? Maybe her father had been right, and as a child she’d been better off not knowing. But that was no longer the case. “Would you? I know it sounds melodramatic, but it’s as if a piece of me died and I need to know where it’s buried.”

Tyler nodded. “Okay then. I’ll see what I can find out.” He took his clipboard back out of the van and handed it to her with a pen. “Here. Write down the date and time and the make of your father’s car.”

Her hand shook as she wrote.
10/26/63.
She stared at the numbers. For so long she’d assumed she’d never find the place that marked the line between before and after. She added
Midnight? Austin-Healey convertible.

“Okay. I’m on it.” Tyler took the clipboard back and tossed it into the car. “And if there’s anything more I can do to help, all you have to do is ask.”

He was being so nice. She could learn to like this man. “Seriously, thank you,” she said. “Is it okay to ask what you think about this fire?”

“Unofficially?”

“Whatever you feel comfortable sharing.”

“Fire in an empty structure. No one injured.” He ticked the points off on his fingers. “Started in a twenty-gallon bag of potting mix.”

“You’re telling me the fire started in a bag of dirt?”

“What they sell as potting mix for houseplants doesn’t have much ordinary dirt in it. It’s shredded bark and peat moss, plus fertilizer, of course. Under the right conditions, it burns.”

“My mother used to grow geraniums. She might have left behind some potting mix. But wouldn’t it need a source?”

“That’s exactly the question the investigators will be asking. You can’t just toss a match into the bag and expect it to go up in flames. And it certainly wouldn’t spontaneously combust. At the very least, it would need a sustained heat source. A hot coal. A live wire. Or a cigarette. That’s what it usually turns out to be, careless disposal of smoking materials.”

Deirdre groaned. How many times had she seen her father mash his cigarette in one of her mother’s plant pots? It was emblematic of her parents’ incompatibility that he couldn’t see why his doing it bothered Gloria so much, and Gloria couldn’t understand why he couldn’t stop doing it just because it bothered her.

Could her father possibly have started the fire himself? “How long would it have taken to catch fire?”

“Hard to say.”

“More than a day?”

Tyler frowned. “I’m not saying it’s impossible, but highly unlikely. My guess? An hour; maybe as many as four. Fewer with help.”

“What kind of help?”

“Accelerant. Even in charred debris, we can detect the presence of certain chemicals.”

“Is there—?”

“I won’t know until I’ve run the tests.” He grinned. “It’s bizarre how life turns out. I nearly flunked chemistry at Beverly and now, when I’m not in the field, they let me use an office and what’s basically a chem lab in the basement of City Hall. I get paid to produce lab reports.” His wry expression turned serious. “But regardless of what started the fire, once there was an open flame it could have taken only minutes for the fire to spread. Garages are typically full of flammable liquids. Gasoline, of course. Linseed oil. Turpentine.”