Night Night, Sleep Tight (8 page)

Chapter 14

D
eirdre stared out Joelen’s car window, feeling her heart slow and the sweat that coated her forehead and neck cool. Familiar and unfamiliar houses flew past. Joelen drove with her hand resting lightly on the steering wheel. She still bit her fingernails down to the quick. Though it was more than twenty years later, she didn’t look all that different from the picture that her father had taken of her in his office.

“What?” Joelen asked, giving her a sideways glance. “Have I got a booger hanging out of my nose?” And, Deirdre noted, she still said exactly what she thought.

“Sorry,” Deirdre said. “Didn’t mean to be ogling you. It’s been a crazy day. The police came this morning to search the house and the garage. Now they’re back to talk to me. In the meanwhile, I found out that I’m my dad’s literary executor, which means I have to deal with all of his shit. Like, one of the things he’s got? Remember your mom’s yellow dress?” She hadn’t meant to say any of that, but there it was.

“My
mother’s
yellow dress?”

“The one she let me wear to her party . . . you know, that night.”

“That . . . ?” At first Joelen looked puzzled. Then, “Whoa, whoa, whoa.” She pulled the car over to the curb and stopped. She turned in her seat and faced Deirdre. “What are you talking about?”

“The dress your mother let me wear to her party that night. It was in a pile of stuff that Dad wanted Henry to throw away.”

“So how did your father end up with it?”

“All I know is that he did.”

Joelen stared out through the windshield, her brow wrinkled, shaking her head. “I have no idea how your father got that dress,” she said at last, turning back to Deirdre. “Cross my heart and hope to die.”

Deirdre took a shuddering breath. “Was I there when Tito got stabbed?”

“You were in the house.”

“But was I in the room?”

“Why would you think that?”

“Because the dress. It’s got dark stains on it.”

“And you think—?”

“I don’t know what to think. I’m just asking.”

Joelen held Deirdre’s gaze for a long moment. “No, honey. You were not. You were fast asleep in your jammies.”

“You’re sure?”

“Sure as hell.” Joelen looked over her shoulder and pulled away from the curb. “I was there. You were not.”

Deirdre leaned back and felt the tension drain from her neck and shoulders.

After a long silence, Joelen said, “I’m sorry we didn’t keep in touch.”

“Me too. I tried to call. I wrote.”

“I was trying to become invisible. Besides, they sent me away.” Joelen stopped at Sunset, signaled right, and waited as cars streamed past.

“Where?”

“After the verdict, they sent me to juvie.” She pulled into traffic. “Which wasn’t really as bad as you might imagine. I met some fascinating people.” She laughed. “Then the judge sent me to live with my aunt Evelyn in Des Moines, for God’s sake. Not so fascinating. Fields and fields of wheat. I finished high school there. For a year I was Jennifer, so no one knew who I really was or why I was there, and I was damn well going to keep it that way. I didn’t make a single friend.”

“You must have gone bonkers.”

“I did. A little.” Joelen gave a bitter laugh. “Poor Aunt Evelyn, God bless her. She had one black-and-white television set and she had it on all the time. She was addicted to the
Price Is Right, Queen for a Day, Search for Tomorrow, Guiding Light
.” Joelen rolled her eyes. “And, oh yeah, wrestling. The only books in the house were steamy romance novels. And the Bible, of course. We went to the mall every Saturday, church every Sunday.” She signaled right. “Supposedly that was more therapeutic than living with my mom. I had to stay until I was eighteen.”

She turned into the familiar driveway and stopped at a metal gate that hadn’t been there years earlier.
NO TRESPASSING
and
P
R
O
T
E
C
T
E
D
B
Y
F
I
V
E
S
T
A
R
S
E
C
U
R
I
T
Y
signs hung on it. Joelen rolled down the window, reached out, and pressed a button on an intercom box.

It took a while for anyone to answer. At last a man’s tinny voice croaked out, “Yeah?” “Hey, it’s me,” Joelen said.

Slowly the gate swung open and Joelen drove through and up the winding driveway. Deirdre turned and looked over her shoulder. The gate began to swing shut.

The rest of the driveway up to the house looked familiar: a tennis court, then farther along a carport sheltered under a bank of bougainvillea. Alongside the carport a white fence surrounded a kidney-shaped pool and pool house. The driveway curved back on itself and climbed. From above Deirdre could see that the pool was half-full, and the water in it had turned a sickly green.

Joelen stopped alongside a motorcycle in a broad parking area in front of the house, just feet from the front door. Deirdre picked up her crutch and started to open the door.

“Deeds?” Joelen said. The familiar nickname that only Henry still called her brought Deirdre up short. “I heard about what happened to your leg,” Joelen said, her eye on the crutch. “Tough break. I didn’t find out until I got back from Iowa. I tried to call you, but you were already away at college.”

Deirdre had spent the summer after she graduated from high school at UC San Diego and fallen in love with art history. She’d been desperate to get away from Beverly Hills, to meet people who didn’t know her as either Joelen Nichol’s onetime best friend or the crippled girl everyone pitied.

Joelen’s look turned serious. “So why do the police want to talk to you?”

“All I know is Sy said if they came back, not to talk to them alone.”

“Sy.” Joelen blinked. “You mean, it wasn’t an accident.”

Deirdre looked down into her lap.

“How awful. I’m sorry,” Joelen said. “But they can’t think it was you.”

“I don’t know what they think. And I didn’t want to find out when I was alone.”

Joelen pushed open the car door and got out. Deirdre followed her to the columned portico. “Listen to Sy,” Joelen said, “and do exactly what he tells you. I don’t even want to think what might have happened to me if I hadn’t.”

“Is he still your mom’s lawyer?”

“And friend. He’s really been there for us. It’s great that you’ve got him in your corner. And your family, too, of course. Where’s your mom?”

“Living in the desert on a monastic retreat. She’ll show up. Eventually.”

“Here’s a scary thought,” Joelen said, holding the front door of the house open for Deirdre. “Marooned on a desert island with your mother and my mother.
Gilligan’s Island
meets . . .”

“
Dallas,
” Deirdre said. It was a game she and Joelen used to play, and any other time Deirdre would have added on with
wearing . . .
or
eating . . .
or
singing . . .
But at that moment, Deirdre couldn’t have come up with anything else clever if her life depended on it. All she wanted to do was talk to Sy.

Chapter 15

D
eirdre stood for a moment in the massive two-story entryway. She hadn’t been in this house in more than twenty years. The once uneven stucco walls of the entryway were paneled over with a light wood, like a patterned birch. The floor, once rich terra-cotta tile, was now inset with slabs of peach-colored marble. The generous staircase was carpeted in thick white pile, the wrought-iron handrail that had once wound up to the second floor replaced by opulent carved and gilded balusters. Hanging from the ceiling was a massive Lucite and crystal chandelier that would have been right at home in a Las Vegas hotel.

A young man, dark and handsome, looked down at Deirdre from the landing halfway up the stairs. Deirdre felt a jolt of recognition. Before she could process it, Joelen pulled her across the entryway and down two steps into a white-carpeted living room, its windows swathed in gauzy white. “Bunny!” Joelen called out as she headed for the door at the far end of the living room.

Deirdre remembered how weird it had seemed the first time she’d heard Joelen call her mother
Bunny
instead of
Mom
. Then it turned out to be a ’60s thing. As usual, the Nichols were ahead of the curve and the Ungers were behind it.

Deirdre looked around the living room. It, too, had changed over time. Couches and ottomans that had once been covered in a floral brocade were now cream-colored linen. The white grand piano was still there, but many of the other furnishings Deirdre recalled—carved and inlaid Versailles-inspired credenzas, tables, and chairs; massive bucolic landscape paintings—were gone. She wondered if the odd combination of opulence and minimalist elegance was some interior designer’s vision, or whether the furnishings had been sold off to pay bills.

One of the pieces that did remain was a towering portrait of Bunny, still hanging in an elaborate frame over the marble fireplace. She was sitting in one of the missing chairs and wearing a pale blue, diaphanous Greek goddess dress. Her black hair was brushed to the side, curls cascading over one shoulder. Standing at her knee was a very young Joelen looking like a stiff little soldier in a starched white eyelet pinafore.

Still there too, looking marooned in the half-empty room, was a white lacquered credenza that had held a stereo system. After school, Deirdre and Joelen used to hang out here and hope Tito would show up and demonstrate the fine points of tango. He’d been agile, electrically handsome, and he’d smelled of sweat and cigars and a musky cologne. Before he’d take Deirdre or Joelen in his muscular arms, he’d turn the stereo up so loud that Deirdre could literally feel the floor vibrate as the violin bow struck the strings. Then he’d stand tall, even though he wasn’t all that tall, and stick his chest out, his silk shirt unbuttoned to reveal a large medal hanging from a thick gold chain against a field of dark chest hair. His stance reminded Deirdre of a toreador addressing a bull. He’d offer her his hand, and she’d let hers float down to meet it. When it did, he’d twirl her once, twice, and then whip her close in time to the musical flourish, his palm anchored firmly against her lower back and his thigh pressed hard between her legs. “Eess not about the es-teps,” he’d whisper, his voice deep and intoxicatingly accented, his breath hot in her ear. “Eess about the
co-NECK-shun
.”

Later, the memory of him pressed against her had been enough to make her go all tingly. Deirdre wondered if there were still tango records stored inside the credenza on the shelf below the sound system.

“Bunny,” Joelen called out again.

The door at the far end of the living room opened, and Elenor “Bunny” Nichol entered, regal in a gold caftan, her black hair piled high on her head. At first she appeared tall, but as Deirdre got closer she seemed to shrink. Face-to-face, she was actually shorter than Deirdre.

“My dear!” Bunny held Deirdre at arm’s length and took in her leg, her crutch. Like Joelen, she hadn’t seen Deirdre since before she was crippled, but her gaze didn’t linger. She reached for Deirdre’s hand. “I heard the terrible news. I am so sorry about Arthur.” Her voice was low and resonant and there was real emotion in her eyes.

“Thank you. I—” Deirdre choked and the words caught in her throat. She swallowed. “Thanks, Mrs. Nichol.”

“Bunny, please. You know, your mother and I were pals. We were both chorus girls at Warner Brothers. We used to play hearts in full makeup and costume during our lunch breaks on the set.” Deirdre’s expression must have betrayed her because Bunny said, “Does that surprise you?”

“A little. My mother didn’t have many friends.” Deirdre didn’t add that although her mother had once aspired to act, she had come to dismiss actresses as self-indulgent narcissists. Talking to one, she used to say, was like getting trapped in a mirror.

“Your mother was whip smart,” Bunny said. In other words, never made it out of the back row whereas Bunny had quickly moved front and center. “And your father was a charmer. He made friends for both of them.”

Friends?
Deirdre cringed. Like the women he’d photographed up in his office? Joelen saved her from a response by saying, “Bunny, the police think someone killed Arthur and they want to question Deirdre.”

The words left Deirdre momentarily stunned. It was true, of course, but she hadn’t let herself think about it in such stark terms.

“Oh dear,” Bunny said. “How can we—”

“She needs to call Sy Sterling,” Joelen said.

“Of course,” Bunny said. “Come. Use the phone in my office.”

Moments later, Deirdre was sitting at the glass-topped desk in Bunny’s study. Bunny knew the number and dialed for her. Joelen watched from the door.

“Attorney’s office.” The smoker’s voice of Vera, Sy’s secretary, brought back a memory of the second-floor law office in Westwood Village. Open the door with the pebble glass inset and there Vera would be at her desk, a pencil stuck in her hair and a stash of crayons and drawing paper hidden in the supply closet. The smells of Vera’s cigarettes and Sy’s cigars mingled in the dimly lit corridor where they used to let Deirdre ride her tricycle up and down while Sy met with Arthur in his office.

Deirdre breathed a sigh of relief when Vera put her right through. “Sy? It’s Deirdre. You said to call if the police came back? Well, they did. First they called and left a message that they wanted to talk to me. Then they came to the house. When I didn’t answer, they just sat out front and waited. Then TV news vans pulled up—”

“Where are you now?” Sy said, interrupting. “Are you all right?”

“I’m fine. Just rattled. My friend Joelen came and got me. I’m at her house.”

“Joelen?” Sy seemed surprised. “Elenor Nichol’s daughter?”

“She was my best friend in high school. Dad was supposed to meet with her to talk about selling the house.” Silence on the other end of the line. “She’s a Realtor now.”

“I know,” Sy said.

“Where should I go? I can’t stay here.” Deirdre swallowed, trying to tamp down the hysteria that threatened to envelop her. “What do the police want?”

“Probably just answers to routine questions. They are investigating a suspicious death. You discovered it. But I do not like them harassing you at the house. And I really do not like newspeople showing up. Schmucks, all of them.” Sy’s outrage was comforting. “We need to get out in front of this. Go in and talk to that detective.” He must have covered the receiver because she could hear muffled voices, then, “Can you meet me in front of City Hall in about an hour? I will call you when I arrive.”

Deirdre covered the receiver on her end. “Joelen, can you drive me over to City Hall? Not now. When Sy calls back in an hour.”

“Of course,” Joelen said.

“I’ll be there,” Deirdre told Sy, feeling relieved. She wasn’t eager to talk to the police, but taking action, any action, felt infinitely better than waiting to be mugged.

“Can you find a scarf?” Sy asked. “Or sunglasses? Just in case reporters are hanging around. I don’t want anyone to recognize you on the way in.”

“Recognize me?” Deirdre asked, startled. “Why would anyone recognize me?”

“There are already news vans at your house. Who do you think they are looking for?”

“My father was just a writer, for God’s sake. Why do they even care?”

“Your father drowned. And years ago he failed to save Fox Pearson from drowning.”

“Who remembers him?”

“No one would except that he died with so much drama. In a swimming pool. And your father tried to save him. The press loves it when history tries to repeat itself.”