The Devil's Interval (40 page)

“Maybe,” I said doubtfully. “But that would have meant they bought it within the last few years, and why would it be in VHS format? I think they already had it. Which means…”

“Not much,” said Michael.

“It could mean,” I hesitated, not liking to think about what one possibility might be, “Ivory killed Grace.”

Andrea shook her head. “That seems impossible.”

“Everybody's capable of murder,” said Michael.

“Say she did. Say she really didn't like her precious son screwing around with a married woman,” pressed Calvin. “Maybe
that's what precipitated the stroke. And Gus was covering for her.”

“I don't like Ivory for the murder,” I said.

Michael rolled his eyes. “You don't
like
Ivory for the murder?” he mimicked me. “Who are you, little Ms. Cold Case?”

I ignored him. “Somebody needs to find out if something like committing a murder can bring on a stroke.” I got up and paced around the kitchen. “We need a doctor in the house,” I said. “Why doesn't Anya invite that nice Dr. Bollywood to sleep over more often?”

“Because you've told her they can't have ‘sleepover' dates with the kids in the house. They have to wait 'til the kids are on a sleepover at a friend's house or we're all out of town,” Michael reminded me. “Or they have to go to his house.”

“Exactly,” I said. “Let his parents worry about them.”

“We don't need a doctor,” said Calvin. “We've got WebMD. Give me a minute.”

“If you insist on speculating,” said Michael, “isn't Gus the other possibility?”

“But why?” I protested. “He barely knew Grace.” And suddenly a little real-life movie clip flashed into my mind. “What about Gus's daughter? Ginger?”

Andrea looked puzzled. “Ginger? Grace was her best friend. I don't get that at all.”

“Well, it's possible. Maybe Grace and Ginger's husband had something going on over at the Crimson Club, and Ginger got pissed. But that's not what I meant. Maybe Gus did it, because Ginger gave him a motive to get rid of Grace.”

“I don't get it,” said Calvin. “What motive?”

I shook my head. “I don't know. But I've watched Gus with Ginger. He dotes on that girl and he's so proud of how she turned out. Maybe he got wind of what was going on at the Crimson Club and thought Grace was corrupting his little princess.”

Andrea sighed. “Seems pretty farfetched to me. Gus hardly strikes me as an overprotective father. Didn't he let someone else raise Ginger?”

“And maybe that's why he's so protective now,” I argued.

“Bingo,” said Calvin, turning his laptop around so we all could read about trauma-induced stroke, complete with information on how extreme emotions—sadness or anger—could cause blood vessels to narrow. “Wow, look at this,” said Calvin, pointing to the screen. “Some Italians did some work on upticks in stroke, post–September 11.”

Andrea yawned and put her head down again. “I know you may be having some kind of breakthrough here, Maggie,” she said. “But I have to go home and get some real sleep, on an actual bed, instead of your kitchen table.”

“Excellent idea,” said Michael. “An excellent idea all around. We can all get some sleep, except for Maggie who's masquerading as a soccer mom this afternoon.” He looked at the kitchen clock. “Better get cracking,
cara
. Slice up those oranges and gather the troops.”

“Okay, okay,” I said, distracted. “But what do we do next?”

“Prudent people would call John Moon,” said Michael.

“Right,” I said, pulling oranges onto the cutting board.

“He'll know the details of Ivory and Gus's alibi for that night.” I whacked the first orange in half, then in quarters. “Like how is it that the cop actually identified them? And how specifically? The report says he was struck by what a ‘silver fox' Ivory was. There are lots of women who could be described that way.”

“Well, not lots,” said Michael. “I see a lot of very nice silver-haired ladies when your little heathen Jewish self deigns to go to Mass with me, and there's not one I'd call ‘a fox.' Besides, that's not precisely what I meant when I said to call Moon. I meant, run your theory by Moon and let him follow up. That's his day job.”

Andrea let out a gentle snore. Calvin stood up, and brushed her hair off her face. “Hey, Starchy,” he said, “you're already in bed with the Sandman. Let's get you home.”

She moaned. “Okay, okay, just help me up.”

Michael walked them to the door, and came back to watch me power through the rest of the oranges. “I'm just giving you grief,
Mags, I can take the boys if you want.”

I shook my head. “I can't sleep now. I'm all wired. You go get a nap.” I looked over at him. “You do look beat. And you did make breakfast.”

“Twice,” he said. “If you're counting.” He headed upstairs. “Call Moon,” he hollered back at me.

A
person simply can't think at a soccer game. First, there's the search for the parking place, the unloading of the camp chair, hauling the wheeled cooler out of the back of the car if you've got snack duty, retrieving the errant shin guard that's always left behind between the seats, juggling purse and sunglasses, and climbing the slope with all that baggage up to the fields. Coolers with wheels, now those were a great innovation. And, along the way, you're navigating the gauntlet of other soccer parents, all of whom have too much of their own stuff to offer to help carry, and are inevitably looking to recruit you for another job. Since I was carrying my sunglasses in my teeth, because they kept slipping down my nose, I couldn't talk. Which meant all I could do was nod okay to a request to organize the coach's end-of-season gift, drive between the temple and the party venue for Emily Leventhal's bat mitzvah, and sign up to bring dinner to another soccer mom and her family (breast cancer surgery, who's going to say no?) next week.

Every time I hear that the military has trouble meeting their recruiting goals, I think they ought to enlist a few of the Oakland Buccaneer team moms to hit the road as recruiters. There may be no crying in baseball, but for damn certain, there's no naysaying in soccer.

When I'd finally dumped the cooler, unfolded the camp chair strategically between the two different fields where the boys were
playing, delivered the missing shin guard to Josh, smeared my face and arms with sunscreen, reperched the sunglasses on my nose, and sank into my chair, I realized I had not chosen my location wisely. Right next to me was the head soccer mom, the
ne plus ultra
of momhood, the one who put all the rest of us to shame. Lulu Brown, Yale undergrad, Wharton MBA, now volunteer CFO of every underfunded nonprofit in town and domestic goddess of her family.

“Maggie,” said Lulu, “it's great to see you. I usually see Michael at these games.”

“Oh, we trade off,” I said. “Unless we can come together. How are you, Lulu?”

I knew how Lulu was. She was great. She was always great. She looked great—snug jeans on long elegant legs, a crisp, pinstriped pink-and-white blouse, with the collar turned up, one heavy, twisted silver bracelet on her wrist, and tiny pearl studs in her ears.

“Oh, I'm great,” she said. “Don't you just love this time of year? All my snap peas are up, and Hal and I started our spring dance lessons.”

Throughout our conversation, Lulu's hands were briskly knitting away, as what appeared to be a tiny blue-and-gold sweater sleeve emerged from her needles.

“Spring dance lessons?” I asked, glancing up at the field to see if I'd missed anything. Maybe I needed to station myself at the line, in case they needed someone else to call “out of bounds.” Of course, that seemed risky. I could never remember what circumstances called for a corner kick. I shook my head, trying to clear the no-sleep fog.

“Yes,” she said, glancing over at me, continuing in a matter-of-fact tone. “Every season Hal and I take up a new dance form.” She paused to think, “Let's see. We've done the Viennese waltz and West Coast swing, and oh, the tango. That was fun.” She twinkled at me. “Very sexy dance, you know. Hal just loved watching me put on those fishnet stockings.”

I remembered Mr. and Mrs. Hothan on the street where
Grace had grown up, and wondered if there was some rule that guys named Hal had to do the tango. Then, I moved on, trying to figure out if there was a way to work salsa or even the occasional fox trot lesson into our schedule. It sounded like a good idea. I like hobbies that require interesting wardrobes.

“Anyway,” she continued briskly, “it's a busy time of year. But you,” she said, shaking her head sympathetically, “I don't know how you're orchestrating everything now that you've gone back to work. I know the kids must miss you terribly. But then, you've always had that pretty foreign girl helping out, haven't you?”

I didn't know where to begin. “Anya,” I said. “Yes, she is a help.” I considered for a minute. “Maybe I should send Anya to dancing lessons with Michael, since I'm so overcommitted.”

Lulu glanced at me sharply. I'd forgotten how dangerous it was to wise off around her. She might seem a little Stepford-like, but she was anything but dumb.

“What are you working on?” I asked, hoping to change directions, before my smart crack got me in trouble. “Those colors are lovely.”

“One of the moms in my National Charity League group is having a second baby,” she said. “And they're such Cal fans. Her husband practically bleeds blue and gold.” She held up the sleeve for me to admire. “So, I dyed two yarns in shades of blue and gold, and I'm weaving in the baby's name and year of birth, so it will look like a little team jacket on the back.”

I wanted so very much to ask if she'd made the dye herself from homegrown, mortar-and-pestle-pounded blue forget-menots or something. But I restrained myself.

I watched as she slipped one of the needles out of the tiny Old Blue work-of-art-to-be and consulted a pattern secured by a rock next to her chair, and fluttering gently in the breeze.

“I saw you last night, by the way,” she said.

“Where?”

“At that party in the city, for the jazz club. You know, The Devil's Interval.”

I blinked. “You were there?”

She nodded. “Yes, Hal and I were there. We just popped in and out, because we had tickets to San Francisco Symphony. But we wanted to go support that poor woman who owns the place.”

I kept readjusting my picture of Lulu. “So, you know The Devil's Interval?”

She looked up from the pattern, and reinserted the needle. She seemed puzzled. “Well, sure,” she said. “Anyone who likes jazz knows that place. Hal and I go there from time to time. Sometimes we stop by late, after a concert or dinner or something.”

Of course you do, I thought, once again wishing it were possible to
be
Lulu, instead of desperately envying everything about her.

“I didn't see Michael, though,” she said, just a little pointedly.

“No, I went with another friend. Michael had kid duty last night, because Anya was out.” I suddenly realized that Lulu didn't know what had happened.

I filled her in about the fire. Her blue eyes opened wide, and the knitting fell on her lap.

“How awful,” she said.

“It is,” I agreed. “It is absolutely awful.”

We both sat in silence for a moment, glancing with glazed eyes at both fields.

In a moment, I could see Lulu straighten, and pick up her knitting again.

“What does she need, do you think?” asked Lulu. “I hate it when terrible things happen to people and everyone rushes in with help that isn't any help at all. Then, it's just one more thing they have to deal with. A friend of mine lost her husband suddenly just before Christmas last year, and all she ended up with was a freezer full of mediocre lasagna and banana bread.” She shook her head. “With nuts. And one of her kids is allergic to nuts. What were her friends thinking?”

“Better to do something than nothing, I guess,” I said feebly.

She looked determined. “No, it's not. She was writing thank-
you notes and surreptitiously giving all that stuff away for weeks.”

“Well, it sounds as if you know her better than I do,” continued Lulu. “You let me know what she needs, including a place to stay. I have a cousin in the City with an empty guest house.”

“I think she's fine for now,” I said. “Her friend Gus seems to be taking care of her.”

“Oh,” said Lulu. “That not-very-well-groomed man who's always following Ivory around at the club?”

“That very one.”

Lulu said nothing. We both watched the big boys' field again. Josh's team was getting trounced by the Berkeley Hobos. Zach's team played shorter periods, and the boys were already sacked out on the ground. “Sometimes when I can't sleep,” said Lulu, “I make up new names for the teams. That Berkeley team really bothers me. I think it's disrespectful to both the hobos and the kids to call the team by that name.”