Текст книги "Night Night, Sleep Tight"

Автор книги: Hallie Ephron

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Текущая страница: 13 (всего у книги 18 страниц)

Chapter 33

After the blue glow faded, Deirdre returned with Tyler to the park. The air felt laden with moisture even though the fountain was off. The sky had turned pale gray and traffic was coming to life.

“Why probably blood?” Deirdre asked.

“It’s called a presumptive test. Luminol occasionally gives a false positive.”

“It glows like that when it hits something other than blood?”

“Like bleach. That’s why people use bleach to clean up a blood spill. It camouflages the stains. Animal blood would luminesce, too. And horseradish. I know, more than you need to know.”

Horseradish? How weird was that? Because the cocktail sauce that she’d gorged on at the party and then thrown up all over herself had been spicy. It could have been that. Maybe. But if that’s all it was, why would Bunny and then her father have held on to it for all these years?

Deirdre said, “I’m amazed at how bright the reaction is, given how old the stain is.”

“The older the stain, the stronger the glow. But like I say, it’s not proof positive. If you want to know for sure if it’s human blood, I’d need to take a sample to the lab and run more tests.”

Knowing whether the stains were blood wouldn’t bring her any closer to understanding how they’d gotten there or how her father had ended up with the dress. But it would be another piece of information about what happened that night. Eventually, all of it had to fit together.

“Could you?” she said.

“Sure. I’ll take a sample.”

While he was digging in his backpack, she considered whether to show him the knife and ask him to test it, too. But he’d said luminol glowed when it came in contact with animal blood, and surely the knife had been used to carve meat.

Tyler used scissors to cut a small square of stained fabric from the dress and tucked it into a plastic bag. He gave her back the dress and she stuffed it into her bag.

“Sorry,” he said. “Forensics is not an exact science. Sometimes the more you know, the less you’re sure of. Do I still get to take you to breakfast?”

A little while later, Deirdre was sitting next to him on a stool at the counter at Canter’s on Fairfax, inhaling the aroma of pastrami and garlic pickles. The waitress, wearing a shirtwaist with white trim almost exactly like the one Bunny had dressed Deirdre up in for her visit to City Hall, brought them coffee and took their orders. Even as early as it was, the restaurant hummed with customers.

Deirdre sipped her coffee. When she looked across at the mirrored wall opposite them, she caught Tyler staring at her reflection. “Twenty-year-old bloodstains,” he said. “So does this have to do with your car accident?”

Deirdre felt her face flush. She looked away. She was ready to call him for help at five in the morning but not ready to spill her guts.

“Okay, don’t tell me,” Tyler said. “But I might even be able to help with whatever it is that’s got you so stuck.”

“I’m not stuck.”

“Yeah, you are. You can’t even look me in the eye and talk about it.”

The waitress brought over their plates and topped off their coffees. Deirdre poked at her egg. Took a bite. The potatoes in the corned beef hash were crisp and the eggs were done exactly right.

“I’m sorry.” She shook her head. “These last few days have been a bit much. Between my father and the fire and the mess, it’s a lot to deal with.”

Tyler tucked into his pancakes. “I can’t even imagine. Though I do know cleanup is brutal after a fire, even when you’re not grieving. You know, there are companies who will come in and do it for you.”

“I need to do it myself. At least a first pass. My father named me executor of his literary estate, and a lot of what should have been preserved was up in his office on the second floor of the garage.”

“Have you started? Because water can be just as damaging as fire, especially to paper.”

“So far, the only thing I’ve managed to save is a sleazy photograph.”

“A photograph?”

Deirdre found it in the bottom of her bag and showed it to Tyler. “How’s this for legacy?”

“Joelen Nichol,” Tyler murmured. He took the photo from Deirdre. “You two were always together.”

Of course Tyler remembered Joelen—he and the rest of the male population of Beverly Hills.

Tyler raised the photograph to the light. “You think that’s your dad?” he asked, pointing to the photographer reflected in the mirror over Joelen’s head.

“Isn’t it?” she said.

He slipped a key ring from his pocket. Hanging on the ring along with keys was a small magnifying glass. Tyler examined the photograph through it. “Have a close look, why don’t you?” He handed Deirdre the magnifier.

Deirdre positioned the lens and looked through it. The photographer’s face was hidden behind the camera’s viewfinder, the lens accordioned from its box. The man had her father’s hair. Same general build. Same stance. But that wasn’t what sent a shiver down Deirdre’s back as she leaned closer to the magnifying glass. On the arm of the photographer’s leather jacket was a Harley-Davidson double-winged eagle patch.

Her father wasn’t a biker. Her brother was.

Chapter 34

Staring at the Harley eagle patch, Deirdre tried to remember when Henry had gotten into muscle bikes. Seemed like it hadn’t been until after he dropped out of college with only a collection of electric guitars and a few demo tapes to show for his dreams of becoming a serious musician.

“What are you thinking?” Tyler asked. He pushed away his empty plate and signaled the waitress to top off their coffees.

“I’m thinking it’s a shame that my brother never finished college.”

“He was cool. I remember in high school, he had that swagger. And girls—” Tyler whistled.

“Yeah. Girls were all over him. I think he had a great time in high school. Not me. I was so glad when it was over.”

“Me too.”

They talked for a while longer, comparing notes on what Beverly had been like if you didn’t cheerlead or play football or drive a Ferrari. Deirdre could easily have stayed and talked longer, but at half past eight Tyler said he had to get to work. He told her that first thing in the morning was the best time to file a request for the record that the insurance adjuster needed. The Records Office at City Hall opened at nine. Deirdre stopped on her way home, pulled the number 12 from the number dispenser, and was out of there twenty minutes later.

As she drove home, she thought about Henry. He’d tacitly deflected the blame to Arthur for photographs that he’d taken. He’d also let her father take the blame for the car accident that left her crippled. Which reminded her of something Arthur had mentioned in his memoir—Bunny’s comment that Arthur was as much to blame for what had happened as she was.

When Deirdre got home, she would question her mother and Henry, both of them. Together. She wanted to know exactly what each of them knew about what happened that night. No more sidestepping, shading the truth, or lying to protect anyone, including herself.

But when she neared her father’s house, she realized a dark sedan was parked in front. She pulled over to watch from a distance as a pair of uniformed police officers got out of the car and started up the front walk.

Any plan she’d had of confronting Henry and Gloria evaporated. The police must have obtained another search warrant, as Sy had predicted. If they looked in her bag, she didn’t have a good explanation, even for herself, for what was in it.

She drove slowly past the front of the house. Caught a glimpse of the front door opening. Just then, a motorcycle came roaring out of the driveway and sped past her, up the block. Deirdre recognized Henry’s red-and-gold helmet. He’d probably seen the police arriving and decided to disappear. She made a quick U-turn and took off after him.

Henry slowed at a stop sign a few blocks later. Deirdre tooted her horn and flashed her lights. But he barely glanced over his shoulder. Just flipped her the bird before peeling out and roaring up the street.

So it’s like that, is it? She accelerated, peeling out after him. Thirty miles an hour. Forty. Henry slowed but didn’t stop to turn left onto Sunset. Deirdre had to screech to a halt at the corner as a stream of cross traffic held her back. Taking advantage of a minuscule gap between cars, she nipped out onto Sunset, earning herself a horn blast and her second expressive middle finger of the morning. Ahead of her, she could see Henry on his bike slowing. Turning into the driveway of the Nichols’ estate. Why was he going there?

Without thinking, Deirdre turned in behind him, making it through the gate just before it closed. By then, Henry and his motorcycle had vanished up the driveway.

Deirdre stopped the car. Now what? Should she drive up to the front door, march up the steps . . . and then what? Throw pebbles at Joelen’s window? What Henry was up to was his own business. At least it would have been if he hadn’t been lying to her, insisting that he had no ongoing relationship with Joelen Nichol. Maybe she could figure out what was going on without embarrassing him.

She drove slowly up the driveway. When she got to the pool, she backed into the carport that was camouflaged by a bank of bougainvillea, then killed the engine, grabbed her crutch, and started to walk up the drive toward the house. Bunny was obviously not addicted to thirty laps a day. Close up, the pool not only looked gross, it smelled scummy, like sour milk and rotting leaves.

Deirdre continued up the hill, moving as quickly as she could. By the time she rounded the final bend she was out of breath. Henry had parked his bike in front and was crouched behind it, looking at the engine or the tires, she couldn’t tell which. His fancy, custom-made helmet hung from one of the handlebars.

The minute he stood, Deirdre realized her mistake. The man by the bike wasn’t Henry; it was Jackie Hutchinson. He started walking toward the front door, wobbling a little on the chunky heels of a pair of black cowboy boots that, like his helmet, could have been Henry’s.

“Looking for someone?” The voice from behind her startled Deirdre. She whipped around to see Bunny Nichol wearing a pink satin quilted bathrobe, a chiffon scarf wrapped around her head and tied over her forehead. She was in full makeup, of course. “You’re here a little early for a visit.”

“I thought—” Deirdre started. But before she could come up with a plausible excuse for being there, Bunny hooked her arm and called out, “Jackie!”

Jackie turned around as Bunny propelled Deirdre forward toward the house. “You remember Deirdre?” Bunny said. “She was at the house a few days ago?”

“Sure. You were up there.” Jackie pointed vaguely in the direction of Bunny’s bedroom. “You look . . . different. I’d never have recognized you.”

“I didn’t recognize you in that helmet,” Deirdre said.

Jackie looked down at the helmet hanging from his hand. “Pretty cool, isn’t it?”

“I’ve only seen one other like it.”

“You must know Henry Unger.”

“He’s my brother.”

Jackie narrowed his eyes at Deirdre. “You and Henry? Really. I was just over there. Small world.”

Maybe not that small. “You work with him?” Deirdre said.

“Not with him. For him. He’s an old friend of Bunny’s.”

“Deirdre,” Bunny said, “I know you need to be on your way. I’ll walk you back to your car.” She started escorting Deirdre down the driveway.

Deirdre didn’t mind being given the bum’s rush, as her father used to call it. She was as anxious to get out of there as Bunny was to be rid of her. But as they walked away from the house, she picked up her head. Was that the woop-woop of a siren?

“Shit,” Bunny said under her breath. “You parked at the pool?”

Deirdre nodded.

“You must have triggered the alarm.” Bunny gripped Deirdre’s arm tighter. “You really should have telephoned first.”

As they approached the carport by the pool, the alarm fell silent. A black-and-white car with a row of stars and SECURITY stenciled on the door was parked behind Deirdre’s car, blocking it in. A uniformed guard with a brushy salt-and-pepper mustache emerged from under the overhanging bougainvillea. “Der-dra Unger?” he said, mispronouncing Deirdre’s name. He had her wallet open in his hand and was holding her messenger bag. “That your Mercedes parked in there?”

“Yes. And that’s my bag.”

“She’s all right, Martin,” Bunny said. “False alarm. I’ll take those.”

Martin the security guard reached into Deirdre’s bag and pulled out the knife. “You sure she’s all right, ma’am?”

“She’s just returning that to me,” Bunny said, and held out her hand. Martin gave her the knife, hilt first.

Bunny turned the knife over. The blade flashed in the sun. “Did you know,” she said, giving Martin a coy smile, “that I once worked with quite a famous magician? In the early days, of course. Before I became a star.” She rotated the knife so she had the blade between her fingertips. “Can you imagine this? I’m dressed”—she poked a bent knee through the opening in her robe—“scantily.” She gave Martin a wink. “Strapped to a board. Then Jasper sets me spinning. Backs away. Looks out at the audience as if to say Dare me. Pretends he’s about to throw the knife but doesn’t. Not yet. Suspense builds. Tension thick. You can hear a pin drop.” Bunny reared back, holding the knife aloft. “Then suddenly Jasper throws the knife. The audience gasps. The board slowly stops spinning and everyone can see where it’s landed, right between my legs.” She drew her leg demurely back into the folds of her robe.

Martin exhaled audibly.

“Pure skill,” Bunny said. “Not an illusion, as so many magic tricks are.” She lowered the knife, moving it to her other hand and grasping it by the handle. “It was simply quite amazing that he could throw as accurately as he could. Frankly, I was terrified. I needed a stiff drink before each performance and kept my eyes shut from the moment he set that board spinning until it stopped.”

Bunny’s gaze softened, focused in midair. “He also used to make the knife vanish.” She blinked. “Now that’s a trick I can show you. I store some of our props—mementos, really—in the pool house. Of course, I’m not a master like the Great Jasper, but I’ve always been a quick study, and I saw him do the trick often enough.”

Bunny handed Martin the knife and let herself in through the gate to the pool. Moments later, she emerged holding a painted box. “Here we are.” She blew on it, raising a cloud of dust, and rubbed it with her sleeve. “Covered in cobwebs. Like we’ll all be ourselves one day.” The box was red lacquer, decorated with gold stars and crescent moons.

Magic. It’s all about misdirection. That was what Bunny had said when she contemplated how to costume Deirdre so she’d be invisible for her visit to City Hall.

With a practiced gesture, Bunny tapped the surface of the box with delicately tapered nails. “Tricks are so much fun when you don’t know their secrets.” She rotated the box, then twirled it corner to corner until the stars and moons painted on its shiny enamel surface were a blur. Then she held the box perfectly still. She glanced in Deirdre’s direction, then lifted the lid and opened a door in the side. Lowered her hand in through the top. Her fingers waggled, visible through the open side door against a black-and-white-striped interior. “See? Nothing whatsoever inside.” She pulled her hand from the box, closed the side door, and held out her hand to Martin. He gave her back the knife. With a flourish, Bunny dropped it into the box. It made a thump when it landed.

Bunny snapped the lid shut. Frowned and looked at the box as if she wasn’t sure what to do next. Smiled, like a lightbulb had gone off in her head, then twirled the box again. Once, twice, three times. Waved her hand over it. Murmured, “Magic words, magic words, magic words.”

Anyone who’d ever seen a magic act knew that the knife would disappear. Even so, Deirdre gasped when Bunny opened a side panel to reveal that it had. She closed that panel and opened the lid, peered in, and gave a momentary look of surprise. Then she reached in and began pulling out a shiny red silk scarf. Knotted to the end of it was a green scarf. Then a yellow one. Scarf after scarf streamed from the box until there were no more.

“Et voilà!” Bunny said with a wave of her arm, sending the string of scarves flying in a zigzag overhead before stuffing them back into the box.

Martin applauded. Deirdre applauded. Bunny tucked the magic box under her arm and took a little bow. “I’m sorry, Martin, that you had to bother coming all the way up here for nothing,” she said.

“Not a bother,” Martin said. “Never a bother, Miss Nichol. Wouldn’t have missed this for anything.” He dropped Deirdre’s wallet into her messenger bag and transferred it into Bunny’s arms. “You’re sure there’s nothing more I can do?”

“I’m sure. Thank you. Thank you so much,” Bunny said. She rose on tiptoe and planted a kiss on his cheek. Martin flushed so red that for a moment the lipstick smear she’d left on his cheek seemed to disappear.

A minute later Deirdre stood alone with Bunny, watching the security car disappear down the driveway.

Bunny turned to face Deirdre, hands on her hips. “So.”

Deirdre’s first instinct was to apologize, but she was through apologizing. She was tired of being treated like a child who had to be lied to. “I thought you might recognize that knife.”

“Should I?” Bunny opened the messenger bag and, to Deirdre’s astonishment, pulled the knife from within it. Then she peered into the open bag. Lifting the edge of the yellow dress, she added, “I see you still have this. Where did you find it?”

“Among some things Henry says Dad told him to get rid of. I think that’s the same dress and knife that you showed my father the night Tito was killed. You told him you were keeping it for insurance. Insurance against what?”

Bunny’s eyes turned watchful. “How do you know that?”

“I . . . he told me.”

“He told you?”

Deirdre stared hard at Bunny, determined not to let her gaze drop to the bag Bunny was holding. The manuscript was in it, underneath the yellow dress.

“I asked, how do you know that?” Bunny repeated with a cold, hard look.

“He wrote about it in his memoir,” Deirdre said defiantly.

Bunny reared back, clearly shaken. “Where did you find this memoir?”

“Does it matter?”

“Where is it?”

“I gave it to Sy,” Deirdre said without missing a beat.

“You gave it to Sy?” Bunny narrowed her eyes and stared into Deirdre’s.

“He said he’d take it to his office. He thinks publishers will be all over it, given the content.”

“Your father wrote musicals and romantic comedies. He got paid to make things up.”

And you get paid to act, Deirdre thought.

“Don’t you think it’s time people knew the truth?” Deirdre said, the words coming out strong and sharp even as her eyes filled with tears. “My father was here. He helped you move Tito’s body from Joelen’s bedroom. When he asked you where I was, you said he should be asking where Henry was.”

Henry. Bunny mouthed the word as her eyes widened. “What else did he write about Henry?”

Deirdre tried to swallow the lump in her throat. “What I want to know is how did the dress I was wearing that night get like this?” She pulled it from the bag. “And how”—Deirdre waved her crutch—“did I get like this?”

Bunny’s look softened. “I understand why you feel you need to know. And I’m sorry you’ve ended up with so many . . . questions.” She gave Deirdre a long look, stripped of artifice. “But I’m telling you, as clearly as I possibly can, that it would be much better all around if you simply stopped asking them.” She lifted the dress out of the bag and bundled it around the knife. Then she gave Deirdre back her messenger bag, opened the gate to the pool, and went through it. A moment later Deirdre heard a splash.

When Bunny came back through the gate, her arms were empty.

Chapter 35

Deirdre waited until she was off the Nichols’ estate to pull over and check that her father’s manuscript was still in her bag. It was. In an odd way, it was a relief to be rid of the dress and the knife.

When she got back to her father’s house, the police car was gone. Henry’s car was gone, too. The dogs greeted her at the door. She gave each of them a desultory pat on the head. One glance past the front hall told her that the place had been thoroughly searched. She made her way through the living room and into the den. Rugs were pushed back. Shelves cleared, with books and videocassettes dumped on the floor.

Deirdre continued to her bedroom. She leaned against the doorjamb and took in the disarray. The mattress had been stripped, the bedding piled on the floor. Her duffel bag had been taken out of the closet, unzipped, and its contents emptied out. The hollow-eyed, kitten-holding orphan was staring from the closet at her. Cardboard boxes that she’d piled in front of the orphan had been pulled out and opened, their contents strewn about. High school yearbooks. Scrapbooks. Spiral notebooks from college classes.

Deirdre wondered what on earth the police were looking for. It would take hours to straighten the mess.

She sank down onto the bare mattress, pulled the pillow off the floor, and hugged it to her chest. She wanted nothing more than to tip over, curl up, and shut down.

“Deirdre? Is that you?” her mother’s plaintive voice called.

Deirdre squeezed her eyes shut and pulled the pillow over her head.

“Deirdre?”

Deirdre threw the pillow aside and stood, steadying herself with her crutch. She followed her mother’s voice into her father’s bedroom. On the way past Henry’s room she looked in. His prized electric guitars were piled in a corner instead of lined up against the wall. The contents of his bureau had been dumped on the floor, his closet emptied out too.

Gloria was sitting up in Arthur’s bed, her turban askew and her eyes red from crying. Spent tissues were crumpled on the bed covers. This room had also been tossed.

“I see the police came back,” Deirdre said.

“Twice.”

“Twice?”

“First, two of them showed up and took Henry in for questioning.”

“They arrested him?”

“I don’t think so. Henry said to call Sy.” Gloria’s voice rose. “But before I could, another police officer arrived to search the house. I couldn’t stop him. He tore through the place while I tried to call Sy. I called his office, and I tried him at home. I tried over and over, but I couldn’t reach him.”

“Did the police officer say what he was looking for?”

“Looking for?”

“Didn’t he show you a warrant?”

Gloria hung her feet off the side of the bed, put her hands on her hips, and worked her thumbs into her back. She looked exhausted. “All he did was show me a badge and tell me to keep out of his way.”

“And I’ll bet he didn’t leave behind a list of what he took, either.”

“He didn’t leave anything and he didn’t take anything, either.”

One officer. No warrant. Nothing taken. Sounded like a pretty sketchy police search.

Gloria went on. “Look what a disaster he left the place. The funeral is tomorrow. People will be here.” Her voice dropped to a whimper. “It’s too much. It’s just too much.”

“And Henry’s still not back? He hasn’t called?”

“I haven’t heard a word from him.” Gloria’s face crumpled, and she pulled out another tissue. “I’m so glad you’re here, at least.”

Deirdre imagined Henry being questioned by Detective Martinez in that little room for hours on end, his words captured on a tape recorder without Sy’s reassuring presence to guide him. She tried phoning Sy but, like Gloria, got no answer. She hung up and stared at the phone, willing it to ring. But of course it didn’t.

“Come on,” she said to Gloria. “At least we can start straightening up.”

For the next hour, Deirdre and her mother worked their way from room to room, putting the house back together. They were finishing up in the den when the phone rang. Gloria raced to answer it in the kitchen. Deirdre listened, praying it was Henry.

“Vera?” Deirdre heard her mother say. A long pause. “Oh my God, no!” Deirdre rushed into the kitchen. Gloria was ashen, a trembling hand over her mouth as she listened. “Right. Right.” A pause. She shook her head. “How awful.”

“What is it?” Deirdre whispered.

“Give me a piece of paper, quick.”

Deirdre pulled open one kitchen drawer after another until she found a cash register receipt and a pen.

“Okay. Right.” Gloria listened. Then wrote on the back of the receipt. Then listened some more. She just stood there for a few moments, staring at the receiver. At last she found her voice. “That was Vera. It’s Sy.” She waved the receiver. “He was mugged in the parking garage on his way in to his office this morning. That’s why we couldn’t reach him. He’s in the hospital.”

“Is he going to be okay?” Deirdre could barely get the words out.

“All Vera could tell me was that he got robbed and beaten up. They’ve admitted him.” Gloria dabbed at her eyes with a fresh tissue. “Vera’s been calling people, canceling his appointments. Meanwhile, Sy is all alone. If it were one of us, he’d be there. Like when you were hurt, he was the first one to show up at the hospital to help your father.”

He was? Until that moment, Deirdre hadn’t remembered that there’d been someone else there. Now it came back to her. She’d woken up strapped to a gurney. Bright fluorescent lights streamed overhead. Unfamiliar smells. She’d been shivering from what was probably shock, not cold. Her leg throbbing with pain.

If she’d been alone, helpless panic would have overwhelmed her. Only she hadn’t been alone. Her father had been there, pale and clearly shaken, and beside him was Sy, a calm, comforting presence. Sy had taken charge, demanding blankets from a passing nurse and piling them over her. Rubbing her hands until she stopped quaking. Asking what she remembered. Explaining to her what had happened, how the car had gone off the road. Staying with her and Arthur until she was rolled into the operating room. Promising not to leave until the doctors were finished putting her back together and she was safely in the recovery room.

Henry had abandoned her, broken on the hillside. Sy had been there with her father at the hospital.

Gloria looked down at the handset she was still holding and hung up the phone. “I’m going over there.”

“No. I’ll go,” Deirdre said. She held out her hand for the notes her mother had written. “You’re right. He’s been there for me.”

“Thank you.” Gloria gave her the piece of paper and kissed her on the cheek. “You always were my good girl.”