Текст книги "Night Night, Sleep Tight"

Автор книги: Hallie Ephron

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Текущая страница: 14 (всего у книги 18 страниц)

Chapter 36

Before Deirdre left the house, she stopped in the bathroom and washed her face and hands. Then she soaked the washcloth in hot water and sat on the toilet seat with the cloth pressed to her face. When it had cooled, she dunked it again, wrung it out, and pressed it to the back of her neck. She was so tired it hurt.

As she made her way out to the car, her messenger bag felt heavy even though all it contained was her wallet, her keys, and her father’s manuscript. Gloria had written down Urgent care – Beverly Medical Center, and an address on San Vicente in Brentwood. Deirdre had never heard of the place. It wasn’t all that far away, just the other side of the San Diego Freeway. But even though it wasn’t yet rush hour, traffic and roadwork made the trip slow going.

The medical center was tucked in the back of a half-block-long shopping plaza. A small red-and-white sign directed her to underground parking, where she left the car.

Deirdre leaned on her crutch, hitching her bad leg along behind her, her messenger bag bumping against her hip as she followed the signs to an elevator that deposited her in a bright, plant-filled atrium. The medical center was down a corridor, past a dental office, a law office, and a tae kwon do studio. The door was marked BEVERLY MEDICAL CENTER. Underneath that, in smaller print it said COSMETIC SURGERY, and beneath that in still smaller print it said URGENT CARE. Any other time, the irony of that juxtaposition would have cracked her up.

The waiting area was small, only a half-dozen chairs. One patient was waiting, a woman with a bandage over her nose and her face buried in a Cosmopolitan. Deirdre made her way over to a counter topped with a sliding glass window. Behind the glass were desks and a wall lined with a bank of vertical file cabinets with multicolored tabs. A poster of a cocker spaniel with a white bandanna and a stethoscope around its neck hung on the wall.

A woman wearing blue scrubs emerged from a door at the back of the inner office. She slid the window open. “Can I help you?”

“I’m here to see Seymour Sterling,” Deirdre said.

“Are you a relative?”

“I’m his daughter,” Deirdre said without blinking.

“You are?” The woman looked surprised.

Deirdre started to cry. She couldn’t help it. She was worn down from sheer exhaustion. But it also made the lie more convincing.

The woman offered her a tissue. “Let me just check in on him. Make sure he’s feeling up to visitors.”

She disappeared and a few moments later returned, beckoning Deirdre through a doorway. Deirdre followed her down a corridor lined with examining rooms and through double glass doors. At the threshold of an antiseptic-smelling room, Deirdre stopped for a moment. The smells and the sounds of what looked to be a miniature emergency room were terrifyingly familiar. She had to fight the urge to buck and run.

There were just four hospital beds in the room. The attendant eased past her and disappeared behind curtains that were pulled around one of the beds. When she reappeared, she held the drapes open for Deirdre. “I’ll leave you. Don’t stay too long. Your father needs his rest.”

Deirdre thanked her and turned to Sy. She tried to hide her shock. He looked as pale as the sheets he was lying on. The top of his head was bandaged and black stitches tracked down the side of his face. There was a massive bruise on his forehead, and his right eye was filled with blood. She pulled the folding chair by his bed closer and sat.

“I did not realize that I had a daughter. Lucky me,” Sy said with a weak smile.

“Surprised the hell out of me, too.” Deirdre took his hand. Her lower lip began to quiver as she stared at the back of Sy’s hand, livid around the spot where a needle was taped to a tube that was attached to an IV bag hanging by the bed.

“Sh, sh, sh,” Sy said, though Deirdre hadn’t spoken. “The only reason I am not home? Doctor is afraid I will have another heart attack. Do not worry. This looks worse than it is.” He chuckled. Winced. “Ouch. Cracked rib.”

Heart. That explained the tubes attached to suction cups that snaked off his bare chest. A monitor by the bed beeped, a repeating fluorescent green wave pattern tracing out on the screen. Deirdre hated that beeping sound.

“Coming here brings it all back?” Sy said.

“Yeah. The sounds. The smell.” Deirdre glanced around the room with its three empty beds. “Why did they bring you here? It’s so small.” And it was less than a mile from UCLA, with its world-class hospital.

“I am just here for monitoring. Besides, I am not good at waiting in line,” Sy said. He coughed and winced again. “Plus my doctor is here in the building. No reason to get stuck in a big emergency room for bumps and bruises.”

It looked like a whole lot more than bumps and bruises, but Deirdre didn’t push it. “What happened?”

“I got—” Sy licked his lips and pointed to a cup with a straw on the metal table by the bed. Deirdre held it to his mouth while he sipped. Then he settled himself again. “I got out of my car in the parking garage this morning. Guy must have come up behind me while I was walking to the lobby. One minute I am thinking about my appointments for the day. Next thing I know I am on the ground, my head hurts like hell, and a cop and a lot of strangers are staring down at me.”

“Did anyone see what happened?”

“No one came forward. No surprise there. The parking lot is quiet by the time I get in. After the morning rush. And like I say, seemed like the guy came out of nowhere.”

“It was a man?”

Sy’s brows drew together. “You know, I am not sure. But I think so.”

“Did he get your wallet?”

“Oddly enough, he did not. Or my Rolex. Or my ring.” He raised his hand with the diamond pinkie ring. “And I still had my keys out, so he could have driven off with my car, for Chrissake. All he takes is my old briefcase. I have had that since law school. What did he think was in it?” Sy stared up at the ceiling for a few moments, his eyes squinting into the fluorescent light. “If you ask me, whatever he was hoping to find? He was disappointed.”

Hoping to find? It took Deirdre a moment to register what Sy was saying. “You think you were targeted because of something he thought you were carrying? But what?”

“I have been asking myself that very question.”

Deirdre swallowed hard as one possible answer occurred to her. “This could be my fault. This morning I told Bunny I’d given you Dad’s memoir.”

Chapter 37

So Arthur was writing a memoir.” Sy reached down the side of the bed and pulled a lever. With a hum, the head of the bed raised him to a sitting position. “I accepted as much.”

Accepted when he meant expected—the occasional slip like that was a reminder that Sy’s native language wasn’t English. “You didn’t know?” Deirdre said. “I thought for sure he’d have talked to you about it. Asked you to read it.”

“He did not. I can only assume that he had his reasons.”

“Earlier today I told Bunny that I’d found it. That I’d given it to you, and you were going to try to find a publisher.”

“Which is what I would have done, if you had given it to me.”

Deirdre winced at the tacit rebuke. “I’m sorry. I even told her that you thought it would be an easy sell.”

“Did you tell her why I thought that?”

“Because he wrote about the night Tito was killed.”

“Did he now?”

Deirdre shifted uncomfortably under his gaze. “He wrote about the party. How Bunny called him late that night and he came back and helped move Tito’s body from Joelen’s bedroom. That must have been before she called you.”

Sy let his head drop back against the pillow. The bruise on his forehead was an angry purple against his ashen skin.

Deirdre went on, “He wrote about Bunny showing him the dress that I’d been wearing and a knife that belonged to us. She warned him that if he wanted to protect me and Henry he’d keep his mouth shut about what happened.”

“You and Henry?” Sy tilted his head, considering. “Henry was there?”

“That’s who you saw driving away from the house. Not Dad. Henry crashed the car.”

“I always knew your father was hiding something, but I never guessed that. And Bunny thinks that you have given this manuscript to me? At least this is starting to make sense. You still have it. Someplace secure?”

“For now.” It was all Deirdre could do to keep herself from looking down at the messenger bag she’d dropped on the floor and where the manuscript was safe, at least for the moment. “Of course, it’s unfinished. There are just some notes at the end.”

“Notes about what?”

“Stuff he was going to write about, I think.” Deirdre tried to remember those scrawls on the final pages that had seemed like random thoughts. “Something about you and Mom and trust.”

“Ah, the trust.”

“The trust?”

“It is one reason why the estate is as small as it is. Years ago your father had me draw up a trust. Every month he paid a set amount into it. Elenor Nichol was empowered to draw money out. The trust expired a few weeks ago.”

Her father had been paying Elenor Nichol? That made no sense. Unless . . . “Starting right after Tito was killed?”

Sy’s expression told her she’d guessed right. “Some months after.”

“She must have been blackmailing him. He was paying her for her silence.” Deirdre looked at Sy but saw no reaction. “Sy, it’s got to be connected. My father stops paying into the trust. He starts to write about what he knows, but before he can finish, he’s killed. His office is burned to destroy the manuscript, only it’s not in his office. Today a fake police search of my father’s house fails to find it. Then you get mugged because—”

“What fake police search?”

“Two cops came and took Henry in for questioning, and right after that another one showed and ransacked the place.”

Sy’s eyebrows raised in surprise, then his brow furrowed. “I suppose it makes sense that the police would come back and also take your brother in for questioning.”

“Maybe. But the way they executed the search sounded sketchy. Mom said a single officer got out of an unmarked car, came to the door, flashed a badge, and bulled his way into the house. She just assumed he was legit. After all, he was in uniform, and when someone’s in uniform you don’t really see him, do you? You told us yourself they’re supposed to give you a copy of the search warrant and leave behind a list of what’s taken. This guy failed on both counts.”

“Not every police search goes by the book. Maybe he left the paperwork but your mother was so upset she—”

“Now I know she can be a little out to lunch, but Mom is not a complete idiot. Whoever she let in to search the house was not operating like a cop. I’m wondering if he’s the same person who mugged you because I told Bunny I’d given you the manuscript.”

“But—”

“In fact—” Deirdre cut Sy off, talking as fast as she was thinking, “That police officer who was there in your office building when you came to? Are you sure he arrived after you got mugged?”

“I . . . he . . . well of course I assumed after.”

“But you didn’t see who mugged you, did you?”

It took Sy a moment to get what she was suggesting. “You are saying I got mugged by a pretend cop?”

“Could have been. The first passerby would think the cop was there to help.” Deirdre remembered what Bunny Nichol had said about magic. Make the audience attend to what you want them to see.

“I guess it is possible,” Sy said, “but it seems so unlikely—”

“We should be able to figure it out. If a real officer responded, there will be a record of it, won’t there?”

“But how—”

“I know someone who can find out.”

“A fake cop.” Sy shook his head. “Suppose that’s what it turns out he was. Then what? Call the police? Deirdre, are you sure that is what you want? Why, they will ask, would anyone go to all that trouble just to keep an old movie hack’s memoir from being published?”

“He wasn’t a hack.”

“I know. I am just telling you what they will say. Before you know it, you find yourself having to speculate about what your father knew that was so”—he paused, searching for the word—“toxic. Do you want the world to know that you and Henry were there the night Tito was killed? Because you have no idea how quickly things can escalate from there.”

Sy was silent for a few moments, his eyes focused on the middle distance between them. “Remember those pictures that ran in the paper the morning after Tito was killed?” He shook his head. “Headlines that ran way beyond the facts? It was horrifying. And who do you think allowed photographers to go up to Bunny Nichol’s bedroom? Who gave them entrée and permission to photograph a fifteen-year-old girl, still distraught over what happened that night? Joelen hadn’t been charged with a crime.” His voice shook with rage. “Shameful. But it happened all the time. If you want to find out whether it still does, go ahead and call in the police. Just don’t be surprised at what happens next. You saw what it did to your friend.”

That stopped Deirdre. The events of that night had derailed both Joelen’s and Deirdre’s lives, but at least for Deirdre the aftermath had been a private affair.

“Maybe your father’s memoir is publishable. Hell, maybe it has the makings of a bestseller. I would need to read it in order to form an opinion on any of that. But for the moment at least, one thing is clear: that manuscript could get someone killed—”

“Someone already did get killed,” Deirdre said. “My dad.”

Sy gazed at the machine beside his bed, which was tracing out a regular wave pattern. “I’m not going to disagree with you. But if you have it, or maybe you are carrying it around with you”—she squirmed under his intense gaze, even though there was no way he could know that it was right there in her messenger bag—“you are putting yourself in danger. Hide it in the house and the arsonist might burn the house down next time. Carry it around and you could be the next person who gets mugged. My advice? Before anyone else gets hurt, get rid of it and make it widely known that you have done so. Leave it somewhere safe. The only question is: Where?”

When Deirdre got back into her car, she took out the manuscript. Was this what it was all about? Her father’s murder. The garage fire. A fake police search. Now Sy’s attack. All because someone desperately wanted to keep this from being published?

Deirdre riffled through the pages. What was in it that was so, as Sy put it, toxic? What Arthur had to say about the night of Tito’s murder hadn’t seemed, to Deirdre at least, to be that much of a game changer. Maybe the murderer was afraid of something Arthur hadn’t yet gotten around to putting on the page? But what secret could he reveal about Tito’s murder? And if there was something he’d kept secret for all these years, then why had Arthur been paying Bunny for her silence? Wouldn’t she have been paying him?

Sy was right. Deirdre needed to put it somewhere safe, and then get out the word that she’d done so. After going back and forth with Sy on where, they had agreed on Sy’s office. Neither Sy nor Vera would be in there for the next few days, and he had an alarm system that went straight to the police if someone tried to break in.

But looking at the manuscript, a thought occurred to her. What she had in her hands was a carbon copy. Which meant that somewhere out there was the original, and possibly even more carbon copies. Placing the manuscript in Sy’s safe only took care of the problem in the short term. On the other hand, announcing where she’d put it might tempt whoever wanted it to reveal himself. Or herself. The more she thought about it, the more she liked it.

Deirdre picked up takeout from a Japanese restaurant on the way home. Vegetarian maki rolls for her mother; spicy tuna, yellow fin, and salmon maki for her and Henry. Then she stopped to make a Xerox copy of the manuscript. The first few sheets of onionskin jammed the copier, so she had to feed them in a sheet at a time. That gave her plenty of time to think through exactly what she intended to do. The plan she came up with required the help of a man and a woman. She knew who to ask.

She slipped the Xerox copy into a FedEx envelope, addressed it to herself in San Diego, and left it in the copy store’s drop box. Then she bought a ream of paper, got some extra change, and used the pay phone to make two calls before heading home.

Deirdre was relieved to find Henry was back, talking to Gloria in the kitchen when she returned. He looked exhausted and he smelled like he needed a shower.

“How was it—?” Deirdre started, intending to ask Henry how it had gone with the police, when Gloria interrupted with “How’s Sy?”

“Concussion and a cracked rib. He’s shaken and hurt, but he seemed okay. And he claims the only reason they’re keeping him there is to monitor his heart. But he looks ragged. He’s going to miss the funeral.”

“Miss the . . .” Gloria’s face fell. “It won’t feel right, burying Arthur without Sy there. And he was going to speak.” She reached across for Henry’s arm. “Henry, you’ll say a few words? Deirdre, maybe you’d like to get up and—”

“No,” Deirdre said. “I’m sorry, but no. I couldn’t. I’d be too emotional.”

“I suppose we do have the film clips. And we can ask people to share their memories,” Gloria said as she unwrapped and plated the maki rolls. “That’s what they do at a Quaker funeral. Silent meditation and the sharing of memories.”

Silent meditation? Good luck with that in a room full of movie people.

“I’ve got a limousine coming at noon tomorrow to drive us to the chapel,” Deirdre said.

“A limo?” Gloria asked. She peeled away the rice paper wrapping and sniffed at a piece of cucumber maki before eating it. “Isn’t that a bit extravagant?”

“It’s what people do,” Deirdre said.

“Did they catch the attacker?” Henry asked. He’d already polished off a piece of spicy tuna roll.

“No. And Sy was hit from behind and knocked out, so he didn’t see who it was. For all that, the only thing that got taken was his briefcase.”

“That’s lucky,” Gloria said.

“Maybe it was luck. Or maybe that’s what the person was after.”

“His briefcase?” Gloria said.

“Sy thinks the person wanted Dad’s memoir,” Deirdre said, even though she’d been the one who came up with the theory.

“Our dad?” Henry said.

“Arthur wrote a memoir?” Gloria said.

“Why would anyone care?” Henry said.

“Sy thinks publishers will care,” Deirdre said.

“Really?” Henry gave a dismissive snort.

“Of course they will,” Gloria said. She ate another cucumber roll. “Your father was a born storyteller. A true raconteur.”

“Right,” Henry said. “Now he can tell his stories to people who haven’t already heard them a million times. But why would someone mug Sy to get Dad’s memoir?”

“Maybe because he wrote about what happened the night Tito Acevedo was killed,” Deirdre said, watching Gloria and Henry for their reactions.

Gloria winced. Henry, reaching for the last piece of spicy tuna roll, paused.

“Dad was there.” Deirdre leaned close to Henry and stage-whispered to him, “And according to his memoir, you were, too.”

Henry’s eyes widened and he looked momentarily stunned.

“Henry?” Gloria said.

“That’s crazy,” Henry said, not very convincingly.

“That’s what I thought,” Deirdre said. “But hey, why would he write it if it wasn’t true?”

“Do you have the manuscript?” Gloria asked.

“I do. Sy wants me to take it over to his office and leave it there on the way to the funeral.” With each word, as Deirdre felt as if a burden lightened, Henry looked more and more uncomfortable. He pushed away from the table.

“Do you think that’s—” Gloria started.

“So do you want to know what happened with me and the police?” Henry said, interrupting her. He didn’t wait for an answer. “I expected it to be a lot worse. He took me—”

“He who?” Deirdre asked.

“Martinez. Took me to a room and asked a lot of questions. Most of them I’d already answered. What happened the night Dad died? Where was I? What did I know about a shovel? Then he started in on the fire in the garage. I told him I don’t know anything about that, either, and besides, I was at work.”

“Did he seem satisfied?” Gloria asked.

“I couldn’t read him. I did my best, but I really wish Sy had been there. Because after that he started asking about you.” He looked at Deirdre. “Where you were that night. How you and Dad got along. When I last called you from the house.” He paused. “He even wanted to know how your gallery was doing.”

“And you said?”

“I said I didn’t know.”

Of course Henry didn’t know. God forbid he’d take the time to pay her a visit and see for himself.

“Which made me think,” Henry continued, “I should come down one weekend. See the gallery. Meet your business partner. See your house. Would you have room if I wanted to stay over?”

Shocked, it took Deirdre a moment to come up with an answer. “Of course there’s room. I’ll make room. You can even bring Baby and Bear.”

The dogs, sleeping next to each other in the corner, picked up their heads. They seemed as surprised as Deirdre.