The Rita Farmer Mystery series Box Set Page 31

  Richard said, “I can’t hear you.”

  “I said Padraig McGower killed your goddamn daughter!” Eileen’s eyes looked like blank tiddlywinks. Norah added, “He didn’t mean to. It was an accident! Don’t you see?” she appealed to us belligerently, “An accident!” No one spoke. She went on. “Later, Padraig said, ‘I only gave her a little more than what works for me. I didn’t give her any overdose.’ I go, ‘Padraig, you’re a two-hundred-pound man! She’s this infant! It’s like if you’d swallowed the whole bottleful.’ And he gets this look on his face like, Oh.”

  Eileen spoke at last. “Why,” she pleaded, “did you put me through...all this?”

  Norah lit a cigarette and looked as if she wanted to sit down on one of the pool lounges. But she remained standing, most of her weight on one heel, grinding it into the paving stone. Same awful yellow Mary Janes. “I’d gone too far, frankly—there was no turning back that I could see. Padraig thought everything would turn out OK if we just kept our mouths shut.”

  She glanced at each of us in turn.

  “So we did,” she finished.

  After a moment, Richard said, “If I’d known all that, I’d have made him suffer more.”

  “Well, it wouldn’t have brought her back,” said Norah.

  “I can’t believe you did that to me.”

  To him. There you go.

  Eileen twisted her hands as if she’d tear them off.

  Norah, holding her cigarette, looked at her hostilely. “What do you want me to say? I’m sorry? I’m sorry! OK? All better now?” She stood there like a version of Eileen without a conscience, her life a wild mirror of her sister’s.

  Eileen said, “You and Padraig saw that Gabriella was dead, then you tried to make it look like a burglary. You didn’t know how much of the evening I’d remember, did you?”

  “I knew it’d be your word against mine,” said Norah. “I made it look like a stranger did it so you’d know I tried to protect you. I’m smarter than you think. In fact, now that I’ve come this far in life...I feel...empowered.”

  Eileen spoke coldly to Norah. “Empowered, yeah. If I told the police you’d been there that night, you’d have tried to pin everything on me. You’d have talked to the police, you’d have tried to implicate me, and you’d have helped them get us on the insurance trick. You worked it out very well.”

  The very air vibrated with craziness, danger, and the imminent death we were all trying to stare down in one form or another.

  Eileen stopped and gazed at the treetops tossing so lightly in the late afternoon’s golden breeze. “All this self-justification,” she murmured. Then she turned to me. “Do you want to know the real reason I lost my baby?”

  “Yes, Eileen.”

  “I let myself get sucked into the greed. It’s that simple.”

  She’d come to it at last.

  My phone played “Dancing Queen.”

  Chapter 40 – Prima Donna Stuff

  Automatically, I grabbed the phone from my waistband.

  My companions stood startled by the burbling dumb song.

  “Are you in a safe place?” asked Daniel.

  “Not really.”

  Norah drew something from her purse.

  Daniel said, “Well, get out of there and tell whoever to go fuck themselves. I’ve got Petey and I’m bringing him home. He’s all right, Rita.”

  A tsunami of relief broke over me. “Petey. Safe? Oh, safe.”

  As soon as the words were out of my mouth I saw, through my sudden tears, a look on Norah’s face: the realization that she no longer had control over me. An instant later she lunged, a foot-long knife upraised in her fist, Norman-Bates’s-mom-style.

  And then I did something I hadn’t done since the beginning of all this.

  I screamed.

  The quality of my scream resulted from, I’m quite sure, my emotional release about Petey combined with the sudden prospect of my heart being sliced open by this psycho twit. My anger spiked in a straight line skyward, no ramping up, just pure instant outrage. The sound that blasted from my throat was the most genuine, tooth-shattering scream I’d unleashed in my life.

  My scream resounded in Topanga Canyon. I’m sure it stripped needles off the cacti growing up in the rocks. Made baby condors plummet from their nests. Set off car alarms at the herbal grocery store three miles away.

  Norah hesitated, driven back by the raw force of my cry.

  Then, as if deciding to begin on an easier subject, she turned to Eileen, her knife still raised to strike.

  Richard shouted a curse, set himself, and aimed his gun. Krak! One ugly sound, a punctuation mark at the end of the echo of my scream.

  Norah collapsed like a sack of feed, the knife clattering off beneath a bush. She lay on her side, bleeding from her upper chest. One hand opened and closed spasmodically.

  Eileen and I stood staring at each other in sudden we-are-fucked solidarity.

  Then I looked up at Richard.

  And an astonishing thing happened. He dropped his gun—it plummeted into the pool—silently grabbed his head, and tumbled from the diving platform. He hit the water headfirst.

  The splash was tremendous.

  Eileen and I stood stunned.

  A noise like a bear scrambling through a thicket drew our attention to the garden wall, where after a second, a crew-cut head popped up. George Rowe’s arms grasped the top of the wall and he hurled himself over, landing on his feet. He dashed through the Japanese maples and calla lilies and launched himself, his legs still churning at top speed, into the swimming pool.

  He swam to the bottom. The surface roiled. George’s head appeared, then Richard’s, his eyes white crescents.

  “Hold him up,” George gasped. Eileen and I did so, by his arms, as George boosted himself out, spitting water. He hauled Richard out by the scruff of his shirt.

  He knelt, listened for a heartbeat, turned Richard’s head to the side, looked inside his mouth, then cocked his head back. His hand came away bloody from the back of Richard’s head. He took a deep breath, sealed his lips to Richard’s, and blew.

  “You bastard,” he panted, streaming water, “I want you alive.”

  He continued the artificial respiration.

  Richard’s eyelids fluttered.

  “Goddamn cheating bastard!” George Rowe cried triumphantly.

  Richard coughed.

  “Jesus Christ,” I commented to no one in particular.

  Sirens shrieked up to the house.

  And with the arrival of the police, the sorting out began.

  George spoke to them, quickly outlining what had happened.

  They called an ambulance for Richard and Norah, both of whom were breathing. Richard was actually coming to; a cop stood over him cautiously. One of the other cops worked on Norah with stuff from a medical kit.

  The police were pleased to have an important situation here, one that was pretty much wrapped up for them already. They had cracked the whole Tenaway case, all the jagged ugly parts of it, even parts they didn’t know anything about yet, right here in Topanga Canyon. They sorted and asked and jotted and called their bosses.

  But who had called them?

  I heard more car doors slamming. Daniel’s voice. I dashed through the house.

  Petey leaped at me and I enfolded him and kissed his face and his hair and his hands and he squirmed so happily in my arms like a one-man puppy pile and I cried so hard!

  “Mommy loves you,” I sobbed. “Oh, darling, Mommy loves you.”

  Daniel told me, “I heard you scream, and I called the police and changed course for here. Glad you trusted me enough to give me the address this morning.”

  I kissed Daniel and cried some more, then pulled myself together. Daniel told me he’d wait with Petey while I finished with the police. Petey clung to me, but I soothed him and Daniel wrapped him in a secure hug. Reluctantly, he let go of my sleeve.

  I went back to the pool.

  George Rowe was t
elling a detective, “You’ll find a knife under that bush and a Wrist Rocket in the scrub behind that rock fence.” He had taken off his shoes to let the water drain out. He stood in his wet socks. I wanted to put a blanket around him.

  A Wrist Rocket, for God’s sake. I remembered boys wanting those for Christmas. My brothers killed squirrels and the occasional slow-moving bird with them.

  “Yeah?” said the detective.

  “Yes, I watched the interaction between those four for about five minutes. Tenaway had the women covered with that gun”—he pointed to the bottom of the pool, then to the high dive—“from up that tower. Norah Mintz pulled a knife and he shot her. At that point I shot him in the back of the head with a three-eighths-inch steel ball launched by my Wrist Rocket. I missed once before I hit him. The first pellet must have gone into those trees.”

  The cop said, “You carry a gun, too, right?”

  “No, I don’t, as a matter of fact.”

  “Why not? You’re a PI, right?”

  “It’s against my employer’s rules.”

  The cop laughed as one tough guy to another. “Are you kidding? You’d let a rule stop you?”

  “It didn’t stop me. I wanted Tenaway alive.” George Rowe saw me listening and smiled a most becoming shy smile.

  Eileen went away in handcuffs, her mashed finger wrapped up. But before she went, she wanted to speak to me.

  I looked at this wreck of a woman, this Eileen Tenaway who had won every cakewalk she ever entered, except the last one. Back in custody after less than a day! They would charge her with insurance fraud, obstruction of justice, and God knew what else. She said, “My life is over.” Wisdom had come, late.

  My heart breaking for her, I said, “No.”

  “But I don’t hold it against you.”

  I never did figure her all the way out.

  _____

  The next morning in the midst of everything else, I heard from Marly. She dispensed with hello and simply screamed into the phone, “You got it! Oatberger wants you! For the lead! Emily Rounceville!”

  “How about that,” I said, throwing my leg over the back of the sofa. I was tired even though I’d finally slept like a sow for nine hours last night.

  “I knew it!” she yelled. “I knew he’d love you! I’ll start negotiations for you as soon as—”

  “Wait, Marly.”

  “What, hon?”

  “I haven’t said yes.”

  “Well—of course! We don’t have a contract on the table yet, but it’s just a matter of—”

  “Look, I have to think about it.”

  “What’s to think? Rita!”

  “Tell him I’ll make up my mind by tomorrow. I’ll call you tomorrow. I’ve been through a lot lately.”

  Enunciating very clearly, Marly said, “Rita, what is the matter with you?”

  “Tell Oatberger I’ll consider taking the role if he’ll give Daniel Clements an audition. He’d be perfect for the hunky mountain man who saves the blind slave’s life. There’s always one of those in an Oatberger picture. Get his agreement in writing. Mind you, I’m not insisting he give Daniel a role, only an audition.”

  Marly phoned back half an hour later. “He’ll see Daniel, sure. But he’s pissed that you’re pulling this prima donna stuff already. Who’s Daniel’s agent, by the way? I should get—”

  “Is his agreement to audition Daniel in writing?”

  “Yeah, Rita! I faxed his assistant after I talked to him and he faxed me back! God in heaven!”

  Faxes fly like lightning in L.A. when people on both ends want something.

  “Good, thank you very much. Now, Marly, I don’t know how to tell you this, but I don’t want that role. I do want to give you something for the work you just did for me.”

  Stunned silence.

  “Marly,” I said, “I’m quitting acting.”

  No sound.

  “It’s dawned on me”—speaking slowly so she could really hear—“that there’s another destiny for me out there.”

  “Rita?”

  “I’m not joking.”

  “Rita!” Her voice pitched upward. “What is this destiny?”

  “I don’t want to get into it now, Marly. I’m sorry.”

  “Oh God. Oh God. Oh God. I just put a deposit on three acres in Maui.”

  “Counting on your commission for this fat deal?”

  “And beyond! And beyond, Rita!”

  “I’m really sorry.”

  “Rita, he doesn’t want anyone but you!” Her voice sounded like a thousand mice, on fire.

  “Well, I’m sure he’ll find—”

  “No! Rita! Listen!”

  I hung up.

  _____

  Daniel understood. He came over with sandwiches and cupcakes for lunch—I had no groceries in the house—and after we ate, Petey went to play Legos in his room. I told Daniel what had been building inside me. He listened quietly.

  I said, “I’ve found out you were right, Daniel. Gramma Gladys was right. I’m smarter than a whole lot of people in this world. Smarter than I ever thought I was.”

  He finished the last bite of his ham panini. I’d only nibbled my sandwich. The herbs on it smelled good, though.

  “That’s my girl,” said Daniel. “So what’ll it be?”

  I took a deep breath and said it aloud for the first time: “Law school.”

  He smiled. “Rock on, Rita, rock on.”

  “I’m going to spend the rest of my life nailing scumbags like the Tenaways and Norah Mintz. Not to mention Mark Sharma, that prick. And I’m going to keep my son and build a good life for us. No more auditions, scream or otherwise. From now on, the courtroom’s the only stage I want to act on.”

  “I think you’ll be a wonderful lawyer, if you can keep your temper in check.”

  “My temper?”

  “Eat. I can tell you’ve lost weight from the stress.”

  “Daniel, I’m going to be a star.”

  We laughed together.

  “You will,” he agreed. “Insufferable bitch.”

  “Exactly.”

  “Speaking for myself,” he said, “I’m thrilled Oatberger will see me. Thank you, Rita.”

  “I am so in your debt, I can never—”

  “Stop. Have a cupcake.”

  _____

  That afternoon we all went to the Beverly Hills Police Department, where detectives from various jurisdictions talked to Petey as well as Daniel and me, at length. The homicide guys from downtown were there too. I asked the detective who interviewed my boy if he thought Petey ought to have some kind of trauma counseling, what with being abducted, having to hang out with Sally Jacubiak’s dead body, narrowly missing plunging to his death, etc.

  “Nah,” he said, downing a paper cup of water in the corridor. “All that does is make ’em dwell on it. Let him deal with it his own way. I got kids too. Just be there for him, listen to him when he wants to talk. You know what I mean? He’ll be all right.”

  And he was.

  At home I cuddled him close and vowed to be the best mom I could be. I was wishing he had a halfway decent dad too when the doorbell rang. It was getting on to dinnertime and I thought I’d call for pizza, then replenish the groceries next morning.

  Jeff stood in my doorway in a state of shaky but sober humility, accompanied by a scrawny, intelligent-looking guy wearing jeans and a USC sweatshirt.

  “This is Manuel,” said Jeff, “my AA counselor and new friend. May we come in?”

  Chapter 41 – Rewards Wait in Strange Places

  Pleasantly shocked, I put some coffee on. Petey ran in to give his father a hug.

  “I’m sorry about Spider Con,” Jeff told him.

  Petey stared at him briefly, unaccustomed, as children are, to being apologized to by an adult. Then he went to watch a DVD on rock climbing Daniel had left for him.

  Jeff looked the worse for wear, mostly of the internal kind. He was clean-shaven but his skin sagged and his eyes bri
mmed with pain and regret. I have to say I was glad to see the regret.

  Sitting at the kitchen table with the watchful Manuel, Jeff explained that he scared himself the last time he had Petey—he got drunk and mad and almost smacked the kid with a chair. Petey had not mentioned this. Besides, Jeff went on, his boss had caught him drinking at work. He had gone to a motel to try to dry out on his own, thus his mysterious dropping out of sight. But it hadn’t worked, and his lawyer had guided him to Alcoholics Anonymous.

  “And now,” he said, “I’m on my way to check myself into rehab. Because”—he swallowed—“I keep backsliding.”

  “Are you going to rehab for Petey,” I asked in a nice voice, “or because your boss’s boot is up your ass?”

  Holding my eyes as sincerely as he was capable of, he said, “For Petey.”

  Manuel said, “Jeff.”

  Jeff dropped his eyes. “Boss’s boot.”

  He named a center in Malibu and said his company had arranged to pay for it. Moving his coffee mug in circles on the Formica, he apologized to me for the numerous wrongs he’d done me, carefully itemizing them, 12-step style. He told me he was dropping his custody suit as well. Finally I just said, “Everything’s OK, Jeff. Don’t worry about it.” There’s only so much of that kind of thing you can take.

  He gathered himself and looked me in the eye. “Rita, I have to ask you something. Do you think, ah, you might be willing to give...us...another try when I come out?”

  How did I know that was coming? “Oh, Jeff. I’m happy for you. I am tremendously happy that you’re going to get straight. But”—I glanced at Manuel, who looked away—“I could never go back to you. I’ve gotten stronger.”

  “But—”

  “No, Jeff. Our marriage is really over.”

  “I’ve never stopped loving you. All I want is one more chance.”

  “I gave you lots of chances before the divorce.”

  Manuel gave him an I-told-you-so look.