Dead Ex, page 26
“It’s an undergarment that Joey’s currently wearing, and it’s holding her Glock.”
Fredreeq stared at me, then walked away without a word. I didn’t know whether she was shocked speechless by this sartorial choice or relieved that Joey was armed, albeit with a gun she couldn’t get to without removing her dress.
I returned my attention to the backpack and all its detritus, including sunscreen, sunglasses, Kleenex, chewing gum, dental floss, a small book of Zen meditations, and a thimble-sized carved Buddha.
“Wollie! I’ve got a clue!” Fredreeq yelled.
I hurried to the dining room, where my friend triumphantly held up a trio of DVDs in plain cases. “At the End of the Day, ” she said. “Future episodes. These must be significant, or what’s Joey doing with them?”
“She’s not doing anything with them,” I said. “They’re mine. Jen Kim gave them to me when she hired me to do SoapDirt. She thought I should watch the show.”
“Oh.” Fredreeq’s disappointment was short-lived. “Well, I think we need to take a break and watch them right now. Wait’ll my cousin Zonya hears that I’ve seen the future of Moon Lake. Too bad I have too much integrity to sell them to the tabloids.”
We all had our addictions, and who was I to interfere with Fredreeq’s?
We went into the bedroom and I cleared off Joey’s bed, scooping stuff back into the backpack. The TV, with a built-in DVD player, was still set up on the dresser, Joey’s jean jacket tossed over it. Fredreeq handed the jacket to me. I was about to hang it up, then remembered that Joey had been wearing it the day Elliot died. I checked the pockets.
In one was a letter and its envelope, in small pieces.
We laid it out on the bed and pieced it back together.
2 3 8 H A R L E Y J A N E K O Z A K
E—
What I hate most about all this is being a cliché—the wife who’s so blind she thinks she’s happy. And now what? My current plan to
drink myself into a stupor isn’t working out that well and isn’t exactly original either. I think I should just kill you. It’s proactive, within my capabilities, and requires thought and planning, which is good for someone with time on her hands. If I see you in person, I might be too mad to fire a warning shot, so this is it. The warning shot. Stay away from me.
J.
P.S. No kidding. That’s how much I hate you.
I went to a dresser drawer. Inside was a book of matches and a few mar-ijuana stems on an ashtray. I thought about the police with their search warrant seeing that, but I didn’t dwell on it. I took the pack of matches and the ashtray to Fredreeq and we set the pieces on fire, one at a time.
Then we settled in to watch our soap.
F o r t y - f o u r
A t the End of the Day’s opening sequence was hip, snappy theme music accompanied by windswept glamour shots of a dozen cast
members. Everyone looked merry and adventurous and intriguing and sexy—all at once—and I saw each one as a potential murderer.
It was lucky Fredreeq was there to provide commentary, along with hot-air popcorn, or I’d have been lost. Every character in the show seemed related to every other character in multiple ways: cousins were also lovers, in-laws, and former stepchildren, since anyone over the age of twenty had been married at least four times. Offspring, Fredreeq explained, were shown briefly as babies, then whisked away, returning a few short years later as teenagers, victims of Soap Opera Sudden Growth Hormone. There was neither homelessness nor homeliness in Moon Lake, and certainly no obesity, but an astonishing number of citizens had, over the years, experienced temporary blindness, amnesia, and multiple personality disorders.
Fredreeq described the two major families, the Wrensides and the Trents. There were also the Reggianos, but they were recent arrivals from Vegas, mostly loan sharks and enforcers. The Wrensides were old money, with mansions and faithful servants and coats of arms; the Trents were nouveau riche. They had hotel chains and construction companies and a
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shopping center they were trying to build atop a failed vineyard they’d acquired from the Wrensides by foul means. They also owned the notorious nuclear power plant.
Toward the end of the first episode, an environmental group led by Tricia’s character, Lilac Grant Fabian Wrenside Trent, was conducting a sit-in at the plant. Lilac’s archenemy was Rupert Ling’s character, Rocket, who was a Wrenside and also the chief of police. Lilac was holding Cruise Trent, her former stepson—played by Trey Mangialotti—hostage. She wore rubber gloves and held a gun to his head.
August Wrenside came charging onto this scene in a white limousine and persuaded his former daughter-in-law to enact a hostage exchange.
She let go of Cruise, who, in any case, had lapsed into a diabetic coma, and put her gun against the white-haired temple of Sheffo/August, who, I noticed, walked with a limp.
Fredreeq stopped the show at this point to discuss the possibility that this was the gun that had shot David, which led me to wonder what had made the police think to look in the prop room of the soap opera for the murder weapon in the first place, something neither of us could answer.
Fredreeq hit play.
“I’ll shoot him, Rocket,” Tricia/Lilac shouted to Rupert’s character, who could be seen through a picture window, on a plank, wearing a window washer’s harness. “Don’t think I won’t.” She turned to her captive.
“Sorry, August, but I have nothing to lose. Either way, I’m going to prison for this. Or to hell. Besides, you’re old.”
“But you’re young. That’s what you have to lose, Lilac,” Sheffo/
August told her, limping toward her. “Sleep. Innocence. Sweet dreams.”
“My dreams aren’t that great,” she said.
“You’re looking out over dark water, child,” he said, and music began to play under his words. “If you take my life, you cross a bridge from which there is no return. No round-trip tickets. On the far side are all the people who have killed their fellow man. It’s their company that awaits you. Is that really your social scene, Lilac?”
“I’m tougher than you think,” Tricia/Lilac said, tossing her well-coifed hair. “Who masterminded this break-in, who kidnapped the
cleaning crew and showed up in their place?”
Fredreeq spoke up. “That explains the rubber gloves.”
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“The old cleaning-crew-as-Trojan-Horse scenario,” I said.
“Lilac,” Sheffo/August said, “you don’t know the torment that killing brings.”
“But my mother died from radiation poisoning. Someone’s got to pay for that.”
“I’m paying,” Sheffo/August said. “I fired her as my museum curator, and there was nowhere for her to turn for work but the nuclear plant. I suffer for that every day. But not for much longer; this damn testicular cancer is eating me alive. So have patience. Wait three weeks and I’ll be dead. Shoot me now, it will haunt you forever. And you lose your inheritance; I’ve left precise instructions in my will.”
“What inheritance, August? Why would you leave me anything?”
“Because, Lilac, I have always loved you. Since before you were born.
As I once loved your mother.”
“My . . . mother?”
The music swelled, alerting us to the Significant Moment looming.
“That’s right. I loved her. Lilac, I am . . . your father.”
“What?!” Fredreeq and Lilac shrieked at the same moment. In the background, Rupert/Rocket was so shocked that he lost his balance and disappeared from view. The camera moved outside, showing him dan-gling from the window washer’s harness. He wore tight-fitting gymnas-tics attire, an outfit worn by neither police chiefs nor window washers, in general. But perhaps things were different in Moon Lake.
The scene faded to black.
Unlike Fredreeq, who actually dabbed at her eyes, I couldn’t summon up the concern I was evidently supposed to feel. The elements of impending death, failed vineyards, and guns held to the heads of people who were dying of cancer anyway hit too close to home. “The parallels here to David’s life are a little scary,” I said.
“That’s vintage David, using his life for his art. He was writing up till the day he died,” Fredreeq said. “Tricia told me that at her party. They’ll be shooting his ideas right into the summer. Some details will change, of course.”
“Yes, like the reprieve from death given to Tricia and Trey. But how does Tricia know what David was doing till the day he died? They weren’t exactly close.”
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Fredreeq shrugged. “If Sheffo’s still getting nuked, I guess we cross him off the short list of murder suspects.”
“No, because Sheffo thought he was getting a reprieve too. He
was simply mistaken. But I’ll be very depressed if it turns out to be Sheffo. The thing is, all three actors could conceivably get another job, right?”
Fredreeq nodded. “Happens all the time. Actors soap-hop.”
“And Jen Kim? If she was fired, couldn’t she work on another show?”
“Not executive-producing. She’d be lucky to associate-produce. Soaps are dying off—those jobs just aren’t that plentiful, and she doesn’t have the experience. This one fell into her lap.”
“How on earth do you know all this?” I asked.
“Inside Soaps, plus my favorite soap blog. I’m a very well-informed viewer.”
We watched two more episodes of At the End of the Day, which more or less recapped and replayed the bombshell that Sheffo/August had just dropped regarding his paternity. Fredreeq explained that in the olden days, before TiVo and VCRs, the average viewer was a housewife who watched two or three times per week, often while ironing. She depended on the writers to fill her in on what she’d missed, which explained why characters spent time telling each other what they already knew. It also explained The Iliad. Greek women probably brought along darning to the acropolis and tended to their children while watching Troy fall.
After the soaps, we popped in an episode of SoapDirt. It was not the worst half hour of television I’d ever seen, but it made the Top Ten, lack-ing charm, wit, or any redeeming social value. And I was shortly to be a part of it. “It’s not too much worse than Biological Clock, ” Fredreeq pointed out, referring to my erstwhile reality show, a remark that certainly brightened my day.
I gave Fredreeq the guest bedroom and stretched myself out on the modernist sofa in the area euphemistically called the living room. Neither of us wanted the master bedroom. We didn’t know when the sheets had last been changed and agreed that, in any case, sleeping on a dead man’s pillow should be reserved for his widow.
I tossed and turned on the angular sofa, wondering whether I should
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move to the inner city or an underdeveloped country and offer myself up for missionary work—anything more meaningful than painting murals or dating for dollars. I slept badly, keeping one ear open for a knock on the door, telling me that Joey was back.
It never came.
F o r t y - f i v e
B eep. I was awakened at seven a.m. by Uncle Theo, wondering when I was coming over. Beep.
The beep came from my phone, which in my disoriented state I
found puzzling.
“Am I coming over?” I asked. Beep. “I planned on painting my wall today.” This, I knew, would clear my mind so I could figure out what to do next about Joey.
“Why, yes. New Year’s Day, you know.” Beep. “If you’re here by eight, we’ll be right on schedule.”
“For what?” I asked, but there was no answer. Or another beep. My battery was dead.
My battery charger was in the car, so I went to find Joey’s phone, which rang as I reached for it.
“Hello?” I said, praying it was Joey.
“Happy New Year, sweetie pie,” a hearty voice yelled.
“Happy New Year to you, but this isn’t Joey,” I said. “It’s her friend Wollie.”
“Well, hi, Wollie. This is her brother Jamey.”
“Oh, hi, Jamey,” I said. “You’re the one living in—Iowa?”
“Nebraska. You’re thinking of Skippie.”
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“Oh, right. I’m not sure where Joey is, Jamey, but I’ll tell her you called.”
“Thanks. Uh—how’s she doing?”
“Oh . . . you know . . .” My heart pounded. How much did he know?
That her ex-boyfriend was dead? And the man formerly thought to be her husband? That she was broke? And a murder suspect? With a drinking problem? And a gun? “She’s . . . hanging in there. One thing about Joey, she’s . . . intrepid.”
“Well, here’s the deal. Our mom’s on a cruise—Joey may have
told you.”
“Yes. Croatia.”
“We haven’t told Mom yet about Elliot,” Jamey said. “It’s her first vacation in fourteen years. We don’t want her cutting it short, flying right from Zagreb to L.A. Joey was adamant about that.”
“I think that’s a good call,” I said, vastly relieved that they knew about Elliot.
“You think I should fly out, though?” Jamey asked. “Joey told us all to hold off, but it doesn’t feel right to leave her alone right now. I thought of just catching a plane, but the kids’ wrestling team is going to state finals this weekend—it’s a bad time.”
“If Joey told you not to come—”
“And our sister M.J. is snowed in in Pittsburgh, the airport’s shut down, and Sweezie can’t travel, she’s nine months pregnant, and Patrick’s family is with Mom—”
“Jamey,” I said, hoping I was about to do the right thing, “Joey seems to be dealing with this by keeping busy. By next week, when it all quiets down, that’s when it will really hit her, I think.”
“Oh, we’ll all get there by next week. Well, not Sweezie, but Sean, me, Skippie, and, later, Mom and Patrick . . . helluva thing. Guy dies surfing. I’ve never liked oceans.”
“Yeah. I’m not a surfer either.” To put it mildly. I didn’t even swim.
He paused. “I heard things were dicey between them, but I thought Elliot was an okay guy. Not like the yahoos some of my sisters married.
Anyhow, tell her to call. She needs us, we’re here. Next week, we’re there.”
“I’ll tell her,” I said. Assuming I ever found her again.
I tried to call Uncle Theo, but there was a busy signal, and, of course,
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he had no call-waiting. Too newfangled. I roused Fredreeq and told her I was driving to Glendale, as I was expected there for some reason or another. She had to get home herself, she said, to gear up for Fresno. We left a note for Joey, and I took her cell phone. I didn’t want to think about what I’d do if she didn’t return by nightfall. I’d sooner stay at the Bates Motel than alone at Solomonhaus after dark.
All the way to Glendale I tried to calm my nervous stomach and remind myself that Joey was the most resourceful person I knew. But she had few resources now beyond brains, imagination, a gun, and a capacity for running. If I’d let on to her brother just how worried I was, he’d already be at the airport.
I entered Uncle Theo’s apartment and was hit hard by the scent of lamb.
My uncle’s apartment was even more cramped than it had been a
week earlier, as Apollo’s entourage, as I’d begun to think of them, had spread out. They’d hung prints on the wall, put down a rug, and strung fabric to act as room dividers in a space that had no room to be divided.
Four of them were watching a woman sell diamonds on the Home Shopping Network. The scent of spices hung like the L.A. fog layer. Apollo greeted me excitedly and introduced me to Olympia, his mother and the head chef, who I’d seen but not formally met. She clasped my hands, offered me food of some sort, and spoke excitedly, either in Greek or English too heavily accented for me to understand. I nodded a lot.
Uncle Theo was playing a board game called Sorry! Madagascar
with a couple of the younger houseguests, but he hopped up at the sight of me.
“Ready to go?” he asked.
“Where?”
“Rio Pescado,” he said. “It’s moving day.”
“P.B.’s? I don’t think so,” I said. “Nothing happens on New Year’s Day.”
“Oh, yes. They were very clear about it at the hospital, that P.B.’s bed is to be given to another patient on January first. It has to do with accounting, and the paperwork is all done, so P.B. must vacate this morning. They hinted that they preferred him to leave yesterday, but he wanted to ring in the New Year with his friends. Very understandable.”
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“Are you telling me,” I said, “that today is literally moving day? That we’re moving boxes and—P.B.—today?”
“Sorry!” said the two boys he was playing with, laughing uproariously.
I thought they were talking to me, then saw that it had to do with their board game.
“Yes, of course!” Uncle Theo looked like a child himself, faced with a trip to the zoo. “A new home for a new year. Well, nearly. I spoke to the Santa Barbara people, but Haven Lane won’t be open for business until Monday. So we’ll just drive to Rio Pescado, pack him up, and bring him here for a few days. Give me a moment to find my gloves and hat and I’ll be ready. I’m not as good as I used to be at finding things.”
I resisted pointing out that this was because he now had numerous illegal aliens living with him. Who was I to find fault with anyone who chose to take in those with nowhere else to go? I took several deep breaths and then headed outside with Apollo to empty my trunk. I left The Iliad and my purse on the front seat and added the rest of my belongings to those already cluttering the apartment. Apollo was coming along; P.B. had specifically requested it, and regardless of how cramped the car would be, whatever P.B. wanted, on this day of days, I was inclined to give him.
We drove up the 101 freeway to the Pleasant Valley exit and found my brother waiting for us in the reception area. He stared at my hair, which, until recently, had been exactly like his, blond, straight, and fine.
