Okay, computer says, spell monkey—type it in, Gia,” Maxi said, staring at the screen. “Now spell-check, control, function key F-2, you are correct, missy. Next, computer says, spell morning…”
“This is fun, isn’t it, darling?” Debra fairly sang, giving her daughter a squeeze. The two women sat on either side of Gia in front of her Mac terminal, working through the new spelling program that Maxi had brought to the beach.
“You are a computer wizard, Gee,” Maxi pronounced. They’d been at it for two hours, and Gia’s mother was delighted that she was actually enjoying the spelling exercise, making a game of it. It was Sunday, fifteen days after Gia’s father had been shot to death in her bedroom, and Debra felt that, for a while at least, the terrible weight of that knowledge seemed to be off her daughter’s mind.
“Lunch is ready,” Bessie announced, peering into the den. “Pasta and salad. It’s a lovely day,” she said. “Will you have it out on the deck? Get some fresh air?”
“What a nice idea,” Debra responded. “Let’s do, shall we?” She started to get up.
“Just two more,” Gia pleaded. “Then we’ll be done with the M’s. Please, Mom?”
“Who are you?” Debra laughed. “Are you my daughter, actually begging to spell? This program is brilliant, Max.”
Debra was troubled by Gia’s behavior since the murder. She never talked about it, nor spoke of her father, but she’d been listless and unmotivated, had no interest in playing with her friends, or even with her toys. Her teachers were telling Debra that Gia wasn’t concentrating in class—she was lagging far behind in reading, doing poorly in math, flunking almost every test. And she wasn’t getting on with her schoolmates. She was picking fights at every turn. Debra was told that Gia was being tolerated for the moment because the poor youngster had lost her father, but if she didn’t improve markedly, and soon, they wouldn’t be able to keep her there. Debra was also getting negative reports from Gia’s therapist. Dr. Jamieson was coming out to the house now, to observe Gia in her home environment; he didn’t feel he was making progress with the girl, he said. Now, as they sat down to lunch on the broad redwood deck overlooking the surf at beautiful Malibu beach, Debra felt it was the closest to a normal day that they’d had since the murder.
“Gia,” Debra said to her daughter, “after lunch, Sunshine and Kip are coming over to play. I’ve invited them, okay?” Sunshine and Kipper were the daughter and son of a film producer and his wife who lived a few houses down the beach.
“Where are we going to play?” Gia asked. She wouldn’t go into her bedroom, hadn’t since the murder. She alternated between sleeping with Debra, or upstairs with Bessie when Debra was out.
“Well, darling, since all your toys are in your room, and Sunshine and Kip haven’t seen your Sports Flyer game yet, you could play in there, and Bessie will bring you lemonade….” Gia was vigorously shaking her head.
“Okay, sweetheart.” Debra sighed. She’d hoped that by associating Gia’s room with play, she might disassociate it from the murder. But she didn’t blame her daughter; even she avoided that bedroom. She’d decided to convert the guest room upstairs for Gia. It was bigger, she was old enough now to be a floor away from her at night, and Janet had sent over all her things from Jack’s house, so she needed more room.
“Oh, here they come, Gia,” Debra said, as the two blond neighbor kids came tripping across the sand. She hoped her daughter would enjoy playing with them. She hoped she wouldn’t fight with them and come in crying. The youngsters came up on the deck, had some lemonade and cookies, then all three cantered off onto the beach with giant squirt guns. As Bessie gathered up the lunch dishes, Debra and Maxi went over to the reclining chairs to talk and watch the kids.
Debra suddenly felt very tired. “So,” she said, “the grand jury won’t convene until they get more solid evidence, Marvin says. Meantime, I wait. I’m in limbo. I can’t work. Even if anybody were crazy enough to hire me, I can’t commit. This is hell, Max; I’m terrified.”
“I know,” Maxi said. “At least the press has backed off—my esteemed colleagues.”
“They’re not your colleagues, Maxi, they’re the crap press! The Enquirer, the Globe, that whole scum bunch. Going to them and spilling my outraged and deeply offended guts pacified them somewhat—they love it when you cry. They’ve all slithered off for now, until… I mean unless something happens.”
“But no preliminary hearing has been set—that’s good.”
“Yet! Not yet! Marvin’s dragging it out, but charges have been filed, I’ve been arraigned, and they’re digging hard,” Debra said.
“What do they have?”
“Not much. They’ve had me in three times; we go over the same stuff—Marvin says the Italian detective wants to get in my pants. In his dreams! He is kinda cute, though—
“Jeez, Debra, how can you joke?”
“What should I do? Slit my wrists? Christ, don’t they get it that if I were going to kill him I would have done it years ago? Maxi, speaking of killing someone, would you believe that during the custody trial he told me ‘friends’ of his offered to do me for him? Offered to kill me! Friends in the mob—he loved to pal around with them. He thought he could scare me into giving up my child. You know,” she went on, “he used to pass counterfeit twenty-dollar bills they’d give him, just for kicks. He’d give bogus bills to maître d’s, parking attendants, store clerks—then he’d brag to me that it was funny money.”
“Oh, God,” Maxi gasped. “He did the same thing with me once. I was shocked. I told him he was putting me in the position of knowing about an illegal act. If I knew the bill was counterfeit, by law I had to report him. He said, ‘Oh, please.’”
“He cultivated that bad-boy image, and the fact is, Maxi, he was bad. He had the soul of a criminal.”
“You don’t really think he’d have had you killed, do you?”
“Trust me,” Debra said. “I was looking over my shoulder. Maybe he wouldn’t have ordered the hit, because he wouldn’t want some goon testifying in court that he’d asked him to do it, but he would definitely have popped a bottle of champagne if somebody whacked me because he thought it would please the boss. Can you believe, Maxi, they called him the boss!”
“I know,” Maxi said. “They’d call the house and say, ‘Is the boss there?’ Once I asked one of them if he meant Bruce Springsteen. They’d come over with cartons of antipasto and baked ziti, and eat like the Sopranos. Jack would whisper to me that our guests were packing.”
“Did he ever tell you that one day two of the ‘consultants’ on the Hell-bent set, two ex-cons, went across the street on the lunch break and robbed a factory of its payroll?”
“Oh sure, I heard that one ten times. That was one of his favorite dinner party stories.”
“Yeah, well, now I’ve gotta get through this,” Debra mused. “You know I’m strong, Max—whatever happens, I’ll handle it. But can Gia? That’s what has me sick with worry….”
Maxi was watching a woman spread a blanket on the sand by the rocks near the house. Debra looked around to see what had caught her attention.
“Oh, Lord,” Debra said, “now there’s another whole story. Do you know who that woman is? Take a good look, Max.”
“I can’t make her out.”
“Here.” Debra picked up a pair of binoculars from a side table and handed them to Maxi. “We usually gaze at the stars with these—you are now about to gaze at a burned-out star.”
Maxi looked through the glasses. “Whoa!” she exclaimed. “Meg Davis! She was at the funeral. And at the auction of Jack’s things yesterday. I put her in my story. She bought a movie prop, the cross they used in Black Sabbat.…” Maxi was focusing the eyepiece.
“I know. I know. But listen to this,” Debra said. “She’s been camping out there all summer, two, three, four days a week, lately every day. I didn’t think anything of it, until the detectives got very interested that she was out there on the day Jack was shot.”
“What?” cried Maxi, putting down the glasses. “Did you see her?”
“No, but Bessie did, and Bessie told the investigators. They told her to think hard about anything out of the ordinary that went on that day—and she told them that the actress Meg Davis was on the beach in front of the house at the time of the murder. Bessie was a nervous wreck, being hauled in to the Hall of Justice. She told me all about it when she got home.”
“Come on, Deb, how can you say you didn’t think anything of it? This woman goes way back with Jack, and who knows what went on between them? Word is she’s a drug addict, hasn’t worked in a long time; maybe she blamed him—”
“Maxi”—Debra stopped her—“I keep my doors locked; the police found no evidence of forced entry. There were no footprints around the doors or windows that they couldn’t account for. There were no unfamiliar fingerprints anywhere inside—God knows, mine were on the goddamned gun. There weren’t any hairs anywhere—evidently hairs are a big deal. They vacuumed meticulously for hairs and fibers; Bessie should only do such a good job. And they took some strands of my hair, and Gia’s and Bessie’s too, to compare with what they swept up. Marvin says they found nothing. Now, take a look at that woman out there. You had her on the news last night—she’s a zombie! She looks like she couldn’t dress herself. How the hell could she get in my house, kill somebody, and get out without a trace?”
But Maxi was setting up the audiocassette recorder that she always carried in her purse. Getting up out of her chair, she said, “I’m going to go have a chat with her.”
Debra watched Maxi saunter across the sand toward the rocks where Meg Davis was sitting, intently watching the three children playing on the beach.