Blues in the Night (20 page)

Connors had checked my apartment last night. I did it again now, searching room by room for evidence that someone had been here, had touched my things.

I had double-locked the front door but checked it again, and all the windows. I rummaged through my purse for Connors’s card, debating whether to call him about the opened envelopes, but decided to wait until morning.

It was a long night.

thirty-two

Wednesday, July 23. 10:07
A.M.
100 block of South Flores Street. A man approached a house and knocked on a window several times. When a woman answered, the man told her, “It’s good to have a lot of money because of bail.” (Wilshire)

There were more flowers than people at the funeral. Sunlight streamed through the chapel’s rainbow-colored stained-glass windows onto the rich mahogany of Lenore’s lily-bedecked casket. Tall bouquets of lilies and white roses stood on easels on either side of the casket and near the organist, who played mournful chords as people filed into the pews.

I sat at the back, a row behind Connors. I had checked with him that morning, expecting that the funeral would be postponed because of Betty Rowan’s death, but the Saunders family had decided to proceed. I suppose they wanted to get the whole thing over with and pretend Lenore had never existed.

Robbie was in the front row, flanked by Maureen and Jillian, who had cast a nervous look at me when she walked into the chapel. She was talking to the middle-aged couple sitting next to her. Probably her parents. I wondered to what length Donald Horton would go to protect his major investment with his future son-in-law. A handful of people were seated in the pews behind the Saunders family. Probably some of Robbie’s friends, maybe his closest political associates. Some of them had looked familiar as they’d entered the chapel.

Dr. Korwin was there, and Nina. She’d passed by me without seeing me, her eyes glazed and puffy, the black of her shapeless dress accentuating her deathlike pallor. She was probably the only true mourner here. Korwin must have been worried about her, because every once in a while he glanced at her with a furrowed brow. I’m sure there were friends from Betty’s side, and Lenore’s friends and other patients and staff from the clinic.

At one point Robbie turned around and our eyes met. A moment later Horton (at least I assumed that’s who it was) turned around, too. Fingered, I thought, but the coldness in his eyes wasn’t funny.

The service was short—only one eulogy, delivered by a somber, rail-thin pastor who did his best with the usual platitudes (“so young,” “so tragic”), considering that the funeral was being paid for by the ex-husband and the deceased had killed his son. We all filed out of the chapel, and I waited in the narrow foyer for Connors, who was off in a corner talking with someone.

“Miss Blume.”

I turned around and faced Maureen Saunders. “I’m sure this is a difficult day for your family,” I said, unable to think of anything more neutral. “Sad” would be untrue. “Great,” though tempting, would be tacky.

“This isn’t the time or place, so I’ll make it short,” Maureen said in a voice so low I had to lean closer to hear her. Her face was strained by a stiff smile she probably wore for the benefit of anyone watching. It made her look constipated. “If you continue to harass our family, we’re prepared to take legal action. And I’d be careful about what you say in print. Suffice to say, we intend to be vigilant.”

Maureen probably thought she’d have me shaking in my Escada pumps, but I’ve heard this before. I’m always careful about what I say in print, especially when I write about real people. My publisher expects no less, and although we’re both insured, I don’t relish a lawsuit. But my concern and care are to be accurate and truthful, not diplomatic. Otherwise, I’d be a political speechwriter.

Maureen joined Saunders, who was talking with a salt-and-pepper-haired man. He glanced at me, said something to Saunders, and left.

I watched mother and son exit the foyer through the double glass doors and walk down the concrete pathway toward the burial site. I wondered where little Max Saunders had been laid to rest.

Connors came up to me. “You don’t look like you’re having a good time. Who were you talking to?”

“Robbie Saunders’s mom. She brought up the
L
word.” As in libel.

“She’s threatening you?”

“Only for four generations. You think he’s here?” I asked in an undertone.

Connors looked around and leaned close. “Zorro?” he asked in a theatrical whisper.

“Are you done?”

“Oh, you mean the killer.” Connors smiled. “If he is, he’s not wearing a label.”

“Did you get the autopsy report?”

“This morning. She was five to six weeks pregnant. They found toxic doses of Haldol in her blood, urine, and stomach contents. That explains why she didn’t bleed as much from the wounds to her wrists. The meds slowed her blood pressure.”

“You said she bled to death.”

“It’s unclear whether it was the meds or the cuts, or a combination.”

“Which means what?”

“One, she sedated herself, then slashed her wrists. The M.E. says that’s a typical suicide scenario. Two, the wrist slashing was a dramatic touch. It’s her m.o., right? Three, the killer, if there is one, did the slashing to simulate her other attempts. I pick one or two.”

I frowned. “Wouldn’t the fact that she had toxic levels of Haldol indicate that someone killed her?”

“Not necessarily. Like I said, she was getting Haldol through injection and pills, so there were traces in her mouth and esophagus. And she may have swallowed pills she’d hoarded. Your original thought, remember?”

I remembered. It seemed like six years ago, not six days. “What about the angle of the wrist slashes?”

“Consistent with self-inflicted wounds or homicide, so that’s no help. At least with Betty Rowan, we know. Her autopsy’s scheduled for this afternoon, but it’s definitely a homicide. She was strangled, and there’s evidence that she was killed in her den and dragged to the bathtub after she was dead. FYI, we found a Kinko’s receipt in her purse dated last Wednesday for photocopies. From the amount charged, I’d say she copied quite a few pages.”

“Lenore’s journal.” Maybe she’d mailed selected pages to potential buyers. Saunders, I was certain, was one. Messer, a possible second. And who else? “I take it you didn’t find it?”

Connors shook his head. “Assuming she had it, it’s gone. There’s no sign that anything was taken.”

“How did the killer get in?”

“Side door. There are scratches on the lock, but a credit card would’ve done the job. The Lopost woman said Betty had been complaining that the dead bolt was jammed, but she hadn’t gotten around to having it fixed.”

I told Connors about yesterday’s trip and what I’d learned. I also told him about my conversation with Scratchy Throat, naming Brad Messer but leaving out the connection with Mindy.

“Brad Messer, huh. How’d you hear that?”

“I can’t tell you my source. I’d like to figure out a way to talk to him.”

“Well, you just missed your chance.” Connors turned and pointed toward the glass doors. “He was talking to Saunders two minutes ago. I met him once. He seemed nice enough.”

It was broad daylight, but I felt a quiver of unease. “I wonder what he was doing here.”

“Paying his respects, like everybody else. So what else do you have?”

I didn’t mention my hunch, even though what he’d just told me strengthened it. I often write scenarios that seem to soar off the page but plummet to the earth like lead the next morning, and unlike Icarus, I wasn’t willing to risk having the heat of Connors’s sarcasm melt my wings.

“Basically, Betty Rowan liked money,” I said, “and so did Lenore, the Lady from 29 Palms.” I’d heard the song last night while visiting the town’s Web site, and the Andrews Sisters’ jaunty swing rendition kept playing in my head, making Lenore’s life seem that much more pathetic.

He nodded. “Jimmy Durante, Freddy Martin, the Andrews Sisters, Vic Damone, P. Pastor, and a couple of others. I like the Sisters’ recording best. Allie Wrubel wrote it in ‘forty-seven. He lived in Twentynine Palms and used to play his hits on weekends in places like the Persian Room, which is now the Back Alley Bar. ‘Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah,’ ‘The Lady in Red,’ ‘Venus Rising.’ He died there, too.”

Connors surprises me once in a while.

He went outside, leaving me alone in the foyer. I walked over to the guest book and flipped through the lined pages. Mostly names of people I didn’t know, along with their addresses. I did recognize a few—Donald and Susan Horton, who I assumed were Jillian’s parents. Lawrence Korwin, Nina Weldon. A few politicians, the ones whose faces had seemed familiar.

And Darren Porter.

thirty-three

If Santa Barbara had an orthodox community, I’d move there in a heartbeat, or at least buy a vacation home. It’s about an hour and a half by car from L.A. on the 101 North, a pleasant drive that turns beautiful once you’re in Ventura County, where the scenery is lush and serene. I’ve been to Santa Barbara several times with my family and have enjoyed the hiking paths, the gardens, and (my favorite) long walks on the beach. (Ron and I won fifteen hundred dollars at a Chinese auction, which we applied toward a belated three-night honeymoon at the just-opened Bacara Resort and Spa. What can I tell you? It’s nice to be rich.)

The superior courthouse is on Anacapa, only eleven blocks from the ocean. I could smell the salt in the air and was tempted to detour, but it was five to two, and I had a two o’clock appointment with Donna Bergen, the prosecutor who had tried Lenore’s case. I would have arrived earlier, but after the funeral I’d stopped off at Darren Porter’s Hollywood apartment and left a note in his mailbox, asking him to phone me. I entered the three-story building from the Santa Barbara Street side, and after passing through a metal detector, I was directed to the prosecutor’s ground-floor office.

Donna Bergen was in her late thirties, tall and thin with a mop of curly black hair and brown eyes magnified by the thick lenses of her tortoiseshell frames. Her sleeves were rolled to her elbows, and her beige blouse was half out of the navy skirt whose matching jacket hung on her chair. She had a Diet Coke six-pack on her desk with four cans gone from their plastic holders, which probably explained why she was so wired. She took a can and offered me the last one, which I declined because I’m trying to watch my caffeine. I think she was relieved.

“True crime, huh? I’ve been waiting for someone to pick up on this case,” she told me. “If I had any talent, I would’ve written a book about it myself. Or better yet, a screenplay.”

“What’s so special about this case?”

“Come on, can’t you see it?” She formed a camera box with her hands. “A poor but beautiful young woman marries rich. Her older husband is cheating on her. She kills her baby and walks free. I’m thinking Gwyneth or Nicole, Richard Gere or Pierce Brosnan. Maybe Catherine Zeta-Jones, but she’d probably want to bring her husband along, and damn, but I hate his sneer. So what’s your angle?”

I wondered if Betty Rowan had gone that far in her speculations—if, in fact, I was right. I told Donna Bergen about the hit-and-run and my suspicion that Saunders had contributed to the accident or witnessed it. “Now I’m trying to figure out if Lenore killed herself or was murdered. And if she was murdered, did Saunders do it. I assume you know she’s dead?”

“Yeah, well, cry me a river.” The prosecutor snapped off the tab from her can, then lifted the can in a salute. “Here’s to justice, late though it is.”

“The jury and judge apparently believed that Lenore killed her baby because she had postpartum psychosis.”

Donna snorted. “And I have a million dollars.”

From reading about several infanticide trials after my visit with Korwin, I knew that prosecutors are often skeptical about a postpartum defense. But Donna Bergen sounded bitter. “You don’t think she was depressed?”

“Sure I do. Her husband was hitting the sheets with someone else while she was overwhelmed with being a new mom to a cranky baby. Who wouldn’t be depressed? But that doesn’t mean you get to walk after killing your two-month-old.”

“You think Lenore really knew what she was doing?”

“I thought she had a bad day and too many diapers to change, and the baby wouldn’t stop crying, so she lost her cool and shook him to make him stop and ended up breaking his neck. No intent to kill, but it’s still reckless and conscious disregard of human life. So I was going for murder two.”

“And the fact that Saunders was cheating on her played into it?”

“No proof.” The prosecutor shook her head. “Saunders was careful. But even if I
had
proof, I don’t know that I would have used it.”

That surprised me. “Why not?”

“It’s a double-edged sword.” Bergen bent her head back and took a swig of her Coke. “Say I showed that he was screwing around with his former fiancée. If I argue that Lenore knew about it and was enraged and killed the kid to punish Saunders, then it’s premeditated and I should be going for murder one. Which I would lose.”

“Why?”

“
A,
I didn’t believe that was the case.
B,
even if I
did
buy it, how would I convince a jury that Lenore knew about the affair, that she was enraged, and that she took out her rage on her own baby? Why not kill the husband or the lover?
C,
the jury
loved
her. The jury
usually
feels sorry for the mom. Your average person doesn’t want to believe a mother would intentionally kill her own kid, even though it’s happened. Plus Lenore was extremely convincing, and she looked like a grieving Madonna—not the singer.” The prosecutor smiled. “Lenore was smart, too, smarter than Andrea Yates.” She took another, longer swig.

I could see the soda chugging down her throat. “What do you mean?”

“Yates phoned the cops and her husband and told them what she’d done. That’s why some people found it hard to believe her story. I believe it, by the way. Lenore didn’t phone anyone. Saunders testified that he found her rocking the baby, and she told him she’d heard something wrong in the baby’s cry a few days ago, and this time she heard a voice coming from the baby, telling her to kill the baby, so she knew the baby was possessed by a spirit and she had to shake it out of him, or he’d die.”

Donna Bergen’s recitation was dismissive, bored. In my mind I could hear Saunders, sitting across from me at The Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf, the grief in his voice real. “You didn’t believe him?”

She shrugged. “I couldn’t prove he was lying, but that’s what my gut said. Maybe it’s what she told him, and he believed it ’cause he had to if he wanted to keep her from going to prison.”

“Why would he lie to protect her?”

“Guilt, because he wasn’t there half the time to help her? Because he wasn’t there to protect the kid? Because his affair drove her to it? I believe he honestly felt sorry for her, and the jury believed it, too. I think that’s why he testified, to make Lenore look sympathetic—as her husband, he didn’t have to. And he was there every day, visiting her. Stayed as long as they let him. His mother, on the other hand. If looks could kill . . .”

The prosecutor drained the can, crushed it, and lobbed it into a trash can several feet from her desk, where it made a clunking sound. She seemed pleased. “Which brings me back to my dilemma. Say I bring up the affair, and the fact that Lenore knew about it. If the jury thinks the knowledge
depressed
Lenore, I’m feeding right into the hands of the defense counsel, Victor Chapman, who happens to be one of the shrewdest guys I’ve ever been up against.”

I recalled what Korwin had told me about the illness. “Because if she was depressed about the affair, that could lay a foundation for the postpartum depression?”

“Bingo.” She beamed her approval. “Same problem with Lenore being pregnant when Saunders married her. If I argued that she didn’t really
want
the baby, I’d be laying the ground for depression, and I knew Chapman and the defense shrink, Lawrence Korwin, were ready to step all over me.” She grimaced, as if reliving the pain. “We had our expert, but he was no match for Korwin. And Chapman made mincemeat out of him. ‘Is it possible . . . ? Is it possible . . . ?’ ” Bergen asked, mimicking a whine. “Saunders hired the best.”

“What
was
your psychiatrist’s evaluation?”

“That Lenore was fabricating. Everybody knows about postpartum psychosis. There are books on the subject, plenty of articles online. Oprah did a show on it. How hard is it to fake the symptoms? Hallucinations, paranoia, delusions. You don’t have to be Meryl Streep. And Lenore gave an Oscar-winning performance.”

I won’t say the idea hadn’t crossed my mind.
She read books and books about her and watched the movie a hundred times. She wanted to get it just right. When you watched her perform, you would have sworn she was really blind.
And Saunders had said Lenore had been a textbook case. I flashed to the books that had littered the carpet of Lenore’s apartment, told myself Lenore had probably bought them after Max had died, because if not, Donna Bergen would have known about them and used them against her.

“Our guy also stated that women with postpartum psychosis usually show symptoms within the first month after the baby is born,” Donna Bergen said. “And they usually, though not always, have some history of schizophrenia, manic depression, or bipolar disorder. Korwin blew him out of the water. He argued that depressed people don’t always know they’re depressed, so why would they go for treatment? He said she’d displayed symptoms of bipolar disorder. A need to be seductive, fear of abandonment, impulsiveness, a decreased need for sleep. Then he brought in Lenore’s sad childhood—the dad skipping, the foster homes, the constant abandonment, the tough times. The jury was ready to elect him president.”

I pictured the psychiatrist on the witness stand—charismatic, articulate, sincere. He was an authority on the subject and had believed Lenore, so why shouldn’t I? “You think Korwin lied?”

“I’ve cross-examined experts who, for the right price, would argue that blue was pink and sound convincing. I’m not saying Korwin’s one of them. He’s tops in his field, has impeccable credentials. I think he saw what he wanted to see, and worked backward. If she had postpartum psychosis, she had to be manic or bipolar, right? So he found stuff in her past to support that belief. Doesn’t mean it’s true. It’s like writing a term paper. You start with the hypothesis and do research. You use what fits, you leave out what doesn’t.”

I could see what she meant. “And the jury believed him?”

“Absolutely. Without him, we would’ve stood a chance. The jury, by the way, was a dream come true for Lenore. Chapman knows how to pick ’em. Mostly males, who are suckers for a story like this. People without kids, people willing to believe that someone suffering from a chemical imbalance could hear voices that would tell her to kill her child. We had a few on our side, too. A parent of two small children. A woman who’d suffered from mental illness and didn’t believe it could cause someone to kill. Obviously we didn’t have enough.” The prosecutor sighed. “I caught Lenore in a couple of lies, but she squirmed out of them, kept saying she didn’t remember everything clearly. And the jury bought it. Korwin caught the lies, too. I saw him outside the courtroom during a recess right after she testified. He was one unhappy camper.”

“Did he say anything to you?”

“What’s he gonna say? ‘Put me back on the stand, Ms. Bergen, I want to retract my testimony’?”

“What kind of lies?”

“It’s in the transcript. You can read it if you want. You want to hear irony? Santa Barbara’s the headquarters of Postpartum Support International and PEP. Postpartum Education for Parents. You’d think she would’ve gotten help if she’d wanted it. She claims she didn’t know about it, didn’t know she was depressed.”

“Maybe she didn’t.”

“You sound like Chapman.” The prosecutor made a sour face.

“So if she lied, why did the jury believe her?”

“I’ll tell you why.” She leaned toward me, her weight on her elbows. “They saw a new mom who had just moved to a new city, living away from her mother, married to a wealthy businessman who left her alone for days at a time so that he could make more money while she was alone with their colicky kid and cried all day and sank deeper into depression. Chapman made Saunders into the heavy. It was a brilliant job. If Saunders had been on trial, they would have locked him up and thrown away the key.”

“But they still found Lenore guilty.”

She shrugged. “They had no choice. There was a dead child, and Lenore killed him. California doesn’t have a diminished-capacity defense, and the defense didn’t go for an insanity plea, which they probably would’ve won. Hell, when she took the stand,
I
almost believed her.”

“Why
didn’t
they go for insanity?” That had puzzled me.

“They did at first. Chapman entered the plea. This was right after they arrested her, and she was just starting the meds. Then Lenore changed her mind. She insisted to Chapman that she wasn’t insane, that the jury would see how much she loved Max, that they would believe that she would never have done anything to harm him. I thought Chapman was going to have a coronary.” The prosecutor seemed pleased by the memory. “Chapman was hoping for manslaughter. I was hoping for second-degree murder, but the jury went with manslaughter. The judge granted probation, and she was in a hospital for six months. Her baby didn’t even live
half
that long.” Bergen’s scowl was ferocious.

The bitterness was back in her voice, and I wondered if it was directed at the judge. “Some people thought the judge was bought.”

“Bullshit. The judge believed Lenore’s story, just like everyone else.”

“Except you. So maybe it’s true,” I ventured.

“Except me. Look, I’ve seen cases where the mother really did kill a child because she was mentally ill. Those are tragic for everyone concerned, and I’m the first one to say, get her in treatment. But I’ve seen enough of these so-called postpartum defenses, and unlike male D.A.’s and judges whose brain cells seem to shrivel up when they see a crying mom, I can see the bullshit when it’s there. And these malingerers make it look bad for every woman who really
does
have psychosis.” The prosecutor gave me a sharp, appraising look. “
You
have questions, too, or you wouldn’t be here.”

“I’m trying to understand who Lenore was, what her relationship was with Saunders,” I said, but of course, it was only half the truth. What
did
I know about the hit-and-run victim with whom I’d spoken only minutes, the woman who was either wonderful or manipulative, goddess or demon? Or was she somewhere in between?

“Maybe you’re angry because you don’t like to lose,” I added, uncomfortable having the ball in my court.