Blues in the Night (21 page)

She laughed. “Hell,
no,
I don’t like to lose. Does anyone? But that’s not why I’m pissed. I’m pissed because Lenore Saunders got away with murder. And I don’t mean murder two.”

Now I was confused. “So you
do
think she murdered her child to get back at her husband?”

She snapped off the tab on the remaining can and perched herself on the front of her desk. “There was this moment at the sentencing. Korwin was explaining that the therapy and medication were working, that Lenore was doing so well. He didn’t sound as convincing to me, and I think Lenore was worried. She was watching him intently, and I was watching her.” The prosecutor took a sip of the soda, drawing out the moment.

I inched forward on my chair, curious to hear what she was about to say, dreading it at the same time because I wasn’t ready to give up the Lenore I’d been carrying around in my mind from the first time I met her.

“Then the judge pronounced the sentence,” Donna Bergen said. “Probation, et cetera. And Lenore put her head halfway down for maybe a second or two, and her eyes kind of slid to the side.” She simulated the movements. “That’s when I saw it.” She paused. “The smile.”

thirty-four

That was it? I waited, certain that she had something more, but she sat there on her desk, watching for my reaction.

“Of
course
she was smiling,” I said, annoyed. “She was happy. Why wouldn’t she be?” Bergen had set me up for a
Sixth Sense
shocker and had given me
Ishtar
.

She wagged her finger at me. “This wasn’t an ‘I’m so happy I’m not going to jail’ smile. That I expected. This was ‘Gotcha.’ ‘Gotcha, you smart-ass prosecutor. Gotcha, ye suckers of the jury. Gotcha, judge.
Gotcha,
shrinks. I mean Korwin, too, not just our guy.” She aimed an imaginary gun at imaginary targets around the room. “Gotcha. Gotcha. Gotcha. Gotcha. Gotcha. A second later the waterworks were there. The
good
Lenore was back.”

The woman had a problem, I decided. Maybe it was all that caffeine. “Don’t you think you’re reading a great deal into a smile?”

“You had to see it,” she insisted. “After the sentencing, Saunders came over and hugged her. I thought he looked relieved but kind of uncomfortable, but she was drinking him in like she’d been in the desert and this was the first water she’d seen in days. Then she put her arms around his neck and laid her head against his chest like she was his little girl. There were reporters and TV people, but they didn’t exist for her. He was the only person in the world. And I realized then that he’d been the only person in the world who had ever mattered. Not the baby. She didn’t give a shit about the baby.”

I could have said a lot of things. That of course, Lenore was relieved to be free, that there was nothing unnatural about concentrating on her husband, from whom she’d been separated, or ignoring the media that had ripped into her so badly. I just sat there, visualizing what Donna Bergen had described, sorting out other things I’d learned about Lenore, wondering if she could be right.

“She played us all the way.” A vein pulsed in the prosecutor’s cheek. “After I left the courthouse, I got to thinking. Why
did
she change her plea? Why didn’t she plead not guilty because of insanity? She was hearing voices, right? She thought her kid had an alien force inside him.”

I thought for a moment. “The result would have been the same, wouldn’t it? Whether she was acquitted on an insanity plea or placed on probation by the judge, she would have ended up in a hospital.”

“With an insanity plea, she was looking at a year in a locked facility, minimum. Probably longer. She gets well too soon, the docs would be suspicious. And before being released, she’d have to go before a medical review panel. A much tougher process, I can tell you. With probation it was six to nine months with Korwin, and she’s out. Plus, with the insanity plea, she would’ve been interviewed by more shrinks. And
that
was something she didn’t want to do.”

“But she took a serious risk,” I pointed out. “She could have ended up spending years in prison.”

“She knew she had a winning team. She had Chapman. She had Korwin. She’d convinced them, and she would convince the jury. She gambled and she won.”

“She tried to kill herself twice,” I said. “Doesn’t that say anything?”

“They were gesture suicides, according to our shrink. Korwin, of course, didn’t agree. Lenore didn’t take enough Haldol to kill herself, and the wrist wounds weren’t deep. I think she did it to convince Saunders how distraught she was. And it played well with the jury.”

“Did you tell anyone about this?”

Donna Bergen laughed. “That I didn’t like her smile? That she was madly in love with her husband? They’d tell me
I
needed to see a shrink. No point, anyway. With double jeopardy, I couldn’t get at her. I
did
tell Korwin. I congratulated him on getting taken in by her and suggested he get her spayed. He got all hot under the collar, threatened to sue me.” The prosecutor spun the empty can on her desk. “She did it because she thought the kid was in the way. The mother knew, too. I could see it in her face.”

“Mrs. Saunders?”

“Mrs. Rowan. She visited Lenore one time in jail for maybe ten minutes. On the opening day of the trial she had this look on her face like she’d peeked under a rock and found something nasty. She didn’t show again until the sentencing. Didn’t testify for her daughter. Chapman told me she wasn’t feeling well, but I think he ordered her to stay away unless she could pretend she believed Lenore and could put on a better face for the jury. I guess she couldn’t. I guess a mother’s love goes just so far.”

From what I’d learned in Twentynine Palms, Betty’s love for Lenore wouldn’t have sold too many Hallmark cards. I’d been puzzled all along by her allegiance to Saunders over her daughter—if Saunders had believed that Lenore had suffered from postpartum psychosis when she’d killed Max, why couldn’t Betty?

“From everything you’ve told me about Lenore, we could be talking about a psychopath,” Irene Gurstner said.

Irene is five years older than I am. She’s a congregant in my shul and the psychologist who helped me after Aggie died. She has become a friend. I was impatient to talk to her as soon as I returned from Santa Barbara, but traffic had been heavy, and I didn’t get home until after five, not a great time to bother a mother of two small children. I was also eager to read the trial transcripts Bergen had loaned me, but there were four volumes, and between my trips to Twentynine Palms and Santa Barbara, I was behind in entering
Crime Sheet
data. So I worked at my computer until seven, at which point I couldn’t wait any longer and phoned Irene.

“
Psychopath
’s such a scary word,” I said now.

“You can use
sociopath
if you prefer. Whatever you call it, planning to kill your own child
is
scary.”

“If it’s true. I don’t know that she did.”

“I don’t either. I’m just going by what you’ve told me, Molly. The father skipped. The mother was in and out of her life in her formative years, and when she
was
around, she was cold and verbally abusive. Lenore was in a series of foster homes when she was young. Makes it hard to form the normal attachments crucial to a child’s early development. Add the fact that she was molested, and you have a history that would fit with that of a psychopath. Was there other physical abuse?”

“I don’t know. The mother was very strict and, according to Lenore’s best friend, she was rough on her. They didn’t have much money. That’s why she pushed Lenore to marry rich.”

“Talk about learned behavior.” Irene sighed. “Lenore’s mother hooks up with some rich guy and gets pregnant. He marries her and skips when the baby’s an infant. The mother pushes the daughter to marry rich. She finally does, and gets the guy the same way, by getting pregnant.”

Like mother, like daughter, I thought.

“But the daughter wants to do it better, not like Mom, who went from guy to guy and ended up with nothing,” Irene said. “Lenore wants Daddy to stay. In her head, she’s remembering all those times the mother told her Daddy wouldn’t have skipped if she’d been a good girl, if she hadn’t cried, if she hadn’t kept them up nights.”

“Basically, if she hadn’t existed,” I said. “So you think Lenore intended from the start to kill her baby?”

Donna Bergen’s theory. I thought about the hospital birth card for Baby Boy Saunders that I’d found among the playbills in the lavender hatbox, souvenirs from Lenore’s starring roles. A sad memento, or another playbill from her most challenging performance?

“This is just a hypothesis, Molly,” Irene warned. “I never met this woman. I could be way off base.”

“She’s not going to sue you, Irene. She’s dead.”

“God, you’re terrible!” She laughed uneasily. “She may have started out intending to succeed where her mother failed. We all think we’re going to do better than our parents. She wants security, doesn’t want to be abandoned again. So when she suspects her husband of fooling around, she can see the end of the story: She’ll have the baby, he’ll leave her. The baby will be left without a father, and she’ll be without a husband. And without money.”

Lenore had waited a long time for Robbie. She would’ve done anything to hold on to him.
“So she kills the baby.”

“Because she thinks she’ll get to keep Daddy. But, surprise: Daddy leaves anyway.”

“So she tries again,” I said. “She gets pregnant, thinking Robbie will dump the fiancée like he did last time, and marry her. But this time the charm doesn’t work. What if it had?” I wondered aloud.

“I don’t know,” Irene said. “Psychopaths don’t just turn into normal people overnight.”

The prosecutor had phrased it in starker terms: “Lucky for the fetus Lenore died, or eventually she would’ve killed it, too.”

“If it’s true, is she sick or is she evil, Irene?”

“Now you’re getting into murky waters. When people do bad things, is it because they’re evil or because they’re disturbed as a result of their upbringing or genetics or something else? Most psychologists will agree that a psychopath is evil, but even psychopathy generally comes from abuse.”

“And if a person’s born a psychopath?”

“Then it’s genetic, isn’t it?”

I was frustrated and told her so.

“I told you, there’s no clear answer. Maybe the Torah has a clearer perspective. Ask a rabbi.”

Twenty-four hours ago I would have asked Zack, but I wasn’t really interested in talking to him about this, or anything. Still, I wondered who Lisa was, and where he was taking her tonight. I never learn. . . .

“Would she feel remorse?” I asked. “Would she try to kill herself?”

“A psychopath doesn’t feel guilt or depression, Molly, so why would she kill herself? Psychopaths have no conscience. They’re manipulative and use people to serve their own needs and goals. They usually have above-average intelligence, too, so that would fit Lenore. And they’re incredibly charming. You could live next door to one and have no clue.”

“Or be her best friend.”

“As long as she needs you.”

I thought about Cathy Johnson, Lenore’s best friend until Lenore dropped out of her life. I wondered what purpose Nina had served. Someone to adore her? Someone to believe her lies? If it’s true, I kept reminding myself. If it’s true . . .

“The prosecution psychiatrist thinks Lenore’s two suicide attempts were gesture suicides,” I said. “Is it plausible that she’d fake another suicide to manipulate Robbie and make him feel guilty so that he’d marry her?”

“It’s plausible. Whether she did it, I don’t know.”

“Dr. Korwin, Lenore’s shrink, thought the suicide attempts were genuine. But that was before she testified. The prosecutor thinks Korwin realized she’d fooled him, but how is it that Korwin didn’t see through her right away?”

“We’re not infallible, Molly. We don’t have X-ray vision. No psychological Geiger counter. Sorry.”

“So why
did
she call me, Irene? Why did she tell me she was afraid?”

“If she’s a psychopath, she’s manipulative, remember? Maybe she wanted to authenticate the suicide attempt with you because you’re a reporter. Maybe she wanted you to call her mother or alert the nurses. It’s also quite possible she really
was
afraid she was in danger, and she figured no one else would believe her. Enter you.”

I didn’t like thinking Lenore had fooled me. But I’d seen her in her hospital bed, a victim of a hit-and-run driver. Injured, weak, trembling with vulnerability and anguish. Naturally, she’d aroused my sympathy. Had she been acting then, too?

“If she’s a psychopath,” I asked, “do you think anything she said to me was real?”

“Other than her name, I wouldn’t count on it.”

I finally had some answers about Lenore, but they weren’t the answers I’d wanted. I still didn’t know whether she’d faked a suicide attempt too well, or whether she’d been murdered. And I still wasn’t any closer to figuring out who had killed Betty Rowan.

thirty-five

Isaac had sat on the porch in wait for Ernie the postal carrier, so my mail was intact—bills and a reminder that I was due for my annual eye exam.

I had listened to my phone messages earlier, when I’d returned from Santa Barbara. Mindy, wanting to know if her client had been helpful and reminding me to be careful. Saunders, sounding pleasant this time, and wanting to discuss something. Maybe he wanted to pay me to keep quiet or find out how much I knew.

I’d been hoping to hear from Darren Porter. It was after eight, so either he wasn’t home yet or he hadn’t checked his mailbox. Or he didn’t want to talk to me.

I tried finishing the
Crime Sheet
, but kept thinking about Lenore, reviewing what she’d said to me.
Nobody believes me. I thought I’d have a second chance.
What if Donna Bergen was wrong? She’d based her conjecture on a smile and an embrace and a look on a mother’s face, and I’d been quick to agree. Twelve jurors and a judge had believed Lenore. Maybe Bergen was smarting from losing.

And then I wondered if I was hoping to disprove her because if what she said was true, then I wasn’t such a good judge of character after all.

Zena Lopost looked nervous when she opened the door, probably worrying that my visit meant she’d be finding another dead body. She was wearing the same housecoat as the other night, the same sandals, but her hair was in a top bun and she had on lipstick.

“I’m sorry to bother you,” I told her. “I just had a few questions.”

She welcomed me into her green-and-white kitchen, which smelled of apple pie and cinnamon. She offered me a slice, which I declined, but I did accept a glass of iced tea.

“They’re saying on the news that Betty was murdered,” Zena said. “So I guess the police are sure. She’s had a rough few years, and to die like this . . .” She shook her head.

“I imagine she was devastated when her grandson died.”

“She looked like a ghost. She went up to Santa Barbara for the first day of the trial, but it was too much for her.” Zena slid a piece of pie onto a plate and set it in front of her. “You’re sure?” she asked me.

I told her I was. “Did she blame Lenore?”

“She didn’t say, and of course I didn’t ask. Well, except for when it first happened. I’d heard about it on the news, and I didn’t see her that next day. I was kind of worried, so I went over there to see if she was okay. Of course, she wasn’t. I told her I didn’t come to pry, just to make sure she was all right, but I guess she had to talk to someone. She told me Lenore had killed her baby, and how could she, Betty, not have seen Lenore was in trouble, and everybody was going to think she’d raised a baby killer.”

It was amazing but not surprising, I thought, how even in those first hours Betty Rowan’s concern had been focused on herself.

“I tried to give her comfort,” Zena said. “I told her that everything is God’s plan, that she’d done the best she could for Lenore. Betty had told me what she’d been through with Lenore. It isn’t easy, being a single mom, having no help from anyone.”

I bit my tongue and drank my tea.

“And I
do
think Lenore wanted to be a good mother,” Zena said. “I saw her just before she and her husband moved to Santa Barbara, about a month before she had the baby. I think I mentioned that the other night.”

She probably had. I didn’t remember. “Lenore was visiting her mother?”

“Actually, I saw her at the Beverly Hills Library, over on Rexford? I took my grandson there—he needed a book for a school project on dinosaurs.” Zena smiled. “Anyway, I saw Lenore sitting at one of the tables, reading, with a stack of books next to her. I don’t think she recognized me at first when I said hello. She seemed kind of embarrassed about it when I told her who I was. Her face was red.”

I had that prickling feeling, like the one I get when I’m watching a movie and the bad guy’s about to jump the good guy. “What was she reading?”

“Oh, some of those books on motherhood. The top one had something to do with the baby blues, but they used that medical term.”

My mouth was suddenly dry. “Postpartum depression?”

“That’s the one,” Zena said, nodding. “All the gals read so much now before they have their babies. My daughter-in-law practically owned a library on the subject by the time her first was born. I didn’t read one book when I was pregnant, but I think I did all right with my three.” She smiled again and ate a spoonful of the pie.

“Did you tell Betty that you’d seen Lenore?”

“Well, I told Betty I
saw
Lenore, but I didn’t mention the books, not at the time. I didn’t want to worry her. Lenore looked happy, so I didn’t think . . .” Zena sighed and put down the spoon. “I did tell Betty later, after it happened. I thought it would be a comfort to her to know Lenore wanted to be a good mother, that she really tried. Looking back, I don’t know if I did the right thing, telling Betty. But I never, ever thought Lenore was ill.”

She was defensive now, the color in her face high, and she was clearly sorry she’d told me.

“I mean, it’s wonderful to be prepared, but sometimes you can scare yourself silly, don’t you think? There are so many things that can go wrong, but it doesn’t mean it’s going to happen to you.”