Dead File (14 page)
Their waiter came back with the wine. With a smile and a flourish, he presented the bottle, label up, to Carter, who nodded perfunctorily. The man uncorked the wine and poured a half inch into Carter’s glass for him to sample.
“Yes, yes, pour it,” Carter said irritably without tasting it. The waiter quickly filled both glasses. Then, sensing the tension between the couple, he mumbled something about coming back in a bit to tell them the specials and backed away from the table.
“You don’t want me anymore, do you?” Kendyl said then in a fierce whisper. Rose looked at her, not sure how to respond. After a long moment of silence, Kendyl slapped her napkin on the table, pushed her chair back, and stood. Then she picked up her wineglass, slowly took a sip, and hurled the rest of the liquid in Carter’s face. Calmly, then, she set the glass down on the table, picked up her purse, strode purposefully through the packed dining room, head held high, all eyes following her, and gracefully pushed out of Spago’s front door.
Y
ikes! What just happened over there?” Richard mouthed, his eyes, along with most of the diners’, still turned to the door where the stunning Kendyl Scott had left the building.
Maxi giggled. “High drama.”
“A lovers’ quarrel? But you said she was his business associate.”
“Who knows, but you can bet it’ll be all over the columns. Not tomorrow; there’re no papers on Christmas Day, but we’ll read all about it on Thursday, if we care.”
“Do we care?”
“Absolutely. I happen to be hip-deep in the Rose International story, which gets curiouser and curiouser.”
The waiter came by to take their order. “So, what went on at the Rose table?” Maxi asked him offhandedly. It never hurt to ask; you never knew what you might find out. And discretion didn’t happen to be a priority among the young wait help at Spago; most of them were aspiring actors who loved to dish.
“I don’t know—it’s not my table. But I’ll ask Jason when I get a minute.”
Maxi looked over at the scene of the spat. Carter Rose still sat there, alone at the table, sipping wine. Any other night she’d have invited him to join them for dinner, appear to extricate the man from an embarrassing situation and see what she could find out, but this was her very limited time with Richard and she was not anxious to let work intrude, no matter how intriguing the story.
“Are those two regular customers?” she asked the waiter.
“Mr. Rose came in a lot with his wife. She . . .”
“I know,” Maxi said. “What about the woman he was with tonight?”
“I’ve never seen her in here before. And believe me, I wouldn’t forget that body.”
“How’s the lemon chicken?” Richard asked.
“Fabulous,” said their waiter. “It’s a house specialty.”
After about ten minutes, Carter Rose summoned his bill, settled up, and quietly left the restaurant. He didn’t see Maxi, and she decided it was probably better that way. She and Richard had a glorious dinner, capped by Wolfgang’s sinful double chocolate hot fudge sundae, which they’d ordered served with two spoons.
While they waited for the scampering valet guys to fetch his car, Richard breathed deeply of the crisp Southern California night air. “It’s still early, Max, and you don’t have to get back for the Eleven,” he said. “How about a drive out to the beach? I’d like to see the ocean while I’m here, get my feet wet.”
“Sounds nice,” she said.
Actually, it sounded particularly divine. She was so enjoying this evening with Richard Winningham. Lovely Christmas present, she thought to herself.
They cruised up Cañon to Santa Monica Boulevard, then took a left toward the ocean. It was a beautifully clear, crisp night, as chilly as it gets at Christmastime in Southern California. They had the top down in Richard’s Audi TT convertible, and he’d slipped his jacket over Maxi’s shoulders.
“I was half afraid my car wouldn’t start up after sitting idle while I was away, but I lucked out,” he said. “She needs to take a run, charge up the battery, blow out the engine.”
He pushed the speedometer past the speed limit on the thirty-minute drive to the beach, then angled to a stop on Pacific Coast Highway just above the Santa Monica Pier. The area was a festive jamboree, the pier jumping with nightlife, people strolling, sitting on benches eating popcorn and cotton candy, standing at the railings looking out at the ocean while lights from its restaurants and bars lit the broad stretch of sand below. The merry-go-round clanged around and the giant Ferris wheel revolved, their kaleidoscopic lights joyous against the night sky as salt winds blew their tympanic music into the air, mixed with live jazz and rock ’n’ roll, buoying the spirits of a thousand revelers.
On the other side of the highway, more people crowded the walkways around the several busy restaurants, while just north of the pier, down on the sand, the colorful, wide-striped tents of Cirque du Soleil rose like a gypsy bazaar. Off the coast scattered white sails caught the light from their yachts, while rhythmic, roaring waves breaking on shore glinted silvery white in the moonlight.
Christmas Eve in Southern California.
“Shall we walk on the beach?” Richard asked.
“Okay. I’m going to take my shoes off.”
“Good idea,” Richard said.
They crossed over the boardwalk and went down a flight of stairs that led onto the strand. Richard bent over and rolled up his pant legs, then led Maxi down to the water’s edge, her flirty silk skirt floating up over her knees. Music from the pier drifted around them, and the heady salt air invaded their senses.
Richard put an arm around Maxi’s shoulders as they walked along the surf line, waves rolling up over their bare feet. Above was a sky full of scattered stars and low-flying seagulls whooshing overhead, while a hundred yards offshore, dark pelicans in silhouette bobbed atop the waves.
“Perfect, isn’t it?” Maxi said, drawing Richard’s jacket around her.
“Beyond perfect,” Richard murmured. “This night’s going to last me for a long time.”
“How long will you be in Israel?”
“For as long as it takes, I guess,” Richard said.
He stepped in front of her then, and put both arms around her. And gently drew her close, and kissed her.
“It’s midnight,” he said. “Merry Christmas, Maxi.”
C
hristmas Day. Just like any other day in the newsroom. Except for the tired spread of turkey and trimmings in the conference room. Like every other Christmas Day probably in every other television newsroom in the country.
You can always count on what the newscasts will look like on Christmas Day. Very little crime—seems robbers and burglars and muggers and car thieves take Christmas off too. There’ll be the montage of Christmas morning services, ranging from Roman Catholic and various Protestant denominations, to Greek Orthodox, Church of Religious Science, New Age outdoor religious celebrations in the parks and on the beaches, and more. There’ll be interviews with Salvation Army bell-ringers on city sidewalks and stories that embody the particular magic of Christmas in L.A., like a profile that was cut and ready to roll on Los Angeles songwriter Ray Evans, who wrote the enduring
Silver Bells
for a Bob Hope movie half a century ago. There’s always a story about some adorable kids in a family subsisting below the poverty level who’d been majorly gifted by some private or corporate benefactor this season. And, sadly, there were always the Christmas tree fires that burn up the presents, sometimes injuring family members or destroying homes at Christmas.
This year, the traditional Christmas services at Bethlehem’s Church of the Nativity would be interspersed with stories of the ongoing violence in the region. And in economic news there’d be the sum-up of holiday shopping sales for the season, locally and nationally.
Maxi was scheduled to cover the downtown mission today, where volunteers would be dishing up the annual Christmas dinner for the city’s homeless. She requested that assignment every time she worked on Thanksgiving or Christmas Day, because she would be able to take a couple of hours to help out at the tables before coming back to the station to edit her piece for the early block. She and her crew were set to leave in thirty minutes. While waiting she sat in her office, chatting on the phone with her mother in New York.
“I’m so sorry I couldn’t make it home for the holidays this year—you know that, Mom,” she said. After taking three weeks off last month to recuperate from her injuries, she’d felt she couldn’t leave the station again so soon. “Next year,” she promised Brigitte.
Her mother told her the whole family missed her. Her sister, Ellie, and her husband and their three kids were there, doing Christmas stuff and having fun in the Pooles’ spacious Manhattan brownstone. A dozen or so guests were coming over later for Christmas dinner, her mother told her.
“And you’ve got snow!” Maxi said.
“And we’ve got snow,” Brigitte echoed with a big smile in her voice. “It started yesterday morning, and it’s still coming down. The city is a fantasyland.”
“Who’s cooking?”
“Chef Harry’s doing dinner again. Ever since Mortimer’s closed. But Harry does a great job. The turkey’s in the oven; the mincemeat and pumpkin pies are on the sideboard, ready to bake.”
“Mmm, I can practically smell it.”
“What are you going to do today, sweetheart? Besides work, I mean.”
“I’ve got a story for the Eleven, Christmas Day at the White House. I just have to write and voice over network footage, piece of cake. So between shows, I’m going to take a run down to the beach and have Christmas dinner with Debra and Gia. Debra’s having some people in.” Actress Debra Angelo was Maxi’s close friend; they had married and divorced the same man.
“That’ll be fun, dear. Drive carefully—a lot of people will be on the roads tonight, after too much Christmas spirits, if you know what I mean. Do you want to talk to Dad?”
“I sure do. Thanks, Mom. And Merry Christmas.”
Her father came on the line. Christmas was the one day of the year when Maxwell Poole closed his successful East Coast chain of boutique drugstores. After some small talk, her dad brought up Richard Winningham, whom he and her mother had met in Los Angeles last month when Maxi was recuperating. Maxwell Poole would always be indebted to Richard for saving his daughter’s life in a deadly situation. “So what’s happening with you two—anything?” he asked.
We had dinner last night and I thought my heart was going to explode out of my body and do a jig beneath the Santa Monica Pier,
was what she thought. “Dad, we work together,” was what she said.
“Well, sure, but isn’t that where most young people meet someone? At work?”
“He’s assigned to the Middle East. Maybe for a long time, Dad.”
“Hmmm. Well, he’s a terrific guy. Don’t you think so?”
Way past terrific—I’ve been thinking about him nonstop all day.
“I hardly know him, Daddy. He’d just started at the station when you met him.”
“Just in time to save your life, thank God.”
She needed to change this subject. She told her father that she was working on a story and she wanted to pick his pharmacist brain.
“What do you need, honey?”
“Dad, do you know of anything in medicine that would turn a person’s eyes a different color?” she asked him.
“Actually, yes,” he said. “Look up a drug called Xalatan. Spelled with an X, but pronounced
za
-la-tan. It’s an eyedrop medication, used for persistent high pressure in the eyes. There are a host of unpleasant, even dangerous side effects, so it’s only prescribed when all other medications have failed.”
“Pressure—does that mean glaucoma?” Maxi asked him.
“Specifically, a rare condition called open-angle glaucoma. And it can turn the iris brown. Does that help?”
“Maybe,” Maxi said. “I’ll check it out.”
“One reason why it’s a drug of last resort, even though it’s extremely effective: Xalatan is very easily contaminated. You have to keep it refrigerated. You can’t even let the
bottle
touch something else on the refrigerator shelf or the solution can become contaminated and cause serious eye damage, even blindness. This drug can be very dangerous if not handled carefully. I never keep it on hand. When we get a prescription for it at any of the drugstores, we special-order it from the maker.”
“Can it kill you?”
“No. It can destroy your vision. But Xalatan won’t kill you.”
M
axi lifted her jacket off one of the hooks in her office and slung her purse over her shoulder. It was cool out, even for Christmas in Los Angeles. Or maybe she was reacting to the images of snow falling at her mom and dad’s place in Manhattan. Thinking about that made her smile. Thoughts of her parents’ home at Christmas, the home she grew up in, always gave her the feeling that all’s right with the world.
The phone on her desk lit up. Her crew would be waiting for her on the midway—the wide private lane that bisected the network complex; she didn’t have time to get involved with anyone or anything right now that could wait. Without picking up the handset she glanced at the caller ID LCD readout on the telephone.
CEDARS-SINAI MEDICAL CENTER
. She picked up the handset.
“News, Maxi Poole,” she said briskly.
“Ms. Poole, this is Dr. Wallace Stevens at Cedars. Sandie Schaeffer’s doctor. So you’re working on Christmas?”
“You too, Doctor.”
“Yes.” Then his voice darkened. “We have a problem here, Ms. Poole. Somebody got into Sandie’s room in the ICU and ripped out her IV tubes.”
“Omigod! When?”
“Sometime during the night. The night-duty nurse found all the tubing lying on the floor, yanked out of the pouches—”
“Is Sandie okay?”
“Yes, there was no serious harm done. The drips contained only painkiller medication, and saline with dextrose and electrolytes. And they weren’t detached long enough for Sandie to dehydrate. But it’s obvious that whoever did it tried to harm her.”
For a beat Maxi was nonplussed. “Who … who could get in there?” But even as she asked the question she flashed on how easy it had been for
her
to get in there on Sunday morning. And there was the threatening message on her answering machine. Somebody did not want Sandie Schaeffer talking.