Degree of Guilt (24 page)

Caldwell gave a humorless smile. ‘Great advice, right from the self-help library – I was ahead of my time. But I was the only one who heard it. For Laura, I could have been speaking Swahili.’ Caldwell’s voice became bitter. ‘And, of course, I knew that.’

‘But it’s true,’ Terri said. ‘You can’t supply some other adult with something they don’t have. Any more than you can sustain a relationship by offering up your sense of yourself as a kind of bribe. In the end, everyone loses.’

Caldwell gave her a complex look of irony and understanding. ‘Are you talking to me, Teresa, or to yourself?’

Terri hesitated. ‘To you, at least.’

‘I see.’ Caldwell paused, searching Terri’s face. ‘Well, then, if you’re talking to me, then there’s a little more to the story, and the ending is a little more dramatic.

‘The night Laura died, she called my apartment.’

Caldwell turned toward the water. ‘It was an hour or so before she shot herself. I hadn’t needed to be on the set, hadn’t seen Laura at all, had tried not to imagine her weekend in Palm Springs. I was thinking about going out and picking someone up.’ Caldwell paused. ‘To prove to myself that I was straight.

‘Somehow, I knew it was her.

‘She was drunk, and alone.’ Caldwell folded her arms. ‘As people will when they’re drunk, she kept repeating herself. And what she said, over and over again, was, “I need you tonight.”’

A tremor seemed to move through Caldwell’s body. ‘She scared me. Her voice was like a child’s. It made her sound so insatiable.

‘“Please,” Laura said. “I went with him.”

‘The way she sounded – I just didn’t want to hear. I didn’t know who I was more frightened of: Laura or myself.

‘All I knew was that I had to stop her from saying “I need you.”’ Caldwell’s eyes shut. ‘I told her I had a date.’

Inwardly, Terri winced.

‘After I said that,’ Caldwell went on quietly, ‘Laura began sobbing. Hurt, almost animal sounds. It was like I could feel her shiver through the telephone.

‘There was only one thing I could think to do. I told her goodbye and hung up.’ Caldwell had begun pacing in half circles, as if confined by the apartment she was remembering. ‘Then I turned out the lights. As if I were afraid that Laura might find me.’

Caldwell stared down at the sand. ‘The telephone rang, again and again. I sat there in the dark perhaps an hour or so, afraid to answer. Just listening to it ring.

‘Then it stopped.’

Caldwell turned to Terri. ‘I’d never known that silence could be so profound. Perhaps it was the darkness. For I’m not sure how long, I couldn’t move. Then, without realizing why, I got up and drove to Laura’s.

‘There were no lights. When I rang the doorbell, no one answered – no Laura, no maid. The door was locked.

‘I was relieved.’ Caldwell shifted slightly, turning away from Terri. ‘I thought Laura had gone out. Then I remembered the guesthouse.

‘There was a moon. I found a path around the house, through the flowers and shrubbery, which came out by the pool.

‘The pool was dark. I stared into it for a moment, looking for something, hoping not to find anything. Then I noticed that the lights were on in the guesthouse.

‘When I reached the door, it was ajar.

‘I stood there, suddenly afraid. And then I knew why I had come.’

Caldwell paused, gazing down. In Terri’s imagination, her posture mimed that of a nineteen-year-old girl, twenty years before, deciding whether to step through a half-open door. And then Caldwell said, ‘I went in.

‘The bedroom door was open.

‘Inside, the light was pale yellow. The first thing I saw was the telephone by the bed. It was off the hook, dangling by the cord, which stretched to the floor until it disappeared in shadows. The receiver made a throbbing sound that seemed to echo in the room.

‘Laura was on the bed.

‘She was naked, her hair was wet, she was lying on a bath towel. For a second, I thought she’d just passed out after going for a swim. Then I saw the revolver in her hand, blood and hair scattered across the pillow. The back of her head was gone.’

Terri flinched. ‘I turned away,’ Caldwell said softly. ‘After that, I never looked at Laura again. Except on film.’

Terri wanted to reach out to her, then felt that this would be pointless. ‘What did you do?’ she asked.

‘I was in a trance. I stood there, my back to Laura, as if I’d been anesthetized. What penetrated, finally, was the relentless screeching of the telephone.’ Caldwell’s voice had steadied. Each word was precise and clear, as if she were describing a picture she had memorized years before. ‘It kept beeping until I couldn’t stand it anymore. All I could think of was to stop the sound. When I hung it up, and the sound stopped, it was like my brain reconnected to some sort of reality.

‘Someone had to know.’ Caldwell paused. ‘It was foolish and empty, but I couldn’t leave her alone like that.

‘I picked up the telephone. When the Emergency operator came on, I said, “Laura Chase has killed herself.”

‘There was this long silence – I’m sure she thought I was some sort of crank. Finally, she asked who I was. I realized that I didn’t want to say. So I answered, “Just a friend.”’ Caldwell shook her head. ‘It sounded so miserable.

‘She kept asking who I was. Somehow, it made me angry. “Damn you,” I snapped. “She’s put a fucking bullet through her brain,” and slammed down the telephone.

‘After that, I just walked out.

‘I didn’t look back and didn’t run. It was like turning away from Laura had taken all the energy I had. I walked to the car like a robot, switched on the ignition, and started down the driveway.

‘When I got to the end, I had to stop for a moment, to remember where I was going, which way to turn. Then I started home.’ Caldwell paused. ‘I’d gone perhaps a quarter mile when I saw the ambulance, lights flashing, coming toward me in the other lane.’

Caldwell looked at Terri. ‘That’s when I knew for sure that the whole thing had been real.

‘I just kept driving.

‘That night, I couldn’t sleep. The next day, when I could finally stand to open my door, Laura looked up at me from the morning paper.’

Remembering, Caldwell’s eyes seemed uncomprehending. ‘I kept waiting for them to come. They never did. No one had taped my call. They didn’t have my fingerprints. No one knew about me and Laura.’ Caldwell looked away. ‘No one knew I was even there.’

Terri said nothing. There was a long silence, and then Caldwell raised her head. She looked determined, almost defiant. ‘For years,’ she said, ‘I’ve read articles about the mysterious caller, about “Who Killed Laura Chase.” But I’m the only one who ever knew the answer.’ Turning back to Terri, she finished in a steady voice. ‘
I
killed Laura Chase.’

‘No,’ Terri answered. ‘You didn’t.’

Caldwell looked at her. ‘Oh, I know all the right answers. I’ve had years of therapy to master them. Laura killed Laura. Or society, or Hollywood, or her father or Senator Colt or a thousand men in between. Even swine like Ransom, who built their fantasies on an idea of Laura which has damaged countless other women almost as badly as it damaged her. I
know
all that. But there’s still one question for which those answers don’t work at all.

‘I keep asking myself, What would have happened to Laura if she’d just gotten through that night? For
that
there is no answer.’

Terri shook her head. ‘But that was twenty years ago. You have a whole life to look at now. Not just the senseless thing that Laura did when you were nineteen and even your own life made no sense.’

‘My own life,’ Caldwell echoed. ‘I’m still sorting out how much of
that
I owe to Laura. After that night, I hardly drank again. I didn’t go out for almost a year, and when I did, the sport fucking was over. Laura’s death was like a fault line. Did she make me a feminist? Or a mother? Or a filmmaker? Or a wife? Or some or all of them? I’ll never know that, either.’

Terri waited, then asked quietly. ‘What is it that you thought Mark Ransom might tell you?’

‘Part of it was what he might tell my husband, or my children. But there was more.’ Caldwell frowned, as if struggling to articulate something too enormous to be captured in a few words. ‘All this time, I’ve talked to Laura in my head, asking why she did it, what I meant to her. But when she answers, it’s in my voice.’ She paused. ‘I wanted to hear
her
again, talking
about
me but not
to
me. I thought I might learn the truth.’

‘Do you think Laura really knew the truth, whatever it is?’

‘Perhaps not.’ Caldwell turned to Terri, as if in search of understanding. ‘But how could I know the tape existed and run away from it?’

Terri studied her face. ‘So Ransom promised to bring a tape. Where Laura talks about you.’

Caldwell nodded. ‘I suppose the police must have it now.’

‘No.’ Terri hesitated. ‘When he died, Ransom only had one tape. The one he played for Mary, about James Colt. The second tape he described to you, he didn’t have.’

Caldwell looked surprised, and then her eyes went cold.

‘That bastard,’ she said.

‘So far,’ Moore said to Christopher Paget, ‘it would appear that Ransom was either celibate or had taken up the “solitary sin,” as my old priest used to call it. At least for the last two years.’

They sat on a bench at the foot of California Street. To their right, the cable car line swept up California to the top of Nob Hill, where Ransom had died; ahead and to their left, Market Street ended at an open plaza, behind which stood the Ferry Building, its venerable clock tower showing a little past 2:30. Behind them were the four adjacent towers of Embarcadero Center, each housing about thirty floors of offices; the crowd around them seemed equal parts tourists and professionals, with a scattering of street people and three or four strutting pigeons, looking for food. On a nearby bench, a harmless lunatic, dressed in the jeans and seaman’s jacket he had worn every day for years, shouted his usual mix-and-match fragments about conspiracies: today’s special seemed to feature the CIA, Mary Lou Retton, and the New York Museum of Modern Art. Moore, who could not stand to lunch indoors, consumed the last bit of his salami sandwich.

Paget looked at him. ‘Nothing?’

‘Nothing. And I don’t just mean a laudable absence of attempted rapes. I mean the virtual absence of attempted dates.’ Moore made a short, choppy gesture of emphasis. ‘Nothing in the columns. No trips with women. Not a single female person, so far, who will admit to screwing Ransom anytime this decade. Either the act was so dreadful they’ve repressed it, so forgettable they thought dear Mark was merely sneezing, or sex just wasn’t on his agenda for the nineties.’

‘That simply can’t be. Not after his call to Lindsay Caldwell.’

‘I know, I know.’ Moore’s eyes narrowed. ‘Poor woman. I always liked her.’

‘I still do.’

Moore nodded. After a time, he said. ‘
Our
little girl’s done well.’

‘Terri, I assume you mean. My only question about Terri is whether she knows how good she is.’

Moore became quiet for a moment. ‘There’s something sad about her, don’t you think?’

‘I
think
, yes. But I honestly don’t know what, or why – it’s more a sense, like quicksilver, which comes and goes in an instant. Terri’s very private, and she holds on tight.’

‘Unlike you,’ Moore said sardonically. ‘The Mr Rogers of white-collar law, so warm and fuzzy. It goes without saying that you’ve not met the husband.’

‘No.’ Paget found himself squinting at the sunlight. ‘Why do you ask?’

‘Just a sense of my own. Something she said in passing.’

Paget examined him. ‘Ah, Johnny,’ he said lightly, ‘you’re not falling in love, are you? Not with my twenty-nine-year-old married associate.’

Moore shook his head. ‘Too old,’ he said. ‘There’s just too much sadness in the world, that’s all, and it’s far too late for either of
us
.’

Paget smiled. ‘Personally, I’ve pinned my hopes on Carlo. It keeps me from becoming maudlin when I start performing mental tricks like doubling my age or adding up how many years I’ve already lived past Mozart. When I turned forty-five, the results of either calculation were rather melancholy.’

‘Still,’ Moore said, ‘you at least owe Ms Peralta a pat on the back when she returns. This Lindsay Caldwell thing –’

‘This Lindsay Caldwell thing,’ Paget put in, ‘reeks of sexual blackmail. It’s a weird variant of what Mary says happened to her: trading tapes for sex, except that Ransom had tremendous leverage on Caldwell and none at all on Mary. Which, one assumes, is why he resorted to rape. And why Mary felt free – however inadvertently – to spare Lindsay Caldwell a private meeting with someone who no doubt had given considerable thought to her debasement.’

‘Except,’ Moore retorted, ‘that there
was
no second tape, and Mark Ransom has been living the life of Saint Augustine.’

‘Oh, there was a tape about Caldwell, all right – Ransom must have listened to it before he called her. Which leaves the question of where it is.’

‘I’ve no idea.’ Moore turned to him again. ‘If it comes to a trial, Chris, can you get Caldwell’s story into evidence?’

Paget shook his head. ‘In justice, I should. But I probably have even less chance than with Melissa Rappaport. Nothing happened: Ransom scheduled an interview and then died first. The only consequence to Lindsay Caldwell is that somewhere, perhaps in one of Ransom’s homes, exists a very nasty tape that will give Marnie Sharpe hours of listening pleasure.’

Moore considered that. ‘Jeanne-Marc Steinhardt,’ he finally said, ‘paid her dear old mum a real tribute. So meaningful to the dead, so helpful to the living.’

Paget was silent for a moment. ‘No price,’ he answered softly, ‘is too great for the truth.’