Long Knives (6 page)

CHAPTER 10

T
he interview with Officer Drady took about ten minutes. We covered pretty much the same territory I had covered with everyone else. I went out of my way to mention that the coffee had smelled odd to me. Drady sniffed what was left in the pot, wrinkled his nose and suggested I toss it. I reminded him that if there was something wrong with it that had made Primo sick—like some weird fungus on the beans—it could be evidence. But he said Skillings had already collected samples and was going to hand them over to the police, so there was no need to keep it. Overall, he didn’t seem particularly interested in that aspect of the story.

I also decided it was time to mention the supposed treasure map. He raised his eyebrows on that one but didn’t press for more details about the map. When I told him it had gone missing, he helped me look around the office for it and confirmed it wasn’t there.

As the interview was wrapping up, I thought to myself that the death had been awful, but the conversation about it with Drady had so far seemed rather anodyne. Then I berated myself for using that word, even in my head. It’s one of those ten-dollar words law professors use to impress each other, and all it means is ordinary, inoffensive. It’s certainly not a word I would ever use in front of a jury.

Which is exactly when the interview began to veer toward the offensive.

“So,” Officer Drady said, as he slapped his notebook closed, “what’s Robert Tarza doing these days?”

The truth was that Robert and I, despite his having been my mentor and close friend for close to a decade, were no longer on the best of terms. I hadn’t spoken to him in several years. But I certainly wasn’t going to share that with this asshole detective.

“Well,” I said, “I haven’t talked to him lately, so I don’t really know exactly. Litigating in his downtown law firm, I suppose.”

“He’s lucky not to be up in Marin County instead, if you ask me.”

“Which is what, Officer, a veiled reference to San Quentin, which, if I recall correctly, is in Marin?”

“Didn’t intend it as veiled, really. I still think he had something to do with the murder of the managing partner all those years ago.”

“You don’t think all the others who were convicted had anything to do with it?”

“Yeah, I do. But I don’t think it was the whole story.”

“What do you think the whole story was?”

“I’m not sure, but to be candid, I think you had something to do with it, too, Professor.”

I stared at him for a moment in disbelief.

“I didn’t, Detective. And if you don’t have anything else to ask me about today’s situation, I have a lot of work to do.”

“I’d only say this, Professor. The last time around they found the body of the managing partner in the firm’s reception area with a knife in his back, and he turned out to be your boyfriend. This time around there’s a body and it’s your student. What’s a good detective to think?” He stood up and stuck out his hand. “Good to meet you.”

“I wish I could say the same,” I said, conspicuously declining either to stand up or to shake his outstretched hand.

He smirked, turned and waltzed out the door.

I sat there after he left with a rising feeling of unease. Was I about to be accused of killing Primo? That was too ridiculous even to contemplate, and I shoved it out of my mind. Or maybe I didn’t shove it entirely out of my mind. When I looked down at my hands, they were shaking again, and they were redder than ever.

CHAPTER 11

A
fter Drady left I looked around my office once again, hoping to catch sight of either the mailing tube or its supposed contents. I got down on my knees and peered under my desk. I opened all of my desk drawers, thinking perhaps someone had taken the map out of the tube and folded it up. I looked carefully on my bookshelves, even pulling out some of the books to make sure nothing had slipped behind them. It wasn’t in any of those places.

Next I walked back into the empty office across the hall, where I had taken the phone call. The room was still utterly empty. I went down the hall and searched in the small kitchen, where there was a tall trash can. There wasn’t much in the can, but I rooted through it anyway. I found nothing that even remotely resembled a map. I looked in the drawers and cabinets. I searched the trash can in the women’s room and even in the men’s room. Nothing.

I returned to my office and considered what to do with the coffee that was left in the coffeepot. I was about to take it to the bathroom and dump it when I had second thoughts. Skillings had taken a sample, which Drady had said he was going to give to the police. If there turned out to be something wrong with the coffee, there were going to be consequences. My litigator instincts told me I needed to have my own sample. I decided it would be easiest to take the entire coffeepot home with me.

My next problem was what to do with the remaining beans in the cute little Coffee Chaos bag. If they were tainted in some way, it wouldn’t be a great idea to leave them there lest someone else use them. But who could possibly use them without my knowledge? On the other hand, at least three people had entered my office without my knowledge in the last twenty-four hours—Primo, Skillings and Drady. There was no point in risking it. I grabbed the bag and shoved it into my purse.

I walked to Lot 3 for the second time, carrying the coffeepot, managing to get there without having the coffee slosh over the edge of the lid. I put the pot on the floor in front of the passenger seat, got back in the car and headed for home.

On the way, not far from campus, I spied a new nail salon. It had a big sign out front:
ONLY NAILS. GRAND OPENING
. Amazingly, there was a parking place right in front. I braked hard, slid my car into the space and went in. After some initial confusion, I was able to persuade them that I didn’t want my nails done—that I just needed some treatment that might soothe my raw, red hands. The woman in charge, whose name was Thu Nguyen, and who I think was also the owner, suggested hot wax. I agreed. The treatment—wrapping my hands in plastic bags into which hot wax was poured—felt great. For the first time that day, I was able, at least momentarily, to forget about Primo and the missing map and just relax.

When they were done with the treatment, I thanked Thu, paid in cash and left a large tip. Then I got back in my car and headed home. On the way, though, I couldn’t help but replay the day’s events in my mind—over and over and over again. They still made no sense to me.

CHAPTER 12

H
ome is a condo—the penthouse—in one of the high-rises along the Wilshire Boulevard corridor, just east of Westwood Village. It looks north into the hills and has three bedrooms and a marble hot tub. I bought it when I was in my last year at Marbury Marfan and still making a mid-six-figure salary, and used my end-of-year bonus and a small inheritance for the down payment. Now, on my low-six-figure law professor salary, I had begun to find the mortgage payments and the condo association fees a bit of a stretch. I really ought to have sold it, but it reminded me of my prior, more glittery life, so I kept it.

The financial drain was one of the things that had prompted me to say yes when my cousin Tommy had called from Hawaii the previous spring, reported that he’d been accepted into the graduate molecular chemistry program at UCLA and asked if I’d let him rent my spare bedroom for the fall semester. He said he’d only need it while he got the lay of the land in Los Angeles and found a place of his own. He’d offered to pay me a thousand dollars a month.

Tommy is the only child of my Uncle Freddie, who is one of my favorite people on the planet. I’d first met Tommy the year after I graduated from high school. I’d spent that gap year before college living with Uncle Freddie in Hilo, Hawaii. At age sixteen, my parents had thought I was still too young to go directly to college and could instead have a more limited adventure with some adult supervision. At the time, Tommy was only nine. He was already tall for his age and had a mop of bright red hair. His hated nickname was Carrot. We got along in the awkward way that a sixteen-year-old out for adventure gets along with a nine-year-old who spends most of his time playing video games and collecting Bufo toads.

As I opened the door, Tommy was slouched on the leather couch in the living room with his red tennis-shoed feet propped up on the coffee table, reading a professional journal of some sort that displayed colorful hydrocarbon rings on the cover. Tommy had grown into something of an odd duck. He was now very tall and gangly, almost loose-limbed. His hair, still bright red, was now cut into a mohawk.

“Hi, Tommy,” I said.

“Hi, Jenna. Why are you carrying a coffeepot full of coffee around?”

“It’s a long story,” I said as I put it on the kitchen counter. “The coffee may be bad, so don’t drink it.”

He gave me an odd look. “Okay, I won’t. Hey, your father called you. About an hour ago.”

“He did?”

“Yep. He said, ‘Hello, this is Senator James.’”

“Did he say whether something was wrong?”

“No. He sounded pretty casual. Just said to call back when you got a chance. Didn’t seem very interested in chatting with me. I’m not even sure he realized he was talking to his nephew.”

“Oh. Did you identify yourself?”

“No. Guess I should have. Hey, I was pretty young when he was a politician. I’ve forgotten, what kind of a senator was he again?”

“The United States kind. From Ohio. Still fond of using the title, I’m afraid.”

“Not a bad title, as hierarchy goes.”

“No, not bad, I guess.”

“Hey, someone also came by to see you.”

“Who?”

“That real-estate agent who keeps bugging you to sell your condo to his client. Knocked on the door.”

“What did you tell him?”

“Exactly what you told me to tell him the last time. That the condo’s not for sale, and it’s particularly not for sale to an anonymous buyer. I said you wanted to know who the buyer was.”

“Did he tell you?”

“No. He just gave me his card again and said you should reconsider because they’re offering a great price. The card’s on the kitchen counter.”

“I’ll put it with the stack of his other cards.”

“Hey, Jenna, can I ask you something personal?”

“Sure.”

“Why are your hands so red?”

I didn’t see that there was any point in telling him that it had arisen right after someone died—I didn’t feel like sharing all of that with him yet—so I told him half the story.

“I stopped off and had a hot wax treatment. Felt great but seems to have left my hands kind of red.”

“That’s weird. An old girlfriend of mine used to have those treatments, and they never left her hands red.”

I shrugged. “Maybe the wax was too hot.”

“Can I suggest a different possibility, Jenna?”

“Sure.”

“It could be stress. There’s something called Raynaud’s disease that can make your fingers red. It’s often triggered by stress. Hold up your hands a second.”

I held them up in front of me, and Tommy and I both stared at them.

“You’re right,” I said. “It’s mostly my fingers that are red.”

“Yes,” he said. “And the tips are white, which is also characteristic of Raynaud’s. Anything stressful going on with you right now?”

I felt, suddenly, as if Tommy had become my doctor. But it felt good to have someone care about me, especially after my go-round with Drady. I decided to tell Tommy what had happened.

“Something
very
stressful. One of my students just died—he collapsed in my office, and I had to go with him in the ambulance to the hospital. At first they thought he’d be okay, but a couple of hours later he died.”

“Well, Jenna, I don’t know much about Raynaud’s, but that’s the kind of thing that could do it.”

“How do you know about it at all?”

“I went to med school in Hawaii for a year and then dropped out. But you ought to see a real doctor about it, because some forms of Raynaud’s are benign, but some indicate a serious underlying condition.”

“All right, I will. But right now I’m going to go call my father.”

I tossed my purse on the big black leather recliner next to the couch and headed toward my bedroom so I could have some privacy. As I put my hand on the bedroom doorknob, Tommy said, “Hey, Jenna, what did your student die from?”

I turned to face him. “No one seems to know. Or at least not yet. Why?”

“Well, are you a suspect?”

I froze. And, despite the absurdity of the question, I felt my stomach clench. “Why in hell would I be a suspect, Tommy? I hardly even knew the guy.”

He grinned. “Isn’t the person who finds the body always a suspect?”

“I didn’t find the body. He wasn’t even dead when I found him.” I realized, as those last words came out of my mouth, that I sounded defensive, which was ridiculous. I had no need to be defensive.

“I’m just pulling your chain, Jenna.”

“Well, I don’t find it funny. At all. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to call my father.”

I turned, walked into the bedroom and, resisting the temptation to slam the door, closed it quietly behind me. Then I collapsed against it. First George Skillings had collected the coffee from my office based on a “gut feeling”—before he even knew that Primo had died. Then Drady had all but accused me of murder. And now Tommy was “joking” about it. Were these people serious? I could feel myself beginning to hyperventilate.

CHAPTER 13

I
walked over to my bed, sat down on the floor next to it, closed my eyes, folded my legs into a yoga position and took long, slow, deep breaths. I had learned the technique in a meditation class I attended while in law school in an attempt to beat back exam anxiety. Eventually, the slow breathing started to work, and my near-panic retreated. After a few minutes more, I felt more or less like myself again.

I got up, sat down on the bed and picked up the phone from the nightstand—I still have a landline, another extravagance—and punched in my father’s number on the speed dial. As the phone rang on the other end, I wondered what his call could be about. Normally, my father only called me twice a year—on my birthday and, if it wasn’t one of the years when I dragged myself back to Cleveland for the holidays, on Christmas.

The phone was picked up on the fourth ring.

“Hi, Dad, it’s Jenna.”

“Jenna Joy! What a pleasure.”

I controlled myself from telling him, for the millionth time, not to use my hated middle name. But ever since my grandmother, his mother, whose name it had been, died last year at the age of a hundred, it had become harder to complain about it.

“It’s nice to hear your voice, Dad. But you almost never call. What’s up?”

“I’m coming to visit.”

“When?”

“On Thursday.”

“Why?”

“There’s a conference at USC Law School honoring old Judge Jenkins. You remember, the judge I clerked for on the 9th Circuit, when I got out of law school.”

“I don’t recall him personally, Dad, because I wasn’t born yet, but it sounds like fun. I hope I’ll get to see you while you’re here.”

“I’m hoping to stay with you.”

“You’re certainly welcome to, but, you know, I’m a long way from USC, and the traffic in the morning is bad, and…”

“Oh, no worries there, Jenna Joy. I’ll have a car and driver. And it will give us an opportunity to spend some quality time together.”

I thought to myself that despite our checkered history, I really ought to make an effort to be more welcoming. Dad had just turned eighty, and since my mother’s death two years earlier, he had clearly been lonely.

“Dad, I’m having trouble hearing you. I’m going to put you on my speakerphone. Sometimes, for reasons I don’t understand, it works better than the handset.”

“Okay, sure.”

The truth was that I needed to put him on speaker because my hand had begun to shake so violently that I was having trouble holding the phone.

“Okay, Dad, can you hear me?”

“Yep.”

“Hey, Dad, I’ll look forward to seeing you. What day are you coming?”

“This Thursday. My plane gets in late in the afternoon. Don’t worry about picking me up. I’ll just take a cab. Can you leave a key with the doorman?”

“Sure. And Tommy may be here, too.”

“The guy who answered the phone when I called?”

“Yes.”

“Something romantic?”

“No, Tommy’s your nephew, Dad. Uncle Freddie’s son.”

“Oh. Didn’t realize he was living with you. Fred was always a bit worried whether he’d amount to anything. What’s he doing now?”

“Grad student in molecular chemistry at UCLA.”

“Guess he’s straightened out, then. But I’m sorry you’re not living with someone romantically. It would be good for you to get married, Jenna Joy.”

I had never mentioned Aldous to him and didn’t think this was the time.

“Dad, I’m going to get married when I want to get married.”

“All right.” And then he hung up. Which wasn’t unlike most of the exits he’d made from my life over the years. Here one moment, gone to a chicken-dinner fund-raiser the next.