Long Knives (8 page)

CHAPTER 16

Week 1—Tuesday

I
awoke, turned my head and looked at the clock on the nightstand. It was 6:30
A.M.
and the sun was up, if barely. I turned my head to the other side but saw no Aldous in the bed. Then I heard him moving about in the kitchen and detected the smell of frying bacon.

I stretched my arms out in front of me. I was wearing red plaid flannel pajama tops with sleeves at least three sizes too long. The cuffs had been folded over multiple times but still managed to cover my hands halfway down my fingers. I lifted up the covers and confirmed that I was also swimming in matching, way-too-big bottoms. I didn’t much remember putting them on.

Aldous appeared in the bedroom doorway, wearing a white T-shirt and jeans. “And how does milady feel this morning?”

“I’m okay. But was that stuff after the theater last night real? Or did I dream it?”

“It was real enough. And I think you need to do something about it.”

“I can’t imagine what. I don’t have the map—if there even
is
a map. And I have no interest in ever seeing Primo’s brother again—if he really is his brother.”

“I’d like to try to look into both of those things. I have some resources I can tap.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means I’m rich enough to hire a private investigator.”

“I don’t think I’m quite ready to do that yet. Or have you do it for me.”

“You know, Jenna, maybe it’s time you let someone try to take care of you a little instead of always playing the rough, tough trial lawyer.”

What Aldous was saying, of course, wasn’t that he’d take care of me by tucking me in every night and making me breakfast every morning but by spending money on me. So I ignored the take-care-of-you part and focused on the rest of it.

“I’m not playing at that, Aldous. I am a rough, tough trial lawyer. It’s bred in the bone.”

“I suppose. But why don’t you give up being that way for just one day and let me arrange for you to meet with a PI? No commitment and, like I said, I’ll pay for it.”

“Please don’t do that right now. Maybe later, okay? My focus at the moment is that I have a class to teach at nine, and all I have here is the black dress and pearls I arrived in. And these pajamas.” I waved my arm with its flopping sleeve.

He smiled. “Maybe your students would like that.”

“Maybe they would, but I wouldn’t. After we eat the bacon you’ve got cooking—and maybe some eggs and coffee, too?—can you run me back to my car so I can drive home from there and change?”

“Where’s your car?”

“In the UCLA lot near the theater.”

“No problem.”

“Can I use your toothbrush?”

“Yep, that, too. Brush your teeth, get dressed and I’ll finish making breakfast.”

After I brushed my teeth, I shed the pajamas, shimmied my little black dress over my head and glanced around to see if there had been any changes since the last time I’d been there. There hadn’t. Aldous’s bedroom still featured only a platform bed, two nightstands and a single set of blonde dresser drawers with nothing on the top. All of the lights were in the ceiling. Aldous believes in pristine.

The house itself is set into a hillside way up in Bel Air. It’s what people in LA call a midcentury modern—canted wood-beamed ceilings, neutral-toned wall-to-wall carpeting, sliding doors leading to multiple redwood decks and what seems like acres of glass all around. The bedroom itself has an uncurtained view to the southeast, overlooking the city.

Aldous had asked me several times to move in with him, but, as was my habit, I had politely declined each time. Of course, my refusal, given how long we’d been going out, was certainly a sign that I had an intimacy problem myself. I was too smart not to recognize that. I had also declined to leave any clothes at Aldous’s, although it would certainly have been convenient that day.

I ate a quick breakfast of bacon and scrambled eggs, plus two cups of strong coffee. Then Aldous and I walked out to the driveway, where his car was parked. I climbed into the passenger seat, and Aldous got in on the driver’s side. I waited for him to turn on the ignition and back out of the driveway, but he just sat there, saying nothing. Finally, I said, “Are you going to drive me to Westwood or are we waiting for something?”

“I want to talk for a moment, Jenna.”

“About how messed up I was last night?”

“Not just that.”

“What, then?”

“Do you realize how long it’s been since you stayed overnight here?”

I realized I didn’t know the exact answer, except that it had been a very long time. “I don’t really know.”

“It’s been over three months. And before that night three months ago, it had been over two months.”

“Well, I have my own place, Aldous. And this is kind of far away from the law school.”

“You know that’s not true, Jenna. And yes, you have your own place, but we used to spend nights here, together. Not often, but at least once a week. And then something happened.”

“I know.”

“What happened?”

CHAPTER 17

I
sighed. I didn’t really want to have the conversation that was about to take place, which seemed to repeat itself like a fugue every few months. But I was stuck.

“I’m not sure what happened, Aldous. Since we got back from France, we’ve grown farther apart somehow. But maybe this isn’t the right time or place to talk about it. I mean, we’ve tried talking about it at least three or four times, and we just end up going round and round, arguing about which one of us is the most detached person on the planet. So what’s the point?”

“I’m guessing there will never be a better time or place to try again to talk about it.”

“Why?”

“Well, you’re feeling really open and vulnerable because of what happened yesterday with Primo. I’ve never seen you before like you were last night. I’m concerned about you, super worried, really. So maybe we’re both more open to feelings right now, and to talking about them instead of arguing about them.”

“Do you have a cigarette?”

He laughed. “You don’t smoke, Jenna.”

“I used to, as a teenager.”

“You think that would really help?”

“Kind of.”

I thought I had found the perfect out. Aldous loathed cigarette smoke and I doubted he had any around. He probably didn’t even know where to buy them.

“All right,” he said. “Just hang on a minute.”

He got out of the car, went into the house and came back a few minutes later with a pack of Marlboros. He climbed back into the car and handed me the cigarettes, along with a pack of matches. “One of my nieces visited a couple of weeks ago and left these.”

“Thanks.”

I took the Marlboros from him, tapped out a cigarette, put it in my mouth and lit it. I took a deep drag and started coughing violently. Aldous opened the car door, plucked the cigarette from my hand and dropped it on the concrete driveway. Then he climbed out of the car, stood up, crushed out the cigarette with his foot, got back in and said, “Honey, I think your smoking days are long over. You’ve lost the skill set. So just tell me what you were going to say without the benefit of a cigarette.”

There was, I thought to myself, no real reason to hold back. “I was going to say, Aldous, that we’ve grown ever more distant from each other and, to be direct, the problem is that I’m finding you ever more emotionally unavailable—despite your display of caring about me yesterday and today, which I don’t doubt was genuine. And appreciated.”

He sat for a moment without saying anything. Finally, he said, “Jenna, like you said, we’ve been down this road before, but do you think of yourself as someone who’s emotionally available?”

“Sometimes I do and sometimes I don’t. I can be cold, I know that. And wrapped up in intellectual things while feelings pass me by. But I laugh a lot. I can cry if I need to. I get angry once in a while. You never do any of those things. And I like to hug people I love. But you hardly ever hug me. You hugged me twice yesterday, and I think the last time before that was sometime last year.”

“I laugh a lot, Jenna.”

“That’s true. I’m being unfair.”

“And I could go to hug classes if you want.”

I actually burst out laughing. “Now
that
is funny, Aldous.”

He started the car and put it in gear. “I suppose it’s not very emotionally connected to drive while we talk, but otherwise you’re going to be late for your class.” We drove for a couple of blocks in silence. Then Aldous said, “Jenna, would it surprise you to learn that I think of
you
as ever more emotionally unavailable?”

“Yeah, it would.”

“Well, I see you as a person who’s always on message, always focused on what you want, always determined to get exactly what you want and not inclined to let emotions get in the way. And you seem more like that every day.”

“That’s the steely girl on the outside, Aldous, the one who appears to ignore the stresses of everyday life. The one who used to appear in court and now makes appearances in classrooms. And maybe the march to tenure has made me more that way lately. But on the inside I’m not like that.”

“You wouldn’t know it from the way you present yourself.”

I thought about that for a moment. “You know, if we’re truthful about it, the problem isn’t really that either one of us is totally emotionally unavailable. For some reason, we’re just not available to one another. Or at least not most of the time. I mean, you’re friendly and kind and funny, and so am I. Well, at least I’m friendly and kind. But that’s not the same thing as being mutually open.”

“I think we are. Do you remember when we lay together on the bed in the bedroom of that small château in France and read Keats out loud to each another?”

“I do.”

“That’s what I think of as an emotional connection.”

I didn’t respond to that because I didn’t see it the same way. Reading poetry together was warm and fuzzy, but it wasn’t what I thought of as a true emotional connection. But he was trying. He was. And so was I.

We drove the rest of the way to the UCLA parking lot in silence. When we arrived I opened the door and started to get out of the car. Before I could say “thank you,” Aldous said, “Jenna, I know we’ve got a long way to go to work this out, but are you willing to try? I don’t want to lose you.”

There was a part of me that wanted to say it was hopeless. But maybe it wasn’t. Maybe it was worth going another round.

“Yes,” I said. “I’m willing to try. But the idea of your living somewhere else is going to make it doubly hard.”

“I know,” he said. “And I suppose this isn’t the best time to tell you, but I’ve had an offer to interview for a job at a brand-new law school that will require every student to get both a law degree and a graduate business degree. It’s just the kind of place I’ve always wanted to teach, so I’ve got to go for it. I’m leaving for the interview the day after tomorrow. I’ll probably be gone for at least three or four days, because there might also be a deanship involved.”

“Where is it?”

“In Buffalo.”

CHAPTER 18

I
was back at my condo by seven thirty. Tommy still seemed to be asleep, or at least the door to his bedroom was closed.

I poured myself a third cup of coffee—safely ground the afternoon before from a bag of Starbucks dark-roast beans I’d had around for at least a week—showered and got dressed for class in my standard law professor outfit: black wool jacket, creased jeans, a cream-colored blouse and practical heels, black. If it had been a cold day, I would have added a dark red V-necked sweater, but it didn’t seem cold enough to bother.

Then I pinned up my hair. After I left M&M, I had let my hair grow back, and it was almost down to my waist. But the uptight part of me didn’t think long hair appropriate for a law professor, so I always put it up. Doing that also made it harder to see the roots, which revealed that although my hair looks jet black, it’s actually dyed, because I’m naturally a blonde. I can’t explain why I’ve never wanted to be a blonde; I just don’t.

As I passed through the living room on my way to the study, I glanced out of the sliding glass doors onto the balcony and noticed that the plant into which I had poured the coffee the day before looked distinctly wilted. I slid open the balcony door and looked more closely. The plant was indeed looking sickly, its leaves droopy. Worse, the bottom leaves, onto which some of the coffee had splashed when I poured it into the plant, had what looked like small burn holes in them, with charring around the edges of the holes.

I stood there for a moment, staring at the plant. There was no way to continue denying that there was something deadly about the coffee, and it was probably not a weird coffee bean fungus. I didn’t know a lot about fungi, but it seemed unlikely there was one that could burn holes in plant leaves overnight. The coffee must have been poisoned, and since the coffee had been brewed in my office, the poison must have been aimed at me, put there by whoever left the door open. It wasn’t just my hands shaking now. My whole body shook. I went to sit down on the couch for a moment and waited for it to pass.

The shaking finally stopped. I needed to get a grip to figure this out. I needed to be the steely girl that Aldous saw.

The first question was, Why would anyone want to kill me? I couldn’t come up with a remotely plausible answer. I would need, as my father liked to say, to “think on it.” I also needed to talk to the police about it.

The threat I felt was another excuse to cancel my class if I wanted to take it. I decided to teach it anyway. If someone wanted to kill me, canceling the class wasn’t going to help. They’d just do it after class. I needed a broader strategy than just hiding.

I called down to the valet for my car, then went into the study and printed out my class notes for the day. I put them in the thin cloth briefcase I usually carry and took the elevator down to the lobby. My car was waiting out front, and the valet was holding the door open for me.

“Good morning, Hector,” I said as I started to get in.

“Good morning, Professor. Have a great day.”

“You, too.”

Hector had not yet closed the car door when a man wearing blue running gear jogged off the sidewalk into the driveway, stopped right next to me and reached into the broad pocket that ran across the front of his sweatshirt. I knew in a heartbeat that he was going for a gun. I looked around in a panic, trying to see if there was a way to clamber out the other door.

“Are you Jenna James?” he asked.

As soon as he asked the question, I knew that what was about to happen had nothing to do with guns. Assassins didn’t check your name before shooting. Process servers did.

“Yes, I’m Jenna James,” I said, as I took a large gulp of air and my heartbeat started to return to normal.

The man handed me an 8½ x 11 manila envelope. “You’ve been served.”

“Whatever.”

“Will you sign a receipt?”

“No.”

“Doesn’t matter,” he said, “have a wonderful day,” and jogged off.

“I’m sorry, Professor,” Hector said. “I didn’t see him coming.”

“It’s okay, Hector. Just some legal papers. Don’t worry about it.”

“All right. Well, have a nice day anyway.” He closed my door.

The engine was already running, but I sat there for a moment, tore open the envelope and scanned the document inside. It was a lawsuit. The plaintiffs were Quinto Giordano and something called Altamira Società Recupero, SPA, both represented by a sole-practitioner lawyer I’d never heard of whose office was on mid-Wilshire. There were two defendants, me and the Regents of the University of California. It had been filed in the Los Angeles Superior Court in Santa Monica.

“Shit.” I said it out loud.

The lawsuit wasn’t very long. Its essence seemed to be that I had stolen a valuable map that belonged to Quinto. It sought an injunction to make me and UCLA return it and asked for a million dollars in compensatory damages, plus another million in punitive damages.

I saw Hector looking at me through the passenger window, worried. I rolled the window down as he said, “Are you really okay? You don’t look so good.”

“Thanks for being concerned, but really, I’m just fine. I’m running late, though, so I need to go.” I slipped the lawsuit back into its envelope, tossed it onto the passenger seat and drove off. I tried really hard not to screech my way down the driveway. I mostly succeeded.

By 8:45 I had parked in Lot 3 and was climbing the stairs to my office, carrying the envelope in one hand and my briefcase in the other. When I got to Aldous’s door, I knocked, but there was no answer. I took a pen out of my pocket and wrote a note on the face of the envelope: “Aldous—I’ve been sued. Please read and let’s talk later. J.” Then I crossed out the
J
and replaced it with “Love, Jenna.” I slid the envelope under the door and headed to the room where my Sunken Treasure seminar was scheduled to begin at 9:00.