Magic Hour (36 page)

I told him if he had nothing better to do, to check the evidence record files. Find out the number of hairs we'd picked up that first night, then go down and look in the envelope the lab had returned. He'd find a minus-one factor.

He told me I was losing my emotional equilibrium, that I was projecting something—I forget what—onto Robby Kurz, that I needed a vacation, and if I passed the fancy Italian store in East Hampton to pick him up two pounds of sausage with fennel.

I hung up. Robby
had
to have planted the hair. And for sure, he had spread the drinking rumor, the Steve luvs Bonnie 4-ever rumor. He was out to get her—and me. Sooner or later, he was going to realize that Bonnie had a protector and had gotten some help with her disappearing act. And then he would be at my house.
 

Gregory J. Canfield was supposed to be in a store in the village doing his job as production assistant, which, in this instance, meant picking up fresh figs, prosciutto, a semolina bread and a bottle of Dolcetto wine for Nick Monteleone since, according to a couple of people on the set, Nick had mumbled that what with the heat, he wanted a light bite, not a heavy supper, and since Lindsay's performance was still so inert, any hope of salvaging
Starry Night
seemed to rest on Nick's well-moussed head, so finally, after forty minutes of consultation between the line producer and the first assistant director (which included a call to Nick's agent in Beverly Hills), a definition of the term "light bite" was agreed upon, and Gregory was dispatched.

But I figured he might stop in to say goodbye to his woman, Myrna the costume lady, and sure enough, they were holding hands in the costume trailer, staring into each other's eyes, giving each other sweet, delicate, pursed-lip kisses of farewell. It didn't seem to bother them that one of Myrna's assistants was no more than a foot away from them, ironing a duplicate of the tennis outfit Lindsay was wearing.. And it didn't seem to bother them when I called out "Hey, Gregory!" He gave me a slightly dopey glance, then gazed back into the depths of Myrna's eyes.

The trailer was huge, like a wildly inflated walk-in closet, with rack after rack of clothes, shelves of shoes, and drawers with scarves and underwear and fake jewelry spilling out. I walked to the back and tapped Myrna on the shoulder. "Hello!" she said. "How are you?"

"Fine, thanks." She looked as messy as when I'd caught her in her inside-out negligee. This time she was wearing a long sacklike thing with a parrot design; it looked as if she'd picked it up in Woolworth's in Honolulu in 1957 and had worn it frequently since. "Myrna, I need Gregory for a minute."

"Is anything wrong?" she asked.

"No. Everything's fine. A couple of minor points need clarification." She nodded, released Gregory's hands and gave him a tender nudge toward me.

I took him away from her, outside to where they had a table set up with bagels and cookies and doughnuts with melting sugar and M&M's and nuts and raisins. There was a bowl of red grapes, but they were hot. He gave me a Coke from a cooler beneath the table. "How's it goin', man?" he asked. A few nights with Myrna had turned him from Ultra-Geek into Mr. Cool.

"It's going all right," I told him. It wasn't. It was ten minutes to five; I wanted to get back to Bonnie, but I had nothing worth bringing her. I held the icy soda can against my forehead. "Remember that conversation you mentioned to me that took place in dailies? The 'if lightning struck' conversation."

Gregory nodded. "Sure, sure." He had a thoughtful look. He was probably recalling the graininess of the film and seemed, worse, about to describe it to me. I cut him off.

"Who was there? You said it was late. Most people had gone."

"Ummm," he began.

"Don't 'ummm.' Talk."

"Sy."

"Good. Keep going."

"One of the assistant producers, Sy's gofer. His name's Easton."

"Who else?"

"Me. I think Nick Monteleone. The D.P. Director of photography. That's another term for cinematographer."

"What's his name, Gregory?"

"Alain Duvivier."

"Is he French?"

"
Mais out, monsieur le detective.
He was there, and his girlfriend."

"What's her name?"

"Monica, Monique. But she's gone."

"How come?"

"He started with the set dresser, Rachel."

"Who else?"

Gregory shut his eyes and, for once, his mouth. He seemed to be trying to re-create the scene. "That was it."

"You're sure?"

"Positive."

"Did Sy hang back to talk to anyone afterwards?"

"I don't know. He sent me out to put pink pages in his leather folder in his car. Revised pages of script. You change color with every revision. First blue, then pink, and then yellow, green, goldenrod, then buff—"

"Go get me Alain."

"I can't. I'm supposed to be in East Hampton, and he's—"

"Get him
now
." Now took two minutes.

One thing about movie people: none of them dressed in a normal, businesslike way. Alain Duvivier looked like a cliche of a French creative type. He was in his mid-twenties, with blond and brown hysterical hair that tumbled over his shoulders, matching heavy eyebrows and one hoop earring. He wore bubble-gum-color shorts and one of those wrestler-style strap undershirts that have practically no sides. He was more the size of a grizzly than a man; beside him, Gregory was almost invisible.

"Hello," I said.

"Alo," he said, then added, with fitting somberness: "Sy. Very, very sad." He sounded so French you half expected him to say Ooh-la-la, but he didn't.

"Mr. Duvivier, I understand you were at dailies the night a certain conversation took place." He was concentrating too hard, so I slowed down. "There were some remarks about lightning and a discussion—a talk—about what would happen if lightning struck—hit—Lindsay Keefe. Do you recall any of that?"

"Lighting Lindsay?" he asked.

"No, lightning. It was a conversation about lightning."

"Lightning?"

I turned to Gregory. "What the hell's the word for lightning in French?"

"I took Spanish."

I turned back to Duvivier. "Lightning." I pointed up to the sky and made a streaking gesture back and forth. He glanced over at Gregory a little nervously, and it didn't help when I made a thunder noise and followed it with another lightning imitation.

He blurted out: "Rachel!"

"Rachel?" I inquired.

Gregory said: "His girlfriends translate for him."

"He doesn't understand English?"

"Well, technical terms. And he says 'Alo, pretty girl' a lot."

"
Au revoir
," I said to Duvivier.

"Bye-bye," he responded.
 

Smart. The sound on the TV was low enough so someone standing outside would never guess anyone was home. I found Bonnie sitting in my recliner, watching a movie. Before she zapped the remote control I saw that even though it was a black-and-white thing, it was something I would watch, with Kirk Douglas or Burt Lancaster; I always got them mixed up.

She pushed herself out of the chair. "Ready? It's five-thirty."

"Relax."

"We have an agreement." She was very subdued.

"Are you all right?"

"I'm fine." She wasn't, but since she wasn't crying, or sullen or angry, I couldn't get a precise reading. "How do you want to go about this? Should I call Gideon first, or do you want to drop me off—"

"Listen, do you trust me? Trust my judgment?"

"Isn't it a little late to be asking that?"

"We've got to get out of here fast, because I have a sickening feeling that fuckface Robby is going to wind up here, looking for you."

"Why?"

"I don't have time now. Let's get out of here. I'll explain on the way."

"On the way home?" She sounded so quiet, thoughtful. Well, she had a right to be. Leaving my house was like picking the Go-directly-to-jail card.

"You're not going home yet."

"You promised me."

"I know, but there's one more shot. Will you have faith in me, give me another half hour?"

"Yes." So hushed, proper, ladylike, even. "I will."

"Then let's haul ass, Bonnie."

She looked past the mud room into the kitchen. The stove and refrigerator were older than I was, and the white porcelain table had deep black craters where it had chipped.

"Where are we?" Her voice was barely a whisper. I realized she'd seen me lift up an implanted flowerpot and take the key that was under it. She'd assumed we were breaking and entering, and having gotten to know me, she did not appear to be surprised.

"My family's house." I guided her—almost pushed her, because she didn't want to come—through the kitchen, into a hallway that led to the stairs. "My brother was there for that 'lightning' conversation. And he was always around, doing things for Sy. I want to see if he remembers what happened after those dailies, that night or maybe the next day." Bonnie stopped so suddenly I banged into her. "Come on." I gave her a light shove and kept talking. "I want to find out who Sy saw—" She wouldn't move. "—and who he talked to."

And then I saw what she was staring at. A gun cabinet. Plain pine. Familiar to someone who grew up on a farm.

Or to someone who grew up in a sporting goods store, whose old man was the best shot in Ogden.

No, I thought. No. She didn't do it.

Growing up in the house of what had once been Brady Farm, I'd pretty much been able to disregard the slight stink of degeneration. That odor of decay had always been there, but it was elusive, except when I sat on the living room couch long enough. There, at the heart of the house, it could not be ignored.

But if I was just passing through—which, during the years after my father left, was how I thought of myself, a low-class transient who happened to have the last name Brady—I'd smell, instead of underlying decay, the tangy carnation scent of the room spray my mother had boosted from Saks, the stuff they used to smog dressing rooms after ladies with gamy underarms tried on Better Dresses.

On the rare occasions I visited after I'd moved out, I must have made an unconscious shift and begun breathing through my mouth, because I stopped noticing the smell. But as I led Bonnie to the staircase, I got a killer whiff of Mildew Plus.

I was embarrassed. I hoped that someday I could really unload, tell her my history, but for now I hoped she'd think well of my background. I didn't want her to notice the stink of my family's house, or the dry, blackened edges of the rips in the gray stairway runner. I wanted her to believe we were poor but nice, not that we were poor and so bitter we couldn't bestow any kindness on our surroundings.

When we got to the second or third step, she finally turned and faced me. "Maybe I'd better wait downstairs." I didn't bother to answer. What the hell could I do? Offer her a seat on the Odorama couch? That way, when I heard my mother come home from work, I'd have to run downstairs in time to say, Mom, this is Bonnie Spencer, the Jew whose ex-husband was murdered in Southampton, and my mother could say, Oh, yes, that was the old Munsey place. Paine Munsey. He's in sugar. They're up in Little Compton now. They couldn't bear the new element, so they sold.

I put my hand on the small of her back. "It won't take long." I propelled her a little harder, and she continued up the stairs. I loved the chance to touch her.

But it was more than wanting her with me. It made sense to let Bonnie hear what my brother had to say before I let her go. She was so smart; maybe she could pick up some small, free-floating fact that could be added to the equation and, finally, make it balance. Sure, Easton had been in the city the whole day of the murder, but there might be a snatch of a phone conversation, a note, a memo—some indication of hostility—he'd absorbed subliminally the day before.

Could he have picked up even a single word—like "rifle," "shoot," "pool," "insurance" or "Lindsay"—soon after the "if lightning struck" conversation at dailies?

I thought: What if one of those words had something to do with Bonnie? All of a sudden, on the last of those shadowy steps, I felt what I'd always felt as a kid. Not a memory, or deja vu. The feeling itself—empty, and so sad.

I knew she couldn't have done it.

But what if she had? Well, then I would be what I was before. Nothing. My life offered only two compensations: baseball and work. But neither the Yankees nor the Suffolk County Police Department was set up to do the big job, save lost souls. And all the drugs I had tried—beer, pot, peyote, hash, yellows, women, 'hides, LSD, booze, heroin, more women, more booze, Lynne—in the end had given me no peace either; they'd just taken the edge off for a little while. Only Bonnie Spencer had made me believe that, truly, I might be redeemed.

What if I was wrong about her? What could my future be? I could drink again, and die. Or I could become one of those old retired cops, clutching a felt hat in my hands, keeping busy shuffling between daily Mass at Queen of the Most Holy Rosary and AA meetings, until death came.

But I knew she didn't do it.

When I guided Bonnie into Easton's room, he wasn't the only one who was surprised. Bonnie was. Surprised, angered. Easton had stolen Sy Spencer's ties! Her hands became fists; she could have decked him. There they were—blue ties with tiny stirrups, green with minuscule anchors, red with itty-bitty French flags—laid out on the bed, ready to be packed for Easton's trip to California to meet with Philip Scholes, the director, about his new job. There was no doubt that they were Sy's: Easton could never have afforded them, plus I'd seen dozens of them on special hooks on a section of Sy's giant remote-control revolving clothes rack the night of the murder, when I did a walk-through of the house. And—Bonnie's face was so grim—there were Sy's sweaters, too, on that bed! Cotton knits and cashmeres meant to be fashionably baggy on a little guy like Sy, sweaters that would just, barely, fit Easton. Her expression declared: Arrest this man!

And Easton's expression? Furious, sure, at another of my tiptoed instrusions. He stood legs apart, arms crossed over his chest, maintaining his dignity despite the fact that all he was wearing was one of those shortie shaving robes, and a particularly hideous one. But he was also confused: I know who this woman with Steve is, but I can't place her. And embarrassed too, as all three of us stared at over a thousand bucks' worth of accessories from the wardrobe of the ultra-suave (and ultra-dead) Seymour Ira Spencer.

I suppose my expression was something less than sunny, reflecting my disgust at my brother's penny-ante thievery. I could just see him, hanging around, waiting for us to take down the crime-scene tape and go home, so he could do a search-and-destroy through Sy's closets under the guise of Setting Things in Order. My guess was that if I looked through Easton's drawers, I'd find cufflinks, or one of those mini-VCRs, a pocket telephone, or maybe one of those skinny, gold-coin watches on an alligator strap.

I was just about to lighten the atmosphere with some joke about taking Easton in, when he got petulant, affronted by my drop-in with a tall woman of unknown origin in athletic shorts and grungy running shoes. "I'd like to know what all this is about, Steve."

"You would?"

"Yes. I would." Just at that instant, as he was carving out a new niche in supercilious schmuckdom, he recognized Bonnie. Obviously, hers was not a calming presence. Easton began to sidle back and forth alongside the bed, doing an agitated step-together-step, as if trying to keep out of her line of sight—or block her view of her ex-husband's wardrobe. "What is
she
doing here?" he demanded. His gracious-living voice disappeared, replaced by a troubled squeal.

"She's with me. You do know that this is Bonnie Spencer?"

"Yes."

I steered Bonnie over to a straight-backed chair. "Stay put," I told her. I turned back to my brother. He stopped his sideways skedaddling. "You saw her that day at the set, when she knocked on the door of Sy's trailer?"

"Yes." His yeses sounded more like yaps than complete syllables. I thought: He's fucking mortified about being caught red-handed. Steal billions, everybody knows, and you're invited to the best parties; steal ties, and you're a tacky little piece of shit.

"And Sy told her to get off the set, that she didn't belong?"

"Yes."

"Stephen, listen—" Bonnie started to say, in her direct, you're-not-approaching-this-right voice, as though we were husband-and-wife detective partners in some 1937 movie.

"Not now!" Then I asked my brother: "Did you know Sy was having an affair with her?"

"What?" It wasn't an assertion of amazement, as in: I don't believe it! It wasn't even a question. It was more a "Duh" of befuddlement. Easton was on overload; he couldn't seem to get what was going on.

"Answer me," I snapped at him.

I had to know how finely tuned in he was to Sy's private life. How much did he know? What could he guess at? After dailies that night, had Sy made any secret phone calls? When they'd gotten back to the house and Easton was setting out Sy's papers or his pj's or pink pages for the next day, had he possibly picked up another reference to "Lindsay"? "Lightning"? An icy laugh? An intense "I need your help" spoken behind a closed door? Would Easton the Refined actually eavesdrop? Would Easton
not
eavesdrop was more the question. My brother wouldn't recognize an ethic if it snuck up and bit him on the butt.

But still, as I looked at him, I knew he'd make a fantastic witness for the D.A., all blue-suited and white-shirted, with one of his new ties. His fair hair would shine in the harsh light of the witness box, his low-key gentleman's voice would appeal, convince. I thought: Wouldn't it be wonderful if he actually could remember something important?

State your name, the assistant D.A. would command. Easton Brady. I ask you, Mr. Brady, the A.D.A. would say, did you overhear a telephone conversation between Sy Spencer and Michael LoTriglio? The defense lawyer—Fat Mikey's, maybe, although I felt a twinge of regret at the notion—would leap up and object on the grounds of no foundation. The A.D.A. would rephrase the question and inquire, How did you know who was on the phone with Mr. Spencer? Well, I answered the phone and the man said it was Mike LoTriglio and he wanted to talk to Sy
now
. I'd spoken to Mr. LoTriglio before, and this sounded exactly like him, Easton would begin.

I glanced over at Bonnie. Her eyes were riveted on Easton.

I remembered her eyes in that moment when she'd stood before the gun cabinet downstairs. I thought I'd seen a fleeting shadow of pain in them, a recognition of what was behind those doors.

What was behind those doors?

My old man's twelve-gauge shotgun.

And his .22.

And then I knew what Bonnie knew.

Eastern seemed to understand that, at last, I knew. He stood quietly, thumbs hooked into his pockets, watching me.

I had to get ready for an interrogation. Oh, we Bradys were so neat. I lifted Sy's folded sweaters from the bed and placed them—one, two, three—gently on the dresser. I was so painstakingly careful you could hardly hear the rustle of the tissue paper between the folds. Then I took my brother by the hand, and, together, we sat side by side on the space I had cleared.

"East," I said.

"Yes?"

"You have something you want to tell me."

"No."

"Come on."

His neck and his ears got fiery red, but he said, "No. Absolutely not."

"I found the rifle." He shook his head. It could be taken to mean: I don't understand. Or: No, you didn't. "I found it, East." I prayed—neat, always put things back where they belong—that he had returned it to the cabinet, that he hadn't done something like take a ride on the Shelter Island ferry to drop it into Long Island Sound. But then I saw I was okay; Easton angled his body away from mine and with the side of his hand was ironing out an imperceptible wrinkle in the blue tie right next to him. I said softly: "It's just a question of time before we get back the results of the ballistics tests." He wouldn't look at me. "We fire the rifle and then compare the markings on the bullet with the two bullets we took from Sy." I was afraid if I looked at Bonnie I'd lose my rhythm, but then she didn't seem to want my attention. There was no sound, no motion; if I hadn't known she was sitting in a chair five feet away, I would not have sensed she was in the room. "The markings will match, East. You know that."

Easton lifted his chin and breathed out sharply, giving his nostrils a scornful, Southampton flare, so Old Society. "I can't believe you can even
think
something like this!"

"How can I
not
think it?"

"You're my brother!"

"I know. Maybe that's why it took me so long to understand."

In the past, when a case finally came into focus, I always got a wild burst of energy, a hunger to
know
. But now I felt heavy, sluggish, incredibly weary. If Easton ran, I wouldn't have been able to go after him; I was on some other planet, with terrible gravity.

"I want both of you out of here!" he ordered. He scowled at Bonnie. "There is nothing to discuss."

"There's a lot to discuss," I said.

"This is totally asinine."

"No. This is very serious and important."

"You have no proof of
anything
."

"I have the murder weapon."

"Oh, don't be melodramatic! Are there fingerprints on it? Are there?"

"There may be, even if you think you took care of that. We use laser technology now."

He shook his head. Either he didn't believe me, he wasn't impressed or he wasn't afraid. "And what if there aren't fingerprints?" he inquired.

"Who the hell else would take Dad's .22 and shoot Sy Spencer? Mom?"

"You
would
bring her into it."

"Relax. Who do you think she's going to blame for all this? You or me?"

I got up and walked toward Easton's closet. A regular closet, not a mahogany-and-brass state-of-the-art architectural space like Sy's. But Easton aspired. Everything was in perfect order: suits, shirts, ties—more of Sy's—slacks, blazers, shoes. Shoes in their cardboard boxes, stacked on the top shelf. The front panels of the boxes had been cut off so you could see each pair. Years of shoes: penny loafers, tassel loafers and oxfords; white bucks, golf shoes and rubber-soled boaters; tennis sneakers, running sneakers, sandals, slippers. And thongs. Ordinary rubber thongs for the beach, the kind you can pick up anywhere. A men's size eleven, my size, my brother's size.

I covered my left hand with my handkerchief. I took out my pen with my right and, carefully, eased the box off the shelf and caught it in my left.

I said, "You hated to bet when we were kids. You know why? I always won. But I'll bet you right now these thongs will match the molds we made from impressions in the grass right near Sy's house, where the shots were fired. A fancy, hot-shit lawn, East. Turf, they call it. It's a special variety of Kentucky bluegrass called Adelphi. The guy at the State Agricultural Extension said it must have cost him a fucking fortune to cover all that ground. But what the hell. The right shade of green makes a statement." I held up the box. "I'll bet you we find a blade or two of Adelphi right in here."

It took a while before Easton could get his eyes off the shoe box. Then, in an I've-got-a-secret boyish manner that my mother would have found enchanting, he gestured me over with his index finger. Without looking at Bonnie, he whispered: "Why is she here?"