Perfect Sax (24 page)

C
aroline Rochette’s eyes widened in what could have been a horrified expression, that is, if her Botox injections had left her with any discernible facial expressions left to give. Instead, I received a blank, if wrinkle-free, stare as she groaned, “How could you know? Have you been following Bill and me?”

Ah! Freaking! Ha! So it
was
Bill Knight at the center of this scam, cheating on his wife, Zenya, cheating the insurance company, and trying to manipulate Caroline Rochette.

Caroline seemed ever more alarmed when I didn’t respond. “Damn it to blazes. I need a cigarette.” Her mouth twisted in anxiety, finding an expression at last, undoing all the smoothing that careful plastic surgery had done.

In this whole wacked-out scenario, Bill Knight was the only name that made sense. Sara Jackson’s boyfriend had said she was blackmailing some rich guy. It had to have been Bill Knight.

Spending those days typing up the boring insurance valuations at LACMA three years back, an art student like Brett Hurley must have understood just how bizarrely high Knight had hiked up the values on his pieces—it was the sort of thing he might recall again years later and jeer at. While Hurley laughed at the deception, Sara probably saw its criminal
potential. Clever Sara. She took an idle comment by her boyfriend and found a way to squeeze money out of it. But to find out if Bill Knight had cashed in on his lies, she had to do research. She would have needed to make sure there was a big illegal score, or what good was her hunch?

Honnett had told me that Dex had dated Sara. Maybe Sara made a play for Dexter, scouting for info. That’s the way I wanted to think about it right now. Sara Jackson using Dex. If she put her knowledge of the inflated art prices together with stories she’d coaxed from Dexter about the theft and insurance score made by his brother-in-law, she knew that Knight had twenty million reasons to pay her to keep quiet.

Maybe that’s what happened the evening of the Black & White Ball. Bill paid Sara. That could have happened right before we left the building. Then Sara found her car had stalled and begged Holly for a ride. It could explain why Bill Knight was really raging as he drove like a mad bombardier out on the streets of downtown—maybe he was letting off steam after paying blackmail money to Sara Jackson. That’s a hell of a better reason to go nuts than freaking out over an old saxophone.

And with a large roll of cash in her bag, it also explained why Sara didn’t want to stand around some parking garage waiting for AAA to come start her car. She made up the story about her boyfriend needing her, but her worry that night had seemed pretty genuine.

And maybe there was another stage to Sara’s plan. If she double-crossed Bill Knight, she stood to make even more money. Insurance companies pay big rewards to informants.

But while I stood in the elegant foyer, unraveling this puzzle of art and fraud and blackmail, Caroline Rochette had major worries of her own. Among other things, her secret affair with Knight had now slipped out.

“I know you’re close with Zenya,” Caroline said, her body
language all squirmy, like a rat that had been cornered. Well, a petite rat wearing Manolo Blahniks, batting thick eyelashes that curled aggressively.

“Caroline, you’re in trouble. Bill Knight was using you. You better look out or you’re going down, too. So if you are thinking about calling and warning him—”

“I won’t.” Right. Like I believed her.

“Pay attention, Caroline. If things get ugly, you’ll be losing a lot. Your friends. Your position at the Woodburn. Your job. You’ll be lucky to get off with a humungous attorney’s bill, a trillion hours of community service, and a record. And that means you lose your real estate license and folks who own houses like this one won’t even let you wipe your shoes on their doormat.”

She sobbed, but no tears fell from those heavily lashed blue eyes.

“The police are already on to Bill Knight, so be smart. You don’t want them coming after you next.”

“I didn’t do anything,” she wailed.

Divinia Denove had phoned the LAPD the previous night, as well as the insurance carriers who had paid off on the twenty-million-dollar claims. Even without evidence pinning the art heist on Knight, they had a clear case of insurance fraud since the etchings had been grossly overvalued.

“Clear the air here, Caroline. It’s not just about the insurance anymore. It’s about murder.”

“Oh my God.” Caroline looked ill. “This doesn’t have to do with that girl who was killed in your house, does it?”

I felt like dipping Caroline into the swimming pool, one more time, just to jar her awake. “Sara was blackmailing Knight,” I explained patiently. “She may have planned to double-cross him on top of that. Knight could have decided to end all his problems.”

“I had nothing to do with any of this,” she said, shifting into defensive overdrive.

“Here’s some advice. Barter. If you know anything else about these crimes, you had better get yourself over to the police and tell them immediately. While it can still do you some good.”

Caroline Rochette’s eyes darted to the window, but there was not a looky-loo in sight; no one coming up the drive to look at the five-million-dollar home this sunny Sunday.

“Did you know,” she whispered, “Sara Jackson had been taking voice lessons from Al?”

“What?”

“She had only been to the studio a few times. She paid cash. She wasn’t on his books, so we didn’t tell the police about it. Al didn’t want us dragged into that murder at your place.”

“Let me get this straight. Sara Jackson knew Albert Grasso?”

“She started coming to the house about two weeks before the Woodburn gala. I didn’t like her. She was common.”

“You mean she was coming on to him.”

Caroline Rochette nodded.

“And he responded?”

Caroline made a face. “Men like young girls.”

I had to think all of this through. Sara Jackson was using her body to get closer to Albert Grasso. Caroline Rochette was having an affair with Bill Knight. Who knew such things went on in my quiet little neighborhood?

What had Sara been up to with Albert Grasso? Perhaps she was tying up loose ends, digging around for more details behind the fraud, somehow connecting Grasso’s insuranceselling brother into the mix, scouting out a couple more potential blackmail victims. She might have hinted about Grasso and his brother to Bill Knight, like she was getting more proof, so he better pay up.

I’d bet money that was what spooked Knight into sending Caroline after Grasso’s briefcase, to remove those insurance documents. The papers would have given Sara the name of the insurance carriers, and Knight probably feared that a besotted Albert might admit to fudging with his coincollection values if Sara pressed the right buttons.

Bill Knight’s crime had gone so flawlessly for so long. He’d have no choice now but to plug up these disastrous leaks. When the scheme to grab Grasso’s briefcase and papers began to unspool, Knight must have completely flipped out. Did that lust for self-preservation change the man? He’d been content to do a little diddling with paper numbers before, but had he now been pushed over the edge? Did Bill Knight kill both Sara and Grasso?

I looked back at Caroline, who by now had dropped several real tears over her predicament. Her heavy mascara had left two smoky tracks down either side of her tight little face, and one eyelash was coming loose at the corner of her eye. I reached for the doorknob.

“Please!
Please!
DON’T LEAVE YET!” she yelled after me, desperate, as I opened the massive front doors, only to find an elderly African-American man with a thin young blonde standing on the front step.

“Very devoted realtor,” I said to them as I walked swiftly down the drive.

Outside the house, I turned on my cell phone to make a quick call to Detective Baronowski. I told him what I had learned and was reassured to hear that all the wheels had been turning properly. They were working on Bill Knight’s arrest warrant and would soon have the man in custody on suspicion of insurance fraud.

I disconnected, and then instantly received an incoming call. From the number displayed on my cell phone, the
caller was Dex. My heart skipped in a completely annoying manner.

“Dexter?”

“Madeline. Where are you?”

“I’m running around solving shit. It’s exhausting—you’ve got to believe me. I am trying
very hard
to find a way to trust you, Dexter.”

“I know, honey. You’re like making this your life’s work.”

“I’m dogged. And I’m right in your neighborhood.”

“Come over.”

And in five minutes I was at his house.

He wanted to kiss me. I wanted to talk. This pretty much sums up my view of male/female needs.

“What’s up?” he asked, his arms around my waist.

“Here’s the thing. I need to hear about you and an old girlfriend of yours.”

“Now?”

“Yes. Tell me about Sara Jackson.”

He turned so I couldn’t see his face. He didn’t answer.

“Dex?”

He turned back and took my hand. “You know about me. You know I’ve had a lousy track record with women. I’m not a model of virtue. But, Madeline, do we have to go
there
?”

“Where?”

He smiled. “To a place where you drag up every horrible mistake I’ve ever made with a woman and throw it at me? Because I just want to say, if we’re going
there
—we will be there awhile.”

“Dexter.” I looked deeply into his eyes, seeing only affection and some chagrin amid the mysterious multicolor of his shade of hazel. I could detect no trace of deception. I sighed. It was official. I couldn’t read this man at all. “Dexter, you
don’t have to tell me about any other woman from your past, ever. But I have to know about Sara.”

He looked at me. “You can’t leave this one alone?”

“Dex, it’s things like this here that break down the trust. You know?”

“I know,” he said.

“Why didn’t you tell me you had been dating the girl who was killed at my house?”

“At first, I didn’t know. Really. That first night I drove you home, no one ever mentioned who was dead there. You never said her name. The next day, when I watched the news, I pretty much freaked out. Sara had been a psycho, but no one deserves what happened to her. I was stunned that this girl I used to know could have died at your house. Then I took Holly out to lunch, remember? Holly told me that Sara worked for your company. One of those insane coincidences. What are the chances of that? I started thinking this city
really
isn’t big enough. When the girls with whom I’ve had flings start working for the ones I’m just getting to know, I may have used up a town. That sort of thing.”

“And then…?”

“And then you and I were having such a rocky time of it, Madeline. The more I wanted you the more I could tell you were scared of me. So when was the right time to tell you I had spent a lousy month going to bed with a chick that I ended up finding out was a
hooker,
for Christ’s sake, and one who was no doubt using me? If I told you that, how likely was it that you would have jumped into my arms?”

If he was lying to me, he was just too good. “Using you?” Did Dex know that Sara was blackmailing his brother-inlaw? “In what way?”

“That girl liked to smoke dope.”

“Dexter Wyatt, do you sell drugs?”

“No! No. But she thought I was rich or something and that I’d have druggie pals…”

So this was the answer. Dexter Wyatt was afraid to tell me he had once slept with the dead hooker in my bedroom because he thought I’d be bugged to learn my new boyfriend hung out with prostitutes and potheads.

And you know what, he was right.

“So we’re over now?” Dex asked, his voice low.

“I’m not sure how we ever got started,” I said, rubbing the sting out of my eyes.

“Aw, Madeline.” He looked so sad. “But tell me this at least. Do you trust me, sweetie? Do you know I’m telling you the truth?”

“I think I do.”

“But it doesn’t help much, does it?”

“The idea of dating a bad boy had a lot of appeal…” A tear escaped, damn it.

“But the reality bites,” Dex finished for me, and, putting a gentle arm around me, added, “I know.”

W
hat the hell are we doing here?”
I whispered to Wesley as he let me into the kitchen entrance at Zenya and Bill Knight’s luxurious home in Beverly Hills on Monday morning. All the previous day and night, I had expected to get a late call canceling today’s flower luncheon. After all, hadn’t Zenya’s husband been arrested? Wouldn’t she call off this gathering of Woodburn ladies on a morning like this? “Is it still on?”

“Apparently.” Wes shrugged, looking mystified. “Zenya just left to take the little girl to a friend’s house for the day. The boy, Kirby, is around. And the husband…”

I stared at Wes, not believing this.

“He’s in his study,” Wes finished, keeping his voice low.

“Oh my God, Wes.” It wasn’t every day I turned a guy in to the police while I puttered around in his kitchen and threw a party for his wife. I was on the edge of freaking.

Meanwhile, Wes filled me in on where we were with the event: “Holly is out on the covered patio with Annie and Kara, finishing decorating and setting up.”

We had planned to do our flower-arranging lesson outdoors. Three rows had been made of rented tables, which Holly and our other helpers were draping in dark green canvas and presetting with the vases and flowers and
greens. The floral foam was being presoaked and placed in each vase, to make everything easy, and a pair of good florist scissors was placed at each setting so that each of our twenty ladies would have her own workstation from which to trim stems and weave vines and play with the flowers.

“Any word from Detective B?” Wes asked.

“Nothing. He never called me back yesterday and I’ve left two messages this morning.” I’d left long overanxious recitals of all my fears, all the way up to the speculation that Knight may have been behind the murders of Sara Jackson and Albert Grasso. Even though I had no evidence, I was sure I was on the right track. The logic of it. The motivation of all the players. It just gelled. But still Bill Knight was free! And what was worse, he was right here. And what was worse than that, so was
I
. I felt flushed with concern.

“What do you want to do?” Wes asked.

“Let’s just keep going,” I said. “What else can we do?”

The Woodburn Ladies Flower Lunch, donated by our firm in the auction and hosted by Dilly Swinden and her cochair Zenya Knight at the Knight home, went down in the short history of Mad Bean Events as the most surreal event we had ever produced. Every time the doorbell rang with the arrival of a new guest, I was sure it would be the police coming to drag away the man of the house.

The Woodburn women, in blissful ignorance of the drama behind the scenes, displayed the completely opposite attitude on this day. They were relaxed, cheerful, and beautiful as always. They wore their version of casual clothes, summer-weight pants and capris in bright colors, little backless sandals with high heels, expensive ankle chains and earrings. Their adorable tiny designer bags rested on a table we’d set out for that purpose. The collection of these ladies’
purses alone must have been worth over fifteen grand, and that wasn’t counting the contents of their Louis Vuitton wallets.

Everyone was having a grand time. All the committee women I had met over the months while planning the Woodburn fund-raiser were there. Connie Hutson, Dilly and Zenya, even Caroline Rochette had the nerve to show up, soaking up the shock and sympathy of her many friends over the death of Albert Grasso. It was almost too much social facade for me to bear. As they laughed and complimented one another on a new pair of shoes or a belt, I was overburdened with knowing too much of what was going on beneath the surface. Behind the smiles, many of these women were anything but carefree. They were women desperate to hang on to their youth, women worried about money, women who had affairs with other women’s husbands they must hide. I found it difficult to put on a friendly face and be as shallow as the situation demanded—which was really a disability for a party planner.

While I got lost in my thoughts, Wes and Holly stood in front of the flower tables and passed out six stems each of alstromeria and snapdragons and demonstrated how to use the number three to design a simple and elegant formal flower arrangement. By making a triangular pattern in the deep floral foam with your three most important flowers, like the large white casa blanca lilies we’d provided in this case, you next fill in with two each of the other flowers around that triangle and form a symmetrical and appealing shape. All the while, as they quickly learned to remove the pollen sticks from the lilies, or artistically arranged their ferns, or daintily sipped on tall glasses of iced tea, or playfully commented on others’ flowers, the Woodburn ladies looked relaxed and pleased. The only ones in the entire house who were tense appeared to be Wes, Holly, and me.

Zenya pulled me aside as the group was about to start on their second flower arrangement, a simple design with roses and hydrangea that Wesley would show them how to place into tall, square-shaped vases.

“We’re still friends, right?” she asked me, smiling sweetly.

What could I say? Yes, right. I have managed to break your brother’s heart while at the same time working to put your no-good husband in prison, but of course we are buds.

I worked on my faux-happy skills a little harder and tried to smile back at her. “Why would you ask that?” It sounded lame, even to my own ears. “Are you having a good time?”

Zenya squeezed my hand and went back to her guests. They were all having a ball. Clearly, they’d all aced the honors course in keeping their secret worries hidden, while I’d forgotten to sign up for that class at all.

After the two very different flower arrangements had been completed and excessively admired, the beautifully filled vases were set in a cool spot where they’d stay until it was time for the ladies to take them home. The party moved on to the pavilion on the far side of the swimming pool, where we had set up lunch. Dilly Swinden made a little speech before the lunch of lobster salad, thanking her committee for all their hard work. She asked Zenya to take a bow and say a few words. As I walked back into the house to find the extra corkscrew, I heard the faint tinkling of the front doorbell.

I walked quietly into the dark hallway and listened.

“What is this?” Bill Knight asked, his voice loud and surly. He had answered the doorbell himself, his wife and everyone else seeming to be in the backyard.

“Bill Knight. You are under arrest for suspicion of—”

Knight tried to slam the front door, but one of the uniformed officers in the group pushed it open, hard, and then another grabbed Bill. While Bill was a big man, he would never have been able to shake them all off. I saw four officers and Detectives Baronowski and Hilts.

More scuffling and swearing ensued as the officers struggled to get a pair of handcuffs on Bill. Handcuffs! In his own home in Beverly Hills. I had expected this. I had. But I was shocked, anyway, to be right there and see the end of this drama unfolding. The officer read Bill his rights, but Bill was cursing through most of it and threatening so many horrible repercussions on these policemen that I doubt he heard a word they were saying.

“Dad!” Kirby Knight darted out of a bedroom and into the fray.

“Kirby,” Knight yelled out to his son. “Go get your mother. Get her to call our attorney. Tell her to get those idiot women out of this house right now.”

“But, Dad!” Kirby’s eyes showed the kind of raw pain a twelve-year-old’s face can still show, before life teaches him how to bury it away completely and the man he becomes grows accomplished at never revealing it again.

No one saw me standing with my back flat against the dark hall wall, thank goodness, and I ducked quickly into the kitchen before Kirby ran past me and out into the garden party.

Wesley was coming toward the house as I emerged.

“Kirby just made the announcement,” he said, but I could tell that by the reaction among the party guests.

There had been a sudden hush followed by furious movement around the lunch tables. In a few seconds, the casual luncheon had turned into an emergency military retreat. Many of the Woodburn ladies must have suddenly discovered immediate engagements that had to be tended. The
flower arrangements were collected and departures were rapid.

Zenya saw me coming out on the lawn and separated from the friend or two who had stayed behind to soothe her. Two other women were on their cell phones, speaking to their attorney husbands, lining up representation for Bill Knight before he even had a chance to make it to the police station.

“Madeline,” she said, her face as beautiful as ever, but shocked and disbelieving. “Did you hear? It’s awful. Everyone is leaving. I don’t know what to do.”

“We’ll clean up here,” I said, feeling so sorry for this woman. For this family. But I wasn’t responsible for the crimes her husband had committed. I looked away, as more guests made speedy exits. Even so, I felt a sort of tangential guilt at having tracked the insurance plot down to her husband and delivering his head on a platter to the cops. Could she really care about Bill Knight? Dex might not know anything about her feelings at all.

“What am I going to do, Maddie?”

“You’ll do fine,” I said. “I think your husband may have been capable of some very unpleasant things, Zenya. You may not know him as well as you thought.”

“Bad things? Like what? You think he stole the etchings?”

I nodded.

Zenya thought it over. “I had a long talk with Dexter last night and he agrees with you. I told him I couldn’t believe it, but now…But now even if it’s true, Maddie, what can I do? He’s still my husband. The father of my children. He may have gotten some things mixed up with our insurance and found some loopholes, like Dexter explained, but I have benefited from it, too, haven’t I? I live in this house. I spend our money. I may not have known about what happened to those etchings, but I guess I share the blame. I have to stand by him, don’t I?”

“It’s worse than simply insurance fraud, Zenya,” I said, catching sight of Caroline Rochette as she got ready to leave. “Please tell me something. That night after the Woodburn ball, when Bill was driving like a crazy man, did you go straight home? Did he stay with you all night?”

Zenya looked like it was hard for her to focus on anything but the past ten minutes, but she tried. “He went out again.”

“Please, Zenya. Please tell me what happened that night. Just how you remember it.”

“He left you in the middle of the street downtown, which was so horrible. Then he told me to call Dexter to find you and round you up. He was very specific that I had to get Dex to go. He thought the two of you might make a cute couple. Fancy that. Then he cooled down a bit and decided he wouldn’t go chasing over to Pasadena for a showdown with the Hutsons. So we came home.”

“About what time?”

“I don’t know. Maybe one.”

“And after you came home?”

“He was restless. He went to his study and was on the phone, I think. Pretty late, but that’s not unusual for Bill. I went to bed at one-thirty and Bill said he thought he’d go take a drive. I don’t know what time he got back home. He was out late, though. I awoke around three-ten
A.M.
and he still hadn’t returned. What is this, Madeline?”

It was exactly as I had feared. Bill Knight did not have an alibi for the time Sara Jackson was getting shot at my house. I tried to work out the timetable in my head. Perhaps Zenya had mentioned to Bill the reason I had needed a ride home that night—that I had lent my own wheels to one of my waitresses, Sara Jackson. She probably told Bill how Sara was going to return my car that night. Bill could have seized the opportunity to get rid of Sara Jackson as a threat for good.

“What is going on?” Zenya was as anxious as I’d ever seen her. She had just witnessed her lovely party be turned to shambles by the arrest of her husband. And I was standing there on her grass telling her it was much worse than simple insurance scams.

“That woman who was shot at my house,” I said, my throat dry. “She knew your husband.”

“Don’t tell me this,” Zenya whispered, shaking her head. “Were they having an affair?”

“I don’t think so,” I said. “But…your husband wasn’t being faithful to you, Zenya. I can’t believe I’m the one who is telling you this, but I just found out yesterday.”

“What are you talking about?” She looked completely perplexed, her hazel eyes wide.

Caroline Rochette walked by us and stopped. Oh no.

“I took your advice, Madeline,” Caroline said to me. “Just in time. I am through with all the lies.”

“Good,” I barely whispered. Zenya and Caroline were standing together. I was seriously concerned about spontaneous combustion.

Caroline turned to Zenya. “I’m sorry, Zenya. I had no desire to hurt anyone. You simply have got to believe that. I’m afraid it all spun out of control so fast, I got a little lost.”

“What are you talking about?” Zenya asked her. And then her eyes focused and she knew. “You were sleeping with my husband.”

“I was worried about Albert. He seemed to be growing a little tired of us. I couldn’t lose him…I know it makes no sense.”

Zenya Knight, the sweet flower child of the fund-raising crowd, spun and slapped Caroline Rochette’s face so hard the crack of it silenced the few remaining departing guests.

Caroline Rochette, after a lifetime of delusion, denial, and
dermabrasion, had finally resolved to confess her sins. She needed to, once and for all, get the whole story out, and a dizzying right hand to her cheek wasn’t going to keep her quiet.

“Please understand,” she begged Zenya, “Bill came to me and said he was leaving you anyway. I believed him, Zenya. How was I to know he was such a liar? He came to me at a vulnerable time in my life. I’m just telling you all of this so you know the real man those police just arrested. I didn’t want you ruining your life supporting him without knowing this.”

Zenya raised her right hand again and Caroline, her cheek blazing red, didn’t flinch. But Zenya lowered it, her anger directed in too many other directions to take it all out on poor Caroline Rochette.