The Reporter (4 page)

They called her back three times to read with the star, Mr. Nathanson, who would play the minister, young Hannah’s father
in the film. Each time, Sally had washed and brushed Meggie’s strawberry-blond hair, carefully chosen her wardrobe, and tirelessly
coached her on her lines. At all of the readings, the child was perfect in every way. On the day they learned that Meg had
the role, the room was filled with studio executives and press, and their pictures were all over the evening news. Heady stuff
for mother and daughter.

What phantoms haunted her now? her mother anguished, as she watched Meggie in fitful sleep.

S
ettle down, Yukon,” Maxi told her dog, a big, furry, friendly Alaskan malamute who was standing at attention next to the brown
leather Eames chair in her study, where she squirmed into different positions, trying to get comfortable. “Just because
I
can’t relax doesn’t mean
you
can’t.”

Maxi had been jittery since the funeral that morning. She couldn’t keep the horrific stream of events and their potential
consequences from tumbling about in her head. Her well-ordered life had been unraveling on several edges since Jack Nathanson
had come into it, and now it had turned downright precarious. She knew it would look dicey for her when Sheriff’s Homicide
began to sift through the flotsam of the late Jack Nathanson’s affairs. Her lawyer had been working with her business manager
to extricate her as close to whole as possible from Nathanson’s financial twining. The lawyer had put her on alert, phoned
her as soon as he’d heard the news of the murder that Saturday and told her to expect
a call.

And Wendy was suspicious. Of course, newswoman Wendy Harris was more analytical than the average person. Still, Maxi thought,
when the L.A. County Sheriff’s Department and the various agencies working with them on this high-profile murder
case unearthed the complex fiscal maneuvering ongoing between Jack Nathanson and Maxine Poole Nathanson, they would be dialing
M for Motive, and Maxi’s phone would ring.

Besides the IRS, several banks and lending institutions had filed for attachment of Maxi’s salary, as well as all,
all
of her assets, to help cover unpaid taxes and millions of dollars in loans that Jack had taken out when they were husband
and wife—loans that Jack had never told Maxi about. Not that she’d have objected. At that time, Maxi, and the
world,
thought that mega-star Jack Nathanson had to be sitting on a fortune, from the way he lavished it on himself and others,
from his track record as an extremely successful actor with his own production company, even from the way he talked—he
talked
rich.

Now that Maxi was privy to his books, she saw that Jack had
needed
those loans, needed those quick money fixes, because the top roles weren’t coming his way anymore, and the money kept flying
out the doors and windows.

Yes, he would pull down an occasional small-potatoes gig, which Sam would no longer allow him to turn down—a television
X-Files
or some such—but they didn’t put a dent in the bills. And Janet had sold him to star in
Serial Killer
when Clint Eastwood turned it down, but that movie hadn’t come out yet, and his points,
if
it was a hit, would pay off way down the road—too late to take care of his bills. The IRS had caught up with his tax debt,
and the banks were calling their loans. Jack Nathanson showed zero assets on paper, but he’d had a wife when he’d piled up
all that debt, a wife who was a well-paid television news reporter, and there was no legal contract separating their estates
in those years. Which meant that Maxi had faced the possibility of being wiped out, and worse, the insane but very real prospect
of working indefinitely to finish paying off his debts, while Janet Orson supported his continuing high lifestyle.

Maxi knew she was kidding herself, or at least kidding Wendy, when she’d said that Jack was worth more to her alive
than dead. Not true, as the criminal investigators would plainly see. Money with the late Jack Nathanson’s name on it, albeit
in invisible ink, had already begun surfacing from hidden accounts, money that was pounced upon by his legion of creditors,
which creditors in turn signed off on their claims to the assets of Maxine Poole. Since the murder, Maxi’s business manager
had been receiving notices letting her off her dead ex-husband’s financial hook. Jack Nathanson was definitely worth more
to Maxi Poole dead.

What to do? First of all, she determined to stop waffling on covering the story, and jump on it. True, under these circumstances
it was inappropriate for her to cover this murder, but only
she
knew that. Unless her bosses found out and flashed her a red light, she’d get into it. She’d let everyone see that she was
actively looking for the truth in the Jack Nathanson murder case.

The red light came sooner than she’d expected.

T
ake us through your day, this past Saturday, October twelfth, the day Jack Nathanson was shot and killed in your home,” said
Jonathan Johnson, the tall, quietly authoritative black detective who played “good cop” on the Cabello–Johnson L.A. County
Sheriff’s Homicide team. It was the day after the funeral, the day after Debra’s high-profile arrest. Johnson, his partner
Mike Cabello, Debra Angelo, and her attorney Marvin Samuels sat in a small office at the Malibu sheriff’s station on Pacific
Coast Highway.

“Well,” began a subdued Debra, dressed in a loose-fitting light cotton dress, her bare feet in sandals, her hair tied back
in a ponytail, “Gia got up early, as usual. Bessie supervised her wash-up; then she made breakfast—bacon and eggs for Gia,
she loves eggs, and I don’t think they’re harmful for a growing—”

“When did
you
get up?” interrupted Mike Cabello.

“Before eight. Gia shook me because breakfast was ready. There’s no sleeping in when my daughter is with me—”

“Then what?” Cabello, again.

“Then we had breakfast, of course. I had toast and fruit. I don’t eat eggs—oh, before that I brushed my teeth and went potty,
do you need to know that, too?”

Samuels shot her a look. He had specifically instructed her not to be flip, but even though apprehensive, she couldn’t resist
getting in an occasional little needle, disguised as “just a bit the dumb broad.”

Cabello ignored the question. “What’s the nanny’s name?” he asked.

“Mrs. Burke. Bessie Burke. Elizabeth, actually.”

“What did you do after breakfast?” asked Jon Johnson.

“I took Gia to her psychologist. Her appointment is at ten o’clock on Saturdays. With Dr. Robert Jamieson at UCLA. Gia has
been lagging terribly behind in school, she’s even been kept back a grade, second grade—”

“Where did you go from there?” asked Cabello.

“Well, let me see…. We got gasoline. In Westwood. Then we drove back to the beach, and we stopped at the grocery store, the
one right near Big Rock. Anderson’s Market. I bought bananas, lettuce, tomatoes, bottled water—”

“Then you went home?” Cabello cut in.

“Yes.”

“What time did you get there?”

“I guess about noon.”

“Then what did you do, Ms. Angelo?” asked Johnson.

“I looked at some snapshots of Gia—oh, I forgot to tell you, we stopped at Malibu Photo to pick up some pictures I’d had developed—”

“So you looked at the photos—what else?” demanded Cabello.

“I asked Mrs. Burke to pack Gia’s bag; her father was coming at two. We talked about lunch—Gia wanted a chicken sandwich,
with avocado. I checked my answering machine, hung out in the den awhile and watched Gia play her Team Arena game, then I
kissed her and told her to have a great time at Daddy’s and I’d call her tonight. Then I went into my room to wait until she
left.”

“You didn’t want to see your daughter off?” Cabello asked.

“No. Unless we had something specific to discuss, I didn’t like being around when Jack arrived. To avoid any possible unpleasantness,
for Gia’s sake. And Gia understood that.”

“Okay”—from Cabello again—“so you were in your bedroom when your ex-husband arrived. Then what happened?”

“I heard what sounded like a gunshot in the house. Then I heard another. I was frantic. I called nine-one-one. The person
who answered told me to stay on the line, the sheriffs would be there in minutes, and I said, ‘But my little girl—I have no
idea what’s going on!’”

“Then what?”

“Then I heard the deputies arrive, so I went out of my room and down the hall to open the front door—we always keep it locked—and
I followed them into the living room, and through the dining room, then to Gia’s room, and there he was… on the floor.”

“And where was your daughter?”

“In the kitchen with Bessie. She’d been eating her lunch. And Bessie was hanging on to her. They were hanging on to each other.
They didn’t know what happened.”

“We’ll be talking to Gia—” Cabello started.

Debra instantly reared up. “Marvin, can they do that? Gia is having dreadful nightmares with this. I have her shrink practically
living
at my house.”

Samuels put a hand on her shoulder. “Perhaps you can hold off on that,” he said to the officers, “see what falls together
without questioning the ten-year-old, at least for now.”

“What else can you tell us?” Cabello asked Debra. He saw her hesitation—clearly something was on her mind—and he added, “So
we hear it from you, and not from somebody else.”

“Maxi was there,” Debra said quietly.

“Who?” Johnson and Cabello echoed in chorus.

“Maxi. Maxi Poole, his last wife. She was there, I think.”

Cabello jumped all over that. “She was where? When? What do you mean, you
think?”

“When I opened the front door for the deputies… I think I saw Maxi’s car driving away. I’m not sure, but I
think
I did.”

W
hat evidence led to the arrest of Debra Angelo?” Maxi asked into the phone.

“Sorry, we can’t divulge that.”

“Are there any other suspects?”

“Can’t divulge that.”

Working the story, Maxi was talking to L.A. County Sheriff’s Homicide detective Mike Cabello, head of the unit assigned to
the Jack Nathanson murder case, and leader of the team who arrested Debra Angelo at the cemetery the day before. Maxi was
getting no information out of him.

Not that she’d expected much—law officers rarely gave anything up to the press unless it was something they wanted leaked.
Still, she expected to learn
something
from the conversation—a tone, an attitude, a feeling that they were really on to something, or not. This guy wasn’t even
friendly.

“Can you tell me anything at all that will help with the story, anything besides the who, what, where, and when that we already
know?” she asked him.

“You were once married to the victim, weren’t you, Ms. Poole?” Cabello shot back.

There it was. “Yes,” she replied.

“Well, isn’t it unusual that you would be covering this murder? Too close to home, conflict of interest, something like that?”

“I don’t see a conflict,” Maxi offered, feeling her way. “We’ve been divorced for more than a year. He had remarried.
Should
I see a conflict?”

“That’s not for me to answer. What does Capra say?” Peter Capra was her managing editor, a hard-nosed newsman who had been
around the L.A. crime beat for twenty-five years. Every law enforcement officer in Southern California knew Pete Capra.

“Pete hasn’t said anything,” Maxi returned carefully. Actually, Pete didn’t know she was digging into the story. When he found
out, she knew, he’d probably barge into her office, all six feet and two hundred–plus pounds of him, and bark something like
“What the fuck issamatta with you?” Then again, Pete had no knowledge of the financial swamp she was navigating in the affairs
of her late ex-husband. Pete just might read this case as no conflict. He could interpret it either way. And in fact, she
had no intention of going to air with any part of it. Given her history with Nathanson, that would be irresponsible. For now,
though, she was on a fishing expedition to assess her own exposure, and what she was finding out was that Mike Cabello knew
something, or smelled something, something that involved her.

“Be sure to alert us if
you
learn anything, Ms. Poole,” the detective was saying.

“Sure thing,” Maxi said.
Fat chance,
she thought.

T
his is some knocked-out tootsie!” Pete Capra whispered in Maxi’s ear as he took a seat next to her in the conference room
at Channel Six News. The woman seated opposite them was digging in her purse. Taryn Zimmerman had called Maxi at the office,
saying she had important information concerning the Jack Nathanson murder case. It was late afternoon on Friday, two days
after the funeral. Maxi had asked her to come in, and when she sauntered provocatively across the bustling newsroom ten minutes
ago, work stopped, and every male eye in the place locked on to her lank, luscious frame.

Six feet tall in heels, with loads of curly, fiery red hair, she was sheathed in a scarlet miniskirt, with a matching shirt
tied under her astonishing breasts, exposing about a foot and a half of well-toned, well-tanned midriff.

Before they’d had a chance to get started, Pete Capra had popped his head inside the door. “I’d like to sit in on this, if
it’s about the Nathanson case,” Pete had announced in his most officious boss tone.
Why am I not surprised?
Maxi thought.

“It was because of the fire hydrant,” Taryn Zimmerman was saying now, as she applied crimson gloss to her pouty lips with
what happened to be a fire-engine-red–tipped index finger, “and
it was after that whole thing went down that I started sleeping with Jack. I mean,
that
wasn’t because of the hydrant, but—”

“Wait, wait, wait, wait,” Capra said, stopping her. “Slow down, and start from the beginning.”