The Reporter (9 page)

“Pete?”

“What!”

“Why are you so cranky?”

Pete looked down, but not before Maxi saw his rumpled Italian face redden. “Because… I gave up smoking,” he said in a small
voice.

“Oh,
no!
Again?”

“Kris is on my back. And my doctor’s on my back.”

“The last time you quit smoking you punched O’Brian and
knocked him through an edit console.” Dan O’Brian was a talented but cantankerous reporter who didn’t edit a high-rise-fire
story exactly the way Pete Capra had hoped. It would have been a much calmer situation if Pete had had a cigarette.

“So?”

“So you broke his collarbone!”

“He buried the lead—I shoulda
killed
him.”

“He could have sued. I don’t know why he didn’t.”

“He didn’t sue because his drug bust would have come out. You know, when this station, thank you very much, bailed his sorry
ass out of the tank and put him through rehab to the tune of forty grand.”

“I don’t want to cover the auction, Pete.”

“Are you telling me you’re refusing an assignment?”

Contractually, he had no case, of course, but Pete Capra never believed in fighting fair. Maxi’s thoughts reeled back to her
odyssey through Jack’s things at Janet’s house two days ago. It was dizzying. It was poignant. It was painful. She didn’t
want to relive it.

Acknowledging her reluctance, Pete softened. “Look,” he said, “blow off the auction in a couple of minutes. Have your shooter
isolate five or six things, voice over them, get me a couple of sound bites, with a star, with a family friend, whatever.
I don’t give a damn about the crap they’re hawking. But you know the people in Nathanson’s world. Talk to them. Listen to
them. I want your eyes and ears there. Leave your heart at home.”

Her heart had been all over the terrain on this story since it broke almost two weeks ago. Jack’s murder had stirred up memories
that she wanted to forget, and emotions that she didn’t want to deal with, besides putting her in a potential vise that Pete,
that nobody, could know about. All she could do was put one foot in front of the other, business as usual.

“Okay, Pete. You win. I’ll cover the auction.”

Pete gave her five. “What the hell,” he said with his mischief-making grin. “Maybe you’ll see something you wanna buy.”

Maxi looked at him incredulously. “Yeah,
right,”
she said.

T
he child was in the kitchen with me,” Gia’s nanny Bessie Burke was telling Mike Cabello and Jon Johnson, “and we heard sharp
noises… shots, it was.”

It was Friday afternoon, almost two weeks after the murder. The three were sitting in a small room at the Hall of Justice,
L.A.’s central Sheriff’s Headquarters. A paralegal who worked for Marvin Samuels had driven Bessie downtown.

“Did you notice anything unusual, Mrs. Burke?” Jon asked. “A car pulling up, a door opening?”

“No,” Bessie returned, “there were always cars pulling up and doors opening. We’re at the beach, you know. Neighbors and children
come by to see Gia and Miss Debra. I don’t pay much attention—”

“Mrs. Burke,” Cabello asked her, “what time did you get up on that Saturday?”

“Seven o’clock. I always get up at seven.”

“Was Gia up?”

“Oh, yes, she’s up very early. She was already dressed and watching cartoons when I went into her room. I gave her a morning
hug and left her be, and I busied myself in the kitchen with breakfast.”

Bessie Burke was an ample woman, fifty-seven, from Cornwall, in England, and Debra had loved her on sight. She wasn’t the
most fastidious housekeeper in the world, but she adored Gia, played the proper British nanny to her, and to Debra, that was
invaluable.

“So Gia and Ms. Angelo had breakfast, then went off to the kid’s shrink appointment. What time did they get home?” asked Cabello.

“Umm, I never much mind the time, you know, but it was lunchtime, though Gia wasn’t hungry—”

“So what did you all do, you, Gia, and her mother, before Mr. Nathanson arrived?” queried Jon Johnson.

“Well, we looked at some photographs of Gia and Skip playing volleyball on the beach last week. Miss Debra took them,” she
said. “And Gia wanted to play those video games that are all the rage with the youngsters these days,” she went on. “She plays
in the den, on the big TV, and Miss Debra was in there with her—she had her new magazines—and I went in the kitchen to fix
Gia’s lunch. I always made her eat before she went with her father, because the good Lord only knows what they feed her over
there—” She stopped herself and looked down at her lap. She was twisting a lace handkerchief with both hands.

“And where was Ms. Angelo when Mr. Nathanson came?” Cabello quizzed.

“Why, in her room; I told you that,” Bessie responded.

“Did you
see
her go into her room?”

“Uhh, no, not actually—”

“Then how do you
know
she was in her room?” Johnson pressed.

“Because she
always
went into her room before that man got to the house, unless she needed to have a discussion with him, and if she did, she
made it short,
then
went to her room.”

“She didn’t like Mr. Nathanson, then?”

“I should think you’ll have to ask
her
that.”

“Yes, ma’am. But you do know how
Gia
felt about Mr. Nathanson. Did Gia like her father, Mrs. Burke? Or do you want us to ask
her?”
Bessie straightened in her chair, prim in her navy blue rayon suit with pleated skirt, white blouse, and sensible shoes,
torturing the handkerchief now.

“I shouldn’t think you’d force a little girl who’s lost her daddy to come to this terrible place and make her talk about it,”
she reprimanded. “I should think you gentlemen would know better than to do that to a youngster.”

“Well, then,” returned Cabello, softening, “we know she loved her father; all kids love their dads…. But tell us, did she
like
her father? Was she happy to be going off with him?”

“She was pleased, yes. They were going to the lake…. Gia likes the lake—”

“What Mike wants to know, Mrs. Burke, is did Gia like her father?” Johnson interjected.

“Why, she
loved
her father. Gia loves everybody. She’s a good girl,” Bessie responded, appearing close to tears. Both detectives could see
that this woman would do anything for Debra Angelo and her daughter, and she was terribly nervous about saying the right things.

“All right,” Cabello said, shifting gears from the emotional to the practical. “Tell us about when Mr. Nathanson arrived.
Ms. Angelo was in her room, you say; Gia was in the kitchen with you, and it was two o’clock when he came…. Oh, I forgot,
you aren’t mindful of time.”

“Well, I was mindful just then, because we knew Mr. Nathanson was coming at two, and he’s always directly on time, so we were
watching for him, and it was exactly two, yes—”

“Okay, so it was two o’clock, and Gia’s father rang the bell. Then what?” urged Cabello.

“Then Gia ran to the door to let him in, and they both came into the kitchen, and I’d finished making Gia’s sandwich, and
I
asked if the child could eat up before she left. She’d missed her lunch—”

“And?” Cabello prompted. “When did Mr. Nathanson go into Gia’s room, and why?”

“I already told you that, at our house the day it happened—” Bessie began.

“Yes, we know you did, Mrs. Burke,” Jon Johnson put in, “but we want to hear it again. For the record, okay?”

“Very well,” Bessie said stiffly. “Mr. Nathanson said they would need Gia’s warm jacket because they were going up to Lake
Arrowhead, and I said I’d just fetch it, but he said no, he’d get it, since I was still serving up Gia’s lunch, and he said
he wanted to see if there was anything else the child should take besides what I’d already packed for her, perhaps a couple
of sweaters—”

“Then what?” Cabello prodded.

“Then he went in there, and, and—” Bessie broke down in tears. “And we heard the… heard the noise,” she sobbed.

“How long was he in there before—”

“Five minutes… ten minutes—”

“Didn’t you think that was a long time for him to be picking up a jacket?” Cabello asked. “Didn’t you go into the room to
help him find it?”

“No, no—I’ve told you, no, I did
not
go in there. Mr. Nathanson was searching about for what Gia might need at the lake, and I was feeding the child—” She was
nearly hysterical now.

“It’s all right, Mrs. Burke,” Jon Johnson said softly, trying to calm her. “This is very important, ma’am. While Mr. Nathanson
was in Gia’s room, before you heard the shots, do you remember hearing, or seeing, anybody else?”

“No…”

“Did you notice
anything
that would have been unusual, out of the ordinary? Please think, Mrs. Burke. Take your time.”

There was a long pause. “Well,” Bessie ventured, quieter now, “only that that woman was out there again—”

“What woman?” Cabello pounced on her words, thinking she meant Maxi Poole.

“That actress woman, the one in Mr. Nathanson’s movie, the one about the witches.”

The detectives looked at each other. “Do you mean
Black Sabbat,
Mrs. Burke?” Johnson asked.

“That’s the one. She was the little girl who was a witch.”

“What do you mean she was ’out there?” Cabello pumped.
“Where,
out there?”

“Out on the beach, but quite near the house, closer than where folks usually come, but Miss Debra told me once to leave her
be when I mentioned it, so I paid the woman no mind after that, but she was out there regular, and she was out there that
day.”

“What do you mean by ‘regular,’ Mrs. Burke?” Jon Johnson asked. “How often, would you say?”

“Several times a week. She’d sit on her blanket, fully dressed—she didn’t wear swimming outfits, so she wasn’t taking the
sun, or the salt water—”

“Why didn’t you tell us that, Mrs. Burke?” Cabello demanded. “We’ve asked you before about that day and you didn’t mention
any woman near the house. How do you know it was that actress? Is her name Meg Davis?”

Mrs. Burke dissolved in tears under Cabello’s hammering. “Because I didn’t know it was important.… I didn’t even
think
about it. She was there often—”

“Was it Meg Davis, do you know, Mrs. Burke?” asked Johnson.

“Yes, I know it was her, because the day I pointed her out to Miss Debra through the window, she said, ‘Oh for heaven’s sake,
that’s Meg Davis; she played the little girl in
Black Sabbat,
Bessie. She’s not hurting anyone. She’s probably found herself a favorite
spot by those rocks, so let her enjoy it.’ Miss Debra knows all the famous people at the beach.”

“Did you tell Ms. Angelo that Meg Davis was out by the house that Saturday?” asked Johnson.

“Why, no, I never thought about it, until just now when you told me to think, think of anything I could—”

“Thank you, Mrs. Burke.” Mike Cabello stood, dismissing her. “You’ve been very helpful,” he said. He and Johnson were eager
to follow up this new lead.

T
he bulky blue and white Channel Six News van scudded to a stop on Wilshire, across the wide boulevard from Sotheby’s in the
heart of Beverly Hills. It was after noon on Saturday, and the auction was already in progress. Several other big vans bearing
the logos of competing news outlets, local and national, were already parked along the curb, which was a red zone, but the
police rarely ticketed newsies. They cultivated good relations with journalists and news operations, to come off in the best
light possible in the day-to-day fracas that was news in L.A.

Maxi hopped down from the truck as her cameraman, Rodger Harbaugh, raised the big, unwieldy microwave mast to feed the signal
back to the station. Rodger was a street-smart news wars veteran, a wiry man with short brown hair and a sun-weathered face,
who always got his shots with the least possible fuss. Maxi was glad she drew Rodger today, and not one of the station’s puffed-up
auteurs who would try to make
Gone with the Wind
out of this shoot. She didn’t want to be here, she fervently hoped none of her colleagues would make her part of
their
story because she was once married to Jack Nathanson, and she intended to get in, get her footage, do her stand-ups, and
get out. Hoisting her
bag onto her shoulder, she walked around to the back of the van where Rodger had begun unloading gear.

“Down and dirty on this one, Rodge—no frills, okay?”

“You got it, Max. How’d you draw this duty, anyway?” Everybody at the station, in fact everybody in the business, knew that
Maxi Poole was one of the late Jack Nathanson’s exes.

“Pete had a bug in his drawers about me doing it—”

“You couldn’t reason with him?”

“He quit smoking again.”

“Aah.”

Rodger hoisted the heavy minicam up on his right shoulder, lugged a leather bag filled with tapes, lights, filters, lenses,
battery packs, and other assorted photographic supplies, and hefted the big aluminum tripod with his left hand.

“Sorry I can’t help you with any of that,” Maxi said.

“I know. We’d get nailed.” It was against union rules for reporters to touch any camera crew equipment. Maxi broke that rule
routinely when there were no other news personnel around who might feel strongly enough to file a grievance. They crossed
the eight lanes of Wilshire and climbed the stairs into Sotheby’s lobby, showed their credentials, and went inside the auction
hall.

There were the usual greetings and camaraderie between competing news crews. If any of them thought it odd that Maxi Poole
was covering the auction of her deceased ex-husband’s effects, none of them let on to her. There would be some wagging about
it, Maxi knew, but she shrugged it off—they didn’t pay her mortgage. Still, she couldn’t help feeling uncomfortable, especially
being confronted yet again with all the pieces that had furnished her own home for years. Seeing it all jammed together here,
lined up row after row in Sotheby’s showrooms, unrelieved by a plant, a lamp, a book, the pieces presented even more of a
drab lot than they had at Janet’s house three days ago.