Grave Endings (21 page)

thirty-one

MAX PALEY LOOKED JUST THE WAY HE'D DESCRIBED himself over the phone—tall, brown hair with a severe crew cut, a goatee, tortoiseshell glasses. He was wearing jeans and a blue shirt over a black T-shirt, and it took me a moment to realize that I'd seen him at the funeral.

It was five to seven. I had been waiting ten minutes and had just about decided that he wasn't planning to show when he entered the kosher deli on Pico near Robertson, which I'd chosen because it was close to where he worked.

I had found Max's name and phone number among the entries on the pages Trina had left. A good thing, because otherwise I would have been tempted to use Randy's phone to reach the NA sponsor, which would have erased another call and necessitated another apology to Connors.

“Thanks for coming,” I said after the waitress left with our orders. A steak sandwich with fries (a nod to my dressmaker) and a Diet Coke for me, a pastrami burger and a Dr Pepper for Max. Mushroom barley soup for both of us. My treat, I told him.

“I almost didn't,” he said. “I'm still not sure I should be here. The relationship between a person and his sponsor is totally private. That's what makes the program work.”

He'd been suspicious after I'd identified myself, not happy that I'd found him, even after I told him it was through Randy's sister.

“I wouldn't have asked you to meet with me if it wasn't vital, Max. As I said, the police know you phoned Randy the morning before he died. So you'll probably have to talk to them. You weren't Randy's lawyer or minister.”

“That doesn't mean I have to talk to
you.
”

I nodded. “True. But I'm hoping you will. I'm trying to find out who killed him.”

“I don't know.”

I took a sip of water.

Max pulled on his goatee. “You really think someone killed Randy?”

“The police are looking into the possibility.” Connors planned to talk to Dr. Lasher, so it was true. “The evidence points to Randy overdosing, but his sister doesn't believe it. Neither does his father. Do you know if Randy was clean?”

“What day?”

That startled me. “Wednesday, the day he died.”

“Do you know anything about addiction, Miss Blume?”

“Molly.”

“Molly. Do you?”

“I know it's hard to beat. Are you saying Randy was doing drugs on and off?”

The waitress brought our soups.

“You don't
beat
an addiction, Molly,” Max said when she left. “It's with you every day for the rest of your life. Whether it's smoking or gambling or drinking alcohol or spending or overeating. Or using drugs. You have a day where you abstained, that doesn't mean you're going to abstain the next day. You have a month of abstaining, or five months, or five years, the next morning you get up and thank God for helping you. You acknowledge that you still have an addiction, that you're powerless to control it, that you need help. Randy was beginning to understand that. So if you ask, Did Randy shoot up Wednesday night? I have to say I don't know. He could have.”

“Was he clean on Tuesday?”

“Yeah, but it was a struggle.” Max took a spoonful of soup. “He had a lot on his mind.”

“Trina said he was writing letters, asking forgiveness. She didn't know specifics.” Or she wouldn't tell me. Instinct told me Trina had been holding back about a few things.

“He was working the program way too fast. It's not something you rush. But it was like he had a premonition that he wouldn't be around, and he had to do as much as he could in the time he had left.”

“Did he ever mention someone named Aggie Lasher?”

Max shook his head. “He didn't talk about people by name. Why?”

“The police think he killed her around six years ago. You don't look surprised,” I added.

Max ate more soup. I think he was stalling, trying to figure out how much to tell me. My own bowl of soup was steaming my face, but I hadn't touched it.

“Randy asked me how a person would go about making amends to someone who died,” Max said. “Be of service to other people, I told him. Work the program. Then he asked, What if that person was responsible for the other person's death? Hypothetically, he said.”

“What did you tell him?”

“That deep inside he knew what he had to do, that he didn't need me to tell him. About a week before he died, he told me he had a huge dilemma. In making amends, he'd be involving people who would be facing legal and financial repercussions. Did he have a right to do that? To be honest, that was too big for me. Aren't you eating your soup? It's good.”

I took a spoonful, but barely tasted it. I wondered if Randy had told his supplier—Jim?—that he was no longer willing to deal drugs. Worse—that he was planning to turn himself in to the police. Was that why he'd been in such a rush to make amends to all the people he'd wronged—because he knew he could be in prison for life?

“Do you think Randy was dealing drugs?” I asked Max.

“No way.”

His anger made me flinch. “What if he couldn't get a supply any other way?”

“I talked to Randy every day, usually more than once. I would have known. Now his girlfriend . . .” Max sniffed. “They met in NA, but she was definitely using, at least the last time she came to a meeting, a month ago. I don't know where she got the money. Randy said she wasn't working.”

“Did Randy know she was using?”

“I told him. It's much easier to slip with a partner. And she was nosy. She called me, said he sounded troubled, she wanted to help him but he wasn't opening up to her.” Max grunted. “I think she was afraid he was going to dump her.” He finished his soup and pushed the bowl away.

“So if it wasn't drugs, Max, what do you think Randy was involved with?”

“No clue. I know he was worried about protecting someone. If he made amends, if he told the truth about something. He was vague. I thought he was talking about protecting his kid sister, but I could be wrong.”

That would have been my guess, too, especially since Trina's apartment had been trashed. “There was a woman at his funeral who lives down in the San Diego area. And a man named Brian. Did Randy ever mention either of them?”

Max shook his head. “I told you, he didn't use names. Is someone meeting you here?”

“No. Why?”

“There's someone at the counter who's been turning around every few minutes and looking at you.”

I felt a shiver of fear and turned around. I didn't see anyone. “Who?”

“That guy, there,” Max said, pointing. “The one wearing the hat and walking out the door.”

“What did he look like?” I asked, still looking at the door.

“Average. Medium height, brown hair. He probably thought you were someone else. Or her,” Max added. “It could've been a woman. I couldn't see the face.”

The waitress brought our main courses. Max attacked his burger with gusto, but I had lost my appetite. When he was finished, I asked the waitress to box my sandwich and asked Max to walk me to my car and wait until I had locked myself inside.

thirty-two

I KEPT MY EYE ON THE REARVIEW MIRROR ALL THE WAY to my sister-in-law Gitty's apartment on Detroit Street, where we were playing mah-jongg tonight. I didn't think anyone was following me, but I made extra turns and doubled back a few times to make sure. I was still shaking when I ran up the stairs to the upper story and rang the bell.

I hadn't been in the mood to play. I adore mah-jongg and value its therapeutic qualities, which helped me get through many lonely nights after Ron and I divorced, but I had too much on my mind, so many errands I should be taking care of before the wedding. My sisters had insisted that I needed the break.

“It's your last game as a single woman,” Mindy had said.

Now, as I worried whether someone was following me and why, the thought of being with family was reassuring and I was glad they'd insisted. I looked over my shoulder, rang the bell again, and was about to ring a third time when my brother Judah opened the door. I stepped into the small entry and stood on tiptoe to give him a kiss. His trim beard tickled my cheek.

I took a step back and peered at him. “What's up? You look strange.”

“Nothing's up. I'm just happy for you. One more week, huh?”

“Are they throwing me a shower?” I had told everyone, no shower. I was too old, and this was my second time. I still had shower gifts from my first marriage that I'd never used.

“It's not a shower,” he said, and grinned.

Judah doesn't grin. At twenty-eight, he's the oldest male sibling, but number four on the Blume totem pole. I suspect he always wanted to be the firstborn, which explains his friendly rivalry with Edie, and probably the beard, and his tendency to take himself too seriously at times, though he does it less often since he married Gitty. She has mellowed him and so has their one-year-old son, Yechiel, who is starting to talk and calls me “Ahwee.” Works for me.

I followed Judah through the large living room, still furnished only with bookcases and books, and into the kitchen, where my sisters and sister-in-law were standing, along with my mother and Bubbie G. They were all wearing long, stick-straight wigs in bright colors—red, green, turquoise, orange, purple.

“Edie got them on Hollywood for the Purim play at school next week,” Liora said. Her wig was orange. “Aren't they fun?”

“They're great,” I said.

“Here's yours,” Edie said, handing me a purple one. “No layers,” she added, and a moment later Bubbie wanted to know why we were all laughing.

Gitty had set out our usual mah jongg nosh—popcorn and potato chips, trail mix, and soda. And water, crudités, and fruit, because she's a nutritionist. Bubbie G had baked a preview batch of hamantaschen, the three-cornered cookies filled with poppy seed, prune butter, or apricot (I like the prune the best) that we eat on Purim, which was a week from this coming Saturday night. In between munching, Edie took us into the living room to practice the new dances we still hadn't mastered though she'd given us private instruction.

“Thank goodness we're all wearing long gowns,” Mindy said.

We reminisced and watched old family videos of when we were kids. I was a little worried about Bubbie, but she was smiling and nodding at our young voices, probably filling in from memory what she couldn't see. We ate too much of the assorted chocolate candy Liora had bought at Munchies, and laughed so hard we were breathless and the tears streamed down our faces, and my mother wasn't the only one who had to run to the bathroom.

It was a wonderful evening. For three hours I forgot about the man who had been watching me at the deli, and Aggie and Randy Creeley, and financial and legal repercussions—of what? And when I got home after eleven I was almost sorry to find that Connors had phoned.

“Call me at home if you want,” he said, “I'll be up late.”

He answered on the second ring. I heard noise in the background and thought he had company, but he told me it was the TV.

“So where were you?” he said. “Out with your rabbi?”

“Mah-jongg with my sisters, and a miniparty.”

“Two more weeks, huh?”

“Actually, a week from Wednesday.”

“You ready for this?”

“I'm ready.” I don't know much about Connors, aside from the fact that he has an ex-wife in Boston, something he let slip once. I do know he's not much for chitchat, which meant he was procrastinating. “Did you talk to Porter?”

“Yeah, I did. You asked why Creeley moved the body. He didn't.”

“I don't understand.”

“Aggie wasn't killed near the synagogue, Molly. She was killed about a hundred feet from the Dumpster. Creeley saw her somewhere between her car and the synagogue—on Livonia, probably. She got into his car— willingly or unwillingly—and he drove her to the site where he killed her. Okay?”

I was seething. “No, it's not okay.”

“You know what I mean, Molly.”

I realized I was still wearing my purple wig. I yanked it off. “All this time Wilshire knew Aggie was abducted and killed somewhere else? That's not a mugging, Andy. That's not a random act. No wonder Porter didn't want me to know.”

“Hindsight is always twenty-twenty, Molly. She could have been abducted by a stranger. Happens all the time. By the way, I checked the 619 calls. They were made from a pay phone in San Diego.”

“Is that my consolation prize?”

“Don't shoot the messenger.” Connors sounded annoyed. “You wanted to know. A thank-you would be nice.”

“
Thank
you. Did you find out about Brian's cell phone?”

“Not yet. I
did
learn that Doreen hasn't been living in her apartment since Creeley died. She picked up her mail twice and told the landlord she's moving.”

“Doesn't that tell you she's frightened, Andy?”

“Or that she's had her fill of Hollywood.”

“She was in NA, but I spoke to someone who told me she's still using.”

“Call the
Times,
” Connors said. “They'll run a special edition.”

I restrained my impatience. “She wasn't working, Andy, so how did she buy drugs?”

“I'm assuming you have a theory.”

“I think someone paid her to spy on Randy. His sister told me she
did
have a key to his apartment. Randy found Doreen snooping through his things. His journal, his laptop files. This person I spoke to told me Doreen called and tried to pry information out of him.”

“Who is this person?”

“It doesn't matter. The point is, someone was worried that Randy was planning to make amends. I think they wanted Doreen to find out what he was writing, and to whom.”

Connors didn't answer.

I stroked the purple hair. “Trina told me Doreen yelled at Randy about the letters, told him he was making a mistake. But Randy told her he had to do the right thing. Suppose Doreen told this person that Randy was ready to mail the letters. The guy has to kill Randy.”

“And he does that how?”

At least Connors wasn't laughing. “He meets with Randy and gets him drunk so that he passes out. You said he had enough alcohol to open a bar, right? The guy shoots drugs into Randy's arm. He doesn't find the package or the laptop—he wants to see who Randy's been writing to. So he breaks into the sister's apartment and takes the laptop. But he needs the package. He thinks Trina knows where it is.”

“Does she?”

“I don't know. She said she didn't have Randy's journal, but she does.”

“When did you last talk to her?”

“Sunday morning. I left a few messages on her cell phone. She said she'd get in touch in a day or so.”

“She didn't tell you which hotel she was going to?”

“No.”

Connors didn't respond. I figured he was thinking.

“I still think Creeley overdosed,” he said, “but I'll check around. By the way, I spoke to Dr. Lasher. He doesn't have an alibi for Wednesday night. He says he was at the hospital, but that was early in the evening.”

“Lots of people don't have alibis, Andy.”

“Lots of people didn't just talk to the guy who killed their daughter. Lots of people aren't doctors with medical knowledge and syringes and access to drugs.”

I debated telling Connors that I thought someone had followed me to the deli, and wouldn't that rule out Dr. Lasher, but he said good night and hung up.

I phoned Trina and left another message. Then I talked to Zack, who had known about the wig party all along.

“You're not supposed to keep secrets from your fiancée,” I said. “You're supposed to tell me everything.”

“Like you tell me everything?” he teased.

I thought about that as I filled him in about my meeting with Randy's sponsor but didn't mention that someone may have been following me. Not the same thing, I told myself. Because if it wasn't true, I would be worrying Zack needlessly.

“Don't forget about dinner tomorrow night,” he said before he hung up. “I'll pick you up at seven-thirty.”

I washed off my makeup and put on pajamas, then entered the
Crime Sheet
data I'd collected today until it was after two and my contact lenses were fogging. After saving my files, I shut my computer.

The list I'd made from Randy's phone was on my desk. I was tempted to call Brian. At worst, I told myself, he'd pick up and yell at me for waking him up in the middle of the night.

And at best . . .

I dialed the number.

“The party you called does not accept calls from blocked numbers . . . ,” a recorded voice informed me.

Maybe it was a sign. I hesitated, then pressed star 82 to unblock my phone, and punched Brian's number again. One ring, two, three. After four rings, the answering machine picked up.

“You've reached the Warfields.” Brian's voice. “Please leave a message.”