Passion, Betrayal and Killer Highlights (14 page)

“Oh, there you are!” Leah eyed both me and Detective Lorenzo. “What was so important that I had to come down here now?”

“We’ll talk about it in my office, Mrs. Miller.” Detective Lorenzo motioned to the female officer that he would take it from here.

“I was in the middle of planning my husband’s memorial service when you called. Then I had to drop that, come down here, only to be confronted with
that!
” She pointed to the crowd on the other side of the door. I wondered what the denim- and tie-dye-clad protesters had thought of their heroine’s peach polo shirt and navy chinos.

“I am sorry about the protesters,” Lorenzo said. “Why don’t we sit down in my office with a nice cup of coffee and we can get this over with quickly. I’m sure your sister here wouldn’t mind watching Jack while we talk.”

I gaped at him. This man really hated me.

Leah, on the other hand, looked somewhat appeased. She bent down and patted Jack’s head as he nibbled on Anatoly’s laces. “Jack honey, Mommy will be right back. You be good for Auntie Sophie.”

Jack happily ignored her and Lorenzo escorted Leah to his office. I sat down next to Anatoly and leaned my head back against the wall.

“They know about Bianca.”

Anatoly sighed. “I figured as much. Do you think Leah will volunteer that information?”

“I doubt it.”

“Great.”

We waited there together for fifteen minutes, periodically offering Jack new clothing items to munch on. Finally Leah and Lorenzo came out of his office. Leah looked slightly unsteady on her feet. Her eyes darted around the station in a way that suggested she expected something sinister to come slithering out from under a desk or a darkened corner.

“Thank you for your time, Mrs. Miller,” Lorenzo said mildly. “I’ll be in touch.”

Leah didn’t say anything. She bent down and gathered Jack up into her arms as the detective retreated into his office. I stood up and got close enough to her ear so that no one would overhear me.

“What did you tell them?”

“I told them that I knew about Bob’s affair but that we were going to stay together and work out our problems.”

That was good—she had lied without lying. Maybe Leah
had
learned a few things from me.

“What did you say about what I knew?” I asked.

“I said that I had mentioned the affair to you but that due to your drinking problem you might not remember the conversation.”

I slapped her on the back. “That’s amazing! That’s the same lie I told them!”

“What are you talking about?” She balanced Jack on her hip and gave me a withering stare. “Everything I said was true.”

Anatoly smirked. “This isn’t a good place to talk.” He gestured toward the door leading outside. Leah bit her lip and eyed the door warily.

“Come on—” I gave her an encouraging smile “—as fanatics go, the people in this crowd seem pretty harmless.”

Leah nodded and walked outside with Anatoly and me on either side of her. The waiting crowd began screaming Leah’s name as soon as she came into sight. A few people reached out to touch her like she was the next messiah. I quickly scanned the outskirts of the group and noted that a few TV crews had arrived to capitalize on the commotion.

Anatoly made a grunt of disgust, fell back and put one hand on my back and one on Leah’s as he rushed us past the demonstrators. Unfortunately there was no ignoring the reporters. A female in a navy suit stuck a microphone in Leah’s face. “Mrs. Miller, do you feel you’re the victim of racial profiling?”

“No comment.” Leah’s voice trembled only slightly as she tried to move forward.

Another mike was thrust in front of her. “How do you feel about the attention your husband’s death has brought to interracial couples?”

“No comment.”

“Do you have any opinion about the pressure many activists have been putting on Hotel Gatsby to fire Ms. Cheryl Miller?”

Leah stopped in her tracks. Her head pivoted in the direction of the reporter who had asked the question. He wasn’t the only black journalist there, but he had the darkest skin by far and, unlike many of his colleagues, he was not accompanied by a camera, just a notepad and pen. The other thing that set him apart was the fact that he was drop-dead gorgeous. Leah took a cautious step toward him.

“I’m sorry,” she said, “but do you mind repeating that?”

He nodded and raised his voice. “Jerome from
Flavah Magazine,
” he said, needlessly introducing himself. “Many of your supporters, along with several African-American and Jewish political organizations, have been putting pressure on the Hotel Gatsby to fire Cheryl Miller due to the racist statements she made about you two days ago. How do you feel about that?”

Leah locked eyes with him. Her chin went up half an inch and a hush fell over the reporters as they readied their microphones for what they hoped would be Leah’s first statement to the media.

For a minute I didn’t think she was going to say anything at all. Then a slow smile spread across her face. “Excuse me a moment.” She handed Jack to me and whipped around so that she was facing the protesters. She threw her head back, launched her fist in the air and shouted, “Black Power!”

A roar rose up from the crowd and Jerome broke out in a full, rich laugh. In seconds people were chanting Leah’s name. The other reporters started shouting out other questions, too many to respond to. Anatoly grabbed Leah’s arm and yanked her through the horde.

“I’ll be calling you for an interview,” Jerome called after us. Leah looked over her shoulder and gave him a friendly wave.

“You are not helping matters,” Anatoly said as he dragged her in the direction of my car.

“Trust me,” she said, still grinning, “if this gets Cheryl fired it will be well worth it.”

I trotted behind them as Jack pulled out several strands of my hair. “Where did you park, Leah?”

“Miranda dropped us off. She was going to find parking and meet me at the station, but when I saw Anatoly, I called her cell and told her we’d ride with the two of you.”

“But I don’t have a car seat.”

“I put one in your trunk yesterday. I figured you would need it if I…if you end up being Jack’s primary caregiver.”

Jack pulled out a new handful of hair. I shot Anatoly a pained look. “God help me,” I mumbled.

On the way home Anatoly tried to coax Leah to give him more details about her interview with Lorenzo, but she waved off his questions in favor of bringing the conversation back to Cheryl and her impending misfortune. When we finally got home Leah and Jack went in ahead of me while I stayed outside to chat with Anatoly.

He stuffed his hands into the pockets of his jacket and his eyes idly followed a young child with pigtails walking past with a man who was most likely her grandfather. “Your sister needs to keep her focus. Cheryl’s career is not the issue that we should be concerning ourselves with.”

“I’ll talk to her.” I tried to sound casual but I was worried. Not about her lack of focus; that would be an easy problem to correct. It was her overall demeanor since she finished talking to Lorenzo that bothered me. She’d been contrite. It was as if her over-the-top excitement about Cheryl’s problems was a way of masking another emotion, namely fear. I looked up at the window of my apartment. “I think I’m going to stick by Leah’s side for the rest of the day. If she says anything more about her interview with Lorenzo, I’ll let you know.”

Anatoly nodded and started to walk away, but something stopped him. He turned back and fixed me with his stare. “You’re not thinking about going back to her house, are you?”

“I wasn’t planning on it. Why? Do you think that someone will break in again?”

“If they didn’t find what they were looking for—possibly. At this point we have no idea who or what we’re dealing with.”

I shrugged. “Okay, we won’t go to her place tonight.”

“No, you won’t go to her place today, tonight, tomorrow, or any other time in the near future. Not without me.”

“Let me get this straight,” I said. “It’s not okay for me to go there with Dena and Leah, but it’s safe for me to go there with you? How chauvinistic can you be?”

Anatoly took a step forward. “Promise me, Sophie.”

I put my hands on my hips and was about to come back with a snappy retort, but something in his expression stopped me. I swallowed my annoyance and dropped my arms. “I promise.” I glanced back at my apartment. “So where are you off to now?”

“I’m going to the Gatsby,” Anatoly said. “If we’re lucky, one of Cheryl’s coworkers will have some insight into why she might have wanted to see her brother dead.”

I sighed. “Good luck and let me know if you find out anything.” I went back inside and found Leah sitting on the floor next to Jack while he worked on what looked to be a fairly new coloring book. I would never expect a toddler to be able to stay inside the lines but it would have been nice if he had been able to keep the Crayola markings on the page and off of my wood floors.

“Leah, can we talk?”

“I’m incredibly tired, can it wait? Unless of course you want to talk about Cheryl’s career problems,” she looked up at me with a mischievous twinkle in her eyes, “I definitely have the energy to talk about that.”

“I just wanted to tell you that if you’re scared you can talk to me.”

The twinkle disappeared and she looked back at Jack. “Just promise me you’ll send Jack to Adda Clevenger Junior Preparatory school when he’s of age. It’s the best.”

“Okay, first off you’re going to be around to enroll him yourself. Secondly—” I paused and sat down next to Leah on the floor “—can we talk about this whole custody thing? I mean you can’t honestly think that I’m the best person to name as the guardian of your son.”

“Who would you have me leave him to? Mama? The woman will be seventy this year. She’s in good health, despite her claims to the contrary, but she wouldn’t be able to care for Jack full-time.”

I had to concede that point. After all I couldn’t handle Jack and I was only thirty. “What about Miranda? She seems to do well with Jack.”

“Sophie, you’re going to be a great mom,” Leah said, while snatching a crayon away from Jack before he could stick it in his nose. “And it’s not like you have to worry about child-care. All you do is hang around the house writing novels, it’s the perfect job for a parent!”

“I think I might have difficulty being creative with a child screaming in the background dumping cleaning products on my cat.” Although my murder scenes might improve.

“You’re resourceful, you’ll figure it out. And eventually you’ll settle down and get married, maybe even to Anatoly…”

“Okay, hold up. Who said anything about marrying Anatoly? I don’t even want to date him!”

Leah laughed and took another crayon away from Jack, but not before he managed to draw a large circle on the leg of my coffee table. “Really, Sophie, you’re usually such a
good
liar.”

“All right, maybe I wouldn’t mind dating him, or at least sleeping with him. But there’s no way that I would allow him to put a ring on my finger, now or ever.”

“Never say never. I know he can be a bit abrasive and egotistical but that’s just the way men are. You can’t be too picky, Sophie.”

“So what are you saying? That I should settle the way you did?”

The words had popped out before I had a chance to stop them. For a moment the only sound was the snap of crayons as Jack gleefully broke them in half. Mr. Katz walked in the room, took in the scene and then, with an imperious swish of his tail that let me know I was on my own, turned around and walked back out again.

“Leah,” I started.

“I’m tired, Sophie. I don’t want to talk anymore,” she got up and disappeared down the hall.

“Leah, come back!” I hurried back to the guest room where she was sitting on the bed with her back to the door. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I didn’t mean that.”

“Yes you did and I told you, I don’t want to talk about it.”

I put my hand on her shoulder and gave it a gentle squeeze. “Please don’t be mad. I’m just nervous about being named as Jack’s guardian even though I know you’re always going to be the one taking care of him.”

Leah tilted her head back so she could see me. “You
are
going to be a good mother, Sophie,” she said softly. “To Jack, if necessary, and definitely to your own kids. And I’m sure you’ll make a good wife to whoever you decide to marry.”

I smiled but didn’t say anything. Leah wasn’t getting it. I had been married before, albeit only for two years, but those two years had been informative. The most important thing I had learned about myself was that I liked being on my own. Of course I would happily welcome a lover into my life, and in a few years I’d probably go hunting for one of those rare breeds of men who weren’t allergic to monogamy and emotional intimacy. But if such a man existed he was going to have to settle for the title of “long-term boyfriend” because Mr. Katz was the only guy I ever planned to share my address with. As for kids…well, I just didn’t feel the yearning for motherhood that apparently other women did. I planned to model my life after that of Katharine Hepburn, except I would write rather than act and I wouldn’t be having any public affairs with married men. I know there are those who would say that my lack of maternal instincts made me less of a woman, but that’s just who I was and I doubted that my feelings would change.

“Mama, can’t bweeth!”

We both turned around to see Jack in the doorway with two crayons sticking out of his nose. Leah jumped up and pulled them out before scooping him up in his arms. “Honey, I’ve told you a hundred times not to do that!”

I took a deep breath. Two things were clear to me. One was that I was not cut out for motherhood. The other was that it would take a small miracle to get this kid into Adda’s preparatory school.

CHAPTER 7

“I never understood Frost’s analogy about there being two roads in life to choose from. Everyone I know is stuck at a four-way intersection and, given the choice, I think they would all be taking U-turns.”

—
Words To Die By