House of Smoke (30 page)

“This is a disaster,” Dorothy tells her. She’s angry, as angry as Laura’s ever seen her.

“Well, if it is, it’s
my
disaster,” Laura shoots back defensively, “and I’ll live with it.”

“You do not exist in a vacuum, Laura. We will
all
have to live with it. You should have thought of that before you did something so stupid as this. So reckless.”

“Why is getting at the truth reckless?”

“There’s no truth in this, only accusations.”

“Well, maybe this’ll be the catalyst to blow this thing up, and the truth will come out.”

“Or maybe it’ll blow up in your face. In all our faces.”

They glare at each other.

“Have you shown this to your mother?” Dorothy asks. “Have you had the courage to do that?”

“She’ll see it tomorrow,” Laura states.

“Tomorrow?” The old woman’s voice rings with alarm.

“The paper comes out tomorrow.”

“No. You cannot do that to her. Or your dad. You have to tell them first.”

“Okay,” Laura capitulates. It’s the last thing she wanted to do, but Dorothy’s right. Her mother has to know about this before she sees it in the newspaper or, worse, hears about it from someone else. “I’ll call her first thing tomorrow morning. I’ll go see her, show it to her.”

Dorothy nods. “What you really should do,” she counsels Laura, “is sleep on this. When you wake up you might have a fresh perspective.”

“That’s what Lester Wolchynski told me to do,” Laura admits.

“Well, that makes two of us,” Dorothy says, relieved that Lester had put the brakes to this rash, precipitous impulse. “Lester’s a bright man, he certainly knows the newspaper business.”

Laura hesitates. “Anyway, I can’t stop the run now, even if I wanted to,” she confesses.

“Of course you can,” Dorothy tells her. Her voice sounds a bit shrill to her ear; she takes a break and brings down the volume. “You’re the publisher, you can do whatever you want, darling.”

Laura shakes her head.

“I told Lester that I had to publish my editorial, that it was my decision and I’d take the heat for it, if there is any. It’s gone over the modem to the printer,” she explains. “We publish every Friday,” she states matter-of-factly, “and tomorrow is Friday. We’ll be on the stands by noon tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow?” Dorothy echoes in disbelief.

“Twenty-five thousand copies. Our normal run. All over the county.”

Call it avoidance. Call it willfulness. Or fear. Whatever the reason, Laura does not tell her mother or father about her front-page editorial before
The Grapevine
hits the streets of Santa Barbara County a little before noon.

Miranda is sitting down to lunch on the veranda of the Locust Club with two of her oldest and best friends, has just ordered an iced tea, and is about to exchange some juicy gossip, when the headwaiter approaches her table and quietly hands her a copy of the paper, cover page up. She always peruses
The Grapevine
, because her daughter is the publisher and she’s a proud mother, even though there’s seldom anything in it that’s of interest to her. Lucky Jenkins’s society column can be cute and quirky, and sometimes the political coverage, especially concerning malfeasance in county government, is better than the daily. Her favorite section is the personals: Men Seeking Women, Women Seeking Men, Men Seeking Men, Couples Seeking Bi Women. She’s entertained the idea of responding to an ad, to have the experience. It would be a kick to meet someone who took out that kind of ad.

It doesn’t register on her that being handed a counterculture newspaper by a waiter at the Locust Club, even if her daughter is the publisher, is unusual. In fact, it has never happened before. Locust, like most private clubs, is conservative in its membership and posture;
The Grapevine
is inappropriate in such a location. It is consistently against everything that places like the Locust Club stand for, even though the publisher’s parents and grandparents have been members for decades.

“Is that your daughter’s paper?” one of her friends inquires.

“Hers and hers alone,” Miranda responds dryly, as she glances at the headlines and then casually flips through a few pages. She’s more liberal in attitude and lifestyle than any of her friends, but there’s the proper time and place for everything. She’ll read it more thoroughly later, when she’s not here.

“I didn’t know that was part of the reading material here,” the other woman says, as they all have a chuckle. Her name is Estelle. The third woman’s name is Patricia. They have, at least in their own minds, rich and interesting lives, but here they are addressed as Mrs. Steven Arch and Mrs. Holcomb Smith, as Miranda is addressed as Mrs. Frederick Sparks.

“I’m sure it …”

The laughter dies in Miranda’s throat, almost choking her, as in a delayed reaction her mind processes what it had subliminally perceived. Slowly, she turns back to the front page.

Laura’s editorial, positioned in a box in the lower part of the page, leaps out at her.

“Jesus Christ!”

“What is it?” Estelle asks, alarmed by Miranda’s violent outburst.

“Nothing. Everything. Never mind.” She springs up from her chair, knocking it backwards onto the stonework. Folding the paper over so that the offending article is hidden, she rushes to the telephone.

The switchboard at
The Grapevine
is in a state of gridlock. Miranda gets four busy signals before she gets through. Although Laura is on another line, trying to fend off a reporter from the
Los Angeles Times
, she quickly disposes of that call.

“I should have warned you,” she says immediately, before her mother can go into the tirade she knows is coming. “I didn’t realize this was going to be such a big deal.”

“That is quite an understatement!” her mother screams at her over the phone. She’s in the women’s locker room at the club, which thankfully is empty except for her and a couple of attendants, who are trained to hear nothing. “What did we talk about?” she continues, “the night you were arrested? Do you remember?”

“About whether I was involved or not,” Laura answers.

“Bullshit.” She hates having a telephone line between her and her daughter, she wants to be doing this face-to-face, to be
in
Laura’s face, inside her very skin. “That was the tip of the iceberg,” Miranda continues. “We talked about responsibility, Laura. About the family. About how ruinous this affair could be for us, for our future.”

“How is asking questions about Frank’s suicide—which I know it wasn’t—going to affect our future?” Laura asks.

“Don’t play games with me, you stupid little twit. We were his employers, and you were his bedmate, and it was our property. There are people out there who are sure we were behind that narcotics deal. People who hate us and would love nothing more than to see us go down. We fought like hell to put the fire out, and just when the flames are dying down and people are forgetting about it you go and throw gasoline on it. Now it’s a bonfire, damn it!”

“It wasn’t a suicide!” Laura wails over the phone. God, she’s glad they’re not in the same room right now. She’d be dead. “Doesn’t that matter to you?”

“Not in the slightest,” is Miranda’s retort. “And it shouldn’t to you, either. The family is what should matter, nothing else.”

“Well, it does matter. The truth matters, Mom.”

Miranda pauses, thinking. “How many calls have you gotten on this today? Who have you spoken to?”

“A lot. But I haven’t really spoken to anyone. I mean, people have called me, people from in town and people from L.A. and stuff, but I haven’t said anything to them.”

“Listen to me,” Miranda commands, “and listen good. You are to talk to no one. Nobody at all. I want you to get out of there, right now. Don’t tell anyone where you’re going, so they can’t track you down.”

“But they need me here!” Laura counters.

“DO AS I TELL YOU!” Miranda screams. “You leave that office this instant and you drive up to my house. I will meet you there in ten minutes.”

She slams the phone down before her suddenly headstrong daughter can offer any resistance.

Laura is waiting for her in the solarium.

“Sit down,” Miranda commands her.

Laura does as she’s told. This is not the time to proclaim her independence, she’s smart enough to know that.

Miranda sits in an overstuffed chair across from Laura. “Where did this come from?” she demands, brandishing the newspaper.

Laura doesn’t answer.

“Don’t play games with me, Laura. Somebody whispered in your ear and you responded. Now who was it? Who’s using you?”

“Nobody’s using me!” Laura flares.

“Bullshit. You didn’t come up with this on your own. Who is it, that slimy editor of yours?”

“Lester had nothing to do with this. In fact, he tried to stop me from printing it.”

“Yes, and the Pope’s Catholic.”

Laura glares at her mother. “Why is it that nobody gives me any credit for having a mind of my own?” she cries out, finding a reservoir of courage she didn’t know she had in dealing with Miranda. “Why couldn’t I have researched this myself? I’m capable, whether or not you’re willing to believe it.”

“You researched this? Somebody told you information that’s in this editorial?”

Again, Laura doesn’t answer.

“Somebody in the sheriffs department talked to you?”

Silence.

“I don’t believe it.” She throws down a gauntlet. “I don’t think you’d know enough to even know who to approach, let alone have the guts to do it.”

“You don’t think I can do anything, do you?” Laura answers quietly. “You don’t give me credit for anything. No brains, no curiosity, no backbone. Well, in this case, Mom, you’re wrong.”

Miranda regards her daughter. This is not the superficial, compliant, wanting-to-please daughter she’s always known, the wannabe rebel who might put a toe in the water if everyone else would first.

“Maybe I have underestimated you,” she concedes.

“Only all my life.”

Miranda shakes her head. “Obviously.” She pauses a moment to collect her thoughts. “Okay, so you did some homework. Who did you talk to, to get this stuff? Somebody in the sheriff’s office? From the jail? You have to tell me, I want to be your ally in this, but I have to know what you know.”

“Why?”

“So I can protect you.”

“Who do I need protection from?”

“Anyone who feels they might be threatened by this.”

“Like who?”

“Like the sheriff of this county. Like the district attorney. Like people you don’t want to be upset with you.”

“You’re being melodramatic, Mom.”

“Am I? If any of this editorial, even one piece, has some truth to it, don’t you think somebody might want to stop it from going any further? If somebody really did kill Frank to shut him up, why wouldn’t they come after you, too?”

“You’re trying to scare me.”

“You’re damn right I’m trying to scare you!”

Laura bites at her lip.

“If you know something, Laura,” Miranda goes on, “tell me.”

“I can’t, Mom.”

“Why not?”

“Because I’d be betraying a source,” she says. “You can’t betray a source in the newspaper business.”

“So there is somebody in the sheriff’s department who talked to you about this.”

“Why does it have to be somebody in the sheriff’s office?” Laura asks her.

“Who else would have this kind of information?”

“Someone who was there. In the jail.”

Miranda catches her breath. “A prisoner?”

“Maybe,” Laura answers, trying to be cagy.

“Then I have to tell Ralph Walker. He has to reopen this.” She moves to the telephone, picks it up, begins to dial.

“No!”

Miranda hesitates.

“Don’t do that.”

“Why not?”

“Put the telephone down, and I’ll tell you.”

Miranda hangs up. She crosses back to where she was sitting.

“You have to swear you won’t tell anyone this,” Laura says.

This time it’s Miranda’s turn to stay quiet.

“Swear,” Laura begs her.

“All right,” Miranda says. “I swear.”

Laura chews at her lip. It’s practically raw.

“I hired a private detective.”

Miranda slumps. This is getting worse and worse. “Oh, no. You didn’t.”

Laura nods yes.

“Who was it?”

“I can’t tell you.”

“What did this detective …? What information …?” She’s stammering. Composing herself: “What did he tell you? Is there any hard evidence?”

“Hard enough so—” She almost says “she,” like she gave herself away to Dorothy, but she catches herself.

“Laura, you have to tell me this detective’s name.”

“I can’t, Mother, please don’t make me.”

“You have to. I can’t stand up for you if you don’t. I’ll keep it to myself, I promise you that, but you have to tell me.”

Laura’s lip is bitten raw. She knows her mother: sooner or later Miranda is going to find out, whether she tells her or not.

“The detective’s name is Blanchard.”

“Who? I’ve never heard of him.”

A beat. “
Her
, not him.”

“A woman?” Miranda asks. Now that is a surprise. “I didn’t know there were any women detectives in Santa Barbara. Where is she from? LA.?”

Laura shakes her head. “She’s from here. She’s kind of new.” Quickly: “You can’t tell anybody. And you can’t talk to her, she can’t know I told you any of this,” she pleads.

“Don’t worry,” Miranda assures her daughter. “I promised you I wouldn’t, didn’t I? And I never break a promise.” She pauses. “Not to a member of my family.”

“Your client has a big mouth on her,” Herrera tells Kate.

“What are you talking about?”

He called her at her office. She was in—preparing Laura Sparks’s final billing, in fact. She had just licked the envelope and attached a stamp. In a few minutes she was going to walk down to the corner and drop it in the mailbox, along with some other mail.

“You haven’t seen this week’s
Grapevine
?”

“No.” As soon as he says the word
Grapevine
, her stomach starts churning.

“Well, you’re one of the few people in this town who hasn’t,” he says. “I’m heading in your direction. I’ll drop a copy off on the way,” he says before he hangs up.