The Night Visitor (30 page)

Junior’s heartbeat became more erratic.

Rory again clasped Junior’s face between her hands. She tried to meet his weak gaze, to connect with him one final time. She murmured, “Junior, it was perfect and I loved you. I never believed you would kill my sister and shoot yourself, but now everyone will know. I still love you, but now you must let me go.”

His eyes briefly focused, using the last of his strength with the effort. The line on the monitor went flat. The light faded from his eyes. Rory crumpled against his chest.

Fermina looked up, her face filled with wonder.

“Rory!” Tom bolted to the bed and lifted her limp body into his arms. He laid her on the empty bed.

Corliss used a stethoscope to search for Junior’s heartbeat.

Sylvia began to cry.

Corliss moved away from Junior, her face grave, and turned her attention to Rory, listening to her chest. “She’s just fainted.” She lightly slapped Rory’s cheeks. “Come on, hon. Wake up.”

Rory opened her eyes. “Is it over?”

“Is it?” Tom asked.

She closed her eyes. After a moment, she opened them. “It’s over.”

Somber but dry-eyed, Fermina pressed Junior’s eyelids closed.

66

Richie paced the carpet in his father’s downtown office. “A million bucks for bail?”

“Leland expected at least that much.” Richard sat at his desk and watched his son.

Richie shook his head at the floor as he kept pacing.

“Don’t be so glum, chum. It’s going to be all right.”

Richie stopped and faced his father. “Just tell me one thing, Dad. How long had you been porking Anya?”

“So, that’s what’s eating you.”

“If you were screwing Anya, it would explain some of the strange things that happened around the villa after she came to live with us.”

“Richie, I was Anya’s stepfather. I didn’t have sexual relations with her until she was an adult.”

“That’s not what I read on the Internet. What am I supposed to tell my kids? Last night Beatrice asked me, ‘Daddy, what’s a pedophile?’ ”

“Richie, these are baseless accusations. The only evidence the police have is a confession from a suicidal woman to her mentally deranged daughter.”

“And Evelyn’s urgent text message to you from Anya’s hotline the night she was murdered.”

Richard waved his hand, dismissing it. He didn’t say anything to his son, but he was concerned about the testimony from his housekeepers, Rosario and Hector. The night of the shootings, after he and a shaken Evelyn had arrived home, Rosario and Hector had gotten up to see what had happened. They saw the slashed portrait of Boo and blood on Evelyn’s clothes and face. After the portrait had been repaired, he’d told Rosario and Hector that they were the only ones in the house allowed to handle it. He’d done that because the slash marks were still visible from the back.

“Richie, this thing probably won’t even go to trial. Before long, some public figure somewhere will do something stupid and people will forget about the Tates. We’re as dull as dirt, when it comes down to it.”

“I don’t know about being as dull but we’re just as filthy.”

67

Tom woke up late. For a moment, he didn’t remember where he was or the day of the week. Then he remembered. He and Rory were at her condo. It was Monday and he’d taken the day off. It was six months after Evelyn’s suicide and Richard’s arrest.

Rory wasn’t in bed. He smelled fresh coffee, got up, and went to the kitchen. As he was filling a mug, he heard Rory talking outside on the side balcony, the one from which she had the best view of her ocean “peek.” He went there and found her on her cell phone, seated at a small patio table.

“For our Mother’s Day special, I’d like the half-ounce Anya cologne, the three-ounce Anya soap, and instead of the talc, which no one uses anymore, how about a key ring with the Anya heart in pink crystal?” Rory guiltily shrugged when Tom made a disapproving face at her. “Great, Lee. Thanks. Okay, bye.” She ended the call.

Tom leaned over and kissed her on the lips. When he’d finished, she put her hands around his neck and pulled him down again.

“Good morning,” he said.

“It’s a much better morning now.” She began gathering up her business papers from the table.

He helped. The diamond in her engagement ring reflected the sun like a prism, casting tiny rainbows. It was the only ring she was wearing, having returned Junior’s engagement ring to his mother. “We’re taking a vacation day today, remember?”

“I remember.” She turned off the power on her cell phone. “I can unplug. See?”

Tom swooped down, cradled Rory’s face in his hands, and kissed her. “I love you. I don’t know what I would do without you.”

“You don’t have to worry about what you’d do without me, ’cause I ain’t goin’ nowhere. Consider
that
the next time you get ticked off at me.”

“I could never get angry at you.”

She gave him a dubious look and followed with a grin. “By the way, Dr. Wynstock called first thing this morning with the results of my last set of tests. I’ve completely recovered. She did talk to me about plastic surgery for the scars left by those sores on my back, but I can’t bear the thought of surgery right now, or maybe ever.”

“Leave them alone.”

“But then I won’t be fashion-plate perfect Rory Langtry.”

“Well, then forget it. The wedding’s off.”

She smiled at him. “I was just thinking about our wedding.”

“What? Calling it off?”

“No, of course not. But following through on our threats to go to Vegas or doing something low-key. How about this? Get married in the courthouse downtown and take a small group of friends and family out to dinner.”

“Sounds perfect.”

“Done. Let’s pick a date this week.”

“Done.”

After a pause, Rory looked at him out of the corner of her eye. “Tom, I’ll have those scars on my back removed if they remind you of Junior.”

“The scars will fade in time.”

She looked at the horizon. “We can only hope.” For some reason she thought of Junior’s mother, Fermina, and a conversation she’d had with her at Junior’s funeral. Fermina had spoken of her unflagging faith in Junior’s innocence and that he would be exonerated. It was simple and perfect. Everything was, Rory thought, when you have the guts just to let the crap fly and not worry about things that don’t matter.

“I also got a call from Detective Auburn,” Rory began. “The grand jury found sufficient evidence to try Richard for Junior’s murder, as an accessory to Anya’s murder, for destroying evidence, and a couple of other things.”

“No charges for molesting Anya as a teenager?”

“No evidence. Auburn’s looking for other victims. My mom sometimes had these young girls she called her protégés at the villa, so maybe something will turn up. Auburn says that Richard’s attitude is ‘Bring on the trial. I’m innocent.’ ”

“Richard could go to prison for a long time. And he still has the Laras’ civil suit to deal with.”

“Guess all the secrets will come out. Makes me uncomfortable, but if that’s what has to happen, so be it.”

“Think the dirty laundry will harm Langtry Cosmetics?”

“I’ve been talking with one of the top damage-control fixers, who suggested picking a new face for Langtry. I think Anya would agree, knowing full well a model’s half-life.”

“At least some good came out of all this, when the Langtry board forced out Richard and Richie and brought in two of your picks.”

“Revenge. A dish best served cold.” She looked at the sliver of ocean she could see. “That’s what Anya tried to do. Still, I can’t imagine that even if she had married Richard and got her revenge on my mom, she would have been happy. Maybe being a mother would have finally brought her happiness.”

Tom let her sit quietly for a bit, looking at the ocean. Finally he said, “Breakfast at the omelet shop?”

She stood up. “Absolutely.”

68

Richard wasn’t used to being alone in the villa. Rosario and Hector had resigned, moved their family out of the carriage house, and found a good position on the west side of L.A. The daytime household staff had gone home. The only invitations he received to dine or golf were from his son, Leland Declues, or a few longtime friends who refused to believe the child sex abuse and murder accusations. Even some business deals he was involved with had gone south, with dubious reasons offered by the other parties. He never saw Rory and Tom anymore. He’d received an impersonal printed announcement of their marriage and heard it had been an intimate affair. Richard found himself alone a lot. Being alone in this cavernous house could do a number on him if he let it.

The trial date was set. Leland Declues had assembled a defense dream team and was confident that Richard would beat the charges. The evidence was slim and the testimony of some of the key witnesses, like Rory, would be easy to annihilate. Richard wasn’t so sure.

He indulged in a pour from a rare bottle of scotch that had belonged to his father. It was the last bottle of the case and it was nearly empty. He took the glass to his favorite place in the villa, his office, and sat in his favorite spot, his leather chair, with his feet on the desk. He lit a Cuban cigar. He’d opened one of the French doors and was taking in the gentle, late spring evening.

As much as he worked on it, he wasn’t enjoying his sensual pleasures. What he really wanted, he could never have: Anya and Boo back in his arms.

Still, he took his time finishing his drink and cigar, as was appropriate. He left his office and climbed the main staircase of the quiet mansion until he reached the third floor. He turned toward the villa’s western wing. Reaching the closed double doors to the spacious suite at the end of corridor, he went inside.

This was where Anya had lived during the time she had shared the villa with him. Wonderful years. Then she had broken his heart and moved a continent away. For years, Evelyn had perpetuated the story that it was she who maintained Anya’s rooms and house just as Anya had left them. It was part of the way that he and Evelyn had learned to work together, one hand washing the other. They’d been doing it for so long, it had become second nature. Evelyn. He missed the old girl.

He entered the walk-in closet. He took a deep breath, trying to detect Anya’s scent on the clothing. He always imagined he could. He pulled open a drawer in the lingerie cabinet. From it, he took out the claret silk nightgown, taking his time, letting it come out inch by inch until the hem swung free. He had bought the nightgown for Boo in Italy when they had circled the globe on their yearlong honeymoon. The gown had fit Anya perfectly when she was a younger teenager, but she had quickly outgrown it, shooting up much taller than Boo’s adult height.

He draped the gown across both hands and carried it to the bed, where he laid it out. He climbed onto the bed beside it and lay down, reaching to touch the silk where Anya’s thigh might have been.

He thought of Anya’s pornographic texts to him and became aroused.

He’d had two great loves in his life, Boo and Anya, and he’d lost them both.

From his pants pocket, he took out his Para-Ordnance pistol. With one hand still resting on the silk gown, he put the gun in his mouth with the other and pulled the trigger.

69

“I don’t believe I’ve ever seen so much stuff in all my life.”

Donna’s voice reached Rory where she was working in the hall closet of Anya’s house, standing among piles of things she’d sorted. Rory went to her aunt, who was in Anya’s gigantic closet off the master bedroom. Rory stopped in the closet’s doorway and shook her head.

“I know,” Donna said. “It looks like a department store in here.”

“Auntie, thanks so much for helping me. I’ve put this off too long. Tom suggested just hiring somebody to clean out Anya’s house. Makes sense, but I want to do it myself.”

Several weeks had passed since Richard’s suicide. Rory and Tom had respectfully attended the funeral and stayed a suitable amount of time at the reception that followed at Richard’s club, but neither of them had shed a tear.

“It’s
your
house now, Rory,” Donna said. “Thank goodness your mom had the sense to have put her affairs in order.”

“My mom…” Rory let the words hang in the air as she stared into the closet at nothing. “It’s been months since she died and I still think about her all the time. I find myself saying things that she said. Remembering her tidbits of advice, like never, ever go to bed with your makeup on.”

“I think about her a lot too, honey. I still think about our mom every day, Evie’s and mine, and she’s been gone for twenty years.”

“I guess you never get over missing your mom.” Rory sniffed and sighed. She started giggling when she heard her aunt’s stomach loudly growl, breaking the sad moment.

Donna laughed too. “Where is Graehme with that lunch order he went to pick up?”

“He’ll be back soon. He’s been such a great help. I’ve never had a personal assistant before, and now I’d be lost without him.” Rory looked down at herself. “I’m filthy. I’ve got the stuff from the hall closet in three piles: auction, Salvation Army, and garbage.”

“I’ve done the same in the office.” Donna freed a floor-length leather coat from a packed closet rod. “The store tags are still on this. This room is packed with clothes that Anya never wore.”

“We’ll take the tags off. The clothes will bring more at auction if people think she wore them. Anya was always giving away clothes. Her housekeepers and their families were among the best-dressed people in town. Just like my mom’s.”

“Speaking of your mom, are you going to participate in the Evelyn Langtry film festival her fan club is putting on?”

Rory was trying different looks with a Hermès scarf she’d found. “Absolutely. Wouldn’t miss it.”

“Her movies are more popular than ever.”

“She would’ve loved that.” Rory took off the scarf and dropped it onto a chair. “I’m starting another auction pile here.” She opened a drawer that was crammed with scarves. “I heard something she wouldn’t have been happy about. Richie and Paige have said
arrivederci
to Mom’s Tuscan-themed décor. They’ve gutted the villa, getting it ready for them to move in.”