“Yes-he would have been very angry about the money. But Rachel, baby, no one has heard from your father, ever. I can guarantee you that. Not me, not your mother. He’s gone. He was gone from our lives the day he left.”
Rachel allowed herself a smile at the way that Bert, after all these years, would not admit to having any knowledge of her father’s planned flight. God, Bert was loyal.
“Rachel, there is one thing I have to ask you. You told your mother and your mother told the police that Julie Saxony gave you money. Is that true?”
“I don’t want to tell you, Bert. I know you’re my lawyer and you’ll be bound by the usual rules, but you’re also a family friend. You’ll have trouble being just my lawyer. As my uncle, my mother’s friend, you’ll want to tell her. She must never know, Bert, how I got that money.”
“You can’t lie to the police.”
“Okay, so I’ll just tell them I made an arrangement that has nothing to do with this. That’s true.”
“I can keep secrets,” he said. “You’d be surprised at what I can compartmentalize.”
Rachel had an image of her younger sister, sitting on a gleaming white toilet, a glass of champagne in her hand, a napkin full of cookies spread on what little lap she had.
“Michelle’s problem. With the IRS agent. Did she tell you who her lover was?”
“Just that he was married.”
Rachel smiled. “Ah, but, see, you’ve already told more than you should. You should have said, ‘What problem with the IRS?’ You should have feigned shock. Married lover? Michelle had a married lover? And you’ve probably told Mother everything, long ago. I can’t afford to tell you this, Bert. I can’t. Because if my mother knew how I got that money, the decision I made-she would blame herself. And she shouldn’t, she mustn’t. It was absolutely the right thing to do and I’ve never regretted it.”
“Rachel, we’re talking about murder.”
“Yes, but I didn’t kill anyone. So I hit her. So what? You think they would go to trial with so little evidence?”
“Yes, they might go to trial. Especially if you don’t tell them where you got the money to pay your mother’s mortgage. It will be expensive, a trial. And what if they petitioned to lock you up without bond? You’ll miss work, too, and I know your household can’t afford that. You don’t have to tell them everything, but I need you to tell me everything. It’s the only way I can represent you effectively. Today, they are going to run back and forth between us and your mother, comparing notes, looking for every discrepancy. What if they decide it was a conspiracy, or that your mother is an accessory? She did find the earring, apparently, and she did pawn it. She assumed you had done something to Julie. And when Julie’s body was found-that’s why it hit her so hard. Not because of the publicity, but because she had worried, all those years, that you had done something awful, and here was the proof.”
“Look, Uncle Bert, I’m not scared. I didn’t kill anyone. And the money I gave my mom all those years ago-it was legal. Perfectly legitimate. I even paid income tax and gift tax on it, made sure everything was on the up and up. That’s why I said a different amount.”
“Really, that’s interesting because-” Bert stopped himself.
“Because it didn’t come up? When that IRS agent decided to go through Michelle’s filings, then Mother’s? He had the fact that Mother paid it off, but as the recipient, she wasn’t obligated to report anything and he probably didn’t think to pull my file, or Linda’s. Because he was just some stupid guy, in a snit over being rejected by Michelle. His own bosses saw that much, right?”
“Your sister got lucky. The agent’s misuse of his position was more of a problem than some married ku fartzer who, unlike you, didn’t follow the letter of the law and report a car, a watch, and a fur coat as gifts.”
“Ku fartzer.” Rachel laughed. “You never speak Yiddish, Uncle Bert, unless you really dislike someone.”
The detectives knocked, entered without being asked. It was their room, after all.
“Are we ready to talk?”
“Yes,” Rachel said.
They did their stage business with their tape recorder, got out their pads.
“Late in the morning of July 3, 1986, Julie Saxony came to my mother’s home, where I was staying alone. She told me she had been summoned by my father and that she was going to him. I got angry, I hit her, I knocked a pierced earring from her lobe-the right, I think.” She mimed the fight for herself, the leap from the back, the ineffectual punch, the grab-yes, it had been the right. “I was shocked at myself. I had never drawn blood on another person in my life. The sight of the blood-I went to get a towel. I even offered to try to wash her dress, or pay for the dry cleaning, but-” She stopped. “Am I allowed to ask you questions?”
“You’re allowed to ask,” the male detective said.
“What was she wearing? When she was found? I mean, the clothes were there, right? Even after fifteen years, there would be some trace of the fabric?”
The detectives didn’t answer.
“Okay, I’ll tell you then. If Julie Saxony was not found in a two-piece pink linen dress, a sheath with a matching bolero-style jacket, then she changed clothes after I saw her. She said my father would buy her a new dress. She probably bought something herself. She wouldn’t want to go see him looking less than her best. That’s the last thing she said to me. ‘I’m headed to Saks. I’ll find something nicer.’ I’m right, aren’t I? She wasn’t wearing a pink outfit when she was found.”
The detectives looked unimpressed. Then Bert said: “They would rot, Rachel. After all that time. Her clothes would rot.”
“But we’ll try to match your description against the statements taken at the time,” said the male detective. “I think she was wearing a pink outfit, according to her chef.”
“What about the purse? I remember-she was all matchy-matchy. Really, a little tacky, like someone’s idea of what a lady should look like. I know you found the purse because it was reported, her ID was in it. It was more of a makeup bag, the old-fashioned kind, for traveling. Pink, to match the dress. If she bought a new outfit, she might have bought a new purse, too.”
The detective flipped a Polaroid at her. “It was the same purse.”
“Well-maybe she just bought a dress, but found one to match the shoes and purse. Maybe-”
“Maybe,” the female detective said, “maybe, we should stop playing the home version of What Not to Wear and go over this once again. Because the only thing you’ve managed to get right, for sure, is your description of this purse. That’s dead-on perfect. So, congratulations, we’re convinced: You saw Julie Saxony the day she was killed. What are you not telling us, Ms. Brewer?”
“I’ve told you everything I know. Julie Saxony came to my mother’s house. We had a fight. I never saw her again.”
“And a week later”-the male detective consulted his notes-“your mother paid off her mortgage. With money Julie Saxony provided you, before or after you tore out her earring.”
“Okay, that was a lie. The money wasn’t from Julie. It was mine, but I prefer not to talk about it.”
“You taking the Fifth?” Detective Sanchez smiled as if that were hilarious.
“No, not exactly. Exercising my rights to privacy, I guess.”
Two pairs of eyebrows shot up at that, almost comically in unison.
“Maybe she did have your father’s money,” said the woman, Nancy Porter. “Maybe she shows up and she has your father’s money and she tells you that she’s going to him with his money. Now that’s a reason to hit someone, pull out an earring. You were trying to stop her.”