The dogs, sleeping next to each other in the corner, picked up their heads. They seemed as surprised as Deirdre.
Chapter 38
Later that night, Deirdre heard a canned laugh track rumbling from her father’s bedroom. Sounded as if her mother, who’d lived for the last ten years without television, was catching up on the latest sitcoms. Deirdre crept out into the hall and knocked lightly on Henry’s bedroom door. When there was no answer, she knocked again. “Henry?” she whispered.
“Go away. I’m sleeping.”
“Henry,” Deirdre said through the closed door, “I was there at the house the night Tito was killed, and I know you were there, too.”
No response.
“Are you listening to me? I know you were the one who was driving Daddy’s car. You may not want to talk about it, but—”
The door opened. Henry had a pair of earphones loose around his neck. “Shh,” he said. He let her into his room and pressed the door shut behind her.
“Don’t you think it’s time you told me what happened?” Deirdre said.
Henry sat down on the edge of the bed, his shoulders slumped. “I had to get us both out of there. I’m sorry.”
I’m sorry? Those were two words she never thought she’d hear coming out of her brother’s mouth, and certainly not with the kind of genuine contrition that seemed to fuel them now. “I thought Dad came to get me out of there.”
“I had no idea she’d even called him. I found you passed out on the floor in one of the upstairs bathrooms. I had to practically carry you down the back stairs and I was afraid I’d have to carry you all the way home. But when I got outside, Dad’s car was right there, with the keys in the ignition. The answer to a prayer. Or that’s what I thought at the time.” He gave a tired smile and shook his head. “I put you in the car. You were so out of it. I reclined the seat and you curled over on your side.”
“You said, ‘Night night, sleep tight’ and kissed me on the forehead. I thought you were Daddy.”
Henry blushed. “What I should have done is belted you in. Believe me, I wish to hell I had. And I wish to hell that I’d stopped long enough to put up the convertible top and calm down. But I was so angry and so—” He broke off, a guarded look crossing his face. “Anyway, I got behind the wheel and started the car.”
“Why did you drive up into the canyon?”
“I just drove. I wasn’t even thinking about where I was going. Before I knew it, I’d turned onto Mulholland. I was cranking, pushing the car, taking those turns just as fast as I could.”
Speed. Deirdre understood how it focused the senses. Obliterated second thoughts.
“I lost control. The car crashed into the guardrail. It was so weird, the car came to a dead stop but the engine just kept screaming. I thought I had my foot on the brake but I was practically standing on the gas pedal. The steering wheel was bent and my chest hurt so badly I could barely breathe. When I looked across to see if you were okay, your seat was empty. I’ll never forget that moment.”
“Then what? You thought you could just walk away and leave me there?”
“No! God, no. I was frantic. I heard you crying. I crawled through the underbrush and found you. Then I scrambled back and flagged down some bikers. Told them I’d been hitchhiking and witnessed a crash. I begged them to go call for help. All I could think was that you were going to die and it would be my fault. But then, when the ambulance got there, I hid.”
“You hid? Why?”
“They’d have—” Henry mumbled something.
“They’d have what?”
“Taken away my driver’s license.”
“Taken your . . . ? I’m lying there, I could have been dying for all you knew, and you were worried about losing your damned driver’s license?”
Henry looked down at the floor and swallowed. The years seemed to fall away and Deirdre could see the vulnerable sixteen-year-old he’d been: tall and charming, goofy and sweet. “I know. I was a coward. I was a jerk.” He looked mortified. “You should hate me.”
But Deirdre didn’t hate him. All she felt at that moment was sadness. “You were a kid. Kids do incredibly stupid things.”
“That was beyond stupid and then some. And it wasn’t just about losing my license. The truth is, I was afraid they’d find out where I’d been and what I’d been up to.” Agitated, Henry got up and crossed the room, then crossed back. He stopped and looked at Deirdre. “Did he write about me and her? Did he?” Before she could answer, he went back to pacing the room. “I knew I should stop seeing her. Tito threatened to kill me if he caught me there again. But she’d whistle and back I’d come. Like some kind of trained puppy. Sit up. Roll over. Sit in my lap. Give us a kiss.”
Deirdre tried to put together what Henry was saying. “You came to see her after the party?”
Henry stood still. “I did. She’d told me to meet her at the pool. I rode over on my bicycle. On my bike, for Chrissake. At the last minute, I grabbed a knife, thinking I’d flash it at Tito if he showed up. I got to the pool and waited and waited. She never came.”
After the party. That was when Deirdre and Joelen were making themselves sick gorging on leftovers, finishing off drinks, and smoking cigarette butts. “She didn’t come because we’d gotten smashed. Threw up. Passed out.”
“You and Joelen?” Henry blinked. Then he barked a laugh. “You thought I had a thing for Joelen?”
“Didn’t you?”
“I . . . I guess I did. Sort of. But not like that.”
Not like that? Then she got it. Of course it hadn’t been Joelen. A wave of pity and disgust came along with the realization. “You were meeting Bunny Nichol?”
Henry put his hands to his face and closed his eyes. An image of him came back to her. Onstage with his guitar and a microphone in front of him, an ambitious kid swaggering with unearned experience. And Bunny, twenty years older. Queen of wanton amorous fire, as her father had described her in his memoir. “What a sleazy—” She couldn’t finish.
“I guess that’s how it looks now. At the time, it was amazing. I thought I was such a big deal. Supersuave. In charge.”
“Oh, Henry. She seduced you. She was glamorous. A famous movie star, for God’s sake.” Deirdre could only imagine what would have happened if people had found out. Bunny Nichol, involved with a younger man—that might have made a few waves. But that she was sleeping with a sixteen-year-old kid? A tsunami of bad press and ill will, and probably the end of her career. “Did you come up to the house looking for her?”
Henry looked sick. “I did. Even from outside the house I could hear them arguing. She was shouting. Tito bellowing. Then just her, screaming and screaming.
“I ran into the house. I don’t know what I thought I was going to do, but I ran inside. I can remember standing at the base of the stairs, looking up. They weren’t arguing anymore. Now there was complete silence, so quiet I could hear my own heart pounding.
“Then Bunny was there, like she’d just materialized on the upstairs landing, cold as ice. She came down and took away the knife. I didn’t even realize I was holding it. She told me to get the hell out of there, to take you with me, and not to even think about coming back. Ever. So that’s what I did. Except the not thinking part. It took me a long time to stop doing that.”
Deirdre felt ashamed that for all these years she’d just assumed Henry was Teflon, holding every girlfriend who came along at arm’s length emotionally. They came and then they went at his whim, or so it had seemed. This, at least, explained why.
“Did you know why they were fighting? That she’d told him she was pregnant?”
Henry narrowed his eyes. “How do you know that?”
“Sy told me.”
“And he knew because . . . ?”
“Bunny told him. He came over later and she had him call the police.”
“No. I didn’t know that.” Henry shook his head.
“But you did know she was pregnant.”
“I didn’t find out until later, when the baby was born and she came to Dad to negotiate terms and Sy set up the trust. She said the baby was mine. All you have to do is look at Jackie to know that’s true.”