C
HAPTER
15
All the drama made my head hurt. A flare-up was coming on. On the way home I stopped at Yum Yum and got ten ounces of frozen vanilla yogurt with only eight calories per ounce. Then I loaded the top with crushed Heath bars for a dollar extra. I deserved it.
When I got home, I took a Soma and one of my migraine pills. Bumper followed me into the laundry room for a pit stop. I checked to make sure the other quilts were still in their hiding place. Then I put the foul-smelling baby quilt in the washing machine to soak and added some Orvis soap.
Washing quilts with ordinary detergent faded the colors and weakened the cotton fibers. Serious quilt owners tried to use a pH neutral soap if they had to wash their quilts. Orvis, a gentle liquid soap, was originally developed for shampooing horses. Used to be you had to go to the feed store to get Orvis soap, but now it was also available in quilt stores.
Back in the living room, I took the yogurt and a plastic spoon out of the bag and plopped on the sofa. Bumper jumped up and settled into my lap purring. I closed my eyes against the throbbing in the right side of my head and only opened them to scoop up the next sweet mouthful.
The thief had the same list we did and knew where to find this quilt. So, how did he get into the offices of BCA? Could he have come in during the daytime disguised as a workman? He could have pretended to be repairing something while he searched the rooms.
I’d seen that scenario on television hundreds of times. Nobody paid attention to a guy in overalls with a tool belt. He could have stuffed the little quilt inside his shirt and nobody would have known. So why did he go to so much trouble just to throw it in the Dumpster?
By the time the spoon scraped the bottom of the Styrofoam container, the meds were kicking in. I felt deliciously detached and floating out of my body a little, the way I always did after taking my medicine. I looked at my watch. Two-thirty.
I took out my notepad and flipped through the pages. The name Jerry Bell jumped out at me. This was the guy who received monthly checks of a thousand dollars or more from Claire for as far back as her check registers went. Why? Was he blackmailing her? Was he a lover who was being subsidized? Claire hardly seemed the type to go for a boy toy, but you never knew.
I decided to find out, and dialed his phone number. He answered on the fourth ring, “Mr. Bell, my name is Martha Rose and I’m a friend of Claire Terry’s. I hate to bother you under the circumstances, but I’d really like to talk to you about her death.”
“Claire’s
dead
?” The shock was unmistakable.
“Oh dear. You didn’t know? Her death has been all over the news for the last week.” The media loved to report on tragedies involving celebrities and the very wealthy. It was hard to imagine anyone could miss all the publicity.
His voice choked. “I’ve been out of touch with just about everything these last two weeks. When did she . . . What happened?”
He sounded genuinely upset. Would a blackmailer sound that way?
“She died last week. Mr. Bell, I really need to talk to you. Could you possibly meet with me this afternoon? I’ll be happy to drive to where you are.”
“Yeah, I guess so, although it has to be soon. I’m working the night shift, and I start at five. We can meet at Dinah’s on Sepulveda near the airport. Do you know it?”
I knew the LA landmark well. Dinah’s was famous for crispy fried chicken and apple pancakes the size of hubcaps. “I can’t get there for another hour, so let’s plan on three-thirty. How will I recognize you?”
“I’ll be wearing green scrubs.”
Three minutes later I was on my way to Culver City to meet either Claire’s blackmailer, her lover, or both.
Traffic on the 405 south was heinous as usual. For once, traveling cautiously at fifteen miles per hour was a good thing. I was still feeling the effects of the pill. I pulled into the parking lot of Dinah’s at three twenty-nine. Low-flying jets roared overhead, coming into their final approach at LAX and fouling the air with the acrid smell of jet exhaust.
Dinah’s was decorated in typical 1950s coffee shop style with red vinyl booths and brown laminate tables. In the mornings the place smelled like coffee and maple syrup. In the afternoon it smelled like hamburgers and fried chicken.
I spotted a blond man in green scrubs standing near the cashier. He looked to be around thirty, the same age as my daughter. I walked up to him. “Are you Jerry Bell?”
He turned toward me. “Yeah. You’re Claire’s friend?”
I was stunned at how much he resembled Claire. He looked like he could be her younger, blonder brother. I didn’t remember Siobhan mentioning she had any other children, though. Also, Jerry’s last name was Bell, not Terry.
Who would name a baby Jerry Terry anyway?
So, if this man wasn’t Claire’s brother, who could he be? I began to entertain another possibility.
Jerry Bell looked sleep deprived and his eyes were puffy and red, as if he either recently had cried or smoked weed. His lips slightly trembled. It wasn’t weed.
“Yes. I’m Martha Rose. Thanks for meeting me.” I extended my hand.
His grip was firm but brief. “Uh, I want to find out what happened to Claire.” He teared up and seemed so pitiful that my Jewish mother hormones started to surge.
I put my hand on his arm and suggested the one sure remedy for everything. “Let’s get something to eat. I find it’s always easier to talk over food.”
We sat in a booth toward the back and Jerry ordered a coffee and hamburger. I was still full of yogurt and crushed Heath bars, so I just ordered coffee. I hoped the caffeine would help my headache.
“Ms. Rose . . .”
“Call me Martha.”
“Yeah. Okay. How did Claire die? When?”
“We discovered Claire’s body a week ago today. She died of an overdose.”
Jerry stared at me, horrified. Just then the waitress arrived with a thermos full of coffee and two cups. He waited for her to leave.
“An overdose of what? I could swear Claire would never abuse drugs.”
I poured the coffee for both of us. “The police don’t think she took the drugs voluntarily.”
His jaw dropped. “
Holy . . .
! What are you saying? Are you saying someone poisoned her?”
“Would you know of anyone who might want her dead?”
All the color drained from Jerry’s face. He put his elbows on the table and grasped his head. “No.” Then he looked at me suspiciously. “I don’t get the connection. What is your involvement in this?”
“Claire invited us to quilt with her last Tuesday morning. When my friends and I got there, we found her body and called the police. They later determined she was murdered.”
With shaking fingers, Jerry added two packets of sugar and stirred his coffee slowly. “How do they know it wasn’t accidental?”
“There was blood on her hands.”
“Oh my God.”
Jerry’s obvious distress could be for a number of reasons. If he was a blackmailer or a boy toy, he would have to say good-bye to those monthly checks. However, if he was Claire’s true lover, he’d understandably be upset by her death. I didn’t know what to believe about him yet. Of course, there was that third possibility I was beginning to think was even more likely.
The waitress returned with Jerry’s burger. He vigorously shook salt all over his French fries and then squeezed a blob of ketchup on the side of his plate. “I haven’t talked to Claire in about two weeks. Normally we talk every few days, but I’ve been working all night and studying for the boards on my time off.” He picked up a fry and stirred it absentmindedly in a slurry of ketchup.
“Boards?”
“Pediatrics. I’m a resident.” He shook his head slowly. “I can’t believe she’s gone.” He put down the fry and swiped at his tears with the palm of his hand.
“I’m so sorry, Jerry.” I didn’t know what else to say.
We sat in silence for a while. He worked on his burger.
I used my fingertip to push around the white salt crystals that spilled on the brown wood-grained plastic of the tabletop.
“I have to ask you one thing. Were you and Claire lovers?”
“What the . . . ? Is this some kind of sick joke?”
“I’m sorry if I upset you, but I have to ask. It seems Claire had a boyfriend, and we’re trying to find out who he is.”
“Who is ‘we’? What are you doing, anyway?”
He started to slide out of his seat, but I put up my hand to stop him. “Wait, Jerry, just give me a minute to explain.”
He settled back down while I told him about my quest to break the code in Claire’s quilts. “I thought maybe her boyfriend might know, that’s all.”
“I’m not her boyfriend. What made you think I was?”
“Well, this is a little awkward. I saw your name in her um, address book.” I wasn’t going to tell him I’d been snooping in Claire’s files, let alone her panty drawer. “Since none of us knew who you were, we thought you might be the one. So I decided to call and find out.”
Jerry’s laugh was mirthless. “Sorry to disappoint you.”
I waited a beat. “There’s one more thing. Why did Claire give you so much money?”
He shook his head in disbelief. “How do you know about the money?”
I decided to take the direct approach. “Were you blackmailing her?”
He looked like he wanted to hit me. Then he closed his eyes, threw back his head, and laughed too loud. People around us stopped eating and stared.
I lowered my voice. “Well, were you?”
He stopped laughing and glared at me. “Not that it’s any of your business. Claire gave me money to help me through med school. I wanted to make it on my own, but sometimes things got too hard. I promised to pay her back when I finished my residency and started to earn some real money. She always said I didn’t have to, but I would have.” He picked up his hamburger and took another large bite.
Although I thought I knew the real answer already, I still wanted to hear him to say it. “Well, if you’re not her lover and not a blackmailer, what were you to Claire?”
Jerry swallowed. “I found her through adoption registry dot com. They help people locate their birth mother.”
Bingo. “Can you tell me more?”
“I was adopted.” He shoved a couple of French fries in his mouth. “My dad died when I was twelve, and my mom died while I was still an undergrad at Loyola. My girlfriend at the time urged me to look for my birth mother. That’s how I found Claire.”
“Siobhan Terry told me Claire never had children.”
“I know. That was the official story. Claire had me when she was fourteen. Since they’re Catholic, abortion was out of the question. They sent her away until I was born and made her give me up for adoption. They couldn’t have me around. I was a social embarrassment.”
I waited until he finished another bite. “How did Claire react to seeing you?”
“She was happy when I first contacted her, but she said her father would be furious if he knew. I think she was really intimidated by him.”
I remembered my conversation with Will Terry and how pushy he was. I suspected he could be quite a formidable adversary when he wanted to be.
“I told her times have changed and people change. Maybe they were ready to accept me, but she was adamant about not telling them or anyone else. I figured she knew them better than I did, so I just went along.”
“I appreciate your being so open with me.”
“To be honest, I don’t know why I’m telling you so much. I mean, you’re a stranger and all, but this is such a shock and, well, you seem to care.”
“Thank you, Jerry. I do care. I have another question. Did Claire ever say who your birth father was?”
“Well, I asked, of course, but she only said he was some boy in her class. She told me she didn’t even remember his name.”
“Did you believe her? Seems to me the father of your child would be someone you’d never forget.”
Jerry sighed. “Claire was a very private person. I had the feeling she had many secrets. I never pressed the issue.”
I concealed my hands in my lap, crossed my fingers, and leaned forward. “Did she ever mention a lover to you?”
Jerry shoved the last of the burger in his mouth. “I think there was something going on, but she never talked to me about that part of her life. Still, she did seem unusually happy lately.”
“One last thing, Jerry. Did she ever tell you anything about her quilts?”
“She offered me the one hanging in her living room.”
“Secret Garden?”
“Yeah, I think that’s the one. I don’t really have a place in my apartment to hang something so fancy. I told her I’d take the quilt when I got a real job and a real house of my own.”
“Did she say why she wanted you to have that particular one?”
“Yeah. Let me think.” He closed his eyes. He opened them after a minute. “Claire said Secret Garden was ‘our story,’ whatever that meant.” He dragged some more fries through the ketchup and dropped them in his mouth.
Things were beginning to make some sense. Claire’s teen pregnancy was a secret the family wanted buried. Yet the beautiful images of living things sewn into the Secret Garden wall hanging suggested a joyful and peaceful place of repose—possibly about secretly reuniting with her son after all those years.
I thought about the father I never knew, the one who died in a train wreck before I was born. What if I found out he was alive? Would I try to find him? Searching would take a lot of courage. What if he didn’t want to know me?
Those same doubts must have burdened Jerry before finding Claire. Yet theirs was a happy reunion. She wanted to know him and obviously wanted him in her life. How sad for Jerry that with her death he’d lost two sets of parents.
Jerry wiped the grease off his hands and mouth with a white paper napkin. He looked at me sadly, his voice cracking. “I don’t guess anyone knew to contact me since I was such a big secret. Has there already been a funeral? Do you know where she’s buried?”