A Death In Beverly Hills (10 page)

Chapter Seventeen

According to the file, Marian's father, Gerard Fontaine, lived in La Jolla, a wealthy community just north of San Diego. During college Steve spent his summers working as a deck-hand on the San Diego based tourist boats and he knew from the address that the old man actually lived in a elite neighborhood the locals called Bird Rock, a slice of sea and cliffs where, on a good day, you might be able to buy a one bedroom shack for a million five.

If the trial had been in session Gerard Fontaine would have been in L.A., a gaunt, long armed figure sitting zen-like in the third row behind the prosecutor. Steve had debated between calling ahead for an appointment or just showing up at Fontaine's door. Proceeding on the principal that it was always easier to begin acting politely and devolve to rude and confrontational behavior than do things the other way around, Steve called Fontaine on his private line.

"You're working for Tom Travis?" Fontaine asked in a deep, dead voice.

"Yes, Mr. Fontaine, I am. I know you think Tom Travis is guilty--"

"Have we ever talked before, Mr. Janson?"

"No, sir."

"Then you don't know what I think, do you?"

"No, Mr. Fontaine, I don't. I'm sorry."

There was a pause for half a second and Steve braced himself for the CLICK of a disconnected line. "People assume things, a bad habit making assumptions," Fontaine continued in a weary voice.

"Would you be willing to meet with me so that I don't make any more potentially inaccurate assumptions?"

"When?"

"Tomorrow morning?"

"I've got an early appointment. How about ten thirty?"

"That would be fine."

"Do you have a pencil?"

The next morning Steve was heading down the 5, one eye on the speedo and the other watching for the La Jolla exit. The address Fontaine had given him was a stucco sided cube three blocks back from the ocean, nestled behind one of the dozen or so real estate offices that populated La Jolla the way other towns had Starbucks. Gold script on the door facing the parking lot identified the business as La Belle Culinary. Culinary what? Academy? Catering? Behind the door was a small office that looked like a failing veterinarian's waiting room, vinyl chairs, a scared, unoccupied desk, and two doors, one on the back wall and one to the right. Steve took the one on the right and found himself in a short corridor. Kitchen sounds rang from the far end where the hallway opened into a huge room that occupied most of the building.

The thirty foot high ceiling was dotted with three parallel "V"-shaped skylights like fins on an I.M. Pei designed shark. Six gas stoves dotted the gray vinyl floor, alternating with butcher block tables, rings of hanging pots and pans, and racks of knives. Nine earnest white people and one Asian woman peered intently at a mirror slung at a forty-five degree angle above a table at the front of the room. With the precision of a metronome beating at 16/16 time, a portly woman of indeterminate age effortlessly shaved half an apple into twenty identical slices.

"So," she said, looking up from the cutting board, "once we've sliced the apple, we place it in acidified water to keep it from . . . what?"

"Discoloring," a young man in the front answered briskly.

"Yes, discoloring. And, if you don't have any lemon juice. . . ." a chuckle rippled through the audience. Not have any lemon juice? Hah, hah, as if that could happen to any real cook. ". . . . then here's a trick for you. Use your meat pounder to crush a vitamin C tablet inside a Ziplock bag and dissolve it in water. The ascorbic acid will keep your apples from turning brown." Everyone smiled appreciatively.

Janson scanned the class and picked out Gerard Fontaine from the news clips showing him stoically marching through the rabid-dog reporters on the way to his car. He was hard to miss -- about six feet four, a skull with receding gray-black stubble shaved almost into invisibility, long basset hound face, gaunt cheeks, droopy eyes, dressed in a gray and brown flannel shirt over baggy chocolate colored pants that looked like they had been new sometime around Nixon's second inauguration.

"Now," the instructor continued, unconsciously brushing back a lock of butter colored hair, "make sure that you keep your three kinds of apples in three separate bowls so you can alternate them when you make your galette. Margaret, what are the types of apples we're using?"

A thin, bright-eyed woman in the second row lifted her chin. "Pippin or Granny Smith for tartness, Fuji or Gala for sweetness, and Macintosh to add complexity and flavor layering," she said, giving her classmates a nervous smile.

"Excellent." For an instant she paused and glanced at the clock on the back wall. "All right class, that's the end of this session. For those of you who are staying for the second half, we'll resume in . . . ." she studied an oversize steel watch on her left wrist, "half an hour." Fontaine turned, pinned Steve with a weary glance, and joined him at the edge of the room.

"Would you like to get a cup of coffee or something?" Steve asked after they had shaken hands.

"Let's just take a seat over there." Fontaine pointed to a butcher block island in the corner then snagged a couple of tall stools. "People like to gossip," Fontaine said with a resigned tone, "not to mention the reporters sneaking around this town. Coffee?" Steve nodded and Fontaine filled two pale blue glass cups from a French Press. The brew was deep and sweet with an undertone of chocolate and hint of spice. Steve raised his eyebrows in appreciation.

"If you can't get good coffee in a cooking school . . . ." Fontaine began, then shrugged letting Steve fill in the rest for himself.

Steve glanced at the Garland stove. "Apple galette?"

"Three kinds of sliced apples, brown sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, salt, and tapioca flour piled in the center of a pie crust with the sides folded up like an Indian teepee. You brush the outside of the dough with warn apricot jam and bake it on a cookie sheet for about forty minutes."

"Sounds good."

Fontaine shrugged. "It's easier than making a pie." His voice sounded tired and defeated, like a that of a boxer who's barely survived his bout only to discover that the Ref has absconded with the purse. "So, you're been hired to help Tom Travis."

"You know the fable about the blind men and the elephant?"

A wary smile creased Fontaine's lips. "The point being that how a man perceives a situation depends upon his point of view."

"If Tom Travis did it, then whatever I do won't make any difference. I'm just spending his money, which I don't mind doing." Steve took a sip of coffee and stared into Fontaine's eyes. "And if he didn't do it, then maybe I'll find out who did. That's worth doing, don't you think?"

"Unless you just kick up enough dust to confuse the jury and get Travis off."

"You've been in court every day. Do you think there's any way in the world that jury is going to give Tom Travis the benefit of the doubt?"

Fontaine's face remained absolutely blank for a long heartbeat, then twitched left and right. "He's finished," Fontaine said. "He was finished before the first witness was called."

"Do you think he did it?"

"The evidence says he did."

"But do
you
think he did it?"

"Can I trust you? Are you an honest man?"

A dozen thoughts raced through Steve's brain, not the least of which was, 'If I weren't, would I admit it?' Finally, he gave a mental shrug. "Yes, I'm an honest man."

"You won't repeat my answer to anyone?"

"I won't."

Fontaine stared intently into his cup as if peering into a crystal ball. "I don't think he has the heart for it, for murder," he said softly, not looking up. Fontaine took a swallow and turned back at Steve. "The first time I met him I figured out the kind of man he was." Fontaine stared intently into Steve's eyes and smiled. "You think I'm some crazy old coot, but there's no point in denying who you are or what your talents are. I understand people. Always have. That's how I got so God-damned rich. I'm no genius, I can barely read a balance sheet. Sending an email is a struggle for me. How the Hell else do you think a guy like me could have made forty million dollars?" Fontaine tapped the side of his head. "I understand people, like they were made of glass and I could see into their souls and read everything that's written there. Believe me or not, I don't care." Fontaine sighed and looked away.

"Sometimes I think that maybe I made a mistake. Maybe I should have become a psychiatrist or something, helped people with their problems instead of just buying and selling stuff." Fontaine made a little grunt and took a sip of coffee. "But I never liked school. I guess I just took the easy way out. Got rich. Lived a good life. Had the most beautiful daughter the world has ever seen . . . ." Fontaine's voice thickened and he bowed his head and Steve looked away. "Anyway," Fontaine continued a few moments later, his eyes glistening, "I've had a good life. Marian married Teddy Caldwell, a sweet, sweet man, then he died so horribly -- burned up in a car crash on the 101 -- hell of away to go, but at least Marian and Sarah were spared. Then she met Tom Travis."

"You didn't like Travis," Steve said, not asking a question.

"What's the poem about the Hollow Men?" Fontaine sadly shook his head. "He's not a bad person at heart, just, well, weak, or maybe he has some strength someplace deep down but he just doesn't know what's worth fighting for and what isn't."

"Did you tell Marian not to marry him?"

"Mr. Janson, you don't tell your children who not to marry, not in this country. I didn't fight it. If I had thought Tom Travis was a bad person, mean, evil, maybe things would have been different. But I didn't, so I let her do whatever she was going to do."

"And now?"

"Now? People can do strange things. People can surprise you, but," Fontaine frowned and shook his head, "I don't think he has it in him to do . . . . that to Marian, not even if she were the worst woman on earth instead of the best."

"Could he have hired somebody else to do it?"

Fontaine looked down and shook his head then lifted his chin. "The first time I met Tom Travis, he drove up in this brand new silver Humvee. I guess he figured he'd impress me." Fontaine gave a little snort. "Then he got a look at the Rolls in my garage. Marian never told him what I was worth, you see, so he didn't know I had more money than he did."

"Was she worried about fortune hunters?"

Fontaine barked a quick laugh. "No. Money was never important to her, one way or the other. She never understood why rich people cared about it so much. Greed was as far beyond her understanding as nuclear physics."

"So Tom didn't get very far comparing bank balances with you?'

"He was smart enough not to try. No, he spent the first hour trying to impress me with how manly he was, how he worked his way up from stunt man to leading man. The cars he had wrecked, the horses he had fallen off of, like some kid who'd spent the war in the motor pool and comes home telling his buddies how many battles he'd been in and how many Nazi's he's killed. It was a little sad, really." For a moment Fontaine got a faraway look in his eyes then he slipped back into the present. "Finally, around the end of the evening, he just sort of gave up. That's when he got interesting and I actually started to like him."

"Interesting? How?"

"Once he stopped trying to impress me, he turned into a kind of a normal guy. We talked about painting."

"Monet, Rembrandt, that kind of painting?"

Fontaine smiled. "His own paintings. He thought he wasn't very good, but he didn't care. That's what I liked. He admitted he wasn't any good but he didn't care. He enjoyed painting for its own sake. It meant something to him, personally. In a strange way I think it nourished his soul. That's when I knew that there was a real person buried someplace inside all of that Hollywood crap. That's why I decided not try to stop the marriage. I figured there was a decent person buried in there someplace and that maybe Marian, knowing Marian's heart, would bring it out." Fontaine shoved his cup away. "Maybe I was wrong. Maybe he snapped and . . . . A man in his business, a man with a fragile ego . . . ." Fontaine shrugged.

"What would have made him snap?"

Fontaine looked away. "Who knows what happens between a husband and a wife?" He said in an offhand tone, and in that instant Steve knew he was lying.

"But there was something going on, some problem. They were fighting about something. Travis claimed it was just her hormones from the pregnancy, but maybe there was something else."

"You'd have to ask your client. He was there. I wasn't." Fontaine's face went blank as if a gate had slammed shut behind his eyes.

"You've been very kind to talk with me, Mr. Fontaine," Steve said, backing off. "I appreciate how difficult this must be for you."

"Yes," Gerard said, clearly anxious to escape.

Steve switched topics. "You have a son? Riley, I believe? That's an unusual name."

"My mother's maiden name, Kathleen Riley. I named him in honor of her."

Janson decided to take one more stab at getting some useful information. "Can you think of anyone, anyone at all, who might have had the slightest motive to want to hurt Marian?" Fontaine shook his head. "I'm not suggesting that she did anything that justified someone having a grudge against her. It could be something very simple that wasn't her fault at all. Maybe she found out some secret about someone. She was active in charities, I believe. Could someone have had their hand in the till and she found out? That would be a motive. If she was on the board of some foundation or a major stockholder in some company, those might be motives for the wrong person to want her out of the way."