A Playdate With Death (3 page)

“Bobby had it,” Betsy said.

“Had it? You mean Tay-Sachs? He was a carrier?”

“Yeah. We found out a few months ago, right before my . . . my arrest. I mean, it’s no big deal that he had it, because of course I don’t have it since I’m not Jewish. I mean, it
wasn’t
a big deal.” She sniffed. “I guess none of that matters anymore.”

I didn’t answer.

“What am I going to do?” she asked, turning to me and peering into my eyes.

I shook my head helplessly. “I don’t know, Betsy. Get through every day, one day at a time, I guess.”

“One day at a time? You sound like my goddamn sponsor,” she said. “You sound like Bobby.”

I sat with Betsy for a while longer, leaving only when her Narcotics Anonymous sponsor and a few other friends from the group arrived.

W
HEN
I got home from Betsy’s, I found my kids and my husband hurling themselves around the living room wearing pink tutus; Peter’s was around his neck. Ruby had a collection of tulle, lace, and ribbon that rivaled that of the Joffrey Ballet. From the moment she was able to make her sartorial preferences known, she’d begun lobbying for frills and ruffles. If she’d had her own way, she’d have had a pastel-colored confirmation gown for every day of the week. We compromised on cute little patterned cotton dresses and a costume box fit for a drag queen.

As soon as Isaac was born, she’d begun stuffing him into leotards and draping feather boas around his neck. He was only too glad to oblige his idolized older sister and happily participated in her endless stage productions and ballet recitals. Lately, he’d begun adding his own accessories, and it
was not uncommon to find him, as I did that day, wearing a pink tutu, a purple ostrich feather tucked behind his ear, and a sword and scabbard belted around his waist.

“Mama! I’m a Princess Knight,” he announced. Then he whipped out his sword and clocked his sister on the head with it.

“Damn it, Peter, I put that sword away for this very reason. Why did you take it out?” I said.

“Because you can’t be a Princess Knight without a sword.”

“Why does he have to be a Princess
Knight
? Why can’t he just be a princess? Or a prince? A nice prince. Who kisses the princess instead of hacking off her head.”

Peter sighed dramatically and reached out his hand. “Okay, sport. Hand over the sword. Mama says no more fencing.”

Isaac began to wail and didn’t stop until I’d popped a video into the VCR. The child development experts can shake their heads all they want. TV is an essential tool of the modern parent. How else can two adults have a conversation during the day? I’m all for stimulating my children’s tiny little developing brains, but sometimes you just need them to sit in one place and be quiet. My kids are going to have to be couch potatoes when I have something I absolutely must do. Like tell their father that I’d stumbled across yet another suspicious death.

“He killed himself?” Peter asked.

“I guess so. I mean, it looks that way with the gun and everything, but it seems so unlikely. He was such an upbeat kind of guy.”

“Aren’t methamphetamine addicts sort of by definition upbeat? It’s called speed for a reason.”

“He wasn’t an addict. I mean, he was, but he wasn’t using anymore. He’d been in recovery forever.”

“How can you be so sure?”

“What? That he wasn’t using?”

“It’s not like he’d necessarily admit it to you if he
was
using. And you did always talk about how hyper he was.”

“Hyper in a
good
way. Like a trainer is supposed to be. Not like some whacked-out speed freak. I think I’d know the difference,” I said. I certainly should know the difference. In my career as a federal public defender, I’d spent plenty of time with people addicted to all different sorts of substances. I’d had heroin-addict clients to whom I’d needed to give at least twenty-four hours’ notice that I was planning to drop by the Metropolitan Detention Center if I didn’t want them to be completely stoned when I had them brought down to the visiting room. As a young lawyer, it had taken me a while to figure out that they were wasted, not because they weren’t acting high, but just because I was so naive that it never occurred to me that the federal jail would be such an easy place to score. It turns out you can get pretty much anything at the MDC, and the prices aren’t much more than out on the street. Don’t ask me how they get the drugs into the jail. I suppose a cynical person might suggest taking a look at the fine display of automotive splendor in the prison guards parking lot.

I’d represented my share of methamphetamine dealers, mostly Mexican guys who brought the precursor chemicals
in over the border and cooked them up in labs out in the wilds of Riverside, or aging bikers who kept themselves in Harley parts doing the same. I knew a speed freak when I saw one, and by the time I met Bobby Katz, he wasn’t using. I was sure of it.

“He wasn’t using,” I said firmly.

“Okay. Well, maybe he just did a good job of hiding how depressed he was. Maybe that whole thing with his girlfriend was harder on him than you thought. Maybe
she’s
using again, and he couldn’t stand it anymore.”

“Maybe,” I said doubtfully. “But isn’t it a bit more likely that he’d just leave her?”

Peter shrugged. “When is the funeral?”

“I don’t know. I guess that depends on when they release the body. If they decide it’s a suicide, I’m sure it will be soon. Bobby’s Jewish, and that means his parents will want to bury him as soon as possible.”

“W
HY
is it that wearing black to a funeral seems ostentatious?” I said to my pint-sized companion. “I mean, you’re supposed to wear black. That’s the traditional color of mourning. Unless you’re Buddhist. Not that white would be any easier. I mean, I own literally nothing white except panties and bras.”

“Wear this, Mommy. It’s black,” Ruby said, pulling my one full-length gown out of its dry cleaner bag.

“I don’t know, honey. Sequins on a Sunday morning?”

Ruby nodded. “They’re
black
sequins.”

“Let’s try something less formal, shall we?” I waded to the back of my closet where I’d consigned my business attire. I pulled out a charcoal pantsuit and brushed the dust off the shoulders. I pulled on the slacks, exhaling while I zipped. “Ruby, hand me one of your hair elastics, would you?”

She pulled one out of her ponytail, and I picked the clump of red hair out of it. I hooked one end around the button at the waistband of the pants and the other through the buttonhole. With that extra couple of inches, I could get away with the pants. Just. I found a pale gray cotton knit sweater and shrugged on the suit jacket.

“So? What do you think?” I asked my four-year-old daughter.

“Gorgeous. But a little fat.”

I gave her the stink eye and pinched her on the tush. “Go tell your daddy I’m leaving.”

The L.A. county coroner had released Bobby’s body a week after he died. Jewish law requires that a body be buried as soon as possible after death, within a day or two, so his parents arranged for him to be buried the day following the body’s release. Sometimes
halacha
has to give way to the exigencies of the criminal justice system, but all things considered, I thought the county had done a pretty good job of finishing their work expeditiously. It probably helped that they didn’t need to worry about what the body looked like; we’re not allowed to have open caskets, so no one besides the undertaker was going to see whatever remained of poor Bobby Katz.

The turnout for Bobby’s service was impressive, considering that it took place all the way out in Thousand Oaks. I got there early enough to take a strategic place in the back and watch people as they came in. Bobby’s friends from work were sitting in the first few rows. I noticed that none of them had had my doubts. To a one they were impeccably
turned out in absolute, unremitting, pure black. The women wore severe dresses and suits that were just a shade too tight, and the men all seemed to have bought the same Armani funereal attire. I thought the midnight ties were a bit overkill, but then I had an elastic band around my waist, so who was I to comment?

Behind them were a couple of rows of what had to be friends from Alcoholics and Narcotics Anonymous. They were a diverse bunch: old and young, nicely dressed and decidedly sloppy. It took a moment for me to realize that Betsy sat among them. I could just see the back of her bent neck leaning against the shoulder of an overweight woman whose thick gray ponytail was tied with a piece of red yarn. I considered getting up and paying my respects but decided to wait until after the ceremony. Older couples—most likely friends of Bobby’s parents—took up the rest of the seats. I couldn’t see anyone who looked like his family.

After a few more minutes, a door opened, and Bobby’s family filed in. They sat down in a few rows of chairs set up to the side of the hall, and one of the ushers drew a large wooden screen in front of them, effectively shielding them from view. Odd, I thought, but then I hadn’t been to that many funerals.

The service was quick; the rabbi spoke briefly about lives cut short before their time. A man who identified himself as Bobby’s brother described their bucolic life as children. He told us about Bobby’s earlier high school drama successes and his struggles in Hollywood. Bobby’s brother said how proud he and the rest of the family had been when his
younger sibling had ultimately found professional satisfaction. Except that he described Bobby as a physical
therapist,
not a trainer. I suppose Bobby might have gone to school and been certified as a physical therapist, but somehow I didn’t think that was something he’d keep a secret from his clientele. He’d certainly never mentioned that to me.

After Bobby’s brother sat down, a beefy man in an illfitting blue blazer rose to his feet and looked as though he might begin to speak. He was sitting with the AA crowd, and they all raised their faces to him expectantly. He opened his mouth but then caught sight of the rabbi. The rabbi shook his head vigorously and frowned. The man blushed and, appropriately chastened, sat back down. The rabbi launched into a final prayer, and then it was all over. The usher rolled back the screen, and Bobby’s family walked back out of the room. I caught a glimpse of his dark-haired mother, her face drawn and gaunt. Her narrow, colorless lips were pinched in a thin line, and she leaned heavily on the arm of a younger woman with similar coloring, whom I imagined must have been Bobby’s sister. As soon as they’d gone, I squeezed past the exiting guests in the direction of Betsy and her friends.

“Hi, Betsy,” I said.

“Oh, Juliet,” she wailed and fell out of her friend’s arms and into mine. “Did you see that? They wouldn’t even let me
sit
with them. The funeral director wouldn’t let me into the
room
with them. He said, ‘Family only,’ and threw me out.”

I patted her back and murmured a few comforting words.

“It’s disgraceful, is what it is,” said the gray-haired woman.
“Betsy’s the
widow
for crying out loud.” The other friends and supporters who’d gathered around us murmured in agreement.

“Did you talk to Bobby’s parents, Betsy?” I asked.

She nodded, her face pressed against my shoulder. Then she sniffed and picked up her head. “Oh, sorry,” she mumbled. “I got your jacket all wet.”

“Don’t worry about it. I have two kids, remember? I’m used to having snot on my clothes.”

She smiled wanly.

“Have you spoken to his family?” I asked again.

“Yeah,” she said. “His brother came by a couple of days ago to tell me that they were going to
let
me stay in the apartment until the end of the month. Like they have a right. It’s my home. They can’t throw me out.”

This was worse than I thought. “And his parents?”

“They won’t even talk to me. I finally got through to them, and his dad said that their
lawyer
told them not to talk to me. Can you believe that? I mean, Bobby and I were
engaged.
We had a date and
everything.
The
rabbi
is talking to me. Why can’t they?”

“What did the rabbi say?”

“He came by the same day as Bobby’s brother. He said he wanted to see how I was doing, but who knows why he was really there. She probably sent him to make sure I hadn’t stolen the TV set or something.”

“She?”

“Bobby’s mother. God, I hate her.”

The gray-haired woman put her hand on my arm. “We’re
having a potluck after the burial. Since none of Bobby’s AA family is welcome at his parents’ home, we’re hosting our own reception at Betsy’s house. You’re welcome to join us.”

“Thanks,” I said. I followed the group out of the hall and down a long, winding path of crushed white rock to the burial site. I stood with the AA contingent on the outskirts of the crowd and watched as the members of Bobby’s family gathered around the grave. The coffin was perched on a hydraulic lift over the gaping hole. There was a pile of earth covered in a large piece of what looked like AstroTurf to one side of the open grave, and the air was redolent with the meaty smell of soil and grass. The rabbi began to sing the prayers in his deep, atonal voice, and a few of the onlookers joined him. Dredging up the Hebrew words from somewhere deep in my memory, I murmured along with them. The deeply familiar prayers brought tears to my eyes, yet I found them soothing and peaceful. So slowly that it seemed almost imperceptible, the coffin began to sink into the grave. It landed with a faint and final thump, and, one by one, each member of Bobby’s family took a small trowel full of dirt and spilled it onto the coffin. After the last of them had gone, Betsy pushed forward and took the trowel out of the pile of earth. She dumped the dirt into the grave and cried, “I love you, Bobby. We’ll be together someday. I promise you.”

I glanced over at Bobby’s parents in time to catch his mother’s face pinch into an angry scowl. Bobby’s father reached an arm around his wife and drew her away from the scene. The two of them, flanked by their children, walked back to the waiting limousines.