Betrayal (28 page)

“How much time would that give her?” Tallie asked with a worried look.

“Five or six years, for the embezzlement, maybe eight or ten for the murder. It’s not a lot, but she’s a first-time offender. And the prisons are very crowded. If she’s acquitted of the murder, which she won’t be, she could serve five years for the embezzlement, or the judge could decide to give her more and not honor the deal, if he thinks it’s too light. And don’t forget she’ll have an increase in her time for abuse of trust with you.” Five years seemed very short to Tallie, given what she’d done. Ten for the murder seemed more reasonable, since she had taken a life.

“It’s too bad the electric chair is no longer used, or the guillotine maybe,” Tallie said in a merciless tone. “I don’t see why they should want to plea-bargain with her, given the severity of her crimes.”

“Because it will save the taxpayers money and you a lot of stress if she pleads and we don’t have to go to trial. We’ll do it, of course, if she doesn’t plead, but it just saves everyone’s time.” Tallie had to admit she wasn’t looking forward to the trial, far from it, but she also didn’t think Brigitte should get off too lightly. “We’ll see what her lawyer says tomorrow.”

“If it reduces her time in prison, she’ll be crazy if she doesn’t take the deal.”

“I agree with you,” Jim said firmly. “But you’d be surprised how many defendants want their day in court and to go out in a blaze of glory. They’re much better off making a deal in these instances than going to trial. In this case, that would be an agony for everyone involved, including you. Anyway, we have plenty of time, the trial is still eight months away.” Tallie wished it would hurry up. She felt like she had been dealing with this depressing situation for years. Jim assured her again that they were going to find a compromise that worked for everyone, not just the federal courts in avoiding a trial. And then they talked about Max in summer school in New York, and what ball game his son Bobby was playing that week. Josh, his other son, had gotten a summer job at a law firm, and he was liking it a lot. Jim said that if he didn’t play pro football, he would love him to go to law school, like Max. They talked a lot about their kids, who were the hub of their lives.

“What are you going to do now that you finished the film? Have you got other projects lined up?” Jim asked her with interest.

“Yes,” she said immediately. “Yoga class, shopping, sleeping late, going to movies, reading scripts, reading books. I’m looking for another movie to do,” she said honestly, “but I don’t want to rush into something. I want time to check it out. I need a break anyway. I’m not in any hurry to go back to work, particularly if there’s a trial, or even two or three of them, including the civil trial to recoup the money. I have to be available for that.” It was going to put her life on hold until they knew how the legal situation was going to
evolve.
It was a long time to sit around waiting, but there was nothing they could do to make it happen more quickly. The government, and to some extent the judge, were in control. Tallie had very little to say about any of it, even though she was the victim. “Are you going away this summer?” she suddenly asked him. It occurred to her that it gave her a level of comfort and security knowing that he was following the proceedings and giving her regular reports of what was going on. She would have been completely in the dark otherwise. No one else kept in contact with her to inform her or reassure her, but Jim always did.

“I’m taking my boys fishing in Alaska the last two weeks in August, but other than that, I’ll be here.” And they both knew that things moved so slowly that nothing would happen while he was away. There would be very little shift in the case for the next many months.

Tallie and her attorney were waiting for Brigitte’s lawyer’s response to Tallie’s complaint in the civil lawsuit. Victor was going over all her ledgers again to see if there were additional amounts of money she’d lost, the FBI was gathering more evidence in the case against Brigitte, and now the state was examining all the evidence in Hunt’s murder. It felt like it was going to take forever. Jim could sense what Tallie was thinking on the subject from the discouraged tone of her voice. “At least she’s in custody now. She’s not a danger to you or your family. That’s a lot. You don’t have to wonder where she is or what she’s doing or how much of your money she’s spending.” One of Tallie’s great concerns was how much Brigitte had taken out in mortgages on her house. If Tallie was to get the house, or the proceeds from a sale, if Brigitte had bled it
dry
in order to get more money, it wasn’t going to do Tallie any good.

And Greg Thomas had hired forensic accountants not only to double-check Tallie’s accounts and the missing cash, but also to examine Brigitte’s, when they got them from the bank, to see how the money had been spent, other than on Rodeo Drive. It was a long painful process. And ever since they had discovered it, Tallie was feeling broke. She wasn’t, of course, and her father had reminded her that she hadn’t even known the money was missing, which was embarrassing, but that often happened with an embezzlement, if it was cleverly done. She had the feeling that they had been spending a fair amount of money, and in fact she had been supporting a whole additional person who was pumping money out the back door as fast as it came in. In the long run, she would save money now, but she had also lost a great deal while Brigitte was in control. Looking back on it, Tallie couldn’t understand how she had trusted her so completely, and over the years developed so much faith in her, that she blindly did whatever Brigitte told her to do. She thought that Brigitte had been making her life easier and protecting her; instead she was the silent enemy in their midst, stealing everything she could lay hands on, materially and emotionally, even her boyfriend and her trust. It was a shocking experience, and Victor Carson was nervous about it as well.

Victor had admitted to Jim that he was afraid that Tallie might sue him for not discovering what Brigitte had been doing long before. And Jim had told him it was always a possibility; other lawsuits were often spawned from the original crime. Everyone got hurt. And in fact, Tallie had already discussed it with Greg. If
Victor
was checking her accounts, why hadn’t he seen what Brigitte had done? There was no plausible explanation for why he hadn’t except that he was negligent, or stealing it himself, which she now believed he wasn’t, and the FBI had concurred. But none of this felt good to her, nothing was reassuring; there was no one she could trust anymore, no one to protect her. She felt naked and alone in the world.

Jim promised to call her and give her an update before he left for Alaska, and Tallie hung up with a sigh. It all seemed so complicated and overwhelming, even with his help. And there were never any simple answers, clear-cut decisions, surefire resolutions or results. She had the feeling that she was in hell or purgatory and would spend eternity dealing with the embezzlement. And Jim had warned her that most victims got nothing or very little back. The embezzlers spent it, hid it, or it all went to the IRS for the taxes the embezzler hadn’t paid on the stolen money, which sounded ridiculous to Tallie. What criminal lists stolen money on their tax return? What line was that supposed to go on? Item 22B: fraud and stolen funds.

It was infuriating most of the time, although she was grateful for the information Jim provided, the explanations, sympathy, and consolation. He seemed like a good person, but he couldn’t change what had happened, or affect the end result. At least he had gotten Brigitte arrested, and brought the case far enough along to do that. Tallie had heard horror stories since then of people who had lost hundreds of thousands of dollars and the authorities had done nothing about it, or the criminal had destroyed all the evidence so there was nothing to build a case on. Jim kept reminding her that
she
was lucky. The proof of loss and Brigitte’s MO were pretty clear so far, and he felt they had a viable case that they could prove in court beyond a reasonable doubt. Tallie’s name and celebrity would help them, and the fact that Brigitte had murdered a potential witness against her in the case spoke volumes. She was a criminal to the core and had abused Tallie’s trust in her in every possible way, which also didn’t sit well with the courts.

One of the things that had unnerved Tallie was that she had received a “victim number” from a computerized information system, designed to keep victims of crimes informed. It was a very worthwhile effort and sent hearing dates and other information to the victims. But having a “victim number” had horrified Tallie. She didn’t want to be a victim, part of a faceless herd of people who had been foolish, naïve, or abused. It felt so wrong and wasn’t how she wanted to identify herself in the world. Victim. It had made her shudder when she read the form.

Her mind ran in circles all night, about Brigitte and the embezzlement, and she couldn’t fall asleep. When she finally did, she had nightmares. In her dreams, Brigitte kept shouting at her and tried to shoot her, and Tallie woke up with a start at four in the morning and couldn’t go back to sleep. Jim had told her that many victims of crimes saw psychiatrists for the trauma, but when he had suggested it to her, she hadn’t had time, and she didn’t know if she wanted to do that now, although Brigitte had certainly traumatized her with everything else she’d done as well.

When she got up and went downstairs, in the morning she read the paper, and then called her father to see how he was feeling. She hadn’t liked the way he looked the night before. His housekeeper
answered
and said he didn’t want to get out of bed that morning. He said he wasn’t sick, she reported, but was feeling slow. Tallie decided to go over and check on him when she got dressed. It was a challenge having an elderly parent as frail as he was who lived alone. She wanted to respect his independence, but keep him safe at the same time. And he chafed and got irritable if she fussed over him too much. Until now, he had flatly refused to have anyone stay with him at night, but Tallie could see that her father was slowly going downhill.

She drove over to his house, and he was sleeping when she got there. She didn’t want to intrude on him so she sat in a little study near his bedroom and read some magazines. She heard him stirring after a while and went in to see him.

“How are you feeling, Dad?” she asked him with a smile.

“Tired,” he said, smiling back. “I was thinking about your embezzlement last night, and everything that happened with Hunt. I’m so sorry, baby. It was all so wrong. And I always thought he was such a good guy.”

“So did I.” She sighed and sat down in a chair next to his bed. And now Hunt was dead, and all because of his own bad judgment getting involved with Brigitte. She had burned them all, and had looked like dedicated innocence itself. But that had been no excuse for him to have an affair with her behind Tallie’s back. And the excuse that he’d been blackmailed into it, or Brigitte had forced him, didn’t hold water with her, nor with the FBI. Brigitte and Hunt had been greedy, dishonest, immoral people, both of them, and in the end they had paid a high price. So had she, but her life wasn’t ruined, and she wasn’t dead like Hunt. It was something
to
be grateful for as she looked at her father with sad eyes. She hated to see him so exhausted and weak. “I’ll be okay, Dad,” she reassured him.

“I want you to get back as much as you can. Be tough about it, merciless. You’ve already lost enough. I want you to put up a good fight.” He made it sound as though he were leaving on a trip, or wouldn’t be there when it happened, and that worried her even more. She was thinking of calling the doctor, and she noticed that her father was having trouble breathing. They had oxygen in the house for an emergency, but she didn’t want to use it without a doctor’s advice.

“Are you okay, Dad?” Everything she felt for him was in her eyes, and the way she gently touched his cheek.

“Maybe I’ll get up for a while. I’m tired of sitting in bed.” It was a beautiful day, and she wondered if he’d like to go out and sit in the garden. And when she asked him, he said he’d like that. She got him the navy silk dressing gown he wore. He put it on, went to the bathroom with his walker, and came out with his hair combed and freshly shaved, and she smiled at him. He looked very handsome, and she couldn’t remember a single day in her life when her father hadn’t looked immaculate and meticulously shaved. He had always teased her about her uncombed hair piled on her head and her ragbag look. She told him she didn’t have time to think about things like that when she was working. She said she never wanted to take the time to do her hair or get prettily dressed, and now she realized that she should. Not to the extremes that Brigitte had gone to, but just enough to look like a girl. She’d always been afraid that the ideas would fly out of her head if she thought of
anything
else. She was beginning to realize, at thirty-nine, that maybe that wasn’t true. Hunt liked to say she was a genius, which she knew she wasn’t, but she did focus on her work, much of the time, when she wasn’t thinking of Max. Some great ideas came to her when she least expected. And she never wanted to be caught short with a comb instead of a pencil in her hand.

She walked her father slowly out into the garden and sat him on a deck chair. She got a hat to shield him from the sun, and lay on the deck chair next to his, and she reached out and took his hand. They lay there in the sun, peacefully holding hands for a long time. She had her eyes closed, and she was wearing shorts and one of Max’s old T-shirts, and she felt her father gently squeeze her hand.

“I love you, Daddy,” she said softly with her eyes closed, feeling like a child again. She could remember all the times he had been there for her when she was young, all that he had done for her after her mother died, the endless support he had offered for her career, the wise advice, and as she thought of it, two tears slid down her face, and she wiped them away quickly so he wouldn’t see them if he was watching. She didn’t want to be maudlin just because he was tired and old, or having a bad day.