Chapter 16 Toss Him to the Wolves
Toss Him to the Wolves
At midday, the blue sky drains of color, then begins to deepen once more. White, almost whimsical clouds drift toward the horizon. The day is beautiful, and beauty at a horrible time has always infuriated Frankie, like a hard slap that life goes on even when it shouldn’t.
Late in the afternoon, she’s in Nico’s car, about to leave the studio to return to Jack’s house for the press conference.
Though she lives closer and would’ve preferred to drive separately, Nico suggested that it might be a good time to talk, and when Nico makes suggestions, they’re not suggestions.
Just outside the studio gates, there is a spot designated for flowers.
Pink roses carpet the ground, some in bundles tied with twine, others stuffed in mason jars.
Little lanes of loose stems and petals creep between everything as if someone sheared off a rose garden and turned it into a pathway.
Last night, Betty told her, six studio janitors walked as carefully as they could, removing any wilted blooms in order to keep the grief fresh and pleasant.
Now, she and Nico pass a woman holding a sign. Justice for June. On the corner, three young boys have their shoeshine kits set up, their backs against a wall.
“Tell me how hungover he was when he called you yesterday.”
Frankie knows what Nico’s really asking, and she’ll make him say it. “Why?”
“You believe he didn’t do it, right?”
“Of course I believe he didn’t do it. You believe he did?”
A sidelong glance at her. “Would I be doing what I’m doing if I believed that? The answer is no. If I thought someone killed my star, I would not hold back.”
“Even if it’s your other star.”
He’s quiet for a bit. Finally, he says, “You won’t like this, but Jack killing June would be a story to end all stories.”
She turns in her seat to look at him.
“Sure,” he continues, “we’d fire him. And he’d be arrested—the works.
But publicity alone would skyrocket June and all her films beyond anything we’re experiencing now.
Even his films. And I’m not saying this because I’d like it—it would kill me.
It’s a disgusting part of this business that I can even say these things, but I’m good at my job, and this is what the job demands.
You get that, right? It’s not me, it’s what I’m supposed to do. ”
And she does get that. The second she chose to lie to Jack about the woman and child in the alleyway, in order to keep him in good form, she did the same. It was what the job demanded.
Continuing, Nico says, “Jack causes problems, but he’s as down to earth as a star can be, and I respect that.
Still, in a heartbeat, I’d throw him to the wolves if he did it.
Not just for the job but for June. That’s the truth.
And here’s another truth: The country needs Jack and June.
And they will always, always be ‘Jack and June,’ even with her gone.
Their rags-to-riches stories, their love, their success.
In this world where everything’s gone to hell, for two people to rise up like that?
And find each other? I can’t take that away. And can I tell you one more thing?”
“Do you really want an answer, or—”
“I had bungalow two searched. While we were all in number one with the cops, and while Jack was being interviewed. I had one of my guys go there to look for the gun and the necklace.”
Frozen, she studies his profile.
“And they weren’t there. What’d you think I was going to say?
You think if we found the gun that killed June in with Jack’s stuff, we’d even be having this conversation?
Refer back to what I said earlier, please—I’d toss him to the wolves if I thought he did it.
But here’s what I’m saying now: It’s not just that I believe he wouldn’t do it, it’s that I looked into it.
You and I both know the only way he’s maybe capable of doing something like that is if he’s having one of his moments and is confused.
Even then, it’s a huge stretch. But let’s think about it .
. . In that state, you don’t also remember where the gun is and then have the presence of mind to hide it and the necklace.
To be messed up enough to kill someone means he’d be too messed up to cover it up. ”
The relief she feels is immediate and encompassing but worrisome—because she didn’t realize how much she needed this assurance.
She sees Jack in the alley with the shotgun, and reminds herself that he only intended to scare whomever it was.
Even if she weren’t there to stop him, nothing might’ve happened.
Nico continues. “Drunk people leave a trail. I want to believe he told us everything, but if you know otherwise, then I need to know too. You can’t play your hand till you’ve looked at all your cards. Strategy relies on information.”
Frankie sits with his words on the drive from the studio to Jack’s house in Pasadena, which takes almost an hour. After a while, Nico tells her about Tank Adams, found hiding out in Westchester, a Los Angeles County city that’s mostly rows and rows of bean plants and an airport called Mines Field.
“Why didn’t you lead with this?” she asks. “This is big. They found him.”
“Could be great, if he did it. Tank claims to have an alibi.”
“But he was there. Outside the premiere, watching June.”
“That was earlier. Story is he met up with friends later. But till the police talk to those friends, it’s empty words.
He’s still our best bet. And we need something to stick, because I don’t love how things look.
” He taps the steering wheel as if ticking off a list. “Jack found her. Jack’s the last person she was with.
Jack was in a relationship with her—and cops know that doesn’t always mean bliss.
God help us if they find out he didn’t want to marry her.
No, I don’t care if Tank did it or not, he’s the carrot I need dangled in front of the police so they don’t look to Jack. ”
As they drive, small stretches of land become buildings and houses and jam-packed life.
Soon they pass through the Figueroa Street tunnels, geometric patterns on the retaining walls and on the mouths of the portals.
Beautiful designs that lead the way to a plunge through the hills.
On the sidewalk alongside the roadway, a man, woman, and child walk together, the mother’s hand over her mouth as she coughs.
“These tunnels saved me,” Nico says, as they emerge back into the light.
“Used to take me twice as long to get to him. But I do like him being out of the way. Less spying eyes, if you know what I mean.” He takes in the view from his window.
“Pasadena used to be where the tourists and rich snowbirds went. Then this Depression hit. One day, what’s left of the orange groves will be gone.
Every one of them. Orange Grove Boulevard will just be a name, and no one will know why.
Fifty years from now, a hundred years, what survives?
For June, what survives? That she was a mess?
That she was knocked up and needed saving?
They’ll never know her. They’ll just know the bottom line. ”
“That people remember her to begin with would be nice.” Frankie’s thinking of Fiona, gone as if she never was.
“True. What’d Oscar Wilde say? There’s only one thing worse than being talked about, and that’s not being talked about. Something like that.”
The San Gabriel Mountains rise in the distance, bracing the valley.
Still growing, Jack once told her about the range, a comment that, from that point on, made it impossible to look at mountains without imagining the force of the many earthquakes involved in their creation.
Isn’t there something nice about that, he asked, that they’re not done?
When they round the corner to Jack’s street, Nico taps on the brakes. “So much for people not wanting to journey to Pasadena.”
The entire street is packed with people and cars, signs propped up on hoods and roofs as if with hopes Jack might spot them from his house.
Nico noses his car into the chaos, and people step aside, craning their heads to look through the windows.
Frankie searches the crowd for Agnes, at last spotting the girl picking a yellow flower from the clover.
She places the stem in her mouth, and makes a face. “I could’ve told her it would be sour.”
“What?” Nico asks.
Frankie nods toward the girl. The flower hangs from her mouth as she sucks on the stem. “We called it sour flower.”
“It’s wood sorrel. Betty said crowds are at June’s too. Ida’s afraid to go outside.”
Ida, demanding and unsatisfied. The opposite of June in all ways—dark to June’s light, silence to June’s laughter.
Yet Ida was also the one who set her own alarm earlier than anyone in the house so she could open June’s door and slowly raise the shades, or bring the lights on one by one to ease June awake.
No one wants to wake up in the middle of a dream, she once told Frankie.
“I can’t believe Ida’s not signing autographs. ”
Nico gives her a sidelong glance. “I’m mad at her too, if it helps. I know she was hard on June. Impossibly hard, like a mother, really, ever since their own mother’s mind started slipping.”
“That was almost a decade ago. That’s years and years of Ida bossing June around and making June prove herself. All June wanted was her approval. To make her proud.”
“Never try to make sense of family.” The iron gate swings open, and they start to wind up to the house.
“And this probably won’t help, but Ida didn’t get to be Ida growing up.
Ida was always June’s sister. Everything was for June.
Doesn’t excuse anything, but I get the sense that Ida’s not sure when her life begins. Maybe it’s now, I don’t know.”