Chapter 14
14
M y phone rang then and made us both wince. The phone identified the caller as Lawyer . I answered immediately.
“Elena, your mother said you’d be calling me,” my dad said in a concerned tone. It wasn’t his signature style to skip over the good-mornings, how-are-yous, what-did-you-have-for-breakfasts, and all of his usual dad repartee.
“I was going to ring you and then things got complicated,” I tried to explain. For a moment, I felt I was seventeen again, and he’d caught me smoking a cigarette while picking me up after some party.
“More complicated than the police wanting to talk to you?” He scoffed.
“What?” I said, confused. For someone who prided herself on being articulate, I kept catching myself saying the same interrogative word over and over that morning.
“Fortunately, we have friends at the LAPD and they did me the courtesy of calling me first,” my dad explained. “But they want to talk to you again.”
“What?” I sounded like an idiot. “Why?”
“Something about a certain article at the Voice and you possibly lying to them about being alone the night of Henry’s death.” A dash of frustration colored his tone.
“Oh, that,” I said, still sounding completely dumb.
“Yes, that ,” he replied, unamused. “And Elena, will you do me a favor and tell that irresponsible, idiot ex of yours that he’s also wanted at the Downtown police station for further questioning?”
“What makes you think I know where he is?” David was standing no more than a few inches in front of me, looking at me with scrutinizing eyes.
“I’ll meet both of you there in thirty minutes. Don’t be late,” my father said with the kind of tone he reserved for the courtroom.
The line went dead on the other side.
“My dad is pissed,” I told David. My father had decided to also forget about the take-cares and the hugs and kisses that always accompanied his farewells, and I suddenly realized I missed them.
“He saw the article and wants to have a chat about my intentions toward you?” David asked. I’m still unsure whether he was messing with me or not there.
“What? No!” I rolled my eyes. “But the police may not be as tolerant in their views.”
…
I’d caught David up on the contents of my dad’s call, and we were out the door five minutes after I had changed into a pair of baggy high-rise jeans and yet another cozy flannel shirt.
“Drive or walk?” he asked me at the landing, in front of my recently closed front door. I could hear the notes of Miles Davis coming from apartment 10D.
“Drive?” I offered.
“Walk?” he countered.
“Seriously? Sometimes I feel like I’m the Angelena native and not the transplant. He’ll kill us if we’re late. I think he’ll try to represent us both during the chat with the police.”
David gave me a confused look.
“He’s a lawyer!”
“An entertainment lawyer,” David said.
“So what? He was good enough for you when you were accused of libel but not now?” David still didn’t appear swayed. “You know he’s not charging us, right?”
“Okay, but I drive,” he allowed.
“Can’t I drive?” I asked, sparring for a fight. “You know my car is more eco-friendly than yours.”
He growled in assent, and I knew I had won.
…
I was driving us to the Downtown LAPD headquarters and realizing that right there, in front of us, was another one of the irreconcilable differences that could explain our separation. Money. My parents gave me an upscale electric SUV two Christmases before. I love the fact that I won’t have to go to a gas station ever again. David thinks it’s a blatant expression of my swanky and posh upbringing. He has a 2015 plug-in Toyota Prius.
No matter how many times I told him my family came from an incredibly humble background in Barcelona and both my parents are what you would call self-made, he still tends to see only the somewhat pricey cars; the five-bedroom, six-bathroom home plus guest house in Beverly Hills; and the office at city hall.
He’s never bought that I’m as much of a regular kid from a middle-class neighborhood as he is. What’s more, he’s always considered me a bit hypocritical because I identify as a non-rich child. I’m aware that I have no student-loan debt, that I have a good—and extremely costly—healthcare plan that includes dental and vision, and that the only reason I’m not more worried about my employment prospects is because my parents would have my back if I needed help, and having my back wouldn’t put a dent in their finances.
Please don’t think I’m posh. I spent my childhood wearing plain, inexpensive clothes, never receiving that toy everyone else wanted and got for Christmas, and not playing video games because we couldn’t afford a console.
My parents only started making real money once we moved here. And yes, sometimes they spoil me and give me excessive gifts—like a $60,000 car—but I think it’s only because the three of us remember those years in Barcelona when things were tight.
“You’ve been awfully quiet since we got in the car,” David said.
“I was thinking about the creepy Troubelmakr guy.” We hadn’t yet had the chance to talk about that.
“Does it sound completely delusional or paranoid if I say I think I’ve seen him around?”
“It doesn’t because I know I’ve seen him around,” I said, taking my eyes from the road briefly to look at him.
“When? Where?” His tone was worried.
“Yesterday. When we were on the street waiting for the firefighters to let us back into the building. Quite a few passersby stopped and lingered for a bit. They were curious about the people on the street and the alarm and everything else. I was watching them go about their lives and wondering what their occupations and family situations and things like that were—I like playing that exercise. And suddenly I saw this dude standing on the other side of the street looking at me with a creepy smile. It gave me chills.”
“What happened?”
“Not sure. Some neighbor or other complained about something and you jumped in to assist them, and that must have annoyed me and caught my eye,” I said. “And when I looked again, the weird guy was no longer there and I couldn’t see him anywhere. I’m sure he’s the same guy we saw today on those internet pictures.”
David was doing all his thinking silently, and I didn’t want to look in his direction again. In the past, he may have accused me of sometimes being distracted on the wheel. I wouldn’t count his mild dislike for my driving style as another one of the things that precipitated our uncoupling, though.
“So, you also saw him yesterday?” I asked.
“Don’t think so,” David said. “I think I’ve seen him around our building one or two times these past few days though. I just assumed he was a neighbor. You know how familiar faces keep popping up at the grocery store or the barber shop?”
“Not really,” I admitted. David was into community and making a difference in the neighborhood. I can’t say I was. Call me selfish, but lending my mother to the whole city of Los Angeles seemed like involvement enough.
Even if we were five minutes early, when I parked at the LAPD visitor’s parking area, my dad was already waiting there. He was immaculately dressed in a white shirt, a silk tie, and one of his woolen Hugo Boss suits. He likes nice things but never goes for anything extravagant.
He was carrying an Urth Caffé to-go cup of what I assumed was his usual order of double espresso macchiato. He went to drink from it only to drop an exaggerated amount of coffee over himself, staining his blazer.
Remember when I told the Clooney guy that I take to my dad? I wasn’t lying.
“?Te has quemado?” I asked my dad as I was getting out of the car, worried he may have burned himself. He was trying to drain the coffee stain with a tissue and making it even worse. There was now not only coffee but cellulose residue all over his jacket.
“What? No,” he replied, also in Spanish. “But I just picked up this suit from the dry cleaners!”
“Hola, Mateo,” David greeted my dad. Did he sound a bit flustered?
“Ah, so you found David! And in record time,” my dad said, a knowing look in his expression. “Was the neighbor telling the truth? Were you two together the night of the murder?” Dad was famous for his directness.
There was an uncomfortable silence for a few seconds in the underground garage of the LAPD. The fluorescent lights flickered overhead. Both David and I fixated on our shoes, not answering or looking at my dad.
“Anyone?” our lawyer insisted. “Were you together on Wednesday night?”
David and I may be a couple of Californian millennials used to being evasive and walking on eggshells, but my father is one hundred percent pure Spaniard bluntness and doesn’t appreciate lack of clarity.
“Yes,” we finally both mumbled, our eyes still fixed on the floor.
“You two better start telling the cops the truth. What exactly made you think that telling them you were alone when you weren’t was a good idea? In fact, why the hell did you tell them anything? I should have been both your first calls!” He scowled. “Here’s what’s going to happen. We’re going to get inside. You each are going to amend your statement and talk again to that Clooney guy?—”
“Rooney,” corrected David, and my dad gave him one of his don’t-mess-with-me-when-I’m-in-my-lawyer-mode looks. “Never mind,” David said, and I almost chuckled.
“Do we need to talk to the cops separately?” I asked.
“After having lied to them once, it’s not like they trust us a lot, so we’ll do it together. Plus, this is only a friendly chat to show them we now have nothing to hide,” my dad explained. “If they had anything against either of you, this would be a different kind of conversation.”
“But we still need a lawyer?”
“Sí, carino, haven’t I taught you anything? You always need a lawyer. Especially one that won’t charge you by the hour.”