“A benefit. Isn’t that what it’s called these days? A friend with benefits?”
“I don’t understand why she called you.”
“She called you.”
“I see. So you intercepted the call.”
I said, “Joe, how could you do this to us?”
“Lindsay, I’ve done nothing wrong. Nothing.”
I went into the room, threw open the closet doors. Joe’s suitcase was right there, and as luck would have it, he hadn’t yet unpacked.
I hauled the bag out of the closet and chucked it onto the floor at Joe’s feet. He stood up and came toward me, his arms open. He was saying stuff, but I had closed myself off from him. I didn’t comprehend him anymore, not what he’d done, not what he was saying. I took pants and a jacket out of the closet, got underwear out of a drawer.
I wanted to get away from him before I cried.
“Lindsay. Stop. Just stop. I’m not having an affair with June or anyone else.”
I whipped around to face him. Adrenaline made me almost blind with rage. I could barely look at him.
“Why would June lie? She said, ‘It’s just one of those things.’”
“Our friendship, maybe.”
“I wish I could believe you, Joe, but you’re a terrific liar. I can’t stand the sound of your voice, so please, just leave. I’ll send your things — wherever you say. Just don’t be here when I get home.”
I dressed in the bathroom and left the house without saying another word to Joe.
I felt hollow and sick. I’d never been so betrayed in my life.
Chapter 66
We were in the parking lot off Harriet Street, just behind the Hall. I told Conklin that I wanted to drive.
“What’s wrong?” he asked me. He was looking at me like I was wearing a live fish on my head.
“I like to drive.”
“Okay. When you want to tell me what’s eating you, I’m here.”
He tossed me the keys and a minute later I headed the squad car south into clotted morning traffic, toward Parnassus Heights, an affluent neighborhood near the Haight.
Beside me, Conklin filled me in on the tip he’d gotten, that Harry Chandler and his son from his first marriage, Todd, did not get along.
Conklin had done some research and learned that when Todd was quite young, he had changed his last name to Waterson, his mother’s maiden name, and although Todd had never lived at the Ellsworth compound, he had had access to the place while Chandler was living there with his second wife, Cecily, and for a few years after.
“Todd Waterson? The TV guy? I had no idea he was Harry Chandler’s son.”
“Little-known fact.”
“Well, news to me, anyway. I’ve seen his show. He’s pretty entertaining. What’s his story?”
“Brainy, big paycheck, and a discreet personal life. I found no gossip about him on the Web.”
Todd Waterson’s house was on Edgewood Avenue, an unexpectedly shielded and wooded street.
At Conklin’s direction, I drove through the gated entrance and up a generously landscaped private driveway. I braked in front of the detached garage, took a look at what three million could buy in this neighborhood.
Todd Waterson’s house was a sprawling, three-level stucco contemporary with Craftsman influences. There were decks and terraces with panoramic views of the bay and the city. The property was secluded and quiet. Very.
The front door opened as we got to the threshold. Todd Waterson was waiting for us. He was five foot seven in his socks, wearing frayed jeans and a sweatshirt with a PBS logo. He had sandy-colored hair and a face populated by forgettable features: a thin line of a mouth and his father’s gray eyes.
“I’m Sergeant Lindsay Boxer,” I said. “This is my partner, Inspector Richard Conklin.”
“Hello, and by the way, what’s this about?”
I said, “We’re investigating crimes committed at the Ellsworth compound.”
“Let me have your numbers, okay? I can’t do this right now.”
“It can’t wait, Mr. Waterson.”
“All right. Come in,” he said. “But let’s make it fast, all right? I have to leave for the studio and I can’t be late.”
Chapter 67
Conklin and I followed Todd Waterson across his gleaming wooden floors under an airy cathedral ceiling. The walls were at hard angles, cut by beams and banks of floor-to-ceiling windows. Large photos of Waterson interviewing celebrities hung on the milk-white walls.
Waterson indicated where we should sit, and as we did, he said, “Just to cut to the chase, I haven’t seen or spoken with my father in five years.”
“Where were you last weekend?” I asked him.
“That’s what you want to know?” Waterson asked. “What am I — some kind of suspect? That’s really funny.”
“I thought you wanted to cut to the chase,” I said, not laughing.
“I was out and about. I spent all my nights here.”
“Can anyone vouch for your whereabouts?”
“Wait a minute. Before I give you names and numbers, what are you getting at and what does it have to do with me?”
“Seven heads were disinterred from your father’s back garden.”
“So I’ve heard. I haven’t set foot in that place in five years. Not since I had my final fight with my father.”
“You mind if I ask about that fight?”
“I sure do.”
Conklin took the baton. Conklin wasn’t pregnant. He hadn’t just told his spouse to vacate the premises. He wasn’t even mad.
I sat back and let him drive the interview.
“We’re checking out your father,” Conklin said.
“Okay.”
“What’s he like?”
“He’s narcissistic. He’s a womanizer. He can be cruel.”
“You say he’s a womanizer. All the heads in the garden belonged to females.”
“Is that right? So you’re asking could my father, the man I just described as cruel, be responsible for those heads?”
“That’s right,” Conklin said.
Rich had on his good-natured good-cop smile. You had to love Conklin, and in a way, I did. He said to Waterson, “Do you think your father is capable of murder? He’s been accused of it before.”
“Honestly? I don’t know. He’s capable of a cutting put-down. He’d like to fuck every woman in the world to death, but that’s all I know. I stay away from him. But now I’m repeating myself.”
“Okay,” Conklin said. “And where were you last weekend?”
Todd Waterson started to laugh.
“Let me get my book.”
Waterson got out of the chair and went to his desk. I stared out the window at Mount Sutro Open Space
