Magic Hour, Susan Isaacs [life changing books txt] 📗

Jonathan Tullius Esq.’s cuffs were, of course, just the right length. He’d been Sy’s divorce lawyer, both times. It looked like business was good. His office, filled with soft-looking leather furniture, smelled like the inside of an expensive loafer. “Sit down, Detective Brady.” He had a deep, melodic voice and the

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barrel chest of an opera singer. He said: “I called your offices immediately after I heard about the murder, and spoke with a Sergeant Carbone. And I see now I was right to do so. You people must have some interest in Bonnie Spencer, since you are, in fact, responding to my call.” He was crazy about the sound of his own voice. “To get to the point, Detective Brady: Sergeant Carbone agreed this conversation would be strictly off the record and disclosed only on a need-to-know basis.”

“Right.”

“You see, on one hand the attorney-client privilege survives death.”

“Yeah.”

“Therefore, I should not be talking to you.” He swiveled around in his throne of a leather chair and then rested his elbows on his desk. “On the other hand, Sy was a dear friend as well as a client. He called me last Thursday. The day before he was killed. He was quite, quite concerned.” Tullius had one of those soft, pampered, self-satisfied faces you see at Republican National Conventions.

“What was he concerned about, Mr. Tullius?”

“Money.” I waited. “And his former wife. Bonnie Spencer.”

I thought: Oh, fuck it! “Was she holding him up for money?”

“No. But Sy was concerned that she might. You see, he’d run into her out in the Hamptons. She lives there full-time.

Got their old summer house. He had nothing to do with her after the divorce, but then she’d dropped him a note about some screenplay she’d written…” He paused. “You do know that she had been a screenwriter at one time.”

“Yeah,” I told him. “I’m the squad’s Bonnie Spencer expert.”

“They had one or two telephone conversations 182 / SUSAN ISAACS

about it. He was trying to be nice, encourage her. And then he was out there almost the entire summer, filming Starry Night. Well, just on a whim, he dropped by her house. One thing led to another.” The lawyer cleared his throat.

“Sexual congress,” I suggested.

“Yes. He called me about it. Apparently, she’s in a bad way financially, and Sy —post hoc ergo propter hoc— was worried that she might attempt to make some sort of a case for alimony because they had resumed sexual intimacy. I assured him she could not. The marriage was over, as was his responsibility toward her.”

“He said they only slept together once?”

“Oh, yes. Absolutely. You see, he was living with Lindsay Keefe. Why, under that circumstance, he chose a dalliance with Bonnie is one of those conundrums only the Higher Powers can unravel, but there you have it.”

“Did Bonnie make any threats?”

“No, but Sy seemed unduly concerned over her. Dis-quieted, guilty. And over a single lapse. It didn’t ‘play,’ as they say in the film world. That’s why I decided to phone your office. There was something about Bonnie. I met her during the divorce proceedings and, quite frankly, did not care for her. That rampant good nature; there was something so false. I simply did not trust her. My guess is, Sy finally smelled something fishy too. He might have been worrying about the possibility of extortion: Pay me or I’ll tell Lindsay.

Or he might have been thinking she would seek revenge against him, against his property. You see, he was quite taken aback by Bonnie’s poverty. He said he’d seen holes in one of her pillowcases. Just a symbol, naturally, but he did say about his little tryst with her; his little one-afternoon stand:

‘I wonder what this is going to cost me?’ What’s been both-MAGIC HOUR / 183

ering me ever since his murder is…did he have any intimation that the cost would be his life?”

What a toad-load, I thought, as I walked up Park Avenue again, back to my car. I couldn’t believe Carbone and Byrne had insisted I piss away a day on these two fuckheads. The entire bureaucracy of the County of Suffolk was losing its grip, peeing in its collective pants over the media exposure the case was getting. CBS, NBC, CNN and ABC were showing helicopter shots of Sandy Court, and some photographer in a boat had taken long-distance shots of Lindsay walking on the beach. Plus there seemed to be thousands of close-ups of Captain Shea in front of a bouquet of micro-phones, saying, “We are at the present time investigating a variety of possibilities.” Neither Peter Jennings nor Bryant Gumbel sounded hopeful of an immediate solution. The New York Times came right out and said that the Suffolk County P.D. “appeared stymied.” And Newsweek agreed: “The police seem not to have a clue…” The department only wanted to look good and to protect itself, and that meant following up every single lead, even the most idiotic. So a whole day shot to shit. A hundred miles to New York and a hundred miles back, to find out that Sy Spencer liked to fuck rich and/or famous women and that some supercilious lawyer was sure Sy had foreseen his doom in a threadbare pillowcase.

I turned up a side street, went into a drugstore, got out a couple of bucks’ worth of quarters. I stared at the colossal condom display, wondered what kind of a moron would buy blue, ribbed rubbers and dialed 1-516, the area code for Long Island. But instead of dialing Headquarters, I dialed Bonnie’s house. She answered. “Hello.” Her tone was cautious, weary, as though she expected another hang-up. I didn’t say anything. “Hello? ” she repeated. I hung up and called

184 / SUSAN ISAACS

Robby. No DNA report yet. No nothing. To kill time, so I wouldn’t have to drive back during rush hour, I had Robby give me the names, addresses and phone