The Night Visitor Read online

  Tom tried to see through the forest of elaborate centerpieces, each one fashioned from a top hat, a pair of white gloves, and a black walking stick entwined with vines and pink flowers. He looked up at a large screen beside the stage just as a candid snapshot of Anya appeared among the photos of people of all ages and walks of life being projected in a continuous loop. He saw Evelyn and her daughter-in-law, Paige, at the head table but no Rory. He spotted Evelyn’s assistant, Graehme, and walked over, interrupting him as he rattled instructions into his cell phone headset.

  “Graehme, have you seen Rory?”

  “I’d like to see Rory.” He was in his late twenties and rotund. “She’s supposed to make the opening remarks in…” A shock of straight blond hair fell over his intense eyes when he bent his head to look at the face of his cell phone. He flicked his head, sending his hair back into place. “Eight minutes. If you find her, would you please tell her to get her little butt out here, pronto?”

  Tom jogged into the house and ducked under the velvet rope that blocked off the living quarters, sprinting past a security guard who recognized him.

  Knocking sharply on the powder room door, Tom elicited the outrage of a woman inside who was not Rory. At the end of the hall, in the library that Evelyn had renamed the Firenze Room in keeping with her Tuscan-themed remodel of the villa, he spotted Rory facing windows that overlooked the party, her back to the door. He approached her.

  “Ro?”

  She didn’t turn around. She was holding on to the back of a chair so tightly that her fingers were white.

  He took her hand, nearly prying it from the chair. Her skin was clammy and she was trembling. “What’s going on?”

  She watched the crowd, her back rigid. “Something’s going to happen.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  She touched the bodice of her dress, over her heart. “I can feel it.” Her eyes were wide when she turned to look at him.

  “Is there someone here? Did you see something? I’ll call security.”

  “It’s the doves.”

  “Doves?”

  “They’re like a bad omen.”

  “What doves?”

  “It’s like a vision, in my head. I can’t shake it. It’s worse when I close my eyes, but even with them open the doves are there, flying around and around in the moonlight, watching me with those little black eyes. And there’s…”

  Rory was afraid to tell him more, to tell him about the mammoth black gun and the blood-splattered doves twirling around it like a macabre maypole, about the near- hallucinogenic state of hyper-reality that unexpectedly surged within her and left just as quickly, leaving her feeling drained yet exhilarated, almost as if she’d had great sex.

  “Does this have anything to do with what happened upstairs?”

  Tears welled in her eyes. How could she explain to Tom that she felt as if she’d walked through an invisible membrane that separated the life she’d known from this terrifying yet extraordinary world? It was all too crazy.

  A bad omen, she said to herself. Get a grip, Rory.

  “I’m scaring you, Tom, but I don’t mean to. I’m stressed about this party. Tomorrow I’ll book a week at the Ojai Valley Inn, have massages, do yoga every day, and return as good as new.”

  He led her to a couch, where they sat. He took her hands between his. “You’re in no shape to get up on that stage. Richie and your mother can emcee. I’ll take you home.”

  “No.” She stood and smoothed her dress. “I’m fine.” It occurred to her that this was the first time she’d ever lied to him.

  “I can tell you’re not fine.”

  She walked to a table, where she poured water from a pitcher into a glass, her hands trembling. “I am fine. I’m not letting Richie take over for me. I won’t give him that advantage. I know he’s been trying to oust me as president of Langtry, the weasel, so he can put his cronies into the firm.”

  “I don’t give a rat’s ass what Richie thinks. My only concern is you.”

  “I had an anxiety attack or something. I’m over it. I just won’t close my eyes.” She widened her eyes at him, making a face.

  Tom didn’t smile.

  Rory smoothed her hair and checked her makeup in a wall mirror, making disparaging sounds.

  “You’re beautiful, as always, but you look tired,” he said.

  “I look like death.” The tossed-off comment gave her pause. She kissed him lightly on the lips. “Let’s go. Graehme must be frantic.”

  11

  The musicians left the stage for a break.

  Rory climbed the steps to the stage and crossed to a Lucite podium. The changing photo collage was still being projected onto a screen beside the stage.

  Tom took his seat at the head table near the dance floor, sitting with Evelyn, Richard, Paige, Richie, and Leland. He caught Rory’s eye, touched his fingers to his lips, and tipped them toward her.

  Rory smiled at him and, for a second, dropped her confident veneer, feeling shaky and uncertain. She tore her eyes from him, took a deep breath, and pulled herself together. Inside her head, hundreds of doves madly beat their wings. “Good evening,” she said into the microphone.

  The guests looked up from their salads. Conversations waned. A still photographer and a videographer attempted to unobtrusively find the best shots.

  “Good evening, ladies and gentlemen, family, friends, and honored guests. I’m Rory Langtry, president of Langtry Cosmetics. Welcome to the La Vie en Rose Ball for The Other Victims.”

  Rory waited for the applause to subside, the clapping accompanying the frantically beating wings in her mind.

  “My staff is passing out goodie bags that have lots of fun treats, including Langtry Cosmetics’ newest fragrance, which we have proudly named Anya. You’re receiving a limited-edition crystal bottle designed by my friend Chick Avril. The design is an interpretation of a hand reaching up, symbolizing grace, which is what the name Anya signifies.”

  Rory waited for the silver bags to be distributed. She reveled in the oohs and aahs when the guests began opening the gifts. Suddenly she couldn’t breathe. With the air she still had, she managed to get out, “Chick, where are you? Stand up.”

  She stepped back from the microphone on the pretense of clapping. She gasped. Little air came in. Rory felt as if something were stuck in her throat. She couldn’t breathe. While Chick Avril indulged in an extended bow, she went through the motions of lauding him as she tried not to panic.

  As quickly as the difficulty had started, it stopped, and she was able to breathe normally. But the thrumming of the birds went on, their shiny black eyes taunting. She cleared her throat and took a sip of water, avoiding Tom’s concerned eyes.

  “I also would like to extend my gratitude to my mother, Evelyn Langtry Tate, and her husband, Richard Tate, for letting us use their wonderful historic estate, the Villa del Sol d’Oro. Mom, Richard, take a bow.”

  Silvery feathers, dotted with blood. Cold black eyes, circling, circling. The handgun suspended in the middle. Rory’s head spun. She peeled one hand from where she was clutching the podium and turned as she gestured toward the screen. The photo collage now comprised images of just one woman.

  “Who could forget this face?”

  The photos flicked past. Thick raven hair. Almost too full lips. Narrow, dark eyes, the left angled higher than the right. The remote, supercilious attitude that couldn’t completely mask a shadow of vulnerability.

  The hundreds of guests were mesmerized. Some quietly expressed sadness or anger over the squandering of one of life’s rare jewels.

  “Who would want to forget?” Rory again faced front. “Anya Langtry was called the face of the century. She was on seven Vogue covers and ten Cosmopolitan covers, just to name a few. She was the muse and favorite runway model of top fashion designer Cody Highsmith. She had her pick of endorsement deals for major cosmetic lines, but she chose to be the face of Langtry, taking as her salary low-value stock options in m
y little start-up company when the big guys would have paid her the moon. Anya was beautiful. She was funny. And generous. She could be a complete pain in the ass. She was my twin sister. My only sister. And she was murdered. Five years ago this very night.”

  Rory saw the crowd through a tissue of circling birds. Whatever was coming, there was no stopping it now.

  She lost her place in her presentation. “Umm…Five years ago tonight, in an old section of Pasadena that the locals call Five Points, on the sixth floor of a building called the Killingsworth, in the home of a man my family and I considered a friend, at the age of twenty-five, Anya was shot to death. At that instant, my family joined an elite club that no one wants to belong to.

  “The Tates are luckier than most families of murder victims. We have money. We have influence. We have access to the best resources. Still, we endured the police investigation, the media scrutiny, the endless details—one never plans for the sudden death of someone so young—and, yes, the grief. The soul-shattering grief. Grief that time helps to lessen but, as all loved ones of a murder victim know, does not heal.”

  The photos dominated the stage.

  “Out of the ashes of this tragedy, a flower grew. The Other Victims was born. TOV provides legal, psychological, and financial help to the families of murder victims, our new family. Four years ago, my mother and I started the foundation by giving a tea for a few friends and asking them to take out their checkbooks. Since then, we’ve raised over twenty million dollars and have helped over a thousand families.”

  Applause rose and faded.

  “Tonight, I’m proud to announce that one hundred percent of the profits from the sales of Anya fragrance will be donated to The Other Victims. Now please join me in a moment of silence in remembrance of our lost loved ones.”

  Rory bowed her head and closed her eyes. The doves swirled, around and around her head, massing until there was nothing but feathers, beaks, and shiny black eyes, each eye reflecting an image of her, countless times over.

  Eyes still closed, Rory pressed the heels of her hands against her temples. She was powerless to break the spell. Above the sounds of the birds, she heard a voice she recognized. A voice from the past.

  “Say his name! All this talk about victims and you can’t even say his name, the biggest victim here. The man you said you loved. The man you promised to marry.” Danny bounded up onto the stage, taking the steps two at a time.

  “Hey!” Rory heard someone shout.

  A woman yelled, “That’s the brother.”

  “Rory!” Tom leaped from his chair and ran to the stage.

  Security officers sprinted across the lawn.

  Tom started up the stage steps with the officers on his heels just as Danny seized Rory around her waist with one of his arms. He grabbed the gun from his waistband and aimed it at the approaching men. “Get back.”

  Rory opened her eyes. “Danny. So, it’s you.”

  12

  Rory’s knees gave way, but Danny held her up. She struggled against him, but he held her too tightly.

  People ran, knocking over chairs and dragging tablecloths, sending centerpieces and salads onto the grass. Many called 911. Others started recording on their cell phones.

  “Take it easy, buddy,” Tom said, raising his hands.

  A security guard aimed his gun at Danny. “Set the gun down.”

  “You put that down.” Danny clutched Rory more tightly and jammed the barrel of the gun beneath her chin. “Get away or I’ll shoot her. I’ve got nothing to lose.”

  “Do what he wants,” Tom said to the guard.

  The guard set his weapon on the stage floor and raised his hands.

  “Everyone off the stage,” Danny said.

  Tom and the guard moved to stand on the steps.

  “Say it, Ro,” Danny said. “Tell them how you shot Junior, how you made him and our family victims, same as the people you’re giving this party for. Say it. Then we’ll see justice done right now. Right here.”

  Below, in the audience, Evelyn wailed and reached toward the stage as Leland pulled her away. Richie and Paige had already fled. The head table was empty.

  The photomontage of Anya was still being projected. Sensuous lips. Heavy-lidded eyes.

  “Say it!” Danny lifted Rory off her feet, strong in spite of his emaciated body. She squirmed in his grasp as they shuffled closer to the edge of the stage.

  A police helicopter buzzed in the sky overhead. Sirens in the distance grew louder.

  Tom remained a few yards away, his hands raised. “What do you want?”

  “You don’t even know who I am, do you?” Danny said to him. He lowered Rory so her feet were on the ground, but he still tightly held her.

  The doves were gone, but other visions appeared in Rory’s mind. Hazy images that looked like snippets of film taken with an old Super 8 home movie camera. Something told her to watch, watch with all her might. She pressed her eyes closed.

  “Hey, Rory.” Danny nudged the gun more forcefully under her chin. “Open your eyes. Be here. Junior, let her go.”

  “Pepitas,” Rory said, opening her eyes, frowning, confused why that word had entered her head along with an admonition: Say it.

  Police were swarming in now, taking position. A police officer on a bullhorn was talking to Danny.

  Rory looked beyond the chaos. She was there and not there. Nothing existed except her, Danny, and the visions.

  “Pepitas. You’re walking from a corner market. A neighborhood place. You and Junior. You’re around five or six. Junior would be…what? Eighteen. He buys you a bag of those salted pumpkin seeds.” She smiled. “Pepitas. That’s what they’re called.”

  Tom watched Rory, horrified and bewildered.

  Rory again closed her eyes. “You love your big brother. I see it in your face, the way you look at him.”

  “Stop it!” Danny yelled.

  “He lets you carry the bag, and you’re shoving seeds into your mouth. You’re passing a bottle of cold orange Crush back and forth. It’s a hot day.”

  Tears ran down Danny’s face. “Don’t do this to me, bro. Come on. It’s not gonna change what I gotta do.”

  The police officer’s voice through the bullhorn made as much sense to Rory as if he were a barking dog.

  Rory said, “You’re walking on the curb, trying to balance. The curb is high. You slip off it and twist your ankle. Junior picks you up. He carries you all the way home. Junior loves you, Danny. He wants you to be happy.”

  “Not fair, bro.” Danny cried harder, his tears dropping onto Rory’s chest. He moved the gun from beneath her chin to wipe his eyes with the back of his hand.

  There was the snap of a gunshot.

  Rory was jolted back to the here and now.

  Danny’s body slumped against her.

  Rory screamed.

  Danny dropped the gun and began to fall forward with his arm still around her, his grip reflexively tightening.

  Rory tried to push away but was being dragged. She was aware of Tom and others running toward them, but she knew they would get there too late. She felt a whisper of air as she went over the edge of the stage.

  There was an audible gasp as people watched in horror as the two bodies fell six feet to the dance floor. Danny hit first and Rory landed on top of him, her head smacking against the wooden tiles, her body rolling to rest beside his. Blood spread across the floor.

  13

  Police rushed in. Richard Tate stepped from his hiding spot in the hydrangeas behind the stage with his hands up, still holding his Para-Ordnance pistol.

  Tom ran from the stage and kneeled over Rory in the spreading pool of blood. She was breathing but unconscious. Tom didn’t know whether the blood was hers or Danny’s. Danny was clearly dead.

  Paramedics rushed to Rory and Danny. News helicopters competed for airspace above the estate.

  “Mr. Tate, very slowly set the gun on the ground in front of you,” an officer said, his gun drawn. “Cl
asp your hands on top of your head and slowly back away.” Other officers were in position, their guns raised.

  Richard followed the officer’s orders. As he stepped back from the gun, he said, “Hi, John. Hey, Bernie, is that you over there?”

  When Richard was a few yards from the gun, the officer who’d spoken to him holstered his gun and approached. “Kneel on the ground, Mr. Tate.”

  Richard dropped to his knees. “I don’t believe I know you, Officer.”

  “I’m Officer Glen Shortall.” He pulled one of Richard’s wrists behind his back, cuffed it, and did the same to the other wrist. “You have the right to remain silent…”

  Another officer recovered the pistol, picking it up with a pen in the trigger guard, and emitted a wolf whistle.

  “Guys, I saw my shot and I took it,” Richard said when Shortall had finished reciting his rights.

  “Looked like darn good shooting to me,” said the officer who was admiring the pistol.

  “How’s Rory?” Richard was still kneeling on the lawn behind the stage. He tried to peer around it. “Will somebody please find out how my stepdaughter is?”

  “Will do, Mr. Tate.”

  A sergeant approached. “What are you doing, Shortall? Get the cuffs off him.”

  Shortall quickly complied.

  “That’s okay, Alex. Er, Sergeant Burke,” Richard said. “Man’s just doing his job.” He took the hand that the sergeant offered to help him to his feet.

  The sergeant said, “We’ll have to ask you a few questions, Mr. Tate.”

  “Ask as many as you need.” Tate brushed off the knees of his tuxedo pants.

  Leland Declues approached and said to the sergeant, “I’m Mr. Tate’s attorney.”

  Sergeant Burke seemed surprised that an attorney was already there.

  Evelyn and Tom quickly walked beside the gurney on which Rory was being transported to a waiting ambulance. Evelyn shouted to Richard, “She’s alive but unconscious. I’m going with her.”

  “Sir, we’ll need to ask you a few questions.” An officer jogged to catch up with Tom.