The Museum of Desire

Chapter 46

Identifying Jane Leavitt had been easy: On the Daylighters’ website, her face was displayed prominently above the motto Vanquish Breast Cancer!

Executive chairperson of the group. For the past five years, also head of the steering committee for the group’s annual Newer Than New Year’s Fling.

No listing for Candace Walls Kierstead, despite her claim. I’d also failed to find verification of dancing ballet in San Francisco.

Reaching Jane Leavitt had proved a challenge. She hadn’t responded to Milo’s calls of a few days ago; his emails remained unanswered as did voicemails left on the group’s business number.

I gave it a shot, texting an oncologist I’d worked with at Western Pediatric Medical Center and asking her to call Warren Giacomo, M.D., professor of clinical medicine at the U. and the Daylighters’ medical advisor.

Giacomo phoned me at one forty-five p.m. He proved to be a genial sort who’d heard about the Benedict murders and termed them “unbelievable, way too close for comfort.” He had no idea who Candace Kierstead was but assured me, “Jane’s a sweetheart, let me see what I can do.”

I said, “So it’s a good group?”

“Sterling. Older demographic, mostly survivors and relatives. They’ve been extremely generous and once they give money they’re not pushy about how to spend it. So the police think something happened at their party?”

“They do.”

“Wow, I was there,” said Giacomo. “Now that you mention it, Jane did seem upset toward the end of the evening. I didn’t push it. Golden goose and all that. Let me try her personal email.”

“I really appreciate it.”

“No prob, I live on the 500 block of Roxbury. Not a hop-skip but close enough to give my wife and daughters serious creeps.”

Three minutes later, a 310 number flashed on my phone screen.

A throaty voice said, “Dr. Alex Delaware, this is Mrs. Jane Leavitt. Dr. Giacomo informs me you wish to talk about our last fundraiser.”

“That and Candace Kierstead.”

“You bet, sir. Four p.m. You darn well bet.”

The house was a half-timbered, fieldstone-faced, slate-roofed Tudor on the 800 block of North Camden Drive in the Beverly Hills flats. The English gentry thing was thrown awry by a dense palm forest out front. L.A. improvisation, part of what makes the city great.

A pearl-gray Lexus LX was parked in an impeccably clean driveway. A bumper sticker read Kill Cancer!

Before I got to the front door a woman opened it. Seventy or so and tiny — five feet tall, ninety pounds after gorging. A narrow, powdered face was topped by a stiff, black bouffant that swelled like a turban. She wore a pale-blue sweater set, pink quilted Chanel flats, and silver lorgnette opera glasses suspended from a seed-pearl chain.

“Dr. Delaware, Jane.” Quick once-over. Sly smile. “You’re so young. And handsome!” A bird-hand grasped mine and shook with astonishing vigor. Maintaining her grip, she swung me toward the entrance.

As I stepped in, Jane Leavitt’s arm slipped through mine. Chanel perfume. Lots of it.

She half pulled, half pushed me through a foyer with niches holding urns, then down three steps to a sunken living room that looked out to a walled garden crammed with more palms.

Expensive interior decades ago, now charmingly dated: hand-scored, peg-and-groove pecan floors, walls covered in linenfold pickled oak, a coffered ceiling of the same wood. Chairs and sofas were upholstered in velvet, paisley, and bright florals. A Chagall fiddler painting looked real, as did a Warhol soup can, a Lichtenstein comic strip send-up, and a massive Frank Stella chevron.

Candace Kierstead had set out graham crackers and coffee. Jane Leavitt had turbocharged the concept of hospitality.

A silver-and-glass coffee table was laden with bone china plates of croissants, raisin bread, sesame flatbread, and brioche rolls. A tub of soft butter sat next to a tub of strawberry preserves. Gigantic purple grapes were presented in triads dangling from stems, haloing slices of cheese arranged like the folds of a geisha’s fan. In addition to all that, bowls of nuts and dried fruits and pink meat sliced tissue-thin.

“Parma ham, Doctor, if you’re a protein person.”

All that food but nothing to drink. Then a hefty, middle-aged blond maid in a black, white-lace-trimmed uniform appeared carrying a flute-edged gilt tray.

“The Blue, ma’am.”

Jane Leavitt said, “Thank you, Sophie. Cream and sugar, Doctor?”

“Black’s fine, thanks.”

“A man of discretion and taste,” said Jane Leavitt, advertising first-rate bridgework. “With the finest coffee there’s no need for dilution. This is the highest grade of Blue Mountain. My husband, rest his soul, was in the coffee and tea business. I can still obtain anything.”

I smiled. The maid poured. Jane Leavitt raised her cup and I did the same.

We sipped. She purred. Put her cup down. “Try the grapes, Doctor. They’re from a sustainable farm in Chile and they’re fabulous.”

No sense bucking authority. I plucked and tasted. “Delicious.”

“Stan also wholesaled fruit. And nuts. All kinds of high-end comestibles. I sold the companies but I’ve maintained my connections and I employ them. As in our fundraiser. Our appetizer buffet is legendary.”

I smiled again.

She said, “You really are handsome.” Sharp, brown eyes lowered to my hands. “I don’t see a ring.”

“I’m in a relationship.”

“Alas.” Theatrical sigh. “No surprise there, the good ones are always taken. Please don’t find me cheeky, I have a terrible habit of inquiring for my daughter.”

She pointed to a large silver-framed photo displayed conspicuously behind the food. Marilyn Monroe look-alike in a strapless black dress.

Gorgeous woman but haunted eyes.

“That’s my Karen. It was taken professionally back when she thought she’d be an actress. Now she’s studying to be a therapist. Not like you, a Ph.D. She’s finishing her B.A. in communications and plans to work with drug rehab patients.”

A wave of anxiety washed across chalky skin. “Based on her own experiences. You understand.”

“I do.”

“Oh, well, I suppose it might work out,” said Jane Leavitt. “Provide her a certain level of experience that could help others. But I do wonder about her being exposed to the wrong people. What do you think, Doctor?”

“I don’t want to be evasive, Ms. Leavitt, but I don’t know enough about your daughter to pontificate.”

She laughed. “Pontificate. I like that. Spoken like a true cautious scientist — Warren’s like that. Dr. Giacomo. Can’t be pinned down. Very scientific, everything must be verified and reverified and what’s the word — replicated. I respect him for that and I see you’re cut from the same cloth — have some cheese. It’s from a Basque village where the goats are pampered.”

Again, I obeyed.

Jane Leavitt said, “So. You want to know about her. What exactly has she done?”

“I’m afraid I’m going to have to be evasive again.”

“Fair enough,” she said. “But obviously if the police send a psychologist, it’s got to be something nasty and bizarre. Good. I want the full weight of the law brought down upon her. I want her to reap the fruits of her rotten character.”

Angry words but a serene tone.

I said, “Something happened at the fundraiser.”

“The fundraiser is important to our cause — more than that, it’s vital. The moneys we raise go straight into research. We underwrite every bit of overhead, not a penny goes toward administration. Last January we welcomed a small but promising crop of potential donors. The fundraiser was our opportunity to put on our best face and she nearly ruined it and for that I can never forgive her.”

“What did she do?”

“She allowed some of her low-life friends to crash and they... oh, why beat around the bush, they had an orgy.”

“Really.”

“Well,” she said, “perhaps that’s an exaggeration, but not much of one.”

She took a deep breath, placed a hand on her chest. “Everything was going along swimmingly. I run a tight ship, brief speeches, no dead time, a wonderful band versed in the American Song Book. Ample drink as well but everyone tipples in moderation. We’re a mature group, Doctor. That’s our hallmark. Maturity. I shouldn’t have listened to her in the first place.”

“About what?”

“About allowing her to get involved. She was pushy, that alone should’ve been the tip-off, I don’t do pushy. But she caught me at a bad time. Karen was just out — no matter, she convinced me. The first thing she screwed up was the venue. In the past, we’ve used members’ homes, so many of our members have lovely homes. She convinced me to try something new. That hideous pseudo-castle, she knew the owners because they’d bought art from her and that tight-sphinctered husband of hers so we could get it at deep discount. When she told me the figure, I said, why not, be adventurous. Because with members’ homes we have to take out serious insurance.”

“How did Candace come to the group?”

“She emailed me, said breast cancer research was their passion, a first wife of his had died of it. So when I met him at the fundraiser I offered my sympathy and empathy but he gave me a blank look. As if he had no idea what I was talking about. Then, as if he was trying to cover for himself, he said oh, yes, that was terrible, Gertrude would be so pleased. That should’ve tipped me off. Gertrude? When’s the last time you heard of a woman under eighty named Gertrude? But as I said, I was distracted. Plus I give people the benefit.”

Her jaws clenched. “Until they prove otherwise. After that?” She rubbed her palms together then let each hand fly. “Good riddance to bad rubbish.”

I said, “The party crashers—”

“Two of them. A lounge lizard and a floozy with blue hair and a Pillsbury Doughboy face. Clearly neither of them was one of us. She let them in, the layout of that hideous dump, it was impossible to monitor. All the cars jamming up on Benedict — have you seen the place?”

“I have.”

“Vulgar. The interior was gloomy and the outside lighting skimpy. Lesson learned, next year we’ll be using one of our members’ manses in the Palisades designed by Wallace Neff. Wesley and Denise have their own personal vineyard and we’ll be tasting their private reserves — try the bleu, Doctor. It really is yum.”

She watched with satisfaction as I obliged. After swallowing the dry morsel, I said, “This orgy—”

Jane Leavitt’s eyes danced with merriment. “I suppose I must get into details.”

She took her time selecting a macadamia nut from a bowl, bit it in half, and chewed one fragment thoughtfully. The other she placed on her plate.

“I discovered it by mere chance. Looking for her. She’d promised me more than enough Chardonnay and we were falling short and I wondered if it was stashed somewhere in that vault of a place.”

A tongue-tip moistened her lips. “I looked all over that dreadful property, finally spotted something going on at the back. Correction, I heard something. Such poor lighting, one couldn’t see until one got up close.”

Deep sigh. “Now you’ll want to know what I heard. All right, here goes. Grunts, gutturals, vulgar heavy breathing.” Another sigh, longer, louder. “I suppose I must get into further details.”

“Not if it makes you uncomfortable—”

“I volunteer with cancer patients, Doctor. Nothing makes me uncomfortable.”

Another tongue flick.

“What I saw was a disgusting scene. Lounge lizard and floozy were...” She gave a limp wave. “No sense shilly-shallying, Karen’s always telling me to be direct, it’s the modern way.” Wink wink. “What I saw was the two of them standing up and fucking like bunny rabbits.”

Moving her index finger back and forward. “They were panting like heart attack victims. His family jewels were jiggling. Then I saw it wasn’t just the two of them. She was kneeling behind him with her head up there like a badger nosing for bugs.”

“Candace Kierstead.”

“That’s who we’re talking about, right?” said Jane Leavitt, inching back and luxuriating in the memory. Another half a macadamia nut entered her mouth to be slowly pulverized.

“Yum. From the Big Island... where was I... oh, yes, the badger. I was at loss for words and trust me, Doctor, that doesn’t happen often. What did I do? I just stood there. Appalled. Then I told myself, Jane, leadership comes with responsibility, so I cleared my throat.”

Sitting up straighter, she demonstrated, producing the growl of a semi with a busted ignition.

“You can bet that got their attention, Doctor. The three of them jumped up, began zipping and buttoning and straightening and whatnot. That was something to see.”

Soprano laughter ended in an operatic trill.

“It could’ve been a terrible blot on my fundraiser but thank goodness no one else realized what had happened. Even, I suppose, her husband, because he was nowhere to be found. Looking back, I suppose there’s some comedy to the whole thing. But that’s memories for you. Like fine wine, they taste so much better with age.”

“Absolutely. So they all left.”

“I allowed Iguana and Pie-Face to scoot their derrieres away, but when she tried to leave, I blocked her and gave her my blue-ribbon stare-down, Karen calls it the death ray.”

Cashmere sleeves clamped over a pigeon-chest. Her face took on the steely frown of a dyspeptic drill sergeant.

“I just stood there and dressed her down visually. She knew her goose was cooked. Finally, when she was starting to wilt, I said, ‘Go and never come back.’ And that was it.”

I thought: You have no idea.