to blame. That gun should’ve been locked up.”
“Oh, for Christ’s sake. She’s not a baby. She’s fourteen years old. More than old enough to know better.”
“She did know better. Better than to think her useless parents would ever protect her. They let that wolverine of a brother brutalize her for years.”
“Parents are only human. They can’t be everywhere and see everything.”
Or in Celeste’s case, much of anything. Of course, we weren’t just talking about the show. But I wasn’t in the mood to go for the real elephant in the room. And, as always, I’d been gritting my teeth so hard I’d given myself a headache. Time to get to the reason for her call. “What do you want, Celeste?” As if I didn’t know.
My mother invites me whenever they have an empty seat at one of their dinner parties. My stepfather, Jack Maynard, is a huge commercial real estate mogul, and he does a fair amount of entertaining to keep the wheels of commerce greased. Because he’s a decent, glass-half-full kind of guy, he insists these invitations are her way of reaching out to me. I know better. She just wants me because her buddies love to hear “insider” stories about the hot cases around town.
“I’m having some people over for dinner this Saturday. Nothing fancy, just a little get-together for some of Jack’s upper-level managers.”
First of all, in a mansion the size of two football fields, there’s no such thing as “nothing fancy.” You need to cater just to have someone move the food from the kitchen to the dining room. Second of all, if they were sacrificing a Saturday night, it would be at least a hundred of Jack’s closest friends. So this dinner was neither simple nor small. “Sorry, I can’t.” I considered telling her I’d just picked up a big case and I was too busy for one of her soirees. But she wouldn’t care. On a scale of one to ten-ten being most important to Celeste-my career rated a negative four. “I’ve got a date.”
“With that singer?”
“He’s a musician who also happens to sing.”
“What’s the difference? He’s a zero.”
Meaning: he’s got zero money. “He’s a good guy.” I knew what was coming. I mouthed the words as she said them.
“A ‘good guy’ won’t put you in a nice house. A ‘good guy’ won’t buy you a nice car-”
“No. He won’t. I will, Celeste.” But self-reliance was not a concept she embraced. Her lifelong aspiration had been to become dependently wealthy. The truth was, I’d already broken up with the musician. But I had no intention of telling her.
