A Playdate With Death Read Free

his acting income; it had soon become his career. And if I’m anything to go by, Bobby was good at what he did. I’d gained over sixty pounds with my second pregnancy, and despite the fact that Isaac was now well over two years old, before I met Bobby, I hadn’t managed to lose more than half of it. He’d put me on a kooky diet that involved eating a lot of egg-white omelets and set me on a workout program that was having remarkable results. I could actually see my feet if I looked down. And craned my neck. And leaned a bit forward. Anyway, it was working for me. But that’s not why I kept coming back. Before Bobby, I’d quit every exerciseregime I’d ever begun, despite the fact that they all showed at least some results. I kept seeing Bobby because I liked him. He was a sweet, gentle man with a ready hug and an arsenal of delightfully dishy Hollywood gossip. He remembered everything I told him and seemed genuinely to care about what I’d done over the weekend or how Isaac’s potty training was progressing. He was interested and attentive without being remotely on the make. He gave me utterly platonic and absolutely focused male attention.
    A few months before that horrible morning, Bobby had asked for my advice as a criminal defense lawyer. He was a recovered drug user and an active member of Narcotics Anonymous, where he’d met his fiancée Betsy, and he’d asked me for help on her behalf. She’d fallen off the wagon and tried to make a buy from an undercover cop. The good news was that she never actually got the drugs. The bad news was that she found herself in county jail. I was thrilled at the opportunity to help Bobby after all he’d done for me, and I’d gotten them in touch with a good friend of mine from the federal public defender’s office who had recently hung out her own shingle. Last I’d heard, Betsy’s case had been referred to the diversion program. If she remained clean for a year and kept up with NA, it would disappear from her record.
    Betsy and Bobby’s place was in Hollywood, not too far from my own duplex in Hancock Park. I gave a little shudder as I climbed the rickety outdoor staircase up to their apartment. The building was made of crumbling stucco held together with rotted metal braces. The doors of each unitwere dented metal, spray painted puce. The floor tile in the hallway was cracked, and large chunks were missing. Given the Los Angeles real estate market, they probably paid at least fifteen hundred a month to live in this dump.
    Betsy opened the door and fell into my arms, a somewhat awkward endeavor since she was at least six inches taller than I. I led her inside and found myself face-to-face with two police officers. The cops took up much more space than it seemed they should have. The instruments hooked on to their black leather belts—the guns, billy clubs, radios, and other accoutrements of the LAPD—seemed to blow them up all out of human proportion. They were planted on the electric green carpet like a couple of bulls in a too-small pasture. I squeezed by one of the pneumatically enlarged officers and lowered Betsy onto the light beige leather couch, where she folded in on herself like a crumpled tissue.
    I turned back to the men. “I’m Juliet Applebaum. I’m a friend of Betsy and Bobby’s.”
    One of the officers, a man in his late twenties with a buzz cut so short and so new that his ears and neck looked raw, nodded curtly. “We’re here to escort Betsy on down to the station so she can give a statement.”
    I turned to the weeping girl. “Betsy, honey? Do you want to go with the officers?”
    She shook her head, buried her face in her hands, and slumped over on the couch.
    “I don’t think Betsy’s quite ready for that,” I said in a firm voice.
    The officer shook his head and, ignoring me, leaned overBetsy’s prone form. “It’ll just take a few minutes. The detectives are waiting for you.” He managed to sound both menacing and polite at the same