Silent Witness Read Free Page A

P.M.
    “I ’LL HAVE THE KUNG Pao Chicken,” Janice said. “And rice. And we’ll start with the shark fin soup.”
    The waitress nodded, wrote the order in Chinese characters on her order pad, and turned to Paula Brett. Sipping tea from a porcelain cup, Janice watched Paula frown at the enormous red menu with its two golden tassels. Even when they were little girls, and had ridden their bikes to McDonald’s during the long vacation days of summer, Paula had always been slow deciding what to order.
    How reassuring it was to be with someone whose presence brought back those youthful memories. Their fathers had been classmates at Yale, lifetime friends. Paula’s father had taken a Ph.D. and gone on to teach at UCLA, a professor of sociology. Her own father had gone into banking, then into finance, finally founding his own venture capital business, based in Los Angeles. He’d specialized in electronics, and had prospered: a millionaire at thirty, a multimillionaire ten years later. The family had moved to Santa Barbara soon after Connie was born, when Janice was six, and just beginning first grade. The Bretts always spent a week or two each summer with them, either in Santa Barbara, sailing and swimming, or at the Hales’ ranch in the San Ysidro Mountains behind Santa Barbara, riding and hiking. The three girls had always been required to do regular chores. Chester, the ranch foreman, had been a stern taskmaster. Her father and mother had never failed to back up Chester’s work schedules—and the penalties he imposed, for work done badly. At the funeral service for her parents, she had insisted that Chester sit in the same pew with her and Connie and their Aunt Florence, the first pew, ordinarily reserved for family. At first Florence had objected, but only briefly.
    At Connie’s funeral, in the family pew, there had only been her and John—and Dennis. Chester had died, and Florence was infirm.
    Having finally ordered, Paula handed the menu to the waitress, who bowed ceremoniously and withdrew.
    “This is a beautiful restaurant,” Paula said. She pointed to a nearby four-panel screen, carved teak, and jade. “Look at that screen. It’s a museum piece. And the food’s famous. Really famous.”
    “Santa Barbara has one decent Chinese restaurant. San Francisco has a hundred. More than a hundred, probably.”
    “It’s a wonderful city, really,” Paula said. “I like Los Angeles. Malibu will always be home. But San Francisco’s something special.”
    “You didn’t talk like that when you first came here.”
    Paula shrugged. She was a small woman, slim and full-breasted, almost perfectly proportioned, still—at age thirty-four. But Paula was a woman who chose not to put her body on public display. Even as a teenager, when the world revolved around the appreciative appraisal of the male, Paula had dressed as she was dressed now: in clothing calculated to suggest the body beneath, but not to flaunt it. Some women dressed for men. Some dressed first for themselves, then for men.
    “It was hard, when I first came here,” Paula was saying. “I guess I felt pretty sorry for myself.”
    “Most people do, after a divorce.”
    The other woman nodded, but made no reply. In her eyes Janice could see the shadow of a sadness that, during the last years of Paula’s marriage, had revealed a wound to the spirit that her family and friends had feared might never heal. Her husband had been a screenwriter: talented, successful—and utterly amoral. Would Alan Bernhardt, the playwright, fit the same description? Had one mistake compounded into two? Such things happened, Janice knew.
    The waitress arrived, and served their soup. The waitress’s smile was delicate as the porcelain she handled with such gentle deftness. They sampled the soup, and judiciously approved. Then they exchanged a smile, signifying that the time had come to discuss the matters at hand.
    Janice spoke first: “So tell me about Alan Bernhardt.” She