The Secret Santa Read online

  That surprised me. I hadn’t known much about the case. I mean, how would I? I was less than a year old when it happened. I figured someone had gone to jail for killing her a long time ago. Liam said I should come over to his house in Malibu. We could watch JB documentaries in his home theater until the sun came up. It would be an important part of my education.

  “Sounds like a romantic first date,” I said.

  He laughed again.

  “First date, huh? In that case, I have something much better in mind.”

  Dodgers game followed by Indian food followed by moonlight drive to Malibu house. But no JB documentaries. It wasn’t until we’d been together about four months that I finally asked to watch them. He didn’t mention it, I’d like to think because our relationship had started to restore his faith in the goodness of humanity and he was focused on our future rather than some random dead girl’s past. But I was curious. We didn’t spend the night together very much—like I said, his sleep schedule was like Prince Lestat’s—but when we did share the same bed, he’d turn onto his side, and there would be JB staring at me with those huge saucer eyes. What exactly happened to you? I needed to know.

  Big mistake.

  Liam had a whole library of JB footage. I’m talking dozens of VHS tapes. (He had to explain to me what VHS was. I’d never heard of it before. The eighties were so weird.) Most of them were those cheesy true-crime network TV shows that only run on Saturday night. We watched all of them. Both of us were in between albums and tours, so we didn’t have much else to do. And for Liam it was research. He was planning to write an epic concept album based on JB which he would release on December 25, 2021—the twenty-fifth anniversary of her death. He saw the album as his magnum opus, the work that would define his career and cement his artistic legacy. He wasn’t going to announce it. He would drop it that night and surprise his fans. “Just like JonBenét had been surprised by her killer,” he told me, swearing me to secrecy. Ooops.

  The more we watched, the more I was convinced—knew, the family was somehow involved. So obvious. Liam raged against my theories; he thought it was an outsider. Hours and hours we’d argue, each of us getting firmer in our conviction.

  “What about the autopsy report?”

  “Forget the autopsy report. The key is the 9-1-1 call.”

  “Okay, well, what about the ransom note?”

  “What about it? Faked obviously.”

  “The boot print.”

  “Three words: Burke Fucking Ramsey.”

  Back and forth we’d go. Neither of us could let it go. I don’t know why. It was literally so stupid. We’d start raising our voices in exasperation and then the two pits would start barking, which would cause Pip to start yipping her head off until one of us picked her up and stormed out of the room. This happened often.

  Then one night I got a text.

  Zara, I’m afraid this isn’t going to work. I’ve enjoyed our time together but I can’t be with someone who sees the JB case the way you do. Pip should stay with you. It’s only right.

  You believe that? Dude can strip naked in front of a crowd of thirty thousand people and make himself bleed onstage but doesn’t have the balls to break up with me in person. I won’t lie. I was devastated. I stopped showering, just threw on sweatpants and put my hair in a gross, greasy bun whenever I had to leave the bungalow I rented in Santa Monica, which I tried to do as little as possible. I stayed inside bingeing on other true-crime documentaries. It was like a cleansing. I wanted to get the image of JB out of my head and figured the best way to do that was to fill it with images of other horrendous crimes. It sounds weird, I know. But, like I said, I was pretty wrecked. Not much from that time makes sense.

  When I wasn’t watching Investigation Discovery or 48 Hours or Dateline, I was blowing through every Netflix series and HBO doc I could find. My absolute favorite show was Power, Privilege and Justice. It had run for nine seasons through most of the 2000s, and now truTV showed reruns. It was hosted by this dandyish-looking Vanity Fair writer named Dominick Dunne and covered a lot of famous cases, like the Menendez brothers and Andrew Cunanan. But there were also really obscure ones I never heard of before.

  That’s how I first came across Claudine Longet. And that’s how I eventually wound up in Aspen with a different Claudine. My Claudine.

  And Henry. Poor, poor Henry.

  Henry

  It had been three weeks since the hospital. He wasn’t feeling any better.

  Turning off the shower, he wrapped a towel around his waist and, with a swipe of his fist, cleared enough fog from the mirror to see his reflection. His salt-and-pepper hair was slicked back, damp. He hadn’t been sleeping well. The dark circles under his eyes looked like bruises. Claudine wasn’t happy about that. She’d left a tube of her concealer out on the counter of the double vanity. He squeezed a dime-sized amount onto the back of his hand and dabbed it on.

  She brought her outfit for the party to the office, efficient to the core, but he decided to go home to change. He hoped a midday shower would give him energy, increase his focus. It didn’t. It just made him wet.

  Why was she making him go through this again?

  Their unspoken pact that had lasted over twenty years, broken without so much as a conversation.

  Three weeks earlier, they were meeting a client couple, the Flynns, at the seasonal Nobu pop-up restaurant at the St. Regis. This would have been their biggest sale in more than a year, an eight-million-dollar chalet near Buttermilk. Claudine had brought the papers and planned for them to sign during dessert. Henry didn’t make it that far. Just as they arrived at the restaurant, as he held the door open for Claudine, she told him the Lions had called and asked her to take the Montague House listing—and she had accepted. So casual. Just like that. Like it was no big deal. The moment she said the words, his chest tightened. He barely heard the conversation through the appetizers. All he could do was try to process what she’d told him.

  Why was she doing this? Hadn’t he done everything she asked? His designs were always getting better, keeping up with the latest technology, staying on the cutting edge of eco-friendly architecture that didn’t mar the beauty of the homes. Claudine sold him as a passionate, hands-on designer, one who built his houses side by side with the Alpine brothers. This was what set Calhoun + Calhoun apart from other Aspen realty firms. The clients loved how much Henry cared about his work. Loved meeting him and getting to socialize with such an accomplished architect. He hated it. Despised small talk. Hated schmoozing. The way Claudine paraded him around. Having to sit through god-awful dinners like this one with the Flynns. But had he ever complained? Had he ever refused her? In their personal lives as well as in work, never. Claudine didn’t want kids and she definitely didn’t want pets. Fine. So be it. He loved her. Didn’t she love him? If she did, how could she bring Montague House back into their lives? He knew business was hurting, but unearthing their past, and in such a public way, threatened everything, especially the delicate psychic edifice they had spent years constructing.

  That was their most impressive structure. The lie. It was more complex and intricate than any home he had ever designed. Now Claudine was about to risk burning it down, setting it ablaze and incinerating them with it.

  He couldn’t breathe. His left arm had started to tingle. The waiter set down their entrées, and the last thing he remembered was thinking Claudine’s eyelashes looked exceptionally long, her lids closing as she blinked.

  “Henry?” Her voice was behind a veil.

  Then blackness.

  When he came to, the paramedics were standing over him. He was sprawled among the food and plates that had crashed to the floor, and the Flynns had gone home. The blank look on Claudine’s face. That look. What a disappointment he was. She didn’t ride in the ambulance. Didn’t even come to the hospital until the following morning. Said she’d been trying to salvage the sale. No luck. The scene he’d made had tainted the deal. That didn’t surprise him. That was A
spen. It was all about keeping up appearances.

  “You didn’t even have a heart attack,” she said brusquely. Even in sickness he had fallen short. She stood over his hospital bed, not bothering to take off her coat. Burberry? Chanel? Diane Von Whoever? He could never tell them apart. Could never tell why that designer stuff meant so much to Claudine. She’d look beautiful wearing a burlap sack. He knew she wanted to leave as quickly as possible, couldn’t stand being around so much frailty and weakness, so many suggestions of her own mortality. “Just stress. A simple panic attack. You’re fine.”

  “No I’m not,” Henry said. “You know I’m not. I haven’t been for a long time.”

  That was all they said about it. Which was still more than they had ever said about it.

  No part of him wanted to go to this holiday party, tonight. On the bed she had set out what she wanted him to wear. A green crushed-velvet jacket and black bow tie. Instead, he went to the closet and picked out a black cashmere turtleneck—a small act of defiance. She’d sworn to him, after they had sold it to the Lions all those years ago, that he would never have to go to Montague House again. It wasn’t the first time she’d lied to him; that was his initial thought. But that wasn’t entirely true. She never lied about Steve. She didn’t have to. Henry never confronted her about him.

  Instead he started drinking. Twenty-three years after he gave it up, could he ever use a shot right now. Something to give him the courage to walk back into that house.

  Maybe it was a good thing. Maybe being there was just what he needed. Maybe it would be cathartic. Seeing the staircase, the chandelier, each and every detail he had so carefully chosen and crafted—maybe it would bring back memories of what exactly happened that night after they pulled up to the cabin and his mind went blank. That was the worst part. He couldn’t remember anything. All he had were the newspaper reports and Claudine’s version. Nothing else. Just a total vacuum. All these years he had to use his imagination to fill in the blanks, and maybe what actually happened wasn’t as bad as what he imagined. It couldn’t be any worse.

  Yes, he needed to look at it like this. That going back to Montague House would give him answers. Be some final step that makes him whole again. He had tried just about everything else. Served on the board of the local Habitat for Humanity chapter. Started an after-school architecture program at an underserved high school. Yet no amount of charitable work provided a feeling of absolution. There was no path to redemption. Of course, there was one thing he hadn’t tried: confessing. But he couldn’t do it. Placing that burden on someone was selfish. He had altered enough lives. And, more important, confessing would expose Claudine. Implicate her, when she had only been trying to help. Only looking to protect him. He was willing to suffer if that meant she didn’t have to. That secrecy was why he couldn’t do AA. Step 5: “Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.” No problem on those first two. But to another human being? Impossible.

  He wandered into the living room and stared at the black-and-white wedding photo that hung above the mantel. A lifetime ago. Their laugh was hard and real, neither looking at the camera. Her head thrown back, eyes closed. Her hair back then was long, wild with curls, perfectly tangled. He was holding his stomach, face full of laughter, his eyes closed, too, his head finding temporary relief on her shoulder. What was so funny? Had he said it or had she? Another memory lost.

  There was one more possible solution he hadn’t tried. He realized it lying there in the hospital. It was so obvious. Hard to believe he hadn’t thought of it before. Sell the business. Or don’t even sell it. Just abandon it. Just don’t show up to the office one day. Quit Aspen. Quit Colorado. Hell, quit the country. Thousands of days hadn’t made him feel any better. Maybe thousands of miles would. He and Claudine amid a new landscape, new people, a new routine. They could slow down, breathe. Rest. Wasn’t that what the doctor had recommended? This was the dirty art of aging. He’d been spending so much time with Jules at the office lately, it was hard not to compare how thirty years look between faces. The soft glow of Jules’s young skin hadn’t been tortured with years of fighting internal demons. His name was on more than one of the deep lines near Claudine’s left eye, knowing it was a result of her selflessness, internalizing too much responsibility for what was Henry’s crime. But still, convincing Claudine would be hard. She refused to admit they were getting older, indulged in cutting-edge facials, and every week drank bottles of collagen. She certainly had no interest in retiring. This whole ordeal with the pop star proved how hell-bent she was to turn things around. Aspen and the business—that wasn’t just Claudine’s identity; it was her destiny. Henry knew that was how she saw it. How she had to see it in order to justify all that had happened to get them there.

  He tried to bring up his plan that morning. It went as well as expected.

  “Why don’t we go somewhere?”

  “You know we can’t afford a vacation right now.”

  “I don’t mean a vacation. I mean, why don’t we go somewhere for good? Leave Aspen.”

  If Claudine was having an emotion about what he just said, her face wasn’t processing it. Then a small sigh of disappointment escaped her, and she said, “Pull yourself together, Henry. You’re needed tonight.”

  Why couldn’t he say what he really wanted? Help me, Claudine. You saved me once. I need you to save me again—for good this time.

  “And don’t forget your Secret Santa gift,” she said before leaving.

  That ridiculous game. The way she tried to use it to create a power struggle among their staff and retain her dominance. Henry always hated it, and even more so now, after being in the hospital, fearing for his life, realizing what was important and what wasn’t. The mention of the Secret Santa made him even more resolved to get out. No, it wouldn’t be easy to convince Claudine. But there was no choice. He would have to prove that to her. He grabbed his gift and left for the office. This would be his last year picking a number.

  Zara

  How had the Aspen murder of Spider Sabich at the hand of beautiful French pop starlet Claudine Longet been forgotten? There was no podcast. No Ryan Murphy series. Just that Power, Privilege and Justice episode, which I watched like five times. What a rich mess it all was, a town full of movie stars and moguls, pearls and parties. Traces of cocaine. A rumor of relationship problems. An inadmissible diary. Unreal. Let me set the scene.

  It’s the 1970s. Spider Sabich (real name Vladimir) is a golden-boy pro skier with blond locks and a winning smile. Sexy, fast, fearless. Former world champion and Olympian. He falls in love with Claudine Longet, this beautiful Parisienne who had moved to America a decade or so earlier to become an actor but first was a Vegas showgirl. It was there in Sin City that she met Andy Williams. Andy was a really popular singer—sort of a more square Sinatra. He had like a TV variety show and was especially beloved for his Christmas albums. Andy and Claudine got hitched and her singing career took off. I know how this business works and there’s a lot of nepotism. But in Claudine’s case she deserved it. She released a few albums, some with these really melancholy, ethereal covers of songs by the Rolling Stones, Joni Mitchell, and the Beach Boys. Sounds a lot like what Nico was doing with the Velvet Underground or what Brigitte Bardot was doing with Serge Gainsbourg. Claudine was just as gorgeous and fashionable—short skirts, tall boots—but maybe because she was married to a more strait-laced guy like Andy she never got the same cool-kid cred.

  She and Andy had three children and were married for like thirteen years, then divorced in the mid-seventies. That’s when she hooked up with Spider. Moved with the kids into his mansion in Starwood. Which was like Aspen’s version of Beverly Hills. Seemed like a sure second chance for love, but it turned deadly. One night, with all the kids in the house, Spider was shot dead with a replica World War II pistol. That is a real fact. Claudine said it was a horrible accident. They were in the bathroom. She was just showing him the gun, or he was teaching her how
to use it? Anyway, it went off. He died on the way to the hospital. She was charged with manslaughter and the trial became national news. On the cover of People and everything. Andy was by her side the whole time, walking her in and out of the courthouse. “She needs me very much right now,” he told the magazine. “I’m going to be as supportive as I can.” He had nothing but nice things to say about Spider. But, there was hot gossip. Seems Spider had been preparing to end things; lately their relationship had been stormy. The police even seized her diary, which supposedly contained a lot of details that didn’t make her look very good. It was thick with anxiety. The court ruled it inadmissible, though, and after a four-day trial Claudine was convicted of negligent homicide, a misdemeanor, and given like a twenty-five-dollar fine and thirty days in jail, which she could do “at a time of her own choosing.”

  I read everything I could about the trial. Bought a copy of that People on eBay and even paid for a subscription to the New York Times to access their digital archives. I really hated giving them money, since their review of my first album was a total hit piece, but I had to know everything I could about this woman. Whenever anyone thinks of Aspen, they always think of that old, dead dude Hunter who they shot out of a cannon and his flameout pirate sidekick Johnny who—ew, gross—tried to mack on me once in London at a Soho House. But those guys are boring compared to Claudine Longet. Not only did she beat a murder rap, she then married one of her defense lawyers. You can’t get more gonzo than that.