I gave him a hug and reached out for the autopsy report as he left.
Back in my bed, under my covers I could barely resist the urge to shut my eyes, but before I turned out the light, I glanced quickly through the lightly printed pages. It was all medical jargon. I wouldn’t understand a thing until I went through it carefully, word by word. That would have to wait until morning, I thought. Who could follow it with a brain half-asleep? The words danced on the page, making no sense. I pulled myself back to consciousness and gave one more half-hearted try at understanding the medicalese.
The word my eyes fell on was one that I did understand. There! I could comprehend this damn report, I exulted, as I slammed it down on my dresser and turned off the light. “…vasectomy…” I know what that medical term means. “Subject had vasectomy performed approx. fifteen years ago.” That was easy enough to understand.
But, hold on. Wait a minute! Something was terribly wrong. How had a man with a fifteen-year-old vasectomy produced a four-year-old son?
Chapter 23
I had slept fitfully, tossing the quilts and pillows onto the floor, waking often to find out why it was so cold. Each time, it took longer to drift back to sleep, too many questions, swirling into nervous patterns, keeping me semi-awake.
I must have drifted off because once again I awoke with a start. This was ridiculous. I decided just to get up no matter what the time. I checked my watch. It was after nine. Apparently all that wakefulness during the night had been followed by a deep dreamless sleep.
Thoughts of Bruno and Carmen and Bruno and Lily and Bruno and “his backup”—me—kept me confused during my quick shower. I wrapped a thick terrycloth towel around myself and padded barefoot to my bedroom. The message machine was winking the number 5 from under yesterday’s red flowered dress. I must have missed it last night.
I don’t know about everyone else, but I get a small thrill of pleasure when I discover I’ve got phone messages. Maybe someone wonderful has life-shakingly good news. Phone machines bring out the optimist in me.
Pushing the buttons, I listened to the tape rewind and then click. The first message was from Arlo at 6:06 yesterday evening: “I’m completely exhausted. I hate my job. I hate this script. I hate television. I’d like to just end my life. Say, do you have any leftovers from that Huntley party? Don’t call me. I may be dead. See ya.”
I smiled. It was a typical Sunday night call from Arlo. He could get way too involved in the problems of writing sitcoms.
Message number two came in at 7:10. “Hello. This is Lily Huntley. Sorry to bother you, Madeline, but I didn’t know who to call. I’ve asked Maria to box up the cookware for you. You know, the copper pots that Bruno wanted you to have. Shall I have someone bring them by?
“Oh, and something else. The older Huntley boys came over a little while ago with a court order demanding to take blood samples from Lewis and myself. Can you believe they got a judge to move on a Sunday? Anyway, I didn’t see any reason to resist. After all, they seem to be implying that Lewis is not Bruno’s son, and I happen to know that is absolutely absurd. So let them spend their money and prove I’m right.
“But then I got to thinking…Is this a mistake? I just really value your opinion. You see, Bruno usually made all the…Well, now I feel silly for even mentioning it. Sorry to waste your time.
“I’ll have the pots delivered. Have a nice evening.”
I stopped searching for my black and white gingham-checked shirt and replayed the message from Lily. Poor thing. What was she going on about? She had to know that Bruno had a vasectomy. I mean the scars from those things are visible, aren’t they? So whose baby did she think Lewis was?
I thought of calling her right then, but there were still three messages left unheard from who knows whom? Could be a call from the Clintons. Chelsea’s fallen in love with her psych professor at Stanford. They’re thinking a lavish White House wedding. What about a champagne breakfast for twenty-five hundred to follow the ceremony? Could we possibly do the first family this personal favor and fly to Washington and take charge?
Hiding between several empty dry cleaning bags hanging in my living room closet, I found the shirt I was looking for. Coming back to the machine, I played the next message.
It was from 7:24. “This is Wes. Where are you? I gotta hear if you inherited the earth! I’m coming over.”
Wes. Not exactly the hoped-for first couple requiring party tips.
I was zipping into a pair of black denim shorts. It seemed appropriate for November in L.A.
The next message was from the Whitley Heights Association. I listened to it as I looked under my bed for my low-cut black boots. They were still fighting the good fight to get better sound walls put up between my house and the Hollywood Freeway. Could I make food for the next meeting?
My thrills-per-message possibilities were dwindling. Such are the perils of high phone machine expectations.
My boots were gone, I remembered. I opened the closet in my bedroom and found a pair of sneakers that were still almost white. I tied them, folding the white athletic socks down as the fifth message played. It had been left at 9:25 this morning. I must have just missed the call when I’d stepped into the shower.
“This is Chuck Honnett. Got a few pieces to the puzzle. First, we found the bottle of brandy. That fancy Armagnac stuff was in a cut crystal decanter in the liquor cabinet like you said. We took it, and the lab is going over it today.
“Second, well, I probably shouldn’t tell you this, but according to the autopsy report, which is currently under seal, the stomach contents did contain brandy. It’s not official or anything. But, for my money that’s one you got right. So, well…Thanks. If there’s any more you can tell me about the shooting yesterday, call me.”
That was it. I was right about the Armagnac. I knew it!
I still had to leave a witty message for Arlo and call back Lily, but I decided they could wait until after I’d gotten something together for breakfast. I walked down the stairs and almost made it to the kitchen when I heard the doorbell.
In my driveway was a blue van. Standing at the door was Lily. Behind her, stacking up boxes and returning to the van to get more, was a man in his thirties. He looked familiar. He was dark and boyishly handsome, like an overage jock. He wore jeans and a plaid flannel shirt.
Lily saw me staring at him and made a quick introduction. “Madeline, haven’t you met Don Dana? He’s a runner at Bruno’s company. He’s worked for us for years.”
In T.V., a runner is an entry-level job. He’s the slave who picks up the producer’s chopped salad from La Scala Presto and makes the torturous drive to the deep Valley at rush hour to deliver a script to an actress they’re trying to interest in a part, even though everyone knows she’ll never do it. Because it’s so tough to break into the business, these lowly runners jobs are often filled by kids hired right out of prestigious film schools. It usually takes these kids about six months of getting lunch for people less talented than they are until they either find a way to claw themselves up to the next Hollywood rung or move back to Cleveland to work at Dad’s optical boutique. Don, however, looked like he’d been making a career of it.
“Donnie’s being a sweetheart and helping me these days.”
A “sweetheart,” was he?
“Hey, cool shirt,” I said, as Don came to the front steps with another box.
“It’s Armani! As in Giorgio. Flannel shirt for probably two hundred bucks. Ain’t that a trip?” Don asked.
In a flash I could place it. It was an exact replica of the pale shirt I’d seen little Babalu Huntley wearing the morning of the party.
Lily spoke up. “Isn’t it nice? I got one for Lewis and one for Bruno, but Bruno hated the colors. Too soft, he said. Anyway, I thought Donnie might like it.”
I noticed the pile of boxes.
“Why don’t you come on in,” I offered. “Just follow me.” Don carried some boxes to the kitchen and left to get more. It would be a number of bulky t
rips before all the pots and pans made it into the house. While we waited, I offered Lily some fresh-squeezed orange juice.
“Did I interrupt your breakfast?” she asked.
“Join me.” I rummaged in the Traulsen and found some of the salmon I’d cured for the brunch the day before.
With Lily sipping juice, and Don going back out to the van to lock up, and me toasting bagels under the broiler, I asked, “Did you know that Bruno had a vasectomy?”
“What?” She looked totally blank.
“Bruno had gotten a vasectomy. More than fifteen years ago. Didn’t you know?”
“No…” Lily looked puzzled. “I don’t think that’s possible.”
“Lily, I like you, but it’s time to be straight. You said there’s a paternity issue that may get stirred up. Only, I’m not certain you’ve been telling me the truth here…”
“But I am!”
“…not that it’s any of my business,” I finished, “because it’s really not.”
“Look, Madeline, I am telling you the truth. I simply don’t know what you’re talking about. If someone gave you the impression that Bruno had a vasectomy, well they obviously made a mistake.”
If she was lying, she was a damn good liar.
“Maybe,” she suggested delicately, “years ago, in a romantic situation, Bruno may have told some woman that he had a vasectomy. For whatever reason.” I could see that this was painful for her. She went on. “But that doesn’t mean it’s true. I have a son, don’t I?”
“The coroner spotted it. He’s a doctor Lily, and he examined Bruno’s body. It’s no mistake.”
She looked ready to cry. When you have a baby with someone other than your husband, the jig is kind of up when people know your husband was incapable of impregnating you. Her breathing seemed to get shallow and she whispered, “If I tell you something, will you swear not to tell another soul?”
Lily continued, not waiting for my promise. “I don’t see how any of this is connected. And this is very personal, of course. But I’m trying to think how everything happened when I was trying to get pregnant. See, I had trouble.
“After trying for maybe six months, my doctor thought that we should take Bruno’s age into consideration and get more aggressive about getting me pregnant. She said ordinarily, a woman my age, she’d suggest we just keep trying the old-fashioned way for another year or so. But with Bruno being so much older, having a child as soon as possible was important. So he could have more time with our child.”
I nodded.
“My doctor suggested we try insemination. That way she could time my cycle and at just exactly the right moment we could try for conception. I don’t know how much background you have on these infertility procedures, but it’s become rather clinical.”
“So I’ve heard.”
“Well, I told Bruno about it and eventually he agreed. These procedures can certainly intrude upon one’s own private, intimate moments of marriage. All of a sudden you’re keeping charts and taking temperatures. And your husband is giving samples into a test tube! At first, Bruno absolutely refused. But then, after a while, he suddenly seemed fine about it.”
“He was?”
“Yes. No one knows about this, because I would never want to imply that somehow Bruno’s sperm were not what they should be. You see, part of the procedure is to take the semen and ‘wash’ it somehow so that only the most vigorous sperm survive.
“When it came time for me to ovulate, I went to my doctor’s office with Bruno. He had already provided her with the semen about a week earlier so it could be washed. He held my hand while the procedure was being performed. And then I had to wait there awhile so it could have the best chance to take. Three weeks later, I found out I was pregnant.”
“Lily, if the report from the coroner is true and Bruno had a vasectomy, then it can’t have been Bruno’s sperm. You do understand that, don’t you?”
“What are you trying to tell me?” She really looked shocked. “That my husband conned me into believing that we could have a baby together? And that he went so far as to sneak somebody else’s sperm to my doctor to trick me into thinking I’d had his own child? No!”
“I know it sounds bad when you put it like that. Maybe Bruno didn’t want to let you down. So maybe he went a little overboard trying to give you what you wanted the most?” Shit, I could make Jack the Ripper sound misunderstood.
“So you’re saying that Lewis is not Bruno’s son?” She had a steely look in her pale eyes. Like tears that are not allowed to fall, so they sort of freeze in place.
“Maybe not exactly Bruno’s biological son, but…”
“So what’s going to happen when they do those horrid blood tests? What’s going to happen when they try to match my baby up to Bruno?” She started to look frantic and I wished there was something I could do.
“It doesn’t mean that you cheated on Bruno.”
“But that’s what they’ll say! And Lewis will be left with nothing. Nothing! Not a father to help him grow up. Not even the legacy that Bruno talked about in his will. He won’t have Bruno’s genes! It’s all the fault of that wretched Bru, Jr. He’ll never try to understand what really happened.”
Oh, brother. Lily had just discovered her husband’s unthinkable trickery and manipulation, but she had already shifted the blame elsewhere. How did people like Bruno get away with these things?
Lily’s voice got tighter and still higher. “Little Lewis will lose the money and the company and the land! My baby won’t even have a home to live in. Bru, Jr. will see to that.” Red patches had appeared on Lily’s pale cheeks. As she worked herself up in anger, one tear escaped its prison behind her eyelids.
“You don’t know that,” I said. “But perhaps you should see your attorney. Maybe that’s the wisest thing. Sometimes knowing the road ahead gives you a chance to prepare.”
Lily stood up and straightened her pink dress. “Well, thank you, Madeline. Donnie will drive me home. He’s waiting in the van.” And she was gone.
I sat down to finish my cured salmon and bagel.
Now what, I wondered, was all this with Donnie?
Chapter 24
“So did you figure out who killed Bruno Huntley?” I could hear the swoosh as Holly shut the front door and the plop of her large canvas bag as it hit her desktop.
Sitting in my office next door, I sighed.
She was still talking as she appeared in my office doorway. “So, tell me, tell me!” Her voice just rang out louder as she continued on her way to the kitchen, in search of hot caffeine. “Who killed him?”
I put down the autopsy report and looked up at my computer screen. My notes on Bruno’s murder seemed weak.
Cradling her steaming “Dilbert” mug two-handed at her lips, Holly returned to my doorway, slouching against the door frame and filling it with her six feet of lank, long self. She wore a purple sweater that was cropped just short enough to expose her navel, over a tiny gray skirt. Her extra-long legs were encased in opaque black stockings that came up above her knees and then just stopped, revealing a few inches of thin uncovered thigh until the top of her tight skirt took over. What else to finish off the look but a pair of black high-top combat boots?
“What keeps those stockings up?”
“I don’t know. So who killed Bruno?”
“I don’t know.”
“Mmmm,” she mumbled, pensively, as she carefully took a few tentative sips off the top of her steaming cup of coffee.
“Mmmm,” I answered, equally pensive.
“You need help with anything?”
“We have recently had a few sudden party cancellations, which has cleared our catering schedule in a rather dramatic fashion. In fact, we have no parties at all this week.”
“Jeez!”
“Exactly. I was just going over some of the things I’d learned in regards to Bruno’s murder and I have to admit, I’m lost.”
“Great! Okay! Tell me all the clues and then maybe
I can, you know, just sort of see through the whole cloud of smoke and kind of pull the murderer out of the mud, so to speak.”
I smiled and briefly filled in my free-spirited assistant on everything I’d discovered in the last two days. The strychnine, the brandy decanter, the cruel will, the Curse of Los Feliz, Bruno’s possible affair with Carmen, his vasectomy, the Hirsh incident and subsequent chase, Graydon’s marriage fizzling, who had the keys to the liquor cabinet, the missing soothsayer, and my personal opinion of all the players.
“Oh, this is too easy!” she announced when I had finished.
I laughed.
Holly laughed back, good-naturedly. “No, I mean it!”
“Okay, who did it?”
“Oh, I don’t know that,” Holly admitted, “but this has got to be connected in some wicked way to that scary curse of the Felizes.”
“Oh, really?” Hey, cancel the cavalry. Holly had this one pegged.
“Sure, the Los Feliz curse has got to be it! My theory is you go for the weirdest part of the story and that’s the one part that’s got to be true.”
Well, her crime-solving philosophy wasn’t any more preposterous than anyone else’s, and I knew how she felt. We’d all grown up on T.V. and expected a dramatic twist to every story. It was like “The Rockford Files” and “Magnum, P.I.” had crept into our existence and we felt cheated if there wasn’t a surprise ending to every real life crime.
“Well if you are looking for weird…”
“And I am,” Holly nodded.
“…then you can’t rule out the bizarre angle concerning Bruno and his sperm.”
“Oh, I love that part. Tell me again.”
“Okay. Lily wanted a baby. Bruno had a pesky old vasectomy that he was keeping a secret from his young wife. So one of two things must have happened. Either Lily was having an affair…”
“Which she vigorously denies, right? Isn’t she always going on about being as pure as soap?”
“Yes. Anyway, she is either lying and has been sleeping with some other unvasectomized male, or…and this is truly bizarre…her old husband pretended some other guy’s sperm was his own.”
Sympathy for the Devil Page 15
