Sympathy for the Devil

by Jerrilyn Farmer

  “Why not?”

  “Wait! We’re to believe that he brought this bogus sperm to the doctor’s office and helped his wife get inseminated with some other man’s semen?”

  “Washed semen,” Holly corrected.

  “Exactly,” I agreed. “Now talk about your bizarre acts.”

  “Love is strange. And that guy Huntley was on a major power trip. Maybe he just didn’t want to admit there was anything in the world that his wife could want that he didn’t have the power to give her.”

  “You know,” I said looking at Holly with my usual appreciation, “you could be right. But where on earth could he have found some extra semen lying around?”

  “A sperm bank! He probably just walked right in, browsed through their catalog and picked out some sperm that seemed to fit his physical type.”

  “No! People can’t just walk into sperm banks and pay with Visa, can they? No!” I shook my head.

  “Of course they do. Don’t you know nothin’ about birth-in’ babies? It costs like around fifty bucks a pop. I had a friend who decided she wanted a baby but didn’t like the idea of having the father hanging around and messing up the kid’s head. She went to this sperm bank in Westwood and like twenty minutes later she walked out with a vial of sperm.”

  “Really?”

  “Uh-huh. She wanted a tall, thin child that would look like Sting, but with hair, so she picked from a list of all the donor’s physical characteristics.”

  “So does her baby actually look like Sting?”

  “Nah. It was kind of tragic. See, she was sharing a place with two other girls at the time. Anyway, one of her roommates didn’t pay the electric bill and the power was turned off. Unfortunately, the sperm was in the refrigerator at the time and I guess it kind of spoiled before she could, uh, use it.”

  “Lovely story.”

  “But the point is, why couldn’t Bruno have just walked into some sperm bank and bought himself some sperm, like off-the-rack?”

  “I’ll look into it.”

  “Fine. But I still think the whole murder revolves around that curse. I really do. ‘The land, Katie Scarlett!’”

  “Have you just rented Gone With The Wind?”

  “Don’t knock the classics. I bet if you look further into the Feliz Curse you’ll find a motive for Bruno’s murder. I’m telling you.” She wagged her finger at me.

  “Okay, okay. I’ll go to the library and get some more details. Will that satisfy you?”

  Holly smiled, nodding, trying to keep the coffee cup at her lips from spilling in the process.

  Forty minutes later I was wrapping up some note-taking and phone calls that needed returning. My last call was to the information line of the L.A. Public Library. I was put on hold. After a minute, a man’s voice answered, “Reference.”

  “Hi. I’m actually looking for a way to get more information about the history of Los Feliz.”

  “That would be held in a special file in our Los Feliz branch,” he replied.

  “Oh. Where is that?” I was not acquainted with every branch in the library system, but felt I was about to get an education.

  “Nineteen thirty-nine and a half Hillhurst. But it’s closed.”

  “Pardon me,” I had just scribbled down 1939 ½ on the back of the nearest envelope on my desk.

  “It was damaged in the earthquake.”

  “Ah. Is there any other branch that might have information on certain historical incidents in that area?” I felt myself slipping into libraryese, a kind of reference-speak.

  “A moment,” he offered, neutrally.

  I waited.

  “I’ve checked my database and there may be some information here at the Frances Howard Goldwyn Branch.”

  “And where’s that?”

  “Hollywood. Sixteen twenty-three Ivar.”

  I made it over to the Ivar address in about five minutes. It was just south of Hollywood Boulevard, in one of the parts of town that had been trying to upgrade itself. An artsy, iron sculpture adorned a parking lot gate across the street. The library itself had been newly rebuilt, a modern structure of the palest peach stucco with angled windows.

  On the second floor of the library, I found the reference desk and asked for help in researching my curse. They acted like people come to them for help about curse research every day of the week. You can’t surprise a research librarian.

  I was eventually handed a copy of On the Old West Coast by Horace Bell. It was marked “Reference Material,” not to be taken out of the library, and I was curious to see if Wesley’s memory was as good as he had always claimed.

  Sitting down at one of the oak tables, I started to read about the folklore that surrounded that period of California history and that piece of land. It was certainly fascinating reading.

  Good old Wes and his photographic brain. It was exactly as he’d remembered. Poor old Don Antonio Feliz had been rooked out of his land by a dishonest attorney, and the women in his family were left with very little. The more things change, the more they stay the same, as the saying goes.

  It was almost an hour later when I’d finished reading. I had just been sucked into the nineteenth century and I had to shake my head to get ready to face traffic on the verge of the twenty-first. Aside from refreshing my memory about the details of the curse: blight, sick cattle, poor crops, dead oaks, wrath of heaven and vengeance of hell, I had not learned anything that could tie it to my modern-day murder.

  I returned the book to the reference desk and as I turned to leave, a soft cough announced the approach of my determined librarian who had gone on to find additional materials for me.

  “Take a look at these,” he suggested. The label on the box of microfilm indicated it contained old photos and newspaper articles from 1850 to 1900. “They’re quite a trip back in time.”

  Although I was ready to leave, it seemed unkind not to stop and look at the material he’d spent time digging up.

  He led me to a viewer and showed me how to use the machine. You pushed a button that made the pages, which had been photographed onto microfilm, just fly by in a whir. I began to let the button go at random, then wait for the words to stop spinning and my eyes to focus. Whichever article the machine stopped at, I read. Another hour glided by as I immersed myself in unconnected historical tidbits.

  There were photos and diaries kept on film that had been left to the library by historical societies. There were old photos and prints taken from oil portraits. I’d stop the whirring whenever I’d find a patch of these pictures. The dress and demeanor of the men and women appeared stiff and dark. The faces seemed very different from ones I see today, but perhaps my eyes had become too accustomed to our contemporary appearance, altered from nature as it is by cosmetics and hair mousse.

  I marveled at the portrait of one settler family: seven sons standing straight-backed, their heights graduated like a staircase, seven pairs of identical pale eyes looking almost transparent in the sepia print. Whatever had become of them?

  There were more articles from a newspaper dated 1862. I was getting tired, but I pushed the viewing machine button another time and it spun until it came to a large block of photos. I let go of the button and the viewer stopped on an old portrait of three people. In shock, I stared at one of the faces.

  The accompanying caption read, “Don Antonio Feliz and relatives, Los Angeles, 1862.”

  It was the face that belonged to Feliz’s niece, Petranilla, that had stunned me to the point that I stopped breathing. Even with bad lighting and primitive photography, even without benefit of makeup or hair gel, I recognized her. I knew that lovely face. I knew that beautiful hair.

  Oh my god.

  Chapter 25

  I used my car phone to make a few calls and line up an address. I was swinging around the streets of Hollywood, making a fast approach onto the Highland entrance of the Hollywood Freeway when I got through to the LAPD office of Lizzie Bailey. She seemed as excited as I was and promised to meet me in te
n minutes.

  I felt high. I was all adrenaline and sparking synapses. I really loved this investigating thing, the rush of the hunt. I’d always been the type who liked answers. I felt a few coming and smiled.

  I cut off the Hollywood Freeway to the Ventura, and exited on Coldwater Canyon. I took a left, and in the light midafternoon traffic, I was able to weave my way south into the hills of Sherman Oaks in pretty good time.

  I had made a photocopy of the picture of Petranilla. At every stoplight I looked over at the copy I’d thrown on the front seat next to me. The resemblance was startling every time I looked. And every time I looked, my pulse would rev up as if it was the first time I’d seen it.

  I pulled in front of a hillside home that had a large flat lot and what looked like plenty of room for a pool in the rear. The house was long and low and had enough square feet to mean big money in this upscale section of the Valley. I pushed the photocopy into my purse and walked up to the door, not really knowing what would happen from here.

  Answering the bell was a tall woman with her vivid black hair swept back into a french twist. She looked to be in her midforties, but they had been very well kept years. She paused to take in my casual appearance and said, “Yes?”

  “I’m Madeline Bean and I’d like to speak to your daughter.”

  “Come in then,” she offered, cool and unperturbed.

  I walked into the large living room. The ceiling was low, the carpet was the color of the earth. She waved me towards a light brown sofa, but I didn’t feel like sitting. And then I saw her daughter walk into the living room from a back hallway.

  “Mom, I thought I heard someone at the door.”

  I was looking at the face of the young Feliz niece. The one who had long ago been cheated out of inheriting the rancho of her uncle; the woman whose curse was meant to bring death and destruction to the rich and arrogant Anglo men who possessed her family’s land ever since.

  “Carmen?”

  “Oh. Hi, Madeline. It’s you.”

  “I had to see you. I just found this.”

  I held up the picture of the Feliz family from over one hundred and thirty years ago.

  Carmen looked at the image of Petranilla. Both young women had perfect oval faces and large, deep-lidded eyes. Both had full mouths and high cheekbones. Carmen said in a toneless voice, “Yes. I look like her.”

  Not the reaction I’d expected. No protests or denials. Just Carmen’s smooth, emotionless voice, as if she took for granted this striking family resemblance.

  “She must be your great-great grandmother,” I suggested.

  “Add one more great and you are correct.” Carmen’s mother’s voice had steel in it.

  “Great,” I replied with some steel of my own. “Look, I know all about the Curse of Los Feliz. Was your daughter’s marriage to Gray Huntley part of some scheme to get at the land?”

  “My daughter is a sweet child.”

  I ignored the mother. “What happened when you brought that glass of brandy to Bruno? Did you fight with him?”

  “No. It wasn’t like that.” As she sank down into the sofa, she seemed sad. Not scared. Not defensive.

  I looked at my watch and wondered what was keeping Lizzie. I felt if I was going to go on I had better set the record straight for my own protection.

  “My friend, Officer Bailey, is on her way over here. I already told her about your connection to the Feliz Curse.”

  Neither mother nor daughter seemed moved by the thought that the law was on to them.

  “Well, something’s going on,” I continued, a little exasperated. “Bruno died talking about the Feliz curse. And you served Bruno the brandy snifter of Armagnac that contained the strychnine that killed him.”

  I could hear Carmen begin to sniffle.

  The mother spoke again. “If the drink was tainted, my Carmen knew nothing about it. The police have been here already and they believe her. Why aren’t you convinced?”

  I ignored her and spoke again to Carmen.

  “You are involved in this thing down to the ground.” I knew I was pushing it, but I couldn’t believe how calmly they were dodging these bombshells. Well, dodge this.

  “While you were married to Graydon, were you also having an affair with Bruno?”

  “I was sleeping with him, yes,” she said quietly.

  “Carmen! That’s enough!” her mother ordered.

  “Mama, I must confess.” She looked up at me. “For my soul.”

  Confess? Damn, where was Lizzie?

  “It’s true. I was married to the son and making love to the father. I know I’ve sinned.” Carmen started crying.

  Yes. But just how many commandments had she cracked?

  “That night at the party, maybe you told Bruno about the Feliz family’s claim to his land? I can imagine his reaction. He probably laughed in your face. And in your anger, perhaps you took the legend of the curse a little too seriously.”

  “I know you’re worried about your friend, Madeline, but I didn’t kill anyone,” Carmen said in her slow, sad way.

  Hell, maybe she didn’t. On a scale with one being passive to the point of coma and ten being hyperactive, I had Carmen notched somewhere around three. In fact, the most profoundly moving emotion I’d ever seen her express was melancholy.

  What, then, did she do with her anger? Most of us women learn to deny it around that time in junior high when the cute boy throws our sweater in the mud and we just smile. After years of practice, we’re on autopilot, all the time denying we ever feel rage.

  But it’s not like the anger goes away. It just keeps building up. And while we’re busy denying how bad we feel, some of us get drunk, some of us make jokes, and some of us cut off our husbands’ genitals with a carving knife. Which type was Carmen Huntley?

  “That’s all. My daughter did not kill the man. You’ve taken up enough of our time.” The mother opened the door and by grabbing the material of my checked shirt, she effectively pulled me out of her house. Now this was a woman with strength. This was a woman, it dawned on me, who had the right personality and family history to commit murder. This woman was an eight!

  I stopped at the doorway and turned back to Carmen. “I need to find the truth. If you didn’t kill Bruno, help me find who did.”

  I thought I saw Carmen’s face soften, but then the door slammed in my face. The mother. My heart was pumping from the confrontation, and yet I felt let down, somehow. I was having a hard time hanging onto my conviction that Carmen did Bruno Huntley in. According to the evidence she should have done it, but I was beginning to doubt that she did. Now her mom, on the other hand…

  “Madeline.”

  I had just reached my car when I thought I heard a whisper. I turned my head, but couldn’t see anyone nearby. I noticed for the first time that a thick cloud cover had rolled in, hanging above the Valley like a puffy gray ceiling.

  “Madeline, please come here.”

  It was Carmen, hiding in the shade of the wood shake roof that deeply overhung her mother’s wide three-car garage.

  Stepping away from my car, I glanced back to check the windows of the house but couldn’t see any trace of a watchful parent.

  “Madeline, I have to talk to you. I didn’t want you to think I could kill someone.”

  “You don’t have to worry about what I think. I like you, Carmen, but there’s an awful lot of evidence that seems to tie you to the murder.”

  “I know it sounds bad but I guess you’re right about part of the story. I’ve been a horrible person. The only reason I married Graydon was that it brought me closer to the property in Los Feliz. I didn’t see it so clearly at the time, but now I do. I realize what I did was awful. I shouldn’t have married Graydon.”

  “I take it Gray never actually caught on that you were only in it for the land?”

  She looked startled, as though she’d been struck. But isn’t that exactly what she’d been saying?

  “I just don’t think you can und
erstand what we’ve been through. My mother is really a wonderful woman, but she’s suffered most of her life by the injustice that was done to her family.

  “Her own mother was a very strong-willed woman. That was my grandmother, Sylvia. Grandma had been terribly poor when she was a child, living behind a small grocery store. The Great Depression affected many people, but to my Grandma it seemed like a personal insult. It made her feel demeaned. Growing up, eating bruised vegetables and second-day bread, she had lived only on stories of the wealth and prestige of our family in the old days. The injustice of her circumstances seemed so great to her that, well, she became very bitter.”

  I nodded. I had expected such a story. It was all fitting back into my theory about the curse.

  “My mother felt a very deep need to help Grandma Sylvia, to make up for Grandma’s pain. When she grew up, my mother married a very rich man and brought Grandma here to this house. She had meant to give her mother the one thing she had always wanted, a privileged life.”

  Carmen was leaning against the yellow stucco garage, keeping her face in the shadows. She looked at me and smiled sadly.

  “I guess by that time, my grandma was too old to get any pleasure out of being rich. She lived here with us, but every day she would spit out venom at the people who had robbed her of a comfortable youth. This beautiful house was not enough to erase her grievances. She had it in her head that we should be living on that side of the hill.” Carmen gestured with a graceful wave across the hills that separated the San Fernando Valley from Hollywood. “And not on an acre or two, but on thousands.”

  “Is your grandmother still living with you here?”

  “Oh, no. She died a few years ago. But my mother has been infected by this desire of Grandma Sylvia’s to get the land back. Mother met a woman some time ago who said she would sell her many acres of the precious land. My poor father! He’d given up on trying to reason with his wife and mother-in-law long ago. But he became hopeful that there might be an end to Grandma’s weird stories and curses.”

  “What happened?”