But what about Jackson and Stella? And Kyle and Stella? And Sterling and Stella? It was looking like a con game, with the men the shells and Stella the little ball. Keep your eye on the ball, ladies and gentlemen. Which one will she be under next?
And what about the Holy Pail? Where did that fit in? I knew for sure that Stella and Jackson were both interested in it, but Stella didn't mention it to Kyle at all during their time in the study. Was Karla searching for it, too? And if the vandals of last night were looking for it, who were they or who sent them?
A dull throb was making itself known behind my eyes. Reaching into my tote bag, I extracted a small container of Tylenol caplets and popped two, downing them with iced tea.
"Headache?" Carmen asked.
"Mmm, just starting," I said, "gonna be a doozy." The waitress came over with more tea and I thanked her.
"So," I said to Carmen, getting back on track, "exactly why did Sterling break off his engagement to Stella? Did she fool around on him?"
I already knew the answer to the last part, but wanted to hear what Carmen had to say on the subject.
"Actually, he broke it off with her because of the baby."
"Baby? You mean Stella's pregnant?" I asked curiously, remembering what Kyle had told Stella.
Carmen gave me a wicked grin. "That's what she claims. Personally, I think she wanted to make sure he married her. Of course, the little fool either didn't know or didn't remember that Sterling couldn't have children." She stopped when she saw the surprise on my face. "That's right, all his children were adopted, even Eldon, his first. Several years after Eldon died, Millie and Sterling adopted the twins.
"Of course, once she made that little announcement, Sterling knew she was sleeping with someone else. He just didn't realize it was his own son until the week before he died."
All this new data was making my headache worse. "If Kyle slept with Stella, why did Sterling buy the Center for him and make him a joint tenant in the house in Newport Coast? Why would you give such gifts to someone who betrayed you?" I asked with the fingers of one hand gently massaging my right temple.
Carmen looked surprised, but collected herself quickly. "But of course," she said with a smile, "you were the notary on the documents. They were on my desk with a note from Sterling when I returned."
She waved the waitress over and asked for our check before continuing.
"Kyle came by the office one day early last week. He and his father were behind closed doors a long time. I think that's when he confessed to the baby being his. Sterling had just broken up with Stella the day before, and she was supposed to be all moved out that day by the time he got home."
The check came, and Carmen and I each plunked down our share of money.
"I know this because Sterling asked me to send one of our private security guards to the house that morning to make sure she was packing and not taking anything of his. I think if she'd had any family, he would have thrown her out of the house the minute she told him about the baby. Anyway, Kyle came by, told his father about the two of them and that the baby was his. Immediately, Sterling gave her a reprieve until the end of the month. Even had me call off the security guards."
"So Sterling bought Kyle a business and gave him half the house, just like that?" I asked incredulously. "Was it a wedding present or a baby gift?"
Carmen, noting the sarcasm in my voice, shot me a displeased look.
"I see you find it bizarre," she said. "But that was Sterling for you. He never could stay mad at the kids, no matter what. And you have to understand that Sterling always felt that he had failed Kyle somehow. It bothered him that his son was aimless and unmotivated, while his daughter had the backbone of a Hun."
"Does Karla know about the house and the Center?" I asked.
"Oh yes, and was she ever upset about it." Carmen looked out the window, then back to me, her mood turned thoughtful. "Karla pitched a nasty fit about it right after the funeral. Kyle picked that time, right after everyone left, when it was just the family, Stella, and me at the house, to announce that he and Stella were getting married and moving permanently into the house.
"But in Karla's defense," she said, "I don't think she was upset about Sterling giving the Center and the house to her brother. In fact, I think she would have been okay with it had Stella not been in the picture."
Carmen gathered up her purse and stood to leave. I followed suit. We both had jobs to return to, which gave me another thought.
On the way to the car, Carmen continued talking. "You see, Odelia, I think Sterling gave the Center and the house to Kyle in the hope that Kyle and Stella did, just by coincidence, fall in love. All fathers want their sons to have a solid foundation to support a family. That was how Sterling Price operated. He was always an optimist."
I mulled this over as we got into the car and buckled up. It was obvious to me that Carmen didn't know about Stella and Jackson. Once on the road, I voiced another question.
"Carmen, what's going to happen to you now that Sterling's gone? I imagine the office will need you more than ever, but how will your position change?"
She looked at me and smiled grimly. I glanced over a few times to take in her expression.
"Who knows, Odelia?" she said flatly, like a person giving up. "I'll just have to wait and see. I'm close to retirement age but hadn't planned on it just yet."
I dropped Carmen off in front of Sterling Homes. Just before she shut the car door, she leaned her head inside. "I almost forgot," she said. After digging around in her purse, she produced a slip of paper and held it out to me. "One of those kooks called about the Holy Pail. He's phoned several times. Here's his number, if you still want to pass it along to your friend."
"Sure, no problem," I replied as I took the phone message. "They can have a good chat about metal boxes with rusty hinges"
We laughed and exchanged waves as I drove off. Almost out of the parking lot, I glanced back through my rear-view mirror. Carmen Sepulveda was still standing in front of the entrance, staring after me. With her gray hair and dull, conservative suit, she reminded me of an old armchair discarded by the side of the road.
FIFTEEN
THE SURLY RENT-A-GUARD WAS Still at his post in the lobby of Woobie when I returned, but this time, I didn't have to undergo inspection. I simply held my ID aloft, and he waved me through the doors. If possible, he looked even crankier than this morning.
As soon as I entered the reception area, Joyce handed me two handwritten messages. One was from Tina, saying I was free to begin the cleanup in my office. The second was from Joe, saying that Lester Miles had invited me to lunch Saturday afternoon at twelve thirty at his home. Attached to the note was the address, somewhere in a city called Glendora, and a phone number. Also with Joe's note was a copy of a newspaper clipping. It was the recent article about lunchboxes Joe had mentioned at the Reality Check meeting. I folded it and stuffed it into my tote bag to be read later. There were also two messages on my voice mail. One was from Greg, letting me know he would be home Sunday afternoon and would call tonight. My heart did a pirouette like one of those dancing hippos in Fantasia.
My brows knitted together as I listened to the second message. It was from Mike Steele, saying he could not reach Trudie, and demanding that I call him. He sounded weak but fussy. And obviously he did not have a clue about his secretary's flight from the firm.
Mumbling under my breath, I looked up the hospital's phone number and dialed. The phone in his room only rang once before someone snatched it up.
"Steele," the familiar voice answered as if he were sitting in his squeaky chair here at Woobie.
"Hey, Steele," I said, "how are you feeling?"
"Grey?"
"The one and only," I answered, feeling rather spunky in his absence.
"Where's Trudie? I've been trying to reach her all day." He sounded testy but foggy, like a junkyard dog on Percodan.
"Didn't Tina tell you?" I asked. "Trudie quit. Guess all that worki
ng late got to her."
"Quit?" he asked with a half-hearted growl. "Now what the hell am I supposed to do?"
I shrugged as if he could see me and answered. "A temp is starting on Monday."
There was a big sigh on the other end. "I don't know why Tina can't find good help," Steele said.
I gave the phone a you-gotta-be-kidding look.
"Grey, I need you to bring the Westchester and Build-Rite files to the hospital. They're keeping me here another night at least, and I have to get some work done. Bring my recorder, too. And don't forget a box of tapes. And a couple of legal pads and some good pens. You know the kind I like. And don't forget my BlackBerry. It's in my suit coat, which should still be hanging behind my door," he demanded without stopping for a breath.
Hesitating only slightly, I plunged forward with my answer, which I knew would be met with the same excitement as news of an emergency root canal. After all, I was not his secretary. His secretary was long gone, thanks to him.
"I'll arrange to have it all sent over," I offered simply.
The silence was deafening. I tapped my foot and waited for a response. Nothing. I started wondering if maybe the drugs had kicked in and he was snoozing on the other end, phone held limp in his hand, drool escaping from the corner of his drug-slack mouth. I was about to gently hang up and let him sleep it off when I heard a throat being cleared. Uh-oh. I moved to shut the office door just in case he inspired me to scream and quit, joining Trudie in the unemployment line.
"Grey, may I remind you," Steele said with a superior tone more like his old self, "that I wouldn't be in here if it weren't for you"
"How do you figure that?" I asked incredulously.
"The police think those hoodlums were looking for something, Grey," Steele said, starting to raise his voice. "Something they obviously think you have, like that damn lunchbox."
"But I don't have the damn lunchbox," I responded, my own voice going up an octave. "I told the police that today. And, come on, you don't know that's what they were looking for. I mean, just because my office got the worst of it. If you hadn't stopped them, who knows what they would have done? Maybe even trashed your precious office."
I took a deep breath to calm myself down a bit before continuing. "And besides, you wouldn't have been there in the first place if you and Trudie hadn't been up to monkey business. Court filing, my foot, Steele. This is me you're talking to. I'm the one who deep- sixed the evidence."
"Evidence? Of what?" His tone was really snotty now. The drugs must be wearing off instead of kicking in. Leave it to me to catch him coming down instead of flying high.
"The evidence, Steele. The little wrappers left behind in your trash can."
Another round of silence, longer this time. I took the time to collect myself. I held steady, refusing to be the one to back down.
Finally Steele spoke. "Have the messenger get that stuff to me ASAP, Grey." Then he hung up.
While I had the phone in my hand, I placed a call to the number Carmen Sepulveda had given me. It was an Orange County number. The name Willie Porter was written on the message slip, but the date and time of the call had been left blank. The phone on the other end rang several times before an answering machine picked up. It gave no introduction, just a mechanical prompt to leave a message at the tone, which I did, leaving both my work and home numbers.
Once the messenger was on his way to the hospital with the items Steele had requested, I got down to the business of straightening my office. It was surprising how fast I was able to tidy up once I applied myself. Joe and one of the male paralegals righted my file cabinet for me and replaced it in its original corner. I cleaned up everything else, using the opportunity to rearrange my desk and file drawers. I was about done when the phone rang. Looking at the display, I recognized Zee's number.
"Hey, you," I answered cheerfully, happy for the break.
"Hey back;" she said. "So when were you going to tell me about your office being trashed?"
"How'd you find out?" I asked in surprise. "Is it on the news?"
She laughed. "It's news, all right. Seth heard it from Doug." Zee was referring to Doug Hemming, Seth's law partner. "Doug heard it from an attorney he had lunch with today, who heard it from his secretary, who heard it from a court reporter, who heard it from his girlfriend, who is a word processor at a law firm where the husband of one of your firm's attorneys works."
Ah, yes, the legal circle of life. We're so caught up in confidentiality when it comes to our clients that we can never resist gossiping about ourselves. All that pent-up chatter had to vent somehow.
"I was going to tell you tonight. I'm cleaning up my office as we speak," I said.
"You mean they actually trashed your office? Not just the office in general?"
"Doug didn't tell Seth that?" I asked with a slight chuckle. "He's falling down on the job."
"Apparently not," she told me. "And I'm sure Seth wouldn't have left that out. All I got was that the firm had been vandalized and Mike Steele was in the hospital. I figured it was a disgruntled employee. Lots of Steele's ex-secretaries floating about. Not to mentioned disgruntled husbands of ex-secretaries."
She had no idea how close she was to the truth. It was here at Woobie years ago that I had first met Zee. She was a young mother with only one child then, and Seth was starting to build his own practice. Though she was long gone before Mike Steele came onboard, she had heard the stories, and not just from me.
"Zee," I said into the phone quietly, still not believing it myself, "my office and the file room were the most seriously damaged. The police, and even Steele, think the guys last night were looking for something that might have been in my office. Like maybe the Holy Pail."
"You're joking," she said, her voice getting tense. "But you told me you don't have it." "
I don't," I insisted yet again. "I only have the Zorro box and that they left behind. I found it on the floor under my desk without so much as a scratch. As far as I can tell, they took nothing or else didn't find what they were looking for."
"Mercy," Zee whispered into the phone. "This is just too strange."
We hung together silently on the phone, clutching each other over the phone lines, guarding against the possibility of danger, unseen but very real. We didn't need to speak.
"Oh, I heard from Greg," I finally said. "He's coming home Sunday afternoon."
"Good," Zee said, sounding relieved to change the subject. "Any decision yet?"
"Uh-uh" Quickly, I changed the subject back to the Holy Pail, finding that easier to think about than Greg and his proposal. "Tomorrow, I have an appointment with one of the actors from the old Chappy Wheeler Show. Maybe I'll learn something from him. His name is Lester Miles."
"Lester Miles," Zee said, musing. "Is he a midget or dwarf or something like that?"
"Yes, a dwarf," I answered. "You know him?"
"I know of him. He used to be in lots of movies and TV shows." She was quiet for a second. "And I think he was in a made-for-TV movie just a couple of weeks ago. In fact, I'm sure of it. Something about a grandfather who raises his grandchildren in spite of everyone's objections. You know, the usual three-hankie stuff."
"He lives in Glendora, according to Joe Bays. Do you have any idea where that is?" I asked.
"Somewhere near San Dimas, I believe. I only know because it's near the waterpark the kids like."
I looked down at my hands. My nails, bad a few days ago, were truly shameful now after the cleanup.
"I think I'm going to see if I can get a nail appointment around ten or ten thirty and leave from there" I picked up a pad of Post-It Notes and jotted down NAILS on the top sheet so I would remember to call for an appointment when I finished talking with Zee.
"By the way," I said into the phone, "do you know anything about the Good Life Center? It's a day spa or massage place or something like that?"
"Sure I do," Zee answered.
Why was I not surprised? Sometimes I wondered why I e
ver wasted my time doing research when all I had to do was call my best friend. She was a bottomless well of information, a virtual fount of minutia.
"Remember earlier this year, when I won that spa visit for high sales from Golden Rose?" she asked. "Well, that's where my gift certificate was for. It was wonderful. It's over off of Jamboree Road, in the same shopping center as Houston's." "
I found out that it's owned by Sterling Price's son, Kyle," I told her. "His father signed the final papers the day he died"
"Nice gift."
"I'll say. Price also deeded over the house in Newport Coast to Kyle the same day. Seems the whole thing caused a big ruckus in the family the day of the funeral"
"He signed the papers and a few hours later he's dead?" Zee asked. "Well, that's about as fishy as an open can of tuna."
I could almost see her standing by the phone with one hand on her bulky hip. It was her intimidating stance, a posture that said she wasn't having any of it.
"I agree," I told her. "But did someone kill Sterling Price because of the gift to Kyle or to stop it? Or did someone kill him to steal the Holy Pail?"
"I'm leaning toward the theory that the theft of the lunchbox and the murder had nothing to do with each other," Zee threw in. "What better time to steal something valuable? I mean, think of the chaos after he was found."
"That seems to be the consensus," I said. "But if that's the case, why would someone search our law firm for it, if that's what their motive was last night? And who were they? Steele thinks there were only two men, and he said they wore ski masks."
"Which matches the description of almost every burglar in history," Zee said with a frustrated sigh. "I just don't like the idea that they searched your office."
That made two of us. I was trying to decide if I should tell her about the poison, but knew she would worry needlessly. It also occurred to me that we may all be off base. Maybe the murder had nothing to do with either the Holy Pail or the gift to Kyle. Maybe there was still a missing motive, something eluding me in all the hubbub.
The Curse of the Holy Pail #2 Page 13
