by Jesse Reiss
Chapter 21
Early the next morning Jacqueline came to pick them up.
Lee and Neil enthusiastically accepted an invitation to dinner at their place next Saturday. The girls had packed their suitcase and said goodbye, thanking them profusely again for the chance to spend a relaxing day with them.
They went back to their home where things seemed to go back to normal as soon as they walked in the door. They put their things away and Paula got into a business suit for work.
A car honked outside. It was Charles in one of the oversized SUVs to pick Angelina up. She grabbed her backpack and left the house, driving off with him while Paula went to work in her Lexus.
Charles loved driving Angelina. He could let his guard down, teasing and flirting with her in an insincere way. Today would be different. “Hey,” he said sternly, “Lucy and Thane are back from Europe and have settled back in, so the house rules go back into effect.”
“Oh great. So you mean no more jamming in the music room or pillow fights in the living room or running through the sprinklers?”
Charles laughed so deep his whole body shook and Angelina worried he would lose control of the car. “That’s right young lady. Back to being on your best behavior.”
“Fine,” she said reluctantly. “How is Sam doing?”
“Oh, he’s going to be happy to have you for the day,” he said with a nodding smile. “Give him a break from the poking and prodding he’s been getting. Some new doctors are interviewing him the past few days — not sure what these cracks are all about. Not his usual doctors and he doesn’t seem sick to me. Just odd, you know. We all know how Lucy loves that little boy and we all do too, but sometimes I think the efforts to give him eyesight go too far.” He shook his head in dismay in recollecting. “We’ve had chiropractors, neurosurgeons, pediatricians and even cracks like phrenologists and these weird naturopathy people who want him to eat cabbage grown in Sweden and drink tea with shark’s cartilage made by monks in Japan. Crazy stuff. I think they should leave the boy alone and let him grow up as he is. The kid is already gifted beyond belief. He could be the next white Stevie Wonder or Ray Charles, you know what I mean?”
“Yeah, I hear you and I’ve felt the same way. Problem is every other blind person has a physical defect or injury explaining the blindness, but not Sam. The doctors that Lucy keeps hiring can’t explain why he can’t see so they continue to, as you say, poke and prod him.”
“Well, I’m glad he’s got you because you seem to lighten his dark little world.”
Angelina smiled. “Thanks.”
They arrived at the mansion in Malibu and pulled into the gates, driving passed the security booth and up under the portico. Angelina got out while Charles went to park the car. She had been driven to this house so many times she had lost count. She went through the large foyer and down the hall to Sam’s room. He wasn’t there so she went back down the hall towards the study and lounges where she might find him. The Currys usually work out of their house and so have several rooms that have been set up as conference and workspaces for agents, production crew and employees of various studios. She passed the conference room and saw Lucy there in a deep discussion with two elderly men in business suits she didn’t recognize. One was bald with a goatee and the other had grey hair and spectacles. She didn’t want to interrupt so kept going.
Thane came around the corner, followed by his personal trainer; a super fit man with zero body fat. They had come from the gym and Thane was drenched in sweat. “Hey Angie! Great you could come today. Sam is outside with the Nanny. I think he’s having a bad day so maybe you could go cheer him up.”
“Sure Mr. Curry,” she said and changed directions, heading towards the back door. Thane had little to do with his son’s life, being mostly concerned with his career and the next film project or photo shoot or black tie event he was attending. Not that he wasn’t involved in his life, but Angelina thought he let Lucy make the decisions and didn’t know how to be more than Sam’s friend, as opposed to his father.
She wandered out past the pool and into the gardens, spotting Nanny and Sam sitting on a bench besides a hedge, Nanny’s arm over his shoulder in a comforting manner. Sam was definitely in the dumps and had been crying.
“Hey Sam, it’s Angie!” she called.
His head shot up and he stood up in her direction. “Angie!” he called, his face a red mess. He walked the few steps towards her and buried his face into her T-shirt. He began to cry again.
Angelina stroked his blond head and looked over at the Nanny silently mouthing, “What’s up?”
Nanny pointed to her eyes and mouthed back, “Upset he can’t see.”
Sam continued to cry, making a mess of her T-shirt. She hated when this happened. It sometimes took all day for her to get him back in good spirits and she always left worried about the next time he would relapse. Sam wanted to make his mother happy and felt he could never really achieve this unless he could see.
“Sam?”
He didn’t respond.
“Sam?”
He only cried harder.
“Sam, you ticklish still?”
No answer.
“Sam, I’m going to test real quick to see whether you are still ticklish, okay? This is a test and doesn’t mean I am actually tickling you. I am just going to test.” The crying stopped and he gripped her tighter.
“Is it okay if I give you the ticklish test?” His head shook firmly from side to side.
“Well, how am I to know if I don’t conduct the test?” A small giggle came from somewhere in the T-shirt. Nanny covered her mouth to keep herself from laughing.
“I really want to know so I’m going to do this test. You don’t have to be a part of it you know? You can just stand there, okay?” The head shook firmly again.
Angelina brought her hands down to his side and began to tickle him. He tried to ignore it as best he could, keeping his face in her shirt, but his whole body started to squirm and his knees buckled. A moment later he was lying on the ground roaring in laughter, begging for her to stop.
She stopped and stood up over him, “Well, I guess that confirms the test as a positive, doesn’t it Nanny?”
“Oh yes, that was definitely a positive.”
“You’re supposed to be doing school at this time, aren’t you Sam?” He nodded his head. “Well then, let’s get going. I have all afternoon to help you today.”
He smiled for the first time that day.
Nanny brought her two hands together in prayer and mouthed a silent “thank you” to Angelina as they set off back to the house.
◊
Paula had a meeting with her staff at the start of the day and gave them a nonspecific briefing on why James had been fired. She omitted the attempted abduction of her daughter, but did say he attempted to bribe her and was associated with a criminal organization that was planning to rob the place. They were to be alert to possible infiltration and maintain tight security so nothing happens. With that said, they got to work.
Mid afternoon Paula was interrupted at her computer by a knock on the door. Jacqueline stuck her head in. “Detective Marley is here to see you.”
Paula took a deep breath as her heart quickened. “Let him in please, and bring him some coffee.”
The affable detective came in, smacking his chewing gum and removed his trademark fedora. He shook her hand and seated himself without having to be asked.
“I appreciate all your cooperation on this investigation Mrs. Russell,” he began. “As promised, we are keeping you abreast as it goes along and we will undoubtedly have more questions for you and your daughter. We have some bad news and good news, depending on how you look at it. Which would you like first?”
Paula forced a smile. “Well, first Detective I’d like your reassurance that this whole fiasco isn’t going to be all over the media.”
He squinted one eye and gritted his teeth. “I’d love to promise you that, but I can’t. I can promise your
daughter’s identity will not be made public as she is a minor, but I can’t promise you the media will not be reporting on this, if they so choose to do so.”
Jacqueline came in bringing coffee and placed it before the detective. Paula motioned for her to stay. “So, what’s the good and bad news?” she asked.
“Good news is we found James and from the DNA taken from the blood on the bird and on the ground, we know the bird did attack a man as your daughter claims and we think we have the assailant’s identity.” He paused and looked at them seriously. “The bad news is James is dead and your daughter’s assailant and his murderer are likely the same person and he might be hard to find.”
“James is dead?” she repeated back to him with her jaw open. Jacqueline slumped into a lazy boy chair at a design table and shook her head in disbelief.
“Yep. Was found early this morning in the LA River, just past downtown. Not confirmed, but it seems the same gun that shot the bullet into that tree at the park was the one that killed James. This case is being raised in priority status as now a homicide is involved, which means we will get more personnel and funding to prosecute it. The DNA test results from the blood on the owl’s talons were fed into CODIS, that’s the Combined DNA Index System and we have a good suspect named Malcolm Lyons. Heard of him?”
They shook their heads.
“Didn’t think so. You don’t want to know him. He is a gang member that has been in and out of the can for the past ten years. Has worked at an old gym on and off down in Hyde Park and had a failed career as a boxer. Been the suspect in a previous homicide case and been associated with a few crime rings around the city, but we’ve never had the goods to place him away for any length of time. He gets caught in minor crap and our overcrowded prison system spits him back out again to us after a few months. He is, as you might suspect, a sex offender and has a warrant out on him for parole violations.”
“Okay…” Paula said, nodding her head slowly, trying to take it all in.
“We want your daughter to come by the station tomorrow and look at some mug shots and identify him, but we are pretty sure he’s the man.”
“Sure, okay. So are you saying that my daughter was in fact saved by an owl in the park?”
He took a long sip of his coffee. “Well, we know that the owl attacked a man in the park, which is unprecedented. The owl didn’t attack your daughter and the owl was shot and possibly in trying to shoot the owl, the man shot at the tree.”
“So my daughter could still be making the thing up about the owl saving her?”
“That is possible, though even I find it hard to believe your daughter would lie about something like this.”
“Right. My daughter isn’t a liar. But it is theoretically possible she witnessed the incident between the owl and the man and picked the owl up later?”
Detective Marley could see what she was getting at. She was trying to protect her daughter and lessen her story’s incredulity. “Except Mrs. Russell, we have you stating you saw the camera photo of the man’s arm with a gun to your daughter’s head.”
Paula took a deep breath and began to fiddle with her bracelets. “Right. Yes, I did see that. So this whole thing must be true.” She had left open the possibility that her daughter had somehow escaped from the man and found the owl by chance. Now the evidence all pointed to the fact that the story as she had told it was true. She shook her head in disbelief.
“We’re going to be putting out a newswire alerting people to this man being wanted and the press are going to carry the story. I’m telling you this now to warn you as I suspect there will be some interest, if you know what I mean?”
“Why does it have to go out to the media? Why can’t it be contained by the appropriate authorities?” Jacqueline butted in asking.
“Because we have a killer out there in the city and if he does something else and we have failed to put the general population on alert, it is our necks,” Marley answered with some sympathy. “It isn’t even my call. This is standard protocol. You see it every day when you turn on the TV or open a newspaper. Nothing new.”
She nodded, seeing his point. “Thank you, Detective,” Paula answered politely, standing up and extending her hand. “I understand and I appreciate all you are doing to resolve this. We’ll come by the station tomorrow as you asked.”
He shook her hand with a smile and was about to walk out the door when Paula realized she should have never listened to Samuel and traded the coin. She spoke, stopping him. “Do you think, Detective, had I given James the right coin would he still be alive?”
He thought about it for a moment and shook his head. “No way to really know until we find out what happened. This James character had it coming, being involved with people like this. I wouldn’t blame yourself for it.”
She felt terrible anyway, like she had been an accomplice to murder. It made her wonder how the actual murderer must feel. How could he possibly not be submersed in feelings of guilt and regret, like she was now? How are people’s lives so insignificant to others? She reminded herself that James had taken part in a plan involving kidnapping, ransom and theft and it was only by luck that her daughter was still alive.
An hour later Jacqueline brought in a phone message from Samuel at the Beverly Hills Coin shop, asking her to come by and visit as soon as possible. She shook her head at it and continued her work.
