Sympathy for the Devil (17 page)

T
he attorney's name was Del Schreiner. He was extremely “business suit” in appearance, but actually seemed to have a sense of humor. That helped. When I offered him a fresh-baked croissant, I said, “I'm pretty sure this one's from the batch that wasn't poisoned.”

Del accepted the pastry, bit into the delicate crust with gusto, saying, “If I get your friend off, will you marry me?”

We were scheduled to go in to see Wes in thirty minutes. I would get a mere five minutes to meet with him alone. How to tell him all that I'd found out in such a short time? That Lily may be kicked out of her home and lose the millions and the land because it was not physically possible for little Lewis to be Bruno's biological son. That through a wild scheme of semen bait-and-switch, or just old fashioned hanky-panky, unto them a child was born. And, that Carmen Huntley is really a Feliz of the “Curse of the Felizes” fame. That she and her mom were trying to buy the very same land that Wes had sold to Bruno.

I had to fill him in on the missing soothsayer and her connection to the incredibly shifty Perry Hirsh. How is he connected to Bruno's murder? I was pretty sure Wes would have a fit about me accepting the thirty grand and want to shuffle me off in the witness protection program.

What I really wanted to do was to ask Wesley about the
poison. Where the hell did it come from? Please, Wes, have a really good answer.

“So,” the newly hired attorney, Del Schreiner, said after neatly finishing the chocolate-chip croissant, “where the hell did that strychnine come from?”

“Aren't you supposed to be coming up with all kinds of ways to suppress the evidence? Like illegal search or something?” I asked.

“Of course, Madeline, of course. That's what we always do when there's physical evidence so damaging that no jury in its right mind could fail to convict on it.”

My mind raced, feeling trapped. “But what about the Menendez brothers? They admitted shooting their parents, and two juries were still hung trying to decide if they were guilty.”

“If there is any way that we can prove that Bruno Huntley had been sexually abusing your friend Wesley for years, I think I can assure you we won't have a problem with the jury.”

The thing about humor in horrible situations is this: I never really appreciate it when someone else does it.

 

Before I was allowed to walk into the conference room I was relieved of everything I was carrying: my purse, my box of croissants, the thermos of cafe au lait, my notebook. No one explained the rules. Perhaps they were wary of concealed weapons or drugs or chocolate chips, who knows?

Sitting on the other side of the large table in the center of the bare room was Wesley, wearing L.A. County prison blue, a one-piece jumpsuit of navy cotton. He didn't really look as bad as I'd imagined.

But as soon as I spoke to him, I could tell the difference in the man. He no longer made jaunty jokes. He was taking things seriously now. He seemed older, somehow, more sober and manly. Like maybe he grew up.

“Wesley!” I just stared at him, tears coming quickly to my eyes. Now where the hell did they come from?

I had so much to tell him, so much to ask him, and I could say nothing.

“Madeline. You know I didn't kill Bruno. You know that, right?”

“Right.” Of course I knew it. Of course. How had I started doubting the one person I know best?

“The poison must have been planted in my apartment. I can't remember when the last time was when I baked a cake.”

“A cake?”

“They found the strychnine powder in the large glass jar I use for storing cake flour. I was just trying to pin down when was the last time I really looked at the cake flour.” He shook his head. “I just don't know.”

“Wes, whoever killed Bruno had to know about your history with him, right? That would leave out most of the people involved in Bruno's company and the general Hollywood crowd.”

“But why frame me?”

“You know this town. It's not so much talent as just being in the right place at the right time.”

Wes smiled weakly.

An officer came over to us and said our time was up.

“Hey, Wesley. Hang tough, okay?”

He just looked at me helplessly. On second thought, maybe I shouldn't have used the word “hang.”

W
hile I was out, Holly fielded calls from everyone we knew. Friends were shocked by the arrest. Clients were making sure we would send back their deposit checks as soon as possible. The tabloids were making offers. One paper was interested in purchasing the exclusive rights to the recipes we'd used for the Halloween party, including how many teaspoons of strychnine per serving. Wes's mother called. Lizzie Bailey called. Lily called. And Chuck Honnett called.

I shuffled through the message slips a few times and put the one from Honnett on the top. I stood there, in front of my desk, just staring at his name written in Holly's loopy penmanship. Then I firmly rotated it to the back of the pack.

“Madeline, I didn't write it down, but Arlo has called you every fifteen minutes. He knows Wesley's been arrested. He sounded kinda tense. Would you like me to get him on the line for you?”

“Thanks, Holly.” I had meant to call Arlo last night and tell him about Wesley myself. Things were just getting away from me.

Holly called from her desk in the next room, “They're getting him.”

I picked up my phone and waited. Arlo's voice came on almost immediately.

“Mad? Are you all right?”

“I'm fine. I'm angry.”

“Mad Bean angry? You're never angry. Hey, I think this is a growth thing for you.”

Arlo had a lot of money invested in therapy.

“I wish there was something I could do, Arlo. I wish I could take care of things so Wes could come home. But it's just beyond me, you know?”

“You always want to take care of people, Mad. That's the neat thing about you, but, hey, sometimes you have to give yourself a break. Remember we were talking about getting out of town? How about Vegas? Let's take some time to unwind.”

“Unwind? No. I don't think so, Arlo. I've got to stay wound until I can figure out what was really going on at our party last Friday night. It's just a total nightmare. Not only is Wes in trouble, but my whole brilliant career is up in smoke. Our catering company has zero clients.”

“Sounds like you've got a lot of grief work to do.” This is what Arlo is like when he's being sympathetic. I actually prefer him when everything's a joke.

“Arlo…” He could hear the warning in my voice.

“Honey, why don't you and I get together for dinner?” He was trying his best to be there for me.

“Great. Where shall we meet?”

“Actually, I didn't mean tonight. See, we're still in major fucking rewrites tonight. You know how it is on Tuesdays. But how about on, well, Saturday?”

“Sure. Fine.”

It's lucky we have dedicated sitcom writers hard at work in Hollywood, or, God forbid, we might not have new episodes of “Suddenly Susan” and “Woman's Work” every week.

I looked at the message now on the top of the stack and wondered what Lily was calling me about. I had become her best friend in the last few days. After dialing the number, I kept sorting through the rest of the slips and stopped, again, at Honnett's.

“Hello?” Lily's breathy voice answered after one ring.

She had called to say how shocked she was that the police had arrested Wesley.

“I guess I should be relieved that they are not seriously considering me as a suspect,” Lily said, “but the idea that Wesley murdered Bruno is absurd! I called them and told them that, but they seem to believe in what they are doing.”

“Thanks for your sympathy, Lily. I appreciate it.”

“Ever since Bruno died, nothing has gone right. I had called to tell you that I've been asked to leave the house. In fact, the trucks are coming tonight to start packing.”

“Lily! Are you serious? Why are you moving?” It was the first I'd heard that Lily didn't mean to stay in the Huntley mansion on the hill.

“It's the paternity issue. Bruno was not Lewis's father.” She let out a shaky sigh, but then pulled herself together.

“That was the lab's conclusion and that's enough for the attorneys to rescind Bruno's will and award the entire estate to Graydon and Bru, Jr.”

“But did you tell them what you told me?”

“Please. The attorney said that for thousands of years babies have been born by a very simple process. And no matter how technical I was trying to make it, Bruno was not Lewis's father. Since Bruno had set up his will to question my loyalty, the lawyers think he was suspicious of me all along.”

Lily sounded so matter of fact. No emotion. I wondered, again, what the truth of Lewis's parentage really was.

“But what about your doctor? She'll explain that you were inseminated and Bruno provided the sperm to her office. I think you need to get a lawyer on your side, Lily.”

“I never really wanted Bruno's money. Won't it seem like I'm just a greedy little…?” Her voice trailed off.

“I'm sorry you have to leave the house,” I said. “Do you need any help?”

“Thanks, Madeline, but the moving company will pack me up. Bru, Jr. is intent on getting me out as soon as possible, it seems.”

“Lily, at least check with a lawyer. Maybe you will have
to leave the house eventually, but this moving you out in the middle of the night sounds awfully fast to me. Be careful.”

Things were not going well. I stewed over Lily's odd story for a minute. Then, remembering Holly's sperm bank theory, I pulled out the Yellow Pages.

From my open door, I could hear the phone ring and Holly picking it up. As I flipped through the phone book, looking for sperm banks, Holly peeked in at my door.

“Hi, I know you're busy returning calls, but I've got Carmen Huntley on the line. Do you want to take it?”

Did Carmen know something about Bruno's murder that she had forgotten to mention yesterday?

I thrust the Yellow Pages toward Holly.

“Would you start calling all the sperm banks to see if you can get any information on their customers. It's a long shot, but maybe we can find someone who can verify that Bruno Huntley bought himself some sperm.”

As Holly backed out of my office, her nose in the listings, I picked up the phone.

“Carmen?”

“Yes. I'm sorry to disturb you. I saw in the newspaper that your friend has been arrested. It seems the police must have made a mistake. I just don't believe that your partner was responsible for Bruno's death.”

“He isn't.”

“I called the detective and told him that it didn't make sense to arrest Mr. Westcott. Bruno liked him.”

“Well, Bruno may have liked him, but he still screwed Wes out some money. The cops figure Wes was pretty upset.”

“Oh, but Bruno was planning some big surprise. He was very excited to see your reaction.”

“What are you talking about? What surprise?”

“He wouldn't tell me the details. Just how happy you would be. You and Wesley.”

I didn't need any more mysteries. What Bruno thought
was a wonderful surprise could be downright scary to contemplate.

“Carmen, now you can see why I need to find out who really did kill Bruno. Are you sure you don't know something that would help get Wesley out of trouble?”

“Why, no. My goodness, my mother thought I told you much too much as it was. When she found out your friend was arrested, she…” Her voice trailed off.

“What?”

“Please don't be angry. It's only natural that she would feel relieved that the police won't bother us anymore.”

How could I get angry? If the cops had arrested Carmen's mother, I know I'd have felt relieved for Wes.

“I wonder if you could tell me something,” Carmen said tentatively. “Did Lily lose her inheritance?”

So this was the real reason Carmen had chosen to call. She was scouting information herself.

“Where did you hear that?”

“Gray. He called me a few hours ago and told me to come home. He's been after me ever since I left. But this time he said things had changed. He said that Lily had been cheating on Bruno and now the entire estate will go to the brothers. He's worked a deal with Bru, Jr. so that we'll get control of his father's company and all the land in Los Feliz. Bru needs cash. They worked out an agreeable arrangement.”

“So you might own the land you wanted after all?”

“I don't know. I can't believe it's true. My mother said you'd tell me if Graydon is just dreaming.”

“According to Lily, I'm afraid it's true.”

“Oh my god.” I could hear the mixture of emotions in Carmen's voice.

“So will you go back to him?” I asked.

“Mother thinks I should.”

“Why am I not surprised?”

“It's just that I'm not sure I could take it anymore. Graydon was always trying to control me. Always deciding who I could see for lunch, or if I could commit to taking a dance
class. He wouldn't even let me join a gym.”

“Carmen, since we're trading information, I'd like to get the chronology straight. Bruno and Lily got married about six years ago. And then, you married Gray…when?”

“Let's see. Graydon and I got married the next year. They had little Lewis the year after that.”

“When did you and Bruno start…?” Not exactly delicate, but she had no trouble following me.

“Three years ago.”

“So that was a year after Lewis was born. Did Bruno ever talk about what Lily and he went through to have a baby?”

“No. Of course, that was before Bruno and I got together. But I do remember there was some talk in the family. Lily couldn't get pregnant. And then there was the contest.”

“What contest?”

“Bru, Jr.'s wife Missy and I used to laugh at those men sometimes. The Huntley men. They thought they were so macho! It was kind of funny. I remember not long after I'd been married, Gray said he couldn't sleep with me for a week. This had something to do with a contest his dad had set up.”

“What kind of contest?”

“Lily was going to some fancy doctor in Beverly Hills. Bruno told his older boys that he'd had his sperm tested as part of the process to see what was wrong with Lily. Anyway, Bruno said that the doctor had never seen sperm with such high numbers. You know, for all the weird stuff they test sperm for. Bruno bragged that he had scored the highest ever on this doctor's sperm tests.”

Wait. Back up a moment. This had to be impossible. And then I got it. Of course. This was the very way Bruno used to embellish things. A man with a vasectomy claiming to have a high sperm count! Brother.

“Somehow, Bruno thought up this funny challenge and got the boys to agree. He offered a thousand dollars to the son who could top his scores on the sperm count.”

“He wanted his sons to get their sperm tested?”

“Right. He dared them to compete with their old man. Missy and I thought they were out of their minds, but it was a male bonding ritual, Huntley-style. They met one morning in the parking lot attached to the Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. The boys were to do their business into these cups, and then Bruno would take them up to the doctor to get tested.”

“Wait a minute. You mean Bru, Jr. and Graydon actually drove to a parking lot, sat in their cars and…”

“Gave a sample, yes. Missy called it the Jerk Olympics. Get it?”

“Yes.” In every sense of the word.

“See, Graydon was so competitive he insisted we couldn't sleep together for a week. In order to build up his sperm.”

My head was spinning. I was beginning to believe Bruno devised this bizarre family contest for the sole purpose of gathering sperm samples. It seemed he'd dipped into his very own gene pool to inseminate his unsuspecting wife. And that meant Lewis Huntley's half-brothers were actually, biologically, his two dads. Amazing.

“Who won the contest?” I had to ask.

“Bru's sperm count was about 150 million per cc of semen and Graydon had only about 100 million.”

“One hundred million sperm? Per cubic centimeter of semen?” I asked. (I made a mental note to get my diaphragm checked.)

“That doesn't tell you how lively the sperm are swimming. Now what do they call that? ‘Mobility' I think,” she guessed.

Upward? I smiled at my own joke.

“Mo
t
ility?” I suggested.

“Something like that. Anyway, Bruno declared Bru the winner and Gray was demanding a recount.” She was laughing. “Typical.”

“That's one odd family you married into.”

“All families are odd, aren't they? When you get to
know their secrets?” Carmen, with her own bitter family sorrows and strange sexual alliances, was clearly beyond being shocked by mere macho posturing.

As I hung up, Holly entered my office and slumped in the comfortable chair that faces my desk. She carelessly tossed one of her legs over the rolled arm of the chair. Today she had on black leggings and a black leather bra. She dangled a heavy clog from the foot that was looped over the chair.

“No luck with the sperm banks,” she sadly offered. “They have this confidentiality thing.”

“I figured. But the sperm question may be answered.” I filled her in on the Jerk Olympics. Where I had been sort of stunned at the madness of it all, she was totally amused.

“It's not such a bad idea,” she said. “Maybe when we get serious with a guy we should insist he get his sperm checked. I mean, it could be pretty important information if you want to have children.”

“So what do you do if the guy you're in love with has problem sperm?” I challenged.

“Toss him,” Holly said, unconcerned with trivial issues like love.

“Right. Say Christian Slater asked you to marry him and it turned out his sperm was lazy? Low motility, say. What you gonna do?”

Holly's eyes flashed at me. She untangled herself from my office furniture and rose to her full six feet. “Oh, throw Christian Slater at me, huh? Think that will win your argument?”