by R. G. Belsky
Stovall waved the gun in his hand around now, but not like he was going to use it. It was almost as if he’d forgotten it was there. He was lost in his own thoughts, his own memories.
“Anyway a few weeks ago, Charlie came to me to say the feds were asking him questions about secret overseas money funds. He said he wanted to cooperate with them. I couldn’t let him do that. So I told him. I told him everything. About the stolen money. But also the real story of how we’d gotten the microchip formula and all the rest of it. I threatened that if I went down for it all, I’d bring him down with me.
“I expected that he’d understand that. But he didn’t. Instead, he went on a crazy trip—reaching out to people from his past, our past, to try to make amends or something. That was the trouble with Charlie—he had a conscience. Everybody thought he was this hard-hearted prick, and he could be. But he had a damn conscience that got in the way every once in a while. And that’s what happened.
“We didn’t talk about it again, and I thought maybe he had seen the light and was going to keep his mouth shut. But then, that last day, he told me he was going to cooperate fully with the authorities and tell them everything. He said he had to do it in order to live with himself. There it was again, that damn conscience.”
“But you couldn’t let him do that, could you?”
“I went to his place that night. I hoped Laurie would be there, too. I was going to tell them both the entire truth. About how I was really her father. I hoped the shock of that might get Charlie to realize he was better off just leaving everything the way it was. But Laurie was gone. And Charlie told me that he was going to reach out to the Treasury people the next day and tell them everything.
“We argued, and then—I’m still not sure exactly what happened—I got so mad that I picked up the lamp and smashed him in the head with it. I didn’t mean to kill him. Yes, I’ve killed people before, but not Charlie. He was my friend. My best friend in the world. But, when I saw him lying there on the floor, I realized what I had done.”
He looked down at the gun in his hand.
“Just like I realize what I have to do now,” he said, pointing it at me. “I’m sorry. I don’t want to kill you either. But it’s the only way.”
I heard a noise outside. Was it Pollock? Had he understood what I was trying to tell him over the phone? It was my only hope.
“Don’t do it,” I said. “The police are outside right now. You don’t want another murder.”
He smiled sadly. “That’s an old ruse, Ms. Carlson. It never works.”
“Only when it’s true,” I said.
The noise was louder now. A door opening, followed by the sound of footsteps. And then Nick Pollock burst into the room with his gun pointed at Stovall.
“Drop the weapon,” he yelled.
But he didn’t. Stovall just stood there with a shocked look on his face.
“Drop the gun,” Pollock said again. “This is your last chance. If you don’t, I’ll shoot you right now. Do the smart thing, Stovall. Give it up. Drop the gun.”
But Bert Stovall didn’t drop the gun.
He pointed it instead.
Not at me.
Not at Pollock either.
But at himself.
“Fifty years,” he said. “That’s how long Charlie and I were together. We accomplished a whole lot in that time. We were a great team, Charlie and I. It was a fun ride. But nothing lasts forever. And I’m too old to go to jail …”
Stovall put the gun to his head, pulled the trigger, and killed himself.
CHAPTER 62
LAURIE BATEMAN LOOKED like America’s sweetheart again. Her hair was perfectly coiffured, her makeup impeccable. She was wearing a pink pants suit with a white silk blouse that made her look beautiful and also like a big-time corporate executive. Which she was, of course, now that her husband was dead and his will had never been changed.
Funny how things had worked out so well for her in the end. But then things always worked out well for Laurie Bateman. They had all of her life ever since she came to America.
It had been a few days since Stovall’s death, and now I wanted to finish the story with the perfect ending: one last TV interview with Laurie Bateman.
She was happy to talk to me on air again this time.
I guess we were back to best friend status now.
We were doing the interview in her office at the Hollister building. The office had a spectacular view of the Manhattan skyline from the big window next to her desk. It was like the offices there that her husband, Bert Stovall, and Charles Hollister Jr. had all once had. But now it was Laurie Bateman who was in charge.
The interview was being done live. Normally, we’d have taped it in advance, then played it on the newscast. But I wanted to do this one in real time for a lot of reasons. I convinced everyone—Laurie Bateman, Jack Faron, and other people at the station—that it would be more dramatic to do it on live TV.
But the truth was, I had other reasons I wanted to do it this way.
We’d done a big promo campaign for it in advance so I expected we’d have a lot of viewers for this show. That was good for our ratings, but also good for Laurie Bateman—who loved being in the spotlight. I figured that’s why she agreed to be interviewed like this by me on live TV.
“This has been such a traumatic experience for me, as I’m sure you can understand,” she said now as the cameras rolled. “To find out all this horrific information about what Bert Stovall did, the money he stole, and the lives that he took … it’s almost too much to bear. It goes to show you that you never really know who someone is.
“I still can’t believe that Bert Stovall was my biological father. And that the man I always thought had been my father from Vietnam is still alive. It’s like I’ve been lied to all my life. Well, the lies are over now. I’m glad I finally found out the truth. And grateful to you, Clare, for helping to make all this happen.”
She reached over, took my hand, and squeezed it. It was a very moving moment. I didn’t respond. I just let her keep talking. Because it was good TV. But I had a plan, too. I waited until she was finished with her own emotional words before I segued into the topic of her dead husband.
“Laurie, how do you feel about Charles Hollister now that you have found all these new things about him and his life?”
“That’s so complicated,” she said. “I mean, I hated Charles because of the things he did to me. But now I feel that maybe there were some good things about him too. Yes, we had bad times at the end. But I’m sorry he’s dead. He didn’t deserve to die the way that he did. I’m glad that we finally found out who killed him. That it was Bert Stovall. Finding out the truth, no matter how painful, does give me a little bit of closure though to all the horrible experiences I’ve been through since Charles died.”
She reached up and wiped a tear from her eye. At least I thought it was a real tear. I couldn’t be sure though. She was an actress. Actresses know how to cry for the camera. And that’s what she was doing now: playing a part for the camera.
And it was up to me to stop her performance.
Which is what I wanted to do right now on live TV, as risky as that was to pull off.
I hadn’t talked with anyone about my plan. Not Maggie. Not the people on my news team. Certainly not Jack Faron. I knew they would all tell me the idea was reckless and irresponsible and dangerous. But I was determined to go ahead anyway. And I knew that if I did it like this on live TV, no one could stop me. No matter what happened afterward.
Okay, here we go, I thought to myself.
“Actually, I’m not sure Bert Stovall did kill your husband,” I said.
That startled her.
“Of course, he did,” she said. “He admitted murdering Charles. He hit him with the lamp and he shot him. You said he told you that before he died.”
“No, he admitted that he hit Charles with that lamp. But he never said anything about shooting him with the gun. I think maybe the blow from the lamp wasn’t enoug
h to kill your husband. It just injured him and probably knocked him unconscious. But he wasn’t dead yet. He wasn’t dead until someone put three bullets into him.”
“Bert Stovall.”
“Or maybe someone else.”
“Who?”
“It could have been anyone, Laurie—even you.”
She glared at me now and I knew—just from the look in her eye—that I was right. The mask of her Laurie Bateman public persona had disappeared for just a few seconds. This was the real Laurie Bateman. A woman who would do whatever she had to do to get what she wanted. Even murder. But then it was over, and the Laurie Bateman we all knew and loved was back. She laughed, as if I’d made a joke.
“That’s absolutely ridiculous,” she said.
“Is it?”
“Bert Stovall killed my husband. That’s what the police believe, and they’re right.”
“Not really. The investigation is still open. There’s a lot of things that haven’t been explained yet. But I have a theory. Just a theory. We’re only talking hypothetically here, Laurie. I mean, no one knows exactly what happened to your husband. But, hypothetically speaking, let me throw this possible scenario out. Tell me what you think of it:
“You show up at your apartment that morning and you find your bloodied husband on the floor. He’s still alive, but badly hurt. You know he hasn’t had time yet to change the will. So you decide to take advantage of the opportunity you had right then. You go into the bedroom, grab your gun, and fire three shots into him.
“You assumed you’d be gone when the body was found. You knew the maid usually arrived for work at ten a.m. That gave you time to get out of there before she showed up. Except you didn’t know that the maid, Carmen Ortega, had made a last-minute decision to come in an hour earlier that day. So she walked in on you before you could get away—and you got arrested.
“But then you came up with this story about how Hollister had abused you. Maybe he did, maybe he didn’t. But, one way or another, you delivered a terrific acting performance—in front of the camera and later in court—that let you get away with murder. Hey, I even helped you to do just that.”
I thought she might storm off camera at this point and maybe have me and the TV crew with me thrown out. That would have been all right with me. Because I’d accomplished what I set out to do. Make the accusation against her—planted the seed in the public’s mind—on live TV. Lots of people would see this, and later I knew it was going to explode on social media. Everyone would be talking about it.
But she didn’t leave. She sat there and smiled. It was a scary smile. She still thought she could get away with it. She’d gotten away with a lot over the years.
“Why are you doing this, Clare? Is this a cheap ratings ploy by you and your station? I thought you were better than that.”
“No, it’s just a hypothetical scenario. That’s all.”
“You have no evidence or proof for anything you’re saying.”
“Of course, I don’t.”
“I should point out that you are libeling me on live television—calling me a murder.”
“I didn’t call you a murderer. Like I said, I simply threw out a theory—a hypothetical scenario—of how it might have happened.”
“Don’t play word games. I could sue you and your station for that if I wanted.”
“Only if it’s not true,” I said.
“But you have to prove what you’re claiming is true. And you can’t do that, can you?”
“Who knows? I’m going to keep investigating. And so are the police; they’ve told me that. I’m not sure how much you know about me, but I’m a pretty dogged reporter. I’ve broken a lot of pretty big stories in my time. And I don’t give up on a story until I have all the answers. The police are going to do the same thing. You beat a murder charge once, Laurie. But I think it’s going to be harder now. I don’t think your tricks are going work again. I don’t think there’s going to be a happy ending for you this time.”
She stopped looking at me now. Instead, she looked directly into the camera. That’s who she was playing to—her audience out there on the other side of the screen.
“I’m a survivor,” she said, her voice almost seeming to break with emotion as she said the words. “I’ve been a survivor all my life since the day I was born. And I’ll keep on being a survivor. No matter what it takes to survive the lies and untruths that are said about me. I know people will believe me. I know they will believe my story. Because it’s the truth. All I can do is tell the truth.”
It was a nice speech. I imagine she hoped it would win public sentiment for her as America’s sweetheart again—just like it did when she made that emotional plea in the courtroom to win her freedom.
Except the words didn’t work for me this time.
Because I’d heard them from her before.
It was another line from one of her movies.
CHAPTER 63
LAURIE BATEMAN HASN’T been indicted for the murder of her husband yet. I’m not sure if she ever will be.
There’s no hard evidence, only circumstantial, that she was the one who pulled the trigger of the gun that ultimately killed Charles Hollister. Especially now that Bert Stovall wasn’t around to testify about what he did or didn’t do to his lifelong friend and business partner.
And the District Attorney’s office, after being burned so badly the first time they tried to indict her, seems reluctant to make that move again unless something more substantial shows up in the police investigation.
But an amazing thing happened to Laurie Bateman after that televised interview she did with me.
She was found guilty. Guilty in the eyes of public opinion. Everyone pretty much was convinced after the interview that she had murdered her husband, and she became a public pariah—sort of like O.J. Simpson. Found not guilty by the law, but a disgraced former celebrity that no one wanted to be around anymore.
She was eventually ousted as CEO by the board of Hollister Enterprises because of the unfavorable publicity she brought to the company. Her endorsements, media deals, and celebrity appearances all dried up. Everyone suddenly tried to distance themselves from—or, even worse, ignore—Laurie Bateman, the woman they had all once adored.
Which might have been the worst punishment of all for her.
Victor Endicott was tracked down to Rio de Janeiro where he was living in a villa on the beach with stolen money from the Hollister company.
It took a while for the extradition to happen. But eventually, the fact that he was a possible co-conspirator in murder broke the diplomatic logjam of red tape—and he was returned to New York. Endicott admitted embezzling money with Stovall and also putting together the false phone tape of Hollister on the night he died. After hours of intense questioning, he also broke down and confessed he had arranged the murder of Carmen Ortega and lured Pham Van Quong to the site hoping to kill him, too. He said Bert Stovall had paid him to do it because Stovall had found out that last night from Hollister that Quong was still alive. He said Stovall paid him to plant evidence from the murder in Charles Jr.’s office—and to leave the edited security tape with Charles Jr. on it for police to find—in order to make him look guilty. But Endicott insisted he had nothing to do with Hollister’s murder. He also denied knowing anything about the deaths of Marvin Bateman or Hollister’s former wife. It didn’t make much difference though; he was going to jail for a long time.
I’m not sure we’ll ever find out the answers about the deaths of Marvin Bateman or Hollister’s ex-wife. Maybe they both happened the way it seemed. Bateman committed suicide, and Karen Hollister accidentally fell off her son’s boat. Or maybe Laurie Bateman had somehow been involved in both of the deaths. Because it helped her get what she wanted if they were out of the way. There are always unanswered questions to every big story, and this one was no exception.
The one good thing was that Elaine Hollister was now the head of her father’s company. After Laurie Bateman was removed f
rom power, the board members turned to her—instead of Charles, who had alienated so many people over the years—to carry on the business that her father had built up.
I met her for coffee not long after she started the job, and she was full of exciting ideas about what she planned to do with the company. Not just to make money, she said, but to make the world a better place.
She wanted the Hollister business, with all its resources, to carry on the kind of work she’d been doing all her life with battered women and sick children and other needy people. I didn’t think it was very realistic. Big companies aren’t usually altruistic if they want to keep on making money. This sounded too impractical to succeed for her. But I love people who want to do the impossible like that, so I wished her well.
I liked Elaine Hollister.
I thought she was a good person.
And sometimes good things do happen to good people.
Charles Hollister? He no longer worked for the company. He would still get a substantial amount of money from his father’s estate, and, of course, he was freed from jail on all the charges. I’m not sure what’s going to happen to him, and I don’t care. Strange how two different children from Charles Hollister could turn out so differently like that. It was like Elaine got the good genes; Charles the bad ones. As for the elder Hollister himself, I wasn’t sure what to think of him. Yes, he’d done bad stuff in his life. But, in the end, it seemed like Charles Hollister had tried to do the right thing. It was just too little, too late.
Pham Van Quong, or James Dawson, went back to the Gulf Shore of Mississippi to run his businesses.
I thought he might have a bit of a messy problem to deal with on his marriage, since he was still legally married to the woman who was now Gloria Bateman. But he’d been declared legally dead after the hit-and-run so no one expected many repercussions. Overall, he’d come out of this okay.
No, he hadn’t made a fortune on his microchip idea that he and his friend had come up with in Vietnam all those years ago. Charles Hollister—with the help of Bert Stovall—had gotten rich with it, instead. But Pham had done all right for himself. He achieved the American Dream, even if it took him a few detours along the way to do it.