A Dead Husband (Jessica Huntington Desert Cities Mystery)

by Anna Burke

  “Yeah, I ducked just in time,” Brien said.

  “Then you stood up and started ripping at the hooks on the front of your dress until it dropped down around your ankles. We laughed until you started pointing at us saying ‘take it off or I’ll tear it off.’ It was sort of psycho and sort of like you were going to cry. So we took you seriously and stripped down to our boxers,” Tommy added.

  “I didn’t want you to trash my Gucci botanic pants you bought me, or this gorgeous poplin shirt.” As he spoke he gathered his clothes strewn about and held them close. “I thought maybe you were out to kill anything with a designer label so I got out of my clothes quick.”

  “I just did what Tommy did. It was kinda whacked, but I didn’t mind getting rid of a few clothes,” Brien added soberly.

  “Whacked sounds about right,” Jessica whispered. “Sorry guys,” she said in a louder voice. “I’m really going to try to get it together.”

  “It’s okay,” Brien said. “We all gotta go whacko once in a while. But do you think I still have a job?”

  “If you still want to be pool boy to the madwoman of Mission Hills, I’m sure I can square things with Bernadette. Just lay low for a day or so, then pick up your regular schedule like none of this ever happened.”

  “That’s cool. Gee thanks, Jessica.”

  “Okay Brien. You and Tommy better get out of here.”

  “Sure, Jessica,” Tommy said. “How are we going to get home, though? We got here in the limo you hired. You want us to call a cab?”

  Jessica thought for a moment about last night. She had planned what she hoped would be a great evening. She’d rented a well-stocked stretch limo to shuttle her, Tommy, and a few other friends around town. Dinner had been great at Lulu’s, downtown in Palm Springs. Then there was Judge Judy Bingo and drinks at Toucan’s nearby, followed by dancing and more drinks at Costa’s.

  She vaguely recalled Tommy asking if he could, “please, please, please” bring Brien along when they ran into him at Costa’s. She must have said okay. The plan was to go next to the Agua Caliente Casino to play some slots, and she was sure there would be more drinking. By that point things got really sketchy. It was like she had blacked out. Jessica strained to remember what happened, making her head hurt more, but there was nada, zip, zilch. She had no recollection at all of arriving at the casino or returning home after that.

  “Tommy, I don’t get it. I just can’t remember much of anything after leaving Costa’s. Brien, you were there by then, what happened? I am so sorry you guys, maybe I just can’t hold my liquor anymore. Did I make a scene or pass out?”

  She was definitely out of practice drinking. Most of the last three years of her marriage had been spent trying to get pregnant, being pregnant, or recovering from a failed pregnancy. Despite her love of good wine, and an appreciation for stronger spirits on occasion, she had quit drinking completely.

  “Did everybody else get home okay?” she asked.

  “Of course, Jessica,” Tommy replied. “Everybody was having a great time at your divorce party except you.”

  “I wasn’t the life of the party, but I was doing okay until I flamed out on all of you,” she said, shaking her head in disgust. “How much do you have to drink to black out like that? Maybe I should book a stint at Betty Ford’s.” She shook her head sadly.

  Brien looked anxiously at Tommy. “Dude, you’d better tell her.” Tommy whipped his head in Brien’s direction and shook his head no.

  “Tell me what, Tommy?” Jessica asked, assuming the hands on hips posture that worked so effectively for Bernadette.

  “We were really only trying to make the experience more spectacular for her, Tommy.” Then to Jessica he added, “You were kind of bummed out, Jessica. I could tell that right away when I saw you all at Costa’s.”

  “Tommy, I’m asking you for the last time. What did you do?”

  Tommy looked up sheepishly. “We sort of gave you something.”

  “What the...?’’ Jessica’s voice rose in volume.

  “Shh, shh, hush,” they both said in unison, cutting her off and looking over their shoulders at the bedroom door. “You don’t want to get HER back in here do you?” Tommy asked.

  “Tell me what you did and then I’ll decide whether St. Bernadette comes back in here or not. Tell me, now.” Despite her bravado, she did lower her voice, since she wasn’t ready for another round with Bernadette either.

  “We slipped you a roofy, okay?” Brien blurted out. “We talked it over and thought you might have some fun if you could relax a little more.”

  “Thomas,” Jessica asked, “is this true?”

  “Thomas, you haven’t called me Thomas since I was twelve...” his voice trailed off when they made eye contact. “It’s true,” he said looking at his hands and then a big, fat tear rolled down his cheek. “I had no idea you’d take it so bad.”

  “Take it so bad! You could have killed me. You don’t have any idea what else I’m already taking. And I was drinking—a lot!” The volume of Jessica’s voice began to rise again.

  “Wow, I never thought about that, did you Tommy?” Brien asked, wide-eyed.

  “I am so sorry,” Tommy said. “I’ve never seen anyone get so weird after only taking one roofy and having a few drinks. You shouldn’t ever do that again.” Tears were streaming down his face now.

  “Oh, I won’t do that again,” Jessica said grimly. “And neither will you. Not to me, or to anyone else. If I ever find out either of you has pulled a stunt like that again I’m calling your Uncle Don, Tommy.” They both looked down at the floor. Uncle Don was his dad’s brother, Sergeant Donald Fontana with the Palm Springs Police Department. She wasn’t sure she’d really call him but it sounded like a good threat.

  “And I’ll tell Bernadette.”

  Two heads snapped up, looking at her to see if she was serious. Seeing the set of her jaw, they both blanched with terror.

  “We won’t do it again. Please don’t tell, Mrs. B. It’s not just about my job,” Brien said with great conviction, “that woman has powers.” Tommy nodded solemnly in agreement.

  Jessica knew exactly what they meant. If she had to choose she’d rather face Uncle Don and spend a couple days in jail than push Bernadette too far. They both looked absolutely miserable.

  “You two get out of here, now!” Jessica reached for the big leather Buti tote sitting on her dresser and pulled out her keys. “Take my car,” she said, tossing the keys to Tommy. Tommy brightened instantly and snatched the keys right out of the air.

  “You still love me, Jessica, you do, you do,” Tommy said with a smile of relief on his face. She did.

  It’s tough when you’re young and you lose someone your own age, shattering the illusion of invulnerability before you have your feet planted firmly under you. After Kelly died Tommy never quite got it together to figure out what he wanted from life, much less how he was going to get it. He took courses at College of the Desert, the local community college, without ever settling on a direction. He dabbled in computers and videography. He got excited about a career in xeriscape so he could design desert landscapes, until he actually tried working outdoors in the desert heat.

  Jessica thought about the tattered ruins that remained of her own well-planned life and let out a huge sigh. “The best laid plans,” she thought. She held out her arms and Tommy rushed into them for a hug, starting to sob again.

  “It’s okay, Tommy,” she said patting him on the back, tears welling up in her eyes as a rush of maternal feelings engulfed her. Damned biological clock! Fueled by fertility drugs, she had plunged into a primordial soup of hormones from which she was still emerging months later. Jessica looked up just as Brien took a step toward them raising his arms.

  “Don’t even think about it,” she said. Brien stopped mid step.

  Tommy wiped his eyes on his sleeve. “Get it back to me tomorrow and in perfect condition or else,” Jessica admonished. They nodded their heads obediently and left the ro
om.

  Jessica was exhausted but relieved to find out she wasn’t going completely nuts or hadn’t gone too far down the road toward alcoholism. She was living too damn close to the edge, though. It was time to take a step back toward normalcy, whatever that meant at this point in her life. Jessica finished cleaning the room, even changed the sheets and made her bed. A shower would be great but the next thing she needed to do was patch things up with Bernadette. Tightening the cord on her soft chenille robe, like a fighter about to enter the arena, Jessica padded in bare feet out to the kitchen to find Bernadette.

  CHAPTER 2

  Bernadette was sitting at the table in the morning room just off the kitchen. The room was essentially a semicircular wall of twenty foot windows that looked out onto the patio and pool, with views of the golf course, desert and mountains beyond.

  Like the rest of the 4000 square foot house, it was beautifully appointed in a harmonious palette of warm desert hues inspired by the natural beauty of the outdoors. Sunbaked neutrals ranging from light brown, tan and taupe to dark umber and even black conveyed muted tones found in desert sand and mountain stone. Everywhere there were bursts of color: terracotta, gold, mauves, pinks and deeper saturates of red and purple. Shades that captured the desert sunset and the striking contrast wrought upon stark terrain by drought-hardy plants like magenta bougainvillea, rusty red chuparosa, and purple desert verbena. They also mirrored colors found in a carpet of tiny wildflowers that sprang to life on the desert floor and mountain slopes with the slightest encouragement by Mother Nature. Walls of windows blurred the lines between indoors and outdoors, adding startling green from the manicured golf course and stunning blue skies to the color palette in every room of the house.

  Jessica’s father, Henry “Hank” Huntington, named for a distant family relative who once owned a lot of the city of Huntington Beach, had built the house. Like the original Henry Huntington, railroad magnate turned real estate mogul, her father became involved in real estate development. Trained as an architect, it was his first love. He was a shrewd businessman, though, and found more and more of his time taken up by managing the firm rather than being engaged in design.

  In the 60’s he was part of a cohort of architects and developers involved in the proliferation of country clubs, golf courses and resort homes that sprang up in and around Palm Springs and other areas of southern California. Their work brought the California-modern suburban lifestyle, pioneered in the 40s and 50s, to a pinnacle of sorts. As the mid-century modernist movement, and the Palms Springs area, moved out of the limelight in the 70s, her father set about building his dream house.

  He was head over heels in love with the area’s take on modernism. He used sleek lines and cool geometry, set off by large expanses of glass mixed with natural stone, to take advantage of idyllic views. The house glowed in the glorious sunlight of the endless summer in California’s Sonoran desert. He was just as much in love with Jessica’s mother then, too. He poured his heart and soul into the house, part architectural wonder, part tribute to the spoiled goddess he had married.

  Jessica’s mother, Alexis Baldwin before she became Alexis Huntington, would have been happy to remain in Brentwood. They already owned a spectacular home there. But she cared enough about Hank Huntington at that point to get on board with the project. She appreciated beautiful things, had a terrific sense of style, and took a hand in designing and decorating the desert house.

  Originally the house was intended to be a place to escape from LA on weekends. During the process, however, Jessica’s mother discovered she was pregnant. In Hank’s mind, that changed everything. Jessica was going to be the first of many children to occupy the six-bedroom, eight-bathroom house. It became a family home and morphed into a sort of homage to “Brady-Bunch”-style southern California domesticity. He missed the mark. There were no more children and Jessica’s mother remained more inclined toward an Angie Dickenson “Rat Pack” kind of role for herself than the iconic Mrs. Brady. She preferred the glitz and glamor of Hollywood and relished trips to Rodeo Drive, to museums and theaters, and all the other amenities found in a city as large and diverse as Los Angeles.

  While Jessica was young, her mother seemed resigned to making the most of life in the Coachella Valley. The Mission Hills house was built in Rancho Mirage, one of the smaller, more affluent of the seven desert cities strung along Highway 111. The number of permanent residents in Rancho Mirage even today is small, numbering fewer than twenty thousand. During the “season”, from mid-January to the beginning of April, her mother was active on the charity circuit, and seemed happy enough as she flitted from one gala fundraiser to another.

  Jessica had fond memories of time spent at her mother’s side going to extravagant parties, galas, and other special events. Interspersed were lavish weekends spent at their Brentwood home, shopping sprees in Beverly Hills or other similarly fabulous destinations, and even some glamorous sojourns abroad. There were equally happy times involving leisurely afternoons at home. Jessica’s mother taught her to swim in the backyard pool. Her father often worked at his big desk in the den, joining them for a swim or to grill steaks on the barbeque.

  Increasingly, though it was just the two of them in the expansive, luxurious house, and Bernadette, of course. Maybe it would have been different if there had been more children. A younger brother or sister might have changed things for her mother and father. As Jessica got older and started school, her mother grew restless and unhappy. Her mother’s increased unhappiness coincided with, or contributed to, her father spending less and less time with them in the desert.

  At least in part, his diminished presence in their lives was tied to increasing success in his work. More and more often, he showed up in Mission Hills only on weekends. Once Jessica started school, she and her mother were more tied down, less able to follow him back to the city.

  Tension mounted between her parents. Arguments would often end with her father’s preemptive return to Brentwood on the weekend and her mother’s withdrawal to the master suite wing of the house. The fights between her parents escalated until the fierceness burned out, turning into indifference, and then divorce.

  By the time they divorced, they were so done with each other that there were no duels about money or custody. When he wasn’t working and Jessica’s schedule allowed, she saw her father on weekends and spent a couple weeks with him in LA during the summers. She also traveled with her mother in the summer until her mother’s preoccupation with finding a new husband became troublesome to them both.

  Through it all, there was Bernadette. She had increasingly become a surrogate parent, or a trustworthy relative of some kind, anyway. During the heights of hostilities between Jessica’s parents, Bernadette managed to avoid taking sides. She was Switzerland in the midst of warring factions, a safe and neutral presence.

  Not that she let Jessica get away with the acting out she felt entitled to do. Unable to put her own distress into words Jessica began to act it out instead. Bernadette was unmoved by tantrums or hysterics. She helped enforce loss of phone and other privileges when Jessica got into trouble. Like the time she was sent home from Palm Valley for spitting at Miss Crutchfield. Her gym teacher was no small target so Jessica could have hit her if she’d wanted to do it. Instead, she chose to send the insult in her direction, missing her by inches.

  It was Bernadette who picked Jessica up from school. Her mother, Alexis, had been in bed all day with a headache. She took a turn for the worse after arguing with school officials about an appropriate punishment for Jessica’s behavior. Jessica got a three day suspension. Expulsion came later.

  “What a drama queen I was,” Jessica thought as she caught sight of Bernadette. Awash in the glow of sunlight pouring through the windows, Bernadette looked every bit the saint. A wave of nostalgia swept over Jessica at the familiar sight.

  “Okay, okay so I still am a drama queen,” she admitted to herself.

  Bernadette did not look up when Jessica walked
into the kitchen. She was nibbling on toast and reading one of her beloved celebrity magazines, US or People or something like that. Well, maybe she wasn’t a saint. Jessica doubted a saint would spend as much time as Bernadette did reading that trash.

  “I need coffee,” Jessica said, testing the water.

  “You know where it is. Help yourself.” Bernadette still did not look up, but continued to focus on her reading.

  Jessica poured herself a large mug of coffee from the insulated thermos that kept brewed coffee at a constant temperature. “You could hardly call this coffee,” Jessica thought after her first sip. She preferred her coffee fresh, took pleasure from grinding fresh roasted beans flown in from Peet’s, then brewing them using a French Press. She let out a little sigh as she considered pouring the coffee in her cup down the drain and starting from scratch. “Make that drama queen and coffee snob,” she thought after another sip. She was too desperate for caffeine to start over. She needed coffee. Plenty of it, in whatever form she could get this morning, if it was still morning.

  A look at the little red-banded, Michele Deco watch she bought at Saks on El Paseo to go with her divorce party outfit revealed it was still morning. A ripple of pleasure ran through her admiring the lovely but pricey watch, adding luxury slut to drama queen and coffee snob. The good news, it was just a little after eleven so she hadn’t lost the entire morning to sloth and overindulgence.

  Jessica popped a couple pieces of bread into the toaster and got a plate out of the cupboard. By the time the toast was done she had finished her first cup of coffee and poured a second. Putting the coffee and toast on a tray, along with the coffee pot, she headed to the table and sat down near Bernadette. Bernadette still did not say a word or otherwise acknowledge Jessica’s presence.

  “You want some more coffee?” Jessica asked. Bernadette said nothing but pushed her nearly empty cup in Jessica’s direction. After filling the cup, Jessica tried again to engage Bernadette, taking a more direct approach.