by Wyborn Senna
Chapter 57
The first week of It Factor featured James Taylor songs, and the judges told Ryan that his “Fire and Rain” sounded like an Elvis cover. The theme for the show’s second week was songs from the sixties, so in blatant defiance, Ryan chose to sing the 1963 Elvis hit song, “(You’re The) Devil In Disguise”. His performance was so spot-on, Deth Mental leaned back in his chair, studied him a moment, and then quipped, “I thought they only knew how to clone sheep.”
“It’s like you’re a freakin’ hologram of Elvis,” Tamarind proclaimed. “You know, like they did in that song with Nat King Cole and his daughter.”
“You can’t just be a copy of someone,” Crann surmised. “You can’t change your voice, which is so Elvis it’s frightening, but you can put a little twist or spin on things so that you’re original. Talk to the coaches. Find your niche in the market. You’ve got to figure out who you are, and you have to fill a void that we didn’t even know existed.”
Ryan was beginning to wonder why they had even chosen him for the show. He could sing, plain and simple, and they had liked him when he auditioned, but now he had to figure out things he’d never questioned. The one thing he could figure out, though, was the confessional booth, and he used it to try and find his birth dad. His segment lasted three minutes and aired during the third episode, before he sang “Bridge Over Troubled Water” for Simon and Garfunkel week, which Mental said was in his “wheel house” but was “meant to be sung more tenderly.”
The confessional booth was no bigger than a closet and just as dark. Floor lights illuminated Ryan from below, making him look like a kid at camp telling a ghost story with a flashlight held beneath his chin.
“Ryan,” the cameraman prompted, “tell us something about you we don’t know.”
Ryan smiled broadly. If he were in court, the cameraman would be accused of leading the witness.
“You all know by now that my name is Ryan Wyatt, but what you don’t know is that I’m not Eugene Wyatt’s son. I mean, he raised me, but technically, he’s not my dad. My mom was artificially inseminated in Vegas in ’88, and I was born that October. The doctor’s records are confidential, but now that I’m eighteen, I feel it’s my right to know who my birth father is. Actually, I’ve always felt it was my right, but considering I’m older and have graduated high school, I feel it’s more imperative than ever to meet him and get to know him if I can. If any of you out there see a resemblance between us and you donated sperm to Las Vegas Fertility Associates on Harmon in Vegas at any point during the eighties or earlier, please contact me through the It Factor message boards.”
He stopped and the cameraman did, too.
Ryan’s palms were damp, so he wiped them on his jeans. “What’d you think?”
The cameraman rubbed his bearded chin. “It’s better stuff than that country rock gal, Candy Klymer, thinking it’s a big secret her favorite color is pink and she collects stuffed unicorns.”
Chapter 58
Logan had three single-story issues to prepare for the coming week, so he turned on the TV for background noise and set to work with a heavy heart. His uncle’s health was declining after a series of strokes, and Logan braced himself for the worst. Nancy was with Wendall in the hospital in Vegas, where he was battling pneumonia. She had promised to call Logan the minute she needed him to drop everything and make the final trip to say good-bye.
In the years since Logan discovered the paperwork listing Zella Stuart and Elvis Presley as Ryan’s biological parents, he’d been weighed down by the knowledge. Though it secretly thrilled him to know The King had a son with appreciable talent, he also knew he couldn’t betray the confidentiality agreement his uncle honored. But once his uncle passed, would it be possible to tell Ryan? Part of him wanted to, and it was that part that motivated him to win an online auction for clippings of Elvis’s hair saved by Homer “Gil” Gilleland, The King’s personal hairdresser from early on, into the seventies. The unlabeled amber vial he kept on his bedside table had enough of Elvis’s hair for a number of DNA tests and came with a signed certificate of authenticity. It had cost him the sale of his graphic-arts school graduation gift, a ‘54 Caddy the color of lemon meringue, like the one Elvis purchased in 1955. The car was a beauty, and Logan loved it, but his last year at Flash, he listed it on Craigslist, sold it, and started taking the bus every day. The money he turned over to the auction house was worth every strand of the King’s hair they shipped him in return.
He played it through countless times. He would find Ryan, tell him who his father was, and get a hair sample from him so a lab could confirm the truth. Waiting for the lab results might be excruciating, but ultimately, they would get that envelope in the mail, read the letter, and with tears in their eyes, pop the cork on a bottle of champagne and celebrate.
This scenario alternated with another Logan envisioned. Logan would find Ryan and be unable to tell him. With the vial of hair in his pocket, he would freeze, unable to move as Ryan got into his car and drove away. He would try again and again, whenever he found the courage, but he would never be able to bring himself to approach the young man who had come to his home so long ago and treated him like a friend. His uncle’s confidentiality regarding the matter would loom too large, and Logan would not be able to betray him.
In the end, Logan realized, whatever ultimately happened would hinge on how he felt once his uncle had passed, and he did not look forward to losing the man who had been more like a father to him than his own.
Leaving those thoughts for now, Logan turned to the task of creating a layout for Tobias’s story about Helen Hester’s daughter’s alleged suicide.
That final day at Flash, Logan threw his backpack into the back seat of Tobias’s black Fiat Croma, placed his iPad on the seat beside him, and combed his fingers through his hair so his faux hawk spiked to full height as Tobias peeled away from the curb.
Fifteen minutes later, they were settled at Tobias’s reserved table at The Topiary on Beverly Boulevard, Logan sipping a cup of scalding black coffee and Tobias stirring two Splenda and a non-dairy creamer into his java as Helen Hester arrived. She had been cast as the wife on a new TV show reminiscent of The Brady Bunch, complete with blended families comprised of three sons and three daughters, but this time around, it was the mom who brought the sons to the union and the dad who brought the daughters. She even looked a bit like the Bunch’s Florence Henderson, with big, blue Bambi eyes, short blond hair, and a porcelain complexion.
Tobias intended to draw her into a discussion on her cast mates, particularly the actor cast as her husband, who allegedly, like Robert Reed, was gay. He wagered her personal life might be off-limits. She was grieving the loss of her daughter three weeks earlier and coping with nasty gossip that Elen, who’d been single, had been pregnant at the time she’d taken her life.
Befitting her station as a TV mom, Helen wore a cashmere sweater, pearls, dark slacks, and sensible shoes. When the waiter approached the table, she told him she’d like coffee, and two minutes later, he brought it back with three menus. Tobias introduced her to Logan, explained that he was mute, and Helen smiled and took Logan’s hand in greeting. Feeling self-conscious, Logan opened his menu and studied it like notes for an important test.
Ultimately, Logan pointed at the tuna melt, Tobias selected fish tacos, and Helen ordered a Caesar salad. Then, sipping their coffee, they enjoyed a moment of silence as they took in their surroundings. Tobias was seated next to the Pegasus topiary, its wings wire-sculpted with tiny points at each tip.
“Pretty, isn’t it?” Helen murmured.
“It is. And it’s good to see you, Helen. I didn’t know if you’d be up to coming out so soon after…”
The unfinished sentence hung in the air. Tobias pulled out his Panasonic recorder and placed it in the center of the table between them. “You mind?”
“No. How else can I be sure I won’t be misquoted?”
Tobias frowned, and his expression made her laug
h. “I’m kidding. You’ve always stuck to the facts in stories you’ve written about me.”
“Your TV husband, Silas, is he gay like Robert?”
Logan blushed and kept his eyes on his plate, where his half-eaten melt lay unfinished.
“He’s 100 percent hetero. In the bedroom scene we did the other day, he actually groped me under my nightgown.”
“What’d you do?”
“Hey, any attention an old broad like me can get at this point, the better.”
Tobias was incredulous. “You’re what, thirty-eight?”
Helen reached across the table, resting her hand on his. “Forty-two.”
“So no gay co-star. Any tension on set between the kids?”
“No, they get along great.” Helen reached for her napkin and dabbed at her cheek before looking across the restaurant. She seemed to be staring at a topiary sculpture resembling a brontosaurus, but her gaze was unfocused. Tobias contemplated making a joke about the Montauk Monster, but when Helen looked back across the table, her jaw trembled, and her eyes filled with tears. “I need to talk to you.”
A tear rolled down Helen’s cheek, and Tobias resisted the impulse to wipe it away. He kept his hands folded, the consummate professional. “I’m listening.”
Her jaw trembled again, but she began to talk. By the time their meal arrived, Tobias was embroiled in the actress’s search for the truth about her daughter’s death, and all Logan could do was sit there and wish he could be more like his friend, asking questions and getting answers. Aloud.
The next day, Logan stood beside Tobias on the second story veranda of an apartment complex in West Hollywood and waited for Helen Hester to arrive. The building reminded Logan of a refurbished Motel 6, with concrete staircases that led to upstairs rooms, and a small, gated pool out front, near the street. The sky was cloudless, much as it was the day of Helen’s daughter’s death. That’s what Tobias’s online research regarding weather on the eighth told him, as well as the fact it had been seventy-five degrees in West Hollywood between one and three p.m, the estimated timeframe as to when the young woman died.
Apartment 210 had a front window facing the balcony where the men stood, but the curtains had been drawn. The draperies were lined with muslin-colored fabric, creating a blank slate. The inset windowsill held none of the bric-a-brac piled in neighbors’ windows—no toys, remotes, keys or snow globes.
Tobias ran a finger around the inside of his collar. He had worn a dress shirt, and the morning sun was heating the air, casting shafts of light in shadowed corners. Despite the promise of hot weather, Tobias was glad he had dressed better than usual for his meeting with Helen. The last thing he wanted to do was show up in his usual T-shirt, jeans, and sandals in a situation that required tact, solemnity, and respect. Following Tobias’s cue, Logan pulled on the rumpled suit he had worn to the hospital, and even though he paired it with a white T-shirt, he looked presentable.
When she finally arrived, Helen parked her Lincoln Continental near Tobias’s Fiat Croma. They watched her swing her legs out of the car and rise with the grace of an aging dancer. Dressed in pale blue, the silk scarf that covered her head fluttered in the lightest breeze.
As she reached the top of the landing where they stood, Logan noticed Helen seemed paler than she had at The Topiary. The official inquiry into her daughter’s death was closed, but the grief in Helen’s eyes when she lifted her prescription sunglasses off her face was palpable. She rummaged through her leather handbag and pulled out a ring of keys with a tiny teddy bear attached. She held it up. “Her keys. I gave her the teddy bear keychain when she got her license. Of course, I got her a Mercedes, too, but only the keychain survived.”
Her laugh was rueful. She unlocked the front entrance, and the hinges creaked as she pushed the weathered door inward. She waved Tobias and Logan forward, but Tobias stood still and Logan took a step backward.
“Ladies first,” Tobias told her.
She went in cautiously, like a kid entering a haunted house, and turned back to face them right away, as though afraid they might change their minds and leave.
They didn’t. Logan stepped over the threshold and took a look around. The living room was faux Victorian, with scarlet drapery, a plum velvet-cushioned couch, a glass-topped coffee table, and a piano.
Tobias entered and walked over to the Steinway and examined the sheet music, which was mostly Bacharach and modern pop tunes from the sixties to the present.
“Did she play well?”
Helen joined him and ran her hands lightly over the dusty keys. “Very well. She took lessons and played at recitals. She didn’t like classical music much, though.”
Logan stepped into the tiny kitchen area and saw toast crumbs on the counter near the toaster. There were photos on the fridge. One woman repeatedly showed up in shot after shot, and she was a miniature version of Helen, complete down to the blond hair, Bambi eyes, and closed-mouth smile.
Tobias was at his elbow. “This her?”
“Yes,” Helen said, from behind them.
Tobias zeroed in on a photo where Elen was seated on a young man’s lap. They both raised beer bottles to the person taking the picture, their faces touching as they leaned in close. “This the boyfriend?”
“Cody, yes. It’s not that I didn’t like him. It’s just that I—well, I thought Elen could have done better.”
Tobias straightened up and left the kitchen with Helen and Logan trailing after him. After he glanced into the bathroom and the hall closet, he went into Elen’s bedroom, where Elen’s alleged suicide had taken place. Tobias hoped he could ease into addressing Elen’s death gracefully and asked for permission before he sat down on the foot of the bedspreaded queen. Logan took the chair at the desk overlooking the lot behind the building, a view offering nothing more than apartment buildings and trees. He stared out the window intently nonetheless, as though the scenery held clues if he just looked hard enough. Palms upward on his lap in a gesture of supplication, Tobias was silent. He knew Helen would talk when she was ready. After two minutes of listening to crows squabble on nearby rooftops and watching squirrels tightrope across power lines, Logan turned his attention toward Helen as she began to tell her story.
“Elen took this place when she turned eighteen. She loved being on her own, loved the freedom to do what she wanted. She had an agent and landed parts on Criminal Minds and Cold Case. Don’t know if you’ve seen her on TV.”
Tobias shook his head and Helen continued. “She didn’t want to use the last name Hester, said she didn’t want anyone saying she was getting free entree into the business because she was my daughter. She used her middle name, James, my maiden name, instead. Two—well, no, three months ago, now—she called me and told me she was pregnant. I was mad, of course, because she said Cody was the father, and I knew he’d never be able to support her, let alone a newborn, so I hung up on her.”
Helen’s words came slower now. “I called her a few days later, but she didn’t answer. Then I sent her a few emails. Again, she didn’t answer. So, on the eighth, after a long day on set, I swung by and saw that her new Camry was here. I came up and knocked on her door. She didn’t answer. There was a spare key beneath the air conditioner that juts out near her door. Did you see it?”
“The air conditioner?”
“She kept a key tucked in a groove beneath the unit, so I got it and came in.” Helen’s voice was breaking. “I called her name and came in here. She had a pillowcase over her head and a cord around her neck. I put my head on her chest. There was…nothing.”
Tobias was silent for a moment before he spoke. “What was she wearing?”
“What?”
“How was she dressed?
“She was wearing one of those oversize sleep T-shirts, the kind that go down past your knee. It had a mermaid that looked like a devil on it, and it was orange. I got my cell phone out of my purse and called 911. They were here within fifteen minutes.”
She fell sil
ent and Tobias waited. A trickle of sweat ran down the back of his neck.
The apartment was stuffy, and Logan was suddenly aware of a bleachy scent.
When Helen began again, her voice was stronger, as though she’d resolved herself to recount the facts but not feel their import. “When the cops saw she didn’t have any defensive wounds on her hands or ligature marks on her wrists, they ruled it a suicide. They said she tied the cord to the upper part of the bed.” Helen pointed at one of the posts on the headboard. “And then she laid down and applied pressure to her neck until she asphyxiated.”
Tobias cleared his throat, ready to speak, but thought better of it. He recalled Rick Springfield’s account of a suicide attempt made in his youth. Springfield fashioned a noose and was going to hang himself in the family’s garage. The rope ended up breaking, and Springfield’s desire to end his own life was thwarted. But he did say that in those moments when he was losing consciousness, realization of what he was doing kicked in, and the drive toward self-preservation caused him to reconsider his decision. How in the world could someone lie down and quietly suffocate?
“Was Elen taking drugs?”
Helen shook her head. “No. She’d given up antidepressants once she found out she was expecting. I told her it wasn’t a good idea to go off Prozac cold turkey and that she should at least ask her doctor about it. But why use the pillowcase?”
“Usually, when someone murders someone they know, they’ll cover their victim’s face so they don’t have to watch what they’re doing. Or they’ll cover the victim’s face later, out of remorse, to hide what they did. You said the rope was over the pillowcase?”
“Around its base.”
“So the pillowcase wasn’t put on afterwards.” Tobias couldn’t hold back his opinions any longer. “There’s no reason to use a pillowcase if you’re alone. There aren’t any mirrors in here. Elen couldn’t see herself and likely wouldn’t want to if she could. Someone was with her who didn’t want to watch her die because they cared about her.”