Death on the D-List

by Nancy Grace

  Hailey was taken aback. She’d never actually known anyone who had servants in their home . . . servants who dressed in uniforms as if they were working at a luxury hotel. The woman smiled through the open door at Hailey. She wore a long-sleeved, light blue dress, covered by a crisp white apron with black, rubber-looking shoes so as not to make a sound as she made her way around Sookie’s mansion. The uniform was topped off with a little white kerchief-looking headpiece, almost like a mini-mantilla.

  “Good afternoon. Are you Ms. Dean? I’m Consuela and Ms. Downs is expecting you. Please, come in.”

  The woman was pleasant. Hailey stepped in to follow behind after she gently shut the front door and motioned to Hailey to come along.

  The entrance hall was cavernous with a hardwood parquet floor. The ceiling was vaulted, and a huge crystal chandelier hung down from its joist in a thick, wooden beam that went from one end of the hall’s overhead surface to the next. Hailey’s footsteps sounded out loudly as they crossed the entrance hall into a formal living room. The carpet was baby blue and the furniture looked antique and uncomfortable. Across the distance of the room, Hailey looked ahead into a den.

  Although it was just as large as the living room, it was only a little less formal, with a brownish sofa and chairs whose centerpiece was a large stone fireplace. It fleetingly brought to mind the Manhattan penthouse apartment of Fallon Malone, not in the schematic or color scheme, but because every wall was covered with shots of its owner.

  Framed photos of Sookie Downs with every sitting president dating back to the fifties, when she was a little girl, were prominently displayed. As a child, she appeared in the photos along with her father, who was pictured in full military regalia.

  Consuela stood silently behind Hailey, also gazing at the wall of photos. She must have seen them a million times. “Please, have a seat, Ms. Hailey. Can I bring you anything? Would you like a glass of wine? Ms. Downs is very proud of her collection.”

  “Her collection? Of what?”

  “Fine wines.” Consuela looked as if she were confused Hailey did not know she was referring to wine. “Ms. Downs collects wines from all around the world. She even has a climate-controlled wine cellar . . . I’m sure she will show it to you. She can control its temperature by remote!”

  “Oh, my, remote-controlled temperature in her wine cellar. Now that is really something. But, no. Thank you.” It was way too early to be hitting the wine. The woman looked disappointed, as if she’d specifically been instructed to make guests happy.

  Hailey quickly added, “Maybe later?”

  Since Consuela still looked worried, Hailey decided to ask for something. “Let me see then . . . may I please have a cup of hot tea? With milk? Skim if you have it . . .”

  The woman smiled broadly, as if getting a cup of tea for Hailey would absolutely make her day. “Oh, yes, Ms. Hailey. I’d be happy to get that for you. What type of tea would you like?”

  “Irish Breakfast . . . I don’t guess you have that on hand. It’s so much harder to find than English Breakfast or chamomile.”

  “We do have it, as a matter of fact. Mr. Russo called to tell us it’s one of your favorites, and Ms. Downs insisted we have it for you today. I will be right back. Here, Ms. Hailey, sit here. It’s the most comfortable chair in the house and Ms. Downs wants you to be comfortable. She is on a call and will be right along.”

  The comfy chair was located directly in front of the wall of fame, and whoever sat there looked directly into dozens of Sookie Downs’ posed “candid” shots. In just moments, Consuela was back with a full tea service on a silver tray. She handed a cup of piping hot Irish Breakfast to Hailey and left the room again.

  Hailey was left alone to examine all the presidential photos on the wall. Hailey looked back to the first one to the left again. It must have been one of the earliest. Out on a landing strip of some sort stood a tall, lean man who was dressed in military garb and obviously Sookie’s father.

  Looking carefully, Hailey recognized immediately the significance of the embroidery on his shoulders. There were four stars on either side. He was a four-star army general. Extremely rare.

  In his arms, he held what was clearly, from the photos, his only child. Beside them stood President Dwight D. Eisenhower. Hmm. Hailey quickly calculated that, based on the picture, Sookie must be at least in her fifties.

  Wow. The miracle of modern science. Hailey would have guessed Sookie to be in her forties instead of mid-to-late fifties.

  Hailey could see the resemblance of Sookie, the child, to Sookie Downs, the woman full grown. But over the years, that similarity had become much more vague. Mousey brown hair as a child turned red somewhere in her twenties and instead of dulling over time with age, it became more and more vibrantly red. It was plain to see, when photographs taken over the years were displayed side by side, that extensive work had been done on Sookie’s eyes, nose, chin, neck, and cheeks.

  She looked altogether different than she had early in life, but still, the same gray eyes stared out from every photo. Overall, the effect was pleasing. Sookie was an extremely attractive woman, tall and thin with shoulder-length red hair and a physique toned by years on the tennis courts, and then later, whatever the scalpel could offer.

  Next in the row were more shots of Sookie and her dad, but with JFK, LBJ , Nixon, and Carter. Then, the photos’ backgrounds changed, from out in the field with her dad to shots with the Harry Todd background behind her. There were Reagan, Bush Sr., Clinton, and George W. Bush, each standing with Sookie. Then there was an Obama event with Sookie in a formal gown along with the President and Harry Todd in tuxedoes at some sort of gala.

  The rest of the wall was literally covered with photos of Sookie, with all sorts of celebrities, stars, and dignitaries, ranging from rock bands to ambassadors to screen legends and politicians.

  Impressive.

  Having given Hailey enough time to soak in all the photos and framed news and magazine articles about Sookie and The Harry Todd Show, the woman herself breezed into the room as if the timing wasn’t intentional. Hailey briefly wondered if she pulled the same effect on every guest before making her entrance.

  “Hello, Hailey!”

  Hailey turned. Sookie was perfectly made up and her gleaming auburn hair had obviously just been blown out. She was tricked out like a twenty-year-old in $800 Christian Louboutin spike-heeled shoes with red soles. Hailey recognized the label on her “distressed” jeans and remembered seeing them priced at over $500 a pair. The ensemble was topped with a bright pink cashmere sweater that came just above her belly button. Even her nails were perfect, each one gently rounded on the tip and lacquered to match the pink cashmere.

  Hailey stood up and extended her hand. Sookie held it lightly and briefly, her palm and fingers cool and dry to the touch.

  “So! I finally get to meet the woman the camera just loves! You’re absolutely wonderful! Harry loves you! Thank you for coming all the way out here . . . I hope the drive wasn’t too horrible . . .”

  “Oh, no. It wasn’t bad at all. And I got lots of work done on the way.”

  “You worked in the car?”

  “Oh, yes . . . I dictate patients’ notes right into a little handheld recorder. I take the information from entries I make during sessions, then send it to a transcription service. It comes back to me within a day or two, all neatly typed and ready for the patient’s file.”

  “Oh, my. You’re so . . .” Sookie paused, searching for the right word . . . “industrious!” She kept on a light smile and sat down gracefully on the deep sofa parallel to Hailey’s seat. As Sookie sank into the sofa, Hailey took the cue and sat again in the chair facing both Sookie and the wall of Sookie photos. Suddenly it struck her that there wasn’t a single picture of the woman’s children on display. Somehow, Hailey couldn’t imagine Sookie Downs ever being pregnant, but apparently she was, twice.

  “How are your children?”

  “Oh, they’re wonderful! Just wonderful! They
attend St. Pius private school. It’s really the best out here, but I just hope they don’t fill them up with all that religion! I don’t want them to be freaks!”

  Hailey was silent. Some of her happiest memories were those involving her little Methodist church back home. She’d practically grown up there, running up and down the halls, exploring the quiet sanctuary while her mom practiced away on the organ. Oblivious to Hailey’s silence, Sookie went on. “You know, I just love your hair. Who does it? It looks so natural! I have mine touched up in the city . . . costs me a fortune.”

  Hailey opened her mouth to speak, but Sookie kept talking.

  “Consuela . . . please bring out more hot water for Hailey.” She directed her voice toward what Hailey presumed to be the kitchen area.

  “You have a beautiful home, Sookie.” While neither the interior nor the exterior was anything Hailey would have wanted for herself, it was . . . big. Big and formal.

  “Oh . . . thank you, dear. Architectural Digest has featured it more than once. We just love it. Would you like a tour?”

  “That would be great.” Hailey followed along behind her hostess and headed toward the large staircase in the foyer. Climbing the stairs, Sookie went on.

  “So you must be wondering why I brought you out to the house. We’ve really enjoyed having you on the show with Harry. You have such a . . .” Sookie searched for the right word . . . “spark! Such zest, let me say. And of course, the camera loves you, but that goes without saying. In fact, you look better on camera than you do in person.”

  Hailey paused. That sounded a lot like an insult.

  “Oh, please take it the right way. In this business, it’s a huge compliment.”

  But by the tone in Sookie’s voice, Hailey still wasn’t so sure.

  “This is the children’s quarters.” Hailey had never actually known anyone who had “quarters.”

  Sookie walked rapidly down a hallway at the top of the stairs. Hailey heard her own cowboy boots clunking along in stark contrast to the staccato of Sookie’s stiletto Louboutins against the gleaming wood floors. Her hostess then waved her right arm upward in a Wheel of Fortune gesture. Hailey looked in the general direction in which Sookie was pointing and saw a huge light-blue bedroom full of every conceivable toy known to man. There had to be forty stuffed animals sitting on a pale green sofa facing the foot of a painted blue double bed.

  Standing at the door to the room, Hailey did a double-take. At the far edge of the sofa sat a little boy. Just as Hailey noticed him, he looked up, and they met gazes. For a moment, Hailey had mistaken his small form for one of the oversized stuffed toys.

  “Hi. I’m Hailey.”

  The little boy just stared back through a pair of thick glasses, regarding Hailey with a steady gaze.

  Sookie spoke over her shoulder as she continued down the hall, never slowing down. “Oh, that’s Kyle. He always has his nose in a book. I keep telling him he needs some fresh air. I wish he was interested in sports. Here’s Emily’s bedroom. The decorator was fabulous! Even if I have to say it myself!”

  Hailey still stood at the boy’s door. He looked so lonely, sitting there clutching his book. He kept looking at Hailey, as if he wanted her to come in and play. Actually, she would much rather do that than continue the tour she was being given.

  “Want to come with us, Kyle?” She gave him her gentlest smile.

  The boy shook his head “no” and looked back down at his book. She paused another moment, but he never looked back up at her. Hailey trailed along behind Sookie again. Between the two bedrooms was another giant room, this one a bright-yellow playroom. Murals of various nursery rhymes were hand-painted on the walls. Each child’s bedroom had a door opening into their mutual playroom.

  Next was Emily’s room. It was predictably pale-pink and done—or overdone would be the better word—in a princess motif. The girl’s bed had a royal theme and a glittery, golden crown painted on the wall over its headboard, a large, capital “E” for Emily in the center of the child’s fantasy coat-of-arms.

  “She charged me thousands for the headboard, but there’s nothing else like it out there. It’s an original.”

  Anything Hailey could have said at that point would have either been an outright lie or a likely insult to Sookie’s taste, so Hailey followed her own rule . . . when in doubt, say little and do less!

  Down a long hall and across a semi-formal reading area as large as Hailey’s New York apartment, came yet another long hall. All the floors were covered in thick Oriental rugs. Even an amateur like Hailey could tell these were the real thing. Given their size, number, and quality, the rugs alone had to cost over a hundred grand.

  They turned left toward the front of the mansion’s façade and into a foyer that opened into Sookie’s sleeping quarters.

  There at the doorway, Hailey stopped in her tracks.

  Sookie’s bedroom was straight out of a 1940s Hollywood movie. A huge California king-size bed was the centerpiece of the room, adorned with a gorgeous custom-made pure, thick, beige, raw-silk duvet with lavish brocade trim around the bottom. It matched perfectly a brocade bed skirt peeking out from underneath the silk cover, so as not to offend anyone with a possible glance at the hardwood floor underneath the bed.

  The pillow-show was in full swing in Sookie’s bedroom. Her bed alone had to have twenty pillows of different sizes and shapes artfully arranged against the massive mahogany headboard. Above the bed was a floor-to-ceiling sheath of the same beige raw silk, twisted into a triangle, its point at the top. The upper tip of the silk triangle was secured to the wall by a large, rounded, mirrored medallion. Its facets caught the light in the room, casting tiny bright bits of light across the smooth floors and thick rugs in front of the bed.

  There was a fireplace directly in front of the bed, about thirty feet away from its matching mahogany footboard. About twenty feet to the right of the bed was a sitting area with two love seats and a big cushioned chair, huddled around another fireplace. A highly embellished Louis XIV writing desk sat in a corner, as if Sookie were just about to put quill to paper. Photos in what looked to be sterling silver frames were carefully positioned on the writing desk.

  “My. I’ve never seen a bedroom quite like it.” At least Hailey was honest.

  “Really? I just love it! It’s so . . . romantic!”

  Sookie led her across the bedroom to a closet that was at least the size of Hailey’s family’s living room back home in Georgia. For a closet, it was massive. What first struck Hailey was that it looked like an ad for California Closets. The closet was designed to look exactly like a high-end dressing room with a cushioned seating area and several full-view multi-paneled mirrors.

  “Oh . . .” Sookie laughed girlishly “. . . my private dressing room for my clothes and shoe collection! It’s designed exactly like a Gucci changing room I once visited in Paris! Isn’t it fabulous? Julian just hated it!”

  Was Hailey supposed to know who Julian was?

  Hailey stopped briefly to examine Sookie’s shoe collection. Once again, she’d never seen anything like it. There had to be hundreds of pairs of shoes, all stacked in lines. There were shoes in every color of the rainbow, and then some. They were perfectly preserved, each with a shoe tree inserted and a pink sachet cushion wedged down onto every sole. There were evening slippers, boots, stilettos . . . even some lined in mink from what Hailey could surmise. Hailey recognized some of the labels from fashion magazines. A single pair, Hailey knew, could cost over a thousand dollars, and there had to be two to three hundred of them.

  “Julian . . . He’s in yachts. That’s my ex . . . but that’s another story.” Sookie now responded to Hailey’s unspoken question. But Hailey wasn’t about to touch that one with a ten-foot pole, though she had a feeling Sookie was going to tell her anyway.

  She was right.

  “He ruined my life and the lives of our children over some tramp from Barbados. She’s in college, for Pete’s sake . . . college! She’s a co-ed!�
��

  “Oh, dear . . .” It was all Hailey could get out before Sookie began a tirade about Julian, walking out of the room and assuming Hailey would trail along behind her.

  And of course she did. What else could she do? Had she really traveled all the way out here to look at a ridiculous shoe collection?

  Along the hallway were framed articles and news stories. Even if Sookie’s name was only mentioned once in the entire article, her name was highlighted with yellow marker, and the article was set in an ornate frame. Many of the articles were in fact about Harry Todd and only mentioned Sookie as being his executive producer, yet they were all mounted and framed as if each and every article was about Sookie herself. Lighting inlaid flush with the ceiling shone down on the articles and photos.

  Sookie turned left and started down a grand, curving set of stairs, covered in yet another thick runner. The hand railings, like the staircase Hailey had climbed up, were of rounded mahogany, shined to a dull sheen. They went back through the main foyer and down yet another staircase headed toward, as Sookie described it, her absolutely fabulous wine cellar.

  By now, Hailey was pretty sure this was not the first time Sookie had given a tour of her home. Opening a tall door with a key hanging obviously around the doorknob, Sookie led Hailey down another wide set of stairs with the same mahogany rails on either side. The steps were steep and on the walls on both sides was an expansive display of more photos of Sookie’s dad. Also hanging on the walls were various mementoes he’d brought back, obviously from time spent overseas in the military.

  There were multiple shots of him in Burma, placing him in the Burma Campaign during World War Two.

  Along the stairwell walls were animal horns of some sort, multiple black-and-white photos of Burma itself, postcards in frames, even a saber and its leather sheath encased in glass. One of the few color shots showed him posed, standing behind the wheel of a jeep wearing no shirt, deeply tanned, with a red-handled pistol stuck down the waist of his military fatigues. He must have been some dad. Whatever his fathering skills, his military prowess had helped catapult his daughter into the upper echelon of society and politics. Hence, her job at GNE.