Cover Your Assets

by Patricia Smiley

  “Whoa!” Venus said. “Check out the camera angle. Makes Darcy’s ass look like a double-wide.”

  “Venus!”

  “Okay, okay.”

  Darcy went on. “Sinclair and Brice were once lovers. Our sources tell us the couple had planned to marry, but Brice, a notorious womanizer, left her at the altar for his current wife, who is also a suspect in his tragic death. So why are the wife and the other woman meeting just hours after . . .”

  While Darcy Daniels blathered away, they replayed my arrival at Cissy’s house over and over: The Boxster drives up the road; I lean out to speak with the rent-a-cop; the gate opens; I drive through the gate. In reality, the whole episode must have taken all of thirty seconds, but the way they spliced the tape together, it looked as if they had documented a road trip across the Australian outback.

  Unfortunately, Darcy had more to say. “As we previously reported, Tucker Sinclair was linked to another grisly murder last November. Now she’s back in the news, threatening to send the Brice investigation into a tailspin. With the police no closer to an arrest, we turn our focus to the spurned lover. What is the story she has yet to tell? Stay tuned for exclusive coverage in the days ahead.”

  Spurned lover? Give me a break! Darcy Daniels’s breaking news was nothing but lies and innuendo. How long had they been playing this crap? I felt not only angry but also embarrassed, violated, and more than somewhat frightened because not only would my friends and family learn about this, but clients would, too, not to mention the police.

  “What are you gonna do?” Venus said.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Maybe you should call that lawyer of yours. Tell him he needs to scare the shit out of these people.”

  “Shelly has his hands full fighting off my aunt Sylvia. Besides, I can’t afford to give him any more billable hours. I’m already supporting two of his ex-wives. I’ll just contact the station myself. Tell them to back off.”

  Venus let out a hoot of fake laughter. “Honey, Celebrity Heat is sacrificing your reputation to sell ass wipe. You think they’re gonna stop just because you say ‘pretty please’?”

  “Maybe not, but it’s worth a try.”

  After we hung up, I let my anger carry me away to the far reaches of my memory. Who could have fed Darcy Daniels all that baloney? I ran through a list of suspects, including Cissy and Claire. After careful elimination, there was only one name that remained: Marta Cruz, the reporter from the Valley News Now who had come to my door asking questions about my relationship with Evan. Maybe providing false information to Celebrity Heat was her idea of career development. I’d sensed from the get-go that Cruz had come to the house with a hidden agenda. I didn’t know what her game was, but maybe Darcy Daniels did.

  I looked up the number for Celebrity Heat on a list of TV show contacts Pookie kept by the telephone. I dialed, and following a brief runaround, I was connected to one of the show’s producers, an aggressive kid named Jason-something who probably hadn’t even been born when everybody in the world was wondering who killed J. R. I told him Darcy had gotten it all wrong in her report. I’d been at the Brice home at the request of the family—okay, so it was a minor lie—and I wanted a retraction of their salacious story.

  Jason interrupted me rudely. “Our information came from a reliable source.”

  “Which one? Yellow Journalism for Dummies? Did you actually pay somebody for those lies or did you make them up yourself?”

  “We don’t pay for information,” he said. “Look, if you want to set the record straight, I have a proposition for you. Sit down with Darcy Daniels for an exclusive interview. You pick the place. Sound fair?”

  “Not only does that not sound fair, Jason, it sounds like you want a lawsuit on your hands for defamation and slander.”

  “Whatever. Call if you change your mind.”

  Before I could ask about Marta Cruz, the line went dead. Venus was probably right. Maybe it was time to call my lawyer, even if it meant dipping deeper into my dwindling savings. Before I made any rash decisions, I decided to wait until I no longer felt like throwing something at the TV set. I didn’t want Muldoon to freak out. He hated loud noises.

  Then I thought . . . wait a minute . . . where’s Muldoon? True, he didn’t always come to the door to greet me, but he generally wandered out from wherever he’d been napping long before this.

  I called his name. No Muldoon. I searched every room in the house and checked all the doors and windows. Nothing had been disturbed. I ran next door to Mrs. Domanski’s to see if somehow I’d spaced out and forgotten that I’d left him there. No dice. I started to panic. I ran up and down the beach, calling his name. I knocked on doors, searched along the highway. I called the local pound, left messages every place and with everyone I could think of. I couldn’t find him anywhere. As much as I hated to admit it, there appeared to be only one explanation for Muldoon’s disappearance: I’d been so preoccupied with my own problems that I hadn’t seen him slip past me when I opened the door to leave for the mall.

  For most of that night I sat on the couch in front of the TV, because silence brought only unbearable images of Muldoon, alone and frightened. At some point I fell asleep, clutching his yellow cashmere sweater.

  -17-

  the first thing I did when I woke up the next morning was to create a missing-pup flyer. I scanned into the computer my favorite picture of Muldoon sitting in front of the Christmas tree, wearing a green velvet jingle-bell collar. His eyes were bright and alert because I’d been holding a turkey leg over my head when I took the shot. Beneath the photograph, I typed in text that I hoped was a plaintive but not maudlin narrative highlighting all the little guy’s good points.

  Unfortunately, Muldoon hadn’t been wearing his collar or ID when he went missing. He didn’t like the feel of it around his neck, so I only made him wear it when he was out on an official walk. That was a huge mistake. To compensate, I added a list of contact numbers, including my cell phone number. I took a couple of dozen flyers and drove around the neighborhood, posting one on every telephone pole, storefront, and road sign. It was Saturday, so I hoped people would be around to see them.

  By the time I’d finished posting the flyers, it was only eight a.m. While I waited by the telephone for someone to call about Muldoon, I tried to figure out who Darcy Daniels’s “source” was. Marta Cruz may have funneled information to Celebrity Heat, but that didn’t explain where she’d gotten it.

  My romance with Evan had been common knowledge among our college friends, but there were only two other people who knew he’d asked me to marry him: our best friends, Cissy Jerrard and James Brodie. We’d sworn them both to secrecy because I didn’t want news of the engagement to reach Pookie. She didn’t like Evan. I knew she’d be upset, but I thought I could soften her attitude. The plan was this: Evan had proposed in early November. We wanted to announce our engagement at a New Year’s Eve party we were planning, which meant I had less than two months to make my mother love Evan as much as I did. Not much time, but I was sure I could pull it off.

  In early December I’d planned a romantic dinner to celebrate the one-month anniversary of our still-secret engagement. It was going to be just the two of us, a surprise for Evan. I opted to hold the event at his apartment because it had a real kitchen, instead of at mine with its hot plate and refrigerator that looked as though it had been purchased at a Motel 6 yard sale. All four of us had classes scheduled that morning. My last one was at eleven. I calculated I’d still have enough time to prepare the food and decorate in the afternoon. To help, Cissy volunteered to take Evan to the county museum to see a special exhibit of Impressionist art, so I could work in secret.

  Unfortunately, I’ve never been much of a cook or an event planner. At the last minute, I panicked. The decorations seemed trite, and the menu too complex. I didn’t think I’d be able to pull off a party, even a small one, in such a short amount of time. I decided to skip my morning classes and throw myself into the
preparations.

  At about nine-thirty a.m., with my arms loaded with groceries, I slid my key into the lock of Evan’s front door. The first thing I saw were clothes scattered all over the living room floor. Evan had never been a neatnik, but still, that seemed odd. Then I heard groans. My mind raced. I imagined Evan lying on the floor injured, maybe bleeding to death. My adrenaline surged. I bolted down the hallway and nearly tripped over Evan and Cissy, going at it on the gold shag carpet. What hurt most was that they couldn’t even make it to the bedroom.

  I’m not sure what happened next. All I remember is confusion, shouting, followed by overwhelming feelings of anger and humiliation. I also remember Evan’s socks, because that’s all he had on. Black socks. Cissy, my best friend since high school, my soul sister and confidante, just sat there looking merely surprised that she’d been caught.

  In the days that followed, Evan tried repeatedly to apologize, but any capacity for forgiveness I may have once possessed had retreated into a dark, impenetrable jungle. After a while he stopped seeking absolution. My anger eventually subsided, and I began the mourning process. The following June, I graduated from UCLA. With that passage I was able to brush the memory of my failed relationship into a dark corner of my mind the way Pookie had always taught me to do.

  I suppose other people may have learned about Evan and Cissy’s affair, but not from me. I hadn’t told a soul. I sincerely doubted that Cissy had, either. She hated being put in a bad light. As for Evan, he was no longer talking to anybody. That left only James Brodie.

  The three of us—Brodie, Evan, and I—hung out together back in college. In the beginning, Brodie had been just another fresh-faced kid from one of those Midwestern “M” states: Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri—I couldn’t remember which. He’d once told me he’d fallen in love with California at age twelve while on a pilgrimage to Disneyland with his family. Years later, as a student at UCLA, he’d completed his transformation from transplant to native son. He let his hair go wild and become bleached by the sun. He’d let his Midwestern inhibitions go, too. In winter Brodie was a ski bum, in summer a beach bum. Finally, he dispensed with those limiting adjectives and became simply a bum for all seasons, the embodiment of the California dream, or so he thought.

  At some point I’d brought Cissy into our circle, hoping she and Brodie might hit it off. They never did, but she began hanging out with us, usually for activities that scored high on her genteel-o-meter. The rest of the time she preferred shopping at Saks Fifth Avenue, while Evan, Brodie, and I spurred one another into doing fun but dangerous things, like parachuting out of airplanes and scuba diving too deep, too long. Then Brodie and Evan began experimenting with drugs, and something shifted. Things weren’t fun anymore, only dangerous. I was amazed any of us had survived those years.

  Brodie had obviously maintained contact with Evan. If he was at Poet’s Corner the night Evan died, he may have also been one of the last people to see him alive. I wanted to know if he’d talked to the press about me, and why, because my reputation and quite possibly my livelihood were at stake.

  To get my mind off Muldoon’s disappearance, I began searching for Brodie. First I did the obvious thing: I checked several telephone directories I keep for use in my consulting work. Brodie wasn’t in any of them. That didn’t surprise me. Nobody in L.A. had a listed telephone number. I have this theory that the phone company makes up all those names in the white pages just so they can sell ads in the yellow pages.

  After a few minutes I grew restless. Once again I checked my voice mail, hoping somebody had found Muldoon. There were no messages. I walked out on the deck and scanned the beach. No Muldoon. I called his name. Nothing. Discouraged, I went back inside.

  I logged on to the Internet and Googled Brodie. The search produced dozens of links. Some of the Brodies I found were historical figures; others were linked to genealogy sites. One of the addresses directed me to the Los Angeles Times. I clicked on it and found an amusing article about baristas in L.A.’s hippest coffee shops. James Brodie was listed as the author. I wasn’t sure if it was the same Brodie I knew back in college, but I had to start somewhere. I called the Times, but the operator couldn’t find a listing for him on the roster of employees.

  It was difficult to concentrate. I couldn’t stop thinking about Muldoon. I took another break and called Mrs. Domanski to see if she’d heard anything that sounded like barking. She had, but it was only Mr. D., throwing a tantrum when he discovered they were out of cocktail onions. Regrettably, that kind of barking didn’t count. She promised to call me immediately if she heard anything.

  Without much enthusiasm, I went back to the computer and wandered onto the UCLA alumni Web site. Brodie wasn’t listed in their directory, even though I was sure he’d graduated. Eventually I found him in the unlikeliest of places, as an attendee at a yoga retreat held in Mexico about six months before. I knew it was the right guy when I noticed the middle initial: “X” for “Xavier.” There was a contact number with a 323 area code, presumably for the convenience of other participants who might want to debate the merits of Ashtanga versus kundalini over a wheatgrass cocktail. I switched to another Web site that featured a reverse directory, and found Brodie’s address. I jotted down the information but decided against calling him. It was possible he wasn’t eager to speak with me, either. Better to drop by unannounced.

  There was still a small window of opportunity between the two rush hours, so I decided to chance the freeway. First I made sure my cell phone was charged up. Then I dropped my torn vest at the dry cleaner’s for repairs and headed east on the 10 Freeway, toward downtown L.A. Unfortunately the exit I planned to take was closed for construction. I detoured onto the 101 and exited at Echo Park. I backtracked on Sunset Boulevard, driving west past low-slung buildings swathed in colorful Mexican murals.

  In that part of town, the store signs read “El Rancho” and “Carnicería”; the car radios crooned ballads in Spanish; the dusty, downtrodden houses had barred windows, each with a story to tell but probably not to me. As I approached Hillhurst, the barred windows had all but disappeared. By the time I reached the stately houses lining Los Feliz Boulevard, the only bars left were wet bars protected by elaborate security systems.

  Brodie lived in a residential neighborhood in the Hollywood Hills just south of Griffith Park, where W. C. Fields allegedly once stood on the front lawn of his neighbor, Cecil B. DeMille, and pitched gin bottles through De Mille’s front windows. I took a meandering road up the hill to Woking Street. From a distance, it looked as if somebody had taken a giant peashooter filled with houses, and blown. Only the strong stuck and took root. I followed the loop of a narrow one-way lane that looked like a private driveway. Up there you could see the city from end to end, simmering in soupy smog. Only the tops of skyscrapers pierced the opaque sky, as if they were straining to catch a breath of fresh air. Parking was limited, but I managed to find a spot in front of a massive Tudor residence. Hanging from the surrounding brick wall were iciclelike Christmas lights. Apparently even rich people are too lazy to take them down after the holidays.

  Brodie’s house was a white Spanish bungalow with a flat roof and small front porch and looked as if it had once been the caretaker’s cottage for a hacienda farther up the hill. There were trees in the area but none in Brodie’s yard. The stucco house stood bare and exposed. A row of terra-cotta pipe tiles at the roofline provided the only break of color in a sea of white.

  The shutters were closed. The house looked deserted. I knocked several times, but no one answered. Frustrated, I called Brodie’s number and listened to the recording on his message machine: “Hark! What news from yonder city breaks? Is it from the east and Jamie is not home? Forsooth! I am sick and pale with grief to have missed your call. Please leaveth a message.”

  Brodie had obviously graduated from the Evan Brice School of Poetry. William Shakespeare must be turning in his grave. I’d just said my name after the beep when I heard a man’s voice on the line.
“Tucker? Man, is that really you?”

  “Hey, Jamie, you’re home.”

  “Yeah, hiding from my fans. Where are you?”

  “Standing on your front porch.”

  He sighed. “Shit! Hold on a minute.”

  I was holding my breath, not knowing what to expect as the door opened. Standing before me was a trim, thirty-year-old man wearing beige chinos and a white Oxford shirt, both neatly pressed. His feet were bare. His hair was still that familiar strawberry blond but cut short now. Everything else seemed familiar: blue eyes, redhead’s fair and freckled complexion. He’d grown a mustache and goatee since I’d seen him last. The facial hair helped camouflage his boyish looks.

  “Sorry I didn’t answer the door,” he said. “I haven’t felt much like talking to anybody.”

  He motioned me into a clean and spare living room featuring hardwood floors, no rugs, white walls, and a few pieces of essential furniture, including a couch, two chairs—also white—and a side table with a telephone sitting on it. I wondered what had happened to James Brodie in the intervening years to strip his life of color.

  While he was opening the shutters to let in some light, I asked him if he worked for the Times.

  He looked surprised. “Actually, I’m freelance. About once a month I write a humor piece for the Calendar section.”

  “What do you do the rest of the time?”

  His expression was deadpan. “It takes me that long to find L.A. funny.”

  I sat in one of the white chairs, wondering if Brodie owned this place. If so, cracking jokes once a month must pay well. The house was small, but property in this neighborhood was pricey.

  He disappeared into the kitchen but returned shortly carrying a wicker tray that held a matte brown teapot with a bamboo handle. An earthy, sweet fragrance meandered from the spout as he poured tea into two matching cups. I noted that he was not of the school that believed in straining the leaves before pouring. They floated on the surface of the liquid like pond scum.