With nervous, jerking motions, I tore off my black dress and black tights. Feeling every beat of my heart, I slipped into one of the Laura Ashley dresses I’d brought with me.
In the mirror was a little milkmaid in a cheerful cotton print dress. I seemed to be awash in a bright red field that was heavily landscaped with tiny white flowers. It was several sizes too large. I tore the braid out of my hair and shook out the red scarf that had been tied at the bottom. I then fastened it, kerchief-style, over my head. I checked the mirror. A nice look for a sixteen-year-old. Make that a sixteen-year-old virgin from Berne before the war.
My black boots. They were a dead giveaway. Then I noticed a pair of white Keds that had been kicked off by the mother in the next dressing stall. She and her daughter were still standing outside their cubicle in front of the three-way mirror, admiring themselves.
Grabbing my wallet, I pulled out enough cash to cover the cost of the dress and left it in a pile on top of my abandoned black clothes. I quickly patted myself down. I yanked off the price tags and added them to the pile. Luckily, this outfit wasn’t equipped with one of those plastic devices that set off alarms.
I stuck fifty dollars into my beloved boots, and scooted them under the curtain into the adjoining dressing room. Then I stepped into my neighbor’s Keds and walked confidently out.
I scanned the store. Where were they? Outside? By my car? A figment of my imagination?
I’d make a run for it. Maybe I could get to Bloomies, I improvised, and flag down a security…As I approached the register, a woman with her black hair cut very short backed into me. A pudgy baby wriggled in her arms while she tried to hang onto two huge Laura Ashley bags.
“Can I give you a hand?” I offered, smiling, as I slid my hand through her bags and tugged.
“Well…” she looked up and took in a gayly dressed milkmaid with a red babushka. The little flower-print seemed to put her at ease.
“Are you parked close to here?” I forced myself to smile while my nerves jangled into overdrive. We left the store.
“This is really too kind of you.”
“No problem,” I said, just as we passed my two stalkers, standing outside about twenty feet from the entrance, surveying the people leaving the stores. With my distinctive hair entirely covered by the scarf, and my slender silhouette obscured by yards of gathered cotton, I ducked my head closer to my newest friend’s ear and said something to make her smile. As I had hoped, the men didn’t pay close attention to two ladies and a baby, all dressed in floral prints.
“Where are you parked?” she asked me as we descended one level on the escalator.
“Actually, my car is having some trouble, so I’ll probably just call a cab.”
She looked concerned.
“Don’t worry.”
The baby smiled at me and said, “Dam!”
I smiled back at the little guy as we kept walking.
“He doesn’t really talk, yet,” his mother explained. “He just makes sounds. That’s his latest.”
“Kids are great. He’s so beautiful!”
The mother smiled an I’m-zonked-in-love-with-my-baby smile. “My name’s Martha Cummings. Can I drive you somewhere?” Bingo!
“Which way are you headed?” I tried to sound normal.
“East. Over the hill in Glendale.”
“That would be great. I’m going to a friend’s house in Los Feliz,” I explained. By this time we were at her Mercedes, getting junior into his child safety seat.
As my new friend Martha pulled the Mercedes smoothly out of her space, those same two awful men came crashing down the escalators, looking here and there and then straight at our car. Jolted by fear, I turned quickly, jerking my back to the car door so my profile could no longer be seen.
I was near panic, unable to bear not knowing whether they had spotted me or not. Were they running up to the car? Were they…?
Martha was picking up speed, approaching the exit of the structure. Near panic, I shot a glance out my window. The men were on the run, just ten feet behind us! Up ahead, the traffic signal changed to yellow. The men were gaining on us. Martha, oblivious to the danger, hit the gas pedal just as the light turned red, making a smooth right turn. As our powerful car sped off, I couldn’t bring myself to look back. So I missed seeing their expressions as the bird got away.
One thing was finally clear. Those men were, most certainly, after me. Totally unclear was just about everything else.
Martha made pleasant conversation as her baby fell asleep in the back seat and she insisted on driving me all the way to Bruno’s house. I gave her directions up the winding streets, and she had to slow down to squeeze past the many cars that were crowded around the Huntley property. With all the press coverage Bruno’s murder had elicited, hopeful reporters and curious sightseers kept a constant vigil near the house. The neighbors were probably furious.
“This is where that murder happened, isn’t it?” she asked me as the house came into view. “I saw it on ‘Eyewitness News.’ It was that producer, Bruno Huntley, right?”
“Yeah. Actually, they’re reading his will in fifteen minutes.”
“And you’re invited? Wow.”
“A fortune teller predicted I was going to come into money. Unfortunately, I do not believe in fortune tellers.”
We smiled as she pulled to a stop. “Was that why those men were chasing you back at the mall?”
“Excuse me?”
Man, had I underestimated this Martha Cummings woman! Not only had she realized what was going on back in the parking lot, but she had most efficiently gotten us out of there.
“Will you be okay?” she asked as I opened the door.
My thanks seemed weak compared to the huge favor she had done me, but she just waved cheerily as she drove off. Thank God for these cool, invincible supermoms. I was now convinced they could do anything.
At the foot of the driveway, a police officer chatted with the crew from the Channel 5 news van which was set up for remote reports with the mansion in the background. My name was on the officer’s list. As I walked up the steep driveway, I heard the segment producer from Channel 5 ask, “Who’s that?”
The cop said, “Nobody.”
The door was answered by Graydon. He looked surprised. “What are you doing here, Maddie? It’s a bad time to come for a visit. The family is a little busy right now. Why don’t you come back some other time?”
“I was invited here, Graydon. By the attorney.”
He stared at me.
“So, may I come in?”
“I guess,” he floundered, and I walked in right past him.
Lily was in the hall and when she recognized me, she stopped. Her mouth dropped open and she stared hard.
“Madeline!”
I’d be explaining myself all afternoon. “It seems the family was not expecting me. But I got a call from the attorney and…”
“I’m glad you’re here,” she said, graciously.
And as she regained her composure, I realized she wasn’t shocked I was there for the will. She was startled speechless by my damned cheery red cotton tent ablaze with daisies!
Chapter 19
“We’re waiting for Bru,” Lily explained, as she led me away from the front door and down two steps into a large study.
“I would have thought he’d be right on time.” Bru, the older son, always needed money.
“Yes, well…” Lily looked around, but we were quite alone in the study. “The thing is, it was Bru who insisted that this awful will business be done today. He was adamant. He kept phoning the attorney and demanding to know what was in his father’s will.”
“Being here today…I hope I’m not making things harder.”
“I’m glad you’re here. Honestly. I’ve never made many women friends. Well, not any, actually. And with Bruno…gone, I don’t know if I can trust the women in the family. I’m scared.”
“Of what?”
“Of Bru, when he hea
rs his father’s bequests.”
I turned to look at her. She was all alone. Without Bruno to fill up the mansion with his booming personality, she seemed lost.
“It’ll work out.”
She shook her head weakly and let out a tight, nervous whinny. “When they find out…” She sighed. “Bruno did not include his first family in his will. Lewis and I get everything.”
“Are you sure, Lily?”
She nodded and held her breath, like she was afraid to let it out for fear she’d sob. “Bruno told me. I begged him to be fair, but…” She shuddered. “They’ll crucify me. The boys will tear at me and never stop. I can’t face it, Madeline. I don’t want the money, really I don’t…”
“Hey, calm down, calm down. There.” I had moved over to her and put an arm around her shoulder.
Just then, Graydon came to the door of the study and whined, “Hey! Everybody is waiting. Let’s go. Let’s go!”
We followed him out through the foyer and across the entry hall to the large living room. The cathedral ceiling was striped with heavy oak beams.
As we crossed the intricately inlaid hardwood floor, I became hyper-aware of the sound of Lily’s heels. They alternately clacked on the mahogany and then went silent in the scattered oriental rugs. Clack-clack, muffle, clack-clack, muffle.
Sitting in a deep brown leather chair across from the fireplace was Bruno’s attorney, Mark Baker, trim, tiny, and bald. On the two large sofas flanking the fireplace spread the family.
Bru, Jr. and his mother, Rosemary, sat on one side. Bru was not in an attractive mood. He was smiling, showing sharp teeth, and fidgeting. He and his wife had separated recently, and so she, of course, would not be included today.
His mother, Rosemary, sat stiff-backed against the down pillows, once again in the home that Bruno and she had shared long ago. I had met her once or twice in the past. As Bruno’s first wife, she’d earned the beach house in Laguna Beach, a black Eldorado, and a reported ten grand a month.
It sounded generous, unless you believed the rumor that Rosemary had been forced to revoke her share of Bruno’s production company in the settlement. It was a company that she had helped build and today was worth countless millions. But of course, twenty years ago, who’d have guessed it would be worth so much one day? Only Bruno.
Rosemary’s mostly gray hair was cut extremely short and made her seem older than just late fifties. She had a fierce, gaunt expression, with sharp cheekbones and small black eyes, and she had a nervous habit of pressing her thin lips together, as if she were continually blotting her coral lipstick in place.
Sitting to her right was Gray’s wife, Carmen. In contrast to her mother-in-law, Carmen looked soft and young and a little lost. She had a curtain of shoulder-length hair, very black and very straight, which beautifully set off her perfect olive-colored skin, perfect white teeth, and perfect oval face. At this moment, all of Carmen’s facial perfection was cast downward, gazing at the hands in her lap.
Her husband, Graydon, having led us into this cozy viper’s lair, now moved next to Carmen and sat down. It made a tight fit on the brocade sofa, this family portrait of sharp expectancy with the four of them on that one piece of furniture.
Across the massive oak coffee table, on a matching white sofa, sat a slender, red-haired woman. Second wife, Deborah, present and accounted for.
Bruno decided to leave his first wife and then teenage sons soon after meeting Deborah at the Asp Bar. He’d moved to a stage in his life where the most important qualities he could hope for in a woman involved the length of her legs. So he found Deborah, an appropriately-legged, party-happy female bartender. In the ten delirious months before they wed, Bruno spent not a single sober evening. One short year later, they too had divorced.
I looked at Deborah more closely. Her skin was very pale. She wore a white suit and, except for her bright hair, seemed to blend into the overstuffed furniture.
Her successor, Lily, sat down at the opposite end of the sofa, making wifely bookends to the untouched cushions between. I took a chair to the side, noticing that Bruno had selected a brunette, now graying, a redhead, certainly not natural, and a blonde.
“Is that it, then? Can we get started?”
Mark Baker ignored Bru’s rudeness and simply opened his briefcase and got out his paperwork. He pulled a pair of reading glasses out of their Gucci case and placed them gently on his nose. He was not hurrying.
The room was silent.
“There is generally no urgency to the disclosure of a family member’s last will and testament, and I really much prefer to handle these arrangements in my office.”
He stopped and looked right at Bru.
“However, in this case, I have acceded to a personal plea from the family to make the contents of Bruno Huntley’s will known to those who are most affected. As there was mention of each of the persons attending here this afternoon in the document in question, I am satisfied that this group reading of the will is in the best interests of all parties.”
No one moved.
“I will read from the document dated September 27, 1997:
‘I, Bruno Darren Huntley, being of sound mind and body, do hereby bequeath my estate in the following manner:
To my first wife, Rosemary Jean Herritt Huntley, the mother of my sons Bruno, Jr., and Graydon, I leave $1,000. The alimony checks stop here. I guess I can count on at least one person to feel grief after I’m gone.
To my second wife, Deborah Lee Baines Huntley, the mother of no offspring of mine, I agree to pay off all your credit cards and start you back at square one.
To my present wife, Lily Pamela Goldman Huntley, I leave the remainder of my estate, including the house and properties on Winding Oaks, all cash, assets, land, and all my holdings in and revenues from Bruno Huntley Productions. Lily, you have been the shining light in my life and the best thing that has ever happened to this ornery old man. I wish I could be there with you forever, but we both knew that wouldn’t be the case. Take good care of our boy Lewis and remind him what a great man his daddy was.
To my sons, Bruno Darren Huntley, Jr., Graydon Herritt Huntley, and Lewis Gordon Huntley, I have already given you the greatest gift of all: You have my genes. That should be more than enough. Go out and make your fortunes!
The only condition on the above bequests is as follows: I fully expect to live a good long time and take care of my family as I see fit. However, if after my death it can be proven that my wife, Lily Goldman Huntley, was disloyal to me during our marriage by having had an affair, then she and her son Lewis shall be barred from inheriting from my estate.
Since I expect there may be some interest in pursuing this possibility by the older boys, I give you one month to prove Lily was unfaithful. Prove it in that time, and the estate is to be divided equally between Bruno, Jr. and Graydon Huntley. But fail to prove any infidelity by that deadline and Lily inherits absolutely. The law firm of Baker, Barrison, and Ludd will act as arbitrators in this matter.
Let the month of investigation give you all a chance to have your fair say. I am confident that you shall find out for yourselves that Lily has a sterling character. After that time, she’s to be left alone.
I trust that my lovely wife will soon have all that I have gained in my lifetime at her disposal. But, while I think of it, I should just give those antique copper pots I bought from the kitchen of Windsor Castle to Madeline Bean. They cost me $27,000 and, Lily honey, you don’t even boil water.’”
Mark Baker had been speaking in a soft, leathery voice, and as he came to the end of the document, his dry voice could barely be heard. He looked up and surveyed the scene.
“So, like, is that it? What do we get?” Graydon was never the brightest light on the dimmer board.
Lily was staring straight ahead, measuring her breaths. Carmen, across the coffee table, was in tears. That was a surprise. She was actually sobbing.
Her husband, Gray, having gotten it at last, looked stunned. But th
at’s awfully close to his usual stupefied expression.
To his left was his mother, Rosemary, who was looking sharply to her left at her more dangerous son, Bru. He, however, was smirking.
And the second Mrs. Bruno Huntley, the redheaded woman on the far side of Lily, seemed to have relaxed. All her credit card debt wiped out! By the look of her Manolo Blahnik pumps and Armani suit, I’d say she did okay this afternoon.
“He felt guilty,” she said, with wonder in her voice. “The old bastard must have felt guilty for not giving me the most precious gift of all, his kid.” She laughed. “So I got the consolation prize.”
Mark Baker seemed to want to get the whole affair over with.
“If there are no questions, I have copies of the will for each of you. You may wish to seek your own advisors, of course, but…”
Bru interrupted, “I take it this is all legal and everything?”
“Of course it is,” Baker nodded.
“Then it’s just one of Dad’s weird jokes, right?” Bru asked.
Baker looked at Bru with distaste.
“Yeah, wouldn’t it be just like Dad to have us all tear around proving that Lily was in bed with just about everyone in Hollywood. Kinda funny, don’t you think?”
“Certainly not!”
“But it is funny.” Lily spoke up and the rest of the chatter died down. “It’s really hilarious if you get the joke.” Her voice edged up. “Because Bruno knew I’d never been with anyone but him. Never.”
The room grew still as Lily blurted out more. “You’ll go running around trying to ruin me and my reputation just to get his money. I expect that. But you won’t be able to do it. Bruno is setting you all up.” Lily stood up. “Thank you for coming, Mark. And now, would the rest of you please leave my home.”
Sympathy for the Devil Page 12