The guard announced, “Mr. Huntley is in Apartment 2203. Please go right up.”
I rode in the carpeted, mirrored elevator alone. I looked up and found there was also a mirror on the ceiling. Head back, I studied my face. Somewhere, I’d read that this is what you would look like if you had a facelift. As you look up, gravity smooths your wrinkles. On my youngish face, there wasn’t that much difference.
The door opened on eleven, admitting a woman in her sixties. I quickly returned my head to its normal, upright position. It appeared that this woman had gone way past the looking-in-mirrors-on-the-ceiling phase. She’d gone all the way to her nearest surgeon and done the deed. If you didn’t mind a mouth pulled into a tight line, her face looked pretty good.
I got out on twenty-two and quickly found 2203. Before I could knock, the door was pulled open and there was Graydon Huntley, eyes swollen and nose red.
“Hi,” I said. “I hope this isn’t too late. I just got your message.”
“Maddie, come in.” He tried to smile, but it didn’t look right on his teary face.
Inside, I looked around and saw a modern condo with a remarkable view of the whole Wilshire corridor, two parallel rows of sleek high-rises dotted with lights. I’d always wondered who lived in these expensive buildings. Rich widows and New Yorkers is what I’d always thought.
“Come on into the living room,” Gray offered. I walked toward the enormous view and entered a room done in gray and white. The white carpet and stark white walls seemed cool. The leather sofa and chairs were in a dark gray. There were tables made of glass and some black and white photos on the walls that were quite nice.
The apartment was more tasteful than I had expected. In surprise I said, “What a nice room, who decorated it?”
Graydon let out a loud snuffle and then just started sobbing.
“Are you all right?”
“I’m miserable. I want to kill myself. I’d like to just end my life right now!” He kept on sobbing, his nose running, his eyes wet with tears.
“Is this about the will, Graydon?” I was clearly at a loss. Why had he sent for me? True, we had known each other for several years, and I’d been one of his father’s pets. For some reason that made him treat me as if I were part of their family drama, but I wasn’t.
“No! I mean, well, yes. It’s Carmen. Carmen left me.” Fresh sobs and groans accompanied the announcement.
“Is that why you called me, Gray?”
“Why did she leave? Why? I know she loves me. I know it. So why did she go?”
He expected comfort. Unfortunately, I could only wonder why Carmen had married him in the first place.
Graydon was a big, gangly, happy guy most of the time. He didn’t go in for deep thoughts. I could only think that it was a blessing that his father kept him employed, subsidizing his lifestyle, because Graydon had no real usable skills. Still, that could be said for many successful network programming executives, so perhaps I was being unduly harsh in assessing Graydon’s long-term prospects now that his dad had left him high and dry and possibly without employment.
“Graydon, I know that Lily has control of your dad’s company now. Has she fired you?”
He looked hurt, and a little shocked. “No way! Are you kidding? They’d be lost without me. Especially now that Dad’s gone. Fire me?” He seemed startled at the thought.
So he still had his big paycheck. Why had Carmen left? Was it guilt? Had she had an affair with Bruno, and now couldn’t face the family? Or was she feeling a more serious form of guilt? Like for murder?
“Why did Carmen leave me? I don’t get it.”
“Maybe she’s upset,” I said gently.
Graydon blew his nose noisily and continued. “When you were at the house today, I noticed that you and Carmen were talking privately. Did she tell you why she was leaving me?”
So that’s why I got this special invitation to visit. Gray thought I had the answer to Carmen’s behavior.
“We were talking about the party and, uh, your father.” I wondered what reaction that subject would get from Gray.
“Yeah, she was mad that night. She didn’t like it when Dad and I fought, but that’s business, right? I mean, we’re a couple of bulls and sometimes we’ve just got to butt heads.”
“What were you and your dad fighting about that night?” I asked, quietly.
“Nothing important. No great shakes. He and I had a business disagreement about what to do with the company. He’d got it into his head that maybe he would sell. Can you believe that? But I knew deep down that he never would. That company is part of him. He can’t give it up.”
Graydon seemed to forget that his father was gone now.
“Carmen doesn’t understand Dad. But they sure get along great.”
“Really?”
“Oh, yeah. She’d go over there all the time to help out. Sometimes, when Lily was out of town, Carmen was at the house every night to make sure Dad had something to eat for dinner.”
“And your father, did he…”
“He loved her! Of course, she’s gorgeous. Dad always used to say I was a lucky S.O.B. to have Carmen.”
And then he turned morose again.
“I don’t get it.” He shook his long face back and forth, back and forth. Even blotched by tears, his was a handsome face. His straight black hair tumbled over his forehead shading his large brown eyes.
Before one got to know him, he seemed a very attractive package: exciting job, pedigree Hollywood family, good looks. But years of being overindulged had inflated his self-esteem way beyond sense. He had this goofy, unselfconscious belief that every one of his ideas was brilliant. His every casual thought was so important, in fact, that he could hardly be expected to actually work. I guess I could figure out why Carmen got tired of it.
Gray was still suffering on the gray sofa. “She was leaving, she said. Just like that. She wanted to stay at her mother’s. I said, ‘What do you mean, stay at your mother’s?’” He looked at me like I’d see how absurd the idea was.
“Is she close with her mother?”
“That’s not the point!”
Graydon was having a bad day, all right; his father’s millions gone, his lovely wife gone, his cushy job soon to be gone. He just couldn’t comprehend this sudden shift in his cockeyed universe.
“Gray, I’ve got to go.” I made a move to the door.
He didn’t stand up and see me out.
“Yeah, okay. See you, Maddie.”
“Oh, by the way. Did you and your brother decide what you’re going to do about your father’s will?”
“Bru’s taking care of all that. Bru and Mom. They’ll see that we get all our money. I told that to Carmen, but she didn’t seem to listen.”
I left, thinking I really had better stop getting involved with all these ridiculous Huntleys. Except…Wes was in trouble. Even if he didn’t want to face it, I felt I had to.
And if trying to protect my best friend wasn’t reason enough, what was it Honnett had said, as I was walking out of his office, that had bugged me so much?
“I have enough to worry about without worrying about you,” he’d said, reducing me to a damsel in distress. “Don’t go getting in trouble with any more of your ideas, okay?”
Yeah. The little lady has too many ideas, I fumed as I traveled down twenty-two floors. She’s starting to annoy the authorities.
Dammit! Why am I the only one who’s so sure I’m right?
Chapter 22
Wesley was waiting for me upstairs when I got home. As I walked up the stairs, I could hear the closing theme from the eleven o’clock news on Channel 7.
“Trying to bring back the Bo Peep look?” Wes asked, gazing up.
I kicked off the white Keds. “You’ll get the full, uncensored report,” I said, circling the living room sofa wearily and walking out to my bedroom. “But first, talk to me while I change.”
The red print dress that had served me so well landed in a heap not t
oo terribly far from the hamper basket. I sighed and pulled on a pair of comfortable white leggings and a long white T-shirt. I could hear only the muffled sounds of commercials coming from the living room’s television set. Wes wasn’t taking commands well, as usual.
When I finally came back to the living room, Wes was gone. An instant later, I heard the motor from the dumbwaiter in the dining room and I walked back in there, curious. The mechanism grew louder as it labored to rise with its load, and then after a pleasant ding, it went silent. I opened the door to the dumbwaiter, which was ingeniously disguised among other identical cabinets built into the wall of bookcases, and found a tray set out with prosciutto and melon, sliced fresh pears, a lovely ripe brie that had been baked in puff pastry dough, and a bowl of strawberries dipped in bittersweet chocolate. Alongside was a two-liter bottle of Diet Coke in an ice bucket and a couple of goblets. Wes’s little welcome home gift.
Wes bounded upstairs and grabbed the tray while I took the ice bucket and we picked up our conversation as we trekked back into the living room where the comfortable seating was.
“I sure hope you aren’t the murderer, Wesley. I would really miss you.”
Gratefully, I started in on my late night snack and between bites, filled him in on all the grisly details of my day. The long version, as requested.
Wesley’s a great audience. As always, he loves the element of gossip. And just to annoy me, he wondered what I was going to do with a cop who had the hots for me. Perhaps it might somehow be used to his advantage? I laughed and poured another glass of soda.
Wes’s other comments were not made in jest. He was upset, to put it mildly, about the two guys chasing me. He kept repeating, “Madeline, this is getting too real.”
But when I finally got most of the story told, he was just as baffled as I was about why anyone would shoot at me.
“What about Bru, Jr.?” Wes suggested. “If he found out you were listed in his daddy’s will, perhaps he was trying to eliminate anyone diluting his inheritance.”
“But I didn’t get anything he would have wanted. And, besides, his biggest threat was Lily. If he was sending goons to eliminate people, why wasn’t she attacked?”
It couldn’t have been anyone we know. So we kept finding our way back to Hirsh.
“Hirsh could be connected to crime figures,” Wes said.
“That’s not what he looked like. And the name ‘Hirsh’?”
“Sure,” he continued. “Maybe Bruno was in trouble with the mob. Then you show up at Hirsh’s house, talking about the party where maybe they had a contract out on Huntley. They get edgy, so they send some goons to shake you up.”
“And that girl who played the gypsy fortune teller? Her license plate led me to Hirsh. So how was she involved?”
Wesley thought. “Mafia princess?”
“Way too movie-of-the-week.”
I didn’t know what to think. And my mind kept puzzling over the other revelation the day had brought: the whole Carmen-Bruno deal.
“Why would Carmen have had an affair with Bruno? She may be a little bit passive and, okay, not the greatest brain in the western hemisphere, but she doesn’t seem like the type to cheat on her husband. Don’t you think? She just never struck me as the tough, two-timing type at all.”
“You think you are so cynical,” Wes said, laughing. “You think you’re so jaded. And then there’s lyin’ and cheatin’ and murder all around you, and you just can’t believe anyone you know could really do anything bad, can you?”
“I just want everyone to be happy,” I said grumpily.
“Maybe Carmen was happy with Bruno.”
“Hardly. And look at things now. Carmen is a crying mess. So is Graydon for that matter. Bruno winds up dead. If Bruno was cheating on Lily then she’s in for a world of pain when it comes to light as I’m sure it will. Bru, Jr. and Gray are going nuts because their dad left them nothing in his will, not even the goddamn pots and pans.”
“Ahh. We’re back to the Curse of Los Feliz.”
“Wes, I’m serious here. The family will try to prove Lily was a whore just to get at Bruno’s money. That’s more pain ahead. And don’t forget, the cops want your head on a platter…”
“What kind of platter?” Wes interrupted.
“Would you be satisfied with Limoges?”
“French. Nice.”
I ignored him and continued. “And some violent madman with the mafia or who-knows-what behind him is after me for making a Sunday visit. Can it get much worse?”
“You can add that we have somehow lost our three biggest parties this week and cancellations are starting to roll in for Thanksgiving. Strangely, folks seem unwilling to consume food made by the caterers who were involved in a notorious celebrity poisoning.”
“Didn’t you point out we did a brunch today and absolutely no one died?”
“That we know of,” Wes amended. “So add financial ruin to your list of unhappiness.”
“Done.” I sat there munching a slice of pear. Wes and I looked at each other.
“I guess I should mention that you received a fax earlier today. I picked it up from the office downstairs when I came over this evening.”
“From Lizzie?”
“Right. It’s a copy of the autopsy report.”
“What did it say?”
Wes picked up the flimsy fax sheets that were lying on a nearby side table and started to skim through them.
“Lots of stuff about the temperatures of various organs, which seems dumb since there were hundreds of witnesses to establish the time of death.”
“What else?”
“Toxicology report on the contents of his stomach indicates Bruno tested positive for strychnine.”
“No surprise, I guess.”
“You know, strychnine is an odd poison for someone to use, actually.” Wes seemed lost in thought.
“Why?”
“In days of old, strychnine was useful for eliminating vermin. But it’s been outlawed for almost twenty years.”
“How come?”
“Too fatal. Everything from pets to livestock to kids were getting themselves killed. Especially at farms where they’d mix the strychnine with oats. All sorts of tragic accidents would happen.”
“So you can’t buy it today? I didn’t know that.”
“The only way you’d find it is if someone had some old rat poison laying around the barn for years.”
“Wes. The Huntleys had all that ivy on their hillside. And remember the rat we saw in the kitchen? Let’s say they had some old poison around for their rat problem, maybe left over from years ago, sitting in their gardener’s shed.”
“Maybe. But don’t you think old Bruno would notice a couple of handfuls of oats floating around the top of his brandy?”
“Right. Well then…” I shook my head. “So that’s a dead-end. If the poison was really put into the brandy, like I think, it must have been in some purer form. Hey, who uses the straight form of strychnine, anyway?”
“Well…” Wes stopped to think. “Strychnine is sometimes used by drug dealers to cut cocaine.”
“Now, there’s a reason to just say no.”
“Let’s say a dealer wants to make more money on a kilo of pure cocaine. All he has to do is mix it with some other cheap white powder, and he’s suddenly got 1.25 kilos to sell. They use lots of things for filler. I hear that powdered baby formula is so popular with drug dealers that in some neighborhoods, the supermarkets can’t keep the formula on their shelves.”
“Lovely. So why would they use something as deadly as strychnine?”
“Cutting cocaine with baby formula or powdered milk can bulk up the product, but it also dilutes the rush. And a noticeably weaker product brings down the price. On the other hand, I’ve read that cutting cocaine with strychnine gives the system a jolt.”
“At the very least,” I murmured, nibbling the chocolate off a strawberry. “But isn’t that just too dangerous?”
�
��I once heard that when kids overdose on cocaine, the emergency room doctors are always on the lookout for strychnine poisoning.”
“The things you know,” I marveled. “Well, should we change our theory? Could it be that Bruno was a coke head? Did he accidentally overdose on strychnine-laced cocaine?”
Wes tapped the fax. “Test for cocaine negative.”
“Hmm. What about our Mr. Hirsh? Maybe he’s involved in drugs. He’s got that look.”
“You mean unidentified white powder in his mustache?”
I had to smile. “You know what I mean. Too young, too rich, and too creepy.”
“So what do you figure? Hirsh and Bruno are involved in a big drug deal. It goes south, so Hirsh gets this young woman to come to the party, dress up as a soothsayer, and pop some strychnine, which he just happens to have lying around his lab, into Bruno’s drink?”
I held my tired head in my hands. “This is not working out.”
Wes continued, “Bruno’s the one who invited the soothsayer woman to the party. And at the very last minute. So how could this guy Hirsh know about it enough in advance to plan the murder? And how could Ms. Gypsy get the strychnine into the Armagnac?”
“She had the keys, remember?”
“True. But how could she know Bruno’s odd habit of taking that special drink in the evenings?”
“Well…”
“Or where Bruno kept his special bottle locked up?”
“Ah…”
“It doesn’t hold together,” Wes concluded.
“You are definitely not trying hard enough to pin this on someone we don’t know!”
Wes frowned. “You know, Madeline, another thought struck me. Strychnine has a bitter taste. So why didn’t Bruno spit it out when he tasted his brandy?”
Just then some odds and ends fell in place. “I suspect that Bruno may have lost his sense of taste.”
“Really?”
“In all the years I’ve known him, I can’t remember him ever really enjoying food.”
“So you finally agree with me? The man had no taste!”
I smiled a tired smile.
“Time for me to go,” Wes said, pulling himself up from the deep armchair.
Sympathy for the Devil Page 14