Sympathy for the Devil

by Jerrilyn Farmer

  Too bad. I had hoped that Lily’s doctor had convinced Mark Baker at the last minute, but nothing would change if Lily wouldn’t defend her own interests.

  “So we get the house and the money, right?” Bru was gloating, looking straight at Lily, rubbing it in.

  “Not exactly. That’s what I’ve come here to advise you. Lily notified my office that she would be vacating the house this evening and turning the keys over to Graydon and Bruno Huntley, Jr., and that is something I’ve come all the way over here in this wretched storm to prevent.”

  “What!” That was Gray. He was just getting that something was wrong. His expression went from fuzzy to frantic.

  “Calm down, Graydon,” his brother whined. “We’ll get it as soon as the paperwork is settled. It’s all just a bullshit waste of time, Mr. Lawyer.”

  “Not quite.” Baker pulled out a sheaf of papers from his briefcase and then looked up at the gathered group.

  “While it is true that the Huntley sons do inherit the full share of their father’s estate, I am here to inform you that the net value of that estate at the time of Mr. Huntley’s death was one dollar.”

  Oh boy.

  “That’s a lie!” from Bru.

  “What?” from the ever-original Graydon.

  “Boys, your father’s estate does not include any assets to speak of. No cash. No investments. No real property. No furnishings. And no holdings in Bruno Huntley Productions or any of the theatrical and television properties owned by that company.” He looked up, directly into Bru’s eyes. “Do you understand me, young man? You are to leave your stepmother alone and vacate these premises.”

  “What kind of bullshit is this? If Dad didn’t own all that stuff, who did? You gonna tell us he gave it all away to some charity before he died?” Bru was screaming. For once, I guess I couldn’t blame him. “This is a ripoff! This is some attorney’s way of ripping off the family!”

  God, this was familiar. Don Antonio Feliz was probably spinning in his grave.

  “As you’ve chosen to air your ugliness in public, I am certainly entitled to sue you for slander. And I would, too, if I thought you had a penny to pay in damages. As it is, just leave at once. I don’t care to see your face ever again.” For an old man, he was cold as ice.

  Bru, Jr. collapsed onto a sofa.

  “Where did it all go?” Gray asked. Not belligerent and accusing. Just…lost.

  “That is not information that I am at liberty to divulge.” Mark turned to Lily and offered in a kinder voice, “Would you like me to hire a guard for you, my dear, to help you keep trespassers off the property tonight?”

  Lily was looking pretty lost herself. She shook her head no, and Mark Baker stood up to leave.

  I needed a phone. As Baker had a few last words with the brothers, I walked out of the living room, across the entry, and looked tentatively into the study. No sign of Hirsh. I picked up the telephone and called Rudy. I figured it was better to be on the safe side, and Lily might not realize what she was in for. Rudy said he’d be there in an hour and I told him how grateful I was.

  As I hung up the phone, a side door opened, and into the study walked Perry Hirsh.

  “Hi, gorgeous.” He smiled at me.

  We were friends now.

  “Hello.”

  “So we meet again. What is that called?” he asked.

  Bad luck?

  “Fate!” he answered his own question, like he was a brain surgeon he was so smart.

  “I saw Angelica out in the car. Maybe she’s cold?”

  “You know, I like you better in that tight skirt you wore over to my house. Why don’t you get yourself cleaned up and come on by later. We’re having a party.”

  “Thanks. I’m busy.”

  “Some other time.” He didn’t seem perturbed.

  “So, what gives? What was the big pow-wow in the other room?”

  He’d find out soon enough, and since we were so close, I figured I’d be the first one to tell him.

  “The attorney told Bru and his brother that they inherited an estate worth exactly nothing. Somehow Bruno must have spent or lost all of his money. There’s nothing left.”

  “That a fact? So where’s Bozo gonna come up with the twenty-eight large?” Perry was getting agitated, and I didn’t want to see what he was like when he was really ticked off.

  “Maybe we can talk later,” I offered, as I left the study. Walking fast out toward the living room, I thought about this latest shift in the financial picture. In a way, it was pure Bruno to pretend he was worth millions even when he was broke, putting on that outrageous Halloween party, keeping up this enormous house and grounds. Reality had been a fairly worthless concept to that man.

  The cast in the large living room had shifted. There was no trace of Bru, which was just as well. The lawyer had left, and Donnie was no longer in the room. As I approached those remaining, it was Carmen who was speaking.

  “…not if I heard that man correctly. That man said your father wasn’t worth a penny!”

  “Wait a minute, honey,” Graydon said quickly. “Don’t get hysterical. Bru will fix things. Let’s go home.”

  Carmen stared at her husband. She just stared.

  “Let’s go home,” Gray repeated, putting his arm around her.

  Lily was watching the scene from her position, curled up on a large moss-colored velvet wing chair. The chair was so large, she seemed like a child.

  “Thank God,” Carmen whispered. “It’s finally over.”

  “Honey, nothing’s over. You don’t know these lawyers. Listen to me, honey. I’m in business. I know all about how these things work. They’re just trying to scare us, but we Huntleys don’t scare easy, do we?” he asked her, pleading.

  “I want a divorce. I want out,” she said quietly.

  “Carmen.” His voice was getting hoarse. I could see the tears coming. “Carmen, honey, don’t.” He held her close to him and whispered, “You’ll get the land, Carmenita. I promise. I know how much it means to you. You’ll get it.”

  Carmen stood stock-still, making Gray’s hug seem awkward. He pulled back from the rebuff, and finally let her go.

  “So you’re not coming home?” he asked, defeated.

  “No. I’ll call my mother.” With that, she turned and left the room.

  Gray looked up, as if for the first time noticing he’d had an audience. He didn’t seem embarrassed. I was again reminded of the quaint Huntley tradition of staging their most intimate and humiliating moments in public.

  “She’ll come back,” he suggested to no one in particular.

  Well they might take these scenes in stride, but I, for one, felt miserably out of place. I tried to get Lily’s attention. I needed a few private minutes to explain what I’d found out about the sperm samples and then I could leave.

  “Lily,” I called out.

  But just then the moving men came back into the living room. They surveyed the floor. There was barely a square inch of the enormous expanse that wasn’t covered by a brand-new cardboard box.

  “I guess we gotta leave now,” one of the men said. “I just got paged. Some lawyer just called our office and said what we’re doing is illegal or something.”

  “Fine,” Lily said. “Thank you.”

  “The thing is, who’s gonna pay? You got 370 boxes here at two bucks a box.”

  “I suppose you should bill the man who hired you,” Lily suggested.

  “The thing is, the office told me not to leave without I get paid.”

  “Well, I didn’t order these boxes,” Lily explained. “And it appears I have no need for them. Perhaps you should just unfold them again and take them away.”

  The two men laughed. “We need a check.”

  “Sorry.” Lily spoke in her sweet breathy voice, but didn’t back down. I guess it’s easier to bounce back from shocking news when the news happens to be in your favor.

  Donnie walked back into the room. “Hey, Madeline. There’s a call for
you.”

  “Me?”

  Who knew I was here?

  Chapter 31

  The study was empty and this time, before I picked up the phone, I checked the attached bathroom. No one lurking about. The Huntleys had three lines coming into their home and the telephone had buttons for each as well as one to place calls on hold. I saw only one light flashing and answered.

  “Madeline? It’s me, Lizzie. I’d just about given up trying to find you.”

  “This has been one wild night.”

  “Tell me about it! Have you been outside lately? They’re calling for flooding, mudslides, the works. Hey watch yourself driving home.”

  “The weather is the least of my worries. Things are going nuts inside the house. The nanny quit, Lewis is missing, Bruno’s property has been changing hands on an hourly basis, and now it turns out he was worth just about nothing. Movers are leaving as we speak, and on top of everything else, Wesley is still locked up in jail.”

  “Look, the more I think about it, the more I have to agree with you. I just can’t get convinced that Wes killed Bruno.”

  “No kidding.”

  “I went out on a limb today and told my people I thought they got the wrong guy. They were not thrilled with my attitude. I figure, the only way to turn this turd into a rose is to find a suspect who looks even better to the D.A.”

  “You have such a delicate turn of a phrase.”

  “Forensics just shot us a report on the fingerprints found on the brandy decanter, which you didn’t hear from me.”

  “Go on.” I was excited. Clearly there must be evidence that doesn’t point to Wesley. Perhaps I was going to get a chance to hear some.

  “No prints distinguishable on the body of the decanter. It was cut crystal. But on the glass stopper and on the smooth bottom surface, they lifted four readable prints. There was one each from Bruno and Lily and their daughter-in-law Carmen, and one clear right forefinger print from an unidentified party. By the size, it’s most likely female.”

  Or a child. “You got prints from the entire family?”

  “Of course.”

  “What about from the boy, Lewis?”

  “Be reasonable. He’s maybe three years old!”

  “What about Carmen’s mother? Did you…”

  “Yes. It didn’t match. We even tried to match it to his ex-wives’ prints, and, I might add, yours.”

  “And you still can’t match that one print. But what does this mean for Wes?”

  “That Wesley Westcott did not touch Bruno’s decanter of Armagnac.”

  “Won’t they say that he wore gloves?”

  “Gloves would have smudged the other fingerprints on the stopper. And they weren’t smudged.”

  “Thanks, Lizzie.”

  “De nada. Listen, if you get anything really incriminating over there at the Huntleys, don’t do anything foolish. Just call me, okay?”

  I kept thinking about the unidentified fingerprint. With all the Huntley women accounted for, I was at a loss. I left the study, and as I walked through the entry hall, a sudden flash of lightning lit up the courtyard parking area outside. The pelting rain had softened to drizzle, and looking through the leaded-glass windows, I was surprised to spot Perry Hirsh’s Bentley still parked out front.

  I stepped into my rubber shoes and grabbed my dripping coat from the hook where I’d left it. Pulling up the hood, I scooted out into the night. By the time I’d covered the twenty feet to the Bentley, the rain seemed to come to a stop. I tapped with force on the window and motioned that Angelica should roll it down.

  She had watched me approach, but didn’t seem in a hurry to unlock her door. At the sound of my tapping, she called to me through the closed car window, “I don’t want to get Perry’s leather seats wet. He’d kill me.”

  “Come on out!” I yelled to her.

  She wasn’t happy about it, but she did open the door and quickly slide out. The sound of water, dripping off leaves and house, gurgling down drains, rushing down the steep driveway, stood in contrast to the sudden lull in the storm.

  “I just got a call from a friend of mine,” I told her. “Seems the police identified some fingerprints on Bruno’s private bottle of brandy.”

  “So?”

  “That’s where the poison was, in Bruno’s Armagnac.”

  She stared at me.

  “What were your prints doing on the decanter, Angelica?”

  She whipped back so fast, I thought she was fainting. But then she swung her body around and hurled her clenched fist at me. Before I could react, the garnets in her ring zoomed into closeup.

  I lunged left, slipping on slick pavement, falling against the car. She tried correcting her aim as I fell, and just missed slamming her cheap jewels into my cheek. Untouched by Angelica, I still hit the ground pretty hard.

  With the force of her unlanded punch, she swiped the passenger door of the Bentley. I looked up to see a double line of scratches etched into the twenty-four coats of white lacquer.

  Then, she started kicking at me. Hard. From my seated position, I grabbed her flying ankle, jumped up, and twisted. She collapsed on the wet pavement as I pulled myself up.

  She was wearing a party dress, and as she crashed down, the flimsy red skirt hiked up, revealing a long shapely leg in muddied and ripped hose. One high-heeled red pump had kicked off somewhere and she was scowling at her right hand. Several long acrylic nails had broken off.

  I balanced lightly on my feet, waiting for her to spring up, feeling wet and sore and ready.

  Angelica just sat there looking spent. “I didn’t kill Bruno, if that’s what you think. I just had a few drinks with him last week. I probably left my fingerprint on the decanter then. I didn’t poison him.”

  Something caught her attention and her eyes darted up.

  “Oh, shit! Shit!” she screamed, shaking her bruised hand.

  The wind had picked up and I could hear the sound of rainfall again. Angelica sat there, swearing, eyes fixed to the spot where Perry’s pride and joy had been scarred.

  I ran the few steps to the front door of the house and looked back. Angelica’s hair was collapsing in the renewed vigor of the downpour. Her dress was ruined. And by the way she was holding her right hand, there would be pain pills in her future.

  I shut the massive door with a slam, twitchy in the aftermath of the fight. Then I remembered Perry Hirsh. I had just decked his cousin and she was sure to blame me for the scratches on his Bentley, but had they plotted together to kill Bruno?

  Somehow, I had stepped over a line. Things had turned dangerous. I needed to call the police, but I couldn’t use a phone where I might be overheard.

  I raced up the grand staircase, two steps at a time, until I hit the second-floor landing. Spread out before me was a hallway so vast it was actually larger than my first apartment. Closed doors could be seen running down each side of the corridor. No wonder Holly had gotten lost the night of the party. I put a little space between the staircase and me and randomly picked a door on my left.

  I shut the door quickly and turned on the light. A yellow room. I had no idea whose. The large bed was covered by a pale yellow gingham bedspread. The plush yellow carpet seemed never to have been stepped upon. That is, until I showed up with my wet size sevens. My parka was dripping, so I grabbed the telephone and stretched its long cord all the way into the adjoining bathroom.

  Holding the yellow phone to my ear with my shoulder, I shrugged the raincoat into the bathtub and stomped my feet onto a bath mat. Honnett answered on the third ring. Funny how I had memorized his direct number after staring at his message all afternoon.

  “Honnett? It’s Madeline Bean. I’m over at the Huntley estate. You’ve got to send someone over right away. There’s a woman here that may have been involved in Bruno’s murder, and she…”

  “Hey. Slow down! What are you talking about? What woman?”

  “The soothsayer from the party. The one we couldn’t find and then she just
turned up at my house yesterday. Her name is Angelica Sands. Look,” I was getting impatient with all the explanations, “she took a swing at me.”

  “Yeah? I’ve felt like that,” Honnett said.

  “Honnett.”

  “Okay, okay. Just tell me something that hooks her to the murder and I’ll be there myself in five minutes.”

  “I accused her of leaving her fingerprint on the brandy decanter and she tried to slug me.”

  “Are you hurt?”

  “I can take care of myself. But she admitted that she had her hands on Bruno’s decanter. That proves she’s the unidentified fingerprint, damn it!”

  “Whoa! Wait! Even if this Sands woman did leave a fingerprint, it proves very little.”

  “What?”

  “Honey, you’ve got a pretty good source inside the print lab, but you gotta start flirting with the toxicology boys. Then you’d already know there was no trace of strychnine in the decanter.”

  If it wasn’t in the decanter, then whoever poisoned Bruno must have put the strychnine into his glass.

  “So even if your soothsayer had her hands all over that decanter, it proves nothing.”

  “Yeah, I got it, I got it.”

  My mind was backtracking furiously. The real killer would know there was no poison in the decanter. So why had Angelica attacked me? Because she didn’t know it wasn’t important. Damn!

  “Now what would be real handy is finding Bruno’s glass. That might tell us who poisoned him.”

  “It wasn’t Wesley.”

  Honnett chuckled. “My mama used to warn me not to get involved with girls who like to fight.”

  “She was a smart woman.”

  Chapter 32

  I looked into the mirror above the yellow sink. The wind and the rain had pulled my hair out of its tight chignon and it was curling this way and that. Taking a moment to wash up, I considered what I’d learned.

  It hadn’t exactly been easy to follow the ping-pong match of who would win Bruno’s fortune, but now, even if Lily could convince the executors, there was nothing for her to inherit.

  I thought about not telling her the details of her husband’s sperm-gathering activities. Perhaps it was kinder to leave her some sweet illusions of Bruno, but that went against my nature. Lily was an adult. The truth means something. I had to tell her.