The Bequest

by kindle@netgalley. com

  Mike Farris

  1

  The Bequest

  Mike Farris

  The Bequest ©2013 Mike Farris All Rights Reserved

  ISBN 978-0-9888777-9-5 This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than

  that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  An Armchair Adventurer book

  STAIRWAY PRESS—SEATTLE Cover Design by Denise Lipiansky

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  1500A East College Way #554

  Mount Vernon, WA 98273

  To Susan—thank you for always believing in me.

  PART ONE:

  THE BEQUEST

  CHAPTER 1

  Tonight was as good a night to die as any. The thought kept floating through Leland Crowell’s mind as his older model Buick Regal rounded a curve along the Big Sur coastline near Ragged Point, just fifteen miles north of Randolph Hearst’s famous mansion at San Simeon, California. To the east, forests darkened the mountainside; to the west, sheer cliffs, hundreds of feet high, dropped to the hellish maelstrom of waves crashing on rock below, creating a foam swirl of white that gleamed in the moonlight. At the late hour, no other vehicles traveled this dangerous track of the Pacific Coast Highway that stretched between Los Angeles and San Francisco.

  A flick of the wrist, a turn of the steering wheel, and it would all be over. No one would be the wiser. Just another tragic accident.

  But that wasn’t the plan. It was a carefully laid plan, one that required attention to detail. Everything had to be done just right.

  He pulled the Regal to a stop on the wrong side of the road, almost touching the guardrail. The driver’s side window was down, and the roar from below filled the interior of the car. After thirty seconds, the driver’s door opened and Leland stepped out. Thin, in the way drug addicts often appear, his long scraggly hair swirled around his face in the brisk wind. In one hand, he held a sheaf of papers, bound by brass fasteners. He stood between the car and the guardrail for a moment, the papers clutched tightly.

  Slowly, deliberately, he first put one leg over the guardrail, then another. He stood for a moment on the precipice, scant inches from the drop-off. He teetered for a moment as a particularly strong gust of wind slammed against his frail frame. He peered down. All that was visible in the darkness was the swirling foam hundreds of feet below.

  He glanced at the bound pages in his hand. The words spoke to him as they had when he had first written them. A tear trickled down one cheek.

  Without looking back, he tossed the pages into the car through the driver’s side window. He held his arms at his side, almost as if standing at attention. He had to carry out the plan.

  He stepped out into the blackness.

  CHAPTER 2

  Teri Squire sat on the couch in her den, eyes glued to the newspaper. A soft breeze, with the faint odor of creosote, wafted in from the open sliding doors to her right that afforded a spectacular view of the Santa Monica Mountains from her Beverly Hills home in the hills north of Sunset Boulevard. Not a conventional beauty, Teri’s skin bore signs of wear beyond her 36 years, as if she’d had some exposure to sun in her early days. Auburn hair hung to her shoulders, pulled casually back to emphasize piercing green eyes. Dressed in faded jeans and a denim workshirt, she had a fresh-scrubbed, girl-next-door aura about her. Based upon her surroundings—a luxurious stucco home that sprawled across nearly an acre of hillside, lavishly furnished with all the latest in home décor, topped off by twin golden statues on the mantle above the fireplace—one might assume that all was right in the two-time Oscar winner’s world.

  But the expression on her face as she read the Los Angeles Times told a different story. “Latest Flop for Squire” screamed the headline over an article that described, almost with glee, that Teri now had four consecutive box office bombs to her credit. The latest, a period drama about the first female FBI agent, had arrived with all kinds of promise. A screenplay by a three-time Oscar-winning screenwriter based on a New York Times bestselling book, a four-time nominee director, and produced by last year’s winner for best picture—the project bore all the earmarks of success. Top it off with the two-time Oscar winner Teri Squire playing the lead, and how could it go wrong?

  But it had. The critics had panned the advance screenings, though no one put much stock in that. What did critics know? But the test audiences hadn’t thought too much of it, either. A few scenes had been re-shot, a few new ones added, a re-edit, then it was unveiled in over 3,000 theaters over the past weekend—and the crowds stayed away in droves. Now the trades were attributing the bomb to Teri, not the script, not the directing, not the cast in general. “Box office poison” was what they called Teri. After all, this made four in a row, with a total loss threatened that could approach half a billion dollars when all was said and done. The producers deserved more for the twenty million a picture they paid her, the trades said. They certainly should rethink her price. Maybe she ought to pay to be in the next film, one smartass suggested.

  Teri slammed the paper down on the coffee table just as her phone rang, the theme from Magnum, P.I. filling the air. She snatched it and checked the printout to identify the caller, then answered.

  “Hi, Mama,” she said in a distinctly Texas drawl. “Hi, Baby,” Mary Tucker said. “I’m sorry I missed your call. Is everything okay?”

  Teri shifted sideways on the couch so as not to be mocked by the headline. “Yeah, everything’s fine. It’s not always bad news when I call.”

  “I know. It’s just that—”

  “It seems like it?”

  Mary laughed, a forced sound that seemed to catch in her throat.

  “Sometimes I just need to hear a familiar voice,” Teri said.

  “That’s what mothers are for.”

  Teri felt tears well in her eyes, but she quickly blinked them away. She made an effort to suppress the self-pity she knew would permeate her tone if she allowed it, resulting in an ever more pronounced drawl.

  “Where were you when I called?”

  “Your daddy and I were down at the barn. Bingo’s having a tough time. Chad’s out there now and—”

  Teri’s pulse quickened at Bingo’s name. “Is she all right?”

  “She’s just getting old, that’s all. Sooner or later we’ve got to start thinking about—” Her mother’s voice halted, interrupted by a male voice in the background. Teri couldn’t hear the words, but she knew her father’s tone. The same tone he always used with her, at least during the last few years when she had been at home. Whatever he was saying, it wasn’t good.

  Mary came back on the line. “Listen, Baby, I’ve got to go.”

  “Was that Daddy?”

  “Yes.”

  “Tell him—”

  The words choked off in her throat and the tears returned. This time blinking failed, and a stray rolled down her cheek.

  “Tell him what, Baby?”

  That was a good question. Tell him what, indeed. I’m sorry? She’d said that enough times already. But it didn’t matter. It never did. I miss you? That wouldn’t work either. I love you? Just to give him a chance to not say it in return? No, she’d pass on that, too.

  “Nothing, Mama. You take care of Bingo, now, you hear?”

  “I will. Bye-bye, Baby.”

  Teri held the phone to her ear long after her mother hung up, as if something still lingered in the wireless ether. Some little part of home that now seemed so long ago and so very far away.

  Mary Tucker hung up the phone and turned to her hu
sband Tom washing his hands in the kitchen sink. It was easy to see where Teri got her looks. Even sun-washed and wearing no make-up, lined with sixty-three years of age, Mary’s beauty shone through. It was not enough, though, to cover the sadness that darkened her countenance.

  “Who was that?” Tom asked.

  “No one,” Mary said.

  Tom was a big man in his mid-60s, well over six feet tall and a fit two

  hundred plus pounds. He grabbed a dishtowel from beside his sweatstained cowboy hat that lay on the counter next to the sink and dried his hands and face. Where Mary’s face was sun-washed, his was sunweathered, lines etched deep around his eyes and mouth. Where Mary’s countenance was perpetually sad, his was perpetually angry. His was a face that had seen too many rodeos and taken too many hard falls. His shoulders slumped under the weight of too many chips.

  He wadded the towel and tossed it on the counter. He put his hat on, wiped his not-totally-dry hands on his jeans, and eyed Mary through a squint. She knew that he knew exactly who it was, the name that dare not be spoken lest it dredge up dark memories and break hearts all over again.

  “Chad says to keep a close eye on her,” Tom said.

  Mary nodded.

  “We ought to put her down,” he added.

  Mary knew Tom was talking about Bingo, but there was something

  about the way he said it, something in his tone, that made her uneasy—as if he were talking about someone else.

  “We can’t,” she said.

  “We damn sure can.”

  “No, Tom,” she said evenly and firmly. “We can’t.”

  “Then you keep an eye on her. Ain’t my job no more. Ain’t been for a long time.”

  Again, Mary got the sense he had someone else in mind when he spoke the words.

  Tom abruptly turned, walked out the door, and trudged across the yard toward the barn. Beyond him, the beautiful Texas Hill Country beckoned, but its beauty belied the ugliness that lived in this house.

  Her heart heavy, Mary went to the refrigerator to take out the makings for supper. She froze when her hand gripped the handle. The picture that was stuck to the door with a magnet tugged at her heart. Her daughter at sixteen-years-old, astride a black horse, rifle in one hand, a trophy in the other. Tom stood beside Bingo, reins in his hands, pride in his heart, his smile as big as all Texas. Mary tried to recall the last time she had seen Tom smile that way.

  For the life of her, she couldn’t remember.

  Teri put the phone on the coffee table then picked up the offending paper again. The headline seemed bigger and bolder than mere moments before. “You can’t put any stock in that,” a voice said from behind her. She looked over her shoulder at Mike Capalletti standing behind the couch, adjusting the Windsor knot in his dark blue tie. His tailored suit clung to his thin frame, screaming “European” and “expensive” all in one breath. Five years Teri’s junior, with his slicked-back hair and swarthy complexion, he looked more Mafioso than he did high-powered Hollywood agent, something he had used to his advantage in more than one negotiation.

  “You put stock in it when the news is good,” Teri said.

  “That’s different.”

  “How is it different?”

  “It just is.”

  “Tell me how it’s different, Mike,” she said. “Tell me why I’m

  supposed to believe the good stuff and not believe the bad.”

  “Because you know as well as I do that it’s easier for a critic to

  criticize than it is to praise. They’re called critics for a reason. Slamming

  someone doesn’t require any thought. But they’d rather slit their wrists

  than say something good, so when they do praise your work, it’s gotta

  mean something.”

  Teri focused on a paragraph midway through the article and read

  aloud. “’Teri Squire has long since given up any hope of a third Oscar.

  Now it’s all about the money for her, but if she doesn’t start turning in

  better performances, she might as well give up that hope, too. She

  sleepwalks through her latest disaster as if embarrassed to be associated

  with it, which is hard to do when her name is so prominently affixed to it

  as a producer and its star.’”

  She dropped the paper on the coffee table again. “Sounds like he put

  some thought into that one.”

  Mike came around the couch and sat next to Teri. He took her hand

  in his and kissed the palm. “It was bad material.”

  “I picked the script.”

  “We just gotta find a better one.”

  “What if we can’t find one?”

  “There are a million scripts floating around out there. The law of

  averages says that at least some of them have to be good. And to be

  honest, the one we pick doesn’t have to be great. It just has to be better

  than the others. It’s all relative.”

  “I could always go back to Texas.”

  “Guitars and Cadillacs and Bob Wills music, huh?”

  “It’s home.”

  He kissed her on the cheek. “Was home, not is home. Now home is

  here, and Texas is just a bad memory.”

  He stood and adjusted his tie. “How do I look?”

  But Teri was staring out the window and not looking at him. “It’s

  gonna be bad, isn’t it?”

  “Don’t worry about it. I’ll just work my magic and everything’ll be

  okay.”

  Without looking back, he went to the door and then he was gone.

  CHAPTER 3

  The Pacific Coast Highway was awash in red and blue lights as half a dozen law enforcement vehicles sat on the edge of the drop-off, with the old Regal sticking out like a sore thumb in their midst. In front of the Regal, paramedics waited by the open back door of their vehicle. Behind it, a construction crane had been set up, its cable lowered down the cliffside. Every now and then, a car slowed as it passed by, its occupants transfixed by the flashing lights but unable to see or even speculate what lay below.

  A two-year-old Chevy Tahoe pulled up next to the Regal and came to a halt. A blue light flashed on its dashboard as the occupants got out. California Highway Patrol detective Howie Stillman slid from the driver’s side, his partner Jeff Nichols from the other. Both men were young in appearance, with neatly-trimmed mustaches and sideburns, as if they were the uniform of the day. The casual observer might even have thought the two were brothers, both roughly the same mid-30s in age and both with thick brown hair. But Stillman topped out at five feet nine inches, with the thick build of a linebacker, while Nichols rose at least six inches taller, his lanky frame more suited for basketball.

  Nichols came around the car and stood by Stillman’s side as they peered over the railing. The body basket was still a good hundred feet below, the crane’s chain working slowly. A paramedic rode up with the body. Far below the basket, waves crashed aggressively against jagged black rocks. The drop was sheer, the sides of the cliff bare.

  “Not much to break a fall,” Nichols said.

  “I think that’s the point. If you’re going to do it, do it right.” Nichols glanced at the back seat of the Tahoe. In the glare on the

  window glass, he could barely make out the outline of the lone occupant. “You sure bringing her was a good idea?” “It’s a little late to second guess. Besides, you were there, and I didn’t see you trying to stop her from coming along.”

  “She scares me a little,” Nichols said.

  “Ain’t it the truth.”

  Stillman approached the car and opened the rear driver’s side door. “You want to step out, ma’am?”

  Annemarie Crowell slid her legs out, then stood. She was nearly as tall as Nichols, nearly as lanky, but the most striking thing about her appearance was a thick cake of white make-up, face pale, eyes highlighted in black, and lips a
garish red, that almost made her resemble a circus clown. All she lacked was a big red nose and floppy shoes to complete the look. Her face was frozen in place, though whether by the make-up or simply by lack of emotion, neither detective was sure. She approached the guardrail, her steps shaky in high-heeled shoes. She stood beside the detectives and looked down at the basket, which was nearing the lip of the precipice.

  “You sure you want to do this, ma’am?” Stillman asked.

  “That’s my son,” Annemarie said.

  “We don’t know that for a fact, ma’am. Like I told you before, we just know that’s his car.”

  “He never lets anyone drive it. If Leland’s car is here, then that’s my Leland down there.”

  Stillman cut Nichols a look. At a glance, he could see that his partner was as taken by the lifeless tone as he was. And that’s when Stillman saw it. He couldn’t be sure at first, but a second look confirmed it. Tears had amassed along Annemarie’s eyelids. They looked out of place against the backdrop of her frozen features. What he couldn’t tell, though, was whether they were real or simply had been summoned up because she deemed them appropriate for the moment.

  It seemed to take minutes but was really only seconds before the basket reached the top. The paramedic jumped off onto solid ground, relief on his face. The detectives and Annemarie approached slowly. “Unzip it,” Nichols said.

  “He’s a mess, Detective. Face first on a rock.”

  All three men looked at Annemarie, who remained stoic. “Unzip it,” Nichols said again.

  The paramedic slowly drew the zipper downward about a foot, then spread open the plastic to reveal a pulpy mass of red and gray, mixed with the white of skull fragments. Stillman recoiled. It wasn’t recognizable as a face even though they all knew it was. Stillman could tell from the proportions where there should be a nose, where the mouth and eyes should be, but for all he knew, this man never had a face.

  Annemarie remained emotionless. The tears remained frozen on her lids, unwilling or unable to fall. “He had a tattoo,” she said. “On his right forearm. A blue star in a football helmet.”