She opened the door without checking through the peep-hole first, shocked to see that her guest was not Mike, but Annemarie Crowell. This time, though, Teri felt as if her own face might top Annemarie’s in the bizarre category.
Teri’s second shock was seeing the car at the curb: a dark, older model Chevrolet sedan.
With a crumpled fender on the passenger side.
Could it be? Annemarie Crowell was her savior? And if so, why had she been following Teri? There was no other reason she would have been back there. Los Angeles was too big and spread out for this woman to have coincidentally been in the neighborhood when someone tried to run her off the road. She had to have been there by design.
“What are you doing here?” Teri asked, after opening the door.
“May I come inside?”
“I asked why you’re here.”
“I wanted to see if you were all right.”
“You were in the second car.”
“Don’t you think that entitles me to an invitation inside?”
Teri was torn. On the one hand, she owed this woman her life. On the other, she was just too strange, too bizarre, for Teri to feel comfortable in close quarters with her. Yet Teri had to admit that there was something irresistibly compelling about the woman. She never smiled, not even a smirk. Her eyes betrayed no emotion, yet they locked with Teri’s, and Teri found it difficult to avert her glance. It had been barely two years earlier when this same woman sat in her house, following the death of her son, and gave Teri the screenplay that promised to resurrect her career.
And speaking of resurrection, did Annemarie know about the resurrected Leland and his subsequent demise last night? If so, she was part of the scam, whatever it might be. Could she also have been the driver of the SUV that the thin man had gotten in? Surely not. She was odd, but capable of putting a bullet in a man’s back? In her own son? If indeed that even was her son.
Teri stepped aside from the doorway. “Please come in.”
As soon as Annemarie stepped across the threshold, Teri felt as if the breath had been sucked out of her lungs. Her fingers tingled, and it felt as if a fist squeezed her heart. Obviously she had not completely gotten over the panic attack, but it had lurked in the shadows and now reasserted itself. Or was it simply an alarm going off, alerting her that the fox was in the henhouse.
She closed the door and led Annemarie to the den. Annemarie stood rigid in the middle of the room and stared at the sliding doors.
“My eyes are sensitive to light,” she said.
“I’m sorry.” Teri pulled the cord to close the curtains, leaving them open about a foot so as not to plunge the room into complete darkness.
Annemarie went to a Queen Anne chair across from the couch, maybe even the same one she had sat in before when she clutched her son’s screenplay in her talons. Teri remained standing. To sit might encourage the woman to stay longer, something she didn’t want. Her goal was to get her out of the house as quickly as possible.
“You’re in pain,” Annemarie said. “You’ve been injured. Please sit.”
“I’m fine.”
“You’re out of breath. The injury to your nose must make breathing difficult. You really must sit.”
The words, spoken in a low monotone, seemed to have a hypnotic effect on Teri. Almost unconsciously she sank into a couch cushion. Her breathing eased instantly.
“Please be calm,” Annemarie said. “I mean you no harm.”
“You were in the second car.”
“Yes.”
“Why were you following me?”
“Because you are in danger,” Annemarie said. She still spoke in a low, hushed tone, with no inflection, no emotion. She pronounced that Teri was in danger as if she were commenting on the weather.
“Danger from who?”
“If something happens to you, who stands to gain?”
Yeah, Teri had been wondering that, herself. The answer was Doug Bozarth. Not only because her death would help skyrocket the box office, even if the movie sucked, but also because the two weak links in the chain of title—the scraggly-haired man and Teri Squire—would have been eliminated. Still, she couldn’t bring herself to articulate that fact.
“Nobody,” Teri said.
“Are you sure?”
“You tell me.”
“Who controls your rights in my boy’s screenplay? If something happens to you, that is.”
“My partners in the production.”
“Including your partner Mona?”
“Yes, but—”
“But she’s been injured. I know. Someone tried to get her out of the picture. Who are your other partners in the production?”
“The investors.”
Annemarie nodded, the first movement she had made since sitting. She would have made an excellent statue.
“Yes. Your investors. How much do you know about them?”
That was just it: she knew nothing about them. She had reached a dead end in her research. She didn’t know what Mona had found, but—
Oh, my God! Had that been what had triggered it? Had someone hacked into their computers to monitor their research? Surely not!
“Are you saying my investors are trying to kill me?”
“I’m saying you should keep all your options open. With you gone, and my boy gone, and Mona gone, who’s left to challenge ownership?”
Teri had already connected those dots. “All you do is answer questions with more questions,” she said.
“It’s a time-honored tradition. Some say it was perfected by Socrates, but I wouldn’t know about that.”
“Well, I have a question for you,” Teri said.
“And I will answer if I can.”
“Is Leland really gone this time?”
For the first time in two meetings, Teri saw emotion on Annemarie’s face. It was slight, as if any facial movement would crack the thick makeup, but there was an unmistakable smile.
“Leland has always been full of surprises.”
“Who went off that cliff two years ago?”
“My son.”
“Then who went off that cliff last night?”
“My son.”
“That’s ridiculous. You’re just talking in riddles.”
“Am I?”
“You don’t seem too upset about losing your son. Twice.”
“I grieved over Leland’s grave a long time ago. But I have another question for you: If you can’t inherit from the victim of your murder, who stands to gain the most to see to it that you are never convicted so that you can inherit?”
“I didn’t kill anyone.”
“Let’s just call it a hypothetical. The way I understand the law, you can’t inherit from someone you murder. So, if you go to trial and are found guilty, a murder conviction would invalidate a bequest. But if you never are tried, or are even arrested, there can be no conviction. That means the bequest is not in doubt. Who stands to gain the most from such a circumstance?”
“I do.” She paused, as she let her thoughts wander down the Socratic path Annemarie was leading her on. “And my partners.”
“And what is the surest way to ensure that you are never so much as charged with the crime?”
Teri remained silent, refusing to state the obvious: A dead person can’t be charged or tried.
“So I repeat my question,” Annemarie said. “How well do you know these partners of yours?”
A sudden thought hit Teri. “Then again, who benefits if I’m convicted? Who inherits if I can’t?” She stood and paced. Annemarie watched her, seemingly without moving her eyes. “The screenwriter’s mother, that’s who; the alternate beneficiary. Where were you last night, Annemarie? Did you drive Leland up to Big Sur and put a bullet in his back?”
“Don’t be absurd. Leland died years ago.”
Teri’s breath grew labored again. Her head pounded, more than just the pain from a broken nose and a cut. She felt as if her brain were about to explode. Just what i
n the hell was going on?
“Please, Ms. Squire, sit. Relax.”
“I don’t understand all this. Who was that in the diner last night? Was that your son or not?”
“You must relax. There is nothing to gain by being agitated. Please, sit.”
Teri went back to the couch and sank down. She made eye contact with Annemarie, as if trying to look inside, to see what made her tick. She barely noticed that Annemarie swayed slightly, perched on the edge of the chair. It was very slight at first, but gradually grew more pronounced, both in length and momentum. Teri followed the movement, subconsciously, with her eyes, back and forth.
“You’ve been under a lot of stress,” Annemarie said. “Please relax. Slow your breathing. Take deep breaths, count to ten, and breathe out. Nice and slow.”
Teri did as she was told and, surprisingly, the panic ebbed. Her breaths came more easily, her heart rate seemed to decrease. The pounding in her head subsided, and the tingling sensation left her fingers. She felt drowsy, as if on the verge of sleep. Just watching Annemarie sway and listening to her oddly soothing voice.
“Breathe deep,” Annemarie said. “Nice and slow. No reason to get upset. You’re safe now.”
Teri fought to keep her eyes open. Her head nodded, a quick jerk down and up, as if she were falling asleep on an airplane or while driving.
“See?” Annemarie asked. “Isn’t that better?”
Teri nodded again, slowly this time, in response to the question.
“You may not believe it, but I’m here as your friend,” Annemarie said. “I’m here to warn you. These people you have surrounded yourself with are not your friends. They do not have your best interests at heart. You’re a problem to them. But they’re a problem to you, as well. And what do you do to problems?”
Teri shook her head, fought to keep her eyelids open. She felt another nod coming on, almost as if in slow motion. She struggled to keep her head straight. She leaned it back against the couch cushion, hoping for support. But to no avail.
It jerked forward, her chin touching her chest.
The crack of a gunshot sounded in the hills outside, followed almost instantly by the shattering of glass in the sliding door. A bullet slammed into the couch cushion where Teri’s head had been just an instant before.
The sound snapped Teri from her trance. Instincts kicked in. She had grown up around guns, and she knew their familiar sounds. She dove forward onto the carpet and covered her head with her arms. No second shot followed.
After a moment, she deigned to look up at the sliding door, with shattered glass sparkling on the floor in front of it.
Then at Annemarie, who had not moved. She still sat rigidly perched on the edge of the Queen Anne, her head swiveled to the left so she could see the broken glass in the gap left by the partially open curtains. For just the second time, emotion threatened to break out on her face. It started as a mere look of disgust, but Teri watched it transform into something that bordered on rage, as if darkening clouds had suddenly gathered on Annemarie’s personal horizon.
Wordlessly, Annemarie stood, straightened her skirt, and walked to the front door.
After a few seconds, Teri heard the door open and close, and Annemarie was gone.
What the hell?
Staying on her hands and knees, Teri crawled for the phone in the kitchen and hit three digits.
“Nine-one-one,” the operator’s voice said. “What is your emergency?”
CHAPTER 34
Mike stood by Teri’s side as two crime scene techs processed the scene, not that there was much to process. Broken glass, a bullet hole all the way through the couch, and a slug gouged into the hardwood floor just behind the couch.
Detective Swafford stood at the threshold to the porch and looked through the gap in the curtain, to the hills, then turned back to Teri and Mike. “If we can trace the angle of the shot, we might be able to figure out where it came from. It’s a long shot, though.” He smiled involuntarily at his pun, as if embarrassed to have said it. “Literally,” he added.
“We’ll get you a guest spot on Leno,” Mike said, his tone harsh and even. “As soon as you finish your comedy act, maybe you can start working on who tried to kill Teri. Look at her face. Who did that to her? And now this.”
“It’s all right, Mike,” Teri said. “I always appreciate a good pun.” Swafford dropped his eyes and nodded, a tacit “thank you” for her defense.
“Let’s go through it one more time,” Swafford said.
“The answers won’t change,” Mike said.
“No, I don’t expect so. But she might remember something new. Not that you need a lesson in police work, or psychology, for that matter, but repetition seems to fuel memory. You told me to do my job; well, I’m doing it.”
“Thank you, Detective,” Teri said.
She was growing tired of Mike’s posturing and, quite frankly, his unwarranted antagonism. In her experience, cops didn’t take kindly to that. In fact, it seemed to confirm suspicions in their minds that, despite protestations of innocence, you were guilty of something, even if not the immediate crime. She also had to admit that there was an awful lot of death and near-death swirling around her, beginning with Leland Crowell’s suicide. Swafford would be a poor detective, indeed, if that didn’t raise at least some suspicions.
“Now, you and this Annemarie Crowell were sitting here, you on the couch and her on the chair.”
“That’s right.”
“How open were the curtains?”
“Just like they are now. I haven’t touched them.”
He looked at the one foot opening. “Kind of odd, don’t you think? Not really open, but not really closed, either.”
“They were open all the way when she got here, but she complained that the sun hurt her eyes,” Teri said. “I didn’t want it to be too dark, so I closed them most of the way.”
“Couldn’t you have turned the light on?”
“I suppose.”
“Why didn’t you?”
“I don’t know. I just didn’t.”
“What the hell has that got to do with anything?” Mike asked. His voice sounded as if he was on the verge of shouting, but fighting the urge. Teri knew from experience that Mike never shouted, but he wasn’t above dramatics. He had learned as much about acting from his years in show business as she had.
“Probably nothing,” Swafford said. “Just trying to get the details down, that’s all.”
Their attention was diverted to the entryway by sounds of footsteps and the mutter of male voices. CHP detectives Nichols and Stillman entered almost casually, as if arriving fashionably late to a party.
“Well, the Chippies are on the scene,” Mike said. “I’m really confused about jurisdiction with you guys.”
Teri cut him a glance that slammed his mouth shut before he could follow up with anything else.
“They’re here at my invitation,” Swafford said. “I can’t help but think that everything relates to their case up at Big Sur.”
“Has anything changed at the hospital?” Teri asked the CHP detectives. She suddenly felt guilty at not having checked in on Mona. Not even the fact that she had been distracted by two attempts on her own life assuaged that guilt.
“She’s still not awake,” Stillman said. “But the doctors say she’s stable.”
Both of them seemed shocked at the bruising and swelling on her face. Nichols pointed to the bandage on her forehead. “Flying glass do that?” he asked.
“That was from before. The car.”
Nichols nodded, as if thinking, Ah, yes, the car off the cliff. “Ms. Squire, you do seem to be somewhat of a magnet for trouble these days.”
“Not by choice.”
The two newcomers swiftly surveyed the site then Nichols asked, “Is this how the curtains were when the shot was fired?”
“Jesus!” Mike exploded. He pointed at Swafford. “You and this guy, and the curtains. Who gives a rat’s ass?”
&n
bsp; “Just trying to catch up on the details.”
“What difference does it make?”
“They’re wondering if someone deliberately left the curtains open just enough to create a sight-line to set up a shot,” Teri said.
Nichols whistled, soft and low. Admiration, perhaps?
“I may not be a detective, but I play one in the movies,” she said, as if parroting a badly-written line plugging an upcoming film.
“Whose idea was it to close the curtains?” Stillman asked.
“That’s about where you came in. Annemarie complained about her eyes being sensitive to the sunlight, so I closed them.”
“But not all the way?”
“Just like they are now.”
“Her idea or your idea to leave them open a bit?”
“Mine. But you’re thinking maybe she was setting me up for the shooter.”
“The thought had occurred to me.”
“If that was the case, why would she have helped me on the road? She would have just let that car run me off the cliff.”
Stillman nodded. “That’s the fly in the ointment on that theory. Still—”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Mike said. “Just getting all the details.”
“Did you find the car?” Teri asked.
“Yep,” Nichols said. “Right where you said it happened. No one was in it, but lots of blood.”
“So the driver survived.”
“Maybe. Or someone got a body out of there.”
Teri pulled away from Mike and went to the chair Annemarie had sat in. She struggled with her emotions as she stared at the bullet hole in the couch across from her. Her voice quivered as she spoke. “I don’t understand what’s going on.”
“Why was Annemarie Crowell following you?” Swafford asked.
The Bequest Page 15