News crews from Hartford, Boston, Providence, and New York were posted outside the gates, leaning on the fence. John Wagner and his wife, Kathy, who took care of the grounds at Gus’s house, had made themselves known to the police and were helping out with crowd control and the protection of Gus’s property. “No sitting on that fence, mister,” Wagner called out to one reporter, who promptly removed himself. “No trampling on his roses,” Wagner called out to another, as if Gus himself might appear from the house to complain of the desecration of his rose garden.
“It was on his mind that something like this was going to happen,” said Wagner to State Trooper Conrad Winalski. “Kathy and I do his yard work, take care of his roses, take his trash to the dump, and I fix things for him that need to get fixed, paint the screen doors, stuff like that. I also take care of his cars and drive the Jag over to Hartford every couple of months for checkups. So I saw a lot of Gus, almost every day, and we always had talks, and I got to know him really well. A while back, he called me to come over. He seemed upset when I got here to the house—kind of like a disturbed look in his eyes. He took me into the living room and pointed to the floor, over where that stone eagle is by the terrace door. There were shards of glass from a broken window, and above, in the glass door leading out to the terrace, the outer edges of a smashed windowpane. He asked me, ‘Do you think that was a shot? Do you think someone fired in here from the terrace?’ ”
“What was it?” asked Winalski.
“There had been a terrible storm the night before, one of those thunder-lightning-high wind kind of storms. It had lifted a large umbrella on Gus’s terrace out of its base, and the umbrella flew toward the window like a guided missile and smashed it. I can understand how he could have thought it was a shot. When I told him what it was, he laughed. He said, ‘I had myself believing I even heard the shot.’ ”
“But it was nothing,” said Winalski.
“The point of the story is that he really thought someone had taken a shot at him in his house. When they had that garden-club tour—like about two thousand strangers walking through his house—Kathy and I were there keeping an eye on everything. Gus had a lot of little stuff on every table, and anybody could pick up something, like a souvenir from Gus Bailey’s house. There could have been someone going through his house that day to get the lay of the land.”
The limousine pulled up to the closed white gates of Gus Bailey’s house. A policeman held up his hand. “No one, no one, can get through,” he said to the driver. The members of the media started to crowd around the limousine, trying to see inside, but the darkened windows proved impenetrable. The driver’s window came down. The driver had a beard and spoke with an Israeli accent. “I have here in the back the two sons of Gus Bailey,” he said to the policeman. “We have just driven up from New York.”
“My orders are that no one can go through these gates,” repeated the policeman.
The back window came down. “I am Grafton Bailey, and this is my brother, Zander. We are Augustus Bailey’s sons. I have just flown in from Paris, and I am going into my father’s house, whether you like it or not. We’d both appreciate it if you’d open the gate, or we’ll drive through.”
Grafton Bailey, now a film director, used to be an actor, and Officer Winalski recognized him from An American Werewolf in London, one of his favorite cult movies, the video of which he had borrowed from Gus several times. “Yes, yes, Mr. Bailey. I just have to check with Chief Olin and tell him who you are. You’ll be in the house in a minute. Let me tell you how sorry I am about your father.”
“Thank you,” said Grafton.
“You were great in Werewolf.”
“Thanks.”
“I’ll get the chief.”
“Thanks.”
Grafton sat back and rolled up the window.
“Hey, Grafton, give us a picture,” yelled out one of the photographers who had gathered around the car. “Roll down the window. Listen, we’re sorry about your father. He always stopped when we asked him.”
“Later, guys, not now,” Grafton called back through the darkened window. “Okay, Dov, let’s go. The gate’s open.”
Months passed. There were no breaks in the case. Gus’s murder went unsolved. There had been endless speculation in the media immediately after the murder. Liz Smith, the gossip columnist, quoted friends who had come forward to talk about the hang-up telephone calls, the mysterious car at the bottom of the driveway, and other strange things they could remember. Then the media glare dimmed. Even in Prud’homme, Gus’s death ceased to be a main topic of conversation. Like the unsolved Moxley murder in Greenwich, about which Gus had written so passionately, time passed on his own murder. Other things happened to divert the attention of people. Bernard Lafferty, who had inherited his fortune from Doris Duke’s estate, died suddenly in Los Angeles. JonBenet Ramsey was murdered in Boulder. Ennis Cosby was murdered in Los Angeles.
It was only later, when Scott Berg, who was writing Gus’s biography and who had been given access to the house in Prud’homme by Grafton and Zander before it was dismantled and sold, discovered quite by accident a pocket-size tape recorder far back in the drawer of the coffee table that sat in front of the Chinese-red sofa where Gus’s body had been found. A wire with a rubber suction device used for recording telephone conversations was still inserted into the recorder. The bloodstained sofa had been removed and burned at the local dump after the police had finished with it, so Berg took the recorder out to the office where Gus had been writing his book. There he sat in Gus’s chair in front of his computer. On the bulletin board, just as Gus had left them, were pushpinned the color photographs of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman dead, lying in pools of blood in the patio of Nicole’s condo on Bundy, which Julie Coolidge had brought to him from the photo lab where Simpson’s private investigators had taken them to be developed.
“Why do you keep those terrible photographs up there in front of you, Gus?” Cynthia McFadden had once asked when she came by for a visit.
“I’m so afraid Nicole and Ron are going to be forgotten as O. J.’s publicity machine starts its campaign for his reacceptance into society,” said Gus.
The batteries in the tape recorder were dead, but Gus kept a well-stocked office, and Scott Berg soon found fresh ones. He rewound the tape and played it from the beginning:
“Gus, I don’t know who to talk to, and my family always respected you, so I called Shoreen for your number, but she wouldn’t give it to me because it’s unlisted, and so on and so on, and I hope you don’t mind that I’m calling you at your house in Connecticut.”
“No, no, fine.”
“I know you’re working on your novel.”
“That’s okay, Terri. What’s up? Are your parents okay?”
“It’s hard being a member of this family, Gus, what we’ve gone through, what we’re going through still.”
“The last time I saw your mother, the day of the verdict, she looked so much older than when I first saw her before the trial.”
“I know. My father, too.”
“Benny’s hair turned white during the trial.”
“I know, my poor father. This is all we’ve talked about since Nicole was killed. This is what our life became. We pulled up stakes and became part of Uncle O. J.’s support group. My parents hardly ever missed a day in court. Every time Uncle O. J. entered the court, they smiled at him. Nights we either went down to the jail, to keep him company, or we sat around the table at Rockingham and talked about what had happened in court that day. Our lives didn’t matter. Our lives became about his life. I couldn’t take it after awhile. I started to drink during the trial. Did you know that? I couldn’t go to sleep if I didn’t take a six-pack to bed with me. My parents sent me to a rehab. I’m all right again. I’m in the program. I go to meetings. I have a sponsor. I’m back at my job again.”
“Good girl, Terri. I’m in the program, too. Did you know that?”
“I kind of suspected it.
In one of your books I read, the one about the mistress of Pauline Mendelson’s husband, who was the friend of the President of the United States.”
“I know the plot.”
“You talked about the seven A.M. Log Cabin Meeting on Robertson Boulevard, and that’s the meeting I go to. So I kind of figured you probably were.”
“What’s up?”
“I wanted to wish you good luck on the show tonight on television. I read the book, you know.”
“I remember. I felt very flattered when you did.”
“I need to talk to you, Gus. I need some advice.”
“First, tell me one thing, Terri. I never had the nerve to ask Shirley and Benny this, and I’ve often wondered. Do all of you really think O. J. didn’t do it? Or is that the family party line, as directed by Shapiro and Cochran?”
“Listen to me, Gus. Once I told my parents in the car when we were going to church that I thought Uncle O. J. may have done what they said he did. I didn’t even say I thought he did it, I said that I thought he might have done it, that’s all, and my mother hit me and pounded me in the backseat of the car. I’m thirty-two years old, Gus, and I know my mama loves me, but that shows how great the denial is in our family.”
“Your mother’s a good woman, Terri. This must have been a terrible ordeal for her.”
“My parents don’t have anything. They’ve spent the last two years of their lives down here away from their home, supporting Uncle O. J., being there for him, believing him. Do you have any idea how much energy it takes to believe something you don’t believe? He’s going to forget about us now. He doesn’t need us anymore now that everything’s over.”
“Are you serious?”
“Oh, very serious. We were always in this strange position in our family, Gus, where we lived. We were related to this big famous celebrity, and that made us different from everyone, like we were special, but we never saw him, or hardly ever saw him. When he talked about family, it was Nicole’s family he was close to, not our family. I’m sorry if I’m crying. Listen, Gus, is there any chance you’re going to be out here? I know you’re working on your book, but it’s hard to talk on the phone. I need to make some money, Gus, some real money. If my parents have to move, I want to be able to buy them something.”
“Are you talking about writing a book, Terri?”
“I’m afraid to even say it, Gus. This conversation can’t get out. This has to be private. Something could happen to me.”
“Don’t worry. I’ve got tight lips. You’ve got to be prepared. They’re going to ask you questions—what’s it like nights in that house on Rockingham? What do you guys talk about at dinner? How much do Justin and Sydney know? What’s the mood there now that Uncle O. J. is yesterday’s news?”
“Jesus, Gus.”
“That’s what they’re going to ask you if you want to get a deal somewhere. Could you handle that?”
“I don’t know. I can’t be disloyal to my family.”
“If you’re thinking about a pro-O. J. book, telling what a swell guy he is, forget it. No publisher would touch it. Your uncle’s a hated man.”
“Not pro-Uncle O. J., Gus. Not con either. Just what it’s been like for us, being there, some of the things we saw, like the way Shapiro and Uncle O. J. were talking to Kato Kaelin at Rockingham on the night after the murders. Stuff like that.”
“I heard about that from Grant Cramer.”
“They had Kato in a corner and talked to him in low voices for the longest time.”
“Setting up the old alibi. Actually, I am going to be out there soon for a couple of days. I’ll call you, Terri.”
There was the sound of two receivers hanging up. Then a second conversation started:
“Gus, you’ve been on television all day long.”
“I was just saying to myself I’ve begun to sound like a nutcase, they’ve run that sound bite so many times.”
“Why don’t you come over tonight and watch your miniseries with us. We’ll have dinner on trays in front of the television. Just us. No party.”
“Thanks, but I like to be alone when I watch my miniseries. I want to be near the telephone. I’m sure the boys will call when it’s over.”
“And some of your fans.”
“Hardly. My luster is dimming. I was in the A and P today, and not one person came up to me to talk about O. J.”
“Do you want company? I hate to think of you there all alone. Peter and I will come over, if you like.”
“No, really, this is the way I always watch my shows. I get nervous when I’m with other people, wondering about their reactions rather than concentrating on the movie. Oh, God, I just realized I was taping this conversation. Let me turn this damn thing off.”
“Why?”
“I had this amazing telephone call from O. J. Simpson’s niece today, and I recorded it, like I sometimes do when I interview people over the phone. But I didn’t tell Terri I taped it.”
“O. J.’s niece? What did she want?”
“She called about the miniseries. She read the book during the trial. She’s a very nice young woman. Then she told me that she told her mother she thought Uncle O. J. might have been guilty, and her mother hit her. She said, ‘That’s how great my mother’s denial is.’ It must be tough living like that, the whole family in denial. Is your TV on? They’ve got another sound bite of me about the miniseries tonight.”
“The miniseries is based on an actual unsolved murder in Greenwich, Connecticut, where a fifteen-year-old girl was savagely and brutally beaten to death by a wealthy young man whose powerful family has been able to hold off the police.”
“I wonder if the Skakels are watching.”
Berg listened again to the sound of two receivers hanging up. Then another voice came on:
“I can’t imagine what show you’re watching, Gus.”
“What? Oh, my God! You terrified me. How did you get in this house?”
“I said to myself, Gus Bailey may go out to dinner every night of his life, but my money says that on the night his miniseries is on the air he’s going to be sitting there all alone watching it in his media room. I’m a regular reader of Architectural Digest That’s how I know you call this your media room.”
“What are you doing here? I can’t remember your name.”
“It’ll come to you. I met you with Marcia Clark, remember? I met you with Bernard Lafferty, remember? You pretended you didn’t know me at that party in New York for Princess Firyal of Jordan.”
“Andrew Cunanan.”
“I told you it would come to you.”
“What the fuck are you doing in Prud’homme, Connecticut?”
The tape recorder stopped abruptly as the tape ran out. Berg rewound the tape to the beginning of the last conversation. He wrote down the name Andrew Cunanan. Then he picked up the telephone, thought for a moment before dialing, and replaced the receiver. For several minutes he sat there, perplexed.
Had Gus still been with us, he would have easily understood Scott Berg’s dilemma. Should he pick up the telephone and call the home of State Trooper Conrad Winalski, whose number was in Gus’s book, or should he save it for the final chapter of his biography of Gus Bailey?
The most entertaining and insightful chronicler
of the rich and infamous,
DOMINICK DUNNE
has created a lavish gathering of unforgettable characters who appear in his other acclaimed novels. Be sure not to miss …
GUS BAILEY, the party-hopping courtroom junkie of Another City, Not My Own, is a dogged reporter who refuses to let a powerful family off the hook in
A Season in Purgatory
“MESMERIZING.”
—The New York Times
*****
An aging society has-been in A Season in Purgatory, BASIL PLANT is the deceased author whose missing manuscript is conveniently found again in
An Inconvenient Woman
“JUICY.”
—The Dallas Morn
ing News
Interior designer CORA MANDELL was fired by the Bradleys in A Season in Purgatory—shocking, since she was once the chic decorator of high society in
People Like Us
“WICKEDLY SHARP.”
—The Philadelphia Inquirer
Though a nearly forgotten society heiress who loses her mind in A Season in Purgatory, ESME BLAND is the one woman Billy Grenville turns to when the going gets rough in
The Two Mrs. Grenvilles
“STEAMY.”
—Newsday
Available in bookstores everywhere.
Published by Ballantine Books.
www.ballantinebooks.com
For Griffin, Alex, and Hannah with love
By Dominick Dunne
Fiction
ANOTHER CITY, NOT MY OWN*
AN INCONVENIENT WOMAN*
PEOPLE LIKE US*
A SEASON IN PURGATORY*
THE TWO MRS. GRENVILLES*
THE WINNERS
Nonfiction
FATAL CHARMS*
THE MANSIONS OF LIMBO*
*Published by The Random House Publishing Group
Another City Not My Own Page 36