4 A Dead Mother

by Anna Celeste Burke

  “It is you, isn’t it? Chef said it was you and I didn’t believe him.” He spoke in excited tones. I dreaded what was coming next and looked around for the quickest route to a restroom to escape. “That’s silly, I’m sorry. Jerry it’s her, isn’t it? I mean, since she’s here with you.” Before Jerry could respond, he gushed.

  “Chef, chef, you were right! It’s Jessica. Tommy’s friend. Come say hello.” He looked directly at me and spoke. “Tommy loves you so much! He always tells us about your murders and all the other trouble you get into.” I exhaled audibly as the chef and his entourage dashed toward our table, although I hoped that “other trouble” our waiter referred to had nothing to do with Cassie or Jim.

  “Welcome to our establishment, Ms. Huntington. Donny’s right. Tommy has told us so much about you and the wonderful wedding you’re helping him plan. He showed us your picture after you and your lovely friend here were in that shoot out—it’s St. Bernadette, right?” As he asked her that question he winked and smiled broadly, revealing a couple of dimples in his round face. “Tommy had us on the edge of our seats as he told us how you tracked down that dreadful man. He showed us the gorgeous ring you bought for his nuptials, too, even though someone tried to kill you at Tiffany’s. You can tell how excited we all are to meet you!” Then, almost without drawing another breath, he did a round of introductions. We chatted a few moments longer amid wishes of bon appétit and other pleasantries as members of the restaurant staff returned to their jobs.

  “Lunch is on the house! Please tell me if you want anything else. Save room for dessert,” Chef John said as he dashed back to the kitchen. The place had begun to fill up with lunch patrons.

  “What a pleasant change that was,” I said when he’d disappeared. “Not one mention of that rat I married or his pet asp.” Jerry laughed loudly.

  “I told you this was Tommy’s favorite eatery. Now you know why. He loves to come in here late and close the place with one of his stories. Let’s enjoy our lunch and then I’ll finish telling you about the other issues those two are sparring about. Rats shouldn’t choose snakes as pets, should they? Cassie and Jim are locked in a death match at this point.” When the chef brought us dessert and coffee, Jerry picked up his story again, starting with that “bullet” Jim had dodged.

  “Jim was conscious by the time he arrived at the ER. Fortunately, for him, no one ordered a drug test that night. If they had, they might have found more than liquor in his system. The same goes for Cassie since she also ended up being taken by ambulance to the hospital. Under less dire circumstances, the police might have rounded them all up, taken them into custody, and tested them for drugs. Since Hargreaves was out of it, Paul says they did screen him for drugs. In a few days, the test results will be back, and we’ll know more about what the partiers were consuming. Even without a drug test, my guess is that Cassie’s judgment wasn’t any better than Jim’s. She could have walloped Hargreaves with that lamp in fear for her life, or out of anger that he’d hit her or divulged the fact she was cheating on Jim.”

  “If Cassie killed Hargreaves, custody becomes trickier, doesn’t it?”

  “The prize goes to the parent who doesn’t end up in jail. If Jim is the baby’s father.” Jerry shrugged. “The matter of paternity’s in question.”

  “Don’t tell me Jim is suing his beloved to provide evidence that he’s the child’s biological father?” My voice dripped with mock alarm.

  “You got it!”

  “Poor baby,” I muttered, repeating a phrase that popped out whenever any reference to the child came up.

  “You’re right about that. Their baby’s the biggest loser no matter what happens. She’s stuck without a father if Hargreaves was her daddy, but it won’t be much better if Jim turns out to be her father and he’s put away for manslaughter.”

  “Or murder,” Bernadette added, “if they believe Jim was trying to kill Hargreaves on purpose.”

  “Could be. After that courtroom floorshow, my money is on Cassie. She was quick on her feet when she flew into that rage today. If she’d already killed once, maybe it wasn’t difficult for her to try to do it again. Her cane would have done some real damage if she’d connected with Jim’s head.”

  “Knowing how screwed up her mind is, she could have been more intent on branding Jim with the murderer label than physically injuring him. Cassie is impulsive, and I doubt she stopped long enough to imagine how much she might resemble a crazed ax murderer running at Jim with that cane up over her head.”

  “Who knows for sure? If Paul’s correct, the campaign to turn Jim into the villain started even before Cassie arrived at the hospital. The problem is that she’s told so many different stories to anyone who would listen to her—the police, EMTs, the doctors and nurses in the ER. At some point, she claimed Jim hadn’t just attacked Hargreaves, but attempted to strangle her before knocking her to the ground.”

  “Wow, could that have happened? Did she have marks on her neck?”

  “Not according to reports Paul’s managed to get his hands on in the last week. Cassie also told a nurse that attended her that Jim had been beating her for months, even while she was pregnant with his child.”

  “Yeah, right,” Bernadette said, shaking her head in disbelief. “I’ve seen her take a swing at Jim a couple of times—in public. If he’d done that in public or private, she would have had him in jail long before now.”

  “Let’s hope the forensic evidence is clear about how Hargreaves died. I understand why you’re concerned about the ‘he said-she said’ business getting in the way of determining what went on.”

  “Maybe there will be a chunk of that lamp in his head when they do the autopsy.”

  “Eew, Bernadette, maybe we should put this discussion on hold until after we’ve finished our dessert.” She made a good point, though. It might require something that obvious to resolve the matter of Hargreaves’ death. Even then, a skilled lawyer like Carlotta Dunaway could cast doubt on the most robust forensic findings.

  “I think the doctors would have mentioned it if they found something like that when they admitted Hargreaves to the ICU,” Jerry quipped, his gorgeous face lit by the smile he beamed at Bernadette.

  “Unless they were too busy trying to determine how Jim could have lived this long without a brain. He needed his head examined long before he ended up in the ER.”

  “He has a brain, Jessica. It’s just located a little lower on his body.”

  My mouth popped open. I don’t know how it’s possible after all the years I’ve known her, but Bernadette still manages to shock me. She was right, though, so I closed my mouth.

  “Paternity’s only one of the legal battles underway. Both Jim and Cassie have initiated divorce proceedings. They’re both also screaming about libel and slander.”

  “Halcyon days for the lawyers as Cassie and Jim dispute their Destiny. In this case, I mean Destiny Harper, the child at the center of the controversy even though she’s only a few weeks old. This all makes me feel like I led a charmed life despite my parents’ divorce and Alexis’ devotion to superficiality and drowning her sorrows in booze and pills.”

  “You had Hank and Bernadette to depend on. Destiny Harper’s future is the one that’s uncertain, isn’t it? The baby was at the party earlier in the day, but the nanny had taken her upstairs. At least she wasn’t in the middle of that fight when it broke out.”

  “Even though she was upstairs, the nanny must have some idea of what went on. What does she say about it?”

  “Right now, not much. I’m sure she doesn’t want to run the risk of alienating either parent and losing her job. Maria Novak says she never gets involved in her employers’ affairs—personal or professional.”

  “That’s not bad unless that baby’s life is in danger. If she saw or heard anything, she should spill the beans. I’m going to tell her that,” Bernadette announced.

  “How are you going to do that?” I asked.

  “I have lots of friends in
the nanny business. I’ll find someone who knows her. I’ll use separate degrees like you always say you can do to get to the bottom of things.”

  Jerry and I made eye contact and then laughed. In the same instant, we’d figured out what the heck she was saying.

  “You won’t need to use up all six degrees of separation, Bernadette, if you unleash your special powers!”

  “Tommy and Brien have convinced you she can do that, huh?”

  “I’m a believer! I’ve seen her in action,” Jerry said.

  “Where is Jim going to go?” Bernadette asked, ignoring the discussion about her superpowers.

  “He’s leased a condo in Westwood, so he can stay in the area while all this gets sorted out. He’s also taken a leave of absence from work.”

  “Ouch!” I said. “That must hurt as much as the prospect of losing his kid, if Destiny is his kid, or finding out he wasn’t his trophy wife’s main squeeze.”

  “Wait until he gets the bill to clean this up. Paul’s an excellent lawyer. He’ll hire the best experts that money can buy, but it won’t come cheap,” Jerry added.

  “There goes his ambition to become a billionaire.” Born rich with an inheritance, made richer by his work, one of the early rifts in our marriage had revolved around Jim’s aspirations for more. That was too passive a way to describe his desire for greater wealth. Lusted was more like it. Jim, who rubbed shoulders with Wall Street bigwigs and Silicon Valley whizz-kids, yearned to take his place among the mega-rich. He wanted all the bells and whistles that went with it, including a Hollywood hottie as a trophy wife.

  “Be careful what you wish for,” I mumbled to myself. Jerry and Bernadette both looked at me expectantly. Before I could explain, I heard what sounded like a scuffle near the entrance to the restaurant. Our waiter scurried over to our table with takeout boxes in hand.

  “Quick. Time to make your getaway. Follow me! This is so exciting. Wait until I see Tommy and tell him about this. He’s going to be so jealous he missed it!” We took off as Donny hurried through the kitchen, out the back, and then led us down an alley. We passed a series of dumpsters and vile-looking pools of liquid as we sped toward what Donny promised was a back entrance to the lot where Bernadette and I had parked. I heard a clamor behind us. “Go, go, go,” he said, pointing to the doorway. “Jerry and I will keep them distracted.”

  “Thanks, Donny,” I said. As Bernadette and I slipped through that doorway, I could hear Donny shouting.

  “Run, Jessica Huntington-Harper. The street’s right there. Hurry, paparazzi are coming!”

  “Academy award performance,” Bernadette commented sarcastically as we climbed a dirty stairwell to the floor on which we’d parked.

  “That Huntington-Harper bit was nicely affected,” I replied, huffing and puffing as I climbed those stairs. “Let’s hope it works.”

  4 The Mother of All Dustups

  “Jim and Cassie are superstars when it comes to dishing the dirt and stirring up trouble, aren’t they?” Bernadette asked, as we hustled back to the Escalade she loves to drive. She’d driven us out to LA the evening both Jim and Giovanni had called us with separate emergencies. Even with my arm in the cast, I could have handled the drive, but Bernadette had been more concerned about how distraught I was—mostly about my mother rather than Jim.

  “This has to be the mother of all dust ups—infidelity and murder,” I commented. “Will I ever get my life back? Why can’t I just be invisible again?” I held my head in my hands as my pint-size companion settled into the driver’s seat and buckled up. The cast on my arm reminded me once again that Jim and Cassie weren’t responsible for all the attention I drew.

  “It’s okay now. A big black SUV with tinted windows makes you almost invisible in LA. We’re going to blend right in.”

  “This thing is a tank. After having to run out the back exit of the restaurant, it does feel safe. I’m also glad we parked in the structure rather than on the street.” Still, as Bernadette backed out of the parking space, I scanned the area to make sure no members of the press were lying in wait as they had apparently done outside True Grit. We might have walked into an ambush, except that the bartender recognized the paparazzi’s reconnaissance guy when he entered the restaurant. When the barkeep attempted to detain him at the door, a disagreement had ensued.

  “We were lucky to get away. Donny’s quick thinkin’ helped keep us from gettin’ cornered in the alley,” Bernadette said. “Jim better do some quick thinkin’, too, before Cassie and her media friends ambush him.”

  “It may already be too late, depending on what she said on the courthouse steps today. I find it hard to believe the police aren’t being flooded with testimony from partygoers about ‘whodunit.’ With that many people roaming about the house and grounds, someone must have seen who threw the first punch or landed the blow that put Marty Hargreaves into a coma.”

  “Nobody wants to get sued by saying something bad about Jim or Cassie. Jim’s a lawyer. He’ll go after them and who knows what Cassie will cook up in that loco brain of hers.”

  “You must be right. Cassie’s not above taking somebody apart publicly whether what she says is true or not. You don’t want to be her target. Eyewitness testimony is notoriously unreliable anyway. Maybe Jim did kill Marty Hargreaves. I’m going to quit worrying about it. Paul and his team will do their jobs. They’ll figure it out.”

  “That’s a good idea. You’ve got plenty on your plate already.”

  Bernadette was right about that. Once I set aside stewing about Jim’s predicament, a whole new set of worries took over featuring Alexis. The drama that had unfolded around Mom wasn’t completely settled either. By the time Giovanni had called Bernadette that awful night, an ambulance had already taken Alexis to the UCLA Medical Center. Giovanni hadn’t been specific about what was wrong with her, but said she was in critical condition in the ICU.

  That’s when everyone gathered around the pool at the sprawling Rancho Mirage home had flown into action. As soon as Frank had made sure emergency services were on their way to Jim’s aid, he’d ushered us into the Escalade, and led the way so Bernadette and I could drive to the UCLA Medical Center as fast as possible. The rest of the Cat Pack members had taken care of cleaning up and securing the house since, at that point, we had no idea how long we’d be gone. That had been the right thing to do since here it was, a week later, and we were still in LA.

  “Alexis can give Jim and Cassie a run for their money, when it comes to creating a ruckus, can’t she?”

  “Maybe your mother will have a better idea about what’s going to happen now. She’s doing good after her surgery. Alexis is tougher than she seems.”

  “I know. I shouldn’t worry, but I do. She’s still so weak even after the transfusions that saved her life. There’s chemo to face, too. Not to mention that the biggest challenge in her life appears not to be cancer, but her refusal to give up drugs!”

  “Yes, but at least it’s out in the open now. You know what Father Martin says, ‘we’re all broken, but some of us get stronger in the broken parts.’ We can help keep her out of the dark while she heals and gets stronger.”

  “I’m pretty sure Father Martin stole that line about being broken…” Bernadette interrupted me.

  “Father Martin wouldn’t steal anything.”

  “Okay, okay. I’m almost certain he borrowed that line from Ernest Hemingway. Given Hemingway’s fate, it’s hard to believe he knew what he was talking about. I understand what you’re saying, though. I agree that Mom’s better off now that her illness—cancer and her drug problems—aren’t secrets anymore.”

  “Alexis understands she’s had a close call. It’s harder to pretend you don’t care what happens after you’ve come that close to kicking off the bucket.” I smiled. Bernadette loves idioms, but using them in the right way isn’t one of her superpowers.

  “I love you, Bernadette. I hope you’re right.”

  The part about it being a close call was right. A
fter several weeks of drug rehab, Alexis had appeared to be working the program well. What no one knew was that she’d secreted a handful of OxyContin tablets into the lining of a bag she brought with her to rehab “just in case.” That was her first dumb idea. Bernadette’s superpowers must have kicked in and she spoke as if she’d read my mind.

  “Alexis needs more time so that the drugs won’t keep hijacking her brain, making her think and do the wrong things.”

  “Mom will only get a chance to do that if she goes back into rehab. Not that they’re likely to let her do that at the clinic in Malibu any time soon. They’re probably holding their breaths afraid of a lawsuit since no one checked on her any sooner than they did. Not calling someone for help was the second dumb thing Mom did. If you were in the kind of pain she says she was in, wouldn’t you have done that? Especially if you’re already at a clinic where there are doctors and nurses around or on call?”

  “I would, but Alexis figured they wouldn’t give her anything for the pain anyway, so she helped herself.”

  “She almost helped herself into an early grave with a drug overdose. She cut it way too close.” I shook my head. “I can’t believe she had drugs with her.”

  “I bet they’ll check everyone’s stuff more closely now, don’t you?”

  “They’d better or they will have a lawsuit on their hands if someone ODs at their super exclusive rehab clinic. What if they hadn’t checked on her when they did?”

  “Aw, don’t worry about that, Chica. Just thank God they did.”

  “I’m trying to do that, but I’m still so angry with her.” It had taken every ounce of strength I had not to scream at her when she was stable enough to speak—nearly seventy-two hours after she’d been admitted to the ER. Her explanation made no sense. Alexis claimed she’d started to feel bad right after lunch. Later in the afternoon, she began to have abdominal cramps. Mom had assumed the cramping was from an old problem that had dogged her for years off and on—fibroid tumors.