The Bequest (11 page)

Yes, it would have been easy enough to dispatch the man back to the
great beyond from whence he had apparently returned. She could have
taken the screenplay and its registration documents, slipped his drivers
license into her pocket, and no one would have been the wiser. It would
be quite unlikely that the man could even be identified. After all, he was
already dead, and had been for two years. How can you kill a dead man?

But as soon as those thoughts entered her mind, she banished them.
Killing a man eroded one’s soul, no matter how pure the motive might be.
That was more than esoteric bullshit. Teri knew it
for a fact
. And she also
knew that money—and surely that was what this was all about—was
never a pure motive. Yet that was Doug Bozarth’s motive. He hadn’t
actually said he was bent on killing Leland Crowell, but everyone at the
table knew that was what he meant.

The question that nagged at her was whether it was just talk, or
whether Bozarth was actually capable of killing a man over money. The
answer should have been obvious. Every day, newspapers carried stories
of people who killed over Dallas Cowboys jackets, basketball shoes, and
even parking spaces. Doug Bozarth had seventy-five million dollars on the
line, and that was motive in anyone’s book. If he carried out his promise
to “know” that Crowell would not show up on the back end with his hand
out, could she live with that? Or did she have an obligation to stop him?
And if so, how? She couldn’t very well go to the police and tell them that
Bozarth had indirectly threatened—very indirectly; so indirectly, in fact,
that it took considerable interpretation in her overactive mind to reach
that conclusion—to kill a man who was already dead. They would laugh
her out of the police station, lumping her in with other Hollywood crazies
and their insane rantings.

Mike
must
have
sensed her
thoughts. “He’s not going to kill
anybody,” he said.
“I know
he’s
not going to, but that doesn’t mean he won’t have it
done.”
Mike turned her around to face him, but she refused to make eye
contact. “Look at me,” he said. “Teri, look at me.”
When her
gaze
finally
settled on
him, he
continued. “He’s a
businessman. He travels in circles we can only read about, but they’re still
business circles. He’s not a killer.”
“How do you know?”
“Because I just know.”
Again, with the “knowing.”
“That’s not good enough.”
“Look, our lawyers vetted him. Remember, we’ve got to comply
with the Patriot Act, so we’ve got to know where the money comes from,
especially foreign money. Everything passed muster.”
“So where did the money come from?”
“I didn’t say
I
knew. Like I said, the lawyers vetted him, and they say
everything’s aboveboard.”
“Are these the same lawyers who vetted the chain of title on the
script?”
“Look, don’t make waves on this,” Mike said. “Let’s just do what he
says. It’s a business decision for him. He’ll figure out how much to pay to
make this guy go away, and that’ll be the end of it. He’ll consider it just
part of his investment. Hell, he’ll probably even write it off on his income
tax. Don’t read anything more into it than that.”
She looked at him for a good fifteen seconds, debating how to
respond. At last she chose acquiescence—at least on the surface. “I guess
you’re right. I’m tired, and I’m still a little scared, that’s all.”
“What you need to do is go home and go to bed. Your mind will be
clearer tomorrow.”
She unlocked her car with the remote, and he opened the door for
her. She slid in behind the wheel and started the engine.
“You want me to come home with you?” he asked.
“Like you said, I need sleep.”
“All right.” He leaned in and kissed her lightly on the lips. “Sleep
good. Call me tomorrow when you get up.”

Two hours later, Teri was still wide awake, sitting cross-legged on the
bed, hunched over her laptop. All her research had turned up a big zero.
Although she considered herself an expert at Internet research, Douglas
Bozarth remained as big a mystery as when she started. He had made
money in real estate development in Colorado then parlayed that into oil
and gas, building up an oil exploration company that had international
contracts in the middle east. He sold the company for over a billion
dollars, earning him a place on the
Forbes
list of richest Americans. Since
then, it looked like he had just played with his money and his contacts,
putting together investment groups in various ventures, home and abroad,
including this virgin foray into the movie business. But other than generic,
publicist-blessed releases and stories, she could find virtually nothing
about his personal life.

The good news, though, was the absence of certain kinds of stories:
no arrests and convictions, no SEC investigations, no sex scandals, no
bankruptcies—and no murders. Ultimately Teri determined that, in this
case, no information was good information. Either he was a good, clean
upstanding businessman or he was very discreet, or both.

She looked at the clock on her computer screen. Nearly four a.m.
Not entirely satisfied, but too tired to continue, she shut down the
computer and set it aside, turned off the light, and crawled beneath the
sheets. Five minutes later, she was asleep.

A thin man slumped in a leather chair in the middle of a U-shaped
computer table. Monitors faced him from all three sides. He stared
intently at the monitor directly in front of him, then picked up his cell
phone and hit a number on speed dial. After four rings, a male voice
answered.

“Learn anything?”
“Internet research. Lots of Internet research.”
“What was she looking for?”
“Lots of searches, but all of them had the same two words. Douglas

and Bozarth.”
“She find anything?”
“Nothing she was looking for.”
“Let me know if she ever does.”

It seemed as if Teri had barely closed her eyes when an unending buzzing
sound filled her ears. At first she thought it was a dream, then the alarm.
After knocking the clock to the floor, but with no success at stopping the
sound, she realized it was the door buzzer. She was going to have to
replace that with a kinder, gentler ring tone.

She sat on the edge of the bed and rubbed her eyes. At the same
moment, the
Magnum, P.I.
theme music blared from her cell phone. She
snatched it up and looked at the read-out. The first thing that struck her
was the notice that she had four missed calls. How had she slept through
those?

Then she focused on Mona’s name as the caller. She accepted the call
and held the phone to her ear. “Hello?”
“So you’re still alive.”
“Just barely.”
“I’ve been ringing your doorbell for five minutes.”
“Well stop it, damn it.”
“Then let me in.”
“Give me a minute.”
Cell phone in hand, Teri staggered to the front door and opened it to
greet her producing partner. Mona brushed past her and on to the kitchen.
Teri followed meekly. As Mona set about making coffee, Teri sat at the
kitchen table and held her head in her hands.
“What the hell were you thinking?” Mona asked.
“That seems to be the consensus.”
Mona spun around, her brow knit, her lips pursed. “I’m serious.
When Mike told me you went to that hotel room at night, all alone, I
couldn’t believe it. Who knows what could have happened.”
“The fact that I’m sitting here, listening to you lecture me, is proof
that nothing did.”
“That’s not the point.”
“I know, I know.” Teri shrugged. “But I can’t change it now, so let’s
move on.”
They waited silently for the coffee to brew then, when they had filled
their cups, they adjourned to the deck, where a smoky haze hung in the
air.
“How bad is it?” Mona asked.
“I don’t know.”
“But bad?”
“Maybe. I don’t know.”
“What do you think this guy’s gonna do?”
“I’m more worried about what we’re gonna do.”
Mona sipped her coffee and appraised her friend. “You look tired.”
“I didn’t get much sleep last night. And I’ve got a busy day ahead of
me.”
“That’s what Mike said. I want to go with you.”
Teri shook her head. “I need you doing something else for me.”
“Name it.”
“Find out everything you can about Leland Crowell and his will. Was
there anything strange about the probate? Was there an order that allowed
me to take the script? I need to know everything, and I don’t trust the
lawyers to do it.”
“Okay.”
“And I need to know as much as I can about Doug Bozarth and his
money. I want to know where it came from. And I want to know what
he’s capable of.”
“What does that mean?”
“It’s just a hunch, but I think that we may end up having more to
worry about from him than we do from Leland Crowell.”
Mona stopped in mid-sip. “What are you talking about?”
“That’s what I need you to find out.”
Then Teri got up and went inside, leaving Mona slack-faced on the
deck.

The neighborhood where
Spencer West, attorney-at-aw had
maintained his home office had not changed in the two years since Teri’s

first and only visit there. She pulled up in front of the house and killed the
engine on her SUV. She checked herself in the rearview mirror. With her
hair pulled back in a ponytail, wearing faded jeans and a golf shirt, a Texas
Rangers baseball cap, and sunglasses,
she
thought herself passably
disguised.

As she approached the front porch, the first thing she noticed was the
absence of West’s “shingle” out front, pathetic though it had been. She had
not heard from him since that prior meeting, so she had no way of
knowing if he had moved or simply shut down his practice. She pushed the
doorbell, but heard no sound inside. She knocked on the door, her
knuckles causing the flimsy wood to wobble with each rap. After a
moment, she heard shuffling sounds from inside, then the thin curtain over
the window in the door moved aside. A few seconds later, the door
cracked open about ten inches and an elderly Hispanic woman peered out,
her eyes wide behind thick glasses lenses.

“Can I help you?” the woman asked, in perfect, unaccented English.
“I’m looking for Mr. West.”
“There’s nobody here by that name.”
“Is this no longer his office?”
The door opened wider, to reveal a diminutive woman, no more

than five feet tall, wearing a threadbare flowered housecoat. Her hair was
shoe polish black, though surely she was approaching her eighties.
“You looking for the lawyer?” she asked.
“Yes, Spencer West.”
“He’s dead.”
“Dead?”
“They say he killed himself,” the woman said. “I don’t know for sure.

I just know he died in here.”
“How long ago did this happen?”
“Oh, two years ago, maybe.” The woman pulled her glasses down on

her nose and peered over them at Teri. “Do I know you?”
“No, I don’t think so.”
“Sure I do. You’re that actress.”
“I get that a lot, but no, I just look like her.”
“No, you’re her. I know.”
Teri backed away and down the steps. “I’m sorry to have bothered

She turned and headed for her car as the woman stepped outside onto
the porch. “You’re the one that writer killed himself over. Did the lawyer
kill himself over you, too?”

Teri got in the SUV and locked the door. She squeezed the steering
wheel with both hands and leaned her head back. “Lady,” she said softly,
“that’s starting to look like a really good question.”

On the other end of the call, Mona answered, “I guess I’ve got
nothing better to do.”
Teri slowed and peered at a street sign. The letters were obscured by
rust and spray paint, the name of the street barely discernible. She turned
left.
“Find out what happened to Spencer West, Leland Crowell’s
attorney. He died a couple of years ago. Might have been suicide.”
“What difference does it make?”
“Because if he was part of a scam, or even if he wasn’t, but found out
about it and ended up dead under mysterious circumstances, then that tells
us something.”
“Tells us what?”
Teri saw a crumbling apartment complex ahead on her left, with a
sign out front that proclaimed it the “Paradise Arms.” She figured that,
even in its heyday, the name must have been some kind of inside joke.
“For one thing, it tells us if this is more than just a scam. If this thing
is going to get dangerous, I’d like to know.”
“Don’t you think you’re being a little melodramatic?”
“What you find will tell us whether I am or not.”
She pulled in to the Paradise Arms parking lot and stopped in front of
the staircase. It all seemed eerily reminiscent of last night’s visit to the
Crescent Hotel. Apparently rundown structures in bad parts of town had a
limited number of building plans to choose from. She climbed the stairs
and went to the apartment number she had been given by Bozarth’s office,
but no one was home. Back downstairs, she located the management
office, opened the door, and went inside.
To call it an office was to be kind. It was actually a darkened studio
apartment that doubled as the residence of the complex manager, a rail
thin black man who sat at a card table, eating cereal and watching a tiny
television. Behind him was a filing cabinet, and next to it a sofa bed,
opened and unmade, which rounded out the furnishings.
The manager looked up in surprise when Teri entered. “Don’t you
knock?” he asked.
“I’m sorry. I thought this was the office.” She took off her sunglasses
and allowed her eyes to adjust to the dim light.
“It’s also my home.”
“You might want to put a ‘please knock’ sign outside.”
“Yeah, I’ll do that,” he said, obviously with no intention of doing so.
His eyes narrowed, then widened in recognition. “Hey, I know you.”
Two for two; so much for thinking she had adequately disguised
herself.
“I’m looking for one of your tenants.
Annemarie
Crowell in
apartment—”
“She moved out yesterday.” He turned in this chair and shuffled
through a haphazard stack of papers and envelopes on the floor beside him.
“But she said you’d come looking for her. I thought she was lying, but
damned if you aren’t here.”
He grasped a legal-sized envelope from the stack, turned, and handed
it to Teri. “She said to give this to you,” he said.
Teri took it and looked at the careful handwriting on the outside, the
name PEGGY TUCKER in all capital letters. She flinched just briefly at
the name, but quickly recovered.
“Who’s Peggy Tucker?” the manager asked.
“I don’t know.”
He grabbed a notepad from the floor, along with a pen, and thrust it
at Teri. “Can I get your autograph?”
“No.”
“Just say ‘To Rondell, my biggest fan.’”
Teri put on her sunglasses, turned, and left with the envelope in
hand. As she closed the door behind her, she barely heard Rondell’s last
words: “Sorry to bother you, your royal highness white bitch.”
Teri ran to her car, gasping for breath. It seemed as if every inhale
she took was a desperate struggle for life. A vise gripped her chest, and a
deep freeze settled into her soul. She jumped in the car and slammed the
door.
“Easy, easy,” she said to herself. A few deep breaths, blowing air out
through pursed lips, and she felt her heart rate slow. Not yet back to
normal, but getting there. She stared at the name on the envelope.
Peggy
Tucker
. Peggy had been dead and buried for nearly twenty years. How did
Annemarie Crowell know about her? What the hell was going on?
With trembling fingers, Teri tore open the envelope. Inside was a
single sheet of yellow paper from a legal pad. In the same handwriting as
the
name on
the
outside
were
the
words: CALEB’S DINER—
MIDNIGHT.
She crumpled the page into a tiny wad in her right fist and threw it
over her shoulder into the back seat.
She gasped for breath again.