The Bequest (19 page)

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.”

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?”
“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.
Teri hoped no one noticed the hitch in her breathing before she
answered. “I don’t know. I guess she was just coming over here to talk to
me and saw what was happening.”
“Lucky for you,” Nichols said.
Teri could tell he didn’t believe her. “Yeah, lucky.”
“So what did she want to talk to you about?” Swafford asked.
Another hitch. She kept her focus on the bullet hole in the couch,
afraid her eyes would give her away. “She wanted to talk about the movie.
I think maybe she wanted to make some kind of connection with her son.”
“The son who died twice,” Nichols said.
“Is the sarcasm necessary?” Mike asked. He moved over behind Teri
and stood with his hands on her shoulders.
“It’s one of my few pleasures,” Nichols said. “But you can see how
strange this all is.”
“Mike,” Teri said, “they’re just doing their jobs.”
“Did you tell Ms. Crowell that you met up with her long-lost son last
night?” Nichols asked.
Teri looked up and made direct eye contact with him. “I don’t know
who that was last night, but it wasn’t Leland Crowell.”
“And you know this, how?”
“I just do. And no, I didn’t tell her about last night.”
“Where did she go when she left?” Swafford asked.
“I was crawling around on the floor at the time. Sorry if I didn’t ask.”
“See how much fun sarcasm can be?” Nichols said.
“Especially when you mix it with people trying to kill me.”
“Yeah, about that,” Stillman said. “Are you sure you couldn’t make
out anything about the driver who was tailing you?”
“I think he was doing a little more than just tailing her, don’t you
think?” Mike said.
Nichols looked at him and smiled an insincere smile. “See? Fun.”
“This all raises a very interesting question,” Swafford said. “Ms.
Squire, just who in the hell would want to kill you?”
“And why?” Nichols added.

The detectives reconvened
on Coldwater Canyon Drive,
where crews were still working on pulling the Mercedes up the hillside. A

wrecker had backed up to the broken railing, with a winch and chain
cranking slowly, dragging the car inch by inch through the brush. The
detectives watched wordlessly until Swafford broke the silence, expressing
what had been on everyone’s mind.

“I sure would like to get an advance print of that movie,” he said.
“Yeah, me too,” Stillman replied. “You read the screenplay?”
“No. I want to see that, too.”
“Do you really believe the movie’s got anything to do with all this?”

Nichols asked.
“I don’t know. But what I do know is that it’s weird that a
screenwriter would will it to an actress, and it’s weird that the
screenwriter died twice, and it’s weird that his mother just happened to
save the actress’s ass out here, and it’s weird that the mother was in the
house when someone took a shot at the actress, and it’s weird that none of
this happened two years ago when the writer died the first time and willed
away his script, but it’s all happening right before the movie gets released.
“There was a lot of buzz back when they first starting working on this
thing, what with the circumstances of the script and all, but now is the
money time. For all I know this is about generating heat to fire up the box
office. But—and I know this is a big but—what if there’s some kind of
message in the movie that someone’s trying to squash?”
“So how would this squash it?” Stillman asked.
“Well, look at it this way. If you just wanted to legally stop it, you’d
try to get an injunction. But if you’re worried about the message—or clue
or secret or whatever—getting out, you’d have a couple of problems.
First, file a lawsuit and you make sure the movie gets analyzed scene by
scene, frame by frame, by lawyers and juries and experts and God knows
who else. If there’s a secret in there, someone’s gonna find it.”
“Plus, everyone’s gonna know who wanted to keep it from getting
out,” Swafford said. “It’ll be the guy who files for the injunction. Not to
mention that they’re hard to get, so there’s a pretty good chance the
movie gets released anyway, with a whole buttload of scrutiny around it.”
The wrecked Mercedes crested the hill, rear end up, as the winch
continued its work. There were paint scrapes on the driver’s side, running
from the driver’s door to just midway through the rear door. Most likely
the sideswipe that sent it through the railing.
“But,” Swafford continued, “hard as it is to believe, Hollywood
sometimes does show a little sensitivity. It wouldn’t be the first time that a
studio shelved a project because of a tragedy. Or at least delayed it.”
“But there are some people who’d stand to lose a whole lot of money
if that happened,” Stillman said. “How much money did this thing cost to
make? Hundred million or something like that?”
“I’m just saying there are a whole lot of questions we don’t know the
answer to,” Swafford said. “And I don’t know if there are any answers in
the screenplay or the movie, itself, but I’m a big fan of gathering all the
information first, then sorting it out later.”
“I hear you,” Nichols said.
All three detectives walked to the front of the Mercedes, angled
down as its rear end hung from the winch. The grill had been smashed,
both headlights were out, and dark blue paint was sprinkled across the
metal. They knew that the paint would likely match the scratches on the
rear of Teri Squire’s car.
“But I’ve got a lot more questions,” Nichols added. “Why was Teri
Squire meeting with the dead screenwriter last night? And why do our
witnesses say he left with her? And what happened to her partner, Mona?
And this.” He pointed at the battered Mercedes. “Who’s trying to kill her?
Or is someone really trying to kill her? Awfully convenient that she left
the curtains open just enough to create a firing lane, but the shooter just
happened to miss her anyway. Maybe it’s only supposed to look like
someone’s trying to kill her.”
“My head hurts,” Swafford said.
“And here’s one more question, because we both know it’s
inevitable: What the hell weird is going to happen next?”