The Reporter (3 page)

They took her to the sheriff’s station in Malibu, venue of the crime, where she was booked, printed, strip-searched, and photographed.
Next, they transported her to the Sybil Brand Jail for Women in East Los Angeles, where superlawyer Marvin Samuels was already
waiting with bail money, having been alerted to her crisis by a friend at the funeral who happened to have a cell phone in
his pocket and great affection for Jack Nathanson’s first wife.

Everyone knows there’s no bail on a murder rap in L.A. County, and nobody knows what Marvin Samuels did to get Debra Angelo
out on bail—beg, plead, promise, bribe—but get her out he did, on a million dollars’ bond. By the time the two walked out
of Sybil Brand, a sizable contingent of media had gathered outside, flashbulbs popping, minicams cranking—this was hot stuff!
Debra said nothing; you never heard her curse when there was press around.

Marvin, who loved the press, courted the press, shot some bon mots their way with his big teddy-bear smile. “No way
they’ll make this stick, lads and ladies. Tell me,” he fired at them, squeezing Debra’s shoulders, Debra in the too-tight
designer suit, the too-high heels, the major hair, “does this look like a murderess to you?” Then he ushered her into his
waiting limo and they screeched off.

Samuels had learned that they’d found Debra’s fingerprints on the murder weapon.

“Of
course
my fingerprints are on the fucking gun,” she told him. “It’s
my
gun, for God’s sake. I take target practice. Ask Tony Morano at the Lakeside Gun Club. My fingers are all over the damn thing
all the time! If I’d killed the shithead, do you think I’d be dumb enough to leave the fucking gun on the fucking floor next
to his fucking head?”

Still, Marvin thought, Marvin who had been there through the mutual carnage that was the Nathanson vs. Angelo divorce-and-custody
trial—still, Debra’s fingerprints were found on Debra’s gun, which killed Debra’s ex-husband in Debra’s house.

W
e should have brought a crew,” Maxi said to Wendy. The two had ducked into Taglio’s, a little bar near Forest Lawn, after
the funeral.

“Yes, but with our budget cuts, I wouldn’t put in for a crew for Madonna’s funeral, let alone for some has-been’s. Excuse
me, Maxi, but Jack Nathanson was a has-been. Besides, we don’t even
cover
celebrity funerals anymore. Well, maybe Madonna’s—”

“But with Jack, there’s always a story,” Maxi broke in. “His funeral was more bizarre than the Ayatollah’s. If you didn’t
think there’d be a story, what were we doing there?”

Wendy laughed out loud. “You know damn well what we were doing there, Maxi—you were there because you wanted that primal ex-wife
satisfaction of seeing him dead, and I was there because you needed me to make it look like we were back-grounding a story
so people wouldn’t figure out that you just wanted to see him dead. And by the way, when did he get fatter than Ryan O’Neal?”

Maxi laughed. Wendy was a good friend, as well as the producer of everything that had Maxi’s name on it—the six o’clock show
she coanchored, the sweeps series, the spot news and specials.
Maxi Poole and Wendy Harris were the tightest team in L.A. news.

Often, after the eleven o’clock broadcast, they would hang out in the empty newsroom, two news junkies, planning stories,
watching tapes, dishing. Toward the end of Maxi’s marriage to Jack Nathanson, these were the times when Maxi would confide
to Wendy about how truly unhappy she was. No one else heard the tales; Maxi was very private. That’s why everyone was astounded
when she announced that she was divorcing Nathanson—everyone except Wendy.

Maxi was a sun-streaked, gold-toned, green-eyed beauty, whose classic features were kept from perfection by a deeply cleft
chin and a left incisor that was decidedly crooked. She was trim and angular, despite her addiction to really thin pizza and
really juicy burgers, which she paid for with daily workouts. Now she was raking a hand through her thick crop of straight
blond hair, which telegraphed to Wendy that she was troubled.

“Debra didn’t do it,” Maxi said quietly.

“How can you be sure?”

“Because it’s been years, it was over, they had worked everything out. More than that, Debra simply isn’t capable of killing
anyone.”

“Well, the police seem to think she did. They must have
something
on her,” Wendy countered. “And besides, it wasn’t over…. For as long as they shared custody of Gia, Jack Nathanson was going
to be in her life, making her crazy. I’ve seen how the man made
you
crazy.”

“But Debra isn’t crazy. You have to be crazy or desperate to kill, and Debra isn’t either.”

“Hah!” Wendy snorted. “That wasn’t crazy I saw her doing at the funeral? Sure looked crazy to me.”

“Theatrical, yes, that’s her style. But not crazy,” Maxi reflected. “Sure, I’ve heard her say more than once she wished the
bastard were dead; she was probably ecstatic seeing him laid out in gardenias. But Debra never would have killed him.”

“Then who did? Who would’ve wanted to?” Wendy asked.

“Oh, you could paper these walls with the glittering résumés of people in this town who’ve been heard to say they’d like to
kill Jack Nathanson,” Maxi answered, her eyes gazing up at the walls, which happened to be papered with bad Italian art.

“Including you.” Wendy grinned.

“Including me. For that matter, why not Janet?”

“Janet Orson? That pillar of the community, sponsor of charities, distraught widow? They just got
married!
They just bought a
mansion
—”

“Which I’m sure
she
had to pay for,” Maxi tossed out.

“Oh, come on, Max, he had tons of money.”

“No, he was basically broke. That’s why the IRS is hounding
me
for three years of his back taxes.”

“But he starred in all those blockbuster films,” Wendy persisted. “You think he didn’t have loads of cash stashed in the Caymans
or somewhere?”

“No,” Maxi returned, shaking her head. “If he had piles of money, the IRS would have found it—they have ways.” She said that
with an air of finality, but to Wendy, who knew her every gradation of expression from years of scrutiny on the monitors in
the control booth, Maxi didn’t look completely convinced.

“Max, you told me he made seven million in points on
Black Sabbat
alone, back when seven mil was like twenty mil, not to mention all the big films that came later—so where did it all go?”

“He spent it.” Maxi sighed. “He
had
to pick up the check, whether it was dinner for four or forty. He
had
to go first class, preferably on the Concorde. He
had
to buy lavish gifts for friends, expensive toy Ferraris that really drive for Gia, loads of pricey art, gigantic diamonds
for his women—and given his track record with women, that’s a lot of diamonds. And don’t forget, half his money went to the
government, ten percent to his agent, fifteen
percent to his manager, another five to his business manager, hefty fees to his publicists, office payroll and overhead, huge
living expenses—do the math, Wendy. He spent it all, it’s that simple, and nobody was paying him the big bucks anymore.”

Wendy looked thoughtful. “Listen, Maxi,” she said. “Let’s assume for a minute that he
did
have money left, and the Goon had it cleverly salted away.” “The Goon” was Maxi’s sobriquet for Sam Bloom, Jack’s business
manager. “Or let’s say you’re right,” Wendy went on, “that it
is
all gone, but a lot of people don’t think so. Like me. Like maybe Debra Angelo. Like folks who can’t figure out how the guy
could possibly be broke when he spent money like the early Elvis—”

“Oh, they just don’t know—”

“Wait, wait, let me finish this,” Wendy said, holding up a hand to stop her. “Take Debra Angelo…. Let’s say Debra thought
that he still had a few mil, but she could see that he was pissing it away big-time, and there wasn’t any coming in. What
if she decides she’s going to off him before he spends the rest of her daughter’s inheritance? She never made any really big
money that she could hang on to, I’m sure. And you’ve said she’s told you she put up with Jack’s shit as much as she could
because she didn’t want to jeopardize Gia’s trust fund. Suppose she wanted to stop the massive money drain. Suppose anyone
with a vested interest in Jack’s money, whether it’s mythical or not, wanted to stop the leaking before he did spend it all….”

“I’ve thought of that,” Maxi said softly.

The way she said it struck a chord in Wendy, who was looking at Maxi now in that way she had, straight into her eyes with
a little half smile, the look that if Wendy were a cartoon, a light-bulb would come on over her head. “You knew Debra was
going to get arrested today, didn’t you, Maxi?” she asked pointedly.

“Uhh… yes and no,” Maxi said. “A contact downtown told me they were going after Debra, but it could have gone down anywhere.
But yes, I thought it might happen at the funeral because
it was so public, and the cops love their publicity too, as you know. Ever since the Rampart scandal, they’ve been going out
of their way to make collars that get press attention.”

Wendy was looking at Maxi with that intensity she burned when she was getting on to something, her pretty face crinkled in
a frown. “So if you thought there was a chance in hell that it might go down at the funeral,” she asked, “why didn’t you insist
on a crew? Dammit, Maxi, if you
really
wanted coverage out there you know I’d have begged for it, but you backed off! I said it wasn’t worth tying up a crew, and
you said okay. End of story. So how come?”

“I don’t know….”

“Come on, Maxi, you know,” she prodded. “You
always
know what you’re doing.”

“Well,” Maxi said, swirling the wine in her glass, “to tell you the truth, part of me wants to jump all over this story, and
part of me wants to stay as far away from it as I can. Do you understand that?”

“Yeah,” Wendy said. “I understand you’re not as completely unemotional about this whole thing—or maybe as completely
uninvolved
—as you’d like people to think.”

“What’s that supposed to mean? Do you think I killed him?” Maxi laughed.

“Umm… Tell me again why you couldn’t have killed him.”

“No, Wendy, why I
wouldn’t
have killed him. I wouldn’t have killed him, first of all, because I don’t kill people, and second, Your Honor, he’s worth
more to me alive than dead.”

“Oh, fascinating! Tell me about that, Ms. Poole, and be mindful, please, that I’m the one who has listened ad infinitum to
how this creep could wipe out every cent you’ve ever made if the tax man couldn’t get it out of him, how they’d come after
you
with writs of attachment…and remember, you wouldn’t listen to me when I begged you to do a prenup. But no, you were so in
love!”

“I know, I know, I know…. Back to your question, may it please the court.” Maxi laughed. “Look, if he’s alive, he at least
stands a chance of making another hit movie and paying his own debts. But if he’s dead, that can’t happen, and I get nailed
for his hefty debts because our funds were commingled when he ran them up.”

“Again, that’s if he didn’t have any money left,” Wendy qualified, quieter now—she didn’t like where this was going. “I bet
he did, and maybe deep down, Max, in spite of everything his accountants tell your lawyers, maybe you think he had some, too.
But you knew he was enough of a prick that he’d let you pay his debts if he could keep his assets hidden. He’d let you get
wiped out financially and he’d still sleep like a baby at night; that’s the kind of guy he was. Maybe
you
wanted to plug up the guy’s money sieve before it was really all gone, and you knew if he was dead his estate would get turned
inside out and the missing millions would turn up, and the IRS would seize what’s theirs and you’d be off the hook, instead
of having your salary attached for the next ten years and ending up at the Home for Impoverished Newswomen—”

“Whoa, hold it. Stop already… I didn’t do it, okay?” Maxi laughed. “I don’t even know where he lives. Lived, that is.”

“Yeah, except with about two phone calls you and I can find out where anybody on the planet lives, as you well know,” Wendy
pointed out. “Besides, he wasn’t murdered at his house—he was shot at Debra’s house.”

“Oh, right…Maybe Debra
did
do it.”

“Do you really think so?”

“No. Come on, we’ve got to get back to work.”

Maxi called for the check, and Wendy felt a little stab of fear. No,
couldn’t
be, she chided inwardly. Still, she thought, if anyone in L.A. could get away with murder, popular Channel Six reporter Maxi
Poole could.

“…
and thou shalt render obeisance upon the scaffold of the pillory whilst testifying to thine odious crimes, even as legions
of disembodied souls wield firebrands from hell
—”

“Shh!” Sally Shine put a comforting arm around her daughter. “Shhh, darling—I told you going to the funeral was a bad idea.”

Sally helped Meg upstairs to her room, took off her clothes, eased her into bed, spoon-fed her a cup of hot tea laced with
a strong tranquilizer, and said a silent prayer that she would sleep peacefully and wake up okay.

Sally Shine blamed herself for what had happened to her daughter. She had pushed Meggie into movies and television from the
time the child was two months old and played Baby Number 4 in a Gerber commercial. There were eleven screaming, wailing infants
on the set; Meggie was the only good baby, never uttering a sound.

From that time on, Sally ran her to every viable casting call. Meggie got more than her share of parts because she was so
well known among casting directors, and, being such a good little girl, she was so well liked. Meg Davidson cooperated, Meg
Davidson
was smart, Meg Davidson knew how to behave, Meg Davidson was a natural, they’d say.

And heaven knows they’d needed the money. Sally was seventeen when Meg was born, the father having left town before she even
knew she was pregnant, and her own mother having disowned the two; they’d had to make their own way, both of them children.
So when Meggie read for the part of Hannah in
Black Sabbat,
a movie based on a best-selling novel that promised to be a huge hit because they’d signed America’s hottest young actor,
Jack Nathanson, Sally was thrilled that her daughter got a callback. The part of the little girl who was accused of being
a witch could launch Meggie into a major motion-picture career.