Try Dying Page 5

  She looked at me as if I were a witness and she the cross-examining attorney. “What else could it have been?”

  I gave her the story up to the point where Ratso took me down.

  “That’s it?” Westerbrook said.

  “Yeah.”

  “That sounds like a shakedown to me.”

  “But what if there’s something to it?”

  “Too bizarre,” Westerbrook said.

  Channing Westerbrook looked behind her, saw that Muscles had the camera in place. He was now standing there like a eunuch in a harem, watching everything that was going on between me and the princess of television.

  “I’d like to help you out,” she said to me, “but you’ve got to understand this business. This is an oddball story you’ve got here. Possible murder? Unless you have some kind of evidence or eyewitness or something like that, what do I have to go on? If you ever get something like that, you can—”

  “I can’t get something if I can’t find the guy again. I thought maybe you could help by giving me what you’ve got. You said you had a file.”

  “I don’t give out my files,” she said, laughing a little, like I’d said the dumbest thing.

  “Maybe you can make an exception,” I said.

  Her face got granite solid. “Sorry.”

  “I’m not going away.”

  “This conversation is now over,” she said.

  “No,” I said. “It’s not.”

  Before I could say another word Muscles stepped over. He had the macho look, the WWF stare. Maybe I could have landed a good kick in his classified abs, but like I said, my fighting days were behind me.

  Or so I thought then.

  16

  FRAN COLLAPSED ON Christmas Day.

  I’d spent the night at her house, sleeping once more in Jacqueline’s childhood bed. I didn’t want Fran to be alone. I’d even bought her a little tree and set it up in the corner of the tiny living room. It made the place smell nice, but Fran hadn’t put up any decorations.

  In the morning, before she got up, I slipped a present under the tree. It was a portable CD player and a CD collection of Dean Martin. Jacqueline told me once how much her mom loved Dean Martin and had a bunch of his albums on vinyl.

  Then I did my imitation of a cook and made up a pancake breakfast for her. I had the TV on to some morning Christmas show, and everybody was happy.

  Fran ate half a pancake before dissolving into tears. I sat there, wordless, not knowing what to say. Everything seemed inadequate.

  Then she fell off the dining room chair. I thought she’d had a heart attack. But the cause was just the unbearable sadness of it all, and I got her on the sofa and let her rest her head on my shoulder as she cried some more.

  “We’re in this together,” I whispered. “We’ll hold each other up.”

  A chirpy woman on TV said, “Happy Holidays to you and yours from all your friends at KTLA Channel 5.”

  17

  JONATHAN BLAKE BLUMBERG was known around town as B-2, and not just because of the initials in his name. Like the bomber, Blumberg flew over the world of digital products, seeking competitors to wipe out. He took no prisoners.

  I went to see him the Thursday after Christmas, in his building—yes, that Blumberg Building, the one that overlooks the 405 Freeway. I wanted to get his side of the story. The man deserved a hearing because for the last seventeen years he’d been painted as an evil child molester by a vicious ex-wife and a scheming daughter. Or so I was paid to believe.

  His office seemed to be all glass, and not just the kind you look out of. The kind that keeps out weather and bullets. He had a very politically incorrect moose head mounted on one wall. He saw me looking at it and said, “I wanted to put Bill Gates there, but I haven’t had a clear shot.”

  I tried to smile.

  “You sit,” Blumberg said. “I’ll stand. I need to walk around.”

  The man was like a lion in a cage. His frame under a knit golf shirt was trim. He had full black hair, only slightly speckled with gray. No sign of thinning, either. I got the idea that if his hair tried to fall out, Blumberg would beat it back into submission.

  I fired up my Mac. “I take better notes this way.”

  “No need to tell me. Soon enough we’ll be able to talk and voice recognition software will distinguish our voices and take it all down.”

  “You think so?”

  “Look at this.” He held up his wrist and showed me his watch. A substantial silver thing. He whipped it off and tossed it to me. “Fifty years ago people thought only Dick Tracy in the comics could have something like this. You remember?”

  “Dick Tracy?”

  “Oh yeah. You’re just a kid.”

  “I did see the Dick Tracy movie with Warren Beatty.”

  “Stinko! Don’t ever let Madonna near a movie. Point is, we got TV, video, satellite coming in on a phone now. Here’s a prototype of a watch that’ll do the same thing. That’s what JatDome is all about. We define the next generation, and when it arrives, we do the next.”

  And that’s how Jonathan Blake Blumberg became a billionaire.

  “Cool,” I said. “Am I being watched, so to speak?”

  “You’re a funny guy.” He took the watch from me, clicked it back on his arm. “But funny doesn’t win cases.”

  “I can be unfunny, too.”

  “Good. I don’t look to the past, Ty. That’s old news. But the past keeps trying to bite my head off. I haven’t been able to shake it in seventeen years.”

  “I know. In a way, it’s good to have your daughter bring this lawsuit. With Dr. Edwards we can show the whole thing to be a fabrication.”

  “A little late in the day for me. I never got to watch my daughter grow up.” He was looking out the window when he said this, toward the airport. It was a clear day, and I could see the air traffic to and from LAX.

  “Would you mind going over it again, from the beginning?” I said. “I know it’s painful, but if—”

  “Pain doesn’t do it for me. A long time ago I learned that pain avoidance is always an excuse for inaction. You ever see Lawrence of Arabia?”

  “Sure.”

  “Great movie. At the beginning, Lawrence puts out a match with his fingers. Doesn’t flinch. Another soldier sees this and tries it, burns his fingers and says, ‘Hey, that hurts. What’s the trick?’ And Lawrence says, ‘The trick is not minding that it hurts.’”

  “That was in All the President’s Men, too.”

  “Point is, you’re a litigator, Ty, that’s good advice for you, too.”

  I didn’t tell him about Jacqueline. I didn’t tell him that it still hurt and that I couldn’t make the pain stop.

  “So there was a divorce when Claudia was about seven,” I said.

  “Right. I’d had an affair. Ironically, with a lawyer. Sheila Katz, you may have heard of her.”

  I shook my head.

  “She’s quite a success up in San Francisco. Partner with a big firm up there. Anyway, it was only a fling, but when Dyan found out about it, she went nuts. Filed for divorce.”

  “And won custody of Claudia.”

  “Worse, she convinced Claudia to lie. Put it in her head that I abused her sexually. You know how many men are accused of that each year by angry ex-wives? It’s the nuclear option. And quacks like Mackee come along and make it seem legit.”

  His voice caught a little then, in his throat. When he turned to me his eyes had the hint of glistening in them. “Ty, do this please. Beat this case back and rip the truth out. I’ve been waiting a long time.”

  I nodded, feeling I’d looked into the inner sanctum of the B-2, to a place few people ever got to see.

  “Let’s get down to it,” he said, and for the next hour gave me his side of the tale.

  He had married Dyan Collins of Providence, Rhode Island, after seeing her on the Miss America pageant. Decided he wanted her and that he’d get her. Pulled some strings. I got the impression this is what he di
d best, pull strings, though he didn’t say whose strings they were. He arranged for her to fly out to L.A. He then took her on his private hydrofoil to Catalina Island for dinner. They stayed three days at the Hotel Metropole, overlooking Avalon Harbor.

  They were married a month later. Daughter Claudia was born eight months after that. And Dyan Blumberg, twelve years younger than her husband, started looking for an acting career. Jonathan pulled a few strings again and landed Dyan a role in a Tony Scott action flick, a supporting role playing a nuclear technician for the CIA. The critics did not find this a convincing fit.

  “That was the beginning of the end,” Jonathan told me. “She started to go a little nuts after that. Couldn’t take the rejection. As much as I tried to build her up, she seemed to go further down. She started drinking. To my discredit, I let her. I should have gotten her help right away. Maybe if I had, I could have stayed out of the ninth circle of Hell.”

  He stared out the window for about twenty seconds without moving.

  18

  “YOU KNOW,” HE said at last, “the joker who said hell hath no fury like a woman scorned didn’t know about a woman loaded who didn’t believe anything her husband told her. She started to develop this paranoia. It was creepy. The only person she trusted was our daughter. She put her whole life into Claudia. Which left me out in the dark, which led to a whole lot of arguing.”

  What happened next was the all-too familiar tune played in the neighborhoods of the rich and powerful. Divorce featuring two overpriced lawyers and a custody battle that could have been staged by the Medicis.

  The big bomb in many cases is the accusation of child abuse. Dyan found Dr. Kendra Mackee, and that was the beginning of the end.

  “I could have continued to fight it,” Jonathan said, “and maybe I should have. But I didn’t want Claudia to be torn apart. I offered to settle for visitation. I thought the abuse accusations would dry up. Then about six years ago Dyan started keeping Claudia away from me, and Claudia decided she didn’t want to see me anymore. That’s when I went back to court, and found Mackee and Dyan waiting for me with this repressed memory business. Witches. Let’s go back to Salem and burn ’em both.”

  I took copious notes, all the time assessing what sort of witness Blumberg might make. And I wondered, just slightly, if he was telling me the whole truth. How could I tell?

  Well, it wasn’t my job to guess. We had a case to win and B-2 might have to be a witness, unless we settled for some chump change.

  Blumberg picked up on my thoughts, in an eerie sort of way. “You don’t entirely believe me, do you?”

  “Mr. Blumberg,” I said, “I’m not a jury. I’m a lawyer. And whatever you say is good enough for me.”

  “Well, it’s not good enough for me.”

  I had no idea what he meant.

  “You want to make it as a lawyer?” he said.

  “Excuse me?”

  “Do you want success as a lawyer?”

  “Of course.”

  “Then don’t let anything be good enough but this—more information than your opponent. And right now I’m your opponent.”

  “You are?”

  “That’s right. Everybody is until you get the information. That’s the only currency that matters, Mr. Buchanan. The reason I whip everybody else in negotiation is that I have more information than they do. I make sure I do. That’s why I win.”

  Macho award to Jonathan Blake Blumberg. With a supporting nod for bluster. If he were ever to testify, he might just bluster his way out of favor with a jury.

  “You’ll appreciate what I’ve said the longer you live, kid.” Blumberg stood up and signaled the end of the meeting with an iron handshake. He eyed me intensely, making me wonder if he wanted us to take off our shirts and bump chests. I got out of there before finding out.

  As I was driving away from Blumberg’s office, my cell bleeped.

  “It’s Channing Westerbrook. You busy?”

  “Driving.”

  “Not a good time to talk?”

  “About what?”

  “Your story.”

  “I thought I didn’t have a story.”

  “I’m sorry about last night,” Westerbrook said, in that rapid-fire way she had. “We got off on the wrong foot.”

  Both feet. “What’s different?”

  “I’ve thought about it,” she said. “Maybe there’s something we can both work with.”

  Now I was being sold? There was something very strange about this. What could have possibly happened in the last twelve hours to change her attitude? But I learned long ago you always listen to the first offer.

  “Go ahead,” I said.

  “I looked through my file again, and there was an interesting item I’d overlooked.”

  “I’m listening.”

  “Now before I tell you, let me give you the other part of this scenario.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Ty, I am a reporter, okay? Reason is, I always had a nose for news, as my grandfather used to say. I know stories. You are a story.”

  “I am not a story,” I said. “I came to you so I could —”

  “Why don’t we meet again? I’d rather do this in person.”

  The smirking face of Muscles flashed into my head. “Alone,” I said. “I’ll see you only if you are absolutely alone.”

  “Deal. Where?”

  “I know a place.”

  19

  WITHOUT POUNDS OF makeup for the camera, Channing Westerbrook was actually very attractive, in a girl-next-door kind of way. She wore a dark red blouse and, once again, crisp blue jeans and sandals. Urban casual.

  “Why here?” she asked.

  “Not likely to be interrupted,” I said. “Unless you believe M. Night Shyamalan.”

  “Pardon?”

  “You know, seeing dead people. Sixth Sense and all that?”

  “Ah,” she said without a smile.

  We were on the grounds of the Westwood Mortuary, not far from my office. Having her come over to my turf was a little negotiating ploy, though I still didn’t know what would need to be negotiated. All I knew was that a part of me didn’t trust a news reporter seeking me out. It was quiet here, with only a few other live people milling around. The place is tucked away behind office buildings on Wilshire, keeping it semiprivate.

  “How long’ve you been in L.A.?” I asked as we strolled onto the grounds.

  “I joined the station a year ago,” she said.

  “Where from?”

  “Cincinnati.”

  “Want to visit Marilyn Monroe?”

  I walked her to the crypt that’s Marilyn’s final resting place. “DiMaggio used to have a rose in that brass holder at all times,” I said. “Until near the end of his own life.”

  “Cool,” Channing Westerbrook said. “Where’s Rudolph Valentino?”

  “Not here. He’s at the Hollywood Mortuary, across town. If you want to visit Jack Lemmon or Natalie Wood or Dean Martin, you’ve come to the right place.”

  “How do you know so much about all these dead people?”

  I felt a twinge, let it pass. “Jacqueline loved old movies. We both did.” I barely noticed the past tense applied to myself.

  We found a bench in the back, looking at the grass plots and trees. Most of it was taken up by flat markers.

  “I want to do your story,” Westerbrook said.

  “I told you I don’t have a story.”

  “But you do,” she said quickly. “A quest about lost love.”

  Oh brother.

  She must have read my face. “No, listen,” she said. “In just the brief time we’ve talked I can tell Jacqueline must have meant the world to you. In a way that’s missing from so many relationships today.”

  I wondered if she was talking about herself. Certainly she wouldn’t have had any shortage of interested males.

  “Then this murder story gets you beaten up,” Westerbrook said, sounding like she was pitching a scre
enplay. “But you can’t let the possibility go.”

  “You know squat about me.”

  “I know about Jacqueline.”

  I stiffened. “What do you mean?”

  “I called her school, talked to the principal. She gave me all sorts of good stuff.”

  “Hold it,” I said. “What are you doing digging into her life? Why don’t you tell me what this is really all about?”

  She stayed cool. “I’m trying to, Ty. Really. You came to me with a story that was very hard to believe. The more I thought about it, the more I admired your determination. So I did some digging around. On Jacqueline. And on Ernesto Bonilla.”

  An older couple came shuffling by, smiling and nodding at us. As if we were some young couple in love. I waited until they were out of earshot.

  “Tell me,” I said.

  “The Bonillas had a neighbor across the street, a Lupe Salazar. She gave a short statement to the police.”

  “How do you know this?”

  “I have a copy of the police report.”

  Her eyes were starting to sparkle.

  “Go on,” I said.

  “I went out to see Mrs. Salazar.”

  That was out of the ordinary. Westerbrook was not an investigative reporter. She was basically paid to show up and talk on camera, with a token interview thrown in. That she did all this showed something more than a passing interest.

  “Okay,” I said. “You went to see this neighbor. Did she have anything to say?”

  “Oh yeah,” Westerbrook said with a half smile. “Only not in words.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “She was scared out of her mind.”

  A screech of tires wailed on Westwood Boulevard. It was midday traffic out there, always a study in madness and mayhem.

  “What was she scared of?”

  “Gangs.”

  “That doesn’t make her unique.”

  “But it was in connection with Bonilla. And Bonilla was supposed to be an ex-gang member. Reformed. Working.”

  “Right.”

  “Got rehabbed at that honor ranch in Lancaster.”

  I’d read about that place. Out in the desert, on hell’s stove. It was a private ranch that used tough discipline on gangbangers and whipped them back into productive citizens. Or so their PR said.