No One Needs to Know (47 page)

The front gate to the Gayler Court mansion yawned open.

“It looks almost exactly the way it did that night forty-four years go,” Cheryl said. “There was just an intercom where that keypad is, but we didn’t use it. JT climbed up over the fence.” She nodded toward a spot in the fence near the left gate post.

Cheryl remembered watching JT from the backseat of the old, beat-up white Vista Cruiser. The seat faced the rear window, and whenever she rode in the car with other members of Trent’s family, she felt isolated. Most of the time, she liked it that way.

She was twelve years old.

She wasn’t supposed to be out with them that night, but she’d overheard Trent confiding in JT that they were going to “have a little fun with some movie stars.” That was as much as she heard about Trent’s plans before they noticed her and shooed her away. Apparently, meeting these movie stars was a big secret. She wasn’t quite sure why. Trent was always bragging about the people he knew from his acting days in Hollywood—producers, directors, and actors. It was part of his charm, though she never found Trent all that appealing. Then again, she didn’t care for most of the men who swept her mother off her feet.

That included her father, whom she never met.

Her mother had gotten pregnant at fourteen. Brandi Mundy refused to reveal the identity of the boy responsible, and she didn’t want to give her baby up for adoption. According to Brandi’s father, this act of defiance pretty much killed her mother. Apparently renal failure had nothing to do with it. One day when his granddaughter, Natalie Anne, was three months old, Mr. Mundy drove her and Brandi to the Greyhound bus station. He gave Brandi seven hundred dollars in cash and told her that he never wanted to see her or her baby again. Then he drove off, leaving them there with four suitcases.

After her father, the other men in Brandi’s life weren’t much of an improvement.

She even married one of them for five months, and kept his last name, Milhaud. But no one could really pin her down. She was a drifter, who liked to hitchhike from one place to another. She often told her daughter that she was terrific “ride bait.” After all, who wouldn’t stop to give a lift to a young mother and her child? Natalie remembered living with a bunch of people in an artist’s loft in San Francisco; then there was a ranch outside Tucson; and a farm commune in Eastern Washington. She even had a brief stint as a ward of the state in a children’s shelter while her mother was in jail for shoplifting at a Sinclair station in Portland.

Somewhere along the line, Brandi got pregnant again. The baby boy was born in a free clinic in Eugene. Eleven-year-old Natalie got to name him, and she called him Buddy. From then on, he was like her own son.

By the time Natalie’s mother met Trent Hooper and the three of them moved in with his tribe at Biggs farm, it seemed like just another temporary living place—and a pretty crummy one at that. But by July of 1970, they’d lived there for seven months. Natalie had her chores—mostly cooking for the group and looking after the younger children, especially Buddy, who was ten months old. The adults seemed to have all the fun with their parties, drugs, skinny-dipping, and campfire singing sessions.

When Buddy got sick, Natalie wanted to take him to a free clinic. There were a bunch of them nearby in Seattle. Her mother kept saying it was just a cold. But the baby was burning up with a fever and Natalie was convinced it was something far more serious. Trent didn’t believe in modern medicine, and proclaimed the baby would be fine if they all kept giving him “love energy.”

Buddy died on July second. Natalie was heartbroken—and so angry at her mother and Trent for letting it happen. It was utterly unnecessary, too.

The “Viking funeral” Trent orchestrated on the night of July third was unnecessary as well. Her mother must have been stoned out of her mind to agree to it. They wrapped Buddy’s body in a blanket and set it in an old tin wash tub. JT had bought some fireworks for the Fourth of July. Even though he and Trent weren’t at all patriotic and had burned their draft cards, they still liked a good fireworks show. They stashed several skyrockets and sparklers in the tin washtub with Buddy, lit them, and set the tub adrift in the farm’s swimming pond.

The pyrotechnics began to ignite, sending bursts of color into the night sky and creating a deafening racket. Trent and the others cheered and danced. JT and a couple of the women got naked. Trent kept going on about how they were giving Buddy a true “Viking send-off.” But Natalie thought it was barbaric. A fire started in the small washtub, which apparently was the point. But she could smell the burning flesh. Glowing ash from the burning blanket floated in the air. The tub rocked crazily on the little lake—and water splashed inside it. Within a minute, the fire was out and the light show ended.

After everyone had passed out or gone to bed, Natalie waded into the pond and swam out to retrieve what was left of her baby brother’s body. Shivering and cold, she wrapped the charred thing in another blanket, and loaded him in an old burlap bag. At dawn the next morning, she took a shovel, carried Buddy to some woods just outside the farm, and buried him. She used her black elastic headband to fashion a cross out of two big sticks, and marked his grave.

For the next few days, she picked wildflowers and set them on his grave. Without Buddy, there wasn’t much for her to do at the farm anymore—especially in the evenings.

So the prospect of meeting a movie star seemed too good to resist.

Five nights after Buddy’s botched Viking funeral, Natalie accompanied Trent and three others to the movie star’s house in Seattle—only they didn’t know about it. She’d snuck into the back of the Vista Cruiser minutes before they were ready to leave. No one noticed.

Her mom was driving, and Trent sat in the front passenger seat. JT occupied the back with Moonbeam, whose real name was Susan. Natalie didn’t like her much, but she had a tiny crush on JT, because he looked like a grubby version of Bobby Sherman.

She stayed curled up on the floor, practically under the seat in the very back. She heard Trent tell the others that they were going to “scare the crap” out of these people, because the couple had ripped off his producer friend, Gil Garrett, in some business deal. “If we do this right,” he said, “Gil is going to put me in the movies—and none of this walk-on shit either. I’m going to be a star . . .”

Trent could be very manipulative and he enjoyed deluding people. Yet at the same time, he was pretty self-delusional, and could be easily manipulated by someone smarter than him. How much of what Trent told the others that night was a lie and how much was self-delusional no one would ever know.

About a half hour into the car ride, a cough gave Natalie away. She couldn’t help it. She felt like she was choking. Moonbeam heard her. “Oh, shit, Brandi, your kid is in the back! She’s going to ruin everything . . .”

Natalie’s mother pulled over. She was all apologetic—especially to Trent. Would they have to turn back?

“It’s too late,” Trent replied. “We’re almost there. You’re staying in the car, wild child.” Then he turned to her mother. “This couple has a baby. She can look after the kid if it wakes up while we’re there . . .”

Natalie did what she was told and stayed in the back of the Vista Cruiser. Left alone in the station wagon, she suddenly wished she hadn’t come. She wished it were a month ago, and she was back at Biggs farm, looking after Buddy.

After JT had jumped the fence, he opened the gate from the inside, and let in the others. They all wore dark clothes. Her mother usually favored airy, peasant dresses, but tonight she wore a black pullover and charcoal slacks. Her long curly hair was pulled back in a tight ponytail.

Natalie also noticed that Trent carried an old duffle bag. At the start of the driveway, inside the gate, he stopped and pulled a gun out of that bag. He held the satchel out for the others to pick something inside it. Natalie’s mother shook her head. JT took out a hunting knife. Moonbeam chose a smaller knife.

Then they crept toward the big, dark house at the end of the driveway.

Cheryl remembered sitting in the back of the Vista Cruiser for what seemed like hours. It may have only been fifteen minutes. There was no way of knowing how long. The dashboard clock never worked, and she didn’t own a watch.

But she remembered she’d never felt so alone and scared in all her life.

Now here she was in that same spot, forty-four years later, and her heart was racing. But she felt determined. She had the gun this time.

Laurie steered the food truck down the driveway toward the darkened estate. They weren’t even halfway there, when all of the sudden, they heard a loud thump. The truck seemed to quaver.

Panicked, Laurie stepped on the brake. “Did I hit something?” she gasped.

Another thud reverberated from the truck.

“He’s awake,” Cheryl said. She took a deep breath. “This will make it easier on us. He’ll be a bit groggy from the drug for the next hour, but he’ll be able to communicate—and walk. We won’t have to carry or drag him around.” She nodded toward the house. “Go on toward the back. We’ll take him in through the kitchen . . .”

Biting her lip, Laurie followed orders.

They heard another thump in the back.

“Listen to him,” Cheryl said. “He must feel the ghosts already . . .”

Gil Garrett looked pathetic in his expensive blue sweats and the white loafers. One of the lenses to his tinted glasses had popped out. His wispy, receding hair was mussed. His face got more red and sweaty as he tried to yell past the duct tape over his mouth. It came out as muted, pitiful whining.

Laurie led him through the kitchen door. He staggered a bit, but at least he was on his feet. Cheryl trailed behind them—with the gun and her satchel.

In vain, Gil yanked and tugged at the rope around his wrists—still tightly tied behind him.

Laurie tried to think of an excuse to break away for a moment so she could call the police. Maybe she could dial 911 on the sly—and hope they traced the location of the caller. But Cheryl was on her guard, watching her every move.

She couldn’t stop wondering about Adam. What had happened to him? That attempt to call him had been nearly an hour ago, and he still hadn’t phoned back.

Cheryl locked the kitchen door behind them. “Do you know where we are, Gil?”

Laurie paused by the counter, where they’d set up the cookies yesterday. Gil just groaned and shook his head.

With the rain outside and the lights off, it was gloomy in the large house.

“Keep going,” Cheryl hissed. “Take him into the living room. I want him to see it.”

Laurie led him by the arm through the front hallway, where that UW student had hung himself from the balcony above them. Cheryl was right about the ghosts. Without the movie crew here, Laurie could feel something strange and otherworldly about the place. Its history was somehow more perceptible in the grayish light. Plastic sheets covered the furniture. A few cables had been left behind—along with some boxes and trash bags. But all the other movie equipment was gone.

“Do you know where you are now, Gil?” Cheryl asked.

He shook his head again. His moaning behind the tape sounded like muted protests. He wrenched free from Laurie’s grasp.

“You’re in the room where your onetime girlfriend, Elaina Styles, was murdered—along with her husband and their baby’s nanny.”

He was suddenly still. As if in shock, he stared at the room.

“You never had to set foot in here, did you, Gil?” Cheryl went on. “But they were
your
murders, weren’t they? You hired a failed actor and a group of doped-up hippies to do your killing for you. Why, Gil? Why did you want her dead? Was it because Elaina stopped loving you and married someone else? Was it because she didn’t want to make movies for you anymore?”

Laurie saw he was trembling. He had tears in his eyes.

“How much money, time, and effort did you pour into making her a star—only so she could turn her back on you?”

He kept shaking his head, and let out a muffled, anguished rasp. Then he started to cough, but it was stifled by the tape over his mouth. It sounded as if he were being strangled. He bent forward. His face turned crimson.

“Oh, God, Cheryl,” Laurie whispered. “I think he’s choking. Let me take off the tape . . .”

With the gun trained on him, she nodded. “Go ahead.”

Laurie reached over and gently tugged at the duct tape on his mouth, but to no avail. She could feel the heat radiating from his face. She finally yanked the tape from his mouth, and it made a horrible ripping sound.

Gil let out a sharp cry, and then he doubled over and started coughing again.

Hovering beside him, Laurie slapped him on the back until the hacking began to subside.

“You can scream all you want, but it won’t do you any good,” Cheryl said. “I know that for a fact. They were here in this room, screaming for their lives that night, but no one ever came. I was right outside the house, and I barely heard them.”

“God, please,” he said in a raspy voice. “I—I need some water, please . . .”

Wincing, Laurie turned to Cheryl. “There are glasses in the kitchen cupboard.”

Cheryl nodded.

Laurie realized this was her chance to call the police. She started for the kitchen, but Cheryl put her arm out—blocking her way. “Wait,” she said. “Give me your cell phone.”

Laurie reluctantly forfeited her cell. Cheryl tossed aside the phone as if it were a cigarette butt—and it landed on the shag-carpeted floor by the sofa. “If you aren’t back in thirty seconds, I’m putting a bullet in his head.”

“For God’s sake,” Gil croaked. He was looking at her. “Why is she doing this?”

Dumbfounded, Laurie gazed back at him.

“Go on, get him his water!” Cheryl hissed.

Retreating to the kitchen, Laurie found the plastic cups she’d seen in the cupboard earlier in the week. She felt so defeated about the phone. But one thing that gave her a little hope was that Gil seemed to realize she was here against her will. He’d seen she wasn’t an accomplice in any of this. If they both survived, he might testify as to her innocence.