Spider Season (32 page)

I hadn’t thought about Victoria Faith in weeks, but I remembered something she’d said toward the end of our visit—that she had some photographs that might interest me, which she’d show me when I came to visit again. At the time, I’d figured it for a possible ploy to get me to return and give a lonely old lady some company for a while. But I’d also sensed there were things she hadn’t told me, things she was holding back. She’d all but conceded as much as we’d parted that day.

On Thursday morning, I called the Motion Picture & Television Country House and asked to be connected to her room. Instead, my call was forwarded to the administrative office. When I inquired again about the retired actress, the woman on the line asked what my relationship was to her.

“Just a friend,” I said.

“Your name, sir?”

“Benjamin Justice.”

“Mr. Justice, I’m sorry to have to tell you that Miss Faith passed away earlier this week. As you probably know, she’d been in declining health for some time. If it’s any comfort to you, I can tell you that she died peacefully in her sleep.”

“We should all be so lucky.”

The administrator gave me information about the funeral arrangements. I thanked her for her help and hung up, cursing myself for not going back while Miss Faith was alive to probe more deeply into the man who had once been known as Barclay Simpkins.

My regret was short-lived. That afternoon, the postal carrier arrived on schedule, and I went down to meet her. She knew about the spider that had killed Fred and eyed the mailbox suspiciously.

“After I found out about that spider,” she said, “I cleaned out every cobweb in my house. Every night before we go to bed I make my husband shake out the sheets. I don’t ever want no spider to surprise me!”

She laughed nervously, handed me a large envelope, and proceeded to the next house. The envelope was addressed to me in handwriting that was old-fashioned and graceful. In the upper left-hand corner was Victoria Faith’s name, followed by a return address for the Motion Picture & Television Country House. I carried the envelope upstairs and opened it in the kitchen.

Inside was a single photograph. It was a glossy eight-by-ten of Jason Holt, one of those professional head shots aspiring actors routinely have taken to send around to casting directors or leave with producers and directors at auditions. In the photo, Holt appeared to be in his late twenties, with blond highlights and an effete, self-satisfied look. It was an image I immediately recognized, surprisingly similar to the portrait Charles Wu had painted that hung above Holt’s mantelpiece. Even the color and style of the shirt collar was identical.

Victoria Faith had waited until she was dying to send me the photo. Even then, she hadn’t clearly stated her suspicions, remaining discreet to the end. There was no note, nothing of any kind written. But there was a message here, and she’d apparently had confidence in me to decipher it.

I cleared a pile of old mail and papers to one side and placed the photograph in front of me, studying it as I also recalled Wu’s portrait. There had to be more to them than just their similarity, some deeper meaning that Miss Faith had wanted me to see.

As I pondered that, the edge of a manila envelope caught my eye. It was buried under a mass of mail that I’d tossed onto the table, unopened, during the previous chaotic weeks. I lifted it from the pile—the same envelope Lawrence Kase had handed over when we’d met at the polluted lotus pond in Echo Park. My eye went from the envelope to the photo and back to the envelope again. I grabbed it and tore it open, and began scanning the old LAPD reports inside.

It wasn’t long before I found what I was looking for. Kase had mentioned to me that following Silvio Galiano’s death, the investigating detectives had cleared Jason Holt as a suspect, because he’d had an airtight alibi. The final detective’s report provided more details: During the days before and for several hours after Galiano had taken his deadly fall, Holt had been sitting patiently as Charles Wu had painstakingly painted his portrait in oil, staying the entire time in a guest room of the house Wu was then renting in Venice Beach. The final sitting—more than nine hours, by Wu’s account—had overlapped and exceeded the period of time when Galiano had tumbled roughly six stories, dying within minutes of his fall. The coroner had been able to estimate the time of death by taking the temperature of the body. In addition, Galiano’s wristwatch had been crushed in the fall, with the hands frozen in place, confirming the coroner’s approximation. There seemed to be no doubt about the hour that Galiano had died.

According to the police report, both Charles Wu and Angela Wainwright, his fiancée, had given statements supporting Holt’s account of his whereabouts at the time. It was Angela who’d received a call from Holt after he’d returned home hours later to discover his elderly lover’s body on the rocks. She’d described him to police as distraught and nearly hysterical.

I scanned that section of the report a second time, then studied the photograph again. Crucial pieces of the puzzle seemed to be right in front of me. Still, I had to be sure. I couldn’t move forward on suspicion alone.

First, there was Maurice to consider. I’d never seen him so fragile, so vulnerable. I didn’t want to involve him in a murder investigation, at least not while his grief was so raw. Maybe in time, I figured, when he was stronger, he’d be able to accept the reality of how Fred had died—that fate had put him in my place, at that moment, at that mailbox, where he’d intersected with evil. When that time came, I had to be absolutely certain of what had happened.

Then there was the matter of my credibility, or lack of it. I belonged to that small but shameful club of journalists—Walter Duranty, Janet Cooke, Stephen Glass, Jayson Blair, et al.—who, over the decades, had been exposed as frauds, tarnishing an otherwise honorable trade. We were not writers who’d gotten the facts wrong because of faulty memories—a forgivable human failing—or selected certain incidents or facts and ignored others to develop a theme or make a point, which was a natural part of putting together a story with a point of view. No, we were nonfiction writers who had deliberately deceived, creating outright fabrications and presenting them as fact—blatant misinformation, sources that didn’t exist, quotes that were never spoken, interviews that never took place. We were a disreputable group, never again to be trusted or believed, however we might try to rationalize and explain away our actions.

So my suspicions about Holt were not enough. I had to nail down the facts tighter than the lid on a rich man’s coffin.

It was time to have another chat with Charles Wu, whether he liked it or not.

THIRTY-TWO

I couldn’t find a business number for Charles Wu in the phone book or on his Web site. I did find one for his representative, who declined to put me directly in touch with his client. When I called the gallery where I’d attended Wu’s exhibit and asked for his personal number, the manager recognized my voice, told me as much, and hung up.

Then I remembered a conversation I’d had with Topper Schroeder, the affable owner of the Gendarmerie. Topper had mentioned that Wu kept a regular afternoon appointment at the spa, every Friday afternoon, 4:00
P.M.
sharp. That would be tomorrow.

At a quarter to four the next afternoon, I parked the Metro in an alley across the street, close to a wall that gave me some cover. The convertible top was up, providing more camouflage, and I lowered the visor as I hunkered down. Within ten minutes, Wu arrived in a black Lexus, driven by Steven Reigns, his young assistant. As Reigns crossed the bricks out front, I was struck again by his general resemblance to a younger Jason Holt—slim, dark blond, boyish, but better looking, without the butchered face or prissy pretension. As Reigns held open the door and Wu stepped inside, Reigns briefly laid a hand on Wu’s back and followed him in.

I didn’t want to confront Wu in Topper’s place of business, so I settled back in my seat, closed my eyes, and caught a nap. At half past four, I woke with a start to the sound of a rumbling motorcycle, unsure if I’d actually heard it or it was part of a dream. There were no motorcycles in sight, but Wu’s gleaming Lexus was still parked in front of the spa. With time to kill, I took out a notebook and pen and began sketching a rough time line of events in the Barclay Simpkins/Jason Holt saga, trying to better sort things out:

1980
—
My last year in college (Barclay Simpkins’s fifth year)

1983
—
I arrive in L.A. to work for L.A. Times

1984
—
Simpkins arrives in L.A., changes name to Jason Holt

1989
—
Holt becomes Silvio Galiano’s lover (Galiano ill with AIDS)

1990
—
Jacques dies, Pulitzer scandal, Holt writes rambling letter to me

April 14, 1997
—
Galiano dies from fall, Wu completes Holt’s portrait

June 1997
—
Charles Wu and Angela marry

Early June 2008
—
Deep Background published

Late June 2008
—
Harassment begins with phone call, hate mail

Mid-July 2008
—
I confront Holt, he denies harassment

Early August 2008
—
I discover Holt’s spider collection

Late August 2008
—
As harassment continues, Fred dies from spider bite

Early September 2008
—
Victoria Faith sends me photo of Holt as younger man

I glanced over the time line, satisfied at first that all the dots were connected, that everything had fallen into place. But as I studied it, I realized it was incomplete. I’d neglected to add the year 1996, a life-affirming, milestone year for millions but a setback and dark turning point for Holt. For me, it was the intangible but crucial element that explained so much.

Just as I finished making the insert, my attention was drawn across the street.

Wu and Reigns were emerging from the Gendarmerie, each sporting a fresh haircut and probably a new manicure as well. Topper stood on the front steps, looking jocular as he bid them good-bye. They climbed into the Lexus and Reigns pulled out, working his way out of the neighborhood and over to Santa Monica Boulevard. I followed as he turned west into Beverly Hills.

It was half past five, well into the Friday rush hour. The eastward flow, always the worst at workday’s end, was already moribund, while our west-moving lanes were merely sluggish. We crept along at fifteen miles per hour while the drivers pointed east glanced at us with envy. To my right, the joggers and power walkers were out in force, pounding the trail through Beverly Gardens Park. To pass the time, I tuned in NPR and got the news. It was pretty much what you’d expect: election campaign evasion and double-talk, political corruption, corporate greed, the Iraq war, international terrorism, nuclear proliferation, global warming, third-world poverty, ethnic genocide. It seemed that nothing much was changing, except the styles of running shoes worn by the joggers passing through the pretty park.

The Lexus turned right at Wilshire, cutting through the vast Los Angeles Country Club, where the wealthy golfers played through on their private manicured greens as if the horrors of the world could never touch them. We continued past the towering condo and office buildings of Westwood, with Little Persia to the south and UCLA to the north. Then we were crawling past the Los Angeles National Cemetery, where thousands of veterans were buried under thousands of identical white headstones and the streets were named for famous generals who had led the ill-fated soldiers to battle. On the left, I saw a sign for the Veterans Administration medical center, and I thought about Lance, wondering where he was and if he was okay. Thinking about Lance led me to Ismael, which stirred all kinds of emotions. Perhaps I still had a chance at one day finding my son, I thought, especially with my upcoming appearance on
Jerry Rivers Live
and the attention it would focus on him. But Ismael—he was almost surely out of my life for good and better off without me for all that. Still, I ached for him, in a way I hadn’t for a man since Jacques had passed.

A mile or so later, on busy San Vicente Boulevard, the air began to cool as we crossed from Brentwood into Santa Monica, getting closer to the ocean. With the megalopolis behind us and the end of civilization just ahead, traffic finally unlocked and drivers hit their accelerators like prisoners making a jailbreak. Reigns turned right at Nineteenth Street and right again on La Mesa Drive, which comprised about half a mile of extremely pricey real estate running along the southern rim of Santa Monica Canyon. The architecture here tended toward classic Spanish, with homes dating from the 1920s and a sprinkling of more modern styles that had begun popping up in the thirties. It seemed a world apart, caught in a pleasant time warp from a period when the future looked nothing but promising. Despite the continuing drought and a request by city officials to cut back on water usage, the landscaping here was Technicolor lush, with immaculate lawns and gardens and venerable Moreton Bay figs lining the parkways on both sides of the street, and the occasional ornamental fountain burbling with precious water.

Half a block ahead, Reigns pulled into a circular driveway behind a Cadillac Escalade, in front of a two-story home on the north side of the street, at the canyon’s edge. I swung to the curb and stopped as Reigns and Wu climbed from the car. Just then Angela Wu emerged from the house, dressed tastefully but comfortably, as if she might be going out for an early dinner and a movie. It was an idealized Spanish house with traditional adobe walls and a red-tiled roof, whose understated elegance blended in nicely with the surrounding architecture. Two children emerged from the house behind her, a girl and a boy of roughly seven or eight years, who looked faintly Chinese and greeted their father respectfully. Angela Wu turned her cheek to accept a chaste kiss from her husband.