What Remains of Me (29 page)

Kelly gazed into Shane's eyes, black eyes, so very much like Bellamy's and their father's in color, yet shaped exactly like her own. “We have a lot of figuring out to do,” she said.

“I'm going to make this right with the cops. I promise.”

She didn't think it would be this hard, looking him in the eye. “I think it's a good idea,” she said, “for you to leave right now.”

“Okay,” he said.

“You should probably leave out the back—avoid that scene out there.”

He nodded. “After I leave, Kelly. Please charge up your phone and read your texts.”

“Why?”

“There's a long one from me.”

She glanced at the letter in his hand, barely remembering what it said. So much had happened since she'd written it in Bellamy's empty house, telling him her truths, asking him for his. “Is it a reply?”

“In a way,” he said quietly. “It's about Bellamy. And Catherine.”

BARRY DUPREE HAD NEVER LIKED GIVING PRESS CONFERENCES. THERE
was something so hostile about the whole situation—standing out in
front of the police building as though you're defending your home against marauders, reporters hurling questions at you, taping your every move, dying for you to screw up like the marauders they are.

The “dying for you to screw up” part was most pronounced when the press conference centered on a celebrity. Barry's ex-wife had been a supermarket tabloid reporter, so he knew for a fact that the possible crash-and-burn was the only reason they came.

You couldn't blame them, these celebrity journos. Police press conferences were carefully scripted. Any deviation from that script could hurt an ongoing investigation, so by nature they were brief and boring. These guys from the tabs and the gossip Web sites spent 90 percent of their time waiting for some Real Housewife to get out of a limo with no panties on—why should they give a crap about an ongoing investigation? They wanted to knock you off your game, get you to say more than you were supposed to. They wanted to turn you into the law enforcement equivalent of
Stars without Makeup
—and they knew all kinds of tricks to make it happen.

So when the lieutenant told Louise and him they'd be facing reporters this morning at eight, Barry tried to get his partner to take the reins. “
You're better at these things than me,
” he'd tried. “
You're more personable
.” Which had even made Louise laugh. “You know damn well I'm not personable at all.”

Barry couldn't argue with that. So he bit the bullet, read the statement, telling TMZ and
US Weekly
and the rest that while Kelly Lund had not been formally arrested and charged with the murder of Sterling Marshall, she remained “under the umbrella of suspicion.”

Man, Barry hated that phrase. Saying it out loud made him feel like a jerk. It reminded him of a song from those old MGM musicals his parents were always watching on TV when he was a kid. Every time he had to say it, he'd picture Gene Kelly and Debbie Reynolds in
matching raincoats, twirling their umbrellas of suspicion and tap-tap-tapping away . . . “Thank you for coming,” he said, making sure not to smile, because, unless you are a victim's family member who has finally gotten justice, smiling during any part of a murder investigation makes you look like a psychopath.
Just ask Kelly Lund
.

“Is an arrest forthcoming?” shouted one reporter.

“Was her husband the one who turned her in?” said another.

“Can you answer to the rumors that Kelly Lund had been having an affair with her father-in-law?”

Louise picked up the torch on the “no comments” and Barry said “thank you very much,” and the two of them kept their funeral faces on as they headed back into Parker Center, their chorus of uniforms behind them, twirling their umbrellas of suspicion, tap-tap-tapping away.

“I THINK THAT WENT VERY WELL,” LOUISE SAID AS THEY TOOK THE
elevator back up to their floor.

“I'm just glad it's over.”

As the elevator doors opened, Barry thought about Kelly Lund—a tough nut to crack, especially with Ilene Cutler for an attorney. But that wasn't what had struck him most during questioning. The whole time she was answering their questions about driving to Sterling Marshall's house the night of the murder, she'd looked directly into their eyes, paused an appropriate time to think, and showed no unusual signs of anxiety, and here she'd been taken in for questioning, no time to prepare. Whereas when Shane Marshall confided his suspicions about his wife back at his parents' house, his eyes kept seeking out his mother and sister, as though he were expecting them to give him cues.

Louise was saying, “I think the TMZ guys seemed pretty respectful, considering.”

“I guess, but you're setting the bar pretty low,” Barry said. He flashed on all those cameras, aimed at him firing squad–style. “Meet you back there.”

He stopped in the men's room, checked himself in the mirror—no cowlick, nothing in the teeth, tie on straight, fly zipped.
Whew
. Probably should have done that before the press conference, though.

He splashed some water in his face, took a deep breath, then headed out the door and made for his pristine desk, ready to face the day—only to find Louise and Hank Grayson standing there. The rest of the squad was clustered around, all of them staring at him expectantly, like this was a surprise party and he still hadn't figured out that he was supposed to be surprised. “Um . . . Anything I should know?”

“Game changer,” Louise said. Her face was flushed, her eyes wide. Barry had never seen her anywhere near close to this animated.

“Game changer?”

Grayson said, “We have a confession for the Sterling Marshall murder. She came in early this morning.”

“What?”

“She's been booked, fingerprinted. But she says she wants to give her confession directly to you.” He smiled. “Guess you made a nice impression on her . . .” He gave Louise a look. “Or a better one than your partner.”

“Whatever, Hank.”

Barry stared at him. “What? Wait. Did Kelly Lund confess?”

Louise said, “Wait. You honestly think you made a good impression on
Kelly Lund
?”

“Well, then . . .”

“The wife says she did it, Barry,” Grayson said.

“
What?
”

“That's right,” said Louise. “Mary Marshall with her urgent funeral plans. Next time you feel like giving me shit for being unsympathetic to victim's families, Mr. Bleeding Heart, you might want to chew on that one for a while.”

IT WASN'T LOST ON BARRY, HOW DIFFERENT MARY MARSHALL LOOKED
from the shattered woman he'd spoken to just one day earlier. Her face devoid of tears and tastefully made up, Mary was pulled together, relaxed in a clean white silk blouse and gray linen suit, manicured hands folded in her lap, her eyes surprisingly clear—which only pointed to what a mess she'd been back at her house with her two children.

As he slid into his seat across the table from her, he nearly expected it to be a joke—some sick practical joke of Louise's and somehow she'd convinced a grieving widow to play along. But no, she was serious. She was ready. “Let's get this over with,” she said. “I've been waiting for hours.”

Barry turned the tape recorder on. He stated the date and time and let Mary know she was being taped, asking her to state and spell her name, asking why she was at the police station, lingering on the technicalities a little too long.

“Fine,” she said. “That's all fine. Let's cut to the chase. I have two confessions to make, and if you don't mind, I'd like to take care of the most painful one first.”

He cleared his throat. “Okay.”

“Thirty-five years ago, I visited the set of the film
Defiance
. My husband starred in it and it was directed by John McFadden.”

“Yes,” said Barry. He'd heard of the film, but only after McFadden's shooting. He'd been just two years old when it had come out after all. “Let me just get this straight: this is your most painful confession?”

She ignored him. “My daughter Bellamy was spending a lot of time on set,” she said. “She'd become friendly with . . . the director's son. I was glad because it was summer and she didn't have many friends her own age, and frankly, it was nice to have her out of the house.”

“Sure.”

“Anyway, that day, I hadn't been planning on going to the set, but Shane begged and pleaded with me. He wanted to see his daddy . . .” Mary's voice trailed off, her gaze resting on the one-way mirror in a way that must have been unsettling for everyone watching, even to Louise. It was a gaze that could burn through glass.

Barry said, “I'm listening, ma'am.”

“We got to the set, most everybody was around the craft services table. My husband wasn't there, but that was no surprise. He always took meals and breaks in his trailer.”

Barry nodded. “Did you go looking for your husband?” He knew he shouldn't have said that. This was Mary's confession. He wasn't supposed to prompt her. But Barry desperately wanted her to get to the point of this story, which, from what he gathered, had to do with an affair of her husband's that was nearly as old as he was. He wanted that over with, so he could hear the murder confession.

“I didn't go looking for my husband. Like I said, he takes his meals alone.” She closed her eyes for a moment, shut them tight, as though she was shaking away a bad thought. “I went looking for Bellamy.”

Barry frowned. “Your daughter.”

“Yes,” she said. “McFadden's son was at the craft services table. But Bellamy was not. I . . . I got this awful feeling. An intuition. I went to John McFadden's trailer. I opened the door . . .”

“Yes.”

“Bellamy was there . . . Her shirt was ripped. McFadden gave me this big smile, as though this were a perfectly normal thing for a mother
to see. He asked if I'd like to stay for lunch. Bellamy ran out of that trailer so fast. I saw the tears on her face, the shame . . . She was twelve years old.”

Barry swallowed hard, nodded, tried to keep his expression neutral. “What did you do next?”

“I went directly to my husband's trailer. Shane tried to go in with me, but I wouldn't let him. I told Sterling everything that had happened, demanded he pull out of
Defiance
for his family's sake. For his daughter. Prove to her he cared.”

Barry thought of Marshall's face on the
Defiance
poster—the good-hearted sheriff, the man in the white hat. He thought of Bellamy Marshall, what a troubled piece of work she must be, her father giving interviews to the
Los Angeles Times
three decades after her rapist's death, calling him a “dear friend and one of the great directors of our time . . .”

So many thoughts running through his head. But he decided to go with the obvious. “Your husband didn't pull out of the movie.”

Mary nodded. “He told me I must be seeing things,” she said. “He called me delusional. He said
I
was sick. Made me promise never to mention it again.”

“Wow,” Barry said.

“When I got outside, there was McFadden, chatting up my son like it was any other day on set.”

“What about Bellamy?”

“She didn't say a word about it. But she changed.” She gave him a sad smile. “We all did.”

She twisted her wedding band—a thick, white gold conversation piece, crusted with diamonds. “Sterling never stopped acting,” she said quietly. “He played a role his whole life. Lied to the world, to all of us, time and time again.”

“Mary?” Barry said.

“Yes.”

“You want to tell me what happened three nights ago?”

“I killed him,” she said. “Shot him three times, twice in the chest, once in the head.”

“Do you feel bad about it?”

She glanced at the tape recorder, then returned to Barry's face. “What I feel bad about,” she said, “is waiting thirty-five years.”

H
ow did it go?” said Vee, after the screen test.

“Fine.” Kelly couldn't say any more than that. The receptionist's lounge in his dad's Century City office was all white, with white leather couches, one wall lined with white-framed movie posters, the other made entirely of smoky glass bricks. It felt kind of like a spaceship to her, one from some old movie she'd seen on TV once but whose title she couldn't remember. She thought about that. The movie on TV. The whiteness of the room. She still couldn't look at Vee's face. Before the screen test, she'd been able to plead nerves when he asked her why she was so quiet. What could she say now?

“You okay?” Kelly felt Vee's hand at the small of her back, light, tentative. She wanted to scream.

“Uh-huh.”

Bellamy had been reading a
People
magazine. She put it down. “Let's get the fook outta here,” she said, her gaze moving from Kelly's face to the framed poster, just behind her, for the movie
Defiance
: Bellamy's dad in silhouette, eleven-year-old Vee in the foreground—a scared young boy in a cowboy
hat.
A John McFadden Western
under the title in blazing red letters. Her eyes narrowed, as though she was angry at it.

The receptionist was a model-skinny woman in a white halter dress, with pale blond hair that looked as though it had been dyed to match the office. She was strikingly beautiful—one of those people of a different species than Kelly. Vee turned to her. “Isn't my dad going to come out and talk to us?”

“One sec, hon.” She picked up the phone and buzzed him, speaking in hushed, concerned tones. “He's got a conference call, Vincent. He says he'll see you back at the house.”

Vee frowned. “Okay.” He headed for the door, and Bellamy and Kelly followed, Kelly watching the receptionist, who glanced up, meeting her gaze. Kelly held it.
Lucky for you, you're too old for him
.

Bellamy grabbed her hand, yanked her toward the door. She put her lips up to Kelly's ear. “Keep it together,” she whispered.

IN THE CAR, BELLAMY SAID, “YOU WANT TO HEAR SOME MUSIC?”

Kelly shook her head. She was in the backseat, Vee in the front. They pulled out of the enclosed lot, Vee watching her, sea blue gaze on her face in the rearview.

“You okay, Kelly?”

Bellamy shot her a look.

“Yeah,” she said quickly. “I'm just . . .” She cleared her throat. “I didn't get to visit my dad today.”

“Sorry, sweetie, but I can't take you to Betty Ford,” Bellamy said. “I have a date with Steve Stevens. He hates it when I'm late.”

Vee said, “Do you always have to call him by his first and last name?”

And Bellamy picked up her cue, waxing on about Steve Stevens for the whole ride back to Gower, saving Kelly from the pain of trying to
talk. When they got to the front of the castle, Kelly opened the door fast and flew out.

“I'll walk you up,” said Vee.

“That's okay.”

She tore for the front door and shoved the key in. Catherine's lipstick was in her front pocket. It pressed against her hip bone, burning. She took the stairs instead of the elevator, took them two at a time, her feet slamming into the stairs, forcing herself winded, just so she could breathe.

When she got to her floor, she bent over, hands on her knees, breath coming in gasps.
I can't. I can't. I can't do this . . .

Soon, Kelly became aware of a pounding on the wall, just above her. McFadden's second apartment. She moved back on the landing, moved halfway up the next flight. She saw red hair, skinny legs in Dolphin shorts, little fists slamming into the door. She said, “He's at his office,” and the girl turned. The Mounds girl.

Her eyes were wide, panicky. She swallowed hard, her face relaxing. Acting. “Thanks.”

The girl started down the stairs. She was tiny up close, a spray of freckles across her nose. The Mounds commercial had taken place on a playground. She'd sprouted wings and flown off the jungle gym to get to the candy. Kelly said, “You should stay away from him.”

She passed her without replying, without looking at her. Kelly pulled the lipstick out of her pocket and stared at it, flashing on Catherine, who could apply her lipstick without looking in a mirror. “
It's only available in Europe,
” she'd told her once. “
A special friend gave it to me . . .”

Tears sprung into Kelly's eyes. She heard more footsteps on the stairs and soon Vee was rounding the flight, winded and smiling. “Bellamy ditched me for her date so I'll have to call a cab,” he said. “But I'm walking you to the door whether you like it or not.”

She looked at him.

“What's wrong?”

She gripped the silver lipstick tube, her throat clenching. He moved toward her. She felt the weight of his hand on her shoulder, the warmth of it, and she couldn't hold it in. She couldn't keep it together. Kelly grabbed Vee's hand, dropped the silver tube into it. “Your father,” she said. “That's what's wrong.” She slipped to the floor and he slipped down with her. He put his arms around her. “Talk to me,” he said.

She told him everything.

After she was finished, he stood up. Kelly gazed up at him. She had expected tears to match her own, but what she saw in his face was worse—something in his eyes that was beyond anger, beyond hurt. Some emotion she'd never seen before, one that made her feel as though she'd set off a bomb, the timer ticking, nothing she could do. “I'm sorry,” she said. “I couldn't . . . I had to . . .”

“I know,” he said quietly. “I know you had to.”

He turned. Headed down the stairs, faster and faster, footsteps like firecrackers exploding.

Kelly didn't see Vee again for two weeks, when he showed up at his father's wrap party, on the hottest night of the year.