Chapter 8 #2
Or maybe not so secretly. Harper had informed them that he’d met with Dead Milt regularly in their years-long relationship, and in the more recent years, as the producer had gotten older and more frail, Harper took on power of attorney.
He’d handled the old man’s finances, paid his bills, and organized his nursing and security staff.
He was, he insisted, shocked—shocked!—to discover that the Devonshire fortune wouldn’t be going to Milt the Junior as the previous version of the will had clearly stated.
Wig-Milt, however, had made a stepped-in-dog-turd face at that point, and basically called the lawyer an idiot for thinking that. He seemed convinced that his break with his father had been mutual. That the bad blood between them was, in his words, irrevocable.
Sam now risked another look at the man, but the glare from that maybe-a-wig violently burned his eyeballs, so it was hard for him to tell if Milt was lying his bewigged ass off.
Sure, he’d authorized his father’s accountant to pass along financial information, but that could well be a dead end.
It was entirely possible—quite feasible, in fact—that hiring investigators to find someone unfindable was the first step in taking the will to probate court and sincerely telling the judge, “We tried our best to find her, your honor, but I guess the money has to go to lil ol’ me instead. ”
“We’ll start the investigation focused on things that are less of a long shot.
” Jules smiled as he looked from Harper to Milt—only glancing briefly at Sam, no doubt afraid to make any kind of real eye contact because the WTF meter in this room was fully pinned to Are you fucking serious, and not just about Milt’s bad wig.
“What exactly is your plan?” Harper asked. “Knock on the door of every Emily Johnson in California?”
Jules chuckled. “If we have to, yes. Our support team—” he made it sound impressive, but their current “team” was former CIA agent Dave Malkoff, working in his very sparse spare time with new TS recruit and former SEAL Jay Lopez down in the San Diego office “—is compiling a list of Emily Johnsons who live in the immediate area. That’s one way to find her—if our other leads dead-end. ”
“That could get expensive,” Harper pointed out. “There must be dozens of women named Emily Johnson in the area. Assuming she’s from Los Angeles.”
“Well, before we do that, my associate and I—” he glanced again at Sam who tried to look as much like Jules’s associate as possible instead of a man whose brain was melting from burning questions about that horrific wig “—will start at Devonshire Place. See if there’s any mention of Ms. Johnson in Mr. Devonshire’s personal office.
Maybe we’ll get lucky and there’ll be photos of the two of them on the mantle. ”
Milt the Junior laughed, but then caught himself.
“He was never big on family portraits or photos of any kind unless they were taken by the photographer from Variety,” he told them, then gave another of those big shrugs.
Again, no radical movement from the “wig.” “But, hey, who’s to say? Maybe he mellowed in his final years.”
“Was the estate in Burbank Mr. Devonshire’s only property?” Jules asked.
Milt said, “Yes,” as Harper said, “No.”
Harper continued, “He also has—had—a... vacation home in Palm Springs.”
Milt was genuinely surprised. “He hated Palm Springs.”
“Well, it’s really in Palm Desert,” Harper said, as if that wasn’t the geographical equivalent of tomato-tomahto. Palm Desert was a newer, less campy, even more wealthy section of the Coachella Valley. “It’s part of a golfing community.”
Milt sat back in his seat, and now the look he gave Harper was disdain. “He didn’t play golf—but you do.”
“Well, yes he did play in his later years,” Harper said primly. “His doctor insisted he exercise, and I talked him into giving golf a try. He bought the house in Palm Desert so we’d have a comfortable place to stay. You know how much he hated hotels.”
“Almost as much as he hated Palm Springs and golf,” Milt said. “But okay, there’s a house in Palm Desert, too. That’s... good to know.” He did not look happy about that, which was a little strange.
“When was the last time he was there?” Jules leaned in to ask, no doubt thinking that a trip to Palm Desert was in store, to sift through whatever personal items Dead Milt had left behind.
“Well.” Harper cleared his throat, and crossed that particular to-do item off their list by saying, “I’m afraid he never actually made it out there.
The house closed a few weeks after his stroke.
The big one, I mean. He had a small one, a TIA, about a month before that.
I suggested, of course, that we kill the deal, since his mobility was affected—golfing was out, he was very unsteady on his feet after that—but he was adamant about proceeding.
He thought the property would be a good investment—and it has been.
It’s increased in value dramatically in the past few years.
I go there regularly to do maintenance. In fact, I’ll be going there soon. ”
“I bet you will,” Milt the Junior said. “Where exactly is it?”
Harper rattled off an address, and Jules added it to his notes as Milt the Junior made a big show of typing it into his phone.
“Since we’re looking for your father’s personal papers and files, why don’t we focus first on Devonshire Place,” Jules said, daring to look at Milt directly. “If you have time, maybe you could take us over there right now...?”
“Oh, no,” Milt laughed as he pocked his phone. “Noooo. Nope. I haven’t been there in years—I have no desire to go there now. Or ever. Never. Would be the right time. For me to go back. Sorry.”
“I’ll make arrangements for one of our assistants to meet you over there and let you in,” Harper said.
“It’s going to take us a while to do a thorough search,” Jules pointed out. “Days even. We’ll need a key.”
Harper said. “I’m afraid there’s no chance of that.”
“Oh yes, there is,” Milt shot back. “The place is mine, Ernie. Devonshire Place and the Palm Desert house, too.”
Harper bristled, clearly hating both the message and the nickname.
Milt wasn’t done. “Well, one tenth of a percent of it is for now,” he continued.
“But if we can’t find Emily, everything goes to me, God help me—you said so yourself.
That means all of Milt’s shit, including the house and any paperwork that you have on file.
” He turned to Jules. “I’ll make sure you get anything you need, including a key to both houses.
You got the files from the accountant, right? ”
“I did, thanks,” Jules said.
“The accountant?” Harper was not happy about that.
“Payroll files and tax documents,” Milt informed him. “I figured that was the first place to search for Emily.”
“I wish you had informed me.”
“Well, Ernie, I’m informing you now.”
“I feel certain there’s no pertinent information in those files,” Harper said stiffly.
“Actually,” Jules said, “there already was. I found the names and contact numbers of Mr. Devonshire’s housekeepers through the years—I think there were four of them.
” He checked his notes. “Yeah. Helen Davis, Catharine Castor, Paula Giardella, and Rene Williams. I’ll be calling them first—they’re likely to be a good source of information. ”
It was obvious that Harper seriously hated that. “They may be unwilling to talk to you,” he said. “They’ll all have signed NDAs.”
“Of course they did,” Milt the Junior seemed genuinely amused.
“Mr. Devonshire became more and more concerned about keeping his private life private as he got older,” Harper said tightly.
“I bet,” Milt the Junior shot back. “But he’s dead. And as one of the heirs to the estate, in order to find the principal heir—which I desperately want to do—I’m willing to sign whatever I need to sign to give them permission to speak freely. Let it all hang out.”
“That would be great, thanks,” Jules said as Harper clenched his teeth so hard, shards of enamel damn near shot out of his ass.
Still the lawyer managed to smile. “I’ll have my team draw something up.”
“Thanks,” Jules said again, even though it was clear that Harper—for some reason—hated the idea of them talking to any of the housekeepers, and would no doubt drag his feet on getting any kind of document drawn up.
“Oh, actually, there was a recurring name in the payroll files, starting about, I don’t know, around twelve, thirteen years ago.
A Gavin LaCrosse?” He looked from Milt, who shrugged a massive dunno, to Harper who remained puckered and unhappy.
“I’ll have to check those records,” the lawyer said tightly.
“He was paid—and still is, it’s ongoing—what looks like a salary of... five thousand dollars a month,” Jules said as he flipped through his notes. “I thought he might’ve been head of security...?”
“No, that was Clayton Spencer,” Harper said. “I’ve already spoken to him—he never met anyone named Emily Johnson. He checked his records as well—no one by that name ever came onto the property. At least not while he was on site. Which is why talking to the housekeepers seems unnecessary.”
“We’ll still want to talk to them,” Jules said as Sam picked his phone back up and googled Gavin LaCrosse.
“Well, that’ll be a waste of time,” Harper said with another sniff, “but it’s not my money.”
“I’ll need Clayton Spencer’s number, too.” Jules just kept smiling.
“I’ll have Greg, my assistant, get that for you,” Harper said. “As for this Gavin...”
“LaCrosse.” Jules helpfully fed him the name. “With an e at the end.”
“There’s a Gavin LaCrosse who’s a film director,” Sam volunteered the info he’d found from his google search.
The man had worked as an editorial assistant before finally making the leap into producing and directing rather late in his career.
“He’s got a page on the IMDb—the Internet Movie Database. ”