Chapter 8 #3
“Well, that explains it, then,” Harper said.
“Early in his career, if Mr. Devonshire had a limited budget for a project, he would get creative with someone like a director or even the post-production team. Give everyone producing credit, and this type of relatively low long-term payout. I’ll dig through his contracts to confirm that, although God knows it might well’ve been a handshake deal. ”
“But would those kind of payments really have come out of his personal account?” Jules asked. “I mean, I understand the concept, my husband is an actor who’s dabbled in producing, but we’re always careful to keep our business and personal banking separate.”
“Maybe LaCrosse was blackmailing him,” Milt suggested and Harper bristled. “Relax, Ernie, that was a joke.”
“I’ll have to check into it,” Harper said. “It may have been... charity disguised as employment—something he couldn’t have accounted for over on the production company side.”
“Charity?” Milt said. “Really? Have you met my father?”
“Looks like LaCrosse is... in his late-eighties,” Sam found the man’s date of birth and did the math, “but according to this he’s not dead, so I’m guessing he’s retired.”
“We’ll track him down, too,” Jules said. “Someone his age—a relative contemporary—could be a good source of info, especially if he knew Mr. Devonshire well. This is definitely a good place to start.” He smiled again. “I think that’s about all for now—unless you have any questions for us.”
“What do you think about posting a notice on social media or even running an ad in the newspaper?” Milt asked. “Get the word out that we’re looking for Emily Johnson.”
Jules was gentle with his Oh hell no. “That’s.
.. probably not a great way to start,” he said.
“It could bring all kinds of unwanted attention to the search. For sure, if we come up cold, we’ll absolutely consider that approach, but let’s start by talking to the people we knew were in your father’s life. ”
Milt nodded, seemingly content to let Jules run the show, which was nice.
And because he still didn’t sound like a man who hoped they wouldn’t find Emily Johnson, Sam leaned forward. He’d intentionally sat back and mostly listened and watched up to this point, but it was clearly time to throw some blunt-cop energy into the mix.
“I have a few questions before we go,” he said, glancing at Jules in deference. Jules was, after all it, as Sam had proclaimed in the elevator.
Jules met Sam’s eyes for the first time in a while. “Please,” he said.
Sam widened his eyes. The biggest one is, Is that a wig or what the fuck...?
Jules coughed to cover his laughter, looking pointedly away.
So Sam was left to ask his less pressing questions. “You said you weren’t surprised to be cut out of your father’s will—that you broke ties... was it ten years ago?” he asked Milt now.
“Eleven,” Milt said, adding, “I think. Around there.”
“Was there a... instigating incident, or...?”
The lawyer looked over at Milt at that, and Milt glanced back at the man before saying, “Just... me being done with his endless bullshit. You know how it is.”
And even though Sam knew exactly what it was like to be completely done with an asshole father’s endless bullshit, he also knew that Milt was lying about this.
His “line delivery,” as Jules’s actor husband Robin would describe it, was a tad too casual.
Nothing to see, move it along... It was clear from the way that Jules was nodding that he picked up on that, too.
But okay, team, let’s play pretend.
“So you figured it wasn’t gonna be you named in the will,” Sam said to Milt. “Did you have any guesses who it might be instead?”
“Well, like, his dog, if he had one,” Undead-Milt said with a laugh. “But dogs didn’t like him very much. Cats even less, so I dunno. Maybe some charity, but something offensive like some NIMBY organization or anti-vax group.” He again looked to Harper. “You knew him better.”
“I believed it was going to be you,” Harper responded primly. “And it was, up until—”
“It wasn’t,” Milt finished for him. “You really think it was by chance that he rewrote his will while you were unavailable? You’re a bigger idiot than I thought.”
Harper huffed his outrage, but held his tongue.
Sam turned to the lawyer. “Who would’ve been your best guess, if you’d been in the office at that time, and heard that he was coming in to do a rewrite?”
Harper sighed his exasperation. “I really couldn’t say.”
“You were managing his funds,” Sam pushed.
Harper had already told them he hadn’t delegated the day-to-day management of Dead Milt’s expenses to some lower-paid underling, which seemed odd.
But maybe not. Dead Milt’s shit-ton of money surely had bought him a lot of hand-holding and ass-kissing by this named partner at his small but elite firm.
Harper exhaled again. “I honestly don’t know.
I guess I might say... a female companion—he had plenty of those, and his note certainly implies.
..” He cleared his throat. “All three of his wives predeceased him, but after Tiffany passed, he was vocal about never marrying again. Both divorces before her were acrimonious but her cancer was even more unpleasant.”
Milt made a strangled sound that might’ve been laughter. “Yeah, my mother’s cancer really made Dad’s life a shitshow. Jesus Christ, Ernie, you’re as awful as he was.”
“I’m awful?” Harper countered, his indignation blooming as Sam settled back to observe what details might be revealed as the client and his father’s lawyer mud wrestled.
But it was not to be, because Harper was well aware that Jules and Sam were listening closely. He reined himself in and said, “If we’re done here.” There was no dot dot dot with a question mark in his voice, but Sam didn’t care.
“Almost,” he said cheerfully. “Just give me a gut reaction, since you two knew Dea—” Don’t call him Dead Milt!
“Devonshire Senior, and well, obviously we never met him. Is Emily Johnson more likely to be a common-law partner or a hooker with a heart of gold? Don’t think too hard, just knee-jerk your answer. ”
Of course they didn’t. They took their sweet time as they looked at each other again—but maybe that was just to see who was going first. Wig-Milt gestured for Harper to speak.
“I learned to never assume I could guess what Mr. Devonshire might want or do,” Harper said stiffly.
“He certainly had a penchant for buying things that aren’t normally for sale,” Milt chimed in with—interesting—a sharper than usual edge to his voice, and again Harper looked over at him for more of that loaded eye contact.
But then Milt laughed and shrugged. “But if I pissed him off—and I’m sure I pissed him off by not giving a shit about his money—Emily could’ve been some kid, knocking on his door selling Girl Scout cookies. ”
Okay.
Last but way not least, it was time to point-blank the question he was dying to ask. No, not wig but, “You really don’t seem bothered,” Sam aimed his words at Undead-Milt, “by the fact that your father’s millions are going to someone who’s a stranger to you. What’s up with that?”
Milt laughed a little. “Damn, you don’t pull your punches, do you? I like you.” He looked over at Jules, too. “I like both of you. This is good. I’m feeling good about this.”
Great, thanks, now answer the question. Sam kept his waiting-for-an-answer expression on his face.
Milt met his eyes and laughed again. “Mr. Starrett, I don’t want a fucking penny of that fucker’s money because, well, he’s a motherfucker. My tenth of a percent’s going to charity as soon as we find Emily and get this handled and as for me, well, he’ll finally be out of my life for good.”
“It’s a crap-load of money,” Sam countered. “The amount Emily’s getting.”
“It is,” Milt agreed. “But I don’t want it.
Believe it or not, I have enough of my own, I don’t need his.
I want Emily to have it—I mean, whoever she is, I don’t care who she is.
He left it to her, so it’s hers. Let’s find her.
I want to find her. You can find her, right?
” He looked from Sam to Jules. “You came highly recommended.”
Harper cleared his throat, clearly ill at ease as Jules again said, “We’ll absolutely find her. It may take a little time, but it’s just not going to be that hard.”
Milt nodded as he looked over at Harper. “Get them the keys and copies of all the paperwork you have on file. Everything. Digitally, as well, please.” He smiled almost happily at the man as he twisted his knife. “Ernie.”
The lawyer smiled tightly in response. “Of course, Mr. Devonshire.”
Van Nuys, California
Mick parked his car in Emily’s driveway, then used the keys she had given him to let himself in.
Her house was cool and quiet.
She had a security camera set up on the mantle of her gas fireplace, and she surely got a notice from her app of the movement in the room, so he waved at the lens. He texted her, too. As long as he was here...
Anything else I can get for you, besides the sweatshirt and your books?
It wasn’t the question he wanted to ask: When did you meet my father and just how ungodly awful was he to you?
The investigators from Troubleshooters and Ernest Harper all believed his father’s note was referencing some kind of sexual encounter, which had made him really uncomfortable.
But it was okay. They didn’t know Emily. New experience...? Yeah, no. The idea that she could’ve or would’ve... No. Nope. It was both bleach-his-brain awful and snowball’s chance in hell.
But his father had met her. That much was clear. And it probably wasn’t because he’d sought her out.
Five years ago, she’d been... twenty-two. Just out of college. Probably recently returned from that trip she’d taken to Alaska. Young and yes, open to new experiences, she’d no doubt managed to intercept Milt Senior somewhere, somehow.
Intercept and make an impression. Although that note was... It was typical of his father. I win. Way to make what was possibly his only attempt at redemption and generosity sound more like a curse, or even a punishment.
She’d never mentioned meeting Milt Senior, but then again, she hadn’t told Mick very much at all about her mother’s death.
Mick found her sweatshirt—bright blue—exactly where she’d told him it would be, draped over the back of one of her dining area chairs. The books were in her bedroom and as he went down the hall he was struck by how good it smelled in here—as if Emily herself was waiting for him in her bed.
Alas, she was a two-and-a-half-hour, heavily-trafficked drive away. The room was as quiet and still as the rest of the house.
A text swooshed in as he took all three of the books in her—what did she call it? Her Tbr pile. At least he took all of the books in this to-be-read pile. She had another larger stack—stacks, plural—in the living room on the console beneath the TV.
Hey, if you don’t mind, she’d texted him back, would you bring me the apples and whatever’s left of the bag of clementines from the drawer in the fridge? I’m jonsing for some fruit that doesn’t come frozen in a glass with rum.
He texted back the dancing man and a heart, even as his phone displayed the dots that informed him that she was typing another text as he went into the kitchen and found the fruit.
Another swoosh. Thank you!! What’s your ETA? Think you’ll make it back tonight?
Absolutely, he texted. From here I’m on my way to you.
He’d stopped at his house to shower off Milt and to change his clothes before coming here.
Of course, he would’ve gone home to do that first regardless of Em’s security camera.
De-Milting had been a priority, and he dashed from the lawyer’s office to the parking garage—nearly running over a man who’d been lurking in the coolness, wouldn’t that have been peachy keen—as he got the hell out of there as quickly as he could after confirming his father’s Palm Desert address with Harper’s assistant Greg.
His father had hated the Palm Springs area—too many gay people and golfers—so Mick had been sure it was a safe place for him and Emily to hide.
Except, nope, it wasn’t. Ernest Harper went there regularly to “check on” the property. Check on it. Yeah. Right.
But after Mick’s initial panic had faded a bit, he’d realized that not only was the golfing community of Palm Desert far enough from downtown Palm Springs to not have to worry about running into the lawyer on the sidewalk or at a trendy restaurant, but his disguise—both the clothes and the wig—had been effective.
Even if Harper literally bumped into them on the street, he was so arrogantly self-absorbed that he wouldn’t recognize Mick as being the same Milton Devonshire Junior who’d spent the morning in his office conference room, stinking up the joint.
Mick had kept the wig on in the car—God it was hot and it really did smell terrible—until he was certain no one was following him.
And maybe he was being paranoid, but Ernest Harper was a devious prick and he’d learned years ago—the hard way—that it was better to be safe than sorry.
So Mick drove all the way down into Hollywood before looping around onto the 405 and going back to the Valley and his place in Woodland Hills.
It wasn’t the most efficient route to the desert, to then have to divert back up here to Van Nuys again, but it was the safest.
How’d the meeting go? Emily texted and it jolted him a little before he remembered. He’d told her he had a face-to-face with the producer for the indie film for which he was doing post-production sound.
OK. Fire’s out for now, he sent back. I’ll call you from the road when the traffic thins.
I never went back to sleep this morning after you left and I’m about to take a nap, she texted back. So if I don’t pick up...
His curiosity was through the roof, but he was nothing if not patient.
After he arrived tonight, he’d ask her. He would make the question casual, after asking how she was doing and if she’d heard anything from Carlotta.
“Hey, did you ever meet him? Milton Devonshire? I’ve been reading about him and he sounds like a real asshole. ..”
No worries, he typed back now. Sleep well.
Her response was a heart, and as he locked her door behind him, he hoped with all of his heart that he could get this done, that he could pull this off.
And maybe live happily ever after.