Chapter 12
CHAPTER TWELVE
Present Day
Sherman Oaks, California
Mission Day Two
While Jules was in the shower, Sam sat down to a very unsatisfying breakfast of Cheerios and toast—washed down with the very last half-mug of coffee in the house.
There was for damn sure a stop in their immediate future for a far more venti cup, and probably a pre-lunch sandwich, too.
This day was looking to be a long one.
Yesterday evening, post-pizza, they’d gotten back to work, reaching out again to Devonshire’s three previous housekeepers—all of whom were home and happy to chat.
The most recent of them—both Paula and Cathy—confirmed what Rene had told Jules that afternoon.
That the library was used as Dead Milt’s bedroom, and that there were no files or stacks of scripts in the house that they were aware of.
However Helen, who’d worked at Devonshire Place for most of her life, told a different story.
Back in her day, both Milts, young and old, had bedrooms upstairs.
The library was elder Milt’s office and it was filled with scripts and overflowing file cabinets.
And yes, Mr. D had both a calendar and an address book.
Leather bound and kept in the top drawer of his desk.
She’d let Sam know—he’d won the job of calling her—that she hadn’t left her job by choice back when Dead Milt had a stroke three years ago.
Apparently the old man’s condition required medically-trained staff, so she would have been redundant and was let go.
She was pretty damn bitter about it, even after all these years.
Which made sense—the estate had been her home, too.
She’d lived on site, and she’d had to move out. In some haste, apparently.
It was another piece of information to add to his Ernest-Harper-was-a-soulless-piece-of-shit file.
But judgment of the lawyer aside, Helen’s info had made hope bloom in Sam’s heart. If Dead Milt’s desk was still in the library it was possible his calendar and address book were in there, just waiting for them to pull open that top drawer and flip their way to the J-for-Johnsons.
Recognizing a potentially case-breaking clue when he heard one, Sam had asked and been told that the desk was huge and heavy, made of solid oak. It was unlikely that it had been moved from the library because of that. Also, according to Helen, Where else in the house would they put it?
So that was a win of sorts.
As was Jules’s skill in tracking down Dead Milt’s buddy-on-the-payroll Gavin LaCrosse to an IATSE-connected old age home in nearby Pasadena.
IATSE was the union for the behind-the-scenes crew in the TV and movie industry—Robin was a bottomless pit of info about that, since he was heavily involved in his own union, the Screen Actors Guild or SAG.
Robin had also done a deeper dive into LaCrosse’s IMDb page—the Boy Wonder had the Pro version of the Internet Movie Database, which gave him far more details than Sam had been able to see on his phone—and discovered that the octogenarian had been an assistant editor on nearly all of Dead Milt’s TV shows.
It was only in the last few years of the man’s career that he’d done a bit of producing and directing—back about ten years ago—but none of his shows had been successful. Not even close.
Soon after that, LaCrosse had retired, and moved into assisted living. Jules had called the facility to find out visiting hours—and had made an appointment to talk to the old man in the early afternoon.
With the later afternoon reserved for meeting the fourth and final housekeeper, Rene Williams, over at the estate and hopefully getting that key to the library where that desk drawer lived, their morning had been left wide open for knock, knock, knocking on a random bunch of Emily Johnsons’ doors.
And wasn’t that gonna be fun?
Jules had already done the painstaking work of locating the Emilys who lived closest to both the Pasadena old age home, and to Devonshire Place.
When Sam brought his sad little half-a-mug-of-coffee breakfast over to the table where one of the laptops was out and open, he saw the list of addresses.
Jules had also printed out a hardcopy for them to take when they left the house as well as—yup—emailing it to them both.
He must’ve been up for hours in the night, doing some of that hardcore not-sleeping that was plaguing him these days.
As Sam glanced through the list, he saw that there were only four Emily Johnsons in those two specific areas, so Jules had added a few from Glendale and WeHo and even as far away as Hollywood to their list. Although if he honestly thought they’d manage to knock on that many doors in just a few hours, with all of the travel time, traffic, and parking involved, well, he was gonna be disappointed.
Still, this was Jules, so he was probably completely aware of how annoyingly frustrating the door-knocking was going to be, and he also probably figured that half of these Emilys wouldn’t even be home.
So yeah, making a list of a cool dozen that would result in two or three actual contacts—if they were lucky—was probably exactly right.
Sam poured himself a second bowl of Cheerios to use up the last of his milk as Robin wandered into the kitchen in his bare feet and bedhead.
He’d pulled on shorts and a T-shirt—probably only because Sam was here. If it was just the two of them, no doubt he’d be in his boxers.
If that.
“I thought you were working today,” Sam said.
“My call’s not til later,” Robin reported, coffee filter in his hands, searching the cabinets and even the fridge for more coffee grounds.
Sam gave him the bad news. “We’re out.”
“That’s probably just as good,” Robin said with a heavy sigh as he pulled an apple out of the fridge drawer and washed it instead. “I really shouldn’t have a third cup. Jules was up early, so I had breakfast with him at around five.” He took a bite.
“Was he up early or just... up?” Sam asked.
Robin held up two fingers and touched his nose as he chewed—as if he were playing charades—meaning, the second thing Sam had said. Just up.
“Yeah, that’s what I thought.”
Robin swallowed and said, “I got him to go back to sleep for about an hour at around 5:30.”
Oh to be young enough to drink two mugs of coffee and then blithely go back to sleep.
“I’ve been thinking about that note,” Robin continued. “I even dreamed about it last night. I win. Too bad for you. Who punishes someone by leaving them twenty million dollars?”
“Hit me harder, Gramps,” Sam said as he finished the last of his coffee.
Robin laughed as he dug through the rubble of papers and files that Jules had spread out on the table.
He pulled out the copy of the note that Dead Milt had written, and pointed to the bottom.
“The asshole who just left you a fortune,” he read Dead Milt’s sign-off, then added, “I’d bet a million dollars, well, twenty million of his dollars, that Emily, whoever she is, called him that.
Asshole. And he’s such an asshole—he’s an angry, mean, cold-hearted asshole—that he wears the label like a badge.
Like he’s proud of it. And Jesus, this line, right here? ”
He pointed to the note, but Sam didn’t look too closely because he knew he was about to get a dramatic reading.
“Enjoy the freaking work of art—or burn it to the ground. I’ll be dead and will care even less than I currently do.
” Robin laughed a little. “If I were given that line in a script, I’d add quite a bit of subtext.
His words say I don’t care, like whatever, but that’s not a whatever.
It’s the opposite of a whatever. This is someone who cares very deeply.
The whatever is completely feigned. And he’s talking about the estate, which he obviously loves, right?
Although, it’s a freaking work of art—which is clearly in air-quotes, like it’s something Emily said to him, because I sincerely doubt this angry old man calls anything a freaking anything.
” He took another bite of his apple for emphasis.
“Huh,” Sam said. “So Emily’s an... architect?”
Robin made a that’s probably wrong face as he chewed.
“Or... someone who came in to do repairs,” Sam hypothesized. “Fix the roof or...?”
Now Robin was looking less skeptical but as he swallowed he said, “Maybe...? House like that does have a crazy amount of upkeep. Back when I was living with Janey in her monstrosity—” his sister still lived in a rambling old Hollywood estate, and Robin had lived there with her, back before he’d met Jules “—there were so many things we could not DIY. After you pay a team to patch the roof, then you need to rewire, or fix the plumbing. And then you start with the roof again. It’s endless. So... Could be...?”
Sam pulled the copy of Devonshire’s note to Emily closer to him and read it again.
Thanks for the new experience, Emily.
Oh, except this document I’ve just signed makes it the same old-same old, doesn’t it? Money. It’s always about more money.
So I win. Too bad for you.
Enjoy the freaking work of art—or burn it to the ground. I’ll be dead and will care even less than I currently do.
The asshole who just left you a fortune.
“I dunno,” Sam said. He looked up to find Robin reading over his shoulder.
“That man loved two things,” Robin said. “And only two things. His estate and his money. Must’ve sucked royally to be Milt Junior.”
Sam glanced at him again—they both had had fathers who’d failed epically when it came to loving their children. So, yeah. He had empathy for the royal suckage that Milt the Junior had surely endured—but that didn’t mean he believed him.
And liars often begot liars—this note reeked of Dead Milt’s insincerity and hostility and general nastiness.