Beautiful Girls (24 page)

^{Tuesday, October 26, 2004}

^{It was a beautiful, sunny autumn day. We rose at eight o'clock and ate breakfast in a lobby restaurant.}

^{I said to Tawny, “You'll meet the two beautiful young women who helped me.”}

^{She replied, “That's cool.”}

^{I noticed that Edie had taken the time to shower, style her hair, put on make-up, and wear a knee-length white cotton dress and white leather boots. She added a long silver necklace and had her diamond on her ring finger. Nothing was overstated, yet Edie looked glamorous.}

^{Tawny's long legs were covered by sky blue leggings. Her blonde hair flowed down the back of her oversized white sweater.}

^{We met in the twins' hospital room. They were delighted to see me and thrilled to be introduced to a real actress.}

^{Harmony said, “It is nice to meet you, Miss McCall.”}

^{Edie won them over from the start when she insisted that they use her first name.}

^{The twins won over Tawny by complimenting her; Melody loved her hair and Harmony thought her outfit was “very stylish”.}

^{The twins wore slings to keep the arms of their injured shoulders immobile. As compared to the night before, their wounds really ached as the anesthesia was now only a memory. They put up a brave front, but limited their movements. They didn't want anything. Everyone waited for me to begin my story.}

^{Tawny was seated on the reclining chair, alternately raising and lowering her feet. Edie and I sat in the side chairs.}

^{While I was getting my thoughts together, Melody said, “Go ahead, Stevie, we're ready.”}

^{Edie added, “Yes, Stevie, go ahead.”}

^{“OK, OK, I was trying to think how to begin. I guess the best way to do it is to say you four are all family.”}

^{Harmony said, “We are?”}

^{“Yes, and none of you are related to Rob Nealy.”}

^{Everyone looked at Edie. She said, “Stevie told me a lot of this story last night, including this big news. I had your reaction – how could it be?”}

^{“I will explain. Let me say these opening statements first. Harmony and Melody, Edie is your half sister; you had the same father. You are also second cousins to Edie, as your mothers were first cousins. So, Melody and Harmony, you are nearly full sisters with Edie. And, ladies, you three are half-aunts to Tawny, and were half-aunts to Troy. Melody and Harmony, it is a shame you never met him.}

^{“Finally, even though I've only known you five days, I'm thrilled that you'll be my sisters-in-law. And, Tawny, I'm so glad you'll be my niece.”}

^{The four women stared at me. Melody broke the ice when she said, “Awesome!”}

^{Harmony began to cry tears of joy. Tawny looked bored. Edie urged me to carry on.}

^{“OK, now for the details.”}

 

 

^{Sid Gabriel, Senior was the father of four children. The world knew Sid's namesake. Only three other people knew of the parental link to his three daughters, Edie McCall, and Harmony and Melody Pima. However, this in-the-know trio was not the female siblings.}

^{Edie's mother, Sandra McCall, met Sid Gabriel, Senior in 1969 when he filmed his Academy Award winning movie,
The Sheriff
. The filming was in the desert country outside Tucson. Sandra was hired by the movie team as a production assistant to Sid, Senior. The filming lasted for four months due to set problems and some bad weather.}

^{Sometime during filming, an affair started between Sid, Senior and Sandra. Sandra got pregnant. The baby conceived was Edie.}

^{At the time, Sandra was twenty-five and a waitress in a Summerhaven restaurant. Summerhaven is the mountaintop town near Edie's cabin. Edie's grandfather, Joseph McCall, owned the cabin as a vacation home. He lived in Tucson and worked as a principal at a high school. McCall let his daughter, Sandra, live in the cabin full time.}

^{Sandra had two close friends. One was Rob Nealy. Sandra and Rob were going steady. Rob was a Tucson native, too, and worked in Summerhaven as a mechanic at an auto shop. When this major movie came to town, the local newspaper had want ads for help. On a lark, Rob and Sandra decided to apply and sent in applications. They were surprised to be hired. Sandra was floored when she became Sid, Senior's assistant.}

^{Mostly Sandra's job was to keep Sid's trailer clean and to be his gofer. Still, it was fun. That fun turned to titillation when Sid turned his charm on Sandra. She couldn't resist him even though he was forty-nine years old.}

^{One other person was involved too; Sandra's first cousin, Caroline McCall. Sandra and Carrie's fathers were brothers. Carrie had dated Rob in high school and college, but he broke up with her after he connected with Sandra in Summerhaven. Carrie didn't mind. She was glad Sandra was happy.}

^{Carrie was going to graduate school at the University of Arizona. She was hired as an assistant to the movie's leading lady. Carrie met Sid, Senior during filming and he turned on his charm, but nothing happened, at that time.}

^{As
The Sheriff
finished filming, Sid, Senior asked Sandra and Rob to come to Los Angeles and live in his estate with his wife and son. They would be the Gabriels' maid and custodian. Rob and Sandra agreed. Sandra believed Sid, Senior made this generous offer because he knew she was pregnant with his child. Yet, they never spoke about it.}

^{Shortly thereafter, Rob and Sandra married. Six months later, Edith McCall Nealy was born on May 3, 1970.}

^{Years passed. Rob and Sandra had a reasonable life working and living in the Gabriel's Beverly Hills mansion and their beach home in Malibu. Sid, Senior continued making movies. Sid's son, Sid, Junior, started in the business. All the while, the secret of Edie's parentage stayed hidden.}

^{Then, in December 1979, Sid, Senior was asked to make the sequel to
The Sheriff
. He agreed. That movie,
The Sheriff Returns
, would be filmed the following summer in the mountains above Tucson. Sid would win his second Oscar for his reprised role.}

^{Eleven years had elapsed since the first movie. Sid, Senior was now sixty years old. Carrie McCall was now thirty-six, single and childless. She worked as a teacher in a Catholic grade school and had the summer off. One day she read about this movie coming to town and that it would star Sid Gabriel, Senior. She had a flashback to the filming of the original movie many years earlier.}

^{She knew what happened to Sandra. She had seen Edie a few times and guessed who her real father was. About seven years earlier, she discreetly asked Sandra the question.}

^{Sandra wouldn't deny it. Instead, she said her life in Beverly Hills was not so great. Rob had become an alcoholic. Sandra was just the Gabriel family's maid. She did admit that the Gabriels treated her well. Even though Edie was Sid, Senior's daughter, neither of them acknowledged it publicly. She knew Edie couldn't be told the truth. Sandra always dreaded Rob learning the truth. She made Carrie swear that she'd keep the secret. Carrie agreed.}

^{Even with this difficult legacy, Carrie found herself applying for a job in the movie. She even wrote Sid, Senior a letter and sent it to the Tucson production office.}

^{To Carrie's surprise, she got a call from Sid, Senior. He remembered her and he wanted her to be his personal assistant during filming. She agreed and history seemed to repeat itself. Carrie became pregnant.}

^{A baby would certainly disrupt Carrie's personal life and her career. She committed her second sin, to use her words, when she asked for a leave of absence, claiming the need to help a sick relative who lived back east. In reality, she moved to Phoenix and lived in an apartment for six months until the baby was born. Putting the baby up for immediate adoption was the final step in her plan. It was then that Carrie discovered she was carrying twins. Harmony and Melody were born on April 30, 1981. Six hours after their birth, Carrie handed them over to the State, assured in her belief that as infants they would be adopted out immediately and have a far better life than she could offer as a single mother.}

^{Carrie's rent, board and medical expenses were the only help she ever asked and received from Sid, Senior. So, he did know the twins were his. Yet, Sid never met his youngest children. He never questioned Carrie's adoption plans.}

^{Once Carrie recovered she went back to her parish school in Tucson. Carrie was an only child. Her mother was dead and her father lived in California. She believed no one ever discovered what happened. She had another life-changing event. She got the calling to be a sister in the Roman Catholic Church.}

^{Then, two years later, in October 1983, she heard that Sid, Senior and his wife were dead. They had drowned while sailing in the Pacific Ocean. That story seemed odd to Carrie, but she let it go and thought nothing more about it.}

^{Years passed. Carrie's guilt grew as she realized that they were never adopted to the loving home she thought they would be, but juggled between foster homes and remaining a product of the State Child Welfare department. Carrie quietly kept tabs on her two daughters. She stopped teaching in the classroom and started counseling youth in the diocese. She had many regrets but each time she reviewed the events of the twins' birth in her mind she believed she had done the correct things. Abortion was not an option for a faithful Catholic, especially one who would become a nun. Raising two daughters alone seemed wrong too. Disclosing her maternity now to the twins would only confuse them. She decided that she could help best by guiding their foster care behind the scenes. When the twins were fifteen years old she got them assigned to the Mesa orphanage and was able to be their counselor.}

^{Meanwhile, Edie Nealy grew up and lived her life at the Gabriel mansion. Like her father and half-brother, she too began an acting career. Edie used her first and middle names as her stage name. She never knew she was Sid, Senior's daughter. It didn't appear that anyone knew.}

^{That's what Carrie thought too, until Sid, Junior was murdered nine years ago in 1995. Edie was twenty-five years old at the time. Everything changed when Rob Nealy was charged with conspiracy and as an accessory to Sid, Junior's murder. Carrie's suspicions were heightened when she learned about Sid, Junior's love child, Tawny.}

^{Months passed. Rob pled guilty and received a ten year prison sentence. Edie reached out to Sister Carrie and told her that Rob hoped she would visit him in the Chino State prison. She did. On that first visit in 1997, Carrie spoke to Rob about the murder of Sid, Junior.}

^{The conversation took an unexpected turn. Rob knew Carrie had given birth to twins because he had eavesdropped on one of Sandra's phone conversations. Rob said this changed his life.}

^{Actually, he snapped. He confronted Sandra and learned the whole story about Edie and the twins. This happened over a decade earlier in 1982. Edie was twelve years old at the time. The twins were just a year and a half old. Rob and Sandra had a difficult conversation with no resolution.}

^{Shortly afterwards, Rob began to plan his first murder. Sandra became sick with her final illness.}

^{During the 1997 conversation with Rob, Carrie couldn't believe what she heard. Rob had taken her question about the crime for which he had been convicted and answered it by revealing earlier events. Carrie had been a party to these acts. Her sins had triggered Rob to commit a double murder.}

^{Rob explained to Carrie what evil he did in 1983. He said it was simple, really. He had been on-board the yacht working for the Gabriels. He pushed Sid, Senior and his wife overboard at night while they were drinking and watching the stars. They drowned quickly. Then, he moved the yacht two miles further out in the Pacific. He left the yacht adrift and took a small power boat back to shore. Once he reached land, he turned the power boat around, aimed it out to sea and jumped onto the beach.}

^{Carrie was horrified and wanted to get away from Rob. She wanted out of the prison. But, Rob had just begun to talk. She was frozen to her seat.}

^{Rob said Sandra didn't live long enough to know for sure about Rob's involvement in the Pacific Ocean murders. She also went to her grave without revealing the truth of Edie's paternity.}

^{Twelve years went by before Rob struck again. During that time, Rob watched as Sid, Junior inherited all of his parents' estate. He saw young Sid divorce his wife, Lana, and live life as a playboy. Sid, Junior had an endless string of girlfriends. Sid acted like a weird Sugar Daddy setting up his conquests in the apartment complex and the condominium community he owned. After Sandra died, Sid, Junior pushed Rob out of the mansion into the manager's job at one of his apartments. Edie remained at the mansion as Sid's sort-of live-in girlfriend. Strangely, these actions didn't bother Rob that much.}

^{No, Rob snapped again for a different reason. He cracked because he believed history was repeating itself. Sid, Junior's relationship with Bambi Deer wounded Rob.}

^{Like his father before him, Sid, Junior fooled Rob. Rob thought they met Bambi for the first time at Modern Girls, the gentlemen's club where she worked. For a while, the three of them had done things together, like having dinner and going to the race track. Rob had even hoped to date Bambi.}

^{Then, Rob discovered that Sid and Bambi had begun an affair two years earlier. Bambi had become pregnant. Tawny was already born. Bambi and Sid were secretly engaged and had already planned their future together.}

^{Rob told Carrie that one day after lunch together, he followed Sid to Bambi's condo. He watched from his car as Sid and Bambi played with Tawny in a park. That was too hard for Rob to take. When an ugly opportunity arose, he conspired with Kathy Reese to kill Sid, Junior. This was different from the official story. Rob had previously said that Kathy Reese was the key conspirator. He had committed perjury by testifying that Reese had planned the murder of Sid, Junior.}

^{In the Chino prison, Rob said that he knew he had done wrong. He regretted acting as he did. Carrie wasn't fully convinced. She felt he was filled with evil thoughts. Still, she suggested that he get counseling and read the Bible. She left a copy of the good book with Rob. Carrie's own past prevented her from revealing Rob's secrets.}

^{More years passed. Carrie got a new job as director of Cactus City Kitchen and the accompanying homeless shelter. From afar she watched the twins grow.}

^{Carrie also continued to visit Rob Nealy. He seemed changed. He told Carrie he had become a Christian. He read his Bible regularly. His behavior and improved attitude warranted a parole hearing for an early release. Carrie spoke to Edie and suggested that Rob could work at her homeless kitchen. Edie said Rob could live at her cabin. That was their plan and Rob agreed to it.}

^{Bambi Gabriel also visited Rob in prison over the years. She forgave him for what he did to Sid, Junior. She welcomed him to stay in the mansion's servants' quarters when he was in L.A. Bambi said she could use Rob's help from time to time. Both Carrie and Bambi were at the parole hearing.}

^{Rob was released from prison in the summer of 2004 and all seemed good. Rob had a job, a home, friends and family who cared for him, and he could get counseling at the kitchen. Things stayed this way for only a couple of months.}

^{Then, Rob broke into murderous rage one last time. A new, final event must have pulled the trigger. Maybe it was several events. It may have been our wedding where he was asked to act as Edie's father. Carrie thinks it may have been Edie's pregnancy. Rob had learned about it somehow. Maybe Bambi told him. Maybe because our baby was conceived the day we became engaged, but before we were married, was too similar to Edie's and the twins' and Tawny's births. Or, maybe he simply hated all the Gabriel family. Perhaps it was all these things. We all know what happened over the past week.}