Elizabeth Basque - Medium Mysteries 02 - Silver Lake (10 page)

Mack was way up in the corner at the far end of the room. About as far away as he could get without leaving the office altogether.

“Pauline, then. All right, you’ve gotten me to agree to see you. Tell me what you want to say. I’ll listen to you, this once. Then if I see you again, I should warn you I might file harassment charges against you. Are we clear?”

“
Perfectly,” I said, looking into his dark eyes. “Well, I hope you take me seriously. There are three things I need to tell you. And, in return, or should I say as a favor to me, I’d like to ask you some questions about your father’s demise. His death. As you know, I don’t think he died a natural death. I’m sure of it, and if I can, I’d like to find out the truth.”

“
Shoot.” He leaned back in his leather swivel chair and put his feet up on the desk. “If you give me something important, I may answer some of your questions.”

“
You’re not going to like any of it,” I cautioned. Julie stayed quiet, but I was glad she was with me. I could use the moral support. I continued, “The first thing is this.” I shifted in my seat. I really didn’t want to hurt Garrett. “The bracelet your fiancée wears. It’s one of a kind. There isn’t another in the world like it.”

“
So?” he asked. “I’m not surprised. Lana told me it’s a family heirloom, and that she loves it.”

“
Family heirloom,” Julie muttered. I elbowed her.

“
I suppose it could be,” I told Garrett. “The thing is, the bracelet was originally given to your father’s widow, Bella.”

Garrett laughed. “You must be joking. The two have never met.”

“You sure about that?” I asked him.

“
I haven’t seen Bella since my father died. And I don’t want to.” His lips turned down, and his face reddened a bit. “I’m quite sure I would know if Lana ever knew or met Bella. Lana knows how I feel about her.”

“
I’ll say the same thing: Are you sure about that? It’s got an inscription on the inside. It says ‘Bella Mackenzie.’ Have you seen that?”

“
Look.” Garrett’s tone was soft but threatening. “I don’t know what you’re implying about Lana. Bella disappeared after my father’s death. With all of his money.”

“
Really,” Julie said.

“
Really.”

“
Well, you can verify this information if you like. It was made in Ireland, for Bella, by a famous jeweler. He even signed a contract that he would never make another. Your father, Mack, wanted Bella to have something that was hers and hers alone. I guess that doesn’t count for much.”

“
I don’t have to check anything out,” Garrett responded, but I detected a hint of doubt. Just a hint. “What’s next on your list? You had three things you wanted to tell me.”

This time, Julie took the lead. “What would you say if we told you that we were followed here this morning? A man, a thug, tried to keep us from visiting you.”

“I would say that’s highly unlikely, and has nothing to do with me. I’m not sure I believe you. Why would anyone do that?”

“
That’s what we would like to know,” I said. “More importantly,
who
would want to stop us?”

“
Again with the accusations,” he answered wryly. “This is becoming tedious. And, begging your pardon, if such a thing did occur, how did he fail?”

“
Let’s just say he was scared off.” I looked down at my nails, hiding a smile at the memory of Mack frightening the guy.

“
All right, have it your way,” Garrett took his feet off the desk and leaned forward. “So far, you haven’t told me anything of interest. What’s the third thing you want to tell me?”

Julie wanted so badly to tell him about Lana’s lover. She opened her mouth, but I put my hand on hers.

“You will be interested in that, Garrett, I guarantee you. But you won’t be happy about it, so could I please ask you some questions first? As I said, Mack is dear to me, and I’d like to know what events occurred before he died. It would bring him peace.”

At this, Mack swooped down to just beside Garrett’s desk. Julie and I wanted answers. But Mack really wanted to know the truth.

There was a framed picture of Garrett and Lana on the desk, and Mack gathered his strength and gave it a shove. It fell over forward, face down.

Garrett jumped. “How’d you do that?” he asked, glancing around warily.

“I didn’t do anything.”

Before I could say any more, Mack moved in back of Garrett and put a hand on his son’s shoulder. Garrett tensed, sucked in a breath, but then relaxed. Mack stayed that way for a moment, while Garrett looked out his window, lost in thought. I didn’t know what Mack was doing. Perhaps he was sending memories or emotions to his son. Finally, Mack removed his hand, but he stayed next to his son.

“I don’t know what’s going on,” Garrett sounded spent, almost defeated. “I have tried not to look back. But somehow, I feel like I should tell you.”

Julie and I held our breath.

Chapter Eighteen

“My father was a good man,” Garrett began. “It took a long time for me to realize it, but I understand that now. You know my mother died shortly after I was born. It wasn’t easy, especially back in the 80s, to be a single father. He worked a lot, and was out of town often. I resented him for not spending time with me like other fathers, and I think somewhere inside of him, he constantly fought off blaming me for my mother’s death.

“
But when he was around, he took a real interest in me. We had fun together. He took me all over the world in the summers and on school breaks. He gave me a love for horses. He told me all about my mother, so that I would never forget her.”

Garrett paused. This was going to be tough, I thought to myself. But I wouldn’t have missed Garrett’s side of the story for the world. Mack was still behind Garrett, but rising slowly, steadily upward. And except for the picture knocked over, Garrett had no inkling of any supernatural presence.

“The horse he gave me was the greatest gift I ever received. He knew I wanted one, having taken lessons for a couple of years.” Garrett shook his head, filled with memories. “I remember giving him a hell of a time when I was a teen. I guess all kids do that,” he chuckled. “And when he sent me off to college, I started to grow up, though I was still a spoiled rich kid.

“
But you want to know the circumstances of his death. I gotta tell you, Pauline, it’s a mystery, and to this day, I don’t have an answer. I still have a lot of questions.”

“
Like what?” I asked. “Mack simply told me you didn’t visit him much after he married Bella.”

This stunned him for a moment. “You really are in touch with him,” he said in wonder.

“I am,” I answered, being careful to keep my eyes averted from the old ghost above Garrett. “It’s partly for him that I’m asking you to tell me what happened.”

“
Well,” Garrett toyed with a pen as he spoke, “I first met Bella after I came home from graduating from college. He’d told me all about her and I understood that she was special.

“
I remember how beautiful she was. She was drop-dead gorgeous, but I was uncomfortable seeing them so close. My dad dated, yeah, but I could tell this was different. And she tried to befriend me. Too much, I thought. She was different, unique. At the time, I thought it was because she was from a different culture. I saw that my father was happy, so I did my best to accept her.

“
They married sooner than I expected. It was a huge affair, and they went off to Europe for their honeymoon. I was working at his office, learning from his partners to make a career of working with him and following in his footsteps.”

Garrett got up from his desk and crossed to his huge window that lent a magnificent view of LA. Julie and I didn’t say a word; we didn’t want him to stop. He would come to it, I told myself. Mack kept to Garrett’s side, waiting for something he’d yearned to know for years now.

“Everything was fine,” Garrett went on, “for about a year. Then my father started feeling sick sometimes. Just getting the flu or something, but more often than is usual. He wasn’t that old. He went to the doctors, and they found nothing wrong. He tried to cover up how he was feeling physically, but I could tell. Bella said he was overtired and overworked. That he needed more rest. He started working from home more.

“
It didn’t really bother me, at first, when she started helping him. She would make business and financial decisions for him, more and more. But I had this nagging feeling, you know? That something was wrong. I tried to talk to him about it, and explained that I wanted to be involved in more of his business decisions. That never happened. I don’t know why. Or at least, I didn’t at the time.

“
Then he got really sick. He couldn’t work at all. I remember arguing with Bella, how I was a part of the family business and had a right to know what was going on. She always had some answer. That my father didn’t want me burdened, or that deals were made when I wasn’t present, things were done without my knowledge.

“
I tried to talk to Dad. But by then, he was really sick. He was bedridden. I didn’t think of it at the time, but looking back, I’ll bet he was drugged. He could barely talk. I wanted to take him to the hospital, but Bella had a doctor come in and talk to me. He convinced me that Dad was better off at home. Bella reminded me how proud Dad was, and that he wouldn’t want to be in a hospital, or even let anyone know he was so sick. I can’t believe she talked me into leaving him there, at home. It was the last time I ever saw him.”

Mack was growing more emotional. He floated next to Garrett, fists clenched.

“What happened?” Julie asked. “Did he die that day?”

“
No,” Garrett answered. He was reliving tough times. He looked defeated. He turned to us, and Mack made room for him. “After that, the next day, I changed my mind. I was determined to take him to a hospital. I didn’t care what Bella said. I was angry with her, and becoming more suspicious.

“
When I got to his house, there were armed guards outside the gate. I demanded them to be let in, but they refused even when I told them who I was. I called Bella, but she didn’t pick up. I even called the police. I told them the situation, and they told me my father had filed a restraining order against me, and that I should leave.”

“
Oh, my God,” I whispered, looking up at Mack, whose expression was a mixture of anger toward Bella, and new understanding for his son. He’d thought his son had abandoned him, but now, he was getting the truth.

“
I got the call the next day that my father had died. Bella told me he had died in his sleep. I was devastated. I couldn’t believe it. I felt guilty that I hadn’t done more. I should have called his attorney, but it all happened so fast; I wasn’t thinking straight. Turned out that Bella had hired new attorneys anyway. She did ask me to come over, that there was business to be taken care of. And the funeral.

“
I rushed over there. I wanted to see my father one last time. But his body had already been taken from the house. Bella sat in the main living room with her new attorneys, whom I’d never met before. Probably hours before his death, he had taken me completely out of the will and left everything to Bella.

“
I was furious,” Garrett growled. “Not so much because of the money. I admit, that was part of it. But I knew, I just knew that my father would never have done anything like that. He wanted me to work with him! He was happy that I’d earned a degree in finance and business investment, and I knew he meant for me to take over his business one day.

“
But when I argued with Bella, she had me thrown out. She had changed completely. She didn’t seem sad at all, and she wanted me gone. She told me to never set foot in her house again. Her house.”

Julie was almost in tears. “Oh, Garrett, that must have been awful.”

“It was,” he agreed. “And I still wasn’t thinking clearly. I still thought I could get things sorted out. I went to a friend’s house that night and got drunk. That was probably the biggest mistake I made. It was a waste of precious time. The next day, I went to the coroner’s office and requested the autopsy results. I was sure if I could get proof, I could claim what was rightfully mine.”

“
Good thinking.” I tried to encourage Garrett, who sounded like a lost child.

“
Yes. But the chief coroner met with me. He told me there had been a ‘mistake.’ That my father’s body had been cremated already, and that an autopsy hadn’t been performed.”

“
What?” I exclaimed. “They can’t do that.”

“
I know. But it happened. To this day, I’m sure that Bella had something to do with it. I went to my dad’s old attorney and explained the situation. He was distant, cold to me. He’d been my dad’s friend and lawyer for years, but he said he couldn’t take on any new cases and bid me good day.”

“
Wow,” Julie and I said in unison. Mack was boiling by this point. He was shimmering more brightly, and I could plainly see him in the office, next to and just above his son.