Murder at the Academy Awards (R): A Red Carpet Murder Mystery (8 page)

B
ack to the Bel-Air Hotel, Ms. Taylor?” Jeffrey asked, after we watched Drew unlock her front door and close it behind her again. Every other night, Drew is perfectly capable of letting herself into her own front door without a parental guard dog watching, but I couldn’t turn off my inner mom.

“No, Jeffrey.” I looked at my borrowed Piaget: 1:18. “Take me back to Craft.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Don’t call me ma’am,” I said for the hundredth time. “Save that for the queen.”

He chuckled from the front seat.

Ten minutes later, we were back at the sleek, modern building, the familiar crowd of paps still yapping out front, floodlights glaring. Several of them dashed over to look inside the back window, realized they had already gotten enough shots the first time I’d arrived, and backed away.

“Please, one more picture, Max,” yelled one of the photo crew as Jeffrey opened the back door.

“Leave me alone already,” I said, putting my hand up in front of my face. “I looked much younger a couple of hours ago. Shoo.”

Just then, Christian Bale appeared in the doorway to the restaurant, leaving the party with a group of friends including Matt and Kevin Sullivan from MTV, and all the cameras swiveled his way.

I dashed over to the swag lounge set up off the entrance and walked through the doorway. Inside, a security guard wearing a tux stood by.

I held up my right hand, allowing gravity to slide almost half a million dollars’ worth of borrowed gemstone bracelets up my arm, and displayed the thick, blue rubber band that was stamped with the words
VANITY FAIR SUPERGUEST.

Mr. Tuxedo stepped aside, smiling, allowing me to pass. I was the lone customer in Ali Baba’s cave of riches.

Tables lined the tent walls, piled with luxury items, some desirable; many not so much. A PR rep, a skinny, young thing in a plunging, silver halter dress, offered me a Prada tote bag for my loot, and I walked to the nearest table and picked up a Coach green leather glasses case. Cute. I looked up at the PR girl, and she gestured to the table in a most generous way. I picked up two
more in turquoise and peach and tossed them into my bag. Malulu would love these.

It had been a stressful day. Our red carpet telecast had been great this year, sure, but had it been great enough? The constant demand for higher ratings had put pressure on Glam-TV’s programmers, and the stress of staying on top trickled down to me. True, I had several incredible gets—the accidental confession that Gwyneth was trying for another baby was an exclusive!—but in this business it’s the numbers that count, and were ours high enough?

I spotted a pretty leather strap with the Gucci-logo
G
’s. “What’s this?”

The thin girl smiled. “A cell phone strap. Would you like one?”

“At least.”

She pulled a new Gucci box out from behind the table.

“I’ve got a hairstylist and a makeup stylist,” I explained.

The girl pulled out a second box and handed it over without a murmur.

“Very nice.”

“You are a superguest, Ms. Taylor. It’s our pleasure.”

“Well, then give me one more, would you? I’ve got a very demanding acupuncturist as well.”

The smiling girl complied.

On the ride back to Craft, I’d checked my home messages and found dozens of calls. So many friends who wanted to find out what had really happened with Halsey on the red carpet. So many news directors begging for an interview. I’d have to play this carefully. I didn’t want to sell the story to some sleazy outlet just
because they offered a fortune, but then, I couldn’t afford the luxury of selling cheap, either. This was the business I was in, and I had so many staff members’ mouths to feed, not to mention a career to resuscitate. Over and over.

“Do you like candles?” asked the girl.

“I love candles,” I said seriously. “Who doesn’t?” I followed her to another table that held an assortment of fragrance items.

“Have you seen these? Juicy Couture Home Fragrance Rocks.”

“Ahh,” I said, sniffing the amber rocks. “What’s that scent?”

She read from the label, “Watermelon, Mandarin, Pink Passion Fruit, Marigold, Green Apple, Water Hyacinth, Crushed Leaves, Tuberose Absolute, Wild Rose, Princess Lily, Caramel Crème Brûlèe, Vanilla, Precious Woods, and Patchouli.”

“I never get enough patchouli.”

“Let me get you six sets. You can use them in any room in the house.”

Oh, the good times I’d missed in all the years I’d been excluded from this party. But who was I fooling? They didn’t roll out this many goodies for just any guest.

“What’s your name?” I asked my hostess.

“Heather. Heather Donaldson.”

“Heather. Pretty name. Tell me, Heather, how many of these blue wristbands were given out tonight?”

“Oh, not many, Ms. Taylor. Really, you are only the third superguest I’ve served all evening.”

“Only three?”

“Well, there were other hostesses on duty tonight. But I’ve
only served two others besides you. And they were both nominees.”

“Oscar nominees?” I was impressed. How badly did
Vanity Fair
want my exclusive story?

“Yes. And not just any nominees, like documentary filmmakers or soundmen. Actresses.”

“Wow. So tell me, what sort of merchandise did they take? Candles?” I looked down at the table in front of me. “Ice-pods?” While I was there, I picked up several of the crystal-encrusted iPod cases.

She shook her head and giggled. “Follow me.”

She led me over to the side of the tent where an open hallway was barred by a blue velvet rope, then opened the passage to let me through. In this special side room, I soon discovered, the real prizes of the evening were stashed.

“You must take the seventy-inch Sony HDTV flat panel,” she offered. “It’s their newest Bravia.”

“Plasma?” I breathed. I knew little about technology, but this one looked insanely expensive.

“No. Something newer and better. But I’m afraid there is a limit of one.”

I smiled. That one was going home with me.

I opened a leather portfolio that held pictures of a luxurious weeklong trip for six at a five-star resort in Portugal. My eyes widened. “Tell me, will Angelina and Brad be vacationing here too?” I asked, tempted to grab the vacation paperwork and run. “Because with all those kids, it could be a nightmare if you got the room next door.”

Heather giggled. “No, Ms. Taylor. You’ll be safe from their
kids. Brad and Angelina don’t go gifting.” She sighed. “But Uma is planning to go.”

What fun! Comparing tan lines with a body like that. I put the portfolio down. Then picked it up again. Why wouldn’t this be the ideal place to send Drew if I needed to get her out of town fast? I plunked it into my overstuffed Prada tote.

“Here, let me,” Heather offered, and took the heavy bag.

“I’ll just browse, if you don’t mind?” I asked, riffling through a variety of items that ranged from a pair of $1,000 Black Diamond Havaianas flip-flops to a $5,800 certificate for free LASIK eye surgery.

“Want them all?” asked my coconspirator. Who could resist? She stacked one of everything into my tote and started filling a fresh one.

I loved to share the wealth, gifting down my giveaways to all my closest friends. I counted in my mind who would get what, and the list was long. I came to the Glam-TV crew and figured I could easily give the jeweled flip-flops to my cameraman, Danny. If they were too much for him, his wife would love them. Then I thought about Cindy Chow. What to do?

Cindy had bobbled one too many gets tonight. I loved her, but her clumsy handling of several stars might make the difference in our losing the show next year. What sort of gift do you give to a woman who may just have loused up your career?

“What’s on that table?” I asked Heather, pointing to the back corner.

“Oh, nothing good,” she said, waving her hand dismissively. “Shower Soother pellets from SudaCare and a Tide stain-remover pen.” She giggled.

“I’ll take them,” I said, finding it a fitting reward for the girl who let George Clooney get away. Next year, I can guarantee she won’t be so careless.

“What about the real stuff, the jewels?” I asked.

“We can’t give them out,” Heather said, crestfallen. “I mean, the jewelers have made their own arrangements with certain stars. Sorry.”

The young ones, I figured.

“But I can show you the Best Actress undies,” she offered, dimpling.

“What do you mean?”

“Victoria’s Secret is a sponsor. And each year they design a special custom bra for the Best Actress nominees.”

My ears pricked up. In the dizzying world of freebies, I found myself suddenly sober. “A bra? Is it black?”

“Uh-huh. But that’s not all. It’s worth a smoking twenty thousand dollars.”

“For a brassiere?” I’d maybe pay that much for the right boobs, but for a piece of fabric and baling wire?

“Yes! It’s really stunning, and I actually have one here if you’d like a peek.”

I stood there, suddenly sure I would soon be shown the exact same bra that Halsey had been wearing. I mean, why else would Halsey have shown up to the Oscars in just a bra and panties if she didn’t think the special gift had been some sort of required uniform.

Heather pulled a cord, and a little hot-pink velvet curtain in the corner opened. Behind the curtain was a white wire mannequin. And on the form was the exact same black, satin, strapless bra I’d seen Halsey Hamilton wearing on the red carpet.

There was only one difference: the bra that Halsey had been wearing was sleek and unadorned.

“Isn’t it a knockout?” Heather marveled. “Can you imagine Dame Judi Dench wearing one of these?”

The Victoria’s Secret Best Actress bra displayed in front of me had something Halsey’s garment didn’t. It was covered in dozens of tiny, perfectly cut diamonds—$20,000 worth of them.

Man. Could Burke Norris
be
any guiltier?

T
he Hotel Bel-Air, with its luxurious fifty-two rooms and thirty-nine elegant suites, each having a private garden entrance, is nestled along Stone Canyon Road in the plush hills of L.A.’s Westside—the money side—and is popular with the Hollywood elite looking for the perfect hideaway.

The hotel didn’t start its life, however, quite so friendly to we entertainment folk. Its history reaches back to 1922, when Alphonzo Bell acquired more than six hundred acres, named it Bel-Air, and enhanced the upscale neighborhood-in-the-making with new roads, utilities, a country club, and lush vegetation. In 1946, a hotel entrepreneur from Texas purchased eighteen acres, including the Bel-Air Stables, and built a resort, transforming the
grounds into beautiful gardens, adding Swan Lake, and building a sparkling pool in the exact spot of the old stable’s riding ring. Alas, back in celebrity-fearing 1946, the hotel began its fabled history by blackballing movie people. But that was then, and this is now. Today, you couldn’t hoist a cosmo from your lounge chair around the Bel-Air’s famous oval swimming pool without spilling a few drops on an A-lister’s chiseled torso. Over time, the hotel had become accustomed to our scandalous behavior and also our useful habit of getting the studio to pay for all damages in full.

Here, among the Hotel Bel-Air’s leafy eighteen acres, Hollywood rumors have swirled. Supposedly Marilyn Monroe spent a lot of time hopping between rooms 133 and 33. Here, legend had it, Lauren Bacall flooded the hotel during a long-ago Academy Awards weekend. And here, the most discreet concierges in the world can rustle up anything you need, such as an entire wedding, at a moment’s notice—witness the seventeen-minute ceremony they instantly produced for Ronald Reagan’s daughter, Patti, and her yoga instructor. I figure if a hotel can get you laid, clean up your mess, or get you married, it’s got my business.

When I’m not home at my apartment in Manhattan, here is where I stay. Among the ninety-one perfectly decorated guest rooms scattered across the manicured grounds, my preferred accommodation is their lovely Herb Garden Suite, so named because it looks down upon the hotel’s charming eight-thousand-square-foot herb garden. With a full bedroom for me, plus an adorable extra side room, I’m able to keep Malulu and Killer with me at all times. And the kitchen, living room, dining room, and two baths also come in handy. I love everything about this suite—
my
suite—and it is always a little tricky to get the darling management to make sure it’s free when I roll into town on a job. For
Academy Awards weekend, it’s murder. I practically had to arm wrestle Will Smith to the floor this year to keep my reservation.

By 10 a.m., Monday, my head had yet to touch the pillow, and I walked into my own private 1,650 square feet of bliss at the Bel-Air, wobbling ever so slightly from thirty-six straight hours of smiling. Killer rushed up to me, looking as if he would love to jump up, but at that point one more ounce of push might have toppled me over.

“Not now, Killer,” I warned, lifting a finger. “Mommy needs a vodka.”

“Here you go, Mrs. Livingston,” said Malulu, using my real-life name, entering the living room from the direction of the small kitchen. She’d clearly heard Killer’s happy yips and now handed me a freshly whirred, bright pink smoothie in a cut-crystal high-ball glass.

I looked at it. “Is this what I asked for?”

“Of course not, Mrs.,” she said, beaming. “Good juice. Fresh. All healthy with fiber.”

I glowered at her in her cheery rose-colored pantsuit. “There’s a lot of nice stuff over there in those goody bags for you,” I growled, waving to the several totes I’d dropped at the front door. “But when they deliver the Sony, hands off. That baby is mine.”

Immediately after leaving the
Vanity Fair
swag lounge loaded with gifts, I went back to work and continued on my traditional Oscar-night whirl of appearances. This one event offered me, as the big night’s fashion commentator, dozens of network gigs, and they came with their much needed appearance fees. At two thirty in the morning, I had to zoom across town to make it to the local FOX and CBS stations. Allie, my makeup stylist, was already there to freshen up the dead, but during the night she’d lost track
of Unja, and as the minutes ticked by, he never made it to the station. I always have Allie keep a wig around for just such an eventuality, and, in less than six minutes, we had added enough lip gloss, blush, and hairspray to fend off reality for at least another hour or two.

For the next forty minutes, I helped edit our Oscar-arrivals fashion footage, pointing out where to highlight the wows and the bowwows, then I slipped out of my glamour gown, changed into a pewter knit top and classic black slacks, turned my borrowed jewels over to the bondsman who had met me at the studio to retrieve the valuables, cleared my voice, and from 4 to 6 a.m., gave two dozen down-and-dirty interviews starting with Regis and Kelly, which were broadcast live to the East Coast so New Yorkers could have all the latest Oscar fashion scoop at breakfast time.

For those earliest interviews, I worked alone, letting Drew stay home and catch a little sleep. She usually did the entire shift with me on Oscar night, with her coming into the editing bay to rewatch the clips with me and argue over who had looked the absolute worst, but then we’d never had a close friend of hers die before, and we’d never had her ex-boyfriend involved in the mess either. Drew had wanted to wait at her house, anxious to get the call back from Sol Epstein, and I only prayed she got a little sleep and had no bad dreams.

The live interviews went well enough. I always make sure each one is different—talking about different stars. Everyone loves to see the beauties and the beasts dressed and bejeweled. But this time, all I did was spend the next few hours fending off the two questions everyone had to ask: “What happened to Halsey Hamilton?” and “What were her last words?”

“For that,” I told my various audiences all night and all morn
ing long in a conspiratorial whisper, “you’ll have to watch our prime-time special.” Of course I was bluffing. We had yet to make any such deal. But I thought I should put the idea out there. Why not dream big? “But for right now,” I would always conclude, knowing exactly how to let down the hopeful on-air hosts and put a stop to their probing questions in just the nicest way, “we have too much sympathy for the family to say any more.”

At seven o’clock, Drew, looking no more rested than I did, met me at ABC-TV as we were leaving their Burbank studio. We rushed over to do the live feed for NBC, and still we were not done with our work as we spent an hour doing live radio interviews. Finally, Drew and I were driven over to Glendale to finish up at Glam-TV’s studio, changing again into new outfits to do the chatty mom-and-daughter commentary for our one-hour
Oscar Fashion Disasters
special set to air later in the evening.

The word came down at Glam that everybody had loved our red carpet show. Loved it. The best show ever. And if I could tell you how many times I’d heard those very words just hours before getting the call saying my show was being canceled, I might have smiled a little brighter at the compliments. Instead, I questioned everyone I saw, “But why did they cut away from our interview with Halsey? Answer me that?”

And no one could understand, from the studio wardrobe man to the vice president of programming, why our young director, Will Beckerman, hadn’t at the very least let the cameras roll and tape the footage instead of just bloody pulling the plug. Asshole.

By the time our unruffled driver, Jeffrey, returned Drew to her house and me to the Hotel Bel-Air, I was just getting my fifth wind.

“Good?” Malulu asked, as I held on to the evil pink concoction she’d handed me without so much as taking one sip.

Okay. I tried it. That’s what guilt can do to me. “What’s your secret ingredient? Sardines? Peanuts?”

“You go to sleep now, Mrs. L?” she asked, bustling to pick up all the things I’d dropped when I’d entered.

“No. Too much to do. You have my messages?”

“I do. But you sure you…”

I sank down on one of the pair of flower-upholstered bergère chairs, one with a straight back, and held out my hand. How could I rest when the world was calling?

As Killer softly jumped into my lap and settled himself gently, and Malulu brought over my BlackBerry, I checked out a thick handful of messages. The personal calls were many. Ian had called twice, and I knew he’d want to hear I was home safe and sound. I tapped out a quick e-mail to him and signed it with my usual row of
xoxoxox.

Several friends were on the prowl for gossip, but I only took the time to call back Dr. Bob, who seemed most interested in the specific details of Halsey’s collapse, but whether from a medical standpoint or that of just another shocked avid fan, I couldn’t quite tell. Halsey’s flawless youth had held a hint of fragility, a combination that kept most of the world spellbound. Even those of us who knew her and her troubles felt the pull of her talent and beauty.

“I remember seeing her around my house,” I told Dr. Bob, “when she was only twelve or thirteen.”

“Oh, Max. That’s right. She used to tag around after Drew, didn’t she?”

“I’d look at that gorgeous kid, and I worried that her parents
would need to keep a careful rein on that girl. Only twelve, and she had more cleavage than I did.”

“But I fixed that.”

“Those parents,” I said, ignoring Dr. Bob. “When Halsey was only twelve, they had her starring in pictures with much older boys. I think she began dating that Alberto character back then, and he must have been twenty-two at the time. Now you tell me what a twenty-two-year-old man wants to do with a twelve-year-old.”

“It’s tragic,” Dr. Bob agreed. “Who’s looking after you, Max? This has got to be hitting you hard.”

“I’m fine,” I said, just as Malulu entered the room with a fresh stack of messages.

“You need time to process all of this.”

Dr. Bob was probably right. We made plans to meet for dinner later, after I’d had time to rest, and I rang off to get through my growing pile of messages and the newly arrived e-mails Malulu had just printed for me.

I put aside the numerous well-wishes from my fans and friends over another in-the-can red carpet show and put into a separate pile the news-biz hysteria over Halsey’s death, then read all the way through a most unexpected e-mail from the president of a popular home-shopping channel, a man I’d been begging to meet for a year. He was suddenly anxious to discuss with me my proposal for a line of jewelry I’d wanted to design. How wonderful! I told Malulu to forward that one to my attorney and business managers; then I eyed the rest.

“Mrs. L,” Malulu said, “the phones are crazy today. Please.” She waved at my pile of messages. “Some of these people call you back three times.”

The fan mail and friends would have to wait, it seemed, because every news or entertainment outlet in existence had found me and was begging for me to give them an exclusive on the real story of this year’s Academy Awards—my last words with Halsey. As the early twenty-first century would have it, an infinite number of cameras had been trained on the poor young thing last night as she collapsed on the red carpet and brought me down with her. But that, apparently, had only whetted the world’s appetite. From the thousand cell phone digital recorders in the hands of gaping fans in the grandstands to the extreme zoom lenses of the international press corps, so many people present at the Oscar arrivals had some angle on that sad drama. But with Halsey slurring and whispering only to me, not a one of them had been able to record a sound.

I was the only one on the planet who knew what Halsey had had to say.

How unfortunate that Halsey had merely talked in wasted riddles and ramblings, and, really, how disturbing that the only phrases that seemed to make sense mentioned my own daughter, Drew, and the infamous nickname of Drew’s Burke, whom many in their young crowd called Wyatt Burp. I considered the impact of the story on a parched media if I told those details now. How quickly it would ravage Burke’s reputation. Even if he had somehow miraculously been blameless in the events that had brought down Halsey, his name would forever be mixed up in the scandal. I toyed with that tantalizing thought: finally, Burke Norris would be made accountable for his worthless soul. And then I sobered up. Even if an outraged but silent mother might be drawn to the idea of making such a loathsome idiot suffer for all his past sins, how quickly would such a story gather fury and, in its terrible
wake, blast my own darling Drew and her good blameless name, possibly forever?

I could hear the suite’s two phones ringing incessantly in the background, Malulu’s patient Samoan lilt taking names and numbers from some relentless reporters, such as Devon Jones, for the fourth time that morning. There was a huge story here. Everyone from Barbara Walters to perezhilton.com was after the truth, and I was the only one on earth who had it. And I, such a staunch advocate of the truth, would take a few hours longer, at least, to gather my wits and decide just how best the truth would have to be spun.

An hour later, with Malulu’s help, I’d worked through 179 messages, deflecting requests from news agencies from as far away as Tasmania (where they loved their celebrity gossip) to the little local paper in Manhattan Beach (ditto). This is not the right time to speak about dear Halsey, I texted, e-mailed, and said in a sotto voce rasp, sadly. Perhaps later. No matter how rabid the dogs of the media could get when they were hot after a story, I could handle mad dogs. I calmly wrapped myself in a cloak of dignified silence. I was sweet. I was respectful. I said, “No.” They had never heard of anything like it. All of them calculated the cost of the story upward.

“Fun,” I said to Malulu as I disconnected with the president of CNN-TV.

The doorbell rang, and Malulu ushered in the fourth flower arrangement of the morning, all red roses and white hydrangeas. “Larry King,” Malulu read from the card as she bent over to place the huge vase on the floor next to the fireplace.