Sunset & Vine: Loose Lips (17 page)

What he did not tell his father was that he was the one! Dotty was his father’s long-lost sister and the missing child of Clay Stanford II. She was without a doubt real, but she was now dead. A victim of a heinous murder.

“Then, there’s that ex-senator … what’s his name? I wonder how he’s enjoying his new found fame as a X-rated film star!” Emphasizing the letter X as he turned to face the floor to ceiling window in his office. The expansive view of Los Angeles at his feet, a metaphor for his life at the top.

“I did a pretty good job if I may say so myself. There was no way in hell I was about to allow that atrocious, cheap waitress to come out of nowhere and collect half of what is mine by birth! Selling dirt to the tabloids for a living. How on earth could that low-life woman possibly carry the same bloodline as my father! That test may have confirmed it, but I will never accept it. Good luck in solving that murder!” He let out a low snicker to himself. He was the sole heir and he intended to keep it that way.

Clay had discovered that Dotty had been the source for the devastating leak regarding actor Max Moriel. His career had come to a screeching halt after the tabloids published pictures of him “dolled up in his female attire.”

Clay secretly sought him out. He’d been located living in a small run-down house on the outskirts of Palm Springs.

The place was hardly a reflection of the past grandeur Max Moriel had known in his Hancock Park estate; sold off to satisfy creditors when the income vanished. The Palm Springs house was located on the edge of a strip mall, with a front yard framed by a small, broken, peeling white fence that was turning gray from the blowing dirt in the harsh desert summers and also had a few missing planks. Tumbleweeds in the front yard were the only sign of vegetation on the barren ground that had been reclaimed by the desert.

He was promptly informed of who and how his private life was turned over to the worst of the worst tabloid,
MOUTH
!. Max was stunned to learn it had been Dotty who ratted on him and cost him his career. He had been extremely generous to Dotty, the waitress at Schwab’s in Hollywood, every time he’d eaten there. Tipping her with $20 to $50 dollars regardless of how small his bill had been.

Moreover, he wasn’t quite sure who this man was or why he was offering this information to him, but he was grateful.

“I’m just a dedicated fan. I thought it was horrifying what happened to you, and I thought you should know who did it. Your fans, including me, were very upset!” was the line given by Clay.

Max had been sold the story that Dotty had done this to lots of people.

“I’m listening. As you can see, I haven’t much left in life after that story ran. No career, no one would hire me. No lover, no one could tolerate my state of depression. No money, my crooked manager had consumed most of that, along with creditors feasting on the rest.” All he had left were his memories.

“Sometimes I wonder why I even get up in the morning.” Spoken from the mouth of a broken man.

“I almost wished I liked alcohol or drugs. Just to be able to numb the pain. I think about how sad it is that it all went away simply because of who I loved. My poor girlfriend Angelica was too young to deal with the impact of having her face in those pictures. It destroyed her.”

“You mean the young lady that committed suicide?” Clay asked.

“Yes.”

“Mr. Moriel, I can offer you this, enclosed in this envelope is enough money for you to use for whatever you like or you can use to strike back against the person who stole your life from you. Just know that you were not the first one whose life was destroyed by this terrible woman, and most likely not the last. One can only hope that someone puts a stop to that one-woman wrecking ball before more lives like Angelica’s are taken. It’s not as if anyone would miss her. I doubt if her own family would miss someone so awful.” Encouraging the lost star to take things into his own hands.

“What do I have to lose,” Max said. He was beginning to like the idea that was subtly being presented to him.

He answered his own questioned. “Absolutely nothing.”

It wasn’t long before he received a call from the detective investigating Dotty’s murder, Detective Rocco Goldman. Shortly after the detective’s visit, Max Moriel was arrested as he tried to board a flight to Switzerland. They discovered $5,000 dollars in cash on him. Moriel’s blood matched the blood at Dotty’s crime scene. He was held as a prime suspect. He told the police he was visited by a man claiming to be a fan who informed him about that Dotty had been behind his leaked private pictures.

“That’s him. That’s the man that visited me and gave me the money as a gift from my fans. That’s what he said to me. I thought about vengeance, but decided to let it go, move to Europe and start fresh.” Max identified Clay III from a photograph.

* * *

Montague wasted no time in launching his own investigation after being informed by the captain as to Clay being sought as a suspect.

“Mr. Sanford, we have some information for you,” the two men dressed in identical black suits told him as they met in his office.

The look of concern was obvious. He determined that it was one of two things. They had found his lost sibling or Clay was in serious trouble.

It was both.

“What have you got?” he asked with a seriousness that reflected his interpretation of the men’s body language.

With that, one of the two men gently laid a file down on Montague’s desk. “It’s all in there, sir.”

“Is Clay in trouble?” Montague asked.

“Not that we can tell, so far. There are some unanswered questions as to what he knows about your other question, sir.”

“You mean my missing sibling?”

“Yes, your sister, sir.”

“Dear God! It’s true then? There was a child! I have a sister?” Montague staggered backwards towards his chair and fell into it.

“She’s been found?” he asked.

The two men lowered their gaze. The change in Montague’s long-time, no-nonsense employee’s body language hit him like a ton of bricks.

“Its not good news, Mr. Stanford.”

“Just give it to me straight!” he belted out as his heart pounded his chest.

“Unfortunately, she’s been murdered, sir. I am deeply sorry to have to tell you this, Mr. Stanford.”

“When? How? And by who?” He grimaced as his heartache quickly turned to anger.

“Recently. It’s all over the papers. It was the lady Clay was searching for.”

“You mean the murdered Schwab’s waitress! Are you sure?”

“Positive, sir.”

“After all these years. So close. That’s all, gentlemen. Thank you. Do not say a word about this to anyone.”

With that the men turned to leave the darkly paneled office. One of the two stopped at the door to look back at his long-time employer.

“So sorry for your loss, Mr. Stanford. Truly.” Then he quietly closed the door behind him.

“So, it really was true. All these years … a waitress right here in Hollywood. My God, I probably looked her right in the eyes on one of the few times Cosima and I had lunch there.” He propped his elbows up on his desk and buried his face in his hands as if to block out the world for a moment, and cried.

“How could I have failed to find her? My poor dear sister. The life of a goddamn struggling waitress.” He was beside himself with grief.

He had dreamed of finding her or him since learning of the half truths as a young man. He had traveled down this terrible road once before.

“Samantha, I don’t want to be disturbed until I ring you. No calls, from anyone, not even Cosima or Clay. Take a message.”

Trying to pull himself together, he spent the rest of the day tearing through the file given to him by his investigators.

His hurt and grief turned to anger after contemplating her murder. He went from the file to the Internet and voraciously read everything he could about her and her murder.

“All those horrible things the tabloids are saying about you, my sister.” He couldn’t find it in himself to judge her.

The file also told him that he was an uncle to a 22-year-old niece named Brit Henderson.

Chapter Thirty-Two

New leaf

“Samantha, get Rod on the phone now please. Tell him it’s urgent.”

Rod was one of his lead attorneys from a team of eight top lawyers in the city that he kept on staff.

“Yes Montague, how are you?”

“Not well. In fact, I am in a very bad mood. I don’t have time to discuss it now. I want you to get on the phone to every goddamn tabloid and newspaper in this town, and you make it clear to every little prissy editor running it that if they print one more insult about that murdered Schwab’s waitress they will have me to deal with. And I promise them, it won’t be pretty. Be prepared to buy them if necessary. That’s an order and give it to them verbatim!” This was a rare mood for Montague so his lawyer’s only response was action.

Now, he wanted to know what the hell his son knew about this.

“I need to revisit Clay’s involvement with this issue.” Something in his gut told him his son knew more than what he had been told.

Most importantly, he had to reach out to Dotty’s daughter.

“My niece.” He moved his lips with barely audible speech.

He thought he should tell Cosima, then thought better of it until he had spoken with Clay.

“Should I speak to the young woman? How do I approach her? She will probably think I’m some kind of rich nut job.” Running over in his head how best to make contact with his newly found niece.

* * *

Within a day, not one word was mentioned in any major tabloid or newspaper in the entire city of Los Angeles. Within two days, the story was dead across all national and international wires. It was rare for Montague Stanford to throw his estimated $37-billion-dollar fortune around, but when he did people sat up and listened.

He overcame his hesitancy of contacting Brit out of a paternal drive to protect her from what he knew first hand she was going through.

“Ms. Brit Henderson?” Montague’s secretary asked.

“Yes, who’s speaking?”

“Hold the line please, one moment.” Samantha transferred the call to Montague.

“Hello, Ms. Henderson.”

“Yes, who is this. If this is a reporter, I’m hanging up now!”

“No. No, please don’t, I’m not a reporter. I am very sorry to spring this on you like this, but I couldn’t figure out any other way to do this. I’m your uncle. A lost uncle from your mother’s family. I’ve only recently found out who your mother was.”

“Is this some kind of cruel joke?”

Montague lowered his voice in an attempt to sound serious and not choke up.

“Hello?” There was silence.

“Are you still there?” he asked.

Then he heard a small whisper. “Yes.”

“I’m Montague Stanford, and—”

“I know,” Brit interjected.

“You know? How do you know? I only found out two days ago,” he told her.

“I found out two weeks ago, but I wasn’t sure you would want anything to do with me,” she managed to say.

“Oh my dear child. I am overjoyed! And heartbroken at the same time. You know what I mean. When can we meet. There is so much I have to ask you.”

“Whenever you’d like,” she told him.

“Do us a favor, don’t tell anyone just yet. Otherwise, you will be surrounded by newspaper hounds’ day and night. How about tomorrow morning about 10:30?”

“OK, where would you like to meet?” she asked.

“I’ll send a car around to pick you up.”

“I’d rather meet somewhere public. Just to make sure. OK?

“Of course. How about meeting at my lawyer’s office, 9000 Sunset Boulevard? West Hollywood?”

“I know the building. I’ll be there at 10:30.”

“I’m looking forward to it, Brit. Bye for now!”

Both sat in a daze for a few minutes on opposite ends of the city. Both thinking about how their lives were about to change. Montague, about how much he was going to try to make up the loss of her mother to her. Brit, thought how excited her mother would be.

“She’ll never know any of this,” she thought. “An incredible life completely lost to my mother forever.”

Had all this really happened to her? Perhaps she was in some weird dream and her mother would wake her in time for her UCLA graduation day. One thing was real, her mother was gone … forever.

“I need to find out who killed my mother before I will ever have any peace in life.”

* * *

“He told me who he was and wanted to meet me tomorrow morning. Will you come with me? You are about as close to an uncle as I’ve got,” Brit shared with Michael.

“If you need me to be there I will. It might be a good idea to have someone with you. Have you thought about asking your dad?”

“No. I just can’t speak to him right now.”

“OK, I’ll go with you.”

They met up and headed over to the meeting on Sunset Boulevard.

“I’m scared to death.” She reached for Michael’s hand to calm her nervousness.

“Don’t be. I’m sure they are nice people. They wanted to meet you after all.”

“You’re right. I’m also excited just to have some family outside of Dad.”

Montague had them brought up through the private entrance.

“This way, Miss Henderson, your uncle is waiting for your upstairs.” The assistant extended his hand to her.

“My uncle. I’ve never had an uncle.” Thinking to herself.

Whispering to Michael, “They called him my uncle.” Smiling like a little child with excitement.

Brit thought this during her walk through the large offices, which was as surreal as the long walk behind her mother’s casket.

A tall well-dressed man stood on one side of the huge double mahogany doors with a statuesque woman in a perfectly tailored gray suit standing at the other door.

“Wow, I feel like I’m meeting the President,” she thought

The polished woman and man opened the door to a large office where a man sitting on a large leather couch began to rise.

“Sir, if you would. A few moments alone for them please.” Raising an arm to signal for Michael to hold back.

Michael squeezed her arm and motioned for her to go in.

Brit walked into the huge office and the tall man extended his arms to engulf her in a hug. She searched his face for her mother’s features, and found her own. She could see a close resemblance of herself in his face.

“Brit, I am overwhelmed to see you,” he told her.

“I may have lost my sister, but I have gained a niece … Let me look at you.” Montague held her shoulders and stepped back to take her in.

“Wow! I just can’t believe it!”

It was more than she could bare. The burden of so much change had reached a peak. She broke down sobbing. Her uncle held her on his shoulder and tried to calm her.

“It’s alright. I have walked in your shoes, and I know what you are going through. You will never be alone again. You have your family now.”

She finally allowed herself to hug him as if to admit that this was all real.

“You look just like my mother, your grandmother! You’ll see. There is an uncanny resemblance,” Montague said with a smile of amazement.

“I’m very sorry. I’ve just been under so much strain lately, and practically alone through all of this, except for my father.”

“You have nothing to worry about, ever again. I’ve ordered those nasty newspapers not to say another mean word about your mother … my dear sister,” he added

“Thank you.”

“I know all of this is an enormous shock for you. I don’t want to overwhelm you with too much too fast. We’ll talk business at a later date. You are in for a lot of tremendous changes in your life. I want you to know that I will be there to walk you through every step.”

“Thank you, Mr. Stanford.”

“Uncle.” Montague corrected her.

“Uncle … that sounds nice.”

“My dear, I must mention one thing to you, for your own protection. You are now worth a tremendous amount of wealth; therefore, you must be very careful with your safety. Once this gets out to the public, you will have to put your old ways of living behind you. Your safety must be taken into consideration with everything you do. I would feel better if you would let me assign a bodyguard to you when you leave here. You won’t even know that he is there, but he will be there if you should need him.”

“What do you mean by wealth? For me?” She sounded bewildered.

“Your mother’s wealth that she would have inherited automatically goes to you.”

“Who’s the man accompanying you?” Montague asked.

“He was a friend of my mother’s.”

Brit introduced Michael and answered a barrage of questions Montague had about his deceased sister.

“I’d like to meet your father, Brit, whenever you are ready.”

“I’ll let you know. We are all still pretty much in shock over what happened.”

“I understand. Is there anything you need or would like for me to take care of right now? Anything at all. I understand your family recently moved. I want you to know that if you would like to find a house of your own, just pick one out and let me know,” he offered her.

“Thank you.”

“And congratulations on your graduation, that’s a huge accomplishment!”

As she and Michael stepped back into the car, it dawned on her what had just happened.

Brit had just gone from being a lonely, lost, heartbroken young girl with very little money and almost no family to one with a family and incredible wealth.

* * *

“Rob, I’ll need the documents drawn up reflecting my sister’s shares of the estate. The trust will now go to my niece, Brit Stanford Henderson. Everything has been confirmed including the DNA test. Have them ready by the end of the week. Thank you.” He felt very good about this.

With that one phone call, his niece became one of the richest women in the world. The phone call also sliced Clay Stanford’s expected inheritance in half. Something he was not about to take lightly.

Montague left a message for his son to ring him at once. In the meantime, he’d update his wife on Brit. He needed to find out more about his sister’s husband. Apparently, they had lived a very simple life.

Now that he knew she was indeed real, he wondered how this could have happened. What family secrets could have been so bad that a child was given up for adoption? He could not connect the father he knew or his loving mother to something like this. He knew that he may never know. Besides, what good would come of it now? The damage had been done.

“I would have given anything to have had a chance to spend time with her. I wonder if she knew about us? Who were the people that adopted her? How did they get her? Maybe his newly found niece could shed some light on these questions? She must be in utter shock. So much in such a short period of time.”

His mind jumped back to his son Clay. He hoped his son was being on the level with him.

* * *

Clay returned his father’s call and reached his voicemail.

“Hi, Dad, I got your message. You sounded like it’s urgent. I’m heading out to the boat for the weekend. Will be there from Friday on. I’m throwing a little dinner party if you and Mom would like to pop in. Bye, Pop!”

His father sounded a bit strange, irritated almost. Ah, he’s probably just busy. He’s gonna flip when I tell him that I snagged the Castle Industries deal!” Boasting to himself about his win owed to crooked manipulation and blackmail.

He was gloating over his perceived ruthlessness. It was a pity really, he had a limitless future ahead of him as the handsome, immensely wealthy, and accomplished heir to a great fortune. Why had he succumbed to the toxic addiction of power?

Clay had not yet learned of the fabled tried and true ancient saying, “Absolute power corrupts absolutely.” It was too late for him. He had more in common with his conniving waitress aunt than he could have ever dreamed.

“Why should I be forced to share
my
inheritance with someone who was going to take half. A fucking stranger who’d never even met a Stanford! Who cares about what happened in the past. She wasn’t entitled to a penny in my book. She had to be removed from the equation. I was simply being pro-active in protecting my assets from a threat.” This was how he justified orchestrating the murder of Dotty Henderson. It was a twisted formula he had worked out in his dark brain.

“What exactly did you find out, Clay?” his father asked. “And don’t give me that plate of bullshit you tried to serve me earlier. I want to know how and when you found out that Dotty Henderson, the Schwab’s waitress, could have been your aunt? Furthermore, I want to know who it was you had on that jet from Mumbai a month ago. I got a call from Interpol and Homeland Security wanting to know why a jet registered to my fleet was flying an undocumented Indian national into the United States without a visa.

“Son, you will be making a colossal mistake if you should ever think you are clever enough to out maneuver me in any capacity at this point in life.”

Clay sat listening to his father on the phone with his head down and his hands clasped beneath his chin. One thing he knew for sure, and that was he did not want to ever piss off his father under any circumstances. He carried the force of a nightmare when wronged.

He had to clean this up and clean it up as in yesterday.

“Dad, can I meet you on Monday and explain to you in person what I was trying to do?”

“Fine, I just hope you weren’t foolish enough to be involved in anything illegal. God forbid you are connected to what happened to my sister … in any way.”