What Remains of Me Page 29

  Mary nodded. “He told me I must be seeing things,” she said. “He called me delusional. He said I was sick. Made me promise never to mention it again.”

  “Wow,” Barry said.

  “When I got outside, there was McFadden, chatting up my son like it was any other day on set.”

  “What about Bellamy?”

  “She didn’t say a word about it. But she changed.” She gave him a sad smile. “We all did.”

  She twisted her wedding band—a thick, white gold conversation piece, crusted with diamonds. “Sterling never stopped acting,” she said quietly. “He played a role his whole life. Lied to the world, to all of us, time and time again.”

  “Mary?” Barry said.

  “Yes.”

  “You want to tell me what happened three nights ago?”

  “I killed him,” she said. “Shot him three times, twice in the chest, once in the head.”

  “Do you feel bad about it?”

  She glanced at the tape recorder, then returned to Barry’s face. “What I feel bad about,” she said, “is waiting thirty-five years.”

  CHAPTER 30

  JUNE 7, 1980

  How did it go?” said Vee, after the screen test.

  “Fine.” Kelly couldn’t say any more than that. The receptionist’s lounge in his dad’s Century City office was all white, with white leather couches, one wall lined with white-framed movie posters, the other made entirely of smoky glass bricks. It felt kind of like a spaceship to her, one from some old movie she’d seen on TV once but whose title she couldn’t remember. She thought about that. The movie on TV. The whiteness of the room. She still couldn’t look at Vee’s face. Before the screen test, she’d been able to plead nerves when he asked her why she was so quiet. What could she say now?

  “You okay?” Kelly felt Vee’s hand at the small of her back, light, tentative. She wanted to scream.

  “Uh-huh.”

  Bellamy had been reading a People magazine. She put it down. “Let’s get the fook outta here,” she said, her gaze moving from Kelly’s face to the framed poster, just behind her, for the movie Defiance: Bellamy’s dad in silhouette, eleven-year-old Vee in the foreground—a scared young boy in a cowboy hat. A John McFadden Western under the title in blazing red letters. Her eyes narrowed, as though she was angry at it.

  The receptionist was a model-skinny woman in a white halter dress, with pale blond hair that looked as though it had been dyed to match the office. She was strikingly beautiful—one of those people of a different species than Kelly. Vee turned to her. “Isn’t my dad going to come out and talk to us?”

  “One sec, hon.” She picked up the phone and buzzed him, speaking in hushed, concerned tones. “He’s got a conference call, Vincent. He says he’ll see you back at the house.”

  Vee frowned. “Okay.” He headed for the door, and Bellamy and Kelly followed, Kelly watching the receptionist, who glanced up, meeting her gaze. Kelly held it. Lucky for you, you’re too old for him.

  Bellamy grabbed her hand, yanked her toward the door. She put her lips up to Kelly’s ear. “Keep it together,” she whispered.

  IN THE CAR, BELLAMY SAID, “YOU WANT TO HEAR SOME MUSIC?”

  Kelly shook her head. She was in the backseat, Vee in the front. They pulled out of the enclosed lot, Vee watching her, sea blue gaze on her face in the rearview.

  “You okay, Kelly?”

  Bellamy shot her a look.

  “Yeah,” she said quickly. “I’m just . . .” She cleared her throat. “I didn’t get to visit my dad today.”

  “Sorry, sweetie, but I can’t take you to Betty Ford,” Bellamy said. “I have a date with Steve Stevens. He hates it when I’m late.”

  Vee said, “Do you always have to call him by his first and last name?”

  And Bellamy picked up her cue, waxing on about Steve Stevens for the whole ride back to Gower, saving Kelly from the pain of trying to talk. When they got to the front of the castle, Kelly opened the door fast and flew out.

  “I’ll walk you up,” said Vee.

  “That’s okay.”

  She tore for the front door and shoved the key in. Catherine’s lipstick was in her front pocket. It pressed against her hip bone, burning. She took the stairs instead of the elevator, took them two at a time, her feet slamming into the stairs, forcing herself winded, just so she could breathe.

  When she got to her floor, she bent over, hands on her knees, breath coming in gasps. I can’t. I can’t. I can’t do this . . .

  Soon, Kelly became aware of a pounding on the wall, just above her. McFadden’s second apartment. She moved back on the landing, moved halfway up the next flight. She saw red hair, skinny legs in Dolphin shorts, little fists slamming into the door. She said, “He’s at his office,” and the girl turned. The Mounds girl.

  Her eyes were wide, panicky. She swallowed hard, her face relaxing. Acting. “Thanks.”

  The girl started down the stairs. She was tiny up close, a spray of freckles across her nose. The Mounds commercial had taken place on a playground. She’d sprouted wings and flown off the jungle gym to get to the candy. Kelly said, “You should stay away from him.”

  She passed her without replying, without looking at her. Kelly pulled the lipstick out of her pocket and stared at it, flashing on Catherine, who could apply her lipstick without looking in a mirror. “It’s only available in Europe,” she’d told her once. “A special friend gave it to me . . .”

  Tears sprung into Kelly’s eyes. She heard more footsteps on the stairs and soon Vee was rounding the flight, winded and smiling. “Bellamy ditched me for her date so I’ll have to call a cab,” he said. “But I’m walking you to the door whether you like it or not.”

  She looked at him.

  “What’s wrong?”

  She gripped the silver lipstick tube, her throat clenching. He moved toward her. She felt the weight of his hand on her shoulder, the warmth of it, and she couldn’t hold it in. She couldn’t keep it together. Kelly grabbed Vee’s hand, dropped the silver tube into it. “Your father,” she said. “That’s what’s wrong.” She slipped to the floor and he slipped down with her. He put his arms around her. “Talk to me,” he said.

  She told him everything.

  After she was finished, he stood up. Kelly gazed up at him. She had expected tears to match her own, but what she saw in his face was worse—something in his eyes that was beyond anger, beyond hurt. Some emotion she’d never seen before, one that made her feel as though she’d set off a bomb, the timer ticking, nothing she could do. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I couldn’t . . . I had to . . .”

  “I know,” he said quietly. “I know you had to.”

  He turned. Headed down the stairs, faster and faster, footsteps like firecrackers exploding.

  Kelly didn’t see Vee again for two weeks, when he showed up at his father’s wrap party, on the hottest night of the year.

  CHAPTER 31

  APRIL 25, 2010

  Ruth stared at the face on the laptop screen—the elegant, ageless face of Sterling’s wife.

  MARY MARSHALL CONFESSES TO HER HUSBAND’S MURDER, the headline read. But really, all Ruth could do was marvel at the fact that in 2010, Mary looked just as good as she had in 1963, if not better. After reading the article, she returned once again to the smooth skin, the golden hair of her ex-lover’s wife. I could pass for her mother now, Ruth thought, amazed at the advances made in plastic surgery over the last twenty-five years.

  The more she looked at the Internet, the shallower, the more Rose Lund–like Ruth Freed became.

  Ruth was in the canteen again. Since Sebastian Todd’s visit, she’d been coming in every morning after clearing the breakfast dishes, then logging on once again every night, before bed.

  It was interesting and a little frightening how quickly she had taken to the Internet. She clicked on every link provided in the stories, became a fan of lurid gossip Web sites—TMZ and Perez, her gaze hanging on old pictures of Sterling, Rose Lu
nd’s old desires creeping in with each keystroke. She needed to stop. She’d exiled herself for a reason after all. And now that Mary had confessed to killing her husband—an impulsive move “after years of listening to his lies”—there was no more need for Rose to keep up with the outside world. Her daughter was in the clear.

  Well, as much as she could ever be.

  TMZ had run a recent photograph of Kelly leaving the Hollywood police station after her husband’s arrest. She held her back straight now. Her cheekbones had grown pronounced and her laugh lines suited her, and she had a strength to her as a grown woman that she’d never had as a girl, an electricity in her gaze. For the first time, Ruth was able to see Sterling’s features in the face of her daughter, and it made her smile for a moment—until she saw the headline: PSYCHO KILLER KELLY LUND IS ALL GROWN UP!

  She had created a gmail account for herself. Sebastian had given her Kelly’s e-mail address and she’d made the account for the sole purpose of writing to her daughter—explaining why she had never told her who her birth father was. She’d wanted to talk to Kelly about men like John McFadden and Sterling Marshall, the power they wielded back then over “nobodies” like herself, and how as a nobody, you were left with no other choice than to keep their secrets, go along with their lies. You could get a little money that way, salvage a hint of what you could fool yourself into thinking was self-respect. It was what everyone believed back then: the Rules of the Game. She wanted to tell Kelly that if she had killed John McFadden, she understood. But either way, she wanted to apologize for the sad path she’d set both her daughters on by moving to Hollywood in the first place.

  The screen name was SkipToMyLou—Kelly’s favorite song when she was a very little girl, though Ruth doubted, at this point, that she would remember. She couldn’t bring herself to use the gmail account, though. Getting out of Kelly’s life was one thing, apologizing for everything was quite another. She wasn’t even sure who the apology would be for, Kelly or herself. Some things are better left unsaid. She used to say that to Kelly all the time. God, Ruth had been a terrible mother.

  Toward the bottom of the page, Ruth noticed a link to the Los Angeles Times—an interview with Sebastian about his upcoming Vanity Fair piece. She opened it, reread it briefly. There was a recent photo of Sebastian in yet another white suit as well as a picture of Ruth, taken thirty years ago when she was Rose—rail thin, bleached hair pulled back in a bun, wearing a dark blue Evan Picone suit she’d bought at a discount from I. Magnin. Ruth clicked away from it quickly—she hated old pictures of herself—but the click brought up another picture—Kelly, right after her sentencing. She stared at it—that sweet smile, those soft, child’s eyes. Poor Kelly. My poor baby.

  “Who is that?”

  Ruth jumped a little. “Always sneaking up on me,” she said.

  Demetrius smiled. For such a big boy, he had the quietest footfall. Ruth wondered what career that might help him in—ballet dancer, maybe. Librarian. Ninja. “What’s up, honey?”

  “Zeke wants to talk to you,” he said. “But he wants you to read this first.” Demetrius handed her a book. Her eyes widened when she saw the picture on the cover—the same picture of Kelly she’d just been looking at. Déjà vu, only a literal translation. She read the title: Mona Lisa: The True Story of Hollywood Killer Kelly Lund. Sebastian Todd’s book. She winced at the phrase: Hollywood Killer.

  It was a stolen library book—they had more than a few of these here at the compound, residents going to town for supplies, returning days later with some swiped literature. But this book . . . “Did you take this, DeeDee?”

  He shook his head. “Zeke says he did.”

  “When?”

  “Like a year ago.”

  She frowned. Strange he hadn’t mentioned it to her. Though, maybe it wasn’t all that strange. She remembered her most recent conversation with Sebastian Todd: “How did you track me down in the first place?” “Don’t you remember the letter you sent me? You said I had it wrong. That John McFadden was the real villain.” “Jesus, Zeke sent the letter . . .”

  “Huh?”

  She looked at Demetrius. “Nothing, honey,” she said. “But wait a minute. Your dad wants me to read this entire book?”

  Demetrius shook his head. “Just page seventy-five.”

  She opened the book. Page seventy-five was in the middle of the pictures section—a black-and-white head shot of a handsome young boy with sharp cheekbones and penetrating eyes and the caption:

  Missing since 1980.

  She read: John McFadden’s troubled son, teen actor Vincent Vales, disappeared two weeks before Kelly Lund shot his father. Some in attendance at the ill-fated Resistance wrap party claimed to have seen the then-16-year-old boy, running from his father’s property the night of the murder.

  “Why does he want me to read this?” she asked. But then she looked closer at the photo—the boy’s jawline, the strong chin. She thought about Zeke as he lay dying in his room. Zeke whom she had met three years after this boy’s disappearance—Zeke, who had the same eyes, the same bone structure, who had changed his name and fled the material world at the same time as Vincent Vales had disappeared . . .

  “I don’t get it either,” Demetrius was saying. But Ruth did get it. She understood. She left the canteen quickly and hurried to the cabin of Ezekiel, a grown man who had named himself for a biblical exile whose father’s name meant “contempt.”

  ZEKE’S ROOM WAS DARK. RUTH HEARD HIS BREATHING, FRAIL AND labored. She went to the window and pulled open his draperies, the morning light illuminating his delicate cheekbones, his clean-shaven face. His eyes fluttered open. “Ruth?”

  “Vincent,” she said.

  And with the name, he fell apart, tears streaming, shoulders shaking, arms reaching out to her. She held him until he caught his breath and calmed—or maybe he had simply grown too tired to cry. “I’m sorry.”

  “For what?”

  “Deceiving you, all these years,” he said.

  “You didn’t deceive me,” she said. “I never knew who you were before this place because I never asked who you were.”

  “But I knew who you were, Ruth. I came back into town and I sought you out . . . all because of Kelly.”

  She looked at him, the beads of sweat on his forehead, his chest, so fragile it could collapse any minute, his whole body caving in on itself, as though it were made out of sticks. “Kelly killed your father,” she said.

  He shook his head. His skin was flushed There was a towel next to the bed, and Ruth took it, dabbed at his forehead. “She didn’t,” he said.

  And Ruth noticed what the towel had been covering—a clunky old tape recorder, no doubt stolen years ago from a school or local library. “Play” and “record” had been pressed. The cassette tape inside whirred.

  “What is going on?” Ruth said.

  “Kelly didn’t kill my father.”

  She stared at Zeke, face flushed, his sheets damp from his sweat. “What?”

  “I killed him.” He said it loudly, clear enough for the tape recorder to catch it all. “I killed my father, John McFadden.”

  KELLY HEARD IT FIRST FROM A TMZ REPORTER, WHO ANNOUNCED, slasher movie–style, that he was calling from “right outside your house.” He’d asked her to step outside and let him know how she felt about her mother-in-law’s confession. Kelly, who had just finished reading the text from Shane, had been so out of sorts, she’d nearly done it—until Mary Marshall saved her from herself by calling on the other line, collect from the L.A. County Jail.

  “I’ve spoken to my lawyers. And I’ve made sure that should you decide to divorce Shane in light of . . . recent information . . . you’ll still be provided for always.”

  “Did you know?”

  “No,” she said. “Not until the other night.”

  “Oh.”

  She lowered her voice to a near whisper. “I didn’t tell the police about it. It’s your news to tell or keep to yourself.”

 
; “But . . . didn’t you have to tell them why you shot him?”

  She let out a low, mirthless laugh. “It may have been the final straw, but trust me, I had plenty of other reasons.”

  “You did?” Kelly said. She was genuinely shocked, but then again nothing was as it seemed, the kaleidoscope turning in on itself again, her eyes going back to Shane’s text, rereading it yet again. Bellamy . . .

  “Trust me, honey,” her mother-in-law was saying. “A woman can only be lied to for so long.”

  “Mary?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you miss him?”

  She said nothing for several seconds. On Mary’s end of the line, Kelly heard noises at a distance—a loud clang, a woman’s voice shouting. “I miss who I thought he was,” she said.

  For a moment, Kelly flashed on the Marshalls at the dinner table, the picture-perfect couple she remembered from her youth. Sterling slicing a roast, drugged, serene Mary ladling out peas for her beautiful children. To have a house like this, Kelly had thought. To have parents like those.

  “Life is very strange,” Mary said. “Though I have learned this, Kelly. Ultimately, everything comes out in the wash. We all get what we deserve.”

  “Including John McFadden?”

  Again, Mary took a long pause, the prison sounds bringing back memories . . .

  “Did Ilene Cutler tell you what I said?”

  “Yes.”

  “About John McFadden. How you did the world a favor.”

  “Yes,” she said. “But I’m not sure what you meant by that.”

  A man’s voice shouted, “Two more minutes!”

  “All I can say, Kelly, is that as Bellamy’s mother, I wish you’d made it hurt more.”

  Kelly’s breath caught.

  “I have to go, dear,” Mary said.

  “Wait,” said Kelly, recalling the way Bellamy would avert her eyes when John McFadden was in the room, how she’d taken rides from him, but only in groups, always insisting on being dropped off first.

  “We’ll talk again soon.” Mary sighed. “You must give me advice on how to get used to prison life. Timed phone conversations at my age. Really.”