What Remains of Me Page 6

  Kelly stared at Bellamy, then at the spiky-haired boy in the passenger seat.

  “Well, don’t just stand there, dummy,” Bellamy said. “Get in the car.”

  “Where were you? It’s been three days.”

  Bellamy sighed. “You go to school too much.”

  It wasn’t until Kelly had squeezed into the tiny backseat and Bellamy had lit a cigarette and started driving again, flipping on a British bootleg tape of a band called Joy Division and telling Kelly, “You have to listen to this song, it is so us,” that the boy introduced himself.

  “I’m Vee,” he said, deep blue eyes fixed on Kelly’s face from the passenger-side mirror.

  “Hi. I’m Kelly.”

  The song, Bellamy said, was called “She’s Lost Control.” For a while, Kelly and Vee listened to it in silence, both thinking about Bellamy saying us, both wondering which of them she’d meant to include.

  CHAPTER 6

  “Words can be bent to your will in a way that visual art cannot,” says Bellamy Marshall, a smile curling her bright red lips. “In a way, all memoirists are fiction writers. But in visual art—in my art—all you have is the truth.”

  For the artist—who happens to be both the daughter of movie legend Sterling Marshall and a former classmate of convicted murderer Kelly Lund—the truth of her heady growing-up years in the early ’80s is alternately ugly and beautiful. Her art installations encompass both qualities—most notably Mona Lisa, which features a seven-foot-tall version of the iconic 1981 photograph taken of Lund outside the Los Angeles courthouse. Chilling in its own right, the photo takes on new meaning at this size, adorned with globs of gold and silver glitter and pink feathers—and accompanied, like all of Marshall’s creations, by an arresting “soundtrack.” In this case it’s Lund herself, recorded during a prison phone conversation with Marshall several years ago and played in a continuous loop that grows more terrifying with each repetition. “I miss you,” intones Lund’s flat, childlike voice. “Why won’t you visit?”

  “Mona Lisa was utterly wrenching to create,” says Marshall of the work, which derives its name from Lund’s chilling facial expression in the photograph, dubbed “the Mona Lisa Death Smile” by noted crime writer Sebastian Todd. “It’s gratifying for me that it has received such a strong response.”

  The central piece in Marshall’s “Tales from Glamorland” exhibit—showing at LACMA from August 10–28—Mona Lisa captures both the seductive sheen of show business and the banality of sin. And it marks the striking 32-year-old’s reinvention, from spoiled Hollywood socialite to a creator of art in her own right.

  It took a lot for Marshall to shake off the gloss of her father’s legend. For a time, she even debated changing her last name, or dropping it altogether. But as she says now, it is her father’s legend that shaped her—for better and for worse.

  “I will always love Dad, but it was so difficult growing up in his shadow,” muses Marshall, dragging a hand through her jet-black bob. “There were so many people who would do anything to get close to me. But it was never because of me. It was always Dad, always Sterling Marshall and the world I lived in because of him.”

  Was Kelly Lund one of those people?

  It’s a question that’s presumably easy to answer. It was Lund’s very brief friendship with a young Bellamy Marshall, after all, that allowed the killer’s path to cross with that of doomed Oscar-nominated director John McFadden.

  But rather than respond to the question quickly, Marshall ponders it in silence for quite some time. She adjusts her cat’s-eye glasses and takes another sip of coffee, her dark eyes seeking out some faraway spot on the café’s cracked, adobe wall.

  “She used to watch Dad’s movies when she was a little girl,” Marshall says, her voice quiet, almost wistful. “He was her mother’s favorite.”

  FROM

  “Art’s Reluctant ‘It’ Girl”

  Los Angeles Times Magazine

  August 1, 1994

  CHAPTER 7

  APRIL 21, 2010

  Shane found his way home without thinking about it. Strange, considering he had such a poor sense of direction, he practically needed the GPS to navigate his way from his and Kelly’s place in Joshua Tree Highlands to “downtown” Joshua Tree—which was about five minutes away and all of two blocks.

  But even stranger that he still thought of 2071 Blue Jay Way as “home.”

  It was a warm, dry day, that bright sun spilling in on him once he started climbing long, twisty Beachwood Drive and opened the windows. And in so many ways it was as if no time had passed.

  Through his windshield, he could see the Hollywood sign—first time he’d seen the sign in daylight in half a decade, yet still it was the same, everything up here the same. Lurid red and pink bougainvillea climbing stucco walls, metal gates decked with security cameras, shielding infinity pools and tennis courts and Versailles-like landscaping that came at you in flash frames through thin breaks in the gates. You could only see them in full from above, the grounds of these palaces. But that sign, always that sign—the one view up here that wasn’t in any way obstructed or guarded, that white sign sprawled out so obscenely at the top of Mount Lee, daring you to look anywhere else.

  Shane made the turn onto Blue Jay Way, and immediately saw the vans lined up on the street. He couldn’t tell how many were there, but as he drew closer, he saw they numbered half a dozen—one from Action News, one from TMZ, the others unmarked, probably freelance paparazzi. A helicopter buzzed overhead in a lazy circle, vulture analogy all too obvious.

  Must be a slow news day. Dad hasn’t made a movie in years.

  Of course, celebrity suicides were always big news, weren’t they? The phrase hung in his head. Celebrity suicides. He wished he hadn’t thought of it. His throat clenched up again as he reached the gate, his thoughts going to Mom. Had she been the one to find him? Could she hear the buzz of the helicopter? Is she all right? Can she think? Can she breathe?

  When he reached the gate that still shielded the mansion he grew up in and stopped the car, he heard their voices through his open window—the van occupants. The audience. “You ask for an audience, you get one always, whether you want one or not,” his dad used to say. “They’re always watching, son. You need to be more careful how you look.” They were watching now. Watching and commenting like he was something on TV.

  “Who is that in the Jeep?” one of them said. “Think it’s the son,” said another. Shane heard Kelly’s name and his name and he pushed the button fast, shoving a memory out of his mind, a memory of Dad pushing the same button, Mom in the passenger seat, Shane and Bellamy in the back, young and small and forever safe . . .

  One of the paps yelled, “Shane! Over here!”

  “Who is here, please?” said a female voice from the other end of the intercom—a voice he’d never heard before.

  He cleared his throat. “Shane Marshall.”

  “Did you see it coming, Shane?”

  “Shane! Shane! What did the note say?”

  What was wrong with these people? Did they honestly think he was going to answer? He started to say his name into the box again when the strange female voice said, “Come right in, Mr. Marshall,” and the gate opened. Thank God.

  “Shane, when was the last time your dad told you he loves you?”

  He shut the window and pulled up and into his family’s property, the gate closing around him like arms.

  The driveway was long and steep, and as he took it toward the house, more memories pushed in on him until his head felt crowded—birthday parties, hide-and-seek, visits from all those tanned, sparkling people that were part of his parents’ lives. Dad’s life, actually. Actors, directors . . . Mom at the ready with her trays of finger sandwiches, mixing cocktails by the pool, sunglasses shielding her eyes so you never knew what she was thinking.

  Shane swallowed hard.

  It all looked so much the same—the manicured lawn, that embarrassing green, as though water were lim
itless in this town, his mother’s bright rosebushes and hibiscus, the magnolia tree he used to climb to spy on Bellamy and her friends . . .

  He tried to collect himself, to get his breathing back to normal. All that paparazzi. Jesus. What a swarm. Why hadn’t Mom called the police on them? Why hadn’t Bellamy?

  When he reached the house, he saw three police cars parked alongside the house. Is that normal for a suicide? Shane thought, the word rattling him all over again. A thin woman in black jeans and a black T-shirt stood in front of the door. It took him a few seconds to recognize her as his sister.

  How long had it been? Six, seven years. Not that long in the general scheme of things, but God she looked so different. So much thinner, paler, her lips meager without that poison-red lipstick, the dyed hair pulled back in a greasy ponytail, the jet-blackness of it so out of place now on this frail sketch of a woman—his sister, who hadn’t aged so much as faded into something dull, something harmless.

  I should have talked to Bellamy. At least I should have told Dad I was going to talk to her and forgive her, and maybe then . . .

  Maybe we would never have argued. Maybe you’d still be alive.

  Shane turned off the Jeep and climbed out. He went to his sister and hugged her, Bellamy so thin and brittle in his arms, leaning on him as though she’d become the baby, Shane the protector. Bellamy, why did we waste so many years? He knew the answer, of course. But it didn’t feel important with her wet cheek against his neck, her bony body trembling against him. Bellamy, his only sister. Bellamy, who had lost her father too.

  Shane stared at the police cars alongside his house, his home, and he started to cry again. Not just for Dad but for his sister, his family, his safe, happy youth. For everything he once had and no longer did.

  “Why did he do it, Bella?” he said. “Why did Dad kill himself?”

  Bellamy pulled back. Her hard eyes surprised him, as did her grip on his shoulders, so tight it hurt. “Let’s go inside,” she said.

  SHANE FELT LIKE HE WAS STUCK IN A FEVER DREAM. THE HOUSE HE grew up in, crawling with police, yellow tape cordoning off the kitchen—and, Bellamy told him as he stood staring at it, coiling around the sliding doors he used to hang on as a kid, cordoning off his father’s upstairs office too. “The scene of the crime,” she told him. “That’s what they’re calling Dad’s office, Shane.”

  “Is Dad still in there?”

  “No,” she said. “The medical examiner took . . . took him.”

  “They do that for suicides?” Shane said. Stupid thing to say. He didn’t even know why he’d said it. It was as though his mouth was moving of its own accord, reality knocking into him like waves. His parents’ home. The big window overlooking the canyon that he used to press his nose against, Flora complaining about the prints. And in it, in this place that used to be his whole world . . . Crime scene tape. Police uniforms brushing by, staticky radios. The click of cameras. White gloved hands . . . And then, his mother in a white silk robe on the red couch by the window, doubled over, collapsed . . .

  “Mom.” Shane moved toward her, Bellamy sticking close behind.

  “Mom.”

  Her head lifted, very slowly. She looked up at him, her mouth a trembling line, eyes like smashed glass. For a few seconds, it seemed as though she didn’t recognize him. Then she whispered his name.

  Shane tried to think of the last time he’d seen his mother—had to have been at least a year ago. He’d gone to one of her charity luncheons and she’d greeted him with a big smile, a hug. She never changed, Mom. Not before today. But now, it was as though someone had scooped all the life out of her. “You’re here,” she said.

  Shane bent over, took her in his arms. She hung on him limply. She felt so frail, as though if he hugged her too hard, all her bones might crumble.

  Mom had met Dad as a nineteen-year-old script girl. Married him three months later. She’d spent her entire adulthood as Mrs. Sterling Marshall and sure, they’d had their disagreements—Shane marrying Kelly being their biggest—but he had never seen two people more devoted to each other. “I’ve had only one great love,” Mom used to say. “And I wound up marrying him.”

  “I’m so sorry, Mom.”

  “You poor boy,” she whispered.

  Shane pulled away. And only then did he notice Flora, the housekeeper. “There, there, Mary,” Flora said. “There, there . . .”

  “Shane, there’s something you need to see,” said Bellamy. A woman stood next to her—stern faced, in office camouflage: gray pantsuit, beige shirt, graying hair pulled back in beige clips. Shane blinked at her. Is she what I need to see? “This is Detective Braddock,” Bellamy said.

  The woman corrected her. “Brad-dock,” she said, rhyming it with padlock.

  “Uh, hello?”

  “Come into the den, please, Mr. Marshall.”

  Braddock turned, headed toward the den without waiting to see if he was following. Bellamy took the crook of Shane’s arm in both her hands, and led him.

  “What about Mom?”

  “She’ll be fine out here with Flora,” Bellamy said. “Right, Mom?”

  They exchanged a look that Shane couldn’t begin to understand. “What’s going on?” he said. “What do I need to see? Is it the note?”

  Bellamy sighed heavily.

  “Is it Dad’s note?”

  “Come on, Shane,” she said, making him feel five again, pulling him along as he turned, taking one last, long look at his crumpled mother.

  “I’M GOING TO SHOW YOU SOMETHING,” BRADDOCK SAID, AFTER Shane and Bellamy had sat down on the couch. There was an open laptop on the coffee table. She typed in a few commands and an image appeared on the screen—a figure in a gray hoodie slipping out of a door, getting into a midsize, silver car, then driving into the darkness.

  She switched it off. The whole thing must have lasted at least five seconds.

  “Well?” Bellamy said.

  The detective shushed her. “Do you want to see it again?”

  “See what?” Shane said.

  She clicked at the laptop, and again he watched the image—the person, tallish, moving fast, flinging open the car’s door, sliding in . . .

  “What does that look like to you, Mr. Marshall,” Braddock said.

  “Ummm . . . Someone driving?”

  Bellamy exhaled. “Jesus,” she whispered.

  Shane was starting to feel worried and adrift—the way he’d sometimes feel in dreams, when he was stuck in a play without knowing his lines, or at his old high school, taking a test in a language he’d never seen. “I . . . I don’t know what’s going on.”

  “What type of car does your wife drive, Mr. Marshall?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “We have her owning a 2009 Toyota Camry, is that correct?”

  “Yes.”

  “Silver?”

  “Yeah. So . . .”

  “That car in the video. Does it look at all like hers?”

  “I . . . I guess it kind of . . . Wait, what are you asking me here?”

  “Does your wife own any hoodies, Mr. Marshall?”

  He stared at her. “Everybody owns hoodies.”

  “I should be more specific, sorry. Does she own any pale gray hoodies, similar to the one worn by the person in the video?”

  Shane swallowed hard. “What is this video?”

  Bellamy started to answer, but the detective put a hand up. “It’s footage from one of the security cameras at this house,” Braddock said. “Taken this morning at two A.M.—your father’s estimated time of death.”

  “Oh,” he said.

  “All other surveillance was shut down,” Braddock said. “The security guard had left for the night, so the cameras were most likely turned off either by your father, or by this visitor.”

  “Oh . . .”

  “Would you like to take another look at the video? We can plug the laptop into the big screen. Show it there.”

  He turned to the blank screen on the wall of
his parents’ den. State-of-the-art. Of course it was. In the eighteen years he’d lived here, the Marshall family had probably gone through twenty den TVs, switching up each time, and this one was trade-show material—a good eighty inches wide, slim as a credit card, a lustrous black pool of a screen. No doubt this piece of machinery was wonderful to watch his father’s old movies on, but there was no doubt in his mind that, if even viewed on that screen, the surveillance video could only be what it was, which was crap. Shane had seen clearer, more discernable images in his dreams. “I don’t know what good that would do.” His voice shook a little. “I mean . . . I’m not even sure whether that person in the video is a man or a woman.”

  “Oh come on!” Bellamy stood up and whirled around and made for the window, the air filling with the scent of her—cigarettes, combined with a perfume smell, cliché-sweet and expensive, the kind you find samples of in fashion magazines. “That was her on the video, Shane,” Bellamy said. “You know it was.”

  “Kelly?”

  “No. Beyoncé. What is wrong with you?”

  “It is five seconds of a person in a hoodie,” he said. “It could just as easily be you, Bellamy.”

  “Are you fucking kidding me?”

  “It could be anybody.” He glared at Bellamy, memories tugging at him. The walls of this room hadn’t changed since he was a kid. No matter how many times the TV in here got upgraded, the walls stayed white, the framed photos—stills from Dad’s movies, dozens of them—hung in the same positions they’d always been in . . . His gaze rested on the far left corner of the room, on the still from the movie he’d been thinking of: Defiance. There was rugged, western-style Dad, all beard scruff and blood spatter, aiming a pistol at the camera, his eyes glittering beacons in a dirty, chiseled face.

  Defiance was Dad’s one and only western. It had been shot in the mid-’70s, about an hour or two away from here in the middle of the blazing, dusty San Bernardino desert on a set so detailed, it felt like time travel.