Perfect Sax (27 page)

I was alive. Chuck was dead. Sherrie was armed. My brain could only think in sentences of three short words as I tried to get a grip. I almost laughed, so strung out was I into shock. I owed my life to voice mail, whose inventor I now owed the best dinner of his life.

I tried hard to focus. Think slowly. And the giddiness subsided. My message. It must have jolted Honnett out of his denial. Sherrie, his disturbed wife, had been tracking me. And now she had Holly and me trapped in a big empty house.

Honnett knew that Sherrie had been tailing me and maybe he had hoped that would be as far as it went. A small, sad matter—his sick wife pathetically watching his girlfriend—something he could make right somehow before it escalated
out of control. But my message had been short and clear. Sherrie had a gun. At last, Honnett had to face the truth. And so he came to my rescue.

Sirens were faintly perceptible in the far distance now. Maybe Honnett had called for backup before he approached the house. Maybe the neighbors were cowering in their mansions, hearing gunshots on their quiet streets, frantically dialing 911.

Sherrie fell to the stone-paved sidewalk to get closer to the man she had just shot down. She was talking to him softly, telling him he would be all right. Not to worry.

It was unnerving to hear her coo at his unconscious form, gun still in her hand, while he bled to death on the front walk. The tension as Sherrie dithered on about love and God and the pain she endured, as she threatened the peace in leafy Hancock Park, was unbearable. But as long as Sherrie held a loaded weapon, she could rant about whatever she wanted. That was her power now.

I prayed the police would show up in time. I prayed hard. Sherrie had momentarily forgotten to track where I had gone. But upon hearing the faint sounds of sirens, she snapped back to the here and now.

She stood up and yelled, “Where did you go, bitch? Come out here and see what you did to Chuck! You whore!”

I don’t think she saw me, but she guessed the general direction in which I’d fled. I was sitting, masked by a thicket of camellia bushes and other greenery, up against the exterior wall right below the bay window of the living room, trying not to move, not to make a sound, as the explosive crack of two shots rang out. The bullets had been fired in my direction. One hit the stucco not three feet from where I sat cowering against the house, hugging my knees. The other struck slightly higher and shattered a pane in the multipaned bay window. Shards of glass blew out, a few falling on me.

The last time I saw her, Holly had been in that room, I thought, desperate. Please, God, I begged. Let Holly be all right. Let her be all right.

Sherrie screamed in rage. The sirens grew louder, maybe now only three blocks away.

They’d never make it in time. Sherrie had a semiautomatic weapon with a clip. She was not limited to six bullets. She could keep sniping away and pretty soon I’d be dead.

She crouched down again, just outside the front door, stooping over Honnett’s motionless body. I could hear her crying as she called to me and begged me to come out so she could finish her job.

I slowly pulled my Hawaiian-print bag off my shoulder with as few movements as was possible so as not to set the bushes shivering, and I pulled out the Lady Smith .38 revolver with the custom-engraved
S.

Two more shots spat out in my direction. The cops had not arrived yet, maybe never would. Holly and I were going to die. I peeked between the foliage and could see Sherrie pretty clearly. The front entry of the house was only about thirty feet from where I was hiding. She was bending low and leaning close to Honnett.

It was impossible. Even if I was an excellent markswoman, I would never be able to hit her with only six shots. I was using a short-barreled revolver and was in a horrible position. And I wasn’t a sharpshooter. I’d miss her. I’d give away my position. And I’d probably end up shooting Honnett.

Two more shots hit the windows above me, raining down a hailstorm of glass, as the police sirens blasted much more loudly, hiccupping as they turned onto Hudson.

Sherrie was frantic now. She stood up and planted her feet shoulder-width apart, just the stance Andi had instructed me for best positioning during a firefight.

Sherrie’s 9mm pistol shot out again, and this time the lead
came within inches of finding me on the ground. She was aiming lower now. Two more bullets bit into the dirt near my hand. I was pinned, afraid to scramble away, fearing the movement in the shrubs would give away my position, knowing I was about to die.

I looked up through the branches as Sherrie peered in my direction. She didn’t want to leave Honnett, or she could easily have walked over and finished the job. Then behind Sherrie, inside the house in the open doorway, I saw Holly Nichols, swaying slightly. Blood dripped down the side of her face. Holly was a tall woman, an athlete in high school. I knew with sick certainty she would try to save me. She looked determined to grab Sherrie from behind.

The two police cars were screeching to a stop in the middle of Hudson, distracting Sherrie from noticing Holly coming at her from behind. But then she must have realized something was wrong. She swung 180 degrees, facing Holly, gun ready.

“Holly!” I screamed, standing up in front of the blown-out bay window and planting my feet shoulder-width apart. “Get away!”

What happened next went by in a blur. Holly fell back into the house, slamming the heavy door. Sherrie snapped her head toward the sound of my voice. She didn’t even waste a shot in Holly’s direction. Sherrie turned and pointed her Beretta directly at my chest. At about the same time the cops were jumping out of their cars, drawing their guns, screaming for everyone to put down their weapons, I was pointing my gun at the center of Sherrie Honnett’s body, steadying myself to fire. It was odd—in the middle of that escalating melee, I felt no fear. I heard a dozen lead bees whiz by my head as I pulled the trigger on the Smith & Wesson .38 six times.

Sherrie crumpled on the front steps of the house as three more patrol cars tore up Hudson and screeched to a halt.

The four officers who were already in position in the street, barricaded behind their cars, were joined by six others. All of them immediately turned their service guns on me. One screamed, “
Drop your weapon right now or we will fire.
DO IT!”

I threw my gun out on Wesley’s front lawn.

“Put your hands on your head,” a voice yelled.

I did it. “That man,” I yelled back as they swarmed forward with guns still out. “That man is Lieutenant Chuck Honnett. Sherrie shot him. She shot him. I was trapped.”

I was pushed facedown on the front lawn. A uniformed female officer stepped on my shoulders and put all her weight on me, holding me hard with my face in the grass, her gun pointed at my back.

“Maddie,” Holly shrieked, opening the front door. Then she yelled at the cops, pointing at me, “Don’t hurt that woman!” More sirens screamed up the quiet upscale street as Holly pleaded, “She’s the good guy.”

T
wo days passed. I hadn’t been sleeping well. Nightmares. Which was pretty understandable, I suppose.

I was still living out of suitcases in Hancock Park while my own house remained ripped open, under construction. Between Wesley and me, neither of us had a residence that hadn’t been the recent scene of some terrible, violent, bloody action. We desperately, giddily contemplated an escape, maybe to Holly’s one-bedroom apartment in West Hollywood, but then Donald was coming home any day. The pair had big plans for a climactic reunion. Neither Wes nor I needed to witness that.

So Wesley supervised the cleanup of the blood and damaged stucco and blown-out glass, and each time I walked past the main house, I tried not to stare at that spot near the bay window where I had almost been killed. It was enough to make taking a Xanax or two sound almost interesting.

Former police officer Sherrie Honnett survived the firefight in the front yard on Hudson, barely. But despite the efforts of the paramedics as her ambulance screamed up to the emergency entrance of Queen of Angels–Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center, she was pronounced dead on arrival. I learned later that one of the three bullets that hit
her was a .38. I had been the only one there carrying that caliber.

It was kind of a miracle that I came through the ordeal unharmed, save in the most trivial way—several dozen deep scratches down my arms and legs from the bushes—and the more profound—the shudder in my soul from the unrelenting horror that I had shot someone. I realize my pain is nothing compared to the shocking finality of death, but it stung almost unbearably hard just the same. I knew I would have to learn to live with my wounds, and as for Sherrie, I would hope that she had found some peace.

Chuck Honnett had been relatively lucky, if the word
luck
can even be used when describing a gunshot wound to the chest. It turned out one bullet grazed his arm. He had only been hit seriously by one of Sherrie’s shots. But at point-blank range, even one blast of a 9mm bullet can do a severe amount of damage. Sirens wailing, Honnett also had been transported to Queen of Angels and then rushed into surgery. One lung had been damaged and he lost a lot of blood. I’d been told by his doctor that Honnett’s wounds were relatively minor considering just how close he’d come to death. Sherrie had missed Honnett’s heart by an inch. Ironic, no?

On Wednesday morning, I awoke from a vivid dream, another nightmare. A man very much like Honnett was sitting with me at an old-fashioned saloon and he was forcing me to drink shot glasses of whiskey. I had a horrible pain in my chest, which I somehow figured was from drinking too much, but he kept smiling and making me take another shot.

Since dreams often use puns, this was not the most ambiguous image on the planet. Me and Honnett. Heartache. Shots. You can see why I don’t need a shrink just yet to analyze my dreams.

It was only six-ten but I woke myself up fully to shake the
fear of my dream away. What had I been trying to tell myself? Was my subconscious still in turmoil because I took those “shots” at Sherrie? Undoubtedly. Or maybe it was more than that. I wanted to blame Honnett for getting me into this mess. He had put me in a position where I had to take shots at his wife. But in the light of day I knew it hadn’t been his fault. From the first day we met, Honnett had tried to avoid getting too involved with me. I had been the impulsive one, the one who insisted we get together, so innocent of any consequences or danger.

No matter my nightmares and their true meanings, I could always find a way to blame myself. Here I was again, back to that. And I knew what Wes would say and what Holly would say. All this self-pity wasn’t doing me much good. I sat up in bed. I needed something to distract me from my own emotional devils. And just at that moment, a new idea popped into my head. It was so irresistible, I immediately grabbed for the phone.

Maybe I should have been more mindful of who I telephoned at six twenty-three on a Wednesday morning, but I dialed the number of Connie Hutson anyway.

“Hello?” It was Connie’s voice. She’d picked up on the second ring.

“This is Madeline Bean. Sorry, Connie. Did I wake you?”

“No, of course not. I’m just going to the gym to work out. I’ve been meaning to call you,” she said. Many of the Woodburn ladies had avoided me since Bill Knight was arrested in the middle of the flower party, followed by the latest round of shoot-outs, which all made screaming headlines. It was one thing to have a caterer with a colorful past, but it seemed I’d stepped over the line from colorful to notorious. These were all sensible, conservative women. It was human nature to be wary of associating with anyone who seemed to attract gunfire as much as I had lately.

“I understand,” I said. “Listen, I have a quick question. Do you have just one minute?”

There was a slight hesitation and then Connie said, “Just one.”

“Do you remember back on the night of the Woodburn gala, exactly what all did Bill Knight buy at the auction?”

“You mean the Selmer Mark VI? He had the winning bid on that.”

“I know. But did he or Zenya get anything else? Anything from the silent-auction tables, maybe?”

“Yes,” Connie said, sounding surer of it now. “Everyone lines up after the affair to find out what bids they won and pay for their items. We had different lines, set up alphabetically by last names, so letters
A
to
F
lined up in one line and so on. I was supervising that process and it’s terribly hard. Everyone is in a hurry to pay and go home. No one has any patience at that time of night. And our volunteers were also tired. They had just been processing the silent auction bid sheets for an hour and also wanted to go home. Anyway, I remember Bill insisting he check out his items before he paid.”

“Was that unusual?”

“Well, yes. You understand, all the money raised at the silent auction goes to a good cause. Most bidders are aware that they get no real guarantees with anything they purchase. Besides, they can look everything over carefully before they bid. No one has ever tried to return anything in all my years working on these auctions.”

“But Bill wanted to check out his items?”

“Yes. But then he did spend a lot of money to get that saxophone. I didn’t think that much of it at the time.”

“So what did he do?”

“The Knights also had the highest bid on the Baby Bundle Basket in the silent auction. Bill took that and the Selmer
case back to the little office and checked them over, I suppose. It was a good thing he did, since he discovered that the saxophone was not in the case. Now, Maddie, I really have to run.”

“I know and I really appreciate this, Connie. Just one more question: What exactly was in that Baby Bundle Basket?”

“It was a lovely item donated by Haute Baby on Beverly. Know them? They sent in a huge Moses basket filled with their designer baby bedding and clothes. If I were ever crazy enough to have another baby, I’d have wanted to bid on that myself.”

“Isn’t it odd that the Knights would buy baby clothes?”

“Maybe they planned to give it as a gift.”

“Perhaps. Do you remember how much they paid for it?”

“Nineteen hundred dollars, which was well over the retail value. Very generous of them, especially—since now that we’re talking about it—I remember one of the gals mentioned that she found the baby clothes left out in the office.”

“What?”

“Apparently, when Liz Reed was closing up the little office, she noticed a stack of baby clothes left on the desk chair. We figured Bill had looked through his basket and then forgot to repack it in all the fuss about the saxophone.”

“But he took the basket,” I asked, “and the baby blanket?”

“Yes.”

And the Selmer Mark VI! I had figured it out. Bill Knight had stolen his own freaking saxophone.

“Thanks, Connie. Sorry to keep you so long.”

Bill Knight had gone into the little office and was alone with the sax. That had to be how he pulled it off. He
tossed the baby clothes aside, put the Mark VI into the basket, and covered it all up with the baby blanket, leaving it behind for the moment in the office. Then he brought the empty sax case out and made a huge fuss. While all the auction volunteer women were in shock about this unprecedented theft and also trying to handle the huge lines of party guests impatient to check out and get their auction items, he must have swooped back into the office, grabbed his baby basket, and stormed out of the Tager Auditorium.

I remembered it now. I was standing at the bottom of the steps with Zenya. Bill had roared down the stairs holding a large something, which he threw into the back of the Hummer H1 while he yelled at us to jump into the vehicle.

Bill Knight stole his own bloody vintage saxophone. Damn. It had to be. It fit his freaking MO. Why not pull the stunt again? The Woodburn wouldn’t lose a cent. In fact, they’d get a lot more than they would if the sax had been sold to a reasonable bidder for a reasonable price. He’d known that the tenor was insured. He was on the Woodburn board, so he knew Albert Grasso was taking care of insurance on all the big items. He figured he could bid up high and look like a very big man indeed. And then, he simply stole his own sax. That way, he got the collectible instrument he coveted, wiggled out of paying for it, and helped the Woodburn get a whopping $100,000. He must have figured himself to be some modern-day Robin Hood. I was startled to realize it all made sense. In fact, I was surprised Bill Knight hadn’t bid $200,000 for the sax. Or a million.

And then I had another brilliant zing of recognition. What had Zenya said? Bill left her at home that night of the ball
and went out to take a drive. More loose threads were beginning to tie up.

Bill must have been surprised, that stressful night, to find his wife had invited an unexpected guest along for the ride home. As I imagined it, Bill had paid off his blackmailer, Sara Jackson, and then gone through the charade of discovering that his precious saxophone had been stolen. When he finally emerged out of the Tager Auditorium, with his baby-blanket-wrapped Selmer resting in a designer baby basket, he must have made a few last-minute alterations to his plan.

Bill’s fake rampage through the streets, up on curbs, ramming cars, must have been to impress this impartial witness with the authenticity of his anger. He put on a good rousing reaction scene. He’d been “ripped off.” Then he ditched me. What was that about?

I thought about what he did next and realized he told his wife to call her brother, Dex, to come to my rescue. For a last-second plan, it hadn’t been bad. Bill Knight had deflected suspicion from his own involvement in the missing Selmer and drawn Dexter out of his house. Now why would Bill Knight want to involve Dexter in this late-night farce? Of course, to make sure Dex wasn’t at home late that night. As I recalled, at about the time Dex and I were just sitting down to breakfast at the Original Pantry Café, Bill Knight had gone out again. Taking a drive, Zenya said. I suspected he drove directly to Dexter’s house in Bel Air and—oh my God!—found a way to ditch the Selmer
there.

And if that was true, Bill Knight was going to use his brother-in-law as his patsy. He must have always had a backup plan, just in case any investigators got a little too close for comfort. He intended to blame his brother-in-law
for the Mark VI heist if the shit hit the fan. And I had a horrible hunch that just such an unsavory object was about to do just such a messy thing. I jumped up out of bed and got dressed fast.

An hour later I was standing at Dexter’s front door.