The Bequest (6 page)

Chad Palmer knelt
beside an aging horse lying on its side on a
bed of hay in a barn on the outskirts of the Texas Hill Country town of
Bandera. Behind him in the airy barn, dimly-lit by a single bulb hanging
from a wire, stood Tom and Mary Tucker, Teri’s parents. Dressed in
bedclothes and robes, they watched and waited for Chad’s report.

Still fit,
in his mid-forties, Chad’s sun-weathered face
showed
concern, his eyebrows knitted, his mouth pressed in a thin line. He turned
to address the Tuckers. “I don’t think we can wait any longer.”

“You’re sure?” Mary asked, tears already streaking her face. Beside
her, Tom stood stoically, emotionless.
“She’s suffering, Mrs. Tucker. It’s the humane thing to do.”
“Do it,” Tom said in a cold monotone. Purely a business decision for
him.
Chad looked at Mary. “Does she know?”
Mary was frozen in place, unable to move, unable to respond.
“Mrs. Tucker, does she know?”
The words shook Mary from her trance. She slowly shook her head as
she pulled a cell phone from her pocket and punched a number on speed
dial.

To call Teri’s slumber “fitful” would be a gross understatement. She
thrashed about, entangled in sheets, and had been doing so for the past
two hours. Moonlight streamed in through open shades, almost like a
spotlight singling out a star on stage. But Teri felt as if her star had burned
out, along with Leland Crowell’s. She didn’t know how Leland had died,
how he had taken his own life, but still she dreamed about it. Snippets of
dreams, actually, covering every possible form of suicide: The Leland
from the picture Annemarie Crowell had shown her putting a gun in his
mouth; Leland jumping off a bridge; Leland swallowing an overdose of
pills; Leland in a running car in a closed garage. Each time, she saw his
ravaged face. Each time, the clown woman Annemarie Crowell stood in
the shadows, watching, a screenplay gripped tightly in her hands.

The
Magnum
theme roused Teri just as Leland was about to drive a
car at full speed into a concrete pillar, while Annemarie stood curbside
and watched, screenplay in hand. Teri kicked the sheets from around her
legs and looked at the bedside clock: 12:46 a.m.

She grabbed the phone and looked at the read-out, then answered.
“Mama, what’s wrong?”
“It’s Bingo, Baby. Chad’s got to put her down.”
Teri sat bolt upright in bed. A quiver gripped her voice. “No, Mama.
You can’t do that.”
“It’s for the best. Chad says—”
Mary’s voice was cut off, replaced by Tom’s. “It’s done.”
“You can’t do that, Daddy. Bingo’s not your horse. You don’t get to
decide when to put him down.”
“And Adam wasn’t your son, but you damn sure decided without my
input.”
It was as if the words had punched her in the stomach. She bent over
and gasped for breath, unable to formulate a response.
“You gave up your right to complain a long time ago,” Tom said.
“But Daddy—”
The hang-up tone rang in her ears and jostled her brain.
She got out of bed and stood, stretching as tall as she could, fighting
for air. Hot tears tingled on her cheeks. She paced the length of the room,
struggling to understand. Her life that had, at one time, seemed to be the
stuff of dreams, had crumbled into a nightmare. And a nightmare from
years ago had resurfaced to join the new nightmare. How could everything
have gone so wrong so fast?
She threw on a robe over her flannel shorts and t-shirt, stuck the cell
phone in her pocket, and hurried straight to the kitchen. Almost as if on
autopilot, she filled the coffee maker with water, measured coffee into the
filter, and pushed the “on” button. As the water boiled and coffee dripped
into the pot, she stared out the kitchen window at the blackness that
seemed so fitting. She didn’t know how long she stood there, but when
she turned back around, the coffee was finished.
She filled a cup, then went into the den and curled up on the couch in
the dark. Her gaze drifted to the fireplace, the white cover of
The Precipice
barely showing in the shadows, face up. Just as, earlier, it had seemed to
reach out and grab her ankle as she walked by, it felt as if it were calling to
her yet again. This time, though, she answered the call.
She set her cup on the coffee table and approached the fireplace,
opened the screen, and took out the script. She dusted a few stray ashes
off and then returned to the couch, turned on a lamp and, for the first
time, actually opened the cover.
And began reading.

An older model Chevrolet sedan sat curbside in front of Teri’s house. A
lone occupant sat behind the wheel: Annemarie Crowell. Annemarie
watched the house as lights came on, first in what she remembered as
being the kitchen from her prior visit, then a softer, fainter light from the
living area. The light by the couch. Annemarie knew the actress was sitting
on the couch, Leland’s screenplay in hand. Reading it.

An hour and a half later, Teri turned the last page. A cup of cold coffee sat
untouched on the table before her. She sat silently, digesting what she had
read.

She pulled her cell from her pocket and dialed a number. After
several rings, Mike Capalletti’s sleepy voice answered. “Hello? Teri?”
“The script is brilliant,” she said. “What’s our next step?”

Only one word
could adequately describe the look on Teri Squire’s
face: fear. What the hell was she doing there, so far from the comforts of
her own home? This was not the kind of house she made a habit of going
to. The last one like this had been Spencer West’s so-called office, dark
and drab, filled with cast-off furniture. She stood silently in the entryway,
just inside the front door, head cocked, as if listening.

“Hello? Anybody home?”
Nothing.
She stepped deeper into the house, across the entryway and stopped

at the edge of the house’s living area. Torn wallpaper hung from the wall
beside her and the roof sagged directly above her head, spotted with
yellow watermarks. She heard scampering sounds in the attic, too heavy
for mice, too light for raccoons. Probably squirrels.

At least she hoped it was squirrels.
She hesitated for a moment, allowing her eyes to adjust to the
blackness of the house, which was darker than outside, even though it was
a moonless night. She pulled a scrap of paper from her pocket, held it
close to her face, and squinted. This was the address she had been given,
but there was nothing familiar about the house or its contents, at least to
the extent she could see them.
She tucked the paper back in her pocket then reached inside to the
den wall and felt for a light switch. She flipped it, but no light came on.
She took out her cell phone, pushed an app button, and it lit up. She held
it out, its light meager but at least allowing her some field of vision.
Directly ahead was a fireplace with a barren mantel above it. She moved
the phone around, trying to gauge the rest of the room. A couch, sticklegged coffee table, recliner, television—all aged, all ragged, and all there
was. The walls were barren, striking in the absence of any signs that this
house was lived in.
A dark spot in front of the couch drew her attention. She walked
closer and knelt beside the darkness, about the size of a manhole cover on
the threadbare carpet. She extended her phone to see better, then gasped.
It was reddish in color. She felt it with her free hand, jerked it back at the
wetness. She held her fingers next to the phone. No mistaking the liquid at
the tips: blood. She held the phone about a foot from it and snapped a
picture.
A creaking sound came from behind her, then a shadow appeared,
recognizable only by a deepening of the darkness in the room. She stood
and turned, cell phone hand outstretched. There he stood. She couldn’t
see his face, but she instantly knew the shape and form of his body,
standing well over six feet tall, his broad shoulders nearly touching both
sides of the doorway to the den. She pushed the video button on her
phone and began recording what she saw.
“I knocked,” she said, “but no one answered. The door was open.”
No response. She couldn’t make out the features on his face. His eyes
were like caves, dark black against a charcoal face. He stood with his hands
behind him, as if hiding something.
“I just want to talk,” she said.
Still no response.
She looked at the screen on her phone to view what she was
recording. All that was visible was the silhouette of this very large, very
disturbed man.
“What have you got behind you?” she asked.
He moved one hand around and waved it in front of his face.
Nothing.
“Your other hand.”
He moved it around. Even in the dark, she could see the outline of a
knife. A hunting knife, maybe, or a kitchen knife. Maybe even a Bowie
knife.
“I know it’s not your fault,” she said. “I know about your mother. I
can help you.”
The man stepped forward.
Teri stepped back.
He stepped again. She backed up again, the backs of her knees
pressing against the couch. She heard squishing sounds as she stepped in
the pool of blood on the carpet. With nowhere to go, she sat down on the
couch. Arm still extended, still recording.
The man kept coming forward, until he completely filled the screen
on the phone.
He extended the knife.
Everything went black.

A screen disappeared behind an overstuffed chair where Teri sat, wearing
jeans and a button-down Oxford shirt, next to
What’s Up in Hollywood?
host Carl Price’s desk. A full studio audience applauded, led by Price.

As the
applause died down, the
rubber-faced Price said, “Boy,
how’re you going to get out of that one?”
“You’ll just have to watch the movie when it comes out and see.”
“Was that guy, like, a zombie?”
Teri smiled mischievously. “Again, you’ll have to watch the movie. I
don’t want to give away all the secrets.”
“We can keep a secret, can’t we folks?”
He led the audience in another round of applause.
“Patience, Carl, patience. The movie will be out next month.”
“I’m not giving anything away, though, if I say it’s about a serial killer
who is also a hypnotist?”
“Say no more.”
“My lips are sealed.” Price turned an imaginary key at his mouth.
“I’ve got to tell you, though, this is one of the most fascinating stories of
how a script made it to the screen Hollywood has ever seen. For those in
our audience who have been living in caves for the past two years—”
He stopped and looked across the stage to his bandleader, Archie
Soocher.
“You listening, Archie?”
“Yeah, I’m listening.”
Laughter from the audience. Even bigger, more exaggerated laughter
from the band members.
“The screenwriter actually willed this to you, right?” Price asked.
“Right. And then he took his own life. His mother brought me the
script.”
From across the stage, Archie said, “Man, I’ve got to get out of that
cave more.”
“I think we’re all better off, especially the women, if you stay there,”
Price said. When the laughter died down, he turned back to Teri. “It
reminds me of John Kennedy Toole, the author of
A Confederacy of Dunces
.”
“Believe me,” Teri said, “we’ve all talked about that parallel. A novel
writer who took his own life because he was so despondent that he
couldn’t get his book published—”
“Then ended up winning a Pulitzer Prize when his mother got it
published after his death. What kind of prize are you hoping to win?”
“Let’s just say I’ve got room for something else on my mantel. I’ve
always thought three was a nice round number.”
That set off a wild round of applause from the studio audience packed
with Teri Squire fans. Price and Archie joined in, while Teri smiled. It was
good to be back in Hollywood’s good graces again. It had taken two years,
but Hollywood memories were short and all was forgiven. For now.
“Ladies and gentlemen, two-time
Academy
Award winner
Teri
Squire,” Price said. “The movie is called
The Precipice
, and it opens soon at
a theater near you.”