Chapter 92
DAVE SANDERS LIVED in Brentwood in a sprawling Georgian manor surrounded by a high wall and a gate that faced North Carmelina Avenue. Driving one of the company Suburbans now that my Touareg was totaled, I pulled up to the gate around seven thirty that night, about forty minutes after the Kid alerted us that Sanders had returned home and, surprise, was entertaining this evening. His guests? Camilla Bronson and Terry Graves.
I hit the buzzer by the gate, looked up at the camera. After several moments, Sanders answered gruffly, “What do you want, Morgan?”
“I’ve got the Harlows’ staff from the ranch with me,” I said. “They’d like to see the children.”
“Impossible,” he snapped. “What business do you—?”
“I’ve got a writ here,” I said, cutting him off and waving a piece of paper out the window. “Signed by Judge Maxwell, ordering you to allow them to see the Harlow children. If you do not open this gate, I will call LAPD, and they will see the order carried out.”
For several seconds Sanders said nothing, then, “I don’t know what you’re up to, Jack. But fair warning, I don’t trust you.”
“Feeling’s mutual, Dave,” I said brightly. “Now open the gate.”
A pause, then a loud click and the steel gates swung back. We drove onto a lighted drive that split before a long narrow reflecting pool that finished in a fountain in front of the house.
“Wasn’t this place in The Beverly Hillbillies?” I asked Justine as I took the right fork in the drive.
She looked at me quizzically. “Sorry, that show was a bit before my time.”
“Mine too, but watch it sometime,” I replied. “A classic. I really think this might be the place where Jethro and Miss Hathaway did their funny business.”
She looked at me like I was nuts, and then laughed. It was good to see her smile again. We parked out front where the cement drive gave way to a mosaic of inlaid stone. We got out, opened the back doors, released Anita Fontana, Maria Toro, and Jacinta Feliz, who turned nervous and submissive when Sanders opened the massive front door and came out under the portico, followed by Camilla Bronson and Terry Graves.
“Where’s this writ?” Sanders demanded.
I handed it to him, winked at the publicist and the producer, said, “Amazing how swiftly judges react when the FBI’s special agent in charge requests something. And you’ll see that Justine Smith is named as court-appointed supervisor of this and future visits.”
For once Camilla Bronson was at a loss for words. Terry Graves acted as if we were unpleasant bugs come to call.
Sanders read the writ closely, looking for loopholes, I suppose, but the document was ironclad. He handed it back to me, sniffed, “You could have called and made an appointment.”
“And miss breaking bread with the Harlow-Quinn team?” I said. “Not a chance. But first: the kids?”
The Harlows’ attorney nodded stiffly toward the door. The housekeeper, the cook, and the maid went by him quickly into a large marble foyer with a sweeping staircase that rose to a second floor. I came in last, nodded, said, “In the old Beverly Hillbillies show, didn’t Jed Clampett live here, in this house?”
Sanders looked insulted. “He most certainly did not.”
“Striking resemblance.”
In a deepening huff, the attorney led us off the foyer to a screening room where the children were watching a movie about a tailless dolphin.
“Miguel!” Anita cried.
The boy looked over the seat at her, acted as if he’d expected never to see her again. “Nita!” he yelled, and ran into her arms.
The Harlows’ housekeeper fell to her knees and embraced the boy, tears streaming down her face as she kissed him and spoke to him in Spanish, calling him her little one and her best boy. Pressing her shiny cheeks to his, she looked radiant and complete in an unexpected way. As if the two were deep soul mates.
Malia and Jin were on their feet, hugging Maria Toro and Jacinta Feliz, who’d also broken into tears.
“Look how big you get,” the cook said to Malia, who towered over her.
“You good?” Jacinta asked Jin.
Jin glanced at Sanders, bit her lower lip, but nodded.
“They’re being well cared for,” Camilla Bronson declared.
“Dave’s hired round-the-clock help,” Terry Graves said.
“Cook. Maid. Tutors. Psychologists,” Sanders added. “Even a physical-fitness instructor. And we got a Wii and a Nintendo installed. Isn’t that right?”
Malia shrugged and then bobbed her head.
“But he won’t let us go out, Nita,” Miguel complained to the housekeeper. “He won’t let us watch TV hardly ever. He won’t tell us what happened to Thom and Jen. And he keeps Stella in a kennel all the time.”
Sanders gave a sickly smile to the boy, then to me and Justine, and said, “The dog’s been peeing everywhere.”
“And I advised that the children not be seen in public,” Camilla Bronson said.
“We’re trying to protect them from the howling mob,” Terry Graves said.
“I’m sure you are,” I said. “But who’s here to protect them from you three?”
Sanders acted as if I’d slapped him, sputtered, “How dare you insinuate that anything untoward has ever—”
“We’re fine,” Malia said to Justine. “No one’s hurt us or anything.”
Jin nodded, but her brother’s head was bowed.
Sanders’s chin rose and he gazed at us in triumph.
“Jack,” the publicist said. “You don’t really need to be here, do you?”
I winked at her a second time. “Why don’t you go get the dog so the kids can play with her, and then the five of us will have a little chat.”
“About what?” Terry Graves asked icily.
“C’mon,” I said. “You sound like someone who likes to know the end of a movie before you’ve even seen it.”