The New Elvis Read online

  “There’s another thing, too.” Helen pointed at the white ceiling fan near the doorway. “She never turned that on. It rattled and she was afraid it was going to come loose, straight out of the ceiling. It was on the day I found her.”

  Tobias got up and went over to the ceiling fan. He tugged on one of the blades and the fan rattled. Screws around the base were loose, and it had been installed off-kilter. “Excuse me a minute,” he told Helen. “Gotta use the facilities, if I may.”

  Helen nodded and Tobias left the room. Logan and Helen remained there, silent.

  The bathroom was tiny. Standing in the tub, you could touch both the sink and toilet. There was tissue paper at the top of the trash, so Tobias lifted the mesh canister up to the sink and started sifting through the contents. At the bottom, he found a used pregnancy test stick, the plus sign still visible in its tiny window. Elen had been pregnant, and Helen had lost not only a daughter but a grandchild, as well.

  If Logan learned a lot by watching Tobias handle Helen’s fragile emotions at the restaurant, he learned even more at Elen’s apartment. Not jealous in the slightest, Logan only admired the reporter and dreamed he might someday do what Tobias did so well. Now, looking at the story and photos and trying to figure out the best way to present them to readers, he realized that since that day at the apartment, Tobias had accomplished the near impossible and taken the story even farther. For starters, Tobias had obtained the photographs taken at the scene of Elen James’s alleged suicide the day her body was found.

  Logan used a bold, blocky font for the cover of the issue and typed, “Elen James and Her Unborn Child: Suicide or Murder?” Around the question, he scattered thumbnail photos of Elen, her boyfriend Cody, detectives in charge of the investigation, a photo of the discarded pregnancy test stick, and Helen. The photo inside, which ran flush with the story, showed Elen lying on her bed, dressed in a long shirt, with a pillowcase over her head and a cord around her neck. It was gruesome but effective.

  “She’s every bit the Brady Bunch-type matriarch, Helen Hester is,” Tobias wrote, “from her big, Bambi blues to her flawless complexion, but what happens when the ultimate icon of all things maternal loses her own child? What happens when detectives tell America’s most-loved television mom that her daughter killed herself when, in fact, her daughter had everything—including an unborn child—to live for? And what happens when one of the detectives who deemed the daughter’s death a suicide is a mother herself—of the very young man who fathered the woman’s child? Confused yet? You should be as confused as the investigation surrounding this suspicious death itself.

  “When rumors surfaced that Elen might be pregnant at the time she took her life, Helen hit a roadblock when she attempted to verify that information with the coroner’s office. She was told that anything concerning the case was privileged information and couldn’t be released, not even to family members, because the death scene was atypical. Elen had called Helen weeks earlier to say she was with child, but Helen wasn’t sure if Elen was positive. Having the coroner share his findings would have meant a lot, but officials declined to be forthcoming.

  “Elen’s final neighborhood in West Hollywood remains quiet, shaded by large trees. Parked cars line the roads due to a shortage of off-street parking. It’s a short flight of stairs up to her second-story apartment where, for all the heavy drapery and furnishings, one might guess a Victorian spinster lived. An upright piano sits in one corner, dusty, with Bacharach on the stand. There are still crumbs on the kitchen counter where Elen loved to butter toast. There is a photo on the fridge of Elen and her boyfriend Cody, smiling at the camera. The rest of the place is small—just a bathroom, hall closet, and bedroom. In the room where Elen slept, the bed is queen-size, and the desk and chair are simple. These are the only furnishings here. And this is where Elen died.

  “According to West Hollywood Police Department records, she tied the cord to the upper part of the bed and laid down, applying pressure to her neck until she asphyxiated. The problem with this assumption is that her body would have rebelled in those final moments when the drive to survive kicked in. There is no evidence Elen was impaired, either by drugs or alcohol. She had been excited by the prospect of becoming a mother. She was in love with the baby’s father. She had a promising career. Why would she be driven to despair?

  “As it turns out, Helen never needed the coroner to confirm her late daughter’s pregnancy. At the bottom of the wastebasket in the bathroom, beneath crumpled tissue, there was a used pregnancy test stick investigators overlooked.

  “It was positive, as positive as Helen Hester is that her daughter was murdered and that the son of a certain West Hollywood detective may be guilty of homicide.”

  The layout was done. Logan hit the print button and thought about making coffee. Then his phone buzzed. It was 5:01 a.m., which meant it could only be Nancy.

  Chapter 59

  It took a week for Ryan to get two responses, one from an Elvis impersonator in Vegas and one from a lawyer in Colorado. Both were willing to fly to Los Angeles to meet him. Seth insisted on joining Ryan the night of the arranged get-together, so they settled into a C-shaped booth at Boa Steakhouse on Sunset and ordered a pitcher of margaritas while they waited.

  The lawyer from Colorado was the first of the two men to arrive. Will Mesmer looked enough like Elvis to be Ryan’s dad, but seemed too slender and his complexion too ruddy to be a completely solid physical match. He was in his fifties, his hair was dark blond, fading to gray at the temples, and he wore a suit Gene Wyatt would have loved to add to his collection—a gray wool Dolce & Gabbana with a white dress shirt and striped tie. A criminal defense attorney for more than twenty years, Will told Ryan and Seth he was born and raised in Vegas and often made donations to the fertility clinic with his buddies to pick up spare drinking money.

  Seth’s eyes were bugging out more than usual. “Really? You didn’t have money to drink?”

  “This was before my parents convinced me to go to law school. I was always floating between jobs. The one that lasted the longest was a telemarketing gig I picked up. Kept that one four months. Since my first day in court as a defense attorney, I’ve only taken three vacations, and those were because my wife told me if I didn’t, she was going to leave me. Guess I’ve become a workaholic. Hated to take a break to come out here, but how many chances do you get to find out you have a son? Got three girls at home, and damn it, I’d love to have a son, even if you didn’t take my name.” Will took a sip of his margarita and looked around for the restroom. When he spotted it, he told them he’d be right back.

  Just as the door to the men’s room swung shut, “Diamond Dave” Diamond strolled into Boa and scanned the room. It took him less than ten seconds to spot Ryan and Seth, and as he jangled his way across the room, heads turned. He was wearing a red Elvis jumpsuit covered with bangles, beads, and brocade, unbuttoned to the waist.

  “Boys!” he hollered, sliding into the booth beside Ryan, giving him a sideways hug, glancing at the pitcher of margaritas. “What are those? Sissy drinks?”

  Seth cringed and looked like he wanted to slide under the table.

  Ryan moved toward the center of the booth so he could get a better look at Diamond Dave, who seemed to be pushing sixty. He looked enough like Elvis, but his eyes seemed set too far apart, and his hair appeared hopelessly thin.

  Dave noticed his gaze and felt the top of his head. “Used to have more. Not like you or Elvis, but enough. Thirty years doing this is enough to make any guy bald.”

  Will made it back from the restroom and introduced himself to Diamond Dave. They ordered forty-day, dry-aged New York strip steaks and baked potatoes, and Dave had a bottle of bourbon brought to the table along with four shot glasses.

  “A real man’s drink,” he proclaimed, clinking glasses so hard Seth’s nearly spilled.

  Diamond Dave was a frequent donor at the clinic throughout the seventies and eighties. “Keep churning out the good stuff even no
w. Clinic closed down, though. Some workout joint is there now.”

  “I know,” Ryan told him. “I went there with my friends, hoping to meet Dr. Johns.”

  “Great guy,” Diamond Dave said. “I wonder what he’s doing now.” He didn’t allow anyone any conjecture and answered the question himself. “Getting a well-deserved rest, I’m sure. Come to think of it, don’t know how many years I have left in me. Do you know how hard it is to shake, rattle, and roll once your hips and knees start to revolt?”

  Ryan and Seth laughed.

  “So,” Will said. “What next?”

  Ryan pulled two cards out of his wallet. “Seth found a DNA testing lab, and I was hoping you guys might provide samples to see of either of you are a match for me.”

  “No problem,” Will said. “We’re great at giving samples, right, Dave?”

  Dave was straight-faced. “I’m the best damn sample giver this country has ever seen.”

  Chapter 60

  The funeral parlor Nancy chose for Wendall was near his old clinic, with plenty of parking for the hundreds of friends and acquaintances wishing to pay final respect. Logan flew in the morning of the wake and headed directly there from the airport via taxi. He got out, paid the driver, and stared at the white-columned, formidable building before he dared to enter.

  He had missed saying good-bye to his uncle in person. Nancy said that Wendall was hanging in there, and she thought there was still time before she needed to pull Logan away from his job, but she couldn’t have been more wrong. Had she been in denial? Had she not been able to admit the end was so close at hand?

  Logan spotted Nancy near his uncle’s casket in the field of floral offerings covering the wine-colored carpet. With her graceful neck and good posture, she looked like Grace Kelly in an outfit at odds with her personality. The black dress she wore was long with a high collar, long sleeves, and cuffs—a straitjacket confining her body but unable to stem the tide of her unwieldy grief.

  Logan walked along the wall, wearing his rumpled suit for the third time that month, nodding at the men he recognized—Wendall’s golf buddies and poker pals who had been to the home. When he made it to Nancy, he lightly touched her linen sleeve. She turned and fell against him, a painful wail rising as she buried her face in his last clean dress shirt. He envied her the ability to let her feelings out. He felt numb and cold, in shock, going through the motions. Together, they stood over Wendall in his elegant, split-lid mahogany casket and gazed at him. He wore a silvery suit with a white dress shirt, opened at the collar. To Logan, he appeared gaunt, a wasted figure that couldn’t be the Uncle Coconuts who had played ball. I do not like this thing called death. It erases everything as if it never happened, as if it were a dream.

  Nancy cupped Logan’s bent elbow and steered him to a hallway, away from the group of mourners. She found a bench and sat him down, but she remained standing perfectly still in her ghastly dress, a dress that wasn’t her at all, but neither did this day become her. She reached out to smooth the lapel on the rumpled suit she’d picked out with him so many years ago. “There’s something I’ve got to tell you.”

  Her voice was serious, quiet, intent. She had his complete attention.

  “Your uncle said something right before he passed, something he wanted me to tell you. He said he knows that you know, and it’s OK, that sometimes rules need to be broken. And you have his permission to break this rule this one time. Because…” She struggled to recall Wendall’s exact phrasing, “these are special circumstances.”

  Logan closed his eyes and remembered the night he met Ryan Wyatt at his uncle’s home in Vegas with incredible vividness. He remembered late that night, when he couldn’t sleep, when he crept downstairs, barefoot. He could still see the dim kitchen, illuminated only by the stove light, and he could see around the corner into the living room. He could still see Uncle Wendall burying a folder beneath old newspapers, and he could see how intent the good doctor was on hiding that paperwork and having its contents burned.

  He recalled sneaking back upstairs, the floorboards silent, never betraying his footfalls as he climbed the sweeping staircase. He had tiptoed down the hallway and crawled back into bed, Elvis still playing on the stereo like he’d never left his room. But when Uncle Wendall stood by his open doorway and watched him feign sleep, Logan had to wonder if, for a split second, out of the corner of his eye, Uncle Wendall had seen him peer around the corner into the living room, knew he saw him bury the folder in the burn pile, and realized he would come back and uncover the truth.

  He must have. Wendall had known all these years that his nephew, his boy, and, to the core of his being, his own child—for he had been there every step of Logan’s journey since the boy’s life had been destroyed—knew, and it was OK.

  For once, the rules didn’t apply. Though only the shell of Uncle Wendell remained, his spirit already having moved on to bigger and brighter things, he knew, in parting, the greatest gift he could give his boy was the exceptional news that his hero, his comfort, the luminary who sang him to sleep at night, lived on in the form of a lad Logan’s own age named Ryan, and he knew that Logan would tell that young man that his father was The King. And it was OK.

  Chapter 61

  The next three weeks saw three more contestants eliminated, leaving Ryan, Seth, and two women to vie for the It Factor crown. The more the judges complained that Ryan hadn’t discovered his own identity or found his niche in the music industry, the more people at home voted for him to stay in the competition.

  On a night when most of the cast and crew were already asleep, Ryan had the overwhelming urge to talk to Bea, but she wasn’t answering her cell phone and wasn’t on her computer to answer his instant messages. Ryan would have called the house but didn’t want to wake her parents. It was well after midnight, and he and Seth had to be up early to choose which Beatles songs they’d sing on the next show.

  Seth looked up from his laptop. “Don’t forget we have to tape ‘Going Home’ segments this week.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Come here. I’ll show you one from last year on YouTube.”

  Ryan pulled his desk chair over beside Seth’s and sat.

  Bethany Green, a contestant who looked like Betty Boop but talked like a trucker, entered a gymnasium filled with students screaming her name and waving banners. The high school principal declared that this would be Bethany Green Day forevermore, and the mayor stepped forward to give her a hug and an oversize key to the city. After a drive through the streets of Minneapolis, Bethany and her parents arrived at a modest white clapboard house with a sagging porch. Bethany gave a tour of her room, where she showed off her archery trophies, and then joined her parents on the porch, where three overstuffed, chintz-covered chairs had been placed so the three could chat and share fond memories of what Bethany was like as a child.

  Ryan sighed. He did not look forward to going through that with his parents.

  Seth was far from crestfallen by the prospect of returning to Austin, Texas, where his dad told him they had planned a big barbecue and parade in his honor.

  “Hey, wait, I forgot to show you something.” Seth entered a web address, and a dozen thumbnails appeared alongside a Skype window.

  Ryan sighed. “I didn’t get to chat with Bea today. For some reason, I really feel like I need to talk to her.”

  “I know you miss her. Check this out.” Seth’s eyes darted around ‘til he located where the volume control for the Skype window was and pointed at the screen. “I’m already logged in.”

  The handle SethSings87 appeared in a box below the Skype window, where people were chatting. The site was called The Sixth Realm.

  “You pay for credits and get live readings with psychics. I was thinking maybe you could ask a medium who your dad is.”

  Ryan sat up straighter. “Are these guys legit?”

  “There are two thousand of them registered to give readings, and they’re all over the world. Of course, they’re
not all logged on at the same time. And to answer your question, some are just card readers, and some have their thumbs up their ass, but there are a few who are spot on with some really amazing stuff.”

  “Like what?”

  “OK, well, there’s this medium named Redd Hansel. He’s on TV in the UK. I went into a private reading with him, and he described how my grandfather died, what he looked like, and some things about him no one would know.”

  Ryan’s curiosity was piqued. “For instance?”

  “My grandfather always liked to take out his wallet, pull out all his credit cards, and say, ‘Look how many I’ve got’. It was a totally lame thing to do, and we always laughed at him, but the point is, Redd said, ‘Your grandfather is showing me his wallet and taking out charge cards and stacking them on the table. There’s a whole pile of them. Does this mean anything to you?’ My jaw hit the floor, I’m telling you. That is not something many people do. And there was other stuff, too. Redd said, ‘I see tractors around him. Oh, a lot of tractors.’ My grandpa was a tractor dealer. How many of those do you know?”

  Ryan was beginning to feel a sense of excitement. “OK, I’ll talk to this guy. Is he online now?”

  Seth found Redd’s thumbnail, clicked on it, and the screen widened, showing Redd at his computer, drinking from a huge mug. His face was plump, and his eyes glittered from behind his round-framed glasses. His comb-over was sandy, and his smile was crooked. Ryan liked him at once.

  In the conversation box, Seth typed hello.

  “We can see him, but he can’t see us. We have to type our questions,” Seth explained.

  Recognizing Seth’s user ID, Redd’s voice boomed through the speaker.

  “Hi, Seth. How are you?”

  Good, Seth typed. Is now a good time for a private?