CHAPTER 6

 

Aimee Imhoff, the wife and accomplice of Levi Imhoff  who had kidnapped nine-year-old Roxana, had been paroled from prison more than a month prior.  Alfonso expressed outrage that the Austrian authorities had neglected to apprise Roxie or the G.-O. Firm sooner.  “It’s not like you were hard to find,” he grumbled.  “But don’t worry, we have people on her ass.  She’s living in Innsbruck in a nice house, with another woman, Victoria Von Schmertzig.  Nice house.  She must have a cash stash because she’s bought clothes, has an international cell phone account...  We always assumed she and Levi hid money some place.  But she’s got her passport back: that worries us.   We’ve asked for a warrant for her phone records and both of their cell phone bills if any.   We argue that Aimee is a continuing threat to you, and with the passport renewed she plans to travel.”

 

~*~

 

In the wee hours of Wednesday a body had been spotted by a tugboat floating off a long-derelict pier.  It was the late Guy Drake.

 

Manner of death was either accident or murder, caused by a skull-fracturing blow to the head behind his right temple.  He had likely been unconscious and beyond revival when he hit the water.

 

Perusing past assaults on the privacy and reputations of musicians, actors, directors, athletes and the occasional author, the police were  inundated  by  potential slayers of Drake.

 

Considering Drake’s  abortion attack and their presence in New York on the date of  Drake’s demise, Spence and Roxana became suspects.

 

Roxie immediately called Spence with the news.  He and Antoine were dining with friends in their London hotel.

 

“Dead?  Holy guacamole.  What do they reckon, he was drunk and fell off a ferry?”

 

“They think he was murdered.  Blunt object impact on skull before he died in the harbor.  Sugar Plums, they’re curious about that remark you made at the press thing about water not rolling off his back.  And that bit about throwing him in to a moat.  They know you two had a mad on. They want to talk to you as soon as you get back here.”

 

“Damn!  I’m a suspect?  Never been a murder suspect before.”

 

His companions were listening with forks paused midway to mouths.

 

~*~

 

Tad O’Malley hastened to the nearest mic to announce that “New York police want to question Spencer Ruff in the death of journalist Guy Drake.  Drake’s body was found drowned off abandoned docks.  Ruff fearing arrest has flown to England.  A feud between the two men has put Ruff at the top of the list of suspects.”  He based the report on malice and a guess.  Lt. Katt had made no statement and had banned her officers from media contact.

 

Wednesday afternoon Anastasia Dark was the first to publicize the coincidence between Drake’s soggy corpse and Spencer’s mock command, “Throw him in to the moat!”  Also cited was his “menacing threat, and I quote:  ‘Not all water rolls off a duck’s back.  If it’s polluted enough a drake can drown in it.’” Dark loaded her piece with malevolence.  “Why is Spence so silent now?  Where is he?  Not at his favorite hotel.  Even the bars he normally (dis)graces with

his drunken presence haven’t seen hide or hiccup of him.  Is it mere coincidence that the one time Spence avoids his usual Big Apple haunts,  his most hated enemy turns up dead?”

 

She continued, “He needs to go public with his alibi.  I volunteer my column.  Whenever you get your story straight, we want to hear it, Spence!”

 

Fiona combined her incendiary Ruffrox report with a slap at Dark.  “Sources close to the couple describe Spencer’s fury at Drake’s abortion story.  He’s quoted as vowing, ‘Say the word, Roxie, and he’s dead meat!’  And Roxie ordered Ruff,  ‘Drown him like a rat!’  If that isn’t true, come tell us so, you two.  As prime suspects in a murder you need your public on your side before you turn yourself in for questioning! ” She also offered her services.  “I’ll ask the hard questions Anastasia Dark won’t ask.  She may have a soft spot for felons, but I don’t.  If you can convince me you’re innocent, you’ll have no problem with a jury.”

 

Roxie gasped in disbelief.  “These freaks already have us indicted!”

 

Dark returned Fiona’s derision with, “My own experience trying to defend my dear brother taught me that the quickest way to find a criminal is to locate a lawyer.  And to set the record straight on my brother, he killed his wife to keep her from killing him.  She was insane and out of control.  But the prosecutors didn’t see it that way.  They needed a big juicy conviction so they twisted my arm to get it.”

 

She continued,  “Ms. D’Orsini has powerful relatives, and some of them are lawyers.  Lawyers have easy access to lawbreakers.  So if Ruffrox looked for a thug to do a job on Drake, they didn’t have to look long.  Their whereabouts in this city are unknown.  Are they avoiding the police?  No doubt those Orsini legal eagles are protecting them like no one protected my brother.  Hiding from the press won’t help Ruffrox.  The press might have helped them prove an alibi.  But nobody knows where they were when Drake was drowned.  My offer of an objective interview still stands.

 

“As for the dim Ms. Bright, she seems to forget that drunk driving is a felony when the three strikes law kicks in.  She is one felon no one should defend.”

 

Tad O’Malley, gazing gravely in to the TV camera lens, arc lights glinting redly off his dye hair plugs, assured Ruffrox that his network’s New York studio was available at a moment’s notice should they want to “tell the world your side of it.  Our microphones are open and waiting.”

 

In England John Richards simply presumed guilt.  Not just Spencer’s but also Robbie’s. Ignoring once more the Welsh authority’s findings he refused to exonerate Abbot in his brother-in-law’s death.  Photos of Ruff and Abbot – the grimmest he could find – were captioned, “Hollywood’s Deadliest Dudes?”  The following article was an unsavory stew of speculation and misconstrued facts.  Richards assumed his strategically placed question marks, attributions to “sources” and phrases like “If it’s true that...” would protect him from lawsuits.

 

Sgt. Paige and Detective Cam fended off impatient press pests as hours passed with no arrest.  Particularly no Ruffrox arrest.  Rumor mongers mongered madly.  But Paige and Cam complied with Lt. Katt’s command not to comment.

 

A fire started in Reggie Sugarman’s office/dressing room at the network’s studios on Wednesday evening.  In his Cubes and Lumps Reggie wrote, “FUGITIVE RUFF RUNS FROM DRAKE DROWNING PROBE!!”  Then he dramatically complained: “We are being hunted! Tell what you know about certain celebrities and like Couvier and Drake, you might turn up dead!  I take them on and get my feet put to the fire – in more ways than one, with cops attacking my First Amendment rights.  From her unquiet grave Couvier’s ghost lobs gossip bombs at her own biz.  And now we’re the ones being stalked and harassed.  I feel hunted!”

 

~*~

 

Media mobbed Spence and Antoine at Heathrow Airport.

 

“Did you fight with Guy Drake down on that dock?  How else did you know he was going to drown?  Did you shove him off that pier?”

 

“No, I didn’t, and he didn’t just drown.  He got his head bashed-in before he went in the water.  That’s from my source, the NYPD.”

 

“But you and Drake almost came to blows at the – ”

 

“That’s a lie.  Nothing physical occurred.  We exchanged some words, period.”

 

“Everyone has noticed that journalists who write about you people have been...well, quite mysterious, unfortunate things have happened to them.  Not just Beryl Couvier and Drake but Jozey Markswell’s husband conveniently exposed in a hotel with another woman, and the ‘gossip-from-the-grave’ email campaign.  Rather suspicious, won’t you admit?”

 

“Couple of problems with your take on recent events.  You use the term ‘journalists’.  You’re talking about a pack of professional liars.  They’ve lied about a long list of folks, not just us.  Been making enemies for years.  So, by the way, have you.  We didn’t electrocute old Beryl, or crack Drake’s skull and dunk him in the drink, or beat the crap out of O’Malley’s kid, or force Jozey’s man in to bed with his honey, or cheat Sugarman’s great-aunt out of her goods and independence, or sell nose candy to Miss Lark at the Mercer, or tell Anastasia Dark to perjure herself, or encourage Bright to drive pickled, or pose girls for Mark Jackson’s beaver shots.  If you really believe we orchestrate other people’s greed, lust, alcohol and whiff consumption, and their bad tempers – or holds the remote control for lightning – well, you blokes have started your own religion!”

 

“People are talking about a ‘curse of Ymanja’ – all this trouble surrounding the release of your film.  Both of your women practice Vodou, so they know curses.  Did they curse – ”

 

Antoine couldn’t resist a deep, sonorous chant: “Lightning come down from the sky, cause that mean old bag to fry.   Beware the Vodou Woe-mans, or they gonna make you die!”

 

Suppressing a grin Spence chimed in.  “Bastard Drake told lies that stank, so when he tried to swim he sank.  Take care what nasty tales you tell, or you end up in Vodou hell!”

 

Merrily the men left astonished columnists breathlessly checking their recordings.

 

~*~

 

Thursday morning on O’Malley’s TV spot, Reggie’s office fire was attributed to a bit of burning tobacco dropped in to a file-cabinet drawer.  Tad showed pictures of Sugarman smoking a cigar in the office.  Then Tad again averred, “We’re waiting for confirmation of Spencer Ruff’s arrest.  The police have been investigating him for the murder of Guy Drake after he threatened to drown Drake at their combative confrontation at the premiere press conference last Friday.  We know Ruff was brought back from London for questioning.”

 

Spencer and Antoine were questioned  but at the Italian Consulate with Teresa present.

 

“We’ve been in England.  Weren’t we there when he died?”  Spencer wondered.

 

“You tell us.”

 

“I can only tell you we flew to London on Monday late afternoon and back here today.  Heard about Drake from Roxie right after you told her on Wednesday. We have our ticket stubs, flight number, all that.”

 

At this point the precise time of Drake’s death was undetermined.  Considering the state of his corpse, best estimate put it within a few hours of Harry’s photo, which his camera recorded at Saturday 12:47 PM.

 

Laboriously Cam covered the various slurs at the root of the Drake-Ruff dispute.  He watched Ruff’s face, and Antoine’s as well, for a tell-tale flinch.  Then he asked the two men to write out their activities and locations from Saturday noon until their flight to London.  Roxie and Peony had already submitted theirs.

 

“Y’know, mate,” Spence remarked as Detective Cam stood to leave, “If I did in every tabloid yob who lied about me I’d be the busiest bloody serial killer on the planet.”

 

“Well, you are two down, now.”

 

“Couvier?  That was an act of Nature.”

 

“Funny thing, though: nobody else in that hotel got hit.  Not one other person using the phone, that’s one possibility.  There were two hundred-fifty-odd guests there and a bunch of employees.  Pretty accurate lightning bolt.”

 

“Discriminating, I’d say.”

 

Antoine was curious.  “How would you fake lightning?  Imitate it, like?  If you wanted to zap just one person, and blame the phone?”

 

Cam smiled.  “Don’t ask me.  My electrical expertise ends at hot-wiring cars.  You two stick around.  Tell us if you take another trip.”

 

“You have our cell numbers.”

 

Relieved to have that over with, the men returned to their families and a leisurely lunch.  Thanks to the clever chauffeur their whereabouts were still undiscovered.  Peony had used his services to bring Lizzie for lunch, and also Antoine’s sister Amanda and brother-in-law Andru.

 

Inevitably, paparazzi and tabloids entered the conversation.

 

“I’ve been meaning to tell ya,” Andru said, “my sister’s husband works in the building next door to the one where that Dark woman works.  He can see right down into her office from the window at the end of his corridor.  And he knows her intern Mavis.  They eat lunch at the same sushi bar.”

 

“Interesting!  Useful, maybe, too...”  Roxie resolved to put her mind to work.  Bur first she proposed a toast.  “To the NYPD!  May they get their man.  Just not my man.”

 

Antoine took the next toast.  “To family and friends!”

 

Spencer’s toast was, “To any reason to upend a Foster’s!  I quote Tom Waits, ‘I’d rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy.’”

 

~*~

 

Late Friday night Anastasia Dark sat in her office reflecting on recent events.  Guy Drake drowned.  Pulled out of the water off an abandoned pier.  Beryl dead, too.  Dark’s detested rival Markswell plunged in to a messy public divorce.  Embarrassing revelations about Sugarman, O’Malley, that dim dame Bright, and her own perjury.  And Miss Lark’s connection ratting her out.  “God, if you can’t trust your fucking dealer, who can you trust?” Anastasia muttered out loud.  Miss Lark was now obliged to hide in Rehab after a humiliating public mea culpa, and stuck with that awful tag “Barf Bird.”

 

Dark stared at the poster of Scarlett Johansson on her wall.  Scarlett was a symbol of her life’s burden of disappointment and disillusionment.  As a child she perceived herself destined to be the sexy, talented golden goddess that Scarlett was now.  And as she grew up to be Ana Dark the delusion refused to release her, or vice versa.  Her expectations bore no resemblance to reality.  Her childhood light hair darkened and dulled, her curves swelled way past provocative proportions, her thighs never lengthened but her nose did.

 

Her mirrored image bore no resemblance to Scarlett’s.  That injustice infuriated and embittered her.  Sure, she knew that legions of  ladies lacking à la mode looks lived happily, wed well and excelled at their jobs.  And that the loveliest ladies could lead lonely, lousy, lovelorn lives.  As her Russian Babushka had told her, “Only beauty queens need to be beauty queens.  So don’t be a beauty queen.”  But Anastasia could never be consoled over loss of her childhood illusions.  

For the “DARKVIEW” author injury was soon added to insult.  She had lit a row of jar candles, turned off the lights and stretched out on her recliner, imbibing a giant gin-and-tonic from a big ceramic beer mug.  Anastasia was a nervous wreck.  She had been deleting anything she wouldn’t want stolen from her computer, including ideas for assaults on assorted celebrities.  From now on she would carry that wealth on a removable drive stashed in her purse.

 

She was about to fire up her DVD drive when she heard soft footfalls in the hallway.  Sneaky steps, accompanied by squeaks from the aging floorboards.  It was eleven-forty.  Nobody’s out there who ought to be out there, Dark told herself.  A thief here to loot my files, rip off my computer – what will he do to me?  Her heart raced.  She gulped the last of her drink, clutched the mug for defense and crouched trembling behind the door to her office. It  was shut but not locked.  Its key had been lost decades ago.

 

The building’s night security guard had crept up the stairs in response to a phoned-in alert: “an intruder in a fourth-floor office.”  The caller saw flames flickering and someone surreptitiously searching an office, from a window of the building next door.  Open flames in this old fire trap were expressly prohibited by the Fire Marshall.  So were space heaters and cooking stoves of any kind.  Only coffeemakers allowed.  And no alcoholic beverages.  Though the regs were posted on every floor, enforcement was an ongoing struggle.

 

As her door was opened Anastasia raised her weapon and coshed the guard.  He bashed her back with his billy club.  Helmut Zeeman dropped to hand and knees, blood gushing; Dark stumbled backwards and sat down hard as her ankle jammed under a printer stand.

 

Oh God – uniform!  The stupid security guard!  “Jesus H!  Why the fuck didn’t you yell?”

 

Groggily Helmut lifted his face, blood dripping off the end of his nose.  “Why did you hit me?”

 

When it became obvious they both required medical help, Dark reached for the phone.  But before she could dial 911 lights flashed and a siren wailed from the street below.

 

Who had called it in?  She never found out.

 

But an anonymous caller quickly contacted radio stations and TV news with the story.

 

Dark was soon released with stitches in one ear.  Helmut Zeeman the was kept overnight for observation with a mild concussion.

 

On Saturday morning Anastasia Dark was arrested  for assault and battery on Zeeman.  Her bench appearance was well-attended, the walkway to the courthouse crammed with media.  Jostled, blinded by flashbulbs and shouted at, she became surly and defensive when she finally reached the courtroom.  There, she tried to scold the prosecuting Assistant District Attorney after pleading not guilty.  Back outside, she called the prosecution “toadies to First Amendment bashers, assholes who don’t want us telling the truth!  The rich and famous have you quaking with fear because they’re hiring spies to get us!  But I am not afraid!”

 

“Didn’t you just tell the judge that you attacked Mr. Zeeman because you were terrified?” a court reporter demurred.  “And aren’t you paid to spy on the rich and famous, and ‘get’ them six ways til Tuesday?”

 

“And what do the rich and famous have to do with you boozing, lighting illegal candles and knocking out your own security guy?” Fiona Bright sang out.

 

Because Dark claimed under oath that Helmut did not identify himself before “creeping in to my office,” and he had taken the stairs quietly, not the elevator, and had not phoned up from the lobby after receiving the tip-off of suspicious activity, lawyers opined that charges might be dropped and the guard wouldn’t succeed in a private suit.

 

O’Malley’s TV commentary advised her to “maintain the frightened-woman-alone-hearing-footsteps posture.”  Although her attorney assured her she at least could plead to a lesser charge, Anastasia still exaggerated her peril in her own mind, as her hyper-defensive, victim personality prescribed.

 

Andru and Roxie felt bad for Helmut’s injury.  They hadn’t expected Dark to clobber the guard.  They had meant the prank as a minor harassment, getting Dark hassled for those anti-regulation candles and booze.  With a camera set to telephoto, Antoine’s brother-in-law had watched the fracas and called it in anonymously.  Andru’s photos were destined for Hags and Bitches.  But first, Roxie explored how best to compensate Helmut.

 

~*~

 

Aimee Coulter Imhoff was an American who had married an Austrian she’d met on a college ski trip.  Aimee and Levi finagled their livings in a mixed milieu of international ex-students in Innsbruck.  He became a creative criminal, minor cons and then daring burglaries at first, later venturing in to abduction for ransom.  One winter the Imhoffs had taken jobs at an Alpine ski resort with the intent of snatching a rich family’s child.  Their plan had been brilliant, they thought, and as foolproof as possible.  Over the years in prison Aimee’s heartbreak had turned bitter.  And the smouldering bitterness had clouded her perception of her own guilt and Levi’s.  Their downfall became the fault of that rich Italian family whose spoiled brat had survived while Levi had died.

 

Without alerting Frau Von Schmertzig  the G.-O. Firm used its warrant for her phone records.  These showed eight transatlantic calls made since Aimee Imhoff had moved in with her.  At the other end of those calls were three men who had lived and worked in Innsbruck with the Imhoffs.  Two were Austrian transplants to the USA, one was an American.

 

G.-O. Operatives were sicced on these three men.  Their recent movements were studied.

 

~*~

 

Monday afternoon Reggie Sugarman got another visit from John Law.  But not until a federal warrant had been served to the network’s accountant for March expense records.  Sugarman didn’t know that, so he lied again to the FBI agent when asked the name of the man he’d paid for the Ruffrox Big Bear story.

 

“All the dude said was he didn’t mean to hurt the kid. And he wasn’t trying to kidnap the kid, you can’t believe that – that’s hysteria.”

 

“How do you know?  Were you there?”

 

“Oh, come off it, don’t run the Alvarado number on me again. No, I wasn’t there.”

 

“Did you confer with this man before he went up to Big Bear?  Did you know what his plan was beforehand?”

 

“No.  Why are you making a federal case out of an accident?”

 

“Ever hear the name Cal Donald?”

 

“I hear a lot of names; I can’t be sure about that one.”

 

“Ever enter the name Cal Donald on a check?”

 

“What check?

 

Reggie found himself arrested for withholding evidence and obstructing justice.  At first he was not worried; he’d stand on the First Amendment, protecting his source.  But he fumed that the arrest hadn’t happened on camera.  Or at least on air during his radio show.

 

Reggie’s mug shot found its way to Gossip Hags and Tabloid Bitches.  As had Anastasia’s two days earlier.

 

And because its disclosure was inevitable, the childhood abduction of Roxie D’Orsini was related there, too.  Cal Donald was a college friend of the Imhoffs.  Phone contact between paroled Aimee Imhoff and Cal made his encounter with Ruffrox at Big Bear far more sinister than coincidence.  Cal lived in Redondo Beach and had lately joined the paparazzi brigade.  Though he was fortuitously absent, his cottage was searched under warrant.  A stack of prints of Roxie with Katya, Spence and his boys sat in a deep desk drawer.  A neighbor described his car as a white Ford commercial van.  Cal had driven off a week, maybe 9 days ago.

 

Now Sugarman got worried.

 

~*~

 

Helmut Zeeman the security guard was single, young, unencumbered.  When he disappeared suspicion ignited.  He was last seen early Monday hurriedly bundling luggage and boxes in to a van.  In fact, he was snapped by a neighbor who emailed the picture to Hags and Bitches.  “Insecure Guard Flees Dark Wrath?” captioned the photo.

 

A Dutch immigrant with no close family alive, Helmut did have friends, none of whom had heard from him since Sunday.  Their last words from him were about a mysterious new job for which he required a passport.  He already had one.  “I’ll be traveling,” he had told one pal, “but I’m not letting you in on it because there’s only a few openings and I don’t want more competition.”

 

Prosecutors on his assault case learned from the Post Office that Helmut Zeeman put a Fort Lauderdale General Delivery address on his mail-forwarding form.  They found that several cruise companies had employees renting boxes at this P.O., who embarked or debarked at Fort Lauderdale in the course of Caribbean cruises.

 

Nurses recalled a man, possibly Jamaican or Haitian bringing Helmut breakfast Saturday in the hospital.  He shut the room’s door and stayed for an hour.  So it was surmised that a deal had been struck with Helmut in which he was given a job on a cruise ship if he withdrew from the prosecution, skipped trial if one were held, and eschewed any lawsuit against Ms. Dark.  Helmut Zeeman was indeed listed as a new security-staff employee for Holland America.  He was scheduled to embark immediately on the “ms Maasdam” for its ten-day “Southern Caribbean Wayfarer” voyage.

 

It was noted in the report that Mavis, Dark’s intern, was the daughter of a Holland America First Mate.  Investigators were not aware, however, that one of Wayne Western’s aunts worked on that company’s Board.  The prosecutors postponed further action on the case and refused comment to the press.  Let Anastasia Dark deal with the gossip.  It was her domain.

 

~*~

 

Spence and Roxie were making their own travel plans.  Australia beckoned.  The kids were weary of gypsy life.  Roxie had never played coy about her wish to remarry and settle.  And Spence couldn’t face the prospect of a future without her constant companionship.

 

They consulted the Abbots on slipping a wedding under the radar.

 

Not yet released from police investigation, Roxie and Spence asked the G.-O. Firm detectives to turn attention to Drake’s demise.  It was no surprise to learn that operatives were way ahead of them.  They were assured that they were rapidly sliding down the list of suspects.  Curiosity kindled, they begged for details but were denied.

 

“There are some real heavyweights on both ends of this case,” was the cryptic warning.  “You need to stay out of it.  And say nothing.”

 

In secret the pair made a list of when friends would be free to join them somewhere warm for an April wedding.  It had to be somewhere not easy to get to, flights spaced days apart, boat travel between islands required, but a place with some tourist draw that would red-herring the press if the trip there was discovered.

 

“Or,” Robbie suggested, “we could pretend we’re going there to work.  Some project.  Something boring like a global-warming documentary, or something about a disease.  Tropical disease, of course.”

 

“That’s the ticket!  And we show up at the airport with spots all over our faces, fake boils oozing!  Send the creeps in the opposite direction.”

 

The conference call deteriorated swiftly in to increasingly outrageous scenarios.

 

~*~

 

Detective Cam got an expenses-paid trip of his own: to Hollywood to question Drake’s coworkers.

 

The man whose office adjoined Drake’s described the columnist as “kind of a loner.  Wouldn’t go to happy hour with us much, went to matinees with us sometimes but usually alone,

sat there collecting stuff on the Beautiful People, poring over red carpet clothes, thinking up snide remarks, you know.”

 

Another writer was asked about Guy’s sexual preference.  “I figured him for gay, only I never actually saw him with a boyfriend.  Just had that prissy thing going on.  Always picking on the manly men – those filthy uncouth brutes,” he lisped.  “He kept his private life private.  But nobody else has that right, according to him.”

 

“How did he dig up his dirt?  Did he work with a P. I.?”

 

“Naw.  Mostly he copied and exaggerated other people’s rumors, and just made it up if there was nothing nasty on the wires.  Hey, I don’t think I’m shocking you, huh?  Tabloids lie? Omigod, no!  Well, we’ll just admit to misinterpreting sometimes. Some pap sells a snap of Y looking sweaty after an evening run.  Drake’s caption: ‘Y, never one for hygiene or grooming, whose co-stars complain about his questionable body odor...’ blah, blah.  Steroids rumors, he liked those, too.  And abortion.  Or Y with a girl, Drake’s take is ‘the latest in his string of scores:  insiders give her about a week.’”

 

“He knew he was being sued for defamation, right”

 

“Definitely.  He was amazingly self-righteous about it, if you believe the mag’s lawyer.  He really had a bug up his butt on Spencer and Roxie.  He got so much shit for starting the abortion thing, after their kids had those freaks screaming ‘murder’ at Roxie in a hospital bed.  That was his all-time low.  But of course it wasn’t his fault.  He had the right to speculate.”

 

~*~

 

Jozey Markswell’s divorce filing was publicized in embarrassing detail.

 

Just as distressing, Hags and Bitches carried an interview with a teacher from Jozey’s high school discussing the virulence of her vocal victimizations.  “She was known as ‘Dragon Tongue’ for the ugly rumors she spread about the popular kids and teachers.  Everything from weird sex lives to theft and abortions.  Nobody the students dug was safe from her badmouthing.  Most kids hated her.  If anyone made friends with her, at their first disagreement she’d over-react with some awful story.  After those poor boys were accused of rape and left school, people just quit talking to her.  Teachers never called on her.  Boys wouldn’t dance with her, much less ask her out, and she was a pretty girl.”

 

Jozey, believing that Dark had exposed and exploited her husband’s cheating, and suspecting the teacher’s interview was her work as well, asked in Markswell Tells:  “WHERE IS HELMUT ZEEMAN ??  Why would he miss his day in court?  A DARK MYSTERY!”

 

Her alarm reverberated and speculation waxed.  Sinister rumors were blogged.  “Did Anastasia’s convict brother Simon arrange for Helmut to drop off the planet?”  Jozey queried.  And added with her characteristic vitriol, “Anastasia is so disliked that she spends her nights alone with a bottle of booze and a DVD starring her secret crush Scarlett Johansson.”

 

Dark denied complicity in Helmut’s disappearance.  But her nerves and sense of pursuit worsened.  She lashed out at “stalkers” and “invasion of privacy.”  Of course this was met with loud guffaws by those she had persecuted for years.

 

Dark battled back.  “The ex-Mrs. Markswell’s site is a sewer full of B S  and every other kind of offal her toilet of a brain flushes out.”  And,  “Jozey confuses the stare of disbelief with the gaze of admiration.  She’s had more cuts, tucks, suctions and implants than even Tad O’Malley.”

 

This drew O’Malley in to the fray, stuffily excoriating “these tabloid germs that contaminate the entertainment industry, out to destroy the hosts they parasitize, and now they are infecting each other.”

 

Hags and Bitches depicted a dozen such parasites with gossips’ heads on the bodies of various staph and cocci germs, liver flukes, tapeworms, ear mites and bedbugs.  No text was needed.

 

~*~

 

 Helmut, steaming south across the Caribbean Sea, kept his secret.

 

~*~

 

The London “Times”  reported that Guy Francis Drake had been under ICE scrutiny for several months before his death.

 

Drake, baptized Gary Rove in Edinburgh, had first come under suspicion at the Edinburgh school where he had formerly taught grammar.  Several boys had complained of private “conferences” in his office where the topics of conversation became excruciatingly intimate.  When a boy who lived in the flat below Rove’s had been sent home sick, Rove had been remarkably willing to watch him while his parents worked, absenting himself from his school post.  That boy objected to what he felt were unnecessary baths and definitely excessive rubbing and toweling.

 

Rove resigned before the school could fire him.  With a new name he moved to California.  There, he joined the notorious North American Man Boy Love Association.  His bi-coastal job travels helped him keep his sordid interests secret.

 

But when he had bought a subscription to a web site where “Man-Boy Love” was performed live for Internet viewers, Drake unwittingly lit up on FBI and ICE radar screens. Drake had been thoroughly vetted by the other website funders.  Once approved he had signed a cautiously worded contract.  Members swore not to save any images, addresses, numbers or membership data on their hard drives or on media, and URLs were to be deleted from browser history after each session.  The URL changed with every show.

 

“Guy Francis Drake was involved in the worst sort of online pedophile activity: live-action shows by subscription, watching as captive boys are sexually assaulted.”  Prudently, the London report mentioned no other names, and avoided connecting Drake’s murder with his pedophilia.   Readers might assume that connection.  So did the agents assigned to that murder.

 

Sgt. Paige turned over his case work to the FBI.  When New York malice mavens, disappointed by no Spence Ruff arrest, accused Sgt, Paige of “special treatment,”  Paige answered, “You ask why I didn’t arrest him?  I ask why you reported that I would.”

 

The tabloid community’s reaction to the Drake revelations ran the gamut from total lack of coverage to defensively self-righteous saturation.

 

As Emily Abbot on cell phone happily observed, “It’s incredible: the tabshits are so busy with each other, they’ve forgotten us!”

 

Spence replied, “Right!  You could strip off and climb those elephants on the Kodak Theater – ­ they’d never know.  In fact, you should climb those elephants naked.”

 

“Somebody will, some day.  But we’ll pass, thanks for the suggestion.”

 

 They exaggerated, but there was some truth to it.  Even paparazzi sought candid pics of gossips and tabloid authors.  Jack and Rosita, for once finding no cameras atop the four-foot stone wall of their property, cemented planters full of nettle shoots on that wall.  As spring sprang the wonderful weeds would grow and bristle with those defensive stinging hairs.

 

The nitwits whose Hollywood havoc normally guaranteed them tabloid front pages felt neglected.  Their feuds, comments on lovers’ bed talents, even the body parts they flashed were relegated to back pages.

 

Spence and Roxie took the opportunity to visit Ground Zero and contemplate unharrassed the horror and heroism the site represented.  Their own bereavements sharpened the sad sympathy they felt.

 

That afternoon a freakish frozen Nor’easter dipped south and dropped nine inches of snow on New York City.  Martha and George romped in frosty delight while the kids joined others to build a snow-gladiator in the park.  His shield was a shiny new trash can lid, his sword a wooden stake.

 

Spence carefully crushed an angel into a pristine patch of snow.  Rising, he took Roxie’s hand and turned her to look at his angel.  “I want her to be our witness.  Will you accept my commitment and marry me?”

 

She stood on the toes of her fleece-lined boots.  “Yes,  I will.  If Angela there has any objection, may she speak now or forever hold her peace...”  The angel nothing to say.

 

At dawn they flew to NOLA, collected cats and farewells, and continued west and south to Australia.  Katya and Martin with a small globe figured out why while they flew southwest, gaining hours through several time zones, yet ultimately landed on the following day.

 

Chapter Seven