Blonde Ambition by Rita Cosby

Daniel's breathless body. When she did, she noticed two white tablets on top of the sheets, one smaller than the other. Following protocol, she gave them to the doctor on duty, the doctor gave them to his supervisor, and then the two pills were passed on to the Bahamian police constable, who put them in a plastic bag and sent them away for testing.
       When Howard recounted the story of that awful morning two weeks later on Larry King Live , he pointedly made mention that Daniel had also spent time in that bed. "At first I was going to sleep on the floor in between the two beds," he explained, "and Daniel was in the bed closest to the door. And, Daniel at some point said to me that, you know, he wasn't really that tired, so why didn't I just take the bed and he was going to sit up and watch TV."
       But according to at least three nurses on duty, Daniel was never in that bed. "Only the man was in the bed," they each said. Contrary to Howard's story, the nurses said in their initial statements to police that it was Howard and only Howard who had been in that other hospital bed as each made their rounds that night and early morning. Daniel had been in the chair, then at 5:30 a.m. he had moved into the same bed with his mother. None of the nurses saw Daniel in the bed nearest the door.
       The two pills found in the bed where the nurses saw Howard sleeping were determined to be methadone, a synthetic narcotic used to treat opiate addicts, and Carisoprodol, a muscle relaxant. Anna Nicole had prescriptions for both medications. In fact, Dr. Sandeep Kapoor, Anna's Los Angeles based doctor, wrote a prescription for methadone on August 25, 2006, just thirteen days before she gave birth. The prescription, RX#2846735, was written for Michelle Chase, one of Anna Nicole's favorite aliases. Key Pharmacy in the San Fernando Valley had filled the prescription, which was sent to "Vicky Marshall" (sic) at a Harbour Bay Shopping Plaza post office box on East Bay Street in Nassau, Bahamas. Under California law, it's illegal to prescribe a controlled substance to a false name.
       Bahamian Police did find something interesting on Daniel's body that wasn't cleared and packed into Ben Thompson's rented van. They'd found a business card in one of Daniel's pockets. The business card was that of Jack Harding, the private investigator Daniel had met with the month before he died. The man whom Daniel had told how deathly afraid he was of Howard K. Stern. Jack Harding told me, "When I heard that Daniel died, I was shocked but not surprised that Stern could be there and be involved somehow."
       A few weeks after Daniel's death, California private eye Jack Harding got a call from a detective at the Burbank Police Department asking if he had been in the Bahamas investigating for Daniel Smith, and if so, informing him that he was in violation of Bahamian law. Forty-five minutes later the officer, along with four Bahamian police officers and an "official looking" man in a light colored suit showed up at Jack Harding's house and questioned him for an hour in his living room. Harding told me that they asked him, "Why did the boy call you?" and "Why did he have your card?"
       The Drug Enforcement Agency and the California Medical Association have also called asking him about Howard and drugs.
       But the Bahamian police weren't the only surprise visitors the private eye had. In April of 2007, two months after Anna's death, at 8:45 p.m., Jack Harding's three dogs went bolting through his backyard, barking madly. He went to see what the commotion was and caught a man trying to sneak over his fence.
       "Are you Jack Harding?" the man asked, dogs growling at his feet.
       "Yep," Harding answered.
       "Well, I'm John Nazarian, and I'm retained by Howard K. Stern."
       He handed Harding his business card: "John Nazarian of Nazarian and Associates, Investigations and Securities." Harding said the card had an interesting e-mail