The Lawyer Also Plays Her Lover

Birkhead testified that he and Smith had a falling-out in May 2006 when he didn't obey her request to buy her a pair of sunglasses. She yelled at him and that was the last time he saw her. Shortly after that, he says, the model moved to the Bahamas. A man named Ford Shelley, who said he was a friend of Smith's, testified that he suggested Smith move to the Bahamas when she "told us she was pregnant with Larry Birkhead's child and that she did not want him to have any rights to the child."

There are open questions about whether Bahamian law would automatically award guardianship to the child's biological father. In testimony during the Florida hearing, Stern seemed aware of the distinction.

"I believe I am the father," he told the judge. "And under the laws of the Bahamas, I am the father."

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The people who surrounded Anna Nicole Smith have proved themselves to be a strange lot.

Bobby Trendy, in the same conversation in which he brags of planning to appear on two shows in one day, calls Bonnie Stern a "servant for fame." Jackie Hatten, asked to recall how she first met Smith, says they bonded over the fact that they were both tall blondes with 38 DD breasts.

"I'm all natural," she adds.

Smith's own mother, Virgie Arthur, has acknowledged that she got a flight to the Bahamas from a media organization to see her grandson's grave.

And for Stern, Birkhead and all the other men who've claimed to be Dannielynn's daddy, there is the persistent question of motives. Whoever gets the baby may get access to some of Marshall's millions, assuming the litigation goes her way.

All we have are pieces, the detritus of a life washed ashore. Friends come forth to speculate about what happened to this B-list celebrity whose life had Grade A scandal. Anna had pneumonia! Anna had lupus! No, it was the drugs! A videotape is unearthed of Smith, looking into a camera, her face painted with clown makeup. Her eyes are unsteady and her speech is slurred. She is pregnant.

And what about Stern himself? Where exactly does he fit in all this madness? Approached through his attorney, Bruce Ross, he would not comment for this story. These days, he's mostly been doing "Entertainment Tonight."

To bolster her brother's claim to paternity, though, Bonnie Stern forwards an e-mail she says came from Smith on Aug. 26, shortly before Dannielynn was born.

"went to doc today and my due date is in 2 weeks!!!!! ......................hello aunt bon bon dont tell your parents its a surprise howard wants to tell them! ...............................love you..................kisses anna"