The Last Temptation

by Gerrie Ferris Finger

  “Where’d it happen?” I asked.

  “His house. Risso goes home to his million-dollar shack on Forest Overlook. Kisses the wife, plays with the dogs, feeds the fish, says he’s going upstairs to take a nap since it’s the first decent rest he’s had in a while. Wife goes to the grocery. Three hours later she goes upstairs to check on him. Finds him hanging from a light fixture in the closet.”

  “What’s she saying about his mood?”

  “Says he wasn’t upset. He was looking forward to getting back to his business.”

  “What about her as a suspect?”

  “She’s ten years older than the guy, and weighs ninety pounds. She’d need muscle to strangle a two-hundred-pound man. But we’ll find out more about it.”

  “So our sponsor’s dead,” I mulled.

  “Are you wondering how we’re going to pay the piper?” he asked.

  “If the piper has anything to do with his death, I don’t think we’ll have to,” I said. “But that means no second invitation to The Cloisters.”

  “I talked to Risso before he got sprung. He got no bill nor feedback from White and his minions at The Cloisters. But he was signed on to continue his rehab starting next week.”

  “Has the news about his suicide hit the papers yet?”

  “A reporter came nosing. Risso owned a bunch of franchises.”

  “Are they keeping his sex bust out?”

  “Can’t.”

  “So what’s your gut telling you?”

  “That you need to get back here. Or I need to get out there.”

  “I’m all right, Lake. I got Dartagnan as a sidekick.”

  “Then I definitely need to get out there.”

  47

  I showered and changed and walked the few blocks down Palm Canyon Drive to VillageFest. I was starving. At a fancy Nuevo Indian Cuisine stand, I bought two tacos: soft corn wraps filled with eggplant, cheeses, sun-dried tomatoes, and olives. Delicious. I walked down the middle of the street, looking left and right, eating from a paper wrap. Fortunately, I had several big napkins to wipe my arms with.

  No Zing with his donuts. No Philippe with his sushi. No Tess with her exquisite weaving. The crowd wasn’t as thick as it had been those many weeks ago. The summer tourists were back home, and it wasn’t quite time for “the season” crowd to arrive.

  I’d almost forgotten about the dark man when I saw him at an Indian jewelry booth. He averted his face and pretended to be intensely interested in a turquoise bracelet. Pitching the white paper in the trash containers, I zipped over to the booth. He’d caught my movement and ran.

  “Wait,” I shouted.

  He looked over his shoulder as he sped away. People scattered. They looked at me like I’d been stalking a recalcitrant lover. But he was gone. I lurched away, back north, the way I’d come. Crossing the street, I ran to the Palkott. When I rounded the acacias, I slowed to a quick walk. The doorman doffed his hat and opened the door. In the lobby, I checked my cell messages. No one I wanted to talk to. I hurried to the side entrance and summoned the parking attendant and headed out to the Rosovo casino.

  * * * * *

  I knocked on the door marked PRIVATE. The hulk opened it. I think he remembered me. “I’m here to see Mr. or Mrs. Rosovo,” I said.

  “Who are you?”

  “Moriah Dru.” What more could I say?

  He shut the door with a rude bang. I gave myself odds that he wasn’t coming back, but in about a minute he opened the door and wordlessly waved me in.

  “Miss Dru.” Mrs. Rosovo came from behind her desk. On it, a financial ledger lay open. She had on oversize glasses.

  “Thank you for seeing me,” I said. “And I apologize for our last encounter.”

  “No need,” the no-nonsense native woman said. “Please have a seat.”

  She went back to her chair, and I eased into the director’s chair where Lake had sat.

  “I haven’t made inroads in my investigation into the disappearance of Mrs. Cameron or her daughter,” I said. She stared without expression. “I went back to Atlanta and worked on other cases, and then an investigator came to my office.”

  She didn’t bat an eye when I told her that Eileen had hired him. I told her that Bellan and I made an agreement, and that he’d come to Palm Springs in search of Eileen—where he was murdered.

  “I know of the crime,” she said, folding her calm brown hands on the lined pages. “I did not know why he was here working with our Larry.”

  “You knew Larry?”

  “He works, worked, security for us during the season.”

  “Could Larry’s work here be the reason the PIs were killed?”

  Her eyes were like an owl’s behind the glasses. “If Larry was working on something dangerous, I don’t know about it. When he wasn’t here working, or playing poker, he was doing divorce work. That was his mainstay. But understand, he did not name his clients.”

  “Divorce can be deadly,” I said, and she agreed without words. “On the other hand, if Larry was helping Bellan find Eileen and her daughter, and if certain people didn’t want them found—well—that could be deadly, too.”

  “I hadn’t seen Larry for a couple days, which was unusual,” she said. “He played poker here four nights a week. I asked a friend of his if he’d left town. It was this friend who told me that Larry was playing host to an out-of-town investigator.”

  “Who was the friend?”

  “I, too, am discreet.”

  “I can understand that, but this—this is life and death.” I hated that I’d sounded so melodramatic. “When you investigate a person or a situation, you don’t have long before it gets out. You ask questions, you follow people. It seems Palm Springs soon learned why Bellan was in town.”

  “The Springs is a small world.”

  “So I’ve been told. Where can I find Tess?”

  Her back went up. “Contessa is in the north.”

  “Where?”

  “She’s busy with her art.”

  “It’s important that I talk with her.”

  “She does not want to see you.”

  “I’m not blaming her for what happened. That’s over, but I need to know where to find a man named Ro-all, or something like that.”

  “Ro-all?” she said. Her mouth stayed open. Her steely nerves had given way.

  “Do you know him?”

  “That is not a common name.”

  “And that is not an answer.”

  She picked up a pencil and hit the eraser on the ledger, twice, three times. “What has this Ro-all to do with you?”

  “You know that Lake and I were shot at when we were in the Adobe Flats.”

  Her head jerked back. “I discussed this with Mr. Lake. You should not have been there.”

  “But we were.”

  “It is a sacred place. It represents shame and grief from the days when our land was stolen from us.”

  “So you’re saying that Ro-all fired a shot to warn us to get out of the Lost Coyote Canyon?”

  “I don’t know that he did, or did not. But you should not have gone there.”

  “I had to prove to Lake that I had been there the night I supposedly wandered off into the desert.”

  “Did you find your proof?”

  “I found proof that Tess was there.”

  “What is this proof?”

  “A single silver earring, with birds on it.”

  The unwitting glint in her eyes told me that she knew Tess had lost the earring, but she said, “She has many silver earrings.”

  “Doesn’t it bother you that Ro-all and his companions tried to kill us?”

  Smiling with her lips, but not her eyes, she said, “I will not be angry with you over your mistaken beliefs. Jimsonweed takes many months to leave the mind after it has left the body.”

  “My mind is fine. I remember you, and the moon ritual, and the young girl who wasn’t Native American.”

  She stood and came around her desk. She
perched one buttock on a corner and crossed her arms, trying to appear relaxed. “We have many visitors during the moon ritual. You are mistaken in your thoughts. That is all I can say.”

  “I must speak to Tess.”

  “That is not possible.”

  “Bellan Thomas mentioned that people out here knew an open secret. Do you know what he meant?”

  A smile twisted her mouth, and not pleasantly. “I imagine there are many secrets, whether open or closed.”

  “That have to do with this case?”

  “I am tired of being questioned.” She went to the door.

  “Did Tess talk to Larry or Bellan about the Cameron disappearances?”

  “She had no need to. Now, Miss Dru, please. I am sorry for your investigator. I am even more sorry for my friend, Larry. But we are not part of your problem, nor of your investigation. Please focus elsewhere.”

  “Tell Tess I must see her,” I said as I was leaving. “Tell her that I know what happened at Arlo Cameron’s house.”

  Those were my last words, said to a closed door.

  48

  My plan had been to drive to Los Angeles the next morning, but Webdog told me that Arlo was booked on a morning flight to LA. So I was on my way to LA late in the afternoon. It may have been a fool’s errand but I had a hunch. It even smacked of logic. I packed an overnight bag, tipped the valet, and headed west—keeping a watchful eye on my rear.

  Mozart played on my cell, and I adjusted my headset. “Mr. Whitney,” I said. “I’m in Palm Springs.”

  “Since when?”

  “This morning.”

  “What’s happening there?”

  “Things progress.”

  “What, pray tell, is that supposed to mean?”

  “It means I’m getting closer to finding your ex-wife and child. I can’t promise—”

  “What?”

  “That they’ll be alive.”

  “You’d better promise Kinley’s alive. You’d better hope you find her alive.”

  “Is she alive, Mr. Whitney?”

  Line dead. End of conversation. Poor Eileen—no hope for her from her ex-loving-husband.

  According to MapQuest, Los Angeles was 107 miles from Palm Springs. Most of the drive on I-10.

  Arlo lived in Hollywood, off Sunset Boulevard, in a 1930s building that had been a hotel in the glory days but then slid into decline. In the 1980s, Iranians bought the building, gutted it, and constructed apartments that went for upwards of a million per eighteen hundred square feet.

  I got to the Strip. Everyone knows it from the movies and television. It’s every bit as tacky-chic as it looks on film. It also looks like it would be deadly after midnight. There’s places in Atlanta like that.

  Behind the Chinese Theater, Las Hernandos Condominium Homes climbed above the Strip. Arlo owned an apartment on the twelfth floor—the penthouse floor. He’d bought his place for eight million ten years ago. I reminded myself that Webdog insisted he hadn’t hacked into Arlo’s agent’s computer, but he was circumspect about where the knowledge came from. I told myself I didn’t need to know.

  After scoping out Arlo’s Hollywood digs, I drove down the neon Strip. My God, there was a smoking billboard. I braked so short the SUV behind me almost bumped my rental. A movie promo. I hate billboards.

  My hotel, The Sunset on Sunset, is a boutique hotel, a renovated 1930s-something six-story, narrow in width, but long in depth. Its architectural style looked Moorish. Webdog boasted he’d found this “chichi place” in the heart of Hollywood. Surprising that a geek would know the meaning of chichi.

  The Sunset on Sunset’s revolving brass doors were one step up off the sidewalk—no lawn, no canopy, but a doorman nonetheless. Alongside the sand-colored building, a ramp led to an underground garage. No one was around, so I nosed the car downward. Concrete catacombs scare the hell out of me. I’d rather walk through a cemetery in New Orleans at midnight. The close-up slots were filled with Mercedes and Lexuses. I had to park hell-and-gone from the elevator. Hurrying across the stark gray concrete, my eyes and ears were tuned to the nuance of footsteps and shadows. I made it to safety in the lobby and considered my pulse rate. It wasn’t one particular thing that made my nerves crawl outside my skin, either. So I blamed it on the static in the air.

  “Miss,” the concierge greeted me with a small salute. “We have valet parking for our guests. It’s free.”

  Feeling stupid, I said, “Thanks, I didn’t see your attendant outside. I’m a true believer in valet parking.”

  “Now you know,” he said.

  I smiled. “Now I know.”

  “A suggestion,” he said.

  “Lay it on me.” I’d heard that in a recent film.

  He said, “You won’t be able to find a place to park around the hot spots. You can walk, or I can have a hotel car drop you off anywhere you want to go. No charge. When you want to return, give us a call. Number’s on the desk in your suite. It must be before two o’clock, a.m. ’Course there’s always taxis out after that.”

  I’d seen some of the hot spots. The Charnel House would not see the likes of me tonight. “Thanks,” I said. “I just got off the road. I need sleep.”

  He looked like he needed sleep, too.

  The elevator was a small cubicle, like something from a forties film with an operator. My room was on the third floor. The king bed summoned, but I needed a long bath first. Afterward. I fell asleep reading a book called A History of the Garden of Allah. I learned that there used to be a mansion at Sunset Boulevard and Crescent Heights that belonged to Alla Nazimova, a silent film star. She turned the grounds into a collection of cottages and bars and restaurants. The rich and famous flocked to Allah, but not before Alla went bankrupt and was reduced to living in a small room in her once-lavish mansion. So many Hollywood stories.

  * * * * *

  I’d forgotten to draw the drapes, and rays of the bright eastern sun fell upon my face. I rose feeling pretty good from the best sleep I’d had since I followed Lake from the downtown diner to where the third Suburban Girl’s body had been tossed.

  I pulled into visitor parking at Las Hernandos Condominium Homes and checked my watch for the twentieth time. Nine o’clock—the earliest one could pay a social visit in Atlanta. Probably too early in Hollywood, but if I had to wake up sleeping beauty, I had to. Arlo was taking the ten-fifteen a.m. flight out of Palm Springs. By some dodge, Webdog got the airline agent to confirm that Arlo Cameron was a passenger on the ten o’clock flight rather than the six a.m. I could have dropped a dime that he wouldn’t be taking the six.

  “Name please,” the security guard’s voice came through the speakers, coarse and tinny. He sat at a guard station between the outside doors and a wall of glass doors that led into the lobby.

  “Moriah Dru,” I said. “To see Tess Rosovo.”

  He looked at a roster, or pretended to. “There is no one on my list of tenants by that name.”

  “She is visiting Arlo Cameron.” I spoke with emphasis. “It’s her birthday. I want to surprise her.” Silence, maybe head-scratching. I went on, “Tess is a friend of mine from Palm Springs. Actually, her Aunt Rosa is my godmother.”

  He said, “I don’t have any notation on my board about a birthday party, or . . . What’s your name?”

  “Moriah,” I said. “It’s not a real birthday party. I plan to surprise her with this little present.” I held up a tiny package—a large one might make him think of bombs. “It’s a special memento.”

  “That’s real nice, but . . .”

  I interrupted, “Mr. Cameron said he’d send word.”

  “Mr. Cameron is due from Palm Springs at noon.”

  “Yes, on the ten-fifteen. I guess I’ll have to wait until you get in touch with him.”

  He tilted his head. “You can wait inside.”

  The lock buzzed on the door, and it released. I placed the little present on the guard’s desk and opened my purse to put my car keys inside, making sure that he
saw nothing but a wallet and glasses and a few cosmetics occupying the little bag. Snapping the bag shut, I said, “Arlo . . . Mr. Cameron gives me parts in his movies when he shoots in The Springs.”

  The guard laughed. “I got me a part once. They needed an overweight, out-of-shape walk-on. Got to say a whole sentence.”

  “Arlo’s put half The Springs in the movies.”

  He looked me over. “Moriah. That’s a nice name. You got good hair and nice eyes. Tall, thin—I bet you look good on screen.”

  “I don’t look the same. They darken my face and put dark contacts in my eyes and put me in a teepee with the other squaws.”

  He shoved a clipboard at me. “Sign in here.”

  I signed in.

  “Apartment twelve-twelve,” he said. “Doorbell’s on the left.” He released the lock on the wall of glass, and a panel slid open.

  I gave a little wave. “Thanks, I can’t wait to surprise Tessie.”

  * * * * *

  I thought Tessie wasn’t going to come to the door after three buzzes, and I got the feeling I was being stared at through a peephole head high. Then the door was flung back. A barefoot Tess stood in the entryway in a yellow sundress that looked like sunshine itself, her pretty face drawn together by hostility. No surprise.

  “Can I come in?”

  She took two steps backward, and I slipped past her. “How did you know I was here?” she said. “My aunt said—”

  I held out the present. “This is for you.”

  She clasped her hands behind her back as if I’d offered a snake. “You didn’t come all the way from The Springs to give me something.”

  I urged the packet on her. “It belongs to you.”

  She shook her head as if she knew what was in it, and her natural serenity had cut a swath through her hostility. “How did you know to find me here?”

  “I found out where Arlo lives.”

  “Why would you think—?”

  “You know the answer to that, Tess.”

  She looked at her feet and wriggled her toes. “He’s—coming . . . on his way . . .”

  “I know, and I want to talk to you before he gets here.”

  “I can’t answer your questions.”