Murder & The Movie Star: A Cedar Bay Cozy Mystery - Book 12

by Dianne Harman

  He knew what he’d written was the best screenplay he’d ever done, but it didn’t seem good enough for her highness, Jacquie Morton, and he was concerned she was going to demand that another screenwriter be brought in to write the final script. If that happened it probably would mean the end of his screenwriting career, and he might as well start thinking about finding a new career.

  As he sat despondently looking out at the ocean he became convinced the only way to resolve the problem facing him was to have another actress replace Jacquie, but he also knew that because of her ego, not to mention how much she needed this movie to be a hit, that wasn’t going to happen. That left him with one option. It was up to him to make it happen.

  He looked over at the house next door, Jacquie’s house, and noticed it had been built a little closer to the cliff than the one he was occupying, maybe by thirty feet. Mickey idly wondered what the chances were that someone could become disoriented and walk out the back door, mistaking it for the front door. In Jacquie’s case, if that happened, if she did mistakenly walk out of the house, maybe after a couple of glasses of wine at night or taking a sleeping pill, it wouldn’t be much of a stretch to imagine her falling over the cliff to the rocks far below. And if that happened, her body would probably be swept out to sea, never to be found.

  Mickey didn’t believe in violence. He tried to live his life as did his idol, Mahatma Gandhi, by practicing non-violence. If he didn’t like something, he simply took a path of non-violent resistance. He began to justify Jacquie Morton’s death as necessary, but the rocks below the cliff would provide the violent end to her life, not Mickey Sloan.

  CHAPTER 6

  Wednesday morning Kelly quietly got out of bed, so she wouldn’t wake Mike. After she’d dressed, let the dogs out, and quickly drank a cup of coffee, she loaded the casserole, muffins, French toast, and the brownies into her minivan, planning to put them in the refrigerator at the coffee shop until it was time for her to go to Jacquie’s. She’d prepared them the evening before, because she knew how easy it was to get tied up in the morning rush of taking care of customers at Kelly’s. The only thing left for her to do before she went to Jacquie’s was to prepare a bowl of fresh fruit, and she knew she could easily do that while she was at the coffee shop.

  When she arrived at Kelly’s Koffee Shop she saw Molly, Roxie, and Charlie standing by the front door, waiting for her. “To what do I owe the pleasure of all of you being here so early?” she asked as she unlocked the door.

  Roxie answered for them. “We’ve been talking and think you should take one of us with you this morning when you go to Jacquie’s home to cater the breakfast for her meeting. We could help you serve and clean up. You know, none of us have ever been in a movie star’s home, and this may be our only chance.”

  “Hate to disappoint you, but since I’ll be gone, I need all of you to be here at the coffee shop. I really don’t like to leave it during business hours, but I’m making an exception in this case.”

  “Do you think she’ll have mirrored rooms and animal skins on the floor like you see in those stars’ homes they show in all those supermarket magazines?” Charlie asked.

  “I have no idea. I promise I’ll give you a full report when I get back, but right now we need to get ready for the early morning breakfast crowd. Their business is just as important to the coffee shop as hers is. Now let’s get to work.”

  Twenty minutes before Kelly was going to leave for Jacquie’s she cut up the fruit and arranged it on a plate. She walked out to where Molly was standing by the cash register and said, “Wish me luck. I’m off. I shouldn’t be gone more than two hours. I can go back after we close today and get my dishes. Hold the fort down while I’m gone.”

  Rebel was getting older and liked to spend his days laying outside near the front door to the coffee shop. The regulars all knew him, and a lot of them gave him treats which he gratefully acknowledged by licking their hands. When Kelly started to walk towards her car he got up and walked behind her. “Rebel, I’m not going home. Go on back to the coffee shop.” He stood by the minivan in an uncompromising manner. She knew that once he made his mind up about something there was no way she could physically move him.

  Kelly looked at her watch and realized it was later than she thought. She knew she didn’t have time to try and insist he go back to the coffee shop. “Okay, come on, but if the big movie star doesn’t like dogs, you’ll have to stay in the minivan.” He eagerly hopped in, always ready for a ride.

  A few minutes later they pulled into the circular driveway in front of the large wood and glass house Jacquie had specially designed and built to fit her needs. She also owned the house next to it which was a smaller version of her home. Kelly noticed a large limousine parked in the driveway of the house next door and assumed it was the director’s. She figured he’d probably flown into Portland early that morning and then driven to Cedar Bay for the meeting. She let Rebel out of the minivan, and they walked up to the glass front door. Kelley could see the ocean by looking through the door and across the large living room which ran the full depth of the house. She rang the doorbell.

  When no one answered it, she knocked, thinking that maybe the doorbell was broken. Again, there was no answer. Kelly looked at her watch to make sure she was there at the right time, and confirmed that she was.

  “Come on, Rebel. Let’s check the back yard. Maybe she’s out there gardening or something. I know this is the right time and the right day. Anyway, kitchens are usually at the back of the house, and that’s where we need to end up.”

  They walked around the house on a sidewalk that led to the back yard, and Kelly knocked on the sliding glass door at the back of the house, as she looked across the living room to where her minivan was parked. No one answered her knock. She had her hands covering the sides of her eyes, trying to peer inside the house, when she heard Rebel’s bark followed by a low growl. She glanced over to where he was standing looking down the face of the cliff at the rocks below. She noticed that the guard hairs along his back were standing up, indicating he was angry or alarmed, which she thought was strange. Rebel had been with Kelly long enough for her to know that if he sensed something was wrong, there definitely was cause for his behavior, and she felt a sense of foreboding sweep over her.

  She walked over and stood beside him, looking down at the rocks below. She gasped involuntarily. A woman’s body was sprawled on one of the large jagged rocks, not moving. Kelly looked closely down at the body, and recognized Jacquie Morton’s signature ash blond hairdo. Jacquie wasn’t moving, and there was no doubt in Kelly’s mind that she was dead.

  Kelly put her hand on Rebel and pulled him back from the edge of the cliff, at the same time taking her phone out of the purse she’d slung over her shoulder when she’d gotten out of her minivan.

  A moment later, she heard Mike’s voice on the phone. “Hi, sweetheart, so how’s the movie star’s house?”

  “Mike, she’s…” Kelly’s voice broke as she tried to keep her voice steady. “Mike, Jacquie’s dead. She’s on the rocks below the cliff, and she’s not moving. Rebel found her.”

  “Get back in your minivan, Kelly, and wait for me,” Mike said in a commanding voice. “I’ll be there in a few minutes. Lock your doors. If she didn’t slip and fall over the cliff, someone may have killed her. Keep Rebel with you.”

  A few minutes later she heard the sound of sirens, and then Mike and two of his deputies drove into the circular driveway. She opened the window as Mike ran over to her minivan.

  “Kelly, are you all right?”

  “Yes, I’m fine. I’m a little shaky, but I’ll be okay now that you’re here.”

  “Good. Sorry, but I’ll need you show me where her body is.”

  “Okay,” she said opening her door. Rebel jumped out and ran over to Mike. “Follow me,” she said as she led the way along the side of the house to the cliff. “She’s down there,” Kelly said, pointing to Jacquie’s body. She heard more sirens and moments l
ater three paramedics joined them.

  Mike turned to them and said, “Looks like there’s a stairway leading down to the ocean. The body’s down there. My men and I need to go down there to inspect the immediate area and photograph the body. When we’re finished, I want you to get a gurney and bring the body up as best you can. If you don’t think that will work, you might have to sling her body over your shoulder. Any of you think you can do that?”

  One of the paramedics was a large man who obviously spent a lot of time working out. He looked at Mike and said, “No problem, sir. It’ll be a lot easier if I bring her up that way. Those stairs don’t look all that secure, and if we’re trying to handle a gurney loaded with a body, it could be a disaster. I’ll do it.”

  “Thanks, but I don’t think it could be much more of a disaster than what it already is.”

  An hour later, after Mike and his deputies had finished their work, the big, muscular paramedic arrived at the top of the stairs with Jacquie Morton’s body slung over his shoulder. The other two paramedics had gotten a gurney out of their ambulance and were waiting for him. They carefully laid Jacquie’s body on it and covered it with a sheet.

  A short time later the coroner’s van pulled into the driveway. The jowly florid faced coroner, with considerable effort, moved his big belly that was resting on the steering wheel and lumbered out of the van.

  “What you got for me, Mike?” he asked. “When you called, you said it was a high-profile case. Don’t know of anyone in these parts that’s high profile with the exception of me,” he said laughing.

  “Name Jacquie Morton ring a bell with you?” Mike asked, trying not to let his dislike of the coroner affect how he handled the case.

  “Course. Everybody knows Jacquie Morton. Why you askin’?”

  “The body under the sheet on the gurney is Jacquie Morton, that’s why,” Mike answered.

  “You’re kiddin’ me, right?”

  “No, I wish I was. Looks like she fell off the cliff. I assume you’ll be doing an autopsy to determine if she died of natural causes or if foul play was involved.”

  “I sure will, but if there’s no signs of foul play who’s to know whether she fell off the cliff by herself or had a little help? But I guess that would be your job, Sheriff. Sure glad it ain’t me runnin’ for re-election and havin’ to solve Jacquie Morton’s murder, if that’s what it turns out to be.”

  “You’re right. If she was murdered, it’s really going to put me in a tight spot,” Mike said grimly. He turned to Kelly. “Can you drive yourself back to Kelly’s, or do you want to go home? This can’t have been easy for you. At some point you’re going to have to give a statement concerning how you found Jacquie. I can have Brandon call you later, and you can do it over the phone.”

  “Thanks. I’m fine, Mike, but I need to get back to the coffee shop and tell the staff what’s happened before they hear about it from someone else. You know how fast rumors travel in Cedar Bay.”

  “Okay, sweetheart. I’ll probably be late for dinner tonight. I’ll call and let you know once I get through the paperwork this is going to require. See you later.” He hugged her and turned to his deputies. “Let’s go inside. We need to find out who the next of kin are and notify them before the media finds out about it. This is going to be a high-profile nightmare for our department.” He and his men entered the house through the unlocked back door, while Kelly and Rebel walked around the side of the house to her minivan.

  CHAPTER 7

  As Jose Hernandez drove to Jacquie Morton’s house to do his weekly gardening chores, he thought about what Serena, his wife, had told him the evening before about her doctor’s visit. He still couldn’t believe it. His world, as he knew it, had come to a crashing halt.

  She’d told him the doctor had said she had a disease called ALS, and that most people knew it as Lou Gehrig’s disease. The doctor said she was in the early stages of it, and that’s why she’d been having cramps in her legs at night when she was in bed and beginning to have difficulty when she swallowed and talked.

  Jose had said he’d never heard of it and asked what the doctor had told her she could do to get rid of it. She’d started to cry and said there was no cure, that she would just get progressively worse until she wouldn’t be able to walk or talk and eventually would need a feeding tube. She was concerned how much longer she’d be able to work at her job as a bookkeeper for the insurance agency in Cedar Bay.

  He didn’t know what they were going to do. With three children, they needed the money from both of their salaries just to feed their family and have a roof over their heads. They’d gotten married right after they’d graduated from high school. Although their parents were illegal immigrants, Serena and Jose had both been born in the United States, and they were U.S. citizens. Their parents had returned to Mexico a year after their wedding, because as they got older, they’d missed being with their extended families.

  Serena had excelled in high school and soon after their marriage she’d started working for the Cedar Bay Insurance Agency. She loved what she did and from what her boss had told her, she was very good at it. When Serena would have to stop working because of ALS, the money she earned would stop as well, plus, who was going to take care of her when Jose was working?

  Now that their families were in Mexico, there wouldn’t be anyone able to help. Maybe Jose and his daughters would have to go to Mexico to live when she died, and from what his wife had told him last night, it was inevitable. He didn’t know who else could help him raise their three daughters or how he’d find the money to even feed them. Jose’s mind was a jumble of thoughts, and none of them were pleasant.

  He parked in the circular driveway of Jacquie’s home and took out the gardening equipment from the back of his truck. He cut the grass in the front yard, edged it, and started to walk down the brick pavers on the side of the house to do the back yard. When he finished mowing and edging the back yard, he wanted to plant the flowers Jacquie’s assistant, Maizie Ortiz, had asked him to bring.

  As he pushed the lawnmower along the side of the house he happened to glance through the window that looked into the dining room. He saw Ms. Morton and Maizie standing in front of what appeared to be a wall safe with a painting propped up against the wall underneath it. It looked like Maizie was taking jewelry out of the safe. Each time she took a piece out, she handed it to Jacquie, and she appeared to be describing it to her, which seemed very odd to Jose. He wondered why Ms. Morton didn’t take the jewelry out herself and why Maizie would be describing the pieces to her. Surely Ms. Morton could tell everything about the pieces just by looking at them. He didn’t understand what was going on.

  The more he looked through the window, the more amazed he was at the sight in front of him. Along the sides and in the back of the safe he saw stack after stack of what appeared to be bundles of hundred dollar bills. He stared in astonishment for several minutes as Maizie continued to take jewelry out of the safe and hand it to Ms. Morton. In the short time that Jose watched the two women, he estimated that Maizie had taken twenty to thirty pieces of jewelry out of the safe. While he couldn’t make each piece out, he noticed that several of the pieces appeared to be necklaces, and he imagined the smaller pieces were rings and bracelets.

  Jose didn’t want the two women to catch him staring through the window, so he made his way to the back yard and continued to mow and edge the lawn. When he was finished, he went back to his truck and took out a flat of dianthus and baby’s breath flowers. He intended to plant them along the sides of the back yard. When he’d bought them he’d thought how well the pink hues of the dianthus and the white of the baby’s breath would play against each other and the green lawn.

  He was just finishing up when Maizie came outside. “Good morning, Jose,” she said to the handsome dark-haired young man. “The flowers that you just planted are beautiful, and I’m sure they’ll be even more so when they get a little larger.”

  “Thank you, Maizie. I hope Ms. Morton
likes what I’ve done. You told me she wanted me to pick out some plants I thought would do well here on the coast, and I think these will look great when they fill out. Do you think she’ll come out to look at them while I’m here?”

  Maizie hesitated a moment, and then she said, “Jose, I don’t want you to feel you’ve done a bad job or that she doesn’t appreciate your work, but sometimes Ms. Morton has trouble seeing things. It’s just a temporary condition, and although it’s not public knowledge, I thought you should know. Please don’t tell anyone.”

  “I didn’t know that, and of course I won’t say anything. Thanks for telling me, Maizie. I would have wondered why she didn’t come out or say anything, particularly since you told me she was the one who wanted me to buy and plant them.”

  “Now you know, Jose. By the way, how are Serena and the children doing? Be sure and tell them hello for me. I still remember how wonderful her tamales were when you had me over for lunch.”

  He looked at her with a painful expression on his face.

  “Jose, is something wrong with Serena or the girls?” she asked with a sense of dread.

  He tried to tell her, but unbidden tears sprang into his eyes, and his voice became hoarse. He appeared to be on the verge of breaking down. After a few long moments, he got control of himself and told her what the doctor had related to Serena the day before regarding her condition, both the diagnosis and the prognosis.

  Since Jose no longer had any family in the United States, Maizie had begun to think of him and treat him like a son. She looked at him with a horrified expression on her face and said, “What are you and Serena going to do?”

  He was quiet for several more moments, and then he answered, “Honestly, I have no idea, Maizie. I never expected anything like this to happen, particularly not at our age. You know we don’t have any relatives here, and there’s no one who can help us. I don’t know what to do.”