Kiss of Death

by Linda Palmer

I stood up with feigned casualness and turned onto Cook Street, increasing my pace as soon as I was out of sight of the Belle Valley P.D.

  BY THE TIME I had bought new clothes, got rid of the disguise and my grubby slacks and shirt, abandoned the Skylark, and reached the Belle Valley Police Department, Walter greeted me with the news that the search of Ray Wilson’s house had produced videotapes showing Wilson molesting children. “The guys here have been spot-checking and fast-forwarding through them, but the tape quality is real bad, and there’s no sound. It’s gonna be hard to make a case.”

  “So, without corroborating testimony from at least one of his victims, Wilson might go free.” I was stating the obvious. The police would publicize Wilson’s arrest, and ask victims to come forward, but given the level of humiliation and shame likely to be felt by families, it could be that no one would. Many adult women refuse to report sexual assault, fearing that admitting to having been raped would taint them. I understood that fear; I had it myself, but I couldn’t let it stop me from what I had to do. Absent names of Wilson’s victims, it was up to me to try to inspire somebody to come out of hiding and file charges against him.

  Walter believed that, even though I worked offscreen, my connection to Love of My Life made me at least a minor celebrity, and therefore of media interest. Reluctantly, I’d had to agree with him. It seemed that any show business connection appealed to the press. Every time a crime was committed by someone who worked for a famous actor, currently or in the past—even if it was in a menial job—news accounts and broadcasts about the event began by mentioning the actor. If a second cousin of the man who serviced Mel Gibson’s cars was arrested, that report would lead with Mel Gibson’s name. Perhaps my speaking up about having been a victim of Ray Wilson would make it a little easier for someone else to admit it. With all of my heart, I hoped so.

  After I told my story privately to Captain Don Anderson of the Belle Valley Police Department, he called for a video camera and a stenographer. When everything was in place, I sat down to face the lens. Under Captain Anderson’s methodical questioning, I recounted, in painful detail, my time in Ray Wilson’s power. While it was difficult, to my surprise, I discovered that there was also a degree of freedom in the telling. I felt as though I was being relieved of a heavy burden.

  The ugly part of my story ended with my rescue by Sheriff Walter Maysfield.

  Telling Captain Anderson that I was checking out of my motel and would be there soon, Walter had made his own statement before I arrived. He described how he had discovered me, and included information regarding the stolen van, about finding Ray Wilson’s fingerprints in the vehicle, and Walter’s unsuccessful attempts to capture the man. Years later Wilson was traced to Belle Valley by a private detective that I had hired.

  Although Captain Anderson already knew the answer, for the sake of the official record, he asked me, “Why did you go to the trouble and expense of looking for Wilson? You must have known the statute of limitations on your case had run out.”

  “I wanted to learn where I came from, and how I ended up with him.”

  “What did you find out?”

  “Not much. When I was a little girl, he told me my mother was dead. This morning, when Sheriff Maysfield and I confronted him, he said that she gave me to him, but swore that was all he knew about her, that she didn’t tell him her name.” A partial truth. “The most important reason I came here is that I wanted to try to stop him from hurting other children.”

  WE WERE SITTING in Captain Anderson’s office, in straight-back wooden chairs next to the captain’s desk, waiting to read and sign our statements. Walter had tipped his chair against the wall as he thumbed through a stack of “wanted” circulars. I was perched at the edge of my seat, replaying in my mind every word Ray Wilson had told me about the woman who gave birth to me. I was sure Wilson believed the story, but was it true? Had she lied to him? Did I want to find out?

  I looked around, hoping for something to distract me from thinking about it. Unlike New York’s Twentieth Precinct, which seemed to be busy around the clock, on this Saturday morning, there were only two police officers visible from where I sat, and no public enemies. One officer was filling out a form, and the other was reading a magazine and drinking from a tall Styrofoam cup. Coffee! I realized how much I would give at that moment for a cup of coffee—even police-station coffee.

  My cell phone rang, interrupting my craving. Instantly, I felt my spine stiffen with apprehension. The people in my life had promised not to call me this weekend unless it was an emergency.

  “Hello?”

  “Sorry to interrupt your vacation, honey.” It was Matt. “There’s something I have to tell you.” His tone was somber. It wasn’t going to be good news.

  I clenched the pen in my hand so hard it bit into the flesh of my palm. “What’s happened?”

  “An actor on your show—Jay Garwood. He’s been shot,” Matt said.

  Chapter 44

  MY HEART POUNDED with fear. “Is he alive?” I asked.

  Walter brought the front legs of his chair back down to the floor, scooted it closer to mine, and leaned forward. “What happened?”

  “Jay Garwood’s been shot,” I whispered.

  “Who are you talking to?” Matt asked.

  “Walter.”

  “Maysfield’s with you at a spa? Where exactly are you?”

  “I’ll explain when we get back. Tell me—is Jay alive?”

  “Just barely.”

  I nodded at Walter and mouthed “yes.”

  Walter leaned back, his face creased in thought.

  “Garwood’s at St. Vincent’s Hospital, on West Twelfth Street,” Matt said. “He’s critical.”

  “What happened?”

  “At five o’clock this morning Garwood was about to go jogging, but he was shot as he came out of his apartment.”

  “His apartment? Jay lives on West Eleventh Street. That’s not in the Twentieth Precinct. How did you and G. G. get the case?”

  “We didn’t. The shooting took place in the Tenth. Manhattan South. Penny heard about it on the radio half an hour ago. She knows Garwood was an actor on your show so she told me. I called the Tenth and got the details—more than what’s been released in news reports. Garwood would have died from his wound, but he got lucky. A cabdriver was parked up the street, having a smoke. He heard the shot, saw him fall, and got a glimpse of someone running away. It was still too dark for the driver to be able to describe the assailant.”

  “Was it a mugging?” I asked that question, even though my instincts told me this was absolutely not a random street crime.

  “We don’t think so,” Matt said. “Garwood had forty dollars on him, and was wearing a gold Rolex. The shooter didn’t take anything—just plugged him in the gut and ran.”

  “Jay was shot in the stomach?” I shuddered. “Oh, Lord, that would have been a horrible way to die.”

  “It wouldn’t be where I’d want to be shot, that’s for sure. The assailant was close enough to Garwood to have hit him in the head and killed him instantly,” Matt said. “Artie Wallace, the lead detective on the case, believes this shooting was personal, that whoever did it wanted Garwood to suffer before he bled out. I think he’s right.”

  “Matt, you and G. G. should be on this case, too. I’m sure it’s connected to the death of Veronica Rose. Jay Garwood had been going out with her. First Veronica is murdered, and then a couple of weeks later Jay is almost killed, too. You can’t tell me you think that’s a coincidence?”

  “No, I don’t,” Matt said. “G. G. and I are going down to the Tenth to compare notes with Artie Wallace and his partner.”

  I looked up to see Walter moving out into the main room. He was speaking quietly into his cell phone as he walked.

  “Morgan, are you there?”

  “Oh, yes, I’m sorry. I was distracted for a moment. Look—Jay is close to his ex-wife. Her name is Loretta Garwood. She lives on West Ninth with their fifteen-year-old
daughter, Annie. Somebody should let her know—”

  “She and the girl are at St. Vincent’s now. Mrs. Garwood’s name was in his wallet, listed as the person to notify in case of an emergency. Artie hightailed it right over to her apartment to see her himself. Just in case.”

  “In case of what?” But before the question was completely out of my mouth I realized what Matt was saying. “You mean, in case she wasn’t at home that early in the morning? Or in case she opened the door with a smoking gun in her hand? Does he think Loretta shot him?”

  “It’s a possibility. When somebody is murdered, or almost, it’s more likely the killer was a so-called loved one than a stranger.”

  “I think that detective is wrong this time.”

  “Oh, really? Then what’s your theory?”

  “I don’t have one,” I admitted. Yet.

  “Let the professionals work the case. Stay out of it.”

  “That’s pretty arrogant,” I said hotly.

  “I don’t want you arrested for obstruction of justice—I’d miss the trouble you cause me.” Before I could respond, Matt added, “Okay, I’ve told you all I know about the Garwood attack. Now you tell me the truth about where you are, and what you and Sherlock’s father are doing.”

  “Not on the phone. I’ll explain when we get home.”

  “When will that be?” I heard impatience in his tone.

  “Hey.” I lowered my voice. “Just because we’ve slept together, doesn’t mean you can start dictating where I go and what I do. And with whom.”

  “Walter Maysfield is living with you. I’d be jealous as hell if he wasn’t a hundred years old.”

  “He’s seventy-two. Haven’t you heard: seventy is the new fifty. One day I’ll tell you what a wonderful friend he was to me when I was a child, and growing up.”

  “Make it soon. I’d like to know something about you—before the day we met eight months ago.”

  I tried to steer him away from that subject with a joke. “Has it been only eight months? Seems longer.”

  “We met October ninth of last year, at Metropolitan Hospital, on the seventh floor. Your boss at the network had been struck by a hit-and-run driver. G. G. and I were investigating.”

  In contrast to my attempt at humor, his tone was serious. His detailed memory of that night surprised me. I didn’t know what to say, so I made light of it by asking, “What was I wearing?”

  “Something baggy, too big. You didn’t dress very attractively back then, but I liked your face.”

  “I don’t remember anything at all about you,” I lied. “G. G. was the one I thought was sexy.”

  That made him laugh, and soon we said warm goodbyes.

  When Walter saw that I’d finished my call, he came back.

  “You can catch a Jet Blue flight out of Pittsburgh that’ll get you back to New York by one o’clock this afternoon.”

  “Pittsburgh?”

  “It’s the nearest big city, ’bout fifty miles away. I’ll drive you, then come back here to make sure Wilson stays in custody ’til we can nail him with a bigger charge than just possession of those tapes.”

  AS SOON AS we got in Walter’s rental car to drive to Pittsburgh, I phoned Tommy Zenos. I was pretty sure that he hadn’t heard the news about Jay, because on Friday nights Tommy played in a poker game that lasted until dawn, and then he slept until the late afternoon on Saturdays. He said it was the weekly therapy that kept him sane. I didn’t bother to dial his landline, because he would have turned that off to sleep, but I knew he always kept one of his two cell phones on. His father and I were the only people who had that number.

  “Hello … ?” He sounded barely conscious.

  “Tommy, this is Morgan. Wake up, please. It’s important.”

  He cleared his throat. I pictured him sitting up and shaking his head to clear it. He did that when he’d had too many late nights and fell asleep on his side of our partner’s desk. “I’m … ’kay. I’m okay. What’s the matter?”

  I told Tommy that Jay had been shot, and was in critical condition at St. Vincent’s. “The police are investigating, but they don’t yet know who did it. I’ll be back in the city in a few hours. Now this is what you need to do—are you completely awake?”

  “Yes.” His voice sounded stronger. “Is Jay going to be all right?”

  “I don’t know. He’s in a fine hospital, and we’ll make sure he gets everything he needs.”

  I heard Tommy gasp. “Oh, no! What about the show?”

  “You’ve got to find an actor to replace Jay in the role temporarily,” I said. “Because of the current storyline, there’s no way I can redo the schedule to tape around him until he recovers.” If he recovers, was my unspoken thought.

  “Right. Right. I’ll get somebody who looks enough like Jay to keep the transition from being jarring, and we’ll have the announcer say, ‘The role of Evan Duran is being played temporarily by … whoever.”

  Hearing the energy in his voice, I knew I couldn’t have given him a better assignment. Tommy, whose fears and insecurities displayed themselves in myriad ways—from his addiction to chocolate to his string of broken engagements—was brilliant at two aspects of the television business: making deals and casting.

  “Jay isn’t scheduled to tape this coming week until Wednesday,” I said. “As soon as you find the right actor, hire our best coach to help the substitute Evan give us the character nuances we need in the part. Can the budget handle that extra expense?”

  “We have more than enough in my secret fund,” Tommy said proudly. He’d amassed a financial cushion by slightly inflating each item in the budget we submitted yearly to the network. What we didn’t use for production, Tommy put away to cover unexpected problems, so we wouldn’t have to ask for extra money. Because of his economic sleight of hand, Tommy had earned Love of My Life the best reputation in the business for fiscal responsibility.

  A few months ago, when I discovered what Tommy was doing, he had said, “We’re not taking anything for ourselves. I’m just fighting a kind of guerrilla war against the bean counters.” My admiration for him rose at that moment. I realized again that there was more to my co-executive producer than the nail-biting buffoon some people thought him to be. That was his protective coloration; jungle animals used it to survive.

  Tommy asked, “When I find the candidates for Evan Duran, do you want to see tapes before we hire one?”

  “Not necessary. You’ve got the Midas touch when it comes to picking actors.”

  Besides, I’m going to be busy trying to figure out who shot Jay Garwood.

  Chapter 45

  “YOU’RE A MESS,” Matt said, surprising me by standing at the end of the Jet Blue tunnel as I stepped foot into the terminal at JFK.

  “What are you doing up here, beyond the security checkpoints?”

  “I flashed the badge,” Matt said. “I didn’t want to risk missing you in the crowd.”

  Walter had managed to get me to Pittsburgh in time to catch the Jet Blue flight to New York City. In the ten minutes I had between buying the ticket and boarding the airbus, I’d called Matt to tell him when I’d be home. He’d asked what flight I was taking, but I hadn’t expected him to meet me. I didn’t even want to see him until after I’d had a bath, shampooed my hair, brushed my teeth, and put on clean clothes. Glancing at myself in the plane’s bathroom mirror before landing, I realized I looked even worse than the time I’d fallen into Lake Victoria, and Ian had had to pull me out before the crocodiles got to me. Of course, then I didn’t have the dark circles under my eyes from having gone almost forty-eight hours without sleep.

  Matt stared over my head at the other deplaning passengers. “Where’s Maysfield?”

  “He’s staying in Ohio for a few days.”

  “Doing what?”

  “It’s a long story,” I said. “And before I share it with you, I want to clean up. Tell me about Jay Garwood. What’s his condition?”

  “Still critical. He’s in
a coma.”

  As we made our way toward the street exit through the swarm of travelers arriving and departing, I asked, “Do the doctors say what Jay’s chances of recovery are?”

  “About fifty-fifty. The odds would be a lot worse if he wasn’t in such good physical shape. His wife told Artie that Garwood went running at five o’clock every morning, no matter what the weather was like.”

  That was an interesting bit of information. It started me thinking. “If Loretta Garwood knew his schedule, I wonder who else did,” I said.

  “We’re investigating that. ‘We’ means official law enforcement, so don’t try to help. Did you check your bag?”

  “No bag.” Patting a pocket of the camouflage print jacket I’d purchased that morning—in the first place in Belle Valley I’d found open, an Army-Navy surplus store—I added, “All I have with me is my wallet.” The wallet with my own identification in it. I’d gotten rid of the Charlotte Brown driver’s license, along with my disguise, the pliers, duct tape, flashlight, and lock pick.

  Out on the sidewalk, I saw Matt’s NYPD Crown Victoria parked in the passenger loading zone, with an OFFICIAL BUSINESS sign clipped to the sun visor. He opened the passenger door for me and I got in. Sinking back against the seat, I realized that not only was I exhausted, but just about every part of my body ached. Before we were out of JFK and onto the highway, I was sound asleep.

  Matt woke me when he slowed to a stop in front of the Dakota. I opened my eyes to see Jim, the new daytime security man, start toward the car. Matt waved him away, and Jim retreated into his kiosk.

  “Wash off the dust of Ohio and take a nap. How would you feel about my coming over for dinner? I’ll bring it.”

  “I’d like that,” I said. “Chinese?”

  “You got it. Seven o’clock?”

  “Perfect.”

  Matt leaned over and kissed me on the forehead, then reached past me to open the car door. Just as I was starting to climb out, he touched my hand. With a smile, he asked, “Are you sure Maysfield will be in Ohio? We’ll be alone?”