Poppy Harmon and the Pillow Talk Killer

by Lee Hollis

  Poppy’s hopes were quickly raised that they had a significant clue to tracking the stalker.

  Matt stared at the picture on the screen and looked back up glumly. “Half of it, anyway. The half that’s not blurred.”

  And then those hopes were just as quickly dashed.

  Chapter 7

  Don’t scream, Poppy said to herself.

  Don’t scream, she repeated over and over in her mind, determined to keep a mask of calm on her face and not allow the man sitting next to her in the helicopter to derive any satisfaction from the fact that she was melting down into full-blown panic mode.

  No, she would remain stubbornly stoic, not the least bit stirred by the dramatic dips in altitude, the unexpected barrel roll and flip of the chopper as if she was caught in some nightmare air circus stunt show. The only clue the pilot had that Poppy was not scared out of her wits was her white-knuckled grip of a strap that was attached to the interior wall of the helicopter next to her seat.

  She was still wondering how she had managed to find herself buckled in next to a stunt pilot zipping high above the Coachella Valley desert on this bright, hot, sunny afternoon.

  She had begun the otherwise non-eventful day at the Sundial resort, studying her lines for an upcoming scene to be shot in a couple days while Matt was on “Danika Duty,” sticking close to their client’s side, making sure she wasn’t accosted again if the stalker returned.

  Meanwhile, back at the Desert Flowers office, Violet’s grandson Wyatt, their resident computer whiz, was on his desktop busily running a program with the numbers and letters Matt had given him, hoping against all odds to find the stalker’s car with only half the license plate. It was going to be an uphill battle, but definitely worth the time and effort if they got lucky.

  Poppy had taken a break from her script and left her resort suite that served as her dressing room to grab some coffee from craft services, which was set up just off the pool area. There she found a man pouring himself a cup from the pot, and so she patiently waited a few feet behind him until he was finished. Sensing her presence, he glanced around and offered a rakish smile. “Good morning.”

  “Good morning,” Poppy said, nodding.

  Still blocking the coffee station, the man went about adding some cream and a couple of packets of sugar to his paper cup before picking up a wooden stirrer and swishing it around, his eyes still fixed on Poppy.

  “Beautiful day, isn’t it?” he said, still stirring his coffee.

  “Yes, it most certainly is,” Poppy said politely, waiting for him to finally step aside.

  “Roy Heller,” the man said, tossing the stirrer in a nearby trash can and holding out his hand.

  Poppy shook it courteously if not enthusiastically. “Poppy Harmon.”

  His grip was firm and manly. Poppy tended to judge a man by his handshake. This one was strong and confident, not limp and dismissive. A man with an unimpressive handshake was, in her opinion, a man who could not be trusted or counted on when the chips were down. She had willfully ignored her late husband Chester’s lackluster grip, and look where that had gotten her.

  The man finally moved out of the way so Poppy could pour herself some coffee. He hovered nearby, watching her. She had noticed he was very handsome. How could she not? His close-cropped white hair, the ruggedly good-looking, sun-tanned face with just enough lines to give him a distinguished air, the macho swagger punctuated with a black leather jacket and aviator sunglasses. He had a James Brolin quality about him. Poppy loved James Brolin and how impressively he had aged and made the mercurial Barbra Streisand so happy. This guy could have been his brother.

  Poppy had finished pouring her coffee and turned to leave when the man casually stepped in front of her, blocking her exit, and lowered his sunglasses, revealing a set of playfully mischievous green eyes. “I must say, you have only improved with age, Ms. Harmon.”

  This caught Poppy by surprise. “Have we met?”

  The man nodded with a grin. “A long time ago.”

  “What did you say your name was?”

  “Roy Heller.”

  “Roy Heller . . .” Poppy repeated, her mind working overtime. “I’m sorry, you don’t seem familiar.”

  “The sound you hear is my ego deflating,” Roy joked. “Seriously, you don’t remember me?”

  His face did seem vaguely familiar. But Poppy was fairly certain that had she met such a charming, handsome man she would have probably remembered him, and at the moment, she was still drawing a complete blank.

  “We had a helicopter pilot on Jack Colt who we used for aerial shots and an occasional stunt, but his name was Tiny and he was about six inches taller than you. Perhaps you saw me on one of those retro cable channels where they play my old show, and so you just think we’ve met before.”

  “We’ve worked together,” Roy said confidently. “Back in the eighties. Before you did Jack Colt.”

  Poppy studied him some more. No, she was positive she would have remembered meeting this man, even after forty years. “I think you’re mistaken.”

  “What do you want to bet?”

  “Nothing. Now if you’ll excuse me—”

  “If I can prove it, you go up in my helicopter with me for a ride.”

  “I can’t . . .”

  “You afraid of heights?”

  “No, I am not afraid of heights. I’m just a very busy woman and I can’t be running off with some stranger.”

  “Technically, there will be no running, we’ll be flying.”

  “I’ve enjoyed this little chat, but I really have to go—”

  “You scared I’m right?”

  Poppy scoffed at the notion. “No, I’m not scared of anything, Mr. Heller.”

  “Call me Roy.”

  “I’m not there yet, Mr. Heller.”

  He sipped his coffee, staring at her flirtatiously. “Tell you what, I promise you it’ll be a quick ride, thirty minutes tops, I’ll have you back here by noon.”

  “What if I win?”

  “You’re not going to win.”

  “Humor me.”

  Roy thought about it. “What do you want?”

  “All I really want is to go back to my room.”

  Roy stuck out his hand. “It’s a deal.”

  Poppy hesitated, not sure she should engage with him further, but since she was reasonably convinced this man was a stranger she had never seen before, she shook his hand, accepting the bet.

  Roy flashed his winning smile and then grabbed his phone and started tapping the screen.

  “What are you doing?” Poppy asked.

  “Looking for a video on YouTube.”

  “What video?”

  Roy glanced up at her and gave her a wink. “Just hold on.”

  He finally found what he had been looking for and handed her his phone with the video playing. Poppy looked at the screen. It was an aerial shot of a pretty girl in her late teens running across a field, her long blond hair flapping in the wind as a beat-up Dodge Charger sped dangerously toward her.

  “Recognize that?”

  “Of course. It’s me. This is a scene from a TV movie I appeared in just after moving to Hollywood. Diary of a Teenaged Hitchhiker about young women targeted by a psycho motorist. I’ll never forget it because that tiny part got me my SAG card.”

  “This shot wasn’t from the movie. It’s behind-the-scenes footage somebody put online,” Roy said.

  Sure enough, as Poppy continued to watch, the cameraman filming Poppy down on the ground from high up in the air panned the camera over to the pilot flying the helicopter he was in, and in an instant, Poppy recognized the young, sexy pilot from her earliest TV role. She remembered because she had had a huge crush on him during the shoot, but never saw him again after the movie wrapped production. Soon after, she was dating a college football star turned actor, a dead ringer for Mark Harmon, and forgot all about the smooth, sexy pilot.

  Until now.

  Roy noticed the hint of recog
nition on Poppy’s face.

  “I win,” he said.

  Never one to dishonor a bet, Poppy had reluctantly agreed to accompany Roy Heller on a helicopter ride, and now here they were, zipping along about seven thousand feet off the ground. Roy was proving to be a real prankster, banking left and right, diving down, nearly clipping the tops of a few palm trees, and pulling a couple of heart-stopping stunts in his whirlybird in order to impress or terrify Poppy, she wasn’t quite sure which.

  But Poppy had promised herself not to react, not scream or beg him to land, or show fear of any kind. And after twenty-five minutes, Roy finally returned and landed on the tarmac of the Palm Springs International Airport. Poppy unstrapped her seat belt and calmly stepped out of the chopper as if she was done riding a slow-moving carousel at a children’s amusement park.

  Never show fear, she thought to herself.

  As they walked toward Roy’s truck so he could drive her back to the Sundial, Roy couldn’t help but remark, “You are one tough broad, Poppy Harmon.”

  She was smiling on the inside, but kept a straight face on for the brazen veteran stunt pilot who obviously had a tendency to show off. And there was no way she was ever going to admit to him that she had just had the time of her life.

  Chapter 8

  After Roy Heller dropped Poppy off at the resort, she was on her way back to her suite when she happened upon a heated conversation between Trent, the director, and a pint-sized, intense-looking woman with frizzy hair somewhere in her mid to late forties. She had a severe face no doubt hardened by years of blows from the entertainment industry. Poppy instantly recognized her as film producer, Greta Van Damm, from studying the dossier of cast and crew members Wyatt had compiled after they accepted Danika’s case.

  Poppy stopped, not sure she should interrupt them as they quietly argued.

  “She wasn’t getting the job done. It’s as simple as that,” Trent sniffed in his clipped British accent.

  “I understand you weren’t happy, Trent, but you just can’t fire her on a whim and replace her with another actress without talking to me first.”

  “You hired me for my vision and so you should defer to it, or do you not remember the box office numbers from my last film?”

  “I remember them very well, and they were five million less than your previous film. You need a hit, Trent, and Hal and I are here to help you achieve that goal, so you need to work with us, not shut us out.”

  “I was afraid Hal would try and stop me from casting Poppy because she’s no longer a big name.”

  “I’m sure he would have,” Greta said. “But his opinions count, and he has a shelf full of Academy Awards to back them up.”

  Trent sighed, frustrated. “Have you seen the dailies of Poppy’s first scene? She was wonderful.”

  Poppy’s heart sank. They were talking about her, and here she was, awkwardly standing in the middle of the hallway, just a few feet away, eavesdropping on their conversation.

  “Yes, I’ll admit, she’s fine in the role, but that’s not the point. You need to stop acting like you’re the one in charge around here.”

  “And you need to stop micromanaging my film,” Trent shot back haughtily. “Or I’ll walk.”

  “Don’t make threats unless you’re ready to see them through. No one on a film set is indispensable, not even the director . . . unless you’re a talent on the scale of an Almodóvar, or Scorsese, or Tarantino, and you, my dear, are no Tarantino.”

  “Thank God!” Trent bellowed. “Overrated!”

  Irritated with Trent’s bombastic, ego-fueled rantings, Greta swiveled around, stopping short at the sight of Poppy standing fumblingly in the middle of the hallway.

  “I-I am sorry, I didn’t want to interrupt—” Poppy stammered.

  Without missing a beat, Greta plowed forward, pumping Poppy’s hand. “Greta Van Damm, I’m the film’s producer along with Hal Greenwood, I should probably say, the legendary Hal Greenwood.”

  Trent rolled his eyes, annoyed at Greta buttering up the boss even when he wasn’t around to feed off it.

  “Tell me, Poppy, how is it you came to us? Did your agent lobby Trent?” Greta asked, genuinely curious.

  Poppy’s eyes flicked toward Trent to see if he would jump in and expose her as a private detective, but Trent had no interest in filling in any blanks, especially to his perceived archnemesis Greta, and so Poppy felt free to concoct whatever story she wanted. She decided a simple one was probably the best approach.

  “I’m a friend of Danika’s, and I was here on the set, and was lucky enough to meet Trent here—”

  Trent smiled warmly. “I was the lucky one.”

  Greta wasn’t done asking questions, but before she had the chance to continue grilling Poppy, they heard a man shouting in the bar just off the lobby, which was located at the end of the hallway.

  “Get your hands off me!” a man roared.

  Poppy, Greta, and Trent all hustled back in the other direction, rounding the corner and entering the bar to see what all the commotion was about.

  Timothy, the production assistant, was manhandling another man, in his early thirties, on the shorter side, thin, stylishly dressed in a Hugo Boss suit and tie, with close-cropped blond hair and piercing blue eyes. The man was trying to push Timothy away, but the young PA was determined to hold on to him unlike the last guy who crashed the set.

  “If you rip this jacket, you’re paying for it, you little creep!” the man bellowed.

  Poppy did not recognize the well-dressed man but Greta certainly did.

  “What the hell are you doing here, Fabian?” Greta snarled. “How did you sneak your way onto this set?”

  Fabian ceased grappling with Timothy, who finally let him go, allowing him to brush himself off. “I have my ways. I had to do something. You don’t return my calls, you ignore my requests for an interview. I am trying to be fair to you in my story, but you don’t make it easy. Why not just cooperate?”

  “Because you’re a self-serving, muckraking journalist on a single-minded mission to destroy Hal Greenwood with a fake news hit piece.”

  “I wouldn’t call fifteen on the record sources fake news, Greta,” Fabian sniffed.

  A lightbulb went off in Poppy’s head.

  Fabian.

  Fabian Granger.

  Poppy had seen the handsome young reporter interviewed on CNN. He was a bright, up-and-coming investigative journalist known for his hard-hitting stories of egregious behavior in both Hollywood and Washington, DC. His other claim to fame was being the answer to a Jeopardy! question. “Who is a distant relative of Hollywood film star Farley Granger?”

  Fabian was despised by the Hollywood and DC establishments, but his stories resonated with the public. Corruption, sexual misconduct, everything was fair game. He had recently begun writing about entertainment moguls like Hal Greenwood, who had a history that at best could be described as “bad boy behavior” and at worst, criminal offenses including assault and battery, harassment both sexual and otherwise, and financial malfeasance. Hal Greenwood raged in the press that he was being unfairly targeted, and also made a point of banning all reporters, especially Fabian Granger, from his film sets.

  “So will you talk to me?” Fabian asked, hopeful.

  Greta didn’t blink. She just stared daggers at the appealing young man with expensive taste in suits. “Timothy, escort him out and make sure he doesn’t find his way back in, do you hear me? If he gives you any trouble, call security.”

  Timothy nodded, reaching out to grab Fabian’s arm, but Fabian moved away from him. “Don’t you dare touch me. I’ll go on my own.” He then turned back and spit out, “You have twenty-four hours before my story goes up online, Greta. Tick tock.”

  And then he stormed off.

  Greta signaled Timothy to follow Fabian and make sure he actually left and didn’t try to double back to get a few more juicy quotes from the cast and crew.

  “What kind of story is he writing?” Poppy quiet
ly asked.

  Greta was clearly shaken by Fabian’s unexpected presence, but tried to brush it off as if she was unconcerned. “Typical character assassination. Hal’s weathered them countless times. Granger’s angling for a Pulitzer so he’ll write about anything provocative, true or not, just to get himself some attention.”

  Poppy resisted the urge to excuse herself and chase after the young reporter to find out what kind of trail he was following, but she never had the chance because at that moment Danika burst into the bar, eyes wide with fear, her face pale. “Please, somebody, stop them before they kill each other!”

  Danika spun back around to lead the way, and Poppy, Greta, and Trent all followed her back outside to the pool area in time to see the male lead on the film, Chase Ehrens, grappling on the tiled floor with a man whose face they couldn’t see because Chase, who was now throwing hard, violent punches at the man’s face, was blocking him. The man underneath Chase managed to knee him in the groin, causing Chase to howl like a wild animal, which allowed the man to roll away from him. When he jumped to his feet, Poppy gasped. It was Matt, his nose was bloodied and there were scratches on his neck. Matt wiped the blood away with his shirtsleeve as Chase dove at him, relentlessly pummeling him with more blows.

  Trent sprang forward to pull Chase off Matt, and got elbowed in the cheek for his effort.

  “Chase, what’s going on here?” Greta cried, although she made no move to stop the brawl.

  “Somebody do something!” Danika cried.

  With Trent moaning, holding his face with his hand, Poppy knew she had to try and break this up. She was about to physically intervene and risk damage to herself when suddenly Matt reached up and planted the palms of his hand on Chase’s rock-hard chest and shoved him as hard as he could. Chase stumbled backward, tripping over a lounge chair, and went hurtling into the swimming pool near the deep end. When he emerged, his face was a deep red from the humiliation and embarrassment. Two crew members, who had sauntered in during the fight carrying some klieg lights, dropped everything to haul a soaking wet Chase out of the pool.

  Chase waved them away and marched up to Greta. “This lunatic attacked me for no reason! Call the police, Greta! I want him arrested!”