The Girl with Kaleidoscope Eyes

by David Handler

  He looked at me in surprise. “What are you talking about, Hoagy?”

  “I don’t like being lied to. That’s what I’m talking about.”

  “I haven’t lied to you.”

  “I wasn’t talking about you.”

  “Then whom are you talking about?”

  “Every single member of this family,” I said as Reggie shot a sharp look at me. “And Maritza as well. Which isn’t to let Kat and Boyd off the hook. Or you, Elliot.”

  “Me?” Elliot let out a nervous chuckle. “What did I do?”

  “Nothing. Not a damned thing. That was your contribution to this ugly little scenario. You stood out there on the patio turning those steaks, and you heard it and you didn’t do a damned thing. That makes you complicit as far as I’m concerned.” I turned to Kat and said, “You’re complicit, too, because you’re the one who brought Trish here. You were also a willing participant in an utterly fake tabloid scandal. You’ve known all along that the baby you’re carrying isn’t Patrick’s. Yet you didn’t care. You loved the attention. Loved tearing Monette’s house down. Loved every glorious moment of it, you toxic little brat.”

  “Hey, you can’t talk to me that way!” Kat protested.

  “And yet here I am talking to you that way.”

  “What did I do?” Boyd demanded.

  “You set the Richard Aintree project in motion. Made sure it got huge media saturation, which not only messed with Patrick’s tabloid scheme to stampede Monette into a multimillion-dollar divorce settlement but totally screwed with his head. Made him so crazy that he told Lou to have Kyle put a scare into Monette on Coldwater Canyon and another one into me the moment I got here. So crazy that his intake of alcohol and drugs spiked way over the red line. Patrick was already bombed on Cuervo Gold when he showed up here for Joey’s party. What was his blood alcohol level, Lieutenant? Three times the legal limit?”

  “That’s correct,” Lamp answered.

  “He did start getting high a lot more,” Kat admitted in a rather meek little voice. “He never used to drink or snort in the morning. Not right there in his trailer. He always told me that a professional didn’t do things like that. But that changed. He changed. He’d get super angry for no reason. And I swear he couldn’t remember half the things he said or did.”

  I looked at Monette, who sat between Danielle and Joey on the sofa, staring at me coldly. “Which explains why you found him upstairs in the master bedroom suite rummaging around like Lon Chaney Jr. on a bad hair day, looking for the Rolex that he’d given to Hector.”

  Monette nodded her head ever so slightly.

  “Which brings us to the shooting. Or shootings, I should say. Specifically, to that two- to three-minute gap between the first two shots that wounded Patrick and the last two shots that killed him. It should be clear to you by now, Lieutenant, that virtually everything we’ve been told about that particular gap in time was a carefully crafted lie.”

  “I’ve had concerns.” Lamp glanced down at the floor by my feet. “Hoagy . . . ?”

  “Yes, Lieutenant?”

  “What’s in the suitcase?”

  “This suitcase? Not much, just a few odds and ends that I’ve picked up along the way thanks to my short-legged friend.” Lulu gazed up at me, her tail thumping. She appreciates it when I don’t Bogart all of the credit. “I was just about to get to it. Actually, it would be a lot easier to explain if we all moved upstairs to the master suite. Do you mind, Lieutenant?”

  “No, I don’t mind.”

  “Well, I mind,” Monette said angrily. “I don’t wish to go back into that room. And I don’t appreciate being called a liar.”

  “I think he called me a liar, too.” Reggie squinted at me. “Did you?”

  “I’m afraid so, Stinker. You may also be guilty of obstruction of justice. Not that I’m a lawyer. Or even play one on television.”

  “Um, okay, I don’t understand what’s going on right now,” Trish said.

  “I don’t either,” Elliot said. “Lieutenant, I thought you people wanted blood and hair samples from us. What is this?”

  “What this is,” Lamp replied, “is that we’re all going upstairs.”

  “I’m not going anywhere,” Elliot said stubbornly.

  “Mr. Schein, I really don’t think that’s the right approach for a man with your criminal record to be taking, do you?” Lamp said.

  And so we all went up the grand staircase to the master suite. Lamp removed the yellow crime scene tape that was over the double doors and led us inside. The crime scene remained as the investigators had left it yesterday. The outline of Patrick’s body was still marked on the floor, as were the locations of the shell casings. The bedspread had been removed for lab analysis. The only noticeable difference from yesterday was that someone had closed the windows. It smelled sour in there.

  Lamp opened the windows to let in some fresh air. Monette stood in the middle of the room with her children, stone-faced. Reggie stood next to them, her eyes blazing at me. Maritza found a place for herself over by the fireplace, as did Elliot. Kat, Boyd and Trish moved over by the windows. The tall, tanned cop in uniform and pale crime lab technicians hovered by the door.

  “I’d like to know what you meant before, Hoag,” Elliot blustered at me. “You said I heard something from the patio. What did I hear?”

  “The screams.” I set the suitcase down on the bed. Lulu remained by my side, the better to guard it. “You must have heard them. Those windows overlooking the patio were wide open and you were right there turning the steaks on the grill. I was swimming laps and Lulu, my designated lifeguard, was barking her head off—so I didn’t hear them. Kat and Boyd were in the process of breaking into the pool house. They didn’t hear them. Lou, Kyle and Trish were making all sorts of noise of their own on the Eartha Kitt sofa, and they didn’t hear them. But everyone else who was in the house at the time did. You heard them, didn’t you, Joey? Just this once, you weren’t wearing your headphones. And it’s a good thing that you weren’t. Also a bad thing that you weren’t, considering what happened after that.”

  Joey gulped, his Adam’s apple bobbing. “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “Sure you do.”

  “Don’t say anything, Joey,” Monette ordered him. “Lieutenant, I’ve changed my mind. I want my lawyer, Seymour Glass, to be present before anyone in this room is allowed to say one more word. May I phone him, please?”

  “Of course,” Lamp said. “Go right ahead.”

  “One more word about what?” I asked Monette. “You’ve already confessed to Patrick’s murder. Your lawyer will build such a strong case for self-defense that no jury will convict you. It’s a slam dunk that you’ll get off. You have nothing to worry about. All I’m doing is moving some pieces around.”

  “Pieces?” She gazed at me suspiciously. “What pieces?”

  “Pieces like the fact that Joey has a mad schoolboy crush on Maritza.”

  “I—I do not,” he sputtered, reddening.

  Maritza lowered her eyes to the rug, swallowing uneasily.

  “It’s nothing to be ashamed of, Joey. Maritza’s a very attractive young woman. In fact, your dad had a major crush on her himself. He even gave Hector that Rolex to pay him for keeping an eye on her. The one Patrick was rummaging around for in here.” I glanced over at Maritza, who’d begun to tremble with fright. “Patrick told me to stay away from you, Maritza. He called you his ‘private property.’ I asked you this once before. I’m going to ask you again. Did he ever attack you?”

  Maritza shot a worried look over at Monette, breathing in and out raggedly. “If he—he found me alone, he would speak of things he wished to do to me. Filthy things. Then he would laugh. After that, I tried to never be alone with him. Senor Patrick was not a good man. Hector, he is also no good. He talks of wanting sex with me—but he is married, just as Senor Patrick was married. I do not go with married men,” she stated firmly, her gaze landing on Kat.

  “What a
re you looking at me for?” Kat demanded. “Who are you to look at me that way?”

  Maritza immediately lowered her eyes.

  “Given Patrick’s infatuation with you, Maritza, my initial thought was that it was you whom he attacked in here yesterday. It made perfect sense. You did disappear, after all. Told me you were in the kitchen stirring the onions and peppers. You weren’t. You lied to me about that. You lied to me about the service stairway being locked. You’d also changed into a different uniform by the time you came upstairs after the shooting. It all added up. Except it didn’t. Just for starters, both of your uniforms were short sleeved, just like the one you’re wearing now, and you have no scratch marks or bruises on your arms. But there’s an even more compelling reason why my initial thought was totally wrong.”

  Lamp said, “Which is . . . ?”

  “The simple, obvious fact that it’s not what happened.” I looked over at Trish and said, “Am I right?”

  Her eyes widened. “Why are you asking me? I don’t know anything.”

  “Sure, you do, Trish. You’re the key figure in this scenario.”

  “I am?”

  “You wore a white bikini to Joey’s birthday party yesterday, didn’t you?”

  Trish shook her head at me in confusion. “So . . . ?”

  “So shortly after you arrived here yesterday, Monette gave you and Kat a tour of the downstairs. As soon as the three of you went in the house Patrick, Lou and Kyle got busy snorting up a couple of thousand dollars’ worth of coke. By now Patrick was so bombed that he told Lou the whole world was starting to spin. Lou promptly fed him some pills. Speed, I imagine.” I glanced over at Lamp. “Are you with me so far, Lieutenant?”

  He shook his neat blond head. “I’m afraid not, Hoagy.”

  “Hang in there. We’re getting to it. After Monette had given Trish and Kat the royal tour, Kat went wandering off to the pool house with Boyd, whom she’d convinced to help her steal my vintage leather flight jacket.”

  “That’s an unfair characterization,” Boyd said defensively. “We were discussing a highly lucrative book deal. Kat Zachry is a very hot property for HWA right now and we—”

  “Kindly shut the heck up, will you, Samuels?” Lamp said.

  “Meanwhile,” I continued, “Kyle asked Trish if she’d mind showing him around the house. Lou tagged along, after first asking Patrick for permission. It seemed plain to me that neither Kyle nor Lou had developed a sudden passion for interior decorating. It was you they wanted, Trish. Joey didn’t. In fact, he seemed quite repulsed by the idea of you being offered to him as a birthday present.”

  Trish shrugged. “Whatever.”

  “After you, Kyle and Lou went in the house Patrick announced to Monette that he needed to take a ‘humongous’ piss and went inside, too.”

  “Hoagy, I still don’t get where you’re going with this,” Lamp said.

  “Not to worry. We’re almost there. Tell me, Trish, where did you disappear to before you got busy in the billiard room with your duo of dead men?”

  “I didn’t disappear anywhere.”

  “Sure you did. Before Lou went inside Patrick ordered him to stay downstairs. He said that the upstairs was for family only. That made you curious, didn’t it? You wanted to sneak a quick look around upstairs.”

  She shrugged again. “So . . . ?”

  “So you left your two lover boys in the billiard room for a few minutes, didn’t you? Told them you had to go powder your nose . . .”

  “Powder my what?”

  “And went scampering upstairs. Lou, who always followed Patrick’s orders, stayed put in the billiard room. So did Kyle, who wasn’t the least bit interested in anything but your slim, firm bod. Where did you go when you got upstairs?”

  Trish didn’t answer me. Just stood there in taut silence.

  “Answer him,” Lamp ordered her.

  She rolled her eyes. “I just wanted to have a look at her things, I swear.”

  “Whose things, Trish?”

  “Monette’s. She’s a really rich lady. I wanted to see what kind of stuff she had in here.”

  “Meaning you wanted to have a look at her wardrobe?”

  Trish let out a laugh. “Meaning are you kidding me? She dresses like my mother.” She glanced at her apologetically. “No offense, Mrs. Aintree.”

  Monette said nothing. Just stared at her with total hatred.

  “I wanted to see what kind of mascara and lip gloss and stuff she uses,” Trish explained. “I wasn’t going to take anything. I was just curious.”

  “And what were you wearing, Trish?”

  She frowned at me. “A white bikini. I just told you that.”

  “Now tell us what happened when you came in here to have a look at Monette’s cosmetics.”

  Trish hesitated, her lower lip clamped between her teeth. “Do I have to?”

  “You’re asking for trouble if you don’t,” Lamp told her. “Obstructing a police investigation is nothing to fool around with.”

  “Well, okay,” Trish said reluctantly. “When I came through the door, I found Patrick in here tossing the dresser drawers and babbling to himself like a total crazy person until . . .” She broke off, her chest rising and falling. “Until he saw me.”

  “What did he do?” I asked her.

  “He got this huge grin on his face and he said, ‘Hey, darlin’, I was hoping you and your nice, long legs would show up. I’ve been wanting a piece of you.’”

  “And did the two of you . . . ?”

  “Get it on? No way.”

  “Why not?”

  “He was Kat’s boyfriend. She would have gotten pissed at me. Plus he was acting way too wild-eyed and scary. When I told him I had to go back downstairs, he got pissed off and made a lunge for me.”

  “Did he scratch you up?”

  Trish shook her head. “He was so bombed that I was out the door before he got anywhere near me.”

  “So he didn’t leave any scratch marks on you?”

  “I just told you he didn’t. Are you even listening to me?”

  “And then you went back downstairs and got it on with Lou and Kyle in the billiard room, correct?”

  “Well, yeah.”

  “Trish, how tall are you?”

  “Five foot nine. Why?”

  “And how much do you weigh?”

  “Right around 110 if I don’t party too much. I definitely look my best in a bikini if I’m at 110. But I can balloon to 120 real easy if I’m not careful.”

  I looked at Monette. Then over at Danielle, who stood next to Monette in her Brentwood High hooded sweatshirt and sweatpants. “Would you do me a favor, Danielle?”

  “Me?” She seemed startled. “What is it?”

  “Would you go stand next to Trish for a second?”

  “Why?”

  “I’m just curious about something. Please go stand next to her.”

  Danielle went over next to Trish and stood beside her.

  “How tall are you, Danielle?”

  “Five foot eight.”

  “And how much do you weigh?”

  “I weigh 115 pounds.”

  I studied the two of them as they stood there shoulder to shoulder, both of them looking very uneasy. Facially, there was no resemblance between them at all. Danielle was a bright-eyed fifteen-year-old girl with good, high cheekbones and her father’s strong jaw. Trish was seven years of hard partying older with a receding chin and eyes that were too close together and had seen too much. But they were the same height, same weight and same type—willowy, leggy, small-breasted California girls with long, shiny blond hair that both of them wore gathered in ponytails today.

  “Danielle, did you have your hair in a ponytail yesterday?”

  “No, it was down.”

  “How about you, Trish?”

  “Same here.”

  “Would the two of you mind . . . ?”

  They untied their ponytails and ran their fingers through their hair unt
il it hung free and loose in front of their shoulders, framing their faces.

  I studied them some more. “What do you think, Lieutenant?”

  He thumbed his chin thoughtfully. “I don’t know. I’d have to see Danielle in something other than those baggy sweats.”

  “That is not going to happen,” Monette said angrily. “And I don’t like where this is going at all.”

  “Neither do I,” Reggie said. “Stop this right now, Stewie. Please.”

  Lamp continued to study them. “But I can believe it. Sure, I can.”

  “I’m just a stupid little girl from Atascadero,” Kat spoke up. “Would somebody please explain to me what you’re talking about?”

  “What we’re talking about,” I said to her, “is two tall, slim young women with long, straight blond hair who happened to be wearing the same color bikini yesterday. White. White’s a popular color. Shows off one’s tan. I know this because I read it in last month’s issue of Seventeen. Shortly after Trish, in her white bikini, slipped free of Patrick’s grasp and dashed downstairs to the billiard room, Danielle, in her white bikini, came up those same stairs with Reggie fresh from the swimming pool to change for lunch. Reggie went directly to her room. But you didn’t, did you, Danielle? You noticed your dad was in here and stopped to say hello to him. Unfortunately, your dad was so bombed on tequila, coke and God knows what else that he mistook you for Trish. Thought Trish had changed her mind and come back for some action. And so he tried to have sex with you, didn’t he?”

  “Don’t answer him, Danielle,” Monette commanded her.

  Danielle didn’t answer. Just stood there, ashen-faced.

  I moved over closer to her. “He thought you were Trish, didn’t he?”

  Danielle remained silent, her lower lip quivering.

  “Didn’t he?” I grabbed her by her left wrist and yanked the sleeve of her sweatshirt up over her elbow.

  Her left forearm looked perfectly fine. No scratches or bruises.

  I reached for her right sleeve.

  “No, please don’t!” she protested.

  Gouges. She had fingernail gouges on her right forearm. Also angry bruises around it. Someone with strong hands had clutched her tight.