Kill the Mother!

by Michael Mallory

  I explained as best I could the written threat to the boys, and how I had already contacted several of the other mothers involved in auditioning for Junior Idol.

  “Oh, good god,” he muttered. “How like Nora to think everybody’s out to get her little darlings. It’s people like her that sometimes make me wish I’d stayed in Topeka and become a high school music teacher. All the moms want their kids to shine, but Nora thinks hers shit rainbows, pardon my French.”

  “But what about the other moms?” I pressed. “Could her fears be warranted? Have you seen anything that might be construed as vindictive behavior?”

  “No. One of the mothers actually pulled her daughter out of the running because of Nora.”

  “Would that have been Leslie Brielle, by any chance?” I asked.

  He smiled suspiciously. “You seem to have all the answers already.”

  “Not at all. It’s just that Nora gave me a list of five other moms, which I took to be those she encountered in the course of these auditions, and the only one whose name did not pop up immediately on the database was Leslie Brielle. That would indicate that she doesn’t really want to be found, which I would think is something of a liability for this kind of business. Or, it may indicate that she is overly protective of her daughter on a personal level, and is afraid someone is going try to get to her, which would be in line with pulling her out of a contest at the first sign of trouble. So was it Leslie Brielle, right?”

  “Yes, it was Leslie, and she pronounces her name Brie, like the cheese. Lexy…Alexis…that’s her daughter, desperately wants to be in the spotlight, but for some reason that makes Leslie nervous. She goes along with her daughter’s wishes, but reluctantly. Lexy, in fact, seems to be the dominant one in the relationship.”

  “What does Lexy’s father think of all this?”

  “Leslie mentioned one time that she was divorced, but winced as she said it, as though the word itself hurt and frightened her. I think it must have been a bad breakup.”

  “So you don’t think there’s any way possible that Leslie could have sent a nasty letter?”

  “No, no way. Lexy, now.…”

  “Are you serious?”

  Terrence Holving gave me a wry look that indicated he was not. “Oh, in ten years, maybe. I don’t know. Look, Mr. Beauchamp, all of us around here grit our teeth and do what we can to get through every visitation by Nora, but in answer to your question, no, I cannot think of anyone who would actually threaten the twins…oh, pardon me…the brothers, with violence. It’s not their fault.”

  “True, but if someone wanted to hurt Nora, really hurt her, wouldn’t that would be the easiest way? Do you happen to have a contact number for Leslie Brielle? Just so I can cover all the bases and earn the money I’m being paid.”

  Holving sighed and reached for the desk phone that was on the executive table, jabbing in a number and waiting. “Hi, Janelle? Could you get the phone number for Leslie Brielle and bring it to me right away? Thanks.” He hung up. “Mr. Beauchamp, I’m not going to ask you what Nora is paying you to investigate this, but whatever Nora it is, I’ll double it if you could somehow convince her to never enter this building again.”

  “Can’t you do that by not calling her in?”

  “That’s just it, I don’t call her in. I called the boys in for an audition when we first started work on Junior Idol, based on their photos, but it was clear from that session that they didn’t have what we were looking for. Even their camera slate took multiple takes. As far as I was concerned, we were finished with them, but Nora keeps showing up. Somehow she knows when we’re holding callbacks. I don’t know how. But it has gotten easier to just run the boys through their paces and send them home than to fight it, so that’s what I do. If you can discover how she’s finding out about our calls, I’d appreciate it, because it’s not me who’s inviting her back.”

  “Have you specifically told her to stay away?” I asked.

  “God knows I should, but in an audition situation, sometimes the path of least resistance is the easiest way.”

  “Couldn’t you inform her through a letter?”

  “I suppose so, but—” He stopped and regarded me with a narrow-eyed stare. “Are you accusing me of sending that threatening letter to her?”

  “I’m just covering the bases, Mr. Holving,” I said, as innocently as I could.

  “Have you even seen this supposed letter?” he demanded. “Are you sure it exists, instead of being some figment of her demented imagination?”

  I had not planned on showing him the actual letter, but now I pulled it out, unfolded it and set it down on the table. “As you can see, it specifically tells her to keep the kids away.”

  “Shit,” he said, sliding the letter back to me after having read it. “I cannot state this emphatically enough. I had absolutely nothing to do with this. Threatening the boys would be a way of giving them attention, and I don’t want to give them attention. I want Nora and the twins to go away, move to Arkansas, or somewhere.”

  As I refolded and returned the letter to my pocket, I heard a light tapping on the open door and a young woman came in holding a sheet of paper. It was the blonde who had smiled at us from the reception desk, now fully upright and visible. Usually I don’t gawk at women, but it was hard not to stare at this one. Barely concealed under a painted-on tee shirt emblazoned with the logo for the game show Brain Trust, which I assumed Max Gelfan Productions produced, the young woman’s bust thrust forth with the kind of 3-D effect of which James Cameron could only fantasize. Her lower half, though, was petite. If this woman ever tired of her job with Gelfan she could start a new career on Sesame Street by turning sideways and playing the letter P.

  “Here’s the number you asked for,” she said, handing the paper to Holving.

  “Thanks, Janelle,” he said, barely looking at her. Either he couldn’t have cared less about her figure, or had grown used to it, and although I had known him but a few minutes, my money was on the former.

  Forcing myself to concentrate on her face, I saw that her upper lip was a little too large to be natural. Clearly she had undergone a collagen treatment, but the end result was to turn her lips into a parody of her body: heavy on top, light on the bottom. Maybe that was the point. She bounced out of the room, and I continued to gape at her with every step.

  “She has a boyfriend, you know,” Holving said, passing over the paper containing Leslie Brielle’s information.

  “Oh, yeah, well…she’d have to, wouldn’t she?” I stammered, trying not to blush. “She kind of overdid the lip, though.”

  “I really don’t like to gossip about my staff,” he replied.

  “Sorry.”

  “But you’re right, she did. God knows why. She was cute enough before doing it. The guys around here who care were dropping down and biting sticks in half just at the sight of her. When she first got the lip done, though, I thought she’d been assaulted in the parking lot.”

  “How much does a procedure like that cost?”

  “Cost? I don’t know. Why? Are you thinking of plumping your lips?”

  “No, I’m just wondering where she got the money for it. Does Max Gelfan pay everyone so well that the assistants can afford cosmetic tweaks?”

  His face darkened, and I could see him trying to follow my thoughts. “What are you suggesting?” he asked.

  “You believe that someone in this office is passing information onto Nora Frost without your knowledge, someone with access to all the phone numbers. Someone who might be compensated under the table.”

  “Good god, you think Nora was paying her to be informed about callbacks?”

  “Would you put it past Nora?”

  “No, but I’d like to be able to put it past Janelle.”

  “There’s one easy way to test her,” I said, and then outlined a plan to him, to which he listened with a grim expression.

  “All right,” Holving said. “We’ll walk out past her desk.” Getting up, he led m
e down a different maze-like hallway, until we came to a reception desk at which Janelle was seated. Somehow, the affect of her torso was even more enhanced while seated. “So,” Holving began, following my plan, “if you would tell Leslie that we’d really like to see her and Lexy on Friday, that would be great. Two in the afternoon. We’ll call the others from here.”

  “Will do,” I said. “Thank you for your time, Mr. Holving.” As he headed back to his office, I turned to Janelle and smiled. “Nice meeting you,” I said. “Um, could you tell me how to get out of here?”

  “Sure,” she said, standing up and shading the desk. “Go down here, turn left, and you’ll come to the elevator. It will take you down to the lobby.”

  Thanking her, I set out into the labyrinth. Fortunately, her directions were correct, and hopefully, she did not realize she was being set up. I had no intention of telling Leslie Brielle anything about an audition on the twenty-fourth, but if Nora and the boys suddenly showed up at two o’clock on Friday we would know there was only one place she could have gotten the information. I hoped I was not getting Janelle fired. Then again, I doubted she would be out of work long, as she appeared to possess the natural attributes for getting ahead in Hollywood that have been in place since the days of Mack Sennett.

  As I went back to my car, which I was glad to see was still there, and unticketed (the police in Hollywood materialized out of thin air to cite you and then disappeared in a puff of smoke, like Nightcrawler in X-Men). It was like a sauna inside the car, which is what happens when you leave your wheels out on warm day and forget to crack the windows open. I turned on the engine and blasted the air as I sat behind the wheel and thought. It was seeming less than likely that any of the other mothers had sent that letter since it was the boys who were the focus of the threat, while everyone’s anger, at least those I had spoken with, seemed to be directed toward Nora herself. Despite his protestations, Terrence Holving, or perhaps someone on the staff I had not yet met, were higher on the suspect list. Holving, at least, had a reason for not wanting her to bring the twins back in.

  Then another possibility entered my mind. It was one I didn’t like much, but it was not impossible. And, as Holving had said, threatening the Alpha Brothers like that would have been a way of giving them publicity. It also explained why their names were spelled out in the letter. Pulling out my cell phone I poked in Nora’s number, but got only her answering machine. I didn’t bother leaving a message. Instead I decided to go over to her house. If she wasn’t home, I’d wait. I would like to get my ominous suspicion cleared up as soon as possible.

  It took almost as long to get to her house in Los Feliz from Gelfan Productions as it had to get to the Gelfan’s from the valley, thanks to the omnipresent city work crews that were tearing up half of the streets in Hollywood. On the way I was nearly broadsided by another driver, who apparently thought the red light was an early Christmas decoration. That was the price for living in Los Angeles: a near death experience every time you went out on the streets, but the heat’s dry.

  Nora’s Lexus was there, so she was home. I was not looking forward to this, but, as Bogie might have once said, I don’t like being played for a chump.

  If, as I was starting to suspect, Nora herself wrote that letter and hired me as part of a hoax to get publicity for the boys, I wanted to find out and then get out as soon as possible. I had no compunctions about keeping her money, either. Nora Faust had paid me handsomely to discover the source of the letter; if it turned out that she was the source of the letter, I had still fulfilled my duty.

  Parking behind her car, I got out and went up to the front door, but saw that there was no need to hit the doorbell or knock. The door was half open. “Nora,” I called, but received no reply. I went ahead and knocked loudly on the open door. “Nora, are you there?” Nothing.

  I went inside the foyer. The house was dark and still as the proverbial tomb. “Nora?” I called. “The door was open, so I came in.” There was no reply. Maybe she was in the bathroom, unaware that the front door was hanging open, and she was going to panic upon hearing me and pull a gun on me. “Is anyone here?” I called again. “Nora? Taylor? Burton?” What was the name of Nora’s assistant? Elena, that was it…like Elena Verdugo, the teenaged star of House of Frankenstein. “Elena?” I called, and received no reply.

  I carefully moved into the dining room, and then toward the kitchen, which was also dark and empty. The only sound coming from it was that of ice cubes being dropped into the ice dispenser. I called everyone’s name again, but somehow knew that nobody was going to answer me.

  That was when I smelled it. “Oh, sheez, no,” I muttered.

  You see, unlike all the books, plays and movies in which bodies are hidden indefinitely somewhere in a house, and nobody knows they are there until they happen to stumble upon them, in real life bodies have a definitive calling card: they stink. Immediately upon dying a person’s bowels and bladder are released, a scent that is rather hard to miss. That latrine stench was what I smelled as I made my way through the Frost house. The kitchen was empty, and next to it was a breakfast nook, which was similarly empty. But on the other side of it was a bathroom, and the light was turned on. Steeling myself, I peered inside.

  I wish I hadn’t.

  FIVE

  Not very pleasant, is it? the voice of William Powell said inside my head. No, Bill, it isn’t. And I’d be perfectly happy if you would just take the case over from here, with or without Myrna Loy.

  Nora Frost was in the dry bathtub, fully clothed, but as dead as the Black Dahlia. Her eyes were open, staring in blind shock, and there were two holes in her blood-soaked blouse. Why she was lying in the tub was anyone’s guess. Maybe her murderer had come upon her in the bathroom, shot her, and she’d fallen there. Maybe whoever it was forced her into the tub and then shot her there so the blood wouldn’t get on the floor. A neat-freak murderer. Possibly the medical examiner could tell.

  As I stared at the body part of me…oh, let’s be honest…all of me, every fiber of my being, wanted to turn around and run as fast as I could, get out of here, and try and forget the scene I was viewing and smelling. But I knew I couldn’t. Running wouldn’t solve anything. Besides, my car was outside. If I were to turn tail and run, I figured I had about a fifty-fifty chance that there was at this very moment someone out there walking their dog, and they would happen to see me fleeing the house and wonder what was up, and then later, once they learned Nora had been murdered, would be only too happy to tell the police what they had witnessed.

  Kind of a tough spot, kid, Bogie told me.

  There was no real way around reporting the murder and then waiting for the cops to show up, but before I did that I steeled myself to go through the house, room by room, praying with each step that I would not also find the bodies of two twelve-year-olds. It only took about five minutes to canvas every room in the house, all of them empty. In what was clearly the twins’ bedroom—there were matching beds on opposite sides of the room and a shelf containing enough video games to support a retail store—I took a peek inside the large, walk-in closet, and felt relieved that it contained only clothing. A lot of clothing. Some of it qualified as costume pieces: trench coats, police uniforms, even spacesuits. If I looked long enough, I would probably find superhero outfits complete with capes, but I was not interested in pursuing it.

  I was satisfied the Alphas were not in the house, which hopefully meant they had not witnessed their mother’s murder. But where were they?

  Confident that this was somehow going to come back to haunt me, since like good deeds, no act of concerned citizenship goes unpunished, I pulled out my cell phone, held it in one unsteady hand, and with a shaking finger dialed 911. When the dispatcher answered I gave my name, Nora’s address, and then reported the murder. “I’m a private investigator,” I said, wanting to get as many facts as possible down onto the recording that I knew was being made, “and I came over to meet with my client, Nora Frost.”

>   “That is the decedent?” the woman’s voice at the other end asked.

  “That’s right. I found her house open and discovered Nora’s body in the bathtub.”

  “In the bathtub. Did she drown?”

  “No, the tub is dry. She was shot.”

  “Why was she shot in a dry bathtub?”

  “If I knew that, I’d have to be the murderer, and since I’m not, I don’t know.”

  After double checking the address, the dispatcher said the police would be on their way momentarily. “Are you going to stay there?”

  “Yes, in case the victim’s children show up.”

  “How old are the children, sir?”

  “Twelve. Twin boys.”

  “Where are they now?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Are they in danger?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “All right, the police will be there soon.”

  I’m sure there are less fun things in the world than wandering around a large, dark house with a dead body in one of the rooms, but I hope I don’t experience one any time soon. If this were a movie, I’d go back into the bathroom and discover that Nora was no longer in the tub, that maybe she was still alive, though hopelessly insane, and after having staged her own death for some bizarre reason, would begin to chase me around with a butcher knife.

  “Stop it,” I told myself.

  Oh, but why? Vincent Price’s voice replied in my head. We’re having so much fun!

  “She’s still going to be there, Vinnie,” I said aloud, and then forced myself to go back and poke my head into the bathroom. I was right, she was still there. Still silent. Still dead.

  It was nearly fifteen minutes before I heard the approaching siren, a period of time in which I began to get the feeling back in my body somewhat. That one was followed by several other sirens and before much longer the first black-and-white, all guns a-blazin’, screeched to a stop out in front of the house. I casually strolled through the front door, holding my ID, in front of me. A phalanx of LAPD officers piled out and marched toward the porch, though once there they waited for an officer in plain clothes to take the lead. He was tall, lean, with salt-and-pepper hair, and the prominent, sharp features of a French New Wave movie star. He wore a dark suit with no tie. “Your name Beauchamp?” he asked me.