“No,” Ovsanna answered. “After Annie made such a scene yesterday, Matty moved Derek into the other ballroom. I never had a minute to go in there today. And nobody said anything to me. Monk? Did you see him today?”
Monk hadn’t seen him. He’d walked through the other ballroom once, right after the doors opened at ten. Constance was setting up. She said she and Derek had just finished breakfast in the hotel restaurant and he’d gone back upstairs to get his stuff. Monk didn’t think anything of it; actors rarely get to their tables on time. They like to know there’s a line of fans waiting for them to show up. Monk never went back to check later in the day.
I studied the scene as best I could, having been relegated to standing almost in the hall. There were drag marks in the rug leading from the door to the body. Not much blood. “It doesn’t look like he was killed here. Someone dragged him in, careful to prevent leaving a bloody trail. Or they moved him long after his heart stopped pumping. He may have been dead before the obelisk went in. Look at his neck— looks like it’s broken. Gonna need an autopsy to know which came first. And until the cops get a TOD from the M.E., there’s no telling how long he’s been here. Who found him, Monk?”
“Sam Koh sent someone to open the room for photographer and someone call to Sam Koh, say ‘there’s a body, not a camera.’ I’m with Sam Koh, looking for Derek when he’s not at Q & A. We came right away.”
Ovsanna took a step farther into the room. The two rookies didn’t notice. “No matter what time it happened, today or even this evening, all my actors have alibis,” she said. “They were signing until the room closed at six. Any time they took a bathroom break or went to the green room for a snack, they should have had someone from security escorting them. And then they went right from the Williams ballroom to the Capote ballroom for the Q & A. I saw them all in the hallway when they passed the room I was in.”
“What about Annie?” I asked. “She was wearing different clothes for the panel, wasn’t she? That’s not what she had on for the signing. When did she change?”
“You’re right. She was barely dressed this afternoon. And she didn’t join the rest of them when the room closed. She went out the door on the opposite side. I noticed because she didn’t have a chaperone with her. I thought she was going to throw a fit because no one was taking care of her. And then… she walked into the Q & A room right before I did. A half hour late and again, without an escort. Oh, Peter, I wouldn’t put it past her. She’s just unhinged enough to…”
We both stared at the body. What little blood there was had seeped into the carpet, and the dark blue pattern and flat weave made footprints hard to see, at least from where we were standing. I leaned over and whispered in Ovsanna’s ear, ignoring what I always wanted to do when I was this close to her, which was press her up against the wall and lock lips. “You’ve got that vampyre vision, what do you see that I don’t?”
“Can you see the tiny pieces of tape to the right of his right hand? They could be trash from yesterday’s photo shoot, but they could be… shit, I don’t know. I can’t tell from here.”
“Could be what? What are you thinking?” I wanted to get Ovsanna closer to the body so she could do that thing she does with touching people and getting images about them, but the local detectives walked in at that moment and that was it for the two of us. They asked us to wait in the hall. Sergeant Cyphers still hadn’t made an appearance.
“I’m not going to wait here, Peter,” Ovsanna said, once we got past the door. “Let’s go. I want to get to Annie before they do. I can’t believe she’s involved, but the last I saw, she had double stick tape holding her dress in place over her nipples, and it wasn’t doing a very good job.”
15. OVSANNA
If I hadn’t been surrounded by fans straining to get a peek into the room where Derek’s body lay, I would have transported myself to the lobby floor and left Peter to follow at human speed. It’s one of the tricks of my species I rarely take advantage of. Primarily because when I do, I’m so out of practice that I fall short of my destination. It’s annoying to wind up in the ladies’ room when I’m heading for the bar.
“We’ve got to get to Annie before the police do,” I said, as I pushed through the crowd gathered outside the crime scene tape. “She should be at the Meet & Greet in the lounge. God forbid she hears about this from some salivating fan. Let’s find her and get her out of there before we start explaining.” I raced toward the elevator and hit the down button.
I should have transported. Even a jog from the ladies’ room would have been faster than the elevator. It stopped on every floor, while more people than it could handle squeezed in to get downstairs and spread the news.
We hit the lobby and I knew we were too late. Annie’s screams cut through all the ambient noise.
She was standing in the middle of the cocktail lounge, surrounded by convention guests who’d paid extra for the privilege of rubbing shoulders with the show’s celebrities after hours. Which meant Matty had all kinds of media there, as well. The cameras were rolling. I was sure they accounted for at least half of Annie’s histrionics.
The vodka I smelled coming off her gave rise to the rest.
She wasn’t really standing, more like bent at the waist and rocking up and down. “Oh, my God, my God,” she wailed, running her hands through her hair in oh, such an artful way. Funny how it fell right back into place in time for the photographers to grab any stills. “My Derek, my beloved Derek. Who could have done this? Who could have killed him? He was the love of my life! And what am I going to do? How can I go on without him?” She spotted me and stumbled over, aiming to collapse in my arms with her face to the cameras. Peter stepped forward just in time. He embraced her and held her the slightest bit away from me. What a prince he is. “What about the show, Ovsanna?” she continued, raising her voice while the cameras moved closer. “What will we do? We can’t replace him. Like, he’s irreplaceable. He was so magnetic, so talented! What will we do?” She was weeping uncontrollably. With no menthol blower in sight. It was a better performance than she’d ever given on the set.
Interesting how she used the pronoun ‘we’ regarding the show, already positioning herself as the star making the decisions for the series. For someone so young, she’d become a seasoned conniver, and I was only just now realizing it.
The cameras kept rolling.
I did an unobtrusive sweep of the room and saw two local news crews and the guy from Fox getting it all on film. That wasn’t the worst of it, though. Half the smart phones in the place were streaming live video out to the web and the rest were just a click away from posting on YouTube. Annie’s IMDB STARmeter would be spiking in minutes. Next stop, the ladies’ room… where she could sit in a stall and check it in private. After she’d checked her make-up.
But that might not be anytime soon. Sgt. Cyphers entered the room and caught Peter’s eye. He motioned toward the lobby.
“Annie.” I lowered my voice so only she and Peter could hear me. “Don’t worry about the show right now. We need to take you out of here. The police are going to want to talk to you; they may even need you to I.D. Derek’s body.” She looked up at Peter and I saw a moment of dread in her eyes— the first honest emotion she’d displayed thus far. I softened my tone. “We’ll help you. Peter knows the officer who’s waiting outside. He’ll take care of you. Will you come with us?”
“Well, do you have a mirror? And a hairbrush? I must look like shit. Like, I’m not going anywhere if I don’t get a Kleenex. Jeez, Ovsanna, like, there might be more reporters outside. I need lipstick.”
I should have known. That look of dread in her eyes? Forget identifying Derek’s body. Being seen with mascara smudges— that’s what she was dreading.
The paparazzi followed us out of the lounge, shooting Annie’s back, which had almost as much to offer in the outfit she was wearing— if you like your asses skinny— as her breasts with the missing double-stick tape.
More photographers waited outside the ent
rance to the hotel. Sgt. Cyphers’ men wouldn’t let them in and they couldn’t shoot through the glass without getting a reflection from their flashbulbs, so they were milling around on the banquette, shouting out our names.
Annie headed right to them.
“Just a minute, Miss.” Cyphers blocked her path. “You can’t go out there right now. I need to ask you some questions.”
“But like, they’re waiting for me out there. Those are my fans and they need to know I’m all right. And they, like, need to know what happened. They’re worried about me. They’re gonna be really upset.”
“Not as upset as you’re going to be,” I said quietly, drawing her close to me with my voice, “if the police insist on taking you to the station. They just want to ask you a few questions, Annie, and if Sgt. Cyphers is kind enough to do it here and now, you should cooperate. Let’s go upstairs to my suite. Is that all right, Sgt. Cyphers? Can you talk to her up there?”
“Well, sure, that’d be fine. But I need to talk to Miz Ross alone, so why don’t we just use the hotel office? It’s right over there. Miz Ross, just come on along wit’ me.” He started toward the reception desk.
But Annie stayed rooted in place. “What about you, Peter?” she asked. “Can you come with me? I mean, like you’re a cop, too. You can be in there, too, can’t you? Or maybe I should have a lawyer. Like, that’s what I should do, isn’t it? I should call a lawyer. No, no, my PR man. I don’t need a lawyer, I need my PR man. Ovsanna, call Paul and tell him to get on a plane, I mean, right away.”
“Paul who?” Peter asked. “Not Levine?” I nodded my head and he rolled his eyes. Evidently Peter knew Annie’s press agent as well as I did. No ‘public relations’ man, he— but a ‘press agent’ through and through. Just what we didn’t need in the face of a possible murder charge.
“Don’t worry, Annie,” I said, turning her toward the sergeant, who had reached Sam Koh’s office without realizing Annie wasn’t with him, “the studio will take care of the press. You just go with the sergeant and answer his questions and then have him walk you to your room. I’ll make sure Gerard is there to take care of you. He’s your manager, let him earn his 10 per cent.”
Cyphers, seeing Annie wasn’t in tow, came striding back to us with a little less New Orleans laissez-faire.
“Miz Ross, I need you to come wit’ me. Now. Oh, and Miz Moore, we found the woman who attacked you. I was fixin’ to tell you after that panel you was talkin’ at, but then all hell broke loose.”
“You arrested her?” Peter asked.
“Naw. There wasn’t nothin’ to arrest. Woman took a header off the roof, still wearin’ that Buffy costume. Don’t know how long the body was lyin’ in the bushes behind the hotel. Only folks who got reason to go back there are the trash bin collectors, and they didn’t show up ’til this afternoon. Shocked the shit out of ’em. Lady left a little lagniappe for us though. She wrote a note. Said she was a vampire slayer who’d failed and didn’t deserve to live. She really was a nut case.”
“She was schizophrenic, Sergeant, I’m sure of it,” I said. When you search her things, you’ll most likely find meds— antipsychotics— or downers and cigarettes, if she was self-medicating.”
“Yeah, well, whatever she was usin’, it didn’t work. I got a bag full of body parts on their way to the morgue. And now I got another body I gotta figure out what happened to, so Miz Ross, if you don’t mind, this way, please.” He took her arm and guided her toward Sam Koh’s office.
16. MARAL
By the time I left the hotel and got back to the bayou, Momma’s body was gone to the mortuary. And Jamie with it. He’d climbed in the van and wouldn’t stop wailing that high, keening scream of his until the attendants agreed he could ride along with them. He told Maw-Maw he was “gonna stay close to Momma in case de angels bring her back”. Oh, Jamie, for true you don’t want her to come back, I thought. Not if coming back means coming back like I did. Not if it means only being alive on the outside. Being dead inside. No feelings ’cept hunger and thirst, and wanting to kill people all the time. You think you don’t need anyone, Ovsanna, and that’s a great way to be? You’ll find out one day, for true.
I was relieved Jamie wasn’t there. I was so pissed at that vampyre bitch for refusing to help me that I could barely keep myself from changing. Once that happened, I’d kill Jamie as easy as look at him. And not just Jamie. The mortuary attendants wouldn’t know what hit them. They’d be picking up body parts all over de baya.
Maw-Maw was sitting at the kitchen table, staring at a glass of iced tea. The small red velvet bag she uses for her Rider Waite deck was in front of her, the cards still inside. Maybe she’d taken them out and read them already, then put them away— I couldn’t tell from the look on her face. Mais, she wouldn’t have had to read them anyway. She’s got the gift of sight, for true. The cards just act like a pathway. They make it easier for her to get to her visions. Could they tell her I wasn’t human anymore?
She was staring at me, not moving. She was holding her face in her hands, her fingers pressed against her mouth.
I didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t drink tea; I’d vomit. I picked up the pitcher and brought it to the table. “You want more, Maw-Maw?” I asked.
She attacked me with her voice, not loud, but knife-like. “Where’d you go, chère? Your momma’s body’s not cold, your brudder needs you, and you disappear? Mais, what happened to my Maral? You’re not her, beb. She wouldn’a left us here, fer true. What’s wrong wit’ you? Is dis what livin’ in New York does to you?”
This is what living does to me, I wanted to say. “I went to New Orleans. Ovsanna’s there this week-end.”
“What’s dis wit’ you, chère? You left your brudder? You left your family and you went to see her— now? Why? Dat woman doesn’t want you around anymore, dat’s what you tole me. Dat’s what de cards say. Why go see her? Why now?”
“I just needed to see her, Maw-Maw. I’m feelin’ so empty inside, I thought seeing her would help. And she was close, that’s all.” What was I going to say, ‘I axed her to make me dead’?
“And did it help? Did she give you your job back? Did she say anything to make you feel better?”
I shook my head, clenching my teeth to keep my fangs from dropping, closing my eyes to fight the change. Fuck Ovsanna. I’d never had to stop myself from changing before— what did it matter who I killed in New York— and Theda hadn’t taught me how. She’s Azeman, she shifts into a bat to do her killing. What could she have taught me, anyway?
At least Maw-Maw wasn’t watching me. She’d loosened the drawstring on the velvet bag and spread the deck across the table, running her hands over the cards. Her voice softened a bit. “I threw de cards, Maral, before you came back… you know what dey showed? De Tower. De Seven of Swords. De Hanged Man reversed. All de cards were dark, chère. And I couldn’t see past dem. I couldn’t see what’s goin’ on wit’ you. De last time dat happened like dat was when Ovsanna sent you away. I couldn’t read dem den either. I think Ovsanna put a cunja on you. If she used a gris gris, I can’t help wit’ dat.”
Even without her visions, she was close to the truth. But a spell is something she can understand, something to explain my behavior. “Maybe so, Maw-Maw. I don’t know why she’d do that, but fer sure she knows rootworkers and serviteurs of the loa. I’m just feeling dead inside, is all. I’m so sad over losing Momma and over losing my place with Ovsanna, I’m just not feeling anything right now.” I wasn’t feeling anything she’d recognize, that’s for true.
“Den you need some time wit’ Miz Foret, over in Chauvin. Mebbe she can help. Yer en d’ouielle, chère, so sad over your momma’s passin’ dat de pain’s too much. Miz Foret can help wit’ dat, fer sure.”
Miz Foret is the traiteur Momma used to take Jamie and me to whenever we needed healing. I still remember when Jamie was a baby— watching the warts on his little leg turn black and die the day after we went to see her. Momma dug them out of his sk
in and buried them, and they never came back.
“For sure, she’s a good traiteur, Maw-Maw. Every time we were sick, she helped us get better. Mais, I’m not sick. There’s nothing wrong with me. And even if there were a cunja on me, she couldn’t help with that. She can’t help with spells. She’s a traiteur, that’s all.”
“You been away a long time, Maral. Miz Foret’s not just a traiteur anymore. She’s got other things she’s doin’ to help people. Things de church might not take kindly to, but dey seem to help. You go and see her. She’s livin’ in a trailer on de bayaside, right next to de sculpture garden. Let me get you some fresh eggs you can take to her and remember, nothing she does will work if you thank her. You don’t thank a traiteur ’cause it’s God doin’ de work. Not de traiteur. Do not say thank you to Miz Foret. Just give her de eggs.”
17. OVSANNA
Peter watched Sgt. Cyphers disappear into Sam Koh’s office with Annie. He waited a long moment before he turned back to me with an expression on his face I was hard pressed to decipher. Embarrassment? “Well, that explains where Buffy disappeared to after she tried taking me down.”
“What are you talking about?” I asked. “She attacked you? When?”
“After I left your room last night. She knocked me down the stairs. I blacked out just as she came at me with that stake. If it hadn’t been for three drunk Ferengi, it probably would have been my body the garbage collectors found and not hers.”
“That’s why you looked so rocky this morning. ‘Cold oysters’, my ass. Why didn’t you tell me?” I wanted to touch him, but the paparazzi outside were angling for positions to shoot us through the glass.
“What, and damage my image as your bad-ass Beverly Hills cop saviour? It’s bad enough you think you don’t need me to take care of you, I don’t want you thinking I can’t take care of myself.”
“Oh, Peter, I may not need taking care of, but that doesn’t mean I don’t like it when you try.”
Make Me Dead: A Vampyres of Hollywood Mystery Page 7