Beyond a Doubt

by Nancy Cole Silverman

  “Gabi? Carol, Gabi Garrison hasn’t called on me in over a year. I can’t imagine why you think I’d call you about her. I called Ted this morning because I wanted to start working on one of my new commercials. You know, just like you used to do for me, where I’d sing a few bars. I’ve got a new one. My Way. Would you like to hear it?”

  I turned back to Ted. “Did you call Tyler? Does he know Tony’s here?”

  He didn’t answer.

  It didn’t surprise me Tyler didn’t know. The production facilities weren’t next to the newsroom, and the production guys were always doing odd jobs on the side. Tyler probably had no idea.

  Tony tried to put his hand on my shoulder. I backed away.

  “Carol, why would Ted call Tyler? Ted always cuts my spots. He doesn’t need Tyler’s permission. I pay him on the side. That’s why I’m here on a Sunday.”

  I backed out of the studio. Ted looked relieved to have me retreat. I left the station the exact way I’d come in, through the emergency exit door. I was reeling at the shock of seeing Tony in the studio and wanted to get away. I needed to clear my head.

  I got in the car and I started to drive. I didn’t care where I went, I just needed to think. I headed south down La Cienega Boulevard as though on autopilot, then right on Pico and west to the ocean. I wanted to feel the fresh sea air on my face and clear my head of the shock of seeing Tony alive. I knew Diamond was behind Tony’s sudden reappearance. It was perfect. Everything Diamond was doing made me look like I was losing my grip. I was playing right into his hands, no matter what I did.

  I wondered what Tyler would think when he realized Tony was alive and in the studio, right under our noses. I knew he’d be shocked. But what if that shock led him to question whether I’d really been correct about Tony’s abduction? I needed Tyler to believe me, but now? What if he started to think I really was messed up? That maybe Monica’s murder, and my daughter’s attempted kidnapping, had sent me over the edge? We had barely spoken since my arrest. Maybe the reason he wanted me to come in the back door today was because he really had lost faith in me.

  Dammit, Diamond! I didn’t like the questions rattling around in my mind. I was beginning to doubt myself.

  The only thing I knew for certain was that Diamond had gotten to Tony. That after Gabi had disappeared, Tony had reached out to me, but Diamond had gotten to him first. He had to have known Tony was getting nervous, and he set him straight before I even had a chance to see him. And now that I’d been arrested, Diamond was getting exactly the story he wanted.

  Crazy reporter stalking real estate developer, making up stories about sex trafficking and people disappearing. What better way to discredit me than to have Tony suddenly reappear? Diamond was probably even paying for the studio time so that Tony could cut a new commercial. And tomorrow, I wouldn’t be at all surprised if there were even an ad in the business section of the LA Times announcing the reopening of Financial Futures.

  The blows just kept coming.

  CHAPTER 30

  I could hear Tony’s soft tenor voice, crooning in my head, as I drove west with the rising sun behind me down Pico Boulevard. How appropriate. My Way. I knew exactly how Tony’s new commercial spot would sound. I used to write all his ad copy. In fact, I was the one who got him started in radio. Up until then, he’d been plugging away with newsprint with bored-looking black and white ads that blended into every other ad in the paper. In radio, the best advertisers all have something special, some gimmick or a key phrase, that separates them from the rest of the noise on the air. I call it an earmark. And when I discovered Tony, I thought I found just the thing that could make him a star.

  I had been cold-calling financial clients when I walked into his office and saw a keyboard in the corner. On a lark, I asked if he could sing. I must have literally struck a chord, because for the next hour Tony sang, or perhaps, a more adequate description would be, he serenaded me.

  Tony had a voice like Sinatra and an ego to go with it. But unfortunately, there wasn’t room on the music charts for another Sinatra sound-alike, and the closest he was going to get to being on the radio was crooning his way into his clients’ hearts. So I suggested he sing. I wrote out a few commercials and very quickly, not only did his business take off, but so did my account billing. Tony became one of my biggest accounts, mostly because he loved to hear himself on the radio and bought lots of spots, and partly because nobody else was selling financial packages and singing about it. The script always went the same way. He’d open with a few lines from a favorite song, then stop and say something like, “Financial debt causing you to lose sleep? Credit cards keeping you from living the life you could be living? Call me, Tony Domingo at Financial Futures and let us help.” Then he’d end with a few more bars from the song and a voiceover would air the phone number.

  I glanced at the watch Sheri had given me. It wasn’t yet ten o’clock. I had to do something. I couldn’t just go to the beach, wander aimlessly up and down the boardwalk, and hope I’d come up with an idea. Monica was dead. Gabi still missing, and, while I didn’t know where they were, I knew Leticia and Brandy and the other missing girls were being held by Diamond somewhere. And now that Tony had reappeared, it was as though Diamond was taunting me. I couldn’t help but feel that time was running out. Something had to happen.

  Cupid was right. What I needed was a smoking gun, something that would tie Diamond and his Clark Gable persona directly to Monica. And it had to be indisputable. I figured since the cops and the FBI had confiscated Monica’s computer, any email exchanges she had with her abductor would have revealed a name or at least an identity. Since Diamond’s name hadn’t come up, it was likely he was using an alias, and any IP address or reference back to one of his computers clearly had not revealed his name. In fact, it could well be that I was the only person who did know that Dr. Diamond and the Clark Gable lookalike were one and the same.

  Except for Holly.

  Holly had been upset with me the night of the pub crawl. Initially, I thought it was because I had brought Cate with me. But maybe it was the fact that I had seen Diamond getting into the black Rolls Royce outside of her cottage that upset her.

  She must have told him I was the reporter who had covered the discovery of Monica’s body. And when Holly went back inside the cottage to get a pink scrunchie for Cate, she must have added that my underage daughter was with me. But Diamond probably wasn’t worried I would know who he was. Why would he be? He could have been any of Holly’s impersonators. The cottage was where they came to get their checks and maybe their assignments. His big mistake was getting into that black Rolls Royce in front of me. If he hadn’t done that I might never have put Diamond together with his Clark Gable lookalike. And neither would anyone else.

  With its blackened windows, he could drive anywhere—day or night—and, unless he lowered the window like he had with me up on Mulholland, the night of the pub crawl nobody would know who was in the car. Once inside, all he’d have to do to switch identities would be to take off his glasses and don Gable’s trademark mustache. He had the upper hand.

  He had me right where he wanted, a reporter with a young, beautiful daughter whose safety he could hold over my head. He must have started plotting that very night. If I got too close to him, he could scare me, threaten me, or he could discredit me. The cards were all in his favor. No wonder Holly had been so evasive when I asked who he was.

  And why she wasn’t returning any of my calls.

  I started to pull a U-turn in the middle of Pico Boulevard. I wanted to head back to Holly’s to confront her. To let her know I knew exactly who Diamond was and that I knew she knew, too. I was midway into the turn when my phone rang.

  “Carol, it’s Bethany Richards, Monica’s friend. Can you talk?” Bethany’s voice sounded thin and strained. “I probably should have called yesterday, when I saw the article in the LA Times about your arrest. I think I
know who Monica was meeting.”

  I pulled over to the side of the street and parked in front of Bibi’s Bakery, a favorite of mine. Any other time, I might have dashed inside and picked up a dozen sugar cookies and brought them home for dinner. Instead, I took my cell off speaker and held it tight to my ear. I didn’t want to miss anything she might say. “Talk to me, Bethany. I need to know exactly what you know.”

  “Monica sent the man she was seeing an audio file. I’d forgotten all about it. It was a copy of Judy Garland singing You Made Me Love You.”

  “You mean, Dear Mr. Gable?” My voice must have gone up an octave. I remembered the movie. It was a favorite of my mother’s. We used to watch it together when I was a little girl. In it, Judy Garland, who was barely sixteen, was writing a fan letter to Clark Gable. It had to be a clue. “You’re sure?”

  “Yes. She was always looking for ways to surprise him. When I read the article in the paper, about you and the arrest, it got me thinking about the interview you did on air with that Freddie guy. He described Monica and this man she was with as looking like an old Hollywood star with a thin mustache. And then I remembered the tape and I thought, what if it’s Clark Gable? And this man you’re accused of stalking...from the picture in the paper, he kind of looks like Clark Gable, but with glasses. What if it’s him?”

  I wanted her to be right, but without something concrete, I had nothing.

  “The police must have a record of this. Do they know?”

  “No. And I don’t want to talk to them. The newspaper said the man you were stalking is a member of the police commission and I don’t trust them. What if it is him, and he comes after me? I’m not talking to them. I’ll talk to you, but that’s it.”

  “Okay, but the police have access to her computer and her credit cards. Wouldn’t they know about her purchase of an audio file and be able to trace it to whoever she sent it to?”

  “That’s just it. She didn’t pay for it.” Her voice cracked. She sounded as though she were about to break down. “I did. I paid for it. And it wasn’t on her computer. We were in the library on a public computer and Monica had left her purse in the car. So I told her not to worry, that I’d pay for it. So I did. I used my credit card to pay for it online.”

  “Did Monica tell you if he kept the file? Maybe saved it on his phone?”

  “I don’t know. Like I said, Monica was very secretive about him. All I know is that she said he had two phones. That he was some big businessman and he told her he used one for work and one for pleasure.”

  “So then you don’t think the police know anything about this?”

  “How could they? Like I said, I paid for it, and Monica sent the file over the internet from a computer in the library. There’s no record connecting it to her.”

  “But you’ve got a record, right? And you remember being there when she sent it?” I felt like I were coaching her, but I needed to know.

  “Yes. She sent me a copy, because she thought it was so cool. I kept it on my computer.”

  “And the phone she sent his copy to was—”

  “The one she and this man always used to communicate. His second line.”

  “You mean his pleasure phone.” I couldn’t help the sarcastic remark. “Which is probably a burner phone, and why the police haven’t connected it to Diamond. But...if he’s still using it and, if he’s got Judy Garland’s song saved on it, it just might prove a connection to Monica. Will you do me a favor?”

  “Yes.”

  “Call Cupid at KCHC. Tell him you spoke to me, and I asked you to email him the file you just told me about. Tell him to hold on to it. That it’s the song Judy Garland sang to Clark Gable in the movie, Broadway Melody, You Made Me Love You. I’ll text you his number. Tell him it’s not quite the smoking gun we need, at least not yet. But it just might be the breakthrough we’re looking for.”

  CHAPTER 31

  My cellphone rang before I reached Holly’s cottage. The caller ID read Cate. I answered instantly.

  “You okay?” I must have sounded worried. I could feel my heart beginning to beat faster as I waited for her reply. Seconds seemed like minutes. I gripped the phone, praying the next words out of her mouth would be, I’m fine, Mom, don’t worry.

  But instead she pulled one those mother/daughter reversals on me and in a very parental tone, said, “I think the question is, are you okay?”

  “I’m fine. You don’t need to worry.”

  I had phoned Cate immediately after my arrest to give her a heads-up on what had happened with Diamond. I didn’t want her to hear about it on the news. But mostly, I think I called her because I needed to hear her voice, to assure myself Diamond hadn’t tracked her down at the university. That she was safe.

  “I spoke with Aunt Sheri. She told me you’re still on the case.”

  “On the QT,” I said. “Tyler sent me home after the incident with you at Hemingway’s, and I’ve been pursuing a few leads behind the scenes. Nothing terribly exciting.” I didn’t want her to know the truth. Parents are supposed to protect their kids. I figured it best she not know everything.

  “The guy’s a real perv, Mom. You need to be careful. With what Sheri was telling me, he’s playing a lot of mind games with you, using the press to make it sound like you’re losing it.”

  “It’s nothing you need to worry about. Tyler’s got my back, and the station’s not about to lose a good reporter. ”

  “Yeah...Just like CBS wasn’t going to lose Gabi Garrison.” The sarcasm in her voice hit me like a wet rag in the face.

  “That’s different. She wasn’t reporting for them when she disappeared, she—”

  “Mom—”

  “Trust me, Cate.” I tried switching the topic. “Have you called your brother? He’s the one you should be worrying about. The Vikings lost Friday. He could probably use a little cheering up.”

  “Where are you right now?” She wasn’t letting me off the hook.

  “I’m headed over to see Holly Wood,” I said.

  “I think she knows more than she lets on.” Her quick response caught me by surprise.

  “Really?” I paused, silently hoping she wasn’t about to tell me she’d had contact with her. “What makes you think so?”

  “That night of the pub crawl, some of the things she said. She kept talking about college, how expensive it could be. She said a young girl could really make a lot of money in Hollywood. She knew girls who got apartments, had their tuition paid, everything. Made it sound like all they had to do was go to dinner with some old guys. No big deal. But there was something about the way she said it that made me think there might have been something more, that she might have been part of the life.” She paused. “Mom, tell me you’re not going over there alone.”

  “How about I promise I’ll call when I leave Holly’s, and in the meantime, you promise me you won’t answer any unsolicited emails or phone calls with unfamiliar numbers.” Cate promised, and I hung up.

  I circled the block around Holly’s cottage. I wanted to make certain Diamond’s black Rolls Royce wasn’t anywhere in the neighborhood. I didn’t want to be caught visiting Holly, certainly not by Diamond. Fortunately, I didn’t see signs of his car anywhere. Nor did I see a place to park my own car.

  Up and down the street in front of Holly’s cottage a production company was in full swing, preparing to film some hot new Hollywood release. Crew trucks and Star Waggons—mobile dressing rooms, named after the founder, actor Lyle Waggoner—were double parked in front of any available parking signs, leaving me no choice but to park in the lot surrounding Holly’s cottage. Behind the chain-linked fence the lot stood empty.

  The entire property, not much bigger than a McDonalds drive-through, looked out of place in the neighborhood, surrounded by larger, more modern looking office buildings. Holly’s cottage stood like a reminder of days gone by, in t
he center of the concrete parking lot with weeds growing up through the pavement. In the light of day, the small white Craftsman appeared very different than it had the night of the pub crawl.

  The wood-framed structure looked almost abandoned, the front steps, dry and cracking, the white paint chipping and yellowed with age. Rusted security bars covered the cottage’s dark windows.

  I decided my red Jeep would be less obvious if I parked behind the cottage. I drove around the back. A dusty black Mini Cooper was parked next to the steps leading up to the back door. It was a nicer car than I expected Holly might drive, but then I noticed the personalized plates, BTFL DMR. Beautiful dreamer. It had to be hers. The connection to Diamond was obvious. I parked my car next to it.

  I decided to try the back entrance off a small utility porch rather than walk around to the front. The steps creaked, and the wooden railing felt unsteady in my hands. Like the house it was old and in need of a repair. At the top of the stairs I found a metal security screen unlatched and the back door wide open.

  That seemed strange in a big city like Los Angeles, but I knocked anyway.

  The screen rattled against the doorframe. From inside I could hear movement. It sounded like someone was shoving heavy boxes across the floor.

  I knocked again, a little louder this time, and waited.

  Moments later Holly appeared. I wasn’t sure who was more startled, Holly to see me standing on her doorstep, or me, staring at a whole new Holly. She had totally redefined her look. Her round faced was rouged and dark hair was cut short and spiked with red tinted ends that glowed iridescent. She was dressed in denim overalls, cuffed at the bottom and wearing a pair of beat up old cowboy boots. A single suspender over one shoulder left the bib partially open, revealing a banana-top barely covering her ample breasts. She placed one hand on the door.

  “What are you doing here? You were arrested, and Tony’s back, so why ya bothering me?”