by Ed Gorman
Puckett shook his head.
"And guess why she was there? Because her very wealthy father arranged for her to be put in a mental hospital instead of being sent to prison."
"Prison? For what?"
"Sweet Veronica stabbed the family maid. Three times in the back. Said that the maid was hiding Martians in the closet."
"If they were both in the bughouse, that probably gives them something in common. A kinship."
"'A kinship.' How quaint you are, Puckett. Apparently you don't know much about groupies. When she was thirteen years old, Veronica managed to get into the dressing room of a rock star who was very much into youngsters. He didn't care which sex and he didn't care who knew. He deflowered her right there in his dressing room and then invited the other six members of the band to join in.
"When her father found out about it, he was outraged. Unfortunately, he couldn't get his pure little daughter to help the police arrest the rock star. So he went free and little Veronica was no longer a virgin. Does she sound like the happy homemaker Cobey is looking for?"
Her icy hatred of Veronica—and most others, for that matter—was impressive in a terrifying, implacable way. Through long and careful practice, she had turned herself into something that bore great resemblance to...but was not quite...human.
"Cobey disappeared several years ago."
"Ah, the famous disappearance. What would all those tabloids do without it? 'Child Star Runs Off To Have Sex Change Operation!' 'Child Star Dying In France Of AIDS!' 'Child Star Weds Dying Screen Beauty!' She smiled icily. "Personally, I thought he might have been abducted by a UFO."
"So you have no idea where he went for—how long was it?"
"Nine months."
"You have no idea where he went?"
"No. And I don't care where he went. All that matters is that the networks are interested in him again."
"How will the murder of this girl affect him?"
"If he didn't do it, he should be fine. The publicity may even help him in a perverse sort of way." She glanced at her very expensive, solid gold wristwatch. "Are you finished? Because even if you're not, I am, Mr. Puckett."
She stood up. For a woman of her formidable size, she was quite attractive. Until you looked closely at those dead, dead eyes. Then she scared the shit out of you.
"I remember how scared Cobey was when I brought him back from St. Louis," Puckett said. "I figure he's equally scared now. He could use a little help."
"Puckett, the Boy Scout. How noble."
And then she was gone.
Puckett sat and finished his coffee.
After a time, the weary waitress came over.
"Your wife left, huh?"
"Oh, she isn't my wife."
The waitress smiled. "Good."
"Good?"
She poked him on the shoulder. "You look like a nice, sweet guy. I was thinking you deserve somebody a lot nicer than she is."
Puckett laughed—and decided to double his tip. Not only was the waitress good at her job, she was also damned perceptive.
Chapter Twelve
Cobey's Tapes
In re: Lilly Carlyle
You should have seen her face the day I came back from Dr. Silverman's and told her that he'd be calling her in a day or so. I was twelve years old at the time and had been living with Lilly in the big Tudor house just outside Bel Air for six years.
"Me? What for? What does he want?"
Even then, I think, she suspected what he was going to say. Dr. Silverman had been hypnotizing me, taking we a lot deeper than the previous shrinks had, and I was starting to remember things...
The day he called, I listened in on one of the extension phones. To be honest, I listened in on most of her calls, just the way she listened in on most of mine...
"Ms. Carlyle, I really think we need to set up an appointment."
"We? Meaning you and I?"
"You and I, yes. That's right, Ms. Carlyle."
"Dr. Silverman, I am paying you a great deal of money to find out why Cobey doesn't sleep well or eat well lately. I don't see what that has to do with me."
"It has a great deal to do with you."
Long pause. "Meaning what, exactly?"
Long sigh. "Meaning, Ms. Carlyle, that that's why I want you to make an appointment and come in and see me."
Long pause. "Exactly what are we talking about here, Dr. Silverman?"
"Well," said Dr. Silverman, and I could tell he was starting to lose some of his professional niceness, "to start with, we're talking about breaking the law."
"Breaking the law?"
"I know what's been going on out there, Ms. Carlyle."
"Out where?"
"In your home."
"Dr. Silverman, you seem to be forgetting the very first thing I told you about Cobey."
"And that was what, Ms. Carlyle?"
"That he lies. All the time. About everything."
"I see."
"That sounded awfully smug. 'I see.'" I'll bet God sounds just the same way when He's being smug."
Long pause. "I don't think Cobey's lying about this, Ms. Carlyle, and, to be frank, it's foolish of you to pretend that he is."
"And just what is it that he's accusing me of?"
"He's not accusing you of anything. But under hypnosis—"
"Hypnosis!" And then she cackled that dismissive Lilly cackle of hers—the cackle known to studio heads, directors and actors throughout La-La Land. "Hypnosis! It's quackery, Dr. Silverman. In fact, I'm getting so pissed off that you'd even waste my money with it that I'm thinking about canceling Cobey's next appointment and taking him somewhere else. How do you like that, Dr. Silverman?"
"I could always go to the authorities, Ms. Carlyle."
"You just fucking try it, pal, and you'll have my lawyers all over you."
Long pause. "Cobey needs help...after everything that's happened."
"That's exactly why I sent him to you. For help."
"But I can't help him, Ms. Carlyle, until you and I have had a long conversation. And until...well, until I receive certain assurances that certain...practices...well, frankly, that certain practices will stop."
"That lying little fuck. Just wait till I—"
"No!" said the good Dr. Silverman. "I won't wait. Either you come and see me this afternoon...or I'll be calling a friend of mine over in Social Services. She's handled many cases like this one...and she'll know just what to do with you."
Long pause. "He's lying, Dr. Silverman. Whatever he's told you, he's lying."
"Perhaps he is."
"You mean that?"
"Well, I suppose there's always a possibility that Cobey—in his present state of mind—suffers from psychotic fantasies and sometimes talks about them as if they're real..."
They were both subdued and polite now.
"I'm sorry I yelled at you, Dr. Silverman."
"I wasn't trying to upset you, Ms. Carlyle. I was simply making the point that—"
"I understand, Dr. Silverman."
"Would four o'clock this afternoon be all right?"
"Four o'clock would be lovely."
"I'd appreciate it if you'd come alone."
"Of course, Dr. Silverman."
"Oh. One thing we can talk about on the phone."
"Yes?"
"Are you aware that Cobey has been sneaking whiskey from your liquor cabinet?"
"No."
"Well, he is. And I think that he's already got a drinking problem."
"He's only twelve years old!"
"It happens, Ms. Carlyle. I've seen active alcoholics his age before. You'd better lock up all your liquor. He's the kind of personality that becomes psychotic when he drinks...can't tell reality from his fears and dreams."
"I don't know what to say."
"I know all this is difficult for you. That's why I appreciate the opportunity to talk it through with you."
"Wait a minute," Lilly said.
"I beg your pardon?"
>
"Be quiet a minute."
"But—"
"Quiet!"
Long, long pause. "Cobey, are you on one of the extensions?" Pause. "Forgive me, Dr. Silverman, but I heard a noise and I know that Cobey's on this line. He does this all the time."
Long pause. "Cobey?"
I hung up. Quietly as I could.
It was shortly after this that I found the insurance policy in her desk. Lilly was always complimenting me on being "mature" for my age...and I suppose I was, in a certain, and very neurotic, way.
Smart enough, at any rate, to know the significance of the Prudential life insurance policy I found in her desk—we always snooped into each other's things; it was some weird part of our relationship.
$1,500,000.00
Looks lovely when you see it, doesn't it?
$1,500,000.00 of whole life taken out in the name of Cobey Robert Daniels.
With the beneficiary being...
But you're way ahead of me on that.
Lilly was the beneficiary of course.
If she ever got totally sick of me—of my alcoholism, of all my bad publicity, of always threatening to tell people about what really went on in that house of ours when I was a little kid—well, she could find some way of collecting on it.
But of course, Lilly wouldn't kill me. In her pathetic way, she still loved me. That's why she followed Beth and me around...and that's how she came to be in Beth's apartment that night...she sensed something wrong...and came up, part earth mother, part smothering bitch.
But would she have killed Beth and framed me? Could she collect if I died on death row?
Absolutely.
Oh, yes, Lilly, you vile bitch, I know just what you're capable of...
Chapter Thirteen
1
After driving by Richard Boyle's motel but finding him gone, Puckett stopped at a Denny's and ordered a cup of coffee and went right back to the pay phones and called the agency in Los Angeles. Right now, the daytime operations would just be closing down. He asked for the secretary and waited.
"You ready for Kevin?"
"Ready," Puckett said.
"He left a recorded message for you."
"Thanks."
Seconds later, Kevin McCoy said: "Hello, Mr. Puckett. I'm going to run down what I found out name by name, and I'll start with Veronica Hobbs.
"She's been put in mental hospitals twice, both times for having done something violent. She was in the hospital when Cobey was for stabbing somebody...and when she was thirteen, she was also put in a hospital. She'd stabbed a cousin of hers. Her father had to pay the girl's mother a lot of money to keep her from going to the police and the press. Veronica is not a very stable girl and, from everything I could find out, she's insanely jealous. She trashed half a restaurant once when she saw Cobey sitting there talking to a waitress. Very, very unstable, as I said."
Every few sentences, Kevin McCoy would pause and very consciously draw breath. He was not having an easy time talking. He sounded exhausted.
"Wade Preston hates Cobey. He's gone to his lawyer four times in the past fifteen years to dissolve his partnership with Lilly Carlyle because of Cobey. The word is that Preston is used to getting his way with women. He just can't believe that he can't get Lilly to marry him—but she never quite makes that commitment and Preston always blames Cobey.
"There's one other thing to consider. Lilly has a huge life insurance policy on Cobey—and maybe she'd decided it's time to cash in. Maybe she's just sick of him now and would rather have the money.
"Of course, their relationship—" Here he paused to cough and get his breath. "A psychiatrist I knew from the old days used to see Cobey and he shared some confidential information with me." He laughed softly. "The psychiatrist happens to be a pedophile and a junkie. Isn't it nice to know that shrinks are even crazier than we are?
"Anyway, Cobey saw this guy for two years, between the time he was fifteen and seventeen. This was just when he started getting into trouble. I think the first thing he did was steal a car. And right after that, he punched out a counter guy at a Baskin-Robbins, which gets you the same kind of publicity slapping a nun gets you. That's when the press really started turning on him.
"Anyway, the shrink: Seems that Cobey confided to him that, after Lilly took Cobey from his parents, would have been when he was about six, Lilly started sexually abusing him. He claimed that he was eight the first time Lilly actually seduced him. In case you're running for a medical encyclopedia to see if that's possible, yes, it is. Boys as young as four are capable of getting erections." A laugh again. "Hell, now I sound like a pedophile. Believe me, I'm not. It's just that I happen to remember another incident similar to this one.
"The point of all this being that Lilly Carlyle was seducing the little tyke almost all the time he lived with her." He broke into a racking cough again. "Cobey told this shrink that Lilly regularly searched his room for pictures of girls and screened all his calls. Very Oedipal. You know, the mother crushing all the life from the young boy. He also mentioned that the older he got, the kinkier Lilly got—they tried just about everything, including bondage, until he broke her shoulder one time—and then she got scared and stopped all the leather bullshit. Unfortunately, by then she had a serious hold on him. No matter how often he ran away, he couldn't help coming back. Just couldn't make it without her.
"Which takes us to his mysterious nine month disappearance. A friend of mine at the Examiner reminded me that one of our TV columnists had gotten a post card from Cobey during this time. The columnist was a big fan of Cobey's and was always defending him in print, even when Cobey was taking some pretty bad publicity shots. The card didn't say much, just that Cobey appreciated the guy's loyalty and all that, but the columnist remembered the postmark. Sparks, Nevada. Well, being the good gumshoe I am, I called Sparks last night and talked to this detective who told me a very curious story.
"Near the end of Cobey's disappearance, this cop gets—" The wracking cough again. "Don't let 'em kid you, Puckett. AIDS is a lot of fun. Ahem. Where were we? Oh, right, this cop. Well, in those days, he was a uniform guy. And he got this domestic violence call. But when he got there, he got a surprise. Most domestic violence calls involve a wife siccing the cops on her husband. This was the other way around—the wife had stabbed the husband in the shoulder. It was a pretty deep wound, but the guy didn't want to press charges and he didn't want to go to the hospital.
"The guy had a towel wrapped tight around his shoulder and the cop kept staring at him. The guy was pretty young, and he had dark hair and a long, dark beard, but then it hit the cop who this was—Cobey Daniels. He remembered about the kid disappearing from Hollywood—you know, that whole big search Lilly Carlyle staged, which amounted to a lot of great, free publicity—I mean, Cobey wasn't wanted by the law or anything, but a lot of people were sure looking for him.
"Anyway, the cop says to him, "Hey, you're Cobey Daniels, right?" And Cobey, who's probably pretty weak by then, doesn't put up any kind of defense. He admits he's Cobey and he says that he's trying to get his life straightened out and that, if the cop tells anybody about who he is or what happened tonight, Cobey will have to start running again.
"Cobey was pretty pissed that the neighbor in the apartment below his had called the cops anyway. Cobey says that he and this woman he lives with were both drinking and they got into this terrible argument and she picked up this butcher knife and—well, the way Cobey told it, she didn't really mean to stab him. She was just threatening him with the knife and then she tripped, and, well, that's how it happened, anyway.
"The cop says that the name Cobey gave him for the woman was Evelyn Day. D-A-Y. It's not a name familiar to me. But the story doesn't end there.
"Before the cop can say anything, Cobey goes over to this desk and pulls out two one-thousand-dollar bills and comes back and gives them to the cop. For being my friend, Cobey tells him.
"Well, the way this cop tells it now, he drove straight fr
om Cobey's and gave the money to this sweet old Irish Catholic monsignor he knew, which I personally think is bullshit. I mean, for sure this cop went on a bender or something. Anyway, he let the whole thing slide. He didn't report the accident and he didn't bring charges against the woman.
"In fact, he never saw the woman. She stayed in the bedroom all the time, with the door closed. The cop said he could hear her crying every so often. You know, like she was pretty screwed up.
"A week later, though, the cop gets kind of guilty about shirking his duty and he goes back there. Just to check things out. By this time, Cobey and the woman are gone. The landlord lets the cop in and the cop finds a bathroom all splattered and smeared with blood. Human blood. All the cop can liken it to is this place he saw one time where this cult sacrificed this old lady they'd kidnapped.
"The way the cop tells all this now, he was just trying to help out a lonely TV star. He wasn't personally interested in the two grand or anything. That went to that sweet old monsignor. That's the same price he demanded to tell the story this time, too. Two grand. I had to promise him that the agency would deliver a cashier's check in two hours.
"That's about it, anyway. I hope this helps, Puckett." The cough again, moist and deadly. "I'm going to take a small rest now. It's that time of day for me."
Still coughing, he clicked off.
2
On the way back to his hotel, Puckett tried Boyle's motel again.
Boyle was still gone.
3
"I like this."
"The dark?"
"Umm-hmm. No TV on. Just the dark and listening to the rain on the window."
"Any place special you want to go tomorrow?"
"You're not going to see Boyle?"
"After I see Boyle. You got any place in mind?"
"I wouldn't mind seeing the stained glass windows at the Second Presbyterian Church."
"You serious?"
"Real serious. I'm a sinner, Puckett. And so are you. It couldn't hurt."
"You're crazy."
"Yeah, but that's why you like me."