by C. A. Larmer
“Then tell him to shut the fuck up!” she boomed, her tone jovial and upbeat despite the language.
“Coffee? Tea?” whispered Trevor, lurking by the door.
He was a pretty young thing, clad in a deep purple, velvet suit with a white shirt, pink and lilac tie and shiny black boots. He looked a little like Willy Wonka and Roxy was about to ask for some Gobstoppers but decided against it. She’d met him several times before and knew he wasn’t the jocular type.
“Coffee, milk and two sugars, thanks,” she whispered back before slipping her handbag off her shoulder and sitting down in the rigid chrome and leather chair in front of Maria’s desk. She wondered if it was specially planted there to make guests feel uncomfortable. If so, it worked a treat.
Maria laughed loudly, snorting suddenly, and Roxy relaxed a little. She was clearly in a good mood today. That would work to her advantage.
“Oh, he would say that! Yeah ... Yeah ... Oh, I don’t give a flying fuck.” She turned and stared at Roxy. “Hey, Houso, I gotta go, got freelancers to eat up.”
She winked at Roxy, laughed and then clicked off, tossing the phone onto her expansive glass desk as if it were made of rubber.
“Roxy Parker, ghostwriter extraordinaire,” she said, dropping into her own chair which was also leather but twice the size and extremely comfortable looking. “To what do I owe the honour?”
“Actually, it’s a favour you owe, and I’d like to collect.”
Maria’s good mood dissipated a little. Her thin, penciled eyebrows scrunched together. “Say what?”
Trevor returned then with a glass of espresso coffee and placed it in front of Roxy, glancing up at Maria who shook her glossy auburn locks in reply.
“Just get the door,” she said, and he closed it on his way out.
“So he proved to be gay after all,” Roxy said of her assistant and Maria’s eyebrows relaxed.
“Typical bloody story. They come in acting as straight as choir boys, get themselves the job, then turn fairy queen very soon after. I would’ve sacked him if he wasn’t so good at reception. Makes a mean cuppa, too.”
“Plus it’s nice to have a bit of eye candy about.”
“I don’t just want to look, Roxy, I want to touch.”
An evil glint flickered across Maria’s heavily made-up eyes and Roxy felt a shudder of disgust. She didn’t doubt for one moment that Maria could be as predatory as any chauvinistic male boss, and suspected that if the poor PA had been straight, he would have been fighting her off by the end of his first week.
“Anyway, enough about my non-existent sex life,” Maria was saying. “What do you want? And I don’t want to hear any more about favours. I know I still owe you after setting that lunatic artist on you a while back, so just spit it out and let’s call it quits.”
Roxy took a deep breath. “I want you to run a story on Tina Passion and I want you to hire me to write it.”
This had the editor’s attention. “The slutty writer who was just found dead?”
“Yep, that one.”
Maria considered this. “Can I ask why?”
“You can ask.” Maria glared at Roxy, her patience clearly wearing thin, so Roxy quickly said, “It’ll be a good story, Maria. She was a big seller, a regular on the social circuit. It’s worth the space, I can assure you; it’s going to be huge. Already is in fact.”
Maria looked irked. “Since when do you tell me what to commission?”
“It’s just a story suggestion, from one of your favourite freelance writers. I always give you story ideas. That’s what I do.”
Maria gave it some thought, clinking long, red-polished nails across her desk as she thought aloud. “Well, the girls were all gasbagging about Tina Passion in the tearoom this morning. Bit of a shock, eh? Plus they reckon it might be a crazed serial killer which is even more exciting.” She licked her thick, botoxed lips. “So, it’s a big story, I’ll give it that. I’m just not sure it’s a Glossy magazine story. Plus it’ll be old news by the time we go to print.”
“My article wouldn’t be all about the murder, although that would be a juicy sidebar. No, no, I would do a full expose of Tina’s life, from country bumpkin to top-selling novelist. I have access to her agent, you know?”
“Oliver Horowitz? The one they think did it?”
Roxy looked horrified. “Who thinks that?
She shrugged. “That’s what the girls tell me, apparently the shock jocks have been going on about it all morning.”
Roxy didn’t want to get into an argument, she needed to keep the editor on side so she feigned disinterest and said instead, “Did I mention full access to Oliver Horowitz?” She quickly added, “I’d also want to interview Tina’s family and friends, and maybe do a quick side story on the other murders, the fact that genre writers are being bumped off.”
“Ah, gorgeous, you’re selling it well but like I said, crime’s not really our thing.”
“Hence the reason that would be a side story and the main one would be a look at Ms Passion and her incredible life. Come on, erotic fiction is so fashionable at the moment, you have to admit that. Look at Fifty Shades of Grey. Tina Passion is Australia’s answer to E. L. James.” Maria was fiddling with one enormous earring, a look of utter boredom on her face so Roxy pulled out her final ace. “Did you hear I’m doing a book on David Lone?”
The editor stopped fiddling and sat forward. “Now there’s a red-blooded, heterosexual male if ever I saw one. Couldn’t get me into his pants, could you?”
Roxy swallowed her disgust and said, breezily, “No but I could let you publish an excerpt from my book before it comes out.”
“An exclusive excerpt?”
“All yours.”
“Sold!” Maria broke into a wide smile, revealing enormous, smoke-stained teeth. Just as quickly, the smile deflated. “But I can’t promise more than a double page spread on this Tina chick, I’m not really sure how much my readers care.”
“I don’t need any more.”
Maria stared at her hard. “Why do you want this so friggin’ bad? You hard up for work at the mo’?”
Roxy drained the rest of her coffee and stood up, anxious to get away before Maria started digging deeper. “I’m always hard up for work, Maria, you know that.”
As she opened the door to leave, Maria called out, “Can’t you at least throw in Lone’s home number? His mobile?”
Roxy just laughed as she saw herself out.
Back on the street, she gave a small whoop of joy. She hadn’t expected that to go so well, and she was relieved. Now she had the Glossy article on her list, she could do as David Lone could do and bypass Gilda and go straight to the source. Except, unlike David who was working for the gutter press and would have to barge his way in, suspicion in his wake, she had the pretence of a flattery piece for a “lovely lifestyle title” to help her get access. Or at least that’s how she would sell it to Tina’s family and friends. And right now she needed access very badly if she was going to help save Oliver’s scalp. There was one man in particular who had some questions to answer and she was keen to make him talk.
Chapter 20
Lorenzo Vento had the same short, stocky build as his daughter, Tina Passion, but that’s where the similarities ended. With a thick mop of graying black hair and tanned skin so wrinkled he looked like an old leather saddle, he appeared as tough as nails with none of the soft edges of his bosomy, blonde and air-brushed daughter. He had a dark checked shirt on and what looked like moleskin trousers, a battered old Akubra slouch hat in one hand, and a bulging green bag in the other, and the sneer he was now giving the press who were filming his every move suggested a man who did not court the press as Tina once had.
Roxy had not yet scored an interview, had not even tried; it was now Tuesday morning, just two days since Tina’s body had been discovered and way too early to call a grieving father, even one as tough looking as Lorenzo. She would to be patient, she would bide her time, and she hoped he wou
ld appreciate that. Instead, she watched him from the TV screen in her apartment as he trudged out of his hotel, looking majorly pissed off. News cameras jostled for prime position and several reporters were throwing questions at him, their tone more salacious than sympathetic but he simply glared at them mutely, thrust the hat on his head, and stepped into a waiting car, which quickly zoomed off.
Roxy wondered where he was going, but was thankful for the media presence. Now, at least, she knew where he would be returning to—the Hotel Darlinghurst, just around the corner from her place. She wondered, too, why Mr Vento, an out-of-towner, had not been staying with his daughter, and whether he had been around during the first murder, the night that Seymour Silva had died. Roxy already knew he was in town when Glad was killed—Tina had said as much when she’d rocked up to Oliver’s office the day before—but Roxy wondered about Silva. Then she wondered about a motive and her brain went all fuzzy again.
One step at a time, Roxy told herself, then picked up the phone and put a call in to her local florist, ordering a large bouquet of wild Australian flowers. Judging from the bloke’s appearance, they were more his style than roses. Then she asked for a note to be attached.
“Please mark it: With our deepest sympathies. Tina was one of the greats. Love Maria and the whole Glossy magazine crew.” She didn’t think Maria would mind her using her name this way, not if there was a good story in it for the magazine. She gave the address of the hotel, paid for it by credit card and hung up. As she did so, she noticed the blinking answering machine light and tried to ignore it. There were messages from both David and Gilda, but she had a horrible hunch they wanted to discuss Saturday night further, and not the part she was most interested in. Roxy didn’t want to be distracted, and she didn’t want to get personal, so she ignored their messages and got on with what she loved most, her work.
She turned to her computer and started a file titled “Passionate” in which to record everything she knew about the erotic fiction writer. Despite ten years with the same agent, she was slightly embarrassed to find it did not add up to much. Just like her, they were both writers and both clients of Oliver Horowitz. But one was now dead, and her apparent murder would either make her a famous figure for life or cause her to fade away into obscurity. Time, I guess, will tell, thought Roxy.
And maybe this article if I do it right.
She heard a frenzied bubbling in the kitchen and jumped up to turn off the Atomic coffee machine and finish making breakfast. Eventually, with her toast eaten and the coffee half-drunk, she picked up the phone again and dialed Oliver.
“Aww, I dunno,” he said after she’d told him of her plan. “I told you Lorenzo is a cranky bastard. You’ll be lucky if he returns your calls, let alone talks to you.”
“Don’t worry about Lorenzo. I have my ways.”
“Well tread carefully, okay? I mean, it could’ve been him for all we know.”
“Well I’m not interviewing him for his good looks, Oliver. Do you know how long he’s been in town and why he wasn’t staying at Tina’s place?”
“Her place is pretty swish, but it’s the size of a portaloo. No room, I’d say. As for how long he’s been around ... Dunno for sure but ... Listen, do you really think he’s our man?”
“I have absolutely no idea, really I don’t. Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. I just need to get access to him and then see what he has to say. He’s the one who found Tina’s body, after all, so he might have some pivotal information. What I need from you is some background on Tina.”
“Like what?”
“Like a proper biography, and I don’t mean the PR drivel she runs on her book covers.”
“Hey, I helped her write that drivel.”
“Toughen up, Oliver, this is serious stuff. I’ll interview you properly but it’ll save me time if you can e-mail me a full rundown on when and where she started writing, how you got involved, a full list of her book titles, that sort of stuff.”
“Consider it done.”
“Good, and e-mail me any other contacts I should call for the story.”
“Like who?”
“Like good girlfriends, any relevant exes. Was she ever married?”
“Yep, twice.”
“Now why does that not surprise me?”
“Hey, careful, she was a good friend of mine.”
“Sorry, force of habit. Can you get me the exes’ details?”
“Yeah, I can source ’em somehow. Listen, Rox, take care of yourself, okay?”
“What, you think an ex-husband did her in, now?”
“I don’t know what I think anymore. All I’m saying is watch your back.”
“I always do, Olie, there’s no one around to do it for me.”
“Should I string my violin now or later?”
“Very funny. Just get that stuff to me as soon as you can, all right? Hey, how did your last chat with the cops go?”
“Short and sweet. They just wanted to clarify my whereabouts during Seymour’s funeral and wake. Don’t know what that’s about but—”
“What did you tell them?”
“I told ’em I was with you and then with about thirty others at Venus’s place.”
“Did you go outside at all for a fag? On your own?”
“Jesus, Rox, you sound like the coppers. Yes, I did, Constable, but there were loads of people out there, too. Don’t sweat it, Rox, I have all the witnesses I need.”
“Okay, well, good,” she said, but she was sweating it. The police were clearly still on Oliver’s tail and she wished they’d start sniffing around elsewhere.
Roxy said good-bye to Oliver and turned to the newspapers she had run out for earlier that morning. There would be no more avoiding this story; she was in the thick of it now.
As expected, Tina Passion’s sensational murder continued to dominate the front page of David Lone’s paper, as it did the other major dailies and Internet news sites. The police had now confirmed that the erotic author had indeed met with foul play and that they were looking into all angles, including, yes, potential poisoning, but they refused to comment further until the toxicology results came back. Whenever that was.
No wonder they were asking Oliver about chemistry at high school, she thought. It must be related to the poison.
The competing newspapers, Roxy noticed, had now adopted Lone’s catchphrase and were calling this “the Snow White” murder, but Lone had moved on. He was more interested in the serial killer angle, and while the police “categorically denied” this, clearly determined to keep the public calm, David made a good case.
Today’s article included yet another break-out box featuring the similarities between all three deaths, this time, with Tina Passion in the mix. The calling card for this “third tragic murder” was, according to David, a poisoned apple and it was used to symbolize “both the romantic nature of Tina’s work (hence the link to the Snow White fairy tale) and women’s ultimate erotic sin—the handing of the forbidden fruit to Adam”.
Was he suggesting that Tina was responsible for her own murder? That her salacious, risqué content had led to this? Or was that what the murderer intended all along?
She felt a chill run through her and shuddered. In any case, David had been spot on from the start. He had insisted that Seymour Silva’s death was suspicious, and no one had listened to him. After William’s murder, he had intensified his insistence, begging people to see the connection, and again, this was largely rejected. Even Roxy, normally open-minded and unapologetically suspicious, refused to validate his fears. And now they had come to fruition. Roxy winced at the pun but couldn’t dredge up a smile.
Tina Passion was dead, and David Lone had predicted it all along. She wondered, now, whether there was any way it could have been prevented, if only people had listened to him.
Roxy returned to the papers, methodically cutting out each article, but instead of pasting them away in her scrapbook as she normally would, she placed them in a fresh Manila folde
r. She would need to refer to them in her article. Then, she sat back in front of her computer and began a new document in the Passionate file. She typed several paragraphs of notes, starting with her first memories of meeting the writer to that last day in which Tina burst into Oliver’s office buzzing with excitement about their impending date. Roxy remembered the way Tina had largely ignored her in deference to the two men in the room and guessed it was normal behaviour. She knew that kind of woman well. It reminded her a little of her mother—always putting men first, especially older, richer men. Roxy sniggered then, knowing only too well how horrified Lorraine would be to be considered in the same sentence as the trashy writer. Yet, it was women like her mother, or at least her mother’s neighbour Valerie, who lapped up Tina’s semi-erotic novels.
“I’d better start with one of those,” she decided, opening her e-mail account to find Oliver’s message waiting. He’d sent her a list of contact names and numbers to call, and she quickly pressed reply then jotted a message of her own.
Thanks, Olie. Another favour: can you get the full collection of Tina’s books together for me? I’ll drop by later today to pick them up. Rox xo
He e-mailed her straight back: You sure you don’t have a well-thumbed one under your pillow somewhere?
Not my style, she replied.
Pity, he wrote back, might do wonders for your love life.
What love life? she typed then added, Good to see your humour’s returned before clicking off and getting back to work. While Roxy was using this article as her way in, she was also taking it seriously and hadn’t been lying when she told Maria she needed the work. She might as well get paid while she investigated.
Over the next few hours, Roxy began tracking down the various relatives and friends of Tina’s that Oliver had suggested, getting useful quotes about the forty-something’s life, but also, surreptitiously, ascertaining who had last seen her and who had any idea why she had been murdered. It turned out not one of the people on Roxy’s list had spent any time with Tina in the past week of her life. And no one seemed to have any idea why she had been targeted, although a cackling older neighbour suggested her writing was so bad, it could easily be a motive.