Looks to Die For

by Janice Kaplan

  Predictably, Tim was in an excellent mood when I showed up at his office later in the day. But the smiles and hugs faded away when I told him what I wanted.

  “A miniature recording device?” he asked warily. “You mean like a hidden camera?”

  “Just something small that I can put in my purse,” I said. “Your investigative reporters must use them, right?”

  “Sometimes,” said Tim carefully. “The law on making recordings without the second person’s knowledge is a little unclear. But I can almost guarantee you won’t be able to use it in court.”

  “Still, I can play it for the judge at the preliminary hearing,” I said, having no idea whether I really could. “That’s three days from now, when the judge gets to look at evidence and decide if the case goes to trial. Our lawyer says the determination is based on whether or not there’s probable cause. I want it crystal clear that there’s not.”

  Tim managed a little nod and went out of the room, coming back with two electronic toys. “The camera’s a little complicated and you have to think about where you’re going to put it. If you’ll be okay with just audio, I’d go with this.” He held out a flat device the size of a credit card.

  “Perfect,” I said, fingering the shiny, smooth surface. “You’re sure this actually works?”

  “Sure. Press the button, drop it in your bag, and record for an hour. But you can have it only if you promise that you don’t do anything stupid,” he said, touching one of the flat buttons.

  “Don’t do anything stupid.” This time his voice echoed loud and clear from the digital mini-machine. I grinned and made the promise.

  “So what’s the mission?” Tim asked, persisting.

  “To talk to Johnny DeVito,” I admitted. “Dan says he hasn’t heard from him since the murder, except for one message that he left on the machine. Since then, silence. No calls, no emails.”

  “Is that bad?” asked Tim.

  “It’s odd,” I said. “And I’d like to find out what it means.”

  Sammie was in an even better mood than Tim — but for a different reason.

  “I’m leaving,” she told me exuberantly when I called. “I gave Julie my notice yesterday.”

  “Better job?” I asked, thinking she deserved it.

  “Not really a job, but I just sold my first screenplay. Even if the movie never gets made, the option is decent. I understand now why screenwriters call it ‘fuck you’ money.”

  I laughed. “You told Julie to take her job and shove it?”

  “No, I’m a proper Vassar girl, so I decided to leave on good terms. You never know who you’ll need again.”

  “Well, I need you again,” I admitted. “I’m trying to track down that Johnny DeVito guy I asked you about last time. Think you can help me?”

  I told her briefly what I wanted and Sammie said she’d try. “I don’t mind twisting the rules a little since I’m out of here,” she said, “but it’s probably better if I just leave him a message.”

  “Fine,” I said. “Tell him I want to meet as soon as he can. But in a public place.”

  “Will do,” she said.

  “By the way, what’s your screenplay about?”

  “An English major from Vassar who comes to L.A. and works for a bitchy boss,” Sammie said brightly. “I know, not much of a stretch. But when you started asking questions about Roy, I realized the twist. The boss has an affair with one of her stars. And then the young, dazzling assistant has an affair with him, too.”

  I gasped. “Sammie, you and Roy didn’t —”

  “Of course not!” she interrupted. “I had to make up something, didn’t I?”

  I laughed, and after we hung up, I went back to fiddling with Tim’s recorder. Anything to make the time go. But I kept looking at my watch, counting down the minutes to the preliminary hearing. Why didn’t Sammie call back? All I really wanted to do was drive over to 17 Hillman Drive again, knock on the door, and confront Johnny DeVito.

  And why not? I had to take action. I changed into low-slung black jeans and a pair of Pumas, to avoid the kitten-heel-mules problem of last time. Boy, I was learning a lot. If I didn’t become a private detective after this, at the very least I could be a costume designer on CSI.

  Halfway to the garage, I stopped myself. This wasn’t a movie — or even a TV show. Maybe in Sammie’s next screenplay, the heroine would jump in her blue roadster and return to the mystery house to solve the case. But I’d promised Tim I wouldn’t do anything stupid. And going back would definitely qualify as stupid.

  I marched back inside and checked in with Sammie.

  “I’ve left two messages at the number Julie gave me,” she reported. “It’s just an anonymous voice box, so I don’t even know if it’s his number.”

  But finally at about six, she had a different report. “He called when I was out buying Julie an iced tea,” she said. “He’ll be at Sanford’s gym at seven thirty tonight. You can meet him there.”

  I got directions off MapQuest rather than relying on the GPS, then popped the recorder into my Michael Kors clutch. The bag was much too dressy for jeans — even a pair that cost two hundred bucks at Barneys — but I didn’t think Johnny would care. And the clutch would be less noticeable than a big purse when I put it on the table to record.

  Traffic was heavy and I crawled along the thruway, chiding myself not to tailgate. An accident wouldn’t help anything. When I got off, the roads looked familiar, but it wasn’t until I saw three huge silver trailers and a road sealed off for a movie crew that I knew where I was. The George Clooney set — and the very streets where I’d wandered around in bra and panties. I felt a flush of embarrassment, but then decided I didn’t have to worry. Anybody who saw me then wouldn’t recognize me now. My face wasn’t what they’d noticed.

  Sanford’s gym was tucked back toward the industrial part of town. In the gathering dusk, the area looked more decrepit than I’d remembered, the streets rattling with a few trucks leaving warehouses. The gym itself had a faded sign over the metal door and pitted aluminum siding along the front. Through the streaked windows, I could see some bare bulbs hanging inside and a rack of old metal dumbbells lining the gym wall. Unless retro-chic had moved from furniture to fitness, Crunch didn’t have to worry about Sanford’s snagging celebrity clients. This wasn’t the place for the latest in vinyasa yoga.

  I pulled into a parking space out front, turned off the motor, and nervously called Molly to tell her where I was. Somebody should know.

  “Do you see any other people around?” Molly asked after she listened to my quick synopsis.

  I squinted, trying to see what was going on inside the gym. “A few,” I said. “And there’s someone at a front desk, I think.”

  “Any way I can convince you to turn around and come home?”

  “My husband goes to court in seventy-two hours,” I said softly. “If I can prove Nora killed Tasha, we could get the case dropped. I’m convinced Johnny DeVito knows something.”

  Molly cleared her throat. She knew not to argue. “Then here’s the deal. Call me every fifteen minutes to say you’re okay.”

  “I can’t. With luck, I’ll be in the middle of an important conversation.”

  “A text message that just says ‘OK,’” said Molly firmly. “You get five minutes grace. After twenty minutes, I call the police.”

  I turned on the recorder and tried to look sure of myself as I strode toward the gym, but I doubted I was doing a very good job. The man at the front desk looked up at me without any curiosity. He was short and heavyset, his belly gone to flab but his arms bulging with the muscles of someone half his age. His black hair was slicked down and his white T-shirt unaccountably crisp for someone who’d been in a gym all day.

  “I’m supposed to meet someone here. Johnny DeVito,” I said, with as much poise as I could muster.

  He nodded, still unsurprised. “Nice to meet you,” he said, extending a hand. “I’m Jerry DeVito. His father.”

  W
hatever composure I’d gathered fell away. I hadn’t known what to expect in Sanford’s gym, but I definitely hadn’t expected this. I didn’t want to take his offered hand, but I did anyway, and instead of a simple handshake, he squeezed my fingers so tightly that I almost cried out. When he pulled back, I could still feel the impact of his potent grip. Either he was stronger than he realized or he wanted to make an impression.

  “Johnny’s not here,” he said.

  “Do you know if he’s coming?”

  “No.” He looked across the gym as someone walked out from the back. “Why don’t you talk to my daughter.”

  I turned to follow his gaze and saw a woman striding toward us, dressed in a perfect Prada pantsuit with a diamond pendant glinting at her neck. I let out a loud gasp. The outfit was nice, but that’s not what shocked me. It was the woman herself. Julie Boden.

  “Th — that’s your daughter?” I asked, stuttering to get out the words.

  Jerry nodded. “She’s a good girl. Helped me buy my new house.”

  “On Hillman Drive?” I ventured.

  He nodded again, and suddenly I realized I’d seen him once before. He was the man I’d glimpsed at the door, letting in Nora.

  While I tried to get my bearings, Jerry DeVito ambled away and Julie pulled up short, inches away from me.

  “You’re always turning up,” she said.

  “I wasn’t…um, expecting to see you,” I said.

  “Isn’t life interesting.” She started to walk across the gym again, expecting me to follow her. And of course I did. We went into the women’s locker room, which had the dank smell of a high school gym and about as much style — a couple of showers with flapping plastic curtains, two toilet stalls, and some metal lockers. A cracked mirror hung crookedly over a sink. Julie pointed to a wooden bench, and I sat down, too stunned to stay on my feet.

  “So what did you want from my brother?” she asked bluntly. We weren’t making small talk. Not that I could, anyway.

  “He’d been blackmailing my husband,” I said, “and I thought maybe we could make a deal.”

  “What kind of deal?”

  “Dan didn’t kill Tasha Barlow. I think her roommate Nora did. And I also think Johnny knows that and could help prove it.”

  Julie raised her eyebrows. “I thought Roy Evans was your favorite suspect. Or Johnny.” She folded her arms and paced a few steps away from me, then came back. “Nora. Good for you.”

  “You think I’m right?”

  “I know you are. Nora killed Tasha.”

  I swallowed hard and unwittingly glanced at the Kors clutch next to me. Julie caught the fleeting look and grabbed for the bag. I tried to snatch it back, but she quickly dumped the contents on the bench. Everything fell out — except the digital recorder, which I’d tucked inside a zippered compartment. She flipped open my cell phone, apparently thinking someone was listening on the other end. Then she saw the I’MOK message I’d already prepared, along with Molly’s number. She hit SEND.

  “Let me correct you on something,” she said coolly, as if nothing had happened. “Johnny asked your husband to give him back the money from his operation. Your husband complied. That’s not blackmail.”

  “I saw the emails asking for money. That’s blackmail,” I said, trying to keep my voice as calm as hers.

  “Yes, it is, but Johnny didn’t write them.”

  “Who did? Drew Barrymore?”

  Julie looked at me blankly, then snorted. “Tasha sent them. Though she didn’t do anything alone. Nora was the brains in their operation.”

  Now I was the one with the blank look. “What are you talking about?”

  Julie opened and closed the cover on my phone a few times, then tossed it aside. “Johnny had confided everything in Tasha. I don’t know why. She had that Idaho innocence that made him trust her. She came up with the idea of getting money from your husband. When Johnny didn’t want to, she threatened to leave him. So he did it and gave her the money. She spent every dime.”

  I thought of the fancy bedroom. A thirty-thousand-dollar job easily. She must have instinctively known she’d be working from there.

  “So Johnny needed more cash from Dan to keep Tasha happy,” I said.

  Julie snorted. “Only this time he talked to me. He didn’t want to end up back in jail. We hadn’t exactly been pals, but he’s my brother. I pulled some strings, got him into the union, and gave him work as a grip. I knew he was giving most of his salary to Tasha, but at least he was keeping straight.”

  His alibi had been real. He’d been miles away the night Tasha was killed, and so had Julie.

  “So how did you find out that the blackmail was still going on?” I asked.

  Julie looked away, and suddenly I got it. I felt my throat tightening.

  “Nora told you,” I said softly. “The day I dropped her at your father’s house.”

  Julie played with her pendant and picked an imaginary piece of lint off her jacket. “It happens we were all there that day. Johnny was living with my dad and I’d come by to visit. I saw you outside and told Johnny who you were. He ran out before I could stop him.”

  In the car, Johnny hadn’t been trying to scare me away — he was taking his vengeance because he thought Dan had killed the woman he loved. The one woman who had pretended to love him.

  “Blackmail’s easy, isn’t it?” asked Julie bitterly. “You learn the technique and you just keep going. Nora would get all the money from your husband now. Five thousand every month or so. But she had a bigger idea. She knew Johnny had killed someone years ago. No statute of limitations on murder, and she thought fifty thousand was a fair amount to keep him from going back to jail.”

  I stood up and started backing away from the bench. I suddenly understood. I had the story right — but the motive wrong. Dead wrong. Nora wasn’t a good girl who’d killed her friend and then committed suicide in a moment of remorse. She was an angry girl — an overweight Midwesterner in cheap clothes who barely existed in the glamorous world of L.A. Overlooked and ignored, she’d tried to find her place attached to Tasha. But Nora had come with dreams, too. She wouldn’t be a famous actress, but she would be the one pulling the strings. The one raking in all the money. She wasn’t beautiful, but she wanted to matter.

  Now I could imagine the fight in the apartment in different terms. Nora demanding a bigger cut from Tasha. They were partners, after all — so why was Tasha taking all the cash? Fifty-fifty on the blackmail. Fifty-fifty on the porn tapes. When Tasha tried to flick her away, as she always had, the loser friend had had enough. Her turn to be in the spotlight.

  The need to find some significance to her life wasn’t new. Nor was the anger at being marginalized. There was even a good chance Nora had planned the murder while she was still in Twin Falls. Talking about how long it would take her to drive back so she’d have an alibi. Sending a flurry of intimidating emails to Dan to assure that he’d be at the apartment that night. Leaving the note in the front foyer telling Dan to wait so the scene would seem more realistic.

  Nora didn’t need Tasha anymore. She was better off on her own. She could try to keep getting payments from Dan. She could blackmail Johnny. She could use the sex tapes to connect to Roy. She wasn’t appalled by the porn — she just wanted to get her part of it. Maybe she could cut herself into his business, selling drugs and porn. Much better than what Tasha offered.

  I continued shuffling backward towards the door. Because now I also knew what had happened in the DeVito house that day.

  “You didn’t plan to kill Nora,” I said quietly, inching slowly away. “But you didn’t have much choice. She was a threat to your brother. Blackmailing him and blackmailing on behalf of him. It had to stop.”

  “She’d killed Tasha and she was a dangerous bitch,” said Julie.

  “Not to mention incredibly grating,” I added, almost in sympathy.

  “I’ll say,” said Julie, with a little laugh. For a moment, I could imagine that we were two friends
in the locker room, blow-drying our hair and gossiping together after a tough workout.

  Only this place didn’t have any blow-dryers. And Julie wasn’t my friend.

  She lunged for me, her leg flying upward in a perfect kung fu kick. Her flat heel smashed into my skull with tremendous force, spinning me ninety degrees before I started to crumple. My head cracked into the corner of the bench as I fell, then reverberated off the hard tile floor. I saw blood — mine — trickling across the floor and I wheezed in pain. But I didn’t lose consciousness. I couldn’t. Despite the black spots in front of my eyes, I saw my car keys inches away from me under the bench, where Nora had dumped them. But I couldn’t risk crawling over to get them.

  I tried to stand up, figuring I’d make a run for it. But as I got to my knees, Julie landed another kick, this one to the back of my neck. I fell down flat, unable to move. Had she severed my spine? I groaned and managed to turn onto my side in time to see Julie ripping one of the shower curtains from its hooks. Then she was back, rolling the fabric around and around my limp body. I tried to fight her off, but my hands just clawed at the air, and in a moment, my arms were bound at my sides. I was wrapped as tightly as King Tut. The slimy plastic covered my mouth and nose and I coughed, fighting for air and trying to breathe.

  “No, you can’t die yet,” Julie said, pulling the material down. “I learned my lesson with Nora. Easy to mimic suicide. But you don’t move the body afterwards. You’ll die when I’m ready to kill you.”

  She wrapped duct tape around my bound form, then disappeared for a minute, coming back wheeling a bright orange hand truck, the kind used to lug boxes. Or to move mats and weights in the gym.

  She rolled the metal platform under me, then tipped it back, pushing forward now easily. She might have been transporting a dumbbell. And I guess she was.

  I couldn’t see where we were going, but then she seemed to jam the hand truck against a wall.

  “Scream and I’ll tape your mouth shut,” she said. I thought of Gracie’s directive to shout “Fire!” but I wasn’t in much of a position to holler anything. Just to be sure, Julie pulled the plastic back over my face and left.