The Bad Always Die Twice

by Cheryl Crane

  Nikki flinched at the sharp thwack, but kept her cool. “And they’re sure it’s Rex March. Not a . . .” Nikki searched for the right word. The whole idea was so ludicrous that she was having a hard time expressing it herself. “An imposter?”

  “You mean like one of those Elvis impersonators? My wife and me, we got married in Vegas. Not at the Elvis Chapel; they were booked, but we thought about it.”

  “Could this be a Rex March look-alike?” Nikki asked, afraid if she let him continue, she would soon know not only where he and his wife married, but where they stayed on their wedding night and even more intimate details. It was funny how people were like that, always telling her their private business. As soon as they realized who she was—and hell, she wasn’t even a celebrity herself—they felt as though they could tell her the most personal details of their lives. Details they should not be sharing with strangers.

  “Could be an imposter, I suppose. His body will have to be ID’d by a family member down at the morgue. Dental records, birthmarks checked, if there’s a question.” He stopped and looked at her with an earnest face. “But who would want to impersonate Rex March?”

  He had a good point.

  The hall was filled with uniformed cops trooping around like ants. Doors opened and closed as Jessica’s neighbors were shooed back into their apartments. There was a lot of talking. Whispering. Someone had their TV on too loud. A Kung Fu rerun. Nikki would recognize David Carradine’s voice anywhere.

  At the open door to Jessica’s place, Syzusky stepped in front of her, puffing up with self-importance. “I’ll have to escort you.”

  “Of course.” Nikki followed behind him. Just inside the arched doorway of the living room, Jessica hollered her name.

  “Oh, Jesus, thank God you’re here!” She flew across the white tile floor in her pale pink Patrick Cox heels. Nikki hated the idea that she could actually identify the designers of some of the shoes that so consumed Jessica.

  She threw her arms around Nikki and dropped her head onto her shoulder. She had been crying. They were genuine tears. Nikki had never seen Jessica cry.

  “It’s okay,” Nikki hushed, hugging her. “Everything’s going to be okay.”

  “But it’s not.” Jessica stepped back and wiped under her eyes, then stared at the mascara smeared on her fingertips. “Oh, Jesus H., do you have a Kleenex?”

  Nikki dug around in her ancient Prada bag, a hand-me-down from Mother, and came up with a small pack of tissues. She plucked off the lint stuck to the top one and handed over the whole package.

  Jessica extracted a Kleenex and dabbed at her eyes.

  “Tell me what happened,” Nikki said softly, taking in the scene around her. There were cops everywhere in here, too. They looked stark in their dark blue uniforms against the pristine, contemporary living room. Everything was white here: the floor tile, the walls, the leather couch, the drapes, even the wrought-iron railing of the small balcony off the living room. No one seemed to be paying much attention to the so-called murder suspect.

  The whole scene felt surreal.

  When Jessica didn’t answer, Nikki stepped closer, looking into her teary green eyes. “You have to tell me what happened,” she repeated. “I can’t help you if I don’t know what’s going on.”

  “How can I tell you what’s going on? I don’t know what’s going on!” She sniffed and dabbed under her eyes. “I . . . I went to that seminar downtown. Came straight home. It’s wash night. I . . . I went into the bedroom to get the clothes from my laundry basket and there he was.” She gestured with the Kleenex, as if Rex March was right in front of her. “Rex. Dead. In my bed.”

  Nikki felt her forehead wrinkle. She was headed for Botox for sure. Probably sooner rather than later. “It really is Rex?”

  “It sure as hell looks like Rex.” She sniffed. “He’s wearing nothing but a pair of gold lamé bikini briefs. Doesn’t a man his age know better?”

  It was a bizarre comment, even for the fashion-conscious Jessica, but Nikki let it slide. She was still hung up on the whole Rex-is-already-dead issue. “And you have no idea how he got here?”

  “Of course not.” Jessica hugged herself. “I was at that seminar all day. Plenty of people saw me. I don’t understand how anyone could think I did this.”

  Nikki glanced in the direction of the bedroom. The door was open and she could see plenty of cops inside, but she couldn’t see the bed from this angle. “Has anyone called Edith?”

  “I don’t know. I know I sure as hell didn’t. How’d you like to be the one to make that phone call?”

  Nikki would have laughed had the circumstances been different. Rex March had not been a good husband to his wife of twenty-some years and everyone knew it, including Edith. He’d been a liar and a cheat. Over the last few years, he’d made a fool of his wife in the pages of gossip magazines more times than Nikki could count. So Edith hadn’t exactly been the heartbroken widow when he’d been declared dead. The first time.

  And now Edith was about to be notified, if she hadn’t already been, of her husband’s second demise. Just thinking about it made Nikki dizzy. Or at least made her wish she had a large glass of Syrah. Maybe a whole bottle.

  “That’s it?” Nikki studied Jessica’s pale face. “There’s a dead man in your bed and that’s all you know?”

  “That’s all I know.” Jessica opened both hands. “And now you know as much as I do.”

  “Miss Martin?” A guy in a rumpled brown suit stuck his head out of the bedroom door. Dirty hair. Five o’clock shadow. Had to be a detective. He was a perfect example of how stereotypes were perpetuated in the media. “Miss Martin, can I speak with you for a moment?”

  Jessica snatched Nikki’s hand and Nikki felt the damp tissue against her palm. Jessica tugged. “You have to come with me. I can’t go in there alone again,” she whispered. “Not with him.”

  Nikki didn’t know if she was referring to Rex or the guy in the brown suit, but she allowed herself to be led into the bedroom.

  Seeing Nikki, the guy pointed. “She can’t—”

  “This is my best friend, Nikki Harper. The Nikki Harper, daughter of Victoria Bordeaux.” Jessica clutched Nikki’s hand with both of hers. “I don’t have to tell you what an influential woman her mother is or how big a stink she’ll throw if her daughter isn’t treated by the LAPD with utmost respect.”

  “Detective Lutz.” He didn’t offer to shake Nikki’s hand, which was okay with her. He was wearing a latex glove that could possibly have touched Rex’s body.

  “This is a crime scene, Miss Martin,” he said, looking back at Jessica. His cadence was weird. Almost mechanical. “She can’t come in here. I don’t care who she is.”

  “But he can?”

  He looked at her with obvious impatience. “Who?”

  “Him.” Jessica pushed past the detective, into her bedroom, dragging Nikki along with her. “Him!” She let go of one hand to point in the direction of her bed, set diagonally in the west corner, out of direct line with the door. Good feng shui.

  “At least I invited her,” Jessica said in a shaky voice. “I didn’t invite him.”

  Several cops in the room turned to look at Jessica, but Nikki barely noticed them. Her gaze started at the tip of Jessica’s manicured nail, and followed an invisible beam across the bedroom to the bed. She tried to stop herself. She’d already seen one dead man. Enough for a lifetime. But she couldn’t look away.

  Nikki didn’t know what she expected. Hell, she hadn’t expected to see Rex March at all, no matter what everyone was telling her.

  But there he was. His pale, bloated body in the middle of the bed, tangled in sky blue silk sheets. He had not been an attractive man when he’d been alive. Dead, he was worse. Stark naked, except for the embarrassingly tiny gold lamé bikini briefs he wore, he looked like something that had washed up on the beach. His protruding, hairy stomach seemed overly tight, like the skin of a drum. And his bald pate was sunburned. That was the last thing
Nikki noticed before she looked away.

  Her stomach did a flip-flop with the granola bar she and the boys had shared in the car ride to Mother’s. “Oh, Jessica,” she whispered.

  “I know.” Jessica stared right at him. “Hell of a sight, isn’t he?”

  “Miss Martin, you’re going to have to come down with me to the Hollywood precinct.”

  Jessica grabbed Nikki’s hand again. She was shaking. Jessica Martin wasn’t usually afraid of anything and she didn’t shake.

  “Am I being arrested?” she asked in a tremulous voice that sounded nothing like her own.

  “Not yet.” His response was dry. Emotionless. He acted as if he found dead men dead again all the time. Or he just didn’t care how many times Rex March died.

  “Can you come this way, Miss Martin?” It clearly wasn’t an invitation.

  Jessica clutched Nikki’s hand. “What am I going to do?” she begged, her eyes filling with tears again.

  “You’re going to answer the detective’s questions,” Nikki answered firmly.

  “But I don’t know how he got here. I didn’t do this. I swear to God, I didn’t.”

  “I’ll get you a lawyer.”

  “I don’t need a lawyer,” she declared shrilly. “I didn’t do anything wrong.”

  “I’ll get you one anyway.”

  “Miss Martin.” The detective took her arm.

  “Please, Nikki. Please.” Jessica let go of Nikki’s hand as he pulled her away. “You have to help me.”

  “This way.”

  Nikki’s eyes stung. “I’ll be right behind you, Jess. You said Hollywood precinct, right?” she called after the detective.

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  Nikki glanced back at Rex’s body before walking out of the bedroom. The sight of his dead body was deeply disturbing. Even more disturbing was the situation his body had put Jessica in. How did you get here? she wanted to ask him. And why the hell are you wearing those ridiculous briefs?

  Chapter 4

  Outside the doors of the LAPD Hollywood Station on Wilcox Avenue, Nikki took a deep breath and closed her eyes. It was early in the season for the Santa Ana, only the first week of October, but a warm, dry breeze teased the hair that had fallen from her ponytail. On the night air, she could smell the intoxicating fragrance of the white flowers blooming in the nearby bee brush.

  She took another deep breath, and rang her mother. It was nine fifty-nine; Victoria never received calls after ten p.m. She insisted on nine hours of beauty rest each night, unless she was making a public appearance, or there was an emergency. Jessica’s arrest for murder definitely did not count as an emergency. Nikki wasn’t entirely sure that if she had been arrested for Rex’s murder, her mother would have taken her call after ten.

  First, Nikki tried Victoria’s personal cell phone, but there was no answer. There never was. Victoria had not yet quite gotten the knack of cell phones and constantly misplaced them. This was the third cell Nikki had bought her this year. It was Nikki’s own voice on her mother’s recorded message. She hung up and called the house. Amondo answered.

  An Italian expat, he’d been working for Victoria for more than thirty years and served as her chauffeur, bodyguard, personal secretary, and in whatever other capacity he was needed. He adored Victoria and, secretly, Nikki thought she adored him.

  Nikki leaned against the brick wall of the police station and watched the cars crawl by. Across the street, a bail bond sign flashed OPEN 24 HRS.

  Cell phone use wasn’t permitted in the waiting room where she’d been holed up for hours, so she’d stepped outside. She’d needed a breath of fresh air, anyway. The waiting room stank of unwashed bodies, fish tacos, and . . . despair. The stark walls stirred up memories from her past that she just didn’t want roused. “It’s Nikki, Amondo,” she said, thankful to hear a friendly voice. “Is she still awake?”

  “You’re cutting it close tonight, cara mia,” he teased. “Let me get her.” After all these years, he no longer spoke with an Italian accent, but as with most Europeans, Nikki noticed, he had a certain cadence of speech. On Amondo, it was charming and sexy, even for a sixty-year-old man.

  He must have been with her in her bedroom suite because Victoria spoke at once into the phone. “I take it the dogs are sleeping over?”

  “If you don’t mind.” Nikki exhaled. She hadn’t seen Jessica in nearly three hours and no one, not the desk clerk or any cops she could waylay, could tell her anything about what was going on. The endless waiting was beginning to wear on her. She was tired and hungry and she just wanted to go home with her dogs and pretend none of this was happening. “I’m at the police station waiting for Jess. I don’t know how long I’ll be. I’ll get them tomorrow.”

  “They had chicken breast for dinner. Free range.”

  Nikki’s phone beeped. She had another call coming in. She glanced at the screen. It was Jeremy. What were the chances he’d heard about Jessica’s arrest already? She didn’t answer it. She’d talk with him later.

  “Amondo has walked them and tucked them in for the night in your room,” Victoria continued. “So I suppose they can stay.”

  Nikki leaned the back of her head against the wall as she watched an LAPD car zip out of its parking space in front of the station and down the street. She wondered if the cop was headed to a homicide or out for a bite. She doubted he’d be having free range chicken for dinner. “Aren’t you even going to ask me why Jess is at the police department?”

  “Finally arrested for prostitution?”

  “That’s not funny, Mother.”

  “Neither is being arrested for killing Rex March. Although, I suppose it is, when you think about it. Being arrested for killing a man who was already dead.”

  “You heard?” Nikki stood upright, gripping her BlackBerry. “How did you hear already?”

  Victoria chuckled. “Darling, you know I never reveal my sources.”

  Victoria had an intricate web of informants in Hollywood to rival any police department’s . . . probably even the FBI’s . . . and the CIA’s. Combined. Hairdressers, manicurists, doormen, all willing to lay down their lives to be certain Victoria Bordeaux was the first in Hollywood to know the latest news about anyone even remotely connected to her. In return, she granted them her glorious smile and the occasional ticket to a movie première or a gift bag of goodies she’d collected in a green room somewhere. She was actually quite kind to her informants and they were utterly loyal to her in return.

  “How did she kill him?” Victoria continued drolly. “I sent a four hundred dollar spray to his memorial service. I hope Edith doesn’t expect a second.”

  “Mother! How could you say such a thing? The man is dead.”

  “For a second time,” Victoria injected. “Let’s be honest, Nicolette, the man was always a liar. How do we know there won’t be a third?”

  “Jessica didn’t kill him.” Nikki ignored her mother’s witty sarcasm. “She didn’t even know he was alive.” She thought for a second. “You didn’t know he was alive, either, and I’m quite sure Edith didn’t.”

  “Right. Otherwise, she’d have been a bit more hush-hush about that beefcake moving in with her, wouldn’t she?”

  Some people thought Victoria Bordeaux was too outspoken. She was candid, but she was usually saying what others thought but wouldn’t dare say.

  “I should go, Mother. I just wanted to let you know where I am and that I’ll be by tomorrow to pick up Stan and Ollie.” She heard the rumble of a male voice, then her mother’s again.

  “Amondo says he’ll dog-sit tomorrow,” Victoria said. “He enjoys walking them. I have no earthly idea why. He’s going on about some kind of dog treats he’s bought for them. He’ll let them into your place tomorrow afternoon if that suits. He has your key.”

  Nikki smiled. Amondo had always been good to her . . . and to the dogs. “Tell him I’d appreciate that.” She hesitated. She didn’t really know what she wanted from her mother, why she’d really c
alled, beyond checking on Stan and Ollie. She just wanted to hear her mother’s voice, she supposed. Silly. “I should go. No one has told me anything about what’s happening. I’m not even sure if the police actually arrested Jessica or if they’re just questioning her, but I intend to find out.”

  “Please tell me you’re not going to get involved in this, Nicolette.”

  Nikki began to walk toward the glass doors that led inside, keeping her eye on a guy coming up the sidewalk, headed for the same door. He was dressed like an Amish man, of all things: full beard, straw hat, high-water pants and suspenders. In Hollywood, there were impersonators walking the streets every day: Marilyn Monroes, Elvises by the dozens, James Deans. Nikki had seen some crazy things in Hollywood, so crazy that she had begun to think nothing would surprise her. Then a man impersonating an Amish farmer appears at the police department . . . and Rex comes back from the dead to die again in Jessica’s bed. Nikki returned her attention to her mother, still eyeing the Amish guy.

  “She’s my best friend, Mother.”

  “I don’t know if she killed Rex or not. I don’t really care. I’m just saying this is a matter better left to professionals. To the police. Lawyers and such.”

  “The same way we left Dad’s murder investigation to the police?” Nikki hugged her bag to her side. “Is that what you mean, Mother?”

  Victoria sighed on the other end of the line. “Why don’t you come here tonight? Ina’s already gone, but I’m sure Amondo could make up your bed fresh for you.” Her voice wasn’t exactly gentle, but Nikki could hear the emotion behind her gruff exterior. Even though Victoria had been divorced from John Harper for many years by the time he had been murdered, she had mourned his death deeply. And gone to great lengths to hide that.

  “I don’t know where I’ll go tonight. Probably my place. Then again, I might be sleeping in a blue plastic chair.” Nikki waited for the Amish impersonator to enter the building before going through the front doors. “Talk to you tomorrow, Mother.”

  Victoria hung up. There were never good-byes on the phone with her.