by Cheryl Crane
“Ah hah.”
Nikki glanced at her mother in the dark, light from the movie screen flickering on her face. Every hair was in place, her eyebrows perfectly sculptured, her lips a luscious hue. In the gentler light, Victoria looked twenty years younger. She could have been Nikki’s sister.
“Ah hah? Ah hah, what?” Nikki asked.
“Ah hah, that’s a clue.”
“It is?”
“People don’t change the way they treat you from one day to the next without reason.”
“Meaning?”
“Shh,” Victoria hushed, pointing at the screen. “I love this line.”
Nikki watched as her mother mimicked Bette Davis, moving her lips as she was speaking the lines.
“Look at that shot.” Victoria swept her hand. “Bette Davis never looked so good as she did in one of Willi’s films. He was hard to work with, though.” She snapped her fingers. “Take after take with no instruction or critique. We never knew what he wanted out of us. I think that was the key to his brilliance as a director.” She glanced at Nikki. “Do you think he’s hiding something?”
“Who?” Nikki had a hard time following her mother’s conversations sometimes. Victoria was a conversation multitasker, if ever there was one.
“The boyfriend with the ridiculous name.”
“Thompson Christopher.”
“Right. Wait.” She held up a finger. “Listen to this delivery.”
Nikki returned her attention to the movie screen. Five minutes passed before Victoria spoke again. Nikki felt bad for their guests. She knew Victoria’s talking had to be a distraction from the movie. But Victoria did as she pleased and it pleased her to talk during her weekly movie nights. Honestly, depending on who she was talking to, sometimes the conversation in the screening room was better than the one on the screen. One of the most entertaining conversations Nikki had ever eavesdropped on had been between her mother and Jack Nicholson in this very room.
“Maybe the boyfriend is who you should be looking at.”
“You think?”
“Who’s got the most to lose if the dead husband isn’t really dead? The toy boy, of course.”
“Boy toy.”
“Whatever.” Victoria flicked her wrist.
“But you don’t really think Thompson would have killed Rex, do you?”
“My dear.” Victoria turned her full attention to Nikki. “If there’s one thing I know, it’s men. I’ve survived seven marriages, nine if you count the second time I married John and Syd. Let me tell you, men are ultimately about themselves. We women, we’ll kill to protect the men we love. Men will kill to protect the men they love.” She patted Nikki’s arm. “Themselves.”
Nikki chuckled.
“Did Edith and the boyfriend know Rex was still alive?”
“Actually,” Nikki said, thinking back on the conversation,
“I’m not sure. I asked Edith if she knew, but Thompson answered for her, saying she didn’t.”
“Someone’s hiding something. Oh, wait. I love this part.” Victoria indicated the screen.
A few minutes later, Victoria leaned over and spoke into her daughter’s ear. “I’ll bet you my black pearl cocktail ring that one of them is lying. One or both knew he was alive. Probably both.”
Nikki met her mother’s gaze. “You really think so?”
“It’s just like in Sister, Sister,” Victoria murmured, citing an MGM film that had made her a household name in the 1950s. “Remember? Eve and Angelina told their mother they knew nothing about the money their father had hidden, but it turned out Eve had seen him at the railway station talking to the man in the black hat. Eve knew but Angelina didn’t. It was Eve who knew about the money and who stole it from her mother, not Angelina, as everyone assumed.”
It hadn’t occurred to Nikki that the best way to investigate a murder was by using the plots of old movies, but Victoria certainly had a point. Whoever killed Rex had to have known he was alive. How the killer lured him into Jessica’s apartment, Nikki didn’t know. But it was a step in the right direction.
Chapter 8
The next evening, Nikki left Jessica on the couch with the remote and a cold cloth on her head and slipped into the backyard, doggies leading a merry chase ahead of her.
Jessica had a migraine, a minor side effect, as far as Nikki was concerned, of another interview with the police. This time they came to the office Nikki and Jess shared at Windsor Real Estate. Apparently, Hollywood’s finest had concluded that it was unlikely that Rex had been killed in Jessica’s apartment. Jessica had thought that meant she was off the hook. She was not, hence the headache and the new handbag from Fendi that Nikki had had to stop for on the way home.
The police also informed Jessica that the medical examiner’s office was having difficulty placing the time of his death, but again, not letting her off the hook. Apparently, they thought the beautiful young real estate agent was far more devious than she looked. And smarter. How did a woman in four-inch Blahniks carry a two-hundred-and-fifty-pound dead man into her apartment without anyone noticing? The good news, of course, was that despite the scowls from Detective Brown Suit, Jess hadn’t been arrested.
Nikki followed the stone path through the overgrown garden in her backyard, past the beds of yarrow, paper flowers and prince’s plume, to the gate that led from her property to her neighbor’s. Victoria was always offering to send Jorge over to cut back her jungle, but Nikki loved it, just like she loved her Craftsman-style bungalow, which her mother called plebian.
“Knock knock,” she called as she went through the arched wood-and-iron gate. The dogs shot past her, their big ears flying behind them.
Nikki’s dear friend Marshall lay in a lounge chair beside the pool, bare-chested and barefoot in a pair of shorts. For a man whose net worth was somewhere around two hundred and fifty million, he was still a pretty down-to-earth guy. Marshall Thunder was a big screen icon, at the top of his game at the age of forty-two. A strikingly handsome, full-blooded Native American, he was versatile enough to do romantic comedies, action thrillers and dramas. He was one of the top paid male actors in the business and because he was single, the number one heartthrob with females ages eighteen to fifty. He’d made People magazine’s Top 50 Sexiest Men list the last three years in a row.
Marshall set aside the paper he was reading to look at her over his dark sunglasses. “I was wondering when you’d pop up. I’ve been worried about you, hon.”
The dogs rounded the pool, ran to Marshall to greet him with a few licks and then took off again. He wiped his mouth. “Don’t tell Rob you saw that. You know how he feels about kissing after dogs.”
She smiled and plopped down in the lounge chair beside him. The sun was beginning to set, but it was still bright out. She was glad she’d grabbed her sunglasses on her way out the door.
“You okay?” Marshall asked.
She eyed him. “You shouldn’t be sitting out here like that. Are you wearing sunscreen? You had that skin cancer scare last year.”
“Thanks, Mom. But who ever heard of a pale-skinned redskin? And you didn’t answer my question. Jessica is all over the news.” He picked up the tabloid newspaper he’d been reading. “It says here there’ve been claims she had Rex’s baby last year. Someone’s calling her the Stiletto Stinger.”
Nikki groaned and lay back in the lounge chair.
“You have to admit it’s catchy,” he said.
The dogs were barking wildly at something and she glanced over to see that they’d cornered a toad at the fence. “Oliver, Stanley, leave it!” she called. There was little worse than toadtinged doggie breath. Remarkably, the dogs bounded off, headed for another adventure.
“The Stiletto Stinger? And you ask me how I am?” she said. “Worried half to death, that’s how I am. And why didn’t you ask how Jessica was?”
“Because Jessica’s not one of my best bosom buddies in the world.” He tossed the newspaper in the pile on the stone patio. Marshall
was a great fan of the tabloid newspapers: National Enquirer, Star magazine, Weekly World News. Fanzines, too. He bought them all and read them cover to cover every week. The fact that it was mostly lies and he sued them regularly didn’t seem to dampen his adoration. “And Jessica can take care of herself.”
Nikki groaned. “I can take care of myself.”
“And by taking care of yourself, you mean getting involved in a police murder investigation?”
“How did you—” She glanced at him. “Please don’t tell me that Mother called you.”
“Okay, I won’t.” He flashed his multimillion-dollar smile. “But she’s right. This is none of your business.” He folded his hands, resting them on his rock-hard abdomen.
Marshall was six-foot-two, monstrous for a Native American, although he’d once told her men and women of his tribe—the Oneida, part of the Iroquois League—were taller than most Native Americans. He had inky black hair, killer brown eyes, high cheekbones, and a muscle-cut bod to die for. It was really too bad he was taken, and had been for the last ten years, a fact that his fans were completely unaware of.
The house—here, next door to Nikki’s—was technically Rob’s house. Marshall owned a neoclassical monstrosity on Beverly Drive where he entertained when his agent forced him to. He rarely spent more than a night or two there a month. Unbeknownst to his fans, Wetherly Drive was home sweet home and had been for almost ten years.
“It’s none of my business that one of my best friends has been accused of a crime she didn’t commit?” Nikki asked. “It’s none of my business that an innocent woman could go to jail for . . . for life, for something she didn’t do?”
“Enough with the drama. You know very well she was banging him.”
Nikki whipped off her sunglasses. “That’s not a crime punishable by a prison sentence.”
“You’re probably right.” Marshall tilted his head, grimacing. “Rex March was a pretty big slimy slug. Doing him was probably punishment enough.”
“I can’t believe my mother called you.” She leaned back and closed her eyes. “She called Jeremy, too.”
“That’s our girl.”
Nikki tilted her chin up to get the last warmth of the fall sun. “You know, you shouldn’t encourage her. She’s worse when you encourage her. All of you.”
“It’s a conspiracy for sure,” he teased, but then his voice grew more serious. “So tell me what’s going on, sweetie. She didn’t kill him, right?”
Nikki opened her eyes to check on the dogs. Oliver had parked himself under the shade of the diving board on the far side of the kidney-shaped saltwater pool. Stanley was wandering along the water’s edge, sniffing with great enthusiasm. “Of course she didn’t kill him.”
“So how did he get in her apartment? Dead?”
“I don’t know. She doesn’t know. Apparently, he was killed somewhere else and moved there.”
“Did she know he wasn’t really dead?”
“Oh, he was dead all right. I saw him.”
“You saw him?” Marshall shuddered. “But I meant the first time. The supposed plane crash.”
Nikki shook her head. “She says she didn’t know he was still alive, and I believe her. Why would she lie?”
“Well, there’s an obvious answer to that question.”
She glared at him.
“Just sayin’,” he argued.
“Well, don’t say. I’m telling you, she didn’t do it. She might be a girl with loose morals but she is not a murderer.”
He studied her for a second. “There’s all kinds of speculation as to what happened, you know. Concerning the circumstances of Rex’s ‘death’ six months ago.”
Nikki didn’t respond. Stanley wandered over to look at her with big brown eyes and she tapped the chair, indicating he could jump up and lie beside her. He rewarded her with a slew of wet doggie kisses. He was such a sweetheart.
“They’re saying he faked his death,” Marshall went on, “because he was going to jail for tax evasion and that he’s been living in Spain with his granddaughter’s nanny.”
“Well, I don’t know about the nanny-in-Spain part. I didn’t even think he spoke to his daughter. She was from his first marriage, before his Hollywood days. And who knows about the taxes? What I do know is that obviously he faked his death in that plane crash. I just can’t figure out why.”
“Oh, I can think of a million reasons.” Marshall studied his manicure.
“You can?” She took off her sunglasses again. “Like?”
“I didn’t really know him, but most likely money problems. Living beyond his means. Maybe wife problems. And his career was certainly in the toilet. Hence the money problems.”
“But he had to be making millions on the residuals for that stupid TV show he starred in. Nickelodeon plays it seven nights a week.”
“But who knows how he spent his money: gambling, whores, drugs?”
She scowled. “Okay, so what if he did run away to Spain with the nanny. Why come back?”
“It’s a mystery, isn’t it?”
Nikki wanted to throw her glasses at him. Instead, she perched them on Stanley’s nose. They were vintage Persol and he looked pretty cute in them. “Whoever killed him obviously knew he was alive, so I’ve got to find out who knew.”
“How about his wife?”
“That’s what Mother said.” She scratched Stanley behind his sunglasses. “Edith isn’t a killer.”
“Did she know her husband was still alive?”
“I went by to see her. She says not. She seemed genuinely upset.”
“You actually asked her?” Marshall chuckled. “Damn, girl, you’ve got gonads. You going to hang a shingle, NIKKI HARPER, P.I.?”
“This isn’t funny, Marshall. We’re talking about a dead man. Someone put a sharp object through his eye, into his brain, and killed him.”
“Ewww,” he groaned, waving his hunky man-hands. “You didn’t have to tell me that. I’ll have nightmares now, and I’m going to call you and wake you up when I do.”
Nikki took her sunglasses off the patient pooch. “See, the thing is, Edith said she didn’t know Rex was still alive.” She pointed the glasses at Marshall. “But something didn’t seem quite right when I was there yesterday.”
“What? She wasn’t acting enough like the grieving widow? She thought he was already dead, Nik. And we have to keep in mind, there was no love lost between them. Rex March was a lying, cheating scumbag to the Nth degree and everyone in Hollywood knew it, most of all his wife. I was surprised she wasn’t dancing a frickin’ jig at his memorial service.” He wrinkled his nose. “You think she’ll have another? What’s the etiquette here? I mean, do you throw the guy another memorial service, now that he’s really dead?”
“Marshall, you’re digressing. You’re supposed to be helping me think this through. Edith was upset when I was there yesterday,” Nikki said. “She’d been crying. But she wasn’t upset that he was dead, per se.”
“Maybe she was upset because Rex came alive long enough to make a mess of her life again?”
“Possibly, but it seemed like something more. Different.”
“What about the hunky boyfriend?”
Nikki rolled her eyes. Marshall had a crush on Thompson Christopher. Marshall had wanted to go with her to the party at Edith’s the other night, just so he could drool over the actor, but his agent hadn’t been able to get him out of a previous commitment.
Nikki thought back to her visit. “Mr. Hunky was attentive to Edith. He was saying all the right things. Doing all the right things. But he seemed upset, too. Both of them acted like they didn’t want me there. And they’d been super-friendly the night of the party—before Rex turned up again. Genuinely friendly.”
“Hmm,” Marshall pondered. “Maybe Rob will know something. He’s not in the Hollywood department, but you know very well that cops talk. They’re worse than teenage girls.” He looked at her. “You want me to ask him what the scuttlebutt is? Maybe h
e knows something the police aren’t telling Jessica.”
Rob Bastone was Marshall’s sweet, kind partner of ten years, who disguised himself as a tattooed, hard-ass L.A. police detective.
She sat up and Stanley crawled into her lap. Realizing his pal was getting all the attention, Oliver high-tailed it toward her. “Can he do that?”
Marshall sat up and scooped Oliver into his lap. “For me?” He grinned and scratched Oliver behind the ears. “For me, sweetie, he’d do anything.”
“What about that time he refused to sneak you into the Ricky Martin concert he was doing security for?”
“That?” Marshall stroked Oliver’s silky coat. “It wasn’t that he didn’t want me to see Ricky. He was concerned for my safety.”
She grinned. “Ah.”
“I’ll feel him out.” He wrinkled his large, well-shaped nose, somehow managing to appear both gay and heartthrobby at the same time. “He knows how much I love gossip.”
“I’d appreciate any help you guys could give me.” Nikki rose. “I better get back to Jessica.”
“What you better do is have a hot cup of tea and get the tea bags on those bags under your eyes. You need some sleep.” He deposited Ollie on the ground and walked with her toward the gate. “You need a Xanax or something?”
She glanced at him, making a face. “You know me better than that. I don’t need a Xanax.”
The dogs raced away, taking one more lap around the pool before they headed home, sweet home, to bed. Without a Xanax.
Nikki sat in her car on Outpost Drive, studying the gate leading up to the March house. She wanted to get inside and talk to Edith’s house staff; the staff always knew the details of their employers’ lives. She’d been clever enough to come when she knew Edith would be at her regularly scheduled hair appointment. It was funny how intimately she got to know a client, and then they just disappeared from her life after the sale.
So, Nikki knew Edith and Thompson wouldn’t be there. He always went with her when she got her hair done. But what Nikki didn’t know was how she was going to get in. Even though she had been showing the house regularly for months, she didn’t have the code to get in the front gate. She and Jessica always scheduled the appointment and just called up to the house when they arrived. One of the servants would then let them in, as per Edith’s instructions.