Gloria flicked a finger. “Read the one you’re holding.”
Using a nail file sitting on the dressing table, I opened the envelope and pulled out a sheet of standard bond paper. As I unfolded the sheet, Mylar stars fell out. The note was typed but a young hand had written the signature.
Dear Miss Morning, I love your show. You are the greatest. I love to see you smile and laugh. Don’t ever change.
Sincerely,
Brittney, age eight
“What does it say?” Gloria asked.
I read it aloud.
“That’s so sweet.” There were tears in Gloria’s eyes as she chewed on her already ragged thumb. “See? So many are like that. Why did that horrible person send the others?”
Why, indeed?
I stowed the two letters from the anonymous admirer as well as the newest letter into the garbage bag with the others and laid my hand on my friend’s shoulder. “Put some vitamin E on your thumb. It’ll heal in a week.”
“Will do.”
I gave her a hug and asked if she was going to be okay.
She nodded and sank into her makeup chair. “Beau will make sure I get home safely.”
Beau. God’s gift to women. Was he to be trusted?
When I went to retrieve Candace, she was chatting animatedly with Tom Regent. The rest of the crew had vanished. As I drew near, I heard Candace asking Tom about camera angles, lenses, and the best equipment. In her arms, she held a number of DVDs in jewel cases.
“Where’d you get those?” I asked.
“Camille let me borrow them. They’re last month’s shows. I missed a lot of them because of school.” Candace’s gaze grew tentative. “It’s okay, isn’t it? I mean, we can return them any time, Camille said.”
“Sure. It’s fine.” I turned to Tom and thrust out my hand. “It’s been a pleasure.”
He shook with me and patted Candace on the back. “Great daughter you have. She’s just like you. Pretty and inquisitive.”
“I’m her aunt.”
“My apology. You look so much alike.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment.”
“Yes, ma’am, and hey, if you want to ask me more questions, you go right ahead.” Tom cocked his hip to one side, striking a casual pose.
“Okay, where were you yesterday around three or four in the afternoon?” Might as well address his alibi for the Vittorio murder first.
His gaze cut up to the right. “Let’s see. I was getting exterior shots of Ambrose Alley around that time.”
“By yourself?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“You and Gloria are on good terms?”
“The best.”
“How do you feel about Beau?”
“An adequate director. Bit of a blowhard.”
“Did you know Dr. Kristin Fisher?”
“Only via the interview.” His forehead creased. “Anything else?”
“No, not for now,” I said, because honestly I couldn’t figure out his motive. Yet.
I wrapped my arm around my niece’s shoulders and led her out of the studio. The glare of sunlight hurt my eyes. I started to perspire. The heat index must have risen ten degrees since we’d gone into the studio. “Boy, it’s hot.”
“No kidding.” Candace shrugged out of her hoodie, climbed into the Jeep, and flung the DVDs on the rear seat. “Air-conditioning. Please.”
I tossed the bag of fan mail into the backseat and skimmed the DVD titles. Most were marked with dates in April and May and a few from June. Could Gloria’s interviews of Tony Vittorio or Kristin Fisher be among them? If so, would I find something that suggested either of them had harmed Gloria? What if their interviews were so awful that the ratings had fallen? I stifled a bitter laugh. Lousy ratings would not have been the reason Gloria’s admirer would have killed two people. If the notes were to be believed, the killer had assumed the role of protector, intent on excising a malicious person from Gloria’s life.
My goal was to identify the culprit and stop the madness.
Chapter 12
Candace twisted in the passenger seat, her face flushed and eyes pinched. “Are you mad at me, Aspen?”
“What? No, of course I’m not. Buckle your seat belt.”
“As we were leaving, you glowered at me. You reminded me of Mom for a second.”
I winced. The last thing I wanted to do was to come across like Rosie. How I wished I could clock my sister for how she’d treated her daughter.
“I’m not mad. I’m concerned. We have boundaries about what we’re allowed to tell people. You didn’t know Tripp longer than ten minutes, and yet you gave out all sorts of personal information.”
“I’m sorry.” She worried her hands in her lap.
As we drove past Vittorio’s Ristorante, a number of people were standing on the shoulder of the road taking photographs. My stomach knotted. Would curiosity for the macabre always lure onlookers? How I hoped his murder would be the last for a long time, and my aunt’s premonition about more murders was wrong.
My cell phone jangled. I pressed the button on the steering wheel to answer. “Hello?”
“Aspen! You. Won’t. Believe. It.” Gloria’s voice spiraled upward. “You just won’t!”
I peeked at Candace. Her eyes were as wide as an owl’s. I said, “What happened? Are you okay?”
“I’m fine. But a whole string of lights and gels fell. Like a hailstorm. There I was sitting on the set, reviewing my notes for tomorrow’s schedule, and suddenly lights were crashing. Everywhere. And electricity was sparking.”
“Are you hurt?”
“No, I jumped off the set so they missed me, but they were heading straight for me.” Gloria gulped in a series of quick short breaths. “Aspen, the murderer is after me. I’m sure of it.”
“Calm down. Did anyone see what happened?”
“Camille. And Beau. And Tom. Beau railed at Camille for skimping on chintzy equipment. Tom, too. Camille shouted that it was an accident and stormed out. Then Beau and Tom left.”
“I thought Beau was going to see you home.”
“Turns out he had a doctor’s appointment. I’m not sure where Tom went.”
So much for the men in her life standing by her side.
“Are you alone at the studio?” I asked, wondering if I should make a U-turn.
“Yes, well, no, that’s not true. I’m not alone alone. Marie is at reception. And Rick is cleaning up some technical stuff. But I’m alone in my dressing room. Aspen, you’ve got to help me.” Her voice quavered with anxiety.
“Attacking you doesn’t make sense, Miss Morning,” Candace said, raising her voice to be heard. “The person who wrote the notes doesn’t want to hurt you.”
Gloria said, “Do you think he wanted to kill someone else? Camille was on the set right before me. What if he wanted to kill her for my glory?”
I shivered.
“Aspen, please find out who’s doing this. Please. I’m going to leave here and see my therapist. And I think I’ll hire a bodyguard for tonight. Bye.” Gloria ended the call.
“She can be quite dramatic,” Candace said.
True, but was she overreacting now? I didn’t think so. I’d seen the notes. And how in the heck had equipment fallen on the set? Had the white-haired man rigged it? What about Rick or Tom? One of them must have overseen the placement of the gels and such.
“You’ve got to tell Nick what’s going on,” Candace said. “He should—”
“I know what he needs to do,” I snapped and instantly regretted my tone. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have brought you to the studio today. You don’t need to worry yourself with Gloria’s problem or with murder.”
“I’m a big girl. I can handle it.”
She was a big girl. Just not big enough.
“Sweetheart, I want to find more things for you to do this summer in case your friends cancel. How about camp? There’s a wonderful sleep-away camp called Walton’s not far from here. It has horseback
riding and hiking and lots of girls your age go to it. I went there as a girl. I’m sure I could—”
“I’m too old for camp.”
She was right. The kids her age would already be counselors-in-training. “Okay, in the meantime—”
“If I go on an appointment with you, I have to act as professionally as you do. Got it.” She smacked her thigh. “And a PI never reveals anything to anybody except to the authorities or to her client. Ever.”
I chuckled. “You’ve read Aunt Max’s handbook.”
“I blew it today, but I’ll learn. Promise. If Gloria wanted us to pretend that you were a reporter, we needed to do what she wanted. I said we because you and I”—she motioned between us—“we were a team the moment we entered the . . . Aspen, watch out!”
I swerved out of the way of a bare-chested man in a swimsuit trying to run across Highway 28 as we neared Magic Carpet Miniature Golf. “Jerk,” I muttered.
Candace twisted in her seat. “Hey, since we’re a team, I’ve got some opinions about the people who work with Gloria if you want to hear.”
“No, thanks.” I didn’t want Candace dwelling on the case. To be honest, I didn’t want to brood over it myself.
Candace crossed her arms and pouted. The teenager sulk, I’d dubbed it when working at BARC.
Reluctantly, I said, “Okay, talk. I’ll bet you have good instincts.”
Candace faced me again, her eyes gleaming with pride. “Tripp’s nice.”
“He doesn’t work with Gloria.”
“He’s sweet,” Candace went on, “but he’s pretty immature for eighteen. Tom’s cool. I mean, Mr. Regent.”
“Why do you think he’s cool?”
“He didn’t treat me like a kid. He took time to explain.”
Tom seemed nice enough, but I was pretty sure an angry sea raged inside him. Plus, he had a serious crush on Gloria. Did he kill two people for her glory? Why? What was his motive?
“I don’t like Miss St. John,” Candace said.
“She loaned you the DVDs.”
“She did it to make me think she’s nice, but she’s a phony.” Candace pulled a lip gloss from her purse and dabbed her lips. “And she’s too buff.”
I cut Candace an amused look. “You have no idea how much work it takes for a woman in her forties to keep fit. I’ll bet she devotes hours at the gym to look that good.”
“Hah! You mean to look that hard.”
Was Camille strong enough to wrestle Dr. Fisher into submission or overpower Tony Vittorio? She couldn’t be taller than five-foot-five, but she had been a masseuse, which meant she was strong.
“What did you think of the director?” I asked.
“Beau? He’s full of himself, and it was super obvious that he didn’t like Tripp’s dad one iota. He’s like an open book.”
I felt the same. Beau had won Gloria’s heart. Was he afraid of losing it? Did he question her loyalty because she flirted unabashedly with other men? Had he killed to regain her undivided attention? The notion made me shudder.
As we neared the Placer County Sheriff’s Office, North Lake Tahoe, a gray building that housed not only the sheriff but also the superior court, jail, and district attorney’s office, I thought of Nick. He was skeptical that the notes were truly linked to the murders. We needed to talk.
I pulled into the station’s parking lot. It was empty except for a sedan and a couple of SUVs, none of which were Nick’s Wrangler. On the off chance the Wrangler was back at the body shop and Nick was in, I suggested Candace stay in the Jeep and I traipsed inside.
A narrow hall faced reception, which also doubled as the records office. A bulletproof window, inset with two metal speak-thru grills and two slots beneath the window for depositing things like IDs or payments, divided the foyer and the office. To the left, through a glass door, was an L-shaped foyer that served as the waiting area for superior court.
The reception/records office was arranged with large horizontal case file drawers, a set of floor-to-ceiling wooden cubbies, and a cubicle fitted with oak desks and more filing cabinets. In addition, there was a gigantic bin for documents due to be shredded and corkboards with announcements posted to them. My favorite thing in the office was the note affixed to the inbox: This is the only inbox.
To the left, out of view, was the jailer’s office. Straight ahead was the door leading to the jail and other rooms on the lower floor, including a large kitchen and the evidence room. Unseen stairs led to the second floor, where the captain, lieutenant, detectives, and deputies had their offices and held their briefings.
A freckle-faced clerk who preferred to go by her last name, Zook, approached the bulletproof window. “Hi, Aspen. Help you?”
“Is Nick in?”
“Sorry, no.”
“I have something pertaining to the recent murders that I’d like him to see.”
“You can leave whatever it is with me.”
I didn’t feel comfortable releasing Gloria’s notes. I worried they might get lost in bureaucratic paperwork. “I’ll hold on to them for now. Thanks. Please tell Nick that I stopped by.”
“Well?” Candace said when I climbed into the driver’s seat. She was keeping rhythm on the dashboard with rock music so loud that even the avid fan would go crazy. “Was Nick there? Is he putting our tax dollars to work?”
I turned down the music. “I hope so.”
Chapter 13
When we arrived home, Candace retreated to her room to play a video game. I fed Cinder, poured myself a glass of wine, and set about making dinner. While seasoning the spaghetti sauce, I thought about Nick. How were he and his team doing on finding the killer or killers? Should I call him and invite him over? He loved my spaghetti.
As if fate were listening in on my thoughts, the telephone rang. Nick was on the line.
I set the oregano aside and answered. “You’ve been busy. Want to come by for a bite? We can catch up.”
“Wish I could. I’m taking my sister to an AA meeting.”
I’d met Natalie a couple of times. She lived with Nick and worked at Safeway. She’d been sober for over a year. Taking care of her as dutifully as he did was one of the many reasons why I loved him.
“Anything new on the murder investigations?” I asked.
“Nothing I can share.” Nick stifled a yawn. “Anything new with your note writer?”
“Gloria’s scared. She feels she’s being stalked.” I told him about the gels and lights falling.
“Didn’t you say the notes were written by someone who wants to protect her?”
“The light fiasco could have been aimed at her producer, I guess.” I explained why and then gave him my take on Gloria’s coworkers. Camille St. John was domineering. Beau was full of himself. Rick Tamblyn was meticulous to a fault. Vaughn Jamison was a passive-aggressive type, ready to erupt. And Tom Regent was an enigma.
“Sounds like you have a full roster of suspects, Sherlock.”
“Don’t make fun.”
He chuckled half-heartedly. “Do any of them have motives for either murder?”
“I haven’t figured that out yet. If I leave you the notes, will you take them seriously?”
“Yes.”
• • •
In the morning, although I felt bleary-eyed and wrung out from nightmares peppered with falling lights and paper cuts, I ran my usual six miles with Cinder. A blistering hot shower helped recharge my brain. A brisk rub with aloe lotion revived the rest of me.
On the way to the kitchen, however, I caught a glimpse of myself in the antique mirror in the hallway. Dull eyes, limp hair. The brown Earth Day T-shirt I’d donned over my beige capris wasn’t helping.
I quickly changed into a red shirt—wearing red always enhanced my mood—and then rapped on Candace’s door. “You awake?”
In spite of her protestations about my needing to entertain her daily, I’d contacted Waverly’s mom and set a date for today. My house; my rules. Waverly was on the mend. The girls wou
ld go shopping and then to a late lunch and an early movie.
I rapped again. I didn’t hear any movement. “Candace?” I opened the door and saw her lying facedown on the guest bed, covers kicked off, feet hanging over the end. I rushed to her. “Sweetie, are you okay?”
“Huh?” Candace turned her head toward me. Her face was creased with wrinkles from her pillow cover but her color was good. She wasn’t ill.
I breathed a sigh of relief. Would I ever get past the worry that she’d revert to her old habits of purging or starving herself? I said, “Time to rise and shine. Waverly and her mom will be here in an hour.”
I fed Cinder and ate a protein bar while keeping an ear out for Candace. By the time she emerged a half hour later, she looked happy and clear-eyed and ready for a day of fun.
As I drove to work, I thought again about the link between Gloria and Dr. Fisher and Tony Vittorio. Why did the murderer think the victims would hurt Gloria? Would Heather know whether Gloria and Dr. Fisher had clashed?
I phoned Dr. Fisher’s office. Heather answered. She sounded distracted, upset. I would be distressed, too, if I had to manage an office where not just a murder but the murder of my mother had occurred. Under the pretense of needing another doctor—Coke was a bust—I asked Heather for a new referral. She provided one.
I was about to ask her about Gloria, when she blurted, “Edward”—her voice caught—“Bogart.”
“What about him?”
“Would you check on him? He’s staying at the motel in Tahoe City. The American one.”
“America’s Best?”
“That’s it. He came to town to meet with the sheriff and to handle the funeral.”
My heart ached. “When will that take place?”
“In a couple of days. Mother wished to be cremated. No mourners. No fanfare. You understand.”
I nodded. Many people wanted privacy on such occasions.
“Would you check on him?” she went on. “We don’t have the best relationship, but I’m worried about him.”
How could she have a good relationship with a man who’d basically disowned her?
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