Murder at the Academy Awards (R): A Red Carpet Murder Mystery

by Joan Rivers

  “See, here’s the thing, Max. Halsey and I had been like a couple. Long story. Anyway, back when Halsey and I were together, she got kind of ticked off when we broke up.”

  I nodded. “You broke up with Halsey to date Drew, is that correct?”

  “Right. Sort of blew Halsey away, which it shouldn’t have. I mean, I had a history as a player, right? And she did too. But I guess she hadn’t had anyone leave her that way, and it was rough at first. So anyway, she wanted to let me know she was, like, pissed, and she took my car and ran it into a tree. Basically totaled my Lamborghini. Yeah. So that was like a two-hundred-grand loss right there.”

  “Ouch.”

  “I know, right? Anyway, since Drew and I split up this last time, I’ve been cleaning up my act, right? Only, without my former cash stream, you know, it’s been pretty tough. So, anyway, I had been back in touch with Halsey, and she was doing great in rehab.” He paused, then his eyes went suddenly glassy, struck as we all can be at unexpected times, with the shock of loss. “You should have seen her, Max. She was so happy and centered.”

  I felt a momentary rush of tears too, but with effort kept them down. “I’m glad she was getting her life in order,” I whispered. “Good for her.”

  “I know,” said Burke, no tears shed, the moment passing. “And now that she was sober, she was totally sorry about killing my car. Anyway, I called her. You know, to see how she was doing. And she said come on over to the house, and she’d give me something to make up for the Lamborghini.”

  I patted at the corner of my eye. “The diamonds.”

  “Right. Like her dad kept all her money locked up in investments or whatever and was giving her a real hard time about paying me back. And this bra was a gift, right? So he didn’t even realize they were real diamonds yet, she said. Turns out her stylist took the diamonds off the bra that afternoon, so Halsey could wear the bra under her gown, and Halsey just handed them over. Like we’re even. Like it was one of the twelve steps she was working on, she said.”

  “I see. So they really are yours.”

  “No.” He pulled a little velvet bag out of his jacket pocket. The diamonds. “Drew said she got them from the hotel safe this morning. She gave them back to me at Halsey’s service. But I want you to keep them.” He handed me the bag. “To pay you back for the lawyer’s retainer fee and everything.”

  I felt the weight of so many small stones inside the bag. “Well, you’re going to need money. Sol was able to negotiate you out of an international-drug-running rap. It’ll cost you a hell of a lot more than that retainer. On the other hand…” I thought of the pain and suffering he’d caused us. “Perhaps I’ll just keep them.”

  “Okay, Max. Like I said, thanks.”

  “And one more thing, what I heard, you were selling your story to Devon Jones.”

  “That? Nothing important. A week ago, maybe two. I was looking for ways to raise cash. Legitimate ways. So when Entertainment Tonight was doing a piece on the hottest clubs in town and beyond, I signed on for one. Why not? They gave me five thou. Nothing too drastic.”

  I knew how this worked. Devon had lucked into that little featurette, a filler piece, and the video interview it provided her with. With Burke’s past connection to Halsey, that innocuous footage of Burke talking about clubs and vacations of the young, rich, and famous could be rejiggered and maybe spun into gold. It didn’t matter what he had really said or what questions he had answered, a creative editor could make it sound as if he were responding to new questions about the death of Halsey.

  “Did she ask about Drew?” I asked, checking my theory.

  “I think so. Yeah. I mean, of course, she knew we had been engaged. She asked about all the friends in our group, really. Halsey too. Where we all liked to play, hang out, things like that.”

  “And Mexico?”

  “Drew and me hanging out in Cabo, sure,” he said, his face suddenly starting to cloud. “Why?”

  After hearing gossip on the Hollywood circuit for years about Burke and Halsey and the trouble these kids had with booze and muscle relaxants, Devon must have done some decent guessing about where they got their recreational drugs. Mix in Halsey’s overdose on Soma, a death that she herself had orchestrated, and there you have it, ladies and gentlemen, a little thing we laughingly call “the news.”

  “Devon Jones was a liar and much worse,” I said. “Why would you tell anyone on-camera about your trips to Mexico? You have to think first, Burke.”

  He looked more upset. “I only talked about the discos and beaches.”

  “Look, there are a lot of things you’re going to learn about dealing with Hollywood sharks. But let me give you a lesson right now. The only crazy bitch I ever want to hear you’ve sold a story to again…is me.”

  He crossed his heart over the polo-player logo on his jacket. “It’s a deal.”

  He drifted away, and I kept my eye out for my own tight, little circle of friends. So far, no sight at all of Dr. Bob and Sheree, or of Sir Ian, or Drew. Perhaps they hadn’t waited around for the dinner? Nah. They must be here.

  I walked past the memorial wall that separated the cemetery from the Paramount Studios lot to the north, a long, blank wall upon which was projected scenes from all of Halsey’s movies. Now, a close-up of Halsey, tantalizingly alive, her long, dark hair whipped back in the wind. Such beauty. I couldn’t hear the sound, but I recognized her Oscar-nominated performance from The Bones of War.

  “Mother? Is that you?”

  I turned to see Drew. “Darling.”

  “What on earth happened to you?” She looked at me closely, upset.

  “The suit was an old Chanel, anyway. The shoes are another story…”

  “Not your clothes, Mother,” Drew said, exasperated. “You.”

  “Me? Nothing. Nothing at all. I had a little business that came up and—”

  But before I could drop the big bomb, Drew, quite remarkably, was the one to explode. “You! You are always late. Aren’t you? I waited. But I knew what was happening.”

  I shook my head, stunned. “What are you talking about, honey? I was—”

  But she never let me explain. Instead, my girl, who never cries, began weeping. “You’re so busy with your clothes and your appearance, you even let me go to the funeral. All alone. You came late.”

  And I suddenly realized Drew was not talking about this funeral. Nor was she crying entirely about Halsey. I was stricken. “Your father?”

  “My father was a wonderful man,” she said, her voice harsh and gravelly. “He deserved more from you. He…” Her sobs had taken her over.

  “Oh my God, Drew,” I said, shocked at her pain. “I did go to your father’s funeral.”

  “Liar!” She kept crying. “I was there, Mother. There were only three of us. Just Auntie Julie and Uncle Richard and me. You came late. You didn’t even stand with us.”

  “Shhh,” I said, pulling her close to me. She didn’t resist, so I held her tight. “Drew. Shhh. I was there just behind a tree. I was wearing my Cavalli camouflage dress.” It had been ten years, but it was like yesterday. “You know how much publicity follows me everywhere. It’s a fact of life, of course.”

  Even ten years ago, when the paparazzi weren’t half as bad, and when most stars received less attention than someone like Halsey Hamilton, the story of my ex-husband’s death had rocked the tabloids. We had divorced two years earlier, but his suicide was big, ugly news, and I was followed wherever I went. “Honey, Uncle Richard didn’t want me there. He begged me not to show up. They were afraid that the press would make your father’s funeral a circus. So I snuck in. I was the green bush next to that massive oak.”

  “What?” asked Drew, looking up at me. “I never heard that.”

  “You were young, sweetie. You’d just lost your wonderful father. Who wanted to burden you with all the stress? Uncle Richard wanted me to stay away. It was his brother who died. He had a right to ask it. Richard wanted me nowhere near that service. And
neither did Aunt Julie. So I hid. Of course I was there.”

  “But I stood there, all alone,” Drew said, her tears still falling.

  “I made a deal with the rabbi,” I said, smoothing her hair as I talked. “He let me come to the mortuary very early, before anyone in the press arrived outside. I came and I sat with your father that day. And we talked, honey.”

  “Oh, Mom.”

  “And I told him I was sorry, sweetie. Not that he wasn’t totally responsible for our divorce. But I wanted him to know I wished we had made it work out. For you.” I opened my bag, pulled out a tissue, and handed it to Drew. “I’m sorry, Drew. For everything I couldn’t make right.”

  As she patted under her eyes to save her makeup, I thought I saw the beginning of a smile. “But you are such a control freak, Mom, that you do. You make it right all the time.”

  I think there was a compliment in there, somewhere, and I hugged her again.

  Drew said, “I’m glad I’m standing here crying, I really am. Believe me, I have plenty to cry about. I had a lot of things I never got to say to Halsey, Mom. It’s a lesson. We have to say we’re sorry when we have the chance.”

  I looked up. “Drew, I never told you the thing Halsey said to me, when she was so sick and…dying. Remember I was upset, and she had been rambling?”

  Drew looked at me. “Sure. What did she say?”

  “She said I should tell you she didn’t blame you. I thought she was confused, honey. Why should Halsey blame you? But now, I just realized…”

  “Burke,” Drew said. Then she smiled at me, wiping more tears as they fell. “She finally forgave me for Burke.” Then she turned her head. “Glam-TV, approaching on your left.”

  I turned and watched Nicholas Milo, the movie-star handsome young president of Glam, approach us.

  “Max and Drew,” he said, “I’m glad I found you together.”

  “Hi, Nick,” Drew said.

  He gave us each a kiss on the cheek. “You okay, Max?” he asked, noticing my non-outfit.

  “Deconstruction, Nick. It’s what they’ll all be wearing to funerals for years to come.”

  He nodded, perhaps making mental notes to tell his girlfriend to rip a seam. “Look, you were terrific this year. Just terrific. Our overnights were amazing, and we owe it to you two.”

  A job well done. We both beamed.

  “This isn’t the time or place to start a big negotiation, but I wanted to give you a heads-up. I’ve been in contact with Steve. We want you two to do the Emmys this fall. Think about it.”

  Think? I was dizzy with joy. “If we’re available,” I said with a friendly twinkle.

  Nick left us, and we hugged. Drew said, “The Emmys! We booked the Emmys.”

  “If we don’t get a better offer from a network.” When the full story emerged about Halsey and Devon, who knew?

  “Look out,” Drew warned, and I pulled back to see the gang had arrived. Malulu had hooked up with Sir Ian and Dr. Bob and Sheree. In their gaggle were also the missing Unja, along with my makeup girl, Allie, and Cindy Chow.

  To Malulu, I asked, concerned, “Where’s Killer?” Several signs at the cemetery warned NO PETS ALLOWED.

  She put a thick finger in front of her lips and looked nervous. Malulu hated to break a rule, any rule. And she had clearly stuffed dear Killer into the new Fendi tote she was carrying.

  Unja said, “Sorry, Max. I was a very bad boy.” He giggled. “But I had the time of my life. Hollywood. I love it here.” He snapped his fingers and made a sweeping circle gesture with his arm that, unfortunately, encompassed a field of headstones.

  “It’s okay,” I said. While my starstruck hairdresser’s camcorder hadn’t recorded any incriminating evidence in Halsey’s murder, it sure came in handy when Devon was bragging about it.

  “All forgiven?” Cindy Chow asked hopefully. “We still your number one team?”

  Drew said, “Tell them, Mother.”

  I asked, “What are you all doing in September?”

  “The Emmys?” squealed Allie.

  “The Emmys?” echoed Unja, his eyes aglow.

  “Me too?” asked Cindy, her voice low and serious.

  “All of you, yes,” I said.

  Just then, the wind picked up, and Dr. Bob’s wife, Sheree, had two blond hair extensions blow off her perfectly tumbled mane and flap away. She barely noticed and said, “You all have so much fun.”

  Ian put his protective arm over my shoulders and drew me away from the group. “My dear, we have hardly had two minutes to speak. It’s all well and good for you to run around for days on end, but I’m sure we could both do with a bit of time to settle down, actually, and get a grip. Yes?”

  “It’s been a hell of a day.”

  “Agreed. And I’m quite sure,” he continued, blue eyes twinkling, “that properly motivated, I could think of something to make you happy, certainly.”

  I did have something in mind, but not what he was thinking of. I pulled the little velvet bag out of my tote. It can be such a comfort to have a diamond trader about.

  He took the bag, curious, and poured the diamonds out into his palm. “Little beauties?”

  Our friends oohed and aahed. I think Sheree even managed to blink.

  Sir Ian said, “Shall we sell the little beauties or get them set?”

  Drew and I said in unison, “Set them.”

  “Very well,” said Ian, professionally putting them back into the pouch and placing the pouch in an inner jacket pocket. “And that reminds me, Max. I have a little something I brought for you.” He pulled a small black velvet case from his outer pocket. “You have been through quite a lot these last few days. The death of that young girl. The…substance issues. Whatnot. And, well, watching you deal with it all, so brave…facing your demons and all that…Well, I guess it reminded me of just what sort of woman you are, my dear.”

  “Why, Ian!” I hardly knew what to say. The group looked on as I opened the case.

  A perfect emerald, which is to say an enormous one, was held in a platinum mount. Just the sort of extravagant ring one might wear with a new outfit. I felt a bout of shopping coming on. “It’s magnificent,” I said.

  He said, “Nothing too showy. Just a token of support as you step upon the difficult road to recovery, that’s all.”

  Throughout history, women have received baubles based upon much greater misunderstandings. Naturally, I was too polite to correct this particular misunderstanding in public. I don’t know what got into me—the adrenaline that had kicked in a few days ago when Halsey collapsed and that had kicked into higher gear when Devon attacked me was still pumping. I kissed Ian right there in front of the gravestones, the hell with his British sense of reserve.

  “How sweet that you came to help me,” I said.

  He smiled. “Now, now. Let’s not get carried away.”

  Just then, a waitress walked by holding a tray filled with champagne flutes. I reached for one and murmured, “Thank God. I need this.”

  At which Ian raised an eyebrow and gently removed it from my hand just as it was raised to my parched lips. “My dear, so soon after leaving rehab? I think not.”

  At that moment Killer popped his head out of Malulu’s tote bag and started to howl.

  I knew exactly how he felt.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  From Joan Rivers

  In Hollywood, the only thing larger than a red carpet arrival is Queen Latifah’s thong…and I, of all people, should know, since I’ve been covering the extravagant, bigger-than-life affairs for more years than I can even remember. Let’s just say that when I first started interviewing Tinseltown’s elite on the red carpet, Michael Jackson liked girls! Paris Hilton was a hotel in France. Lindsay Lohan wore panties! Oh, where have all the years gone, besides to Tommy Lee Jones’s face?

  But seriously, what a great job it is to be interviewing the stars as they arrive at award shows, highlighting the jewels and the fashions, pointing out the celebrity dieters who we
nt too far—and those who didn’t, frankly, go far enough. People have said that my daughter, Melissa, and I have turned walking into a building into an internationally televised event.

  But what happens backstage? You think the night of the Academy Awards is all congratulations and swag bags, all eye-lifts and romance, all Botox and Jimmy Choos? Hah. Celebrities get tense. Tears are shed. Cell phones are tossed. Even I, a woman of notoriously sweet temper, have felt the pressure as I smiled at yet another glittering fashion train wreck.

  Two hours with a mike in my hand takes its toll. At times, I won’t lie, I honestly felt like killing several impossibly thin cue-card girls and the gal who invented Spanx—that sadist. But if working the red carpet could provoke even me to contemplate murder, imagine how Björk must have felt wearing that shmatte with the swan around her neck. If the girl had come to her senses and pecked her designer to death in front of 50 million people with that wretched beak, would anyone have had the heart to convict her? In Hollywood? Don’t make me laugh.

  But that certainly doesn’t make it right. When comedy turns to tragedy, we all must care. An unnatural death cries out for closure: the killer must be caught. It’s the essence of every great mystery novel and, even in Hollywood, a life and death matter. (Sort of.)

  So what would happen if…into this awards-frenzied cesspool of glamour and anxiety we dropped a little murder? Say there was a sexy, crazy, outrageous death at Tinseltown’s biggest event. And say that no one—certainly not the police—could figure out whodunit. To whom would our poor, frazzled world turn for justice? That’s right. To me—Joan Rivers. Or in this case, my slightly younger, slightly blonder, extremely fictional literary counterpart, Maxine (Max) Taylor.

  Max and her also extremely fictional daughter, Drew, can investigate and solve a celebrity murder at a red carpet event faster than you can say after-party.

  Leave it to me—the Red Carpet Murder Mysteries are a fictional spin on my life, and while they are truly works of fiction, they are based on my own experiences and observations. The world depicted in these books could not be any more authentic, raw, and filled with peril—and that’s just the stuff of my online experiments with JDate.com.