by M. Z. Kelly
“What did you find out?” I asked Mo, deciding Ted and I could use all the help we could get.
“I talked to one of the working girls who frequents the movie sets, if you know what I mean,” Mo said. “She spent some time on Scarlett’s movie, hooking up with her co-star.”
“Dallas Wakefield?”
She nodded, brushing a hand through her orange wig. “According to what she heard, Wakefield was trying to hit on Scarlett.” What she’d said wasn’t anything new until she added, “Scarlett wasn’t having any of it ‘cause she had something going on the side.”
“Any idea who she was involved with?” I asked, at the same time thinking about Richard Hawkins.
Mo shrugged. “Not sure but from what the girl heard, Scarlett was real unhappy with the film she was making. Rumor had it around the set that the director was looking to replace her.”
It was the first I’d heard about Steinberg looking for another actress.
Mo went on, “According to the girl I talked to, Scarlett also had another side to her. She wasn’t what everyone thought she was.”
“I’m not sure what you mean?”
Mo regarded me like I was the dumbest kid in class. “She said that Scarlett was bi. She was swinging in both directions.”
THIRTY EIGHT
Blood.
It’s everywhere, covering the walls and filling up the room. Pearce Landon is on the floor of the Rosewood Cottage, lying not too far from where he left Scarlett Endicott’s body a few days earlier. Landon turns, feeling something sticky on his cheek. He tries to lift his head but it’s useless. His body is paralyzed, weighted down by some unseen force.
There’s more blood now, seeping into the room and flowing across the floor. As the blood level rises, Landon realizes that he will soon be covered in the sticky red substance. Panic sweeps through him as he again tries to rise up but is immobilized. It seems impossible but the blood increases with each passing second. Just before the rising tide begins to fill his mouth and nose, Landon blinks and sees that Scarlett’s face is hovering above him. He watches as she bends down to him, trying to say something.
Pearce Landon can’t understand what Scarlett’s saying because his last vision is of blood pouring from Scarlett’s mouth. He is drowning in her blood!
“Landon, line up with the others.”
The detention sergeant’s voice caused the terrible images to fade away. Landon rubbed his eyes and rose from his bunk. He glanced over at the clock on the wall in the quad and realized it was just after midnight, several hours earlier than the usual wake-up call given to the inmates.
“What’s...happening?” he called over to the sergeant.
“You’re being processed for release,” the man said. “Get in line.”
It took over an hour for the downstairs office staff to process his paperwork. Landon learned from one of the other inmates in the release center that the jail discharged inmates just after midnight. The process allowed the institution to give custody credits for a full day served in lockup and helped with the overcrowding.
Landon was allowed ten minutes to change into his civilian clothing. He then spent another hour waiting until the mechanical door whirred and the lock clicked open. He moved down the steps of the jail, drawing in his first breath of freedom.
As he walked down the sidewalk Landon glanced over and saw the figure standing in the shadows of the streetlight. It was the attractive cop, the one who arrested him with the black detective a couple of days earlier.
Detective Kate Sexton stepped forward and said, “Let’s go for a ride.”
THIRTY NINE
I got a call from Men’s Central Jail just after Bernie and I got home from the Barkley Bungalows. I recognized the voice of Tom Bouchet, a detention sergeant who’d worked at the facility since I was a patrol officer. “That subject you called about earlier is being processed for release tonight. We’re going to kick him loose just after midnight.”
After the phone call, I tried to get a couple of hours sleep, but failed. I got up around eleven and made myself a cup of coffee. It was bad timing on my part because my mother and Buzz came through the door as I was stirring some creamer into my coffee.
“What are you doing up?” Mom asked. Her tone was accusatory, like I had no business being awake at this hour.
I tried to keep my voice even. “I have to go to work in a couple of minutes.”
Mom looked at her boyfriend, chuckled, and then said, “There must be a homicide somewhere. Maybe somebody murdered her daughter.”
I looked at her in disbelief as Buzz said, “I think maybe I’m in the middle of something here. I’d better go.”
“Nonsense,” Mom said, taking him by the arm. “I’ve got big plans for you later.” She regarded me. “How much longer…until you leave?”
I walked over and poured my coffee into the sink. “I was just leaving.” I picked up Bernie’s leash, at the same time my anger boiled over. “Just so you know, I’ll be moving out in a couple of days. I’ve found my own place.”
Mom smiled and turned to Buzz, her voice rising with the excitement. “We’ll have the whole place all to ourselves soon.”
Buzz said something about working on his motorcycle in Mom’s garage. I snatched my keys off the counter, feeling my cheeks blistering with fury. I said, “You shouldn’t have walked out on the therapist. It was a lousy thing to do to me.”
“I’m not the one who needs the therapy.”
My eyes shot laser beams at her. “No, you’re perfectly normal, Rose. Maybe you can introduce Buzz to your sex buddies later.” I looked at the biker-lawyer. “Just so you know, Mom’s also been sleeping with Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton.”
***
A couple of hours later, I found Pearce Landon on the sidewalk outside of Men’s Central Jail and offered him a ride.
A fleeting smile found his lips when he heard my offer. “Thanks, but I’d rather walk.” He turned and began moving away.
I called after him, “Maybe we can help each other out.”
He stopped and turned back to me. “We’re on different teams, remember?” I was again struck by how handsome he was, even after he’d spent a couple of days in lockup.
Now it was my turn to smile. “I think my team’s got it wrong about you.” I softened my tone. “Let me help.”
He hesitated, ran a hand over his unshaven cheek, and nodded. I opened my car’s passenger door at the same Bernie began whining and panting in the backseat.
Landon looked at my car, then at me, a full smile now lighting up his even features. “Really?”
I glanced at him. “It’s a long story. I won’t bore you with the details.”
I saw no reason to mention that I drove an ancient Ford Escort that I call Olive for the mileage reimbursement checks from the department because my divorce had left me penniless. During some months the checks barely covered Olive’s repair bills.
After I put Olive in gear and pulled away from the curb, I said, “It’s about twenty minutes to your house. It should give us plenty of time to talk.”
Landon buckled up. “Maybe you forgot. I lawyered up.” He turned toward Bernie, brushing my big dog’s fur with his hand, and then looked back at me. “Unless you want to talk off the record.”
“You know I can’t do that.” I pulled onto the highway and found the freeway onramp. “But, if you’re game, we could talk in hypotheticals.” I glanced at him, raising my eyebrows.
He found my eyes. “Hypothetically speaking, just so you know, I didn’t murder Scarlett Endicott.”
I chuckled as Olive lurched onto the freeway. “Do you hypothetically happen to know who did kill her?”
“Not yet but I will find out—speaking theoretically, of course.”
My car’s engine belched but then evened out. “What if I told you that someone’s BMW, remarkably similar to the one you drive, left Montrose Gardens on the morning Scarlett Endicott’s body was found by the police. I wonder
if there might be a hypothetical explanation for that.”
Landon shrugged. “It could be that whoever was driving that car was set up.”
“What can you tell me about that?”
He didn’t answer. We drove on for a few minutes without speaking. I was beginning to think Landon had decided not to continue playing our game until he finally said, “Suppose there was blackmail involved.” He didn’t look at me. “That might explain your theoretical driver’s actions.”
“Blackmail as in?”
“Just to spin a scenario, suppose your subject received an anonymous phone call. Maybe he was offered a large sum of money to fix the murder scene, but refused. When that happened, it just might be that the caller had something that the fixer wanted.”
“As in some hypothetical photographs of a family member in a compromising situation?” I glanced over and he nodded at me as I turned off the freeway. “Photographs taken when the family member and the murder victim were drugged and raped. It might have caused the purported subject to act contrary to his principles. And when the hypothetical subject was cleaning the murder scene, the police were called.”
He looked at me. “It was a set up.”
I turned onto a surface street in North Hollywood and then found his eyes again. “If those photographs ended up in the hands of the police it might help them identify the men who were involved.”
“That probably won’t happen. My guess is that the hypothetical subject we’ve been discussing would want to keep them to find the men and Scarlett’s killer himself.” He motioned to his house, up the street. “You can just pull to the curb.”
I stopped and handed him my card. “Stay in touch.”
“Thanks for the conversation, Detective.”
“It’s Kate.”
“Kate.” He put the card in his shirt pocket, smiled, and then disappeared into the house.
FORTY
I didn’t go home after meeting with Pearce Landon, not wanting to take a chance that I might hear Rose and Buzz in the throes of passion. Instead, I stopped at a Denny’s and had breakfast. After eating I drove to a small park, got Bernie’s bowl and some kibble out of Olive’s trunk, and waited while he ate.
My meeting with Landon left me more convinced than ever of his innocence. I was frustrated that he’d refused to turn over the photographs of Scarlett and his daughter. Whoever had murdered Scarlett was probably linked to their attackers. It was also possible that the killer’s failed attempt to set up Landon for Scarlett’s murder had also now made the fixer himself a target.
I decided to meet with Ted, Molly, and Selfie when I got to the station. I’d stopped at a Starbucks and bought myself another cup of coffee and some muffins before arriving. We all met in a small conference room in the main portion of the stationhouse just after eight. Fortunately, Lieutenant Conrad and his two favorite detectives weren’t at work yet.
I went over my meeting with Landon, telling them about our hypothetical conversation and that I believed he was telling me the truth. “He was blackmailed into fixing the murder scene with the photographs and was then set up to go down for the murder when the police were called.”
“You’ve got to tell Lieutenant Conrad,” Molly said. “If he finds out you talked to Landon and you don’t tell him he’ll go crazier than he already is.”
“Speaking of Gollum,” Selfie said. “He, Deep Throat, and The Doughboy met with the brass yesterday afternoon. It doesn’t bode well for the home team.”
I smiled, noting that Selfie had added some red highlights to her magenta colored hair. I liked both women. Section One would be a good place to work if it wasn’t for the other personalities.
“We need to all pull together on this and hope for the best,” I said.
“I still want to go back to Richard Hawkins today,” Ted said. “I think he knows much more about Scarlett’s life than he let on.”
What he said reminded me of my conversation with Mo. “I have a friend who knows a lot of working girls. One of them works the local movie studios and claims that she was on the set of Scarlett’s film. She told my friend that she thought Scarlett was bisexual.”
“Maybe that’s why she got so upset over Dallas Wakefield’s advances,” Molly suggested.
I downed the last of my coffee. “It could be, but we also know that Wakefield’s a player and probably went way too far with things.”
“What if Scarlett was in a relationship with a woman?” Selfie said, at the same time chewing on a mouthful of muffin. Her voice grew more animated and the words came out partially garbled. “Maybe there’s someone…out there she was in a relationship with…maybe someone who knows exactly what happened.”
“The problem is, other than Pearce Landon’s daughter and Lauren Hayden, Scarlett didn’t have a lot of friends that she confided in.”
Molly lowered her voice as we all heard Christine Belmont’s low growl in the hallway. “If she was in a relationship with another woman, maybe her shrink knew about it.”
I saw that Belmont had glanced into the conference room as she’d walked by. She stopped and came back to the door. “What are you all doing, holding a secret meeting?”
“No secrets here,” Ted said. He motioned to the box of muffins. “Just having a little breakfast. Help yourself.”
She shook her head. “I’m on a diet.”
“That’s good because you’re a fat toad.” My imaginary comments were probably brought on by a lack of sleep, too much coffee, and extreme hatred.
“The lieutenant wants us in the Section One conference room,” Alex Hardy said, after poking his big nose with the bush under it into the room. He looked at his partner. “What’s going on?”
“I think they were having a secret meeting,” Belmont said.
I gathered up the remaining muffins. “It seems like we can’t even have breakfast without raising someone’s suspicions around here.”
On my way to Section One with Bernie, I ran into Harvey. He pulled me aside and said, “I just want you to know that Jessica’s meeting with someone from personnel this morning. I think it has to do with her harassment claim.”
“Wonderful. Thanks for both the heads up and the knife in the back.”
His shiny green eyes, enhanced by contacts, lowered. “I’m sorry about what happened.”
“Sorry doesn’t help. How could you sign that ridiculous statement?”
“She pressured me.”
I regarded him for a long moment. “Harvey…” His eyes came up to me. “Grow a pair.”
The others were already in the conference room, including Woody Horton and Harry Braden, when Bernie and I arrived.
Conrad took note of me being thirty seconds late. “I’ll say it again for the record. I won’t tolerate lateness in my unit. The next time it happens I write paper.”
“And I’ll stick my gun up your ass and search for a brain.” Okay, it was just more insomnia and caffeine induced fantasizing on my part.
The lieutenant then changed the subject. “I was downtown yesterday and met with the captain. After briefing him on our case he’s decided that some changes are in order.”
I glanced at Ted. We both realized that our status in Section One was about to change, even before Conrad went on, “Effective today, Detectives Belmont and Hardy will have the lead on the Endicott murder. They’ve earned the shot based on them taking the initiative on several matters associated with the case.”
The two detectives smiled at me, something that lit a fuse of anger that exploded in my gut. “What you call initiative has another name. It’s called interference.”
“Watch what you’re saying,” Conrad barked.
Ted took up the cause. “It’s also called backstabbing.”
There was a noisy protest by Belmont and Hardy before the lieutenant said to Ted and me, “You’ve both just earned a write up.”
I controlled my emotions and dragged a hand through my limp hair, deciding it was useless to argue the point.
Regardless of our status in Section One, we still had a murder to solve.
I refocused and said, “I have some new information on our case.”
Conrad rolled his eyes. “If you can keep the conversation civil, let’s hear it.”
I took a moment, first mentioning what Mo had said about hearing that Scarlett might be bisexual. I then went on to tell them about my meeting with Pearce Landon and our hypothetical conversation about him being blackmailed into fixing the crime scene and being set up. When I’d finished, the room was silent. The only sound I heard was Bernie’s rhythmic breathing in the corner of the room.
When the lieutenant finally spoke, I saw a big vein in his forehead pulsing. “Let me see if I’ve got this straight. You questioned a subject about a murder case after he refused to waive his rights and invoked his right to counsel.”
“I had a hypothetical conversation that…”
“That violated a defendant’s legal rights.” Conrad drew in a couple of sharp breaths. His face was red and his entire body shook. “This is going up the chain, along with your other acts of insubordination.”
I felt my own blood pressure soaring. “I did nothing wrong. I had a conversation that was hypothetical and got Landon’s side of the story.” I looked over at Hardy and Belmont. “If these two had done the same thing, they’d probably be promoted.”
“We follow the rules,” Hardy barked. “Something you apparently don’t understand.”
After his partner chimed in, supporting what he’d said, Conrad went on, “Detective Sexton and I will take up this matter privately after the meeting. Let’s get back to the matter at hand.”
The raised voices had caused Bernie to come over to my side as the lieutenant gave Belmont and Hardy their marching orders. “I want a tail on Pearce Landon starting today. I also want those photographs. See if you can find a way to get them without violating anybody’s rights.”
“We’ll nail it down,” Christine Belmont said.
Conrad turned to Ted and me. “You two can do follow ups. Go back to the players in our case and see if you can shake something loose. But, just to make it clear, you two are backup. You clear everything through Belmont and Hardy.”