Death on the D-List

by Nancy Grace

  The viewers weren’t stupid. Fallon Malone was not the Betty Crocker type. The minutes dragged by and Hailey learned nothing new. The wind was howling outside, screaming up and down the avenues, and gusting off the street all the way up to Hailey’s apartment windows.

  She pushed a different DVD into the player and tried her best to focus on Prentiss Love as she thanked a group, mostly men, at what appeared to be a memorabilia event. Love seemed entirely genuine when she spoke out to the crowd. There was no doubt in Hailey’s mind that she loved her fans.

  They may have been the only ones who really loved her back. Prentiss had been notoriously unlucky in love.

  She was absolutely beautiful, standing there at a mike stand almost as tall as she was, dressed in a gorgeous white halter dress, her hair falling in long waves around her heart-shaped face.

  Multiple posters of Prentiss hung behind her . . . shots from her latest CDs, publicity photos, you name it. In each one she was more stunning than in the last. Beside her sat a desk at which she could sit and sign photos, autograph books or ticket stubs, or basically whatever memento with which the fan approached her. The footage was date-stamped nearly two years before a single bullet seared through Prentiss Love’s mouth and face.

  The camera panned out at the enthusiastic crowd, most of whom looked as if they were hanging on her every word. They were mostly twenty-to thirty-something-year-old white males. They all looked, lovesick, at the object of their desire, Prentiss Love.

  It was then that she saw it. The camera operator had gone out into the crowd when Prentiss stopped speaking and made herself comfortable at the desk to start the signings. One guy after the next spoke into the camera about how he’d always loved Prentiss Love and couldn’t wait to get her signature. Each one, three in all, had a story about Love that was basically just a variation on the same theme . . . adoration. But it was there, in the background.

  A man standing on the outskirts of the crowd, not really noticing the camera at all, staring intently up at the stage where Prentiss Love sat happily signing away, schmoozing with her fans for $25 an autograph.

  Although he wasn’t speaking into the camera himself, there was no mistaking him, standing there. He wasn’t in the line for an autograph, just standing at a distance, never averting his gaze from Prentiss Love.

  It was Scott Anderson.

  Chapter 35

  FRANCIS LAY BELLY-DOWN ON THE LIVING ROOM FLOOR BEHIND HIS mother’s sofa. Right now, it was the only thing between him and the Feds at his front door.

  The rug at the foot of the sofa smelled of something . . . what was it? He’d never been quite this close to the fake Oriental rug before, certainly not close enough to get a good whiff of it. What was it?

  From his vantage point, looking through the legs of the sofa and across the floor, Francis had a perfect view of a tiny slice of light between the floor and the front door. Staring hard, he was convinced he detected movement outside on the front porch.

  Then he heard it. Muffled voices. The jig was up. The Feds were on his front porch. His mother had always said this would happen. Crazy old bat.

  What would he tell them? He’d used various computers all over town, actually, all over the country to stay in touch with his lady loves. And he’d used so many different names. He had multiple screen names and all of them only knew him as “Jonathon.” He’d never divulged his real name. Names didn’t matter to Francis . . . Only feelings mattered.

  The multiple screen names should throw the Feds off to some degree . . . but Francis knew he’d left a track a mile wide. Flowers, gifts, candy, Valentine’s Day cards, birthday cards, Christmas gifts, you name it . . . It could all be traced back to Francis, or at least to Jonathon, anyway. They’d nail him. He knew they would.

  Cards, flowers, candy . . . What did that prove? Nothing!

  Without the murder weapon, they had nothing! Nothing but evidence that Francis was in love . . . granted, with several different women . . . but in love all the same. What would they bring before a jury? A Valentine card?

  Francis thought of his guns . . . all of them stashed away over at Crestlawn Sacred Grounds . . . just yards away from his mother’s plot. They’d never find them. Without that, absent an eyewitness or a confession, what would they have?

  Although the murders were nothing but a blurry vision in Francis’s mind, actually more of a big, black blank, he was absolutely sure he would not have been so careless as to have eyewitnesses. And no way were the Feds getting a confession out of him.

  In fact, he’d already turned down and dog-eared the number to his old public defender’s office in the yellow pages. He’d even gone so far as to write the Miranda warnings in ink on the inside of his left arm from just beneath his wrist nearly to the inside bend of his elbow.

  He’d also written the lawyer’s number directly beneath Miranda in case the Feds used the phone book to beat him. The Feds were famous for beating people with phone books.

  The voices rose on the porch.

  Didn’t they have to knock first?

  Probably not. Francis was pretty sure that good manners were not mandated in the Constitution. They may even have gotten a “no-knock” proviso in his arrest warrant so they could beat the door down with a battering ram if they wanted to. Nothing could stop them.

  Francis just had to stay strong and not confess. Stay calm. Stay cool. Keep it together.

  Plus, in all reality . . . How could he give a confession? He couldn’t remember anything.

  It was all his damn mother’s fault. If she hadn’t forced, or tricked, all the mind-altering drugs into his system, he wouldn’t be having blackout spells in the first place. Much less days upon days where he couldn’t remember a thing.

  How the hell did he put all those miles on his car? Francis had figured it out the night before. There were nearly exactly enough miles on his mom’s Saturn to prove he’d driven to each one of the murder locations. And it would only take a cursory look at his Chevron gas card to prove he’d visited them all numerous times in the past.

  Plus, Francis had cashed his disability checks from the government at banks all around the country. So, bottom line, he’d definitely left a paper trail connecting him to countless locations where the ladies had been for one reason or another.

  Concerts, appearances, walks on the red carpet, Francis had been to all of them. Granted, he’d always stayed in the background; he wasn’t there to upstage them in their moments of glory. He was just there for support.

  He’d even managed to get several shots of himself with each of the ladies. True, they were usually far in the background while he held his cell phone camera out in front of him, taking the shot at arm’s length, but they were in the photos together for sure. Those photos were some of Francis’s most sacred treasures, next to Leather Stockton’s underwear of course, and he’d be damned if he’d erase them off his cell phone memory, Feds or no Feds.

  Some things a man just had to fight for.

  Oh, yes. His mother was probably looking down at him right now, shaking her finger disapprovingly. She’d always told him women would get him in trouble. With him lying on the floor hiding behind the sofa so the Feds wouldn’t pick up on even the slightest movement inside the house, Francis just knew that she’d be saying, “See? I told you so!”

  Just then, the spooks on the front porch slipped something under Francis’s front door.

  Oh, hell! What was it? Was it some type of psychotropic drug that would make him talk and tell all about his relationships with the three dead celebrities?

  Francis could definitely detect a strange odor. There was no way out now. Wasn’t it illegal to use sodium pentothal to get the truth out of a suspect? Wasn’t that only in injectable form? Could it be reduced to a powder? Was that what they’d slipped under his front door? If so, were they all outside on the front porch wearing gas masks so they, themselves, would not be affected by the truth-telling powder . . . just Francis alone?

  It was
suddenly stronger. He felt dizzy. Damn the Feds to hell and back.

  Francis crawled around the edge of the sofa. From across the expanse of the living room floor to the front door, maybe twenty feet or so, he spied the packet slipped under the front door. Straining his eyes in the dim light filtering in from outside, he could barely make it out.

  He inched closer. The floor was hard against his elbows as he made his way completely around the sofa.

  It wasn’t sodium pentothal after all. It was a thin copy of both Awake! and The Watchtower magazines, religious weeklies distributed liberally by the Jehovah’s Witnesses spreading the word.

  Why wouldn’t they leave him alone?

  Then all at once it hit him. He recognized the smell. It was emanating from the carpet at the foot of the sofa from years and years of exposure to odors wafting out of the kitchen.

  It was his mother’s favorite dish, veal and peppers.

  Oh, how he hated her. Her and her damn veal and peppers.

  Chapter 36

  CASSIE LAKE WAS IN TOWN. THE SINGING STAR HAD SHOT TO STARDOM as a young girl singing with her sisters and brother. The siblings were talented all right, but there was no doubt she was the star. With long frosty hair tumbling over her shoulders, she had a beautiful voice and a squeaky-clean reputation as a devout Catholic. She was a teetotaler who married young and had four children almost immediately, one after the next.

  Then, of course, came the eventual divorce, weight gain, admissions to depression and secret drinking in the linen closet of her Miami mansion. She was now on the wagon, and an AA advocate, and about to kick off a Vegas show that would reunite her with her two sisters and brother on the stage again after nearly fifteen years.

  She flew into the city solely to perform with the Rockettes in their Christmas Spectacular at Radio City Music Hall and absolutely nothing would do but for Tony Russo to get her booked on The Harry Todd Show while she was here in town. That way, they wouldn’t even have to pay for a flight!

  He planned to pitch it to her as a way to pump up sales for her new book on getting clean and sober. He’d also promised she could relentlessly plug her singing performance with the Rockettes and her new Vegas act set to kick off in the New Year.

  The morning shows would probably get her first; they always did because of their huge numbers. But Tony could probably convince her to do Harry. His numbers were right up there and with Harry, it would be Cassie Lake for the hour! Not the three or four minutes the morning shows could offer between hair and makeup segments, and news briefs glossing over pain and suffering around the world.

  But, of course, what would really happen once she got on the show, is that Harry would ask her all about her alcohol and drug dependency, her recent breakdown over her divorce, and the sixty pounds she managed to pack on in one year.

  Tony could hardly wait.

  Tony was crouched down against the cold, waiting outside Radio City Music Hall in order to catch her when she came in to practice. The grandeur of the building was totally lost on him, but every single thing about it was larger than life. It was one of the largest indoor theaters in the world, and the marquee alone covered a city block. The walls and ceiling were sweeping arches, with the Great Stage mounted on hydraulic elevators for special effects. A fourth elevator raised the orchestra, and a shimmering gold stage curtain teamed with the “Mighty Wurlitzer” organ to thrill audiences. Spiraling fountains of water, clouds, fog, even thunder, magically appeared on stage thanks to an elaborate system sourcing steam from a special Con Edison plant.

  None of it meant a thing to Tony Russo. He had to take off his winter gloves and reach deep into his coat pocket every time his cell buzzed, which was constantly. Sookie was dialing his cell phone every few minutes to find out if he’d made contact with Cassie yet.

  He looked across the street at a little Greek diner, where he saw people scurrying in and out with steaming cups of coffee. Usually, he’d only drink Starbucks, a grande half-caf, dry, skim cappuccino with extra foam, to be specific, but under these circumstances, he’d take anything.

  If Russo had a dime for every black limo that drove past Radio City, he’d be a millionaire. Every time one of the cars barely slowed down, he jumped up out of the crouch position and lurched toward it in his attempt to get to Cassie before her driver got around the car to open her door. She’d of course be on the curb side of the car with the driver on the opposite side. So, bottom line, Tony would definitely have time on his side, if and only if he spotted her car in time.

  After texting Sookie for the millionth time that he was in fact in position to catch Lake, the moment came. A white stretch with heavily darkened windows pulled up. As its wheels grazed the curb, his hackles raised and a tingle went down his body. He was a booker to the core . . . He knew deep in his gut. It was her.

  Tony made a lunge for it and just as he hoped, the driver had unlocked the back doors from the fingertip controls on the driver’s arm-side panel before he got out of the car to walk around and open the door for his passenger. In the thirty seconds it took the guy to open his door, put his feet on the pavement, close his door, and make his way around to her door, Tony had already opened the door and handed her a bouquet of two dozen yellow roses, her favorite.

  He did his research.

  With the other hand, and flashing his most sincere smile, Tony whipped open an umbrella to hold over her head.

  “Miss Lake, Tony Russo, chief booker for The Harry Todd Show. I’m such a huge fan, all the way back to the old days and The Lake Family Hour. I just had to deliver these flowers myself. I always loved you in those bell-bottoms, and remember that furry vest you wore that time? Can I get you some Throat Coat tea? I know it’s your favorite . . . I just happened to bring a box of it with me just in case this cold weather bothered your throat . . .”

  How he got it all out in one gulp was a mystery. He had his GNE ID security badge hanging around his neck and on prominent display so she would see he was legit and wouldn’t be scared away.

  Tony held out his hand just as the driver made it around to the back edge of the stretch, clearly intent on throwing his chubby little body to the curb. He could do it, too. The driver was a hulk. Tony concentrated on Cassie’s face and forced himself to keep smiling and not turn away from her to look at the burly man to his left.

  Just as the driver grabbed Tony by his upper left arm, Cassie reached up from the depths of the cushioned limo seat and took Tony’s right hand.

  “You, Mr. Russo, are a saint. And yes, I’d love some Throat Coat. I can’t believe you remember that furry vest! And I adore Harry’s show! I haven’t seen him since his big birthday bash . . . How is he?”

  He had her.

  Taking her hand and tucking it into his left elbow, he held the umbrella over her head as they made it into Radio City. Entering through the front doors, Tony adroitly closed up the umbrella and quickly but naturally slipped his elbow back in its earlier position entwined with Cassie’s elbow. Winding through the twists and turns of RCMH, they made it down a long hallway back to Cassie’s dressing room. She opened the door with a key and clicked on all the lights. It was a warm and cozy room, made attractive by rose-colored walls and floor lamps on either side of a sofa pushed against the longest wall of the room.

  As if he had been working out of the dressing room for months, Tony immediately made his way across the room, opened a cabinet over a tiny microwave, and pulled down two coffee mugs, which he then filled with spring water from a jug dispenser standing in the corner of the room. Dunking two tea bags of Throat Coat into the cups, he set the microwave and turned back to Cassie, who was sitting in a chair before her stage mirror, light bulbs surrounding it now turned on.

  “Light cream and one sugar as I recall?” Tony Russo was pretty good at what he did. That would be sucking up, of course. He kept every known detail about anyone who had ever appeared on The Harry Todd Show in his desktop. He could access most of the desktop information from his BlackBerry; h
ence, he knew exactly how Cassie Lake took her tea the last time she did The Harry Todd Show, which was precisely four years and two months before. He’d checked it that morning before he set out for RCMH and then checked it again as he sat crouched, waiting in the snow under the marquee outside the building.

  Stirring with a plastic spoon he found in a plastic cup beside the microwave, he brought over the tea and set it down in front of her.

  “Hey! Even under these lights and no makeup, you look great!”

  She smiled at him. It was genuine. Of all the celebs that had ever been on The Harry Todd Show, she had been one of the most real, the most sincere. All the good works, the family values, all the talk of God in Heaven and clean living, she really meant it. Falling off the wagon was a huge personal defeat for her.

  Lake was for real.

  Tony almost hated to set her up for the show.

  “Cassie, you have to come on with Harry to push your book! It’s fantastic! I loved it! It’s going to help so many people!” His voice took on its usual whining, pleading tone. He looked straight into the mirror and into her eyes.

  It was truly incredible that he could look so sincere, even knowing Harry would likely bring up all the sordid details of her divorce, her bulimia, her drinking problem, and of course, suggest she had been a hypocrite preaching family values all those years before all the time she spent alone with a bottle of Scotch in the linen closet came to light.

  “Tony Russo, you know you make it really hard to say no . . . but with my schedule here . . . you know . . . the Radio City show, the book signings . . .”

  “Then, don’t! Don’t say no! We’ll tape around your schedule! Whatever you want! And Harry would love to bring out a baby grand and have you sing at the end of the show . . . whatever you want! The viewers will love it and the book will sell like hotcakes!”