by Angela Henry
Allegra and I were sitting in the two wicker rocking chairs facing the street while Noelle was sitting on the porch’s wooden railing facing us with her tennis-shoe clad feet dangling over the side. All anyone had to do was push her and she’d fall ass-backwards into the bushes below. When Allegra asked her about the lawyers, Noelle abruptly stood up like she was aware her answer might earn her a shove into the bushes.
“No, I haven’t heard anything from the lawyers, but I did speak to Bob McLean.” I remembered Noelle saying Bob McLean was Hollywood Vibe’s executive producer.
“And?” Allegra asked when Noelle failed to elaborate.
“And Bob is very concerned about what effect Vivianne DeArmond’s murder and your involvement in it could have on Hollywood Vibe’s reputation. You know how hard he’s worked to make the show a legit source of entertainment news. After that whole Ross Abbott incident, he’s got a right to be concerned.”
Ross Abbott was a bad-boy actor, well-known for his roles in action-adventure movies, who got married as often as most people change their underwear. Usually stories in the press about Abbott concerned his exhaustive love life. But Hollywood Vibe, in a new-kid-on-the-block effort to scoop all the other entertainment news shows, had broken a story about Ross Abbott wearing a full set of dentures, a toupee and lifts in his shoes. Abbott had promptly sued the show for slander and had even gone so far as to have himself measured in his stocking feet during a press conference to prove that he was truly the five feet ten inches he claimed to be. He also made his dentist and his hairstylist, a flamboyant little man named Mr. Billy, sign sworn affidavits that his thick brown hair and big white chompers were indeed all his. Needless to say he won his case. One of Abbott’s disgruntled ex-girlfriends, who was rumored to have been sleeping with Bob McLean, had given Hollywood Vibe false information and the show took a big hit. They became the laughing stock of the entertainment world. Late-night-talk show hosts joked that Hollywood Vibe’s news coverage was short, bald and toothless. Now, a year later, they were just beginning to put the fallout behind them. Allegra looked as if she couldn’t decide whether to cuss, cry or throw up.
“Once the test results come back on your clothes, I’m sure that will be the end of it,” I said, hoping to put my sister’s fears to rest. Noelle nodded in agreement.
“Yeah. That’s what Carl said this morning. I guess we’ll see, won’t we?” Allegra stood up and headed into the house. She flung the screen door open a little too forcefully and it slammed shut behind her. Noelle stared at me awkwardly. I smiled to show I wasn’t mad at her. I wanted her in a good mood for her forthcoming grilling.
“This is so awful. You think she’ll be okay?” Noelle asked, as she nervously sipped her lemonade.
“She’ll be fine once she can put this behind her,” I said.
“I can’t imagine why Vivianne DeArmond’s assistant didn’t know about their interview. I wonder why she didn’t tell her?”
“Harriet Randall’s a pretty forceful woman. Maybe Vivianne wanted to do an interview and Harriet objected. Maybe that’s why Vivianne didn’t tell her,” I said.
“Well, I certainly wouldn’t want to be on that woman’s bad side. She’s nuts.”
I certainly couldn’t argue with her on that one. After a few minutes of chatting about nothing in particular, we fell back into an uncomfortable silence. No sense in putting it off any longer. My curiosity was killing me.
“I didn’t know Vivianne DeArmond had a son,” I said casually. Noelle’s glass stopped halfway to her mouth. Her cheeks turned slightly pink and she took a big gulp of lemonade. I waited for her to say something, but she didn’t comment, just turned to stare moodily out into the street.
“He’s friend of yours, right? How’s he handling his mother’s death?” I persisted.
Noelle turned and gave me a quizzical look. “What makes you think I know Vivianne DeArmond’s son?”
“I saw the two of you in your rental this morning. The way you two were going at it, I got the impression you knew each other pretty well.”
She shook her head slowly and looked at me like she had no idea what I was talking about and was wondering what kind of idiot I was. For a split second I thought I might have been mistaken. Naw. I know what I saw. I’d fogged up plenty of car windows myself. The last time being with a certain sexy reverend.
“I really don’t know what you’re talking about. Yes, I knew Vivianne DeArmond had a son. But I’ve never met him. So it couldn’t have been me you saw this morning. Coming here for dinner is the first time I’ve been over here today.” She was giving me one of those show-biz smiles. The kind that didn’t reach her eyes. Despite her attempt at acting nonchalant, I could tell she was pissed. But why?
“Really? That’s funny.”
“Why?” The phony smile was gone replaced by an annoyed frown.
“Because I never said it was this street that I saw the two of you parked on. It’s amazing you’d know that if it wasn’t you I saw.”
By now her face had turned bright red and her lips were pressed together so hard they disappeared. She opened her mouth to say something. I knew it wasn’t going to be anything nice and leaned forward in my rocker ready for her verbal beat down. It didn’t come. Before Noelle could say a word, Allegra walked back out onto the porch. She had a big heaping bowl full of peach cobbler and ice cream. Now I knew just how freaked out she must really be. She ate a lot when she was stressed, which was another big difference between us. I never needed a reason to eat a lot. I just needed to be conscious.
Allegra was too preoccupied with her dessert to notice the tidal wave of animosity that her producer was throwing my way. She sat back down in the rocker and didn’t look at either one of us. Noelle set her glass on the railing and smiled at my sister. Considering how mad she’d just been I was amazed she was able to snap back so quickly.
“Allegra, I need to take off. I’ve got conference calls to make about some stories for next week’s shows. I’ll give you a call later, and don’t worry. Everything’s going to be okay. You’ll see.”
Allegra’s mouth was full of ice cream and cobbler, and she merely waved as Noelle hurried down the porch steps, hopped into her rental and took off.
“I’m so glad she’s gone. That chick gets on my nerves,” she said after Noelle pulled away from the curb.
“You don’t like her?”
“She’s not as bad as some of those phony asses at Hollywood Vibe. But I can only stand so much of her and I don’t trust her all. She started out as the assistant to the producer that got fired last year after that Ross Abbott mess. People say she was working behind the scenes to make sure he got blamed for it. She was after his job from the beginning. But that’s Hollywood for you. You’ve got a ton of people all after the same small piece of the pie. It’s cutthroat like you wouldn’t believe, Kendra.”
“Is that why you were so afraid to tell her you were having trouble getting the interview?”
“Damn right. I wasn’t the first choice for this job, Kendra. They’d already offered it to some chick who’d been a runner-up in the Miss America pageant. She had to turn it down cause she was hospitalized for anorexia. Then they were going to give it to some rock star’s daughter. She turned it down because they wouldn’t pay her enough. Then it was offered to some has-been soap-opera star. She took the job but quit after one day when she got the lead role in some off-Broadway play. I was fourth on the list. I’m a black woman trying to get ahead in Hollywood. That means I have to be twice as good as those white girls just to get half as far.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because I wanted everyone to think I was the star of show, when in reality, I’m just scrambling to keep ahead of the pack. You have no idea how many people I have nipping at my heels wanting to be where I am and waiting for me to mess up,” she said miserably. “And it looks like they’re about to get their wish.”
I didn’t know what to say to her. In light of what she�
�d just told me, telling her not to worry seemed insensitive. Then I wondered how much, if anything, she knew about Noelle and Kurt. I wanted to know just what the two of them were up to and if it could have anything to do with Vivianne’s death. I told Allegra about seeing Cliff, Kurt and Stephanie Preston at Denny’s.
“I heard they were in town to see Vivianne get her award. Did you know Cliff used to be Vivianne’s agent, as well as her husband?”
“No,” I replied honestly.
“He’s the founder of the Preston Agency. It used to be as big as William Morris. Cliff Preston is the reason Vivianne DeArmond was able to have a career as a leading lady at a time when black actors were hired to play maids, mammies and chauffeurs.”
“How do you know all of this?”
“I found out when I was doing research to prepare myself for interviewing Vivianne. Rumor has it Cliff Preston’s talent agency is on its way to being as dead as disco. He was really in town to try and get Vivianne to take a part in some new movie. I think he figured if he could revive Vivianne’s career from the ashes then his business would pick up and maybe he’d get some big-name clients again.”
“What about their son, Kurt? What’s his deal?” Allegra rolled her eyes and gave me an incredulous look. “What?” I said, as she shook her head and laughed.
“You really didn’t recognize him, did you?”
“No. Should I have?”
“Remember that stupid show that was popular about ten years ago called Ninja Dudes?”
I thought for a minute and then realized that’s why Kurt Preston looked so familiar to me. Kurt had been an actor, too, though his career had been short-lived. He’d probably been about fifteen at the time he’d appeared on Ninja Dudes back in the late eighties and I couldn’t remember ever seeing him in anything after that.
“You mean that awful show about the widower in Hawaii who adopts three teenage boys of different races who surfed by day and were crime-fighting ninjas at night?” Okay. I watched a couple of episodes. So what?
“Yeah. He played the black son named Jabari who wore sunglasses all the time and only got to say stuff like, “Dudes, let’s roll, or “Dudes, chill out.” I don’t think they ever gave that poor guy more than three words to say at a time,” Allegra said, laughing.
With his gray eyes and freckles, Kurt Preston looked more like a Jerry than a Jabari to me. But I guess that’s Hollywood for you. They probably made him wear those sunglasses to hide his eye color.
“What happened to him after the show?” Like I needed to ask. From what I’d overheard at the restaurant, Kurt had become active in pursuits of the pharmaceutical kind.
“Well, I think Cliff tried to get Kurt more acting jobs, but by the time the show was canceled, he was heavily into drugs. He’s been in and out of rehab so many times they should name a wing after him. I’ve seen him in a couple of commercials, but that’s it. He sure hasn’t had the career his costar Ross Abbott has had. I hear Kurt and Ross are still good friends.”
Ross Abbott? I’d forgotten he’d been on the show, too. He’d played Todd, one of the other ninja dudes. It was his first role, the one that started his career as an action hero. Was this the reason Noelle didn’t want anyone knowing about her and Kurt? In light of the Hollywood Vibe scandal, it certainly wouldn’t look good if Noelle was dating a good friend of a man who’d sued the show, especially since there had been talk that Noelle was involved in the firing of her predecessor. I started to ask but Allegra wasn’t finished with her story.
“Vivianne was forty when she had Kurt and by the time he was five, she and Cliff were divorced. Cliff got sole custody of Kurt because Vivianne was deemed unfit. He raised Kurt with his second wife, Stephanie, an ex-Vegas showgirl who’s twenty years younger than him. Kurt and Stephanie are really close. Vivianne stopped acting not long after she lost custody of Kurt.”
“Why?” I asked. Allegra shrugged.
“No one really knows for sure. One theory is that she could no longer get leading-lady roles and her ego couldn’t take it. Another theory is she had a nervous breakdown after losing custody of her child. I guess we’ll never know now.”
I was finishing up my lemonade, and Allegra had eaten her last spoonful of ice cream, when an unmarked black Crown Victoria, the kind used by homicide detectives on the Willow police force, pulled up and parked in front of the house. I felt a cold knot forming in the pit of my stomach as I watched detectives Trish Harmon and Charles Mercer emerge from the vehicle and approach the house. I heard Allegra groan.
Trish Harmon and I had butted heads before during two other murder investigations. She thought I was stubborn, obstructive and foolish. I thought she was humorless, cold and about as flexible as a corpse in full rigor. I figured we were about equal in our dislike of one another. I noticed she’d let her hair grow out a little from her normal mannishly short do. But she was dressed as drably as usual in a gray suit with a long pleated skirt that I’d seen her in before. Charles Mercer, her chubby sidekick, was looking pleasant, if a bit uncomfortable in his tight blue sport coat and tan dress slacks. I grabbed Allegra’s hand protectively and we both stood as the detectives walked up the porch steps.
“Miss Clayton, we need you to come down the station with us to answer some more questions,” Trish Harmon said, addressing my sister. Allegra squeezed my hand so hard it went numb.
“What’s this about?” I asked Harmon. She ignored me. No big surprise.
“You can either come willingly, Miss Clayton, or we can arrest you,” Harmon said to my sister when she failed to move. Allegra gave me a panic-stricken look as Trish Harmon grabbed her opposite wrist and started to lead her in the direction of the porch steps. I pulled my sister’s other wrist and Allegra was pulled between Harmon and me, arms and legs outstretched like a piece of caramel taffy.
“Hey. You can’t just drag her off with no explanation,” I complained, tugging her back toward me.
“Yes, we can. Your sister was told to make herself available for questioning and we’ve got lots of questions for her,” Harmon said, calmly pulling Allegra back to her. Uh-oh! What happened? What did they want to talk to her about?
“You don’t have to drag her off like a common criminal. Get your hands off her,” I snapped, holding my ground and tugging my stunned-looking sister back to me.
“We can always arrest you for obstruction. In my opinion, you’re long overdue for a jail cell and I’d love to fix that,” Harmon fired back through gritted teeth.
Mercer was watching the tug of war between his partner and me with amusement. But after a couple of minutes he finally decided enough was enough. He walked over and gently pulled Allegra free of our grasping hands.
“Your sister isn’t under arrest, Miss Clayton. We just need her to come down to the station to answer a few questions, that’s all. There’s no need to worry,” he said, leading Allegra down the steps to their car. I believed him like I believed in Santa. I started to follow but Allegra, who’d suddenly regained her composure, stopped me.
“It’s okay, Kendra. I haven’t done anything wrong. Call Carl and have him meet me at the station.” I watched helplessly as they ushered her into the backseat. Harmon turned and tossed me a venomous smirk.
“Don’t you say a single word to them until Carl gets there! Do you hear me?” I called out before they slammed the car door shut.
I went into the house and called Carl and told him to meet me at the station. What in the world could they want to talk to Allegra about now? Did Harriet Randall convince them that Vivianne hadn’t agreed to an interview? There was no proof whatsoever that Vivianne had granted Allegra an interview. She’d wiped the message from Vivianne from her car. She’d been the one who called Vivianne, not the other way around. Vivianne’s own assistant didn’t even know about the interview. Plus, Allegra had been picked-up for trespassing in Vivianne’s house. In light of the conversation I’d just had with my sister about how she was struggling to stay ahead of the pack, I was be
ginning to wonder just what Allegra was capable of if she were desperate enough. I knew my sister was no murderer. But in her quest to hold on to her job, had Allegra lied about Vivianne’s note on the car? Had she shown up at the award ceremony, hoping to catch Vivianne alone in the attempt to get an interview? And when she discovered her dead, had she had to come up with an excuse as to why she was there? I honestly couldn’t say I wouldn’t put it past her.
I’d been sitting in the near-empty lobby of the police station, with its beige linoleum floors and uncomfortable age-scarred wooden benches, for an hour when it dawned on me that I hadn’t touched base with Greg about Lynette. I pulled out my cell phone and dialed his number. He answered it on the first ring and his anxious-sounding hello answered my question about whether Lynette had come home.
“It’s me, Greg. Any news?”
“She called to check on the kids. But she didn’t sound good,” he said with a heavy sigh.
“Where is she? What did she say?”
“She said she needed some time to herself to think. She wouldn’t say where she was. She sounded weird, Kendra. I’ve never heard her sound like that before. I asked if she wanted to cancel the wedding and she started crying and hung up on me.”
I knew I should tell him everything about my last conversation with Lynette, but I could think of no comfortable way to do it. Even Lynette was having a hard time telling him about her sex hang-ups. What exactly was I supposed to say?
“Kendra, I need you to do me a huge favor.”
“What’s that?” I asked with dread. I had enough on my plate with Allegra.
“Please help me find her. The wedding is six days away. I’ll try and stall Justine as long as I can. You know what she’s like. I don’t want her to know Lynette has taken off. But we’ve got to find her. There’s all kinds of last-minute wedding stuff to take care of and the kids will be asking questions. I’m really worried about her.”