She had a myriad of intellectual interests. She loved technology, although she held a degree in both mathematics and psychology. A few years ago, she’d enrolled in Caltech, wanting to become proficient in physics. The other students had been astonished when the leggy blonde with the designer clothes and dynamite body had risen to the top of the class. Knowledge was her secret weapon.
Several months back, Melody was surprised when she saw a woman who appeared to be in her midthirties frequenting Neil’s place. Not only had he cheated on her, he’d looked her straight in the eye and denied it. Typical.
Men should be treated like dogs, taught to obey their masters. Sit when they were told to sit and fetch on command. If they got out of line, they would be swatted with a rolled-up newspaper or thrown out in the cold for the night. If they got sick or stopped being loyal, they were put to sleep. During her life, she’d put down a string of man’s best friends. Who wanted to be a damn dog, anyway? Maybe they’d be reincarnated as a woman.
Melody had watched Neil and the other woman jumping nude into the outdoor Jacuzzi. When they’d had sex, she was reminded of the nights she and Neil had spent together at his home in his backyard.
Opening one of her stored files, Melody’s hand drifted between her legs and her head fell back as she watched herself and Neil in the throes of ecstasy. She smelled the aroma of the Glenlivet scotch and heard the sound of the ice cubes tinging in the glass. Imagining Neil’s face between her legs as the action played out on the monitor, she became intensely aroused.
Melody suspected Neil had intended to break it off with her tonight. She could tell by the way he touched the other woman that he was in love with her. Mousy little thing, she thought. What in hell did he see in her? Her clothes looked like they came from Target. Even her maid had better taste.
Their affair would end when and how she wanted it to end. No one walked away from Melody Asher.
Turning to another monitor, she saw people moving around in Neil’s backyard. Her ice-cream spoon tumbled out of her hands onto the expensive carpet. The flashing lights of the emergency vehicles reflected off the wet pavement. Her eyes jumped to another monitor. She spotted Neil’s panicked face among the police officers in his backyard.
Her lower lip protruded as she spoke out loud, “You won’t be cheating on me now, Neil, not after I bail you out of jail.”
Melody was ripe for a little action. The news was more fun if you knew the players. She picked her spoon off the floor and finished savoring her ice cream.
Chapter 8
Friday, December 24—12:30 A.M.
By the time Carolyn arrived, Neil’s house was swarming with police and emergency personnel. She’d rushed out without remembering to bring an umbrella. At the time, it had only been sprinkling. Now it was pouring again and she was drenched. A dark-haired officer in his early twenties stopped her. His ID badge read DANIEL CUTTER. “This is a crime scene, lady.”
Carolyn fished her county ID out of her purse, holding it in front of his face.
“Was the man who owned this place your probationer?”
“No,” she said, never liking it when she found herself on the opposite side of the fence. “He’s my brother.”
“I’ll have to check with my sergeant.”
A middle-aged woman in a white flannel bathrobe pushed through the onlookers, taking a position next to Carolyn. “Do you know what happened here?” she asked, peering out from under her umbrella. “They said a girl was raped.”
Carolyn’s stomach rose in her throat. “Where did you hear that?”
“A guy over there told me,” she said, gesturing toward the crowd of spectators. “I’m not surprised, you know. The man who lives here is weird. He stays up all night and sleeps all day. My daughter thinks he’s a vampire. She went to his house selling Girl Scout cookies and he bit her head off. It was three o’clock in the afternoon and he was furious that she woke him. Can you believe it? I’ll never let her go there again, that’s for sure.” She stopped and extended her hand. “I’m Joyce Elliot, by the way. I live in the house on the corner.”
“Excuse me, I have to check on something.” Carolyn moved a few feet away. Might as well get used to it, she told herself, knowing Neil had a rough time ahead of him. People loved excitement. If the truth wasn’t that interesting, they embellished, blending fact with fiction.
Her thoughts turned to Neil. He had been hysterical, she told herself. He didn’t know what he was saying. He would have never done anything to hurt Laurel. It had been a long day, and she had overreacted, let her imagination run wild. The woman’s death was a tragedy, but her brother had not done anything wrong. Maybe Laurel had got drunk and had accidentally fallen into the swimming pool. She might not have been able to swim. People drowned every day. Backyard swimming pools had always frightened her.
Laurel Goodwin was six years younger than Carolyn, but she had known her fairly well. She’d seen a lot of her back when Laurel and Neil had first started dating. Carolyn had also seen Laurel around town during her marriage, and assumed she was happy. It was emotionally wrenching to know she was dead. But it was Neil she was worried about. He appeared confident, but underneath, he was emotionally fragile. Because his income had substantially diminished during the past six months, he had begun making drastic changes in his life. He’d only resumed dating Laurel a short time ago. Carolyn had told him how foolish it was to ask Laurel to marry him. Neil could also be stubborn. He’d refused to listen to her. She shouldn’t have called him from the jail yesterday. When she’d called him back around noon to tell him she was all right, he’d been rushing out to pick up Laurel.
Hank Sawyer placed his hand on Carolyn’s shoulder and she jumped. “Guess you were right about not drinking tonight. How’s Preston? I heard our boy Raphael did a number on him.”
“He has a few broken vertebrae,” she told him, wincing. “I warned him. Moreno is a scary character. Brad’s lucky to be alive.”
Carolyn and Sawyer were close friends. He was not only a detective, but a sergeant over at the homicide division. “What are you doing here, Hank?” she asked, trying to appear nonchalant. “The poor woman drowned. I need to talk to my brother. He was terribly upset when he called me.”
“Looks like we’ve got ourselves a homicide,” he said, chomping on a toothpick.
Carolyn felt her blood pressure shoot up twenty points. She knew now was the time to keep her mouth shut. Hank was here in an official capacity. Pushing past him into the house, she saw Neil seated at the kitchen table. His dark hair was wet, his eyes red and puffy, and he had one of the gray blankets used by the paramedics tossed over his shoulders. She pulled up a chair beside him. “What did you mean on the phone? Did something happen between you and Laurel?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said. “I came home and found her…. She was…she was floating in the pool.” He stopped and wiped the tears from his eyes. “I tried to save her. She was…gone. Why would she go swimming at night during a rainstorm? It doesn’t make sense. All she had on was her underwear. I looked for the rest of her clothes, but I couldn’t find them.”
“Were you alone when you found her?”
“Yes,” Neil said. “It was late…after eleven. I’d already taken my medicine to help me sleep and gone to bed, then I saw…”
Carolyn looked up. Hank was conversing with a black detective named Mary Stevens.
She leaned over and whispered in her brother’s ear. “Don’t talk right now. The police are handling this as a homicide. You may be a suspect.”
Neil’s eyelids flickered in fear. He grabbed hold of his sister’s forearm. “That’s ridiculous,” he said. “I didn’t kill her. Besides, I’m certain she’s been dead a long time. Her body was stiff and cold…so cold.” He placed his palms over his face, then slapped them down on the top of the table. “I was in LA most of the day. I wasn’t even here. How could the police accuse me of killing her?”
“Stay calm,” C
arolyn told him. “We’ll get to the bottom of this. You have to do exactly what I say, though. Don’t answer any questions or make any spontaneous statements.”
They linked eyes; then Carolyn went to speak to Hank. Mary had gone outside where the coroner, Charley Young, was examining the body. “Tell me what you have, Hank.”
He held up a plastic evidence bag containing the syringe. “We found this in the master-bathroom sink. Is your brother a diabetic?”
“No,” Carolyn answered, wrapping her arms around her chest. “Is there anything in there?”
“Looks like it,” Hank told her, pointing at a small amount of yellowish liquid located at the bottom of the syringe. “Won’t know what it is, of course, until the lab processes it.”
“What about time of death?”
“Charley’s pretty sure the victim’s been in the water for at least four hours. Your brother claims he was in love with the woman. Is that true?”
Carolyn felt bad. Neil had been calling her a lot lately. Because of her work, she’d been lucky to exchange a few words with him. When she’d come home that evening around eight, John and Rebecca said they hadn’t seen or heard from him. He’d promised to stop by and look at Rebecca’s drawings. He was flaky, but he seldom went back on his word.
She looked up at the detective. “They only recently started seeing each other. Neil cared a great deal for her, though. Have you notified her family?”
He skipped over her question. “Charley found only one injection site on her left arm. We’ll know more when he gets the body to the morgue. The rain isn’t helping us much. Whatever evidence there is outside will more than likely be worthless.”
“Did you find any signs of a forced entry?”
“Not yet,” he said, pausing and staring at her. “Are you sick or something? You’re really pale.”
Damn men, Carolyn thought, how did he expect her to look under the circumstances? “I didn’t have time to put on my makeup. You want to talk about my appearance or the crime? Were there any prints on the doors or windows?”
“Nope,” Hank said. “Whoever did this is a tidy person. Most of the prints we lifted, outside of the victim’s, are probably your brother’s. I don’t know any killer in the world who would leave that many fingerprints. Did he have a housekeeper?”
“Yes,” Carolyn said. “I’m not sure which day she works. Can I have a few minutes alone with him?”
Hank frowned, moving his feet around on the marble entry. “The victim’s father, Stanley Caplin, thinks your brother’s a drug dealer. He claims he personally witnessed him using narcotics. The narcs say there’s some potent smack floating around. Two junkies have overdosed in the past week. Maybe he gave his girlfriend some killer heroin.”
Hank looked as if he were about to collapse. The stress must be getting to him, she thought, or he would never have made such an inflammatory statement about Neil. He might have been teasing, though. Individuals who dealt with death on a regular basis frequently used humor as a way to cope. Either that, or he was trying to test her reaction.
Carolyn knew Laurel’s parents. Ventura wasn’t that big and they’d all gone to the same schools. “The man’s lying,” she snapped. “Neil doesn’t use drugs, let alone sell them. He’s a successful artist.” She raised her arm toward the row of large canvases mounted on the walls. She could understand why some people didn’t appreciate contemporary art. Her brother, however, had been trained in the classical style of painting and his work was renowned. “His paintings usually sell for between ten and twenty thousand. A few years ago, one of them went for fifty.”
“I thought those were prints like they sell at those museum stores.” Hank gazed at the lifelike physiques, the exquisite draping in the folds of fabric, the detailed backgrounds.
“When did Caplin say he saw Neil using drugs?”
“I didn’t ask,” the detective told her. “The guy just learned that his daughter was dead.” He sucked in a deep breath before continuing. “I’ll give you ten minutes, Carolyn. I need to get your brother out of here, one way or the other. I just sent one of my men over to pick up the parents so they can identify the body.”
“Why put them through that?” she asked, running her hands through her wet hair. “Neil has already identified her. I know Laurel, if you need a second ID. Anyway, this is supposed to be a crime scene.”
“Don’t you have any sympathy for these people?”
“Of course I do,” she answered, a chastised expression on her face. “I’ll talk to Neil in the garage.” She started to walk away, then stopped. “Whatever happens, try to remember that this is my brother.”
“If he’s innocent, he’s got nothing to worry about.”
“Cut the crap, okay?” Carolyn shot back. “I know how the system works. Neil was in the wrong place at the wrong time. He’s not your murderer.”
Chapter 9
Friday, December 24—1:15 A.M.
Neil was leaning against the wall in the open garage. One of the officers had brought him a pair of jeans and a white sweatshirt they’d found in the laundry room.
While the crime scene technicians went about their job of collecting evidence inside the residence, Carolyn drilled Neil. She asked him if he’d seen Laurel earlier.
“That’s what I’m concerned about,” he said, lowering his head. “She came here and we had lunch. I asked her to marry me.”
“Did she accept?”
He swallowed hard. “No.”
“For your own good, don’t ever repeat that,” his sister said in a hushed voice. “If you do, you’ll give the police a motive.”
“I understand,” Neil said, sniffing. “We got into a big fight. You know how I hate rejection. She said she could explain everything, but I was too bent out of shape to listen. Th-that…was the last time I saw her alive.”
Now she understood his comment about messing up. Although he kept it under control most of the time, Neil had a temper and had been known to fly off the handle. They’d had a fight, that’s all. He’d probably said things he regretted, things he didn’t really mean. “You left her in the house? Alone?”
“I didn’t think she would kill herself.”
“Where did you go?”
“I drove around for about an hour, then I decided to go to Melody’s. I didn’t expect Laurel to be here when I got home. I thought she’d call a friend to come and get her.”
Carolyn stared at his eyes. His pupils were dilated and his movements were jerky, almost manic. “Are you taking your medicine?”
“I don’t need lithium,” Neil said, slapping his arms against his thighs. “You know I can’t paint when I take that shit. How many sleeping pills are you taking? Are you going to accidentally overdose again, like you did last summer? Stop trying to run my life, Carolyn. You’ve got enough problems with your own.”
She started to react, then stopped herself. When the criticism was deserved, she had no right to protest. She’d once walked in on a probationer in the middle of a cocaine buy and ended up wrenching her neck trying to arrest him. The doctor had prescribed a muscle relaxant called Soma. She had mistakenly thought the drug was nothing more than a big aspirin. Unable to lift her head one morning, she’d popped a handful of the pills in her mouth. Within fifteen minutes, she was out cold on the living-room floor. Her son, John, had called an ambulance. Fifteen minutes later, she was in cardiac arrest. If her heart had stopped anywhere outside of the emergency room, she would have been dead.
Neil’s chest was expanding and contracting. Carolyn moved closer, placing her hand in the center of his back. “Try to relax,” she said. “Everything’s going to be all right. All you have to do is help me figure out what happened. Why did you go to Melody’s? I thought you were going to break it off with her.”
“Laurel didn’t want me. You’re too busy to talk to me. I thought driving a few hours in a rainstorm to break up with Melody would be the perfect ending to my miserable day.” He saw the look on her face. �
�Don’t worry, it’s over. All she wanted me for was sex. I’m never going to see her again.”
“Did you sleep with her?”
Neil’s eyes glistened with tears. “Laurel’s dead. Why do you keep talking about Melody?”
“Nothing you or I can do will bring Laurel back, Neil,” Carolyn told him. “Whether you realize it or not, the police may charge you with murder. How long were you with Melody? Did you go out somewhere? Were the two of you with other people? We need to establish your whereabouts at the time of the crime.”
Neil turned toward the door leading into the house. He hated confrontations. In most instances, he simply walked away. That’s probably what he’d done to Laurel, Carolyn thought. “Listen to me!” she shouted, a line of perspiration breaking out on her forehead. “You’re going to be questioned. I need to know where we stand. We have to decide whether we should hire an attorney.”
Neil returned to where she was standing. “I left for LA around three this afternoon.”
Carolyn placed her hands on her hips. “I’m trying to find out if anyone other than Melody can substantiate your alibi. Did you go out to dinner?”
“No,” he said. “We stayed at her place in Brentwood. I left around nine or a few minutes earlier.”
Carolyn had seen Melody Asher on numerous occasions. The woman had even spent Thanksgiving with them. Neil had been crazy about her in the beginning, boasting that she had the face and body of an angel. Although she was somewhat flashy for Ventura, with her blond hair, designer clothes, and fancy Porsche, Melody had come across as a nice young woman who genuinely cared about her brother. Until a month ago, Carolyn had thought she was a former fashion model trying to break into acting. When Neil informed her that his girlfriend was worth over fifty million, she had been flabbergasted. From that point on, she felt uncomfortable around Melody. Their lifestyles were dramatically different. Melody was only twenty-seven. Carolyn couldn’t fathom what it would be like to be young, beautiful, and outrageously wealthy.
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