This Pen for Hire

by Laura Levine

  Suddenly I felt queasy. Had Cameron lied about Stacy? He said he hardly knew her. But maybe he’d known her very well. Maybe he’d been having an affair with her, like every other man in the Western Hemisphere. But even if he had, why would he want to kill her? He wasn’t the type to blow up in a jealous rage like Devon. And unlike Daryush or Andy, he had no wealthy wife that Stacy could use as leverage in a blackmail plot.

  I slammed my looseleaf shut, disgusted with myself. What was wrong with me? Here I’d finally met a wonderful guy, and I was accusing him of murder! I was sabotaging the relationship before it even started. I knew perfectly well that Cameron hadn’t been having an affair with Stacy. She wasn’t his type. The only woman he’d been “involved” with in Bentley Gardens was Marian Hamilton.

  I knew what was going on. I was probably so afraid of getting close to someone, after my disastrous marriage to The Blob, that I was manufacturing reasons to scurry back to my safe cocoon of celibacy. I was afraid of getting laid, that was what this was all about. First thing tomorrow, I decided, I was going to make an appointment with a shrink.

  I tried to concentrate on Mrs. Pechter’s adventures at the Wailing Wall, but it was no use. I couldn’t forget that damn parking ticket. I could give myself all the psychobabble lectures in the world, but I still had a horrible feeling in the pit of my stomach that Cameron was somehow involved with Stacy’s murder.

  I sat through the rest of the class in a daze, counting the minutes till nine o’clock. Mr. Goldman had just started reading the latest installment in “My Life as a Carpet Salesman” when I cut him short.

  “I’m sorry, but that’s all we have time for tonight.” With trembling hands I gathered my things and headed for the door.

  “Have a nice time on your date!” Mrs. Pechter called out. The other ladies echoed her sentiments, telling me how pretty I looked and to “enjoy yourself, dollink.”

  “I still say he’s gay,” Mr. Goldman muttered.

  I waved good-bye, forcing my lips into a smile, and headed for the ladies’ room. I needed desperately to splash some cold water on my face.

  I walked into the dimly lit bathroom at the end of the corridor and was surprised to see a young woman, her back toward me, brushing her hair. What was a young girl doing at the Shalom Retirement Home?

  But then she turned around and I saw that it wasn’t a young woman, after all, but Mrs. Vincenzo. With her long hair and slim body, I’d mistaken her for someone much younger. And suddenly I was reminded of Marian Hamilton and her long blond hair. How easy it would have been, in the right lighting, to mistake her for a young woman. A young woman like Stacy. Hadn’t Cameron told me how much the two of them looked alike? I could easily picture someone walking into a dimly lit bedroom and mistaking Marian for Stacy.

  Or mistaking Stacy for Marian.

  Mrs. Vincenzo finished brushing her hair and grinned.

  “Have fun tonight, honey,” she said, and headed out the door.

  I clutched the sink for support. Waves of nausea were churning at the back of my throat.

  A horrible scenario had begun to spin itself out in my mind.

  What if Cameron was the killer? But what if he’d killed the wrong person? What if it was Marian he’d meant to kill, and not Stacy? After all, he’d been away in San Francisco for a month. He’d have no way of knowing that Marian had already died and that Stacy had moved into her apartment.

  So he comes down to Los Angeles and parks his Jeep down the street so that no one in the building will realize he’s there. Then he lets himself into Marian’s apartment, with a key she’d no doubt given him.

  The living room is dark, and he doesn’t notice the furniture’s changed. Besides, he’s not thinking about furniture. He’s got more important things on his mind. Quietly, he slips down the corridor to the bedroom. There he sees Stacy asleep, her back toward him, her blond hair splayed out on her pillow. In the dark, her hair looks just like Marian’s. He sees the ThighMaster on the floor. The perfect murder weapon. He naturally assumes it’s Marian’s. She was proud of her body and liked to work out. So he picks up the bulky piece of metal and bludgeons Stacy to death—only to discover when he’s done that he’s killed the wrong woman.

  But why? Why would Cameron have killed Marian? He seemed genuinely fond of her.

  I had no idea why the man of my dreams would have beaten the life out of a faded starlet.

  But he did. Of that, I was certain.

  Which is why I spent the next fifteen minutes bent over a toilet bowl at the Shalom Retirement Home, puking my guts out.

  Eventually I managed to pry myself away from the toilet bowl and drive back to my apartment.

  No way was I going to keep my date with Cameron. I’d call him and tell him I wasn’t feeling well—which was no lie. My stomach was growling, and my head was pounding. As soon as I got home, I collapsed on the sofa with a package of frozen peas on my forehead and Prozac on my belly.

  Don’t ask me how I knew with such utter certainty that Cameron was the killer. I just did. I’d been an idiot to fall for him. I should have known he wasn’t really interested in me. There is an unwritten rule of mating, as far as I’m concerned: Beautiful People want Beautiful People. They rarely wind up with Commoners. Mel Gibson does not date Kathy Bates.

  I could see now that Cameron had been dating me to keep tabs on me. Once he realized I was investigating the murder, he wanted to make sure I didn’t discover the truth.

  Yes, I was convinced Cameron was a killer. What I couldn’t figure out was why?

  What possible reason could Cameron have for wanting to kill Marian? A crime of passion? Hardly. And it couldn’t have been money. She didn’t leave him anything in her will, except for that framed photo of herself. Not exactly a windfall. The picture was probably worth six bucks, maximum, to a Hollywood trivia collector.

  The phone rang. Too exhausted to move, I let the machine get it.

  “Hi, Jaine. It’s me.” His voice sounded boyish. Innocent. “Just calling to see where you were. I thought you’d be here by now. Oh, well. I guess you’re on your way.”

  Fat chance.

  I stayed right where I was on the sofa, stroking Prozac and staring at the ceiling. After a while, my frozen peas started melting. I reached over to put them on the coffee table and grabbed a magazine to use as a coaster.

  And that’s when everything started to make sense.

  Because the magazine I grabbed wasn’t a magazine, but the catalogue from Christie’s auction house.

  Suddenly I remembered the picture of Cary Grant. The one that sold for $123,000. Something about it had looked familiar at the time. And now I knew what it was: the frame. It was the frame that Marian had left Cameron in her will.

  Flinging the peas on the carpet, I started rifling through the pages of the catalogue until I found the photo of Cary Grant. Sure enough, it was in the same frame that had held Marian’s picture.

  Another scenario began forming in my mind:

  A has-been actress owns a very valuable frame. Maybe it was given to her by a wealthy lover. She probably doesn’t even realize how much it’s worth. But then she meets a charming young antiques dealer who takes one look at the frame and knows it’s a gold mine. He doesn’t tell her, of course. Instead, he befriends her and gets her to leave it to him in her will, as a sentimental memento.

  Maybe at first he’s not even thinking of murder. But then things get tough for him financially. His antiques shop is having a dry spell. And he needs cash badly. So he devises a plot to kill her, only he winds up killing the wrong blonde.

  It all made perfect sense. Just that very afternoon, hadn’t Cameron told me how he’d come into money, as a result of a big “sale”?

  I reached for the phone and put in a call to Detective Rea. He was gone for the day, but I told the sergeant on duty to track him down and have him call me back as soon as possible.

  I hung up, my nerves totally shot. I looked around my apartment and suddenly I
knew I didn’t want to spend the night there, alone, with nothing for protection but a cat with a compulsive eating problem. So I called Kandi, and asked if I could spend the night at her place. She said sure, fine, and asked if I’d mind picking up some Häagen-Dazs French Vanilla on my way over.

  I hung up and started throwing things into my gym bag. I hadn’t gotten very far when the phone rang. I leapt at it eagerly.

  “Detective Rea?”

  “No. It’s Cameron.”

  Oh, God. I’d blundered. Badly.

  “Hi, Cameron.” I strained to keep the fear out of my voice. “I was expecting a call from Detective Rea. I wanted to talk to him about Daryush. I really think he’s our killer.”

  “Can’t you forget about the murder for one night?” he sighed. “I thought you were coming over for some hugging and munching.”

  He sounded sweet. Sexy. Utterly innocent. So why were the hairs on the back of my neck standing on end?

  “Cameron, I can’t. I’m feeling terrible. Must have been something I ate. I’ve been throwing up all night.”

  “Let me come to your place and take care of you.”

  “No!” I shouted. “I mean, no . . . I’ll be fine. Really.”

  “You sure?”

  “I’m sure.”

  “Make yourself some chicken soup.”

  “I will.”

  “I miss you.”

  “Me too,” I managed to choke out. “But I better go now. I think I’m going to be sick again.” Which wasn’t far from the truth.

  I hung up, bathed in sweat. I only hoped he believed my cock-and-bull story about Daryush. More than ever, I wanted to get out of my apartment. I threw some pajamas into my gym bag, along with a toothbrush and an ancient bottle of Valium left over from my divorce.

  I grabbed my car keys and was heading for the front door when I stopped in my tracks. I’d forgotten all about Prozac. I couldn’t leave her alone in the apartment. I didn’t know exactly what it was I was afraid of, but I did know that I’d never forgive myself if anything happened to her.

  So I grabbed her cat carrier from the hall closet. Which was, of course, a fatal mistake. The minute she saw it, she undoubtedly thought, “Uh-oh, another trip to that irritating veterinarian who keeps sticking thermometers up my butt.”

  The next thing I knew, she was stubbornly entrenched under the sofa, just beyond my reach.

  “C’mon, Prozac, honey, I swear we’re not going to the vet’s. We’re going to Auntie Kandi’s and I’ll let you eat Häagen-Dazs French Vanilla till your tummy is as big as a cantaloupe. I promise.”

  But she wouldn’t budge. I pleaded, I cooed, I threatened. Finally, I got smart and opened a can of gourmet liver innards. I held it out to her and crooned, “Mmmmmm, yummy liver. Mmmmmm, good.”

  A pink nose emerged from under the sofa. A large tummy soon followed. I snatched my beloved furball and tossed her into the carrier, along with the liver.

  “I swear,” I said, as she glared at me from her tiny prison, “we’re not going to the vet’s.”

  Then I grabbed my gym bag and opened the front door.

  Only to find Cameron standing there. With a can of chicken noodle soup in one hand. And a gun in the other.

  Chapter Twenty-four

  “I didn’t really think you were sick,” Cameron said, pushing me back into my apartment with the butt of his gun, “but I brought some soup anyway.”

  He smiled his crinkly-eyed grin and shoved me down onto the sofa. Prozac hissed from her carrier, clawing at the latch.

  “Hush now, kitty.” He took the carrier from my hands and hurled it across the room, Prozac howling in protest.

  “So,” he said, dropping the can of soup onto the coffee table. “You figured everything out, didn’t you?”

  I nodded numbly.

  “What a comedy of errors, huh?”

  “I wouldn’t exactly call it a comedy.”

  He slouched down comfortably into my overstuffed armchair and aimed his gun at my left breast.

  “I go to kill Marian, but I have no idea that she’s already dead and buried. So I wind up offing that stupid bimbo by mistake. Can you believe my rotten luck?”

  “Stacy’s luck wasn’t too hot, either.”

  “Oh, come on. She was a piece of trash. No great loss to humanity.”

  Now he aimed the gun at my right breast.

  “So how did you guess it was me? I had an air-tight alibi. I was in San Francisco the night of the murder, having dinner at the Union Street Inn. The proprietor of the inn, one Ann Garrity, will swear to that.”

  “Is she your girlfriend? Is that how you got her to lie for you?”

  “That cow? My girlfriend? Please, I practically threw up when I had to sleep with her. I just closed my eyes and thought of Sharon Stone.”

  “Is that what you were going to do with me tonight? Think of Sharon Stone?”

  He grinned apologetically. Like a kid with his hand caught in the cookie jar.

  “Maybe just a little.”

  A fresh wave of nausea washed over me. I would’ve puked, but I had nothing left to throw up. So I just sat there, listening to the sounds of my gut heaving and Prozac scratching at her cage.

  Cameron looked down at the coffee table and saw the Christie’s auction catalogue.

  “So that’s how you figured it out. You were there. At the auction.”

  I nodded. “I knew something about the picture was familiar, and tonight I finally figured out what it was. The frame.”

  “It’s a beauty, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, but where did you get the picture of Cary Grant?”

  “Oh, that. Marian actually dated him for a while. He gave her a framed photo of himself. Then he dumped her for someone else. Barbara Hutton or Randolph Scott, I forget who. Anyhow, she got pissed and covered his picture with that cheesy starlet snapshot of herself. The first time I saw it, I knew the frame was worth a lot of money. And the picture of Cary Grant just made it more valuable.”

  “So you became Marian’s new best friend.”

  “Right again, Sherlock.” Cameron was playing with the gun now, twirling it like a cowboy in a bad Western.

  “She gave you the key to her apartment, just in case of an emergency, never dreaming that the emergency would be you bashing her head in.”

  “Hey, I never wanted to kill Marian. She was a harmless old bat. The person I really wanted to kill was my stockbroker. He got me into some very stupid investments. Otherwise I wouldn’t have dreamed of knocking her off.”

  “And the key you gave Daryush the day he caught us breaking into Stacy’s apartment. It really was the key to the apartment. That’s how you let yourself in the night of the murder.”

  “That idiot Daryush. If he’d only changed the locks after Marian died, Stacy would be alive today. Not that it matters. Like I said, she’s no great loss.”

  With that, he picked up a magazine from the coffee table and hurled it at the cat carrier, where Prozac was moaning piteously. I wanted to leap up and strangle him, but figured that wasn’t exactly a smart way to go, not with his gun aimed straight at my chest.

  “And after the murder, you hid out in your own apartment. Which is why none of the tenants saw or heard anyone running away.”

  “Yep. I was lying in bed watching Jeopardy when Howard showed up for his date. Poor shmuck.” He shook his head pityingly. “Anyhow, I had a restful night’s sleep, and then the next morning at dawn I snuck out to my Jeep and drove to the beach for a few hours. Then I came back just in time to meet you.”

  He looked at me with what I could swear was genuine fondness and clicked something on the gun.

  “The safety catch,” he explained. “It’s off now.” He sighed wearily. “I’m going to have to kill you, of course. And it’s really a shame. Because I like you.” He actually managed to look sad.

  “Well, don’t do it if it’s going to make you unhappy.”

  He smiled again, that wonderful grin that coul
d soften cement.

  “That’s what I like about you. You make me laugh. Too bad you couldn’t have minded your own business.”

  “I think I should tell you,” I said, trying to keep the hysteria out of my voice, “I just spoke with Detective Rea and told him that you killed Stacy.”

  Cameron said nothing. Just sat there looking at me, trying to figure out if I was bluffing. He figured right.

  “Nice try,” he said finally. “But I don’t believe you.”

  “I did. I swear. If you kill me, he’ll know it’s you.”

  “I’ll take my chances. Every day you suspect someone new. I doubt the cops take you very seriously. I’m hoping they’ll pin your murder on Andy. They’ll probably think he had you killed to keep you from testifying at his trial.”

  “They’ll never believe that.”

  “Really? It works for me.”

  He aimed the gun straight at my heart.

  “Sorry, hon. I don’t have a choice.”

  Just as he was about to pull the trigger, an angry ball of fur burst out of her cage and came hurtling across the room. Prozac, that incredible animal, had clawed the latch free.

  I’m sure you’ve read stories of heroic cats who rescued their owners-in-distress by attacking intruders or dialing 911 with their paws.

  Prozac isn’t one of them.

  She whizzed past Cameron and scooted under the sofa, scared out of her wits. But the sudden movement threw him off guard. I grabbed the can of chicken noodle soup from the coffee table, and hurled it at him, knocking the gun from his hand.

  The gun went skittering across the room. Cameron and I went skittering after it. The good news is, I reached it first. The bad news is, Cameron grabbed it out of my hands before I could even find the trigger. And then, just as he was taking aim at my chest for the fifth time that evening, we heard footsteps clomping up the path. A bunch of cops came bursting through the front door, guns drawn.

  “Okay, Cameron,” Detective Rea shouted, “drop it.”