Everybody Takes The Money (The Drusilla Thorne Mysteries)

by Diane Patterson

  “We’ll wait,” he said.

  I shrugged.

  The police handcuffed Sabo and took him out. When he left, some of the TV cameras did.

  Then a couple of police officers walked Anne down the stairs and out the front of her house. She seemed very small and frail as she walked by, her eyes locked on a point straight ahead of her. She didn’t look into the living room. Most of the rest of the cameras followed her as well.

  Nathaniel dropped the curtain. “Come on.”

  We walked out of Anne’s house and no one paid any attention to us. I followed his lead and looked as professional as someone in a t-shirt, jeans, and rubber-soled shoes could next to a man in a five-thousand-dollar suit.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  AFTER NATHANIEL DROPPED me off at my car and I managed to get away from the police cars clogging up Anne’s neighborhood, I took city streets instead of the freeway and I drove over the hill to Studio City.

  When I drove by Micah Schlegel’s production office, I saw the lights were on and the door was propped open with a giant fan. Micah was hard at work on a Saturday. No time to sleep in this town. If you took a day off, someone else might get ahead of you.

  Schlegel was alone in the office. He sat at his desk, back to the doorway. His t-shirt was wrinkled. Also sweat-stained, but given the heat in the room, that wasn’t surprising. The wrinkles, though, that was an interesting twist. How on Earth could a person wrinkle a t-shirt?

  He was probably putting in some marathon hours hustling his producing projects. Because that’s what he did. He hustled.

  Was Courtney’s death a hindrance or a door opener for him? Like that was even a debate. If he could capitalize on her death for anything involving his projects, like the Girls Becoming Stars reunion, he’d do it.

  I knocked on the open door. “Hey, Micah.” I leaned across the entrance because my legs were having a hell of a time keeping me upright.

  He looked up and his startled reaction was so over the top I wondered how deep in concentration he’d been. Then I realized what his visitor must look like to him, with my clothes messed up and my hair in a tangled, messy ponytail and bruises and scrapes I hadn’t had last time and probably bruises that hadn’t bloomed until I’d left Anne’s house. I’d just been in a fight, and now I was looming in his doorway. He probably thought I was there to mug him.

  “What do you want?” he said. Nervous. One hand reached for his cell phone.

  “Need to ask you something else about Courtney.” I took a step over the giant fan.

  “Sorry about the AC. The whole building’s out. Goddamn landlord.” He grabbed the phone, his hand shaking.

  I reached over and took it out of his hand. “Micah, let’s not do this.”

  “You don’t look so good. I can call somebody.”

  “I feel fairly awful to boot, thanks. I need some answers and then I’m going to leave and you can sit here doing whatever it is you’re doing until the cowboys come back to Studio City. Whatever.” I pulled a chair from one of the other desks across the room over to Micah’s desk. “Neither of us wants to be here right now. You want to go home and shower or maybe you don’t, and I just got into yet another fight with Roger Sabo.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah. We got into an even bigger fight this time. His name isn’t really Roger Sabo, by the way. It’s Broderick Tennyson. He’s an undercover cop. Or he was. Did you know that?”

  His eyes widened. “Oh, God. He is?”

  I held up my hand. “We’re not going to talk about Roger. Just thought you might want to know, that’s all. No, I need to know about the reunion show. Is that still happening?”

  “Yeah.” He bowed his head instead of looking excited, the way I would have guessed. “Yeah, we got the order. They want it bad. They want it fast.”

  “Because of Courtney’s death.”

  He nodded.

  “Are you going to be at the memorial service tomorrow?”

  He licked his lips and nodded again. “Yeah, that’s going to be a big part of the show. That’s really powerful visuals.”

  “Are all the girls going to be there?”

  “As many as can be in Los Angeles in time, you know?”

  Anyone who could get their ass to that memorial service had guaranteed air time. “When you were originally putting the reunion show together, you didn’t have enough space to feature every girl, right?”

  “Yeah. Only got eighty-four minutes, you know.”

  Out of one hundred and twenty. Ah, the joys of commercials. “Was Courtney going to be one of the girls in the show?”

  “Yeah, absolutely.”

  “Originally, Micah. When you originally put this idea together, was Courtney going to be one of them?”

  “Oh. No. We were going to go with Randi. You know, she’s not the greatest or anything.”

  “But she’s done some work in movies. And she and Courtney were both the nice girls with accents, so...”

  “We didn’t need two.” Micah shrugged, as though he were talking about chess pieces, not actual women.

  “What changed your mind?” I said.

  “Well, Courtney called me this week. Maybe it was last week. Anyhow, right after she came back to L.A.”

  “And she had a new story.”

  “Yeah. It was something she hadn’t wanted to tell anyone about before, but—”

  “But if it would get her on the show, she’d talk about it. She’d let you in on it in great detail.”

  Micah nodded. “Surprised the hell out of me, let me tell you.”

  I had no doubt about that. “Courtney called to tell you the reason she went home to Oklahoma two years ago was she’d had a baby.”

  “Yeah. Can’t imagine her with a baby, you know.” He got a sour look on his face and he started to fidget, cleaning under his fingernails with such a vengeance I was afraid he’d draw blood.

  “Did she tell you that you were the father?” I asked.

  He shook his head of curly brown hair and looked almost sheepish. “No. I mean...you know.”

  “No, Micah, I don’t know. Did she tell you that you were? Did you wish you were?”

  He looked wistful for a moment, like he might say something, but then he smiled to cover it up and moved some papers around on his desk. “I kind of thought for half a second she was going to say I was. But she said Greg Hitchcock was.”

  “Just like that.”

  “Yeah, she said his name.”

  “Was she going to say that on the show?” I asked.

  “My thing was, she needed to not do that. I mean...” He dropped his hands. He’d given himself a magnificent hangnail on his thumb. “Can you imagine the lawsuits? And when it was just us talking she said it was Roger Sabo. That’s not even what’s on the certificate. So, no, no mention of anybody. Just going to have her and the baby.”

  “Did she tell you where the baby is right now?” I demanded.

  “Her mom is raising it. You know, she took the kid so Courtney could come back to Los Angeles and get back to TV.” It finally dawned on Micah that maybe, just maybe, wily little Courtney had sold him a bill of goods. “Oh my God, there was no baby, was there?”

  “Where were you going to film her and the baby?” I asked.

  Micah shrugged. “I don’t know. We hadn’t worked it out. But she said we needed to do it soon, because her and Sabo, they were going to leave soon, them and their kid.”

  And as soon as Courtney could get Hailey back, she was going to use her for TV.

  “Give me a copy of the birth certificate,” I said.

  “I don’t—”

  “I have fired a gun today, Micah. Would you like to smell the powder on my fingers? I am not in the mood.”

  After a couple of seconds he said, “Whatever,” and rolled his chair over to one of the freestanding file cabinets. He used his huge keyring to unlock it and then dig through the middle drawer. He pulled a couple of papers out and stuck one on the glass
of a small printer-fax-scanner combination machine. Stevie always told me those things were poorly made, which didn’t stop her from asking for one periodically.

  The copy he made came out of the side of the machine. He whipped it toward me like he was fly-fishing. “Here. Go away.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  SATURDAY MORNING STEVIE looked at the birth certificate.

  “The father’s listed as Jonathan Ricciardi.”

  Which was what I thought the words had spelled out. I thought about Jonathan and Alison, and little baby Hailey. Jonathan and Courtney both had Scandinavian blue eyes. I was fairly certain neither of them wore contacts.

  “Is it possible for two blue-eyed parents to make a brown-eyed baby?” I asked Stevie.

  “Genetic traits aren’t passed on quite as cleanly as it’s presented in biology class. Yes, it’s possible.”

  I described Jonathan’s and Courtney’s bright, light-colored eyes, and Hailey’s dark brown ones.

  “Then that’s not as likely, no.”

  “Why would he put his name on the birth certificate if he wasn’t the father?”

  Stevie shrugged. “Because it’s easier than adoption?”

  Couples traveled far and wide to adopt. Everyone in Poland had stories about Western couples looking for babies “who looked like them.” Courtney and her baby were much closer to home. And what an opportunity for Greg Hitchcock: he managed to cover up his little transgression with Courtney (if he was, in fact, the baby’s father) and to bind Jonathan to him ever more tightly.

  No wonder Jonathan was afraid of losing Hailey once all his fiscal sleight-of-hand was revealed.

  How worried had he been about what Courtney might do? For that matter, what about his wife, Alison?

  Stevie asked, “Can we go shopping for clothes?”

  I looked up. “Who are you and what have you done with my sister?”

  “I’ll need a dress for church tomorrow. Also, the weather’s warming a bit. My clothes are quite stifling out of doors.”

  “Your clothes were fine for you in Las Vegas.”

  “Yes. Because I was indoors with the air conditioning running.”

  For six months straight she had stayed in that apartment, never once leaving until the day we split.

  She wasn’t staying indoors all the time anymore. And if we had to move again, we might not find a place she’d want to hide in this time.

  Stevie and I went to the Out of the Closet thrift store on Santa Monica. Everyone said they had the nicest vintage clothing, right down to calling it “vintage” instead of “used discards.”

  I’m a fabulous older sister: nothing but the finest previously owned clothing for my girl.

  We scooped up slacks and jeans and long skirts, along with several short-sleeved and long-sleeved blouses made of a lighter-weight fabric than most of the things she currently wore had. Of course, we’d had those since Montreal. We didn’t buy new clothes for either of us very often, and we got them for Stevie much less frequently than for me. But everything was, as usual, floppy and oversized. Easy to wear, easy to clean, easy to get lost in. Just the way Stevie always wore her clothes.

  One of the employees, a middle-aged woman named Carla, checked Stevie into one of the changing rooms. “Does she need some new bras?” Carla asked.

  “Previously worn bras? No, thank you.” I shook my head.

  “Those we have new,” she said.

  Stevie hadn’t had new undergarments in a while. “Oh. Brilliant. My sister wears a 32B.”

  Carla blinked at me. “Your sister’s a 30D, honey.” I must have looked stunned, because she nodded. “Trust me, I’ve been doing this a while. 30D. I’ll get her some.”

  Carla’s assessment of my sister’s figure wasn’t even the biggest surprise of the afternoon.

  No, that award went to the piece of clothing I hadn’t even seen Stevie bring into the dressing room. The sweet ivory-colored dress with a princess neckline and large flower prints on the fabric was so unlike anything I’d seen her in for years that when Stevie came out of the changing area with it on, I honestly didn’t recognize her for a moment. It took me several breaths and what seemed like several years to figure out why.

  Because despite having three-quarter sleeves and a hemline two inches below her knees, this dress wasn’t as shapeless as most of the clothing Stevie generally wore. And it was suddenly very obvious to everyone, even me, that my little sister was now in her early twenties and not a little girl anymore.

  Her smile was so bright as she turned around in front of the mirror. She didn’t twirl or giggle or do any of the things most girls might do when modeling a beautiful dress, she just looked at herself and smiled.

  My sister’s quite pretty when she smiles.

  Beautiful, even.

  She didn’t smile nearly often enough.

  “What do you think?” she said.

  Probably I should have told her what I’d just seen: how pretty she looked. Possibly I should have pointed out that the dress was even a little too old for her, something more fitting for a woman working on the twenty-seventh floor in an air-conditioned office building, paired with sensible shoes, than a twenty-two-year-old who ought to be out having fun.

  Anne hated me. Gary might be talked into getting rid of me. I seemed to cause mayhem wherever I went. And now my little sister, the person I had been taking care of for eleven years, wasn’t a little girl anymore. She might not need me, either.

  Instead, I shrugged and said, “Where are you ever going to wear that?”

  Her smile wavered. “It’s not expensive.”

  “Stevie, we need clothes we’re never going to use like a hole in the head. Put it back and find something else.”

  “Okay,” Stevie said. She touched the seam of the skirt gently.

  My phone rang. Nathaniel. “Come here immediately,” he said, and he hung up.

  “Stevie, we have to go. Let’s get this rung up.”

  I was so bothered by Nathaniel’s abrupt phone call I didn’t even pay attention to what Stevie put on the counter. She kept our money, she paid for the clothes.

  Only after we were in the car did I see, folded at the top of one of the bags, the ivory dress with the large flower prints.

  I let it go. After Courtney’s memorial service, she didn’t have anywhere to wear it, so there was no harm in it.

  * * *

  Century City was deserted on Saturdays. The streets by Nathaniel’s office building that were one large logjam during the week had moving traffic on them. The garage under the building was almost completely empty but I still had to stop at the lone valet, sitting at the desk near the elevators. He handed me a ticket, as though it was going to be hard to remember which car was mine. The only car visible was Nathaniel’s Mercedes, parked next to the valet’s desk. Mine he drove around the corner, so it wasn’t visible right away.

  The doors on Nathaniel’s floor opened to silence. No receptionist at the oval-shaped desk with the high-tech headset. No one waiting in the lobby. I called Nathaniel’s number: he didn’t answer.

  I didn’t know whether to sit down or not while I waited. Maybe I wasn’t supposed to come here? I’d always thought the reception area of the law office was quiet during the week, but in contrast to this silence, the regular day was a symphony of phones, low voices, and footfalls on the carpeting.

  I compromised between standing and sitting by perching on the armrest of one of the chairs. The pain through my tailbone immediately let me know that maneuver was not appreciated, so I settled for leaning against the wall near the giant letters of the law office’s name.

  After a few minutes the door into the inner sanctum opened and there was my lawyer, in a suit and tie. No Carmela with her clipboards or efficiency. Just Nathaniel.

  “Come on,” he said.

  The office was empty. I would have guessed that people would be there, finishing up paperwork, making phone calls, whatever, but every cubicle and glass-walled offic
e we passed was dark. Even the computers were off.

  He didn’t say a word as we walked, his shiny shoes slapping in regular rhythm down the hallway to his office. I got the feeling I had better not try to lighten the mood. Or talk to him. Maybe ever again.

  The meeting room nearest Nathaniel’s office was the first light on in the place. Several notebooks and legal pads were strewn around the tabletop. There was a Starbucks cup, lid still on. I thought we were headed in there, but then Nathaniel opened the door to his office. Where the overhead lights were off. The giant windows looking out at Santa Monica Boulevard below provided plenty of indirect sunlight. I sat in my usual visitor’s chair as Nathaniel turned the computer monitor around toward me. He hit the spacebar key and then walked out.

  The picture on the monitor showed me a blank wall.

  “Hello?” I said.

  The image on the screen whirled around, making me feel sick to my stomach. When the picture stopped moving, the computer’s camera finally focused on its subject, Roberto.

  His face looked completely calm and placid, which told me I was in very big trouble indeed. Anger and rage I can deal with. Lack of emotion is terrifying.

  “Are you all right?” he asked.

  No need to ask what he was talking about. We were past that now.

  “Yes,” I said.

  “Is your friend all right?”

  I nodded, not very enthusiastically. “I think so. Not sure.”

  “And why aren’t you sure, Drusilla?”

  Oh, good. Sarcastic Roberto. My favorite kind. “Because she wouldn’t talk to me afterward. After it was all over.”

  “Can you blame her? What you did was both terrifying and very stupid.”

  I opened my mouth to reply.

  He snapped his fingers in front of the camera. “No. Not interested. Whatever rationale you have this time, save it. He could have killed you or your friend or both of you. You could have killed him. You could have fallen off that goddamned roof. And why? Because it seemed like a good idea at the time? Exceptionally stupid. You are going to get yourself killed.”