“Where the hell have you been, Lund?” Carol snarled into her cell.
“Where are you?” Emma asked me
“I’m on a call-back for Herbal Heart. I have to go.”
“You know what’s really sick? I think I’m falling for him.” Emma hung up.
“Four o’clock, Lund.” Carol disconnected her phone and looked at me. “The meeting is set.”
“Does he know it’s me he’s seeing?” I asked.
“Of course he does. What’s wrong with you, Diana?”
“I’m not sure.”
Val was off her phone now and studying me. “What’s Herbal Heart?”
“I’ve got a call back for a commercial for a premenopausal pill. It’s called Herbal Heart.”
Carol stepped out of her pinstripe trousers. “I look like a two-bit gangster in this suit.” She turned on me. “Did you say premenopausal pill? Hawking anything that has to do with a woman aging is a bad career move for you, Diana. Don’t do it.”
“Who were you talking too?” Val smiled slyly. “Why did you lie about being on a call-back and not here with us?”
“I was talking to somebody who wouldn’t understand… I should go on this commercial. You know, just in case.” I stood.
“You’re going to get this part in Lund’s movie, Diana, if I have to stuff you down his throat. So don’t bother with that other shit. And don’t forget four o’clock. Lund’s office.” Carol was now bare legged, wearing only the gangster like pinstripe jacket. She looked like an aged chorus girl searching for a production of Guys and Dolls.
You need to have a career in order to make a bad career move. So I did go to the call-back for Herbal Heart. I was playing a wife in that one too. Herbal Heart was going to make me a whole woman again so I could enjoy playing with my Labrador and my husband. The director and client smiled and nodded and said they’d let me know.
At four o’clock I was sitting in Lund Hagan’s office.
Like many directors’ offices, Lund’s had a rented, transitory feeling to it. It was large enough to be impressive as was his leather chair and glass-and-metal desk. The only personal touches were a couple of posters from his most recent movies and a Best Director Oscar sitting on a dull gray filing cabinet.
Lund’s cold eyes took me in. “I see you, Val, and Carol have been very busy. What did you tell them?” He rose from his chair, forcing me to look up at him.
“Nothing.”
“You expect me to believe that?” He came around and sat on the edge of his desk and scratched his perfectly unshaven chin. “Let’s put our cards on the table, Diana. If I don’t hire you, you’re going to tell them about Emma and me. Isn’t that how it works?”
“No.”
“You expect me to believe that?”
“Yes.”
“You were on Val’s and Carol’s short list. Not mine. I never took you for a player, Diana.”
By player he meant a conniver and schemer.
“Do you want me for this role or not? I have a long drive back to Malibu.”
“You’ve pushed me into a corner. I have no choice.” He put up his hands like a man being held at gunpoint.
I thought of the money I would earn and the prestige this role could bring me. I thought of my rotting wood deck, leaky roof, and my Jag’s heater that never turned off. What difference did it make if Lund Hagan thought I was blackmailing him?
“I’ll do my best for you, Lund,” I heard myself say.
“I’ll make you look damn good on film, Diana. But if Carol or Val hear one word about Emma and me, I can make you look just as bad, or reduce your part to nothing in the editing room.”
I drove to Malibu with the setting sun in my eyes.
At one o’clock in the morning the phone rang pulling me out of a restless sleep.
“How could you do this, Diana!” Emma Parker screamed at me.
“Do what?”
“I looked up to you. You and Colin were the golden couple because you both had principle!”
“Are we talking about the role of the wife?”
“Yes! You are the last person I ever thought would use blackmail to get…”
“I’m not blackmailing anyone.”
“You threatened to tell Val and Carol if Lund didn’t give you the part.”
“Did he tell you that? It’s not true. I was on the short list. Val and Carol got me a meeting with Lund. It had nothing to do with you and him.”
“Really? And how did you get to see Val and Carol?”
I told her what had happened at Saks.
There was a long heavy pause, then, “You expect me to believe that Carol and Val were sharing a dressing room in Saks and invited you in to give you the role of the wife?”
“Yes.”
“When was this?”
“After I left you.”
“So you were with them in a dressing room at Saks when I called you?”
“Yes.”
“No you weren’t. You were on the call back for Herbal Heart. You should get your lies straight, Diana.” She slammed the phone down.
On the set four days later, I was pouring coffee into a mug. It was cold. But I blew on it as if it were hot. Sense memory. I listened to Josh Black, the actor, tell me there was nothing wrong with our married life. Beyond the lights voices were raised from the shadowy sound stage. Josh continued his lines but without conviction until Lund yelled, “Cut, God damn’t!” Then, confronting two men in suits, he fumed, “I’m shooting a movie here.”
The makeup woman rushed onto the set and began dabbing at my face. “Did you hear?” she said in a low voice. “Emma Parker was murdered.”
“What?” I slumped against the fake kitchen counter. “I can’t believe it.”
The set lights dimmed. Now I could see the people on the soundstage clearly. The taller of the two men talking to Lund turned in my direction. I sucked in my breath. It was Detective Leo Heath. His dark hair was cut short and graying at the temples. His dark intelligent eyes turned hard as he took me in. The last time I saw him was in my bed. In my arms. He had left early in the morning. But he had called. He had left messages. I never returned any of them.
The next day, Friday, Variety ran a headline: AXED ACTRESS SHOT DEAD. On Saturday I sat on my deck hiding my face from the sun under a battered straw hat. The police had questioned Lund, but when they narrowed down the time of Emma’s death he had an alibi. He was with his mistress and his wife. I was waiting to be questioned.
“Do you have an alibi?” Ryan Johns, my next-door neighbor, sprawled on my lounge. His house, oozing money and success, towered over mine. He wore Bermuda shorts, a Hawaiian shirt, a gold Piaget watch, and Ugg boots.
“I was here. Alone. I haven’t been questioned.”
“You could say you were with me.” He belched then leered at me. He was on his fifth Corona.
“Do you really think I need an alibi?”
His bleary blue eyes took me in. Then he shook his head causing his red curly hair to bounce like springs. “This is Hollywood, Diana. They’re going to need a suspect and quickly. Do you think Lund hasn’t told the police you were blackmailing him?”
“But I wasn’t. Val and Carol know that.”
“Let me be your alibi, Diana. Let me do something for you.” He sat up and stared out over the railing.
I lifted my hat and followed his gaze. Detective Leo Heath stood on the beach looking up at us. His hands were in his pant pockets. The breeze bellowed his jacket out and blew his tie over his shoulder. Sunglasses covered his eyes. Then he reached into his pocket and showed his badge, as if I didn’t know he was the police. It caught the sun and glimmered. Then he pointed at the locked gate that led from the beach to the pathway that separated my house from Ryan’s. I got up and let him in.
When we were back on the deck, I said, “I have a front door.” I sounded cold and aloof and immediately regretted my tone.
“You didn’t answer it. Your Jag was in the car port so I came around the l
ong way.” He looked at Ryan.
“Who are you?” He slipped of his glasses and rubbed the bridge of his pugilistic nose.
“Ryan Johns. I live next door.”
Leo nodded as he stamped his feet trying to knock the sand off his shoes. Then his smile slid sideways. “Nice outfit. You in the biz?”
“Screenwriter.”
He turned back to me. “Wasn’t your husband a screenwriter?” He knew damn well he was.
“Yes.”
He nodded vaguely. “I have some questions I’d like to ask you, Miss Poole.”
We went into the living room. I demanded that Ryan stay. I needed a buffer between me and Leo Heath. Ryan and I sat on the sofa. I took off my hat and ran my hand through my hair. Heath stood by the fireplace. Colin’s Oscars glimmered from the mantel.
“What is it you would like to ask me?” I asked.
“When was the last time you saw Emma Parker?”
I told him about going to her house but paused, remembering Lund coming out of the bedroom.
“Anybody else there?”
I related my encounter with Lund.
He nodded. “Then where did you go?”
I told him about running into Val and Carol at Saks and how they offered me the role of The Wife in the dressing room.
“Is that about the time Emma called you? I have her list of calls from her cell phone.”
I explained the awkwardness of the phone call.
“So you lied to her.”
“It wasn’t exactly a lie. How did you know?”
“Val Franz, the mistress, said you told whoever you were taking to that you were on an Herbal Heart call-back.”
“What’s that?” Ryan asked between gulps of his Corona.
“A natural hormone for early menopause,” I snapped.
He gaped at me. “Oh, Diana, that’s a bad career move.”
“Could we get back to why you lied to Emma Parker?” Leo asked dryly.
“I couldn’t very well tell her I was with Lund’s wife and mistress. I mean she had just gone to bed with him. Nor could I tell her that I was being offered the part that she had just been fired from.”
“By the man she had just gone to bed with,” he said in a tired voice. Then his dark eyes bore into me. “Why not?”
“Because she was in a delicate state and I didn’t have time to explain and I didn’t want Val and Carol to know Lund was with Emma.”
“Confusing, isn’t it?” Ryan observed.
“No. It’s stupid.”
I felt as if I had to defend Emma. Or was it me? “This from a man with three wives?” I blurted.
Ryan stared at Leo then at me. Leo ignored the comment by looking at his notes.
“Emma Parker was killed between one and three in the morning on Tuesday. Where were you at that time?”
“She was with me,” Ryan announced to quickly, like an actor rushing his cue.
Leo smiled crookedly. “Were you dressed like that when she was with you?”
Ryan slammed his beer onto the table and stood. “She’s not saying anymore.”
“Ryan.” I took his hand and pulled him back down to the sofa.
Leo turned to study the statuettes on the mantel. “I see you didn’t get rid of Colin’s Oscars. Weren’t you going to do that?”
“I was trying to let go.”
He swung around facing me. “But just for one night.”
“What is that suppose to mean?!”
“My God! You went to bed with him.” Ryan stared at me accusingly. “I can see it on your face and his. You both look pathetic.”
“This coming from a guy wearing Uggs,” Leo snorted.
“It was a mistake, Ryan.”
“A cop? You went to bed with a cop? You’re an actress, an artist. How could you go to bed with a cop? And not me?”
“So were you still with her from one to three o’clock in the morning?” Leo asked.
Before Ryan was forced to answer, I said, “No he wasn’t. I was here in bed. Alone. Who has an alibi for those hours anyway?”
“Some people do.”
“Well maybe they need to have one.”
“I would just like to say one thing, Diana.” Ryan was now at the sliding doors facing us. “When the great screenwriter, Herman Mankiewicz, drunkenly threw up on the table during a dinner party at Hearst’s castle, he turned to his hostess, Marion Davis, and said, ‘Don’t worry, Marion, the white wine went with the fish.’ Think about it.” He opened the door and left.
“What does that mean, and why do you have to think about it?” Leo asked.
“Maybe it means you can get away with anything as long as the white wine goes with the fish,” I said.
“Is that why you didn’t call me back? We don’t go together?”
“You were divorcing your third wife and I’m still mourning my husband. That’s not a great combination.”
“You may need lawyer.”
“Why?”
“Lund Hagan said you were blackmailing him to get Emma Parker’s role. Val Franz and Carol Hagan said all they offered you was a reading with Lund. They said they never told you that you had the part.”
“But that’s not true.”
He shrugged. “If it isn’t, you’re being set up very nicely.”
“You believe me, don’t you?”
“Why should I?” His face turned somber. The eyes hooded.
“Because we went to bed.”
He cocked his head to one side and studied me. “All I know, Diana, is that I called you ten times, and you never returned one call. You’re going to have to come down to the Hollywood station tomorrow and give a full statement.” He sauntered out of the room to the foyer. I heard the front door open.
“You called twelve times, but who’s counting.” I yelled after him, and then added. “I was afraid.” I heard the door close.
When I went to bed that night I didn’t take my sleeping pill. The TV was on. A black-and-white B-movie, starring Bonita Granville and one of those vague male actors that never made it, filled the deadly silence of my room. I thought of Emma looking for her self-worth. How the business and her own conflicted needs had stripped it away from her. But why kill her? She was no threat to Lund or Val or Carol. Carol the Wife. I remembered her at Saks fighting back tears and anger at Lund for not coming home. One mistress she could handle. But two? Did Emma upset the balance?
I lay back on my pillows and closed my eyes. I reached over and felt the cold empty side of the bed. When was I going to stop being afraid to fill this other side? And then I thought of how to find the murderer and call Leo Heath back at the same time. Wrapping my husband’s silk paisley robe around me, I went to the kitchen and got my Filofax. I called Carol Hagan. She answered on the fifth ring.
“This is Diana and I know who killed Emma.” Then I hung up and called Val and said the exact same thing.
Then I called Leo on his cell phone. A woman answered.
“Is Leo Heath there?”
“Just a sec.”
I waited, and then his sleepy voice came on the line. “Yeah?”
“This is Diana. Who’s the woman?”
“Let me take a look. Don’t know her name.”
I told him what I had done.
“You have a death wish?” he growled.
No. I just don’t want to be framed for murder.”
“Jesus Christ. I’m coming over. Wait. Are you calling me back or trying to solve a murder?”
“I’m tying to save myself.” I hung up. He has a woman in his bed and he doesn’t know her name. What the hell was I doing?
I had left the front door unlocked. And now I sat in the living room in the dark, grasping one of Colin’s Oscars. It was the only weapon I could think of other than a knife. I just couldn’t see myself plunging a blade into Carol Hagan’s Prada-clad body. I was coming to the conclusion that maybe I did have a death wish.
Suddenly there was a loud banging on the sliding glass do
ors. I dropped to the floor and peered around the sofa. Outside Ryan swayed drunkenly, waving a bottle. I let out a sigh and turned the lamp on and then pulled the door open. Before I could tell him to go home and sleep it off, he pushed past me and collapsed on the sofa.
“How could you, Diana? A cop. A gumshoe, a flatfoot dick.”
“He wrote a book.” I responded ineptly.
“Was it made into a movie?”
“Yes. But he hasn’t written another one. Writer’s block. Could we talk about this another time. I’m…”
“Jesus, a cop who’s a writer. How cliché is that? How cliché is writer’s block? How could you do that to Colin. He was a real writer.”
“Stop it, Ryan.”
“If you were going to give his Oscars away, why didn’t you give them to me? You know I’ve always coveted them. Been jealous of them. You know I feel like a meaningless hack compared to him. Successful but meaningless.”
“He’s dead, Ryan. Go home.”
He took a hit of Tequila from a bottle with a portrait of Frieda Kahlo on the label. Ryan was always looking for the artist outside himself.
He blinked his eyes at me trying to bring me into focus. “Why are you holding that Oscar by its head?”
“I’m solving a murder. And you’re in the way.”
His lids drooped. “I always wanted an Oscar and you.” The bottle fell from his hand as he passed out.
I shook him. He moaned and slapped me away
The door bell rang. I froze. Then I turned the lamp off and squeezed onto the sofa next to Ryan.
“Jesus Christ, it’s dark in here.” It was Carol Hagan’s voice. So it was the wife.
“Diana?” Val’s voice. It was the mistress. Did they do everything together including murder? I hadn’t thought of that. I turned the light on. They stood in the room, blinking and staring at me.
“What’s Ryan Johns doing here?” Val asked.
“He stumbled in and passed out.”
“I don’t know how anybody can be so successful and such a failure at the same time,” Carol remarked.
“Does his presence make things a little awkward?” I asked
“We just want to talk,” Carol said.
“We don’t want to talk, Carol,” Val corrected in an exasperated tone. “We’re not taking a meeting. We’re not doing lunch. I told you not to come with me.”
Shooting Hollywood Page 14