by Ally Gray
“No offense, Miss East, but you don’t exactly pay what a Hollywood bodyguard makes. Not many jobs do pay that kind of money, at least not the kind of jobs a guy like me can get. I’ve got most of an eighth grade education and I’ve had my head beat in so many times I don’t usually know what day of the week it is.”
“Is that all it took? Money? So Stephanie Bindle pays you a wad of cash, and you go on a crime spree because she told you to. Like you said already, how do we know you’re not T-Spot’s killer? Did Stephanie put you up to that, too?”
“Whoa! I already told you I didn’t kill nobody!” Case insisted, his hands held up in front of him as though their spotlessness could be seen with the naked eye. “And what are you talking about, Stephanie paying me to do stuff? She doesn’t know anything about any of this!”
“But you said your boss had you do all this, you know, keeping tabs on J-Max and the drugs and all that,” Rod explained, reaching for his notebook as though he could summon the answers from between its leatherette covers.
“Yeah, but Stephanie Bindle isn’t my boss, her manager is! I take care of her, I do things on her behalf, but that manager of hers calls the shots. She’s just as much a victim of circumcision as I am!” he bellowed.
“Please tell me you meant ‘victim of circumstance’,” Stacy said quietly, almost too quietly to be heard.
“Yeah, that too! But like I said, it was her manager who kept having me do all this stuff. He said it was all part of the publicity around the wedding. I don’t see how going to jail for cocaine can make your wedding go any smoother, but I’m not in charge of these things.”
“So you were conducting all these different assignments for her manager… but why did Sassy—I mean, Stephanie’s assistant, whatever her name is—need to come here too? And how did you guys both manage to get employed by the same temp agency and both just happen to end up with me?”
“The broad’s name is Erica, and you’d better be careful. She’s almost as slimy as that manager guy. I’ve seen her in action, and let me tell ya, that woman is some kind of nutcase. I can tell you, she gives me the creeps, and I don’t think Stephanie likes her all that well either.”
Stacy and Rod filed that information away, although it took all her strength for Stacy not to openly agree with Case. She hadn’t much liked Sassy either.
“So how does T-Spot figure into all this?” Rod asked. “Did your boss have any assignments for you where that poor guy was concerned?” Rod wasn’t about to let up on this guy, not now that he was finally answering some useful questions.
“Look, buddy, I’ve already told you, and I can’t tell you any plainer than this. I didn’t have nothing to do with that guy. I barely knew who he was, and that’s only because he’d been over to Stephanie’s house in Malibu once or twice with J-Max. Frankly, I was kinda surprised when I found out he was in the wedding and all.”
“Why would that be surprising?” Stacy asked, finally finding a question that dealt with her part in this.
“’Cause like I said, I never saw them around each other. I met plenty of J-Max’s friends, so I don’t just mean like he was a private person or anything. Every other night J-Max was over at Stephanie’s place and bringing his ‘crew’ as he calls ‘em. Rough-looking guys, too, not cleaned up like T-Spot. These guys looked like people he’d just picked up out of a pool hall somewhere. You could tell they hadn’t been around the LA scene all that much by the way they’d trash the place every time they came over.”
The three of them were quiet for a moment, the sound of crickets outside the window the only noise in the room as they processed what this could mean. Finally, Rod broke the silence by grabbing his cell phone and calling for a uniformed officer to come from his post out front.
“What are you doing, man?” Case said in a voice that was dangerously close to a whine for someone his size and build. “I just told you everything, and now you’re gonna lock me up?”
“Sorry, ‘fraid I have to. You copped to the cocaine incident, and I’m gonna have them hold you on that. But I can tell you this, that kind of vague confession probably won’t amount to much, at least not enough to do you any real harm. What I really have to do is keep you out of harm’s way, and right now, a jail cell pending investigation into a closed drug case is the safest thing I can do for you.”
“Wait a minute, you think I might be in danger or something?” Case asked, unconsciously looking around the room. It was Rod’s turn to shrug.
* * *
“You know what would make this night perfect?” Rod asked, sitting in the porch swing on the front veranda of the mansion, sipping a glass of scotch that Stephanie’s manager sent over to the event planning staff.
“What’s that?” Stacy asked, her own glass untouched and a pile of checklists in her lap. Her reading glasses were perched on the bridge of her nose, but she looked over them at Rod.
“A murder weapon.”
“Yeah, that’d be really nice. And while we’re wishing for impossible things, why don’t we just wish for surveillance video of the shooting? Oooh, even better! What if we could just order up a nice, fat signed confession with a notary’s seal?” she answered sarcastically, laughing at the wild leaps in logic his mind could take at a moment’s notice.
“No, I’m serious. There’s no murder weapon, there’s no sign of a forced entry, and there’s no damage anywhere in the house. There was no scuffle. It’s like it didn’t even happen.” His voice trailed off at the end as he thought about what he’d just said, but he shook it off and took another long sip of his scotch.
“What did you say?” Stacy asked slowly. “Repeat that.”
“What? No murder weapon?”
“No, the part about how it’s like it never happened.” She put down her paperwork and closed her eyes. “Are we sure this crime happened? I mean, I’m sure it happened, there’s a guy with a bullet hole in him, after all. But are we sure it happened here?”
“You mean like someone shot T-Spot and dumped him here? Why would they do that? Besides, our crime scene guys should have uncovered evidence that his body was moved. They would have found drag patterns in the floor, carpet fibers on the body where he slide across the rug, that kind of thing. It’s a neat idea, but I just don’t think it applies in this case.”
“But look how many people were already working for us and working for outsiders at the same time. What if someone killed him and rolled him in here in some kind of delivery? We’ve had trucks bringing in tables and chairs, food, lighting and sound equipment, decorations… what if any of those large containers was used to transport him? He was a big guy, but some of those containers would hold three of him.”
“Okay, so even if it was possible to pull it off, why? What purpose does it serve to dump him here, of all places?”
“Sending a message, maybe? We got to him, and we can get to you, too? Or worse, you’re next? What if T-Spot was just the first one, like some sick wedding version of Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None?”
“You shock me… when do you possibly find time to read?” Rod asked with a smirk.
“As I was saying,” Stacy said, ignoring his latest jab, “have we considered every option?”
“I’d have to say no, obviously, since we haven’t found the guy. So it’s at least worth thinking about.”
“I’m gonna do more than think about it, I’m gonna look through my computer and see who was hired in the last six months, what department that person works in, and how physically capable that person is. If I get you names, can you dig around their background a little?”
Rod looked skeptical but finally relented. “It can’t hurt, I guess. Besides, maybe one of them has that murder weapon I ordered.”
Stacy didn’t answer, but flipped open her laptop and waited for it to power on. There was no way of knowing offhand how many people had worked for Events By Design in the last year, since they staged so many occasions all around the country and sometimes relied on hu
ndreds of temporary staff members, but her database could give her names, genders, and areas of the company where they’d worked. She knew it was profiling to some extent, but she’d start with the tasks that required heavy lifting.
Fifteen minutes later, she had a list of names for Rod to search. She turned her laptop around to show the detective all the information she could compile. Rod came around to stand beside her, impressed with the amount of data she was able to put together. He bent forward to look at the list, realizing for the first time how wonderful Stacy smelled.
“The beautiful thing about a laptop is that you can take it over there,” she said after a minute or two of his close proximity. She was here to do a job, an important one in her world, and the last thing she needed was the added distraction of a fairly good-looking detective. Besides, even though she would never admit it to anyone, there was…
“You wanna tell me what you’re doing with my girlfriend?” Nathan demanded from the doorway, watching the detective with a menacing glare.
Chapter 13
“Nathan? What are you doing here?” Stacy asked, jumping up from her chair as though she’d been caught with her hand in the cookie jar, the jar in this case being a hot detective.
“I’m here to check on you, of course! I know how you get when you’re dealing with a high-profile party like this… you don’t eat, you don’t rest, you don’t take care of yourself… I had to come see for myself if you’re doing all right.”
“And the fact that this is a celebrity wedding and you have an automatic ‘in’ on the VIP list factors in…how, exactly?” she asked, calling him on his attempt to get into the wedding by way of technically owning the coordinating company.
“I’m sorry, you have a boyfriend?” Rod asked, looking puzzled.
“Actually, no I don’t, but I don’t think I like the tone you’re using there. First of all, why would it be surprising if I did have a boyfriend, and second, why would you even care?” Stacy answered, refusing to look away until he’d either answered her questions or withered under her scrutiny.
“Stacy just doesn’t know she’s my girlfriend. I’m working on that part. I’m Nathan Prudell, owner of Events By Design. And you are?” he asked, extending his hand to the detective.
“Confused,” Rod answered, but still taking Nathan’s offered hand and giving it a firm shake. “I thought some old lady named Abigail was the owner?” Stacy bristled at Rod’s term for her former employer, especially in front of Nathan. But Nathan just laughed it off.
“She was my aunt and the founder of this company. Unfortunately, when she passed away, she had no one else to leave her business to, so it went to me. And considering that I like a good wedding about as much as I enjoy a baseball bat to the head, I quickly walked away and refused to look back.”
“And that’s how I ended up having to run this company,” Stacy explained sheepishly. “It was either step up and run the whole show, or see all these great people lose their jobs and Abigail’s legacy fizzle like day old punch.”
“So when does the boyfriend part come in?” Rod asked, looking between the two of them for an answer and not sure who was going to provide the more reliable truth.
“Why don’t you tell him, sweetheart,” Nathan said in a silly attempt at sounding lovesick. “It’s so much funnier when you tell it.”
“There’s nothing funny about it. I happened to have gone on a mere handful of dates with Nathan—”
“Six dates plus one glorious spend the night party,” he interrupted with a petulant grimace.
“—and then I found out he was Abigail’s nephew. That would not be a proper relationship to continue with, so I ended things very politely and professionally.” Stacy wore a pained expression, as though she’d already had to tell this story more times than she cared to.
“Oh… yes, it was all very professional,” Nathan argued. “She sent me a typed letter on company letterhead. I actually got dumped via an interoffice memo, cc’d to my Aunt Abigail. Have you ever been dumped in a letter that was sent certified mail and had a copy sent to your ninety-year-old great aunt, Detective?”
“Sheesh, Stacy, I gotta admit that’s pretty cold, and I’ve dumped people by text message,” Rod said, taking one small step towards Nathan without even realizing it.
“I do not have to explain myself to you, Detective, and as for you, Nathan, I’ve already explained why I chose to go that route. I wanted everything out in the open and I wanted Abigail to know that I was choosing her company and my position with her over…”
“…over me,” Nathan said, finishing her sentence for her. Rod shifted his weight and looked around uncomfortably.
“I’m gonna go check on things and make sure the outside of the house is secure,” he offered, eager to take advantage of the chance to escape this uncomfortable situation.
“No, Detective, I’ll go,” Nathan said. “You two have work to keep you busy here, and I’ve never enjoyed the feeling of being in the way.” He smiled weakly at both of them but it didn’t quite reach his soft blue eyes. He nodded once curtly and headed for the door.
“Nathan, wait… that’s not what I meant…” Stacy said kindly, but the damage had been done. Nathan waved once over his shoulder and was gone.
“Ouch. You okay over there?” Rod asked. Stacy nodded solemnly, but she knew she wasn’t all right. She had really liked Nathan, he was funny and kind and great to talk to. It had been a little bit heartbreaking to have to end things, but it had been the right thing to do. Her job left her little enough time for a social life as it was, and it was hardly fair to drag the owner of the company she’d been trusted to run into her schedule conflicts.
“I’ll be fine. I just wasn’t expecting to see him here, that’s all. It took me off guard.”
“I don’t mean to butt in—”
“Why stop now?” Stacy asked, although there was a hint of tired humor in her tone.
“—but he seems like a pretty decent guy. It’s nothing you two couldn’t work out? You know, if you guys gave it a try?” he asked, coming back to the desk and sitting down. Stacy realized he was actually expecting an answer.
“Is there ever a time when you’re not interrogating someone? Seriously, it’s like you can’t turn it off.” Once again, she was only teasing, but there was a hint of truth in her remark.
“Only when I think someone is guilty. And in this case, I think you’re guilty.”
“Me? What could I possibly have done, oh wise one?”
“You like him. You’re just chicken, so you’re using this ‘he’s my boss’ excuse to stay away from him. You’re afraid of ending up walking down an aisle of your own someday, so you’re making sure you don’t have any time left over for romance. It’s a lonely existence, Stacy, and it’s no way to live.”
“Wow, do you get paid by the hour for this kind of analysis?”
“See? You’re cracking yet another joke, which is three jokes out of you in the past minute and a half. This topic makes you uncomfortable, which is how I know you’re guilty. You’re evading my questions and trying to deflect my interrogation with off the topic comments. Classic perp behavior,” he said, laughing good-naturedly. Stacy waited for him to get serious before she attempted to explain.
“You think you have everyone figured out, but you don’t. Nathan is a great guy, and I really did like him. But I like my job too much to throw it away on a relationship that might not even work out. Now, if only you were as good at figuring out who killed T-Spot so we could move on with this wedding and let me get back home to my lonely existence…”
Chapter 14
Stacy spent another late night at her desk, even if this desk was far from home and soon to be vacated. Regardless of how the next few hours went, she would soon put all this behind her: no more irritating, high maintenance celebrities, no more cameo appearances from a former boyfriend, no more smoldering looks from a certain detective, and certainly no more of his pity.
“Stacy
, the rest of the final checklists are done. Twice,” Tori called out from the doorway as she passed.
“Thanks, Tori. You’re amazing, as always.”
“Well, since you can’t seem to keep an assistant, and at a time like this, I just figured I’d cut you some slack and share some of my awesome with you. Don’t stay up too late, you’ve got to be gorgeous and on top of things bright and early.”
“Large and in charge, as always,” Stacy answered with a forced attempt at cheerfulness. It wasn’t lost on Tori, but this was no time for some healthy girl chat. There was work to be done, and by sun up the grounds would be filled with hundreds of guests, most of them members of Hollywood’s elite. “I’ll see you in the morning.”
The door closed behind the last workman, leaving Stacy working by the glow of a lamp. The silence had only sounded around her for a few minutes before her cell phone vibrated on the wooden surface of the desk, its ringtone jolting her out of her work.
“Anastasia East speaking,” she answered to the unknown number.
“Stacy, it’s Rod. I checked out that list of names you gave me and found three matches for people who’ve worked for both you and an agency out of LA that hires out people to VIPs. None of them were specific to either your bride or groom, and one of them is currently in jail in Nevada for second degree assault following a bar fight, so that rules him out.
“I did find out something else. Your wayward assistant Sassy has more than just a problem choosing an employer. She’s also been in and out of trouble since her juvenile crime spree days, everything ranging from shoplifting to menacing to arson.”
“I wish I could say there had to be a logical explanation, but I’ve met the girl and I have to say, I completely believe it. Anything useful?”
“Just a pretty good-sized rap sheet for a wide variety of crimes. The strangest thing is the handful of complaints against her for crazy stuff, like mailing someone a dead squirrel. There are also a few restraining orders, but what’s weird is they’re not all from the same person. What are the odds more than one person had to have the court system tell you to stay away from them?”