by Lou Harper
Before Rich could step away, Olly got hold of the offending shirt and yanked it out of Rich’s jeans. “Call me before you go to the cops.”
“Will do.” Rich gave a thumbs-up and was out the door.
At work, Jem was giving Olly strange looks, but they couldn’t have a word edgewise till lunch break. At Jem’s suggestion, they nipped out to the sandwich shop across the street. Jem loved his carbs. Fortunately, the place also served a damn good arugula salad with beets and goat cheese.
“What do I hear about you being questioned by the police?” Jem asked as soon as they sat down.
“Uh, nothing. Rich and I talked to a guy who was killed a few hours later, and the cops wanted to know about it. I’m sure it’s routine.” Olly figured he’d be fine as long as he stuck to bits of truth and deflected. “Did Nick tell you? What did he say?”
Luckily, Jem was easy to derail. “Nah, he just mentioned it. You know how he is—doesn’t tell me anything. For some inexplicable reason, he got into his head that I’m prone to getting into trouble. I don’t know why.”
“Didn’t you get yourself into a big mess last year, around the time you guys met? Oh and by the way, you’ve never told me the full story.”
“I can’t. I signed some papers.” Jem took a sip of his water. “I was still under a curse then. I’ve explained this to Nick numerous times and in detail, but he just rolls his eyes at me and says I’m nuts. Aaanyway, you and this Rich guy are hanging out together now? I thought you hated him.”
Olly chose his words carefully. “He pissed me off at first, but he ain’t so bad once you get to know him better.”
Despite Olly’s best efforts, Jem’s ears perked up like a cat’s at the sound of the can opener. “Oh really. So how well do you know him now?”
“Uhm, well, let’s just say his closet is in the process of being decluttered. You were right about him.”
“I told you so!” Jem’s smile bordered on smug. “Good job, you dirty young man.”
“It’s for the greater good. Just doing my part.”
Jem chortled. “So, be honest, is it just sex, or is there something more?”
Olly was afraid of looking at his own feelings because he was uncertain about Rich’s, so he evaded. “Oh, you know, too early to say. We just met, and most of the time we spent together was working on Sandy’s house.”
Mercifully, Jem didn’t press for more. “Right. How’s it going, by the way?”
“Pretty much done. Just need to move the furniture in. Rich is planning a surprise housewarming party,” Olly added since it was almost true and he wanted to keep Jem from circling back to the beginning of their conversation. Plus, he was itching to tell Jem about his recent brush with near-celebrity. “We even went to ask Willard Keats for help. You might not remember his name—”
“Sure I do. I saw Blood Moon Island fifteen times.”
“For what’s-his-face’s shirtless scenes, right?”
“What do you think?”
Olly was busier than a hive of bees for the rest of the afternoon, but there was something scratching and scuffling at the back of his mind—something having to do with Willard Keats. The more he tried to grasp it, the further it slipped. Then it was time to stock the produce and then the frozen goods. He didn’t get to talk to Jem again till about five, and only because Jem cornered him in the stockroom.
“Nick’s just called—he’s at the loading dock and wants to talk to you,” Jem announced.
“I can’t right now.” Olly hefted the crate of frozen peas he was holding.
Jem didn’t relent. “Take ten. Nick says if you don’t, he’ll come in and drag you out by your ear.”
Olly groaned in defeat, shoved the crate at Jem and headed for the loading dock. He briefly played with the idea of making a run for it, but it was an idle thought. Nick would catch him, no doubt, and then he’d be in a heap of trouble. A bigger heap.
Nick waited for Olly with his serious cop-face on. “What the hell did you get yourself into?” He jabbed his index finger at Olly’s chest. “When Cooper called me yesterday asking me about you, I was up to my neck in my own case. But then this afternoon I had business in Glendale, so I stopped by the station to talk to Cooper. And what do I find out? You are a suspect in a murder case.”
“I am?” Olly didn’t know how to feel about it.
“Not the only one, but your name hasn’t been ruled out either. Your friend’s another one.”
Olly shook his head. “No way Rich bashed the guy’s head in.”
Nick clapped Olly on the shoulder. “How do you know the victim died from a head trauma?”
“Uh, it was on the news?” Olly ventured.
“The cause of death wasn’t made public. However, one of the neighbors, the one who saw you two, thought she heard a gunshot, and she told the reporters about it.”
Olly bit his lip. His face was on fire, and he was unable to meet Nick’s eyes.
Nick’s grip on Olly’s shoulder tightened to the point of painful. “I swear to God, if you don’t tell me the truth right now, I’m going to haul you off to the station.”
Olly knew resistance was futile. He glanced worriedly toward the door. “Someone could come out any minute.”
“My car.” Nick jerked his head toward the Crown Vic parked in the red zone of the curb. “Okay, everything, from the beginning, and don’t leave a damn thing out,” he added once they sat in the car.
And Olly spilled the beans. He started with the blackmail, but Nick already knew everything he’d confessed to Detective Cooper, so he skipped ahead to what Rich had told him about going back to Kane’s house. “He promised to go to the police and tell Detective Cooper everything,” Olly said at the end. “I really need to get back inside. My break was over five minutes ago. Roger will have a fit.”
Nick wasn’t touched. “Does Roger have handcuffs? Because I do.”
Olly didn’t even dream of countering with a clever quip. “I told you everything. Really!”
“Rich said the safe was open and there was a stack of envelopes on the desk?” Nick asked.
“Yes. He took only one. And the photo from the kitchen, but he forgot about that until later. Why? Weren’t they there when the cops arrived?” Nick’s frown made Olly think they weren’t, but it didn’t seem like Nick was going to answer. So Olly tried a different approach. “Who found the body?”
“Somebody called it in. Anonymous tip,” Nick said reluctantly.
“Weird. You don’t think Rich did?”
Nick answered with a question. “Is he at his sister’s house now?”
“I don’t know. He was going to move in the furniture, but he could be done by now. Are you going to arrest him?” When Nick didn’t reply, he asked, “Can I go?”
“Yes. Keep your nose clean, and call me the moment you hear from your friend. We’ll talk again later.”
Olly scrambled out of the car and rushed back inside. He was so not looking forward to another talk.
Olly spent the last hour of his shift at the twelve-items-or-less register and had a hell of a time trying to be cheerful to the customers. They didn’t make it easy either. One guy brought a loaded basket and kept yakking on his phone while Olly handled all twenty-seven of his items. An old lady decided she didn’t want half of hers after Olly rang them up, and then proceeded to pay with a check. Which she wrote out sloooowly. When a blonde woman got into a fight with her equally blonde teenage daughter right in front of him, Olly was ready to throw in the towel.
Mother and daughter were so much alike, Olly would’ve taken them for sisters if it wasn’t for the younger one’s nasal whine of “But, Mom!” As far as Olly could tell, their quarrel had to do with Justin Bieber. The mom said something along the lines of It would be a cold day in hell before I let my daughter go to a concert of that squeaky-voiced delinquent. Olly sympathized with mom and would’ve loved to say so, but it would’ve been against store policy to get involved. The daughter pouted. As he w
atched them walk away, the sight of their blonde heads dislodged his mental block. He almost blurted out fucking hell! in front of the next customer.
The blonde girl in the photograph he’d seen in Willard Keats’s house had seemed familiar for a reason. She wasn’t just “Katie”, the old actor’s niece, but also a younger version of Kat Fontaine. Olly remembered Sandy mentioning that Kat was from an old thespian family—like the Barrymores.
It wasn’t exactly an earthshaking discovery, though. So Willard Keats and Kat Fontaine were related. Big deal. Willard could’ve had a variety of different reasons not to point it out. Although…it was a bit suspicious. Could it have anything to do with the role Kat and Sandy were competing for? Was some sort of scheming afoot? If there was, Willard would surely take the side of family over a friend. And Rich told Willard about the blackmail! Olly started to have an uneasy feeling that their visit might have stirred up trouble for Sandy. Just as their visit to Chester Kane had.
After clocking out, Olly dithered about calling Rich. On the one hand, he had nothing but a handful of improvable suspicions. On the other hand, he thought Rich should know about it before going to the cops. Most of all, he really wanted to talk to Rich—the waiting to hear from the guy was getting on his nerves. Olly dialed, but his call went to voice mail. Doing his best to hide his disappointment, he rattled off a message about his discovery.
Strictly speaking, Kat Fontaine’s house wasn’t on Olly’s way home. Not by a mile. More like a couple of miles off course. Olly lived a few minutes east of FTP, while Kat Fontaine lived above in the Hollywood Hills. The only reason for him to drive that way was to cut across those hills to the Valley, taking the scenic route, like the Star Tours vans. The road snaked up to Mulholland Drive, and from there he could take Cahuenga Boulevard to the other side. And why not? There were all sorts of things in the Valley—like BJ Studios, or even better, Nick and Jem’s place.
Yes, Olly decided, he’d pay them a visit. Jem had clocked out an hour earlier, would be home by now. And Nick might be there too and he might find out more from Nick about the state of the murder investigation. Or not. At any rate, he’d be closer to the Glendale Police Department—just in case he was needed. For whatever reason. Of course, the freeway offered a more direct route, but it would be an unwise choice in the middle of rush hour.
By the time Olly fully convinced himself, the car was already wheezing up the narrow, winding lanes. His plan was to simply drive past, maybe slow down a little, just enough to take a fleeting glimpse at the house. Then he’d drive on to see Jem. It didn’t have to make sense. He knew the house, since it had belonged to Clay Carson, once a rising movie star. Olly had made one FTP delivery there, not long after Carson married Kat Fontaine. He hadn’t met Carson, though, not then. He had later, at an industry party he’d gotten into by a fluke. The same party where he’d met Sandy Baker.
The gate was already in sight when the wailing of sirens forced Olly to pull over into someone’s driveway. A police car zoomed past him first, followed by a fire truck. The road was barely wide enough for the latter.
Olly waited a little, making sure there weren’t more emergency vehicles, and noticed a woman in a blue dress struggling with the gate of Kat’s house—probably the maid. She seemed to be trying to pull it closed but not succeeding. It was the gentlemanly thing to help, and there was just enough space for his car between the driveway he’d pulled into and the Mercedes parked by the curb. Olly maneuvered so close to the Mercedes, their bumpers nearly kissed and made sure his front tires were angled the correct way before turning off the engine.
“May I help?” he asked as he reached the woman.
She all but jumped out of her skin at the sound of his voice, and Olly realized she wasn’t a maid but Kat Fontaine herself. Last time Olly had seen her in person—at that party—she’d been wearing so much makeup she could’ve been any Hollywood blonde. But then and there, with a range of emotions warring on her naked face, she was unquestionably pretty. Her big eyes brimmed with vulnerability in her upturned face—she was small, shorter than Olly. “The gate’s stuck,” she said in a helpless little-girl voice.
It was all Olly needed to jump to her rescue. “Let me look.”
The gate was a heavy iron thing, the kind that rolled sideways—not the most sensible setup with the ten-foot-tall hedge lining the fence from the outside and the unkempt shrubbery growing too close on the inside. Both seemed overdue for trimming. Olly got down on his knees, climbed under and found the culprit: a dead tree branch had gotten wedged between the fence and the bars of the gate. He had to yank hard to pull it free and ended up on his ass. However, the gate immediately began to roll close.
Kat gave him a grateful smile. “Thank you! You’re my savior.” The gate clicked closed. “Oops, and now I have to let you out.” She giggled. “I’ll have to find the remote, but first you must come inside. I should give you something for your help.”
Olly got up and patted tree-limb dust from his hands. “It’s okay, I can wait here.”
“Nonsense!” A faint frown line appeared between her brows. “Haven’t I seen you somewhere?”
“Uhm, I made a delivery from FTP once,” Olly offered. He didn’t want to bring up the party.
Her frown deepened, but then her face lit up like a Christmas tree. “But of course! I remember now. Oh, this is perfect. What’s the word…oh yeah…serendipity!” She seemed genuinely pleased, far more than the situation seemed to justify. “You absolutely must come in!” She whipped around and marched toward the house, giving Olly no option but to follow her up the long driveway.
At the end of the driveway, Olly saw a large black SUV with nasty dents and scratches on its side. It struck him as odd—people like Kat Fontaine didn’t drive around in dented cars even for a single day. Hell, they probably didn’t take their cars to the garage in person. But before he could ask, she ushered him through the door.
“Sit,” she said, gesturing to a leather sofa set big enough to seat an NFL team, and sailed away to parts unknown. Olly perched on the edge of his seat and craned his neck around. The interior looked straight from an interior design magazine, and someone, probably a maid, kept it so. Not a thing was out of place. He was surprised not to see a giant TV screen anywhere, but then he realized there must’ve been a media room somewhere in the house.
Kat returned with a tall glass in one hand and a pen and notepad in another. She handed him the glass. “Peach lemonade. Rosa made it. It’s the best.”
Olly took a sip, and it was pleasant enough. “Very nice,” he said to be polite.
Kat gave a pleased smile and sat on the chair next to him. “I was just thinking how I wanted a few things from Fred’s—I’d normally have Rosa write the list, but she came down with a nasty case of stomach flu. I told her not to come until she was fully recovered. So I’ve been left to my own devices.”
“You can just call your order in,” Olly suggested.
She dismissed his notion with a flick of her wrist. “Oh no, this is much more convenient. You’re already here. Give the list to your boss tomorrow morning, and tell him I need it delivered by noon. Now, be quiet and drink your tea while I write this down.”
Olly quickly figured out Kat was someone used to having people waiting on her, for her. Compiling a simple shopping list took her inordinately long, but she didn’t seem the least bit troubled by holding Olly up. She even disappeared to “check the fridge” for several long minutes. There were only melting ice cubes left in his glass by the time she was finally done.
“There you go,” she said and handed him the sheet.
Olly took it and tried to stand, but a spell of dizziness hit him, and he had to sit back down.
“Are you all right?” She leaned forward, and her face was taut with strange intensity.
“I dunno, must’ve stood too fast.” Olly shook his head. A wave of dizziness washed over him. “I feel weird.”
She sat back with a smile like a shark’s.
“Don’t fight it.”
Realization zinged through Olly’s increasingly fuzzy brain. He stared at his empty glass. “You drugged me.”
“Yes, dear, I slipped a couple of white pills into your drink. What did you expect, coming here right after your buddy left?”
“My buddy?” Olly thought of Rich, but none of this made sense.
Kat eyed him with loathing. “He didn’t give a name, but he had a nasty attitude and tattoos on his neck.”
“Jimmy Boyd?” Olly blurted out. The situation was getting more bizarre than a John Waters movie.
“Ha! So you work together—I knew it!”
“No, you got it wrong.”
“The hell I do. I knew you had an angle the moment I clapped an eye on you at that party, all over my husband. All you little parasites are the same, out to leech off somebody, take their money. Well, it ends now.” There was a manic gleam in her eyes. “Your friend…what did you say his name was? Jimmy? Jimmy Boyd?”
Olly’s vision was doing funny things, and his head felt like a watermelon. He nodded his melon—or at least thought he did.
He must’ve, because Kat seemed pleased. “So I take Jimmy’s the head of your operation.”
Olly started to feel kinda good. Light-melon-headed, but good. In the mood for chatting. “No, Chester is. But he’s dead. Jimmy must’ve…” Synapses in Olly’s brain were still snapping, making connections, but he had a hard time sorting them out.
“Who’s Chester?” Kat’s question snapped like a whip.
Olly flinched. “Photographer. He blackmails people, but he’s dead.”
“Yes, yes, you said that. So you and Jimmy killed Chester and decided to take over his blackmail business.”
“I didn’t—”
“Yeah, sure, you’re innocent as driven snow. So where is it?”
“Where’s what?”