Unscrewed

by Lois Greiman

  “Yeah, but now the old man’s going to marry her, shoving the whole thing in his face for the rest of his life. Christ, he’ll have to tell his children that Grandpa stole his girl. If he gets over the trauma enough to ever copulate again.”

  I shook my head, feeling sick and a little disoriented. The truth was a twisted bed of snakes, impossible to untangle, even if I was stupid enough to try. “Wouldn’t he take revenge on his father instead of—”

  “Maybe he still plans to.”

  I felt my blood run cold. I was shaking my head. “That’s crazy.”

  “It’s a crazy world.”

  “Then how did he kill her?”

  “You stop breathing, you stop living, Christina.”

  “You think he strangled her?”

  “Strangulation is a crime of fierce passion. On the ecological and emotional scale, cops are just above the hyena.”

  “But there were no bruises.”

  “Who told you that?” he asked, eyes narrowing a little.

  “I mean…” I refrained from clearing my throat. “At the visitation. It was an open casket.”

  “There are all kinds of ways to hide the bruising.”

  “You mean makeup and—” I began, but he suddenly reached out and took my hand.

  I jumped like a virgin.

  “We’ll all miss her,” he said.

  “Yeah, yeah. She was…a good friend.” Lame. “A good listener.”

  “Do you need someone to listen?” he asked, and squeezed my hand.

  “Well…” I shifted uncomfortably. Was he coming on to me? And if so…why? “Sometimes…you know…Sometimes we all do.”

  “It’s hard when a person we care about dies. Makes us remember our mortality. Makes us realize how alone we really are.” He tilted his head, an animated Dr. Ken. Holy shit. “I’m an okay listener. Want to get a cup of coffee or something?”

  “What?”

  “Or we could just talk if—”

  “No.”

  He raised his brows. Maybe a lot of people don’t say no to Dr. Ken, at least not in that “I’m about to pass out” kind of tone.

  “I mean…” I gave him a weak-assed smile and tugged my hand out of his. “Thank you. I’m flattered.”

  He smiled. If he was one-dimensional, you could have stuck him directly onto an Abercrombie & Fitch bag. “I wasn’t trying to flatter you, Christina. I was just trying to be a friend.”

  “Well, I…” I jerked to my feet. “I’m sorry, I have to get home.”

  “Home?”

  “To my husband…and kids.”

  His eyes widened. “Kids?”

  “Five. Five kids. Tell me when you get that contraceptive perfected,” I said, and fled.

  19

  In this town, a successful marriage is one that lasts longer than ice.

  —Elaine Butterfield, whose parents were wed before the dawn of time

  LANEY?” I poked my head inside her apartment. For reasons unknown to the average L.A. denizen, she doesn’t lock her doors. Maybe it’s because every male between Chatsworth and Laguna Beach would give his eyeballs, and probably other types of balls, to protect her.

  “Mac?” She came around a corner wearing a gray jogging suit and carrying a pair of scissors.

  “Hey. You busy?”

  She motioned me inside. “I just finished cutting Jeen’s hair.”

  I closed and locked the door behind me. Call me paranoid. “Doesn’t he have a trillion dollars in the bank or something?”

  “Only half a trillion.”

  “Enough to buy a hairstylist, then.”

  “But where would he keep her?” she asked, and took in my holey-kneed ensemble. “What’s up?”

  “Oh.” I resisted doing the throat-clearing thing. “I was just spending some time at the library.”

  She made her way into the kitchen, where she found a broom in a closet the size of a peanut shell and began sweeping up the smattering of hair left behind by Jeen’s head. I’ve found more in shower drains. “Which library?”

  “Powell,” I said, and nonchalantly lifted an unidentifiable object from a basket on her kitchen table. It might have been a fruit. Or possibly a small alien.

  “At UCLA?”

  I nodded, all casual.

  She gave me a look. “You know there’s a library not ten minutes from your house, don’t you?”

  “I was doing some specific research.”

  She raised one brow. “Regarding a client?”

  I felt my face get hot. I’m all for flexible truths, but lying to Laney is like spitting on the pope. “Ummm…”

  “Babykins,” said Solberg, emerging from the bathroom down the hall. I put my back against the wall, hoping to fend off a hug. J. D. Solberg was unforgivably forgiving. “What are you doing here?”

  “I was just—” I began, but Elaine cut in.

  “Lying to me,” she said.

  “What?” He glanced from her to me, looking bemused—his best expression.

  “I am not,” I countered, but my defenses were weak.

  “Really?” She put away the broom and faced me. “What exactly were you researching, then, Mac?”

  I scowled at her. “Deviant behavior.”

  “Of college students?”

  “Do you know a more deviant group?”

  She watched me. “So,” she said finally, “was he in love with her?”

  “Who?”

  “The poor kid you went to grill about Salina.”

  “I didn’t…” I began, but she had already propped a fist on a practically nonexistent hip.

  “Damn it, Laney.” I sounded whiny even to myself. “I hate it when you know stuff.”

  “You promised you were going to stay out of this.”

  “I know. I know I did, but…” I paused, and collapsed into a straightback chair beside the little alien. “What do you know about strangulation?”

  Laney stared at me.

  Solberg’s eyebrows popped into his hairline. It was a reach. “You think she was strangled? I didn’t—”

  “No,” Laney said, jabbing a finger at me. “No, you don’t, Mac. Not again.” Her eyes were as bright as a bonfire.

  “Listen. It’s probably nothing,” I said. “I’m just curious.”

  “Curious? First you’re curious, then all of a sudden guys with too much testosterone are shoving you into Cadillacs and breathing garlic on you.”

  I tried to argue, but Laney has a fabulous memory for detail and just hearing the words made me feel nauseous.

  “I know.” I slumped forward. “But I…What am I going to do?”

  “About what?”

  “What if he did it?” I whispered.

  Her gaze was stuck fast on mine. “If he did it, Mac, it’s got nothing to do with you.”

  “But he—”

  “Sometimes we just fall for the wrong guys.”

  “She’s fallen for a guy?” Solberg chirped.

  “Sometimes. Sometimes?” I rose to my feet with a snap. “Holy crap, Laney, all the time. I could start a club.”

  “Not all the time.”

  “Who, then?” I asked, throwing out the gauntlet.

  “Eddie Friar.”

  “He’s gay.”

  “But he’s nice.”

  “He’s gay!”

  “Okay. Fine.” She sounded miffed that I would take such a small offense into consideration when regarding my love life. “Jay Bintliff.”

  “Lived with his brother.”

  “What’s wrong with—”

  “Slept with his brother.”

  “No kidding?” Solberg chimed in, but Laney was undeterred.

  “Robbie Going.”

  “Stole twenty bucks out of my underwear drawer.”

  “You keep money in your—”

  “Zach—” Laney began, but I was already giving her the evil eye.

  “Please,” I said, and sank back into my chair.

  “What?” Solberg was all
but hopping from foot to foot. “What about Zach?”

  Elaine was scowling. “Hey,” she said suddenly. “There’s the guy in Norwalk.”

  “The guy that changed my flat?”

  “Yes.”

  “I never saw him again.”

  It looked like she was going to continue, but I think I’d exhausted her optimism. She dropped to her knees and took my hand in hers.

  “It’s not you, Mac. It’s them.”

  “All of them?”

  “Yes.”

  I looked away. “I just thought, you know, this once, maybe…”

  “He accused you of murder.”

  “I know, but he’s—”

  “And now he’s a murder suspect. It’s not a good trend.”

  I caught her eye, slumped back in the chair, and laughed. “You think?”

  “What…? Who…?” Solberg sucked in a sudden breath and came up with the next best thing to cursing. “Jumping cockroaches. She’s got the hots for Rivera?”

  I ignored him. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me, Laney.”

  “Nothing. Nothing’s—”

  “Chrissy, babe, you’re crushing on—”

  “Jeen,” Elaine interrupted, patient as a monk. “Could you please make us some chamomile?”

  He looked from me to her to me, then, “Sure. You bet,” he said, but he was grinning like an inebriated ass when he turned away. “Rivera and Chrissy sittin’ in a tree…”

  I closed my eyes and refrained from killing him, not quite so monklike.

  “It’ll be okay,” Laney said.

  “I didn’t even know they’d been engaged.”

  “How could you?”

  I shrugged. “Hire a PI?”

  “You’re going to investigate every man you date?”

  “The number of potential dates is decreasing in direct proportion to my ice-cream consumption,” I assured her. “I don’t think it’s going to be that hard.”

  She laughed and settled back on her heels. “What’d you learn tonight?”

  “Nothing. This kid, a plugged-in Ken doll, had a fling with Salina, but it’s been over for years.”

  “Who is he?”

  “Daniel Hohl.”

  “Hohl?” Solberg turned from the stove with a snap. “Of the carpet empire Hohls?”

  I stared at him, then at Laney. She shrugged.

  “There are carpet empire Hohls?”

  “Well, carpets, computers, pharmaceuticals, politics. They got their fingers in half a dozen pies. They could buy and sell NeoTech, and me with it.”

  If only. Buy him, stamp him, and ship him off to Istanbul.

  Laney scowled. “You think this Hohl guy might have had something to do with Salina’s death?”

  “I don’t know. He says he moved on. And I saw him with some blonde with legs up to her cheekbones…which are way the hell up there.” My own cheekbones are even with my mouth. I rested the back of my head on the top of the chair and didn’t mention the fact that Hohl had seemed to be coming on to me. Flattering, in a surreal sort of way. “He thinks Rivera’s guilty as sin. On the other hand, Mrs. Rivera is convinced the senator did it. And all the while, the police seem to be saying Salina died of a heart problem of some sort.”

  She scowled. “I thought the senator was on a plane.”

  “That didn’t seem to alter his wife’s opinion. Said things aren’t always what they seem, or something like that.”

  “Well, she’s right there.”

  “True. But generally, when it seems like someone’s on a plane, he’s really on the plane. I called and checked. He was on the plane.”

  “Or someone who looked like him.”

  “What are you…?” I dropped my jaw. “What’s that called? When they find someone to—”

  “Body double,” Solberg supplied, not moving from the stove. Laney doesn’t have a microwave. Something about depletion of nutrition. Or maybe she just likes to give Nerd Boy something to do.

  “How hard would it be?” I asked.

  “I was just speaking metaphorically,” she said, and shrugged. Solberg trooped out of the kitchen and handed her a wooden bowl. She thanked him with a smile, took a few grainy-looking nuggets, and passed it on to me. I tried a sample. It tasted like navel lint. I took a handful.

  “How hard?” I was scowling and munching. Navel lint’s not all that bad if you eat it fast.

  She didn’t respond.

  “Rivera thinks she intended to leave the senator.”

  “Okay, but so what? People leave people all the time. They don’t usually…kill them by natural causes.”

  “I didn’t say it made sense, but if…” The brain waves were really snapping out impulses now. Must have been the lint. “Say the senator did get a body double…”

  “Which is ridiculous.”

  “In Hollywood?”

  “This is megacool,” Solberg whispered.

  “If he did have one, do you suppose he’d be, like…an actor?”

  “Mac—”

  “Could the senator have hired an actor?”

  “I guess it’s feasible.”

  “Would he use the same kind of talent agencies you do?”

  “This is crazy.”

  “Don’t you know that agent guy? What’s his name?”

  “Bud Freidman?” Solberg supplied.

  For a moment Laney almost looked peeved.

  “Yeah,” I said. “Didn’t he want to nominate you Queen Goddess of the Universe or something?”

  “Mac—”

  “Laney.” I cut her off before she could start the speech about not wanting me to die again. “Rivera did not simply hit his head and pass out. That’s asinine. Something happened. I just want to find out what it was.”

  “Okay,” she said finally. “I’ll check into the body double thing. But you have to promise that when I come up empty, you’ll drop it.”

  “Of course.”

  “I mean it, Mac. Promise me.”

  “I love you, Laney,” I said.

  “What about me?” Solberg asked, putting his hands on her shoulders.

  “You,” I said, staring at the two of them together—Beauty and the Geekster—“have obviously made some kind of ungodly pact with the devil. I want nothing to do with that.”

  “Thank God love is blind.”

  “That’s the second time I’ve heard that this week.”

  “When was the first?”

  “Ummm,” I said, remembering Rachel and the fact that I had promised to keep my nose clean. “I think I said it in my sleep.”

  “So where was Hohl the night she died?” Solberg asked.

  “Who else have you been talking to?” Laney said suspiciously.

  “I’m sorry. Jeen was talking,” I said, and turned solicitously to Solberg. “What did you say?”

  “This Hohl kid. Just ’cuz he’s good-looking don’t mean he’s innocent.”

  “How do you know he’s good-looking?”

  “Saw him once on television. He’s like some kind of boy genius.”

  “What was he doing?” I munched. “On television.”

  He shook his wobbly head. “Research for some big-ass—sorry, big-butt drug company.”

  “For a new contraceptive?”

  “Can’t remember.”

  “Can you find out?”

  He opened his mouth. I thought I saw the word “cell mate” forming. I raised one brow and emitted the thought “Big Cheese.”

  “Sure,” he said. “No problem.”

  20

  In the movie business, the ones we call lucky are usually those idiots who are just too damned stubborn to take no for an answer. Come to think of it, the movie business is kind of like life.

  —Bud Freidman, talent agent

  I RECEIVED THE PHOTOS of the crime scene via e-mail sometime before I returned home. Solberg had sent a lot of them. My little computer droned grumpily under the deluge, but I diligently thrashed through them.

 
; There wasn’t much to see. No blood, no weapons, no masked men looking guilty. Just a walk through a big-ass house—oh, and one dead body. I studied Salina’s corpse thoroughly, but if there were clues, I couldn’t see them. I’d been right about her skin. It was perfect, not a bruise to be seen on her throat or elsewhere.

  As for the house, it was tidy, expensively furnished, but cozy. The kitchen was the only room that showed any disarray. Cookies cooled on a wire rack. A couple of flowered plates stood upright in one sink, while a few more soaked in the other. A blue rubber glove drooped between the two. A stemmed glass showed a crescent of red lipstick. Flour was sprinkled across the counter, and three lone chocolate chips lay beside a basket of fruit.

  I was still thinking about the chips when I reached work the next day.

  “Good morning.” Elaine was unusually perky. I mean, she’s usually perky, but that morning, she looked like a little songbird just popping out of its shell. Her happiness made me feel a little insecure, since I’d left her alone with Solberg the night before. In some dark corner of my wayward mind, I probably knew the two of them were doing more than holding hands, but I didn’t let myself think about it on an empty stomach. Which mine was. I’d gotten up late and had to rush off to the office. Elaine looked like she’d had a good fourteen hours of sleep, done her yoga, and been kissed by the happy fairy.

  “Morning,” I managed.

  “I have some news,” she said.

  “Yeah?” I dropped my purse onto the chair and unbuttoned my jacket. “Good news or—” But suddenly my mind went cold. Premonition loomed like a nuclear cloud. I turned, blinking at her through the chilly fog. “Laney, tell me you’re not pregnant.”

  Her eyebrows did that funny little quirky thing they do. “Holy crap, Mac, what’s wrong with you? Did you visit Mrs. Rivera again?”

  “No. I…No,” I said, and took a steadying breath as I drew off my jacket. “Sorry. What’s your news?”

  “I’m pregnant!”

  I tried to scream, but this was one of those calamities that defies all kinds of normal responses. I stood gaping at her, frozen in horror.

  She stared at me, happy as a hundred-dollar bill, then, “Geez, Mac, I’m kidding. I’m joking. Here.” She hurried around the corner of her desk and grasped my arm firmly above the elbow. “You’d better sit down.”

  I did, levering myself into the chair like a dementia victim. “You’re joking?”