“Well…” I hedged, knowing anything I said was probably going straight to Tina. On the other hand, I didn’t really have much more than a list of reality show actors anyway. So I showed it to Cam, giving her the brief rundown of the case.
Cam looked at my list. “Well, Don and Deb—pretty much everyone knows about them. They break up and get back together, depending on the ratings. Total dysfunction.” She scanned down the list again. “I honestly don’t know much about Lowel Simonson. He pretty much keeps to himself as far as interviews go. I know he’s in town, though. I was doing LAX coverage last week and saw him arrive from Tonga.”
Which was, conveniently, just before Barker was killed.
“Know where he’s staying?” I asked.
Cam shook her head. “No. But word is, he’ll be in town for at least a few days before flying back for the next judging round.”
I wrote: In town when B killed. Alibi? next to Simonson’s name. “Anyone else jump out at you?” I asked.
She looked at the list again. “This guy,” she said, pointing to the Little Bachelor, Gary Ellstrom. “He’s a real hothead. I was down at The Grove last week. Turns out he works in some boutique there now, and he totally cussed out some lady just because she wanted his autograph.”
“Hot temper, huh?”
She nodded. “Oh, yeah. When he was on the show, they brought in some anger management therapist. Apparently he kept blowing up and breaking camera equipment.”
“Sweet.” I put a star next to his name, shooting him to the top of my list. “You remember the name of the boutique?”
She nodded. “Bella Sole. They sell designer shoes.”
I wrote the name down. “Perfect. I could use an afternoon at The Grove anyway.” I threw my notebook and a sparkly pen in my purse and turned to go.
Only, Cam was still sitting beside my desk, looking like she wasn’t quite done chatting.
“Is there something else?” I asked, itching to get going. I had a four o’clock deadline to get my article in to Felix, and so far I had bubkis.
“Sorta,” Cam said. She stood up and leaned in toward me. She lowered her voice. “Listen, I have to ask…”
“What?”
“Well…” She bit the inside of her cheek, chewing thoughtfully. “Look, I know it’s really none of my business, but there’s this rumor going around, and I…well… I just…”
Uh-oh. “What rumor?” I asked.
“About you.”
“About me what?”
“Well, some people are saying…and I’m not naming names—”
I’d bet a million dollars it started with a T.
“—but, well, it’s been hinted at that maybe…”
“Maybe what?” I asked.
“You and Felix are sleeping together.”
Mental forehead smack. “I’m gonna kill her,” I mumbled.
“So, does that mean you’re not?”
“No! God, no.”
Okay, there had been The Night, but that had been before he was my boss, before it would have gone from bad idea to completely inappropriate. It was ages ago. It was so past tense. As in slept. Once. And, technically, we hadn’t even really slept much. And I was definitely not sleeping, present tense, with him now.
“No. Definitely not,” I emphasized.
“Sure. Right,” Cam said. Though I could tell she still had her doubts.
“We’re not!”
“Okay, okay!” She held her hands up in defensive gesture. “I believe you.”
“Where, exactly, did you hear this rumor?” I asked.
“Um, nowhere in particular. Around. Here and there.”
I looked over the top of my cube. Tina was still engrossed in her computer, the back of her purple-streaked head hunched intently over her keyboard. She looked a whole lot like here and there to me.
“Great,” I said, hiking my purse higher on my shoulder. “So now everyone thinks I’m banging the boss?”
Cam went to nod. Then paused. “Maybe our mailroom guy hasn’t heard yet?”
“Fabulous.”
“Sorry,” she said. “I just thought you should know. And, hey, I’m glad it’s not true.”
“Right. Thanks.”
I watched Cam walk away. Then glanced around the newsroom. Max Beacon, our obits guy, peeked around the side of his cube at me. Mrs. Rosenblatt, who did our weekly astrology column, stood at the copier with Celia, our office manager. They were both shooting glances my direction then quickly back down at their copies, pretending they weren’t talking about me. Across the room one of our freelancers was talking to our summer intern, a pimply kid with braces. They both stared my way, and I thought I saw the intern wink at me.
I narrowed my eyes at the back of that purple hair.
That’s it. This is war, Bender.
* * *
The Grove is a shopping center located between Beverley Hills and West Hollywood. It’s an open-air affair, but strip mall it definitely ain’t. This is a full block of the most prime retail real estate you could get, housing upscale boutiques, exclusive restaurants and gorgeously choreographed fountains. On any given day you might see Angelina Jolie strolling through Baby Gap, or Kat Von D dragging her latest rock (or road) star to Maggiano’s Little Italy. This was shopping, Hollywood style.
I self-parked in the garage off Fairfax and window-shopped (wishing I hadn’t seen those credit card bills yesterday) my way to the middle of the center where the directory said Bella Sole was located. It had a Grecian-style entrance, pillars flanking a window display with mannequins all dressed like goddesses. In three-inch heels. I felt my Visa do a little wistful sigh as I pushed through the doors, inhaling the scent of new leather and four-hundred-dollar pumps.
In the center of the room were two rows of plush red chairs, three of which were currently occupied by women who could have been on Real Housewives of Orange County (and maybe one of them was…it was hard to tell, but the brunette closest the door looked a little like Jeana Keough, with a smaller nose.). To my left and right were rows of white shelves, illuminated from below, filled with fabulous footwear.
I walked to a shelf and fingered a pair of iridescent pink kitten heels. Bella Sole was way too classy to display price tags, but I could tell by the way the supple leather gave way beneath my fingers that it was somewhere in the range of out-of-my-means, bordering on I’d-be-paying-off-the-loan-for-the-rest-of-my-natural-life.
“May I help you?” a deep voice asked behind me.
I spun around…
Then looked down.
Gary Ellstrom stood all of four feet tall, his hands clasped in front of him, an expectant rise to his bushy eyebrows.
“Um, yes. Please. I’d, uh, like to try these on in a seven,” I said, figuring posing as a customer was the best way to garner a little info from our Little Bachelor.
“Ah. A wonderful choice. Just a moment while I find them in the back. Please, have a seat,” he said, gesturing to one of the red chairs.
I did, sinking into the plush cushions as I waited two beats for Gary to return with a pink and silver box. He made a big ceremony of setting it down beside me, lifting the lid with flourish and unwrapping layers of pink tissue.
“Hey,” I said, leaning in. “Don’t I recognize you?”
Gary pulled a poker face. “I don’t think so.”
“I do. You were on that show.”
He sighed. “Here we go again.”
“That dating show, Little Love, right?”
He sighed again and sat back on his haunches. “Yep. That’s me. The Little Bachelor.”
“I loved that show!”
He narrowed his eyes at me. “Really.”
“Yes, it was fantastic! The way they—”
But he didn’t let me finish, instead putting his hands on his hips. “Fantastic, huh? Exploiting a man’s romantic hopes while making us all look like a bunch of mutated freaks just for the viewing pleasure of Jane Couch Potato is fantastic, huh? You
get a kick out of that, do you?” he asked, his voice rising high enough that the Real Housewives all stared.
“Uh, well, I didn’t really mean—”
“You think making a mockery of little people is funny? Medical conditions are so entertaining? Maybe you should go yuck it up in a cancer ward!”
Suddenly I was pretty sure the rumors of him being a hothead where not exaggerated.
“Hey, calm down, pal. I have nothing but respect for little people. Look, I’m only five-foot-one,” I said, standing up.
He narrowed his eyes at me.
I sat back down. “Yeah, okay, I know. Not the same thing.”
“No. It’s not,” he said, shoving the kitten heel on my left foot with a little more force than was strictly necessary. I winced but kept my mouth shut. Obviously Gary’s strong reaction to the mention of the show was proof I might be on to something here.
“If the show was such an exploitation, why did you agree to be on it?” I asked.
“Oh, the producers had a totally different spin when they pitched it to me, let me tell you. It was all about showing the world that little people are no different than anyone else. That love comes in all sizes. What a crock!”
“I take it that wasn’t what the show ended up being.”
“Hell, no!”
The brunette housewife jumped in her seat at his words.
But Gary plowed ahead. “The producers took every chance they could to make me look like an idiot. They even said I had anger issues, can you believe that? Me!”
“Shocker.”
“Anyway, the whole dammed thing was rigged from the start.”
“Rigged?”
“Staged. Set up. Barker had a real loose interpretation of the word ‘reality’.”
“So, it was scripted?”
“Well, no.”
“You were told who to give your rose to?”
“Not exactly.”
“You were told who to vote off?”
“No.”
“Then I’m not following the whole rigged thing,” I admitted.
“Look, lady, ever heard of editing?”
I ignored the attitude, instead encouraging him. “Go on.”
“What they filmed was real enough, but they edited the footage to sell the story the producer wanted to tell. Everything we said was taken out of context. I’d say something to one girl, and they’d make it look in editing like I was talking to someone else. They made me look like a total asshole! What the public saw was not what really happened, you know?”
I nodded. “Okay, so what really happened?”
“What really happened was that I was stuck in a house with twenty bimbo wannabe actresses. Like I was really gonna find love with one of them.”
I thought back to the few photos I’d seen on IMDB. “You didn’t look all that put out when you were in the hot tub with Mandy. And Tandy. And Candy.”
“Well, I didn’t want to hurt their feelings. I’m a sensitive guy,” he said, putting one hand over his heart.
Uh-huh.
“Only now,” he went on, “my love life is completely ruined, thanks to Barker.”
“How so?”
“What are you, stupid? Weren’t you listening? He told the world I was some hot-tempered little freak!”
I gave him a look.
“I do not have anger issues!” His face turned bright red, a vein just above his right eyebrow pulsing wildly.
Two Housewives grabbed their purses and scuttled out of the store.
“What about the woman you picked at the end of the show?” I pressed. “Didn’t you propose to her?”
“Oh, sure. Only, turns out she was just on the show to launch her career as a country singer. She was no more real than Barker. And what’s worse, I had to pay for that engagement ring myself! Barker said it would show the world how serious I was about Tandy.”
“I thought you picked Mandy at the end.”
“Whatever. Point is, I’m out two thousand bucks now and gotta works this crappy-ass job on commission as a shoe salesman. A fucking shoe salesman! I’m Al Bundy, for Christ sakes.”
I sat back in my seat, scrutinizing him. “Well, it sounds like Barker got what he deserved then.”
“Yes, he did.”
“I bet you were pretty happy to see him murdered.”
“Ecstatic. I threw a fucking party.”
“Where were you the night he was murdered?”
Gary paused, narrowed his eyes. “Wait—what is this? Barker’s people set you up to this?”
“No. I’m with the Informer.”
“The tabloid? Great!” He threw his arms up in the air. “Just what I need. My face plastered all over some cheap trash.”
“Hey! We are not cheap.” I made no comment on the trash part.
“Look, I did not kill Barker,” he said. “You can print that. If you wanna know, I was here. Doing inventory. The new line of Pradas came in, and I was busy cataloguing the whole fucking lot of them.”
That was a pretty calloused way to talk about Prada.
“Anyone with you?”
“Jesus, what is this, the fucking inquisition?”
“You sure they did much editing on that show?”
He crossed his pudgy arms over his chest. “Look, you gonna buy something or what, lady?”
God, I wished. I looked down at the kitten heels currently caressing (yes, caressing…they were that good) my feet. In my wildest dreams I couldn’t afford them, let alone reality.
“Sorry. They’re not really my style,” I lied.
Gary threw the box down on the carpet. “Fucking hell!”
Chapter Six
I left Bella Sole with a serious case of shoe envy and a serious doubt that Gary had killed Barker. For one thing, I had a hard time envisioning Barker letting Gary into his place for a late-night chat. Clearly the man was not Barker’s biggest fan. Second, I couldn’t imagine him being calm and collected enough to poison the producer. Poison required planning and finesse to trick the victim into ingesting it. Now, if Barker had been bludgeoned to death with a pair of six-inch heels, Gary would be my suspect numero uno.
However, just to be sure, I phoned Bella Sole, pretending to be an unhappy customer, and asked to speak to Gary’s manager. He confirmed Gary was, indeed, doing inventory the night Barker was killed. What’s more, his manager had been with him the entire time, providing an iron-clad alibi.
Which left me with one suspect ticked off my list, but not a whole lot to write about for today’s article. I looked down at my watch. I had three hours left to find something scandalous enough to be printable. With the deadline looming, I moved on to the next reality show under Barker’s belt: Don & Deb’s Diva Dozen.
Hollywood Confessions Page 6