Damn. And I’d liked that theory so much. “Okay, so you weren’t sleeping with the nanny. Who was it then?”
“Sorry, I can’t tell you that.”
“But you were having an affair?”
He nodded. Slowly.
“Chester found out who it was.”
Don paused. Then nodded again.
“Where were you the day he was killed?”
“Whoa.” Don jumped back, putting his hands up in a surrender motion. “You don’t think I had anything to do with his death, do you?”
“Chester knew the secret identity of your affair. Exposing her at the next ratings sag would have been just his MO. Only he dies, filming stops, and your secret is safe. Sounds like excellent motive to me.”
“No way!” Don shook his head so hard I feared he was going into convulsions. “Look, you’ve got it all wrong. That’s not how it was at all.”
“Then enlighten me. How was it?”
Don shifted from foot to foot. He bit the inside of his cheek.
“I gotta print something,” I reminded him.
“Okay, fine. Look, I’ll tell you. But this is strictly off-the-record.”
“Fine. Off the record.”
Don sighed. Looked over both shoulders. Leaning in close, he whispered, “I didn’t have an affair.”
I snorted. “Please. Every tabloid in town has footage of you out with hot young girls.”
“Staged. All of it.”
I cocked my head to the side. “Why on earth would you stage looking like a cheating ass?”
Don sighed. “Barker thought it was a good story to float. So he hired actresses to be seen out with me. God, you really think if I was having an affair I’d be that stupid to be photographed by every tabloid in town?”
Actually, he had a good point. And, with the exception of his wardrobe choices, Don didn’t strike me as particularly stupid.
“So, the whole separation thing was fake?”
He looked down at his sneakers. “No, that was real enough.”
“I’m not following. Why did Deb want a separation if you didn’t have an affair?”
“Deb didn’t want the separation. I did.” He paused, did some more examining of his over-priced sneakers then finally said, “Because she was the one who had an affair.”
“Shut the fridge! You’re kidding?”
“I wish I was.”
“Details. What happened?”
He let out a long breath, sagging against the side of his car. “Look, it wasn’t entirely her fault. We’d been growing apart for months. The demands of the girls were hard enough to handle. But then the cameras constantly followed our every move, catching every little disagreement we had and blowing it into a media sensation. It was all a lot to live with.”
“And so she cheated on you?”
He nodded.
“How did you find out?”
Don took his hat off, running one hand through his sparse hair. I could tell he’d recently had plugs, moving his hairline forward a good three inches. “Our nanny,” he finally said.
“Nellie McGregor?” I clarified.
He nodded. “She came home early with Dolly and Diana from practice one day, and the poor thing walked in on them.”
Which explained a lot about her reaction when I’d mentioned her employers to her. “What did she do?”
“She closed the door, walked out and pretended nothing had happened. She didn’t say anything for a couple days. But it was right before Valentine’s Day, and when I came to her asking what she thought Deb might like, she broke down and told me what she’d seen.”
“And what did you do?”
“I confronted Deb. To her credit, she admitted it right away. She said she was sorry, that she’d end it with the guy. But at that point I didn’t care. I was too hurt. I told her I needed some time.”
“So you separated?”
He nodded. “Yeah.”
I shook my head. “But why the floater story? Why make the press think you were the unfaithful one.”
“That was Barker’s idea.” Don squared his jaw, telling me he wasn’t entirely thrilled with it even now. “Deb was just about to launch her new book on parenting. Barker knew if something like this came out it would tarnish her image, make the whole book seem like a joke.”
“So you were willing to be the joke instead?”
“Look, people will tune in every week to see me being an ass. Boys will be boys, right? I mean, look at Tiger Woods. Hell, some guys even envied him, right? A couple weeks of him looking like a playboy, and he bounces back. But Octomom? She’s a villain for life now. No one forgives a mom who makes a mistake.”
Sadly, he had a point.
“So Barker suggests this whole ruse, painting you as the bad guy. And you were fine with it?”
“I’m human. Of course I wasn’t fine with it.”
Ah-ha, now we were getting somewhere. “So why agree?”
“It was the best thing for my kids. You have any idea how expensive it is to raise twelve children? The show is the only way we can make ends meet. And Barker was right about saying the truth would not only ruin Deb’s publishing chances, but the show as well. So, I went with his scheme. I figured there were worse things in the world than hanging out with a bunch of co-eds for a few weeks, right?”
“What about Deb? She was fine with this too?”
He shrugged. “She didn’t have much of a choice.”
“So, the reunion show?” I asked. “Was that Barker’s idea, too?”
He nodded. “At first the story of my affair boosted ratings, but after a few weeks it got old. The public moved on. Barker said we need to do something to get back in the headlines for sweeps.”
“So he staged a fake reunion?”
Don shrugged. “Look, it wasn’t entirely fake. I mean, well, Deb and I are talking. We’re seeing a counselor. We’ve got twelve kids together, you know?”
“Did the kids know what was going on?”
Don shook his head. “All we told them was that Mommy and Daddy needed a little space.”
“Hmmm.” I wondered if they bought this. While I didn’t doubt that Nanny McGregor did her best to shield the children from the media hype, I had a hard time believing the older ones were completely ignorant of what the press said about their family. “What about the other man?” I asked, switching gears. “Who was he?”
Don’s jaw squared again. “I don’t know. Didn’t want to know, to tell you the truth. Look, Deb said it was a mistake. That she’d been seduced. I’m not excusing what she did, and I’m not saying I wasn’t hurt. But we were both under a lot of stress. We hardly ever saw each other anymore. It was only a matter of time before something like this was bound to happen.”
“It sounds like you don’t blame her?”
“Like I said, we’re in counseling. I’m hopeful that in time, we’ll be able to heal our relationship. She’s not a bad person. She just made a bad choice.”
A bad choice Barker quickly turned into a media circus. While I was inclined to sympathize with Don’s plight, I also realized he had a hell of a reason to want Barker dead. Finding out about his wife’s affair then being made to look like the bad guy was like adding insult to a hell of an injury. And, despite Don’s cool demeanor now, I wondered if maybe he’d had enough of playing the bad guy.
* * *
I grabbed a drive-thru burger and a Diet Coke before heading back to the Informer to type up my notes. As much as I wasn’t looking forward to seeing Felix after our argument, I knew I couldn’t avoid the place forever. Besides, I had to have something to turn in for tomorrow’s edition. Since Don had played the “off the record” card, I figured Lowel’s imminent departure from Stayin’ Alive was the nugget of news to run with. At least, until I found out where Don really was when Barker was killed.
As soon as I got off the elevators I glanced at Felix’s office. Luckily he was nowhere to be seen. Tina, however, I noticed was sitting at her d
esk, hunched over her computer, furiously typing something up.
Hmm, not a good sign. I walked by slowly, trying to read over her shoulder, but no luck. And, even worse, she didn’t look up. Whatever story she was typing was that hot.
I walked two cubicles over instead. “Hey Max,” I called to its inhabitant.
Max Beacon, the most senior member of the Informer staff, wrote the obituary column. I had no idea how old he was, but if I had to guess I’d say he achieved AARP status sometime in the eighties. He kept a bottle of Jim Beam in his top desk drawer, typed all his columns hunt-and-peck style one finger at a time and had his own pre-written obituary, detailing how he died of cirrhosis of the liver, pinned to his cube walls just below a poster of a koala wrapped around a eucalyptus branch asking, “Who needs a hug?” I’d caught Max staring at my boobs more than once since I’d started working here, but as far as I could tell the old guy was harmless.
He turned his watery eyes my way, blinking as they adjusted from the two-dimensional world of his computer screen. “Well, if it isn’t my favorite blond bombshell,” he said by way of greeting. “What can I do you for?”
“Any idea what Tina’s working on?”
He nodded. “Yep.”
“Really?” I leaned forward, aware that it showed off a good amount of cleavage. “What is it?”
Max craned his neck, peeking down my shirt. But he shook his head. “Nope.”
“Nope?”
“Tina swore me to secrecy. Sorry, kid.”
I pouted. “Come on, can’t you trust me?”
But he shook his head. “Sorry. She specifically told me not to tell you.”
“She did, did she?” I leaned back, crossing my arms over my chest to obscure his view.
“Sorry,” he said again. Though whether he was sorry he couldn’t help me or sorry the peep show was over, I couldn’t tell. “Hey, Allie, I gotta ask…” Max leaned in. “Is it true?”
“What?”
“You know, you and the boss…doing the horizontal mambo.” Max waggled his generous eyebrows up and down.
“No!”
Max’s shoulders sagged. “That’s too bad. If the boss was getting laid, he might be in a better mood. I gotta ask for a raise this week, and I could really use him to be in a good mood.”
I rolled my eyes. “Sorry my lack of a love life is putting a crimp in your paycheck.”
“That’s okay,” he said, totally ignoring my sarcasm. “I had a feeling it was too good to be true.”
I left Max to his sulking and made my way to my own desk. I glanced over the partition toward Tina’s cube. Only now it was empty.
I bit my lip. I wasn’t sure that was a good sign. Clearly she’d been onto something good. Clearly she’d taken off to follow her hot new lead. Clearly I was in the dark.
Not somewhere I liked being at all.
I stood up, stretched my arms above my head, did a casual glance around the newsroom. No one paid me the slightest attention. I casually sauntered as quickly as I could over to Tina’s desk.
Unlike mine, her cube was settled near the back of the newsroom, tucked into a private little corner. I ducked down, figuring I had about five minutes before someone came walking by and noticed me.
I jiggled Tina’s mouse, bringing her screen to life. Unfortunately, a window popped up asking for a password. I looked down at her computer keyboard. Due to Felix’s squeaky-tight wallet, new equipment was something the Informer staff didn’t often get to indulge in. The letters on several of the keys on Tina’s keyboard were wearing off. I crouched closer, inspecting each key. A few were a bit more worn than others: the “S”, “L”, “U”, and “K”.
I took a shot in the dark and typed “skull” into the password slot. I hit the enter button. Unfortunately, it popped me right back to the password screen. No dice. I tried again: “skulls”. What do you know? The screen immediately changed, letting me into her system.
I went to her browser history first. Facebook, IMDB, and a criminal records database. All pretty standard, and none that told me anything about her hot lead. I hit most recent documents next, finding a copy of yesterday’s column, a love letter to her boyfriend (Tina had a mushy side? Interesting…), an email draft to Cam about a poker night this weekend, and then I hit pay dirt. A copy of the coroner’s report on Barker’s body. I had no idea how Tina got her hands on it, but I quickly pulled up a browser window and emailed myself a copy. Then I shut Tina’s screen off and walked as casually as I could back to my desk.
I sat down and pulled up the report, quickly scanning it. It was pretty much the same info I, and most of Hollywood, already knew. Barker had died of an overdose of Xanax, one of the more common items in Hollywood’s medicine cabinets. It was likely administered in a glass of wine. There was a lot of medical mumbo-jumbo detailing the exact location, size and shape of Barker’s organs, but if the smoking gun was buried there I had little to no hope of finding it. I scanned the entire report. When I got to the end I read it again, slowly. Clearly something about the report had sparked Tina’s interest.
Finally, on the third page, a note at the bottom jumped out at me. It was the coroner’s take on Barker’s stab wound from the week before his death. It had already begun healing, but there was enough damage left that the coroner detailed the size and shape of the wound. He described it as three inches deep, clean on one side, and made by a serrated blade.
I grabbed a pink Post-it and drew with my sparkly pen the type of weapon that could have made the wound. As I followed the doc’s words, a knife materialized on the post-it. Three inches long, two inches thick, with one serrated edge. Could have belonged to any number of knives.
But I felt a shot of adrenalin kick through my system when I realized just what Tina must have. It could have been any number of knives…but it wasn’t. The drawing on my post it was an exact replica of the knives that were standard issue to the contestant left in the jungle on Stayin’ Alive.
Someone on Stayin’ Alive had stabbed Barker.
Chapter Ten
It had to be Lowel. He’d already confessed to fighting with Barker, he’d threatened him, and he had no alibi for the time of the stabbing. Journalism 101: the most obvious answer is almost always the right one. I felt like such a fool. Lowel had played Gary and me this morning, just like he played millions of viewers every week on TV.
The sheep in wolf’s clothing was really a wolf pretending to be a sheep pretending to be a wolf.
I grabbed my purse, hit the stairs running and jumped behind the wheel of my Bug. I’d gunned the engine and was peeling out of the lot with a screech to my tires when I realized I had no idea where I was going. Lowel’s commercial shoot had ended hours ago. And I had no clue where he was staying in town. I pulled over to the side of the road and dialed Cam’s number on my cell.
Three rings into it, she picked up. “Cameron Dakota?”
“Hey, it’s Allie. Remember how Tina sent you over to spy on me, and how bad you felt that you actually almost did?”
There was a pause, then, “Um…yeah?”
“It’s time to make up for that. I need a favor.”
“What kind of favor?”
“I need to know where Lowel Simonson is staying while he’s in town.”
“Hang on,” Cam said, and I could hear the sound of her keyboard clacking. “Okay, the last photos I have of him are coming out of the Beverly Wilshire last night. I’d say that’s your best bet.”
“Presidential suite?” I asked.
“Knowing Lowel, that would be my guess.”
“Thanks!” I shouted before hanging up and quickly merging back into traffic again.
Which, unfortunately, at this time of day was thick. I looked down at my watch. Four-fifteen. The roads were clogged like overburdened arteries to every limb of the city, every possible route to the mid-Wilshire area blocked by a sea of other commuters all trying to beat the traffic.
I jiggled my knee at a red light, twisted a lock
of hair at a stop sign, came up with a whole string of creative curses when I got stuck behind a stalled car in the left lane on Le Brea. I was about to jump out of my skin by the time I finally found a parking spot on the street across from the Beverly Wilshire hotel. I quickly got out, fed the meter and locked my car.
At exactly the same time that I saw Tina’s motorcycle screech to a halt in the alleyway beside the hotel. She pulled her helmet off and looked up. We locked eyes. We both froze for a half a second before springing into action, each of us racing for the front doors of the BW.
She hit the doors first but I was a quick step behind, entering the lobby just as she dove into an elevator and pressed the doors closed behind her. I dashed for the stairs, taking them two at a time. All those hours on the stepper came in handy as I jammed up the eight flights, hitting the hallway just as the doors of the elevator opened. Tina dashed out, making a beeline for Presidential’s front door. I did the same, my breath coming hard as I came in from the left.
We hit the doors at the same time, half knocking on them, half body-slamming them.
“What are you doing here?” Tina hissed.
“Following a lead,” I shot back, wheezing between my words.
“You mean, following my lead.’
I blinked innocently at her. “I can’t imagine what you mean by that.”
“Look, Felix may buy that adorable blond act you’ve got going on, but I know you’re a lying, cheating little—”
Luckily she didn’t get to finish. The door opened in front of us. Lowel Simonson, swathed in a silk bathrobe, stared at the two of us on his doorstep. “May I help you?” he asked, his gaze going from Tina to me.
Tina didn’t miss a beat, quickly sticking one hand out toward Lowel. “Hi. Tina Bender.”
He stared at it then up at me. “Is she with your Japanese paper too?”
Tina frowned, opened her mouth to speak then apparently thought better of it as she closed it and turned to me instead, letting me field that one.
I nodded. “Yes. We had just a few follow-up questions we’d like to ask you,” I said. Which was true enough, even if our journalistic affiliation was a little fudged.
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