A Star is Dead

by Elaine Viets

  ‘You OK, miss?’ the officer asked. That was his first question.

  ‘Fine,’ I said. ‘Just cold.’

  ‘You’re probably in shock.’ His concern seemed sincere. His brown eyes looked troubled. ‘I’ll call an ambulance.’

  ‘No! I’ll be fine,’ I said. ‘I’m Angela Richman, a death investigator for Chouteau County. I have a blanket in my trunk.’

  ‘So do I,’ Officer Ferretti said. He turned to the valet. ‘Can you get Angela a shot of whiskey?’

  ‘No alcohol,’ I said. ‘I had a cocktail in the bar.’

  ‘Get her some hot coffee then,’ he said. ‘Lots of cream and sugar.’

  Garrett ran off to get the coffee. Officer Ferretti sprinted back to his patrol car, rummaged in the trunk and came back with a silver survival blanket. He helped me down off the Mercury’s trunk and wrapped me in the blanket. I felt like a Thanksgiving leftover in the shiny silver, but the blanket worked. So did the hot coffee Garrett brought. I leaned against the Mercury and studied Officer Ferretti. On second look, he wasn’t quite so young, but he definitely worked out. He had lines around his eyes and some gray in his close-cropped hair. He must be closer to my age.

  He asked me what had happened, and I gave him my version, starting with my meeting with Will London, the make-up artist for Jessica Gray, and ending with Stu Milano.

  When I finished, he asked, ‘Do either of you know the owner of the damaged vehicle?’ I saw the bumper had been nearly peeled off.

  ‘No,’ Garrett said, ‘but when I went back for the coffee, I told the restaurant manager. She’s looking for the owner. She’ll have him out here shortly.’

  ‘Good work,’ Ferretti said. ‘It looks like what we have here is a hit-and-run with property damage. The speeding car hit this Mercury and left the scene of an accident.’

  ‘Don’t forget attempted murder,’ I added.

  ‘What murder?’ he said.

  ‘Me. Someone tried to run me down and nearly killed me.’

  ‘Who was that?’

  ‘I think it was either Will London or Stu Milano.’

  ‘And why would they want to kill you?’ Ferretti asked.

  Because I’m looking into the death of Jessica Gray, I almost said. But I clamped my mouth shut just in time. I wasn’t supposed to be looking into Jessica’s death. Mario had already been arrested for her murder, and I was the DI on the star’s case. Her closed case.

  ‘I don’t know,’ I said. I knew I sounded like an idiot.

  ‘Do you have any injuries, ma’am?’ the cop asked. ‘Did you hit your head?’

  At least he was giving me the benefit of the doubt. ‘Just a skinned knee and a scraped hand.’ I felt ridiculous pointing out those scratches.

  ‘Can you testify that you were the intended target?’ he asked.

  ‘Uh, no.’ Not unless I wanted to get fired for meddling in a police investigation.

  ‘Then I think what we have just might be a reckless driving hit-and-run with property damage. I can put out a BOLO for a hit-and-run reckless, possible DUI.’

  ‘Stu was a good tipper,’ the valet said. ‘That Will guy was awfully drunk. I had to pour him into his car. But he wasn’t the only drunk who left here tonight in a silver car.’

  ‘We can try to get him for a DUI,’ Ferretti said. ‘Do either of you know his license plate number?’ He turned to Garrett, ‘What about Will’s or Stu’s plates? Did you write down that information?’

  ‘No, it’s not on the tickets,’ Garrett said. ‘We’re a small operation.’

  ‘I didn’t get it either,’ I said. ‘I was too busy jumping out of the way.’ I took another sip of coffee. It was sweet and hot.

  ‘Would you like to warm up in my car?’ Ferretti asked me.

  ‘Thanks, but I’m feeling better now.’ I was, too, especially about this new hire on the Forest force.

  ‘If we catch the driver with a BOLO,’ Ferretti said, ‘he could be arrested for DUI, reckless driving, and leaving the scene of an accident with property damage. If you want to include an assault complaint, Ms Richman, you can.’

  I looked at the scratch on my knee. It had stopped bleeding. ‘I’d feel ridiculous.’

  He studied the bumper of the damaged car. ‘I do see some paint transfer from the hit-and-run,’ he said. ‘It looks like silver. I’ll get CSI out here.’

  At that point, a tall, thin older woman in a black silk pantsuit and stylish silver jewelry hurried over to us.

  ‘My car!’ she wailed. ‘My car! Who hurt my car?’

  ‘I’m sorry, ma’am,’ Officer Ferretti said. ‘Your car was damaged in a hit-and-run. But it can be fixed.’

  ‘Fixed! That car belonged to my late husband. There wasn’t a mark on it.’

  There wasn’t. The pale gold car was old, but well-kept. Not a single ding or dent until tonight. It looked like a late nineties model, with its square front end and trunk. Thank God that trunk was big enough for me to leap on.

  The woman burst into tears.

  Ferretti looked puzzled and uncomfortable. ‘I’m so sorry,’ he said, ‘but it will soon be good as new.’

  ‘Never!’ she said. ‘It’s not the same.’

  I understood her tears. I walked over to her barefoot, and picked up my mangled shoe to show her.

  ‘Your car saved my life,’ I told her. ‘Someone tried to run me down and I jumped on its trunk. All he killed was my shoe.’

  ‘Then I’m happy that Sherman has an honorable war wound,’ she said, and gave me a tentative smile.

  She saw our blank stares. ‘My husband and I name our cars. This one is Sherman, because he’s a tank. And now he’s performed well in battle.’ She patted her damaged car’s fender affectionately. ‘Good job, boy. I’m Holly Barteau. My late husband’s name is Charles.’ We introduced ourselves.

  ‘Wait till my children hear this,’ Holly said. ‘They’ve been after me to trade in Sherm for a boring Beemer. But now he’s saved a life. Is Sherm drivable, Officer? Can I go home? I live nearby.’

  ‘I’d have the car towed to the repair shop and get it checked first, if it was mine,’ Ferretti said. ‘As soon as I finish my report, I can take you home, Mrs Barteau. What about you, Angela? Can I give you a ride?’

  Could he? He’d dropped the formal ‘Ms Richman’ for the friendlier ‘Angela.’ The invitation was tempting, but I wasn’t ready for even a mild flirtation. ‘I’m OK. May I leave now?’ I asked.

  ‘As soon as you give me a statement.’

  It was eleven o’clock by the time I got to my house. I was too jittery to sleep. I tossed my dress in the trash, but I couldn’t bring myself to throw away my heels. I put them tenderly in their box, wrapping the battered heel in tissue as if tucking it in, and told myself I’d try to get the shoe repaired, even though I knew that was impossible. I showered and put Neosporin on my scrapes. I was too angry and restless to sleep. Someone in Jessica’s entourage had tried to kill me tonight, and tomorrow they’d be on a plane to LA and Mario would be doing time for their crime. I had to see Mario’s video or else. I was even ready try Cellebrite, the Israeli company that offered to help the FBI unlock the iPhone of the San Bernardino shooter, though it was fabulously expensive.

  I went into the kitchen, made myself some coffee, and tried to start the phone, but the cracked, dead screen stared blindly at me, mocking my effort. I took out the battery – again – and put it back in. Nothing. Then I remembered how I made my balky desktop computer work. My cell phone screen was already broken, so I had nothing to lose. I whapped the phone smartly on the table. At last! It opened. I quickly found the video, transferred it to my iPad and sat down to watch it.

  Most of it was as I remembered: I saw the inside of Jessica’s long black Mercedes stretch limo, with a black leather bench seat, a bar fully stocked with drinks, and a TV. The sound system played the late sixties music of Johnny Grimes, Jessica’s lover. Knowing Johnny was long dead, the music sounded eerie, as if he was welcoming her home. D
id Jessica feel any guilt for giving the man she loved that fatal overdose?

  ‘Turn that shit off,’ Jessica yelled, and the music evaporated. With only minutes left to live, Jessica was bursting with malicious life, a cursed queen returning to her throne. She piled on the insults against the Forest dwellers while Stu, Tawnee, Will and Mario sat mutely.

  We were coming to the crucial part. After Jessica shrieked insults and the driver tried to reassure her the delay was minor, she commanded her staff to fix her up. Will applied fresh red lipstick.

  Was that the red that Becky was talking about? Where was the blue?

  I watched Tawnee’s frantic, futile efforts to find the spray bottle in her purse as she angrily accused Stu of deliberately making it disappear.

  Wait! Was that something in Stu’s hand? I paused the video and examined the frame. I swore I saw something, but it might have been a shadow in the dark limo. I studied the frame until my eyes watered, but I couldn’t make out what – if anything – Stu held. I resumed the video.

  Will, cool as a fighter pilot in an emergency, offered to help look. He reached into his make-up kit and put the lipstick into a slot. The brush stuck straight up. Now it looked like Will had something hidden in his right hand, and it wasn’t a tube of lipstick. What was it?

  Will took the huge purse from Tawnee, rummaged around and came up with nothing, while Jessica struggled with her racking coughs. Stu impatiently pushed Will out of the way and found the blue spray bottle, claiming it had been in a fold of the purse.

  Yeah, right.

  The rest of the drama unfolded as I remembered, ending with the mad race to the hospital while Mario, Will, Stu and Tawnee tried to stop Jessica from hurling her body around. This was the part I hadn’t seen before.

  Will backed away from Jessica and her three helpers momentarily. He was holding something in his hand, I was sure of it. I couldn’t see the color, but he disappeared into the far corner of the limo, out of the camera range. Mario, Stu and Tawnee were still trying to restrain Jessica as the limo rocked and swerved. Then Will was back, helping them.

  As the limo rolled to a stop, Stu slipped something into his coat pocket. Next it looked like he was shoving it between the seatback and the cushion, but then the limo door was flung open by a nurse. We all knew what happened next.

  I rewound and watched the video three times. Each viewing seemed to confirm that Stu handed Jessica the blue bottle of throat spray, then hid something in the far corner of the limo. I couldn’t see what or exactly where. Stu was too good at sleight-of-hand. It also showed Will concealing something out of camera range.

  Was homeless Becky’s riddle solved? It’s not the red – it’s the blue. Did Will kill Becky? Is that why he tried to kill me? Or was it sly Stu, and he hid the evidence in the limo seat? Was he the one who tried to run me down in the parking lot? My money was on Stu. He had the best reason for killing his old, rich wife.

  Now that we had this video, did we finally have a chance of freeing Mario? I didn’t want to wait until tomorrow to call Monty, his lawyer.

  TWENTY-NINE

  ‘Angela, what’s wrong? Why are you calling at one a.m.?’ Katie sounded amazingly alert for that hour. She’d moonlighted as an ER doctor to pay off her school loans, and still had the ability to wake up instantly. The man’s voice I heard in the background did not.

  ‘Who’s that?’ he asked, his words slurred with sleep.

  ‘I’m fine, Katie,’ I said. ‘I need to speak to Monty. He’s not home, so I figured he’d be with you.’

  ‘You’d better have a good reason for getting us up in the middle of the night.’ Katie wasn’t letting go of the phone yet, and now she sounded annoyed.

  ‘I do! I think I have the evidence to free Mario.’

  ‘You think? And you didn’t think this could wait until morning?’

  ‘No! We may be able to get him out before breakfast. Katie, you were right about how to fix my broken cell phone. I got it working. I have the video Mario took inside the limo. It shows someone else killing Jessica.’

  ‘I wanna see it,’ I heard Monty mumble. ‘Now.’

  ‘OK, bring it over to my house.’ Katie said. ‘I’ll make us coffee.’

  I still didn’t get to talk to Monty, but I’d see him at Katie’s home.

  Outside, the moon was shining an eerie white, and the night sky was lit with stars. The air was chilly. The early morning had a fresh, do-over feel: it made me feel that this would be a better day.

  It was a ten-minute drive to Katie’s home, a two-story white Victorian farmhouse with a gingerbread porch. The lights in the kitchen had a welcoming glow. I parked my car, knocked on the side door, and heard, ‘Come in!’

  The farmhouse kitchen was warm and welcoming. Katie, dressed in jeans and a plaid shirt, greeted me. A sleepy-eyed Monty was wearing the same thing, except he was barefoot and had a serious case of bed head. The kitchen was scented with coffee and the sweet, sugary lure of a warm pecan ring on the oak round table.

  ‘I don’t know why this couldn’t wait another five hours until I have to get up,’ Katie said, but she wasn’t really grumbling. She poured three mugs of coffee and sliced three generous portions of the coffee cake. I joined them at the table and set up my iPad. We ignored the food while we sat down to view Mario’s video on my iPad screen.

  Katie and Monty watched in silent fascination. After the first time through, Katie said, ‘Damn, Stu was bold. It looks like he poisoned Jessica in front of three people, and while she’s having seizures, he pulled off the switch and nobody noticed.’

  ‘I’m not sure the killer is Stu,’ Monty said. ‘Looks to me like it could have been Will. He’s definitely hiding something. Let’s watch that video again.’

  And so we did, each of us silent, searching for details.

  At the end of the video, I said, ‘See. Stu murdered Jessica.’

  ‘It looks that way to you,’ Monty said, ‘But there’s no way we can prove it. We maybe see Stu slip something between the limo seats … maybe. We also see Will with something but we can’t prove what it is. He couldn’t even find the bottle. The police found the red bottle on the floor, and it was harmless throat spray. The blue bottle hasn’t been found.’

  My heart sank.

  ‘Then the bottle that killed Jessica still has to be in the limo,’ I said.

  ‘Not necessarily,’ Monty said. ‘You said Stu got rid of his coat at the hospital, and so did Will. If Will had the bottle, he could have stashed it in the seat cushion and then stuck it in his coat pocket until he dumped the poison bottle – and the coat – in the hospital trash, where they will both be gone for good.’

  ‘I think it’s Will. He tried to kill me, too,’ I said, ‘after I mentioned Becky’s jingle.’

  That got their attention. Katie sat down her coffee mug. Monty’s hovered in the air, lost between the table and his mouth.

  ‘I met Will at Solange for a drink. Stu joined him. I told them both about Becky’s jingle. The two were going to stay and talk in the bar after I left, but suddenly Stu announced it was too noisy and he wanted to go back to the Forest Inn. They both got their cars – identical silver rentals – and someone tried to run me down in the parking lot. I barely escaped by jumping on a car trunk.’

  ‘Who was driving the car that nearly hit you?’ Monty asked. ‘Will or Stu?’

  ‘I don’t know. I didn’t see the driver.’ Now I was feeling foolish.

  ‘Did you file a police report?’ Monty asked.

  ‘Yes, definitely. The car that saved me was damaged.’

  ‘So we have nothing,’ Katie said. ‘Just a lot of suspicion.’

  ‘There’s still the limo,’ I said. ‘It’s our only hope. If we find the bottle in it, we’ll have solid evidence. Has the limo been released back to the company?’

  ‘Not yet,’ Monty said. ‘The police impounded it and they still have it. We can have it searched, but if the police didn’t find the bottle the first time, why would
they find it now?’

  ‘Who searched it?’

  ‘Nitpicker Byrne.’

  ‘Oh. She’s the best.’ I felt worse. The evidence against both Stu and Will had vanished and Mario would be trapped in jail. He’d lose his freedom, his beloved salon – and maybe his life.

  ‘I’ll ask the police if we can examine the limo again under their supervision,’ Monty said, ‘first thing in the morning.’

  ‘It is morning,’ Katie said.

  ‘When their offices open,’ he said. ‘Thank you, Angela, for bringing this now. I have time to prepare my argument.’

  ‘Are you working today, Angela?’ Katie asked.

  I had a big mouthful of that luscious pecan coffee cake, and felt like an idiot while they both watched me chew. Finally I said, ‘I’m not on call today.’

  ‘Then you can stay here with Monty. I have to go to work. I’m going back to bed for a few hours of shut-eye. If you want, you can sleep in the guest room. The sheets are clean.’

  With that, Katie left us. ‘I’m going to study this,’ Monty said, patting my iPad with the video. ‘You go get some sleep. Good work, Angela. We’ll free Mario yet.’

  ‘What’s the evidence against him?’

  ‘It’s very slim: He was in the limo and he had drugs in his styling case, even though those drugs didn’t contribute to Jessica’s death. There’s the empty bottle of vanilla vape juice – the same flavor that poisoned Jessica – but the bottle has been wiped clean. Also, he has a criminal record.’

  I was stunned. ‘He does?’

  ‘Yes, in Cuba. He was part of the Mariel Boatlift, remember? That’s when Castro was throwing out the trash – that was his attitude toward the refugees. He opened the jails and told people he considered “undesirables” that they could leave the island. People grabbed anything that floated and headed for the US. Mario’s crime was that he was gay.’

  ‘That’s a crime?’

  ‘In Cuba, it was. He could have been killed.’

  ‘Horrible. But it doesn’t count here, does it? It’s not illegal to be gay in the US.’