A Talent for Murder (8 page)

“How many times have I said, in Hollywood, nothing is ever as it appears to be?” Polly complained. “Don’t forget that little matter of Ped-Xing’s threat against me. What if he realized that Thane would be a bigger prize after all?”

Tim and Placenta stood up while Polly slowly sipped her champagne. “Don’t make this into something it isn’t,” Tim begged. “If Ped-Xing or any of the other contestants had anything to do with this, they would have been boasting from coast to coast because it would mean that they really were willing to do the ultimate ‘anything’ to win fame. Please, Mother, for once, accept the facts and leave well enough alone.”

“We don’t necessarily have facts, we have allegations,” Polly said.

“The police have the killer. Her name is Lisa Marrs. That’s that,” Placenta argued. “Now, I’m going to draw your bath. You’ll soak until I call you down for dinner. Is that clear?”

Placenta hustled up the Scarlett O’Hara Memorial Staircase toward Polly’s bedroom suite. Tim moved to the stereo system and slipped a CD of Julie Budd onto the carousel to give the room a lighter vibration. With “Pure Imagination” filling the air, Polly’s thoughts of the death of Thane Cornwall slowly dissipated and she began to sway—either to the music, or because the champagne had gone to her head. Tim stepped in just in case and expertly waltzed her out of the room and up the staircase, where he left her in Placenta’s hands.

Monday morning arrived earlier than Tim would have liked. Polly, however, was awake at seven, and dressed to the nines by the time Tim dragged himself from his bed at ten. When he found his mother, she was foraging in the gift-wrapping room, going through the closets filled with dumb presents that friends and fans had given to her over the past few years. Tim wandered in clutching a mug of coffee. “Looking for the Chia Pet that stingy Penny Marshall sent last Christmas?”

Polly gave up looking for something in one closet and opened another. “Where the hell did you put those black armbands from our Ides of March party?”

Tim set his mug down on a counter and opened yet another closet door. He reached for the top shelf and pulled down a plastic bag from Wal-Mart. “We have these left over from your Karen Carpenter appreciation party.”

Polly grabbed the bag. “Even better. Although they may be too small.”

“For what?” Tim asked, not exactly eager to hear what his mother had on her mind.

“Just start the car, dear. We’ll be late for rehearsals.”

“You’re not on call until Friday. Didn’t you read any
of the show’s instructions? Judges aren’t supposed to interact—”

“I’m only going in to offer condolences to the so-called talent,” Polly said. “Surely, they’ll need a comforting shoulder following the death of Thane Cornwall.”

“Are you kidding? I can hear Munchkins singing ‘Ding-dong, the Brit is dead!’ Be realistic. Thane was one unpleasant guy.”

Then a light dawned on Tim. He emitted a low moan and called out, “Placenta! I need you!”

Polly heaved a heavy sigh. “Am I not allowed to visit the grieving without you thinking that I have ulterior motives? You always get Placenta to take your side on everything!”

Placenta raced up the Scarlett O’Hara Memorial Staircase. When she reached the second-floor landing, she stood in the doorway to the gift-wrapping room and leaned her body against the door frame, catching her breath. “What? Spider spray? Rat-traps? It’s a little early for champagne, even in this house.”

“A straitjacket,” Tim said.

“The Bob Mackie, or that satin-lined leather thing with the buckle collar and two-strap crotch cinch?” Placenta paused. “Oh, I get it. You don’t have to tell me what’s on Polly’s mind. I can read her like a fast food menu. There’s not much up on the board, but she comes with fries and a Coke.”

Polly looked at her son and maid. “I just want to chat with those little wannabes. What’s wrong with that? Making a few inquires about their alibis for Saturday can’t hurt.”

Tim looked into his mother’s eyes. “Tenacity is why you became a showbiz legend. That same determination is going to get you killed someday.”

“Don’t be a sissy,” Polly harrumphed. “Anyway,
you’re probably right. The police apparently have the guilty party in custody. But what else have we got to do today? Just for kicks, let’s run over to the Studio. We need to get moving. I want to be there before they all become sweaty and stinky from being rehearsed to death.”

In Hollywood, even the movie studio security guards are usually as young and attractive as soap stars. When Tim rolled the car up to the gate at Sterling Studios, he was in luck. Someone in human resources had forgotten to dump the last geezer in town. The guard was actually old enough to be impressed by the fact that Polly Pepper was arriving on the studio lot.

“Ma’am, I’ve seen ‘em come and go. Stars, I mean,” the security guard said as Polly reached out through her open window to shake his hand. “But you’ll be a legend for as long as people need laughter. That’s a fact.”

Polly was in heaven and played up her best character role: the humble yet ethereal supernova. “Dear, dear Jack,” she said after catching a furtive glimpse of his name badge, “I’m only an international superstar because of darling people like you who continue to support me. Now, where shall we park?”

Jack looked at his list of authorized drive-on passes. He shook his head. “I’m afraid you’re not on the list, Miss Pepper.”

Just as Polly’s frozen smile was about to melt, Jack shook his head and said, “These dumb assistants today, they can’t even call in a simple drive-on pass for a legend. I swear, Miss Pepper, this industry is filled with screwups at every level. You just go ahead and park wherever you feel comfortable. I’ll call ahead and tell ‘em you’ve arrived. Where did you say you were going?”

Tim gave Jack one of his most winning smiles. “You are so right about the kids in the business today. One of ‘em was even stupid enough to kill Thane Cornwall and get caught. I suppose you heard all about that.”

Jack gave Tim a serious look. “Mr. Cornwall was a piece of work, wasn’t he? Whenever he came on the lot, he didn’t even bother to stop at the gate. No matter if you’re Clint Eastwood or Robert Redford, everyone is supposed to stop at the gate. And Mr. Eastwood and Mr. Redford always stop! They’re right nice gentlemen, too. But Thane Cornwall just drove on through without so much as a courtesy wave.”

Tim continued. “Anyway, Mom, er, Miss Pepper, brought a cake for the kids on her show, sort of a condolence present.”

Jack peered into the car.

“It’s in the trunk,” Tim lied. “We’re going over to the set to surprise everyone. No need to call ahead. We know the way.”

“Sure thing,” Jack said, writing on his clipboard. He looked at Polly once again. “And isn’t it just like you to think of others during their time of grief? I wish that someone would teach these new stars how to behave like you and Betty White!”

Studio B on the Sterling Studio’s lot was easy to access. There weren’t any security guards or thick-necked bouncers standing sentry at the doors, so Polly and her troupe waltzed in. They knew their way around and soon found the rehearsal room. A window in the door confirmed what Polly had hoped for, that all five contestants were together, going through a group dance routine with the in-house choreographer. Tim quietly held open the door as Polly and Placenta slipped in to watch from the sidelines. However, every wall was
floor-to-ceiling mirrors, so their presence was instantly known.

When the choreographer stopped yelling at her charges for making stupid errors in a simple dance routine, she called for a ten-minute break. With disdain dripping in her voice, she said to Polly, “They’re all yours, Your Highness.” Then she flounced out of the room in a huff.

The moment the door closed, Polly applauded the contestants and gave them an enthusiastic ovation. “You’re already stars!” she said. “Sure, this part is drudge work, but you’ll find that it gets into your system and you won’t be able to live without aching feet and the feeling that you’re just not good enough. And of course the inability to hold down your dinner when the announcer calls you to stage is just part of the job. Oh, those were such good times for me. I miss all those mornings when I was put through the wringer by my choreographer. Sadist that he was, I adored his talent and dedication to making me look good.”

As Polly continued pontificating about her past and the hard work it takes to make it in Hollywood, the five contestants slowly surrounded her, like a pack of jackals closing in on a kill. “But I’m not here to tell you all the things that you probably already know about me, or can easily find on Wikipedia, or my personal Web site, PPstarz.com. I simply wanted to express how sorry I am that we’ve lost one of our friends to the Grim Reaper. He appears out of nowhere, doesn’t he? Mr. Reaper, I mean. One never knows when one will win the lottery ticket to heaven, or that other place.”

“As in the case of Mr. Thane Cornwall,” Ped-Xing said with a surly curl of his upper lip. He stepped closer to Polly. “If you think any of us are sorry that he left
the planet, you’re mistaken. If you ask me, his departure was delayed long enough.”

Polly looked into Ped-Xing’s eyes. “I’d like to believe that, in time, once we got to know Thane Cornwall better, he would have grown on us,” she said.

“Like a fungus,” Socorro said. “Thanks to Thane Cornwall, my entire family is being harassed and laughed at, in my own hood.”

Polly shook her head. “I’d be upset too if I’d been nicknamed Taco Bell by a white man with an obvious prejudice against your lovely Mexican heritage. I agree, it was an insult, and Thane was extremely rude and heartless to call you that on national television. Not to mention that it’s a trademarked name, and you could get into tons of trouble if you started using it without permission.”

Socorro made a face. “I wasn’t about to let that fool get away with it!”

Polly tenderly touched Socorro’s shoulder. “Sticks and stones, and all that stuff.”

Socorro shook off Polly’s hand. “I know you’re on his side, and you’re going to say something stupid, like ‘Thane may have been a self-absorbed, bigoted, misogynistic SOB, but nobody deserves the fate he got.’“

“As a matter of fact …” Polly said.

“Well, guess what, he did deserve his fate! I’m glad he got it,” Socorro said.

“So am I!”

Everyone looked at rock-star-skinny Danny Castillo, who wore his goth costume of a black T-shirt, black jeans, and black eyeliner, accessorized with black spiked hair, and a silver safety pin piercing his right eyebrow. “The dude had it coming,” he added. “I may not be the best singer in town, but he didn’t need to tell the world
that my performance of ‘Wind Beneath My Wings’ stank more than a coop full of bird-flu-infected pigeons!”

“True,” Polly agreed. “And how prophetic of you to tell him that his dead body would stink more than your wind.”

Miranda Washington cleared her throat, then leaned in closer to Polly. “You had an on-camera snit with Thane Cornwall yourself, Miss Big Ol’ Think You’re Still a Star. So don’t go looking at any of us like we’re special or something.”

I would never in a million years look at any of you that way
, Polly thought. “I guess there isn’t a lot of love lost between Thane and this dream team of rising stars. But you’re not alone, dears. Someone disliked him enough to send him to an early grave.”

“That Someone should have planned her revenge a little better, bless her heart,” said Amy Stout. “When Thane suggested that I gargle with Drano to clean out my pipes, I knew exactly how I would have taken care of him.”

“Any one of us could have done a better job of getting away with murder,” Socorro added.

“Of course you could!” Polly said in her high-pitched squeal, which she had perfected in one of her most popular recurring variety show sketches in which she trips over Troy Donahue at the beach and goes berserk with excitement. Polly clapped her hands together. “Taco Bell, indeed!”

A
s Tim piloted the car down Sunset Boulevard, en route back to Pepper Plantation, he chattered about Danny Castillo and his goth persona. “Even with that scary outfit, I think he’s sort of, kind of, um, adorable. You’ve got to admit his singing voice is definitely unique.”

“In a chanting-requiems-to-Satan-during-bloodletting-human-sacrifice-rituals kind of way, unique,” Placenta said.

“At least I could understand all the words to his song, ‘Abra-cadaver’,” Tim said.

“He’s a potential murderer, dear,” Polly called from the backseat. “Careful walking down the aisle with the Zodiac Killer.” As she ticked off a list Danny’s personality disorders, her cell phone’s ring tone played “Puppy Love.” Polly smiled and flipped open the device. “Is it you?” she purred.

“No, it’s Hugh Jackman,” Placenta said.

Polly giggled at something Detective Archer said; then she covered the mouthpiece and looked at Placenta. “Don’t bother waiting up for me. If you get my drift.”

“You’re drifting a lot lately,” Placenta cackled, and gave Polly a playful nudge with her elbow.

Tim looked into the rearview mirror to see a smug grin on his mother’s face. She was famous, so even at her age she could potentially have all the beaux she wanted, but she was definitely smitten with Randy Archer. He looked at Placenta’s reflection and said, “Let’s make this maid’s night off, and boy’s night out! You and I are going club hopping.” Placenta gave Polly a haughty smirk.

As her Park Ward Rolls-Royce entered the gated grounds of the estate, and rolled to a stop at the front entrance, Polly said, “Don’t stay out too late, dears. First thing tomorrow, we’re visiting jailbird Lisa in her new six-by-nine Beverly Hills accommodations, which I’ve paid for with my inflated tax dollars. If she’s guilty, that’s the way Madame Guillotine falls. However, since I don’t completely trust our judicial system, especially after that time that Rita Wilson’s snarky little gardener uprooted my Italian cypress and the arbitration judge ruled in
his
favor, I want to hear the details of Thane’s murder from Lisa’s own lying lips.”

Polly turned to Tim. “Hon, find out where Lisa lives—or rather,
lived
. After our little tête-à-tête in B.H., I want a tour of the place she may never see again.”