City of Mirrors (13 page)

“About your height, thinner, hair the color of sand, twenty-eight years old. Handsome in that kind of bland actor's perfect-headshot way.”

“Sounds like a lot of guys in Hollywood.”

“They found his body at the Bel Air house where you had sex with Jenny. Could he have been the one who drove you there? Who took your cash?”

He blanched. “I
am
a dead man.” Tears rolled down his red checks. “Dead Man Crying.” He got to his feet. “I have to go home. I have to think.”

“You need to talk to Detective Spangler.”

“I need to work this out in my head first. I need time.”

He stumbled out of the kitchen. I followed him outside to the deck.

He turned to me and pleaded. “You won't tell anybody, will you? Promise?”

“I promise,” I said, remembering how my oath to Celia had worked out.

After he left, I went into the bathroom and threw up the swill, the wine, and the Snickers bar. Then I sat on the floor, leaned against the shower door, pulled my legs up to my chest, and rested my head against my knees.

I thought about Celia trying to find love on her own terms. But it never happens that way. There's always a Ben to remind you that other people have terms, too. I thought of Ryan's insatiable urges leading him to Jenny Parson, Bella Casa, and blackmail. And what about Beth Woods? Did Jenny have a video of her groveling? Jenny, who told me she couldn't play-act or pretend. Yet in the ugliest way she was play-acting, and she could have been murdered for it. Using the rim of the toilet bowl, I pushed myself up and stood in front of the mirror. I looked like hell.

I took a shower, brushed my teeth, crawled into bed, and turned on the TV—Bette Davis was blowing smoke. I popped a sleeping pill.

Waiting for it to work its magic, I stared at the ceiling and wondered why Jenny would use Bella Casa for her blackmail scheme. Keep the answer simple, Diana, like acting. Don't overthink it. Don't overact it. Maybe she used the house because it was empty and she had a key to it.

When mother and I lived there, we had a master key that unlocked the main door and other exterior entrances except for the swimming pool door. We had a separate key for the pool man. That way he didn't have access to the interior of the house. That is, if the connecting door that led into the gallery was kept locked.

Ryan had told me he was let in through the pool area, not the front door. That meant Jenny didn't have the master key. She had access to the house only through the indoor pool. So who would have that key? Celia and the pool man. Selling keys to homes of celebs or the wealthy in order to have a duplicate made was hardly unheard of. But Celia had everything to lose and nothing to gain by doing that. But what about P. J. Binder, my mother's “mislaid man”? The one who found the body.

I grabbed my iPhone and Googled his name. I found the address of P. J. Binder's pool-supply company.

Then I called Ryan. “I want to take control of my life; do you?”

“Huh?”

“If so, come over here around ten tomorrow morning.”

“Will this help my … situation?”

“Only if you're not the murderer.” I ended the call and waited for the dark soft blanket of sleep to wrap around me.

T
here are two kinds of pool men in Southern California: the free spirits and the dark spirits. Both drive pickups with scoopers, long-handled nets, and plastic bottles of chlorine rattling around in the back. The free spirits work just long enough so they can afford to surf, windsail, hang-glide, or just hang out for the rest of their lives. The darker souls are the haunted ones, like the vets who have returned from Iraq or Afghanistan. They clean your pool before the sun comes up and then disappear.

P. J. Binder was in the second category.

There were only a few paparazzi waiting for me when Ryan and I drove away in my Jag the next morning. I would soon be off their radar completely.

About an hour later I pulled into a space in front of a one-story building with
P. J. Binder Pool Cleaning & Supplies
painted in large blue wavy letters on its façade.

As Ryan and I got out of the car, the hot valley air slammed against me. We were in an industrial section near Pacoima. There were some other stores: a metal shop, a fencing company, and an auto-parts dealer. But mostly the buildings were boarded up, the empty lots were littered with trash, and rusted grocery carts lay on their sides here and there.

Ryan squinted at a new red BMW convertible in a parking slot that had Binder's name on it. “Expensive car.”

I glanced across the street. Waiting by the curb were two paparazzi. Straddling his motorcycle, one wore a white helmet that shone in the sun like a giant Q ball. His darkened visor was flipped down. The other's helmet was black as a giant 8 ball, and his visor was also down. Cameras were slung across their bodies on straps.

“The fame suckers must've followed us from my house. Just keep walking,” I told Ryan, turning my face away from them.

He immediately turned his back, dropped his Bermuda shorts, and bent over, wiggling his big, round, pale bottom at them.

“Jesus Christ, the last thing I need is to be seen standing next to your fat ass. Grow up!” I ran for the pool-supplies entrance.

He loped after me. “I sometimes wonder what's in it for me to grow up.”

“How about not being arrested for murder, or not having Parson order one of his goons to beat you to a pulp for screwing his daughter! Now zip it.”

“I won't say a word.”

“I meant your fly.” I threw open the door.

Inside we approached a blond-colored faux-wood counter. A woman in her mid-twenties sat behind it, tweeting, texting, or sexting. Peering down, her bleached white hair cascaded over part of her face as she expertly touched the tiny keys with long nails painted cement-gray.

“With you in a sec,” she said, not bothering to look up.

The wall behind her held sagging shelves displaying dusty gallon-size bottles of cleaners and numerous gadgets to keep pools purified. Three rattan chairs with high-fanned backs lined another wall. A ceiling fan slowly turned, blades wobbling, feebly trying to stir the stale air.

The young woman hit
send
and smiled up at us, flipping her hair back from eyes heavily lined in black pencil. “What can I do for you?” Her lipstick was the same color as her nails.

“I'd like to speak with Mr. Binder.” I took off my sunglasses.

“
Daaad … dyyyyy!
” she yelled at the top of her lungs.

Ryan lurched back from the counter.

She cocked an eyebrow at him. “Hung over?”

“Jesus, don't you have an intercom system?” he complained.

“What do you think this is, Home Depot?”

The door next to the chairs opened and a man in his late sixties with a thick gray beard, and shoulder-length hair to match, stepped from his office.

“You want me?” His voice sounded like two rocks rubbing together.

“Mr. Binder?” I asked.

“Yep.” His belly, the size of a small bag of sand, filled his faded blue work shirt.

“We're here about the house in Bel Air with the indoor swimming pool.” He looked like a man you needed to be direct with.

“Know nothing about it.” He started to go back into his office.

“I think you cleaned that pool a long time ago. You knew my mother, the actress Nora …”

He turned slowly and faced me again. “Nora?” His weathered face softened as he studied me. “You must be her daughter Diana.”

I nodded.

“Come on in.”

We followed him into a small room decorated with a large metal desk, an American flag on a stand in one corner, and a rifle hung on the wall behind his desk.

“Take a seat,” he gestured,

We sat on two folding chairs.

“Sorry to hear about your mother.” He settled into a worn leather chair that had one arm missing and a jean jacket hung on the back. “She was damn good to me.” He grinned, baring yellow teeth.

Not another one who had an affair with her, I thought. Since I had never seen him, I tried to imagine him younger but there was no shadow of youth in his worn face.

“So what can I do for you?”

“I know you discovered the corpse at the Bel Air house. Could you tell us what you told the police?”

“I saw you on TV. You discovered that girl's body.”

“Jenny Parson.”

“And now you want to know what I told the police about another dead body.”

“That's right.”

“You in trouble?”

“Yes!” Ryan blurted desperately.

“I was asking her,” he said, eyeing Ryan suspiciously.

“Let's just say my life has become very complicated since I found Jenny Parson, and I'd like to un-complicate it.”

“Dealing with one corpse isn't enough for you?”

“You might be able to shed some light on the death of Jenny Parson.”

“You think the two are connected?”

“They could be.”

He shook his head. “Sorry, but I can't help you.”

“You said my mother was good to you. How?”

His eyes shined with memories. He
was
having an affair with her.

“Your mother talked about her career, about work, as if it could save a person. Make them whole. She never once asked about the war.” His brown eyes fell on Ryan. “That would be 'Nam.”

“I assumed by the rifle.” Ryan crossed his bare legs importantly. “M-21, right?”

Binder warily took in his curly red hair, Bermuda shorts, Hawaiian shirt, and Uggs. “Right. Sniper rifle.”

“Accurate up to 750 yards. Light armor piercing and equipped with a Leatherwood 3x-9x adjustable ranging telescope.” Ryan sounded like a college student listing what he had memorized for a test.

“You shoot?”

“No. Only write about them.”

“You write about guns, but don't shoot?”

Ryan nodded. “I write screenplays.”

“Do you now?” Binder tapped an impatient, blunt finger on a pile of invoices.

“Guns are props in my world,” Ryan continued blithely. “Sometimes I can even turn one into a metaphor. I just can't use the word metaphor in front of the producers because it scares them. You know, it doesn't matter what you do, just don't scare the horses.” He laughed as if Binder shared his inside knowledge of the quirks of the men who got movies made.

Binder squinted. “Well, this gun is loaded with a round of reality in case some asshole comes in here and tries to metaphorically rob me.”

Ryan moved uneasily in his chair.

“I remember she called you the ‘mislaid man.'” I hoped to get him back to Nora and maybe helping us. “She didn't mean it in an unkind way.”

“I never took it to be mean-spirited. She was my angel.” Reflecting, he stroked his beard. “She'd come down and talk to me while I was cleaning. Seems she couldn't sleep either.” He began to restack the already neat pile of invoices, then cleared his throat. “It took me a while to realize that this beautiful woman, this movie star, was talking me back into the world.”

“She never told me.”

“You look a lot like her. Are you as good of a woman as she was?”

“I try to be.” I suddenly felt this man could see right through me to the lie I had just spoken.

He leaned back in his chair, resting his hands on his belly. “So you're probably wondering how the dead kid got onto the estate.”

“Yes.”

“And my connection is I have a key to the indoor swimming pool and I know the gate code.”

“Exactly,” Ryan said. “And I might add that's a very expensive car you drive.”

I leaned toward Binder. “We're not saying you've done anything illegal …”

But Binder was fixed on Ryan. “You know, son, I'm sometimes at a party or one of my AA meetings and I find myself counting the number of people in the room. It's almost habitual with me. Every time I do, it turns out I've killed more people in war than are in that room. So you in your Eskimo shoes means nothing to me.”

Backtracking, Ryan said “BMW is a great car.”

Binder ignored the comment. “And now, you, who mean nothing to me, is saying I sold some snot-nosed kid a key so he could make a copy of it, and then I could what? Buy my own building? Buy my Beamer? That's a pretty magical key.”

“I apologize for Ryan. He was out of line. In fact he's always out of line.” Ryan snorted; I continued. “What I'm wondering is whether there's a chance one of the men who work for you sold it for a little pocket cash. You do hire other pool cleaners, don't you?”

“I do, but I screen them thoroughly. Most of them are vets like me. That's all I've got to say.”

“It's important to me, Mr. Binder.”

“I'm afraid you're wasting your time and mine.”

“My mother helped you in your time of need.” I'd always prided myself on being independent from her, and now I was relying on her, using her.

He pursed his lips, thinking. When he spoke his voice was firm. “I clean that pool myself, not one of my guys. Except I get there now around three o'clock in the afternoon, not before dawn, like I used to. I need my sleep. Age has caught up with me, even tired out some of my demons.”

“Isn't that a lot of years to be cleaning the same pool?” I asked.

“I have a few houses where I've stayed on for close to forty years. The owners have changed but I always get recommended to the new ones.” He adjusted his gaze to glare at Ryan. “And the reason for that is they trust me.”

“Did you know the victim?” I asked. “His name is Zackary Logan.”

“Never saw him before. Told the police the same. Why would anybody want a key, anyway?”

“Access to an empty house. They could throw parties, deal drugs, or loot the place.” I decided not to mention that they could also video people having sex and then blackmail them.

“I told you that I'm the only one with the key, and I never saw any evidence of such goings-on.”

“Do you ever go inside the house?”

“Of course not. So I can't help you there. Except I did find a condom once.”

Ryan sat up. “When? And where exactly was it?”

“In the container for the garden waste about a month ago. I remember because I was wondering it if it should be put in the trash or the recycle. That just shows you how these environmental little bastards can get into your head.”

“Didn't you think it was odd to find a condom at a place that'd been empty a while?” I said.

“No. Someone could've tossed it over the wall, and the gardener threw it away with his clippings.”

“Did you tell the police about it?” Ryan gnawed nervously on his thumb as if were a drumstick.

“Didn't think it was important.” Binder grinned maliciously at him. “You want me to tell 'em?”

I interrupted. “Did Celia Dario hire you?”

“The real estate woman? No, the owners hired me.”

Deciding I wasn't going to get any more information from him, I stood and extended my hand. “It was nice to finally meet you.” We shook hands.

“Same here. Too bad you brought the asshole with you.”

“I'm not always like this, I'm under stress.” Ryan stood up just as the door opened behind us.

We turned, watching the young woman with bleached white hair and cement-colored lips saunter in with a plate piled with vegetables and rice. She set it in front of Binder.

“What's this crap?” he demanded.

“Your lunch, Daddy. If you don't eat it Mommy's going to be very upset with you.” She wagged a finger at him, then kissed him lustily on the mouth and swayed out of the room.

Noticing our surprised expressions, he said, “I know I'm too old for her. When she told me she was a vegan I thought she said virgin.” He chuckled to himself. “What do I have to lose except eating meat?”

We walked out past the receptionist's desk and through the door into the blistering sun. Across the street, the paparazzi were waiting.

“Ignore them,” I warned Ryan as we got into my car. I put down my window. “That was a bust. We didn't learn anything that we don't already know.”

Buckling himself in, Ryan said “They didn't take the money shot.”

“What?” I started the engine and pulled out of the driveway past the two fame suckers.

Ryan looked back at them. “They should've taken pictures of me, famous screenwriter, mooning them, and you, sexy actress, discoverer of dead bodies. They didn't.”

“You're right.” I rounded the corner onto the main drag, heading back to the freeway.

Ryan asked, “Do you think that condom was mine?”

“Did you use one?” I looked in the rearview mirror. No paparazzi.

“I can't remember.”

“God, Ryan.”

“DNA. My DNA is probably all over that sofa. The police are going to find it.”

“They have no reason to check the sofa for your DNA. And even I know they have to match it to something to be sure it's yours.”

“Binder has to be lying,” Ryan decided. “He's got a young girlfriend and a red Beamer. That's called overhead. He's got to be selling keys and codes.”