Genuine Lies (57 page)

Paul looked over her shoulder. Needlemeyer hadn’t moved, but sat quietly, watching. “Do you have to do this now?” Paul demanded.

“Always the best time.”

They knew each other, had known each other for more than eight years, and had become friends through Paul’s research.

Frank T. Needlemeyer had never wanted to be anything but a cop. He’d never looked like anything but a graduate student—one who majored in party. Paul knew he was nearly forty, but his baby face showed no sign of age. Professionally, he had seen just about all the ugliness humanity had to offer. Personally, he’d weathered two miserable marriages. He’d come through it without a line, without a gray hair, and with the stubborn confidence that things could be made right if you kept hacking away at wrong.

And because they knew each other, Frank understood how much Eve Benedict had meant to Paul. “She was a hell of a woman, Paul. I’m sorry.”

“Yeah.” He wasn’t ready for sympathy, not yet. “I need to see her.”

Frank nodded. “I’ll arrange it.” Then let out a quiet breath. Obviously the woman Paul had told him about the last time they’d tossed back a few was Julia Summers. How had he described her? Frank flipped through his memory of Paul, tipping back a long-neck beer, grinning.

“She’s stubborn, likes to be in control. Probably comes from having to raise a kid on her own. Got a great laugh—but she doesn’t laugh enough. Irritates the hell out of me. I think I’m crazy about her.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Bleary with drink, Frank had grinned back. “But I want to hear about her body. Start with her legs.”

“Amazing. Absolutely amazing.”

Frank had already noted Paul had been right about those legs. But right now it looked as if Julia Summers’s legs weren’t going to hold her up for long. “Would you sit down, Miss Summers? If you don’t have any objection, Paul can stay while we talk.”

“No, I … please.” She gripped Paul’s hand.

“I’m not going anywhere.” He took the seat beside her.

“Okay, now we’re going to start right at the beginning. Do you want some more water?”

She shook her head. More than anything, she wanted to get this over with.

“What time did you get home?”

“I don’t know.” She took a long, steadying breath. “Joe. Joe at the gate might remember. I’d had an appointment this morning with Gloria DuBarry. After, I drove around …”

“You called me about noon,” Paul prompted her. “From the BHH.”

“Yes, I called you, then I drove around some more.” “Do you drive around like that often?” Frank asked. “I had things on my mind.”

Frank watched the look pass between her and Paul, and waited.

“I got here just when Gloria was leaving, and—”

“Miss DuBarry was here?” Frank interrupted.

“Yes, I guess she was here to … to see Eve. She was pulling out of the gate as I drove up. I talked to Joe for a few minutes, then I parked my car in front of the house. I didn’t want to go in yet. I …” She dropped her hands into her lap, gripped them together. Saying nothing, Paul covered them with his own. “I walked to the gardens and sat on a bench. I don’t know how long. Then I went to the house.”

“Which way did you go in?”

“The front. I unlocked the front door.” When her voice broke, she pressed her hand to her mouth. “I was going to get some wine, going to marinate some chicken for dinner. And then I saw her.”

“Go on.”

“She was lying on the rug. And the blood was … I think I went to her, tried to wake her up. But she …”

“Your call to 911 came in at one twenty-two.”

Julia shuddered once, then settled. “I called 911, then I called Paul.”

“What did you do then?”

She looked away, away from him, away from the house. There were butterflies floating above the columbine. “I sat with her until they came.”

“Miss Summers, do you know why Miss Benedict would have been in the guest house?”

“Waiting for me. I—we were working on the book.”

“Her biography,” Frank said with a nod. “During the course of time you’ve been working with her, did Miss Benedict indicate to you that someone might wish her harm?”

“There were a lot of people who were unhappy about the book. Eve knew things.” She stared down at her hands, then into his eyes. “I have tapes, Lieutenant, tapes of my interviews with Eve.”

“I’d appreciate it if you’d let me have them.”

“They’re inside.” In a quick, convulsive movement her fingers tightened on Paul’s. “There’s more.”

She told him about the notes, about the break-in, the theft, the plane. As she talked, Frank took short, scattered notes and kept his eyes on her face. This was a lady, he thought, about to snap and determined not to.

“Why wasn’t the break-in reported?”

“Eve wanted to handle it herself. Later, she told me that it had been Drake—her nephew Drake Morrison—and that she’d dealt with him.”

Frank jotted down the initials D.M., circled them. “I’ll need the notes.”

“I have them—with the tapes—in the safe.”

His brow lifted slightly, his own sign of interest. “I know this is tough on you, Miss Summers, and there isn’t a hell of a lot I can do to make it easier.” Out of the corner of his eye he saw one of the uniforms come to the kitchen door and signal. “After you’ve had a chance to settle a bit, I’ll need you
to come down, give a formal statement. I’d also like to take your prints.”

“Christ, Frank.”

He shot Paul a look. “It’s standard. We need to match any of the prints we come up with on the scene. Pretty obvious yours’ll be there, Miss Summers. Eliminating them will help.”

“It’s all right. Whatever it takes, I’ll do. You need to know …” She fought grimly to keep her breath from hitching. “She was more than a subject to me. Much more than that, Lieutenant. Eve Benedict was my mother.”

What a fucking mess.

Frank wasn’t thinking about the crime scene. He’d been on too many to allow himself to be overly affected by the aftermath of violent death. He hated murder, despised it as the darkest of sins. But he was a cop, first and last, and it wasn’t his job to philosophize. It was his job to find a firm grip on the slippery rope of justice.

It was his friend he was thinking about as he watched Paul stand over the draped body. As he watched him reach down to touch the dead face.

Frank had cleared the room, and the forensic boys weren’t too happy. They still had their dusting and vacuuming to do. But there were times you bent the rules. Paul was entitled to a couple of minutes alone with a woman he’d loved for twenty-five years.

He could hear movement upstairs, where he’d sent Julia with a policewoman. She needed to change, to gather up whatever personal items she and her kid would need. No one without a badge would be coming inside this house for some time.

Eve still looked beautiful, Paul reflected. Seeing that helped somehow. Whoever had done this hadn’t been able to take her beauty from her.

She was too pale, of course. Too still. Shutting his eyes, he struggled over another raw wave of grief. She wouldn’t
want that. He could almost hear her laugh, feel her pat his cheek.

“Darling,” she would say. “I packed more than enough into one life, so don’t shed any tears for me. Now, I expect— hell, I demand that my fans weep copiously and gnash their teeth. The studios should shut down for a goddamn day of mourning. But I want the people I love to get stinking drunk and have one hell of a party.”

Gently, he slipped her hand into his, raised it to his lips for the last time. “Bye, gorgeous.”

Frank laid a hand on his shoulder. “Come on out back.”

With a nod, Paul turned away from her. God knew he needed the air. The moment he stepped onto the terrace, he took a big gulp of it.

“How?” was all he said.

“Blow to the base of the skull. Looks like the fireplace poker. I know it doesn’t help much, but the coroner thinks death was instantaneous.”

“No, it doesn’t help.” He stuffed impotent fists into his pockets. “I’m going to need to make arrangements. How soon will you … when will you release her to me?”

“I’ll let you know. I can’t do any better than that. You’re going to have to talk to me, officially.” He pulled out a cigarette. “I can come to you, or you can come downtown.”

“I need to take Julia away from here.” He accepted the cigarette Frank offered, leaned into the flame of the match. “She and Brandon will stay with me. She’s going to need some time.”

“I’ll give her what I can, Paul, but you’ve got to understand. She found the body, she’s Eve’s long-lost daughter. She knows what’s in here.” He lifted the bag full of the tapes he’d taken from the safe after Julia had given him the location and combination. “She’s the best lead we’ve got.”

“She may be the best lead you’ve got, but she’s hanging together by a very thin thread. Stretch it much more, and it’s going to snap. For God’s sake, give us a couple of days.”

“I’ll do what I can.” He blew smoke from between his
teeth. “It’s not going to be easy. Reporters are staking out the place.”

“Fuck.”

“You said it. I’m going to keep the business of Julia’s relationship with Eve under wraps for as long as I can, but that’s going to bust loose too. When it does, they’ll be on her like fleas.” He glanced up as Julia stepped through the doorway. “Get her out of here.”

Panting, Drake shoved through the door, then locked it behind him. Thank Christ, thank Christ, he thought over and over as he rubbed shaking hands over his clammy face. He’d made it home. He was safe.

He needed a drink.

Favoring his ankle, he hobbled through the living room to the bar and snatched a bottle at random. A quick twist of the top and he was drinking Stoli. He shuddered, gulped oxygen, and guzzled some more.

Dead. The queen was dead.

He gave a nervous giggle that ended on a racking sob. How could it have happened? Why had it happened? If he hadn’t gotten away before Julia had come back …

Didn’t matter. He shook even the possibility away, then pressed a hand to his spinning head. The only thing that mattered was that nobody had seen him. As long as he kept calm, played it smart, everything was going to be dandy. Better than dandy. She couldn’t have had time to change her will.

He was a rich man. A fucking tycoon. He raised the bottle again in toast, then dropped it to the ground on his rush to the bathroom. Clinging to the John, he vomited up sickness and fear.

Maggie Castle heard the news in one of the coldest ways—a phone call from a reporter asking for reaction and comment.

“You slimy son of a bitch,” she began, leaning forward in her buttery leather swivel chair. “Don’t you know I can have your ass for pulling a stunt like this.” She slammed the phone down with relish. With a pile of scripts to review, contracts to revise, and phone calls to return, she didn’t have time for warped jokes.

“Fucking jerk,” she said mildly, and eyed the phone with dislike. Her stomach rumbled, distracting her, and she pressed a calming hand to it. Starving to death, she thought. She was starving to death and would have cheerfully killed for a big fat roast beef on rye. But she was going to fit into that size ten she’d plunked down three thousand for, and the Oscars were less than a week away.

She dealt out a trio of eight-by-ten glossies like playing cards and studied the sultry faces. She had to decide which one to send to read for a plum part in a new feature under development.

Tailor-made for Eve, she mused. Sighed. If Eve had been twenty-five years younger. The hell of it was, even Eve Benedict couldn’t be young forever.

Maggie barely glanced up as her door opened. “What is it, Sheila?”

“Ms. Castle …” Sheila stood in the doorway, one hand gripping the knob, the other braced on the jamb. “Oh, God, Ms. Castle.”

The trembling tone had Maggie’s head jerking up. Her half glasses slid down her nose. “What? What is it?”

“Eve Benedict … She’s been murdered.”

“That’s bullshit.” The anger came first so that she reared out of her chair. “If that asshole’s called again—”

“The radio,” Sheila managed to say, fumbling in her skirt pocket for a tissue. “It just came over the radio.”

Still fueled by fury, Maggie snatched up the remote and aimed it at the television. By the time she’d flipped the channels twice, she hit the bulletin.

“Hollywood, and the world, is shocked this afternoon by the death of Eve Benedict. The perpetually glamorous star of
dozens of films was found on her estate, the apparent victim of homicide.”

Eyes glued to the set, Maggie lowered herself slowly into her chair. “Eve,” she whispered. “Oh, God, Eve.”

Locked in his office miles away, Michael Delrickio stared at the television, dully watching the pictures flicker. Eve at twenty, bright, vivid. At thirty, sultry, sensational.

He didn’t move. He didn’t speak.

Gone. Wasted, finished. He could have given her everything. Including life. If she’d loved him enough, if she’d believed in him, trusted him, he could have stopped it. Instead, she had scorned him, defied him, detested him. So she was dead. And even in death she could ruin him.

Gloria lay in her darkened bedroom, a chilled gel mask over her swollen eyes. The Valium wasn’t helping. She didn’t think anything would. No pills, no ploys, no prayers would ever make things right again.

Eve had been her closest friend. She hated that she couldn’t erase the memories they’d shared, the value of their woman-to-woman intimacy.

Of course she’d been hurt, angry, fearful. But she’d never wanted Eve dead. She’d never wanted it to end like this.

But Eve was dead. She was gone. Beneath the soothing mask, tears streamed. Gloria wondered what would become of her now.

In his library, surrounded by the books he’d loved and collected over a lifetime, Victor stared at a sealed bottle of Irish Mist. Whiskey, he thought, the way the Irish made it, was the best way to get drunk.

He wanted to get drunk, so drunk he wouldn’t be able to think, or feel, or breathe. How long could he stay that
way? he wondered. One night, one week, one year? Could he stay that way long enough so that when he came to himself again, the pain would be over?

There would never be enough whiskey, there would never be enough time for that. If he was cursed to survive another ten years, he’d never outlive the pain.