Hollywood Lust (20 page)

I took in the city skyline for a moment. A fog bank had come in from the ocean, concealing some of the taller buildings. “I’m doing the best I can. I just want things with Janice Taylor and The Swarm to be over.”

“You need anything, you know Oz and me are here for you.”

“I appreciate that.”

Galen Marshall’s mother lived in a small apartment building in Inglewood, about a half hour from Hollywood Station. The area was covered in gang graffiti. Leo and I got some suspicious looks as we knocked on the door to her upstairs apartment.

We had done the death notification about her son to Wanda Marshall the previous night. She had gone into hysterics and I had to call a friend to come stay with her. As she opened her door this afternoon, it looked like the reality of losing her son had left a heavy depression in its wake. Her jowly faced sagged, and, as she led us inside, I had the impression she hadn’t slept all night.

We again expressed our condolences about her loss as we settled in on the sofa across from her, while Bernie sat at my feet. After preliminaries, we asked Wanda Marshall about anyone who might have wanted to harm her son.

Marshall blew her nose and shook her head. “Everybody liked Galen. What happened makes no sense.”

I glanced at Leo, thinking there’s nothing like a mother’s love. She was obviously in denial about the type of person her son was.

“What about girlfriends? Is there anyone who might have been upset with him?” Even as I asked the question, I thought about her son’s necrophilia activities.

I got a headshake, then, “I don’t really know who Galen was involved with. He never brought anyone with him when he visited me.”

Maybe he had a corpse in his car.
“What about his brother, Elton? Is he still in this area?”

I got a shrug. “I don’t know. We haven’t spoken in years.”

“Why is that?”

“Elton is…” A sigh. “He just had a different lifestyle. It’s nothing that either Galen or I approved of.”

Leo leaned closer to her, lowered his voice. “Can you tell us exactly what you mean, ma’am?”

Her dark eyes found Leo before moving away. “Elton had a different view of things. He liked both men and women, especially if someone had a problem.”

“A problem?” I said, raising my brows.

“Elton liked to help people who were sick. It probably sounds strange, but I think he was attracted to them.”

“People who were sick…I’m not sure what you mean?”

“He had a soft spot for anyone who was injured or had an illness.” She sighed and pushed graying hair off her forehead. “Sometimes it was people he found out about who had a disease. Other times it was someone who was injured or who just had some emotional problems. He went to a psychiatrist once when he was younger. There’s a name for his condition, but I don’t really remember what it is.”

“Paraphilia,” Leo said, surprising me.

“I think it was something like that.” She shook her head. “I never really understood it.”

We spent another half hour with Marshall, not getting much that was worthwhile. We did learn that she hadn’t seen her son Elton in over a decade. She had no idea where he was living or working, and she didn’t think he’d had any contact with his brother in recent years.

We were on the sidewalk where Bernie was admiring a flowerbed, when I said to Leo, “Paraphilia?”

He smiled. “Had a couple of cases over the years where it came into play. As strange as it sounds, it’s a form of compulsion that creates an intense sexual arousal to atypical objects or individuals.” The skin on his brow tightened. “Interestingly enough, necrophilia falls under the same general diagnostic criteria.”

I glanced back up at Wanda Marshall’s apartment. “Maybe there was something strange going on during Galen and Elton’s childhood.” I looked back at Leo. “I’m impressed with the psycho-babble.”

“I don’t think I ever mentioned it to you, but I got a PhD in psychology a few years back. It comes in useful on the job now and then.”

“Dr. Kingsley?”

He nodded and grinned. “You can just call me Dr. Leo.”

I tugged on Bernie’s leash. “Let’s call it a day, Dr. Leo. When I get back from Denver, maybe you can give me another lecture on weird sexual practices.”

Bernie and I got home just in time to catch a ride with Natalie and Mo to their meeting with Lana Palmer. We piled into the back seat as Mo pulled away from the curb in her big red Caddie convertible that matched her night’s choice of hair color. My friends had their upcoming magazine photo shoot for
Wild Child
on their minds as we drove.

“The mag is running an article on modern women and their place in the workforce,” Mo said. “Me and baby sis are gonna do some shoots with our PI gear on, and also dressed up as Flo and Lola.”

“Who?”

“That’s our TV names,” Natalie said from the front passenger seat. She reached a hand back and nuzzled Bernie. “I’m Lola and Flo tries to keep me outta trouble.”

I giggled. “It sounds a little like real life.”

“We can probably work you into the shoot,” Mo said from the driver’s seat. “You could take Nana’s place.”

“Don’t tell me she’s going to be involved.”

Natalie sighed. “She convinced them they needed a mature woman in the shoot. She’s already picked out a slutty short dress. It’s gonna be embarrassing as hell.”

I leaned forward so that they could hear me over the wind howling around us. “I’d say Nana is pushing the upper boundaries of mature in more ways than one.”

“What do you say ’bout doing the shoot with us?” Mo asked, looking at me in her rearview mirror.

“I say no-thanks. I don’t need the publicity.”

“Maybe all that press Kate’s been gettin’ lately has gone to her head,” Natalie said.

Mo regarded me. “Her head does look a lot bigger.”

I pushed the hair out of my eyes. “That’s because your convertible is doing nothing for my hair.”

Mo pulled over to the curb and hit a button. In a moment the convertible top was in place and she pulled back onto the highway.

“Thanks,” I said, looking at my hair in my compact mirror. I was a dead ringer for the bride of Frankenstein after Hurricane Katrina had struck.

We took Sunset Boulevard to Highway One, just south of Santa Monica. The busy highway snaked along the coast, with magnificent views of the ocean.

We chatted aimlessly as we drove until Natalie mentioned the museum theft they were still working on. “I think we’re gettin’ closer to putting the caper together. When you get back from startin’ Armageddon, we can all work on going undercover to nab the piece of clunge that did it.”

I’d tried to put tomorrow’s meeting with Janice Taylor out of my mind. “Does Gladys still think her cousin was involved?”

Mo answered. “That’s her suspicion. She said he’s always broke.” She looked over at Natalie. “Told you it was Spider-Man.”

“Spider-Man?” I said.

Natalie turned to me. “It’s just a hobby her cuz has. We’ll explain everything about it to you later.” She changed the subject. “Don’t forget, next Tuesday night, Izzy is makin’ the Hollywood Sign disappear. We’ve all got front row seats.”

“I still don’t know how he’s going to pull that one off, especially on live TV.”

“Same way he put Nana’s dress and wig on you,” Natalie said, reminding me of a recent performance where her boyfriend had called me out of the audience and performed some makeover magic of the worst kind.

“I’m still trying to forget the trauma,” I said as we turned off the highway into a rural area.

Topanga Canyon was in the western part of Los Angeles County. The semi-famous boulevard wound through an area that was steeped in Hollywood history. I remembered reading somewhere that Humphrey Bogart and Carole Lombard lived in the canyon at one time. Subsequent residents included everyone from Joni Mitchell to Neil Young, and even Charlie Manson, who spent some time there as a wannabe rock star.

The area had steep outcroppings of rock where Topanga Canyon Boulevard cut through the chaparral-covered hills. The hillsides above the road had a scattering of businesses, including general stores, cafes, taverns, and new age spiritual centers. This was Hollywood’s rural version of a hippie-retreat, where experiments in both music and lifestyle had prevailed over the years.

Imaginary strains of music from the 1960’s, everything from Buffalo Springfield to The Doors seemed to swirl through the air as we pulled to the side of the road. I saw there was a steep staircase leading up the hillside.

“Why are we stopping here?” I asked. Darkness was beginning to settle in and there was a slightly forbidding aura to the otherwise deserted canyon.

“Lana Palmer lives up there,” Natalie said, pointing to where the stairway disappeared into the heavy cover of brush. “She’s got one of them yogurts that she lives in.”

“Yogurts?”

“Baby sis means,
yurt
,” Mo said, opening her door. “She’s living one of them alternative lifestyles.”

It took a couple of minutes for Mo to extricate her big body from the car. After she joined us, Natalie said, “Lana’s a nature freak and wants nothing to do with civilization.” She waved us over to the stairway. “Follow me.”

We spent the next ten minutes making our way up the hillside. Bernie practically pulled me up the staircase, while Mo huffed and puffed behind us. We stopped on a landing, where we saw some lights in a clearing beyond where we stood.

“I gotta aerate,” Mo said, as she bent over gulping in some air. “It’s something I learned in one of them workout classes. My body’s like a 747 with a couple of jet engines. It’s gotta be fed enough air.”

I let Bernie go ahead of us with Natalie. As Mo wheezed some air into her lungs, I had a thought that she was actually operating a cargo plane that’s enormous twin engines, aka breasts, were misfiring. I was worried that she might go into a tailspin at any moment and not make it up the stairway, but kept my thoughts to myself. When she’d finally recovered, we made our way up the final steps and over to where Natalie and Bernie were waiting for us.

“Isn’t this the bomb?” Natalie said.

She and my big dog were standing in front of a billowing white structure that seemed a little out of place in the brush-covered hillside. As we took in the scene a woman with a flower in her shoulder-length gray hair came outside and introduced herself.

I knew from having googled her name that Lana Palmer was now in her mid-sixties. She was, according to the article I read, an artist specializing in painting with natural materials. She had a pleasant, round face that radiated kindness as we introduced ourselves and made small talk. Like so many people whose years had caught up with them, Palmer looked nothing like the young woman who had worked with some of the biggest stars in Hollywood back in the 1980’s.

We were invited into her yurt, which I found was spacious and comfortable. Several of her paintings hung on the walls. They were mostly abstracts with vivid colors.

We then took seats around a small kitchen table while Bernie settled at my feet. Palmer offered us tea and mentioned her earlier conversation with Natalie. “The Hollywood lifestyle seems like a lifetime ago.” As she finished serving the tea, her violet eyes swept over her living quarters. “Correction, it
was
a lifetime ago.”

Natalie sipped her drink, and set the cup down. “As I mentioned when I called, we’re lookin’ into the death of Jean Winslow. We understand you were her publicist at one time.”

Palmer took a seat at the table with us. She placed her weathered hands around her cup and took a sip before answering. “Jean…it’s such a shame what happened. She was…a sweet person who never quite fit into the lifestyle.”

“She sounds like she was unhappy,” I said.

Palmer thought about what I’d said and then nodded. “I think she probably was. Jean was trying to find herself, and I don’t think that ever really happened.”

Natalie didn’t mince words. “Is that 'cause of assholes like Donald Regis who was trying to control her?”

Our hostess laughed. “Yes, probably…Donald. I haven’t thought about him in years.” She found my friend’s beautiful hazel eyes. “Do you know if he’s still alive?”

Mo nodded, swept red hair away, and answered for Natalie. “He’s living like the king of Beverly Hills on one of them big fancy estates worth millions.”

There was more laughter. “I’m not surprised. He was always trying to give the impression that he was larger than life.”

“We understand that Jean was under contract to him at Wallace Studios and she wasn’t happy about it,” I said.

“Yes, I was working with her at the time. She finally realized Donald was a control freak who wanted to direct every aspect of her life. It took her a while, but she finally grew tired of him and broke things off.”

I decided to be direct and mentioned what we thought we already knew. “Did your relationship with Regis have anything to do with that?”

Palmer smiled. “I doubt it. Donald and I had a brief fling but we were never in a relationship. It meant nothing.”

“But Jean found out about that and it ended your friendship,” Natalie said.

She nodded. “It’s a shame. I tried to explain things to her, but she didn’t want to listen. It was a sorry chapter in my life, but it helped me realize I wasn’t cut out for the Hollywood lifestyle. A couple of years later I moved here.” Her eyes lifted, taking in her surroundings. “It’s a very spiritual place.”

“Did you know a man named John Sexton?” Natalie asked. She glanced at me, back at Palmer. “He worked a lot of the studios back then, doing security work.”

My pulse quickened as Palmer nodded. “I remember him from Wallace Studios. Actually, he and Jean were…”

“He was my father,” I said. Maybe I’d interrupted her because I was afraid that she’d say my love-dad and Winslow had been involved. I exhaled and said, “Let me put our cards on the table Ms. Palmer. We have reason to believe that Jean Winslow’s death was something other than a suicide and that my father was murdered to cover it up.”

“Oh, goodness.” The teacup in Palmer’s hand fell onto the wooden table top and spilled what little contents were left. “John…your father I mean…he was murdered?”

I nodded. “By a man named Ryan Cooper.”

Palmer’s weathered features tightened. She then looked at her spilled tea. “I’m sorry. Let me get a dishcloth.”

We waited while she cleaned up the spill. She then sat back down and said, “I’ve heard the speculation over the years about Jean’s death not being a suicide. Do you really think she might have been…murdered?”

Natalie answered, “It’s not only possible, we’re gonna bring the dirty wazzock who killed her and Kate’s dad to justice.”

While Palmer processed what she’d said, I tried to refocus the conversation. I realized I needed to hear the truth about Winslow and my love-dad, no matter how difficult that might be. “What can you tell me about the relationship between Jean and my father?”

Palmer’s eyes brightened. “They were friends. I think John…your father…he saw that Jean was vulnerable and being used. He was very protective of her.”

“As I said, my father was eventually murdered by Ryan Cooper. He was a make-up artist at one time and may have had connections to Donald Regis. Does Cooper’s name ring a bell?”

I got a slow nod. “He was the principal make-up artist for several of Jean’s movies. Not a very nice person as I recall.”

“Do you think Cooper could have been involved in the death of Winslow, along with Donald Regis?”

Lana Palmer’s gaze held on me. There was an almost imperceptible movement of her head up and down. “Yes, I think it’s possible, but there was also someone else.”

“Someone who was involved with Winslow?”

“Yes.”

My brows lifted, waiting for her to go on.

Finally, she said, “Jean had become involved with a wealthy producer, a man named Kellen Malone. He was…” Her voice trailed off and she didn’t continue.

“What can you tell us about this Malone guy?” Mo asked.

Palmer went on after a few moments. “He was a complicated person. I don’t know all the details, but it was said he had as much power behind the scenes in Hollywood as Donald Regis. He had a circle of friends that he was always with. They were scary, so I stayed away from him.” Her eyes found me. “I remember mentioning him to your father once. He said he was worried about Jean’s relationship with him.”

“Do you know if my father ever confronted Malone?” I asked.

“No, not really.”

“Was Malone involved with Jean around the time of her death?” Natalie asked.

We got a nod, nothing else.

My gaze remained fixed on Palmer. “As I said before, Ryan Cooper murdered my father. Do you think he could have done that at the direction of either Donald Regis or Kellen Malone?”

Lana Palmer folded her weathered hands together and her indigo eyes met me. “Hollywood was a very different place back then. Money and power controlled everything, including the stars and the studios. If someone murdered Jean Winslow, it wouldn’t surprise me if they also killed your father to cover it up.”