Hollywood Notorious: A Hollywood Alphabet Thriller Series (A Hollywood Alphabet Series Thriller Book 14) (14 page)

We pushed a flap open and entered, finding Slade’s ex-wife wrapped in a blanket. Steam was coming off some rocks in the center of the structure. Leo made introductions, before Mia Frances said, “Please have a seat. Sorry about the heat, but I’m doing a purification.”

Her purification involved wrapping herself in a wool blanket in conditions that were comparable to a sauna. I removed my jacket as we took seats on the floor near her, at the same time Bernie began panting.

“We’re looking into the death of your ex-husband,” Leo said, getting right to the point and using a handkerchief to wipe perspiration off his shaved head. “We believe it may have been a deliberate act.”

Frances, who looked like she was in her mid-thirties, blond, and would probably have been attractive if she wasn’t sweating like an NBA player, laughed. “If you ask me, Howard finally got what he deserved.”

“Any idea who might have killed him?” I asked.

She adjusted her blanket. “It could have been any one of a half dozen women, or even someone he did business with. Maybe even his lawyer.”

“What’s his beef with his lawyer?”

“Jimmy Jones was on retainer and represented Howard on several cases until he fell behind on his payments. From what I heard, he owed him a couple hundred grand.”

I glanced at Leo, at the same time wiping the sweat off my forehead. I was wearing a dark blue blouse and had a thought that it would be soaked before we got out of the teepee. “What about Harry Gooseberry? From what we heard, your ex also owed him money.”

Frances nodded. “He and the Godfather had some kind of falling out, but I don’t know much about it. Howard and I hadn’t spoken in about six months before he died.”

“Did he ever mention a couple of rappers named Jerry Duncan and Marvin Hanks?”

We got a headshake. “They don’t sound familiar. You might ask Jimmy about them.” She reached over and ladled water on the glowing rocks. Steam rose through the opening in the teepee. “If you’ll excuse me,” she said, “I really need to get back to my therapy.”

“Just one more question,” I said. “Howard was killed last Sunday night, at approximately eight-fifteen in the evening. Where were you at the time?”

She laughed. “You really think I murdered the asshole? Do you have any idea what my husband is worth?”

“Please, just answer the question,” Leo said.

Mia looked at me. “Have you ever done something in your life that you wish could be erased?”

I brushed the sweat off my forehead.
Yeah, sitting in a sweltering teepee in the middle of Hollywood.
“I think we all have.”

“Howard Slade was my something.” She looked at Leo. “I was shopping on Rodeo with my sister. I remember because I got a call about Howard’s death about an hour after it happened. Georgia and I celebrated by having a drink.”

***

Leo dropped me back at the station and agreed to keep Bernie until I got back from court. I was running late and cursed the fact that I didn’t have time to change my clothes. My blouse was soaking wet from being in Mia Frances’ purification teepee, so I put on my blazer, hoping to hide the fact that I looked like I’d fallen into a river of sweat.

I pulled into the parking garage at the courthouse, but didn’t see Krump or my friends anywhere as I walked into the building.

“Kate, over here,” I heard Mo calling out to me as I made my way through a throng of people. “We got us a situation.”

She was standing in an alcove, away from the crowded lobby. “What’s going on?”

“Baby sis took Krump into the restroom. He was ‘bout to pass out, and...” She stopped in mid-sentence, giving me a once over as she took in my soggy blouse. “What the hell happened to you? Don’t tell me it’s raining outside.”

“No, it’s a long story about a being in a teepee.”

The lines on her wide forehead grew deeper and she motioned toward the restroom. “Never mind. We’d better check on our attorney.”

We found our lawyer standing in front of a sink with Natalie. Krump’s face was covered with wet paper towels.

Natalie looked at me. “He was ‘bout to faint, fall on his flippin’ face.”

“I th…think I’m…bet…ter, now,” Krump mumbled, from beneath the mound of wet towels.

“Let’s get him cleaned up,” Mo said.

As Natalie worked on her patient, I asked, “Did you…” I lowered my voice. “Did you give him the Grasshoppers?”

Mo nodded her head, which today was adorned by a peach-colored wig, and answered for Natalie. “He’s lit up real good, but I’m not sure it’s enough. If we drag his ass into court, there’s no tellin’…”

“Excuse me,” we heard a woman say. We turned, seeing a dark-haired young woman emerging from a stall. She looked at Natalie and Mo. “I don’t mean to pry, but I heard about your situation and your earlier discussion about being evicted.” She handed Mo a card. “I’m Lulu Beak with the
Judge Rita
show. If you would be…”

“That’s my f…favorite s…show,” Krump said, removing the wad of wet papers from his head. “She’s the r…reason I be…became a lawyer.”

Mo looked at him and put a finger to her lips, like she was scolding a small drunken boy. She looked back at Lulu. “Go on.”

“Judge Rita is looking for people to be on her show. If you’re willing to plead your case in front of her, we will pick up all your legal fees.”

“This is the break we been waiting for,” Natalie said, her voice pitching higher. “That show is awesome.” She looked back at Lulu. “I saw that case last week where the loser put the guy who sued her in a headlock, then claimed he was also the father of her baby. It was the bomb.”

“It was one of our better segments.”

“Where do we ss…sign up?” Krump asked.

“I have the releases in my purse,” Lulu said, holding up her handbag.

Mo looked at me. “What do you think, Kate?”

“I think you’ve all lost your minds. Mean Gene will put Krump in a headlock, pound him into the ground, and we’ll end up on the street.”

The discussion, aka argument, went on for several minutes, with other restroom visitors getting in on the act, and voting on how we should proceed. I got distracted when one of the
voters
said I looked familiar and asked me why I was soaking wet.

I reluctantly confirmed that I was the zombie performer she’d seen on TV, then explained about my earlier purification experience. After I declined her request for an autograph, I looked over and saw Natalie and our lawyer doing a fist bump.

“What just happened?” I asked, going over to them.

“We just signed the papers,” Natalie said. “We’re gonna be on the
Judge Rita
show next Monday. I heard they’ve got over a million viewers. We’re all gonna be stars.”

“A million viewers?” Krump said, his beady eyes looked like a deer caught in some headlights.

Our little attorney suddenly started gasping for air. His eyes then rolled back in his head, his pudgy body began to wobble, and he fell over backward, smacking his head on the tile floor.

Mo went over to his prone body and made the announcement. “I think he’s dead.”

As it turned out, Krump wasn’t dead. He regained consciousness after we’d called both an ambulance and his mother. Mama Krump took him home and said she would put him in bed with Poppy, a childhood doll that he still slept with.

“So, we’ve got a lawyer who sleeps with a doll,” I told Leo as he drove us to Howard Slade’s attorney’s office later that afternoon, “And, to make matters worse, from what I understand, Mean Gene is also going to be on Judge Rita’s show and represent the other side. Krump will probably have a heart attack and drop dead on live TV.”

He laughed. “I’m going to set my DVR.”

“I’m going to shoot myself.”

Leo pulled to the curb in front of Jimmy Jones’ office. “Maybe your lawyer will surprise you and put on a spirited defense.”

“And maybe monkeys will fly out of my ass.”

Jones’ office was located in a strip mall in Inglewood next to one of those dollar stores and a nail salon. It was a transitional area, and, based on what Selfie had managed to pull together on short notice, Howard Slade’s former lawyer specialized in representing a lot of drug dealers and other assorted low life.

As we walked through the parking lot with Bernie, I asked Leo, “Do you think Slade could have been dealing drugs in his spare time and that’s how he got hooked up with being Gooseberry’s business manager?”

“Anything’s possible. Maybe Duncan and Hanks were also involved and somebody got crossed up in a deal.”

I looked at the sign on the office window that claimed the attorney specialized in criminal defense cases
.
“Let’s keep that in mind, if we need to put some pressure on him.”

We’d called ahead and the lawyer’s secretary immediately led us into a back office, where we found her boss. Jimmy Jones looked to be in his mid-forties. He was wiry and thin, with curly brown hair, oily skin, and a cheap suit. The smell of cologne wafted across his desk like a bug bomb as we shook hands.

“My secretary told me that you have some questions about my former client,” Jones said, rocking back in his chair and interlacing his skinny fingers, after we took seats and Bernie settled at my feet. “It’s a shame about the accident, but I guess that’s the way life goes. One minute, you’re on top of the world; the next, you’re roadkill.” He smiled, exposing teeth that looked like the before picture in a cosmetic dentistry ad.

Leo began the questions, probably realizing I’d had my fill of attorneys for the day. “We understand that Mr. Slade kept you on retainer.”

He nodded. “Howard had a lot of clients in the entertainment industry and consulted with me on related legal matters.

“Legal matters. Can you explain what that means?”

“Howard’s services were secured by a percentage of any contracts his clients negotiated. In some cases, those clients didn’t want to pay their contractual obligation. That’s where I came in.”

Leo’s smile grew wider. “You were the enforcer.”

Jones flashed his backwoods dentition. “That’s one way of putting it.”

“Until Mr. Slade didn’t pay you.”

The attorney’s smile waned. “It sounds like you’ve been talking to Howard’s ex.” When Leo didn’t respond, Jones released a breath and added, “It’s true that Howard fell on some hard times and owed me a few dollars.”

I decided I’d kept my mouth shut long enough. As I spoke, I realized that I was breathless from trying not to inhale his aftershave. “A couple of hundred thousand, to be exact.”

Jones met my eyes and shrugged. “I’d have to do the math to determine the exact amount.”

“My guess is that you’ve already done the math dozens of times.”

Leo tried to take the edge off what I’d said. “What about Gooseberry?”

There was now a defensive edge to the attorney’s voice. “What about him?”

“We understand that Mr. Slade owed him money and he was skimming proceeds from Gooseberry’s business ventures.”

“If that’s the case, it’s news to me.”

Leo glanced at me, a cue to turn up the heat. I decided to play a game called
Loose with the Truth
that sometimes paid dividends.

“Let’s cut to the chase,” I said. “Howard Slade owed you a lot of money. You were tired of trying to collect from your deadbeat client and came up with a plan. You knew that Slade had been skimming profits from Gooseberry’s business dealings for years. You told him you wanted a piece of that action or you were going to the authorities. Slade countered your proposal, telling you that Gooseberry was onto his game, but he had a plan. He told you that his client had a very big appetite, not just for food, but for drugs.”

Leo took up the scenario. “The plan came together when you arranged for a couple of deadbeat rappers and drug dealers named Jerry Duncan and Marvin Hanks to work with Slade. He was the middle man, taking Gooseberry’s money for what he claimed would be enough drugs to keep him happy for a year. But when it came time to deliver on the goods, you and Slade got greedy. You sold the drugs to another bidder, telling Gooseberry that the rappers had double crossed you. When he went to the cemetery to have it out with them, all hell broke loose.”

I finished up. “You and Slade had arranged for someone to take care of both the\ rappers and Gooseberry, but it didn’t go as you planned. Before Gooseberry could also be taken out, the hit man you hired realized the cops had arrived. He took care of Duncan and Hanks, but that left a very big, very unhappy reality TV star to go down for a couple of murders that he didn’t commit.”

Jimmy Jones didn’t respond for several seconds. I wasn’t sure if he was trying to come up with a way to lie his way out of what we’d speculated or he was truly shocked by our
Loose with the Truth
game.

“What makes you think Gooseberry didn’t kill the rappers?” Jones finally said.

“They were shot from behind by a nine. Gooseberry was carrying a thirty-eight.”

Jones exhaled and displayed his Jethro teeth. “You two oughta write stories. That’s the biggest bunch of crap I’ve ever heard.”

Despite his denials, I saw the slight tremor in his hands, the sheen of perspiration on his forehead.

“If you’ve got another scenario, we’re listening,” Leo said. “I’m willing to bet with a little digging we can tie you to Duncan and Hanks. Maybe you even represented them on a prior drug beef.”

Jones did his best, but there was a slight waver in his voice. “Even if that’s the case, it doesn’t make me complicit in anyone’s murder.”

“This is your chance to clear things up,” I said. I glanced down at Bernie, who was panting, on alert. “We’re all ears.”

Jones stood up and went over to a window. He separated the blinds, maybe looking for one of his drug dealing clients in the parking lot. He finally turned back to us. “Here’s what I know. Howard told me there was some kind of drug deal going down between Gooseberry and the rappers. The next thing I know, my client is dead. And, the next day, so are the rappers.” He splayed his hands. “I swear, that’s all I know.”

***

Leo and I had gone at Jones for the better part of another hour, not getting much more. We were confident now that Slade was likely behind the drug deal that went bad as a way to bail himself out of debt. We still had no idea who had shot Duncan or Hanks, or if their deaths were somehow tied to the murder of Sylvia Lacroix.

All I did know for sure after my meeting with Jones was that I hated lawyers, drug dealers, and my hair. I’d made the mistake of glancing at myself in a window on the way outside Jones’ office and decided it looked like I was wearing a short fright wig. It made my early evening appointment at my brother’s salon all the more desperate.

“I don’t know what you can do with it,” I told Robin after taking a seat at his work station and Bernie sniffed around the floor, “but I’m willing to try almost anything.”

My brother had spiky short brown hair and blue eyes that he fixed on my hair. “We could try a Ruby Treatment.”

“I’m not letting you dye my hair red again, if that’s what you have in mind.”

“It’s a deep conditioning therapy that improves the texture of your hair, leaving it smooth and soft.”

“I’ve only got an hour, so work your magic.”

After Robin washed and trimmed my hair, I asked him about Adam, his new love interest.

“We’re still dating, but taking things slow. I think we’re good together.” He began applying the conditioner and asked, “How are things with you and Noah?”

I took a moment and filled him in on our argument. When I’d finished, I said, “I need your opinion. Do you think I’m obsessed with finding out who was behind Dad’s murder?”

He shook his head. “You’re a cop. Finding bad people is what you do. I can’t see you just walking away.”

I sighed. “I appreciate that. I guess I’m going to eventually need to have it out with Noah. I’m not sure what it’s going to do to our relationship.”

I then took a couple of minutes more, telling Robin about my meeting with Rosalind Castillo, and what she’d said about Harlan Ryland splitting off from the Revelation and forming the Tauist Society. He was already aware of what I knew about the Revelation and their possible connection to the death of my love-dad.

After hearing what I had to say, Robin said, “I guess none of that surprises me. The Tauist’s are weird as hell, as we both know.”

He was referring to the fact that our mother had gone on a retreat to the Tauist’s spiritual center. We’d gone there together to check on her and had found her meditating in the nude. “Do you think it’s possible that Mom knows something she hasn’t told me about Ryland and the Tauist’s connections to Dad’s death?”

“It wouldn’t surprise me, considering all the secrets she’s kept from you already. Why don’t you ask her about it at the family reunion?”

Mom was planning a get-together with my sister, Amanda, but it was a couple of weeks away. “I don’t think I can wait that long. I’m going to have a talk with her this week.”

He chuckled. “I just hope it doesn’t push her over the edge and she ends up meditating in the nude again. I don’t think there’s enough therapy in the world to help me get over my past trauma.”

“You and me both.”

Twenty minutes later, Robin had finished his treatment and blow-dried my hair. When he was done, he turned my chair so that I could admire his work in the mirror. “Well?”

“Damn!”

“What does that mean?”

“Damn, why didn’t I have you do this years ago? It looks great.”

“I forgot to tell you, it costs two thousand dollars.”

My mouth fell open. “Are you kidding me?”

He laughed. “Yes. Actually, I’ve got a sister special running tonight. It’s free.”

After arguing about me paying the bill, I gave up and promised to buy him dinner. I got my purse and Bernie’s leash before adding, “I’ll let you know how things go with Mom.”

“I think you should wear your bullet-proof vest—and maybe a pair of blinders.”