Murder Take Two (15 page)

She looked at the clock by the bed. Almost one, nearly eleven in San Francisco. Her father would still be up. Did she want to deal with him tonight? When she was a child she felt she always had to fight or her life would be his. As an adult, she still sometimes felt that way. It was ridiculous at thirty-five to be still rebelling against a dynamic father who loved her very much, but she could only deal with him when she felt she had the necessary strength. Tired or drained, forget it. He'd swoop down and engulf her. Oh, hell, wasn't it time she grew up?

“What do you think, cat? Time to make my own decisions? Uncolored by choices made because they're the opposite of what he wants?”

Perissa stared back, unblinking.

“It's probably why we're still here, instead of back in San Francisco where I belong. Unless the power has gone to my head. Chief of police, impressive, yes?”

Perissa washed a paw.

“That impressed, I see.” She stretched out on the bed and reached for the phone. It rang before she could pick it up, startling her.

She sat up. “Hello.”

“Parkhurst.”

Unsaid things growing like vines filled the silence.

“Sorry to call so late. I just drove past the house and saw the light.” Parkhurst also lived on Walnut Street, but way on the other end. He told her about his visit with his ex-wife.

“That likely means,” he finished, “we have a stalker in our midst.”

“You're off the case.”

“Yes,” he said. “I'll turn all this over to Osey.”

“And stay away from Laura Edwards until this is cleared.”

“Yes,” he said.

She hung up a little harder than was necessary, a mixture of emotions bubbling around: jealousy—of a woman Parkhurst had been married to before she even knew him. Yes, but this woman was beautiful and famous.

Worry about this new information and keeping Laura Edwards safe. Irritation that he'd disobeyed her orders. What was she going to do about that? Let it ride for tonight.

Oh, hell, call your father. That'll take your mind off things. She picked up the phone again and punched in the number. “Hi, Dad.”

“Hello, baby. What are you doing up so late?”

His rich resonant voice sounded tired. Her father never got tired. “Is everything all right?”

“Sure, except my only child is way off in the middle of some unreachable, forsaken jungle contracting rare swamp fevers instead of by my side where she belongs.”

That was better. “I had the measles, Dad.”

“You okay now?”

“Fine.”

“Spots?”

“All gone.”

“You got running water yet?”

“Downhill. We also got California.” She told him about the movie being made.

He snorted. “That's not California.”

She smiled. North and south never quite got along; periodically there was commotion about splitting into two states.

“I just read something about that,” he said. “Nick Logan had to turn down fifteen million and a role he wanted because of the commitment to this one.”

Oh, really? “Where'd you read that?”

“The
Chronicle.
”

She asked him what the weather was like there, that led him into a soliloquy on the beauty and desirableness of coastal fog and a comparison with heat, humidity, and general awfulness. She fended questions about when she was coming to visit, then talked with her mother.

When she hung up, she propped pillows behind her head and stared at the ceiling. Nick Logan had just moved from no motive to a fifteen-million-dollar one. She spent at least sixty-five seconds in serious thought before sleep took over.

12

The tennis court wasn't the only thing sizzling. Laura Edwards and Nick Logan dashed around zinging the ball back and forth, with the tension hot enough to strike sparks. Yancy kept his eye on the ball.

According to Mac, Ms. Edwards's driver and Yancy's buddy, this was the time of the second murder attempt. Yancy never did figure out who the first victim was, but the tennis game was supposed to be a tense moment in the movie. Some kind of explosive was inside the ball. There was a lot of close-up stuff of the ball flying to a racquet, the racquet making a big slow arc. The
thwock
and the ball flying. Yancy followed the ball like a myopic puppy. It wasn't going to explode. That's what he'd been told and he'd looked at every tennis ball around. Still, he clenched at each smack. Another accident, this time with Laura Edwards scattered in pieces all over the court … Stupid way to try to kill someone. It would have to explode when the intended victim was near. How could anyone make sure of that? He wanted this piece of filming finished.

The aging Lockett mansion had been given a face lift. It was a large rectangular place with two-story white pillars across the front. Sparkling white paint, gray-blue shutters, double doors replaced at the entrance, windows repaired and replaced, and spanking clean. Shrubbery had been planted, thick green grass rolled out, and pots of purple, yellow, pink, and red flowers set across the porch. That was the front of the place. The north side looked fantastic too, but the back and south sides were left in their faded and peeling paint, boarded-over doors and windows. The maple trees were real though, tall and green against the cloudless blue sky.

The mansion, used as the main set for
Lethal Promise,
had everything a mansion should have. It had been built for the new wife William Lockett was importing from the east. Nothing was too good for Lucy. Marble bathrooms, stone fireplaces, kitchen appliances big enough to handle restaurant crowds, tennis court, swimming pool, small lake stocked with fish, and stables.

Poor Lucy never saw it. The private plane William had sent to fetch her had gone down in a storm, killing all on board. Shortly thereafter, the oil business fell on hard times and William lost buckets. He put the house up for sale and went off to Texas. There were lots of lookers, but no buyers. Mostly people were just curious, they just wanted to see the inside of the place, but even those who might want to buy couldn't afford it.

The place sat empty, except kids breaking in for parties or homegrown vandalism, until Hollywood came along. They cleared out the rats and the spiders and the old beer cans and the used condoms, and painted and fancied up all the rooms they wanted to use in the film.

Yancy stood on a pathway under the shade of the maple trees, almost kissing the fence around the tennis court, sweat trickled down between his shoulder blades. Whenever a camera operator yelled he was in frame, he moved back a grudging inch.

A dozen or so onlookers—boring as this was, he'd expect them to get tired of it, but they were always around—were behind a roped-off area back of the trees. He kept an eye on them too. Some he was beginning to recognize, like the guy with the backpack.

The temperature once again approached the mid-nineties and the humidity topped that, too damn hot for early June, and too hot for Fifer's artistic demands. Periodically, Fifer stopped the action and a team moved in to mop up his stars. Apparently, stars weren't allowed to sweat. For all Yancy knew this was supposedly taking place in the dead of winter. That made as much sense as anything else. People with umbrellas and battery-operated fans would swarm out, makeup and hair people, people carrying bottles of water with straws. Actors couldn't just grab a bottle and chug it down, that smeared the makeup.

It must be torture out there. Yancy could barely tolerate the heat and he was standing still. These Californians were tough, you had to give them that.

In the far corner of the court, Sheri Lloyd waited, with somebody holding an umbrella over her, for the director's call. Robin McCormack, the dead woman's boyfriend, looked pale and sweaty. In shorts and sleeveless T-shirt, even the snake tattoo on one bare arm looked subdued. He wore dark glasses and moved carefully, obviously protecting a pounding head. Yancy saw him speak to Sheri. She turned away. He grabbed her arm. In her snotty way, she tossed her hair and took a step back, distancing herself.

At Fifer's word, the swarms cleared and the actors went back out in the sun and smacked the ball back and forth. Yancy pulled tight on all his muscles and clamped down on his back teeth. Nothing could happen. This ball was just an ordinary ball, the exploding one was locked in a safe under the eye of the special effects man, and wouldn't be used until Fifer called for it. Then the new stunt double would be on the court.

Fifer was beginning to look like a candidate for sun stroke, his face taking on the color of rare steak. Khaki shorts and white T-shirt left a lot of skin exposed to the sun and all of it was turning brick red. Nick seemed to know how to play tennis and moved with the sureness of an athlete. Laura could hold the ball up there and place an okay serve, even make the right moves, but she wasn't quick with it. She looked beautiful though. Periodically, a man behind a wind machine would turn it on making her gold hair flutter.

“She had lessons in preproduction.”

Yancy looked around and found Clem Jones, narrow face looking pinched, coming up behind him, eyes fixed on Laura. Envy of all that beauty and perfection? Clem would be better off without the black mascara, white makeup, and pink hair. The men's black swimming trunks and huge shapeless orange shirt didn't help much either. Maybe she was also just hoping nothing would go wrong.

Fifer called, “Cut. Beautiful, children. Just beautiful.” He granted everybody a twenty-minute break.

*   *   *

Pink. Laura my beloved. The universe is pink. He watched Laura, his lovely Laura, go into the mansion surrounded by cast and crew. The cop went in too. Soon, my beloved. Do not get discouraged. Soon we will be together in a land of beauty throughout eternity. He needed the gun. Always, too many people around. The gun was his. I'm coming my princess. It will be fast and painless. We'll be together. He edged up to the barrel of trash that held the water bottle and straw she'd used. He grabbed the straw and walked off. Away from the court he put the straw in his mouth, moved it slowly back and forth, sucking gently. It tasted of the sweetness of her lips, the purity of her soul.

*   *   *

Both Nick and Laura, along with a herd of people whose job it was to soothe and succor, trailed up to the mansion. Yancy followed. On the way, he snagged a doughnut and bottle of foreign water from craft service. Inside, the stars climbed the big staircase side by side, without touching, without looking at each other. At the top, they split and Nick went into one room, Laura into another, with Mac on her heels, Officer White on his.

Yancy plopped in a love seat in the hallway and downed the water. Knowing Laura's minders were on her tail—and beautiful as it was—he zeroed in on Sheri Lloyd's petulant face as she chugged up the stairs. He let her get settled, then barged into a room that had obviously been meant as a child's bedroom. The switch plate was a train with a smiley face, the wallpaper had trains, trucks, and hot air balloons. William Lockett had been planning a male heir.

The two females patting Sheri's cheeks, forehead, and the nape of her neck with damp cloths looked at him with astonishment. He pointed, they stomped out, he closed the door.

The room had a bed, two chairs, a bar stool, and two carousel horses. Why carousel horses? Sheri had, naturally, arranged herself on the bed with pillows propped around her in such a way as to show off her body. “It's so terribly hot. I feel ill. I can't talk with you.”

He pulled a blue bottle of water from the six-pack on the table next to the bed, twisted off the cap, and handed it to her. “Sit up and drink it. You'll feel better.”

She took it and glared. Apparently, he wasn't being sensitive.

Hard-faced, he pulled one of the chairs close to the bed and sat on it. Ms. Sheri Lloyd would be apt to misinterpret anything else, so in the interests of intimidation and the pursuit of information, he sat rigid, eyes flinty.

Automatically she wiggled herself around on the pillows so that her tits were thrust forward in maximum position for distraction.

“What were you talking about with Robin McCormack?”

“I don't believe that's any of your business, but if you must know I was extending my sympathies.”

Miss Sheri was not one to drop sympathy around where it wouldn't do her any good, and it had been Robin who'd approached her. “Ms. Lloyd, I told you before the consequences of withholding information in a murder investigation.”

“When two old friends make a date to get together, it hardly constitutes
withholding evidence.
”

“You and Robin are old friends?”

“Of course.”

“When are you getting together?”

She studied the veins in the back of her hand as though they were a road map. “There's nothing definite.”

Yancy wondered if maybe Sheri Lloyd was one of those people who simply lied all the time.

“Now, if you don't mind, I really need to regather my strength.” She flipped on her side and mashed another pillow under her head.

He left her to the ministering women and went in search of Robin. In the condition Robin was in, it wouldn't need thumb screws; a loud voice ought to do.

Six or seven crew members were schmoozing in the kitchen, Robin sat glugging down a Coke.

“Talk to you a minute?”

“What about?”

Yancy looked at the other guys. “Maybe we could step into the pantry.”

Yancy could see him want to refuse, but in the end it was just too much trouble. He drained the can, crushed it, tossed it in a trash container, and grabbed another.

The pantry hadn't been spruced up, it remained in its cobwebbed seedy condition. Robin propped himself against a wall of empty shelves. “What is it?”

“How you feeling?”

“I been better.”

“Remember last night?”

Robin gave him a rueful grin, and rubbed a hand along the back of his head. “Not crystal clear. Didn't you run over me?”