Putting on the Dog (34 page)

Friends report that Raines has been suffering from mild depression since the attack by the two assailants, whose identities are still unknown.

“Delilah wants her fans to know that she is looking forward to a speedy recovery,” Raines’ publicist, Sheila White of White & Forrest, said at a press conference yesterday. “She also wants to thank them for all their support.”

Gigi Fitzgerald, a close friend, said, “Delilah keeps asking, ‘Why would anyone do this?’ Frankly, those of us who know and love her are asking the exact same question.”

The Los Angeles Police Department is investigating all leads, including fan mail, said Deputy Chief William Santos. No suspects have been identified at this time.

The next article had run on June 3. I waited impatiently while the machine whirled away, then began devouring it the moment I located it.

TWO MEN ARRESTED IN ASSAULT

Hollywood, California—A Hollywood bartender and an unemployed man with a criminal history were arrested yesterday and charged with attacking 37-year-old actress Delilah Raines.

Christopher Vale, 27, a bartender, and Richard Strathe, 33, both residents of Redondo Beach, were arrested in Santa Monica and charged with assault. The weapons the police believed were used in the attack against Raines, a wooden baseball bat and a tire iron, were found in the trunk of Strathe’s car. Police believe the motive was robbery.

Vale and Strathe were arraigned this morning at the Santa Monica Courthouse. Bail was set at $50,000 cash, $100,000 bond.

The article continued, but I stopped reading. Instead, I concentrated on the photograph of the two handcuffed suspects, walking with their shoulders slumped and their heads down. The witness to the assault had given the police a good description. They were both hulking men, well over six feet tall. Christopher Vale did have long blond hair, although I would have described it as “scraggly.” As for Strathe, his unruly dark hair and thick, uneven mustache gave him a look I would have summarized as “unkempt.”

Poor Delilah—and poor Emily! I skimmed the rest of the articles, but learned little aside from the fact that Vale and Strathe were still awaiting trial. The articles about the two suspects kept getting smaller, and they kept appearing farther and farther back in the newspaper. There was nothing more about Delilah Raines.

Tucking the last reel back into its orange box, I pondered the fact that finally tracking down the truth about Emily’s mother had helped me understand why she was in a rehabilitation center in California while her daughter was with her father, three thousand miles away. But my efforts hadn’t done a thing to further my investigation of Devon Barnett’s murder. I flipped off the machine and hurried back to my dogs, sorry I’d wasted my time.

Chapter 15

“Dogs are not our whole life, but they make our lives whole.”

—Roger Caras

My next stop was Chess’s house. While I’d always found myself looking forward to chatting with him before, this time I was a little more wary— on four different counts. First, I was still reeling from what I’d learned about his past, courtesy of Ms. Pruitt of the Sweet Elm Public Library. Then there was my last visit, when I’d caught Chess with a shoebox full of cash. I still hadn’t decided whether his apparent surprise was sincere—or merely another charade designed to conceal who Chess LaMont really was. Next, there was his lawsuit against Gary Frye, who I was convinced was innocent. I still didn’t know Chess well enough to have a sense of whether he truly believed Gary was responsible or he was simply trying to cash in on his lover’s demise.

Then there was the fact that he was still high on my list of suspects in Devon Barnett’s murder.

I took a deep breath before ringing the bell of the sprawling Beach Street mansion. Not only was I worried about confronting Chess, but I was also braced against the possibility of another unpleasant encounter with Hilda.

This time, Chess flung open the door, cradling Zsa Zsa in his arms. His face lit up as soon as he saw it was me.

“Jessie, what a nice surprise!” he cooed.

“And having
you
answer the door is a nice surprise, too.” I stepped inside, lowering my voice as I asked, “Is Hilda here?”

“I gave her the day off.” Chess shuddered. “I told her she deserved a three-day weekend after such a trying week. But the truth is that I simply couldn’t
stand
having her around anymore!” He beckoned for me to follow him into the kitchen. “That woman gives me the
creeps,
Jessie. I’m getting rid of her—as soon as I get up the nerve. From the way she reacted when I told her to take the day off, you’d think I’d banished her from the Garden of Eden, for heaven’s sake! Doesn’t she have a
life
? Isn’t there
something
she’d rather be doing besides vacuuming up other people’s dust and killing their imaginary germs?”

After putting Zsa Zsa on the floor, Chess poured us each a glass of iced tea, then joined me at the kitchen table. Staring into his boyish face made it difficult to believe he was capable of murder. I had to remind myself that I’d been wrong before.

“How have you been, Chess?” I asked earnestly.

I expected a diatribe on how deeply the grieving process was affecting him. Instead, he replied, “Jessie, the phone’s been ringing constantly. I had no
idea
Nettie was so well-known!” From the way his eyes glittered, I got the weird feeling he was actually enjoying all the attention.

“Of course, the
Stargazer
and the
Gossip Gazette
both want to do big stories on him, since he was one of their favorite photographers,” he gushed. “The
Stargazer
is even talking cover story! But I’ve also gotten calls from People, USA Today...I even heard from a British journalist who’s considering writing a book about him! Can you
imagine
? He wants to call it something like, ‘Devon Barnett: Snapshots from the Life of a Paparazzo.’ ” Chess made a grand sweeping motion with his hand to highlight the title. “I’d be in it, of course. In fact, the writer would practically move in here, interviewing me and looking through all our snapshots.... Isn’t it exciting, Jessie? This could make me
famous
!”

“That’s great,” I responded, not sure I sounded any more enthusiastic than I felt. “Chess, there’s something I’d like to talk to you about. I just came from the Ice Castles studio. I was talking to Gary Frye, and he mentioned—”

The temperature in the room instantly dropped about twenty degrees. “Jessie, how
could
you? That man is responsible for Nettie’s death! Him, and that Shawn Elliot. If he’d managed to control that vile bulldog of his, Nettie would still be alive today. I’m suing both of them!”

“Gary’s a client, Chess. I’ve been treating his cat for an eye infection. From talking to him, I’m convinced he’s not at fault. And even the police were never one hundred percent certain that Rufus had anything to do with what happened. Would you at least hold off a little longer with the lawsuit?” I pleaded. “You’re still in shock, for heaven’s sake. You’ve got enough to deal with right now. Besides, you might feel differently in a few weeks. Why don’t you let it go for now?”

Before he had a chance to answer, the shrill ringing of the phone interrupted us.

“I have to get that,” Chess said, springing up from his chair. “It could be
anybody.
” He flounced off to the next room, leaving me alone in the kitchen.

As I sat tapping the kitchen table distractedly, a colorful swatch near the door caught my eye. I focused on the blur of yellows and oranges that, up to this point, had just been part of the scenery. A jolt shot through me as I realized what it was.

Hilda’s apron. Hanging on a hook, unattended.

“Yes, of
course
I’m the person you should be speaking to,” I heard Chess insisting in the next room. “I was closer to Devon Barnett than anyone else in the world....”

I glanced through the doorway, wanting to make sure he wasn’t wandering from room to room as he held court on the cordless phone. He was nowhere in sight. I shot across the room and began patting down Hilda’s apron.

One of the pockets was bulging. My heart began to race as I wondered if my hunch about what I’d just stumbled upon would prove correct.

“Of
course
I know the show,” Chess was cooing. “I watch it every Sunday night.”

Glancing around anxiously to make sure Chess wasn’t lurking in the doorway, I plunged my hand into the apron pocket—and realized I’d struck gold. Actually, the metal I’d just found may have been worth a lot less than gold, but to me, the collection of keys bound together on a silver key ring was priceless.

Hilda’s keys. Maybe my big chance to find out, once and for all, what was hidden away in Devon Barnett’s locked basement.

“ ‘Overexposed: The Life and Death of a Paparazzo’?” I heard Chess gurgle. “Yes, it sounds like an
excellent
title. And when are you thinking of putting the segment on the air?”

By this point, my telltale heart was beating wildly. True, in the Edgar Allan Poe story, the troublemaker had been somebody
else’s
heart—somebody dead. In this case, it was mine. Still, the last thing I wanted was to be done in by the
thump-thump-thump
that, to me, sounded as if it were being broadcast on Dolby sound.

I knew I had to act fast. I made a beeline for the locked basement door, my fingers curled tightly around Hilda’s keys. I was pretty confident that Chess was too busy basking in his fifteen minutes of fame to check up on me. But I couldn’t shake the creepy feeling that Hilda was going to appear at any second, coming up behind me in those big padded sneakers of hers.

With trembling hands, I tried fitting one of the keys into the lock. Not even close. I tried a second. Much to my surprise, it slid into the lock just fine. I drew in my breath sharply—but let it out again when the key wouldn’t turn.

“I’m thinking of getting an agent,” I heard Chess chirping in the next room. “Tell you what: Why don’t you give me your number and I’ll have my people call your people....”

I worked as fast as I could, even though my shaking hands put me at a disadvantage. I kept going, trying another key, then another...

I’d already gone through almost all of them with no success when I heard Chess say, “Thanks for calling. We’ll be in touch!”

I was about to give up, but figured I’d try one more in the few seconds that remained before Chess reemerged. I inserted one last key into the lock, felt it slide in with ease, then tried to turn it.... My knees got weak as I felt the lock give way.

I heard footsteps. Chess was coming back.

I pulled the key off the ring and stuck it into the pocket of my shorts as I stepped through the short hallway, back into the kitchen, and returned Hilda’s keys to her apron pocket. I’d found a way to get into Devon’s locked studio. The clock was ticking, and this was my last hope for uncovering new information about what he might actually have been involved in—and whether it was something that may have brought about his demise.

All I needed now was an opportunity to use it.

As I drove away from Chess’s house, I could feel the key to Devon Barnett’s studio jabbing into my hip. I didn’t even care that it was probably giving me a black-and-blue mark.

Having it in my possession fueled me with optimism over finding Barnett’s murderer. I realized it was possible that Devon’s insistence upon keeping his studio locked, could have been nothing more than another aspect of his passion for cleanliness. But it was equally possible that in finding the key to Devon’s carefully guarded photography studio, I’d actually found the key to the paparazzo’s murder. I tried to imagine what I might discover down there, picturing everything from pornographic photographs to human body parts, sealed up in Ziploc bags.

As soon as I turned the corner and was certain I was out of sight, I pulled over to the curb and dialed Norfolk County Homicide. But this time, I had something up my sleeve other than trying to convince Lieutenant Falcone that Barnett had been murdered.

“Homicide. Officer Bongiovanni speaking.”

“Good mornin’. Mah name is Mary Louise Highland, and I work for a public relations firm—Louis Max Associates? I have a press release I’m about to send over to Lieutenant Falcone, inviting him to a charitable event in the Bromptons. We’d be
ever
so pleased if he’d join us. There’ll be lots of press coverin’ the event, not to mention celebrities like Hugo Fontana, Shawn Elliot, Kara Liebling...”

“I’ll put him on.”

“Wait! I don’t really need to speak—”

I was gripped by anxiety when less than three seconds later, I heard a familiar voice. “Lieutenant Falcone. How can I help you?”

He sounded a little friendlier than last time—probably because Bongiovanni had clued him in on the fact that he was being invited to a star-studded event that was bound to get an impressive amount of media coverage. Even so, I had no choice but to stick to my deep-fried, honey-coated Southern accent. The last thing I wanted was for Falcone to figure out who was
really
calling him.

“Good afternoon, Lieutenant,” I cooed, stretching my words out so that I sounded like a contender for the Miss Alabama title. “Mah name is Mary Louise Highland. I’m with the public relations firm Louis Max Associates, here in New Yoke City?”

“Sure,” Falcone said heartily. “I’ve heard of them. Good agency.”

It’s true that no one’s ever said a bad word about us, I thought wryly. “I’m callin’ to tell you about an event we have scheduled out in the Bromptons this Sunday. It’s a luncheon at Russell Bolger’s house, the final event of the charity dog show that’s been runnin’ all week.”

“I’m kind of busy this weekend—” he interrupted.

“So
many
local celebrities are goin’ to be there—and of course, all the
media
from Long Island and New Yoke...”

I could practically hear him sit up straighter in his seat. “Media?” he repeated, his voice filled with reverence.