THE NEXT TO DIE (16 page)

“Hi. My name’s Hal Buckman. I’m a reporter for
Entertainment Tonight
. I’m calling because we’ve discovered that Maggie McGuire made her movie debut with you. I was wondering if you’d be willing to give us an interview.” He paused. “Would that be all right? Mr. Lance? Are you still there?”

“Yes, I—I’m still here,” he said numbly. “You want me to be on TV?”

“That’s right. We’d tape the interview tomorrow morning for tomorrow night’s show. Could you fit us into your schedule?”

Tom closed his eyes and smiled gratefully. “Yes,” he said, past the sudden tightness in his throat. “Yes, I—I think I can fit you in….”

Someone knocked. Dayle peeked out the window, then opened Estelle’s front door. Sean wore a navy blue silk blouse and a black skirt. Her hair had been pulled back in a ponytail. “So where’s my new client?” she asked.

“In the bathroom, getting dressed. I’ve already put a call in to a police lieutenant I know. I think she’ll work with us on this.”

Sean glanced at the closed bathroom door. Estelle still had the hair dryer on. “Is she ready to talk?”

Dayle nodded. “She’s told me an earful. These people forced her to lie about Leigh’s problems with sex and drugs. They were calling her up long before Leigh died—practically admitting they were going to kill her.”

“Does she have proof that these people actually murdered Leigh?”

Dayle shrugged. “I can’t say. You’ll have to ask her yourself.”

Sean nodded and sighed. “I’ll need to ask her a
lot
of questions before we talk to the police. Might be a long night ahead.”

“You can sleep over at my place if you want.”

“Thanks,” Sean said, putting down her briefcase. “But I want to fix breakfast for my kids tomorrow. Plus my husband has had a few bad nights lately, and I need to be with him.”

Dayle squinted at her. “You mentioned he was sick. Is it serious?”

“Dan was diagnosed three years ago with ALS, Lou Gehrig’s Disease.” Sean spoke in a matter-of-fact way. She even managed a smile. “The doctor originally gave us only eighteen months, so we’re doing better than expected.”

“Oh, Sean, I’m so sorry,” Dayle murmured. “Are you getting any help?”

She nodded. “My in-laws came to our rescue. It’s one reason we moved here from Eugene. We had to sell our house. Don’t get me started talking about the debt. Anyway, the UCLA Medical Center is doing great things in the treatment of people with ALS. So this is the place for us to be right now.”

“Sean, I wish you would have told me. I wouldn’t be bothering you with all this—”

“No, you’re helping me out. We could use the money—”

The phone rang.

“That’s probably Lieutenant Linn.” Dayle grabbed the receiver. “Hello?”

“Dayle? Susan Linn, here. I got your page. I’m on my way. I’ll be there in fifteen minutes if traffic allows. Is Estelle there with you now?”

“Yes. She’s in the john,” Dayle said, watching Sean wander toward the closed bathroom door. “And I have a lawyer here to represent her.”

“Fine. I’ll see you soon.” Susan Linn hung up.

Sean turned to Dayle. “That dryer’s been on for at least ten minutes….”

Dayle put down the phone. She rapped on the bathroom door. “Estelle?”

No answer. Dayle pounded on the door again. “Estelle? Can you hear me? Estelle!” She jiggled the doorknob. Locked. At the crack under the bathroom door, blood seeped past the threshold onto the beige shag carpet. “Oh, my God,” she whispered. “Sean, call an ambulance….”

Dayle threw her weight against the door. “Estelle! Oh, Jesus, no….”

Sean hurried to the phone. Dayle kicked at the spot just below the doorknob until it finally gave. But the door didn’t move more than a couple of inches. Something was blocking it—something heavy and lifeless.

Dayle peeked into the bathroom and gasped. She saw the blood on the white tiled floor, and Estelle’s nude body, curled up in a fetal position. She hadn’t cut her wrists. All the blood leaked from a slice across her throat. And in her hand, she still clutched a razor blade.

“Are you okay, Dayle?” Sean asked. Sitting at the steering wheel, she took her eyes off the road for a moment to glance at her.

Dayle was slumped in the passenger seat. She gave Sean a limp smile. “I’ll be fine,” she said, her voice scratchy from talking to Lieutenant Linn for the last ninety minutes. She’d been crying a little too. A pair of approaching headlights illuminated her pale, tearstained face; and for a moment, Dayle Sutton didn’t look anything like a glamorous movie star. “You’re keeping it together really well,” she said.

Sean studied the traffic on the highway. “Well, I didn’t know Estelle,” she reasoned. “And I’m not the one who was talking to her just ten minutes before we found her in there—like that. I’d say you absorbed most of the shock for us, Dayle.”

Sean patted her shoulder. Dayle probably thought she was a real cold customer for not breaking down at all. But that scene in Estelle’s place was all too familiar. Because of Dan’s seizures, Sean had almost become accustomed to dealing with death and near-death, 9-1-1, paramedics, and answering a ton of stupid questions while under stress.

She and Dayle had sat in Estelle’s beige living room an hour ago, watching them carry the draped corpse out on a stretcher. She’d told Susan Linn everything she could—which wasn’t much. She shared some of Vince Delk’s theories with her, but didn’t mention that she had a source within the Portland police. The burden was really on Dayle, who told the lieutenant everything Estelle Collier had so desperately concealed for such a long time.

“This is all hearsay, you know,” Lieutenant Linn had warned them. Her dark, almond eyes appeared tired. She wore jeans and a sweatshirt, and her black hair was tied back in a loose bun. She sat on the sofa with them, a tape recorder in her lap. She shut the machine off. “I’ll send this tape to the Portland police, suggesting they reopen the Leigh Simone investigation. But I can’t guarantee anything. Meanwhile, we’ll give this place a thorough going-over. Maybe Estelle kept a journal, something to back up what you’ve told me. Dayle, I’ll call you if we find anything.” She loaded the recorder into her purse. “Have you thought about hiring yourself a full-time bodyguard?”

Rubbing her eyes, Dayle nodded. “I probably will, yes.”

“I could try to fudge the police report on this,” Lieutenant Linn said, shaking her head. “But the press will still get wind of the fact that you discovered the body, Dayle. They’ll want you to make a statement.” She glanced at Sean for a moment. “I think your lawyer friend here would agree with me, it’s not a good idea to comment on this. It might screw up the investigation. And if what you say is true, you could be putting yourself in danger.”

Sean offered to drive Dayle back to her apartment building. For the last half hour in the car, Sean couldn’t stop thinking about the press coverage—and what it meant. She’d be included in the story on page one tomorrow:
DAYLE SUTTON DISCOVERS SUICIDE OF LEIGH SIMONE’S AIDE
. These people who had targeted Dayle would now go after her—and possibly her family.

Tightening her grip on the steering wheel, she glanced over at Dayle, who had dozed off. Up ahead, a white Cavalier was parked across the street from the apartment building. Sean could just barely make out someone in the front seat. “Dayle?”

She sat up, suddenly alert. “What?”

“Is there a another entrance to your building?”

For a moment, Dayle didn’t seem to understand. Then Sean nodded at the Cavalier—and the lone figure inside it.

“There’s a side entrance,” Dayle said. “But I have to call the night watchman to let me in.”

“Cellular’s in my purse,” Sean replied. She turned down the cross street in front of Dayle’s building. The Cavalier was too far away for her to tell if its occupant had noticed them. While Dayle fished out the cellular and called the night man, Sean studied the other cars parked along the street. All of them looked empty. She found the building’s side door, and pulled up to the loading zone beside it.

“We’re waiting here now,” Dayle was saying into the phone. “Thanks.” She clicked off and handed the cellular to Sean. “He’ll just be a minute.”

“Let’s stay in here until he shows,” Sean said, putting her phone away. She nervously glanced around—particularly at shadowy bushes alongside the building. Then she checked to make sure the car door was locked. “Why didn’t you tell Lieutenant Linn about these guys who have you under surveillance?”

“I really wasn’t thinking about them.” Dayle shrugged. “Besides, she’d only think I was paranoid. She’d say these guys are with the tabloids. I’ve been through this before with her. Ditto my assistant, Dennis. You’re the only one who really seems to believe me, Sean.” She sighed. “Listen, I can’t thank you enough. If you weren’t with me tonight—”

The sudden noise gave Sean a start, and she swiveled toward her window. It was only the night man, pushing open the side door for Dayle. He smiled and waved at them.

Dayle finished thanking her, and said good-bye. Sean watched her trot around the front of the car to the door. Once Dayle was inside, Sean pulled forward and turned at the next intersection. Near the end of the block on the cross-street, she saw someone leaning against a parked Taurus, talking to the driver inside. He looked about forty-five, with sneakers, white pants, and an ugly, shortsleeve turquoise blue shirt. He puffed on a cigarette. Only a couple of cars behind was the Cavalier with the front door cracked open and the interior light on.

Sean remained idling around the corner from them. She must have caught them during the changing of the guard. They didn’t seem to notice her. The man in the ugly shirt was still talking to his friend. He was laughing about something. He tossed away his cigarette, slapped the hood of the Taurus a couple of times, then started toward his own car. Then the Cavalier’s headlights went on, and it started to pull away from the curb.

Sean turned the corner and began to follow him. She passed the parked Taurus, then glanced in her rearview mirror. The man inside didn’t seem to notice her. He had his window rolled down, and he was looking up at Dayle’s building.

Forty-five minutes later, the Cavalier turned into the parking lot of a seedy-looking hotel called the My-T-Comfort Inn. It couldn’t have been all that
comfortin
’, located right off a busy highway, with cars and trucks whooshing by. Someone had rap music cranked up to full volume; it was either from the Dairy Barn Kwick Stop next door or a resident of the trailer park across the street. The hotel was a shoddy, late-sixties cabin-row-style setup with about forty rooms. Below the blinking
VACANCY
sign, a yellow-lit billboard heralded in black letters:
FREE HBO—HAPPY BI THDAY ANITA
!

Sean pulled over to the curb, near the motel sign. She watched the Cavalier wind around to the back of the hotel. Grabbing her purse, she climbed out of the car. The November night air had turned chilly, and Sean shivered as she crept along the wild shrubbery that bordered the parking lot by the hotel. She ducked behind a Dumpster, then watched the man with the ugly shirt step out of his car. He’d parked beside two Corsicas. He ambled to room 18, and let himself in. Sean pulled a piece of paper and a pen from her purse. She started scribbling down license plate numbers from the rental cars.

After a couple of minutes, Ugly Shirt Man emerged from his room again, an ice bucket in his hand. He knocked on the next door down, number 17. The door opened, and a stubby man with a mustache and greasy brown hair stepped outside. He wore army fatigues and a gray T-shirt, which revealed a tiny beer gut. Sean watched him punch his buddy in the arm, very macho friendly. The traffic noise from the street was too loud for her to hear what they were saying. Inside the room, she could see his TV was on. A laptop computer sat on the desk. The two men laughed about something, then both stepped inside the room and shut the door.

Sean finished jotting down the plate numbers and car descriptions. Another midsize, rental-type car pulled into the lot, the beams from its headlights sweeping across the bushes for a moment. Sean stepped back. The car, another white Taurus, parked in a space in front of her. She had a good view of the driver as he opened the car door. He didn’t look like the others. He was about forty, with strawberry-blond hair; the boy next door, grown-up handsome. He wore a navy crew neck and khakis. At first, Sean thought he wasn’t with them. But then he reached below the driver’s seat and took out a handgun. He glanced around for a second, then checked the gun for something. After a minute, he slipped it back under the seat, climbed out of the car, and locked the door.

Crouched in the bushes, Sean kept perfectly still and watched him. Suddenly, the cell phone in her purse rang. She almost jumped out of her skin. She ducked further back, and grabbed the phone out of her purse. It rang again—louder this time, without the purse to muffle the sound. Mr. Boy Next Door stopped and glanced in her direction. A truck roared by on the street, drowning out the third ring. Sean switched off the phone, then held her breath and waited to see what the man would do.

He gave a little shrug, then walked across the parking lot, where he knocked on the door to room 17. Mr. Stubby Macho answered it. They shook hands. Sean noticed that the nice-looking one wore a pager. Then she realized they both sported pagers. These guys were soldiers, on call. They had a ringleader somewhere, pulling the strings. The two men stepped into cabin 17, and shut the door.

After jotting down Boy Next Door’s license plate number, Sean scurried around to the front of the hotel. She peeked past the finger-smudged glass doors toward the front desk. She needed to know how many of them there were; she wanted names, where they lived—information the desk clerk might provide. At the moment, her potential source was leaning against the front counter, lazily paging through what looked like a skin magazine. He might have been handsome with some grooming, but he was too gaunt, and his long brown hair looked unwashed. Dayle guessed he was about thirty. His T-shirt hung on him as if draped over a skeleton.

Sean turned away from the door. Opening her purse, she checked her wallet: eleven dollars and some change—hardly enough for bribe money. She sighed, then caught her reflection in the window of a nearby parked car. Frowning at herself, Sean put down the purse, then unbuttoned her navy blue blouse. Despite the cold, she tied the shirt up in a Calypso fashion so her bare midriff showed. She didn’t look much like a hooker, but this was the best she could do. Rolling her eyes, she retrieved her purse, then started into the lobby.

She was hit with a waft of warm, moist air that smelled of moldy carpet and stale coffee. The lobby had two orange plastic, bucket-style chairs and a Formica coffee table with a dusty, fake fern that had seen better days.

The desk clerk quickly stashed his skin magazine under the counter. “Want a room?” he asked.

Approaching the desk, Sean saw a ratty, tired-looking German Shepherd curled up at the clerk’s feet. The dog gazed up at her with disinterest. “Atta girl, Anita,” the clerk mumbled.
Anita, the birthday girl
, Sean thought. The clerk caught her eye again. “What can we do for you? You want a room?”

“Actually, I’m supposed to meet someone,” Sean whispered, with her best coy smile. “There’s these guys in a block of rooms—like sixteen, seventeen, and eighteen? I can’t remember this particular guy’s name or which room actually. Could you tell me the names of the guys in those rooms? I think they all checked in together a couple of days ago.”

The desk clerk gave her a wary look. “Well, I dunno…”

“Oh, c’mon, be a sport,” she said. “I don’t want to knock on the wrong door tonight. C’mon, whaddaya say?”

He frowned. “It’s against the law to give out peoples’ names. I’ve got to be careful about stuff like that with these cops around.”

“Cops?”

“Yeah, they checked in tonight. The squad car is on the other side from where your buddies are.”

“What are they here for?” Sean asked. “Are they with the others?”

Shrugging, the skinny clerk glanced over her shoulder. “Huh, maybe you can ask these guys. They’re with that group….”

Sean swiveled around. From outside, Mr. Stubby Macho and Boy Next Door came toward the lobby. Stubby Macho pushed at the glass door.

Sean turned to the clerk. “Don’t give me away,” she whispered. “This is supposed to be a surprise! Don’t say anything. Please!” Her head down, she quickly started for the door, hurrying past the two men.

Stubby Macho stopped and leered at her. Meanwhile, his pal continued toward the desk. “If I knew you were stocking this place with whores, I never would have booked us here,” he said loudly—obviously for her benefit.

Sean glanced back for a second. He slapped some money on the counter. “Listen, I’m expecting a limousine early tomorrow morning….”

Stubby Macho turned and started coming toward her. He was smirking. “Hey, girlie,” he whispered. “You want to party?”

Sean quickly shook her head, then ducked outside. The cold night air nipped at her. Shivering, she ran across the lot to her car, parked at the curb. She jumped inside and ground the key in the ignition. Her heart was racing as she pulled into traffic. Sean glanced in her rearview mirror. No one seemed to be following her.

“Oh, Sean, thank God,” Dayle said into the phone. “I’ve been trying to get a hold of you….”

Dayle sat in the study, her second shot of brandy in a glass beside her on the desk. She’d poured the first one just minutes after the night watchman had escorted her up to her apartment. Then she’d checked her phone messages—eleven in all, but only two were important. One of those was from Bonny McKenna: “Hi, Dayle, this is your evil twin, Bonny. Hank and I lost those guys around nine thirty on La Brea Ave.; then I met up with my hubby, and he drove me home. No problems See you at work on Monday. Bye.”

The other message was from Dennis: “Hey, Boss Lady, it’s me. First off, Laura really enjoyed meeting you. Second, flowers and a card in your name went to Maggie’s kids this afternoon. Now, if I may eat some crow-burger, I think it wouldn’t hurt if you got yourself a full-time bodyguard. Hank’s the salt of the earth, but The Terminator he ain’t. Laura and I met a guy at a party last week, a pro, with references. He’s thinking of retiring, but I could persuade him to work for us. His name is Ted Kovak. His phone number is 555-3641, or I can contact him for you. Mull it over. We’ll talk later. Bye.”