Jaine Austen 2 - Last Writes (11 page)

“Not anyone,” Incorvia said. “During the forty-five minutes the prop room was left unattended, the director was up in the control booth with his assistant director. The cameramen were backstage playing poker. And Bianca, the Millers’ secretary, was with Danny the production assistant.”

Damn. Bianca had an alibi.

“And the old guy. Wells Dumont. He was with Zach Levy-Taylor the whole time—except when he was on stage doing his soliloquy from
Hamlet
.”

So Wells had an alibi, too. I was glad to hear it. It looked as though his grief had been genuine, after all.

“What about Quinn’s wife?”

“She lives in New York.”

“So? She could’ve flown out here, shown up at the studio disguised as a tourist, poisoned the donuts, and then flown back again.”

Incorvia shot me a skeptical look. Even I wasn’t buying that theory.

“At the time of the murder, Quinn’s wife was at Elaine’s restaurant in New York City, having drinks with Regis and Joy Philbin.”

“That still leaves a lot people who could have done it,” I insisted.

Incorvia nodded. “Including yourself.”

Oh, crud. I was back in that damn prison jumpsuit again.

“Relax,” he said. “I asked around about you, Ms. Austen. I know you helped solve a murder in Westwood last year. So I’m reasonably certain you had nothing to do with this crime.”

“What about Kandi?” I asked. “You don’t really think she did it, do you?”

“Her, I’m not so sure about.”

“You’ve got to believe me. My best friend is simply not a murderer.”

“That’s what Ted Bundy’s best friend said.”

He flipped the pages in his notebook until he came to a clean page.

“One final question before you go,” he said.

“Yes?”

He leaned forward in his chair.

“What’s the best way to get an agent?”

Huh???

“You see, I’m writing this screenplay, about a cop in Hollywood….”

I couldn’t believe it. Kandi was right. Everyone in L.A. has a script to sell. I wouldn’t be surprised to come home one of these days and find Prozac banging one out on my computer.

“It’s a zany action-comedy-thriller,” he said. “Alfred Hitchcock meets Jackie Chan.”

Holy Moses. First Lance, now this.

“Actually, I don’t have an agent,” I demurred.

“Too bad,” he sighed. “Oh, well. Maybe you’d like to read it when I’m through. Give me some notes.”

The last thing I wanted to witness was Alfred Hitchcock meeting Jackie Chan. The guy was nuts if he thought I’d waste my time reading his stupid script.

“Sure,” I said, smiling brightly. “I’d love to.”

Back in our office, Kandi was lying on the sofa, staring at the ceiling, a copy of
Variety
spread open across her chest like a funeral shroud.

“The worst has happened,” she moaned.

“What’s wrong?”

She pointed to the
Variety
. I read the headline:
Cops Quiz Comedy Scribe
.

“I always wanted to make the front page of
Variety
. But not like this. I’ll never work again.”

“Of course you will. Everyone’s going to forget all about this.”

“Right. Just like they forgot about O.J. Simpson.”

“Don’t be silly,” I said. “By next week, this’ll be old news.”

I smiled brightly, but Kandi just lay there like a poster child for Clinical Depression.

“By the way,” she said, “my agent dumped me today.”

“Oh, no.”

“She said she was on ‘client overload,’ and it wasn’t fair to keep me on since she was no longer able to give me the attention I deserved. And so she’s turning me over to a hot new agent in the office.”

“A hot new agent? That sounds great.”

“The ‘hot new agent’ is a kid in the mail room. The guy has zero clout. Even his own mother doesn’t return his phone calls.”

She took the
Variety
and put it over her face.

“Come on, honey,” I said. “As soon as they catch the real killer, you’ll be in the clear, and agents will be lining up to represent you.”

“As soon as
you
catch the real killer.” She peeked out from under the
Variety
, and looked at me pleadingly. “Really, Jaine. I’m counting on you to get me out of this mess.”

Oh, great. There wasn’t
too
much pressure on me, was there?

“I’ll do all I can,” I promised. “But you mustn’t give up on the police. Detective Incorvia seemed like a very capable guy.”

“But he thinks I did it,” she said, tossing the
Variety
in the trash.

“No, he doesn’t,” I fibbed. “He’s got lots of suspects he’s investigating.”

“Yeah, but why do I get the feeling I’m leading the pack?”

“That’s not true,” I fibbed again.

“Why? What did he say at your meeting?”

I gave her a carefully edited version of our meeting, leaving out the part about the stethoscope and Ted Bundy’s best friend.

“Honestly, Kandi,” I said. “Incorvia seems like a nice guy. I seriously doubt he has an agenda to see you in jail.”

She sat up, somewhat relieved.

“How about we go grab some lunch?” I asked.

“No, I can’t face anybody right now.”

“Okay, I’ll go to the commissary and get us something. What do you want?”

“Hemlock on rye,” she sighed. “And if they’re all out of that, get me Today’s Special. It’s probably just as lethal.”

She smiled wanly.

I was happy to see she still had a sense of humor. It looked like she was going to need it.

I stood at the steam table, watching Helga dish out two portions of thick white glop into Styrofoam take-out containers. According to Helga, it was tuna noodle casserole. It looked a lot more like wet plaster to me.

Really, I decided, it was much too vile to eat. It’s one thing to get fat on Sara Lee, another thing to pork up on plaster. Besides, weren’t Kandi and I supposed to be on diets?

I’d just have to change my order. I looked at Helga, at her Brillo hair, her pencil-thin lips, and the hairy wart on her receding chin. God, she was scary. Maybe I should just pay for it and toss it in the dumpster outside. No. No way. I really had to develop some backbone if I intended to keep doing this detective stuff.

I took a deep breath and shored up my courage. So what if she got angry? What’s the worst she could do? Hit me with her hair net?

“I hate to be a bother,” I said, “but is it to late to change my order?”

She glared at me, the same look she probably gave to her subordinates in the Gestapo. Then she dumped the gloppy white stuff back into the serving tray.

“Whaddaya want?” she grunted.

“Do you have any salads?”

“We got egg salad and potato salad.”

“Don’t you have anything green?”

“Just the mold on the egg salad.”

I wound up driving to McDonald’s for two Shake-a-Salads. It was so much nicer being waited on by a sullen teenager than a sullen ex-Nazi.

I was just making my way back onto the lot, when I saw Wells Dumont pull up behind me in an elegant old Mercedes.

“I see the commissary food is beginning to get to you,” he said, when we got out of our cars. He eyed my McDonald’s take-out bag. “Quinn used to say that flies came to the commissary to commit suicide.”

I laughed. It was an old joke (Henny Youngman, circa 1952), but still funny.

“I’m going to miss Quinn,” Wells said. “I know he was a bit of a rake, but he made me smile.”

“Where’ve you been?” I asked. “Lunch date?”

“That’s what I told the others. The truth is, I went to my podiatrist.” He looked down at his feet encased in orthopedic shoes. “These old dogs are giving out on me.”

Standing there in the harsh sunlight, I could see that his face was crisscrossed with wrinkles. He had to be well into his seventies. Maybe even his eighties. If thirty-six was old in Hollywood, poor Wells was practically mummified.

As we started walking towards the Writers’ Building, I remembered what he said about wanting to take me to dinner. Maybe I’d take him up on his offer. He knew all the actors on the show. Maybe he could help shed some light on the murder.

“Hey, Wells,” I said. “You still up for dinner some time?”

“Why, of course, my dear.” His face lit up eagerly. “But what about Duane?”

Duane? Who the heck was Duane?

“Your fiance,” Wells said, as if reading my thoughts.

“Oh. Right. Duane. He won’t mind. Besides, he’s busy right now with an important case.”

“An important case?”

“Yes, my fiance’s an attorney.”

Heck, if I was going to be engaged, I might as well do it right.

“You sure he won’t mind?”

“No, he never minds when I go out with
friends
.”

Notice the slight emphasis on “friends”—just in case Wells had any ideas about putting the make on me.

“I don’t suppose you’re free tonight?” he said.

Little did he know that I was free every night for the next three hundred and sixty-five nights.

“Sure,” I said. “I’m free.”

We agreed to meet at a French joint out in Santa Monica, the place he’d told me about, the one with the great
pommes frites.

“Till tonight,” he said.

Then he blew me a kiss.

Uh-oh. What did I tell you? I smelled trouble in Codger City. To quote Mr. Goldman: Just because there’s snow on top, doesn’t mean the fire’s out down below.

Chapter Fourteen

K
andi barely made a dent in her Shake-a-Salad. She was still too depressed to eat, a condition I’m sad to say I’ve never experienced.

So I ate her salad as well as my own. With extra dressing, if you must know. I tried to cheer her up with my Helga adventures, but she just lay limply on the sofa, smiling a weak smile, very Camille-on-her-deathbed.

I told her about my upcoming dinner with Wells and how I planned to pump him for information.

“You’re going on a
date
with Wells Dumont?” She sat up, her eyes wide with disbelief.

“It’s not a real date. We’re just having dinner.”

“That’s what’s known as a
dinner date
, Jaine. What if he gets fresh?”

“Don’t be silly. He’s not going to get fresh.”

“What if he tries to kiss you and his dentures come loose?”

“What makes you think he wears dentures?”

“I don’t know. I’m just guessing. The guy went to high school with Abe Lincoln, for crying out loud.”

“Wells is not going to try and kiss me,” I said with an assurance I didn’t feel.

“And what about the other suspects?” she asked. “Are you going to try and talk to them, too?”

“Sure,” I said. “As soon as I can.”

Which turned out to be a lot sooner than I expected. Because who should I run into on my way to the ladies’ room after lunch, but one of my prime suspects—Audrey, the woman scorned.

“Hi, Audrey,” I chirped.

She smiled coolly. “Oh. Hello, Jaine.”

I followed her into the ladies’ room, where she bypassed the stalls and headed straight for the mirror. Just as I suspected: The Ice Queen probably never went to the bathroom. I, on the other hand, had to take a tinkle badly, but somehow it didn’t seem very professional to conduct my investigation from a toilet stall. So I joined her at the row of sinks where she was fluffing her already perfect hair.

“What a tragedy about Quinn,” I said, fluffing my unruly mop.

I saw her jaw tighten.

“Yes, it was,” she managed to say. “A terrible tragedy.”

Why did I get the feeling she’d had hangnails that were more tragic to her than Quinn’s death?

“I still can’t believe someone hated him enough to poison him,” I went on.

“It’s not so hard to believe,” she said, applying lipstick with the expertise of a Clinique saleslady. “Quinn had a lot of enemies.”

“Yes,” I said, “I imagine he did.”

With you at the top of the list.

It occurred to me that I couldn’t go on fluffing my hair forever. I needed something else to do. I rummaged in my purse and found a lip liner.

“Interesting color,” Audrey said, as I started to put it on.

I looked at my reflection in the mirror, and realized to my dismay that it wasn’t a lip liner I’d fished from my purse—but an eyebrow pencil.

“Yes,” I smiled wanly. “Brown’s all the rage this year. I read it in
Elle
.”

Damn. Now I’d have to spend the rest of the afternoon with Burnt Ermine lips. Oh, well. I couldn’t worry about that now. I had an investigation to conduct.

“When I think of that scene in Muffy’s bedroom the other day,” I said, shaking my head somberly. “Imagine. Taking advantage of poor Vanessa like that.”

Audrey laughed a bitter “hah.” When she did, I could smell the distinct aroma of wine on her breath. Something told me Stan hadn’t been the only one drinking at lunch that day.

“Poor Vanessa?” she said, her tongue clearly loosened by her lunchtime booze. “Give me a break. The little whore would screw a hatrack.”

At which point, we heard the sound of a toilet flushing.

One of the stall doors opened with a bang, and guess who came strutting out? Bingo if you guessed Vanessa.

She walked up to Audrey, popping a piece of Juicy Fruit in her mouth.

“Better a hatrack than Stan,” she said.

Then she walked out the door, her head held high, her tush swaying, not bothering to wash her hands.

Audrey’s jaws were clenched tighter than a vise.

I had no idea whether or not Audrey Miller killed Quinn Kirkland. But from the murderous look in her eyes, I got the feeling she was fully capable of it.

Audrey’s tête-à-tête with Vanessa left her in a pissy mood. She spent the rest of the afternoon trashing my ideas with comments like: “It’s an interesting joke, Jaine, except for one thing. It’s not funny.”

Ouch.

Kandi fared little better. And poor Stan. At one point, after he’d belched some particularly noxious gin fumes, she turned to him and said: “Sober up, will you? One more drink, and you can rent yourself out as a distillery.”

So nobody was shedding any tears when Audrey called it a day at five o’clock and sent us on our way.