Lethally Blond (8 page)

“Yes, right after I left you. I wanted to call and let you know since you seemed to be a friend of his family.”

“That was very kind of you. I’m devastated, of course—we all are. They were such a lovely family. You’d think there’d been a curse against them.”

“In what sense?”

“The father dying, then Margo. And now poor Tom. They say they don’t know how he died. That someone may have killed him. Or it may even have been suicide. What—what do you think happened?”

“I just don’t know. Did Tom have any problems or issues with anyone up there?”

“Goodness, no. He’d actually spent very little time here after he started high school. Kids always feel there’s nothing for them to do up here. Margo let the place go after her husband died, and once she became ill, she was rarely here, either. Tom only came back recently to sell the place.”

“Tom told a mutual friend of ours that he’d actually sold the house earlier in the summer.”

“Supposedly, yes, to some yuppie types—of course they don’t call them that anymore. But in the end, the couple couldn’t get a mortgage and had to pull out. There were no other bites this summer, apparently, and the real estate agent told Tom he’d have more luck if the house was in better shape.”

“So he was trying to do it himself?”

“He was doing an odd job here and there from what he told me, but he’d hired Barry to do the bulk of it.”

“Barry?”

“Barry’s a kind of handyman/contractor up here. Tom had asked him to do some work on the house. Barry was waiting for the go-ahead two weeks ago but never heard from Tom.”

I thought of the $7,000. “Would he have expected an advance?”

“I imagine so. That’s how it usually works.”

I asked her then if she would be willing to check with this Barry dude and let me know if he’d definitely been expecting a cash advance from Tom. She seemed hesitant, as if suddenly second-guessing her forthcomingness.

“Beverly, Tom apparently had a lot of cash on him, and I’m wondering if he may have been robbed. My goal is to find out who did this to him.”

That seemed to reassure her. I promised to call back in a day or two. I had the feeling she was going to prove to be a good source for me.

Since the
Times
was predicting another day of warm weather, I threw on a tan-colored miniskirt, a sleeveless black top, and black slingbacks. Ten minutes later, I was on the train to
Buzz
. Tom Fain was no A-lister, but he was nonetheless an actor in a big new show, and Nash would probably want a small item about his death.

Fridays are always a pretty happening day at
Buzz
. Monday is the big closing day, when the cover story ships along with the other major “news” stories—about who dumped whom, who’s shagging whom, and how many kids Angelina Jolie is thinking of adopting
this
week. It’s also when the nasty gossip section “Juice Bar” gets written. (Never—let me repeat,
never—
get on their radar.) But many of these stories start coming to a head on Friday, and writers and editors start racing around out of their minds, as if we’d just landed a man on Mars.

I dumped my stuff on my desk and surveyed the scene. Leo was tapping away at his computer. Jessie’s desk was empty, but there were corn muffin crumbs on the top of it.

“Jessie get her bikini line taken care of?”

“Yeah, but she’s been in and out today. Something to do with Usher.” Part of Jessie’s job was to cover the music scene.

“You seem crazed.”

“Yeah, well, I’m supposed to be doing a whole page on guys with back fat, and so far I’ve got only four. Any ideas?”

“No, but I’ll keep my eyes peeled.”

I glanced down toward the glass-fronted office of Nash Nolan. He’d be busier than hell today, but I needed to see him. Though the light was bouncing off the glass, making it hard to see, I discerned movement in there and headed off in that direction.

Nash
was
inside, talking to Mary Kay, the sixtyish former gossip columnist, West Coast based, whom the late and much-loathed Mona Hodges had brought on as a consultant. According to all reports, the last truly pertinent piece of celebrity news she’d broken was Liz Taylor’s remarriage to Richard Burton. She seemed to rub Nash the wrong way, but since shows like
ET
loved her sound bites, and that was good for the magazine, her job seemed secure for now.

I tapped on the frame of the open door. Mary Kay glanced over and shot me the kind of look she probably reserved for times when someone came down hard on her instep.

“Got a minute?” I asked Nash. “I have some news I want to share.”

“Yup. Why don’t we finish up later, Mary Kay.”

“All right, Nash, but we need to move quickly on this,” she said, and bustled past me, glancing disapprovingly at my outfit. She was in a lightweight peach wool suit, her champagne-colored hair up in a French twist and her legs swathed in white hose that vaguely resembled mosquito netting. She probably considered it a style sin that I was sporting summer clothes in mid-September.

“What’s up, Bailey?” Nash asked as soon as Mary Kay was out the door. “Tell me you’ve got something good, okay? I don’t have jack for the cover this week.”

I liked Nash. He was in his forties, with a handsome, rugged face and stocky build, barrel-chested. He wore his gray-tinged streaked hair slicked back on the sides, and there was always a pair of reading glasses perched on either the top of his head or the middle of his nose. Rumor had it that he’d had more than one fling at work—which once resulted in his wife dropping by and hurling her purse at his head—and now and then you caught him staring at your tits. But he was a great words editor and easy to get along with.

“It’s not cover-worthy, but it’s interesting. There’s a new show being shot in New York called
Morgue,
and one of the young male actors with a small part on it has been killed, probably murdered.”

I explained my own involvement and provided the Cliff Notes version of the situation.

“Jesus, what is it with you, Bailey? You give new meaning to the word
deadline
.”

“Do you want a short item?” I said.

“How’d he die?” he asked, peering at me over the reading glasses.

“Stabbed or bludgeoned. Then burned.”

“All your favorite things. Tell me he also dated Lindsay Lohan at some point and then we’re golden.”

“Not that I know of,” I said, ashamed suddenly of how I was bantering about Tom.

“I’ll give you a column.”

“Fine.”

“And Bailey,” he said as I moved out the door. “Try to keep your rear out of trouble this time, okay?”

Before talking to Photo about calling in a shot of Tom, I sauntered back to the kitchenette for coffee. Up ahead of me I saw Mary Kay, chin in the air, making her way toward one of the back offices that was reserved for L.A. staff when they came east. She was probably in town for a few days visiting contacts, something she did every month or so. Leo once told me it was so she could blow through the spa services at her hotel and let
Buzz
pick up the tab. I remembered something else he’d once told me about her. She used to write a column for
Soap Opera Digest
and loved that whole world. I grabbed a cup of coffee and poked my head in her office.

“Sorry to barge in on you back there, Mary Kay.”

“Obviously it couldn’t be helped,” she declared in a tone that said she thought it certainly
could
have.

“I’d love to ask your advice if you’ve got a minute.”

“All right, but please be quick about it, Bailey. I’m doing a TV segment in half an hour.”

As I stepped into the office and closer to her, I could see that she was already made up for her appearance. Her face was covered in so many layers of Pan-Cake makeup, you’d half expect to find the fossilized remains of early life forms in there.

“What do you know about Locket Ford?” I asked.

“Locket?”
she asked in surprise. “If
you’re
interested, it means she’s been up to no good. What did she do—test positive for Botox?”

“I’m simply curious,” I replied. “A friend of mine is working on her new show. Has most of her career been in soaps?”

“Yes—and she had an enormous following. I believe she fancies herself as the next Demi—leaving the soaps behind for major stardom. And then there’s the book.”

“Book?”

“
Locket Ford’s Guide to Beauty
. It’s a fall book—and there’s a party for it at Elaine’s tomorrow night. Alex is giving it for her.”

I filed away that info for later.

“What buzz do you hear about the show?” I asked. It was a selfish question—I was curious what was in store for Chris.

“Well, everything Alex Ottoson touches is a hit. Locket’s always been known as a real fame digger, and hitching her star to Alex’s wagon was a brilliant move on her part, professionally. But if you ask my opinion, nothing could be worth
that
.”

“What do you mean?” I asked. I felt a tingle at the back of my neck.

“Oh, he’s a nasty man. He’s all debonair when you meet him, but he’s got a cruel streak. And there’s a rumor around that he likes to slap when he’s mad.”

CHAPTER 7

D
o you think it’s true? Do you think he’s abusive to her?”

“Don’t tell me you want to run with this, Bailey. I was speaking off the record here.”

I suppressed a sigh of exasperation. “Like I said, I’m just curious. I have a friend on the show.”

“Well, for God’s sake don’t attribute anything to me when you’re speaking to this friend of yours. And of course, if you pick up anything yourself, I hope you’ll pass it on to me. Now, if you don’t mind, I do need to freshen up for my segment.”

As I walked back to my desk, I mulled over her revelation. Alex was nasty. Alex was possibly violent. What if he had gotten wind of Locket’s toe-curling fling with Tom? Could he have followed Tom to Andes and killed him in a rage?

Tonight, there’d be a chance to chat with people from the show—though according to Chris, probably only minor players would be there. What I needed to do was crib an invitation to the party at Elaine’s tomorrow night—for a firsthand look at both Locket and Alex. I certainly wasn’t going to ask Mary Kay for help. She’d probably do her best to have me barred at the door. When I returned to my desk, I called the chick who oversaw the beauty coverage at
Buzz
and asked if she could get me into the event.

“You can have
my
invitation. There’s a party for Jessica Simpson’s beauty products I’d much rather go to anyway. Just let me know if anything good happens so I can file it.”

Over the next hour, I drafted a brief write-up on Tom’s death, knowing I’d have to flesh it out once I learned more. As promised, the beauty editor dropped off the invitation. Just as I was packing up my stuff to leave, Jessie strode in and plopped down at her desk.

“What’s up?” she asked, her caramel eyes curious. “No offense, but you look like you haven’t slept in four days.”

I suggested we secure some coffee, and after grabbing two cups, we settled in an empty conference room, where I shared everything that had happened.

“Gosh, that’s grisly,” she said, frowning. “Any ideas about who did it?”

“Not so far. But you can help if you want. There’s a book party for Locket Ford tomorrow night. It would be great if you could come with me. Having two sets of eyes and ears will be an advantage.”

“Sure. I’ve got a date, but I’ve been looking for an excuse to bail. When this guy hits the dance floor, you worry the paramedics are going to show up looking for the person having the seizure.”

After we finished talking, I headed home. As soon as I entered my apartment, I staggered toward my bedroom and fell on the bed, wasted. I craved a catnap, yet sleep eluded me. I kept seeing that horrible maggoty mess in the tub, and then my mind would ricochet to the lovely face of Tom Fain from his head shot. His family
did
seem cursed, just as Beverly had suggested. I also couldn’t stop thinking about Chris. Had it been dumb to go to bed with him considering the circumstances? Would I soon regret the “we’re both really sad so let’s fuck” sex? But my interest in Chris had been rekindled
before
I’d found Tom’s body, and there had to be more to our encounter than shared grief. I still missed Beau, ached for him, really, but it wasn’t as if he were pounding at my door. For all I knew, he might even be back from Turkey by now. Stop thinking for one goddamn minute, will you, Bailey, I begged myself. Finally, from pure exhaustion, my mind shut the hell up. When I woke, the room was dim and the clock read 6:30.

At around seven-thirty, Chris called to say that they’d finally wrapped for the day and I could head over to the bar in about an hour. After speaking to him I left a message for Sheriff Schmidt, saying I’d like to touch base with him. Then I phoned Beverly, just to check in.

“I was just going to call you, dear,” she said. “I hung up with Barry only a minute ago—it took me all day to get in touch with him. You were right. Tom asked Barry to do some work on the house, and he was supposed to give him a cash advance.”

“What kind of work was Barry going to do?”

“Put in a new kitchen. It wasn’t a total overhaul—just some new appliances and a new floor. He was also going to oversee the painting of the exterior. Apparently, Tom was trying to do a little bit of interior painting himself.”

“Okay, thanks, Beverly. Let me know if you find out anything else, will you, please?” I wondered if she had really been planning to call me.

There was a long pause.

“They apparently found Tom’s wallet in his pants,” she said finally, her voice choking. “And there was a lot of cash.”

“So I guess there’s very little doubt now,” I said quietly. “I’m sorry, Beverly. I’m sure this is hard for you.”

After I hung up, I sat on my terrace for a while, watching the dusk turn to night. I was glad I was going out tonight. I was glad I would be having sex with Chris later and could push thoughts of Tom out of my head.

Just as I was heading out the door, my cell phone rang.

“Is this Bailey Wiggins?” a man asked in the no-nonsense, authoritative tone of someone used to getting his way.

“Weggins, actually.”

“It’s Robert Barish. Detective O’Donnell gave me your number. He said you found the body, but it’s not a hundred percent clear that it’s Tom,” he said. “Please tell me everything you know.”

Conscious of his need to know but also of the fact that I was now running late, I spelled out everything as concisely as possible—and shared the news about the wallet. He immediately began lobbing questions at me—how did I know Tom, why had I gone to Andes?

“Mr. Barish, I want to be of help to you, but I’m heading off to meet Tom’s friend Chris right now. Actually, I’m going to be with some people from the show—and maybe I’ll learn something. I could give you a ring tomorrow.”

“Are you going to the set?” he asked agitatedly. “Is that what you’re saying?”

“No, to a pub not far from there on Twenty-third Street. Do you want to talk tomorrow?”

He said he’d prefer to meet in person and suggested four o’clock at his office in midtown. I hesitated, not overly eager to drag myself up there on a Saturday, but I also knew that having him as a contact could prove useful. As soon as I’d agreed and signed off, I flew out the door, grabbing my jeans jacket as I left—it was supposed to be cooler tonight.

I’d heard of the Half King but had never been there. It turned out to be part neighborhood hangout/part Irish pub/part trendy night spot. And it was already packed. The bar in the main area, lit by several orange-coated hanging lights, was lined about three to four people deep, and the wooden booths across from it were all filled. Chris was nowhere in sight. I could see a back room from where I stood, as well as a brick-walled room on the side, filled with tables. That seemed the most likely spot for a large group to congregate. As I began to muscle my way into the side room, I spotted Chris edging through the crowd toward me. He held my eyes intently.

“Hi,” he called over the din as he drew closer. His face looked freshly scrubbed of makeup, and he was wearing just jeans and a gray T-shirt. Wrapping one of his taut, muscular arms around my waist, he planted a soft kiss on my cheek. I felt myself stir from his touch.

“The gang all here?” I asked.

“About fifteen of them. Some crew, the second ADs, a few of the actors . . .”

“Locket, by any chance?”

“No, but there’s a rumor she’s stopping by. Let me get you a drink at the bar. It takes forever to flag down a waitress in there.”

He grabbed my hand, and we snaked our way over to the bar. A spot opened up miraculously just as we got there. Chris ordered us two draft beers. As we waited side by side, I realized for the first time that there was music pounding underneath all the voices. U2, maybe. It was hard to tell. What wasn’t hard was noticing all the chicks checking out Chris.

“How
are
you tonight?” I asked him as he passed me my beer. Since he wasn’t budging from the bar area, I had the feeling he wanted to talk alone for a few minutes.

“Not great. My scenes today all called for me looking as grim as possible, so that made it a little easier.”

“I’ve got a bit of news,” I said. I told him about the wallet.

“So that pretty much confirms it, doesn’t it?”

“I’d say so—though the final verdict will come with the DNA. What about Harper? I assume you’ve told her the news.”

“I wanted to do it in person, and I certainly didn’t want to do it on set, so I called her at her office and asked her to grab coffee with me during one of my breaks. She figured something was up, so she just kept demanding that I tell her why I was calling, right then and there. She was practically shrieking at me. And then when I told her about you finding the body, she just went totally silent—for like thirty seconds. I think she’d convinced herself that Tom had just taken off. And then she started to bawl. I felt really bad for her.”

“Has word spread?”

“Oh yeah. I told one of the supervising producers, and Harper told people—and then the cops showed.”

“From the sheriff’s office?”

“No, these guys were state police. I guess the downstate part of the investigation has been turned over to them. They talked to me for about a half hour. I could tell from their questions that they’d been to his place—the super must have let them in—so the issue of me having to turn over my key never came up.”

“Could you get any sense from their questions what they’re thinking?”

“Not really. They asked if he’d been depressed—and whether he had any enemies.”

“Be prepared for things to get ugly when they find Locket’s note.”

Chris pursed his lips and looked away.

“What?” I asked.

“I went over there after I left your place this morning and took the note.”

“Chris, why would you do that?” I exclaimed. “That’s evidence.”

“Oh, come on, Bailey. We both know Locket didn’t drive up there and set Tom on fire. I doubt she even knows there’s an upstate. I just didn’t want to cause trouble for her—and the show—unnecessarily.”

“Maybe she didn’t do it, but you can still end up in a lot of trouble for removing evidence. Promise me you’ll think about it. You can still hand it over to them.”

“Okay, I’ll think about it,” he said, flashing me one of his dazzling smiles meant to quell further protests from me.

“As long as we’re confessing, I need to tell you that I filed a short story on Tom today—I would have been covering his death even if I’d never heard of him. But I included nothing the two of us discussed. That’s between you and me.”

“Wow, I never even thought of that. I guess I’m going to just have to trust you,” he said somberly.

“You can,” I assured him. “It’s probably best not to tell anyone here what I do, but I also don’t want to out-and-out lie. You could just say I’m a writer if anyone asks.”

“Don’t worry. People in show business
rarely
ask what other people do.”

“Why don’t we head into the other room?”

The group from
Morgue
was at the far end of the side room, at seven square tables they had apparently dragged together. Chris led me to the closest and pulled over a chair next to the one he’d obviously been sitting in. A few people farther down the table glanced in our direction. The mood seemed awfully somber, though there was enough conversation going on that Chris managed to introduce me only to the people right around us—a line producer named August who looked as if he were no more than twenty-one, a guy named Steve who Chris said played Brad on the show and had teeth as white as a new Sub-Zero freezer, and a gorgeous young black woman named Amy, wearing an off-the-shoulder rose-colored sweater and dangly gold earrings.

“Is Deke here?” I whispered into his ear.

“Deke? Why?”

“Harper said Tom palled around with him.”

“Yeah, he’s the beefy dude, the one in the T-shirt that says Mudfest 2004,” he said into my ear, indicating with his eyes a guy way down the line. Deke was hoisting a glass mug of beer to his mouth and nodding to a fellow next to him, who looked as if he were crew, too.

Aware that several people at the table were watching us whisper, I turned my attention back to the group immediately around us and offered a smile that I hoped seemed friendly and inviting.

“You guys were smart to get drinks at the bar,” Amy said. “I’m nursing my martini because it took about an hour for it to materialize.”

“Amy works in PR—along with Harper,” Chris said. I figured that was code for “She’s in the loop on everything that’s going on.”

“How has response to the show been so far?” I asked.

“Great. We did our press party on the set—you know, in the morgue—and people went nuts.”

“It must be an interesting show to publicize,” I said.

“It has been—at least up until today. If you’re a friend of Chris’s, you must have heard the news about Tom Fain.”

“Yes—have you already started to get calls about it?”

“A few—the word is just leaking out. What I’m waiting for is someone to start implying there’s a jinx of some kind—you know, ‘Work on
Morgue,
end up in one.’”

“Did you know Tom?” I asked.

“Not all that well. But Harper told me what a nice guy he was.”

I was aware suddenly that Chris, who had been talking to Steve, had stood up and pulled a cell phone out of his pocket. He listened for a moment and then threaded his way toward the rear of the room, near a doorway to the outside garden area.

“That’s what Chris told me—what a nice guy Tom was,” I said. “It’s so hard to imagine someone killing him.” I let the remark just hang there, hoping she had an insight to share.

She shook her head, her dangly earrings flopping back and forth with each turn. “It’s all just unbelievable—but you know, the weekend he disappeared, Harper had almost a sixth sense about it. I mean, she
felt
something was wrong.”

So Amy
did
have an insight worth sharing.

“How do you mean?” I asked as nice and easy as I possibly could. I was afraid that if I got too pouncy, she’d drop the bulletproof shield PR types have practically trademarked.

“You know the stories about how people get a weird vibe before they get on a plane and end up changing their flight? It was kind of like that. We were out in L.A. meeting with folks from the network, and after Harper talked to Tom on Friday, she just got this really funny feeling something was the matter. She ended up taking the red-eye on Friday night instead of coming back Sunday.”