Celebrity Sudoku (16 page)

“I told her she could move in with me,” Chick went on. “I’m, like, one of the only guys from my film school class who’s actually making regular money. But Ritz said if people knew we were together, Lowe wouldn’t have any use for us. And she needed the money he paid her to live on.”

“So she was actually setting people up so Don Lowe could get embarrassing footage of them.” Michael wanted to be sure about what Benson was saying.

“Like Sukey Tupp?” Liza added.

Benson’s lips twisted. “That skank always acted like she was so much better than Ritz. She was a real singer, and Ritz wasn’t. But if Ritz had some blow, that was plenty good enough for old Sukey. I didn’t mind helping to take her down one little bit.”

Liza looked at him carefully. “Did you know that filming Sukey falling off the wagon so publicly set things up so that Ritz could be on
D-Kodas
?”

Chick blinked in surprise. “It did?”

Michael lost patience. “Come on, she had some scam going on the set there. That’s probably why she got herself killed.”

The shock and surprise that showed on Benson’s face looked pretty genuine to Liza, but Michael evidently wasn’t sure. “You’re going to tell me you didn’t know anything about it? Or maybe that was the problem—you learned that Ritz was cutting you out.”

The young paparazzo’s girlish features were white, his lank hair hanging in his eyes. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Ritz caught me at the Atotori Studios gate and told me to stay away from there. But it’s not like you say.”

Michael didn’t let up. Liza wondered if he was channeling a tough cop from one of his scripts—or was this what he was like when he really cared about something?

“Maybe you don’t know what I’m talking about,” he pressed on. “The question is, did you do what Ritz told you? Did you stay away? Where were you when the quake hit, Benson? Can you prove it?”

“You think that
I
killed Ritz?” Chick Benson burst out. “You guys must be even crazier than I thought.”

“Actually, we try pretty hard to be rational,” Michael said calmly. “That’s why we’re asking you to prove that you were somewhere else.”

“Well I hate to bust your bubble, but I can do that,” the paparazzo responded angrily. “When the earthquake hit, I was out in Malibu, getting some footage of Brant Lee cheating on his fiancée.”

“I can’t say much about Brant Lee’s acting, but he looks pretty good shirtless,” Liza observed.

“He was shirtless right down to his toenails, bailing out of a hot tub when the ground began to shake,” Benson told her.

“Wait a second—Brant Lee is engaged to that country singer, Andi Flanders. She’s a babe! Who could be worthwhile for him to be cheating with?”

“Would you believe her kid sister Jenna?” Chick replied, obviously relishing a gossip journalist’s dream.

Michael shook his head. “God, this is like one of those really cheesy decadent Hollywood novels.”

“Jackie Collins or Jacqueline Suzanne?” Liza asked.

“I’m thinking much earlier, back to something Wilson Mizner said,” Michael replied. “He compared Hollywood to riding through a sewer in a glass-bottomed boat.”

“Who’s Wilson Mizner?” Benson asked.

“One of the original partners in the Brown Derby,” Michael explained.

The paparazzo gave him an “Are you kidding me?” look. “He went in with other people to buy a hat?”

“The Brown Derby was a restaurant—several restaurants, where the stars all hung out in the thirties and forties.” Michael ran down when he saw Chick Benson shrug.

“I’m into news,” the paparazzo said, “not ancient history.”

“Well, now I’m feeling ancient,” Michael muttered.

“We’re missing the point, people.” Liza glared at Benson. “What we’re trying to get here is a solid alibi.”

“And I just gave it to you,” Benson retorted. “Brant Lee made a spectacle of himself because of the earthquake. You can see it on camera. The water in the hot tub was sloshing around in the tremor.”

“The only way we could check that is by actually looking at what you shot,” Liza said.

Benson shrugged. “It’s upstairs in the office. You want to go up there and ask the boss?”

“Yeah, let’s do that.” Michael took a step toward the entrance, only to be halted by Chick Benson’s upraised hand.

“If the lady wants to talk to the boss, that’s one thing. He doesn’t do delegations.”

“Maybe you want to stay with the car,” Liza said to Michael in an undertone. “That’s not a legal spot. You could get towed.”

Michael made a rude noise, but he kept it low. “I suppose you know what you’re doing.”

He stomped back to the Honda as Liza wielded her walker after Chick Benson.

After following him into the elevator, Liza watched the paparazzo punch a button. They rode up in silence—nervous silence on Liza’s part, since the elevator car’s movement was a bit jerky. She really wanted to ask if it had moved the same way before the quake, but decided it was better to keep her mouth shut.

The doors opened on a nondescript hallway.

I guess Don Lowe doesn’t feel the need to waste money on ambience,
Liza thought.

But a fair amount of money had gone into the barrier blocking access to the one entrance door. Lowe hadn’t wasted money on a receptionist, either—two hefty security guards stood ready to defend the chest-high barricade. They nodded at Chick, and then turned hard eyes on Liza, demanding to know her business.

For a brief moment, Liza wondered if Benson had suckered her. Would he just breeze through, leaving her to hang in the wind (or dangle from the grip of one of the uniformed behemoths)?

But Benson pointed to the phone behind the barrier, saying, “I have to talk to the big guy.”

The guard punched in a four-digit extension and handed the receiver to Chick.

“I’ve got Liza Kelly in reception,” he reported into the phone. “She knows stuff.”

Benson returned the phone to the guard, who listened and then buzzed in both Liza and the paparazzo.

Chick skirted the edges of the large bullpen area where most of the staff congregated (and, Liza realized, where the show was actually recorded).

He led the way down a long hallway with fairly pokey offices on either side, but it ended in a space that was both large and opulently furnished.

Don Lowe sat behind a desk that had to take up at least as much room as Michael’s Honda. He rose, a short, burly man with craggy features and heavy eyebrows, wearing the same white shirt he usually wore during his show, open at the throat, the sleeves rolled up over meaty forearms. Lowe nodded to Chick Benson, and then said, “Well, hello, Ms. Kelly. We don’t get many visitors here.”

“From the looks of your security setup, I’d say it’s more a case of you actively discouraging visitors,” Liza told him. “But then, I guess a lot of people might want to have words with you these days.”

Lowe shrugged, those heavy eyebrows rising in time with his shoulders. “There it is. I can’t depend on anonymity anymore—not that I’m complaining, you understand. To steal an old quote, ‘Gossip has been berry, berry good to me.’”

He gestured to a chair and sat down himself. Chick Benson remained standing in the doorway. “So, what can I do for you?”

“You could confirm some information I was discussing with your employee.”

“Oh, yes, the ‘stuff’ Chick mentioned on the phone.” Lowe gave Liza a measuring gaze. “I don’t know why I should answer any questions. You’re not a journalist.”

Liza kept herself from responding, “Are you?” Instead, she settled in the overly soft guest chair and said, “So you invited me back here to say no to my face? It would have been easier just telling the guards to toss me out on my keister.”

“I was curious,” Don Lowe said. “A journalist’s failing, I guess.”

“Well, I’ll try to satisfy that curiosity,” Liza told him. “I want to help a young friend who seems to be in danger of being set up as the only possible suspect for Ritz Tarleton’s murder—by a whole bunch of so-called journalists.”

Lowe nodded, his face still noncommittal.

“We—some friends and I—figured out the relationship between Ritz and Mr. Benson here. When he saw we could back up that supposition with some facts, he admitted their connection, admitted that she had helped to set up some shots for him . . . and then slipped up by mentioning that she ended up doing the same for you.”

That earned Chick a rather cold glance from his boss. “I suppose he’s more used to asking embarrassing questions than answering them.”

Lowe’s eyes took on a calculating gleam. Then he nodded. “You want me to confirm that Ritz was a regular source? Off the record, yes.”

Liza stared, amazed at the gossipmonger’s nerve. “You were paying her to arrange stories for you?”

“Is it all that different when a tabloid pays for someone’s criminal or health records?” Lowe asked her back. “It’s just another kind of checkbook journalism.”

“But she actually set people up in embarrassing situations for your cameras to catch. Isn’t that entrapment?”

“There are shows on cable, and even network TV, devoted to punking celebrities. Isn’t that essentially the same thing?” Lowe shrugged. “I don’t see what Ritz did as trapping people—more like testing them. If the cops can use informants to nail drug dealers, why can’t we use the same techniques to find out how good our supposed role models really are?”

Liza shook her head. “I don’t know how much of a role model Sukey Tupp might be—except maybe for delinquents. What does getting her to fall off the wagon prove?”

“Maybe that she should have stayed in rehab longer,” Lowe shot back.

Now it was Liza’s turn to study Lowe’s rough-hewn but still attractive features. He seemed to have an answer for everything. Maybe it was time to stop questioning his ethics and concentrate on Ritz. “Did you know that putting Sukey back into rehab would also open a spot for Ritz in the
D-Kodas
Celebrity Week?”

Lowe took a moment to respond. “That was a surprise,” he admitted. “It was naughty of little Ritz to feather her own nest that way.” He looked like a father explaining a bit of mischief by his three-year-old.

“So you had nothing going on that required Ritz to be on the set of the show?”

“Like what?” Lowe asked. “Wish Dudek is old news. His divorce is—what? Ten years ago now? As for Darrie Brunswick, well, it’s almost as long since those shots from her early career as a lingerie model resurfaced.”

He settled back in his plush seat, his big, dark eyebrows lazily rising. “We keep hearing rumors about a nude photo set, but that’s more a thing for the men’s magazines than for us.”

“Ritz was up to something during her time on
D-Kodas
,” Liza said. “And if it wasn’t for your show, then she was really feathering her nest, wasn’t she?”

Lowe’s indulgent expression faded, replaced by the face of a hard-nosed journalist. “So what was she doing, Ms. Kelly?”

Liza gave him back one of his annoying shrugs. “Frankly, I came here to find out from you,” she admitted. “Ritz told a friend she was working on something big—something really good for her. But it seems that neither you nor Mr. Benson knows what that was.”

She glanced over her shoulder at Chick, who looked bereft.

Maybe his true love wasn’t so truthful to him,
Liza thought.

Don Lowe, on the other hand, looked like a hungry lion who’d just had a bloody steak snatched out from under his nose.

I thought he’d be harder to read than that,
Liza thought.
But then, journalists are competitive by nature. One thing’s for sure. Our friend Mr. Lowe isn’t as easy as he let on about sources going off on their own agendas.

Liza tried a few more minutes of fencing but could see that she wasn’t going to get any more information.

“One thing I’d like,” she said. “Could I get a look at what Chick was shooting during the earthquake?”

She tried to be diplomatic, not using words like “allegedly.”

Lowe’s poker face took over, but then he said, “I don’t suppose it would hurt if you looked at the raw footage—after signing an appropriate nondisclosure form, of course.”

After carefully parsing the legalese, Liza added her signature.
At least he didn’t ask for it in blood,
she thought as Lowe dismissed her into Chick Benson’s care. The paparazzo led her into a fairly impressive editing suite, fired up a screen, and hit a couple of buttons. A couple cavorting in a hot tub swam into focus.

“Okay,” a voice easily recognizable as Chick’s muttered on the audio track. “Let’s see if I can get both faces and no boobs.”

The two people in the tub were involved in a long kiss, and all Chick could get was the back of the male’s head blocking the woman’s face.

“They gotta come up for air sometime,” he groused.

Then the camera jerked away from the kissing pair, going out of focus on a view of a carefully tended lawn.

“Dammitall!” Benson recovered and got the camera back on the tub. Just as he’d told Liza, the water was sloshing around and the man was making a panicked exit. Liza was distracted by some of the bits dangling in the breeze, but Chick managed to bring the camera up to get a clear shot of the man’s face. Definitely Brant Lee.

“I guess I can see your problem,” she said. “Too much of him on camera.”

“We could pixelate the naughty bits enough to meet network standards,” Benson disgustedly told her. “The problem is the jackass wasn’t a gentleman. Instead of helping Jenna out, he dithered around, blocking her face.”

True enough. Lee’s usual on-screen persona was either heroic or soulful. He didn’t look either in this scene, his face slack with fear as he bounced from foot to foot trying to decide what to do. What he did accomplish, probably quite unintentionally, was to keep his nude torso between his companion’s face and the candid cameraman.