City of Mirrors (9 page)

“No.”

He inhaled sharply, nostrils twitching. Leaping to his feet, he picked up the vase of red roses. And threw it over my head against the wall behind me. I ducked. He shifted his body and kicked the coffee table. It crashed into the empty chair next to me. I jumped up.

With one long stride, Heath stood between Parson and me.

H
eart pounding, I stood with glass shards around my feet. Facing Parson, Heath remained standing between us. He balanced lightly on the balls of his feet, shoulders tensed as if he were about to swing a punch. Doors slammed as Luis and the tattooed man bolted in from the back of the yacht and from the deck.

“Get outta here!” Parson barked at his guys.

Both vanished.

“Nobody withholds information from me.” Parson stared at me over Heath's shoulder. His rage had turned his face a violent red and spittle had formed at the corners of his mouth.

“Hey man.” Heath held up his hands, palms toward Parson, his voice low and reasonable. “She has no reason not tell you what she knows. She's here to help you. She's the only one who cared enough about Jenny to make sure she was all right.”

Parson's body trembled, then he collapsed back onto the sofa. Heath held his ground for a few more moments, turned, and moved toward me. I let out my breath as he kicked the pieces of the vase away from my feet. He went back to his place against the wall. I sat down.

With his long fingers, Parson wiped at the saliva on his lips. “Heath is right.” His voice was measured. “You were the only one who tried to help her, and I appreciate that. But that doesn't mean you might not want to protect someone.”

I made sure my voice was firm when I spoke. I didn't want to show this man any vulnerability. “I don't know who killed your daughter. You must have enemies. Maybe they wanted to get back at you through her. Your portholes are draped … are you afraid someone might shoot you?”

“I find mourning in the brilliant sunlight unbearable,” Parson said.

I swallowed hard. I had felt the same when Colin died.

“Nobody I know, least of all my enemies, would dare to hurt Jenny. And if anyone is in danger, I would say it was you, Ms. Poole.”

“Why me?”

“Jenny's body was meant to be pressed into a landfill, never to be seen again. But you found it. If I were her killer I'd be worried about what you knew or didn't know, what you saw or didn't see. You might suddenly remember some little thing I'd forgotten, some insignificant detail that could lead back to me.” He smiled grimly. “No, I'd have to take you out.”

Furious, I rose up out of the chair. “I'm tired of being threatened by you and your thugs. Let me go now or I'll tell the police you held me here against my will.”

“In my world the police have little power.” Parson stroked his goatee. The bony pasha was back. “You remind me a lot of your mother.”

Christ, my mother again.

“‘No bullshit allowed,' that's what Nora would always say when we were in bed together.”

Was there
anybody
she hadn't had sex with? “I really don't want to hear about your affair with my mother.”

“It was a long time ago. I thought since you were carrying her ashes, you must still love her.”

“Mr. Parson, I'm ready to leave. And you don't want to keep the cops waiting.”

He looked at me thoughtfully. “Your husband, Colin, was a wonderful writer. I'm sorry he died.”

My mouth went dry. “So am I.”

“I have fond memories of talking to him about the creative mind.”

“You knew him?”

“You were newly married at the time. That would be, what? Eight, ten years ago? If I remember correctly you were on location finishing shooting your last movie. Too bad. You were becoming as good as your mother when you decided to quit. Colin and I had interesting discussions. He told me the creative mind could plot and deceive and dazzle just as brilliantly as the criminal mind, except that the criminal mind had no conscience. I disagreed with him on that point. I told him it was writers who had no conscience.” A thin dry laugh escaped his lips.

“How would my husband know you?” I didn't bother to keep the contempt from my voice.

“I used to throw parties on this boat. Hollywood loves to rub shoulders with those of us who have, how shall I put it … a darker kind of star power.” Parson contemplated me. “It might be best for you and the memory of the ones you've loved to think of any names you've forgotten to give me.”

“What are you trying to say?”

“Oh, and if asked by the police or anyone else, I want you to say you were willingly picked up by my limo driver as recorded by the media. You came here of your own volition to help a grieving father learn more about his daughter's death.” He flashed me his skeletal grin. “If you think about it, the paparazzi were far more dangerous to you than I've been.”

“What could be so damaging to my husband? He's dead, for God's sake.” My voice broke.

“The last thing I want is for you to be hurt by the actions of one who has died.”

“Do you ever speak without it sounding like a threat?”

He waved a hand at Heath. “Drive her back to Malibu.”

“Your chauffeur isn't taking me?” I said.

“Gerald is driving me to Montecito for my appointment with the detectives. Come and visit sometime. It's high on a hill with sweeping views of the Channel Islands and the Pacific. Hollywood people are moving into the area in droves. Colin thought you'd love it there.” He stood, his thin body drooped. “I'm very tired. It's been a trying day.” He walked softly in his velvet slippers to the door that Luis had used and left the salon.

“Son of a bitch.”

“Yes, he is,” Heath said.

“I was referring to you.” I swept past him and out onto the deck.

“W
hat's your problem?” Heath called after me.

I was hurrying ahead on the boardwalk, weaving through the tourists and the locals. Gerald had returned my purse. I was searching through it when I stopped and whirled around. Heath came to a sudden halt.

“I'll tell you what my problem is. I don't like the way you treat women. You've done nothing but maul me …”

“Only because you wouldn't listen to what I was saying.”

“Women don't listen to me so I have to beat them up?”

His head snapped back. He adjusted his sunglasses. “Whoa, how'd we get to me beating up women? And what about you trying to drop a plate of food on my head?”

“What were you doing using an assumed name at Bella Casa?”

His smile slid sideways, and his head cocked. “Maybe seeing you naked in the swimming pool made me forget my real name.”

“Don't try to charm me. My mother and I used to eat up guys like you and spit them out.”

“Vivid image. I'm not sure what to do with it.”

“Do you really want me to tell you?” I dug around in my purse some more. “Where is it?”

“What?”

“My cell. I need to call a taxi.” I tossed my hair out of my face.

“To take you back to Malibu?” His brow furrowed.

“There's no way I'm getting into a car with you. And I'm going to give the taxi bill to Zaitlin. Where's my cell!”

“It's probably in Gerald's jacket pocket. A precaution in case you grabbed your handbag from him and made a run for it. He must've forgotten to give it to you.”

I started back toward the yacht. He grabbed my arm, stopping me. “The gates are locked. You can't get in, and I don't have a key. What's wrong with you? Do you always act like this?”

I shook my arm. “Let go.”

He released me. “I'll see that your cell is returned to you.”

I suddenly felt helpless. A feeling I try to avoid at all times. Trying to compose myself, I breathed in the smell of burgers and fish 'n' chips wafting through the salty air from the lunch shacks and restaurants. Fishing boats bobbed in their docks; metal rigging rattled and clinked against the masts. The ocean gleamed.

“Everything seems so damn normal, so beautiful. And it isn't,” I said.

He drew his hand through his hair. “Look, we've gotten off on the wrong foot. Of course you were frightened this morning, and I apologize for that. I told Parson and Zaitlin they should tell you where you were being taken. But Parson won out. Zaitlin went along with him.”

“You were just following orders.”

“If you want to put it that way. On the other hand, why are you constantly saying that I like to beat up women?”

“Don't you?”

He pushed his sunglasses up to the top of his head and shoved his face close to mine, forcing me to look directly into his eyes. “No. I have never hit a woman.” Then he added, “Except when I was forced to.”

“You are so full of it.” I turned away, but he pulled me back. “Get your hands off me.” I jerked free.

“If you would just stand still and be quiet a moment, I can explain.”

“All right, tell me about all the exceptions.”

“One of my clients had a girlfriend who was stalking him. She came at me with a knife. I decked her.” He rubbed the bump on his nose, staring out at the ocean.

“That's it? That's the exception?”

When he spoke next his expression was somber. “There was another time in Afghanistan.” His gaze shifted back to me but it was distant. “The woman had a baby in one arm, a hand grenade in the other.”

“And you decked her, too?”

“No. I shot her right between the eyes. Any other questions?” His face was as hard as stone.

“No.”

He slipped his glasses back down over his eyes, and we started walking again. Heath's serious directness had hit a nerve, and I thought of Celia's sudden anger last night. She had asked me to leave her house as if she wanted to get rid of me, as if she was purposely pushing me out of her life for good. And all of that happened after I'd told her the man named Ward was really Heath, and that he worked for Zaitlin. Had I caught her in a lie? Did she choose to end our friendship so she wouldn't have to tell me the truth about who struck her? At the same time I couldn't shake the feeling I needed to protect her. I didn't want to tell Heath or anyone that it was Celia who accused him.

“What were you really doing at Bella Casa?” I asked.

“Would you believe I'm tired of renting? That I need a place to call my own?”

“A little big for one person, isn't it?”

“You and your mother lived there. There were only two of you.”

“Movie stars always live in houses that are too big for them.”

“What makes you think I'm not married with a couple of kids?”

“You're a loner through and through.”

He adjusted his shoulders. “You're right, I am.”

“And the assumed name?”

“Working on a case. That's all I can say.”

“Did you know Celia Dario before she showed you the house?”

“No.”

“With all the work you do for Zaitlin, you had to know she was his mistress.”

“I did.”

“Is that why you used the assumed name?”

“I can't tell you. Client privilege. Your turn. Tell me why you think I like to abuse women.”

“I might have been acting under a misconception. I'm not sure.”

“That's it? That's your only explanation?” His brows rose.

“Client privilege.”

Shaking his head, we continued to the car park in a moody silence. Soon Heath took out his keys and beeped open the doors to a brand-new silver-gray Mercedes convertible.

“Expensive car.”

“I have to blend in with my surroundings. Makes me look like an executive producer.”

He got into the Mercedes. I didn't. In seconds the dark blue soft-top folded back into the rear of the car.

He looked up from behind the wheel, his head back, his black sunglasses staring at me, an arm draped casually over the passenger-side bucket seat. “My company has a small fleet of autos, all different models and years. Makes it easier to tail people. I had one of my employees drive it up here this morning. She went home by Amtrak.”

I looked down at him. “Parson and Zaitlin must pay you very well.”

“I don't work for Parson. He's not the kind of man you want to do business with. Aren't you going to get in?”

“Put the top back up.”

“You don't strike me as the kind of woman who's afraid to get some wind in her hair.”

“I don't want the two of us driving in a Mercedes convertible along the happy freeway of life looking like the perfect narcissistic couple in a car commercial. Especially when I'm an actress and not getting paid for it.”

He let out a deep warm laugh. The top curved up and into place.

I slipped into the passenger seat. “If you don't work for Parson why are you sharing information with him?”

He started the car. “Parson is a father whose daughter has been murdered. He may be an asshole, but he has every right to try to find her killer. And Jenny, no matter what or who she may have been, has every right for her killer to be brought to justice.” He threw the car into reverse, backed out of the parking space, and drove toward the exit gate.

“You said, ‘no matter what or who she may have been.' Did you know Jenny?”

“Never met her.”

I leaned my head back against the seat. I thought of my husband attending a party on Parson's yacht. He'd never told me about it. Then there was Celia, who may have been lying to me. And finally there was Heath, who could be the greatest liar of them all.

I closed my eyes. “I don't know who to believe anymore.”

“Welcome to my world,” he said.

D
riving smoothly and confidently, Heath took us back along Cabrillo Boulevard. The tourists were still pedaling for all they were worth, and the boats were swaying on the glistening water. I thought of what Parson had said about not being able to mourn in the brilliant sunshine. It was true, the dazzling perfection of a beautiful California day was a fist-punch right into your wounded heart.

“What does Parson know about my husband?” I asked.

“I don't know.”

“Would you tell me if you did?”

“Depends.”

“On what?”

“On the information. Who it can hurt, and how important it is.”

“Who are you to judge? Don't your clients pay you for all the information you discover?”

“You're not my client. They also pay me to keep their secrets. Think of me as a priest. One that doesn't like choirboys,” he added.

He guided the car into a roundabout and followed it onto Coast Village Road in the wealthy enclave of Montecito. Expensive shops, galleries, and cafés lined the street. I looked up toward the Santa Ynez Mountains and wondered which mansion held Parson's sedated wife. The village ended at the 101 on-ramp. Heath sped onto the freeway, and I was finally headed back home.

Adjusting my sunglasses, I studied his profile. With his graying dark hair, strong chin, and crooked nose he was more elegantly unhandsome than handsome. I've acted with many great-looking men, and I've learned it's the ones who aren't so good-looking that have a better sense of themselves, which made them more attractive.

“Like what you see?” He was staring straight ahead at the highway.

“I'm trying to see you as a priest. It's bad casting. What does Parson do exactly? Or do your vows not allow you to reveal that either?”

“He told you. He's an investor. He owns real estate, some islands, and people.”

I thought of Ryan Johns owing him money. “How does he own people?”

“He collects information on them. You've already discovered he's not a nice man, Diana.”

“So he does have something on my husband.” I felt a small rip in the tether that kept me moored. The tether that kept me from being my mother, with a collection of unwanted and discarded men in her life. The tether that held me to the one person I had been certain loved me.

“I know you don't want my advice,” he said, “but I'm going to give it to you anyway. Sometimes it's better to leave the dead alone. Let them have their secrets.”

“I wish I had left Jenny Parson alone instead of talking my way into her condo. I wish my Jag worked and that my house didn't need a new roof and deck. And I especially wish Colin hadn't died.”

“I had a girlfriend once that did nothing but wish for things. She used to cut out pictures of expensive handbags and shoes from fashion magazines and tape them on the refrigerator door. A sort of if-you-visualize-what-you-want-you'll-get-it bullshit. In her case it worked. She married a wealthy man. But every time before I opened that damn refrigerator for a beer I saw Prada, Fendi, and Channel.”

“Doesn't sound like you and your girlfriend had a lot in common.”

“We had mindless sex. She liked wearing these Gucci stiletto heels she bought on sale …”

“I can figure the rest of out for myself. Thank you.” I peered out the window, watching drivers cutting each other off, and thought of Colin and me making love, our hot sweaty skin pasting our bodies together, and me hoping we would never be able to separate ourselves.

“What did you and Ben Zaitlin talk about at his birthday party?” Heath asked.

Heath's question jarred me back to reality. “You're a good interrogator. Chat about other things like your girlfriend and sex and then zero in with
the
question.”

“Practice. Ben kissed you.”

“Did his mother tell you that?”

“No, I was watching. That's a big part of my job … to watch.”

“He's a lonely kid who discovered his stepfather has had a mistress for half his life. He wanted to kiss a woman that Zailin hadn't gone to bed with.”

“And did he kiss a woman who hadn't gone to bed with his stepfather?”

“Is this for your own personal file? because I don't see how it's pertinent to the case.”

He shrugged.

“Yes, he kissed a woman who hasn't had sex with Zaitlin.”

“Did Ben want it to go further than the kiss?”

“I'm not going to take advantage of a twenty-one-year-old.”

“I don't think he'd see it that way. Was he at The Den the night of Jenny's murder?”

“I'm sure the club has a security tape.”

“I'm going to take your answer as a yes unless you tell me otherwise. Did he say who else was there?”

I sighed. “Jenny. She was drunk. And I think Ben said some guy drove her home.”

“Does this guy have a name?”

“Ben didn't say.”

“Did he mention whether he was wearing a gray sweatshirt with a hood?”

“You mean like the man on the security tape in Jenny's garage?”

He nodded.

“I've found over the years that most men don't think about what other men are wearing. In fact, they can hardly remember what their wives were wearing,” I said.

“I'll remember what you wore today. Tight sexy black dress. Gray leather jacket for toughness. Which I've discovered you have in spades.”

“Do me a favor. Forget the dress. Remember the toughness.”

Grinning, he said “I'll try. How well did Ben know Jenny?”

“He said he knew she was causing her father problems on the set, but he didn't really know her personally. He implied that she ignored him.”

“You believe that?”

“Yes, I do. Besides, what's his motive for killing Jenny? Zaitlin has more motive than Ben. I've never seen him put up with so much from an actress who wasn't a star.” Hearing my own words, I now realized why Zaitlin had put up with her. “Is Parson backing the film?”

“You won't see his name anywhere.”

“God, all an actor wants is a job. No one thinks about where the financing comes from to make the movie.”

“You've probably helped launder a little money in your career and never knew it.” He swerved off onto a freeway exit ramp.

I tensed. “Where are we going?”

“Lunch. Or are you one of those actresses who doesn't eat?”

I thought of the nonfat food in my refrigerator that never rotted, just turned rigid. “Actually, I'm starving.”

He pulled into a shopping center lined with big square-shaped warehouses that didn't look much different from soundstages, except for their enormous signs announcing Target, T. J. Maxx, Best Buy, and Nordstrom's Rack. Hollywood doesn't have a monopoly on selling dreams at cost.