Cut to the Quick (5 page)

His wife went to him. “Honey, why don’t we sit in the library?” Taking off her sunglasses and hooking them on to the neck of her swimsuit cover-up, she turned to the detectives and flashed a tense smile. “Through here, please.”

The detectives followed the Scovilles off the main hallway into a comfortable room lined with floor-to-ceiling built-in shelves crammed with books and objets d’art. A wooden ladder on wheels gave access to the higher shelves.

Through French doors, Vining saw a garden with a pool beyond. A female wearing a bikini, perhaps a teenager, was peering toward the house with a hand on her forehead to shield the sun. Vining heard a distant shriek as the girl wheeled around, raising her hands to defend herself against an attack by two young boys who pelted her with water from squirt guns.

Scoville slowly lowered himself onto a large leather chair and massaged his chin with his hand. “I apologize, but I’ve never had anything like this happen before. It’s like it’s happening to somebody else.”

Hale nervously flitted around the room. Her sunglasses again in her hands, she opened and closed their arms before tossing them onto the coffee table. “We just had dinner with Oliver and his girlfriend, Lauren, when, Mark?” She looked at Scoville and then answered her own question. “Last month.”

Kissick glanced at framed photographs of Hale with the notable people she’d interviewed on her television show. Her statement caused him to exchange a glance with Vining.

Hale caught the glance and paled.

Vining announced, “Lauren Richards was also murdered.”

Hale dropped onto a couch, one hand pressed against her mouth.

Scoville moaned and buried his head in his hands, his elbows on his knees. “This is a nightmare. Can you tell us what happened?”

“The housekeeper found their bodies in Mercer’s home this morning.”

Vining pulled a Windsor chair from a secretary desk and sat. She leaned forward, her hands clasped on her lap. “Mr. and Mrs. Scoville, time is of the essence. We need to get all the information we can as quickly as possible. We’d like to ask you both some routine questions to help guide us. We’re best equipped to do that at our police station in Pasadena. We’ll drive you there and bring you back. We won’t take much of your time.”

Kissick spotted a box of tissues on an end table and handed it to Hale, who had begun to weep.

She looked up at him, tears spilling from her big blue eyes and mouthed, “Thank you.”

“Mr. and Mrs. Scoville, does that sound okay with you?”

Scoville looked at Vining. “Of course. We want to do everything we can, but I don’t know how much help we’ll be.”

“Any information will be helpful.” Vining pointed toward the French doors. “I see you have children. Is there someone who can watch them?”

Hale took off her cap. “Dahlia, my seventeen-year-old.
She can stay with our son Luddy and his friend. She had plans to go to the movies with friends, but she can change them, for once.”

She opened one of the doors, leaned out, and musically called, “Dahlia … Dahlia.” She huffed when she received no response and resorted to yelling, putting the full force of her broadcasting training into it.
“Dahlia!”

Kissick, standing near the glass doors, saw the girl stretched out on a chaise reading a magazine. She should have been able to easily hear her mother, but she didn’t budge.

“She’s ignoring you, as usual,” Scoville commented.

Hale picked up a telephone handset and punched in a number. By the pool, the girl answered her cell phone.

“Dahlia, I have no patience for attitude right now. The Pasadena police are here. Mark’s business partner, Oliver Mercer, and his girlfriend were murdered. The detectives want us to go to Pasadena, and I need you to stay with Luddy and his friend until we get back. I know you have plans. You’ll have to change them. Too bad, darling.”

She scowled, one hand on a hip. “For crying out loud, it’s not the end of the world. You’re staying here. End of discussion. You can drive my Jaguar your first day back at school, okay? Fine.” She jabbed the
END CALL
button.

Scoville looked sullenly at his wife. “Two people were murdered and she’s pissed off over not going to the movies.”

“She’s just being a seventeen-year-old girl. I was the same way.”

“That’s what I’m worried about.”

Hale’s jaw tensed but she let the comment go. “Can we change clothes first?”

Vining hesitated, and then said, “Of course.” She
didn’t want them out of their sight, but she had no cause to stop them and wanted to stay on their good side.

The detectives followed the Scovilles into the foyer and watched as they went up a staircase with ornately carved balusters. On the landing at the top of the stairs, Hale headed in one direction in the vast house and Scoville headed in the other.

The detectives looked at each other.

“Separate bedrooms?” Kissick asked.

Vining heard two doors shut. “Not even on the same side of the house.”

FOUR

W
hy aren’t
you talking to Dena and me at the same time?”

Mark Scoville sat at a table in an interview room in the Detective’s Section on the second floor of the Pasadena Police Department. Vining and Kissick sat across from him. The interview was being videotaped.

Scoville continued, “In the police TV shows, that’s what they do when they think people are hiding something. The police try to trip them up.”

Vining opened her hands as if she were an open book. “It’s procedure, Mr. Scoville. We take your statements independently so that you won’t influence her responses and vice versa.”

“Statements … I thought you just wanted to ask us
general questions about Oliver and Lauren. Who they knew, where they went … Stuff like that.”

“We call that making a statement.”

“Sounds like you think I had something to do with it. Maybe I need to call my attorney.”

Vining made a face as if she were surprised by his level of concern. “That’s always an option, Mr. Scoville, but nobody’s guilty here, right?”

Her rhetorical question rankled Scoville. “Of course not. Like I said, I’m happy to help any way I can. I’m just trying to figure out your methods. I’ve never been in a situation like this before.”

“I understand. We really appreciate you coming down here during the holiday weekend.”

“No problem. Oliver and I had our differences, like any business partners, but he was a good guy. And Lauren … I’ve never had anything like this happen to me. Guess I’ve led a sheltered life.”

It wasn’t lost on Vining that Scoville had turned the murder victims’ tragedy into his own. “The sooner we wrap this up, the sooner you can go home.”

“Sounds good.”

“Mr. Scoville … Or may we call you Mark?”

“Please.”

“Mark, what did you do last night?”

“I was home. My wife and I had a dinner party with three other couples. Let’s see, we had Joan and Peter Shapiro, Michelle and Fred Lane, and Angela and Ty Kerrigan. The Kerrigans are new friends from the country club. It was the first time they’d been over, but we’ve known the Shapiros and Lanes for years. We barbecued steaks and halibut in the backyard. Ate outside. I made my grilled radicchio salad.” He paused as if waiting for a response.

Vining made a noise conveying that it sounded good.

“It’s delicious. One of my specialties.”

Kissick jotted down the names on a yellow pad while Vining continued the interview.

“When were your guests there?”

“Six-thirty until nearly eleven. Afterward, Dena and I picked up. Our housekeeper had the weekend off. We didn’t get into bed until after midnight.”

Vining took in his bloodshot eyes and mottled complexion, which was more pronounced under the station’s fluorescent lighting. “Late night for you and your wife?”

“For Dena. With her job, she gets up before dawn. Me, I’ve always been a night owl. Being my own boss, I can pretty much set my own schedule.”

Vining waited to see if he’d confess to being hung-over. When he didn’t, she went on. “Were your children home?”

“Luddy spent the night with his friend Jeremy, who lives a few blocks away. Dahlia came trailing in after her curfew, as usual. She’s Dena’s daughter from an early and short marriage to this B-list actor.” Scoville snorted laughter. “Chad-David Clayton.”

Kissick perked up. “Chad-David Clayton? He played Horatio Raven in
Babylon Tomorrow
. That show was a classic. I thought it was much better than any of the
Star Treks
. Is he still around? He kinda dropped from sight.”

“He’s still around.” Scoville was irked by Kissick’s veneration of Dena’s ex. “He retired from acting and sells insurance in Idaho. Shows up at these fan conferences and sells his signature. Calls Dahlia once in a while.”

Kissick shook his head, amazed by the coincidence. “Horatio Raven.…”

Vining moved on. “How long have you and Dena been married?”

“Nine years.”

“And Luddy is your son with Dena?” Scoville beamed. “He’s my boy. Named after my father, Ludlow. He was the apple of the old man’s eye.”

“Your father passed away?”

“A few years ago. He was a larger-than-life character, old Ludlow. Came out from Matawan, New Jersey, in the sixties with hardly two nickels to rub together. Bought land along the freeways that was dirt cheap then and put up billboards. Marquis Outdoor Advertising is the largest privately held outdoor advertising firm in Southern California. We don’t have as many billboard faces as the big guys, but our boutique includes some of the most valuable in the world, including most of the signs on the Sunset Strip.”

Scoville took his wallet from his pants pocket and handed Vining and Kissick business cards. He grew animated as he settled into familiar territory. “The big signs on the Strip are as much a part of its cachet as those in Times Square or Tokyo’s Ginza district. It’s all due to my father’s foresight in seeing the emerging car culture in Southern California and snapping up key locations.”

Kissick listened with interest. “Billboards. Who knew it was such a big business?”

“A high-profile, high-traffic face can lease for a hundred grand a month.”

Vining raised her eyebrows at Scoville’s number. “Sounds like your dad was a visionary.”

“He was.”

“Did you always work for him?”

“No. I did during summers in high school and college, but was on my own for many years. I joined the firm full-time when my father was diagnosed with lung cancer. When he died, he left the business to me. A year
after my dad passed away, my mom went from a heart attack. I think the stress of my dad’s illness killed her.”

Vining moaned sympathetically. “Any other family involved in the business?”

“No. I had a brother, but he died when he was in high school.”

“That’s sad,” Vining said.

“Yeah, well … I spent a lot of years trying to distance myself from my dad. Make my own way. I’m sure my son will do the same with me. The old man was no walk in the park, for sure. But we came together at the end and had a couple of good years.” Scoville grew wistful.

The pieces clicked for Vining. “The beautiful Hancock Park house, was that your parents’?”

“My childhood home. Now I’m bringing up my son there.”

“How great. It’s a wonderful house.” She nearly shuddered, thinking about growing up in that moldering manse. “How many rooms does it have?”

“Thirty-two.”

“Whoa.”

Kissick sat quietly, letting her take her time getting where she was headed.

“Lots of room to spread out,” she said. “I noticed that you and your wife took off in different directions when you went to change clothes.”

Scoville laughed uneasily and shifted his gaze. “I’m a night owl, like I said, plus I snore. With Dena’s early schedule, she needs her sleep. We have plenty of together time.” He gave Kissick a wink.

Kissick commiserated with a raised eyebrow.

Vining guessed that Kissick was imagining Hale with the vaguely slimy Scoville. She savored the thought. “You’re a lucky man. Dena’s not only accomplished, she’s gorgeous.”

“I am. I’m very lucky. I have a wonderful life.”

“Seems like it’s right out of a storybook.”

Kissick squelched his smile in response to Vining’s sappy comment.

“Well, I wouldn’t go
that
far,” Scoville conceded. “But it’s a great life.”

“Except for problems with an adolescent stepdaughter.” Vining grinned.

“Right. There’s that.”

Vining had achieved her goal. Scoville was more relaxed and unguarded than when they had first sat down, and she’d confirmed their separate bedrooms. She tried a new direction. “What do you know about Lauren Richards?”

“Not much. We had them over for dinner a month, six weeks ago, like Dena mentioned. That was the only time Dena and I met her. I know she was divorced. She was an administrator or something for the modern art museum in Pasadena. Oliver was on the board. That’s how they met. They’d been dating for a couple of months. She had two small kids. A boy and a girl, I think. Oh, and she was a Rose Parade princess when she was in high school. Oliver made sure we knew that. Oliver always had an attractive woman on his arm. He liked them tall, slender, and brunette.” He pointed at Vining. “He would have liked you. You’re his type.”

Scoville’s attempt at flirting with her felt creepy, but Vining remained enigmatic. She smiled closemouthed, hiding her overbite and the gap between her teeth that men inevitably found sexy. She didn’t want to encourage him. “Did you socialize much with Oliver Mercer?”

“Not really. Ours was primarily a business relationship.”

“How did Mercer contribute to the business?”

“He was a silent partner. That was our agreement
when I sold him a hunk of Marquis. I retained control of the day-to-day operations.”

“How long had you known him?”

“About three years. We met through this investor group we both belong to. Belonged, I should say.”

Kissick jumped in. “Bringing an outsider into the family business must have been a big deal.”

“It was. I couldn’t have done it when my father was around. I was ready to grow the firm, and Oliver had money he wanted to invest.” Scoville shrugged. “He was rich. His grandfather was the founder of the Wall Street firm Mercer Brothers. Made a fortune. Oliver’s father tripled it. Oliver’s brother is still with Mercer Brothers. Oliver took his own path. Was with a venture capital group based in Pasadena for some years before he decided to go out on his own. Apart from the money Oliver brought to the table, he also brought years of experience growing and expanding companies. I needed somebody with business acumen.”