Death in Daytime (23 page)

"Dave," I said, "I wanted to talk to you about Marcy's murder."

He froze at his desk and put down the pages he had been shuffling.

"What about her?"

"I think it's general knowledge around here that she was taking credit for your work."

"That's okay," he said. "She was gonna help me get my novel published."

"That's what she promised you?"

"Yeah."

"And you believed her?"

He looked up at me, his eyes myopic and sad behind the thick lenses, and said, "No," as if the word were being tortured out of him. "I know what she did to Roman. She never kept her promise to him. She was awful, Alex, and I'm glad she's dead."

"Shhh," I said, looking around. "You didn't tell the police that, did you?"

"Of course I did." He swiveled his chair away from his desk and said, "Look at me, Alex. I'm a geek. Who would believe that I could kill somebody?"

Jeffrey Dahmer was a geek; so was Mark David Chapman, but damn it if I didn't believe him. I would never have been able to do Jakes's job. As jaded as I thought I was, I just wasn't able to believe the worst of these people I'd been talking to--people who apparently had been all set to think the worst of me in the days after Marcy's murder.

"Okay, Dave," I said. "Thanks."

He looked at me funny and said, "That's what you wanted?"

I smiled and said, "That was it."

I went down the hall, cut across another one and ended up going by Marcy's office. The door was open and as I went by, I caught a whiff of something familiar. . . . I stuck my head in, and it smelled even stronger. It nagged at me, but I couldn't get it, so I shrugged and left. But the smell followed me. Either that, or it was in the elevator, too.

As I walked to my car I saw Murray the Life Coach getting into his car. He was carrying something, and I assumed that Andy had sent him to pick it up.

"Bye, Alex, see you tonight at the Abbey!"

I looked up and there was Georgie standing on the balcony outside the Hair and Makeup Departments.

"See you tonight! You better get your groove on!" I laughed.

I drove out the gate behind Murray, who waved to the guard. I didn't think he noticed me and that was fine with me. There was no way he and I were ever going to like each other, no matter how much good Andy thought Murray did him.

When I got to the house George and Wayne were gone. My mother told me they would meet me at the club. I didn't feel any tension from my mother after our conversation in our room. I guess she really meant it when she said we'd talk after this was all over. It was a lucky thing I had packed my LBD and my heels when we left my house. After all, how much room does a little black dress take? This one happened to be a favorite of mine, which I wore whenever I wanted to feel or look special. I hadn't been out in a long time, so I decided the best plan was to look good. When I was ready to go out I modeled for Sarah, Julia and my mother, who all gave me a thumbs-up.

"You look lovely," my mother said.

"You look pretty, Mommy," Sarah said.

Julia smiled at me and said, "Killer."

An unfortunate choice of words, but I accepted the compliment graciously.

I pulled up at the valet at the club called the Abbey that George had told me about. It was a local hangout in West Hollywood where you could get a good martini and some dancing in if you were so inclined. In its day, back, way back, it used to be a church, and the architecture spoke of that. Very moody with lots of brick, and archways draped with deep red velvet. Dripping candles on large, ornate candelabra stood on the terracotta tile floors, with all sorts of old religious paintings hanging from the walls. A portrait of irony, I suppose. From church to decadent nightclub.

George and Wayne were already seated at the bar, clutching brightly colored drinks and waving me over. The very cute and hunky bartender looked at me expectantly.

"Could I get a lemon drop martini, easy on the sugar?"

He walked away and started preparing my drink. I leaned over to George. "That bartender doesn't seem gay."

Wayne piped up. "Probably because he's not. Lots of straight guys tend bar at gay clubs because the money's so good." Who knew?

"Isn't this fun?" George said.

Wayne leaned over and nodded his head toward the end of the bar. "Fun isn't the word."

I followed his gaze and sitting on a bar stool was a beautiful woman. Wait a minute--that woman was not a woman; she was a man! Full makeup, perfectly coifed hair and beautifully manicured nails, wearing a dress tight enough to fool the most discerning eye. Except for the Adam's apple. That gave her/him away. She/he picked up a microphone and shouted,

"Welcome to our weekly dance off! We have a lot of great talent lined up for you tonight. Hold on to your hats, boys and girls--here's our first dancer, Jeremy!"

Madonna started blaring from the DJ's booth and Jeremy pranced out onto the small stage directly across from the bar. The music was pounding and George, Wayne and I couldn't help but start moving ourselves. This was fun! I looked over at George and he was covering his eyes and pointing at the stage. Jeremy had started doing a strip of sorts. That got my attention. Not that I'm a perv, but it was fascinating.

"Here's another lemon drop." The bartender slid a martini in front of me. "Courtesy of the two gentlemen over there." He gestured to a couple of guys down the bar who were waving at me and smiling.

"We have loved you forever!" one of them yelled. Well, now isn't that so sweet! Until the other one added, "You are the diva of all divas! You keep it up."

I stifled my speech about divas and smiled, mouthing a thank-you.

The music shifted to Beyonce and the announcer sitting on the bar introduced another dancer, this time a woman. A real woman. She didn't begin to have the moves that Jeremy had, but she kept her clothes on, gratefully.

The place was really starting to fill up. So much so that we were being pushed closer to the bar than was comfortable. Another guy dancer had taken the stage, kind of a throwback to the Village People construction worker, sans the tool belt and hard hat. The music volume seemed to have been bumped up a notch or five. It was pounding so hard you could feel it in your bones. Something got my attention at the rear of the club. There was a doorway with a red velvet curtain covering it. Standing in front of it was another transvestite, who was staring at me. For a second I thought he was a fan, maybe. But something was off. This guy's gaze was not only penetrating but strangely familiar. And he wouldn't stop staring. His eyes narrowed and then he abruptly disappeared behind the curtain. That was creepy, but before I could give it too much thought George was pulling on my arm.

"I'm getting claustrophobic! I have to go outside,"

George yelled. "We'll be right back!"

He and Wayne wiggled their way through the now very crowded dance floor toward the exit. I took another sip of my drink and decided to go to the ladies' room, which turned out to be an experience in itself. It was a toss-up as to who really was a woman and who wasn't, and I wondered how true that was in the men's room. Or was there anyone using the men's room?

When I came out, I turned to go back into the club, but that strange transvestite was standing in the doorway, still glaring at me. There was something awfully familiar about the face beneath the Christina Aguilera wig, and the eyes underneath false eyelashes and peacock blue eye shadow. To finish off the face, "she" had added cotton-candy pink lip gloss. As over-the-top as she was, the hoop earrings she wore were very fashionable. The same could've been said of the blue silk blouse tucked into black capri pants, and the stiletto heels, except that she didn't have the body for it. She seemed comprised more of sharp angles than curves. 

Then, just as I got it, I felt somebody bump into me from behind.

"Excuse me--," I said, automatically, but I stopped when I felt something hard poke into my back. And then the smell--that sickly, patchouli smell.

"We're going out the back, Alex," Murray the Life Coach said. "Don't even think about screaming, because then I'll have nothing to lose by firing into the crowd. Do you understand?"

I was frightened and fascinated. I'd never had a gun on me before. I nodded.

"Good," he said, grabbing my left arm, "then let's go."

In his car the cloying patchouli smell was even worse. It had been strong in my garage, and then I'd smelled it in Marcy's office earlier that day. Obviously, when I thought Murray was there picking something up for Andy, he was searching Marcy's office. But for what?

"Oh God," he cried out, as if he were in agony, "stop it!"

I wasn't even sure he was talking to me.

"Stop what?"

"Trying to figure it out," he said. "I can hear you in my head."

I looked at the gun he still held in his left hand, pointed at me across his body, while he drove with his right. He was wearing one of those loud shirts he favored, which, inside the darkness of the Abbey, had been hard to make out.

"Murray, you can't blame me for wondering what this is all about."

He took a deep, cleansing breath--I'd seen him do it before--and then he said, "The cosmos reveals all to those who wait, Alex."

I had always thought that Murray the Life Coach was odd, but until that moment never did I think he was insane.

"Murray," I said, "I don't think I can wait for the universe to tell me--"

"Cosmos!" he snapped. "I said cosmos, you stupid bitch."

"Okay, cosmos," I said. "Look, I'm very nervous because you're pointing that gun at me, so you're either going to have to shoot me or let me talk." Jesus, did I really say that?

"Fine," he said, "talk."

"I never even thought about you killing Marcy because I didn't know you had a pass to get on the lot," I said. "Not until I saw you there today, and the way you and the guard exchanged waves."

"Yes," Murray said, "that's Mike. His chakra was in distress and I helped him. Andy made sure I was able to come and go as I pleased."

"Great," I said. "So with a pass to get on the lot it was easy for you to get in and kill Marcy."

"She was trying to get Andy kicked off the show," he complained. "Do you know what that would have done to him?"

I knew what it would have done to Murray's meal ticket.

"She told him she already had a memo made out to the network, which she could send in at any time."

"Is that what you were looking for in her office?" I asked. And then it dawned on me. "That was you at her house, searching her home office, too."

"You know what I think?" he asked. "I don't think she ever typed up that memo. She just told poor Andy that to scare him."

And it worked, I thought. Scared Andy, and scared you. Jeez, at that point I hoped Murray couldn't really read minds.

I was also hoping that George and Wayne would have missed me by then, maybe called Jakes to tell him I'd disappeared. They didn't have his phone number, but I was sure if they called 911 they'd connect them to him--wouldn't they?

"And what about Henry Roswell?" I asked. "Why'd you kill him?"

"Him!" he said, spitting the word. "He didn't appreciate what I did for him."

"What did you do for him?"

"I killed his ex-wife."

"I thought you did that for Andy," I said. "To save Andy's job."

"Only until I could relocate."

"Reloc--Wait a minute," I said, getting it, "Henry was your next patsy, wasn't he? Your next meal ticket."

"I could've helped him," Murray said. "I did help him, but he didn't see it that way."

"So you killed him?"

He fell silent, then, maybe afraid he'd already said too much.

"Where are we going, Murray?"

"Don't worry about it."

I looked out the window, studying the passing scenery to try to figure out where he was taking me. Was he still planning to make me look like a suicide?

"You know the police are going to figure this out, don't you?" I asked. "You left a bloody trail from the Roswell house to Andy's house, which is why they arrested Andy. But once they realize it wasn't him, you'll be the next logical suspect."

"The only logical suspect is going to be you, Alex," Murray said. "It's always been you. You've been trying to influence Andy into getting rid of me since we first met. I don't know what you ever had against me."

"You're a big phony, Murray," I told him. "A charlatan. I could see that from the first moment I met you."

"What makes you so smart?" he asked.

"Maybe having to look out for myself, depend on myself."

Did I really, though? Was I so independent when I had my mother living in the canal house behind me to help out? But I certainly never thought I needed a life coach. A life, maybe, but not a coach.

"So that's why you tried to frame me for killing Marcy?" I asked. "You don't like me?"

"Why not?" he asked. "Your constant bad vibes are constantly fouling up the harmonic frequency of my life. You have no idea how toxic you are."

"And which philosophy did you get that from, Murray?" I asked.

"Shut up, Alex," he said. "You're giving me a headache."

Pretty soon it became apparent where he was taking us. We were headed toward Venice--my house, no doubt, for another suicide attempt, this one to be successful.

As he stopped the car in front of my garage and turned off the motor I asked, "Why my house, Murray?"

"Because it's empty," he said.

And where, I thought, do most people commit suicide?

"Murray, the police already know I didn't try to kill myself the other night," I said.

"Get out of the car, slowly."

"Don't you understand?" I asked, opening my door.

"This won't work."

He was getting out on his side, still pointing the gun at me across his body. In order to keep the gun on me, he'd have to switch to the outside and point at me over the roof. I wondered if I had the time--or the guts--to duck and run. But the decision was made for me. As I got out of the car, his swollen belly caught on the steering wheel and he couldn't get out with me. By the time he pulled himself free and pointed his gun over the roof, I was gone.