Hollywood Blood: A Hollywood Alphabet Series Thriller (24 page)

Chapter Fifty-Five

“Somebody call an ambulance,” Charlie yelled.

When I pushed
through the crowd into the pool house I saw my partner on his knees, working over the fallen superstar. Mack then made his way through the ring of officers, carrying towels.

“Let me try to stop the bleeding,” Mack said. He bent down to Karma, feverishly attending to her for a moment
before turning to me. “Her breath is shallow but she’s still alive.”

As they continued to work on Karma, I noticed the blood trail. The red droplets had fallen onto the carpet and led into a bathroom. There was a door there and when I pushed i
t open I saw that the blood trailed out into the grass. There wasn’t a lot of blood but it looked like enough to follow.

“Let’s check out the grounds,” I said to Pearl who had followed me. I pointed out the blood trail. Then, remembering what Chandra Martin had said, I told him about
Myra being married to Karma’s driver. “She’s Barbara Collins, the pretty blonde woman we met a few days ago. She looks nothing like the woman we’ve been pursuing.”

Pearl had a flashlight that he shined across the rolling lawn of the estate. After a few steps, the blood trail ended. I looked up and saw there were some trees along the perimeter of Karma’s estate.

“Over there,” Pearl said, his flashlight sweeping across something under one of the palm trees. “She’s on the ground.”

As we came closer
I saw her. Myra, as Barbara Collins, was dressed as a nurse. She was crouched low to the ground. My eyes grew wider and my heart hammered against my ribcage as she brought a gun up and pointed it at me.

Then she fired.

Chapter Fifty-Six

The shot rings out, missing the female cop. Myra aims the gun again, but her finger only tenses on the trigger. Her gaze slides away from the detective, taking in the officers running in her direction, closing in. She searches the faces. Then she sees him coming toward her.

Azazel.

He is here. He’s coming to save her!

A smile finds
Myra’s lips at the same time her eyes glitter with tears. She calls out to him, “My beloved.”

Myra
’s heart soars as the man comes closer. Her devoted eyes fix on him. Then she sees that he’s holding something. He has a gun! He’s pointing the weapon at her.

What’s happening?

She turns away for an instant, looking back at the female cop. A thought surfaces. Maybe she should fire again. But it’s too late.

A
violent explosion splits the air. The jolt of lead crashes through Myra’s head, snapping it back.

As her consciousness begins to fade a final thought forms in Myra’s mind. Azazel, her beloved, the one who gave her life, has now taken that life away. A
tears slips down her cheek, his final betrayal becoming clear to her, before the world fades into the eternal darkness of night.

Chapter Fifty-Seven

Several hours after we’d finished processing the crime scene at Karma’s estate, the taskforce assembled outside an interview room at HSS in Los Angeles.
Myra was dead, killed by a member of the taskforce who’d seen what was happening and gotten off a shot before either Pearl or I could return fire.

Her sister was luckier. Karma had survived her injuries and, the last we’d heard, she was in surgery at UCLA Medical Center. Mack’s emergency medical treatment had probably made the difference in keeping the superstar alive. Before leaving the estate, I told Mack that I would call him after we’d finished our interrogation of Azazel.

Dr. Adam Shaw had been caught trying to leave the grounds after Myra’s death. Even though he was in costume, dressed as a cop, he was stopped by an alert young officer working crowd control in the chaos that followed the shooting. After checking his identification, Shaw had been arrested, handcuffed, and brought to HSS for interview.

Thanks to Chief Reed’s intervention, that included pulling jurisdictional rank on Byron Ellington, Charlie, Pearl, and I had been given the honor of interrogating the suspect over Skully’s noisy protest.

As we entered the interview room, I tried my best, but I just couldn’t keep my mouth shut. Skully was standing next to the dynamic duo of Baker and Kennedy. For some reason, an image of the three stooges came to mind. I looked at them and said, “We might be in there for a while. I could really use a white mocha Frappuccino, if it’s not too much trouble.”

“Bite me,” Baker said, no doubt offering up the trio’s shared sentiment.

I shook my head. “Heard there’s not enough down there to bother with.”

I ignored Skully’s whispered comments, but thought I heard a reference to the sexual activities of a female dog as I closed the door.

Charlie turned on the camera as I found a chair at the table next to Pearl. I’d already filled them both in on what Mack and I had learned about Myra, her childhood, and her conviction in Texas for killing her mother. I read Dr. Adam Shaw his rights, expecting that he’d lawyer up.

“I’ll talk to you,” Shaw said in a subdued tone.

The plastic surgeon was in his mid-thirties. He had pale blue eyes and was handsome in a pretty-boy way. His spiky hair was dark brown and he had what was probably a three day-old growth of beard.

But it was the doctor’s
skin that I admired most. It was flawless and golden brown. I thought about asking him what bronzing product he used, but decided it probably wasn’t something that you asked the devil’s disciple about, especially with half the department watching from behind a two-way mirror.

“Let’s begin by talking about your background, Dr. Shaw,” I said. “Tell us where you were born and went to school.”

“I grew up in Temple, Texas, but was raised in Austin after my parents died. That’s where I attended school before moving to California where I went to college and medical school.”

Shaw’s
eyes didn’t meet mine. His voice was flat, unemotional. I had trouble thinking about him being the devil’s apprentice that controlled Myra, but I knew from dealing with hundreds of offenders that the truth is often hidden beneath a veil of the ordinary.

“How did your parents die? I asked.

“They were killed in a traffic accident when I was seven. I was raised in several foster homes after that.” His eyes came up to me and blinked. “That’s where I met Lenore.”

“
Let’s talk about her. How old was Lenore when the two of you met?”

“She had just turned
nine. We’d both been in several foster homes before that.” He sighed. “Lenore hated the home where we’d been placed.”

“Why is that?” Charlie asked, munching on some peanuts. He had coffee too. It was after two in the morning and I was exhausted. I would have kille
d for the white mocha frap I’d asked the stooges for.

“Lenore was abus
ed by our foster father,” Shaw said brushing a tear away. “I didn’t know how bad things were for her until she later told me about the others.”

“You mean the other foster children?” Charlie asked.

He shook his head. “No, I mean the other men—the ones who tried to molest her.”

“Tell us about that,” I said.

“Our foster father, his name was Phillip Wallace…he was abusive to Lenore and eventually sold her to some men. They sexually attacked her…tried to kill her.”

“Where did this happen?

“All I know is that Lenore said she was taken to a house somewhere outside of Austin. After it happened, she was placed into another foster home. A few days after that, I learned that she disappeared.

“S
he ran away?” Pearl asked.

“
I lost track of her for several years and didn’t realize everything that had happened to her until I found out she was committed to the psychiatric hospital.”

“You m
ean after she killed her mother?” Pearl asked.

“Yes. I felt sorry for Lenore
because of her past. I started visiting her at the hospital. I wanted to help her get her life back.”

Nothi
ng that Dr. Adam Shaw said followed what we thought we knew about his relationship with Myra, how he manipulated and controlled her. I decided to lean on him and try to move the questioning in a new direction. I’d learned over the years that the best way to end a lie is to slap the liar—even if I can sometimes only do it verbally.

“I’ve had enough with this little trip down memory lane,” I said. “We know all about you, Dr. Shaw. You didn’t try to help Lenore. You were the one who controlled her and used her in the game you were playing. You need to begin telling us the truth.”

Shaw’s gaze came over to me and his brow furrowed. “I don’t understand. You mean this isn’t about the prescriptions?”

I looked at Charlie and Pearl. I had no idea what he meant, but decided to see how it played out. “Tell us about that—the prescriptions.”

He took a deep breath, trying to control his surfacing anguish. “Karma had a lot of emotional problems. She almost never slept and insisted that I prescribe various drugs…Xanax…Ambien …some Vicodin…and OxyContin.” He sniffed, pulled a tissue from the dispenser. “I knew she was becoming addicted and would probably end up in rehab again. I should have done something about it.”

I sensed that he was holding something back. “What about the others you were supplying with drugs?”

His eyes reddened, his voice took on a pleading quality. “You have to understand, it was very difficult to say no to anyone around Karma. Vee and Barbara were very persistent. And then there was Trevon and his manager, Mr. Porter.”

“What kind of drugs did you prescribe them?” Charlie asked.

Tears slipped down Shaw’s cheeks. “I’ll admit it got out of hand. There was some OxyContin that Mr. Jackson used…and some Rohypnol for Mr. Porter that came from overseas.”

What he’d said probably explained the drugs found in Trevon Jackson’s body. I also had little doubt that Harley Porter used the date rape drug for his own perverted purposes.
Myra, as Barbara Collins, might also have made use of the drugs to supply her family of killers. As for Karma and Vee, while they probably used their physician-drug pusher for a variety of drugs, none of that seemed relevant to the killing spree Shaw had instigated.

“Tell us how you used the drugs to manipulate Lenore,” I said.

Shaw shook his head, his voice now tighter with emotion. “I don’t know what you mean. All I wanted to do was help Lenore get her life back. That’s why I stayed in touch with her. After she was released from the hospital, Lenore went to work for Karma, using the name Barbara Collins. She eventually convinced Karma to let me become her personal physician. I knew that she was emotionally disturbed. I supplied drugs to her that I shouldn’t have, but I wanted to stay close to her. I had no idea how bad things were until…”

His eyes filled with tears and Shaw lost all control. We let him cry himself out for a moment. Finally, Pearl asked, “What made you realize that Lenore had gotten out of control?”

“I didn’t know she was…” There were more tears until he regained enough composure to go on. “I knew that Lenore was angry, wanted revenge over the life her sister lived, but I didn’t want to believe that she was actually behind the killings. I thought she was better after her time in the hospital…I didn’t even know that she called herself Myra until I saw her picture on television.”

I was angry and made no attempt to hide it. “You knew that Lenore was behind the killings because you were the one pulling the strings, supplying her with drugs, and ordering her to kill.”

“That’s not true,” Shaw said through another flood of tears. “You don’t understand.” He paused, struggling with his emotions and not looking at me. “Lenore was my…she was my first love. After she was abused by our foster father…we…we found each other.” Shaw’s gaze came up to me, his eyes brimming with tears again. “We developed a special bond. She was like family to me, the only one I ever cared about.” His gaze drifted away again. “Maybe she’s the only person I’ve ever really loved.”

I’d had enough of the lies, the emotional outbursts, the story he’d fabricated about their love.

I leaned forward my eyes locking onto his. “Tell me how you controlled her, Azazel. Tell us how you made Lenore believe you were Satan’s disciple, how you manipulated her into murder.”

“You’ve got it all wro
ng.” His voice was now flat with defeat. “It wasn’t me, I swear it.”

I was
frustrated. Either Dr. Adam Shaw was a very good liar or there was more to the story that we didn’t know. I pushed back from the table, trying to regain my focus.

“Let’s go back and talk about Lenore for a moment,” Pearl said, apparently seeing my frustration. “You said that you lost contact with her after she was
attacked by the men her foster father sold her to, but that you later found out what happened to her.”

Shaw wiped his eyes, nodded. “Yes, she finally told me the whole story several years later
when I realized she’d been hospitalized.” He sipped some water and brushed his tears along the sleeve of his shirt. “She told me that she was attacked and nearly strangled to death. When that happened, she had a near-death experience.”

“She believed this experience was real?” Pearl asked.

“Yes. She saw a bright light that she said completely filled up the world.” Shaw’s watery eyes looked over to me. “It was during that experience that she said she met the man who saved her and chose her to take revenge on those who had harmed her.”

“
Revenge on her foster father?” I asked, remembering how Chloe had told us much of what Shaw had told us.

“Yes, but there were others. She killed her biological father also. When she confessed her crime
s to her mother and realized she was going to tell the authorities, she also murdered her.”

What Shaw said confirmed what Elaine Deerfield had said that
Myra had told her. I began to realize that, despite the emotional outbursts, there was a resonance to Shaw’s story that was beginning to register with me. The way he told the story made me think that he did genuinely care about Myra. It also made me start to wonder if Dr. Adam Shaw was really Azazel.

Shaw went on without prompting, “Lenore was so changed by her near-death experience that
after she was released from the hospital she began to transform herself. I tried to dismiss it, but I could see that her personality was changing.

“
She eventually convinced me to perform plastic surgery on her and completely changed her appearance. She once told me that she believed it was her mission in life to do the bidding of the man she met during her near-death experience, to take revenge. I thought it was just talk. I was wrong.” Shaw paused, sipped some water again. “I think she somehow transferred her feelings about what happened during her near death-experience to the man who saved her.”

“I’m not sure what you mean,” I said. “Who saved her?”

“The one she calls Azazel. He killed the men who attacked her when she was a girl.”

“Who are you talking about?” I asked, feeling a prickling sensation on the back of my neck.

“He was a cop. Lenore said that night when she was attacked in the woods someone heard her screaming. The police were called and the responding officer shot them all, killed her attackers.” Shaw controlled his emotions, his voice firming. “He’s the one who raised her after she left the foster home. He is Azazel.”

“Do you know his name?” I said, the words nearly catching in my throat.

Shaw shook his head. “I’m not sure, but Lenore told me that he’s some kind of cult expert. He works with the FBI.”