Looks to Die For (31 page)

“If this is what he watched with Tasha, I’d guess he murdered the poor girl with monotony,” Corey said finally.

“We have more,” I said, looking into the bag, which was beginning to feel bottomless.

“Hand ’em over,” said Corey wearily. “Though if the union hears that I had to screen this Roy Evans film festival, I’ll qualify for hardship pay.”

I laughed. But eight tapes later, the bag was empty, and the dirtiest trick we’d seen involved Roy pushing aside a reporter from
Entertainment Tonight
to interview Usher at a press conference.

“I don’t get it,” I said, bewildered. The tapes were all as harmless as a network-censored night at the Bellagio.

Corey started piling the tapes back into the bag and I sat back thoroughly befuddled, staring at the bank of now blank monitors. Somehow, the day had disappeared and the clock in the windowless edit bay pointed to 6:05
P.M
.

“So what did you find?” asked an excited voice behind us.

I turned around to see Molly and Tim striding into the edit room. Tim must have finished his show and sent it via satellite for the prime-time airing on the East Coast. That was the good side of L.A.’s functioning on New York time — not much sleep, but everybody got dinner.

“Nothing interesting,” I reported. “Nada, naught, zero, zilch. Closest we got to sex was Roy leering at Beyoncé’s booty.”

“Don’t forget when he got on his knees in front of Lindsay Lohan,” said Corey. “Though that didn’t turn pornographic until he explained he was bowing before acting greatness.”

Molly laughed and grabbed a snack-sized Snickers bar from the well-stocked candy bowl on the table. The best part of television was the unending supply of junk food in every edit bay. Or maybe that was the worst part. Tim reached into the dish and filched a single cinnamon Altoid. Given his running this morning, he could go crazy and take two.

“I don’t get it,” Tim said, sucking thoughtfully on the mint. “From what Molly said, Roy admitted that he’d made porno tapes with Tasha.”

I nodded. “Yup. And he was sure I had them.”

“So if you don’t have them, who does?” asked Molly.

“Question of the day,” I admitted.

Molly scanned the room, her eyes finally resting on Corey. “Are you sure you didn’t miss something on one of the tapes? I mean, you could have skipped right over a bad blow job without even realizing it.”

“Wrong and wrong,” said Corey, rocking back in his swiveling seat. “First, you can’t have a bad blow job. Second, I’d never skip one.” He grinned. “Nope, we screened every single tape and didn’t miss a thing. I’d bet my last Emmy on it.”

“Corey’s won three Emmys,” Tim said, as if that settled it.

Molly plopped down in the chair next to me, and Tim leaned against the table, his long, outstretched legs brushing against Molly’s.

“Let’s try to figure this out,” Tim said, pulling out a yellow legal pad. He made a couple of notes with his Sharpie pen, then raised a finger. “Point one. We know Roy made S-and-M tapes featuring himself and Tasha. Point two” — two fingers up now — “we also know he was so desperate to get them back that he tied up Lacy in his apartment and then threatened her with a gun in the desert.” Tim made a couple of arrows on his pad, and then he looked from Molly to me. “Add points one and two and you get to point three. Which is that given what we know about Roy, it’s just possible he recorded more than bad sex. I’m willing to consider whether the missing tape shows the S and M gone wrong — and Tasha dying.”

Molly reached over and rubbed her hand against Tim’s knee. “Darling, you’re the most brilliant man I know. You got to that one fast.”

She looked at me and I nodded. We’d come up with that theory in the diner, over bad meatloaf and omeletes. But now that I’d rolled it around for a while, I saw a problem.

“If Roy were rolling tape while he accidentally killed Tasha, don’t you think he would have taken the evidence with him?” I asked.

“Unless he panicked and forgot about it,” said Tim.

“In which case he would have left the incriminating tape in the video camera and just run out,” I said. “I’ve read the police reports and seen the crime-scene photos. No video camera that I can remember.”

“If he took the camera, he took the tape, too,” Molly said, coming quickly to my point of view.

“Fair enough.” Tim ripped the top sheet off the pad, crumpled it up, and threw it away. “So you’re thinking the tape’s not a smoking gun — just a smoky one. If a girl’s been strangled, you don’t want the cops to know you once liked tying her up.”

“I’ll buy that,” said Molly. Her hand was still on Tim’s knee.

I fished around in the candy bowl and pulled out a silver-wrapped chocolate Kiss.

“So where are Roy’s porn flicks?” I asked.

“That’s the question,” said Tim, picking up his Sharpie to scrawl a four-sided form on the new sheet of paper. “We’re right back to square one.”

“The tapes must have been in the apartment somewhere, which is why Roy thinks I have them,” I explained. “Nora had told him that she gave me all his stuff.”

“Maybe they’re still there,” suggested Molly.

“Or maybe the police took the tapes at the very beginning. And buried them as evidence because they’re only looking to make a case against Dan,” I offered.

Tim raised his eyebrows. “Corrupt cops? I guess this is L.A.”

“Corrupt’s one thing, but clever’s something else,” said Corey, suddenly entering the conversation again. “You’re giving the cops way too much credit.” He flung the contents of the now ragged Whole Foods bag back onto the floor. “Look at all these tape boxes. They’re mismarked and badly labeled and they were probably scattered all around the apartment. It took us hours to scan through them. So how the hell would the police have known which ones to seize? You can bet Roy didn’t plaster the pornos with triple-X stickers.”

I put my head into my hands. I wanted everything to be the cops’ fault, but Corey had a point. There had to be a different explanation. I just didn’t know what it was.

Tim glanced at his watch, checking the time in whatever world zone he’d settled on using. “Anybody want to go to dinner?” he asked. “We can continue this over some food.”

Corey quickly declined and I said I had to get home. We both stood up to leave.

“I’d love to come,” Molly told Tim with a big smile. Then she leaned over to the candy dish and rifled through.

“What are you looking for?” Tim asked.

“A chocolate Kiss like Lacy took. I’m starved.”

Tim grabbed her hand and pulled her to her feet. “Come on, you can do better than that. How about if I promise you a kiss after dinner?”

“Chocolate?” Molly asked coyly.

“Nope,” said Tim. “It’ll be fewer calories. And much tastier.”

When I got home, Ashley met me at the door and announced that the police were in the living room, asking questions about the murder of Nora Wilson.

“Shit,” I said.

Ashley’s mouth twitched and she tried to keep herself from smiling. “Since when do you use language like that, Mom?” she asked with faux disapproval.

“Since today. Sorry. Who’s with them?”

“Daddy. And Chauncey Howell.”

So Dan had called Chauncey. That was a relief, anyway. “Have they been here long?”

“Yup. And you’re right, Mom — it’s shit. Bullshit and double bullshit. I can’t stand this place. Why don’t we just all get on a plane and get out of here? Move to Australia.”

“New Zealand might be better. We could pretend we’re in
Lord of the Rings
.”

“I’m serious,” Ashley said, furrowing her brow. “Daddy’s being persecuted. We have to leave. Just like that scene in
The Sound of Music
where the family climbs into the mountains together to escape the Nazis.”

“That was Austria, not Australia.”

“Who cares? As long as we’re together, we can go anyplace.” She looked at me with blazing eyes, thoroughly serious about her plan. She wanted to protect her dad, whatever it took.

I put my arms around her. “You’re right. A family’s pretty strong.
Our
family’s strong.” I hugged her. “For now, we’ll keep fighting for Daddy right here. But if it doesn’t work, we’ll consider every option. I’m perfectly willing to be Julie Andrews.”

“Or Frodo,” said Ashley.

She went upstairs, and I contemplated joining the crowd in the living room, then decided there wasn’t any point. I slid open the double-glass doors to the patio and went outside. Darkness was settling in, and the early-evening stars peeked across the sky. I lay down on the padded chaise lounge and stared straight up, spotting a shooting star. I closed my eyes and made a virtuous wish upon a shooting star that involved Dan being cleared and his anguish being over. Then I threw in a little fillip for the whole family. Somehow, this bad time had been bringing us together, and I hoped the connections would continue in good times, too. Not too much to ask of a fireball in the firmament, was it? I opened my eyes, and the glowing point was still moving across the sky. Damn, that meant my star was really a satellite. Well, who said you couldn’t wish on an orbiting space station?

I untied the sweater from my shoulders, but didn’t move from the chaise. The evening air felt warmer than it had been lately, signaling spring coming soon. I sensed a vague tingle of anticipation at the thought of the lilacs blooming and the roses opening. I was ready for rebirth, a new start, life leaping forward again.

A few minutes later, Dan opened the glass doors and came outside to join me, holding a bottle of wine, opener, and two long-stemmed glasses.

“Are they gone?” I asked.

“Gone,” he said. He carefully lowered himself to the edge of my lounge chair, and I slid my legs over to give him more room.

“So what now?” I asked.

“Now I’m going to get drunk.” He pulled the foil off his 1993 California Cabernet, then popped out the cork with the Rabbit wine bottle opener I’d bought him years ago as a Valentine’s gift. Hmm. Valentine’s Day had come and gone this year and I’d forgotten all about it.

“You never get drunk,” I said.

“I’ve decided to make an exception.” He poured the wine into the two glasses and handed me one. “Maybe all the coffee I drink is causing blackouts. That would explain how I killed one girl I’d never heard of. And now, apparently, I killed another one I never knew existed.”

“Are you really a suspect again?” I asked, horrified.

“No, probably not.” He took a large gulp of the wine. “Chauncey says they had to question me since she was the other girl’s roommate. You kill one, you kill them all, I guess.”

A little black humor to go with his black mood. I swirled the wine and took a small sip. If he planned to get smashed, excellent idea to do it drinking a Simi Reserve at a hundred bucks a bottle.

“And what was supposed to be the motive?”

“Let’s see, Nora saw me strangle Tasha, so I offed her to get rid of her as a witness. Fortunately, there’s a big hitch. Nora was in Twin Falls, Idaho, visiting her parents when Tasha got killed.”

“Who says?”

“Nora said. The apartment had been sealed off, so a plain-clothes detective was there when she got back. She turned hysterical when she found out what happened. The cops confirmed that she’d been at home.”

“Yes, she’d been home. But she’d already hit the road back to L.A. by the time Tasha got killed.”

“How do you know?” Dan asked, refilling his glass.

“You need to be a little more inebriated before I tell you.”

“No, tell me now. Then I’ll drink to forget.”

I looked up and found my satellite, or maybe a different one, orbiting smoothly in the sky. Maybe it was my lucky night. Dan’s mood seemed different than it had in weeks, and I was done dissembling. I launched into a long explanation about my excursion south from Sun Valley and encountering Bill Wilson at the gas station. I described what Nora’s stepdad had told me about good-girl-turned-bad Tasha and about good-girl-wanting-better Nora. When I stopped, Dan ran a finger around and around the rim of his glass.

“You went to Twin Falls just to find him?” he asked, hitting what seemed to him the important point.

“Not necessarily him. I was really looking for Tasha’s family. I thought someone might have information that would help.”

Dan didn’t have much reaction. Then he asked mildly, “What else have you been doing?”

I took another swallow of wine. “Really want to hear?”

Dan nodded.

“Okay, here’s another story.” I started reporting on my trip with Molly to the desert. When I got to the part about Roy’s waving a gun at me, Dan put down his glass and reached for my hand, holding it tightly and stroking my thumb with his. I felt light-headed, either from the Cabernet or from the relief of finally confiding in Dan. Why stop now? I described finding Nora’s body in my trunk and outlined everything I knew about Roy Evans and Julie Boden. I told him about the porn tapes we couldn’t find and about Johnny DeVito’s alibi — which I still needed to unravel.

I finally paused. Dan brought my hand up to his lips and kissed my palm over and over. Then I felt my fingers getting wet, and I realized tears were spilling from his eyes and splashing down his face. He tried to wipe them away, but our fingers were still interlaced, and I accidentally poked his nose — which made him laugh, but didn’t stop the tears.

“You’ve been doing all this for me,” he said, still clenching my hand and dabbing at his eyes with the back of his other arm.

“Because I love you,” I said.

“And you think I’m innocent. You want to find who really did it.”

In the darkness, I nodded. “Are you angry? Should I get another bottle of wine? Or do you need something stronger? Glenlivet?”

“No.” He dropped his head into his hands — actually, three hands, since he was still gripping mine. “I got angry that night a while ago when I thought you were checking up on me. When you seemed afraid your husband was a murderer. But all this —”

He stopped, his voice breaking. In eighteen years, I’d never heard my husband cry. And I had no idea what to do. I gently stroked his very wet cheek.

“I was never afraid…”