P.J. Morse - Clancy Parker 02 - Exile on Slain Street (22 page)

“I know,” I said.

Then Greg barked, “No conversations off mic! I told you! Clip it on and get in the Hummer!”

Once Wayne loaded himself in the Hummer, I ran up to the passenger window and saw Fred in the driver’s seat. “No coffee from the house today, Fred?”

Fred shook his head. “No, way! All Major Rager from here on out!” He raised his can like a satisfied customer.

I said, “I got a good friend in there, and you treat him like precious cargo.”

“The one who looks like Mark Twain, Junior?”

“That’s it.”

“He looked like he belonged to you. You got it, girl! Have fun back at the ranch!” Fred then tooted his horn and drove off.

After the Hummer left, we were stuck with Greg and a few other crew members. I missed Tortoise and Hare, who got the plum job of recording the bowling action. Greg made us wait outside while they finished some work around Wolf’s cabana.

Then he walked up and smiled, almost wickedly. “Time for the interrogation.”

None of the women looked happy when Greg used the word “interrogation.” A lie-detector test was a regular part of the dating-show genre. I wondered how a professional lie detector would respond to me. If anything, maybe Wolf would finally believe me when I said I was a detective.

Greg announced, “Each of you will be grilled by someone close to Patrick. So, Katherine, why don’t we start with you? Just walk up to the pool house, and open the door. This person is waiting for you.”

Was it the woman who won last season? Patrick’s mother? A former band member? I was so busy wondering that I tripped over one of the paving stones, and they made me shoot my walk to the pool house twice.

I turned the knob of the door and stepped inside. Then I gasped.

Sitting in one of Wolf’s orange recliners was Rex, the son of Sean Morgan. He was running a matchbox car along the arm of the chair. The camera guys were filming him, but he didn’t seem to notice them at all.

Greg came in behind me. “Well?” he asked.

“Okey-dokey.” Then I realized I was in one of my more cleavage-revealing tops, so I turned my back. “But… I am not dressed for an interview with a child!” I pointed at the cleavage created by my pink top. It wasn’t the biggest cleavage in the house, but a child was a child.

Greg rolled his eyes. “We’re aiming for a contrast. William Blake!
Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience
!”

“You’re getting literary now? Are you the same guy who stole my book?” I asked.

“Hello, ma’am!” Rex called out, waving his truck at me.

I let the literature business go and marched right over. Rex did, in fact, look right at my cleavage, but I said, “Eyes up!” His eyes moved up obediently. “That’s better!”

Then I sat down in the opposite recliner. “So, Rex, what do you have to ask me today?”

Rex became calm, almost adult. He had his father’s nose and his mother’s coal-black, pin-straight hair. He arranged a stack of index cards in his lap. The words on them were in his own handwriting. “Patrick is my very good friend. Mommy tells me he was my daddy’s best friend.”

“Yes, that’s right,” I said. “I can tell that Patrick likes you very much.”

“He’s my godfather!” Rex said, throwing his hands in the air and wiggling in the recliner. “I’m gonna be just like him when I grow up!”

As much as I liked Patrick, I sincerely hoped that Rex’s ambitions revolved around making music, not dating twenty women at one time on national television. “Well, you are a determined, smart little boy, I just know it, and I am sure that you’ll be successful.”

Rex wrinkled his face as if he had just been forced to eat Brussels sprouts. “Cut the crap, sister. Do you like my godfather, or not?”

At this point, I started to think a lie detector test would have been more preferable than tough talk from a 10-year-old. “Yes, I do,” I said. “I wasn’t sure I’d like him at first, but I like him more and more.”

I didn’t have to lie for that answer, and Rex’s face softened. “Are you a… groupie?”

I couldn’t imagine what Rex’s mom had to say about groupies. From what I remembered, Haruko was an actress on a soap opera before she started dating Sean. She didn’t need to be a groupie. She probably thought the contestants on
Atomic Love 2
sprang from the lowest life forms. With what she saw during the Car Wash Challenge, I couldn’t say I blamed her.

“No,” I said. “I’m not a groupie. I’m from the town where your father and your godfather grew up. Gardenia!”

“Ooooh… it’s stinky there!”

I smiled. Now we had something to talk about. “Yes, you can smell the fish in the Salton Sea there. Phew!”

Rex forgot briefly what he was supposed to say. “My grandma and grandpa live there. You gotta be tough to live there, Grandpa says.” He looked at me like I had earned some respect. “So, you’re not an actress or model or anything?”

“No. I went on the show because I liked your godfather and your father’s music, and your godfather is a good guy.”

Rex frowned. “But you’re not a groupie?”

“I don’t know where you get all this about groupies, but that’s most definitely not me. I can play the guitar, so I don’t have to hang around rock stars. I can make music myself.” I wished Greg had thought to set up a guitar so I could prove to Rex that I had a life outside reality television without divulging my day job.

“Okay! You can go now.” He climbed out of the recliner and shook my hand. “I think you’re all right,” he said. “And did I do a good job keeping my eyes up?”

“Yes,” I told him. Then, he walked me to the door and closed it behind me.

As soon as I emerged, Greg pulled me away from the other women. “We want them all to be surprised,” he said.

I laughed. Lorelai was going to regret that she fought Cookie in front of Rex, and I bet that all the others were even more awkward around kids than me.

Each woman emerged from the pool room in a state of shock, except for Andi. She folded her arms around her chest and said simply, “He gets me.” Then she walked over to the trees, stood there for a moment as if she were looking for someone, and headed back into the house.

“Well, a 10-year-old speaks her language,” Topaz groaned. “Looks like she wins this challenge.”

Tina asked, “When are the guys getting back?” She began to pace along the edge of the pool.

“Don’t get too excited. You keep humping that old guy, you might find yourself a ticket out of here,” Topaz said.

Tina seemed genuinely hurt, for once. “I thought you were on my side. And he’s not just some old guy. He’s my manager. We did date. I’m not gonna lie about that. But that was the past, and he’s done a lot of good for my career.”

Lorelai had to get mixed up in it. “It seems that your career is your primary concern.” She was nibbling on one of the brownies that she made.

“Butt out,” Topaz said. “This doesn’t concern you.”

“You know what, it is my business! She is my competition!” Lorelai stood up and waved her brownie in Topaz’s face.

Topaz froze. “You are getting crumbs on me. I bet you wish I’d hit you, but I’m not that dumb. Now back it up.”

“Cookie got kicked out because she was violent and trashy!” Lorelai yelled, her voice turning high.

“I would prefer it if you left my friend out of this,” I said. “You’ve stirred up enough shit for today.”

Greg got in the middle of all of us, but he kept an eye on Tina the whole time. “I think that the matter of Tina’s ‘manager’ is worthy of discussion. Let’s get off Lorelai’s nosiness and back to that. What’s going on with that?”

Tina pretended to be more interested in adjusting her bustier strap. “It’s none of your business.”

“Everything in this house is my business!” Greg shouted.

The camera guy who replaced Hare called out, “Yo, Greg! You’re not a part of the scene! Get out of the shot!”

“Dammit!” Greg walked back by the camera. “So, Tina, tell us your side of the story.”

“Not all relationships end badly!” Tina said into the camera, sticking out her chest. “I can’t help that I’m a real woman with real feelings!”

“Does that mean real feelings for your manager?” Lorelai asked.

“Shut up! God, you people! He’s my friend, and that’s that. If some of you — ” here she looked at Greg “ — want to get jealous, then that’s your problem. It doesn’t mean anything.”

“It means a lot to Patrick.” I said “Patrick,” but I looked off to the side at Greg. He caught what I meant, but he looked down at his notepad and started scribbling.

Then I heard movement at the front of the house. Watching Greg get his heart broken was not my idea of entertainment, so I was first to see the guys getting back from the bowling expedition. I counted the number of guys who came through the doorway: Patrick, Wayne, Sizzler, Tad, Tina’s “manager,” and the crew.

Hare asked me, “Can you get Andi for me, please? I gotta get a new battery pack.”

“What’s up?” I asked. “Where’s her ex?”

Hare waved his camera. “Hah. He pulled down his pants after getting a strike at the bowling alley, and some old ladies took offense at his nards. He’s in the lockup.”

Tad gasped, “Nards!”

Tina rushed past me to her “manager.” “What’s the hurry, Tina?” I asked.

Tina threw a dirty look at me before she hugged him. “How’d you do?”

“I won!” he boasted. He leaned in toward her like he was going to plant a kiss on her, but he promptly drew back.

I went up the spiral stairs and found Andi putting her hair in hot rollers. When I got to the top of the staircase, Hare shouted, “Your ex got arrested for indecent exposure!”

“Oh, goody!” she squealed, bouncing up and down. Her rollers knocked against the side of her head.

“No love lost, then,” Hare said, turning away. “Hey, Sizzler, Tad, can I get some shots of you guys making drinks at the bar? And where the hell is that battery pack?” He wandered off.

Andi grabbed me and hugged me. “Yay! Yay! Yay!”

“That’s awesome!” I said, playing along. “Now he can’t say anything bad about you!”

“Yay! Yay! He was mean! He kept saying he was prettier than me!”

“That bitch!” I agreed. Despite her ditsiness and snoring, it was hard to imagine anyone treating Andi badly.

Then Andi took me by the upper arm and pulled me toward the bathroom. “I’ll let you in on a little secret. My wishes came true!”

“Your wishes?” I asked. Tortoise had mentioned how Andi talked to trees, and I saw her touching the trees after Rex’s interrogation.

“Yes. I asked the Queen of the Forest to make my ex go away, and she did! It’s amazing!” She pointed toward the bathroom window, which had a clear view of the woods. Her skin glowed, and her eyes glittered.

I touched her hot rollers. “How hot were those when you put them on your head?”

Then I felt a hand on my shoulder. It was Wayne, who must have followed me up the stairs. “We gotta talk.” He had a bowling shirt in his hands. “I just bought this,” he said. “I want to show it off.”

Hare started heading up to see what was going on. I winked at Andi. “I’ll remember what you said about the wish.”

She nodded, and walked back toward the bedroom. Then she said, “If you go out to the woods, say hi to Faunus and the Queen for me!”

Wayne just laughed.

Chapter Twenty-Six:
Forest Royalty

I
followed Wayne down the stairs, through the elimination zone, out the back door, and toward the woods. For someone who hadn’t been at the mansion before, he was surprisingly sure of where he was going. He walked right past the camera crews, all nonchalant. Greg had them all zoning in on Tina and her “manager,” while MC Sizzler was trying to drum up some interest in some rap demos he’d made.

Then we got to the edge of the woods. Once we were by a tree, Wayne unfurled his bowling shirt in such a way that the camera crew couldn’t see what we were doing.

While he held up the shirt, I switched off our mic packs. Then he lowered the shirt, and he took me by the hand, leading me deeper into the woods.

I was reluctant. I hadn’t wandered that far out there since Dawn fell down the stairs.

“Hurry up, before they see us! We have to find Muriel and Shane!” Wayne said. “We’ve been coming in trying to talk to you, in the woods. This show is crazy! It’s like jail!”

“You’ve been out in the woods?” I asked.

“Oh, hell yeah. You think we would miss this? Somebody caught Muriel, though. This chick… she’s been hanging out with us. The blonde, the one with the ginormous breasts? She’s out there. She thinks Muriel is an elf! The queen of the deer!”

So that’s who Andi was having long chats with in the woods. Who knew what Muriel was telling her? Muriel was probably having a field day and teaching Andi nutty things, like the Earth is flat and Andi could fly if she tried real hard.

“Did she see the murders? Did you?” I asked.

Wayne rolled his eyes. “Nope. We were running late a few days, and we had to take off a couple times before getting caught. We didn’t know that guy drowned in the pool until I was going up the road in the van and saw all the cop cars. I pretended to be a camper and asked the cops what all the sirens were. And can you believe they almost arrested me for possession? The nerve! I was a concerned citizen! Marin County is uptight!”

“Wayne, focus. Did Andi mention anything about the guy who drowned? Or the woman who fell down the stairs?”

“Well, she isn’t your killer. She asked Muriel — excuse me, the queen of the deer — for protection from the evil spirits in the house. I can’t say I blame her, either. Andi is scared shitless. She doesn’t know what’s real and what’s fake anymore. But we have something for you that might help.”

Once we were behind some trees, Wayne unrolled the bowling shirt again in case anyone from the crew was sneaking around behind us. “Hey, Queen of the Deer, get over here!” he said.

I couldn’t see Muriel’s face, but I could definitely hear the distinct sounds of rustling and grunting. Then she spoke. “I suggest you buy stock in bug repellent. You have no idea how much I’ve used over the past few days. Clancy, I expect fame and fortune, or at least an autographed T-shirt from Patrick Price after this.”