Rage Factor (36 page)

The kid was persistent, Dixie had to give her that. “Right now let’s concentrate on tonight.”

“Dixie, Mother’s weird fans are
not
interested in me.”

“Maybe not. But humor me tonight. If anything strange happens, find Hooch. He’ll be close.”

“Like gum on your shoe,” he agreed.

“Mother doesn’t know about this, does she?”

Dixie shook her head, and Sarina grinned. Putting one over on Joanna seemed to brighten her outlook on the evening.

Ski stayed behind with the Porsche while Dixie ushered Sarina inside the hotel and alerted security that Hooch was on the job. As Dixie retraced her steps through the hotel lobby, her pager signaled a message—surprisingly from Brenda Benson. Back in the Porsche, she returned the call.

“Dixie, thank God—” Brenda’s tired voice was barely audible over a bad connection.

“What’s wrong, Bren?”

“I need to talk. Not on the phone”—static—“meet at my house … an hour?”

Dixie glanced at the dash clock. She needed at least forty-five minutes for the task Ski was helping her with, and it was a twenty-minute drive to Clear Lake, where the boat was located. Brenda’s house was a short distance in the opposite direction. A tight squeeze, but if Brenda finally wanted to talk—

“Sure. What’s up?” She turned the key to start the Porsche’s engine.

“I—I thought it would stop with Coombs”—more static—“out of control. I need—I have to trust—”

“I’ll be there.” She disconnected and called Parker to say she might be a few minutes late. No answer on his cell phone. She left a message at his office, praying he’d bother to check the machine.

Dixie wished the three production trailers weren’t parked on such a well-lighted street. She’d seen the small signs that first day on the set,
WARDROBE, CAST/CREW, BURTON.

Sidling up to the one she wanted, she scanned the distance across the shooting area, where Ski was distracting the guard. Two jobs with the girl in two days—phenomenal. Even Brew had been hesitant when Dixie requested Ski’s help. Ski’s hatred of Dixie was based on the girl’s own problems with a juvenile law enforcement officer, and her temper was apt to flare unexpectedly. But she was perfect for tonight’s task. There wasn’t a man alive who wouldn’t be distracted by champagne curls above delicate features and a slip of body that moved like liquid mercury. Only if the guard was female would Ski be facing a challenge.

Dixie slid her hands into a pair of thin plastic gloves, then gripped the Lock-Aid tool she’d brought from home, a handy gadget shaped like a pistol. Stick the key end into any lock, except possibly high security, pull the trigger, and after a few
brisk clicks, the lock fell open like magic. She’d confiscated the tool from a young pro vowing to go straight—never expecting to use it herself. But occasionally, it proved handier than shirt pockets. Carefully, she inserted the tool into the trailer lock.

Made sense, she figured, the director having a trailer all his own—obesity plus ego. Was it Burton’s call for Joanna to share space with everyone else on the set? Perhaps he was equally nasty to all his stars, but one thing was certain, Burton had ample opportunity to make Joanna’s life miserable. He didn’t need to send threatening notes.

Dixie still hadn’t discovered why Alan Kemp showed up in Houston at the same time as Joanna. But if he carried a grudge for the fall that broke his ankles and put an end to his acting, why choose now to get even? According to Casey, his syndicated radio show aired all over the world. His career as a journalist was about as good as it gets.

The trailer’s lock clicked open. Dixie cast another glance at Ski and the guard, then eased the door wide enough to slip inside the trailer. As she stuffed the Lock-Aid back in her pocket, the photographs Casey James had given her fell out. The one that had interested Dixie showed Tori Pond waiting for Joanna outside the wardrobe trailer. Tori had applied for a job the same month the stalker’s notes started appearing.

But Tori Pond seemed totally smitten with the lighting tech, Hap Eggert. Then again, maybe Dixie’s hunch was dead wrong this time. She’d know in a few more minutes.

She gathered up the photos and snapped the trailer door shut. Her penlight picked out racks of clothing, a dressing table with jars of makeup and brushes, a blow-dryer hanging from a hook beside the mirror. On shelves above the clothing were stacked shoe boxes and hatboxes, all neatly labeled. Dixie saw the box Alroy Duncan had sent over with Joanna’s headpiece.

The effects wizard had been high on her suspect list for a while, primarily because she questioned his motives for apprenticing Sarina. But when the success of
Devil’s
Walk
escalated Duncan’s career, he had relocated to Houston. Why would a stalker move away from the object of his obsession?

Beneath the headpiece box hung the slicker Hap Eggert had taken to Joanna as she shivered in the rain that first day.

Dixie limbered her hands in the plastic gloves and began the search.

“How long is this going to take?” Ski had asked as they drove downtown.

“If what I’m looking for is where I expect to find it, we’ll be finished in less than an hour.”

“And if you aren’t?”

“Then we might have a long night.” Dixie wasn’t about to waste this opportunity. Tomorrow the shoot would wrap up. Saturday morning Joanna and Sarina would be on a plane back to L.A. If Dixie couldn’t identify the stalker before then, she’d worry about the kid indefinitely.

“Didn’t I hear you promise to meet someone?” Ski had argued. “Guess promises don’t mean much to you, Flannigan.”

“It won’t take that long.”

Now, Dixie prayed she could find the evidence she needed with the first pass. She wanted to keep that appointment with Brenda. After evading her for three days, the prosecutor was finally willing to talk: Dixie wanted to be there for her.

Nor did she plan to miss her moonlight cruise with Parker.

But the worry that something might happen to Sarina after she flew back to L.A., something Dixie could’ve prevented by doing the job right, filled her with an unexpectedly stinging disquiet.

According to Ramón, the cryptic messages were written by someone who showed anger at the wrong times. That fact spelled “emotionally unstable” to Dixie in flashing neon letters.

No. She was ending this stalker business. Right here. Tonight. If necessary, she’d search every inch of the set to find what she knew had to be there.

And, finally, behind the last rack of beaded evening dresses and fur coats brushing the floor sat a black leather travel bag. Dixie trained her penlight over the brass lock—no sweat opening that one—to a matching leather luggage tag. Dixie unsnapped the tag to a business card behind a clear plastic window:
HAP EGGERT, LIGHTING DESIGN
.

Bingo/

That first day on the set, she’d seen the techie emerge from the
wardrobe
trailer. Eggert’s friendship with Tori Pond might be real or merely convenient, but this trailer would provide more privacy than the one used by the entire cast and crew, more privacy than the equipment trailer, where other techs would be constantly in and out.

Dixie inserted the Lock-Aid tool into the brass keyway, squeezed the trigger, and listened to the metallic
clicks.

Eggert’s mother had been one of the original stars on
Guerilla Gold
, facing the same bright future as Joanna Francis. Joanna became a star; Eggert’s mother became a penniless drunk.

As a techie, Eggert had “been in the business forever,” according to Sarina. “Works lighting, sometimes camera crew, whatever,” she’d said. He could’ve easily gained entry to all the sets where Joanna experienced “accidents.”

The lock snapped open. Dixie swung the lid back to reveal technical lighting schematics and a jumble of files. Gingerly, she rifled the files. Near the bottom, stuck between two technical manuals, she found the Les Crews article on the Burrows case—the stalker’s name Eckert. Had the name similarity stimulated Eggert’s latest assault on Joanna’s career? From the beginning, Dixie had felt the stalker’s messages were too tame to take seriously. If Eggert’s original intent was merely to distract Joanna into making stupid mistakes,
without drawing police attention, the notes made more sense. Only when the actress failed to respond with sufficient fear had Eggert’s anger exploded, showing in his handwriting.

In a file folder marked simply
STOCK
, Dixie found a packet of note cards bearing the same simplistic art style as on the stalker’s cards. The logo on the back of the packet,
SUNSHINE GRAPHICS.
Double bingo.

Dixie snatched her cell phone out of its clip and punched in a number. Eggert’s travel case contained enough evidence to prove he’d sent the threatening greeting cards and to start an investigation into Joanna’s “accidents” during the past year. Set the right wheels in motion and Eggert would be picked up for questioning tonight before he finished his fancy steak dinner. Considering the “extreme emotional pressure” Ramón had noted in Eggert’s handwriting, and the urgency in his most recent message, the sooner he was in custody the better.

“Houston Police Department. Sergeant—”

Dixie disconnected. Never mind the fact that evidence gained by illegal entry would be thrown out—Texas law being tougher than most states’. Never mind that none of Eggert’s notes had specifically threatened harm. Belle had entrusted Dixie to keep Joanna’s troubles confidential.

Pushing the phone back on its clip, she scanned the suitcase contents, a frustrated sigh slipping softly from her tense mouth. Then she arranged the stalker cards, the Crews article, and all Eggert’s files, with exacting care, as she’d found them, snapped the lock shut, resnapped the luggage tag, and placed the travel bag back behind the coats and evening dresses. She’d let Belle Richards decide how to handle discovering the evidence.

After relocking the trailer, she stepped into the shadows and dialed Ski’s pager number to signal they were finished here. The Gypsy Filcher would slide into the night.

Pointing the Porsche toward the restaurant where the film
crew was having dinner, she called Belle at home and explained what she’d found.

“We need to finish this tonight,” Dixie added. Her meeting with Brenda and her romantic sail with Parker would be delayed, but what she had in mind wouldn’t take long. She told the attorney what was needed and where to meet her.

When Belle arrived at Ruth’s Chris Steak House, Dixie had already briefed Hooch. Then, while Dixie phoned the restaurant, feigning an urgent message from Eggert’s mother, Belle and Hooch waited for him by the hostess station, a duo of quiet authority and grotesque muscle. The toughest street hood would’ve come along nicely, and Eggert was far from street tough. When they emerged, his freckled face betrayed his guilty amazement at being caught.

“You can’t prove anything,” he stated bitterly after Dixie told what she’d pieced together.

“Yes, we can, if it comes to that.” Lies were useful at times. “Instead, we have a proposal. You’re going to leave the country. Right now, tonight. Work on foreign films a few years. Meanwhile, Marty Ahrens has agreed to get your mother into a clinic, and when she’s sufficiently dried out, to get her some decent parts.”

“Hah! She begged that old fart to take her on. He turned her down cold.”

“He won’t turn her down this time, provided she gets sober.”

A spark of hope flitted across his face. Then he looked away, tension and defeat hardening his boyish features.

“She won’t do it. I’ve tried before.”

Maybe she wouldn’t. Maybe she’d continue to wallow in self-pity rather than put forth an effort.

“But this time she’ll have Joanna Francis encouraging her.” Marty Ahrens had agreed that Joanna owed the woman that much, and he would see that she owned up to it.

In the end, Eggert agreed, convinced his only alternative
was jail. Belle and Hooch would drive him straight to the airport. On the way, he’d write a note mentioning an unexpected opportunity. Belle would see that his things were packed up and sent along later.

Getting Eggert’s agreement took far longer, though, than Dixie had hoped. When she called Parker and Brenda to explain, she got only recordings.

“Aunt Dix! Parker’s buying a boat! Have you seen it yet?”

The call from Ryan came before Dixie reached Brenda’s house.

“I’m going sailing on it later tonight.” At least she hoped the date was still on.

“You could pick me up! I’ve already done my homework.”

Amy’s voice, in the background, said, “Tomorrow’s a school day, Ryan. Anyway, you’ll get to sail on the weekend. Now, let me talk to her.” Into the phone, Amy said, “Dixie, what should I bring for dinner Sunday?”

Sunday?
Parker had said he wanted her approval on the boat before buying it. “Bring where, Amy?”

“To Parker’s housewarming. You don’t mind, do you? I mean, he did say the boat was your valentine’s gift, and we don’t want to horn in if this is a special weekend for you two, or whatever, but Parker insisted we come for dinner and sailing. Carl’s bringing a proposal from his people-finder friend, the one who wants a partner.”

“My valentine gift?” Dixie turned into Brenda’s neighborhood.

“Oh, dear! He said you’d see it tonight. I didn’t spoil anything, did I? Dixie, I remembered how much you liked that cruise you took. On the schooner? I suppose I told Parker you’d liked sails better than motors, with all that noise. I didn’t spoil anything, did I?”

“No.” Dixie wasn’t sure how she felt about Parker setting all this up without discussing it with her first. He’d made a big hit with her family from the first moment they’d met, and she liked that. But now she felt they were all ganging up on her about that partnership proposal. As for the boat—well, she
had
mentioned to Amy that she liked boating better than flying. Pulling to the curb in front of Brenda’s red brick bungalow, Dixie cut the engine. “Guess I’ll see you on Sunday, Sis. I have to go—”

“Wait! What should I bring? What does Parker need for his new house?”