Reel Stuff (24 page)

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

There was an underlying tension between the two ladies, that was a given, but I had to wonder why she was logging the meetings that Londell had with these two guys, Clint Anders and Rob Mason.

Scanning the calendar, I kept checking out the months preceding Londell's death. Three months back she had blocked out a section of the calendar with J.L. SP. Every day. I concentrated, thinking about what those initials meant. And then it hit me. Jason had been in Singapore. That must have been her abbreviation. SP. Singapore. And every day he was gone, Juliana apparently had an appointment with someone else. J.L. SP. Jason Londell, Singapore.

I also noticed that in some of the boxes was the comment, “See B.T.”

I had no idea. Scanning through the icons, I saw nothing about B.T.

And for about two weeks C.A. and B.T. appeared together, as if there was a three-way meeting between Juliana, Clint, and B.T.

I Googled the initials B.T. and a broadband website and a music site came up, but nothing seeming to have a correlation. B.T. It could be anything. My guess was it was another guy who had some relationship with Juliana.

The other calendar that intrigued me was one that showed dates and four initials. The time frame started about three months ago. This one was titled J.L., but simply had four initials in each day part. Ph A A. Sometimes the initials appeared a couple of times in one day, but more often it was every three or four days. Ph A A. There were numerous mentions. Not one word of what it meant. As if to just remind her that the day included Ph A A.

Ph A A. I didn't have a clue. I put it in my mind and kept reminding myself it was there. Sooner or later, something would come up. Ph A A.

Making sure I erased whatever trace there was that I had been on her site, I left Bavely's office, after rubbing the wind-breaker sleeve over the keyboard in case someone checked for fingerprints.

I walked into Juliana's office and smiled when I saw the keyboard lit up.
Superagent1
. I now was pretty sure that Kathy Bavely was pimping Juliana Londell. She knew that Londell's password was
superagent1
so she assumed the password
superagent2
without Juliana's knowledge and was keeping some sort of a scorecard.

Scanning the icons, there was no calendar for
superagent1
. But there was an icon for B.T.

I clicked it and the name Betsy Timmermeister flashed on the screen. Bingo. A spreadsheet icon appeared and I clicked on it.

Dates, dollar amounts, values on cars, buildings, houses, boats, bank accounts, investments. Row after row of numbers. I'm certain my mouth dropped open. It was a huge amount of information to absorb.

Thousands of dollars. Hundreds of thousands of dollars. Hundreds and hundreds of thousands. Probably millions. I'd never seen so many zeros on a spreadsheet before, even in my business classes at Samuel and Davidson University. I would bet some Fortune 500 companies didn't have this kind of a balance sheet. My eyes were wide open as I stared at the figures.

With just a brief glance, I realized I had the Londell fortune in my grasp. Betsy Timmermeister was some sort of financial guru who kept at least seventy-five million dollars organized for Jason and Juliana Londell. And if I had to bet, I'm sure the ten-million-dollar life insurance policy was included as well.

It would take an hour to pore through the entire spreadsheet, and I couldn't afford to be in the office that long. I hit the print button and heard the hum of her machine. I hoped that she didn't have the software to check her computer to see what had been printed. I'm sure most people don't. Anyway, this office was too small for anyone to care about paper usage. Who would suspect that an ex-manager of a budding starlet, who'd been fired from his job, was stealing Juliana Londell's financial report?

And remembering that I'd been fired from a manager's position that I never really had made me feel better about copying what turned out to be twenty pages of financial reports. I couldn't even imagine going through the numbers.

Quickly scanning Juliana's e-mail, I keyed in Jason Londell's name. She'd kept an impressive list of messages to and from the actor. Hundreds. Too many to print, and I didn't have time to see if there were threatening e-mails.

Turning off the computer, wiping the keyboard, I used the Maglite to find my way to the door. I hunched my shoulders, buried my cap-covered head, and locked the door behind me, making sure to hide my face at all times from the camera.

As I walked away, I put my hand inside my windbreaker,
touching the papers stuck in my waistband. I didn't know what it was going to prove, but it sure was going to make some interesting reading.

One hour and twenty minutes later, I pulled up in front of Chateau Marmont. The valet guy was at my door in an instant, and I watched him as his eyes scanned my vehicle. In the bright entrance lights, I could see the look of disdain on his face.

“Valet, sir?”

What the hell.

“Yes. And please, make sure not to park too close to another car. I don't want to ding this vehicle.”

He smirked, as if he understood the joke.

Stepping out of the car, I watched the paparazzi lined up on the sidewalk. Not a one of them even gave me a glance.

I walked in, looking to my left and right, trying to separate the beautiful Em from the throng of crazy people who packed the room.

I couldn't find her, but I knew I could use a beverage, so I walked to the crowded bar and stared halfway down at one of the attractive young girls slinging drinks. She frowned at me and kept pouring and mixing. Obviously, my captivating charm didn't work on her. The muscular male in the black T-shirt and stubbly beard noticed my state and stepped in front of me, asking me what would be my pleasure. So, I could get the big guy's attention but—

With a beer in my hand, I walked away from the bar and started searching for Em.

I was invisible. No one stepped out of my way, and no one glanced at me. A ghost, walking through a throng of involved people. Involved in their own little worlds, their own conversations, their own cliques, and ignoring the man with a history of
seventy-five million dollars in his possession. No, I didn't have the seventy-five million dollars. But I could control the fate of that money. I had names, account numbers, dollar figures. I probably had information that could stop the flow of assets to Juliana Londell. You never know.

Feeling somewhat empowered, I made it through one pass of the room. I didn't see any noticeable celebs, even though I expected to run into one at every table. If there were celebrities, I was blind to them.

“Skip.”

I felt her smooth arms around my neck and I knew she'd found
me
, not the other way around.

“Where have you been? I was almost abducted by Ashton Kutcher.” She giggled and I said nothing. My girlfriend was having way too much fun, and I was not feeling like fun at this moment. I'd had a remarkable stroke of luck at Juliana's office and I wasn't ready to get into party mode.

“Come on, Skip.” Again, the giggle. “I could get used to this. Lots of hot movie people coming on to me and—”

She was drunk. Her hands drifted from my neck to my chest and I knew I had to make a judgment call.

“Look, Em, I don't know what's happened here, but I need to go back to the motel to organize—” I stopped. I hadn't told her what I was doing.

“Organize what? What have you been up to? Have you been a naughty boy? Mmmm?”

“Sort of.”

“What? Tell me.”

“In the car. I'll surprise you.”

“This guy giving you a tough time, Miss?”

Out of the blue a hired thug stared down at me.

“No, no,” she pleaded. “This is my boyfriend. You are my boyfriend, right?” she asked.

“Yeah.”

“Gonna disappoint a lot of guys here tonight.” The hard-ass guy looked down at me with a smirk on his face.

“That's the breaks,” I said.

He appraised me from head to toe, shook his head in disgust, and walked away. If I'd had a couple of drinks I'd have hit him. No, I wouldn't have. He was much bigger than I was.

“Seriously, Em. I've got some good stuff to tell you. I think you'll be very interested in what I've got.”

“Do we have to go? The party is just getting started. And Skip, you won't believe this, but I haven't paid for one drink tonight. Not one.”

I believed it.

“We have to go.”

Pouting, she put her glass on a table and her hand in mine. We walked toward the door, and I wondered if this would be one of her frequent haunts if she ever made the big time.

The minute we hit the drive, flashbulbs started popping.

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

“Em, I broke into Juliana's office.”

“You what?”

“I needed real stuff. Copies of the insurance policy, information on her manager boyfriend, financial reports.”

“Skip, you could mess up my chances to—”

“
Your
chances? Really?”

I had to remember that she'd been drinking, but Em was over the top, even for someone who was three sheets to the wind.

“I could have been arrested for robbery. For robbery, Em. That would mess up
my
chances.”

“I'm sorry. I just wish you'd told me what you were doing.” That little-girl voice that she uses when she's had one or two too many. And she'd had at least one or two too many.

“I didn't want to implicate you.”

“Oh, that's sweet.”

I didn't tell her the real reason. I didn't want her talking me out of my evening adventure. And she would have tried.

“Okay, Skip. Tell me what you found.”

As I drove back to the motel, I explained what I'd seen and copied. She'd nod, give me an encouraging “way to go,” then start talking about someone she saw at the Chateau or an exotic drink that seemed to be wildly popular on the West Coast. Someone had introduced her to a screenwriter and she'd met a makeup artist. On and on.

Finally, I gave up and she fell silent. When we got to our room, she was in bed in five minutes and seconds later dead to the world.

Sitting at the small desk, I pulled out the life insurance policy from State Commonwealth and glanced over page one. Lots of legal jargon, but one thing stood out very clearly. The policy would not pay off if the insured committed suicide within the first two years.

So, if Juliana was behind the murder, she couldn't make it look like a suicide. It would hold up the payment.

There was also a clause that said in the first two years of the policy, any accidental death was subject to strict review by the insurance company. Suicide and accidental death were off the table. Murder, apparently, was acceptable.

I had seen no record of a payout in her files, so State Commonwealth was apparently still investigating the death. I found out later that is called a contestability period. Ten million bucks. The insurance people didn't want to part with that kind of money until they'd checked out every detail.

The annual premium on the policy was staggering. Five grand a month, sixty thousand dollars a year. It would take me over two years to make that much and for him it was just a policy premium.

And another thing that came to the surface. This insurance company was covering their own ass big time. Every other line in the contract had a “however.” There seemed to be loopholes for
loopholes. The company would pay if this happened,
however
. The policy says that the insurance company should pay under these conditions,
however
. I never had seen so may
howevers
in a document. To be honest, I had never seen that many documents.

Then I pulled out the B.T. documents. Betsy Timmermeister had outlined everything in great detail. My God, there were real estate holdings in Hawaii and St. Barts, property in the heart of Manhattan and in San Francisco. A couple of million dollars in gold bullion and an interest in a silver mine in Brazil. The two of them owned two vineyards in New Zealand and a mansion in Amagansett on Long Island along with a publishing company and God knows what else.