Richfield & Rivers Mystery Series 1 - Combust the Sun (15 page)

"My
God, you're telling me." I looked at her with eyes that had seen another
dimension. "I love you." The words came out before I could stop them
and made me self-conscious, especially since she said nothing in return.
Why
did I say I loved her? How can I even know that really? Maybe I frightened her.
Maybe I frightened myself.

I
attempted to roll her over, but she slid away from me. "You just rest and
enjoy. I'm finishing dinner for us," she said, amused at my groggy
condition.

"No,
come here," I said, but she was out of my grasp.

"It
doesn't always have to be tit for tat." She smiled. "I'll be right back."

I
was aware that she was still running away from me, but just like the guys, I
fell soundly asleep.

We
arrived at Cedars Sinai and went to Barrett's room, which was on the top floor.
I asked the nurse guarding her door if Barrett could talk. She wanted to know
who we were and furrowed her young brow for emphasis. I pulled a snapshot out
of my purse of Barrett and me, arms around each other. "Her sister,"
I said sweetly and walked past her, knowing I had the age advantage and using
it to intimidate her.

"You
carry a picture of your 'sister'?" Callie hissed in a decidedly un-cosmic-like
moment of jealousy.

"She
can't talk long," the nurse warned, and I assured her we'd only stay a
moment.

Barrett
was propped up slightly, and whoever had bandaged her body probably worked in
an Egyptian tomb in his last lifetime. Only Barrett's face was visible.

"I
have to ask you to leave...not feeling well," Barrett muttered, almost
unintelligibly.

"I'm
not feeling too well myself." I yanked the stone out of my pocket and
flashed it in front of her eyes. "Because ever since you planted this
little time bomb on me, people have been trying to kill me. Now why is
that?" I felt bad verbally assaulting a woman who had been physically
assaulted, but she was the only one who could answer my questions and, after
all, whatever she was involved in had made me a big target. "Start with
Frank Anthony, who died clutching a death stone just like this one."

Barrett
answered only because she was too weak to fend me off. "Hank Caruthers was
on the Marathon board. Frank Anthony was too, but Frank had decided to resign.
He knew something illegal was going on at the board level, and he didn't want
to be part of it. Caruthers didn't want his old friend to resign. He knew Frank
was starstruck, so Caruthers talked Frank into coming out to the studio to
discuss his issues and think about staying on. When Frank agreed to come out to
L.A., Caruthers called Isaacs, who in turn called me and told me to get Frank
Anthony anything he wanted for the weekend. You know, impress him so he'd want
to remain on the board. Turned out Frank just wanted to meet starlets for a
drink, a few autographs, and a tour of Disneyland. Kind of refreshing, you
know? Frank liked Egyptian stuff, so I arranged a private showing with
Waterston Evers."

She
pointed to a drinking glass with a hospital straw in it. I retrieved it for
her. She took a sip, grimacing in pain, and collapsed back onto her pillow.
"I'd phoned Frank earlier on several occasions about the prostitutes and
the snuff films. I wanted someone to put a stop to it. He said it was all going
to stop. The barter deals, the skimming money off the top, everything. He said
he knew who was behind it. He had a list of names and some bank information.
The last time I called him, he said he was going to talk to the FBI. He said if
anything happened to him, to remember what he'd given me, and that the list was
'written in stone.'"

"So
the names are written on this stone, like the Bible on the head of a pin?"
I asked.

"I
don't know, but they're somehow connected with this stone, and they'll kill to
get it back." Exhausted, she sagged back into her cocoon-like bandages, in
a deep sleep. I carefully opened the drawer next to her bed and searched
through her belongings until I found a date book.

"Hide
this in your purse," I told Callie.

"I'm
sorry, she's not supposed to have visitors." The nurse poked her head into
the room. "I shouldn't have let you in. My supervisor is having a
fit."

Callie
leaned over and whispered, "The flowers are from Sterling Hacket."

"So
Sterling Hacket owes her a debt of gratitude," I mused. "You know, at
lunch with Barrett, she told me she got called to a famous actor's house in the
middle of the night and did CPR on this kid to save his life. Barrett said she
realized it was a 'fuckin' near miss,' and she could just as easily have been
on a murder scene."

"Isn't
Sterling Hacket being investigated for procuring kids for sex?" Callie
asked.

"Right.
So maybe Sterling's deal with Marathon is that they take care of any trouble
with the porn police and he makes movies at a lower fee. Whatever all these
deals are, they involve more than Barrett's telling."

The
nurse reappeared, even more agitated this time, and personally ushered us out
of the room, leaving us only when she saw us disappear down the hospital
corridor headed for the street.

When
we got in the car, I checked my watch. "We can still make Rita Smith's
viewing."

"Viewing?"
Callie wrinkled her nose.

"As
a spiritualist, I would think you would welcome any opportunity to commune with
the dead," I said darkly.

"I'll
have to spend a week cleansing my aura. Hospitals, crime scenes, and now
cemeteries!"

In
spite of Callie's protests, I popped onto the 405 north, then took the 134 east
and exited at Forest Lawn Drive. We drove up exquisitely manicured hills to the
southern slope of the cemetery until we were overlooking the Disney studios.
Spending eternity staring at Mickey Mouse on a water tower apparently appealed
to a lot of folks, since burial plots on that side of the hill were SRO.

Black
limos lined the circular drive, and hordes of men and women in business suits
climbed the steps to the chapel, having momentarily put show business on hold
to say goodbye to Rita Smith. Inside the chapel, an organist played
tear-jerking tunes about love lost as a group of well-to-do women wept loudly
in the front row. Eddie was putting on quite a show. As people filed past
Rita's open coffin, he shook their hands and in a trembling voice, thanked them
for coming.

Callie
and I took a seat in the back row of the chapel and knelt in prayer. Glancing
around, I recognized a lot of studio insiders: attorneys, agents, division
presidents. It did cross my mind that I'd reached a new low. First, I'd crashed
Frank Anthony's wake, now I was pretending to be one of the bereaved at the
funeral of a woman I'd never met!

After
about fifteen minutes of mogul watching, I decided we'd better go have a look
at Rita. We cued up with dozens of other people lining the east wall of the
chapel alongside a parade of wreaths and flower arrangements and waited our
turn to make the horseshoe curve that would let us pass in front of her casket.
As we inched our way forward, Callie fingered the cards on each wreath, reading
the famous names bidding Rita farewell. At one particularly huge display, she
seemed to lose her balance and staggered before the man next to her caught her
by the arm.

"I'm
sorry," Callie said. "I'm just a little overcome; that's all."
But I noticed, after she regained her balance, that the card attached to the large
wreath was missing. I gave her a raised eyebrow, and she dabbed her eyes in
reply. There was no time to pursue it, as Rita's lifeless form loomed,
outstretched, only yards ahead of us. Apparently, Rita had indeed died from a
blow on the head and smoke inhalation, and not a fire, because she looked like
a large porcelain doll dressed in peach, her hair falling in beautiful curls
around her shoulders, her face and hands looking a lot like marble.

After
passing the coffin, I turned and shook hands with Eddie, expressing my sorrow
and quickly moving on before he could ask who the hell I was. Callie and I
walked along the west wall of the chapel and straight out the front door to the
parking lot.

Callie
flashed the stolen florist's card in front of my eyes. The big Marathon logo
was embossed in one corner. It read:
Let sorrow be a gift that brings the
sufferer closer to Heaven.

"Now
is that a strange thing to say or what?" Callie remarked.

"What's
so strange?"

"Let
sorrow be a gift. Get it?" Callie raised her eyebrows at me. "Like
Rita's murder was a gift to Eddie..."

"Maybe
that's what his Marathon deal was contingent on," I said. "Maybe
that's what 'do her' meant."

"Could
you stop and let me get a Coke?"

"Now?"

"I'm
thirsty," she insisted, so I merged onto the 34 eastbound and exited again
just before Highway 2, a couple of blocks from a local burger joint. Up ahead I
spotted a parked car with two Latin men in it. I pulled up to the order window,
then cut a sharp right, jumped the curb and floorboarded it.

Callie
screamed at my sudden reversal, but I signaled her to be quiet. She paused a
moment, then tried to speak again, but I waved her into silence. A few blocks
away, I drove the car into the automatic car wash. Once the soap and brushes
got started, I opened the driver side door. Callie shrieked as the hot water
sprayed inside, soaping the seat and splattering the dashboard. Crawling out
onto the metal guide rails of the car wash, I knelt down, the soap and water
splattering all over me, and felt around. I located what I was looking for,
ripped the box from under the car, and crawled sopping wet back inside, then
reached under the front seat and yanked a wire.

"It's
one thing to be followed to a fast food joint, it's another to have guys
already there waiting for you. We were tapped and traced. They had a wire
inside the car listening to us and a signal under the car so they could follow
us," I said, handing her the tracking device.

"When
was it put there?"

"Had
to be at Marty's repair shop. I should have gone over the car after I got it
back," I said, looking left and then right as we drove out of the car
wash, relieved that we had finally lost the men trailing us.

"I've
got to get home and change clothes. I'm a freaking sponge!" I yelped.

"Tight,
wet clothes. Kind of sexy—except for the soap." She grinned and wiped a
large mound of suds off me, tossing it out the car window.

"You're
taking the fact that we're being stalked pretty cavalierly," I said.

"Sometimes
you have to take charge and change the energy. I've decided to stop being
fearful around the issue of our safety and just see it all working out for
us."

"Good,"
I said, thinking she was without a doubt the strangest woman I'd ever known..
.and wanting her even more.

I
was greatly relieved to know that we were no longer tied to a tracking device
and I could focus now on the source of the stones.

"Waterston
Evers is the collector who arranged the private showing for Frank Anthony. We
need to talk to him," I announced to Callie as I pulled on a clean, dry
pair of jeans and blew my wet hair dry.

Callie
rummaged through my closet and found a shirt for me. “Wear this. The light blue
looks great on you," she said.

"Thanks."
I kissed her soft, sweet lips. "Give me a minute to walk Elmo. He's been
alone a lot lately and he's feeling neglected."

Jamming
my feet into my tennis shoes, I hooked Elmo up to his lead. We headed out the
front door. Callie walked along beside us.

Just
across the street, with her back to us, was the most gorgeous Samoyed dog I'd
ever seen. She was huge and fluffy, with snow-white hair, all brushed and
sparkling in the sunlight. She was obviously new to the neighborhood. Elmo
stopped short just outside the front door, stricken with her beauty. He plopped
his butt down on the ground, threw his head back and howled like I'd never
heard him howl—a howl that bordered on a wolf whistle. He jumped up, dragging me
with him across the street, and circled the dog, giving her the once over. Elmo
had good taste. She was hot. Then she turned to face us, revealing a very
pointy muzzle and small, squinty eyes. Elmo froze. He snorted. He turned. He
did a full body shake and marched on, never looking back.

"Did
you see that?" I asked Callie. "He thought she was gorgeous until she
turned around and he got a look at her face. He likes gorgeous blondes with a
great ass, but the front has to be as good as the rear. He's a lot like me,
actually."

"Animals
see beauty and judge it just like we do," Callie explained. "But I
think Elmo was a little too critical of her. He should have gotten to know her
before rejecting her over something as superficial as her nose."

"He's
a guy. He's not going to take time to get to know her." I nodded ahead at
Elmo's nicely formed hindquarters and his matching, dangling accessories.
"He knows what he's got to offer. Check those chalangas! A guy like Elmo's
got options, Callie." I smirked proudly, and Callie laughed at both of us.