So Pretty It Hurts (5 page)

Back inside my room, I dug a pair of jeans out of my duffel bag and slipped them on with a turtleneck sweater. I was relieved to have a few minutes to myself. Already people were popping out of doorways as if they were actors in a British farce, and things were only going to get crazier as the night wore on. I needed a few moments to process everything that had transpired.

According to Laura, Devon had called extension seven for water, saying she didn’t feel well enough to get up. Whatever had killed her—whether it was a heart attack due to an eating disorder or some combination of drugs and alcohol—may have already begun to take hold. But I kept coming back to what I’d witnessed earlier: Devon freaking out in the forest. Devon feeling in danger.

What really mystified me was the second call Laura had received. Laura had assumed it was from Devon, but that wasn’t possible. So why would someone else be phoning the help in the middle of the night?

No matter what had really occurred, this was going to be a huge story—and before long I would need to wake Nash Nolan, the editor in chief of
Buzz
, who would want to break the story online as soon as possible. But I had to talk to the police first. I’d landed in hot water earlier in the fall for filing a story
before
sharing key info with the cops, and I wasn’t going to make that mistake again.

I also felt a huge urge to call Beau. I was feeling a bit shell-shocked over Devon’s death, and it would be good to talk to him about what had happened. But it was one o’clock Arizona time, and he would surely be in bed by now.

A moment later, I knocked on Jessie’s door. She’d thrown on a pair of cargo pants and a brown sweater.

“Thank God it’s you,” she exclaimed as she opened the door. “Tell me what happened. Did she OD or something?”

I shared the sequence of events and the guesses I’d made about cause of death.

“How horrible,” she said. “There wasn’t one single thing I liked about the woman, but that doesn’t mean I’m happy she’s dead.”

“Can I be blunt here? What were you doing in your own room tonight?”

“Oh, God,” she groaned. “You don’t want to know.”

“Lovers’ quarrel?”

“I wish. I’m almost too embarrassed to say. It actually has something to do with
you
.”

“
What
? Tell me.”

“Well, everyone else had gone to bed, and we started making out on the couch. There I was, expecting another night like the previous one. And then—with my boob in his hand—he says . . . oh shit, I can hardly stand to say it. He said, ‘Wouldn’t it be fun if
Bailey
joined us.’ ”

“Oh, jeez.” I groaned. “Was there any chance he was kidding?”

“Well, at first I thought it was just his idea of a joke—he’d had a fair amount to drink. But then he starts whispering about how he’d love to please both of us at the same time. I wanted to cry. No offense, of course. You know you’re hot, Bailey, but I can’t believe he had the gall to suggest a threesome. I just stood up and marched back to my room.”

“Oh Jessie, I’m sorry. You must feel awful.”

“Miserable. I really liked the guy—and what’s worse, I
slept
with him. My number is already higher than I’d like, and now I’ve wasted a slot on a total asshole.”

“Are you going to feel uncomfortable going up for coffee?”

“Yes—but it beats staying in my room knowing there’s a dead body a few yards away. Speaking of which, what do we do about
Buzz
? Shouldn’t we be phoning this in? Dead celeb sort of falls under your jurisdiction.”

“I’m planning to call Nash, but I need to wait until the police have had a chance to talk to me. I was in the room, and it’s my obligation to speak to them first.”

The smell of freshly brewed coffee greeted us as we entered the living area. Sandy was bustling nervously at the kitchen counter while Scott, Jane, and Cap huddled at the island. Laura Ash was sitting alone at the dining table, appearing glum as all get-out. And a solemn-looking Whitney was on one of the couches, working a pair of knitting needles and a fat ball of yarn.

“Is there anything I can do?” I asked, approaching the group by the island as Jessie slunk off toward a couch. Cap’s face was pinched in despair. If he
had
been having an affair with Devon, this experience was a helluva lot worse than simply losing a longtime client.

“We’re trying to put a statement together,” Cap said. “We’d like a few minutes alone, if you don’t mind.”

Trying not to look thrown by the snub, I quickly poured a cup of coffee and joined Whitney and Jessie on the couch.

“This must be awful for Cap,” I said softly to Whitney.

“For both of us,” she said above the steady clicking of her silver needles. “Devon’s been Cap’s client for seven years. I just pray to God she didn’t suffer.”

“Did she have any health problems that you were aware of?”

“
Health
problems?” Whitney sniffed. “She was only thirty-four. What health problems could she possibly have had?”

“Anorexia. Or bulimia. Some kind of eating disorder.”

“Devon
had
struggled with weight issues in the past, but she managed to put that behind her. Though I’m sure that will all be dragged out again in your magazine and places like that. This may sound horribly old-fashioned, but where I come from, we still believe that if you can’t say anything nice about someone, don’t say anything at all.”

I wondered if she also believed in unicorns.

“As I told Scott, we’re off the record here,” I said. “This is a tough situation, and Jessie and I want to help in any way.”

“There’s just so much to do right now,” Whitney said. “A statement to the press, funeral arrangements, a memorial service in New York possibly—and here we are, snowbound.”

“Was Jane able to reach Devon’s mother?” I asked.

“Yes, but she apparently wasn’t sober, and Jane’s not sure how much she actually digested. If I had my phone with me, I’d call her myself. I just dread going back to the room alone.”

“Here, use my BlackBerry,” I said, handing it to her in the hope she’d see that I wasn’t the enemy.

“Thanks,” she said, accepting it. She stared at it for a moment, then shook her head and handed it back.

“What am I thinking?” she said. “The number’s on my phone. And it’s probably best for Cap to make the call anyway.”

Scott drifted over a moment later and announced that he had made an executive decision to wake the others and fill them in. Within the next fifteen minutes, Richard, Tommy, and Tory joined us in the great room. Everyone appeared stunned, but there weren’t any tears. From the corner of my eye I watched Richard pour coffee and sink back with his cup into one of the leather armchairs. I was dying to know what was racing through his mind beneath the wild tufts of bed-head hair. He was a reporter too. Surely he was wondering who he should give the story to.

For the next hour and a half we waited, with people sometimes drifting in and out of the room. Finally, at around 5:00 a.m., we heard the sound of a gunned motor, a vehicle forcing its way through the snow on the driveway. Scott rose to go downstairs, and I followed him. He turned once in surprise but didn’t question my presence.

Before anyone could knock, Scott flung open the double doors. Two plainclothes cops were standing in the cold, their coats dusted with snowflakes. They stepped inside and introduced themselves. Detective Ray was a short, beer-gutted guy of about fifty, with a silver skunk streak in his hair. Detective Collinson was tall, slim, and in his midthirties, I guessed. He was what my mother called black Irish—dark hair, charcoal black eyes, and very white skin, in his case almost Draculean. There was a swollen quality to his face, as if he were on steroids for some kind of health ailment. It was clear after a moment that Collinson, the younger one, was the man in charge.

Scott explained very quickly what had happened. He presented himself as open, eager to cooperate, but at the same time firmly in charge and not at all obsequious. I would have been impressed except I kept remembering that hours earlier he’d suggested to Jessie that he wanted to add me to his personal spank bank. When he finished talking, I briefly offered my portion of the story, describing how I’d been woken by Laura and had gone into Devon’s room to investigate.

Natch, the cops wanted to see the body right away. We accompanied them to the small barn, and when we reached Devon’s room, Scott unlocked the door. While the cops entered the room, Scott and I stood silently in the hall cooling our heels, not making eye contact. The police emerged about ten minutes later.

“Where is this Laura Ash now?” Collinson asked.

Scott informed them that she was back with the others, and Collinson said he would like to speak to her in private, and then to Scott and me in that order. The other guests could be interviewed randomly once the police were finished with us. Scott suggested using his study on the ground floor of the bigger barn. Devon’s bedroom was relocked before we left.

Laura was questioned for about ten minutes, and when she came back upstairs, she appeared totally stricken, as if she’d just turned over critical info about a mob boss. I wondered if there was something Laura hadn’t told me or whether she was being eaten up by guilt for not having delivered the water when Devon initially called her. Scott’s interview lasted about twenty minutes, and then it was my turn.

“You’ve been up since before three,” Collinson said to me, gesturing toward a chair. “You must be awfully tired by this point. I appreciate your cooperation.”

I had dealt with more than a few local police over the years, and most seemed to overcompensate for their small jurisdictions by acting fairly gruff or bossy. This dude was different. His soft-spoken approach was a real departure. But I told myself to be careful. For all I knew, his easy style was simply a way to lower someone’s guard.

“I’m on my fifth cup of coffee, so I’m awake enough,” I said. “Before we start, it’s only fair for me to point out that I’m a journalist. I cover celebrity crime for
Buzz
magazine—and this will definitely be something I’m expected to report on. But I haven’t done anything yet. I want to first help in the investigation.”

Collinson eyed me silently for a moment. Ray blinked and squeezed his eyes shut for a beat or two. It was a weird little tic he had.

“Thank you for your candor,” Collinson said finally. “Now why don’t you take us through what happened again, but this time step by step.”

I did as he said, leaving nothing out—except of course Scott’s request to take Jessie and me to pleasure heaven at the same time. Just in case Laura hadn’t been a hundred percent forthcoming, I mentioned the time gap in Laura’s response to the phone call from Devon as well as the mystery call—though from Collinson’s blank expression, I had no way of telling whether this was new info or not. I also recounted my brief conversation at the edge of the woods with Devon Saturday morning. This, of course,
was
new, and he sat up straighter.

“That was all she said?” he asked. “Nothing specific?”

“No, nothing specific—and she seemed fine a short time later. But she definitely looked rattled in the woods.”

“Was anyone using drugs here tonight?”

Aha. He might look mild-mannered, but he wasn’t going to pull any punches with his questions.

“Not that I’m aware of,” I said. I added, though, that Devon had appeared to be buzzed when she left for bed.

“Any theories then about what might have happened to Ms. Barr?”

“I thought of drugs, too, but I also wondered if she might have died as a result of complications from an eating disorder. She seemed very thin. And as you saw, there was the bottle of ipecac in the bathroom—the stuff used to induce vomiting.”

Slowly Collinson turned his gaze toward Ray, who blinked hard and then shook his head.

“There was nothing like that in the bathroom,” Ray said. “Nothing like that at all.”

Chapter 5

T
he first thought that flew through my mind—and it wasn’t a very nice one—was that maybe Detective Ray had blinked too long and missed it. Then I wondered if he might have mistaken the small bottle for some kind of beauty potion.

“I’m positive it was there,” I told the two men. “Do you want me to show you?”

“Yes, please,” Collinson said bluntly.

Back we went to the guest quarters. The sky was faint with color now, as if someone were shining a flashlight through a burlap sack. I could see that it was still snowing. How would we all make it out of here today? I wondered.

Collinson unlocked the door to Devon’s room with the keys Scott had obviously turned over to him and motioned for me to enter. After leading me past the bed, he asked me to examine the bathroom, and without
touching
anything, point to where the ipecac had been.

“Someone’s taken it,” I said, shocked. “Someone managed to get into the room and remove it.”

“Why do you think someone would do that?” Collinson asked evenly.

“I haven’t any idea,” I told him. “Maybe—I don’t know, maybe to protect Devon’s reputation? So it wouldn’t come out that she was bulimic.”

He ushered me back into the bedroom.

“The bathroom light was off when Detective Ray and I entered the room earlier. How then did you happen to see the bottle?”

My mind raced as I deliberated whether I should try to fudge my answer just to protect my butt—but I decided against it. I’d had my butt singed before from being less than forthcoming with cops.

“I looked in the bathroom when I found Devon’s body,” I said. “I thought it might be helpful to see if she’d taken any drugs.”

“Helpful to you as a reporter?” he asked.

See, I’d been smart not to underestimate him.

“Yes, partly,” I conceded. “But mainly I just wanted to know what was going on. At least we now know that someone with sticky fingers has been sneaking around.”

“All right, Miss Weggins, you can go back with the others,” Collinson said. “We will join you in a few minutes.”

When I reached the great room, everyone looked up but no one said anything. I poured yet another cup of coffee in the kitchen area and motioned with a look for Jessie to join me at the island. As she made her way over, Detective Ray appeared at the top of the stairs and asked Scott to return to the study. I figured the cops wanted to chat with him about how someone had managed to slip into Devon’s locked bedroom.

“You okay?” I whispered to Jessie when she reached me.

“Yeah, but this is so freaky,” she said anxiously. “Am I going to be
interrogated
?”

“There’s nothing to worry about. Just tell them what you know—and you and I will catch up later.”

“This whole weekend has turned into a nightmare,” she said. “The only good news is that Nash is going to kiss our asses for being at the scene. When are you going to call it in?”

“In just a bit. I want to keep my eye on what’s going on here for a while.”

As I sipped my coffee at the counter, I mulled over the missing ipecac. The person who had taken it would have needed a key, and Scott came immediately to mind—he had pocketed Sandy’s keys after using them. At one point while we’d been waiting, he and Sandy had donned coats and gone across to the cabin to check on Ralph and then returned separately. That would have offered him the chance to stop by Devon’s room. But why would it matter to him if the world learned she’d used something to make her puke after meals? He might have had a vested interest in protecting Devon’s reputation when she was alive, but now that she was dead, the fact that she’d been bulimic probably wouldn’t matter.

If it wasn’t Scott who had done it, then who else could have had access to the room? Somewhere on the premises there had to be another set of keys.

As soon as Scott returned from his second round of questioning, Detective Ray called Jane’s name and she trudged down the stairs. Scott walked over to the refrigerator, pulled out a carton of orange juice, and filled a glass.

“Can I talk to you privately?” I said after walking over to where he was standing.

“Okay,” he said without enthusiasm. With me following, he edged over to a corner of the room.

“I assume the police asked you how someone might have gained access to Devon’s locked bedroom,” I said, when we were out of earshot of the others.

“How do you know
that
?” he asked.

“Because when I found the body, I saw something in the room that isn’t there anymore—and I told them about it. It was a bottle of ipecac syrup.”

“Ipe—
what
?”

“Ipecac. It’s a liquid used to induce vomiting. Did you take it from her room?”

“I can’t believe you’re asking that. Of course not. I never went back in there.”

“But someone did. How do you think they got in?”

“Shit,” he said suddenly, and his eyes flashed with recognition. “I bet I know how they did it. I had Sandy’s keys in my pocket, but they kept jabbing into my leg, so I took them out and laid them on the counter by the stove. I picked them back up when the cops arrived because I was going to have to let them into Devon’s room. Someone must have swiped them for a while and then returned them to the counter.”

I looked off, thinking. Though people had hung in the great room until the police arrived, mostly everyone had slipped out at some point for a few minutes. Jane had returned to her room for the phone numbers of people that had to be on the initial contact list Cap was putting together—and later I had overheard Christian say he was going back to
his
room for his cell phone in case he needed it. Whitney had set down her knitting needles about an hour into our wait and said she was going to take a shower. Cap had walked her back and returned. Tommy had announced the need for a cigarette and disappeared outside. Richard had made a point of saying he was heading downstairs to the loo, and he’d been gone for a good ten minutes. From what I could recall, Tory was the only one who had stayed put, falling asleep for a stretch on one of the sofas. Any one of the others could have snuck the keys into their pocket and let themselves into Devon’s room.

“But look, maybe it’s not that big a deal,” Scott said. “Cap or Christian could have taken the ipecac just so the press would have less to trash Devon about.”

“
Was
Devon bulimic?”

“I’m only going to talk to you if you guarantee that we are totally off the record.”

“I told you we were. You have my word.”

“It’s pretty clear there was something fucked up about her eating this weekend.”

“Was that a problem for you—the fact that she might have an eating disorder?”

“Look, I’ve had artists who were
heroin
addicts or alleged rapists. I’m not in the business of passing judgment.”

“Let me shift direction for a second. Was there any reason that you know of for Devon to be frightened this weekend?”

“
Frightened
? What are you talking about?”

I described what Devon had said to me by the woods. Scott shook his head in disbelief, but he appeared agitated by the news.

“You’re making it sound like
The Hound of the Baskervilles
up here, for God’s sake. What could have possibly frightened her other than a few field mice running along the wall?”

“That’s what I’m asking you. She said someone
knew
something.”

He sighed and combed a hand through his hair.

“I haven’t a clue what it could have been,” he said. “As far as I know, she was just being a diva—making it up so someone would take her back to New York.” He tugged at his ear and snickered. “Though if she’d gone back early, it might have foiled her brilliant little master plan.”

“What master plan is that?”

“You saw the intense eye-fucking going on between Devon and Tommy. I’m pretty sure she wanted him back, and that was the main reason she invited him and Tory up here.”

“What was her history with Tommy, anyway?”

“I don’t know all the sordid details, but from what I’ve heard they were hot and heavy last winter, and then sometime this summer he dumped her. They apparently stayed on decent terms, though, and she was the one who set him up with Tory. I like a mix of guests on the weekends, and I was happy to invite some of Devon’s entourage, but I had the last bedroom earmarked for a pal of mine. Until Devon insisted that I include Tory and Tommy.”

“And you really think she was trying to steal Tommy back?”

“It seemed pretty obvious to me. She was trying to bewitch him—with the bare breasts and cocky attitude. But most of all by having him hear that voice of hers.”

“Was Devon supposed to be pretty good friends with Tory?”

“I guess. Though how tight can you be with someone who thinks that the ozone is something you find yourself in right before you have an orgasm? Look, not that it isn’t fabulous chatting with you, but I’ve got my hands full at the moment.”

“Just one more question. What’s the latest on the road? Are we going to be able to make it out of here today?” With every inch of snow that fell, the sinking feeling in my tummy was growing worse. I didn’t want to get stuck indefinitely in the barns from hell.

“That’s what I’m going to take care of now. Ralph is too ill to plow, and I need to find a guy who can.”

As he wandered off, I pulled Jessie aside again.

“I’m going to call Nash now,” I told her. “Keep an eye out here, okay? Something kind of weird is going on. I’ll tell you more later.”

Before I could leave, Jane came trudging up the stairs and made a beeline for the muffin basket. I put my plan momentarily on hold and moved toward the island myself, pretending to survey the food. Jane had clearly taken a few swipes at her hair with a brush since I’d last seen her, but she looked just as grumpy—and her face had an unappealing shine to it, which seemed incongruous on such a cold, snowy morning.

“Did you survive your talk with the cops?” I asked, trying to sound collegial but not overeager.

“There was nothing to survive,” she said. “They asked some questions I didn’t know the answers to, and I told them so. I have no idea in the world why Devon suddenly dropped dead.”

She plucked a blueberry muffin from the basket and buttered it. It was clear I was going to have a tough time prying info from her, and I decided it might be smart to warm her up a little bit first.

“It must be tough for you today,” I said, “having to deal with all this. . . .”

“Spare me the Dr. Phil routine, will you?” she said, her mouth still partially stuffed with muffin. “I’m not going to pretend to get all emo over Devon.”

Okay, fake empathy wasn’t working. Time to try a little trash talking.

“I take it working for Devon wasn’t any picnic. How long have you been doing it?”

“Nine fabulous months.”

“How did you end up being her assistant? It’s not exactly the kind of job—”

“You’d expect a fatty to be doing?” she asked.

“No. The kind of job someone just stumbles into.”

“A girl I know told me about it. The longest Devon had ever had an assistant was like six months. She didn’t
hit
the help—like Naomi Campbell does—but she was a real uber bitch.”

“How did you manage to survive so long?”

She snorted and took another bite of muffin. This time she waited until she swallowed before answering.

“It’s simple,” she said finally. “I stayed ’cause of the money. She paid combat wages. I made major overtime from driving her up here this weekend. And the reason she never fired me is because she liked having me around. She’d never had anyone in her life who she felt
this
superior to.”

She set the muffin down and eyed the basket for another as if blueberries had lost their magic for her.

“Are we about done?” she asked, glancing back at me with almost a glare. “I’m not used to getting up at three, and I’m not really in the mood to talk.”

I decided to try one more tack: Get straight to the point.

“Did you go into Devon’s room tonight?”

“What are you talking about?”

“Just what I said. Did you go into Devon’s room after you learned she was dead—and remove something?”

“You mean like the cash from her wallet? That’s a pretty nervy thing to ask.”

“No. A bottle of ipecac.”

I could tell from the look in her eyes she knew exactly what that was, and I wasn’t going to get any “Ipe-
what
?” line from her.

“Why would I do
that
?” she asked.

“So that no one would know she was bulimic.”

“I couldn’t care less what people think of Devon Barr.”

“Did she have an eating disorder?”

“I assume this is going directly into
Buzz
magazine?”

“I would use it just as background.”

“She might have,” she said, shrugging. “A month or so ago I started noticing that she didn’t seem to be eating very much. Unless you count green tea, bottled water, and the flecks at the bottom of the Special K box.”

“Last night she called Laura, one of the girls who helped at dinner, and said she wasn’t feeling well. Were you aware of that?”

“Why would I be aware of that? I assisted the woman. I didn’t
sleep
with her.”

“So you never checked in on her last night after you left here.”

“No.”

“Did you ever call extension seven during the night?”

“What? This is getting ridiculous. Do you mind if I eat my breakfast in peace?”

“I’m almost done. Devon told me she was frightened up here. Do you know why?”

Her brown eyes widened, curious.

“No,” she said. “What was the reason?”

“She wouldn’t tell me. After a minute she just clammed up.”

Jane shrugged. “Maybe it was like a
Twilight Zone
episode,” she said. “She took a look in the mirror one day and saw the real her. That would have been
really
frightening.”

She plucked another muffin, this one corn, and after plopping it on a plate, headed over toward one of the sofas. There were other people I wanted to talk to, but it was time to get Nash on the phone and fill him in on what had happened.