The Dead and the Beautiful (13 page)

“That won't be necessary,” Nikki assured her.

“Jessie! Those your burgers smokin'?” someone hollered.

“I'll be right out.” Jessie tapped the counter with her spatula. “I swear.”

Five minutes later, Nikki and Victoria sat at a table, waiting for Nikki's name to be called. “So who are we here to talk to?” Victoria asked, lowering her voice. “I assume this has to do with Jeremy's sister. Is this one of her hangouts or something?”

Nikki glanced out the window, watching the traffic on Sunset. “You make me laugh, Mother.”

“Well, I'm glad I'm good for something.” She propped her designer handbag on the table against the window. “I don't know why you didn't let me buy you dinner.”

“Because I invited you,” Nikki answered firmly.

“Nikki!” the Hispanic man called from behind the counter.

“I'll get it! I'll get it!” a woman called. Jessie.

Nikki looked at her mother across the table. “I'm hoping this girl can help me find out what incriminating evidence the police found on Ryan Melton's laptop. Her brother's roommate works for the computer firm the police subcontracted to have a look at it.”

“Oh, goody.” Victoria swiped on pale peach lipstick. “A caboose with frankfurters and spies.”

Chapter 13

“I
. . . I guess I could ask. You know, kind of sneaky like.” Jessie clutched her soda cup. Her short fingernails were painted fuchsia and blue, alternating nail to nail.

“Heavens, this is the best frankfurter I've ever had.” Victoria chewed delicately and dabbed at her mouth with a brown paper napkin. “You know, Jessica dear, it's not as if anyone will be hurt by this brother of yours telling us what's on that laptop. It will all come out in court.”

“Brother's roommate,” Nikki corrected.

Jessie stared wide-eyed at Victoria sitting across from her at the diner table, munching a hot dog with sauerkraut and mustard. “Just shoot me. I still can't believe you're here,” she breathed. “No one's going to believe me.”

“Leave your address with Nicolette. I'll send you a personally autographed photo. Nicolette, are you going to eat all your fries? I don't dare order more. I won't fit into my costumes Monday, but these fries are extraordinary. Just the right amount of salt.”

“We have to change the oil all the time. That's what makes them so good,” Jessie offered.

Nikki pushed the flimsy, brown cardboard box of fries across the table. “I'm done. Have them.” She looked at Jessie sitting beside her. “You and Monica were talking about standing outside a nightclub. What would you say if I could get you
inside
one of those exclusive nightclubs? Allegro.”

“Allegro?”
Jessie breathed. “Just shoot me. Do I have to get him to steal the computer?”

“No, of course not.” Nikki touched Jessie's arm. She would have laughed, but the girl was entirely serious. “I just want to know what your brother's friend found on the computer. I don't even need the details.”

“That's it? And you'll get me and Monica into Allegro?”

Nikki raised and dropped her shoulder. “I'll see what I can do, either way. I feel a little bad, stalking you like this.”

“Oh, no, Miss Harper.” Jessie sipped on her straw. “Stalk me anytime.”

“Could you pass the ketchup, Nicolette? It's nice of you to do this, dear,” Victoria said to Jessie. “This young woman who's been accused of killing the Melton boy, she's already got the cards stacked against her. I'd hate to see her go to jail for life if she didn't do it.”

“And leave the killer still on the loose,” Jessie breathed. “What about the police? No, wait, they're on the take, right?”

Nikki took a drink of her diet cola. “I'm just doing this for my friend.”

“Jess!” a man hollered from the counter. “You plan on working any more tonight?”

“Shoot me now, I've got to get back to work.” Jessie came out of her chair. “We're only supposed to take fifteen-minute potty breaks.”

Nikki fished a business card out of her bag hanging on the back of her chair. “Call me if you find anything out.”

“Definitely. I'm seeing my brother tonight. Party at his neighbor's.” She pushed in her chair.

“Jess!”

“I'm coming!” she shouted over her shoulder. Then looked back at Nikki and Victoria. “Thanks so much for stopping by.” She clutched her drink cup to her chest. “I can't tell you how much this means to me, you trying to find Ryan's killer.” Her eyes started to tear up.

Victoria occupied herself squirting ketchup beside the last of the fries, from a plastic ketchup bottle.

“Um . . . you're welcome.” Nikki got up. “Is there some way I can contact you? I'll have to talk to my friend about getting you into Allegro.”

“Oh, yeah. Definitely.” She pulled a pen from her pants pocket, leaned over the table, and scrawled a number on a napkin. Then she wrote her name, putting a heart over the
I
. “Thanks again.” She backed away from them. “Ms. Bordeaux.” She nodded.

“Nice to meet you, dear.” Victoria smiled kindly and popped a French fry into her mouth. “Nice girl,” she told Nikki when Jessie walked away. She leaned on the table, licking her fingertips delicately. “Now tell me what Marshall's leggy date had to say about Ryan Melton. She have any dirt on him and Alison?”

“No. What gives you that idea?”

Done with her meal, Victoria wiped her mouth with a clean napkin and then dug into her bag for her lipstick. “I think she did it, and I think you're going to ruin your relationship with Jeremy over it.”

“Alison didn't kill Ryan Melton,” Nikki insisted, speaking under her breath.

Victoria applied her lipstick. “I think she did, so let's see if we can get this investigation going and you can prove it.”

 

Nikki dropped her mother off in plenty of time for her hookup with Clark Gable, then on impulse, headed back toward West Hollywood. Half an hour later, she was ringing the doorbell of a cute, two-story, yellow Cape Cod on a residential street. A young Asian girl with orange hair answered the door.

“Hey-ya.” She wore cutoff jean shorts and a yellow Cheerios graphic T-shirt. Sounds of automatic weapon fire blasted from behind her. TV, Nikki hoped.

“Hi.” Nikki absentmindedly jingled her keys in her hand. She'd left her bag in her car. She looked down at her feet, then back at the young woman. “Elvis in?”

“Elvis! Someone at the door for you!” She looked back at Nikki. “You wanna come in? Quentin Tarantino night on TBS.”

Nikki smiled. “No, thanks. I'll just wait here.”

Nikki had just settled on the wooden bench swing and given herself a push when Elvis walked out onto the porch and closed the door behind him.

“Hey there, little lady,” he crooned with the lopsided grin that she always found eerily spot-on. He sauntered toward her.

Her half-brother was dressed casually this evening, rather than in a replica of one of Elvis Presley's famous costumes. He wore black pants, a white shirt, and a blue tie that hung loose below his unbuttoned collar. The men's leather ankle boots were a nice touch.

“That the same shirt you wore for your mug shot in Colorado in 1970?” she asked, even though her little brother Jimmy wasn't alive in 1970.

He grinned, winked, and gave her the old “pistol fire” acknowledgment. “You know, it wasn't really a mug shot. I was awarded an honorary police badge.”

She stopped the porch swing and he sat down and gave it a push.

“Nice place, E.” She'd never been here before, but he'd texted her the address when he moved here a few months ago. It was a residential treatment facility for folks with mental disorders.

E, like his deceased father, was schizophrenic. When he was on his meds, as he appeared to be now, he could seem totally sane . . . if you could look past the blue/black pompadour and upturned lip. He made his living, as it was, doing Elvis impersonations, often on street corners. He did private parties and karaoke bars when he was lucky. He was on a good run right now and had been working at a used car dealership on Sunset for the last six months or so.

“People are a little nutsy here, but it beats the alley off Hollywood and Vine,” he quipped.

“So, how've you been doing?” she asked, patting his knee. “Really. Because you look good.”

“She send you?” He sounded hopeful.

He always referred to their mother as
she.
He'd had a falling out with Victoria ten years earlier and they didn't speak.
She
maintained it was because her son refused to seek help for his mental illness, help she was willing to pay for. Jimmy insisted it was because she was jealous of his talent. Nikki tried to remain neutral; it was hard for her to see him ill. After his years of drug abuse and arrests, after years of trying to help him, she'd realized she couldn't help him if he wouldn't help himself. She hoped he was doing as well as he appeared to be.

“She wanted me to get you a birthday present,” she said. “I thought I'd stop by the car lot one day. Maybe we could have lunch.”

He looked away. It was dark now and the only light on the porch was the glow that came through the curtains on the windows of the house. Agitated voices came from the TV inside. The light in the windows flashed, as the images on the TV screen probably changed. The air was cool and smelled faintly of freshly mowed lawn and hydrangeas.

Jimmy looked at her. “So, what's up, big sister? Who's dead now?”

She cut her eyes at him.

“Come on, little lady. The last two times we saw each other, you were knee-deep minding business that wasn't yours to mind. In fact, if I seem to recollect correctly, you were in a spot of trouble and
The King
had to come rescue you.”

All true, or mostly so. She was glad his memory was clear; it wasn't always. “I'm not in any trouble. I just . . .” She exhaled, dropping her keys in her lap. “Actually, I have no idea why I'm here.”

“So you're not championing another innocent soul headed for the
Jailhouse Rock?
”

She turned to him. “You haven't seen the papers?”

“Bad for my recovery.” He smiled and this time it was Jimmy's smile, not Elvis Presley's. “Real world already overwhelms me.”

She smiled back. “It's Jeremy's sister, Alison. She's been accused of killing Ryan Melton.”

He shook his head. “Bad news for her. Who's Ryan Melson?”

“
Melton.
You really don't read the papers, do you?”

He pushed back the lush, dark hair that was his own and not a wig. He certainly looked like Elvis, the Elvis before the pills and overindulgence in peanut butter and smashed banana sandwiches.

“Ryan Melton was married to Diara Elliot.”

Jimmy raised his black eyebrows.

“One of the Disney Fab Four? Then played Ellie on
Smart Avenue
for two years,” she said, naming an Emmy-nominated TV drama.

He shook his head.

“Has her own perfume? She's got a billboard on Santa Monica? Gorgeous blonde with big brown eyes?”

“I don't get out on the freeway much in my caddie.”

“Guess you don't watch much TV either?”

He shook his head.

“Okay, well, she's a big star and he was a big star because he was amazingly handsome. Sexy—”

“And now he's dead. And the police think Alison did it?”

She gave the swing another push and told him about meeting Ryan and Diara at Victoria's party. About the phone call from Alison. About her dog-walking business. About meeting Alison at the Melton/Elliot house and her arrest. Even about Detective Dombrowski and Jeremy. Jimmy sat and listened. He had always been a good listener, even at his craziest. And when she was done, they just sat together, swinging in silence for a couple of minutes.

“Okay,” he finally said. “So, tell me again how all this is your problem? I mean . . . it sounds like Jeremy is pretty pissed at you for getting involved anyway.”

She nodded. “He's that, all right.”

Jimmy waited.

“I . . . I guess I just don't want Jeremy to believe Alison did this. She needs someone to believe her. She needs someone to prove to Jeremy that she didn't kill Ryan, and it doesn't seem like she's willing to fight for herself right now.”

“And you don't think this detective will get to the truth?”

“I don't know.” She thought for a moment. “Tom's a good guy, but he's got his arrest. Obviously he's got evidence against Alison, all of which I don't know yet. What if she gets to court and the evidence says she did it, even though she didn't? Even if she gets off with her fancy lawyer, what if Jeremy believes for the rest of his life that his sister murdered someone?”

“So . . . just so I understand why you're putting yourself at risk for her—”

“I'm not putting myself at risk.” She opened her arms. “I'm just asking some questions.”

“Like the last time? And the time before that?”

“There's no danger, E.”

“Unless you get too close to the person who really did it . . . again.”

She was quiet.

“So is this about you, or about Alison?”

She scowled. It had been a mistake to come here. What was she thinking? She needed to get home and take Stan and Ollie for a walk. She needed some sleep. “How would this be about me, E?”

“I don't know. You tell me.”

She looked at him through the darkness. It was weird, looking at Elvis Presley . . . but talking to her brother. “I think it's important that someone believe in Alison. Believe that the person she was isn't the person she is now. She could lose her daughter over this mess. It can't go to trial.” She pressed her lips together. “And Jeremy can't go through life believing his sister murdered someone.”

“Fair enough.”

She glanced at him. “You get it? Why I need to do this?”

“No, I think you're crazier than I am, little lady.” He gave her the Elvis smile, upper lip curled perfectly.

Nikki got up. “Thanks, E.”

He followed her to the step. “Thanks for coming by. Good to see you.”

“You too. Glad you're doing well.” She turned away and was halfway down the dark walk when Jimmy called out to her.

“For what it's worth?”

She turned. He looked young and handsome and . . . healthy in the dim light.

“From what you told me, I'd check out the little woman. The gorgeous one on the billboard.”

“Diara? You think?”

“Trust me. Cases like this”—he winked—“it's
always
the little woman.”