The Dead and the Beautiful (3 page)

“The house and the pool area are off limits to civilians—”

“But my friend is inside. Could you go inside and get her, then?”

“I'll take this, Officer.”

Nikki looked up to see Lieutenant Detective Thomas Dombrowski, aka Detective Cutie-Pants, in the doorway.

Officer Ramos looked at Nikki, then at the detective.

“Ms. Harper and I are acquainted,” Detective Dombrowski explained. He turned in the doorway and indicated with his hand that she could come in.

“What are you doing here?” she asked as she stepped into the white marble-tiled foyer. “This isn't Beverly Hills precinct jurisdiction.”

“I'm sort of on loan. Going to be a high-profile case.” He looked at her with Robert Redford eyes. “Of course, I'm a cop, so
I'm
supposed to be here.
You,
on the other hand, are a real-estate agent and should not be at the scene of yet another murder.” He tilted his head, not even pretending not to be looking at her backside. “Nice pants.”

She wanted to stick her tongue out at him. “Real-estate
broker,
” she corrected.

“What?” He blinked, as if distracted by the ad on the back of her sweatpants.

She dropped one hand to her hip, facing him again. “I'm a real-estate
broker,
not a real-estate
agent.
” She could see through the sunken living room, through glass doors, to the pool outside. Lots of guys in uniform. Someone in a medical examiner's jumpsuit. Officer Ramos had made a point of saying the pool area was off limits. Her bet was that Ryan Melton was floating in the pool. How the heck did it happen? Drug overdose? Bad dive off the board?

She looked up at Tom. They'd gotten on a first-name basis a couple of months ago when her mother's housekeeper's son, a gardener, had been accused of killing a famous producer's son. With a pair of garden shears. Good times.

“Alison Sahira called me from here. She told me Ryan was dead. She asked me to come.”

“You know Alison Sahira?” he asked. He had his cop face on. Not the Sundance Kid one. “Know her well?”

“She's Jeremy Fitzpatrick's sister. Jeremy's my—”

“Your boyfriend,” he finished for her. He glanced down the hall. “She's in the dining room. Waiting.”

“Waiting for what? Can I talk to her?”

“You can talk to her, but just for a sec. I still have some more questions for her.”

Nikki glanced down the hall, then up at him. He was tall, heavier built than Jeremy. But not heavy. Just an imposing guy. She wondered if he'd been a linebacker in a previous life. “What do you need to talk to her about? Why are you questioning her?”

“She didn't tell you?”

Nikki got a bad feeling. “Tell me what?”

“That Ryan Melton was murdered.”

Chapter 3

N
ikki followed the detective past a sunken living room. A guy with a long ponytail in plaid shorts sat on the end of one of the two white leather couches. He was just sitting there, staring straight ahead in sort of a daze.

“This way,” Dombrowski said, leading her down a short hallway to a dining room.

“Nikki,” Alison whimpered when she saw her walk in. She half-rose from her chair, as if she was too weak to make it all the way to her feet, and raised her hands for a hug.

Nikki and Alison had never been on hugging terms, but a murder scene required special allowances. Nikki walked up to her and gave her a genuine hug. Alison's shoulder blades were boney; the woman needed a few extra pounds on her thin frame.

“Are you all right?” Nikki whispered. She could feel Dombrowski behind her, hovering in the doorway.

Alison gulped and nodded.

Nikki released her and took a step back. Alison slipped into the dining room chair, again; it was a crazy ash and stainless thing. There were eleven more identical chairs around an equally modern, ugly dining table.

Nikki glanced around the room as she dropped her bag on the dining table. Diara's taste was awful . . . and very expensive. There were original contemporary paintings on the walls, all abstract, with wild colors and designs. All originals, she suspected. All very expensive and, in her humble opinion, all looking as if they had been painted by a kindergarten class.

Nikki met Alison's gaze. “What happened?”

Alison's gaze darted over Nikki's shoulder. She had big brown eyes that seemed bigger than they were when framed by her pale face and the limp brown hair that had escaped from her ponytail.

Nikki turned around. “Detective Dombrowski, could I have a minute alone with Alison?”

“I should talk with her. The sooner we get through the interview, the sooner she can go.”

“I just need a minute,” Nikki said quietly.

“Sure.” He sounded reluctant.

She waited until she heard his footsteps in the living room, then pulled out a chair beside Alison. There was a white furry rug under the table. It appeared to be real fur. Polar bear?

“What happened to Ryan?” Nikki asked.

Alison pressed her lips together and shook her head. Her big eyes filled with tears. “They think I did it,” she whispered.

Nikki frowned. “They don't think you did it.” She studied Alison's face for a moment, then lowered her voice. “They don't
really
think you did it, do they?”

Alison was the last person on earth you'd suspect of killing a man. Or a mosquito. She was a quiet woman. Timid. Always soft-spoken. She was one of those women you might say was afraid of her own shadow. She'd been that way as long as Nikki had known her—back when they were kids and Nikki and Jeremy were best friends. Alison was three years younger, so they rarely hung out, but she was never the kind of little sister you could tease or play practical jokes on. She'd always been too . . .
fragile
was the word that came to mind.

It wasn't that Alison was a bad person. She was just the kind who got easily washed in and out with the tide. At least she had been, in her late teens and early twenties. She'd dropped out of several colleges, had a hard time keeping a job. But after she married Farid Sahira, a businessman quite a bit older than she was, she seemed to have settled down. She'd had Jocelyn, and was a stay-at-home mom for a few years. Then she'd opened a party store and party planning business a couple of years ago—when her marriage became rocky, Nikki suspected. The business had failed and so had the marriage. The dog-walking business was less than a year old but seemed to be doing well.

“Why would the police think you killed Ryan Melton?” Nikki asked, taking care to be sure she didn't sound confrontational. She knew Alison walked Ryan Melton's Rottweiler. He was a sweet doofus of a dog that got along with Stan and Ollie; Alison took all three to the park at the same time. “Did you call 911? Were you the one who found the body?”

She shook her head.

“Okay,” Nikki said slowly. “So what's going on, sweetie? Why does Detective Dombrowski think he needs to question you?”

Alison glanced toward the doorway, wringing her hands in her lap. She was wearing a pair of worn jeans, a long-sleeved T-shirt with a chocolate Lab on the front, and a pair of athletic shoes. The jeans didn't fit her well; she'd lost weight over the last few months. Something about the weight loss, about her even-more-than-usual reticent behavior hummed in the back of Nikki's mind, but she couldn't quite say why.

She took the younger woman's hands between hers. Alison was acting strange, even for Alison. “Do you need an attorney, Alison?”

She shook her head in little, jerky movements. “I can't afford another attorney. I can't afford the one I have. The child custody hearing. I had to get an attorney. A good one. It's the only way I can fight Farid.”

Nikki knew she was terrified of losing full custody of her fourteen-year-old daughter, Jocelyn. And the teen didn't want to live with her father any more than Alison did. No one had said anything, but Nikki secretly suspected there had been physical abuse in the marriage. She had no evidence; it was just the way Alison behaved sometimes. The way she flinched when a man spoke too loudly or moved quickly.

Nikki leaned over, looking into Alison's face, forcing her to make eye contact. “I know you're scared, Alison, but you have to give me something here. You didn't find the body? So who did?”

“The . . . fish guy.”

“The
fish guy,
” Nikki repeated.

“Mars.” Alison spoke so softly that Nikki had to listen carefully to hear her above the voices of the police somewhere else in the house. One second they were talking about the deceased, the next, baseball scores. Apparently, the Angels were playing the A's this week.

“Mars?” Nikki asked.

“The fish guy. I don't know his last name.” Now Alison wouldn't break eye contact. She just kept looking at Nikki with those big Jeremy-like eyes of hers. It was the only thing they had in common, physically or otherwise.

“Mars cleans the fish tanks. In the bathrooms.”

“They have fish tanks in the bathrooms?” Nikki was momentarily sidetracked. “Really?”

She nodded.

Nikki refocused. “So Mars found Ryan.” She didn't ask where or in what state; she figured she'd work her way up to that. “And how did you get to be here? You came, what? While Mars was waiting for the police?”

“I brought Muffin home.”

“Not knowing that Mr. Krommer was here?” came a male voice.

Nikki looked over her shoulder to see Tom Dombrowski standing in the doorway again. He had a little leather notepad, a pen poised. He glanced at Nikki. “I've really got to get her statement.”

“Then she can go home?”

He nodded. Nikki nodded.

Dombrowski walked into the dining room. He was wearing a well-tailored suit and nice shoes: Italian leather loafers. Too nice for a police lieutenant's pay grade. Nikki wondered what his story was: wealthy ex-wife who gave him a nice settlement in the divorce? Born a rich kid? Or something more interesting? Married an heiress maybe? She didn't know whom she could ask. She certainly wouldn't ask him.

“Were you aware that Mr. Krommer was here at the same time that you were here?” Dombrowski asked.

Alison's face showed confusion. “Who?”

“Mr. Krommer.” He flipped back a page in his notebook. “Mars Krommer.”

“Oh . . . Mars. Um . . . I didn't know he was here, at first,” Alison said. “I was dropping Muffin off. His Rotty. A Rottweiler,” she clarified.

“You didn't see Mr. Melton when you dropped the dog off?”

Alison rubbed her hands as if washing them. “No,” she whispered.

Dombrowski took a step closer. “I'm sorry, Ms. Sahira, you'll have to speak up.”

“I didn't see him!” She said it loudly enough to startle both Nikki and Dombrowski. “I let Muffin in, hung the leash up by the back door and . . . went out.”

“The front door?”

She nodded.

“Where Mr. Krommer stopped you?”

She nodded again. Looked down at her feet. “I was getting in my van. He came out and told me. About Ry—Mr. Melton.”

“So, you would have been in the house when Mr. Krommer was making the 911 call?”

Alison didn't look at them. “I didn't—”

She was interrupted by the sound of a cell phone vibrating in Nikki's bag on the edge of the table. The ringer was off, but the sound was still loud. Really loud. Or at least it seemed so at such an inopportune moment.

Alison looked at Nikki's bag. Dombrowski looked at it.

Nikki glanced up quickly at Alison, ignoring the phone. “So you were in the house when the fish-tank guy found Ryan and called 911?”

“No. Maybe. I guess. I . . . I don't know. I'm not trying to be difficult.” She took a breath and started again, her sentences short and delivered in a staccato fashion. “I never saw Mars. I didn't see Mr. Melton. I let the dog loose in the house. I hung the leash up. I went out the front door. I was getting into my van when Mars came outside. He was crying. He said Mr. Melton was dead. He said he called the police. Then I heard the sirens.”

Nikki wanted to ask if Mars said where Ryan was, how he knew he was dead, the particulars, but Dombrowski didn't ask, so she didn't.

He scribbled something on his notepad, then flipped the leather cover over. “Okay.”

“Okay?” Nikki asked, a little surprised his questioning had been so brief. Maybe this was a follow-up to previous questioning.

“Okay. I've got Ms. Sahira's statement. She can go.”

Alison bolted out of her chair and practically ran for the door.

Nikki looked at Alison, then the detective. There was no way he couldn't have noticed Alison's odd behavior. Nikki grabbed her bag.

Alison darted past the detective and he turned to watch her go. “I've got your cell number and your address. Same address as Dr. Fitzpatrick's. In case I have more questions for you, once the security tapes are run.”

Alison halted in the doorway but didn't turn around.

Again, odd. But then she always had been odd.

“Security tapes?” Alison said.

Nikki's phone started vibrating again.

Dombrowski looked pointedly at Nikki, then at Alison's back. “Sure. The house has security cameras, inside and out. Everyone in Beverly Hills has them.”

“Oh.” It came out as an exhalation. Nikki's phone was still vibrating. “Of course,” Alison said. She still didn't turn around. “Nikki?”

“Coming.”

Nikki went past Dombrowski without saying good-bye. As she walked through the house, toward the front door, she couldn't help eyeing the glass doors in the living room that led out to the pool. She glanced over her shoulder. He hadn't followed them; she heard him answer his phone. “Dombrowski.”

She didn't hesitate. She took three steps into the sunken living room. Everything was white: the carpet, the walls, the leather couches, even the tables. The guy with the ponytail was still sitting on the couch, still staring into space. Mars Krommer? “Hi,” she murmured.

“Hey,” he answered, his voice distant. He didn't look up; obviously he was stunned by the events unfolding around him.

Nikki took another step into the living room, then another. A couple more and she was at the open doors. A cop on the pool patio talking to another moved slightly and Nikki saw what held everyone's attention.

Another dead body. Her fourth, but who was counting?

A now all-too-familiar tightness gripped her chest. She saw the back of Ryan's head over the top of a lounge chair; he had nice hair. She took another step, then another. She heard Alison go out the front door. She needed to go with Alison. She needed to be with her. But she couldn't help herself. She walked out the glass doors, right past the cops.

Ryan Melton was lying on his back in a lounge chaise, facing the pool, his back to the French doors leading into the house. He was shirtless and wearing a pair of surfer-type swim shorts. Just lying there, sunbathing. There was even an icy glass of something on the table beside him. And a laptop. A pair of Oakley sunglasses on the white stone, paved deck, near his chair. There was a second lounge chaise on the other side of the table. A white towel lay folded on top of it.

Someone had begun to put up little sign tents to mark evidence in the photographs that would be taken of the crime scene.

Nikki stared at Ryan's face. The only indication that he was dead was his unseeing blue eyes. No one had closed them yet.

“What the hell are you doing out here?”

Nikki felt Dombrowski's hand grab her wrist at the same time that she heard his voice.

“Don't you know the definition of a crime scene by now?” he asked irritably, dragging her across the deck, through the open doors into the living room.

“He didn't drown,” she said, feeling a little light-headed. It was a relief to know that just because she'd already seen a murder victim up close, she wasn't immune to it. “How was he killed?” she asked softly, already going over in her mind what she had seen. The details. It was all in the details, she'd learned: the drink in the glass, still cold, the sunglasses on the deck, the laptop and scattered magazines.