The Renewable Virgin (23 page)

Finally the door to Captain Michaels's office was open and he was in there alone. I went in.

‘Good work, Larch,' he said. ‘You stuck with it and you came up with a blackmailer as well as the killer.' I must not have had my face rearranged right yet because he said, ‘Kelly Ingram didn't take it too well, huh?'

‘Not well at all.'

‘Give her time. That's a helluva lot to have to swallow all at once. She'll come round.' Back to an easier subject. ‘You'll get a commendation for this one, you can count on it.'

‘Then am I right in thinking this is a good time to ask for something?'

He stage-sighed. ‘Ask.'

‘Assign me to the Richard Ormsby murder.'

He looked surprised. ‘You still want on that one? It's a dead case, Marian.'

‘Maybe. It doesn't need to be.'

He squinted one eye at me. ‘You think you know who did that one too?'

I shook my head. ‘I just have an idea or two I want to follow up. But I can't if you won't assign me to the case.'

He told me he thought I was crazy but okayed the assignment. I thanked him and went back to my desk. One more chore to perform before I could call it a day; my role as bearer of bad news wasn't quite finished.

I called Fiona Benedict in Washburn, Ohio, and told her her son had died because he'd made the mistake of trying to blackmail a murderer.

CHAPTER 16

KELLY INGRAM

It was weird seeing Leonard Zoff sitting at Nathan Pinking's desk in Nathan Pinking's office. Taking care of what used to be Nathan Pinking's business. It was weird thinking of Nathan in jail for blackmail, although I'd done my damnedest to make sure he got there. What it was thinking about Ted, there was no word for.

Leonard looked at me sympathetically. ‘Wouldn't hurt you to get back to work, darling. Sooner the better.'

I nodded listlessly; he was right. What I needed was some sort of set daily routine, the kind of thing where you didn't have to think at all.
LeFever
was just the ticket.

‘You feel awright?' Nick Quinlan asked me.

‘I feel all right, Nick,' I said. ‘Just not a whole lot of energy, you know?'

‘Yeah, I know.' He nodded somberly. ‘Happensa me sometimes. Too bad we doan git to do those three, y'know, the Barbados shows. They'd make ya feel bear. Hey, Leonard, how come we're not goin' to Barbados?'

‘Shut up, Nick,' Leonard sighed. The connection among producer Nathan Pinking and sponsor Ted Cameron and the promised extra episodes in Barbados that were nothing more than blackmail booty—it was all too much for Nick to grasp. ‘Sorry, Kelly,' Leonard said. ‘He means well.'

I shrugged; it didn't matter. Nick looked puzzled. He did that a lot—look puzzled.

It had taken some getting used to, the idea that my ex-lover, the joy of my life and the light of my existence let the drums roll and the trumpets sound ta-taa (idiot idiot
idiot
)—was in fact a cold-blooded killer. And I mean cold-blooded, that's not just a phrase, it means something. Look at what he did: he killed Rudy Benedict.
Rudy Benedict
. Undoubtedly the most miscast would-be criminal on the face of the earth—and Ted couldn't find any way of handling him other than killing him? There were a number of things Ted could have done. He could have paid him off. He could have tried to talk him out of it. He could have stolen the painting. He could have threatened to tell Rudy's mother.

‘I know it's early to be starting on the new season,' Leonard Zoff was saying in his loud voice, ‘but I'd like to get as much in the can as possible before Kelly's movie airs in December. The network might want us to start taping her new series right away—depends on how fast they can sign up a sponsor. We won't have any trouble there, Kel, I'm sure of it. It's good stuff, a sure-fire series idea. You're lucky you got it finished before Nathan Shithead was arrested.'

‘Lucky. Yeah.'

‘Whassamadda with
LeFever
? Nick said sourly. ‘Not goodanuff for ya?' Now there he was
pretending
to be dumb. Even he understood about having your own series.

Leonard started stroking Nick and I turned out. I didn't know Mary Rendell, of course, but Marian Larch said she was only twenty when Ted killed her. A
girl
, for Christ's sake—such a dangerous person that murder was the only answer? Seemed to me Ted Cameron was the big bad successful killer only when he came up against weak opponents like Rudy Benedict and Mary Rendell. But when he faced off against somebody a little slicker, like Nathan Pinking,
Ted
was the one to knuckle under. A lot of married, upwardly mobile types had Mary Rendells in their lives, but they didn't
kill
them for crying out loud. They either handled the situation and got away with it or they didn't handle it and got found out, but they didn't become murderers rather than face a setback in their professional lives. And if Ted hadn't killed Mary Rendell, he wouldn't have had Rudy to worry about. He killed those two people simply because it was the easiest way to solve his problems—he wasn't willing to make the effort to find another way. And if you don't think that's coldblooded, I'd like to know what the hell is.

And there I was, Little Miss Stars-in-Her-Eyes-and-Rocks-in-Her-Head. I never knew, I never suspected, I never had an
inkling
. Even when I figured out Ted was being blackmailed, I still didn't believe he'd done anything
bad
. I was so besotted with the man I was even able to rationalize away blackmail. I wanted him to be a certain kind of man and I
made
him that kind of man, in my mind, I mean. It was just that I knew what I wanted and I decided he was it and I never saw what he really was. I never knew Ted Cameron at all.

Do you have any idea what it feels like to find out you've slept with a murderer? And not just once, but repeatedly? Try to imagine it—learning your bed partner is a killer. Kinky thrills, a real turn-on? Maybe for some people. Me—it just made me sick. I threw up every day for a week. Finally Leonard Zoff called and insisted I pull out of my ‘mulligrubs'—whatever they are. When I did, I found some changes had taken place in the world.

‘I was thinking of a new car for LeFever,' Leonard was saying soothingly to Nick. ‘One of the flashier sports models. What do you say to that?'

‘I get to pick it out?' Nick asked.

‘Who else?'

Sure you do, Nick. Don't hold your breath, Nick
.

Nathan Pinking's production company was now Leonard Zoff's production company. The way Leonard explained it, Nathan was still a minor partner and his share of the profits would go toward supporting his family while he was in prison. For some reason that Leonard didn't explain, Nathan had had a choice only of either selling to Leonard or shutting down—which wouldn't pay his family's bills while Daddy was a guest of the state. So the long battle between the two had finally come to an end, and Leonard had won. With Nathan locked up for a goodly number of years, Leonard would have it all his own way.

You'd think he'd be on top of the world, wouldn't you? Well, he wasn't. As a matter of fact Leonard was kind of lackadaisical, going at the early taping of
LeFever
's third season as if it was every bit as exciting as checking over last week's laundry list. Nick was always half asleep anyway, and what with me just coming out of the blues, it wasn't the most scintillating meeting I ever attended. Leonard was businesslike and all that; we were making plans and getting on with it. But Leonard had lost a lot of what my grandmother would have called his spizzer-inctum—his special up-and-at-'em kind of drive. Maybe it just wasn't the same without Nathan Pinking to scrap with.

‘Kelly, darling, pay attention, please. We're gonna do more out-of-city location shooting this time, so you and Nick will have to keep your calendars clear after the twenty-first. Don't even go making a dental appointment without checking with me first. I'm gonna have enough on my mind without schedule conflicts and all that shit.'

All that shit
. ‘Leonard,' I said abruptly, ‘did you once send me a laxative and a carton of toilet paper?'

The color drained right out of his face—and then drained right back in. ‘Toilet paper, darling? Why should I send you toilet paper?'

But it was no good; he'd given himself away. ‘Why, Leonard?' I asked. ‘Do you resent me that much?'

‘What are you talking about?'

‘You know what I'm talking about. A bottle of Lysco-Seltzer containing a laxative and a carton of toilet paper. You sent them.'

Nick said lazily, ‘Whire we talkin' toilet paper?'

‘You're crazy,' Leonard said. ‘I didn't send you that stuff.'

‘Okay, Leonard,' I sighed. ‘If that's the way you want it.'

Things were a bit edgy after that, even though both of us did this big act about how everything was hunkydory again. Don't know why I let it bother me that much, but it got to me. Hitting on small bad feelings to keep away the big ones, I guess.

The meeting dragged to a close. Nick had come in a limo—it was getting harder and harder for either of us to appear in public without drawing swarms of autograph-hunters. That was good most of the time,
God
, the years I dreamed about it!—but you have to be
on
the whole time and I just wasn't up to performing right then. I asked Nick if he'd drop me at Police Plaza.

On the elevator down, Nick draped one arm across my shoulders in that posture he likes best when he's talking to women. ‘Doan look so sad, pretty Kelly,' he said. ‘The hurtin' stops soonsya let it. Let it stop, Kel.'

Well. Who'd have thought Nick Quinlan had that kind of compassion in him? He'd said exactly the right thing. I wondered if I could ever get mad at him again after that.

‘Asides, it doan help LeFever's image none, you goan round lookin', y'know, unsatisfied.'

Yep. I could.

I wanted to see Marian Larch—strictly personal sort of thing, no police business. It had eventually sunk in on me that I'd been just awful to her when she came with the news about Ted. I was
blaming her
for what happened—actually I should have been thanking her, I guess. It was pretty goddamned clear that
I
didn't have enough sense to see through Ted Cameron. I'd have just gone on drifting along, never knowing. Nathan Pinking aside, what if things had stopped being good between Ted and me? Would he have gotten rid of me the way he did Mary Rendell?

Put him out of your mind. Just stop thinking about him. He slips into your mind, force him out by thinking of other things. It can be done
.

Ivan (I have
got
to find out his last name) said Marian was down in the Property Department. I decided to go looking for her rather than wait, because a lot of the good folks at Police Headquarters were giving me the eye. I was a different kind of celebrity here; my ex-lover was a murderer.

Think of other things
.

Ivan insisted on escorting me because they didn't like people—‘civilians' was Ivan's word—wandering around the Headquarters building and that may even have been true. (If we're civilians, then the police are
military?
) Marian was just coming out of the Property Department when we got there.

‘I'm sorry!' I hollered at her.

Marian jumped a foot. ‘For what?' she demanded, alarmed.

‘For being so nasty the day you, well, you know, when you brought me the bad news.'

Her plain, friendly face crumpled into a smile. ‘Oh, that's all right,' she said generously. ‘I probably could have found a better way to tell you.'

‘No, it was my fault. I acted bad or maybe badly and I'm sorry for both of them and I apologize.'

‘Nothing to worry about. We were all tense, it was a tense situation and—'

‘Damn it, Marian, I am
trying
to take the blame. Will you shut up and let me feel guilty?'

Ivan looked worried. ‘Are you two kidding or are you fighting?'

‘I am perfectly content to let you feel as guilty as you like,' Marian said to me majestically, ‘so long as your guilt trip does not interfere with my stance of gracious understanding.'

‘You're kidding,' Ivan said with relief.

‘And you were right about something else,' I went on. ‘It was Leonard Zoff who sent me the toilet paper.'

‘Ah-hah. Did he admit it?'

‘No,' I said, ‘but he gave himself away when I asked him. Just now, at a meeting.'

‘I think it's good that he knows. That
you
know, I mean. It'll make him think twice if he's ever tempted to send out any more toilet paper gifts.'

‘He seemed honestly surprised when I brought it up. But then he pretended not to know what I was talking about.'

‘
I
don't know what you're talking about,' Ivan complained. ‘Why are we talking about toilet paper?'

‘You're not by any chance related to Nick Quinlan, are you?' I asked him.

‘We're talking about an associate of Kelly's who had trouble getting through the anal stage of his development,' Marian explained to Ivan. Which didn't really explain anything, come to think of it. Neat trick.

‘Are you through for the day?' I asked her.

‘Lord, no. Tons of work.'

‘Then sneak away for a break. You can do that, can't you?'

‘I'm almost finished,' Ivan said hopefully.

‘Sorry, love, I'm all set for this big dramatic scene with Marian and there's no man's role in it.'

He grinned. ‘Is that the actress talking or the woman?'

‘Depends on who's asking,' I said. ‘The cop or the man.'

He didn't like that much, the implication that cops and men were two different things. (It was okay for him to do the same thing to me, though.) He tried to laugh it off. ‘Hey, that's not what you're supposed to say.'