The Reporter (24 page)

“Just because I had a key doesn’t mean I killed the guy,” Bronstein spat out. His attorney cautioned him to be quiet.

“Well, we’ll see about that. But I’ll tell you something it
does
mean,” Cabello said, shuffling through the pile of keys. “When this little operation of yours hits the news, you ain’t gonna
get invited to any of these people’s parties anymore!”

U
h… do you want me to take you back to the hotel, Ms. Orson?” the limo driver asked.

“Yes, Zack, I guess.” Janet Orson was in shock. She wasn’t sure
what
to do. Maybe she should call her lawyer. Or Alan’s lawyer. What in hell was
that
about?

At the premiere tonight, she’d felt uncomfortable. She sensed that people were telling each other it was rather soon after
Jack was killed for her to be dressed in glitz and out on a date. And Alan didn’t help. He’d hovered over her all evening,
stroking her arm, kissing her cheek. No one could miss his proprietary behavior.

Yes, she’d slept with him on Sunday night. In fact, she’d slept with Alan Bronstein now and then, when she was between men,
during all the years they’d known each other. They’d always had the most easygoing of relationships—they enjoyed each other,
they were good friends, and each made no demands on the other. They used to dish together about their respective love interests,
laugh about her quest for the perfect soul mate and his pursuit of this year’s blonde. But since Jack’s death and the resumption
of their close friendship, Alan was different. Now he acted jealous if another man looked at her.

And he was full of anecdotes about how petty, how mean, how venal Jack was. He said there were times, like when he would hear
Jack was cheating on her, that he wanted to kill the bastard. It seemed he couldn’t keep his consuming hatred of Jack Nathanson
from spilling out when she was with him.

Still, she needed him now. He had seen her through the harrowing aftermath of Jack’s murder, and Carlotta’s cruel death. But
she was beginning to worry that she might be sending him the wrong message, that he might truly be getting serious about her.
He’d acted like a lovesick puppy tonight in front of about two thousand of their most intimate friends. Hollywood people!
She was sure they would all be clucking about it tomorrow.

And then he’d gifted her with this exquisite necklace, she mused, lifting a hand to her neck and running her fingers over
the cool stones. He’d made a great show at the table at Mortons with this surprise, removing her pearl choker and placing
the brilliant diamond-and-emerald piece around her neck, then tilting her chin up and kissing her on the lips. Later, he told
her he’d planned to give it to her when they got back to the hotel, but when the whole Monogram gang started bad-mouthing
Jack’s picture like she wasn’t even in the room, he decided to spring it on her then. She was embarrassed by the gesture,
but she knew he meant well.

She couldn’t imagine what kind of trouble Alan was in. She didn’t want to think about the worst possible scenario. The terrible
venom he’d always harbored for Jack, his penchant for getting what he wanted no matter what it took, and the fact that he’d
made no secret of wanting Jack out of her life. Then there was the hoary reputation that clung to him, the rumors that he
was connected to the underworld, that he could have someone killed, and probably had. He’d always laughed at those suggestions.
Good for his tough-guy image, he’d say.

But he was
arrested
tonight—picked up by one of the detectives investigating Jack’s murder. What did they have on him?
What did they
think
they had? Janet felt as if her world had shifted out of sync.

The driver pulled up to the canopied entrance to the Beverly Hills Hotel, and the doorman stepped over to help Janet out of
the limo onto the gilt-edged red carpet that led to the massive glass and bronze front doors. It was after one in the morning—
the lobby was quiet, just a few people coming out of the dining room, or wandering about, looking in the elegant shop windows.
She stopped at the front desk for her messages. Maybe some light would be shed on what was going on with Alan. The night manager
handed her the key to her bungalow and four telephone message slips. Nothing at all about Alan, she saw, glancing quickly
through them. She walked past the celebrated Polo Lounge, which was humming with the usual show-business crowd. At the end
of the corridor, past the lower-floor hotel rooms, she walked through the double doors to the rear grounds.

A maze of pathways led into the village of Mediterranean-style pink stucco bungalows nestling in the lush vegetation spread
out over three acres. Tentatively, she started down a path that she was pretty sure led to bungalow 16, her home for the time
being. As she made her way along the worn cobblestones that wound through the hedges of oleander and clumps of primroses,
the many varieties of ancient, dripping ferns, the riot of hibiscus and birds of paradise, all of it overshadowed by towering
trees a century old, Janet suddenly had the sense of being completely alone.

She hurried down the path. The cacophony of what seemed like a million crickets mingled with the splashing sounds of sprinklers
over the hotel grounds, heightening her sense
of
isolation. Shivering, she pulled her ermine wrap tighter around her shoulders. She was being silly, just having a case of
the jitters after this insane night, she knew. This was only her third day at the hotel, and she still had trouble picking
out number 16, especially
at night. She quickened her pace along the trail, aware of the echo of her high-heeled shoes click-clicking on the stones.

Finally spotting the aged brass numerals on the stucco and the lights that she’d left glowing inside, she hustled up the three
front steps, her key and the message slips in one hand, her evening bag in the other. Stooping down, she turned the key in
the lock and began to push open the door.

Abruptly penetrating the quiet, garbled sounds erupted behind her, filtered through the brush. Janet straightened and whirled
around. Horror-stricken, she heard a distorted voice from behind the dense foliage that lined the path, intoning the words
“The ancient black art will rule.…”

Before she could utter a scream, a black-robed figure lunged out of the shadowed thicket and leaped on top of her. Janet’s
head hit the door, knocking it open, and she fell backward to the floor inside the entry to the bungalow. The last thing she
saw was the glint of a jagged metal cross in a black-gloved hand as it came down and slashed across her face, then her throat.

N
o, you
can’t
speak to her,” Alexander Shine roared into the phone. “What the hell is wrong with you people? She’s lost her only child!”
He was about to slam the phone down when Maxi said, “Dr. Shine, somebody tried to kill me. I know it wasn’t your daughter.
I said so on the news last night,
before
Janet Orson was murdered.”

“What did you say your name is?” he asked.

“Maxi Poole, from Channel Six. I’m the woman whose dog was slashed. I saw the killer, in my home, and I’m sure, now, that
it
wasn’t
Meg Davis—I told the detectives that yesterday. I need to talk to Meg’s mother about it—no cameras, no story.”

“Why?” he asked quietly. “They’re saying that last night’s murder was probably a copycat killing—and besides, it’s too late
for Meggie now.”

“It’s not too late to clear her name,” Maxi said.

“Just a minute.” Maxi could hear him talking in muffled tones. Then his wife came on the line.

“I’m sorry; the press keeps calling, and I—” Sally Shine began in an unsteady voice. “I saw your report last night, Ms. Poole,
and I appreciate what you said about Meggie. I know my daughter could never have done those things.”

Maxi could hear that the woman was close to tears. “Mrs. Shine,” she said, “please let me come over there and talk to you
about Meg, and I promise that nothing you say will go on the air, unless you want it to. I need your help.”

“We’re in the middle of moving…. I’m leaving this apartment—”

“I won’t take more than a few minutes,” Maxi pressed, “and this is important. You might save other lives.”

When Sally Shine reluctantly agreed to a meeting, Maxi flew down to her car and headed for Century City, the teeming high-rise
business and residential section of West Los Angeles that was once the old Twentieth Century Fox back lot. It was 9:20. Her
clock-radio had gone off at seven, and Maxi woke to the stunning news of Janet Orson’s brutal murder—Jack’s widow, stabbed
to death during the night on the grounds of the exclusive Beverly Hills Hotel. No witnesses, no murder weapon found, no motive
known, just the enigmatic connection once again, as with Carlotta and herself, to Jack Nathanson.

Janet Orson’s body was discovered just after six this morning by a room-service waiter bringing coffee and the newspapers
to bungalow 16. The Associated Press quoted a preliminary statement from the detectives heading up the investigation, saying
tracks of blood smeared across the threshold of the bungalow suggested the victim was killed on the portico, then dragged
inside. Her body was found just inside the entryway; the front door had been closed and locked.

A key to bungalow 16 was found on the floorboards of the veranda outside. The night manager on duty told deputies that he
had given Ms. Orson her key, along with her messages, when she had arrived back at the hotel at about 1:10 this morning. It
was assumed the killer used that key to open the door to the bungalow, or perhaps Ms. Orson had opened it herself before she
was attacked—the key was being tested for fingerprints.

Driving west on Sunset Boulevard, Maxi picked up her cell
phone and put in a call to her old friend Alison Pollock, the manager of the Beverly Hills Hotel. Alison told her to come
by, of course she would make time for her. She turned up the sweeping drive that led to the hotel’s lavish front entrance,
where a green-uniformed parking attendant opened the door of her Corvette. “How long will you be, Ms. Poole?” he asked.

“No more than fifteen minutes,” Maxi said. “Please leave the car up here instead of taking it down to the garage—I’m going
to need it in a hurry.” She handed him some bills, and hustled up the long red carpet into the lobby, then down the marble
staircase to Alison Pollock’s office.

Mrs. Pollock was a large, handsome woman in her fifties with a perennial tan and lustrous dark hair swept up in a loose chignon.
She greeted Maxi with a hug, then guided her to one of the leather couches in her comfortable office. Frowning gravely, she
asked Maxi what she knew about the terrible murder that had taken place on the grounds of her beloved hotel the night before.

“No more than you do, I’m afraid,” Maxi responded. “But I don’t think it was a copycat crime at all. Because I don’t think
it was Meg Davis who killed Jack Nathanson, or Carlotta Ricco, or attacked me.”

“But everything points to that poor, unstable girl,” Alison said. “The cross, the witchcraft business—”

“Ali, I’m the only person alive who has
seen
that killer, and even though he or she was in complete disguise, I’m betting my life that it wasn’t Meg Davis. If it was,
then I’d have nothing to fear,” Maxi said. “But I believe the killer is still out there, and after
me
for some reason, something to do with my connection to Jack… and I’m scared.”

“How can I help?” Alison asked.

“I know you can’t let me into the bungalow; it’s a crime scene,” Maxi answered. “But let me have a copy of Janet Orson’s phone
records from the time she moved in here on Sunday. I’ll
take it back to the newsroom and check the numbers against the cross directory, see if anything looks unusual. I doubt this
was a random strike—nobody’s even suggesting robbery. I think the killer knew exactly where Janet was staying, and was waiting
for her to come home.”

Alison picked up her phone and buzzed the switchboard. She asked that the records of all calls that went out from bungalow
16 since Sunday be brought to her office.

“Can you get a copy of the messages that came
in
for her as well?” Maxi asked.

“No, I’m sorry,” Alison said. “We’re going to install voice mail, but the system’s not in yet—for now, we still take messages
the old-fashioned way, handwritten on message slips.”

“No carbons?”

“No, it’s never been our policy to log incoming messages,” Alison said. “The switchboard puts calls through to the rooms,
or the dining room, the beauty salon, the Polo Lounge, the gym, pool, wherever the guest leaves word to have calls forwarded.
And when guests are out, they might call in to have their messages read to them, or they just pick up their written slips
at the desk when they get back.” Maxi made a mental note to find out whether the detectives had found any message slips in
bungalow 16.

“Janet Orson did have her calls screened,” Alison went on. “That’s a service we offer. The switchboard operator asks who’s
calling, then plugs into the room to see if the guest is in and wants to take the call, then either puts the caller through
or takes a message.”

“But no records of those calls either?”

“No records,” Alison confirmed.

Maxi could see anguish etched on Ali Pollock’s face. She’d known Janet Orson for years. Janet had often breakfasted at the
Polo Lounge with the industry crowd, and she’d hosted charity fundraisers at the hotel, as well as luncheons and dinners for
friends and business associates. Alison had made it a point to
come in to work on Sunday afternoon, she told Maxi, to welcome Janet, and to make sure that she was comfortably settled.

“Maxi, dear,” she said, “until this horror is cleared up, I’d like to give you a suite here. I think it would be a good idea
for you to stay with us until that killer is apprehended. You may not be safe in your house.”

For a minute, both women reflected uneasily that Janet Orson hadn’t even been safe at the world-famous, heavily staffed Beverly
Hills Hotel. “I don’t know,” Maxi said. “I definitely don’t want to stay alone at home tonight. I have a houseguest, Carlotta
Ricco’s son, but he’s going back to school this afternoon. He’s a star baseball player at his college, and he likes to keep
a baseball bat with him to exercise his wrists. That’s what saved me on Monday night. He scared the killer off, he and Yukon.”