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Authors: Adrienne & Scott Barbeau,Adrienne & Scott Barbeau

Tags: #Romance, #Fantasy, #Fiction

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BOOK: Vampyres of Hollywood
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“Not good news, I take it…by the look of you.”

“No.”

“And it brings you here. Why?”

“There’s been another killing. It has all the hallmarks of a Cinema Slayer murder.”

He was expecting a response, but I had nothing I was ready to say.

“Did you go out last night after I left?” he asked.

I knew where he was going with this. “Yes, we went out to a club. I needed to relax a bit and I didn’t want to stay in the house.”


We?
” he asked.

“Maral,” I said.

“Have you any proof, an alibi?” he said, without a trace of a smile.

“We have one another.”

King’s lips thinned to a barely visible line. “That’s not going to be good enough. Not this time.”

“Who was killed last night, Detective?”

“Thomas DeWitte.”

“Thomas! Thomas?” I hadn’t seen that coming. King must have believed the shock on my face because I saw him relax slightly. I wasn’t acting. I was stunned. “How?”

“You really don’t want to know.”

It took me a second to find my voice. “He was my business partner, Detective King, and, believe it or not, a man I cared for at one time in my life. I
need
to know how he died. Believe me, I do.”

“Evidently he went back to Rough Trade last night after he left here. He and his bodyguard, Anthony. We found both their bodies mutilated and the club set ablaze early this morning.”

“Mutilated how? What does that mean?”

“A railroad spike had been driven into his skull with enough force to pin him to a brick wall. Much of the skin had been flayed from his body, his ribs pulled apart, heart torn out, and then he’d been set on fire. There may have been other atrocities committed on the body, but the corpse is so torn apart I’m not even sure an autopsy will tell. He and Anthony weren’t the only ones murdered, but we haven’t got all the bodies identified yet. I don’t know what happened to his boyfriend; nothing I saw in that charnel house resembled Neville Travis.” King stopped suddenly. “I’m sorry,” he said, “but you wanted to know.”

I nodded. “You’re right. I did.” And the hunter wanted me to know, too, needed me to know. Impalement through the skull, removal of the heart, fire: all good and traditional ways to kill a vampyre. Except Thomas had not been a vampyre.

“Have you anything to say?” he wondered.

“That poor boy, Anthony, he didn’t deserve to die like that.”

“And DeWitte did?”

“No, of course not. No one deserves to die that way. But Thomas lived on the edge. He enjoyed all the darkest corners Hollywood had to offer, delighted in pain and suffering—mainly his own—and more than once placed himself in situations that were dangerous, to say the least. Put it this way: it’s rather like the three-hundred-pound man dropping dead of a heart attack: we’re shocked when it happens, but not completely surprised.”

I turned and walked out of the room before he could ask me any more questions about what I knew. I didn’t want to lie to him and I couldn’t tell the truth.

“Have you nothing else to say?” he called after me.

“I’d ask God to have mercy on his soul,” I said, “if I thought he had one.” And if I believed in God.

Chapter Twenty-Two
 

 

BEL AIR
7:40
A.M.

 

I couldn’t figure her out and I was beginning to mistrust my judgment. Twelve hours ago I was imagining what she might be like in bed, thinking I’d like to spend some time with her and find out. I was even starting to worry about her, feeling more protective than even my normal cop mode. And getting some response…I thought. Her hand lingering a little too long on mine, standing a fraction too close, her eyes saying something more than her words. Oh yes, a definite connection. I didn’t need to be a detective to know that Ovsanna Moore was interested in me.

This morning she was an ice princess, barely reacting to the death of her business partner. Normally I get a pretty strong conviction about someone’s innocence or lack thereof when I tell them a murder’s taken place. For all the reaction she gave me, she could have known DeWitte was dead when I told her. There had been the briefest moment of surprise, which certainly looked genuine, but I would have expected more, much more, when I described in unnecessary detail the method of his death. All she’d said was that she was sorry about the bodyguard. The fucking bodyguard! No word about her business partner, who also happened to be the guy who’d burst into this very room and threatened her with his gun-wielding bodyguard a couple of hours earlier.

And now both had turned up dead.

Moore was definitely in control, I’ll give her that. Seven thirty in the morning and she was dressed for a publicity shoot. Tight black leather pants over black snakeskin spike-heeled boots with a deep burgundy cashmere sweater cut just low enough to be distracting without being disrespectful to the dead. I’d given instructions that none of the deceaseds’ names were to be released to the press—hell, we still didn’t know who some of them were—but murder is big business in Hollywood; the bigger the name, the bigger the price an ambulance driver, a CSI tech, a doctor or nurse, even a cop, could command from the bloodthirsty press. DeWitte was an executive, which put him on the lower end of the scale, but his name was still worth a few grand of some editor’s money. I was sure the press was gathering for a feeding frenzy, and Ovsanna Moore looked like she was ready for them.

The evidence was mounting that she was somehow connected to the Cinema Slayer killings. As I followed her out into the hall, I started wondering if I had enough cause to get a search warrant for the house and her offices.

“Our conversation isn’t over, Ms. Moore. I’d prefer it if you didn’t walk away.”

“And I’d prefer it if you called me Ovsanna and stopped speaking to me as though I’m a suspect. I’ve done nothing wrong, Peter.” She’d stopped on the stairs and was posed like Gloria Swanson in
Sunset Boulevard.
I couldn’t tell where the woman left off and the actress began.

“I am conducting a murder investigation, Ms. Moore. I have questions that need answers. And I know you have some.”

“I have no answers for you.”

“Last night I told you the killings were coming closer. First it was actors you worked with, then it was one of your staff, and now it’s your business partner. Who’s next, Ovsanna? Who’s next?”

She fixed me with a stare that could freeze water. “Is that a question or an accusation? Are you going to arrest me, Detective?”

I hesitated just long enough for her to continue.

“If so, you can ask your questions through my lawyer.” She turned and continued up the stairs.

She was either guilty or she was frightened. I didn’t want her to be guilty, unbiased detective that I am, so I went with option two and played my last card. “I don’t want to have to make a statement to the press,” I said quietly, just before she disappeared at the end of the landing. I watched her slow, and knew she was listening. I turned my back on her, leaned against the banister, and folded my arms. It wasn’t until that moment that I realized how many antique weapons she had displayed on her walls. They all looked genuine…and lethal. I wondered if they were a personal choice or some Hollywood interior designer’s idea of chic. “I wanted to keep DeWitte’s name quiet until I’d spoken to you, but I’d guess by now it’s public knowledge. The press will be all over this. And all over you. You were his business partner. You were ex-lovers. I would imagine when I drive out your front gate, there’ll be thirty reporters clamoring for sound bites. I’m going to have to make a statement. And that can go one of two ways. Either I’ve come here to bring you the sad news of your business partner’s death…or I’ve come here to inform you that you’re currently under investigation.”

“But I’m not.”

I jumped. She’d moved right behind me and I hadn’t heard her come down the stairs. I turned. She was standing on the second step, which meant that her eyes were level with mine. I’d never realized it before, but her eyes were so dark they were almost black, her pupils indistinguishable from their surrounds. “Not at the moment. But a police investigation and a press investigation are two entirely different things. If the press think you’re involved, they’ll shine a spotlight on you so bright, nothing will be secret. You think Michael Jackson had press for his trial? Wait till they get the details about the scene at Rough Trade. Bobby Blake and O.J. pale in comparison. Think Anna Nicole. You won’t be able to turn on the TV without seeing yourself:
E! News, Access Hollywood, Extra!, The View,
the morning shows—you name it. And not just CNN and FOX, every news station nationwide—worldwide—will be running clips and looking for a comment. You won’t be able to move without being hounded and photographed.” Even as I was speaking, a helicopter clattered overhead, right on cue. I nodded my chin upward. “Sounds too light to be a police chopper; that’s probably the news.”

A door slammed upstairs and Maral McKenzie came running down the hallway. “Turn on Channel Five,” she shouted.

Without a word, Ovsanna turned and strode back into the library. She hit a button and a section of the bookcase slid aside to reveal a 60-inch flat plasma screen suspended on the wall behind it. Fishing a large remote control out from behind a cushion, she fiddled with the buttons.

“Let me,” Maral said slightly breathlessly, hurrying into the room, taking the square box from Ovsanna’s hands. It had more buttons than my TV has channels. She flicked past FOX and CNN to the local high-def news channel, where an older man with unnaturally red hair was staring somberly into the camera and intoning gravely.

“Another savage killing rocks Hollywood. The Cinema Slayer strikes again. More after this break.”

We stood in silence as the commercial rolled and a doctor detailed the gravity of restless legs syndrome while a vacuous blonde enumerated all that could go wrong if you took the medication they were selling without advice from your doctor. Tuberculosis, lymphoma. The list of side effects from the drug was longer than the ad copy extolling its benefits.

Rather than coming back to the studio after the commercial break, the screen showed an overhead view of a sprawling hacienda-style house.

“That’s us,” Maral whispered.

“These pictures coming to you live this morning from our news chopper. This is the Bel-Air home of legendary Scream Queen and horror meister Ovsanna Moore.”
Ovsanna’s picture—looking improbably glamorous—flickered up on the top left-hand corner of the screen.
“Last night her business partner, Thomas DeWitte, became the latest victim of the brutal killer dubbed the Cinema Slayer.”
DeWitte’s picture, looking considerably more handsome than he had been in real life, appeared on the right of the screen, and then the images cut away to show a series of bodies being stretchered out of Rough Trade.
“Thomas DeWitte was killed in an upscale private club in West Hollywood. The specific details of the murder are being withheld by the police at the moment, but we do know this is a multiple murder scene. Thus far, police are refusing to speculate about the identity of the killer, but sources say the crime scene bore similarities to earlier Cinema Slayer murders.”
A slightly fuzzy image of me appeared, trailing the last of the bodies out of the club. I brushed past reporters and climbed into the Jag. “
The detective in charge of the case, decorated BHPD hero Peter King, drove to the home of Miss Moore this morning to personally bring her the news of the tragedy. We are awaiting a comment from Detective King, and we’ll bring that to you live as it happens. Now, in other news
—”

I took the control from Maral’s hand and turned off the TV. In the silence that followed, the thumping of the helicopter overhead seemed very loud.

“You’ve made your point, Detective.”

“So what do I tell the press?”

Ovsanna’s smile was cool. “Whatever you have to. Just get them away from this house.” She reached out and touched my arm. “Then if you want to talk, we’ll talk.”

I stared into her black eyes, unable to read what was behind them. Maybe I was being played, but there was only one way to find out. “Let me go make a statement. I’ll tell them you’re devastated and going away for a few days. That should pull them away from the house.”

Ovsanna nodded. “Then come back and have some breakfast. We’ll talk. I’ll tell you all that I know.”

I didn’t believe her.

Ovsanna Moore was a woman with a lot of secrets.

Chapter Twenty-Three
 

BOOK: Vampyres of Hollywood
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