Copyright @ 2019 Melissa J.L. Smith
Iguana Books
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Toronto, ON M5S 2R4
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording or otherwise (except brief passages for purposes of review) without the prior permission of the author or a licence from The Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency (Access Copyright). For an Access Copyright licence, visit www.accesscopyright.ca or call toll free to 1-800-893-5777.
Publisher: Meghan Behse
Editor: Lee Parpart
Proofreader: Olivia Thompson-Powell
Cover design: Ruth Dwight (designplayground.ca)
Issued in print and electronic formats.
ISBN 978-1-77180-462-2 (paperback). 978-1-77180-463-9 (epub).978-1-77180-464-6 (Kindle).
This is the original electronic edition of The Case of the Stained Stilettos.
LUCE AND WILDE HOLLYWOOD MYSTERIES, including this one, are novels and works of fiction. Names, places, events, occurrences and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination and/or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblances to actual persons, living or dead, or to actual events is strictly coincidental.
I dedicate this book to my dad, who taught me how to write, to my mom, who taught me how to persevere, to my Aunt Frances, who taught me how to read, to my grandma, who taught me the value of kindness, and to my husband, who has made me feel like the most special person in the world on every day of our lives together.
Prologue
A dim light flickers in a quiet classroom at the Hollywood Academy of Creative Arts. A clock has fallen from the wall, and its cracked face is covered in chalk dust. A copy of Hamlet has tumbled to the floor. A blackboard has toppled over, putting a crack through the day’s lesson plan:
FOUR ELEMENTS OF A PLAY
1. Introduction
2. Rise of Action
3. Climax
4. Denouement
Nearby, a hand reaches toward the blackboard, but with no success. The hand’s owner is dying and too weak to reach its target.
“Every toy is the prologue to some great amiss…”
—William Shakespeare, Hamlet
Chapter 1
It is another perfect day in sunny Los Angeles: seventy-six degrees with a light breeze. Joseph Luce, Attorney-at-Law, maneuvers in and out of traffic along the 10 Freeway in his bespoke McLaren F1. It is looking like he will be late for his lunch date, but he has perfected the technique of never looking stressed, and inside his prized 1996 sports coupe, he looks even more composed than usual. Strains of Mozart fill the air as the sun bounces off his Tom Ford aviators.
The McLaren merges from the 10 and heads north on Pacific Coast Highway, where it immediately hits bumper-to-bumper traffic. Joseph stares calmly ahead until he feels a pair of eyes on him from the car to his left. A young blonde woman smiles at him from the passenger’s seat, and Joseph smiles back before returning his gaze to the road.
Traffic speeds up at the light at Porto Marina, near the Castellammare property that used to house Thelma Todd’s Sidewalk Café. Todd, a popular actress in the 1930s, died outside the restaurant eighty-five years ago under mysterious circumstances. Joseph glances at the sprawling property and muses that her cause of death might actually have been solved if his wife, Mercy Wilde, had been alive back then to solve the case.
Joseph smiles as he thinks about his intrepid wife, a PI who could give Nancy Drew pointers when it came to sleuthing.
Joseph hits the speed dial on his cell phone and hears Mercy answer.
“Hello, lover,” she says. “I’m going to be a little late. See you soon.” The flawless California beauty pilots her Lamborghini Veneno Roadster through the clutter of Sunset Boulevard. Mercy’s thick, shiny hair is swung up into a ponytail that, despite its casualness, still looks fabulous. Drivers on both sides stare with open envy at the Lamborghini, which stands out among the Mercedes, Jaguars, and Cadillacs, even in this prestigious neighborhood.
As Mercy navigates through traffic, she notices drought damage everywhere: the so-called Sunset Boulevard greenbelt is looking disappointingly brown, and a line of newly planted Cypress and fig trees look like they’re about to expire. Then there are the “No Smoking” notices littering the roadway. One tossed cigarette can start a conflagration. Too many homes, businesses and lives have been lost to a stray ash.
As Mercy approaches the fire department near the Bel Air entrance, she passes a slower car on her right. The driver holds his cigarette out the window in a vain attempt to keep his windshield clean. Bits of ash fly off the burning end and into the slow jet stream behind his Ford Escape. In a few seconds, he will flick the smoldering butt into the air, and it will follow a careless arc, over his car and onto the asphalt, where it will either be extinguished under a tire or find a patch of dry grass.
“Putz,” she mutters. “All you’re doing is risking a brush fire and your windshield will still get dirty.”
As traffic stops at the Beverly Glen light, Mercy’s gleaming roadster ends up idling a quarter car-length behind the man’s Escape. She looks at him as she inches forward, until he feels her gaze on his neck, and catches her reflection in his side mirror.
Nice, he thinks. And money, too. He swings his head around, smiling, ready to return what he is sure is a pass, until he sees the scowl on her face and notices her manicured hand pointing at a nearby “No Smoking” sign.
Annoyed and feeling the quick kick to his ego, the driver of the Escape turns his head away, lights another cigarette, then flicks it onto the paint job of Mercy’s four-million-dollar special production car. The cigarette bounces off of the Lamborghini and rolls onto Bel Air Road at its intersection at Sunset.
Resisting the temptation to pull her PI license and handgun from her purse, she chooses instead to report the violator to the authorities.
Mercy snaps a photo of his license plate before making a quick U-turn at the fire station. She drives back the hundred or so feet where the butt is still smoldering at the entrance to Bel Air. She makes a left toward the Bel Air gate and parks, then exits the Lamborghini and clicks over to the butt in her three-inch heels and stamps out the ember. She bends down to retrieve the cigarette with a gloved hand, then slides the whole thing, complete with handy DNA sample, into an evidence bag.
Too bad for the putz that her godfather, James Crayton, is the Chief of the Los Angeles Police Department. Not only will “Uncle James” hunt this guy down for a potential brushfire violation, the putz will pay for any damages to her car or go to jail.
Chapter 2
Mercy glances into her rearview mirror at the Bel Air enclave as she pulls onto Sunset, remembering that she and Joseph will attend two parties there in the next couple of days.
The first is a charity event being held at the mansion belonging to her mother’s best frenemy, Hollywood legend Dana Montgomery. The second party, also at Dana’s Bel Air mansion, known to all as Le Coeur Bel, is a dinner for Dana’s son, Mark Lathem, and his fiancée, Susana Alfonso.
Mercy calls Joseph. “Hello lover. I really am on my way. I had to stop to put out a potential fire.” She giggles at the double entendre. “I just left Bel Air.”
“Not to worry, sweets,” Joseph says.
“Oh, honey, remember that Dana is throwing two parties this week that we’re invited to … Yes, one would have been enough, but I don’t think we need to worry about Dana. Bella Palermo is catering. They’ve been known to pull off miracles. Okay, I’ll be there soon. I’m turning onto PCH right now. Love you.”
&n
bsp; As Mercy speeds up PCH, her prediction about Bella Palermo Deli and Caterers is proving true.
At Dana Montgomery’s sprawling Bel Air mansion, Le Coeur Bel, Sal Caggiano, founder of Bella Palermo and acting student, is setting up the bar. He thinks about how far he has come since the days when he was a so-called “charity case” at a local prep school — one of the kids who never could have attended private school without a full scholarship.
When attending college seemed like it was out of Sal’s financial reach, he worked as a caterer, learning the business and working his way through his senior year of high school.
Then, when Sal decided that he wanted to be an actor, he confronted the realities of being successful enough to maintain a dependable income. He knew that not only does a full-time acting career require talent, but it also requires a lot of luck, training, rehearsing, hard work and a game plan that makes it possible to go on auditions without getting fired from a day job.
Founding Bella Palermo was a way to make all of that possible for himself and others. He rented space around the corner from the Hollywood Academy of Creative Arts, hired actors to staff the place, and offered student discounts to keep a steady influx of customers coming in. It was all working out beautifully.
“Not bad for a scholarship student from the wrong area code,” Sal says to himself, with a smile.
Chapter 3
In the parking lot at Nobu, Joseph Luce raises the dihedral door on the driver’s side of his F1 and emerges from the low-to-the-ground car without a wrinkle in his Armani suit.
A valet approaches with a wide smile. “Hey, Joseph. Meeting the missus for a bite?”
Handing the valet his keys wrapped in a $50 bill, Joseph shakes his hand and says, “Good to see you, Richie. You mean I got here first?”
Richie Mendoza pockets the bill with a smile and pats his cell phone. “Yes, she called a few minutes ago. Said she had a fire to put out but would be right behind you.”
Right on cue, Mercy’s Lamborghini wheels into the parking lot. Oldies stream from its speakers in the syndicated rebroadcast of an old radio show hosted by the late, great DJ, the Real Don Steele. Steele’s voice, in his trademark pace, introduces the next song. “And now, from July 1963 … it’s The Crystals singing ‘Then He Kissed Me.’”
Richie trots over to open her door and extends his hand. Mercy makes a graceful exit, red-soled Louboutin stilettos never taking a toll on her ability to float like a butterfly. The two do a quick jitterbug step in the parking lot before Joseph taps Richie on the shoulder. “May I cut in?” he smiles.
Mercy slips Richie another $50 with her keys after pecking him on the cheek. “Thanks for the dance, Richie. Busy yet?”
“Still good, Mercy. Plenty of time before the crowd rolls in.” Mercy twirls into Joseph’s arms and, like the adage says, they dance toward the entrance like nobody is watching.
***
Back in Bel Air, another couple turns up the music in a catering van when their song plays on the radio.
Sal’s fiancée, Beth Luker, has stopped by Le Coeur Bel to drop off some serving spoons that were left behind at the deli. As they twirl to “Stardust,” Sal looks at Beth with loving eyes.
“How did I ever get such a gorgeous woman?” Sal asks her.
“Well, nobody ever said you were dumb,” Beth teases.
“They didn’t say we were dumb. They just made the tuition at the good private school forty thousand dollars a year so their kids didn’t have to go to school with people like us,” Sal says. “I wonder what would have happened if we had gotten our scholarships from a charity without Daniel Lathem’s name on it. Do you think they would still would have let us in?”
“Hard to say,” Beth replies, searching her pockets for lip gloss.
Sal and Beth were two of the “sponsored students” who attended a prestigious prep school with Dana Montgomery’s son, Mark Lathem. Beth came from the “wrong area code” in Los Angeles and Sal was an “import” from the Bronx. Neither of them dressed nor spoke like their classmates, but both were smart and made great grades. Coincidentally, their education was paid for by “The Daniel Lathem Foundation,” founded by Mark’s father before he died.
“It didn’t hurt that you could blaze up and down the basketball court and put their school on the sports map. They never had that before,” Sal says with a laugh.
Beth kisses Sal lightly. “You weren’t so bad yourself, there, big guy. For a sponsored kid from the Bronx, you definitely made some of those snobby parents eat their words. Look at what you’ve accomplished! You’ve got a successful business, your clients love you, your employees love you, and I love you! Those same people who looked down their noses at us call you time after time to pull off some miracle party or event. Even the newspaper said we looked like a new CW series called The Caterers.”
Sal kisses her and says, “I didn’t do all this by myself, you know. If I hadn’t been trying to lure you away from Mark, I might not have been as driven to make money. It’s not easy competing with a billionaire-to-be.”
“Oh, Sal,” Beth says. “There’s no competition.”
She looks at her watch and searches her pockets frantically for the keys. “I’m going to be late for class! I’ve got to go! Love you!”
Beth jumps into the van and speeds away while Sal ponders the “no competition” comment and wonders if it was a compliment, an insult, or a simple financial reality.
Chapter 4
It is late morning in West Los Angeles, and a woman is moving slowly along the front walk of an assisted living facility. Pushing a walker with a large purse in the front basket, she exits the grounds and trudges slowly to the nearest major street.
Two blocks from the facility, a man appears out of nowhere. Dressed in a hoodie, his face hidden, he starts to jog, then speeds up as he runs directly toward the woman. As he passes her, he grabs the purse from her basket and bolts.
Ditching her walker and suddenly standing upright, the lady whips around and follows him in hot pursuit. The traffic on Sawtelle Avenue grinds to a halt as the “elderly” woman sprints after the purse snatcher, tackles him, and wrestles him to the ground. She grabs a zip tie from her pocket and lashes it around his wrists as she reads him his Miranda rights.
A police cruiser pulls up to the curb. “Need any help, Wilde?” laughs Tony Yamanouye from the patrol car.
Lucienne Wilde looks down at the perpetrator and at the spilled contents of the purse. “Yeah, you can cart this guy back to Division.“
As Tony and another officer are taking the suspect into custody, Lucienne’s phone rings. She answers, “Detective Wilde.”
A voice on the other end speaks, and Lucienne says, “Yes, Chief. I’ll meet you there in half an hour.” She turns to the officers. “Can I catch a ride to West Division? I need to change.”
Yamanouye teases, “You mean those aren’t your clothes? They look like your shoes.” Lucienne looks at her beige runners and shoots him a defiant look. “They are my shoes,” she says. She lifts the walker into the trunk of the cruiser, then rips the gray wig off her head and tosses it on top of the walker. As she does, her mane of thick, shiny hair is swept up in the sea breeze.
Chapter 5
Across town in Bel Air, Dana Montgomery sits alone in her ornate library, surrounded by books and awards and playbills from her many years as a star of stage and screen. With a drink in one hand, she gazes through the tall bay windows at her three-acre property. Her eye catches a bright pink bougainvillea. Nearby, bird-of-paradise plants stand sentry along the driveway, brightening the blue sky with sparks of orange and purple.
As she often does, Dana thinks about how lucky she is to live in this secluded neighborhood of movie stars and tycoons, high-tech moguls and politicians. Growing up, she could never have imagined any of what has come her way, and Bel Air’s exclusiveness is a daily reminder of how far she has come.
In Bel Air, the smell of old money tends to keep out all but the most aggres
sive, nouveau riche reality stars, most of whom know well enough to remain on the other side of Benedict Canyon. These streets are reserved for California’s super-elite: producers, directors, business moguls, and not long ago, the wife of a deceased president of the United States.
The Reagans, Hitchcock, Elizabeth Taylor and John Gilbert were vintage Bel Air residents. Even newcomer Elon Musk brings elegance to the little piece of paradise. Stars of TV shows with “Shore” in the title may have migrated to West Hollywood, but old money prefers the sedate elegance of Bel Air.
In her inimitable style, Dana Montgomery offers both flash and class. As one of the richest, most beautiful, and most talented actresses Hollywood has ever seen, Dana ranks as royalty. Inside her sprawling estate, Le Coeur Bel, however, royalty is showing its cracks. In fact, if Le Coeur Bel were any closer to its neighbors, or had fewer hedges, the noise from inside might have sparked the homeowners’ association to ask its occupants to move.
The queen of divas, Dana combines Grace Kelly’s timeless elegance, Hedy Lamarr’s sex appeal, and Katharine Hepburn’s jaunty athleticism. When she opens her mouth, her sultry voice calls to mind the crackling lower registers of a Lauren Bacall, Cruella de Vil, or Tallulah Bankhead’s famous mezzo-basso.
A symbol of a bygone era, Dana stands on her own, an icon to whom no modern actor can be compared. Unfortunately, she also drinks like Spencer Tracy and possesses Vivien Leigh’s tormenting anxiety. It was those traits that drove her into seclusion for a time after the death of her first husband, as she fought to protect her privacy. Nobody would ever know her real name, her real age, or what she was really like.
Too unusual for “girl next door” parts and blessed, or perhaps cursed, with a voice so deep that it cut out all but the darkest roles, Dana followed the only path available to her: that of the Vixen.
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