“That sure sounds scripted to me,” I remarked as Mother tried to listen in.
“Sammi said they’re going to use what footage they have so far for the second season and cobble together a few episodes,” Janet went on. “She predicts the ratings will go through the roof.”
“Wow, making money off a dead woman,” I said and got a horrible taste in my mouth, “that’s pretty sick.”
“That’s reality TV, kid.” Janet sighed, telling me, “I’ve got to run,” and hung up.
I shook my head as I put away my phone.
When we reached the floor with the ARGH offices, Malone was hanging out at the reception desk, waiting for us.
He looked relieved when we appeared.
“Hold my calls, Sarah,” he told the woman with the headset, who nodded and said, “Of course, Mr. Malone.”
“I’m glad you’re here.” He kissed my mother’s cheek then planted a quick one on my lips. “I’ve got a video to show you. This might take a while, Cissy. Can I get you settled in my office with some magazines and a cup of coffee?”
“Andrea?” Mother started to say.
“She’s coming with me,” I told Brian. “We both need to talk to you. We have some vital information about Terra Smith, Olivia’s assistant, and Melvin Mellon—um, Draco—the designer Olivia was living with in the Turtle Creek penthouse.”
“And don’t forget Uncle Jasper,” Mother reminded me.
“Right,” I said. “And Jasper Pippin, the florist that Olivia supposedly drove out of business.”
Brian’s wide blue eyes blinked hard behind his glasses. “Andy,” he said in a tone of voice that wasn’t happy, “what have you been up to?”
“Mother and I went to a fashion show, like I told you,” I said, my heart pounding, though that wasn’t a lie. “But we stumbled upon some incredible tidbits about Olivia’s inner circle that the police will want to hear.” I summoned up a hopeful smile. “It might even be enough to keep them from arresting Millie.”
“You just stumbled upon this vital information, huh?” he said and hooked a finger beneath his collar. “Did you break any laws that I should know about?”
Almost in tandem, Mother and I replied, “No!”
Malone let out a slow breath. “Okay, let’s get started.”
Without further ado, he ushered us through a hallway and past his office. We ended up in a conference room that had a table filled with paperwork, photographs, a large bottle of Tums, and what appeared to be a tiny camera and microphone for recording. The TV had been angled away from the wall, and I could see something on the screen that had been paused.
I saw a glass of melting ice cubes with red lipstick on the rim, and my stomach clenched for a moment. I was grateful for Allie’s absence. It was going to be tricky enough telling Brian what I’d found out without his ex-girlfriend staring me down.
He pulled out a chair for Mother, and I’m sure he would have done the same for me but I beat him to it, sitting down where I could see the TV.
“What were you looking at?” I asked as Malone settled into a position nearest the open files. “Is it unaired footage from Olivia’s show?”
“No.” He picked up a remote and pressed a button so the screen began to move, tracking back. “It’s surveillance video from the Highland Park Village parking lot,” he said. “We went over it a dozen times with Millie, trying to find something the police might have missed.”
“Did she tell you about the thumping noise?” I asked.
He nodded. “We didn’t see anyone else exiting the building after she went in, and that includes anyone on the roof or climbing down. If someone was up there, they parked somewhere else and managed to avoid the cameras.”
That didn’t sound good for Millie.
“I want you to take a look,” Brian said. “There are multiple views from different cameras, but this gives us the best view of Olivia’s building.”
“Okay,” I said, because I hadn’t arrived long after Millie. Maybe I’d notice something that she hadn’t.
Brian nodded. “We’ll start it when Olivia arrives, about fifteen minutes before Millie.”
I’d spent most of yesterday watching all the episodes of Olivia’s show, so my eyes felt a little bleary. I realized a parking lot surveillance video was not going to be nearly as dramatic as The Wedding Belle, but I had to be way more focused on the details.
I squinted at the TV screen and said, “I’m ready. Let her rip.”
The quality of the video was much better than I’d expected, and it was in color, too. For some reason, I’d thought it would be grainy black and white like so many of the “Have you seen this person” videos of bank robbers on the evening news. But there it was: the parking lot at HPV, nearly empty early on a Sunday morning.
I remembered the sky being so blue and the clouds very wispy with the barest hint of a breeze. I watched as various store owners arrived and left their cars, heading to their respective shops.
A dark BMW four-door pulled up in front of Olivia’s building, and she got out. There was no big white Escalade and no driver, like on her show, but I realized now that much of what happened on The Wedding Belle was less reality than fiction. She glanced around before she went inside and paused for a moment to grab hold of her hair, which began to blow, as did the potted plants on the sidewalk. As suddenly, the gale stopped, and she went inside.
Nothing happened for a while, at least not at her building. I didn’t see a single other human being park nearby or wander in from outside the frame. The potted plants remained still. Minutes passed before I saw Millie’s white Acura SUV pull up with the distinctive hot pink lettering. She didn’t emerge for another five minutes. I could only imagine that she was sitting there, deciding whether or not to actually go in and confront Olivia. When she left her car and walked toward the building, her shoulders looked slumped. Her whole demeanor was reluctant. She certainly didn’t appear to be in any kind of murderous rage.
As she opened the glass doors to the building, there was another gust like the one that had whipped up Olivia’s hair. The flowers in their pots waved again, and Millie seemed hardly able to shut the doors against the gusty wind.
I said aloud what I was thinking. “But it wasn’t gusty that morning. There was barely a breeze.”
Something weird was in the air. That was for sure. I just had to figure out what it was.
I didn’t say anything to Brian, watching silently as my Jeep drove into view and parked. No gust of wind greeted me as I went inside Olivia’s building. Within moments the ambulance and cop car pulled up.
“That’s all she wrote,” Brian said and hit pause.
“Can I see it again?” I asked, because there was something about the video that reminded me of one of Olivia’s episodes of The Wedding Belle. But I needed to be sure I wasn’t wrong.
But by the second time, I was even more convinced that the killer had not arrived by car. He hadn’t parked in the parking lot. The way he’d come and gone made him virtually unseen, at least by the surveillance cameras.
“On one of Olivia’s shows,” I said, “a bride arrived by helicopter. She made everyone’s hair a mess and blew decorations around.”
Brian tensed. “You think the killer flew to Highland Park Village?”
“Yes,” I said, even though I knew it sounded kooky as hell.
“Where did he land?”
“On the rooftop,” I suggested.
Brian shook his head. “There’s no helipad on any of the HPV buildings, Andy. They’re old, sit too low, and they’re not equipped for it.”
“Then he landed somewhere close,” I said. “Millie heard a thumping sound. What if it wasn’t footsteps? What if it was the helicopter blades? Who even notices helicopters these days? Those stupid news copters are everywhere, morning, noon, and night. It’s like whi
te noise.”
Brian sighed and removed his glasses, rubbing at the bridge of his nose before he plunked them back on.
Why wasn’t he taking me seriously? Did he think I was just blowing smoke?
“Call the FAA or whoever you call to find out about flight plans,” I said, getting ticked off. “Wouldn’t a pilot have to file one?”
“You think some hit man dropped out of a helicopter to kill Olivia, stole her laptop and phone, and then disappeared into the clouds like Batman?” Brian offered.
“Yeah,” I said, because it was the twenty-first century. Stuff like that wasn’t science fiction; it was real and doable if you had the money.
“I’ll have someone look into it,” he said, but I only half believed him. “Why don’t you and Cissy fill me in on that important information you stumbled onto,” he prompted. He had a pained look on his face, like he was afraid of what was coming. “Should I chew some Tums now or after?” he asked as he leaned back in the chair and loosened his necktie so he could unbutton his collar.
“Now would be good,” I said and looked at Cissy.
Mother nodded at me. “Go on, Andrea,” she encouraged. “Tell him about that handsome vampire’s fake accent and the tattooed wedding bands and how those two nutty fruitcakes locked us in the dressing room.”
“Oh, God,” Malone sighed and reached for the big Tums bottle. He popped the cap and shook a few out, chewing on them as I started to talk.
I took a deep breath before pitching headfirst into my monologue about being at Draco’s show, going backstage for some personal pampering and then “eavesdropping” on an argument between Terra and Draco about Olivia. I explained about their tattooed ring fingers and how Mother had noticed Terra’s first. Then I filled him in on Jasper Pippin and his connection to Terra, and how Draco said that Salvo Productions was planning to spin them all off in a new show minus Olivia.
“Jasper Pippin, Draco aka Melvin Mellon, and Terra Smith . . . they’re all tied together, don’t you see? They were all tangled up in Olivia’s web of lies,” I said as Brian sat back in his chair, staring stupefied at me. “They could have plotted to kill Olivia,” I offered halfheartedly, “only I don’t know which one of them actually did the deed.”
“My vote is Jasper,” Mother volunteered. “He can’t be as inept as the other two at criminal activity.”
I thought of Jasper carving up peony stems with the paring knife and nodded. “You could be right. Janet thinks he’s too prissy to be a killer.”
Malone squeaked, “Janet’s involved in this?”
“Hmm, she might have something there,” my mother agreed. “If he could do the flowers for the White Glove Society’s deb ball with Dorothea Amherst breathing down his neck for twenty years without killing her, then perhaps he doesn’t have it in him.”
“What about Terra?” I suggested. “She sure turned into Super Bitch in the blink of an eye, didn’t she?”
“Yes, she did,” Mother replied.
“Damn,” I said, thinking that all three suddenly seemed like lame suspects to me. I wasn’t sure I could see any one of them confronting Olivia in her office, grabbing a cake knife, and stabbing her to death.
“Ladies, can we move on, please.” Brian leaned forward, his arms on the conference table. “I’ll pass along all those insights to our investigator. Anything else you’d care to share?”
“Yes,” I said, perking up. “Draco and Terra both knew about Olivia’s real boyfriend, who is probably married and who definitely bought her silence by getting her the Turtle Creek penthouse. Only he used a dummy corporation to buy it so no one would be the wiser.” I looked at Mother. “Draco thought the name was something like Staypuff.”
“Yes, that’s what he said.” Cissy nodded.
“Staypuff?” Malone repeated, and I knew he was thinking of the Marshmallow Man, too. “While you were, um, eavesdropping, did you get the boyfriend’s name, by chance?”
“No, sorry, Draco and Terra didn’t know,” I admitted. “But Olivia bragged that he had lots of people kissing his ass and lots of women who wanted to sleep with him.” I leaned my elbows on the table. “If this rich and powerful boyfriend was really married, I’m sure he freaked at the news of Olivia’s bun in the oven. Draco said that just a couple of days before she died, Olivia suggested playing out a pregnancy scare on the show, only he wouldn’t agree.”
“But she was pregnant,” Malone said, and I saw a vein bulge on his forehead. “She didn’t have to fake it.”
“Yeah, but Draco didn’t know that at the time.” I sat up straighter as a couple of giant what ifs came to mind. “What if Olivia wanted this baby to happen? And what if her boyfriend didn’t? What if the baby was his worst nightmare?”
“It’s despicable”—Cissy clicked tongue against teeth—“the lengths that some men will go to, to avoid taking responsibility for their actions.”
“Or to protect their social standing,” I said.
“Hmm.” Brian made a noise and started shuffling through some paperwork. He withdrew a page and squinted at it. “We do have the name of the corporation listed on the property tax records for the purchase of the Turtle Creek penthouse,” he said. “It’s called Stayman, Inc.”
So Draco hadn’t been too far off the mark after all.
“Someone named Stayman also posted the video of Millie threatening Olivia at the wedding,” Brian said and glanced up. “We’re looking into who operates that YouTube account, and we’re also looking into ownership of the company, but it might take a while to get answers.”
“So much of Olivia’s life was a mystery,” I said.
“Excuse me.” My mother cleared her throat and raised her hand, like a child in a classroom. “But I have a question.”
Brian turned to face her. “Shoot.”
“You said Stayman, did you not?” Cissy asked.
“That’s right, Stayman.” He pushed at his glasses.
I wrinkled my brow. “Have you heard of it?”
“Well, it could just be coincidence,” Cissy murmured, fingering her pearls, “but Stayman is a bridge term . . .”
“So?” I said, because I wasn’t sure how that mattered. Lots of people knew bridge terms. “It also could be someone’s name.”
“Oh, it’s that, too,” she told me and stopped playing with her pearls. She clasped her hands on the conference table, focused on Brian. “It was the name of one of my best bridge partner’s beloved cocker spaniels many moons ago,” she explained.
“Stayman was a dog?” Brian remarked.
Mother nodded. “He belonged to my friend Adelaide, bless her heart, when she was married to Lester Dickens.”
Chapter 29
We left Brian’s office about an hour later, after Allie had returned, of course, and grilled me even harder than the police about Olivia La Belle. By the time Mother and I escaped, went down the elevator, and exited the doors of the downtown high-rise, I was exhausted and tense and more convinced than ever that Millie had been set up. Not by a trio of bumbling amateurs, but by someone with a big wad of cash, enough to have bought and paid for a professional hit.
Someone like Lester Dickens.
At first I’d wondered if Olivia was having an affair with the oilman. But why would Dickens need to kill a pregnant girlfriend? Why not just write her a check and dispense with her relatively quietly, as he had multiple wives? No, it made more sense that he was protecting someone else, a man who had way more to lose than a marriage or a reputation if word got out that he’d knocked up his mistress.
A man like Vernon Ryan.
When I’d suggested to Allie and Brian that they have the firm’s PI investigate Lester Dickens’s and Senator Ryan’s ties to Olivia, they’d looked at each other and then at me like I was a lunatic.
My mother hadn’t appeared any too happy either. “You think
Vernon was sleepin’ with Olivia?” She’d frowned, though her brow stayed smooth as silk. “I hope you’re wrong, Andrea. That would break Shelby’s heart. They’ve been together since high school, and she spent a lot of time alone raising Penny when Vern was in the Navy. She’s put up with a lot for him.”
“Sorry, Andy, but I’m with your mother”—Allie McSqueal had jumped right on the Bash Andy Bandwagon—“that theory’s six kinds of crazy. We can’t go around accusing Senator Ryan of being involved with Olivia La Belle without some pretty solid evidence.”
I didn’t have evidence. But I did have a hunch that Lester Dickens had orchestrated Olivia’s murder and implicated Millie in her death.
It fit like a kidskin glove.
“Who else could have pulled it off?” I’d said.
“All you have is a bunch of hearsay,” Allie had insisted. “Forget Senator Ryan for a moment. You do know who Lester Dickens is?” she’d asked, like I was some brainless bumpkin. “He’s not just the biggest oil tycoon in the state, but he’s a political heavy hitter, like a wannabe Koch brother. And he comes with his own goon squad. They’re probably armed better than the Dallas Metro Police.”
“So that makes them off-limits,” I’d replied, “even if Senator Ryan’s the reason Olivia’s dead and Dickens is the one who had her killed?”
“It’s not our job to identify or prosecute the guilty parties,” Allie had retorted, giving Brian a look, like, Why are you with this chick? “We don’t even have to prove Millie’s innocence, just that she’s not guilty and someone else had the opportunity to do it.”
“So you’re not going to look into Dickens?” I’d asked, because that was the feeling I had gotten despite Malone’s promises.
“We have to tread lightly, Andy,” Brian had said. “We can’t just bulldoze our way into his business and his private life. We’d need evidence, something concrete, something we could take to the police, like emails or voice mails, some kind of trail.”
Say Yes to the Death Page 23
