by Marcus Sakey
Laney Thayer Murder.
Oh god.
He hovered over it. Stared. Foolish, foolish man. It wasn’t a rabbit hole he was falling down. It was an abyss.
5
CNN.com, November 2, 2009
ACTRESS IN FATAL ACCIDENT
LOS ANGELES (CNN)—Los Angeles Sheriffs responded to an automobile accident resulting in the apparent death of actress Laney Thayer earlier this afternoon.
Thayer, 30, lost control of her vehicle during a hairpin turn on the Pacific Coast Highway. The 2007 Volkswagen Beetle slid through a barricade and over the edge, falling more than 100 feet before landing upside-down in the water. Preliminary evidence suggests that Thayer was going approximately 75 miles an hour, 30 mph faster than the posted speed limit.
Sheriffs responded quickly, cordoning off the road and calling on the Coast Guard for support. Tidal conditions and the severe slope prohibited officers from reaching the car for nearly an hour.
“At this point, Ms. Thayer’s body has not been recovered,” said Sheriff’s spokesman Parto Barkhordari. “However, given the condition of the vehicle, and the riptides at this time of year, that isn’t surprising.”
Asked whether Thayer could have survived the accident, Barkhordari said, “We’re making every effort to find her. But I don’t see how she could have gone over that cliff and lived.”
The actress starred in the popular television melodrama Candy Girls. Her husband, screenwriter Daniel Hayes, was unavailable for comment.
The Pacific Coast Highway is known as one of the most scenic but dangerous routes in California—
E! Online, November 3, 2009
CANDY GIRL ACCIDENT NO PIECE OF CAKE
Laney Thayer’s story was just getting started . . . until it ended tragically in a car crash that could have been pulled from her hit show.
But now it’s turning out there may be more to her story than anyone guessed.
While sheriffs are close-lipped about the crash, the focus of the investigation is shifting from accidental death to something more ominous.
Murder.
Sources within the LASD have revealed that according to skid marks found on the Pacific Coast Highway, Laney may have been forced off the road.
Husband Daniel Hayes has yet to make a statement—or even appear in public.
Meanwhile, what is it about the PCH and celebrities? Let us count the ways those two don’t mix: Mel Gibson, Nick Nolte, Robert Downey Jr., Bridget Fonda, Shannen Doherty . . .
Star, News and Gossip, November 4, 2009
LANEY THAYER MOURNED BY HOLLYWOOD, CAST
Since the tragic accident on Monday, outpourings of sympathy have come from every direction.
“Laney was a beautiful woman with a beautiful soul,” said co-star Robert Cameron. “Everyone adored her. Me? I loved her.”
“It’s a total tragedy,” co-star Janine Wilson said. “She was totally like a sister to me.”
Thayer had recently made news with her decision to leave the FX show Candy Girls in the midst of contract disputes. The show, which was a surprise success, has run for four years—
5
PerezHilton.com, November 4, 2009
WHERE IS DANIEL HAYES?
By now everyone knows about Laney Thayer’s murder accident.
Car chases, rumors of affairs with co-stars, sheriff’s investigations, oh my!
But where is hubby Daniel Hayes in all this? Why can no one seem to find him?
Maybe he’s too busy mourning the loss of his cash cow wife?
Or maybe he had something to do with it?
5
CNN.com, November 5, 2009
LANEY THAYER HUSBAND SOUGHT
LOS ANGELES (CNN)—Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department spokesperson Parto Barkhordari today acknowledged that police sought Daniel Hayes, husband of actress Laney Thayer, in connection with her death on November 2.
The case, originally believed an accident, has come under investigation as a possible homicide based on forensic evidence as well as “financial irregularities.”
The officer leading the investigation, Detective Roger Waters, stopped short of specifically naming Hayes a suspect. However, he did note that in cases of this nature, family members were “the first people we look at.”
Investigators have confirmed that blood traces found on the airbag matched Laney Thayer’s blood type. Analysis of the stretch of highway leading up to the fatal spot bears evidence of a high-speed chase involving another vehicle. Neither Waters nor Barkhordari would go into detail regarding the financial evidence, though both noted that it could constitute a motive . . .
5
People.com, Star Tracks, November 6, 2009
HAPPY COUPLE?
Laney Thayer and husband Daniel Hayes look awfully cozy in this behind-the-scenes snap from Candy Girls. But sources on the set say that their relationship was “anything but simple.”
Click for a slide show of Laney’s career, from her modeling days to strolls down the red carpet to beach frolics with hunky co-star Robert Cameron!
5
TMZ.com, November 7, 2009
DANIEL HAYES = SCOTT PETERSON
A murdered wife. A body in the ocean. A vanished husband. A supposedly happy couple with more going on.
Does anybody else notice that Daniel Hayes, husband of Candy Girl Laney Thayer, is starting to look an awful lot like Scott Peterson?
True, Laney wasn’t pregnant—that we know of—but otherwise, things look grim for the writer.
Especially since he disappeared. Sources within the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department have told TMZ that Hayes isn’t just laying low—he appears to have fled.
“We’ve got credit card information tracking him across the country,” says our man in the LASD.
Daniel, if you’re out there, remember, Scotty tried to run too . . .
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Reader Comments
1. First!
Posted at 3:50PM on November 7, 2009 by newsjunx
2. She’s rich AND hot but he kills her? Talk about a d-bag play.
Posted at 3:52PM on November 7, 2009 by hisnameisrobertpaulson
3. 1st.
Posted at 3:52PM on November 7, 2009 by K
4. Just cause she’s dead doesn’t mean I wouldn’t tap her . . .
Posted at 3:54PM on November 7, 2009 by PinkLVR
5 Enough! Jesus Christ, enough.
He closed the browser window, bile on his tongue. November 7, that last article was dated. Today.
This had been going on around him all the while he drove west, oblivious. He could have had half the answers to his questions just by reading a tabloid. All the time he wondered what was wrong, all the time he felt this massive, crushing guilt—
No. That can’t be true.
Daniel’s stomach was crawling things. He lurched to his feet. Behind him, a voice said, “Hey, dude, you’ve got like ninety minutes—” The slamming door cut off the clerk’s words.
What the fuck is happening to you?
Who are you?
He turned left at random, stalked down the street, everything spinning. A happy couple parted to make space for him. A homeless woman yelled at an ATM. Coffeehouse, clothing boutique, coffeehouse, restaurant, coffeehouse. Fucking Santa Monica and its fucking 340 days of sunshine and its fucking coffee. Last things he needed were sunshine and coffee.
How could all of this happen to one person? It was too much— the memory, the lonely terror of the last week, making it home to find he had a beautiful life, and then scant hours later learning that that life had been ripped from him. Learning that everyone believed he was to blame.
That can’t be true. You couldn’t have done what they say you did.
Please. Oh god, please. Better to have died on the beach in Maine.
Please let me not be that man.
B
elinda Nichols drove her battered white van through the desert.
She’d thought about buying what she needed in one of the towns outlying Los Angeles. The rules in the city were strict, but once you got a couple of miles out, things were simple. Show a driver’s license, pay in cash, and you were good to go.
But she didn’t really want to show her driver’s license. The odds it would lead to her getting caught were slim, but any trail, any trail at all, could be a problem. She’d never killed someone before, and while she wasn’t excited about doing it, she was even less excited about the prospect of getting caught.
So she’d gone a safer route. It had taken five hours to make the drive, two of them fighting L.A. traffic. Once she’d cleared city limits and was rolling north on 15, things had thinned out. Just her and the rocky sprawl of the desert and the wide white sky.
She made it to the outskirts of Vegas a little after one. Belinda always felt naked outside of a city. All these wide lanes and huge parking lots, all these car washes and cluttered signs. The Walmart was on a street called East Serene, which she could relate to, being east of serenity. Sort of how she felt since Bennett had come back into her life.
It was the brilliant heart of the afternoon as she parked. She killed the engine, listened to it tick as she flipped down the visor to look in the mirror. The port wine stain shadowed her eye and cheek.
You’re no longer Belinda Nichols. You’re Barb Schroeder. You’ve got charm to spare and a laugh that makes other people happy. You grew up in the South, and though you lived most of your life in the Midwest—Wisconsin—you never completely lost the accent. Two years ago you said, “Okay, winter, you win,” and packed it in for Las Vegas, fastest growing city in the country. No better place to be in real estate, at least it was, until about the time you got here. But what the hell, it’s warm, the sky is blue, and tomorrow is a long way away.
She checked her outfit, jeans a couple of years out of date but snug and flattering, and a fitted white button-down she’d found at Target. Not bad. She undid the top button, then another, so that the lace edge of her bra was visible. Better.
The store was an airplane hangar, the grid of lights running into the horizon. Bored clerks rang up endless lines. Barb Schroeder took it in, then followed the signs to sporting goods.
It had always amused her that these stores had everything, everything, you could ever need. Groceries, clothes, toys, electronics, housewares . . . ammunition.
“Can I help you, ma’am?” The voice came from behind.
Barb turned, smiling, looking him in the face, and watched him take in her port wine stain, the dark red blotch that had defined her whole life. His eyes did the usual dance—the stain, the floor, her face, but not up to the mark.
“I hope so,” she said, and threw just the tiniest hint of twang into her voice. Kentucky, not Alabama. “I need to buy bullets.”
“Rounds,” he said. He was nice-looking in a cowboy sort of way, probably late forties. Perfect. “We call them rounds.”
“Sorry.” A little giggle and a cock of her hips. “My boyfriend got me this gun, a Sig Sauer something, said if I won’t move in with him, I need to have it. He’s a cop, says until they get rid of all the bad guys with guns, we all need them too.”
“You know which model?”
“A pretty one. Silver and black.”
“Well—”
“I’m kidding, hon. I need .45 ACP.”
He grinned, then took a key ring from his belt, opened a glass display case. “Got a preference as far as brand?”
“It matter?”
“Not really. Winchesters are good, Blazer is a little cheaper.”
“Winchester is fine.”
“They come a hundred to a box.”
“I’ll take . . . three, I guess? Need to practice some.”
The clerk nodded, took out three boxes. “Anything else?”
“Targets?”
He showed her a selection, paper targets with bull’s-eyes and silhouettes of deer and people. She picked the ones shaped like a man.
“I can ring you up over here.” He led her up the aisle to a small register, scanned the ammunition. The register beeped, and he gave her a sly look. “You over twenty-one?”
She laughed. “Hon, I weren’t already seeing a man with a gun, I might just marry you for that.”
He smiled, put her stuff in a bag. “Eighty-seven forty.”
“Easy come, huh?” She counted out the bills, made sure to touch his fingers when she passed them to him. “Thanks for the help.”
“No problem.”
Barb Schroeder picked up the bag, surprised at the weight, then started for the front.
Now it was almost four, and Belinda Nichols was on the 15 again, heading back through the desert, about ten miles outside of Barstow. A sign told her exit 194 was coming up; she took it, found herself on the kind of dusty two-lane you saw in modern westerns, a long straight run to the sky. A few minutes later a dirt road branched off, and she took that, followed it for fifteen minutes until she was in a low canyon, all brown earth and scrub weeds. Pulled the van over and sat at the side of the road. Nothing happened. No cars, no trucks, nothing.
Belinda picked up the bag of ammunition, the paper targets, and the Sig Sauer she had taken from Daniel Hayes’s house and walked into the hills.
She found a twisted tree and hung the target on it, poking a branch through the paper. Then she walked back ten feet. The sun beat down on her as she held the pistol, found the lever to unlock the magazine. She opened one of the boxes of ammunition and loaded it carefully. Belinda hated the feeling of it, the way it was so clean and smooth and appealing; the machined precision of the gun, the perfect cylinder of each round. Hated the slickness of the whole thing, the fact that for all the flawless appeal on one side, the end result was messy and evil.
Get over it. You don’t have a choice. Until you do this, Bennett owns you. When it’s done, you’ll be free.
She blew out a breath, held the gun up in both hands. It was heavy, and as she stared down the barrel, the thing wavered back and forth across the target. Her hands were sweaty.
When Belinda pulled the trigger, the crack was so loud the rest of the world seemed to buzz.
A neat hole had appeared in the target. It wasn’t in the bull’s-eye, but it was inside the rings. Not bad.
Not good enough. You can’t screw this up. It won’t be a target you’re shooting at. It will be a man, and you can’t miss.
She wiped her hands on her jeans, one then the other, and then raised the gun again.
And again.
And again.
5
The building was a rent-a-room in Studio City, a two-story reclaimed from an old dance hall and divided into offices. Nice enough place, the façade intact, and the original floors, the boards battered and wide. Bennett had scoped it, walking into the lobby with a pizza box in one hand. Marking the security camera mounted in the ceiling. Nothing fancy, your standard closed-circuit, likely feeding to a digital recording system, a stack-burner for DVD-RWs. There was a wall board with the list of tenants, and he counted seconds while examining it. Mostly small production companies—who in this town wasn’t a producer?—as well as a number of writers, a lowrent agent or two, a dentist. He found the name he was looking for, suite 106, then scanned quick for the occupant of 105. He was up to twenty-two seconds before a dude in a blue monkey suit stepped out of an unmarked office door, asked if he could be of service.
“Yeah, I’ve got a delivery for,” he faked looking at the ticket, “the Council for Colombian Imports?” He smiled. “That’s just got to be a joke, right?”
The security guard had grinned, said, “Suite 105. Down the hall, take a right, just past the bathrooms.”
“Thanks, brother.”
“No prob.”
He’d sauntered down the hall, taken the right, walked past the bathrooms, whistling. There was another camera a
t the corner, but just one to cover the whole hall. The doors were out of an old-time private eye movie, wooden frames with frosted glass panels, the occupant names lettered in gold. Suite 105, THE COUNCIL FOR COLOMBIAN IMPORTS. Suite 106, DANIEL HAYES. Bennett knocked on 105. A minute later, a cute little thing maybe five feet tall, all curls and dark eyes, opened the door. “Yes?”
“Afternoon, ma’am. I’m with Salami Jim’s; we’ve just opened, and to introduce ourselves, we’re sending free pizzas to our new neighbors.” He thrust the box at her, and she took it, as he knew she would. Predictable, people.
“I—thank you.”
“Hope you enjoy. Remember, Salami Jim has the sausage you love to swallow.” He started away.
“Wait.”
Bennett turned, and the cute little thing said, “Can I tip you?”
He smiled as he took the two crumpled bucks she pulled out. Why did women carry bills like they were notes passed in class, something they needed to stuff away quickly?
That was earlier. Now, after ten, he was parked in his truck across the street. The window for The Council for Colombian Imports had gone dark a couple of hours back. Daniel Hayes’s hadn’t ever been bright, but that was no surprise. Bennett pulled on a pair of driving gloves, slid the Colt in the back of his belt where his leather jacket would cover it, and got out of the truck.
The office building had a parking lot, and in the time he’d sat across the street, he’d seen a security guard—a different one this time, fat and sporting a mustache—stroll through it exactly once. Keeping his gait easy, Bennett crossed Ventura, walked into the lot. Despite the hour, there were half a dozen cars parked. A mixed bag, but the winner was a Mustang, an LED blinking red on the dashboard. He walked past the Dumpsters to a weed-covered ridge that ran along the side of the building. Counted windows, uno, dos, tres, cuatro, the Council for Colombian Imports’s, and then Daniel Hayes’s. It was double-paned and fixed, no sensors in the corner, aimed more at numbing street noise than security. Perfect.
In the dark, it took him five minutes to find a few decent-sized rocks. His first throw went long, overshot the Mustang by a couple of feet. Bennett wound up, lobbed another, this one denting the side of a Civic just shy of the Mustang. For Christ’s sake. He took a breath, shook out his arm, and tried again.
