by Leonie Gant
Chapter Five
There was a knock on the door.
“For goodness sake, I am done helping you,” I yelled as I ripped open the door, only to find two of my neighbors standing there.
“Sorry,” said Crystal. “We waited for the hot guy to leave and we have pizza.”
Edwin waved the box under my nose to underscore them inviting themselves.
“Sorry about that, I thought you were the cops again.”
Crystal and Edwin made their way into my home and settled themselves in as if they spent all their free time there, which to be perfectly honest, they did.
“What has happened?” asked Crystal. “I saw you on the news feed being put in a cop car.”
So much for hoping I wouldn’t be recognized.
“Heard Ryan Hendricks shuffled off the mortal coil,” Edwin added. “Let me guess. You finally had sex with him and it was too much for him and he died.”
I rolled my eyes in exasperation. Crystal and Edwin are my neighbors and pretty much the only friends I have made since coming to LA. Crystal Bronstein works for her father who is one of the biggest casting agents in LA. Her mum was a Las Vegas showgirl who was married to her dad just long enough to give Crystal her name and receive a large alimony payment. Crystal stands barely above five feet but has a personality that enters a room before she does. Crystal loves old Hollywood glamour. Her clothing echoes the silhouette fashions of the thirties and forties, and she has the curvy figure which matches those classic looks perfectly. She and I bonded over a love of cookies and nights at home watching old movies.
Unfortunately her dad’s job means that Crystal has to get out a lot. Being one of the big casting agents in town, she is also always being squired to these social events by young, hopeful, gorgeous actors who are looking for that big break. Anyone who says becoming a star is about luck has no idea of the lengths some people go to. People do their research. Crystal has become the queen of accidental hookups. The number of times one of these actors has accidentally bumped into her and started a conversation is ridiculous. I once asked her if it bothered her the number of men she went out with that were just using her to meet her father. She just shrugged at me and said she was using them just as much.
Edwin Litchfield was the other friend I had made while in LA. Edwin was tall, blond, muscular and with that upper class English accent that makes women melt. He used to work as a model and then decided to be an actor. While waiting for his big break, he took any other job that he could. At the moment he was working as a personal trainer/lifestyle coach. He has the ability to makeover a woman from zero to fabulous in no time flat. Considering his two closest friends were women he also set off every gaydar in a five block radius. This worked well for him as his clientele consisted of the bored housewives of the very rich in LA. Husbands were comfortable leaving their wives with a gay personal trainer. Unfortunately for those husbands, Edwin was one hundred percent straight and was very good at keeping a woman happy. He didn’t advertise that fact but there were many women around LA who had enjoyed his company. Somehow none of them were bitter when he moved on. To this day I have no idea how he does it. Even after a one night stand he manages to meet up with a woman years later and they still think he is wonderful. Neither I nor Crystal have partaken of the irresistible nature that is Edwin. I think that may be why he is so comfortable with us.
“So,” Edwin said, jamming a slice of pizza in his mouth. “What happened? So far we’ve seen you and Eleanor Channing through blurry telephoto lens pictures. Eleanor being carted away in an ambulance and you in a police car, after Ryan Hendricks was found dead. Crystal called me and we rushed home to find out what was going on, only to find some hottie waiting at your front door.” He grinned.
“You know Edwin,” I said. “There are reasons people think you are gay. Calling other men ‘hottie’ is one of those reasons.”
At that point cheese and tomato sauce slid off Edwin’s slice of pizza and landed on his chest. He licked the stain, sucking the excess sauce out of his shirt, shrugged and got back to what he was eating.
“And that is why we know you are straight,” murmured Crystal.
The two of them looked at me expectantly.
“Eleanor called me this morning so she didn’t have to do the walk of shame. I got there and found Ryan Hendricks dead.”
“Oh my God,” exclaimed Crystal. “You actually saw the body. That is the coolest thing ever.”
Edwin and I stopped eating and looked at her.
Realizing how she must sound, she quickly amended. “No, I don’t mean that. Ryan Hendricks being dead is not cool, but you finding him, that is so cool. Trust me, you are going to be able to use that story forever,” she said brightly.
“Great,” I muttered. “That makes up for the trauma of it all.”
“Oh, are you traumatized?” Crystal reached over and laid her hand on mine in sympathy. “I know this great therapist who will be able to help.”
Just what I needed, therapy. I really didn’t feel like I needed to go down that road at all.
“I’m fine,” I said.
Actually thinking about it, I was fine. I’d got so caught up in everything that happened that I hadn’t even registered that I had seen an actual dead body. I better put that thought away or I was going to need Crystal’s therapist. Denial, everyone’s best friend. Now Edwin and Crystal were looking at me carefully. The last thing I needed was for them to start worrying about me.
“Really, I’m fine,” I said. “I was more worried about Eleanor, she was the one who was there.”
“Did she kill him?” Edwin asked, his eyes gleaming.
“Really?” I said. “That would please you, that Eleanor Channing killed Ryan Hendricks.”
“Not pleased exactly,” said Edwin, only looking slightly shamefaced. “I’m just saying that as far as possible stories go, that would be the best one. Ryan Hendricks dumps Eleanor Channing, gets engaged to Emily Saunders and then during a passionate tryst with Eleanor she kills him with a ... gun?” His voice raised at the end in question.
“I have no idea. I couldn’t make out any wounds on the body,” I said.
“See the information you have. Do you realize how much money you could make going to the media with this, like right now?” Edwin said. “First on the scene after Eleanor Channing kills Ryan Hendricks after sex. It’s got the whole black widow thing going for it.”
“I am not going to the media,” I said. “The police are dealing with it. My doing an interview is just going to make it harder to find if anyone killed Ryan. Anyway I don’t believe Eleanor did it.”
“Really,” said Crystal. “I seem to recall you telling us the other day that the woman was evil and you wouldn’t be surprised if she actually killed somebody one day.”
“Okay yes, she is pure mean when she wants to be, and yes, her track record with men and the way she has tried to get back at them does indicate some sociopath tendencies.”
I winced thinking of the words she had scratched on one ex-boyfriend’s car after he dumped her. That may have been one of those rumors that Detective Hottie, I mean Griffin, would have wanted to hear about. Eleanor just sometimes came a bit unhinged when it came to boyfriends, and due to her complete lack of musical talent, she was unable to decimate their reputations in song in classic, malicious ex-girlfriend tradition. So Eleanor fell back on tried and true methods. Stalking, destroying careers and vandalism of property. Maybe I was wrong in believing she hadn’t gone one step further and actually killed one of them. The more I thought about it, the more it seemed likely that it could happen. I realized I had been thinking too hard when I noted the silence around me.
“Oh no,” said Edwin. “You think she might have done it.”
I shook my head slowly. “I don’t know. I was so sure she hadn’t. She looked so shocked and upset when I found them.”
Thinking back to this morning I froze.
“What
is it?” asked Crystal.
“I forgot,” I said. “When I got there Eleanor said she thought she’d killed him. I didn’t think about it because she was pretty out of it but what if it was a confession?”
“Where was the body?” asked Edwin.
“In the shower. It looked like Eleanor had just come out of the shower too. Her hair was all wet,” I said, biting my lower lip as I tried to remember anything else.
“Maybe they were having a shower together and he died then. It just might be one of those things people say,” Crystal said.
“Or she may have done away with him while seducing him in the shower.” Seemed like Edwin was keen to pin the crime on Eleanor.
“I thought for sure something else had to have happened,” I said, twisting my napkin nervously. “But who am I kidding? There were only two of them there.”
“Are you sure?” asked Crystal. “Could there have been anyone else in the house?”
“Well it is a decent sized house. I didn’t see any cars driving away. I guess there could have been someone else hiding there. I called 911 pretty much straight away and they were there in just a few minutes.”
“Did you talk to Eleanor at all before the cops got there?” Crystal asked.
“No, she was almost catatonic, couldn’t seem to answer any questions. The only time she said anything was when the cops arrived and they started ordering her around. She came out of it but then they stunned her and we were separated. What?” I asked as I saw the dropped jaws and looks on both Crystal and Edwin’s faces.
“Eleanor Channing was stunned?” Edwin whispered in awe. “And you’re not taking that information to the media?”
“No I’m not and everything I told you has to stay between us.”
There were complaints to that statement because on a city run on gossip, the three of us were now sitting on gold.
“I mean it,” I said, trying very hard to keep my stern face on.
My two friends looked so crestfallen that I knew how hard it was for them. I also knew they wouldn’t tell anyone. That was the way we worked. The three of us all worked in areas where information was key. We were all privy to information that the tabloids would kill for. Being able to share that with each other and most importantly knowing that it would go no further was a major part of our friendship. That being said, I could tell that not being able to share this was almost going to kill them.
