Room for Doubt
Page 1
Praise for the Carol Childs Mystery Series
“A high-speed chase of a mystery, filled with very likable characters, a timely plot, and writing so compelling that readers will be unable to turn away from the page.”
– Kings River Life Magazine
“Will keep you turning pages late into the night and make you think twice about the dark side of the Hollywood Dream.”
– Paul D. Marks,
Shamus Award-Winning Author of Vortex
“Radio host Carol Childs meets her match in this page-turner. Her opponent is everyone’s good guy but she knows the truth about the man behind the mask. Now Carol must reveal a supremely clever enemy before he gets the chance to silence her for good.”
– Laurie Stevens,
Award-Winning Author of the Gabriel McRay Series
“A story of suspense, raw emotion, and peril which builds up to a satisfying climax…Silverman has given us another book where we can sit down and get our teeth into, and I look forward to the next in the series. Highly recommended.”
– Any Good Book
“Fast paced and cleverly plotted, an edgy cozy with undertones of noir.”
– Sue McGinty,
Author of the Bella Kowalski Central Coast Mysteries
“A thoroughly satisfying crime novel with fascinating, authentic glimpses into the world of talk radio and some of its nastier stars… The writing is compelling and the settings ring true thanks to the author’s background as a newscaster herself.”
– Jill Amadio,
Author of Digging Too Deep
“The author gives us a terrific story building up to a climax that will please the reader. The old saying regarding ‘people are not always what they seem’ fits perfectly in this case…Readers will be waiting impatiently for the next installment.”
– Suspense Magazine
“Silverman provides us with inside look into the world of talk radio as Carol Childs, an investigative reporter, finds herself in the middle of a Hollywood murder mystery…A hunky FBI Agent and a wacky psychic will keep readers guessing from beginning to end.”
– Annette Dashofy,
USA Today Bestselling Author of Lost Legacy
“Silverman creates a trip through Hollywood filled with aging hippies, greedy agents, and a deadly case of product tampering. Forget the shower scene in Psycho; Shadow of Doubt will make you scared to take a bath!”
– Diane Vallere,
National Bestselling Author of Pillow Stalk
“Carol is a smart, savvy heroine that will appeal to readers. This is a cozy with a bite.”
– Books for Avid Readers
“Crackles with memorable characters, Hollywood legends, and as much action behind the mic as investigative reporter Carol Childs finds in the field.”
– Mar Preston,
Author of A Very Private High School
“I loved the tone, the pace, and the drama which pulled me in immediately…All the while I suspected something was amiss, and when it came to fruition, I knew the author was going to pull a fast one, and yes, she did, and bravo because now I must read the next book to see how it all plays out.”
– Dru’s Book Musings
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Books in the Carol Childs Mystery Series
by Nancy Cole Silverman
SHADOW OF DOUBT (#1)
BEYOND A DOUBT (#2)
WITHOUT A DOUBT (#3)
ROOM FOR DOUBT (#4)
Copyright
ROOM FOR DOUBT
A Carol Childs Mystery
Part of the Henery Press Mystery Collection
First Edition | July 2017
Henery Press
www.henerypress.com
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever, including Internet usage, without written permission from Henery Press, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
Copyright © 2017 by Nancy Cole Silverman
Cover art by Stephanie Savage
This is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real locales are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Trade Paperback ISBN-13: 978-1-63511-235-1
Digital epub ISBN-13: 978-1-63511-236-8
Kindle ISBN-13: 978-1-63511-237-5
Hardcover ISBN-13: 978-1-63511-238-2
Printed in the United States of America
Dedication
To My Family
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I have to thank my grandmother, Marjorie Childs, for Room For Doubt. When I was a young girl, she told me a story about an odd woman who had lived next door to her when she was first married. That would have been back in the early 1900s. Frequently, the police had been seen coming to the woman’s door and then leaving. Then one day, the police returned to her home, and so did the coroner’s van. After that, my grandmother said no one in the neighborhood ever saw the woman again. They were all certain she was still living in the house. But for whatever reason, she became a recluse. The story always haunted me. Whatever happened in that house remained a mystery, but for me, and my overactive imagination, it was fertilizer for a story I would one day write. And while the names, location and time of events in no way resemble those from the story she told me, I do credit her for the idea. Thanks, Gramma.
I would also like to thank my publisher, Kendel Lynn at Henery Press, who took a chance on the Carol Childs Mysteries and has made this dream of mine a reality. My editors, Erin George and Rachel Jackson. It takes a team for a writer to create a novel, and these two women with their keen eyes and understanding of story structure help me to look good on the page. Stephanie Savage, who designed what I think is my favorite cover yet, and Art Molinares, who keeps the Hen House clucking.
And, finally to my friends and family who are too numerous to mention, but most importantly, my husband, Bruce. You make this all possible.
CHAPTER 1
“Excuse me, miss? Are you a model?”
I was in the cereal aisle at the grocery store with a box of bran flakes in my hand when I heard the voice behind me. It had been years since I’d done any modeling, and I wasn’t feeling particularly glamorous. My hair was in a ponytail, and I was wearing a pair of sweatpants and a ratty old KCHC t-shirt with a cartoon of a dead chicken on my chest. The words Radio Road Kill blasted beneath it. Not exactly the type of thing one wears to make a good first impression.
“Not in years.” I laughed and turned expecting to find a friendly face. Grocery stores these days topped bars for places to meet men. Despite the fact the line was an obvious come on, I was, unfortunately, once again in the market.
Instead, the voice belonged to a nice-looking, well-built gym-rat with a neatly cropped beard. He was about half my age, and worse yet, he wasn’t talking to me. Not at all. He had cornered a young girl directly behind me; a twenty-something darling dressed in a skin-tight running outfit that looked like it had been painted onto her body.
I smiled apologetically and turned to read the label on the cereal box. Not that they noticed. Lately, I felt as though I’d become the invisible
woman.
My name is Carol Childs, I’m a single mom, and I work as a reporter for a talk radio station in Los Angeles. I was one of those faceless voices on the airwaves people heard every day. Perhaps that, and the fact I’d recently turned forty, explained why I was beginning to feel I blended into the background like wallpaper paste. Few of my listeners could identify me, and in LA, women over forty simply weren’t on anyone’s radar. Out of the corner of my eye, I watched, while I listened to their exchange.
Gym-rat, with muscled arms like watermelons bulging from beneath his t-shirt, pressed a business card into Running-girl’s hand. “You ever want to get into the club, just call.”
Gym-rat was making a big impression. Running-girl glanced at the card, hugged it to her chest like she had just won the lottery, then kissed Gym-rat on the cheek as she tucked the card into her sports bra.
At that point, I tossed the cereal box into my cart and started up the aisle. I didn’t give it another thought.
Until the next day.
My bedroom was still dark when the phone rang. With my head barely off the pillow, I squinted at the digital clock next to my bed: 5:55 a.m. Dammit, Tyler, it’s not even six o’clock. New record. I fumbled for the bedside phone—a requirement the station demanded of all its reporters—and knocked it to the floor before grabbing the handle. Nobody else, not even a phone solicitor, would dare to call before sunup.
“Please, Tyler, tell me this isn’t becoming a habit with you.”
“Sorry, Carol. I need you.”
On the other end of the line was my boss, Tyler Hunt, a twenty-one-year-old whiz-kid who referred to me as the world’s oldest cub reporter.
“No,” I begged. “Absolutely not. Please, Tyler, not today.”
Tomorrow was my son’s birthday, and Tyler had promised me the day off to prepare. On Saturday, Charlie, my youngest, would officially be sixteen, and I had planned a big surprise party to celebrate. My daughter, Cate, was coming up from San Diego State. My best friend, Sheri, her son, Clint, and fourteen members of Charlie’s football team would all be here. Plus, my ex, Robert, planned stop by with the wife and Charlie’s new step-brother. No way was I about to get caught up in anything that would distract me.
“I need you to take this, Carol. There’s a body up on the Hollywood Sign.”
I sat up in bed and pushed the hair out of my face. He had to be kidding. The Hollywood Sign? Recently a prankster had climbed to the top of the sign and with tarps and tape lettered it to read Hollyweed. A pro-cannabis statement for sure.
“Tyler, if there’s a body on the Hollywood Sign, it’s got to be a publicity stunt. Something one of the studios is doing for a movie maybe.”
“It’s not a stunt, Carol. The police are reporting a man’s naked body hanging from the sign. It’s for real. I need you up there. Now. Go!”
CHAPTER 2
I reminded myself, as I stumbled into my closet and grabbed a pair of jeans and a sweatshirt, that when it came to news reporting, I didn’t have a lot of options. The station had recently gone through a format change, dropping our old KCHC Chick Lite call letters and adopting a new hard-hitting, male-dominated format. KNST News Sports and Talk. Every reporter on staff, including me, was under review, and since I was still the new kid on the block, when Tyler called, I jumped. On my way out the door, I stopped in the kitchen, took a box of Cheerios from the cabinet for Charlie, and scribbled a quick sticky note. Tyler called. Hope to be back before you leave for school. Xoxo, Mom. I drew a happy face at the end and placed it on the refrigerator door where I knew he wouldn’t miss it.
In the car, I programmed my GPS for a popular lookout directly beneath the Hollywood Sign. At night the grassy field was used by kids to park and do those things they didn’t want their folks to know about. Daytime, it was busy nonstop with tour vans and snap-happy day-trippers grabbing selfies from beneath the sign. At this hour, I figured the police would still be securing the area, and with a little luck, I might be able to get in and out before the cops closed it off to everyone, including the press. I glanced at my watch. It wasn’t yet six-fifteen. GPS said I was ten minutes away. I pressed the accelerator and speed along the canyon road. If I got there early enough and met with the police, I might be able to file my story live from the scene and still be home in time to see Charlie off for school. Any follow-up Tyler could handle, at least for today. No murder or late breaking story was going to interfere with my prep plans for Charlie’s party. Tyler owed me that much.
I squinted into the early morning sun as I drove east along the canyon road. The sun was just starting to rise above the Santa Monica Mountains. With the first rays of daylight on the hills, the city glistened below. It looked like it was going to be one of those picture-perfect sunny California days. Too glorious for anything bad to happen. And then, as I rounded the bend, I saw it. Hanging like a crucifix, from the center of the Hollywood Sign, was the body of a nude man.
I hit the brakes. With my eyes fixed on the sign, I nearly skidded off the road.
My front fender kissed the guardrail. I pulled the steering wheel hard to the right and came to a stop next to the grassy field, directly below the sign. No time to panic. Two police cruisers and an unmarked car were already on the scene, their lights flashing. I grabbed my reporter’s bag off the seat next to me and ran towards the action.
“Hey, miss. Stop. You can’t go over there.” A young cop blocked my approach to the investigating officers in the field. He looked to be a rookie, barely old enough to be out of school, much less dressed in an LAPD uniform. “Sorry, but I’m cordoning off this area.” He gestured with a roll of yellow crime scene tape in his hand, then stood back. “Gotta secure the site. Keep everybody behind the line.”
“I’m a reporter.” I reached into my bag for my ID, hopeful my credentials would allow me a few questions before he finished stringing up the yellow tape and I was denied permanent access. Behind him, several plainclothes officers appeared to be searching a late model gray Tahoe, its doors and tailgate open. “Somebody around here I can talk to? A detective, maybe?”
He glanced over his shoulder. “Look, I’ll tell my sergeant, but for now, I need you to stand over there.” He pointed in the direction of several early morning hikers huddled in a semi-circle behind crime scene tape. “Everybody stays behind the line, including you.”
I approached the group of hikers, three older women who looked to be anywhere from fifty-five to sixty years old. They were all dressed similarly in sweats, t-shirts, and tennis shoes and appeared to be in good shape. I figured them for regulars and was hopeful one of them might have seen something. I asked how long they had been there. They looked at me, a critical evaluation from head to toe, then spotting the reporter’s bag on my shoulder appeared to soften.
“You a reporter?” The tallest of the three, a woman of about sixty with salt-and-pepper gray hair, stepped forward.
“Yes, my name’s Carol Childs. I’m with KNST. Anything you can tell me?”
“Bessie here called it in.” The woman nodded to her friend, a shorter brunette with a warm smile.
She answered. “We were hiking the canyon like we do every morning ’fore sunrise when we noticed the body.”
“Awful, isn’t it?” A third voice came from behind them both, a smaller-framed woman with thick gray hair in a ponytail. “Good-looking young man like that.”
“And you ladies never saw anyone else in the canyon?” I asked.
“No.” The three answered in unison, then stared back up at the sign.
I grabbed a small pair of field glasses from my reporter’s bag and focused on the pale, bulky white hulk hanging limply against the sign. I estimated the man’s age to be in his late twenties, maybe early thirties. Young and fit. Tied around his neck was a rope, like a hangman’s noose. I zeroed in on the face, hidden by the position of his left shoulder and something else.
“You see that?” I pointed up at the body, unsure what was partially blocking his face.
“His nose?” Bessie appeared surprised I hadn’t noticed before.
“Yeah, what is it? It looks like a—”
“A red clown’s nose,” she said. “We’ve been wondering about it too. Who’d do such a thing?”
If it weren’t for the number of rescue workers who were now scaling the sign and police helicopters in the sky above me, I would swear this whole gruesome scene had been staged for some macabre feature film. But I knew it wasn’t. And as I looked back at the body, I knew why. I had seen this man before. The short dark curly hair. The reddish beard. I knew him, or at least I knew of him. Hanging from the center of the Hollywood Sign was the gym-rat I had seen in the grocery store yesterday.
The sound of helicopter blades in the sky overhead made it almost impossible for me to continue my conversation with the women. News choppers from the local stations were beginning to join them, and soon all of LA would be waking up to the news there was a body hanging from the Hollywood Sign.
I looked back for the young cop who had shooed me away from the investigating officers. He was standing just feet from where they were searching the abandoned gray Tahoe. I took my microphone from my bag and waved to him. I couldn’t wait any longer. If I was going to get this story, I needed to talk to someone and fast. If not, my news-chopper brothers in the sky would grab the story out from under me.