Imitation of Death

by Cheryl Crane

  Finishing his plate, he balled the napkin up and placed it on top. “Sticking your nose in police business.”

  She chuckled. “You’re friends with Detective Lutz from the Hollywood station?”

  “I wouldn’t call us friends.”

  Dombrowski’s tone suggested he didn’t care for Detective Lutz; Nikki hadn’t, either. She was intrigued now. “So what did your non-friend say about me?”

  “That you were a pain in the ass . . . and pretty clever. He told me you solved the crime before he did.”

  Her smile was genuine. “Did he really?”

  “You’re not sticking your nose in my police business, are you, Ms. Harper?”

  She studied his handsome face, not sure now if he was trying to flirt with her or intimidate her. “I think you better call me Nikki.”

  He glanced away, chuckling, then looked back at her. “Look, Nikki, I’m not going to give you any information about this case, and I’d really prefer you stay away from my possible witnesses . . . and/or suspects, but I will tell you—”

  “Yes?”

  “Rest assured, I intend to give Mr. Delgado a fair shake.” He held her gaze with his Redford blue eyes. “No matter what the media is saying.”

  “I appreciate that, Tom.” Nikki took his plate and walked past him.

  He turned to watch her go. “Where are you going with my plate?” He was really good-looking, even when frowning.

  “To the kitchen.”

  “The kitchen?”

  She glanced over her shoulder. “Everyone knows, Tom, you have questions in Beverly Hills? You go to the kitchen.”

  Nikki then turned on her Christian Louboutins and walked away.

  The Bernards’ kitchen was busier than LAX the Wednesday before Thanksgiving. Wait staff was coming and going with trays of food and drinks. Ashley was pacing, talking on her cell phone, another cell phone ringing in her hand. A young man, who Nikki guessed was Abe’s assistant, Jason, was also on the phone, pacing in the opposite direction.

  Ellen Mar was at the massive, stone-hooded range, sautéing shrimp with one hand while opening a broiler to check on bacon-wrapped scallops with the other.

  Nikki carried the detective’s plate to the sink, resisting her urge to rinse it off and place it in one of the two dishwashers. While she had been raised with staff in the kitchen and the house, nannies, and drivers, Victoria had insisted her daughter learn to be self-sufficient. As a teen, while Nikki’s friends were sending their jeans out to be laundered, she was home using the washing machine. She could also cook her own meals. Not that Victoria knew a thing about cooking, but she had made sure that Ina had taught her daughter the basics.

  “Ellen, good to see you,” Nikki greeted.

  Ellen smiled, then frowned when she saw Nikki placing the plate in the sink. “I’m sorry, someone should have gotten that for you. It wasn’t necessary for you to bring it to the kitchen. Antonio! Could you please get in there and pick up the guests’ glasses and plates? I’m paying you to serve, not flirt.”

  A young man in a black dinner jacket and dreadlocks, who had been talking to a young Asian woman, grabbed a tray off the counter and took off.

  “No, no, it’s okay,” Nikki insisted. “I just—I was on my way to the kitchen. I thought you might be here. I heard you were making some sort of amazing salmon hors d’oeuvre.” She hesitated. “And I was avoiding the salon,” she confessed.

  “Funerals are hard.” Ellen grabbed a second pair of tongs and turned the shrimp in garlic and butter sauce with both hands.

  “They are,” Nikki agreed, casting a glance in Ashley’s direction. The assistant walked into the hall, still on the phone.

  Emily Bernard passed Ashley and entered the kitchen: long blond hair (extensions), black skirt and tunic, and now-obvious baby bump. Nikki must not have noticed it at the funeral because of the black swing jacket she’d been wearing.

  Emily looked up from her cell phone. “Hey, Nik.” Her dark eyes were lined, top and bottom, in black eye pencil, making her look more like she’d just attended a rock concert than her brother’s funeral.

  “Hey, Em.” Nikki gave her a hug. “Glad you made it back in time for the funeral. Your mom was afraid you weren’t going to be able to get home in time.”

  Emily frowned. Flesh-colored lipstick. “More like she was afraid I wasn’t coming at all.” She punched a couple of keys on her phone and set it on the counter, next to a bottle of wine and a half-empty glass. “I made Tag pay for a private flight back from Tokyo. No way I was flying commercial carrying this basketball.” She ran her hand over her belly, which really wasn’t all that big.

  So the tabloids were right. Marshall had told Nikki weeks ago that he’d read that Emily Bernard was knocked up by her rock-star on-again, off-again boyfriend, who was more off than on. Tag Thomas MacGee wasn’t exactly a rock star. His band, A Lead Balloon, was a Led Zeppelin cover band. They got few bookings in the United States, but they were big in Japan.

  Nikki tried not to make it obvious that she was taking in the baby belly. No one in the Bernard household had said a word about Emily’s pregnancy either before or after Eddie’s murder; Nikki had assumed it was the usual tabloid nonsense. Maybe no one in the family had known. Emily had been gone for at least three months, traveling with the band. At thirty-two, she’d spent almost as many years globe-trotting with various lead singers as she’d lived with her parents. Emily had always been a bit of a free spirit.

  Abe’s assistant, operating double BlackBerries, wandered out of the kitchen, leaving Nikki and Emily with a little more privacy.

  “I know your mother is glad you’re here,” Nikki said. “I hope you can stay a few weeks. She’s going to need you when the shock of this wears off and she has to go back to day-to-day living.”

  “I don’t know if I’m staying here. This place had bad vibes before Eddie got himself murdered.” She picked up a wineglass off the counter and took a sip. She didn’t seem all that upset that her brother was dead. “All I know is that I’m not going back to Tokyo. Tag and I broke up.”

  “Did you?”

  Emily rolled her eyes and took another sip. “Tag doesn’t know it yet, but he’ll figure it out.” She gave her belly another rub. “This little rug rat will be better off fatherless than with a loser like Tag MacGee.” She finished off the wine, and reached for the open bottle on the counter.

  Nikki caught Ellen’s eye across the massive granite counter. Nikki had to look away to keep her thoughts to herself. She didn’t know a lot about pregnancy, but she didn’t think Emily should be drinking multiple glasses of wine.

  “So it’s really something, huh? Jorge killing Eddie?” Emily said as if talking about the weather. “I always liked Jorge. He was nice to me when I was a kid.” She started on the fresh glass of wine. “Nicer than Eddie ever was.”

  The guy with the dreadlocks returned with a tray full of dirty plates and began to stack them in the granite sink, making a racket. Nikki slid over a little closer to Emily, a little farther from the dish action. “Jorge was charged. That doesn’t mean he did it.”

  “From what Momsy says, sounds to me like he did it.” She made a sound of derision. “Stabbed him through the heart with a pair of pruning shears. Sounds to me like Jorge finally had enough of Eddie’s crap. It’s really amazing someone didn’t do it sooner.”

  “Emily.” Nikki glanced away, then back at her. “It’s unkind to speak that way of the dead. Eddie was your brother.”

  “Like he ever acted like it.” She swirled the wine in her glass, then glanced slyly at Nikki. “It’s too obvious, though, isn’t it? The gardener’s pruning shears sticking out of Eddie’s black heart? It was a setup.”

  “You think?” Nikki asked.

  “For sure.” Emily lifted a coal black eyebrow. “What I want to know is if the police are taking a look at my stepsister.”

  Chapter 13

  It was a good thing it wasn’t Nikki drinking the wine, because she
would have choked. “Your sister?”

  “Stepsister,” Emily corrected. She spun around. “Can I help you?” she asked sharply.

  Nikki looked over Emily’s shoulder to see Ashley standing there, looking at them. Nikki had been so intent on what Emily was saying that she hadn’t seen Ashley return to the kitchen.

  “What’s your name again?” Emily asked Ashley.

  “A . . . Ashley.” She had a cell phone in each hand in a death grip.

  Emily could be a pretty scary woman, with or without the black eyeliner.

  “Ashley Carter,” Ashley whispered.

  “Well, Ashley Carter, I’m not sure why my father pays for my stepmother to have an assistant, since she doesn’t work, but it’s not to listen in on family conversations.” Emily fluttered her fingers. Her fingernails were painted blue and black . . . alternately. One black nail. One blue nail. “So be gone!”

  Ashley muttered something that sounded like an apology and ducked out of the kitchen, almost colliding with Abe’s assistant.

  Feeling badly for Ashley, but not sure there was anything she could do, Nikki returned her attention to Emily. “What makes you say the police should be looking at Lissa?”

  Emily rolled her eyes. “I’ve been in Japan for three effin’ months. You live next door. How is it I hear more than you do?”

  Nikki’s phone vibrated in her handbag, tucked under her arm. She ignored it. “You know me, Em. I never know what’s going on,” Nikki joked.

  “Well, I heard that big brother Eddie tried laying some romantic moves on little stepsister. Only Lissa didn’t appreciate it.”

  “He tried to . . .” Not knowing how to put it delicately, Nikki didn’t finish the sentence.

  “He tried to get her into bed, plying her with drugs and alcohol, I’m sure. But she put him in his place.”

  “She threatened him?”

  “Oh, she threatened him, all right.” Emily’s kohl-lined eyes grew round. “I heard she threatened to kill him in his sleep if he ever tried anything again.”

  “She threatened to kill him?” Nikki murmured. The twenty-year-old was petite. There was no way she could have moved Eddie’s body if she had managed to kill him with the shears. “But it was just that, right? A threat? You don’t think she really did it?”

  Emily shrugged. “Maybe she told that big boyfriend of hers. Maybe he killed Eddie. Like, to defend her honor, or something bitchin’ like that.”

  “Who’s Lissa’s boyfriend?”

  “Name’s Aziz. He’s some oil sheik’s kid.”

  “Last name?”

  “Ferret. Farah . . . something like that.”

  Nikki knew the Farah name. Two years ago, Windsor Real Estate had sold a thirty-eight-million-dollar house to an Arab named Farah. There were rumors about the guy, about who he was and what he had done in Saudi Arabia. Not nice rumors. Scary stuff. Nikki had assumed it was just gossip. Some people saw a rich man with dark skin and a head covering from the Middle East and made the assumption he made a living torturing and killing his enemies. What if there was a thread of truth to the rumors? What kind of son would such a man have raised? “Was Aziz at the funeral? Is he here?” Nikki asked.

  Emily thought for a minute. “I don’t remember seeing him. But that doesn’t mean he wasn’t there. Me being so grief stricken at my brother’s funeral and all. Hey, can I have one of those?” Emily pointed to the counter.

  Nikki glanced over at Ellen, who was plating the sautéed shrimp. They smelled delicious and garlicky; under other circumstances, Nikki might have nabbed one, too.

  “Certainly,” Ellen said. “Let me get you a plate.”

  “I don’t need a plate.” Emily plucked a shrimp off the silver serving tray, and bit it off down to the tail. “These are delicious.” Still chewing, she tossed the tail shell on the granite countertop and grabbed another shrimp off the plate.

  “Ms. Harper?” Ellen gestured to the serving tray. “Would you care for a shrimp?”

  Nikki knew that before Ellen had won the contest on the Food Network, she’d been working as a private chef in Beverly Hills. She could only imagine the things she had seen and heard in people’s houses.

  “I have toothpicks,” Ellen offered, watching Emily grab another shrimp off the plate.

  Nikki’s phone vibrated again. “No, thanks.” She dug into her bag. “Could you excuse me?”

  The first missed call was from Rob. The second, minutes later, was from Marshall. She wanted to ask Emily more about whatever it was that had happened between Lissa and Eddie, but she sensed that Emily’s moment of sharing had passed. She wasn’t entirely sure she believed Emily, anyway. Growing up, Emily had been a notorious liar, and from what Nikki heard, she’d carried the trait into adulthood. “I should return this call,” Nikki said apologetically.

  “No problem.” Emily dismissed her with a wave of a shrimp. “I need to go mingle, anyway. Otherwise, I’ll hear about it from Momsy for the next decade.”

  Nikki walked into the breakfast room with the vaulted ceiling. Since Marshall was probably calling to ask Nikki why she hadn’t picked up when Rob called, she called Rob first. It went straight to voicemail. Gazing out through the double French doors onto the stone terrace, Nikki dialed Marshall. He picked up on the first ring.

  “Did you talk to Rob?” he asked excitedly.

  She glanced over her shoulder. Emily was still feasting on Ellen’s shrimp. Ashley was hovering in one doorway, on a phone again, Abe’s assistant in another doorway. Ellen was directing wait staff.

  “It went to voicemail.” Nikki opened a door and stepped out onto the terrace, which resembled a tropical island with full-size palm trees, banana trees, and giant elephant ear plants. A stone waterfall on the edge of the pool gently splashed.

  “You have to call him back,” he insisted. “I just talked to him. I know he’s available. He must have seen Eddie’s autopsy report. Of course, he wouldn’t tell me a word,” Marshall pouted.

  “I thought you were shooting today.” Nikki walked around a banana tree in a huge pot. She could smell the scent of spring roses on the warm breeze. Melinda had an amazing green thumb.

  “I am. I’m in my trailer, waiting to be called. Watching TV.” He sighed. “Bored. Bored. I should have come to the funeral.”

  “I don’t think you were invited, Marshall.”

  “Whatever. Call Rob back. I’m dying to hear what the news is.”

  She stopped in front of the guesthouse, also built in the French Regency style, with a pretty, gold-and-white front door. “Marshall, I just called him. He didn’t pick up.”

  “You want me to call him? I can call him back.”

  Nikki leaned over to breathe in the scent of tiny roses growing on a trellis. “I’ll call him again.”

  “Oh, good. Then call me!”

  “I thought you were headed back to the set to shoot your next scene.”

  “Nikki, honey, I’m the easiest star in Hollywood to get along with: I’m never late, I always know my lines, I do what the director asks and I don’t do the leading ladies. I think I can take a personal phone call once in a while.”

  She was laughing when she hung up. What was funny was that what he said was absolutely true. Marshall was the most un-starlike star she had ever met. She dialed Rob’s number again. This time, he picked up.

  “Sorry about that, Nik. I’m at work. I had to rough up a punk.”

  She sat down on a knee-high stone wall that ran down both sides of the guesthouse. “Rob, I never know when to take you seriously and when not to,” she said.

  “In my line of work, that can be a good thing. Okay, so Eddie Bernard’s autopsy report.” He hesitated. “I can’t believe I snooped around like this for you.”

  “I’m sorry.” She grimaced. “I wouldn’t want you to get into trouble.”

  He chuckled. “I’m always pretending I’m a badass. I need to actually do something badass once in a while.”

  “Abe’s cousin was telli
ng me at the funeral that the autopsy hasn’t been released to the family yet. How did you get a look at it?”

  “You don’t want to know.”

  “O-kay,” she said.

  “Okay,” Rob repeated. “So before I tell you what was in the report, I have to ask, are you getting yourself involved in this case?”

  “Not . . . involved . . . per se,” she hemmed. “I just want to make sure Jorge’s getting a fair shake.”

  “He could start by having an attorney. Marshall says Victoria offered to pay for one. No one, innocent or guilty, should try to navigate this system without an attorney.”

  “I tried to tell Jorge that. I’m going to see him as soon as I can. Apparently, visiting hours aren’t until the weekend. I’ll try to talk some sense into him. In the meantime, I’m just . . . trying to figure out what could have happened. I know the evidence looks incriminating. But I also know Jorge didn’t do it.”

  “You’re just protecting the innocent? Not getting your nose into police matters?”

  “Mistakes are made, and you know it, Rob. Simple indifference on the part of the police could mean life in prison for Jorge. Or worse.”

  Rob was quiet for a moment. “I understand you’ve got problems with law enforcement because of what happened with your father.” He stopped, then went on. “But I have to say, we’re not all losers. I know a lot of good cops in this town. We’re not all out to screw over the little guy. Some of us actually want to protect him.”

  “Know any bad cops?” she asked. “How about some who just don’t give a damn? Then there are the ones actively on the take. You read last week’s L.A.Times? What about that cop on the vice squad—”

  “Point taken.” He exhaled.

  Nikki heard a door open and watched two men in black suits step from the breakfast room out onto the terrace. One nodded in her direction, but then they walked to the far side of the pool, where there were several tables. A few nights ago, Eddie’s friends had been partying at those tables. She remembered the glasses, the ashtrays, all cleared away by the cleaning crew. Only the bud vases remained, with fresh roses in them.