REASON TO DOUBT

by Nancy Cole Silverman

  CHAPTER 10

  My best friend, Sheri, is a clotheshorse. She has a closet that could rival any wardrobe studio in Hollywood. And it’s no wonder, Sheri’s father was a former big screen actor and award-winning movie producer. There wasn’t a set in Hollywood she hadn’t, at one time or another, stepped foot on. As a result, Sheri’s closet was like a museum. It ran the entire length of the SoCal manse she had inherited from her father. Situated on the second floor, with its high-gloss wooden floor and inset lighting, it was chock-full of designer wear, vintage clothing in various sizes and celebrity-wear that had once been worn in the movies. Rows of hanging garments. Shelves stuffed with hat boxes filled with wigs, feather boas, decorative masks. And shoes. Dozens upon dozens of shoes. But the pièce de résistance and the clue for navigating Sheri’s wardrobe was a vintage ladder Sheri’s father had modeled after the one Henry Higgins had used in the library scene from the movie My Fair Lady. It rolled the entire length of the closet and allowed Sheri, who is barely five foot two, access to shelves beyond her diminutive reach.

  As I pulled out of the station’s parking lot, I punched up Sheri’s number on my cell. In a situation like I was about to face at the Sky High Club, I not only needed the right outfit, I needed my best friend.

  “What are you doing tonight?”

  I knew before I asked Sheri wouldn’t have plans. Her son Clint and my son Charlie are best friends and the two of them were away together at a summer sports camp for two weeks.

  “Not much, why?”

  “You know anything about pole dancing?”

  “Are you thinking we should take a class?”

  “Not exactly. I’m working on a story and I could use your help.” I explained without divulging the exact reason for my request that I had a lead about college girls working at a couple of strip clubs in town and needed to check it out. It was an innocent enough request and for the time being anyway, close enough to the truth. “Want to go with me?”

  “Sounds kinda kinky,” Sheri giggled. Then the inevitable question, “What are you gonna wear?”

  “I was thinking–”

  “Stop. Don’t tell me. I’ve got the perfect thing,” Sheri said.

  I smiled to myself. Mission accomplished.

  “I thought you might. How about I swing by your place about nine?”

  “Perfect. I’ll pick out a couple of resist-me-nots. What do you want? Dark and decadent or slinky and sexy?”

  “Whatever, just not too revealing. I need to blend in. Dark would work best.”

  Despite our height differences and Sheri’s yo-yo dieting, we each managed to fit perfectly into a size six. And in a pinch, as long as I didn’t mind wearing Sheri’s skirts a little shorter than I might normally, whatever she could pull from her closet would be better than anything I had hanging in mine.

  Sheri greeted me at the front door with her long dark hair loose about her shoulders, looking like she was ready to pose for a glamour shot. From her false eyelashes to her stiletto heels, everything about her spelled lady on the prowl. She was dressed in a double-tailed black tuxedo blazer with red cuffs, skin-tight pants, and a low-cut bustier that left nothing to the imagination.

  “You planning on auditioning?” I asked.

  “You never know who you might meet.” Sheri gave me a wicked smiled, crooked her index finger beneath my nose, did an about-face and cat-walked slowly down the hall and up the stairs to her closet.

  I followed.

  “Don’t worry,” she said, “I’ve got something special for you too.”

  “Not as special as what you’re wearing, I hope.” No way was I stepping into a strip club looking like a cigarette girl from a cabaret.

  “Not to worry. You asked for something simple and I aim to please. How’s this?”

  From within her closet, Sheri pulled out a short, sassy black cocktail dress with a low, plunging neckline from the shoulders to the navel. The only difference between the back and the front was a wide rhinestone belt buckle that cinched the waist in the front. The hang tags were still on it.

  “You haven’t worn this?” I said.

  “Wasn’t sure if it was right for me, but you? I think it works. Go ahead, try it on.”

  I’m not big on showing cleavage. Unlike Sheri, I’m built like a stick, but she convinced me to at least give it a try. One look at myself in a full-length mirror, and I stepped back and grabbed a bomber jacket off the clothes rack. Like a life preserver I hugged it to my chest. “With this maybe.”

  Despite the warmer summer weather, I wasn’t going to a bar wearing an outfit that looked more like a jumper with suspenders, than a cocktail dress. With the jacket I was at least covered. Sheri handed me a pair of spiky heels and I glanced back in the mirror. “Not bad.”

  I should have known the dress code for a strip club was not exactly like one of L.A.’s classier nightclubs. When we walked through the door, we must have looked like a couple of overdressed soccer moms out for a girls’ night out. Everyone else was dressed down in black. Jeans. Sweatshirts and variations of the same. But at least I didn’t look like a reporter, and with all the activity on the stage, nobody was looking at us, or me anyway. Sheri, on the other hand, with those boobs of hers like milky white headlights, immediately attracted attention. Within minutes a tall, dark-haired man, wearing a sportscoat and looking as out of place as we did, approached and offered to buy her a drink. Sheri gave him a sly smile and did one of those coquettish little shoulder dips then looked at me. Didn’t I have someone I needed to interview? I took the hint and moved down to the end of the bar.

  On stage a trio of near-naked girls had just finished and a standup comedian was struggling to hold the crowd’s attention, while many of those seated headed back to the bar for refills.

  “What’s the matter, you don’t want to buy a girl a drink?”

  I turned my head, standing next to me at the bar was Sam. She had squeezed herself in between several other customers and I barely recognized her. She had on a slouch beanie cap that hugged her head, and a pair of baggie jeans with suspenders over a checkered shirt.

  “You don’t come here often, do you?”

  “Never,” I said.

  “That’s obvious. The way you’re dressed, you’re probably the only single, straight girl in the bar.” Sam signaled the waiter and with her hand above her head ordered a couple of brewskies. Then leaning closer to me, with her shoulder touching mine, her eyes scanned the room. On stage, a tall, leggy fan dancer had begun performing a striptease, with more tease than strip. “Just keep looking at me,” she said. “Pretend we’re talking.”

  My eyes went quickly from the stage and back to hers. “Why, you see anyone?”

  “There’s a man sitting up front. To the left of the stage. That’s where Ely used to sit. There’s an empty chair next to him.”

  “You think that’s the same man Ely used to sit with?” I forced myself not to turn and look.

  “Maybe. You can’t see much from the stage. But I had this routine with a feather boa. I’d drop the boa and drag it behind me while I strutted across the front of the stage. When the light was just right, I could catch the faces in the front row. His wasn’t one of the pretty ones. It looked like someone had taken a knife to him.”

  “Anything else?”

  “I haven’t heard from Xstacy in a while. I’m worried. This isn’t like her.”

  The music started up again, and I glanced back at the stage. The man Sam had pointed out to me was still there. If I was going to learn anything, I needed to make my move.

  “You suppose he might like some company?” I asked.

  Sam turned her back to the bar, leaned her elbows up against it and stared at the table by the stage. “You realize he might consider you competition.”

  “For the girls?” I stood up and reached inside my bomber jacket and thre
w a couple of bucks on the bar. “Well, I guess we’ll just have to see, won’t we?”

  Sam raised a brow. “You’re on your own here, Carol. Just remember, keep my name out of it.”

  I took a couple steps back from the bar and saluted Sam. Seemed to be an appropriate way to say good night in a place like this. Then I did an about-face, which isn’t easy to do in spiked heels, and placing my hands in the pockets of my bomber jacket, did my best John Wayne impersonation as I worked my way through the cocktail tables to an empty seat, next to him.

  “You mind?” I asked.

  CHAPTER 11

  Much as I pretended to be interested in the dancers, I couldn’t keep my eyes from wandering from the stage to the man sitting next to me. At one point a red strobe light flashed across the dimly lit room, and I got a glimpse of the side of his face and couldn’t turn away. His head was large, which fit his hulk-like frame, and his face was pock-marked and scarred. From his forehead to his jaw, it looked like someone had taken a knife, carved out his eye, and dragged the blade down across his cheek.

  In the instant it took for the strobe to pass from his face to mine, I knew he had seen the horror in my eyes and any chance I had of talking with him was gone. He turned his head back towards the stage and focused on the girls and followed their every move like they were his prey. It was as though they were dancing for him alone. And when one came too close to the lip of the stage and dragged her boa in front of him–exactly as Sam had said she had done–I noticed his hands. Workmen’s hands. Hard and calloused. His fat fingers fondled the glass as though he were touching her body from the nape of her neck all the way down to the narrow rhinestone g-string between her legs. Out of the corner of his eye, he glanced back at me, then drew his lip back against the side of his face and smiled.

  I stood up. I would have to find another way to engage Scarface. I couldn’t sit there and watch a possible serial killer in the throes of foreplay. I walked back toward the bar. Sam had left. Sheri was still engaged with Mr. Sportscoat, his eyes glued to her God Given Assets and hers on a pink martini she held delicately in her hand like a prop. Rather than interrupt what looked like might be an intimate moment, I went back to my Jeep and sent Sheri a text. Time to go, Cinderella.

  A few minutes later, Sheri came teetering out of the club and toward my Jeep. It was dark, but not so dark I couldn’t see she was tipsy. She stopped when she got as far as the hood of my Jeep and took her shoes off. “You get your interview with your dancing girl?”

  “I did.” I leaned across the passenger seat and opened the door. Beneath the overhead light, I could see Sheri’s lipstick had smeared and her cheeks were flushed.

  “What a night.” Sheri laughed as she got in and rubbed her feet.

  “You had a good time?” I asked.

  “You mean watching girls slide down a pole or talking to Max?”

  “Max?”

  “The man at the bar. We could have talked all night.”

  “Really?” I put the key in the ignition and started to back out of the parking lot. Sheri was never one to pick up men, but judging from the smeared lipstick on her face, it had been a very intimate conversation. “And just what did the two of you talk about?”

  “What does anyone in L.A. talk about? Movies. Books. Theater. Does it matter?”

  “No. It’s just you seem giddy. That’s all.”

  “And why not? Maybe it’s time I got a little excitement in my life. It’s been a long time since I felt a man’s lips against my ear, whispering how beautiful he thought I was. Besides, I could use a good fling. I gave him my number. He’s coming for dinner.”

  “You gave him your address? He knows where you live?”

  “He does now.”

  “You think that’s wise?” I asked.

  Sheri poked me in the ribs teasingly. “What, are you jealous? No wonder Cate gets frustrated with you. We go out one night, I get lucky and all of the sudden you become the overprotective mother. I’m a big girl, Carol, I can handle a little romance in my life.”

  Sheri sat back in the seat and crossed her arms, exactly as Cate had. For the moment I felt like I was driving my daughter home.

  CHAPTER 12

  Saturday morning the sound of a bell pulled me from my semi-conscious state. In my sleep, Eric had slipped under my radar and we were together again on his boat with me cradled in his arms. Behind the captain’s wheel with the cool breeze in our faces as the Sea Mistress skimmed the water’s black surface beneath starry skies. I tried to convince myself the sound I heard was the ship’s bell, but when the bell rang again, I realized it wasn’t the ship’s bell at all, but the house phone on my bedside table.

  “Sorry to spoil your weekend, Carol. I tried your cell, but you weren’t answering. I need you today.”

  Yesterday’s monstrous firestorm had burned through thirty-five thousand acres and caused the evacuation of nearly ten thousand homes, including the home of KTLK’s weekend news reporter, and Tyler was suddenly short-handed.

  I raised myself up on one elbow and looked at the bedside clock. 8:35.

  “When?” I asked.

  “Now. But not at the station. In the field. There’s a lot of chatter on the police scanner. A fire crew clearing brush uncovered a female body out in Vasquez Canyon. From what I’m hearing, she was strapped in a tree.”

  Soon as I heard the words “strapped to tree,” I stumbled out of bed and hop-scotched toward the bathroom. I tripped over my reporter’s bag I’d left on the floor the night before, and nearly dropped my cordless phone. “You think it might be another of the Model Slayer’s victims?”

  “Hard to say until you check it out, Carol. Could be another model or maybe that missing girl whose boyfriend the police suspected might have helped her disappear six weeks ago. Either way I need you up there.”

  I slammed the phone down on the bathroom counter, put my hair in a ponytail and five minutes later, I was dressed and out the door.

  Six weeks ago, Marilynn Brewer’s ex-boyfriend, Brian Evans, had reported his girlfriend missing, and became an immediate suspect. But when the police couldn’t find a body, the investigation cooled, and the police suggested Marilynn may have decided to take some time for herself after their breakup and hit the road. According to LAPD’s Missing Persons Unit, that’s not unusual. Lots of people go missing voluntarily and frequently show up on their own. At no time did the police think Marilynn might have been one of the Model Slayer’s victims. She didn’t fit the profile. She wasn’t at all modelesque. And yet, if it was Marilynn’s body the firefighters had found, I was certain it wasn’t because she had wandered off into the desert to mend her broken heart and gotten lost, but because she had somehow crossed paths with the Model Slayer.

  I checked my map. Vazquez Canyon was a rugged scenic mountainscape of prehistoric rock formations frequently used as a backdrop for movie and photo shoots. Not too dissimilar to the remote locations the Model Slayer had used to pose his previous victims for their last photo shoot. It was also just seventeen miles from the metro station where Marilynn’s car had been found.

  As I drove toward Vasquez Canyon, the desert road thinned to two narrow lanes, and the air thickened with the dusty smell of smoke. Like a rattlesnake, the road wrapped around the dry desert hills now burnt black as toast. Any signs of life in the area had been singed from the rocky desert floor, leaving nothing but a scorched landscape, like that of some arid, rolling, mountainous terrain, stripped bare for miles. Without warning, an LAPD helicopter swooped from behind a bald mountain and hovered in the air above me. Its rotor blades buffeted over the hood of my Jeep as though its occupants were determining if I was okay. I waved out the window and, like a bird, it swept ahead toward Vasquez’s monument of red rocks. I followed its trail. Up ahead, through thick clouds of yellow dust mixed with the smoky residue of the fire, I could see blue and red flashing of lights coming thr
ough the haze. An LAPD police cruiser, an unmarked blue sedan, no doubt a detective’s car, and a fire truck were parked next to a black coroner’s van. Beyond them, yellow tape cordoned off an area of the park usually reserved for hikers.

  I knew the area well. Legend had it Tiburcio Vasquez, one of California’s more celebrated banditos, had used the area as his hideout. When the kids were little we had hiked the rough, jagged rocks that rose from the barren desert floor like an island of layered sandstone. We pretended it was an alien fortress or partially sunken ship with its red prehistoric rocks tilted at foreboding angles that jutted 150 feet into the air and made for an excellent lookout. Within the mountain itself, deep crevices and narrow caverns created a maze of trails marked with the shallow graves of those foolish enough to have tried to penetrate the fortress and paid the ultimate price.

  I parked my Jeep a short distance behind the police cruiser. There were no other news vans in sight. Not a surprise considering every news organization in town was spread thin with their smaller weekend news crews and coverage of the fire and its aftermath.

  I grabbed my reporter’s bag off the seat next to me and my KTLK baseball cap and threaded my hair into a ponytail through the small adjustable opening in the back, and headed toward a blue canopy tent.

  “Hey, Lady. Stop! Whatta you think you’re doin’?” A young LAPD officer trailed after me. “You can’t go back there. This is a crime scene.”

  I took my ID from my bag and held it for him to see. “I’m a reporter. Heard some firefighters uncovered a body. You got anyone I can talk to?”

  The officer looked over his shoulder, beyond the yellow tape to where the coroner’s van was parked next to the tent. “Wait here. I’ll see what I can do.”

  “Fine, but if it’s all the same to you, how about I wait over there with the firefighters? I nodded to a group of cottonwoods where three firefighters dressed in yellow jumpsuits squatted with a watercooler between them.