Hollywood Homicide: A Hollywood Alphabet Series Thriller

by M. Z. Kelly

  “No one is making false accusations,” Ted said. “We’re stating facts.”

  “Facts as you spin them,” Hardy barked. “You guys wouldn’t know a murder suspect if he walked up and bit your sorry asses.”

  I noticed Conrad had a smirk on his face, no doubt enjoying the verbal scrum as I said, “Nothing we know about Pearce Landon fits with the murder of Scarlett Endicott. He’s a low level fixer, mostly working as a gofer and bodyguard.”

  “That’s exactly what he wants everyone to believe,” Belmont said, laughing. “He’s got a daughter who was estranged from the victim and he’s a fixer with a prior that he skated on. He’s also good looking and smooth talking, something that obviously worked wonders on you.”

  I leaned over the table and said, “You are out of…”

  “I’ve got something,” Selfie said, interrupting me.

  The room went silent for a minute as everyone turned to the crime analyst.

  “What is it?” Conrad demanded.

  “The video feed from the closed circuit cameras across the street from Montrose Gardens just came through. It’s from a parking lot for the adjacent golf course but one of the cameras was trained on the intersection between the hotel and the parking lot.”

  Selfie took a moment to turn her laptop so that the lieutenant could see what had been captured. “This video was taken at 4:17 on the morning Scarlett’s body was found. You can’t see the driver of the BMW, but when the car turned out of the hotel’s lot and moved through the intersection, we did get a license number. I just ran the plate. The car is registered to Pearce Landon.”

  THIRTY ONE

  Pearce Landon’s arrest took place at his home without incident late that afternoon. Christine Belmont and Alex Hardy took full credit for the collar, claiming that Ted and I had botched the investigation. Landon’s house was searched without turning up any evidence and he was brought into an interrogation room at Hollywood Station where he lawyered-up and refused to answer any questions.

  The fact that Landon’s car had been at Montrose Gardens during the early morning hours when Scarlett Endicott’s body had been found put a new spin on things. It seemed likely that either Landon was involved in the murder or had been fixing the scene and was interrupted. Either way, a crime had been committed. Proving it was another matter.

  After Landon had been transported to Men’s Central Jail for booking we went back to our desks where I told Ted, “Unless we turn up something more, there won’t be enough for the DA to file charges.”

  What I hadn’t said was that Lieutenant Conrad had insisted on Landon’s arrest, hoping that we could sweat a confession out of him. He was livid when Landon refused to cooperate, but that didn’t do anything for Ted’s and my relationship with the lieutenant. He was now more convinced than ever that we’d botched the investigation.

  “Landon’s smart,” Ted said. “He knows that if he said anything, it would work against him in the end.”

  “The real question becomes where does this leave us, both on Scarlett’s murder and our status with Section One?”

  Ted pushed some papers into his briefcase and exhaled. “Questions that can wait until morning. I’m calling it a day.”

  I checked the time on my phone. “Oh, damn. I’m running late.”

  “Big date?”

  “Yeah with my mother and a shrink. I know how to have a good time.”

  ***

  Mom and I were fifteen minutes late for our session with Dr. Beverly Chan, both because of my work schedule and because, at first, Mom had refused to go, telling me that she had another date with Buzz. I’d convinced her to call her biker boyfriend on the way to our session and tell him that she’d meet him later.

  Mom’s therapist was probably in her late thirties. Dr. Chan was pretty and maybe a little on the serious side, something that was fine by me considering my mother’s issues were also serious.

  We spent the first half hour going through our family history, me telling Dr. Chan about my father’s murder when I was a child. I explained how my mother had kept information about my birthmother a secret, as well as the identity of my father’s killer, until a few months ago fearing that Ryan Cooper would come after me. I ended the summary by telling the psychiatrist how Cooper had shot and killed my boyfriend a few months back, only to be killed by my half-sister, Lindsay.

  When I finished I felt both depressed and exhausted. Mom, on the other hand, acted like what had happened was ancient history.

  “Kate’s a little obsessed over everything,” Mom said to Dr. Chan, in the manic way she had lately. “She has trouble letting go of the past.” She looked at me. “I think it’s time you moved on.”

  I looked from my mother to Dr. Chan, trying to choose my words carefully. “I think what happened continues to affect both of us.” I looked back at Mom. “You do know that you’ve been acting different lately, even calling yourself Rose.”

  Mom’s voice pitched higher. “You don’t understand anything. Rose is my true personality, the person I’ve kept hidden all these years so that I could cope with everything.”

  “Tell me about Rose,” Dr. Chan said. “How does she feel about everything that happened to her family?”

  Mom’s irritation with the question was obvious. “The past is over. Rose doesn’t care about what happened. She just wants to live her life and have a good time.” She looked at me. “Unlike some people.”

  I released a breath, at the same time trying to push down my feelings regarding what she’d said about not caring. Even so, I found myself saying, “You’ve been fantasizing about having sex with ex-presidents and dating a biker named Buzz. If that’s a good time then…”

  Mom stood up, interrupting me. “I won’t sit here another minute and listen to your criticism. You treat me like I’m a teenager. I’ve had it with you.” She turned to leave.

  “Mom, please…”

  She turned back to me. “Not another word. I’m not going to let you and…” She turned to the psychiatrist and continued, “This crazy shrink of yours interfere with my life.” She left, slamming the door behind her.

  I turned back to Dr. Chan, the light in the dim place where I hid my emotions now completely extinguished. “I’m sorry…she’s…” I was lost for words to explain what I was feeling. There were tears in my eyes.

  The psychiatrist offered me a tissue and gave me a moment. After I regained some composure she said, “Tell me something. If you could change your mother, fix all of her problems, how do you think that would change your relationship with her?”

  I tried to control my emotions and process what she’d asked. “I don’t know. I guess…”

  I took another moment as images of my mother and me tumbled through my mind. We’d been close when I was little but had grown apart as I got older. When I was in high school and college our relationship was superficial, at best. It was something that I’d hidden away and seldom thought about, until now. I realized that in many ways we didn’t share the typical mother-daughter relationship, if there was such a thing.

  I met Dr. Chan’s dark eyes. “The truth is I’m not sure that fixing my mother would change anything in our relationship.”

  “Tell me what you mean.”

  I took a moment, telling her how the death of my father had forever changed both my mother and me, how in many ways I’d thought we’d been close but maybe that wasn’t really the case. Then another truth hit me and I gave voice to it for the first time in my life.

  “I know Mom thought she was trying to protect me, but I wish she’d told me the truth about my birthmother when I was younger.” I dabbed the tears from my eyes. “Maybe it sounds selfish but I think I resent her for that.”

  Dr. Chan nodded, leaned in closer to me. “It doesn’t sound selfish. What you’re saying is perfectly normal.”

  My eyes came up to her. “Really?”

  “Of course. You’ve denied your true feelings about what happened, Kate. You lost both a father and
a birthmother, and your own mother never allowed you to process those feelings. While her motives might have been honorable at the time, you’ve been alone in grieving those losses for a lifetime. Your mother is having an emotional breakdown, behind your knowledge of what happened. Her defense mechanisms have failed her and she’s developed an altered personality. The person she calls Rose is her way of separating herself from reality and not having to cope with what happened.”

  What she’d said had suddenly turned a light on in that dark place where I hid my emotions, the tears now pouring from my eyes were like a waterfall of understanding. I broke down again, losing all control.

  After a couple of minutes, I managed to draw in a breath and give voice to something else that I’d recently come to understand. “I think what happened has carried over into everything I do, even my relationships with men.”

  “Tell me about that.”

  I took several minutes between emotional starts and stops, telling her about my failed relationships, ending with what had happened with Buck McCade. “To tell you the truth, I think I was falling in love with Buck, but after what happened with his ex I’m not sure I can continue the relationship.”

  Dr. Chan nodded and was quiet for a moment. When she spoke her words resonated with me. I realized I’d waited a lifetime to hear what she said.

  “When we’re in a relationship where there’s a background of loss, we sometimes choose that relationship thinking it can fill up the void in our lives. But the truth is that loss will always be there and a relationship can never fill up that emptiness.”

  Joe Dawson’s words about blue-eyed soul came to mind as she spoke. Dawson had thought I was feeling empty because as cops we see the ugliness of the world and that the losses on the job start piling up for us. I now realized it wasn’t the job that had left me feeling empty. It was the death of a father and birthmother that I’d never been able to properly grieve.

  Dr. Chan continued, her words registering with me as a universal truth that on some level maybe I’d always known but had hidden away. “You’re just beginning a process of healing from the losses you’ve suffered, Kate, a process that’s been denied to you for a lifetime. You’re never going to heal in the context of trying to find a relationship that will fill up that void.”

  THIRTY TWO

  Finding enlightenment in the darkness of loss.

  As I left the psychiatrist’s office our conversation had brought Ted Grady’s words of a few days earlier back to me. In some ways his message had echoed what Beverly Chan had also told me. It had taken my new partner years to recover from the loss of his daughter and move on. Now, I realized that it had taken me a lifetime to finally understand I was also in recovery and still grieving from the loss of my father and birthmother.

  I’d spent years trying to fix things, everything from my relationships with men, to my rocky dealings with my sister, Amanda, and finally to a mother who seemed to have lost her way, unable to understand how loss had affected my life.

  While I’d only spent an hour with Dr. Chan, what she’d said resonated with me to such a degree that I felt a sense of freedom. I knew now that I could no more fix my mother than I could fix my own problems by trying to find the right relationship. I’d also been wrong about thinking I could help Mom by moving in with her.

  I spent an hour just driving around thinking about everything before ending up at Ravenswood Manor. While Natalie and Mo had problems of their own, they were my best friends and I felt the need to process what I’d learned with them, and also tell them about another decision I’d made. I was now ready to find a place to rent with them.

  I spent the remainder of the evening sitting in the great room with my friends and telling them what Dr. Chan had said. “It might sound strange, maybe even a little crazy, but I feel a sense of freedom having finally talked to someone about my feelings and what happened with my dad and birthmother.”

  Mo cocked her head, focusing one eye on me in that way she sometimes had. “I never said nothing to you before, but I think I understand what you’re going through. Your mom wanted to protect you by not telling you everything that happened when you were little, but at some point she shoulda told you the truth, helped you deal with everything. What she did was wrong.”

  Natalie agreed. “Maybe you should continue to see the shrink so you don’t go barmy ‘bout everything, put on a tin foil hat, and start talking to Bernie.”

  “Speaking of that, where is the love muffin tonight?” Mo asked.

  “Left him at home with Bubba. I needed a little space.” I said to Natalie, “I think you’re right about me continuing to see Dr. Chan.” I looked at them both. “I’ve also decided that I need my own space again, so if you’re still planning on looking at those apartments you mentioned I’d like to tag along.”

  “We can meet you there after work tomorrow night,” Natalie said. “We got us a call back for that Internet show, Hollywood Girlz, so we’ll be busy most of the day.”

  “The show sounds like it’s perfect for the two of you.”

  “Baby sis and me are still trying to get in touch with our inner dorks,” Mo said. “It’s not an easy process.”

  I bit my lip. “I can only imagine.”

  Mo then changed the subject. “Hey, I heard you guys arrested that fixer Pearce Landon for Scarlett Endicott’s murder today. What the hell was you thinking?”

  I usually tried not to discuss my cases with her and Natalie, but since I was feeling good about the way things had gone tonight, I made an exception. “I think Landon had some involvement, but I’m not sure the charges will stick.”

  “Mo’s got some 411 you might wanna consider,” Natalie said. “Seems that Scarlett stepped in the middle of somethin’ that might have got her whacked.”

  I looked at Mo. “What did you find out?”

  She ran her fingers through her blonde wig. “All I know is what I heard on the street, that Scarlett had some kind of beef on the set of her movie and maybe got paid back.”

  “A beef with who?”

  Mo shrugged. “Coulda been the director or that Wakefield asshole. I heard she didn’t like the movie and Wakefield didn’t like her.”

  What she’d said made me realize that we needed to go back to the studios and interview both Zig Steinberg and Dallas Wakefield—if we were still allowed to work the case.

  Mo went on, “It could even be that Steinberg guy was into the dark arts with Scarlett. Maybe that’s why he was making that crazy ass movie.”

  “And maybe he snapped,” Natalie said. “The devil grabbed him by the happy sack and turned him into a psycho killer.”

  Their comments made me think about Steinberg possibly being friends with both Richard Hawkins and Harlan Ryland. While the Tauists professed peace and spiritual growth, maybe there was a darker, more sinister side to things.

  “Mo and me are gonna continue to look into things,” Natalie said. “Unless the Russell Van Drake case breaks.”

  My curiosity got the better of me. “What do you know about Van Drake?”

  “We just heard he mighta been whacked somewhere else by whoever killed Shirley Welch,” Mo said. She looked at Natalie. “We’re hoping to have more details soon.”

  I was about to tell them to stay out of things but got distracted when Natalie mentioned the fantasy her boyfriend Sonny was working on. “I should have some details for you in the next day or two.” She and Mo exchanged a look like a couple of cats that had just caught a canary. “It’s just gonna be the three of us and a few close friends.”

  “I’m not going to an acting class or doing vagina exercises if that’s what you have in mind,” I said, remembering a couple of past activities my friends had gotten me involved in.

  Mo said to Natalie, “Kate’s vagina could probably use some more exercises since it’s back in hibernation.”

  “I know this class where everyone sits around in the nude and talks about their magic muffins,” Natalie said.

 
“I’m not having a conversation with any of my body parts,” I said. “And as far as I know they don’t talk back.”

  Maybe it was providence or some kind of weird harmonic convergence, but there was the all too familiar sound of flatulence coming from the stairway. We turned and saw that Nana was zipping down the stairs on her electric stair scooter. When she got near the bottom landing there was a swooshing sound and the flapping of wings.

  “Get away from me,” Nana yelled as the raven named Maurice swooped down, dive bombing her.

  “Fuck you, go way,” Maurice screeched, before flying off into the shadows of the gloomy house.

  Maurice had been Russell Van Drake’s pet, probably learning the only four words he knew from the actor himself. The lease agreement Natalie and Mo had signed, specified that the cursing raven could live in the house until probate was settled.

  “That bird’s gotta go,” Nana said after coming over to us. “It’s no way to treat the lady of the manor.”

  “So that’s what you’re calling yourself now?” Mo said, shaking her head. “Maybe you should think about changing your title to the queen of farts.”

  Nana put one hand on her skinny hips and wagged a finger at us. “Claude and I have received a royal decree from a European country. We’re now formally known as the Lord and Countess of Ravenswood.”

  Mo looked from Nana to us. “I guess Transylvania must be hand’n out formal titles these days.”

  Nana’s squeaky voice pitched higher and her face reddened. Mo whispered something to us about a royal flush before Nana said, “For your information, Claude doesn’t have one ounce of vampire blood in his body.” She smiled, her oversized dentures, called Leos, gleaming. “Actually Claude is very romantic.”

  Natalie rolled her large hazel eyes. “Yeah, maybe he should think ‘bout modeling for the cover of one of them romance novels.”