Death on the D-List

by Nancy Grace

  “So I’m just lumped in with Liberace, the next freak in Sookie’s menagerie? Tell me something, Tony. Why do you do this? Why do you put up with being an errand boy for Sookie, taking her crap?”

  He sat quietly for a moment before answering. “Hailey, when I was a kid, I had nobody. Both my parents worked all the time, I was alone so much . . . I guess I watched too much TV, and I fell in love with it. When I was lonely or afraid of being at the house by myself or of the bully at school, I escaped into the TV. It was like magic, I could be somewhere else . . . be someone else. My whole life, I wanted to make TV and now I am. I run one of the highest-rated shows on air, even though I don’t get the credit. It makes me somebody.”

  His answer struck Hailey as genuine, but sad in a way. She understood a lot more about Tony Russo now.

  “And Sookie thinks you’re authentic, that the viewers like you because you stand for something. I guess. What is it exactly that you stand for? You know, that’d be a great banner on the lower third of the screen when you’re on . . . what it is you stand for . . .”

  “Okay, I have to go.” Hailey put down a twenty for her salad and tea.

  Tony looked up. “I think I feel nauseous. That waitress definitely spit in my food. Oh, and I don’t have any cash.” Shaking her head, Hailey pulled out another twenty to cover Tony’s lunch and lifted the sweater off the back of her chair. Russo somehow managed to get between her ribs and her elbow so as to intertwine his arm in hers.

  “Just think about it, please? Look, I know you like me. This will do more to fight crime than anything else you could ever do. More than trying one thug after the next in some dingy little courthouse.”

  “The courthouse is not dingy.” She snapped it back.

  Actually, he was right. She just didn’t want to admit it. The courthouse where she prosecuted was horribly dingy. The carpet was frayed in the halls, the marbled floors in the courtrooms themselves had long lost their luster, the wooden pew-style benches were worn and smooth. But, at that moment, she could feel it, smell it, breathe the courtroom again. Only there, striking a jury or cracking questions like a whip during a cross-exam of a defense witness, or whispering the final words to a closing argument, did she feel she fit in her own skin, like a bird out of a cage.

  Tony went on. “Hailey, just hear me out. We have an emergency. We need you. Please, please come on today. We’ll work around your schedule. The Love story . . . It’s incredible! She’s dead!”

  “Yes. I know. You told me. Let me guess . . . You love it! Right?”

  “What?” Russo didn’t understand her gentle jab at him. He was oblivious, and Hailey didn’t bother to explain.

  “But what’s the emergency?”

  “Well, we’re running the Love interview. It’s gonna be fantastic. We’ll work in video from the murder scene. We can’t get any of the cops to talk . . . That’s where you come in. We need the voice of Lady Justice. All we have right now is the lawyer who’s representing Love’s family. Leather Stockton’s, too. Both of them. Sookie’s so amazing! She personally booked their lawyer, Derek Jacobs.”

  Hailey recognized the name. Jacobs was a famous celebrity lawyer who managed to bungle every case he handled, but somehow maintained a high profile. Apparently, the stars just heard about the Who’s Who list of his clients, never thinking deeply enough to notice he always lost the case.

  “He’s a sleaze bucket. Why do the families have a lawyer?”

  “They’re suing, of course!”

  Hailey paused. “Suing who?

  Tony nearly exploded at the suggestion there was no one to sue. “Are you kidding? They were murdered and cops don’t have the killers yet! Can’t the families sue the cops? Aren’t they taking too long to solve the case? Or the yoga studio for poor lighting? I mean . . . There’s gotta be somebody to sue . . . right?”

  “No . . . there’s not a lawsuit there against the cops and I don’t know what lighting had to do with Prentiss Love’s murder . . . probably nothing. Murder constitutes a criminal intervening act and a civil lawsuit probably won’t hold up.”

  “See . . . I love it when you talk like a lawyer! We have to do the show in a hurry! Before they catch the killers!”

  Or killer, Hailey thought.

  “I’m not a civil lawyer; it’s really not my expertise. I was a prosecutor.” But that was another life . . . a life she left behind. All of it. The bloody crime scenes. The late night phone calls. The heavy case loads, the autopsies, those horrible stainless steel tables, covered with a sheet of white paper to catch the human decomp as it oozed from the bodies of dead victims . . . It was over.

  They stepped out onto the sidewalk. Instinctively looking past Tony Russo for a cab as he continued talking, Hailey spotted two Park Avenue types, stick-thin skinny with hair perfectly coiffed to fall in shiny waves around their heads, skin-tight pants, and high heels. Both faces looked stretched unnaturally across the eyes, noses, and foreheads, their makeup was perfect . . . and their dogs were having a vicious fight on the sidewalk. A fight as vicious as two tiny Manhattan maltipoos could muster. The women were trying their best to pull the dogs apart by their leashes without chipping any nails.

  Both the dogs were wearing miniature mink jackets that fitted over their torsos and came just short of their short little silky legs.

  Mink jackets? For dogs?

  This was horribly unnatural. She could only pray the two doggie jackets were faux. Maybe coming back to the city had been a mistake after all.

  “Anyway, you don’t want to do an hour show to fight for justice, but you have no idea what I’ve had to live through for the show. I just got back from a trip to DC. Miserable! Travel booked me in what I was told was a five-star hotel, The Pentagonian, and guess what happened?”

  “What happened?” She dragged her eyes away from maltipoos in minks and looked back at Tony.

  “Well, of course I was booked on the Elite Club Level.”

  “What’s the Club Level?”

  He looked at her like she was an alien from another planet. “The Club Level is where the hotel has an open bar, food, TVs, magazines . . . a hospitality room for frequent guests, you know, or people that shell out premium rates for the rooms.”

  He looked put out having to explain what a Club Level was.

  “Anyway,” he continued on, “of course I had to be moved to a room at the very end of the hall because I just am not going to put up with the elevator opening and shutting at all hours of the day and night, people laughing and talking in the halls . . . Were they crazy?”

  “They had to be crazy.” Hailey egged him on.

  “So then, when I get into my room, I just felt nauseous from all the travel and I went into my bathroom and there, hanging on the back of the bathroom door was this thick, white terrycloth robe with slippers attached . . .”

  “Well, that was nice, wasn’t it? I can just see you in a terrycloth robe and matching slippers . . .” Actually, she could see it.

  “No! It wasn’t nice! It was awful! Because then, I saw not only lipstick, but urine on the terrycloth robe, Hailey! Lipstick and urine! On the robe on the Elite Level of the Pentagonian!”

  “Oh, no!” Hailey had to hold in the laughter. But it was hard.

  He went on. “Anyway . . . about the show, this time will be different. We’ll put you in a studio all by yourself. You won’t even see Harry Todd. He’ll be in a completely different part of the building. He wants to apologize. Even if you don’t want to do it for me . . . don’t you want justice . . . You’re a crime victim. Don’t you remember what that felt like? What happened to you speaking for victims and all that? What happened to that? I thought you were actually dedicated to something. Do it for Will. It’s what he would want.” Tony Russo blurted it out there on the sidewalk. It was his trump card, and he’d been waiting to play it.

  Hailey stopped in her tracks and turned back to look at Russo. Normally, she would have been angry to be reminded of Will. But instead, it was
like a dagger to her heart. Even now, she missed him so much it hurt.

  By this time, she’d have been a mother, fixing dinner each night, helping with homework, reading stories before bed. Holding them, loving them, playing and laughing with her family that never was. No birthdays together, no pizza nights, no anniversaries with Will, shared with their children.

  A gust of wind blew across the sidewalk.

  “Okay. I will. I’ll do it.”

  She turned and hailed a cab before anyone could see the tears spring to her eyes. She waved goodbye over her shoulder and stepped into the taxi.

  Chapter 17

  THE PRENTISS LOVE SHOW HAD BEEN A HIT . . . A RATINGS MONSTER. But that didn’t stop Sookie Downs from staring miserably at the heap of clothes lying on the floor of her private dressing room at Bergdorf’s. They were all awful. She had a meeting in less than two hours with the president of GNE and had hoped she could find just the right outfit to impress him.

  Not that she needed a dress to impress Noel Fryer. She’d done that when they were “dating,” to put it euphemistically. The affair ended badly, of course. Noel dumped her for one of the GNE receptionists, and Sookie had done her best to act nonchalant. It was years ago, but it still stung. He likely wouldn’t even notice her ensemble. No matter what the size, shape, color, whether a duchess or a secretary, an on-air anchor or the cleaning lady, Fryer loved the ladies.

  Whatever. Sookie always had good luck when she mixed Noel Fryer with a Chanel miniskirt. Worked like a charm. With a red suede mini, she got her show budget nearly doubled. With a blue velvet micro paired with a gold chain belt, she got a splashy, new studio built for Todd, plus new backdrops for satellite guests in every bureau, Washington, L.A., New York, and Seattle.

  Real proof of the power of the mini occurred just a few months ago. Sookie had made the horrendous trek, starting in the heated garage of her home in the Hamptons. Her mansion and waitstaff were all bankrolled by her hubby before he discovered his new girlfriend. He still had to pay for it no matter whom he was shacked up with, her lawyers made sure of that.

  The brown-bricked behemoth stood wedged in between the fabulous estates of the president of Universal Studios and a Wall Street whiz who reportedly had over a billion stashed in Turks and Caicos. Sookie’s journey from there to Manhattan ended at the huge, glass entrance of GNE.

  The trip was worth it. For that particular meeting with Fryer, she carefully chose a black leather miniskirt paired with a sheer, low-cut, leopard print top. And they did just what they were supposed to. That get-up got Harry Todd one hundred hours use of the GNE corporate jet of his choosing, of which Sookie herself usually “borrowed” about sixty hours to jet back and forth to L.A., to shop Rodeo Drive or whatever suited her fancy.

  Today was a disaster. Not a single outfit worked. She’d started at Chanel, had her driver then stop at Gucci, and ended here at Bergdorf’s.

  She was exhausted. If only the others knew what she went through to stay on top. She sat dejectedly in a soft, cushioned chair, staring at herself in the mirrors that surrounded her, rubbing her temples with her forefingers. At least her hair looked good. No dark brown roots tinged with gray peeking through the coppery red. She could have gone blonde all those years ago, but blonde was so . . . predictable. She’d have it blown out just before her meeting with Noel.

  And from here, at least, she couldn’t see a single wrinkle. She admired her long, pale legs, stretched out in front of her. Contemplating her thighs, she knew she absolutely had to find a mini. The show depended on it.

  Sookie’s cell rang. It was sitting there at her fingertips on a side table along with a clear glass of ice tea tinged with cinnamon that one of the salesgirls had brought her. Maybe it was Derek. He was always calling from unidentified numbers so his wife wouldn’t know where he was.

  “Hello?” She gave it a breathless, mysterious quality as best she could after all she’d been through that morning.

  A salesgirl poked her head in between the two heavy damask curtains. Sookie shot her a look that would have killed had it been a bullet. The girl ducked and ran back to the showroom floor. It was too early in the morning to have a purse thrown at her head. Last time Sookie was frustrated over her choices of couture, she’d momentarily “lost it” and sailed a Chanel clutch aimed at the attendant’s nose.

  Luckily for both, she missed.

  “Hello, Sookie?”

  It wasn’t Derek. Where the hell was he? She’d specifically told him she’d be alone, away from the rabbit ears of her children, her domestic staff, and her ever-present personal assistants. One of the few places in the world she could truly be alone was in a Bergdorf’s changing room.

  “Yes. What is it, Pressley?”

  Pressley was her first and most intimate personal assistant. She served as an assistant, secretary, driver, girl Friday, and babysitter. Sookie managed to get her a supervising producer title and the fat salary that came with it, all courtesy of The Harry Todd Show.

  The only thing Sookie hated about her was the fact she was stunningly beautiful. She was tall and slim, with dark hair so beautiful it didn’t need to be bleached blonde. And she was only twenty-three.

  Dreadful in every respect.

  If she hadn’t been so efficient and discreet, Sookie would have fired her long ago based on looks alone. Sookie knew Pressley desperately wanted to break into the TV business and would do whatever it took to please, all in the hopes that someday she really would be an actual producer.

  “Noel’s late. I just heard from his assistant. He’s locked inside his condo again and he can’t get out. They had to call the guy that designed the security system to help him get out of his bathroom. It’ll probably be another two hours or so before he can get out thorough the powder room door and over to GNE.”

  Sookie let loose a string of expletives. Pressley knew it was coming and held the phone a few inches back off her ear. This, by far, was not the first time Noel had trapped himself in his own condo.

  When Noel Fryer was named president of GNE, his already engorged ego puffed up to a much more dangerous level. He became convinced he needed über-security, and contacted one of the most elite security mavens in the world, Einst Schlager.

  Schlager worked most of his career in intelligence with the Israeli Army. He had consulted U.S. Special Ops and ultimately, went into private security. His security designs were found in embassies around the world, homes of reigning kings, princes, and dictators, private yachts of the mega-wealthy, and homes of private individuals that could afford him.

  Fryer’s ascension to the role of GNE president, in his own mind, edged him into the ranking along with presidents, kings, and princes. His home-security design must be commensurate with his position. Fryer was sure there would be death threats of some sort. Or at least attempted bugs and wiretaps. So far, none of the three had happened.

  Schlager’s security design for Fryer’s six-story condo in the heart of Manhattan’s toney Upper West Side was a technical wonder, a fusion of art and science, complete with a steel-encased “safe-room,” with metal window and door covers that shut automatically in the face of an attack. Similar metal casement closings protected the bedroom and bathroom doors, with sensors constantly measuring everything from movement to sound to temperature, from wine cellar to attic.

  Video cameras out the yin-yang were a foregone conclusion.

  But for some reason, the detectors were a little too sensitive, resulting in Fryer frequently tripping the silent alarm locking all the doors, inside and out, and causing the steel casings to close, making him a virtual prisoner in whatever room he happened to be in at the moment.

  He usually tripped the sensors when in his own bathroom. The condo’s electricity and phones were tied into the whole thing. Visitors to the home were given cell phones at the front door to dial for help, just in case they accidentally tripped the system and locked themselves in as they wandered from room to room.

  A mere technician obvio
usly couldn’t handle the intricacies of Schlager’s design. So at times like these, Einst had to be tracked down wherever he was around the globe. He then had to hook into the portable laptop he carried everywhere in an aluminum briefcase, and log into Fryer’s security system to reverse the trip.

  Fryer’s insistence on a steel safe-room and automated steel casings straight out of Star Wars to cover various doors in his home made him quite the conversation topic among the other network bigs. His “eccentricities” were overlooked . . . as long as GNE stayed on top.

  And it did stay on top.

  “Have they found Schlager?” Sookie hissed it into the phone. “I busted my frame getting into the city this morning, much less what I’ve gone through trying to find the right outfit for the meeting. This is absolutely unacceptable.”

  “We think he’s on a yacht outside Bahrain. Still trying.”

  “What the hell is he doing on a yacht outside Bahrain?”

  “I don’t know, Sookie.” Pressley spoke calmly and soothingly to Sookie at times like these. She didn’t want to agitate her boss any more than she already was. “Would you like me to find out the nature of his business in Bahrain?”

  “No, you idiot, it was a manner of speaking. I don’t care what Einst Schlager is doing in Bahrain. I just want Fryer to drag his tubby white ass into this meeting.”

  Sookie was now standing, spitting the last syllable into the cell phone, kicking at one of the designer minis lying in a pile on the floor.

  “Okay. I’ll keep trying. What about a phone conference instead of a face-to-face meeting with Fryer? I’m sure he could do a cell call from his bathroom.”

  “I didn’t drive the whole way in from the Hamptons and spend three hours at Bergdorf’s just to talk to Fryer trapped on the can. Call me when he gets out. Oh yeah, what floor’s he on? Can he at least crawl out the window?” Sookie was screaming at this point, much to the delight of the two salesgirls listening outside the changing room door.

  “Already checked. Sixth floor. Bathroom attached to the master bedroom. Can’t crawl out. He had the fire escape stairs outside removed, remember? He was convinced the paparazzi would crawl up and get pictures.”