Death on the D-List

by Nancy Grace

  Todd started the second segment of the hourlong show by engaging Cassie’s priest in a Q and A about the star’s divorce, her alcohol addiction, and her weight problems. The priest tried his best to answer diplomatically in light of the sensational nature of the questions Harry Todd was reading verbatim off his yellow cue cards. The priest wisely continued to steer the conversation back toward Cassie’s unwavering faith. Through her earpiece, Hailey could hear the control-room producers urging Todd on, trying their best to goad the priest into revealing more of Cassie’s troubles on national TV.

  When the pastor wouldn’t budge, Todd turned to Hailey and asked her to compare Cassie Lake’s murder to the other murders. She gave a recitation of what had already been released to the public. She didn’t leave out a single fact, but carefully avoided citing anything she’d gleaned from police files. Hailey had a firm grasp of all the similarities, and the rest of the panel remained silent as she described the crime scenes, dates, times, and locations. She ended by pointing out the glaring difference, that the killer had struck three thousand miles away when he murdered Cassie Lake.

  “Now,” she concluded, “the killer’s next step, and there will be a next step, can no longer be predicted.”

  “Go to break, go to break!” She heard Tony Russo yelling it in her earpiece and the music played over more footage of Todd’s last interview with Cassie.

  “Man, you know how to give a sound bite! You’re a star!” Tony blared it in her ear as soon as they were in commercial break.

  His words struck her cold. She was hoping to reveal the horrible truth about violent crime, not let the perfumed, airbrushed edition be the facts of record. But to the others, it was all just sound bites and video. Hailey glanced at the red numbers on the camera’s digital clock. There were only a few minutes left in the show, two of which were a commercial and one, Todd droning on in a monologue at the end.

  In the last segment, Todd went to a phoner, a high school friend of Cassie’s who hadn’t seen her in twenty years. She was absolutely irrelevant, but was apparently the best “friend” the show could dig up. The woman gave a few recollections of Cassie in high school and Harry started his monologue about the life of Cassie Lake. The show producers wisely cut him short and ended the show with a video package of Cassie set to sad, emotional music in the background.

  Hailey heard the countdown in her ear, “. . . four, three, two, one, and . . . we’re out! Thank you, everyone. Great show!”

  Chapter 43

  A COMMERCIAL FOR AN ALLERGY MEDICATION CAME ON IMMEDIATELY AFTER the Cassie video. The show was over. Hailey stood to unhook her lapel mike and take out the earpiece in her ear. Before she could get herself detangled from the set, the studio door opened, streaming light in from the hall. It was Tony, of course.

  Instead of being thrilled about the night’s live show, he was already obsessed about what ratings number it would likely bring in.

  “The problem is that we’re in the middle of NFL Playoffs.” He looked peeved.

  “Why is a football game a problem?” She’d unhooked herself, run the lapel mike down her blouse, and left it there on the table. The two headed down the wide hall toward the cluster of offices and cubicles that comprised the staff digs for The Harry Todd Show.

  Tony looked at her as if she’d sprouted horns and a tail. “It’s not just a football game. It’s the NFL Playoffs, and it’s going against us head-to-head tonight.”

  “People are still playing football this late at night?”

  “Yes. And more important, people are still up watching football this late at night!” They rounded a bend in the hall and arrived at Tony’s windowed office. Hailey noticed the view outside was even bleaker at night but didn’t comment on it, remembering how thrilled and not just a little self-satisfied he was at graduating from a cubicle.

  “Sookie’s late . . . as usual. She’s supposed to meet us right here after the show. Want to go with us out for drinks?” Standing behind his desk, Tony checked his BlackBerry and cell phones for word from his boss and then logged onto his computer, not taking the time to sit down in his chair.

  “Drinks? You’re kidding. At this hour? What are you people . . . vampires?”

  “We are not vampires. We’re just thirsty.”

  “No, thanks. I have to go to work in the morning! You TV people have it made. What are you looking up online?”

  “I’m not really online, I’m looking for Sookie.”

  “How can you do that? What . . . Did she have a GPS chip installed in her tooth?” Hailey sank down into one of the two chairs across from the office’s desk.

  “Ha. No. But I wish she did, good idea. We can never round her up when there’s work to do. Fashion Week was the worst. She was AWOL for twenty-one consecutive days.”

  “So how do you find her online?”

  “I told you, I’m not exactly online. Sookie’s taught me a lot, like how to locate people within the building. You have to know their security card swipe number. Then you can find the last place they swiped in. Let’s see, this places her, last swipe anyway, at Noel Fryer’s office. So he finally showed up. She’s probably down there sucking up.”

  “What else did she teach you?” Hailey hadn’t moved an inch. It had been a long, long day and she wasn’t looking forward to the ride home in the cold. She wanted to fall asleep right then and there.

  “Oh, like I said . . . a lot. She also showed me how to hack into the overhead paging system. She does it from her place out in the Hamptons all the time. She can do it from her place, the hair salon, Bergdorf’s, you name it. Makes it look like she’s here all the time. You know . . . ‘Tony Russo, please come to Sookie Downs’s office . . . please come to my office . . .’ You know . . . that kind of thing. She’s always faking that she’s here at work. But they’re on to her. They know all her tricks.”

  “Who’s they?”

  “The executives. The suits.”

  “If they know she doesn’t work on the show and she’s never around, why do they keep her?”

  “The show’s number one in the daytime slot. That’s a huge, big deal. I guess they figure, whatever she’s doing, or not doing, it works.”

  “They’ve got a point! She must be doing something right!” The two of them laughed. Russo’s phone rang and he picked it up. Listening briefly, he put the caller on hold and whispered to Hailey, “This will be ten minutes, it’s press about tonight’s show. I have to take it. Will you please do me a favor?”

  “What?” She looked at him suspiciously, joking.

  “Can you round up Sookie? Noel’s office is on thirty-one. His door’s probably open. Just keep turning left every chance you get when you get off the elevator. Here, take my swipe card. You’ll need it to get up to thirty-one and then through those big glass doors. You’ll see.”

  “Sure. But only because I feel sorry for you having to have drinks with her this late at night. I don’t think she likes me after our ‘visit’ out at her place. That house is a monster!” Hailey reached across Tony’s desk and took the card.

  Tony nodded, sat down, and took the call off mute. Hailey waved goodbye and headed down the hall to the elevators.

  An open elevator was waiting and she stepped on in search of Sookie Downs. The elevator shot up the center of the building as its flat-screens played images of Cassie Lake and sound bites from The Harry Todd Show.

  Just before the doors swooshed open . . . it hit.

  Like a brick.

  Intense Red Copper Shimmer . . . Dark Chocolate. Dark Chocolate . . . daisies . . . Sookie hovering in Fallon Malone’s kitchen beside the service door entrance . . .

  “All I saw was he had black hair. I think he was white . . .” You don’t plant daisies in the winter. They’ll die. Dark hair dye . . . hair in a ponytail instead of perfectly blown out . . . AWOL after the taping . . . dark lines under her nails. At first Hailey had thought it was dirt.

  Sookie must have thrown away the box on the plane and, acc
identally with it, the plastic gloves to avoid the dark hair dye seeping into her skin and nails.

  Hailey stepped out into the plushest offices she’d ever seen. They looked like a Hollywood movie. Thick carpet, groupings of gorgeous furniture, with artwork and mirrors on every wall, created a lavish atmosphere that reflected the network was winning the ratings war.

  Without processing what she knew, Hailey started to sprint down the halls. The next left came when Hailey dead-ended into a long, shiny teak receptionist’s station sitting out in the middle of a wide expanse of thick carpet. There were no walls around the desk, its “space” only delineated by a thick Oriental rug beneath it that had to be the size of Hailey’s kitchen.

  That turn sent Hailey down a wide, darkened corridor. The walls were covered with gorgeous oil paintings. She slowed slightly to veer away from one in particular. It was specially lit and was positioned in an alcove of sorts apparently built especially for it. It was pop art à la Warhol and apparently an original. And expensive.

  This place was over the top. Hailey instinctively darted, afraid she’d likely set off some sort of alarm. The hall ended with yet another piece of art, this time an abstract clay sculpture that stood about five feet tall. Another inlaid spotlight shined down on it and helped light the hall as she again turned left. It was all lost on Hailey, her heart now pounding in her throat.

  Looking ahead of her down the dark hallway, Hailey knew she’d found Fryer’s office. There were no other doors anywhere on the hall. His office must be massive, and if it was anything like the rest of the thirty-first floor, it would be entirely overdone . . . too much art mixed in theme and period, carpet too plush, heavy furniture, and an overall message of ornate opulence. Now stepping lightly, Hailey crept as quickly and quietly as she could, steadily down the hall toward the light seeping out from under Noel Fryer’s office door.

  Just as she raised her hand to knock, Hailey heard a groan and then a loud thud. It sounded like a piece of furniture had toppled over inside. Listening at the door, she could hear a woman’s voice, strident, yet the words were muffled. Then another thud followed by a groan that sounded painful.

  Hailey put her right ear close to the door and listened. Nothing. And then, a sort of groan. She tried the doorknob; it was locked.

  Without a sound, Hailey turned and hurriedly retraced her steps down the hall’s thick carpet. Rounding the two corners back to the receptionist’s desk, she slid open the middle drawer and looked for anything that would help. Pencils, stapler, gem clips . . . no good.

  Hailey felt it before she saw it . . . a grooved metal nail file. As a second thought, she lifted the receptionist’s phone, dialed 9, then Kolker’s cell. It went straight to voice mail.

  “Kolker, it’s Hailey. Hurry, GNE, thirty-first floor. Repeat . . . Hurry.”

  Chapter 44

  HAILEY TOOK THE NAIL FILE FROM THE DRAWER AND DARTED BACK DOWN the hall. The light still poured out onto the carpet from under Noel Fryer’s office door. Hailey, summoning up everything she’d ever learned from both cops and burglars, slipped the nail file between the door’s knob and frame and jiggered.

  Pushing the file to the right and then back to the left, she could feel the lock’s workings against the metal. There was movement, but not enough to open the door.

  A sound like drawers being opened filtered through the door, and a woman’s voice rose again. Hailey couldn’t make out the words. Then again silence.

  Hailey jiggered the lock as quickly and quietly as she could, and feeling the metal grind against the lock, finally got enough traction with the file to move the catch enough to the right to gently push the door open. The office was dark except for a single reading lamp in the far corner. The room was huge and ornate, as Hailey expected it to be, the carpeted floor covered with thick rugs from all over the world, the walls boasting artwork and the shelves covered in memorabilia and framed photos of Noel Fryer with Hollywood and sports stars, politicos, and celebrities of every ilk. Hailey took it all in in an instant.

  She immediately spotted the drawers of Noel’s mahogany desk gaping open. A long, matching conference table against the far window was covered in notebooks and papers in disarray, and not only were the cabinet doors to a matching credenza underneath the same window hanging wide open and askew, but the cabinets had obviously been ransacked.

  On the carpet in front of Noel Fryer’s desk sat a pair of purple stilettos with distinctive scarlet red soles. Hailey would have recognized them a mile away. They belonged to Sookie Downs.

  Instinctively, Hailey backed against a darkened wall and eyed the only other door in the room. It was across the length of the office, obviously leading to Noel’s adjoining personal quarters, where he could shower, rest, even stay overnight if he wanted. Judging by the lack of doors or windows in the hallway outside his office, Fryer’s personal quarters were expansive and took up the entire length of the long hall.

  “You piece of shit. You tell me where the log is right now or I’ll blow your greasy head off.”

  The woman’s voice was low, almost like a hiss.

  “Thank God I can finally tell you how much I loathe you, how much I’ve hated you all these years. You make me sick. You and your pathetic scooter and your sports cars and your women . . . your women . . . every single woman you’ve used in this network hates you. You’re disgusting. I don’t know what I ever saw in you. But I was young then . . . and stupid. But I’m not stupid anymore. Even after we were through, you paraded all your ‘girlfriends’ in front of me on purpose. I hate you, Noel . . . I hate you! Now for the last time . . . Where’s the damn log?”

  There was another dull thud. But this time, there was no response, no groan, just silence.

  Hailey gently turned the knob to the heavy door and eased it forward just a fraction of an inch. She couldn’t see much, so she pushed a tiny bit more.

  There, across the room, her back to Hailey, stood Sookie Downs, still wearing the purple mini and lavender silk blouse, but now barefoot. Her hair was tumbling down her back and she was holding something in her hands, but Hailey could see nothing but her back, heaving as she breathed.

  In front of her, in a deep and wide closet, sat Noel Fryer, strapped to a straight chair at both ankles and wrists, his biceps and chest also secured. The same thick, silver duct tape was wound across his mouth and all the way around the back of his head. Blood streamed down his face and his right eye was swollen, black and bleeding. Blood pooled like a lobster bib on the front of his shirt, staining nearly his whole chest a deep, dark red. His head was hanging down toward his right shoulder, and even though Hailey was now clearly in his eyesight, he didn’t look up. Hailey couldn’t tell whether he was unconscious.

  “Are you ready to tell me, you piece of shit?” Sookie pulled back with her right arm and swung it hard straight at Noel’s face. It was then that Hailey saw what Sookie was holding in front of her.

  It was a gun. The handle was painted red. Hailey recognized it immediately . . . it was the one that was pictured stuffed in the pants of Sookie Downs’s father in Burma. It all clicked in Hailey’s head. The maroon particles were red . . . maroon-red paint particles off the gun’s hand-painted butt.

  Sookie held it by the barrel, pulled back like she was taking a swing at a baseball. It hit, hard at the side of Noel’s temple. Downs didn’t let up, relentlessly pistol-whipping Fryer back and forth across his face again and again, this time the barrel slashing across his nose with a sickening crunch. Blood squirted from the center of his face, gushing, unstopped, down to his waist. It didn’t have far to go. Fryer was bent nearly in half.

  “I want the log and I want it now. You’re the only one with access to the company jet log and I know it. So help me God . . . I’ll kill you right here, Noel. I will throw you out that window down to the sidewalk. They’ll never be able to figure out what happened. Your body will be a mush. I’m giving you one last chance, you disgusting freak.” Sookie’s voice was pitching higher and hig
her, out of control.

  Hailey shrank back into an alcove meant to show off a bronze sculpture perched on a rectangular block of wood. She wanted to kick herself; she’d left her cell phone on Tony Russo’s desk. She’d have to cross the length of the room to get to the only phone she could spot, near what appeared to be a Murphy bed hidden within a deep wall unit covering the room’s far wall.

  Sookie reached forward and ripped the tape off Noel’s mouth. He groaned again, obviously semi-conscious. He’d taken a horrible beating about the face and head with the butt of Sookie’s gun, clearly while restrained.

  “Tell me, you slimy shit. For the last time, where’s the jet log?”

  Noel raised his eyes to Sookie, as if he didn’t have the strength to pull his whole head up off his chest.

  “Sookie, don’t do this. I swear, if you let me go, I won’t tell a soul. We go back, Sookie, way back. Killing me will only make it worse . . .”

  “Shut up, damn it! Shut up! I asked you one thing . . . where’s the jet log?”

  Sookie was clearly beyond reason.

  “Nobody will ever put it together, Sookie. Nobody . . .”

  “Nobody but you, Noel . . . nobody but you. You’re the only one that knows I flew to LA and back the same day Cassie Lake was murdered. You’re the only one that can piece it together. It’s all your fault, don’t you see that? If you hadn’t threatened to cancel us, this would have never happened. You turned me into an animal that only cares about one thing . . . survival. This isn’t me, Noel. You know this isn’t me . . . It’s something you created.”

  “I know, Sookie. Please forgive me . . . I was wrong. Just untie me and we’ll sort the whole thing out, I swear to God . . .”

  “Shut up! I’ve listened to your BS for fifteen years. I don’t believe a single word you say . . . all you know how to do is lie. I swear to God, I’m going to blow your ugly face off and nobody will hear a thing. See this thing?”