Cover Your Assets

by Patricia Smiley

  I gathered the focus group paperwork and put Eugene to work at the breakfast bar, labeling and organizing. I went to my office alcove to make a few calls, trying without much success to get some new business out of some old clients. Frustrated, I decided to take Muldoon on a short walk, but after a few minutes the cold March air began seeping through my sweater, so I lured him back inside with the promise of microwave popcorn.

  At 9:45 a.m., Cissy still hadn’t returned my call from the day before. At the risk of being a pest, I called her number again. This time Jerome answered. He told me she’d taken Dara to the carousel at the Santa Monica pier for an hour or so. After that, he didn’t know where she’d be. I wondered if they’d made it past the gate without the media following them.

  I hung up and tried her cell phone. A computer-generated voice told me her mailbox was full, probably jammed with calls from the press. I couldn’t wait any longer. I decided to drive to the beach and find her.

  There was still no sign of my mother or Bruce. I had no idea when they were coming back, so I grabbed a sweater and asked Eugene to look after Muldoon. I told him that if I wasn’t back by the time he finished work, he should lock up the house and take the pup to my neighbor’s place. Mrs. Domanski was always game for Westie-sitting.

  Thirty minutes later I was driving along Pacific Coast Highway toward Santa Monica, one of a series of seaside communities strung together along the California coastline like train cars in a child’s pull toy. From PCH I headed up the California Incline and found a parking spot in a two-hours-free city lot. I walked toward the pier through Palisades Park, a narrow greenbelt on the cliffs overlooking the Pacific Ocean, detouring around a homeless man who lay huddled on the grass beneath a stained mattress pad. Across the highway in the parking lot below, two cyclists leisurely rode along the bike path past a young man practicing turns on his Rollerblades.

  Finally, I spotted what I thought might be Cissy’s green Jaguar. When the crosswalk light chirped at Colorado Street, I headed down the ramp past henna tattoo artists and vendors selling maps to the stars’ homes. A group of eager children formed a line in front of the slate blue and taupe carousel building, but none of them was Dara. I waited through several revolutions of brightly painted horses before I was satisfied that Cissy and Dara weren’t inside the carousel building, either.

  Just beyond the Boathouse Restaurant, I walked down the wooden steps to a pathway that led to a rickety sea-foam green lifeguard station boarded up for the winter. It was quiet on the beach except for the roar of a jet taking off from LAX. The fog was burning off. A flock of gulls had nestled quietly in the dry sand, soaking up warmth from the sun.

  I found Cissy sitting on an aluminum folding chair in front of the lifeguard station, reading from a small hardcover book. She glanced up frequently from the page to watch Dara stomp on bubbles in the foamy surf a few feet away. I emptied the sand from my shoes and called Cissy’s name. She looked up, startled. When she closed the book, I could see from the cover that it was a collection of haiku poetry. That surprised me.

  “I didn’t know you liked haiku,” I said.

  She shrugged. “I found it on Evan’s nightstand. It’s not very good. It doesn’t even rhyme.”

  “Some people consider haiku the highest form of poetry.”

  “Well, I don’t know what all the fuss is about. They talk about frogs or the moon and then it’s over.”

  I could have told her that it wasn’t as simple as that. If I remembered correctly, there were a lot of rules in haiku. You were allowed only three lines of verse, each required a specific number of syllables, and you had to include one of the seasons in there somewhere. Only there was no point in pontificating, because after today Cissy would probably never look at the book again.

  “At least this haiku stuff doesn’t pretend to be about a picnic in the country, and then you find out it’s really about death and how your life is crap and nobody cares.”

  I understood why she didn’t want to deal with hidden meanings right now. She was the prime suspect in a murder investigation that could take away her freedom and deny Dara her only remaining parent. In my head I thought of a haiku for Cissy:

  Life grows more complex

  when the Spring sun shines brightly

  on the cold handcuffs.

  Cissy’s breathing was deep and controlled as she watched Dara scamper back and forth between the surf and the dry sand, daring the waves to douse her bare feet in chilly salt water. Dara picked up what looked like some kind of shell. She proudly held it up for her mother’s approval, until she noticed me watching and turned shy. She lowered her head and began to brush sand from the shell’s surface, as if nothing else in the world existed.

  We watched her play at the water’s edge for a few minutes, avoiding the issue on both our minds. We talked about bacteria levels in the water, and a trip to the Long Beach aquarium she and Dara had recently taken. I waited for a lull in the conversation.

  “I was at Evan’s apartment yesterday,” I said.

  She seemed pleased. “Good, you got the key. Thanks a million, Tuckie. How’s the little Ruiz girl doing anyway?”

  “I don’t know. I didn’t see her.”

  She frowned. “What do you mean? I thought you said you got her key?”

  “I did, but not from Monique. I think she’s avoiding me.”

  Cissy looked as if she’d judged my efforts and found them lacking. I hardly expected her to fall all over me with gratitude, but her irritation seemed odd, even if she was under pressures I couldn’t begin to understand.

  “Did Evan ever have any break-ins at the apartment?” I said.

  “It’s possible. It’s a bad neighborhood. Why do you ask?”

  “A man came in while I was there. He stole some mail and a videotape.”

  Her eyes darted back and forth as if she couldn’t process what I’d just told her. “That doesn’t make sense. Who’d want to take stuff like that?”

  “I don’t know, but whatever he was after, he wanted it pretty badly.”

  Her gaze settled on the abrasion on my cheek. “Oh, my God! Is that why your cheek is all screwed up? Oh, Tuckie, I’m so sorry. I should never have gotten you involved in this mess.”

  Her angst seemed sincere. On the other hand, maybe she was just trying to manipulate me into feeling sorry for her. If so, it wouldn’t be the first time.

  “Do you have any idea who’d want Evan’s mail? I can’t remember what all was there, but I think there were a couple of bills; one was from the gas company.”

  She shook her head. “That can’t be right. All our bills go directly to our business manager. When Evan was doing drugs, he got us into big financial trouble, blowing all kinds of money on jewelry and boob jobs for women he didn’t even know. If I hadn’t taken away his credit cards and his checkbook, we would have lost everything.”

  I was sure there had been statements in that stack of mail, but it didn’t seem important enough to quibble about. There were many weightier issues to discuss, like Evan’s relationship with Lola Scott. I suspected that the news would come as no surprise to Cissy. If people in the industry like my mother knew about the affair, she must know as well. Still, I decided to start with the easy stuff first.

  “Did Evan ever discuss his work problems with you?”

  “Sometimes. Why?”

  “I’m just curious why he and Lola Scott parted company.”

  Cissy’s lips pinched together in a hard line of distaste. “Because she’s a slut. Evan should have left her in the gutter where he found her.”

  “It seems odd, that’s all. Evan arranges the coup of the century by getting Lola the lead in a Richard Burnett picture. If things go well, she gets Oscar buzz, which is very good for everybody. So why would he dump her?”

  “Because the woman is toxic.”

  Perhaps Cissy was right, but agents didn’t have to like the actors they represented. Evan had an office overhead to support. It seemed like a poor
business decision to get rid of a cash cow like Lola Scott merely because she was toxic or even because his love affair with her had cooled.

  “There must have been more to it than that.”

  “What more do you want?” she said. “Evan pulled out all the stops to make Lola a star, but do you think she appreciated it? No. She even had the gall to ask him to waive his commission on Richard’s picture. Can you believe it? Everybody in this town thought she was a joke until my husband made them sit up and take notice.”

  “What happens to Evan’s commission now that he’s dead?”

  Cissy looked surprised and then concerned. “It’ll go to the agency and eventually to me and Dara.”

  “What if the Burnett deal falls through?”

  “Don’t talk like that, Tuckie. You’re making me nervous.”

  A shrill scream and then a giggle interrupted our conversation. Our attention shifted to Dara. Score one for the Pacific Ocean. Her jeans were now soaked with water, and her ankles were wrapped in a tangle of greenish-brown kelp that had been washed ashore by the last wave. She picked up a kelp bulb with her fingertips and held it up high.

  “Mommy. Looky here.”

  “Put that down. It’s dirty.”

  Dara weighed her mother’s advice before dropping the kelp and kicking to free her feet of the leafy debris. The movement managed only to expose something gray and feathery caught up in the snarl.

  “Mommy. Mommy,” she whimpered. “It’s a birdie. It’s hurt. Hurry.”

  The shift in her child’s tone was subtle, but enough to trigger Cissy’s internal mommy alarm. She bolted from her chair and rushed to her daughter’s side, leaving behind a pair of fuchsia sandals adorned with floppy pink daisies. She unwound the kelp from Dara’s feet and grabbed her wrist.

  “Come on, sweetie. Get away from there.”

  Dara tried to pry her wrist from Cissy’s grip with the fingers of her free hand.

  “We can’t go. It’s hurt. We have to fix it.”

  Cissy knelt on the sand in front of her child. “No, baby, it’s not hurt; it’s dead. It’s not going to feel anything anymore.”

  Dara stared at the bird for a moment. Slowly her expression of concern began crumbling until it became a portrait of pain and horror. There was one sharp intake of air before her small body collapsed into her mother’s arms, and she began to sob.

  When I couldn’t deal with watching them anymore, I quietly turned to leave. Cissy sensed the movement and looked up. There was a look of panic on her face, as if she’d suddenly realized she was not well suited to the single-mother role she was now forced to play.

  I felt sorry for her, but there was nothing I could do to help. Either she’d figure it out or she wouldn’t. I gave her what I hoped was a look of support and headed back up the stairs toward the pier.

  I’d almost reached the parking garage when my cell phone rang. It was Joe Deegan. He didn’t sound happy.

  “Your name came up in a conversation I just had with Moses Green. Remember him? The detective from my division who interviewed you two days ago about a love letter he found at the scene of a homicide. Is any of this sounding familiar?”

  “Are you asking as a cop or a friend?”

  “Don’t bullshit me, Stretch. It pisses me off.”

  “It wasn’t a letter. It was a poem, and I can explain.”

  “Oh, I’m sure you can. I just want to know why you didn’t explain yesterday when you were here. Just what the hell are you up to?”

  I counted to ten before answering, because I didn’t want this to turn into an argument. “Look, Deegan, I’ll explain everything, but not on the phone.” I tried to drum up a teasing tone to my voice to defuse the situation. “So, you want what I’ve got, or not?”

  Normally Deegan would have made something out of my choice of words. Not this time. He was obviously not responding to my mojo.

  “I’ll be at your place around six,” he said.

  “You still remember how to find it?”

  “Some things you just don’t forget.”

  I preferred meeting Deegan in neutral territory, away from Pookie and Bruce, but I didn’t want to antagonize him further, so I said okay. Besides, I had to get off the telephone, because I didn’t want to be late for my meeting with Sheila Mayhew.

  All the way to Whittier, I thought about my life and how little harm would come to me if I went back to it and forgot about the whole sorry mess surrounding Evan’s death. In a few hours I’d tell Joe Deegan everything or nearly everything that had happened to me in the past few days. Maybe the confession would be cathartic.

  However, there would be some things I wouldn’t tell him, even though I could dredge up the words if I tried. I wouldn’t tell him what it felt like to lose somebody you cared about to violence, or how it would be for Dara to grow up with a well-meaning but less than perfect mother. I’d even listen patiently to Deegan’s lecture about leaving police work to the professionals, but in the end I knew, as he probably did, that I wasn’t going to take his advice.

  -13-

  whittier is located about thirty miles east of the Pacific Ocean, in an area where smog layers replace marine layers. It’s also the birthplace of Richard Nixon, but nobody holds that against it anymore.

  Sheila Mayhew’s vampire flick was being filmed on a quiet residential street a block or two off Norwalk Boulevard. I parked on a side street and made my way toward a motorcycle cop who was probably moonlighting. He checked for my name on a list and, after finding it, allowed me behind the barricade.

  The center of activity was a small bungalow at midblock. The place had no landscaping to speak of, just a front yard choked by snake grass, brown from lack of water. The house was painted fish-scale green and had probably once been a pleasant but boring little square until someone tarted it up with a grandiose black wrought-iron fence and a pair of concrete lion sculptures, one on each side of the gate. The front door had been expanded to two doors and painted black, making it look like the maw of a largemouth bass. The fantasy may have been Architectural Digest, but the reality was more like Field and Stream. Still, it seemed like a good spot for a couple of vampires in transition.

  Small clusters of neighbors stood on sidewalks and lawns, probably hoping to catch a glimpse of some big-name movie star. A dozen or so young people wearing sneakers and faded jeans milled around a row of trailers. I asked for Sheila Mayhew and was directed to the second trailer from the end. I made my way up the stairs, tapped on the door, and waited until I heard, “Come in. We’re decent,” before poking my head inside.

  Sheila Mayhew was in her mid-forties, with chestnut-colored hair that looked chic piled up in an untamed twist atop her head. She wore cowboy boots with black tights and a low-cut spandex top so taut that it squeezed her breasts together into one massive lump. Her makeup was somewhere between glamorous and overdone and was complemented by brows that arched gracefully over her eyes like two well-groomed chinchillas. She reminded me of everyone’s favorite aunt, the one who always brought you bags of those teeny tiny Avon lipstick samples and took you to get your ears pierced without your mother’s permission.

  Costumes, makeup, and script pages littered the trailer, but even amid all that chaos, Sheila looked serene as she applied the finishing touches to a set of fangs on a twenty-something girl vampire whose makeup was so convincing I found myself yearning for garlic.

  “Sheila? I’m Tucker Sinclair. Pookie’s daughter.”

  She looked as if she’d hit a wall trying to make that connection.

  “I take after my dad,” I explained.

  Her face relaxed into a smile. “I knew you didn’t get those cheekbones from Pookie. Even with contour she looks like Charlie Brown. What happened to your face?”

  “Rug burn.”

  She smiled again. “I hope it was fun.”

  Just then the trailer door swung open, and a guy in his twenties, wearing chinos and a Hawaiian shirt, bolted through the opening. He had a bab
y face and a receding hairline. The incongruity made me think the stork had put him together on the Friday afternoon before a three-day weekend.

  “Come on, Sheila,” he said. “Enough with the fangs, okay? This isn’t DreamWorks. This is real money.”

  “Don’t worry, Danny, she’s ready.” Sheila put on a pair of glasses to inspect her handiwork. Then she pulled the towel from around the vampire’s neck and scooted her out of the makeup chair.

  Danny shifted his gaze toward me. His mood darkened. “Who the fuck is this?”

  Sheila looked at me. Then she looked at Danny. “She’s an extra.”

  “Shit, she’s tall.” He rubbed his eyes with the palms of his hands, as if his observation had suddenly made him tired. “Just keep her the fuck away from Derek.”

  “Sure, honey, you can count on me.”

  Sheila pulled me into the still-warm seat of the makeup chair as Hawaiian Shirt and the vampire disappeared through the door. She tucked a clean towel into the neck of my sweater and began looking through her makeup case.

  “Danny out of Prozac?” I asked.

  “Don’t let him upset you, honey. He’s a putz, but I forgive him because he’s under a lot of pressure. Trust me, he loves his job as much as I love mine, and I’d do this for free if love bought kitty litter. Know what I mean? Anyway, I’m glad Pookie sent you over.”

  “Well, she didn’t exactly send me over.”

  She patted my hand. “Sure, I understand. Gosh, you have beautiful skin. It’s almost a shame to cover it up, but Derek gets pissy when he finds strangers on the set. This’ll give us a chance to gab. Besides, I work magic on rug burns.”

  She studied my face for a moment before starting to apply foundation with a tiny sponge. I winced when she got to the abrasion on my cheek, but didn’t complain. Hopefully, she’d keep the makeup toned down. I didn’t want some vampire slayer to get confused and try to pound a stake through my heart.

  “I had dinner with your mom and Bruce a few nights ago. She’s gaga over him. It’s nice to see her so happy, don’t you think?”