“We’ll have to get a warrant, but that shouldn’t be too hard.”
“Or maybe you could ask Nick Lee. He must have a friend somewhere that can help with this.”
“He’ll be flattered.”
Windy had just changed from the clothes she had worn to work the crime scene, back into the suit she’d planned to wear to the Waters memorial service when her phone rang.
“I got Eve’s emergency contact. Patricia Madden, Trish to her friends,” Ash’s voice said. “Lives in a rented house in Hollywood with her two children, ages four and seven and a husband, Dusty, who is an actor. She works in an art gallery in Beverly Hills to support the family while Dusty goes on auditions. Trish is also the beneficiary of Eve’s life insurance. On the off chance that Eve is hiding there, I pulled some strings and got the LAPD to put someone outside the house. Trish doesn’t start work until two on Thursdays.”
“When are you leaving for L.A.?”
“It’s twelve now, so I was planning on the one-twenty flight.” He paused. “I actually booked two seats, on the off chance that—”
“Yes,” Windy said. “Yes, I want to come.”
“We can take the six thirty flight back which should have you home by seven thirty. Would that work for you with Cate? Can Brandon stay with her?”
“I’ll check but I’m sure it will be fine,” Windy said, and he heard her laugh. “Thank you for thinking of Cate. That was really—thoughtful.”
“Of course. Can you be in the parking lot in ten minutes?”
“Five, if necessary.”
“Great. See you then.”
Why the hell was he grinning, Ash asked himself as he hung up. Just because they were going to be somewhere other than the office, it was not a date.
She is engaged to another man, he reminded himself.
That was okay. They were friends.
“Don’t be a fool,” Ash remembered his mother saying to Winston Ogilvy, her fifth husband, as she waited for the chauffeur to load their luggage into the car and drive them away. “Men are good for two things, and neither of them are friendship.”
Just one of the many things his mother had been wrong about, he hoped.
CHAPTER 33
The air at LAX felt humid compared to the dry air of Las Vegas, with a light layer of marine fog making the sky a hazy blue. Standing in the Hertz parking lot, Windy looked from Ash to their car, then back again. “You rented this on purpose?”
“Just because we’re in the middle of a murder investigation is no reason we can’t drive a cool car.”
Ash said it straight out, his toothpick not tipping up to show he was joking, this man who in Las Vegas drove the sexiest sports car she had ever seen. She said, “And that would be a minivan?”
“Oh yeah. Have you ever driven one? You get a super view of the road because you’re up high, and it feels like you’re riding in a couch. Why?”
“I don’t know. It just doesn’t go with your image.”
“My image?”
Windy shrugged uncomfortably. “You know, millionaire cop, living a life of dashing glamour.”
“I lead a life of dashing glamour? I must have missed that memo.” The toothpick tipped up, slightly. “To be honest, I’ve never thought about having an image, but if I do, I certainly hope it includes a car that can do this.” He pushed a button, and the side doors of the van on both sides slid open. “That is glamour. Not to mention the cup holders. Look at these things,” he said as they swung into the seats. “They’re practically Jacuzzis. The best part is we look just like normal people. No one will ever suspect we’re cops.”
“Thank goodness,” Windy said, but she had to admit the cup holders—all twelve of them—were impressive, and they did get a panoramic view of the Los Angeles traffic her Volvo could never have duplicated.
At three-fifteen they turned onto World Famous Rodeo Drive, Beverly Hills, the tony address of the gallery where Trish worked. There was a tour bus with lettering in Japanese disgorging a stream of young women at the corner but the street was relatively uncrowded and appallingly clean. “Only fake things are ever this clean,” Ash observed. “Real life is messy.”
“But for some people this is their real life.”
“True, like my mother. Her houses are always this clean. And she is bored out of her mind. You know, they give tickets for jaywalking in Beverly Hills. Jaywalking. That’s how bored the cops are.” Ash scanned the curb in front of them as he talked, saying now, “Gosh, I wonder if this is our guy,” and pulling the minivan up next to an unmarked navy blue Crown Victoria. Windy wondered if anyone ever didn’t know that was a police car. Still, sticking to the fiction, the very young officer inside pretended to be furiously consulting a map until Windy reached out her window and tapped on his.
“Hi, I’m Windy Thomas from Vegas,” she told him.
He looked at the minivan, then back at her, and gave a dim smile, humoring a tourist. “I’m sorry, ma’am, I don’t know where any of the stars’ homes are.”
Ma’am again. Definitely time for new moisturizer. Windy shook her head and held out her badge. “From Las Vegas Metro Police.”
“Oh.” The Beverly Hills cop’s eyes did another quick tour of the minivan. “I didn’t, um, recognize you.”
“Incognito,” Ash said, cool guy leaning back against his couch seat with his sunglasses on, and Windy had to swallow a laugh.
The young officer nodded. “You’re the one we’re watching that woman for. Patricia Madden. She’s in there.” He pointed to a dark granite façade engraved with the words HAYWORTH GALLERIES in gold. “She went in at two o’clock and hasn’t been out yet. Proprietor of the coffee cart says she usually takes a break about three thirty, before the afternoon crowd comes in. I’ve got a log if you want to see it.” He flashed Windy a piece of paper in a way usually reserved for pornographic snapshots.
“Thanks, I’ll take it when I come out.” To Ash: “Have fun in your cool car.”
“Driving the streets of Beverly Hills? You bet. I’ll pick you up here when I’m done with Bubba O’Leary. He only lives a mile away so it shouldn’t be more than forty minutes.”
“I’ll be right here,” Windy said, pointing to a square of sidewalk, used to giving nearly compass-precision coordinates to Bill.
“Even a foot or two in either direction would be okay. I’m pretty sure I’ll be able to spot you again.” Not saying that in her navy blue three-piece pantsuit and French-cuffed white shirt, there was no one even on world famous Rodeo Drive that held a candle to her.
Windy rang the brass bell alongside the door of the Hayworth Galleries and waited to be buzzed in. An enormous bald man wearing black pants, a blue-and-white striped shirt, a red scarf knotted on the side, and earrings in both his ears crossed the floor toward her. He made Windy think of Yul Brynner on steroids playing a pirate.
“Yez?” he asked, his accent more Italian than pirate. “I can help you?”
“I’m looking for Patricia Madden.”
“Patrice is in the back. If you stand, I will go.”
Windy stood, he went. Her eyes caught on a painting that gave her a feeling of déjà-vu. She was trying to think of where she’d seen it and had just realized that it looked like part of a dream she’d had the night before, when she smelled Jo Malone lime and basil perfume and heard a woman come up behind her.
“I’m Patricia Madden,” the woman introduced herself. Windy knew she was thirty-five but she didn’t look it. She was about six feet tall with short cropped blond hair, a face that was austerely beautiful, and the bearing of a member of the British aristocracy. She was wearing a black fitted sweater with an asymmetrical neckline and black trousers that had been expertly tailored. The kind of woman that made Windy feel short, dumpy, and uncultured.
She eyed Windy up and down, not hiding it, then said, “What can I help you with, ma’am?”
The “ma’am” did it. Windy eyed her back, flipped out her badge and said, “I was won
dering if we could talk somewhere.”
Trish studied the badge and raised an eyebrow. “Las Vegas police. What do you—is this about Eve?”
“Yes.”
Trish handed her back the badge with a shrug. “I haven’t talked to her in nearly four months, so I don’t have anything to tell you.”
“Please,” Windy said. “This is very important. She may be in a lot of trouble.”
Trish crossed her arms. “Undoubtedly. Eve is trouble.” She seemed to soften for a moment, but said, “Besides, I can’t just take off to talk. I’m at work.”
“You are due for a break. You always take a break about this time.”
“How—” And right away Trish’s tone changed, going from haughty to wry. “Oh, you’re the reason Pimple Face trailed me here in that patrol car, asking questions. And here I thought I had a celebrity stalker. Damn. You should tell him, from me, that he should watch a few more episodes of Cops. That look at you–look away move he’s got going on is not as subtle as he wants it to be.”
“I’ll pass that on,” Windy said, her eyes drawn back to the painting she had been staring at before Trish came in.
Trish looked from Windy to the painting. “I see you like our Jorge Delgado. The man is a genius. What do you see in it?”
It was an innocent enough question but Windy felt like it was some kind of test.
She said, “Red wine spilled on a white tablecloth at a party.” At least that was what it was in the dream it resembled. Her spilling the wine at her wedding dinner, everyone going crazy, the tablecloth being pulled off, her mother shrieking.
“Very interesting, Officer Thomas. Most people see it as blood. The piece is called ‘The Last Supper.’ It’s one of our most profound artworks. You can almost hear the sound of the Apostles pushing their seats away from the table, can’t you?”
Trish’s tone was pure reverence and Windy matched it when she said, “Oh yes, absolutely.” Paused, then added, “Although blood would have clotted in a different shape. Settled on top of the fabric more.”
She felt Trish looking at her out of the corner of her eye, then heard her laugh. “Okay, you’ll do.” Trish smiled, showing a slight gap between her teeth that turned her from beautiful into stunning.
“Does that mean I passed?”
“It means you have a sense of humor and don’t take yourself too seriously. You didn’t fall for my ice princess routine, but you’re not a paying client and I don’t waste my free time on people who are a pain in the ass. Plus you’ll need a sense of humor to understand Eve.” She turned to the pirate. “Davido, can you watch the front? I’ll be back in half an hour.”
“But Patrice,” the large man said, nervously reaching fingertips to the knot of his scarf. “You know I am so bad with the cash register.”
“Davido, no one is going to come in and buy a hundred-thousand-dollar painting for cash in less than half an hour.”
“It happened one time.”
“Not before six P.M. You know the drug money sleeps until at least then. But if something happens and you need me, just stand in the door, put your lips together, and blow. I’ll be at Carl’s having coffee.”
They left Davido looking enormous and confused in the doorway, pushing his lips in and out, and started down the street to Piazza Rodeo, where a few chairs and tables were set up around a coffee cart. Windy was surprised to discover that all the tables jiggled a little; not everything in Beverly Hills as perfect as it looked from afar.
When they were settled at the table that wobbled the least, Trish lit a cigarette, exhaled, and said, “Okay, what has Eve done now?”
CHAPTER 34
“I know I should stop this, stop calling you and spending all this money, but we just moved here and I have friends but not real friends, real friends I can talk to like this. It’s like, ever since I found out I was pregnant, I’ve been wondering, filled with these doubts.”
Jennifer looked down at the paper in front of her, then at the clock. Eight minutes so far. She needed to keep the woman—KELLY O’CONNELL was the name written on the paper—in conversation for at least another twelve minutes if she wasn’t going to throw off this month’s average. Only by keeping her average above twenty minutes would she continue to get calls assigned to her from Baroness Ruby’s Psychic Hotline, and she could really use the money.
There was one guaranteed way to keep them on the phone. She made her voice go trancelike and said, “I see a cloud of dark suspicion and betrayal around you, Kelly.”
“Oh god.”
The woman sounded so anguished that Jennifer felt bad. “It’s around you, but it’s moving behind you. I see trouble in your past.”
The woman’s voice was muffled now, like she was speaking from between her hands. “It’s true,” Kelly sobbed. “In the past, I am almost sure of it, Kurt had an affair. With this woman at the casino he was helping manage in Mississippi. It’s so easy for them, all those vacant rooms. But then he got transferred here, to work with the high rollers, and he swears he’s been faithful for the last year. I don’t know what I will do if it’s a lie.”
Planting doubts about Kurt’s fidelity would definitely prolong the call another nine minutes, but Jennifer just didn’t have the heart for it. She tried a different tack. “You’re worried that the baby will change him. I see concern inside of you. Concern making you nauseous.”
“Yes,” Kelly said, sounding better. Jennifer pictured her sitting up. “That’s right, I am nauseous all the time. It must be concern.”
“You’re worried he won’t find you attractive when you’re more pregnant,” Jennifer said, calling on her memory of a Jerry Springer episode she’d seen that summer, “Men who stray while their wives wait for bebe” or something like that. “And then when the baby comes, and you’re so busy, you’re worried he’ll feel neglected.”
“Oh god, you can see everything. He was so loving at the beginning of our relationship, and he always said he wanted kids but now—” Kelly took a breath. “And with all his traveling for work, he’s never around. Like this trip, all the way to Asia, he has been gone for over a week. And when he is here I feel ill and—” Kelly broke off. “That is my side doorbell. Do you think I should answer it?”
Sure, lady, just as long as you don’t hang up the phone for another seven minutes, Jennifer thought. Said, “Why don’t you see who it is and I’ll hold on. When you get back, I’ll do an angel reading.”
“Oh, that would be so great. I’ve never had an angel reading. You’re sure you don’t mind holding on?”
“Not at all,” Jennifer said, barely resisting the urge to say “Take your time.”
Keeping one eye on the clock, Jennifer hit the speaker phone button and picked up her highlighter, going back to her psych lecture notes. You could learn more about people’s minds being a telephone psychic than in three years of being a psychology major, she thought, but only one of them landed you a diploma.
On the other end of the phone Jennifer heard a sound like a woman’s laugh, and thought, Good, you tell jokes with your afternoon visitor and I’ll keep studying for my midterm. Then there was something that sounded like—humming maybe?—and then all of a sudden, a loud, piercing scream.
Jennifer jolted upright out of her notes, and grabbed the phone. “Hello? Kelly? Are you there?” Nothing. “Kelly? Are you all right? Mrs. O’Connell? Can—”
The line went dead and her timer shut off at eighteen minutes, three seconds. Damn. That wasn’t going to help her average, or her bank balance. What about Kelly, a voice in her mind asked her. Had that really been a scream? Should she tell someone?
The phone rang and she snatched it up, hoping it was Kelly calling back. She answered saying, “Hello,” instead of the standard “Welcome to Baroness Ruby’s parlor, Genevieve speaking.”
“Is this Baroness Ruby’s Psychic hotline?” a timid voice asked. Not Kelly’s. “I have a problem and I really need help. My name is Fiona and I think my boyfriend might
be cheating on me.”
Kelly would be fine, Jennifer told herself, pushing her psych notes aside and saying, “I see a cloud of dark suspicion and betrayal hovering around you, Fiona,” and watching the timer start to tick. She’d try to make this one go to forty. That ought to blow her average out of the water.
Then she thought about the scream again and said, “Actually, Fiona, I’m wrong. What I see around you is an aura so bright, so pure, that I mistook it. It’s nearly invisible. You have dark hair, right?”
“No, I have—”
“That’s what I was seeing. And if you hang up now, you’ll get this call for free. Part of your good luck. Bye.” Jennifer clicked the flash button on the phone and dialed 911. She would probably lose her job over this—not just the averages, they weren’t supposed to give out client information. The cops had better take her seriously.
“I’d like to report a crime,” Jennifer told the operator. “I don’t know the address, but I was talking to a woman at 702-555-7561 and she cut out on me in the middle and then I heard a scream.”
“Your name, ma’am?”
“That doesn’t matter. Her name is Kelly O’Connell. You should send some officers to her house right now.”
“How do you know Mrs. O’Connell, ma’am?”
“I’m a psychic. She called me.”
“Oh, you’re psychic.”
“That doesn’t matter. Just go. Send them. The woman is in trouble.”
In the 911 emergency call center, Wanda List punched the disconnect button on her phone and shook her head.
“Another fruitcake?” Desiree Bolton asked from the seat next to hers.
“I don’t know. She gave me a phone number where she says a crime is being committed but no address. Says she’s psychic.”
“You could run it through the directory, have dispatch send a car over if they’ve got anyone in the neighborhood.”
Bad Girl and Loverboy Page 18
