Hollywood Notorious: A Hollywood Alphabet Thriller Series (A Hollywood Alphabet Series Thriller Book 14)

by M. Z. Kelly

  “Why don’t you just go out and find an expert on crazy,” Darby said.

  Selfie ignored him, telling us, “I just got a text from Brie. The autopsy is scheduled for four this afternoon. She’s expecting that you all will be there.”

  “What about…” Oz checked the reports in front of him, “…this Gooseberry guy? Did anyone talk to him about the shootout and ask him what he knows about the girl’s murder? We’ve also got the issue of him being a suspect in his manager’s death.”

  Darby shook his head. “Harry Gooseberry was getting the lead out—as in cut out of his hairy fat ass—he should be in recovery today.”

  “Then let’s get with him before he’s booked, see what we can get out of him.”

  “There’s a problem with that,” Leo said. “I talked to SID a little while ago. Gooseberry’s gun was found on the ground near his car. It had been discharged, but it was a thirty-eight. Brie dug a couple of rounds out of our dead rappers during her preliminary assessment. They were nine-millimeter.”

  “That means there was somebody else at the scene who did the shootings and got away,” Buck said.

  Darby looked at him like he’d lost his mind. “We’re supposed to believe somebody snuck up on the two victims, shot them, and then scurried off into the darkness like a rat before we got there. Maybe it was the bogie man and he then went over and whacked the dead girl and painted her face while nobody was looking.”

  I was exhausted and had enough of his nonsense. “Do you practice being an asshole, or does it just come naturally?”

  Darby’s perpetual smirk remained on his pudgy face. “Do you practice sticking up for your boyfriend, or does it just come naturally?”

  Bernie came up to his feet as I raised my voice. “You watch your big mouth…”

  “Stop.” Oz said, raising his own voice and his hand. “This bickering stops now. We leave anything personal out of these discussions and work this case.” His gaze moved around the room as we all fell silent.

  After a moment, Leo broke the silence. “We can ask Brie about…” he checked his notes, “…the two rappers that were killed—Jerry Duncan and Marvin Hanks—maybe she’ll give us something more to go on.”

  “What do we know about their background?” I asked Selfie and Molly.

  “They were both just wannabe rappers, working a few clubs here and there,” Selfie said. “Hanks did some joint time for robbery, out just over two years now. Duncan’s got priors for assault and some drug beefs. They both had reputations as small time dealers. That’s about it.”

  “Let’s follow up with their family and friends,” Oz said. He looked at Leo and me. “Let’s also see if we can nail down the source of the video on our victim. If SID was involved in sending it to the paparazzi website, I want whoever did it fired and prosecuted.”

  Leo stayed behind to chat with Oz for a couple of minutes after our meeting ended. I was back at my desk, pushing paperwork around, when I looked up and saw Buck was standing there. I regarded him for a moment, wondering how it was possible to look that good with almost no sleep.

  “Sorry about what my partner said,” Buck said. “I intend to get the point across to him that any discussion about the two of us is off limits.”

  I brushed a hand through my hair, thinking I probably looked as bad as I felt. “How are you going to do that, stick a bar of soap in his big mouth?”

  He smiled. “Or maybe somewhere just as ugly.”

  I laughed, thinking about how Buck and Hollywood were about as far apart as you can get.

  His smile grew wider. “How ‘bout a drink after work tomorrow? I’ll make things up to you.”

  His offer didn’t surprise me. Despite our differences, I knew that he was still attracted to me. “I’m sure that will help with the rumors Darby’s probably already circulated about us.”

  “There’s a deck up on the roof of my apartment building. Nobody ever goes there. One drink is all I’m asking, just for old times.”

  My relationship with Noah flashed through my mind. We were in love and had made a commitment to one another. Despite that, Buck and I did have some history, and I decided getting together might help us move past that. “One drink, that’s all.”

  “See you then, if not before.”

  A half hour later, Leo and I were in the car headed for UCLA Medical Center to talk to Harold Gooseberry, when he mentioned his chat with the lieutenant. “Ozzie’s a little concerned about you. He’s a pretty good judge of character and thinks something’s on your mind.”

  I glanced over at my partner. While we’d only been working together for a few weeks, I knew I could trust Leo with my life. Whether I could trust him to keep quiet about the photograph I’d found of Oz with my love-dad was another matter. My dad had been a cop before he was murdered in a local park. Leo and Ozzie Powell knew him back when they’d began their careers with the department. I knew their loyalty to one another ran deep and I didn’t think I was ready to test that allegiance.

  “I’m dealing with a lot of things in my personal life that Oz probably picked up on,” I said. “My friends and I just moved and we’re already having problems with our neighbors.” I took a couple of minutes and filled him in on our possible eviction from the Starlight and our legal troubles. “To make matters worse, Natalie and Mo’s boss, Jimmy Sweets, has a cousin who passed the bar not too long ago. They want him to represent us against the mobile home park’s attorney, Mean Gene, the suing machine.”

  Leo laughed. “That guy who’s on TV with the little dog?”

  “It’s called a Chiweenie.” Bernie took the opportunity to poke his big head up from the back seat. Maybe he was worried about being replaced by a designer dog. I nuzzled him and went on. “Mo once told me that my life is one big shit magnet. I’m beginning to think she’s right.”

  He chuckled. “We all end up knee deep in it a time or two. Lil and I lived in a trailer when we were first married, just to save a few bucks.”

  I stared at him. “Really?” I said, playing dumb. “I wonder what it would be like to live in a trailer.”

  He chuckled. “Sorry, I forgot about your living quarters for a minute.”

  I shook my head in disgust and mumbled, “Hermes Krump.”

  “What?”

  “He’s the guy who could be our lawyer. Hermes Krump. Can you believe that?”

  “Maybe Mr. Krump’s a bulldog in disguise.”

  “With my luck, he’s probably more like a designer dog.” Inspiration struck. “Maybe he’s a cross between a Shih Tzu and a Husky breed.”

  Leo did his best to suppress his laughter but failed. “I’m almost afraid to ask what you call that.”

  I looked at him. “A Shitski.”

  ***

  Leo and I met up with Buck and his partner in the parking lot of the hospital. Darby’s usually pasty face was flushed, and I wondered if they’d had some kind of dust-up. Buck agreed to wait downstairs with Bernie, while the rest of us took an elevator to the tenth floor. We met with a nurse there who led us to our interview subject. Harold Gooseberry, aka the Godfather, was hooked up to several machines and had tubes running to the lower part of his anatomy.

  When he saw us, Gooseberry rolled his eyes and said, “I got nothing to say to you.”

  As we’d discussed earlier, Leo took the lead. “All we want to do is ask you a few questions. So far, you’re not under arrest.”

  “‘So far’. What the fuck does that mean?”

  “It means,” Darby said, “that you cooperate, or we’re dragging that biggest loser ass of yours to jail.”

  Gooseberry cocked his head at Darby and smirked. “Long as he’s here, I ain’t talking.”

  “Fine,” Darby said. “Keep your fat pie hole shut, and we’ll just book you for murder.”

  I glared at Darby, realizing whatever had transpired between him and Buck was affecting his attitude. “This isn’t helping.”

  “I’m no fucking social worker.”

&nbs
p; Leo went over to him and lowered his voice. “Let’s take a walk.”

  After a couple of protests, Darby finally agreed to go with Leo. That left me alone with the huge reality TV star and murder suspect.

  “Let’s cut to the chase,” I said, locking eyes with Gooseberry. “Tell me what went down last night.”

  He lowered his eyes, taking in my body, before meeting my eyes again. “You’re kinda hot. How ‘bout we get together when I get out of here?”

  “How ‘bout you answer my question, or I’ll do what the other detective said and just book you into jail.”

  He brushed a hand over his bald head and exhaled. “Awright, let’s get this shit over with. I had some issues with the bros, that’s all.”

  “The bros?”

  “The two guys that ate it. Everybody called ’em ‘the bros’.”

  “Duncan and Hanks?”

  He shrugged. “I guess. Dunno their real names.”

  “What exactly was this beef about?”

  “Nuthin’ much. Just some smack.”

  “Heroin.” He didn’t respond. “So what happened when you got to the cemetery?”

  “I just got out of my car, then all hell broke loose.”

  “There was shooting?”

  “Yeah.”

  “And what did you do?”

  I got on the ground, capped off a couple of rounds, and got hit.”

  “Were the bros shooting at you?”

  “Naw. They was already in some kinda shit.”

  “What do you mean?”

  The lines in his heavy brow deepened. “Somebody was shootin’ at ’em.”

  “You mean somebody who was already in the cemetery?”

  “Yeah, I guess.”

  “Did you see anyone besides the bros?”

  I got a head shake before he moaned and hit the call button for the nurse. “I’m gonna need something for this pain.”

  While we waited for the nurse, I said, “Did you see anyone coming from the trees last night?”

  “What?”

  “The tree line above the cemetery.”

  “You mean where that messed up girl was found?”

  I released a breath. “How do you know about her?”

  “It’s all over the tube. It was on when I got out of recovery. They’re calling the freak who did her ‘the Reaper’. He fucked her up good.”

  “Did you see anybody besides the bros when you got out of your car?”

  I got a headshake as he worked the call button again.

  “Let’s talk about your manager, Howard Slade.”

  “I had nothing to do with what happened to him.”

  “He was run down in a parking lot the night before last, not too far from his office. We know you two were in a dispute over money. Where were you at the time?”

  Gooseberry’s fleshy face turned up. “I was with Billy and Ricky. They’ll vouch for me, tell you I had nothing to do with it.”

  I took out a notepad. “Where do these guys live?”

  “Guys?” His grin widened. “They ain’t no guys, Detective.”

  The nurse came through the door. Gooseberry said to her, “I need some morphine, hon. Make it a double. My ass hurts like hell.”

  I exchanged a look with the nurse and said, “He seems to have an exceptionally low tolerance for pain.”

  After Gooseberry defended his need for morphine, I told the nurse, “I think we’re the ones who needs the drugs. He’s the world’s biggest big pain in the ass.”

  EIGHT

  Dr. Ellen Moore stood in front of the glass security window in the maximum security wing of Berkshire State Hospital. Even though she knew the glass was mirrored on the other side, the patient’s amber eyes seemed fixed on her. The psychiatrist was new to the hospital and her sense of unease grew.

  Moore turned to the chief of psychiatry, who stood beside her. “You honestly believe he doesn’t scale?”

  “Macy’s an anomaly,” Dr. Lawrence Marlow said. The senior psychiatrist was a wiry man in his sixties, with silver hair. He stood almost six feet tall, in contrast to the diminutive younger psychiatrist. He took a step closer to the glass window, Moore now seeing the reflection of the administrator as he continued. “He might be a 1026, but I don’t care what DSM criteria you try to make fit, it just doesn’t wash.”

  The youthful psychiatrist glanced at the file she’d been given. She knew 1026 was the California civil commitment section that had allowed Quinton Macy to avoid criminal proceedings by reason of insanity. While her patient might be insane, he still had to fit the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of mental disorders, regardless of what Dr. Marlow thought. That criteria covered every disorder catalogued by the American Psychiatric Association.

  Moore took a moment and scanned the reports, at the same time saying, “And the underlying offense…” Her blue eyes lifted from the file and she looked back at Marlow. “Oh, goodness. I had no idea.”

  Dr. Marlow nodded. “The girl was held for several months. She eventually starved to death, but only after…” He took a breath and didn’t go on.

  Moore skimmed through the rest of the reports. She was aware that her boss was giving her time to process her patient’s crimes. Her stomach had twisted into a knot by the time she’d finished reading the commitment papers about the horrifying crime he’d committed.

  “I can see why he was chosen,” Moore finally said, tucking the file under her arm. “I assume his family gave their consent?”

  “Macy’s parents separated when he was a teenager. His mother consented, but his father’s whereabouts are unknown. Your patient gave his informed consent and went through the standard testing protocols and evaluations. All the facility doctors felt he would be an appropriate candidate, given his history. His attorney took the matter to the courts and obtained the necessary approvals.”

  Quinton Macy had been selected for the clinical trials for a drug called Neustasis. Moore had read the pharmaceutical reports for the new drug and was aware that it targeted mutations in the mitochondrial DNA. The drug’s protocol required intravenous injections and monitoring over the course of forty-eight hours.

  While it wasn’t entirely understood how the drug worked, the working hypothesis was that it repaired defective coding instructions that, in turn, regulated protein metabolism. All that, according to Halgen, the drug’s manufacturer, affected someone’s ability to control impulses related to a host of psychiatric disorders.

  Even if the drug worked, and at some point Macy was found to be mentally competent and therefore responsible for his crimes, Moore knew that her patient would spend the rest of his life in prison. That knowledge, according to the drug company, made Macy’s offer to participate in the clinical trials an act of compassionate self-sacrifice.

  Moore glanced at the patient through the security glass again, seeing that he was still staring at the glass as though he could see her. She swallowed and turned to Marlow. “I’d like to talk to him, since…” she looked back at her patient. “…since he’s going to be in my custody during the trials.”

  The elder psychiatrist took a step closer to his new colleague. “Are you sure? He’s…” Marlow waited until his new colleague met his eyes. “He might have given his consent to be in the program, but he’s…” The psychiatrist took a breath. “Like I said, in my opinion he doesn’t fit any of the diagnostic criteria. He’s a pure sociopath, lacking any conventional sense of social norms, but there’s no specific criteria that describes his psychological state.”

  Moore glanced at her new patient. “What do we know about his life before he was incarcerated?”

  “That part of his life is what makes him so unique.”

  She looked back at Dr. Marlow. “I’m not sure what you mean.”

  “You’re looking at a savant, someone who is both intellectually gifted and cultured, with refined tastes in art, music, and cuisine. Before his arrest, Macy wrote what’s still considered a brilliant thesis on the relationship b
etween science and consciousness.”

  “A renaissance man.”

  “And more.”

  Moore raised her brows. “What am I missing?”

  Marlow looked at Macy. “An eidetic memory that’s non-specific, atypical of most savants. An enhanced auditory acuity, and…” He smiled. “I could go on.” He looked back at Macy and shook his head. “He’s like nothing I’ve ever encountered.”

  Moore looked through the window again, studying her new patient. She shrugged, feigning indifference or maybe confidence, she wasn’t sure which. She tossed the patient’s file on a desk. “We’re going to need to get to know one another sooner or later.” She took a step toward the holding room, but then stopped and turned back to her superior. “You’re welcome to come with me.”

  The senior psychiatrist smiled at Moore’s wavering bluster. “You lead the way.”

  As Moore opened the door to the holding room, she thought about the years of schooling that had brought her to this day. After obtaining her B.S. in biology at Rutgers and passing the MCAT, she’d spent four years getting her medical degree at San Diego State. After that, she’d done a residency program through the state hospital system. When she’d finally been offered a full-time position at Berkshire, she thought her hard work and the sacrifices of Brian and her two children had finally paid off.

  As she stood in front of Quinton Macy, Dr. Ellen Moore was suddenly filled with doubt about both the sacrifices that had been made and everything she’d learned in her years of schooling. She knew that her patient had been in the custody of the Department of State Hospitals since he was designated a sexually violent predator in 2006. That was the year he’d been arrested for the kidnapping and murder of April Lynn Thomas.

  Moore tried to dismiss the horrific nature of the girl’s murder from her mind and concentrate on the subject in front of her. Macy hadn’t broken eye contact with her since she’d entered the room. She knew from reading the file that her patient was thirty-six, five feet ten inches in height. He had black hair, and his body was lean and hard, probably from working out.

  But it was the patient’s eyes that held Moore’s interest. They were lipochrome, a naturally occurring condition caused by a molecular accumulation of pigmented tissues in the iris. It gave Quinton Macy the amber-colored eyes of a wolf. Even though Moore knew there was a genetic basis for the condition, it caused a shudder to move down her spine.