Box Office Poison (Linnet Ellery)

by Bornikova, Phillipa

  Small talk, punctuated by more than a few yawns filled the minutes until we heard the deep-throated rumble of a diesel engine. We stepped to the door of the barn as a giant semi pulled down the road. It went past us and into a large dirt area where it carefully turned around. We braved the rain as the haulers jumped out of the cab and began pulling down the ramp on the side of the truck and putting safety rails in place. There were plaintive whinnies from inside the giant rig, which set off a chorus of neighs, whinnies, bugles, and whickers from across the Equestrian Center. I realized there were more barns on the other side of the facility, and in front of me was a galloping track and another big jump arena. It was an impressive setup.

  I moved up to the edge of the ramp. In the front end of the truck were four yearling Clydesdales looking nervous and alarmed. Across from them was a box stall. One of the haulers pulled open the gate, and Vento stepped out. The baby Clydesdales were as large as my boy, but it didn’t matter. He was perfect in my eyes. His expression was curious but soft. No sign of alarm or nerves. The man brought him down the ramp, and put the lead rope in my hand. While the driver got Natalie to sign the shipping order indicating we’d received the horse, the hauler said to me, “Nicest horse I’ve ever hauled. Nothing bothers him. I swear I kept expecting him to talk.”

  I patted Vento’s neck. “He is great, isn’t he.”

  “Oh, there’s a blanket for him.” He ran back up the ramp and emerged with a bulging black plastic garbage sack.

  Natalie led us to his stall. Vento paced around, inspecting his surroundings, pawed the shavings, lay down, and had a good roll. He then stood and shook, sending shavings flying. It made him look like a fantasy horse figure in the center of a shaken snow globe. He then paced to the front of the stall and studied me carefully.

  I went off and prepared a bran mash mixed with carrots and apples and moistened with corn oil and hot water. Natalie and I watched as he ate, though he paused after every couple of bites to gaze at me.

  “I can see why you’re so crazy about him. It’s like he thinks that you’re his rather than the other way around, and he’s making sure you’re all right,” Natalie said.

  “Yep. He’s special. Look, how about if we meet tomorrow and get him out for a ride.” I dug into my purse for my card case. I was still carrying the one that had been dented by a killer’s bullet. It was a good reminder. Of what I wasn’t exactly sure, but I just felt I needed to keep it, and not replace the case. I gave Natalie my card. “My cell phone number and email address are on there. We’ll coordinate a time.”

  “Good.” She checked her watch. “Well, off to the club.”

  “Well, back to bed,” I said and we exchanged smiles.

  I wasn’t meeting Maslin until ten a.m. Plenty of time to catch another few hours of sleep. Back in the car I checked the time. Five thirty. Which put it at—I did sleep-deprived calculation—eight thirty in New York. Jolly would want to know his horse had arrived safely. I dug out my phone and called. He answered on the first ring.

  “Hi, Jolly, the boy arrived. Looking calm and collected and fresh as a daisy. I fixed him up with a bran mash, and I’ll give him today to rest.”

  “Excellent. I’ve been following the news reports about this shooting. Bound to make your situation more complicated.” He had one of those teeth-aching, upper-class English accents that made you think of PBS and Masterpiece Theater. Politicians with that accent seem intrinsically more trustworthy, and men more attractive.

  “Yes, you can definitely say that … especially since I was there for the gunfest.”

  Joylon audibly gasped. “Were you hurt?”

  “No. Well, I got cut by a piece of broken glass, but I avoided being a bullet magnet.” My hand was slick with sweat and I realized I was shaking. “It was really scary.”

  “Do you want to talk about it?”

  “Not really, no.”

  But he didn’t back off. Instead he asked, “Did you hide? Is that how you avoided getting shot?”

  “No. I … was an idiot. She was about to shoot this girl and I ran … look, I really don’t want to talk about it.”

  “Right. Sorry.”

  “Look, Jolyon, it’s five thirty, and I got the call at four. I want to try and catch a few more winks of sleep before I have to go to work.”

  “Oh, right. Yes. Sorry. Check in with me now and then. Let me know how you and Vento are doing.”

  “Will do.”

  With all the obligations met, I headed back to the apartment through a watery dawn.

  13

  The knock on the door came twenty minutes late. Maslin had said he would pick me up at ten, and I’d begun twitching once we hit ten after. I have a quirk about being late—I hate it, and I didn’t like it in others. Probably something I had learned from my vampire foster father. Meredith had a thing about being on time, and he often quoted King Louis XVIII of France: Punctuality is the courtesy of kings.

  As I snatched up my tweed jacket—the rains had decided to stay and it was quite chilly—a flip folder with pad and pen, and hurried to the door, I wondered if Maslin might have traded in his Indiana Jones look, but he was dressed the same as the evening before—jeans, turtleneck, hiking boots. The only addition was a black leather bomber jacket.

  “Sorry I’m late.”

  “Okay, just don’t make a habit of it,” I said and then blushed at his startled expression. “Sorry. Internal editor didn’t get enough sleep last night. I have this thing about being on time.”

  “It’s okay, I deserved the hit, I’m bad about it. Merl gets on me all the time.”

  We hurried down the stairs and ran through the rain to an old-model canvas-topped jeep, which seemed in character with a crusading journalist in hiking boots.

  “So, where do we start?” I asked loudly over the drumming of the rain as a rivulet of water found its way through a thin place in the canvas.

  “I thought we’d retrace Kerrinan’s steps that day.”

  “Sounds good.” I flipped open my case and checked my notes. “The day started at a restaurant—Mary’s Lamb.”

  “Okay, here we go.” He put the jeep in gear and we headed out.

  He opted to avoid the freeways, so I had plenty of time to stifle yawns and watch the storefronts roll past. Tanning salons, sushi, nail salons, Chinese food, hair salons, Thai food, waxing salons, Mexican food, twenty-four-hour gyms, vegetarian cuisine. I wasn’t feeling terribly generous this day, and it seemed like a metaphor for Los Angeles. It was all about what you put in the body, and then how you maintained and pampered the body.

  Mary’s Lamb was on a shaded street nestled among single-story Spanish-style houses, and in fact it was located in a converted house. We found a place to park, fed the meter, and walked back to the restaurant. Maslin held the door for me, and we walked into the rich, yeasty smell of freshly baked bread and muffins, topped off by the aroma of brewing coffee. The odors wove around me like dancing food dervishes, and my bowl of Cheerios suddenly seemed inadequate. The room was painted a bright yellow with one accent wall in Tuscan red. There were flowers on every table, and the furnishings were rustic wood.

  A bright-faced and very pretty girl hurried over. “Table for you?”

  “I may get a muffin to go,” Maslin said. “But actually I wondered if there was anybody working today who was here when Kerrinan and his wife came in. It would have been about a month ago.”

  “Why?” the girl asked, and her faced closed down with suspicion.

  I played a hunch and quickly said, “We’re working with his attorney to try and help him.”

  Her face cleared. “Oh. Well. Okay. Actually, I was. They come … came in a lot. In fact, I waited on them that morning. I assume you want to know about the day of the murder, right?”

  “Yeah.” Maslin sucked in a deep breath. “Would you tell us what you remember about that morning?”

  “You’re really working for his attorney?”

  I held out my cell phone. �
��We can call her, and you can check.”

  That seemed to convince her. She gave an emphatic nod and began. “They came in early, a few minutes after we opened.”

  “What time would that have been?” Maslin asked.

  “Ten, maybe fifteen minutes after seven.”

  “And how long did they stay?” I asked.

  “We weren’t very busy that early, so they were done by eight or a little after.”

  A stone seemed to settle with a thud into the pit of my stomach. “Really, you’re sure about that?” Maslin seemed to hear the hollow note in my voice because he cast me a quick, questioning glance.

  “Yeah. Pretty sure. I know it was before eight thirty because I got a call from my roommate that the plumbing had started leaking, but she had an audition, so I had to go home to take care of it.”

  “Okay, thanks,” I said, and headed for the door.

  Maslin hurried after me. “Hey, what about my muffin?” he asked once we were on the sidewalk.

  “Kerrinan told me he dropped off Michelle at home around eleven a.m., and went straight to the GQ shoot.”

  I had a feeling Maslin’s face reflected mine—wan and worried. He shook his head. “That’s not credible. They live not that far from here. Even if they walked they’d have been home by nine at the latest.”

  “And he said ‘dropped off.’ Which implies car.” We stared at each other for a few minutes, then Maslin pulled out his phone, and made a call.

  “The photography studio says he arrived at the shoot at eleven thirty.”

  I gave voice to the question. “So where the hell was he between eight thirty and eleven thirty that morning?”

  * * *

  We headed for the county jail. As Maslin negotiated the traffic he asked, “I don’t get it. How come his lawyer didn’t find out about this?”

  “Defense attorneys don’t ask questions beyond the ones necessary to build their defense. They don’t want to know. The one question you never ask your client is: Did you do it? Valada’s looking for some other explanation for what happened at nine that night other than Kerrinan butchered his wife. She could care less what happened at eight a.m.”

  “Okay, I can see that, but what about the DA and the police?”

  “How many crimes do you think are being prosecuted in LA right now?” I asked.

  “Oh, God, thousands probably.”

  “Exactly. The police and the prosecutors have a case that hangs together. Hell, it’s stronger that that—it’s almost cut and dried. There’s no reason for them to investigate where Kerrinan and Michelle ate breakfast. It’s not relevant. They have an explanation, and they have limited time and resources.”

  “So nobody has done what we’ve done,” Maslin said thoughtfully.

  “Exactly.”

  The more I thought about the time discrepancy, the angrier I got, so I was spitting nails by the time I reached the jail. Christine had left instructions that I could see Kerrinan whenever I wanted. Since Maslin wasn’t on that list I left him in the lobby browsing through old Guns and Ammo and People magazines. I ended up landing on the bunk with more haste than grace because of a fast-advancing wall. Kerrinan smiled, but it curled up and died when he got a look at my expression. He cleared his throat,

  “Ah, it’s good to see you.”

  “Trust me, that feeling’s not going to last. Where were you between breakfast at Mary’s Lamb and the GQ shoot?”

  “I don’t know what—”

  “Cut the crap!”

  My words and tone hit him like a whip. He jumped up, took two agitated steps, then had to go dancing over to the toilet to avoid an oncoming wall. For the next few minutes I couldn’t see him for the moving walls. I could hear an indistinct mumble, but I couldn’t make out any words over the squealing of metal on metal.

  A wall cleared and we could see each other. “Get over here. Now.” He did. “Where were you? Opium den? Massage parlor? Knife shop?” He flinched. “Where?”

  “Balling my mistress! Okay?”

  That took all the outraged wind out of my sails, but only for a moment. A new gust shook me. “God, you are so disgusting.” In a mocking sing-song I chanted, “‘Oh, I loved Michelle. More than life. I would have done anything for her. I would never have hurt her.’ What a crock.”

  “No! I did love Michelle. It was just sex with Rachel.” His eyes pleaded with me. “It’s like a smorgasbord. They fling themselves at you. All long limbs and young bodies and soft skin. I’m a male!” He stood up, sat down, knotted his fingers together. “They tell you what you want to hear, stroke your vanity, but they’re not real. They’re just bodies. I always went home to her. She was what mattered. And I never lied to her. I always told her about them.”

  “Convenient we can’t ask her.”

  It wasn’t like I had known this woman, but I had seen her in films with her bright, crooked smile and perfect comedic timing. Then I pictured her dead on the floor of her kitchen. Granted, I hadn’t seen the crime scene photos, but I had a pretty good imagination, and I had seen just how much blood a human body contains the night Chip had been murdered. This woman had been in her own home with her husband, the man she believed loved her. Then terror. If he had killed her, what had she felt when the man she loved and trusted had come after her with a knife? I swallowed hard, trying to force down the rage.

  Kerrinan hung his head, defeat lying across his shoulders. “Fine, nothing I can say will make you believe me.”

  “Who is she and where can I find her?”

  “Are you going to tell the police?”

  “No. You are technically my client.”

  “Some court won’t force you to talk? I mean, you’re doing that other Álfar case. Isn’t that a conflict?”

  “There is no relationship between the two cases, and I was brought in by your attorney as an investigator. I can’t be forced to violate confidentiality. That doesn’t mean, however, that I can’t and won’t walk away if you keep on neglecting to tell me things.”

  * * *

  “The temptation is ubiquitous and constant,” Maslin said when we were back in the car.

  “So that makes it okay?”

  “No, but it makes it understandable. Kerrinan may not be human, but he is male.”

  “That’s pretty much what he said.”

  “Doesn’t make it less true. We think about sex all the time. We just put up a front to fool you that we have an occasional intellectual thought.” He put the jeep into gear. “So, shall we go see Ms. Steele?”

  Rachel Steele lived in Pacific Palisades, but far enough from the beach to be affordable. I studied the face of the young woman who was Kerrinan’s mistress. She was tall and slender with prominent collarbones, and hollow cheeks. A bag lay in one corner of the room overflowing with dance skirts, leg warmers, and toe shoes. Long red hair hung like a curtain to her hips, and she couldn’t have been more than twenty. The smell of patchouli incense filled the room. There was a yoga mat rolled up in one corner, and lots and lots of candles.

  Her head jerked back and forth. Looking at me. Looking at Maslin. Back to me. Her expression was two-thirds guilt, one-third defiance, as she said, “Kerri loves me. He was going to leave Michelle.”

  I managed to keep control of my features—barely. Maslin, not so much. He let out a snort.

  Rachel bounced to her feet, fists clenched at her sides. “Don’t you laugh. Don’t you dare laugh. It’s true. At least it was for us.”

  “Damn, wish I had a nickel for every woman who’s ever said that,” Maslin said. I kicked him on the ankle. “Ow.”

  “Look, we’re actually trying to help … Kerri,” I said trying to sooth the ruffled feathers. She sank back down on the sofa.

  “Just tell us what happened that morning,” Maslin said.

  She gave him a look. “Well, what do you think?”

  I felt myself blushing. Maslin was undeterred. “So, just the horizontal hula, huh? He didn’t say anything about getting a haircu
t, hitting a few balls—golf balls this time, killing the missus?”

  “No, of course not!” Rachel’s voice throbbed with outrage.

  I stepped in and tried a more diplomatic approach. “Was there anything different about his demeanor that morning?” I asked.

  The hair swung like sunset clouds blown by the wind. “No, he was a little preoccupied because he had to get to the GQ shoot. But very loving,” she hastened to add.

  “Did you do drugs? Anything that could explain a killing rage?” Maslin asked. I gave him an admiring look. Even though we’d discussed drugs at dinner, I wouldn’t have thought to ask that question.

  “No. It was early, and we only do pot in the afternoon.” Alarm creased her face. “You won’t tell anybody, will you? I don’t want to get arrested.”

  Maslin gave a snort. “It’s not a news flash to the cops that starlets smoke dope. And they’d never handle real crimes if they chased down every starlet with a joint.”

  “I am not a starlet. I am a serious dancer.”

  “Yeah, right, sorry. And LA is so the bright center of the universe for classical ballet.”

  I was beginning to wonder if Maslin’s techniques for getting a story was being rude and annoying until people just blurted out damning or revealing stuff.

  I jumped in again. “So there was nothing that morning that might explain what happened that night?”

  “No.”

  I glanced over at Maslin, and he gave a tiny head shake. “Well, thank you, Rachel, for your time.” I gave her my card. “If you think of anything, no matter how trivial, please call me.”

  The apartment complex was built in a square around a central courtyard containing a swimming pool, a few permanent barbecues, and some lawn furniture. Maslin and I walked down the stairs toward the courtyard.

  “This establishes motive in a big way,” I said.

  “Not that they need any more evidence then they already have,” Maslin said.

  “Yeah, but this would really put the nail in his coffin, so to speak.”