“Ryan!”
“Sorry. She told me who she was and that she would show the video to her father if I didn’t pay her three hundred thousand dollars.”
“Jenny Parson was blackmailing you? And you owed her father money, too? I can’t believe this.”
“You can’t believe it.”
“Parson had me taken to his yacht in Santa Barbara this morning.”
He shifted uneasily. “What did he want with you?”
“I discovered Jenny’s body, remember?”
“He didn’t say anything about her and me, did he?”
“No. He just said he wasn’t worried about you paying him back. Why do you owe him money?”
“Diana, that’s not the problem right now.”
“You said Jenny threatened you with showing her father the video. Do you think she knew about the money you were supposed to pay him?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know anything. Except if I don’t find that CD and destroy it before it goes viral and Parson sees it, he’ll have me killed.”
“Wait a minute. Why would you think I have it?”
“Last night you said you talked to her alone in her trailer. People trust you. They talk to you. I thought she might’ve given it to you for safekeeping without telling you what it was. I had no place else to look. I can’t get into her condo or her car. The police put those off limits.”
“Why would you assume she made just one disc? And even if she did, the memory card could still be in her camera. You should be looking for both.” I got up and went into the kitchen and turned the light on and the TV off. Then I opened the freezer and took out a low-cal fettuccini Alfredo dinner and put it in the microwave.
Hands clasped on top of his head, Ryan stood in the doorway. “How can you eat at a time like this?”
“I’m hungry.” I was also trying to think. To put pieces together. But there were so many that I didn’t know where to begin.
“I need a drink.”
I gestured to the cupboard that held the hard stuff, then opened the refrigerator, grabbed a bottle of white wine, and poured myself a large glass. Ryan filled a water glass with whiskey. The microwave beeped and I grabbed my food with a potholder and dumped it on a plate. It looked like puke. Then I sat down at the kitchen table and began to eat.
Drink in hand, Ryan sat opposite me. “What is that?” Disgusted, he peered at my plate.
“Swill.”
“Diana, you need to get a life.” He took a long gulp.
“I need to get a life? Life is crashing down on me. The latest is I’m off the movie.” I shoved a forkful of fettuccini into my mouth and chewed, glaring at him.
“That’s fucked. Was it Jake Jackson?”
I swallowed and ignored the question. “You have a perfect motive for killing Jenny.”
He straightened as if jolted by a shot of electricity. “What?”
“You didn’t think of that?”
“No. No. I didn’t. Oh, God, I’m fucked. If this gets out, Parson will have me killed. That is, if the police don’t arrest me first. You’re right, I’m the perfect suspect.” He slopped more booze into his mouth.
“Where were you the night she was murdered?”
“I don’t know when she was killed.”
“Night before last, around twelve-thirty in the morning, or at least that was when she drove into her condo garage.”
“I was home. Asleep on my deck. I have the sunburn to prove it.” He displayed the peeling skin on his arms. “You left me out there.”
I thought about staggering down the beach to Celia’s house. I did see Ryan asleep. “I saw you, but I’m not sure of the exact time.”
“What are you saying? You don’t think I killed her, do you?”
Instead of answering, I washed down another mouthful with my wine.
“Do you think I’d tell you what I did with Jenny, if I were her murderer?” he demanded, indignantly. “Give me credit for being a little smarter than that. I write movies about these things, for God’s sake.”
“I don’t know who to believe anymore.” I stared down at my almost-empty plate. I wanted to lick it. “Parson told me he knew Colin. Why would he know him?”
Ryan dropped his head so his forehead touched the rim of his glass. “A lot of us writers and actors would go up to Santa Barbara and hang out with Parson.” He raised his head and looked at me. “It was sort of like hanging out with someone like Hugo Chavez when he was alive. You know, mixing it up with the bad guys that can’t really hurt you. Or so I thought.”
“How could he hurt Colin?”
“I don’t think he could. Colin went once while you were away on location. You can’t trust Parson. He could just be saying that he had something on him to gain control over you.”
“I’m going to ask you again. Why do you owe him money?”
“That’s my business,” he said with a strength I didn’t know he had.
“You’d protect Colin, wouldn’t you?”
He glanced away from me. “He had everything: two Oscars and you.”
“Oh, Ryan.” I put my hand on his. “Are you protecting him now?”
“I have no need to.”
Unsure, I got up and put my plate in the sink and poured myself more wine.
“Do you know if they found a camera in Jenny’s condo?” Ryan asked.
“I didn’t see one, but that doesn’t mean there wasn’t one. Spangler wouldn’t tell me if they did find it.”
“Spangler?”
“The homicide detective on the case. Has anyone from the police contacted you?”
“No.”
“Maybe the camera wasn’t hers. Maybe someone else has it.” I leaned back against the sink and took a sip. “Jenny didn’t need money. Why would she blackmail you?”
“How do I know? I’m just an innocent bystander. If they find that camera, I’m going to be implicated. I could even be arrested. Thank God we live in a community that doesn’t look down on things like this.” He actually looked earnest.
Ryan didn’t exactly have a fully working moral compass. Did any of us?
“You may not be the only desperate person they recorded.” I wondered whether Beth Woods had been taped also.
“You’re right. There could be others.” He brightened. “Others that had a reason to kill her besides me.”
“Who took you to meet Jenny?” I asked
“I’m not sure. He didn’t give me his name.”
“Where were you taken?”
“A house.”
“You can remember the camera that was used but not who drove you or where you had sex?”
“Let me think. There was a sofa in this big empty living room. She was lying on it. Spooky but exciting.”
I tensed. “A purple velvet sofa?”
“I wasn’t looking at the fabric. I was looking to get laid.”
“Was the house in Bel Air?”
“Could be. I was drunk. I wasn’t paying attention to where I was being taken or who was taking me. This guy just kept talking about how hot she was and how ready she was for me.”
“Did the house have an indoor swimming pool?”
“Yeah! I remember he had to unlock a side door, and then we walked around the pool and into the house.” He frowned. “How did you know?”
“Lucky guess.” The fettuccini felt like a block of cement in my stomach.
“Have you been there? Are you being blackmailed too?”
“I lived there with my mother for a while when I was a teenager.”
“I don’t understand.”
“How did you get home from Bel Air?”
“The same guy. And the only thing he said to me was, ‘Jenny means it.’ And then he dropped me off at my car.”
“How were
you supposed to get her the money?”
“He’d contact me.”
“Did he?”
He nodded. “Two weeks ago. He phoned. He told me on a certain day at a certain time to put the cash in an envelope, then put it in my mailbox and leave the house.”
“And did you?”
“Yes. And when I came back the cash was gone.”
“And what did you get for that in return?”
“Their silence.”
“Oh, Christ, Ryan.”
Desperate, he asked, “What do you think?”
“I think you’re a dead man.”
“Oh, God.” He rocked back and forth on his chair like a child. “Oh, God.” Then he abruptly stopped and glared at me. “You’re extraordinarily calm about all this.”
“I’ve just seen two dead bodies. I’ve lost my part in Zaitlin’s movie. And I’m angry.” I paused. “Do you know a Zackary Logan?”
He shook his head. “Who is he?”
“About your height, thinner, hair the color of sand, twenty-eight years old. Handsome in that kind of bland actor’s perfect-headshot way.”
“Sounds like a lot of guys in Hollywood.”
“They found his body at the Bel Air house where you had sex with Jenny. Could he have been the one who drove you there? Who took your cash?”
He blanched. “I am a dead man.” Tears rolled down his red checks. “Dead Man Crying.” He got to his feet. “I have to go home. I have to think.”
“You need to talk to Detective Spangler.”
“I need to work this out in my head first. I need time.”
He stumbled out of the kitchen. I followed him outside to the deck.
He turned to me and pleaded. “You won’t tell anybody, will you? Promise?”
“I promise,” I said, remembering how my oath to Celia had worked out.
After he left, I went into the bathroom and threw up the swill, the wine, and the Snickers bar. Then I sat on the floor, leaned against the shower door, pulled my legs up to my chest, and rested my head against my knees.
I thought about Celia trying to find love on her own terms. But it never happens that way. There’s always a Ben to remind you that other people have terms, too. I thought of Ryan’s insatiable urges leading him to Jenny Parson, Bella Casa, and blackmail. And what about Beth Woods? Did Jenny have a video of her groveling? Jenny, who told me she couldn’t play-act or pretend. Yet in the ugliest way she was play-acting, and she could have been murdered for it. Using the rim of the toilet bowl, I pushed myself up and stood in front of the mirror. I looked like hell.
I took a shower, brushed my teeth, crawled into bed, and turned on the TV—Bette Davis was blowing smoke. I popped a sleeping pill.
Waiting for it to work its magic, I stared at the ceiling and wondered why Jenny would use Bella Casa for her blackmail scheme. Keep the answer simple, Diana, like acting. Don’t overthink it. Don’t overact it. Maybe she used the house because it was empty and she had a key to it.
When mother and I lived there, we had a master key that unlocked the main door and other exterior entrances except for the swimming pool door. We had a separate key for the pool man. That way he didn’t have access to the interior of the house. That is, if the connecting door that led into the gallery was kept locked.
Ryan had told me he was let in through the pool area, not the front door. That meant Jenny didn’t have the master key. She had access to the house only through the indoor pool. So who would have that key? Celia and the pool man. Selling keys to homes of celebs or the wealthy in order to have a duplicate made was hardly unheard of. But Celia had everything to lose and nothing to gain by doing that. But what about P. J. Binder, my mother’s “mislaid man”? The one who found the body.
I grabbed my iPhone and Googled his name. I found the address of P. J. Binder’s pool-supply company.
Then I called Ryan. “I want to take control of my life; do you?”
“Huh?”
“If so, come over here around ten tomorrow morning.”
“Will this help my … situation?”
“Only if you’re not the murderer.” I ended the call and waited for the dark soft blanket of sleep to wrap around me.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
There are two kinds of pool men in Southern California: the free spirits and the dark spirits. Both drive pickups with scoopers, long-handled nets, and plastic bottles of chlorine rattling around in the back. The free spirits work just long enough so they can afford to surf, windsail, hang-glide, or just hang out for the rest of their lives. The darker souls are the haunted ones, like the vets who have returned from Iraq or Afghanistan. They clean your pool before the sun comes up and then disappear.
P. J. Binder was in the second category.
There were only a few paparazzi waiting for me when Ryan and I drove away in my Jag the next morning. I would soon be off their radar completely.
About an hour later I pulled into a space in front of a one-story building with P. J. Binder Pool Cleaning & Supplies painted in large blue wavy letters on its façade.
As Ryan and I got out of the car, the hot valley air slammed against me. We were in an industrial section near Pacoima. There were some other stores: a metal shop, a fencing company, and an auto-parts dealer. But mostly the buildings were boarded up, the empty lots were littered with trash, and rusted grocery carts lay on their sides here and there.
Ryan squinted at a new red BMW convertible in a parking slot that had Binder’s name on it. “Expensive car.”
I glanced across the street. Waiting by the curb were two paparazzi. Straddling his motorcycle, one wore a white helmet that shone in the sun like a giant Q ball. His darkened visor was flipped down. The other’s helmet was black as a giant 8 ball, and his visor was also down. Cameras were slung across their bodies on straps.
“The fame suckers must’ve followed us from my house. Just keep walking,” I told Ryan, turning my face away from them.
He immediately turned his back, dropped his Bermuda shorts, and bent over, wiggling his big, round, pale bottom at them.
“Jesus Christ, the last thing I need is to be seen standing next to your fat ass. Grow up!” I ran for the pool-supplies entrance.
He loped after me. “I sometimes wonder what’s in it for me to grow up.”
“How about not being arrested for murder, or not having Parson order one of his goons to beat you to a pulp for screwing his daughter! Now zip it.”
“I won’t say a word.”
“I meant your fly.” I threw open the door.
Inside we approached a blond-colored faux-wood counter. A woman in her mid-twenties sat behind it, tweeting, texting, or sexting. Peering down, her bleached white hair cascaded over part of her face as she expertly touched the tiny keys with long nails painted cement-gray.
“With you in a sec,” she said, not bothering to look up.
The wall behind her held sagging shelves displaying dusty gallon-size bottles of cleaners and numerous gadgets to keep pools purified. Three rattan chairs with high-fanned backs lined another wall. A ceiling fan slowly turned, blades wobbling, feebly trying to stir the stale air.
The young woman hit send and smiled up at us, flipping her hair back from eyes heavily lined in black pencil. “What can I do for you?” Her lipstick was the same color as her nails.
“I’d like to speak with Mr. Binder.” I took off my sunglasses.
“Daaad … dyyyyy!” she yelled at the top of her lungs.
Ryan lurched back from the counter.
She cocked an eyebrow at him. “Hung over?”
“Jesus, don’t you have an intercom system?” he complained.
“What do you think this is, Home Depot?”
The door next to the chairs opened and a man in his late sixties with a thick gray beard, and shoulder-len
gth hair to match, stepped from his office.
“You want me?” His voice sounded like two rocks rubbing together.
“Mr. Binder?” I asked.
“Yep.” His belly, the size of a small bag of sand, filled his faded blue work shirt.
“We’re here about the house in Bel Air with the indoor swimming pool.” He looked like a man you needed to be direct with.
“Know nothing about it.” He started to go back into his office.
“I think you cleaned that pool a long time ago. You knew my mother, the actress Nora …”
He turned slowly and faced me again. “Nora?” His weathered face softened as he studied me. “You must be her daughter Diana.”
I nodded.
“Come on in.”
We followed him into a small room decorated with a large metal desk, an American flag on a stand in one corner, and a rifle hung on the wall behind his desk.
“Take a seat,” he gestured,
We sat on two folding chairs.
“Sorry to hear about your mother.” He settled into a worn leather chair that had one arm missing and a jean jacket hung on the back. “She was damn good to me.” He grinned, baring yellow teeth.
Not another one who had an affair with her, I thought. Since I had never seen him, I tried to imagine him younger but there was no shadow of youth in his worn face.
“So what can I do for you?”
“I know you discovered the corpse at the Bel Air house. Could you tell us what you told the police?”
“I saw you on TV. You discovered that girl’s body.”
“Jenny Parson.”
“And now you want to know what I told the police about another dead body.”
“That’s right.”
“You in trouble?”
“Yes!” Ryan blurted desperately.
“I was asking her,” he said, eyeing Ryan suspiciously.
“Let’s just say my life has become very complicated since I found Jenny Parson, and I’d like to un-complicate it.”
“Dealing with one corpse isn’t enough for you?”
“You might be able to shed some light on the death of Jenny Parson.”
“You think the two are connected?”
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